Basic canon question

[Diplomat]

Does this discussion allow claims of SW features or technologies, which have never been demonstrated or claimed in in any movie, or novelization thereof?
Yes or no, please.

[Bounty]

Both.

It depends on what the source is - books and other literature are canon apart from a few alternate-universe exceptions, as are games insofar as you don't use game mechanics.

The full classification is as follows -

G, T, C and S together form the overall Star Wars continuity. Each ascending level typically overrides the lower ones; for example, Boba Fett's back story was radically altered with the release of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, forcing the retcon of older source material to fall in line with the new G-canon back story. However, this is not always absolute, and the resolution of all contradictions are handled on a case-by-case basis.

* G-canon is George Lucas Canon; the six Episodes and anything directly provided to Lucas Licensing by Lucas (including unpublished production notes from him or his production department that are never seen by the public). Elements originating with Lucas in the movie novelizations, reference books, and other sources are also G-canon, though anything created by the authors of those sources is C-canon. When the matter of changes between movie versions arises, the most recently released editions are deemed superior to older ones, as they correct mistakes, improve consistency between the two trilogies, and express Lucas's current vision of the Star Wars universe most closely. The deleted scenes included on the DVDs are also considered G-canon (when they're not in conflict with the movie).[1]

* T-canon[2], or Television Canon[3], refers to the canon level comprising the feature film Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the two television shows Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the Star Wars live-action TV series.[4][5] It was devised recently in order to define a status above the C-Level canon, as confirmed by Chee[6].

* C-canon is Continuity Canon, consisting of all recent works (and many older works) released under the name of Star Wars: books, comics, games, cartoons, non-theatrical films, and more. Games are a special case, as generally only the stories are C-canon, while things like stats and gameplay may not be;[7] they also offer non-canonical options to the player, such as choosing female gender for a canonically male character. C-canon elements have been known to appear in the movies, thus making them G-canon; examples include the name "Coruscant," swoop bikes, Quinlan Vos, Aayla Secura, YT-2400 freighters and Action VI transports.

* S-canon is Secondary Canon; the materials are available to be used or ignored as needed by current authors. This includes mostly older works, such as much of the Marvel Star Wars comics, that predate a consistent effort to maintain continuity; it also contains certain elements of a few otherwise N-canon stories, and other things that "may not fit just right." Many formerly S-canon elements have been elevated to C-canon through their inclusion in more recent works by continuity-minded authors, while many other older works (such as The Han Solo Adventures) were accounted for in continuity from the start despite their age, and thus were always C-canon.

* N is Non-Canon. What-if stories (such as stories published under the Infinities label) and anything else directly and irreconcilably contradicted by higher canon ends up here. N is the only level that is not considered canon by Lucasfilm. Information cut from canon, deleted scenes, or from canceled Star Wars works falls into this category as well, unless another canonical work references it and it is declared canon.

Copied from Wookieepedia but I believe it is still correct.

[Diplomat]

books and other literature are canon apart from a few alternate-universe exceptions, as are games insofar as you don't use game mechanics.

It would help to preface this discussion with that fact. That way there's really nothing to discuss, since the books contain things that are impossibly more powerful than anything consistent with either side's films. Likewise, much of the book-canon is inconsistent with itself.

[Isolder74]

books and other literature are canon apart from a few alternate-universe exceptions, as are games insofar as you don't use game mechanics.

It would help to preface this discussion with that fact. That way there's really nothing to discuss, since the books contain things that are impossibly more powerful than anything consistent with either side's films. Likewise, much of the book-canon is inconsistent with itself.

Bear in mind that is the canon policy of Star Wars not Star Trek. The policy for Star Trek is different. Only the filmed material(TV and movies) counts for Star Trek.

[Batman]

I DO think adding the respective canon policies to the 'Rules for this forum' sticky would be a good idea. Yes, WE know them by heart, but not all newcomers will, and they're NOT part of the Board FAQ newcomers are supposed to (and often don't) read. Weren't last time I checked anyway.

[Bounty]

Yeah, I noticed that too. The policies are on the main site, so technically anyone coming in here should have read them, but it can never hurt to have them available close-by.

[ent0r]

Are statements from the writers/diredtor relevant for ST canon?

[NecronLord]

A good question.

Sometimes they're taken to have weight "That's a gaffe" "Threshold is non-continuity" etc, but strictly speaking they're not canon evidence.

[Serafina]

Are statements from the writers/diredtor relevant for ST canon?

Good question indeed.

However, i want to add that if you apply this strictly (writers having total controll over canonicity), then Most of DS9, all over Voyager&Enterprise and the later films do not count, since Roddenbery said that only stuff under his supervision is ST.
Clearly, it can not be taken as the strongest possible evidence.

Either way, a sensible way to do this is:
The writer/director/whatever of an episode/movie/whatever can clarify ambigous visual/dialogue information.
Basically, this would be counted about as much as in-universe dialogue, propably able to override said dialogue.
So Visuals>Writers statement>Dialogue

Generally, there are not many statements of writers that contradict their works anyway.

Regards
Fina

[Stark]

Uh oh, someone's trying to catch the Wars guys out!

I give very little weight to production notes or writers talking shit unless it's supported or compatible with actual evidence (in which case it's generally only clarification and not 'change'). This is hilarious in many cases, like Mass Effect's creators foolishly destroying their own setting by not keeping an eye on the cutscene development.

And jesus not more people signing their goddamn posts.

