2014-04-26

Film Novelization Status

As it stands right now, the novelizations, which were line-edited by Lucas (and in one case, even labeled with him as author) are officially not included in the list of Disney-era canon works, though unlike the EU they aren't specifically excised, either.   I have put out a feeler to a source to try to find out more certainly about their status, but suffice it to say that I'm not prepared to discard them.

My basic question is something tweetable like:  "do you guys consider the film novelizations line-edited by (or attributed to) Lucas as EU material?"  

I think the answer to that should be "no" . . . at the very least, they ought, to my mind, to be quasi-canon, at least.

It also helps make Star Wars a better comparison to Star Trek in a lot of ways (in a realistic sense, mind you, not a "let's wank Star Wars beyond the region of fit!" sense).  Other than a few unnecessarily Trek-like bits of tech in the final season or two of The Clone Wars, filmed Star Wars doesn't seem overly attached to gee-whiz tech, generally aiming for a more grounded reality which I prefer.

For one thing, the Episode III novelization is our only explicit source for megaton yields of capital ship weapons in Star Wars . . . otherwise, it trends lower.   There are also numerous other details that would suddenly go missing, including direct technology references, galaxy size indicators (map zoom-ins in the films all seem to suggest a tiny galaxy), et cetera.

Indeed, for inflationists, the only good news is that all the many references to fusion powerplants in the assorted novelizations might be left behind, but even then all you end up with is starships and vessels powered by liquid fuel that can sometimes appear to be little more explosive than gasoline.   That's not exactly an improvement.

That said, the radio plays are basically right out.   Nevertheless, I still think they are the best "flavor" material around, and were I to write a fanfic I would use some of the concepts within them before anything else in the non-canon.  I may yet analyze them for NoLettersHome just for the hell of it.

But for now, gotta go . . . it's time to "raise ship"!

3 comments:

Lucky said...

What is the status of the scripts? They have nice bits of technicle data such as the turbo in turbolaser coming from a turbine generator, and T.I.E. being partly solar powered.

Guardian said...

Good question. Technically they are as in-the-air as the novelizations.

Hell, that would cut out most of our NAMES for things.

Anonymous said...

Del Ray announced today that only the parts of the 7 novelizations that align with the movies are canon. So yeah they are pretty much worthless as a resource for SW fans.