“We Can Work It Out” — The Needless Nature of Star Wars Canon Arguments

You hear tales, of the days before geek was chic, when all manner of nerds (Star Wars, Star Trek, comic books, RPGs, etc.) looked out for each other. Sure, it wasn’t a perfect utopia but when you and your passions are largely mocked by mainstream culture, you find solidarity on the margins. But as all things geek became increasingly en vogue over the last few decades, cliquey divisions have arisen. Instead of sharing our love, we seem to enjoy chastising those who love something else or love what we love in a different way. This fire seems to burn particularly hot within our Star Wars community. But we don’t have to do this. We can love it all! Or we can happily love what we love and respect what someone else loves too! Differences don’t have to breed discord and division. It is more spiritually nourishing to love than to hate. It’s healthier to love than to hate. It also opens the door for us to love more Star Wars things!
Allow me to suggest a new mantra for balancing all the differing points of view in the Star Wars fandom. As John and Paul so wisely instructed, “Think of what you’re saying / You can get it wrong and still you think that it’s alright / Think of what I’m saying / We can work it out and get it straight, or say good niiiight / We can work it out / We can work it out / Life is very short, and there’s no tiiiime / For fussin’ and fightin’ my friend.”

There’s more than enough contentious areas to serve as an example (Original Trilogy vs. Prequel Trilogy, merits of The Force Awakens, Disney vs. George Lucas’s vision, “Finish [fill-in-the-blank]!”, etc.) but I want to focus on the tension that exists between fans of the Expanded Universe and the Disney Canon. I can’t say how many times I’ve opened my Twitter feed or glanced at the comment section of an article to see fans of the Disney Canon angrily attacking fans of the Expanded Universe and vice versa. I see scores of ad hominem attacks and all manner of fallacious arguments from non sequiturs to circular arguments to false dilemmas to emotional appeals to band wagons to faulty analogies to red herrings to straw men. By definition, you can’t use a fallacious argument without throwing out the legitimacy of the point you’re making. Your reasoning is, by definition, fallacious. That’s the perfect word for this fan-created animosity between the Expanded Universe and the Disney Canon too. It’s fallacious. In reality, both are relevant. Both are important. Both are fun. Both are equally Star Wars.

Obviously the world of Star Wars is George Lucas’s creation. He directly gave us the Original Trilogy and the Prequel Trilogy. But Lucas has always empowered other artists to carry on his story. In his 1994 introduction to Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye (originally published in 1978) George Lucas writes, “It wasn’t long after I began writing Star Wars that I realized the story was more than a single film could hold….After Star Wars was released, it became apparent that my story — however many films it took to tell — was only one of thousands that could be told about the characters who inhabit its galaxy. But these were not stories that I was destined to tell. Instead they would spring from the imaginations of other writers, inspired by the glimpse of a galaxy that Star Wars provided. Today it is an amazing, if unexpected, legacy of Star Wars that so many gifted writers are contributing new stories to the Saga.”
Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye unofficially began what would come to be known as the Expanded Universe. This continuation of Lucas’s story through novels, comics, RPGs, computer games, and video games would accelerate in 1991 with the release of Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, the first in a trilogy of novels, and Dark Horse’s Dark Empire comic series. The EU continued to grow for twenty-three years until the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2014. Disney announced, understandably, that they were doing away with the “official” nature of the Expanded Universe. They wanted to tell their own stories in the Star Wars timeline. Who can blame them? They wanted their authors and filmmakers to have creative freedom too, unbound by twenty-three years of preexisting interconnected canon. With that the Disney Canon was born…and people have been ornery about it ever since. I’m not certain why people feel the need to proclaim the superiority of one canon over another in a way that belittles the other and those who like it but they do, even if these proclamations, by nature, are always fallacious.

Our personal preference doesn’t invalidate what we don’t like. Yet we seem to enjoy arguing in a way that presumes it does. Our own tastes can only be subjective yet the tone of inner-Star Wars sparring often implies we’re fighting as keepers of objective truth against falsehood-spewing heretics. To be clear, the Expanded Universe can’t be objectively better than the Disney Canon any more than the Disney Canon can be objectively better than the Expanded Universe. We will naturally like one over the other or certain stories over others. But what we love most is always born in personal context. That makes it subjective by nature. While we should be passionate about what we love (that’s the fun!) and we can certainly engage in friendly debates about it (that’s also fun!), we needn’t be exclusionary or elitist in placing our personal preferences over another’s. There’s no grounds for that. We aren’t talking about objective truths here.
To state my own personal preference before we go any further, I love the Expanded Universe. I found it at the right time in my life. I was in middle school and in love with Star Wars. Then I found these brilliant, beautiful, exciting novels that felt just like the movies and continued the stories of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian, Artoo, and Threepio. I read them. I lived them. I loved them. I still do. Some of my fondest childhood memories come from sitting outside during summer vacation reading Star Wars novel after Star Wars novel under the tree in our backyard. Given that personal connection, the Disney Canon will always be an alternate timeline for me. The EU is what happens before, after, and around all the films in my heart. Nothing can ever change that. The presumption that a corporate marketing statement can has always struck me as odd.