[ent0r]

Yes, Roddenberry is difficult.
On the other hand, he is now dead, so he doesn't play any role in canon anymore.
Furthermore canon wasn't set in stone apparently, which means paramount is now more or less responsible for ST canon. This enabled things like the the purging of threshold from ST canon, since Paramount gave the directors/writers the right to expand/alter canon as they saw fit.
Every new episode/movie is per definition an altering for canon, since it expands it.
When ST canon contradicts itself (as it happened so often in th past), we rely on the writers/director to pass judgement.
Many scenes in ST are sometimes also ambiguous and who should know better than the people who actually made it?

The general rule of thumb, that only visuals are canon don't imply that writers/director statements have the same standing as books, comics, videogames.

[RedImperator]

Are statements from the writers/diredtor relevant for ST canon?

Good question indeed.

However, i want to add that if you apply this strictly (writers having total controll over canonicity), then Most of DS9, all over Voyager&Enterprise and the later films do not count, since Roddenbery said that only stuff under his supervision is ST.
Clearly, it can not be taken as the strongest possible evidence.

Why? You could make an argument for taking the statements of writers/directors of individual episodes/movies as relevant to canon because they presumably know what their specific intentions were for ambiguous lines of dialog or special effects. But Roddenberry didn't write the vast majority of Trek episodes and he didn't own the franchise--so far as I understand how TV production works, he stopped owning the franchise the minute he signed the contract with Desilu. It's not like SW where Lucas not only wrote the movies, but he owns all the rights to them through Lucasfilm. So why would the word of a guy who didn't write most of the episodes and didn't own the franchise be given any special weight? Yeah, he created it, but TV isn't like a novel or the movies or theater; the storyline is a collaborative effort, not the work of one guy.

[ent0r]

Basically the writers and directors speak and expanded canon on behalf of Paramount.
Since we treat ST epsiodes/movies as a "documentary",we should treat the director comments as canon, as they made this commentary.

[RedImperator]

Basically the writers and directors speak and expanded canon on behalf of Paramount.
Since we treat ST epsiodes/movies as a "documentary",we should treat the director comments as canon, as they made this commentary.

This doesn't make any sense, either. It's a basic principle of literary analysis that the material speaks for itself. In vs. debating, this principle needs to be even stricter, because otherwise everything bogs down in a morass of "this writer said this" and "nuh-uh, this director said that". The statements of the production staff, I think, should be taken into account to resolve on-screen ambiguities, but making directors' commentary canon would open up a huge can of worms for no good reason.

[Simon_Jester]

Here's a hypothetical scenario where director's comments could be useful, based on a case from DS9.

What do we do if we have on-screen dialog indicating that a planetary surface is being devastated, while the visuals from orbit don't show any clear sign of such a thing?

If the production staff's comments reveal that they have no idea what a devastated planetary surface looks like, that could actually matter, because it explains the contradiction between the visuals and the dialog. They didn't portray the devastated areas as being covered with craters and lava because they didn't realize they should do so.

Or is this an unreasonable level of credence to apply to the comments?

[RedImperator]

Here's a hypothetical scenario where director's comments could be useful, based on a case from DS9.

What do we do if we have on-screen dialog indicating that a planetary surface is being devastated, while the visuals from orbit don't show any clear sign of such a thing?

If the production staff's comments reveal that they have no idea what a devastated planetary surface looks like, that could actually matter, because it explains the contradiction between the visuals and the dialog. They didn't portray the devastated areas as being covered with craters and lava because they didn't realize they should do so.

Or is this an unreasonable level of credence to apply to the comments?

I think that's a bit much. I think you have to give VFX highest credence except in situations where there was an obvious mistake (the phaser fired from the photon torpedo tube in "Darmok", for instance). I was thinking things more like why Gary Mitchell spelled Kirk's name as "James R. Kirk" in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (answer: he made a mistake). If you start allowing things like, "Um, the Founder's Planet really was destroyed, we just didn't know what it was supposed to look like", you open the door to the writers changing whatever they want after the fact (not to mention megabytes of incredibly pointless and stupid arguments over what one writer really meant).

I like to think of it as the "Chewbacca is really blue" rule. Imagine if George Lucas said on a director's commentary, "Oh, Chewbacca is actually blue." If your method of interpreting the text (such as it is) would result in you having to accept Chewbacca's blueness as canon, then there's probably something wrong with your method.

[slicktyler]

now this is a good topic as i have recently had disscusions with people about canon.

My understanding has always been there are 2 univerese so to speak. You have The Movies and then you have the EU. Everything in the EU must conform to the continuity of the movies but they are still seperate in a way.

I came to this conclusion because of what George Lucas and Leland Chee have said

"There are two worlds here," explained Lucas. "There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe – the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. They don’t intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don’t get too involved in the parallel universe." george lucas

"Film+EU continuity. Anything not in the current version of the films is irrelevant to Film only continuity."

Leland Chee

any thoughts?

[seanrobertson]

"There are two worlds here," explained Lucas. "There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe – the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. They don’t intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don’t get too involved in the parallel universe."

Slick,

Trekkies have long tried to use that quote to disregard so-called EU evidence (for example, and perhaps particularly, the Ep. 2 ICS).

Do note that Lucas says the EU intrudes "between the movies." If the ICSes, Dark Lord et al. were all set in some "universe" apart from the films, how could those sources intrude between the movies' continuity?

That's little different than saying you and I exist in parallel universes, yet I can somehow come over and blast your stereo when you're not home

And according to Lucas, that's exactly what happens in SW. Outside of the films, the EU does happen; it does "intrude" upon the same continuity. George's little metaphor really just seems to be his way of saying that, when he made the movies, he didn't let EU sources tie his creative hands.

[Batman]

There's an official canon policy for Star Wars. UNlike 'it ain't Star Trek unless I SAY it's Star Trek' Gene, Lucas COULD have overridden that policy if he so desired. He never did. End of discussion far as I'm concerned.