why does all of Star Wars have to be one single canon?

[Glitch]

I hear some people say it'd be terrible if The Mandolorian was its own universe. Why?
Its like saying the MCU has to follow the events of the old Incredible Hulk series. Different properties can have self contained stories.
The "everything is canon" dynamic just piles up badly.

[FinalGwen]

There is some fun to be had in making everything fit, but canon can also be a curse as you run out of space to put things or repeat ideas. Doctor Who has always rejected the idea of a set canon and it's way more fun that way. If I want to say that there's a universe where books like Alien Bodies are real but episodes like The Beast Below aren't, there's nothing stopping me. And if you want to say that the TV adaptation of the book Human Nature is real at the same time as its predecessor, there's some textual evidence to suggest they both could have happened.

[Lupin the Third]

I mean, Legend of Zelda has two timelines that branch off at a specific point.

Hell, there was a team on YouTube that made a trilogy out of it. Almost like the BTTF trilogy.

[Cyno]

Technically there are two canons. There's Legends and there's Canon. Granted, I think the only thing in Legends that's actually ongoing is Star Wars: The Old Republic.

[mcmahonfan85]

the MCU can get away with it because from a storytelling standpoint Marvel has a multiverse that frequently deals with things like time travel and alternate realities, while from a real world standpoint they are constantly updating and retconning and reinventing the same stories it'd be a monumental effort to decide what does and doesn't officially fit into one single, solitary canon

Star Wars on the other hand has always had a solid and consistent foundation of what its canon is, which is the original trilogy, so Mandalorian being an entirely separate continuity would be stupid as hell because it is directly tied into that series

[prettynami]

Not everyone finds multiverse stuff interesting or fun. I am one of those people. All the continuities in stuff like comic books make them a chore to read and on top of it I don't like what it does to the narrative. I much prefer if that particular issue stay away from something I enjoy.

[Hit Girl]

The 1977, 1980 and 1983 versions of the OT for the most part, are the true canon for me.

Everything else can be discarded, or treated as an additional resource where the good parts can be acknowledged while ignoring the shit.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Eh, Sonic has multiple continuities and many of them are great in their own way. Sometimes I’m in the mood for Freedom Fighter Sonic, sometimes I feel like Sonic as the adopted son of Tom and Maddie, sometimes the Sonic from the games, etc. If it can work with him, it can work with Star Wars.

["Cane Dewey" Johnson]

Jan 5, 2021 1:49:08 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

The 1977, 1980 and 1983 versions of the OT for the most part, are the true canon for me.

Everything else can be discarded, or treated as an additional resource where the good parts can be acknowledged while ignoring the shit.

But this idea can be also extended to the films within the OT itself, or to any first, original entry of something that gets developed later as a larger narrative or universe. Likely there are Star Wars fans out there for whom the only Star Wars that is canon is the 1977 movie. Even then, the idea of what does or does not constitute the canon isn't settled. I'm sure there are fans who treat the 1977 film as canon who go so far as to ignore wholesale parts of that movie, like a no-comedy edit of A New Hope, for example, because the film itself doesn't fit those fans' ideas of what Star Wars is or should be.

[Malcolm]

Gatekeeping purism.

[eJm]

An aspect of The Mandalorian's appeal is that it is a part of the main Star Wars canon and it's chronicling what is going on whilst the main events are going on and how they intertwine.

That's a cool part of some of these bigger universes is that you can tell stories of other planets that only hear about what's going on with, say, the Rebel vs. the Empire battle and how that's affecting their lives overall. To take that away, frankly, kind of takes away what made The Mandalorian kind of cool in the first place.

[Fundertaker]

Jan 5, 2021 0:39:22 GMT -5 Lupin the Third said:

I mean, Legend of Zelda has two timelines that branch off at a specific point.

Three, actually.

[Mike Strike]

Jan 5, 2021 0:39:22 GMT -5 Lupin the Third said:

I mean, Legend of Zelda has two timelines that branch off at a specific point.

Hell, there was a team on YouTube that made a trilogy out of it. Almost like the BTTF trilogy.

Oh, it's more than 2 mate. Zelda's up to at least 5-6 now.

1. Adult Link timeline following the ending to OoT (WW, PH, ST)

2. Young Link timeline when Zelda sends him back in time (MM, TP)

3. Downfall timeline where Ganon defeated Link (like all of the 2D games)

4. Hyrule Warriors, said to be set in its own world but is clearly still connected to other games as the characters literally travel to them.

5. SS has a time paradox that should've resulted in a timeline split when Demise is killed in the past after being killed in the present. Nintendo has yet to acknowledge this one.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Age of Calamity spoilers}
6. A new timeline split created by HW:AoC deciding to cop out & go for an "everyone lives" happy ending instead of actually being the canonical prequel advertised.

[Lupin the Third]

Jan 5, 2021 11:10:01 GMT -5 Fundertaker said:

Jan 5, 2021 0:39:22 GMT -5 Lupin the Third said:

I mean, Legend of Zelda has two timelines that branch off at a specific point.

Three, actually.

Jan 5, 2021 11:21:17 GMT -5 Mike Strike said:

Jan 5, 2021 0:39:22 GMT -5 Lupin the Third said:

I mean, Legend of Zelda has two timelines that branch off at a specific point.