However, this doesn’t mean I begrudge the Disney Canon anything. I enjoy much of it too! I still read most of the novels and comic books they’ve put out. I still watch their films. Enjoying the Disney Canon in no way, shape, or form diminishes my love of the Expanded Universe either. Sure, I like the Expanded Universe better. I prefer how they structure their stories, build their characters, connect their continuity, and shape the world of Star Wars. But I feel that way because it resonates with me. Part of it is my personal preferences as a reader. Part of it is finding the EU when I did and growing up with it shaping my vision of Star Wars. That doesn’t make it objectively better than the Disney Canon. It just makes it better than the Disney Canon for me.
This is true for all of us. There’s nothing to be won by my arguing with someone who prefers the Disney Canon and trying to “prove” I’m right nor is there anything to be won by someone trying to convince me I’m wrong. That sort of thinking misunderstands the way art works. What we like is always about what moves us. We’re not talking about the reality of global warming or the fact that the earth isn’t flat. Artistic preferences aren’t facts that can be proven or disproven. All the people who like the Expanded Universe better are right…and all the people who like the Disney Canon better are right. We all have our own tastes in what speaks to us.

It doesn’t have to be an either/or situation either! The EU will always be the “true” Star Wars story in my heart and in my mind but that doesn’t mean something in the Disney Canon can’t speak to me in the same way. I loved James Luceno’s Catalyst novel and Gareth Edwards’s Rogue One. I thought they were brilliant, moving stories. I loved how they fit together and I loved how they fit into the world George Lucas created. So do you know what happens? In my mind, EU preference and all, when I think of how the Death Star came to be…I now think of Catalyst and Rogue One!! I do. That little Disney Canon nugget falls right in next to all my Expanded Universe knowledge to become part of how my primary experience of Star Wars. I draw my understanding and experience of Star Wars from both!
I grant, for some, this may seem odd. After all, some may say, Disney said the EU isn’t canon anymore! It’s not the real story! As I said above, I’ll never, ever understood this line of reasoning. A corporate decision of what “is” or “isn’t” “canon” can never affect how I personally experience a myth or fantasy world in my mind. It’s all make believe! If it’s the real story to me then it’s the real story. Again, we’re not talking about something like climate change here. Kathleen Kennedy saying the Expanded Universe was now “Legends” on 25 April 2014 doesn’t change the fact that, for me, Han and Leia have a strong marriage and three children — Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin. However, for many people coming to or coming back to Star Wars in the last few years, Han and Leia have been separated for some time and they have one son — Ben Solo. One isn’t better than the other. They are just different. Differences don’t have to breed discord and division.

Both perspectives are equally true…it all depends on your point of view. AND the beauty is with two different versions of the Star Wars story to experience we can enjoy both!
We also hear arguments that the Disney Canon is better because it’s all officially endorsed and the EU wasn’t. If we take a second to think about this we’ll see it’s fallacious too. First, as the quote from his introduction to Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye above illustrates, Lucas endorsed the Expanded Universe. The EU had a direct impact on the films too. For example, the name “Coruscant” for the central system in the galaxy was created by Timothy Zahn in Heir To The Empire. Lucas really liked it and he kept it. Another example would be Aayla Secura. Lucas first encountered her in the Dark Horse Star Wars comics and liked her so much he used her in Attack Of The Clones and later in The Clone Wars series too. So Lucas freely used the EU in the films. As has been widely documented, he retained creative control and could veto an idea he didn’t like or suggest one he did for the novels and comics too. The Expanded Universe was always part of his Star Wars Saga, even if the canon was a layered in a way with the films/shows Lucas worked on being inviolable and the other narratives being open to changes or tweaks later.
This is how the Disney Canon still works. We need look no further than Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of The Force Awakens to prove this point. In the novel, Unkar Plutt — angered by his loss of the Millennium Falcon — tracks Han Solo, Chewie, Rey, and Finn to Takodana. When he moves to confront Rey at Maz Kanata’s place, she tries to defend herself with her blaster. Rey forgets to take the safety off and, as she fumbles, Chewie steps in to protect her and rips Unkar Plutt’s arm off and throws it across the room. Logically Unkar Plutt can’t both be at Maz’s and not at Maz’s. He can’t have his arm ripped off and not have his arm ripped off. We know this. To try and pretend otherwise is silly! This is but one example of a discrepancy in the Disney Canon. Both events can’t occur and both accounts can’t be equal. While it’s a discrepancy, it’s not a problem. This sort of stuff happens when telling a story across many mediums. And when these discrepancies arise, we naturally know to defer to the film. In any issue of contention, J.J. Abrams’s version of The Force Awakens is the canonical one, not Alan Dean Foster’s or Chuck Wendig’s comic for that matter.

All of these arguments boil down to semantics. We look to justify our arguing whether the Expanded Universe or the Disney Canon is better. While energetic debates are fun, we all know when they cross that line into intolerant haranguing. There is no solid ground to enter into such a debate because our personal preference is entirely anchored in our own subjective context. In reality, both the Expanded Universe and the Disney Canon have their strengths and weaknesses. They both operate in the same way, as many creators try to tell harmonious stories in one big universe, working on one big timeline. Yes, they are different but differences don’t have to breed discord and division. Different doesn’t mean deficient. So I say we celebrate living in a time when we have two large canons of Star Wars stories to explore. We have hundreds of artists across films, novels, comic books, video games, RPGs, cartoon shows, and computer games adding to the mesmerizing world George Lucas first brought to life in 1977.
When we feel our enjoyable debates shifting towards heated arguments for the (fallacious) objective superiority of one canon over the other maybe we can remember to “Think of what you’re saying / You can get it wrong and still you think that it’s alright / Think of what I’m saying / We can work it out and get it straight, or say good niiiight / We can work it out / We can work it out / Life is very short, and there’s no tiiiime / For fussin’ and fightin’ my friend.” Life is too short to spend our time fussin’ and fightin’…especially when we can spend that time enjoying Star Wars!

So hey, did you enjoy reading this?? Would you like to read MORE things I’ve written about Star Wars and comic books and nerdy passions and stuff that? If so, you are in luck! You can click on over to my blog My Comic Relief right now for more of the same. Yay!
