Star Wars Canon Is Now Meaningless

Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for The Book of Boba Fett episode 6.

The latest continuity snarls in The Book of Boba Fett proves that the ongoing Star Wars canon is meaningless, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The Star Wars franchise has existed for over forty years and has two main continuities and several minor ones. With the franchise existing for so long and through nearly every medium of storytelling, it’s not surprising that continuity contradictions will occur on occasion, but while Star Wars’ first continuity, Legends, made an effort to remain as consistent as possible, the current timeline, canon, has a far more cavalier attitude towards continuity. The result of this is a plethora of continuity snarls in canon that the Legends timeline wouldn’t have permitted, and while canon doesn’t have to follow Legends’ example, mimicking its respect for continuity would help better maintain a sense of immersion.

Star Wars’ non-movie spinoff material has existed as long as the movies themselves (and technically precedes them, with the first novelization releasing months before the film it’s based on). This material, which included comics, novels, spinoff films, TV shows, and video games, became known as the Expanded Universe. The Expanded Universe’s material was officially approved by Lucasfilm, and since each story was considered as legitimate as the theatrical films, creatives at Lucasfilm ensured that they were consistent with the movies’ characters and storylines, in addition to keeping a tidy continuity. Stories were sometimes suggested by George Lucas himself, such as the Dark Empire comics, which featured the resurrection of Emperor Palpatine. Story ideas were vetoed on occasion, such as the proposed Second Death Star in Marvel’s comics set before the events of Return of the Jedi.

Cleaning the slate for the then-upcoming Star Wars sequel trilogy Lucasfilm rebranded the Expanded Universe as Legends in April of 2014, making it an alternate continuity and creating a new canon that initially only included the original six films and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Legends continued to receive new content via the Star Wars: The Old Republic video game and occasional print media, such as the 108^th issue of Marvel’s original Star Wars comics, but all other new material is part of the official canon. While canon often uses the Legends timeline as inspiration, the new continuity lacks the same respect for all of its material when compared to the original Star Wars timeline.

How Star Wars Keeps Retconning Canon

Although the ongoing Star Wars canon continuity has existed for less than a decade, it has numerous significant retcons that overwrite existing canon material. Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex’s experiences during the Siege of Mandalore and Order 66 were described in the 2016 novel Ahsoka but were then re-told differently in The Clone Wars season 7. Although the origin of Star Wars Rebels protagonist Kanan Jarrus was told beautifully in the Star Wars: Kanan comics, Star Wars: The Bad Batch significantly contradicted it in its pilot. The latest canon property to create a major contradiction is The Book of Boba Fett episode 6, which reveals Yoda’s lightsaber in Luke Skywalker’s possession. While the weapon was retrieved by Yoda in Legends, he left it on Coruscant in canon, where it was incinerated by the Empire in a public event, as shown in Marvel’s 2017 Darth Vader comics.

How Star Wars Legends Avoided Disney’s Canon Problem

There were numerous continuity snarls throughout Star Wars Legends’ decades of existence as well, but the key difference was that Legends took the time to clear up any inconsistencies. The Thrawn Trilogy depicted a significantly different version of the Clone Wars than what was shown in the prequels, but the Legends-era Clone Wars multimedia project integrated the lore of both the films and novels, making both descriptions canonical. Similarly, Boba Fett had numerous different backgrounds before he was established to be an unaltered clone of Jango Fett, so Legends material revealed that Boba Fett fabricated stories of his past (or simply didn’t correct underworld rumors about him), making his true origin unknown to the general public. The numerous missions to steal the Death Star plans were part of a larger operation that combined partial copies of the data, combining them on Toprawa and sending them to Princess Leia.

The largest source of contradictions to the Star Wars Legends timeline was 2008’s The Clone Wars, which regularly disregarded previous Clone Wars-era material. With the newer Clone Wars series being part of the post-2014 canon, many fans, understandably, don’t consider it part of the Legends timeline. If The Clone Wars was an exclusively-canon property, the Legends timeline would have no significant continuity snarls.

Star Wars Canon Is Meaningless: Why That’s A Problem

Continuity is an invaluable aspect of fiction, and although the Star Wars franchise encompasses a plethora of content on screen and in print, it’s vital to maintain story and character consistency between them for the sake of immersion, quality, and respect for the viewers (and readers). The Star Wars films and Disney+ TV shows are the most mainstream and widely-consumed media in the franchise, so while it’s not reasonable to expect every fan to invest their time and money into spinoff material like comics and video games, it’s also wasteful to release them only to contradict them in screen media only a few years later. Moreover, the biggest contradictions in canon have all been easily avoidable. The Clone Wars should have adapted elements of Ahsoka, just as The Bad Batch should have shown different Jedi in its Order 66 sequence and Luke should have offered Grogu a different lightsaber.

How Star Wars Can Avoid Its Canon Issues (Without Copying Legends)

Legends used a tier system as a temporary means to mitigate continuity issues before material would clear things up. The six saga films and any content created by George Lucas were at the highest tier while video games were lower due to game mechanics not necessarily being canon. The system, while helpful, was largely unnecessary, since Legends maintained a consistent continuity, outside of the 2008 Clone Wars series’ contradictions. Canon could benefit from a canon tier system, but it doesn’t need to repair its timeline the same way that Legends did. Ideally, upcoming canon material would simply be mindful of the lore and find creative ways to tell the stories its creators want to tell without trampling over previous works. Maintaining continuity is a vital component of quality storytelling, and Star Wars canon must improve its approach to new stories and treat all forms of media with equal importance.

About The Author

David Miller
(618 Articles Published)

David Miller is a staff writer for Screen Rant, indie comic writer, and life-long lover of all things Star Wars, Marvel, and DC. He was born and raised in New York and has a degree in English from Rider University. He relates to Peter Parker maybe a little too much.

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