2014-04-26

The Cost of the New Disney Canon is Vigilance

As discussed here, it is now official that the old EU is being . . . well, they try to avoid the term "discarded", but suffice it to say that the old EU continuity has been excised.   So, instead of a Lucas canon and then a Licensing canon, henceforth a new united continuity will exist wherein the Lucas canon and all new works including the JJ episodes, Star Wars: Rebels, and other non-screen works will all live in un-retconned bliss.

Some have offered congratulations, which are appreciated but not needed.  I knew I had the right take on things and yet another confirmation doesn't change that.  It may make a good "Welcome Back!" for Bob Brown, though.

However, some have also suggested that I should actually gloat.   While there is a touch of temptation there, I think it would be best not to push the point too hard.   Or, to borrow a phrase:

"It is unwise to lower your defenses!"

Over a decade ago, Curtis Saxton and his associates finally had an unprecedented opportunity to inject their beliefs in a children's book and thus explicitly make Star Wars out to be more powerful than Star Trek in what they thought to be an official, canon work. The fact that they made Star Wars utterly ridiculous and totally inconsistent as a result didn't even faze them . . . it still doesn't, in fact.

They thought they had executed a perfect coup, winning both the Wars vs. Trek debates and winning the Star Wars tech fandom civil war against West End Games and Bob Brown types, all at the same time . . . after all, people could only complain about unsportsmanlike conduct, right? But they were wrong, because that work wasn't part of the 'real' Lucas Star Wars canon, as was deduced around the same time both by yours truly and by hardcore Star Wars chronologists. In the years since, additional quotes from Lucas and others irrevocably solidified this view.

So, they failed. And it was undoubtedly quite maddening given how it came on what, to their mind, was the cusp of victory, or even after the initial appearance of victory. Even their EU itself soon came to mock them, what with millions of clones and a chain reaction Death Star, not to mention further unanticipated Lucas work on The Clone Wars later on.

The poor behavior of the core group and other inflationists in the following years put the nails in the coffin of their view in the popular arena, what with harassment of "minimalist" Star Wars authors and luminaries such as Karen Traviss, Pablo Hidalgo, and others.

(Indeed, I'm pretty well convinced that the hardcore inflationists hate Star Wars, because you literally cannot watch what's on screen while simultaneously believing what they try to get people to believe. You have to shut off the visual and auditory centers of your brain and imagine totally different scenes unfolding, at which point having it playing in the background is quite academic.  Maybe now that the old EU is effectively quashed, their hatred will simply lead them to drift away from Star Wars completely and leave it to people who will actually watch and enjoy it for what it shows of itself, not for what odd claims can be forced onto it.
But since even the myriad Lucas quotes about parallel universes never stopped them before, I doubt this news will, either.)
However, in recent years, they've seemingly been working to create a kinder, gentler inflationism, giving the appearance of trying to clean up their act.  Leading this has been Brian Young, who was once as full of furious bluster but now, rather boldly and ironically, portrays himself a fragile gentleman fighting for truth against implacable venom-filled "fanatics" who he insults and misrepresents en masse instead of individually.  (Well, usually, anyway.)

Other details contribute to this rebranding, such as the disappearance of Mike Wong from the field and the general quiet from the prime members of his inflationist haven, the StarDestroyer.Net forums.

This seeming attempt to remake and rebrand Star Wars inflationism could very well result in another moment wherein, by hook or by crook, one of them manages to get a word or few in on some ancillary material, or maybe even author it. Recall that for the Episode III ICS they evidently couldn't put gigaton figures everywhere, and so tried to cleverly hide them in among dull boring bits that probably struck most readers as rather senseless and tedious, but were veritable dog-whistles to number-crunchy people.

Now that everything going forward is at least ostensibly all canon, and considering that there is generally not very much interest in technological consistency amongst story-focused people as one might commonly expect to find in a "Story Group", it is entirely possible that the day may come when we find ourselves confronted with another ICS moment.

And this time, the bomb won't be so easy to defuse.

Hopefully I'm wrong, and the inflationist efforts to screw up Star Wars by forcing themselves and their own inflationist imaginations onto it won't be seen again.  Star Wars doesn't deserve to have inflationist predators leering at it, hoping to satisfy their desires with its carcass as soon as it turns its back.  The Star Wars of Lucas is alive and well, and hopefully will stay that way.

