nettkenneth said:
I i am a SW fan(well there's your problem) and i like the story of the universe, even if Georgie boy screwed up the prequels and the expanded universe is full of holes, but what ruins it for me is The Force Unleashed storyline because it make luke skywalker useless.
why would you have a 20 something guy who is force sensitive when you have a guy who is powerful enough to kill both darth vader and darth sidious.....and how would the empire exist with overkill on legs against it.
soo what i am asking is do you personaly consider The force unleashed storyline canon and what would happen if the entire community of SW fans just said it isn't?
In general Star Wars Canon comes down to one paticular source: George Lucas. For the most part just about anything added to the movies is non-canon by definition. His basic attitude is that he contracts out the right to make official material, but then decides to render it non-canon as a whim based on his financial needs and desires at the time. He has so far contracted multiple sequels to Star Wars for example, including things like the young adult sequels such as "The Glove Of Darth Vader", the Dark Horse universe, and then of course the Zahnverse which is pretty much the body of the so called "Expanded Universe".
The Force Unleashed occupies the same basic position of most other deritive works, it was canon only so long as it promoted the products for sales to line Lucas' pockets. This captured imaginations enough to make money, but wound up getting booted from the canon
almost immediatly thereafter. So it's fair to say that like many other concepts, ranging from the EU, to the young adult sequels, to various events in Darkhorse Comics, it WAS Canon at one time but was removed from the Canon.
Right now Star Wars canon consists of the six movies, love them or hate them, expanded by the novelizations OF the movies which were written by George Lucas. The only enduring source outside of this that can be considered canon are the "Knights Of The Old Republic" video games, the second one more than the first one (which is ironic that the unfinished one that was generally less fondly remembered is the official one). This is because KoToR2 came from notes from George Lucas as opposed to being an entirely original work, and largely sets down and explains concepts that were touched on but never fully explained. Aside from the story not being properly finished, one of the reasons why the game irks some people is that it pretty much exists to show everyone what's behind the curtain so to speak, and like anything with unknowns that captures the imaginations the answers that were always there frequently wind up being unsatisfying. The original KoToR largely gets tenenously into the canon simply because KoToR2 mentions it, and the protaganist of that game (Revan) is mentioned as being insturmental in creating the war between The Sith and The Old Republic which ends with the destruction and erasure of The Sith Empire, setting the stage for what happens with the movies years later. Pretty much history we already knew about, KoToR2 pretty much just getting into the concept of The Force and Free Will (ie there really isn't any in that universe, just a maintained illusion of it) and showing what role The Force itself plays in causing certain, crucial events to take place.
One other set of sources that are canon (which I forgot to mention) are the Star Wars cartoons, at least the portions of them written by George Lucas. Ewoks, Droids, Clone Wars (the current series), and others.
The big issue is whether you can tie it directly to George writing, not to him cutting a business deal and slapping "Lucasarts" on it. Chances are if he just collected money to let someone play with his concepts, like with the original Young Adult novels, and didn't actually write it or have input directly through things he wrote, then it's waste-paper-basket liner waiting to happen, claims of canon might have some validity for 15 minutes until something doesn't sell anymore or people realize how stupid it is or doesn't fit in.
Really the whole "Starkiller" concept is the kind of thing a 12-13 year old boy would find awesome, representing those dark, emo, empowerment fantasies everyone has at that age but don't want to admit to... framing it in a popular universe kids tend to think about anyway helps the appeal and presents detachment that help parents cope with Junior's more
disturbing phase. Of course to most people intellecually and emotionally above that level we realize it's pretty dumb, even if we can appreciate it for a bit of mental slumming now and again... because hey, wiping stuff out is fun even for adults. Of course seeing as Star Wars is a serious business (not to be confused with it being serious business), it's pretty obvious they aren't going to keep something like that official or allow it to taint their entire brand. Basically if Lucas ever DOES do sequels, or a full re-make of the original triology, I very much doubt we're going to hear any referance to Starkiller, or even Dash Rendar (who actually fit into things better... ).
