In this thread the issue of levels of canon for Star Wars was briefly raised.
I was always under the asumption that one major thing that seperated Wars from Trek was it’s assumption of canon. IE the books and videogames and comics actually fit into the overall story of the universe. I thought Lucas had ultimate approval authority over anything to do to with Star Wars and that the stories for all the non movie Star Wars stuff had to meet his approval (thus making it part of the proper overall story).
For example, Courascant was originally named in some book (by Timothy Zahn I believe) who’s name I can’t remember, and Lucas approved it and used it from then on. Also, several years ago I remember a big stink about some poor author who wrote a book where Chewbacca died (the writer got death threats because of this, or so it was reported).
So give me the SD on how canon is regarding the Star Wars universe. What role does Lucas play, what material (aside from the movies and novelizations of said movies, obviously) is and isn’t canon, etc. I thank you kind Dopers ahead of time for helping a Trek fan like me understand a bit more about Star Wars.
Officially, the movies are canon and nothing else is.
Semi-officially, the novelisations of the movies are the next level of canon, but the new prequel movies already contradict them.
After that comes the Expanded Universe (EU), which includes the new novels and comics created since the Zahn novels.
George Lucas occasionally borrows ideas from the other EU to use elsewhere, for example: Coruscant, a Jedi Knight appeared in Attack of the Clones called Aayla Secura, who was created in a comic book story, and apparently there is another comic character appearing in the new prequel, which starts shooting tomorrow.
Until you read the book, Avalonian, don’t criticize. Chewie’s death scene was VERY powerful.
Anyway…
There’s a lot of argument about “canon”. The movies are obviously at the very top. Novelisations come close after (and the radio dramatizations and scripts). Beyond that, everything else gets murky… the ICS books were recently announced to be “canon”, meaning that they’re superior to other EU or source books. However, for the most part, as long as something doesn’t contradict a superior source, it’s canon.
It was how Chewie would have wanted to go… he always loved a good fight.
I’ve read it it and I thought it was very well done. And if you are going to kill off such a main character, you need something BIG! Give their death some panache.
Also, she wasn’t taken by Palpatine until she was at the youngest, three.
So no, you won’t see Mara. Although there’s a huge segment of Mara-Haters on the Jedi Council boards who INSIST on disrupting every thread about her to rant, and I’d love to see them pissed off at seeing Mara!
I want it to be a young Iceheart, or someone like that, but I’ll settle for Thrawn.
