The Inevitable Canon Debate

[DSG2k]

I understand that you can't grasp the idea that your opinion is not incontrovertible fact. I understand that a mass of opinions is nothing more than a giant collection of jack and s**t from a factual basis. I understand that Lucas has had years upon years to change the official policy on the EU and he hasn't.

I also understand that you're just a total f***ing idiot.

Concession accepted, then. You refuse to reply to the points, you clearly can't even address the logic, so you mash your fingers in your ears, cry "nunh-unh!", and of course flame. Whether you like it or not, that is a concession on your part.

[Mikey]

I also understand that you're just a total f***ing idiot.

Seriously, don't. I don't care if you toss whatever words you like in the course of an argument, but adding this is solely self-gratifying and inflammatory. Threads have been locked for tone before.

[Aaron]

Ahh Tyyr, your so eloquent.

Heres the thing, the EU has many of the same characters, concerns the same events and by and large contains the same technology as the movies. Yet they are supposed to be different. Even the superhero reboot universes changed things substantially, originally Superman could not fly and was not faster then a bullet. Yet we are supposed to believe that the EU exists in some quasi parallel universe?

[stitch626]

Is there even iu evidence that a parallel universe can exist? I'm actually curious on this.

[Aaron]

Huh, I have no idea TBH. I stopped reading or paying attention to SW a while back. So if a ST style parallel universe is possible...*shrug*

[DSG2k]

Ahh Tyyr, your so eloquent.

Heres the thing, the EU has many of the same characters, concerns the same events and by and large contains the same technology as the movies. Yet they are supposed to be different. Even the superhero reboot universes changed things substantially, originally Superman could not fly and was not faster then a bullet. Yet we are supposed to believe that the EU exists in some quasi parallel universe?

Why not? Every ST book was a parallel universe unto itself during Roddenberry's oversight of them, despite having many of the same characters, concerning the same events, and by and large containing the same technology . . . now they can tie together in a new continuity, but it's separate from either the JJ continuity or the ENT-to-TNG-era continuities of the pre-JJ shows and films.

Content, in other words, doesn't have much to do with canonicity.

If I were to buy up Star Trek I could really screw up the continuity by saying everything was canon . . . that's saying all the content is valid, no matter what. What that example tells us is that content doesn't necessarily mean much of anything when making independent guesses as to canonicity.

By the same token, I could decanonize TNG and the TNG films . . . that would mean that canonically, DS9 and VOY and the rest would have to stand alone, since we could not officially acknowledge the content of TNG. So we would only know Picard from "Emissary"[DSN1], and when Sisko referenced the "recent Borg attack" of ST:FC, we would have to feign ignorance of the events of ST:FC. What that example tells us is that content is or is not officially canon at the whim of the creator/owner.

Applying these concepts to Star Wars, even if Lucas had not said all that he's said till now, but instead said that the EU is precisely what his "vision" for Star Wars always was . . . it still wouldn't mean anything, because he could still say "but it's in a parallel universe" and thus it would not be valid analysis material.

If you're an EU fan that sucks, but that's how it works, logically and realistically. The alternative is to claim that Lucas is somehow forced to accept it if it looks like his Star Wars, which is a very weird point of view on far too many levels for me to count right now.

[DSG2k]

Is there even iu evidence that a parallel universe can exist? I'm actually curious on this.

We don't need in-universe evidence for parallel universes in Star Wars. The canon policy itself is out-of-universe, after all.

[Deepcrush]

Is there even iu evidence that a parallel universe can exist? I'm actually curious on this.

We don't need in-universe evidence for parallel universes in Star Wars. The canon policy itself is out-of-universe, after all.

So you don't need evidence to prove your make believe universe exists inside of someone else's make believe universe? I take it you've just conceded everything to everyone then. Good, they'll be happy to hear it.

[Aaron]

I honestly don't see why I should care what Lucas says or what Robby here says about SW either. It's not like the canon police are going to come force me to accept anything. See I have a personal canon as well; only the OT exists, cause everything else is shit.