Stay vigilant, fellow Star Wars fans!.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

One thing I wondered about with regard to the inflationists is why they never gave RA Salvatore crap over the clone troop numbers in the AOTC novelization. His predated Traviss' numbers by a good three years, but he got more problems from people peeved over Chewie's death.

Anonymous said...

On your site, you referenced the novel Death Star in defense of your claims about chain reactions. Will you cease to reference this novel now?

Guardian said...

Anon2, you have a misunderstanding or two.

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSW-Wong.html

That is, as far as I know, the only spot where I use the novel. You claim I am using it in defense of my claims. You are wrong.

One can point to a fact for many reasons. One is to help establish a claim, and another is to defend it. However, one can also use a fact to undercut a counterclaim. As made obvious in the page, I was noting that Wong's own hallowed EU did not even support his Death Star claim, and thus that he could not have it both ways.

In other words, I don't use that novel in support of the canon facts upon which my "claim" is based, ergo I have nothing to "cease".

Anonymous said...

I don't see any reference to the Death Star novel beyond briefly mentioning it in the Mike Wong Debate preface, and it was used less to defend his position and more a counterpoint to his opponents'.

Or do you mean the movie novelizations, because yeah, he uses those ones a lot.

Anonymous said...

Nevertheless, you used EU material when you believed it helped you in some way.

Also, a change/shift in where the EU ranks now doesn't mean it has been inadmissable as a source in all the years prior to that. The issue of EU inclusion has been a matter of personal taste and interpretation of the rules, of which, until recently, were very much open to interpretation.

Lucky said...

He set the films he created as the canon. This includes the six Star Wars episodes, and the many hours of content he developed and produced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. These stories are the immovable objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all other tales must align.

Isn't the new canon that the movies and tv shows trump all? That would kind of prevent a second ICS from happening. They are "immoveable objects" after all.

Guardian said...

Anon2 (Timon, I presume?), I take it you would also accuse an athiest of "using the Koran when you believed it helped you in some way" when combating sharia law, or "using the Bible when you believed it helped you in some way" when combating creationism, if they dared to quote the works for the sake of demonstrating the internal contradiction of their opponents' positions, right? Such an accusation would be just as disingenuous, and in the same way, as your own. You might as well accuse American conservatives against Obamacare of intellectual dishonesty for having health insurance or going to the doctor.

And no, the issue of EU inclusion hasn't been open to interpretation until recently, as you claim. If one wished to use the EU that was fine *in the context of it being a personal choice*, but if one were trying to adhere to the policy of the creators and owners as I was, the dual canon concept as seen on CanonWars.com has been the only way to go for what, a decade now? Yep, that Starlog quote of Lucas that put the final nail in the coffin was late 2005. There wasn't any logical way around it after that, and it only got worse with all the Lucas and Filoni quotes related to The Clone Wars which ran roughshod over the EU. To persist with EU Completism after that time was to either be ignorant of the facts or to intentionally delude oneself. (I realize there were many people more than willing to help folks like you delude themselves, but it should be obvious by now that those people, and the self-delusions they shared, were wrong.)

I realize you're unhappy at the recent turn of events, but it would be best not to embarrass yourself by lashing out at me irrationally. Case in point, your two arguments are contrary to one another . . . in one breath you try to imply that I naughtily used the EU in defense of my claims, and in another you try to argue that there was nothing wrong with using the EU. Well, which is it?

In any event, the point from the novel Death Star which was used to demonstrate that Wong could not simultaneously argue for the EU and argue for a brute-force superlaser at the same time will remain just as it is. It was and is a perfectly valid and proper point, disingenuous counterclaims notwithstanding.

Guardian said...

Lucky, you make an interesting point . . . the argument could be made from that quote that the immovable objects are highest canon even considering the canonicity of what is to come.

Still, however, all it takes is a passing reference to gigaubertons (or a reference that can be argued to represent such) to reinvigorate the inflationists. The nightmare scenario would be for it to be retconned in to an old event, like Han saying "I still wonder what Vader's glove was made of. I fired a megaton-yield of massless photons at it per shot" or something absurd like that.

Anonymous said...

Weird... I can do a direct reply via my phone but not via Firefox...

Yup, Timon (you're a poet and you didn't know it!).

