Yeah, but retcons happen in pretty much any medium you can think of, so I don't really see the issue here?
Just because everything is canon, doesn't mean newer material is forbidden from ever making changes/alterations in continuity. That's what happened here. /shrug
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Last edited by Galan007 on May 7th, 2021 at 07:58 PM
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Last edited by carthage on May 8th, 2021 at 01:08 PM
The issue is Kanan had a fully fleshed out backstory that was well documented, and not that old. A 12 issue series that's only 5 years old isn't something you retcon on a whim, which they clearly did(or outright ignored) just so Kanan could show up in the Bad Batch's story for a bit.
And unless they're gonna retroactively show Squad 99 interacting with the Rebels at some point, it wasn't even for any good reason.
People need to rethink how they see "canon" and stop obsessing over minor details like this. Ultimately Star Wars is a mythology that is being retold from a huge narrative distance (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...) details get muddled, recollections differ. This isn't a "retcon" so much as a slightly different retelling. Likewise Legends isn't non-canon, just firmly in the category of "myth".
When you look at the differences between what happened in the comic and the show the major plot points are the same, and it really makes next to no difference to Kanan's overall arc. Compare that to the pre-Disney continuity where Clone Wars would rewrite swathes of past lore and character and I'd say this is a major improvement, and we should probably stop complaining.
Last edited by DarthAloysius on May 8th, 2021 at 10:20 PM
The difference is back then, Lucasfilm didn't pretend that the comics and novels were as canon as the movies and tv series. They were upfront with the fact that canon was broken into tiers with some stuff being more important than others. And, hell, I complained about it back then. So no, I'm not going to "stop complaining" about it. It's not hard to keep this stuff consistent, especially when there is so little material.
Well it's been 7 years since canon was rebooted, and this is clearly how they intend to operate i.e. maintaining that all entries into the Star Wars universe are "canon" but giving themselves leeway to diverge a little where appropriate. Insisting that they hew militantly to every past comic, novel or encyclopedia is just impractical in the long term, and would come at the expensive of creative freedom.
Don't peddle it as equally canon if you're going to overwrite it. Also my point was less a complaint in the first place, but rather pointing out that Disney doesn't give two shits about "canon".
But that's how it is. Everything disney puts out IS equally canon, unless (or until) it is overwritten by newer material.
Same kind of changes happened all the time in Legends too. Except in that case people would vehemently argue what was "more canon" between a character entry on the back of a cereal box, and a character entry someone found in a scholastic pamphlet they got in 1994.
The difference with new canon is that random shit doesn't get thrown into a bunch of different "canonization tiers", and is more streamlined now. If a source from 2015 is contradicted by a source from 2020, the 2015 source is simply retconned and the 2020 source becomes canon. It's that simple.
But that's clearly not the case. The TV shows and movies are not beholden to previous material. It's pretty much the exact same as the way it was treated before, except Disney pretends and says that's not the case. Even though it is.
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This same shit happened in The Mandalorian.
The previous movies, comics and guides all stated that Luke never took any official pupils until Ben. But that was retconned the second Luke took Grogu.
This doesn't mean some sources are more valid or canon then others. That's not how it works in disney canon. The newest info is what we can go by.
Maybe, maybe not. That doesn't change the fact that alternative media like comics and novels are just as canon as the movies and TV shows. That's how Disney canon is formatted.
Retcons are commonplace across all forms of fiction. Not sure why you're taking such an issue with this one?
I don't care if it's common. It's sloppy and not difficult to keep things consistent. As I've said, I was not pleased when things were retconned in the EU.
But my point isn't about me complaining about it, frankly I don't care about Disney's EU, but rather the fact that Disney's "everything is equally canon" is clearly bunk.
Kanan's backstory was perfectly canon for the last 6-ish years, even though it happened in comic format. The first ep of Bad Batch just retconned it as to include Squad 99 in the story. Just because something has been retconned doesn't mean it wasn't canon prior to the retcon taking place.
Retcons have no bearing on canonicity. If a novel were released next year that said Kanan dreamed the entire thing up and Squad 99 was never even there, THAT would become the new canon. Etc.
This is how it works in all forms of fiction. Not really a big deal.
It's just lazy. With the Bad Batch being an all new idea, having them be part of a different, new team of Jedi Master and Padawan during Order 66 wouldn't have been an issue at all. The only reason I can think of them completely ignoring Kanan's established backstory to just stick him and Ballaba in the opener was so they could make an easy connection for potential Rebels crossovers in the pre-Ezra days. And it wouldn't have been impossible without it, they just took an easy way out and invalidated a lot of hard work for real reason.
I've said it multiple times in this thread, these shows are clearly not bound by what came before. This is not a one time retcon, this has happened multiple times. If the shows can disregard other "canon" material at will but the other stuff can not then there is clearly no level of equality among them.