Star Wars 101: Canon vs Legends
Welcome to the first video of our new series: Star Wars 101. This will be a series posted on the first Monday of every month where we discuss everything you can possibly imagine about Star Wars. Sometimes, we will be comparing the current Disney canon to the old Lucas canon, or Legends as they have been re-branded now, & other times we will be taking a deeper look at a specific aspect of Star Wars, whether that is a single book or an ongoing theme between multiple stories. As we go through each of our discussions, we would love to hear from all of you about your thoughts & opinions on these things, too. We want these videos to be a way to no only educate new & passing fans of the Star Wars franchise about what is/has been, but to also create a conversation within the Star Wars community about the good & bad aspects of this series that we have all come to love.
Also, if you have a specific topic that you want us to discuss, please be sure to tell us in the comments & we will try to get around to everything as soon as we can. Thank you for watching & may the force be with you!
Hey guys, this is Brad from Dallas Geek & welcome to the first episode of Star Wars 101. For those of you who have seen our other videos, you've probably figured out that both Mike & I are big Star Wars fans. However, we realize that not everyone out there has been as invested in Star Wars as we, or in this case, as I have been, so I have decided to create an introduction to everything Star Wars to help the new & passing fans of the franchise get caught up with what's going on.
To begin with, the biggest argument within the Star Wars fandom, ever since Disney purchased Lucasfilm, has been the Canon vs Legends debate. Essentially, what that means is, when Disney took over Star Wars, they took all of the books, comics, games, & audio dramas that existed before & said that their stories no longer counted as valid history in the Star Wars universe. Instead, the only stories that mattered were the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy, the Clone Wars animated movie (yeah, that thing we all pretend didn't happen), & the Clone Wars TV show (the CGI one, not the really cool 2D traditional animation short series). All other stories that had been made before Disney that were not one of those were thus re-branded as "Legends". For Disney, this was a way to keep making money off of sales of the old stories, while keeping them separate from the new stories that THEY would be making. Unfortunately, long-time fans, myself included, saw this as an insult to the legacy that kept the franchise alive during the dark times in between movies where Star Wars could have been easily forgotten.
Now, any comic book fan will tell you that this type of retcon, or changing of story continuity to fit a new narrative direction, has been happening to Marvel & DC since the very beginning. For superhero stories, retcons happen every few years for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes it is to fix plot holes that were created by various authors writing for specific characters without paying attention to what their predecessors had written; other times it was because a character or an entire group of characters had been written into a corner & their stories had no where else to grow; and still many other times it was just because the publishers could change things, so they did. However, this was a new concept to the Star Wars franchise &, as such, has caused a lot of difficulties within the fandom.
So...what does this all mean? Well, the most obvious thing has been the constant comparisons between the new canon & old Legends stories. Whether that is a comparison of how a character was written or developed over time; or a comparison of stories to see if canon or Legends had the better writing; it all comes down to a desire by the fans for the old stories to still matter. Even still, these comparisons are valid and need to be explored, but not for many of the reasons that they are debated about now.
What Disney has done with the Star Wars canon has been done and there is NO changing that. Could they come back & re-institute a separate timeline to allow the Legends stories to continue along side the new ones? ...I mean...sure, they can do whatever they want with the stories...but if we're being completely honest they'll never do THAT.
Instead, the reason that we should be comparing the old & new stories is to see what was done well before, what has been done well now, & where the new stories can improve to give us the best possible Star Wars experience that we, as fans, can possibly receive. Now, I realize that Disney has no reason to listen to the thoughts of a small creator, like us, in order to influence their narrative decisions. However, if more & more fans can start THESE type of discussions, rather than simply complaining that the new stories aren't like the old ones, then maybe...just maybe, our voice can be heard & Disney will listen.
In the upcoming Star Wars 101 videos, I will analyze all aspects of Star Wars: stories, characters, ships, planets, and so on, while giving as many recommendations for books, comics, games & whatever to enjoy! Until next time, this is Brad from Dallas Geek saying, See Ya!