I think, on the issue of where/how the EU fitted in with the rest, we must agree to disagree. You have done a lot of work justifying your interpretations and opinions of what has been said but to me, they remain solely your opinions and interpretations, and to me, they are no more valid than my own.

That said, I don't wish for there to be hostility between us.

You might like to look at my own site. It's a tad basic (I do have a proper domain but haven't found any site-building software I find easy to use), but it's all mine! http://darthtimon.wix.com/meerkatmusings

Guardian said...

Timon = Sothis, unless I am mistaken. Your newfound desire to avoid hostility is grand, but not perfectly reflected by your rather twisty claims about me. However, they do sound better now than the old venom you would spew about me far and wide, even claiming I had made it personal by lying about your words, all because you didn't seem to understand what quotation marks were used for and that what is outside them is not quoted text.

Didn't you also have a website about me or something? Some anti-ST-v-SW.Net thing?

Anyway, that's old stuff from many moons ago, and if you are wanting peaceful coexistence it can be had. After all, your new site already got linked to with the whole Virus-X thing. And, thanks for acknowledging your subjective canon opinions as such… everyone can have whatever choices they like. The issue comes when those are forced on others. The only universal standard is the objective one. Even my site doesn't fully keep to that, given that the radio plays were grandfathered in, et cetera.

If you find your old site let me see it… it may end up as an Obsidian Order thing if it was any good.

As for simple web work, try checking out the software behind NoLettersHome.Info… it is as simple as it gets.

Lucky said...

Just because something from Legends level is referenced does not make the story line it is from canon. Darth Plagus is referenced in the movies, but the novel about him is still only Legends.

If something from Legends is used only that thing or character is now canon, and not the story line it came from.

If the movies and TV shows are immovable objects then they can never be contradicted or retconed and have the contradiction be true. If someone does what dishonorable folk like Wong, Young and Saxton did with the ICS they it is clearly wrong. When analyzing a fictional setting you use the canon policy set down.

Darth Vader's glove was awsome in TESB when it was completely undamaged by Han's blaster. Do you really think they were destroyed at Endor?

PS
I happen to keep a copy of "THE GLOVE OF DARTH VADER" next to my computer thank you very much, but I'm not sure why i do, but I do for some odd reason.

The story just doesn't fit with the Empire's origins.

Anonymous said...

You know, I can't decide whether to hate this interface or not.

I never had a website about you. I did 'consider' writing some rebuttals to your material but I never had the time.

I'm not sure why you feel I was spreading 'venom far and wide'. I probably referenced your work but that's the price we all pay for putting our work out there. I'm sure I've had my own words taken out of context before. I'm sure I will again (and for the record, if you are referring to our little debate on Spacebattles, many years ago, I think we BOTH got heated at times. It happens. I apologise if I caused any offence, but I am a bit disappointed in the way you've painted me with your comments).

I have no idea of Virus is aware of my response to his site- I made him aware of it via Facebook in a message but I haven't actively promoted those pages. He may not care- after all, he wrote those years ago. Still, they're there (I need a their dammit!) if he wants to take a look.

Guardian said...

http://web.archive.org/web/20041207024028/http://sothis5.com/StarTrekvsStarWars/STVSW.html

There it is. I remembered what was missing from "Sothis" and the rest fell into place.

Would you like to reconsider your claim there was no website about me? Or is that my "Wall of Ignorance", "hypocrisy", and whatnot showing?

I especially like how you painted my returning personal fire as me being the hypocritical aggressor. That is reasoning pretty similar to your 'you are an EU user!' stuff from your opening comment, actually, and suggests a widescale philosophical confusion of long duration.

Some things don't change.

But of course, this is the era of kinder, gentler inflationism, so now, you say you want no hostility. Okay. But first, I want no further disingenuous claims about me or disputes of my long memory.

Thanks.

Unknown said...

*sigh*. Darkstar, you are bringing up ancient history in the aim of accomplishing... what? I honestly do not recall the details of a site I wrote a decade ago and that disappeared from the web several years ago.

Since then, I have moved house twice, lost three relatives, gotten married and became a father. I have had far more important things to devote my time to than Trek v Wars. I'm sorry if I do not recall the instances where we sniped at each other (and I hope you realise this was not a one way street).

I have no interest in dredging up ancient history. It's not helpful as far as burying the hatchet is concerned. I am sorry if I said things several years ago you found offensive. I trust that you are mutually regretful of the hostile actions you took. Can we leave it at that?