Hell, there was a team on YouTube that made a trilogy out of it. Almost like the BTTF trilogy.

Oh, it's more than 2 mate. Zelda's up to at least 5-6 now.

1. Adult Link timeline following the ending to OoT (WW, PH, ST)

2. Young Link timeline when Zelda sends him back in time (MM, TP)

3. Downfall timeline where Ganon defeated Link (like all of the 2D games)

4. Hyrule Warriors, said to be set in its own world but is clearly still connected to other games as the characters literally travel to them.

5. SS has a time paradox that should've resulted in a timeline split when Demise is killed in the past after being killed in the present. Nintendo has yet to acknowledge this one.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Spoiler}{Age of Calamity spoilers}
6. A new timeline split created by HW:AoC deciding to cop out & go for an "everyone lives" happy ending instead of actually being the canonical prequel advertised.

......Great Scott.

[mrtuesday]

The thing is, despite what fans want to believe, Star Wars didn't have a streamlined canon until Disney bought it and trimmed the fat. While many of what is now knows as "Legends" books and comics intersect, many more don't. Books that came out after the original trilogy contradict events that happen in the prequels and sequels. Books that came out after the prequels contradict events that happen in the sequels.

And, for a while, that was ok. Lucas has always said that only the movies were canon, and any books that didn't contradict the film's could be considered canon as well. But he never really saw any books, comics, or video games as part of the story.

It's only when Disney bought it, and said they were starting with a clean slate of new books and comics. So many got up in arms that their favorite books were no longer part of the story,even though they never really were.

Now some characters and story elements of some of the Legends novels have been brought back into canon, such as Thrawn and his backstory. And some haven't.

There are people who hate that it's Ben Solo and not Anikan, Jacen, and Jaina. That Palpatine had a clone son that later fathered Rey, rather than a three-eyed biological son named Triclops. And that Luke became a hermit rather than marry Mara Jade.

Star Wars DOES have a multiverse, and it's those storys in the Legends books.

[Cyno]

The other thing with Star Wars is that stories have spanned over tens of thousands of years. There's a very thin timeframe that's obviously popular set around the timeframe of the nine main movies. But there's a lot of stories that take place in the distant past where time separates things enough where they can do their own thing without worrying about contradicting canon beyond the most basic elements of the Star Wars universe like space travel, alien species, planets, and The Force.

[mrtuesday]

Jan 5, 2021 12:16:14 GMT -5 Cyno said:

The other thing with Star Wars is that stories have spanned over tens of thousands of years. There's a very thin timeframe that's obviously popular set around the timeframe of the nine main movies. But there's a lot of stories that take place in the distant past where time separates things enough where they can do their own thing without worrying about contradicting canon beyond the most basic elements of the Star Wars universe like space travel, alien species, planets, and The Force.

They just announced a new book series called The High Republic, that takes place 200 years before the movies. So, yeah, freedom to tell any kind of story they want without restrictions.

So, of course fans hate it because they hate anything new in Star Wars because Disney and Kathleen Kennedy stole their souls or some BS.

[DSR]

Jan 5, 2021 12:09:28 GMT -5 mrtuesday said:

The thing is, despite what fans want to believe, Star Wars didn't have a streamlined canon until Disney bought it and trimmed the fat. While many of what is now knows as "Legends" books and comics intersect, many more don't. Books that came out after the original trilogy contradict events that happen in the prequels and sequels. Books that came out after the prequels contradict events that happen in the sequels.

And, for a while, that was ok. Lucas has always said that only the movies were canon, and any books that didn't contradict the film's could be considered canon as well. But he never really saw any books, comics, or video games as part of the story.

It's only when Disney bought it, and said they were starting with a clean slate of new books and comics. So many got up in arms that their favorite books were no longer part of the story,even though they never really were.

Now some characters and story elements of some of the Legends novels have been brought back into canon, such as Thrawn and his backstory. And some haven't.

There are people who hate that it's Ben Solo and not Anikan, Jacen, and Jaina. That Palpatine had a clone son that later fathered Rey, rather than a three-eyed biological son named Triclops. And that Luke became a hermit rather than marry Mara Jade.

Star Wars DOES have a multiverse, and it's those storys in the Legends books.

Any character or series with any kind of longevity or social cache will ultimately have some sort of multiverse, even if it's not specifically stated. Like, Bela Lugosi's Dracula exists in a separate universe from Christopher Lee's Dracula, or Gary Oldman's Dracula, or Nosferatu, or etc. etc. etc.

People can pick and choose which of those to consider their own personal "canon" but they're all valid.

*shrug*

[Kevin Hamilton]

With fiction, all that really matters is what you want to consider canon. None of it is real, so you can pick and choose when Spider-man hung out with Easy Reader or shared an apartment with Iceman&Firestar etc.

[eJm]

Jan 5, 2021 13:38:00 GMT -5 Kevin Hamilton said:

With fiction, all that really matters is what you want to consider canon. None of it is real, so you can pick and choose when Spider-man hung out with Easy Reader or shared an apartment with Iceman&Firestar etc.

Just to note, if you consider that canon, I will judge you.

Because Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends was a godawful show.

Besides that, you do you. That's why fanfiction and fan films exist.