Elastic Canon

[GandALF]

"Of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren't?"
"My dear Doctor, they're all true."
"Even the lies?"
"Especially the lies."

This is consuming two threads at once we might as well give it it's own.

Since old franchises aren't allowed fade away peacefully anymore something has to be done about the sheer volume of stuff that they build up over the decades.

When Disney bought Star Wars their solution was to rebrand everything not directly created by Lucas himself as "legends". Now it's uncertain as whether or not all of Disney embraces this idea, but Dave Filoni has suggested, and Ahsoka has a line in Rebels that implies that "legends" does not mean non-canon, it means less accurate. From the very beginning Star Wars has been presented as a historical source and arguably this framing has never been fully utilised.

There is a planet called Malachor. It does house an ancient superweapon. It was the site of a conflict between Jedi and Sith. So Kotor 2 could simply be an inaccurate historical source that presents a distorted view of events which could even explain the confusing "kill the Force stuff" but Kotor 2 doesn't cease to "exist". Likewise Darth Caedus could just be a distortion of Kylo Ren and a certain character in a recent film might have had the "legendary" idea of another character and had to meet the more complex and more accurate version of that character. This isn't entirely new either, the old EU only really began in 1991 the stuff before that frequently contradicted each other and was treated as semi-canon. The last round of essential guides (except the readers companion) were also written from an in-universe perspective and had first person entries from the characters and not objective accounts.

This is a part of other stuff too. Tolkien, being a historian, framed the Lord of the Rings as his "translation" of the Red Book of Westmarch. Star Wars' grandpa, the Barsoom trilogy, is similarly framed as John Carter's journal of his adventures. The Elder Scrolls series takes this idea to its furthest extent: most, if not all, of its lore is entirely presented from an in-universe perspective and is deliberately contradictory, there is no real canon, wars break out over what different peoples consider to be "canon".

The alternative to this approach is the multiple universe route which Star Trek and superhero comics have had to do because they don't have the advantage of being set in the past. Although I think this just leads to a lot of self-indulgent crossovers and trying to get back to the original dated timeline also causes issues too as Discovery has revealed.

Or just remake the original story altogether, either way something has to be done if these old franchises have to keep going. And if you think about it, getting butthurt over which fictional events really happened is a bit oxymoronic.

Thoughts?

[GloatingSwine]

You kinda have to look at it non-diegetically.

Assume that the thing that is most popular and most present in the public consciousness is canon, and the more esoteric the material the less canon it is.

For Star Wars, for instance, you should assume that the movies will only treat the movies as real, and that any other supplemental material will treat the movies and itself as real, but could ignore anything else as it chooses.

[SlackerinDeNile]

I think the problem may have been that Disney took the Star Wars EU too literally and decided to reboot it because they thought it would confuse new viewers if they ever happened upon it. George Lucas seemed aware enough to know that the films and the EU were seperate, even though he liked to put little nods to the EU throughout his films (the Mouldy Crow in the special edition of A New Hope for instance.)

[Fixer]

It was the Outrider in A New Hope special edition -5 nerd points.

One of the core aspects of writing in science fiction and fantasy is that the audience is willing to accept absurd concepts and fantastical situations as long as there is internal consistency and believably to it.

If you you set the rules in your universe that a magic requires a wand and extended training to use, then a new character can use magic without a wand or training there has to be a reason given why or the audience will start question things and it will pull them out of the story.

Star Trek had the "cannot beam through shields" rule which has a couple of great examples. When powerful aliens could beam through shields the explanation was simple, they were an an advanced race and they were a threat as a result. When Voyager beamed through their own shields the reason was because the writers forgot about the rule or just didn't care.

Additionally the Star Trek writer's guide from 1967 is great in that it covers the consistency of the universe and technology but the first and most important thing was maintaining believably and having characters act realistically for the situation they are in. A focus on character and story over technical minutia. I'd definitely give it a read if you're any sort of sci-fi fan. https://www.bu.edu/clarion/guides/Star_ ... _Guide.pdf Check out pages 4 and 5 for the specifics.

What really engages stories and stands the test of time is the characters and that is what we focus on the most.

When it comes to history or canon in long running franchises moving through different eras audiences are generally quite forgiving. As long as you respect the spirit of the history and story that came before fans will be happy. Doctor Who has a very flexible canon thanks to the whole concept of time travel. Comic books have a very messy canon thanks to their long, convoluted histories which often contradict themselves thanks to sheer comic book logic but the fandom despises poorly done universe reboots because it means all that investment in the stories is gone. One more Day is almost universally loathed because Spiderman acts like an idiot and out of character solely for the sake of a universe reset.

In the end, it's all about treating the treasured stories and characters of the past with reverence and respect and the audience's investment in them as a result.

Best example I can think of is Trials and Tribbleations. It was a love letter to the Original Series and Sisko's bending the rules just to meet Kirk was a great touch.

[GandALF]

As long as you respect the spirit of the history and story that came before fans will be happy.

But the older the franchise gets the more divided the fans get on what that "spirit" is, and even if something new arguably has that spirit it will be divisive to some degree just because of nostalgia. These franchises are so big they just keep continuing and getting more divisive and they can't seem to be supplanted anymore, I mean I doubt Flash Gordon fans were irate when Star Wars first came out.