[Deepcrush]

[stitch626]

Is there even iu evidence that a parallel universe can exist? I'm actually curious on this.

We don't need in-universe evidence for parallel universes in Star Wars. The canon policy itself is out-of-universe, after all.

Sorry, I wasn't asking for that purpose. I was genuinely curious if such existed in universe. Now that I think about it, kinda off topic. Sorry about that.

[DSG2k]

No worries.

(I'm not aware of anything in the Lucas-level works, but Lucas knows what they are given that a parallel universe was the origin of Howard the Duck in the original story that he made into a film of the same name (supposedly as a favor to the guy who wrote the story). But between Clone Wars and the future live-action show, I'd wager that the topic could come up someday.)

[McAvoy]

I honestly don't see why I should care what Lucas says or what Robby here says about SW either. It's not like the canon police are going to come force me to accept anything. See I have a personal canon as well; only the OT exists, cause everything else is s**t.

I second that.

[DSG2k]

I third it. Reiterating what I said before, quoting a point I made from elsewhere:

How many times have you seen threads degrade into discussions of canon? Can you even begin to count them?

Do you really think that's only a TrekBBS phenomenon? Do you really think that's only a Star Trek phenomenon?

And do you really think that there would be any improvement if there was no canon for people to fall back on? It would serve as an end to discussion. There are posters here at TrekBBS who reject much of the live-action Trek we've seen. How could you possibly have a thoughtful discussion with someone about, say, the Borg when you get some guy saying "well, I don't think they exist" or "they never came to the Federation, because I reject everything after "Q Who?"" or even "well, in my fanfic I established . . . "?

This is the very reason that religious groups, Sherlock Holmes fans, and a whole lot of other fan groups and producers thereof trouble themselves to make canon policies to begin with. (The idea even appears in soap opera fan pages . . . a group more likely to be female than the male-centric list above.)

Now I agree that the idea of a canon policy . . . itself a uniting influence . . . can be taken too far when people seem bent on meddling with one's personal canon. However, I'm not attempting to meddle with your personal choices about what you want to accept. My purpose with the canon page and with my messages in this thread has been to clarify what that third-party uniting influence actually says we're uniting towards.

And regarding my page, thanks to some subjectivists who believe what they want to believe while claiming they are speaking objectively, I'm having to be damned careful about it, too.

The whole point, then, is not to be the canon police, getting all 1984 and declaring canon-related thoughtcrimes. The point is simply that if we're going to objectively discuss Star Wars, we should have an objective standard of what that is. We can either (a) go with the view of the majority of fans, or (b) we can go with the creator/owner viewpoint on the topic (i.e. the statements of Lucas).

And the beauty of it is that they both work out about the same. However, to summarize the previous posts, a minority of Star Wars fans are fans of Star Wars licensed fiction products, and of that group of fans a small percentage insist that the licensed fiction is objective fact for the movie universe, despite all evidence to the contrary insofar as how it is treated within the film universe (hence all the retcons).

In that light, it is a peculiar point of view. It sounds a bit better when they note that it is based on a canon policy created and maintained by the makers of the licensed fiction to maintain their own internal continuity (the Holocron GTCSN stuff) . . . except that they do not note it as a second canon policy, but instead pretend it is the only one. And they claim it as the objective truth and that you are wrong to disagree.

That's the point where EU Completism jumps the shark. As a personal choice, EU Completism (or any other completism/purism/randomism/antidisestablishmentarianism) is perfectly fine. But there are clearly two distinct canons, and even the makers of the EU acknowledge this, so once an EU Completist starts claiming the Licensing policy is the only objective reality, that's the point where my resistance quotient becomes high, and I then seek, not to persuade, but to clarify.

[McAvoy]

I read the books, and I enjoyed some of them. But I don't consider them canon. But that's my personal canon. Which is one of the reasons why I don't go into huge debates about EU. I barely remember what happened in one book let alone the hundreds that are out there.

That to me, the SW canon policy seems to be not as clear cut as ST canon policy. Which for me makes it much more confusing and so I don't get involved.