Hypothetical because of Abrams

[The Romulan Republic]

By 'people' do you mean people in general, or vs-obsessed nerds? Because lots of fiction has no canon policy at all and people take them seriously just fine.

I think this is a good example of Connor's point. Canon rules or levels or in or out of canon just don't matter that much - and in this specific example, the idea that fucking continuity would be an important obstacle to the project is absurd. If rights holders wanted to do it, nothing in the goddamn EU or pre/post ROTJ stuff would slow them down. Canon's importance to fiction in general has been over-valued to many by the vs debate and the specific need there for agreed content with which to debate.

I don't think I said anything that indicated I meant "...vs-obsessed nerds...". Please don't use straw men.

Of course the rights holders can ignore continuity. But being legal does not make something good writing. I don't think continuity would prevent a Star Trek vs Star Wars film though. It just has to be considered.

I'll try to address Connor MacLeod's arguments later.

[Stark]

Sorry, cupcake, a question about what you meant can't really be a strawman. Knee jerk less, think more.

The point remains that if you think fiction needs a canon policy to be 'taken seriously' by normal people as opposed to your peer group, I'd like to know why you think that. Indeed, I'm not even sure it needs a canon policy to be 'taken seriously' in a vs debate framework unless it is itself a contradictory mess of shit like SW or ST. That idea that what is normal for those two examples is normal for all fiction is probably quite a distorting one.

[jwl]

The difference is, canon will mater if they make a crossover and stamp it out as canon for both franchises. Of course, if they want to make it and not include it, like in most other crossover-type things, it will be a fun piece which has no impact on the vs debate and therefore won't be what the OP was asking for.