On The Expanded Universe, Continuity, and Clone Wars

[lazypadawan]

Everything happens whenever I go on vacation and I'm not online very much if at all. People die, flame wars and beefs break out, and bombs get dropped. One such bomb, at least for those who care about the Expanded Universe, was author Karen Traviss's decision over the weekend to leave the SW stable once she'd completed the second Imperial Commando novel. What triggered her departure was an alleged continuity conflict between her depiction of Mandalore and the way it is going to be shown in the second season of TCW. The second season Visual Guide is supposedly out (though I've not seen it in stores yet) and some fans have forwarded info from the book to Traviss. Specifically, the planet's capitol is going to be a big ol' cube in the show while Traviss's version of the Mandalorian capital is way, way different.

Yeah, that was supposedly it. Rather than spend a lot of time reconciling what's in the show with what's in the books, Traviss decided to just not bother with it anymore.

Now I can empathize with someone who works real hard on a story only to find she's been "Jossed" and she realizes the world she's created isn't what the boss is going with anymore. I can understand why one would decide it's just easier to crank out your own material than to navigate an ever-shifting sandbox. That's assuming continuity was the sole issue, not other issues we don't know about. Maybe it would make things easier for these authors if they were kept in the loop about potential continuity problems. Today, Leland Chee, Lucasfilm's Continuity Czar, issued a couple of statements on the issue, which you can read here: http://www.theforce.net/latestnews/story/Leland_Chee_Speaks_On_Continuity_Concerns_125604.asp.

But as far as I'm concerned, the only canon in SW are ANH, TESB, ROTJ, TPM, AOTC, ROTS, and TCW. Everything else is officially-sanctioned fan fiction and even the real canon is not exempt from a little fine-tuning. I'm no more upset over Mandalore being different on TCW than I am over the events of ROTS being different from some of the speculative stories I wrote prior to the film's release. (Though I do give myself credit for writing a story where Anakin had nightmares about Padmé's death and he wakes up determined to make sure it doesn't happen. Go, me.) It doesn't bother me that most of the Marvel comics I read in the 1970s and 1980s no longer make any sense with what the SW universe is now, especially since there's plenty of material from the post-1990 books and the Dark Horse run of comics that directly contradict them. I'm not in the least upset that Owen wasn't Obi-Wan's brother after all. I care first and foremost what happens in the movies and t.v. shows. For all we know, there could be a total reboot of Expanded Universe continuity five or ten years for now and the apple cart will be upset once more.

That's just how it is with Star Wars. I used to be one of those fans who wanted strict continuity, but the way things have evolved, it isn't practical anymore. Why? There's just too much stuff. Lucas couldn't have done TCW; his hands would've been completely tied. We also have to bear in mind that fans' needs, demands, and tastes change over the years. What works for today's readers might not work somewhere down the line. Lucasfilm might decide it wants things to go in another direction.

I liked Karen Traviss's books, even if the Jedi-bashing got a little old after a while. She had an appreciation for all of the SW movies and I liked how she wrote Anakin and her band of clones. I'll miss her work. But contrary to those who want to blame that ol' meanie Lucas for driving Traviss out of SW, the fact is it was her decision to quit to focus on her original work instead. No one SW author has written ad infinitum, although Timothy Zahn does one every now and then. It would be nice if Mike Stackpole was still writing SW, but he hasn't in a long time. People come and go.