After the release of the new SW movie in December, can GL say that he doesn't consider these new movies part of the Star Wars canon? Can he get sued? Do you think if he actually did that, it would hurt the movie financially?
He agreed to sell the Star Wars Franchise to Disney for $4 billion in 2012, so therefore he cannot be reproached by what Disney does because he agreed to let them do so.
Disney has already stated that everything in the EU is no longer canon. Lucas agreed to this because they announced it very soon after Episode 7 was revealed.
As far as I know, Star Wars is now officially out of Lucas' hands. He can still check in from time to time, but he's not doing anything like stating which is canon or not. All that is now on Disney.
Since i´m confronted by it often by my friends, I have to say something general about the disappointment concerning "Star Wars", that started with "The Phantom Menace" back then in the 90s. What most people don´t see when talking about the person George Lucas, is that he just isn´t that much into directing as everyone would wish for, but is more someone who is deeply involved with the technical aspects of movie making. That´s why he chose not to direct "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return Of The Jedi" but to concentrate on its storyboards and special effects. After 1983 he even quitted movie making completely in order to concentrate on his newly founded special effects company Industrial Light & Magic, that became something like the holy grail of action-, science fiction- and fantasy movies. These movies wouldn´t have had its visionary entertainment without ILM: 1981: Raiders Of The Lost Ark 1985: Back To The Future 1991: Terminator II 1993: Jurassic Park 2009: Avatar Just to mention a few. So Lucas has always been the man in the background, when you were standing in line at the theaters for something you hadn´t seen before, responsibable for perfect illusions e.g. living dinosaurs, liquid T-1000s and stuff like that. Don´t blame him for what he isn´t, namely the holy man that turns vinegar into vine. He´s just an introverted genious who loves to create things on a technical base, that´s all. There´s also a need to mention that Lucas founded Lucas Arts who gave us games such as "Indiana Jones and The Fate Of Atlantis", "Monkey Island" and "Jedi Knight", so this is exactly the computer he came from when creating the new "Star Wars" episodes, that´s what you see on screen. It´s all about spaceships, robots and effects, there´s no life in it. The story is thinner than a paper, the mise-en-scene flatteringly expressed ridiculous and the pictures simply hurt the eye with their candy-like colors. It´s exactly the soulless machinery that emerges out of a personal computer provided by a man who was sitting behind it for the last twenty years - people paid over a billion dollars at the theaters to watch machines that create machines in the end. Since everything is art, you can get used to this empty, weak and puppet-like feel of the new episodes with its special effects tour de force, but it was to my mind only a logical consequence that Lucas sold the rights to Disney, feeling that "Star Wars" is more a label and a franchise, than a creative challenge for him for the future. Since one of the effects after looking a "Star Wars" movie is to run around with a light saber making strange sounds with the mouth, it´s just toys and miracles for the children of the next generation - not more, not less. miracle [def.]: An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of god. The nature of a miracle is that it only happens once, not twice or daily or whenever you like. Lucas is the man for industrial light and magic, everything else is by now beyond his power. Period. "Don´t follow leaders, watch your parking meters." (Bob Dylan)
If Lucas went out and actively disparaged Star Wars, I'm sure Disney would be quite upset about it. You'd think the sale of the assets to Disney would include a clause whereby Lucas agrees not to do that.
Is there even such a thing as legal canon status? Outside of copyright and trademark on owned properties, can any creator, past or present, really define what is and isn't canon from a legal perspective? I don't think so. If he does start running his mouth about canon status, I'm sure Disney would send him an angry letter telling him to stop, but I'm not sure you can really be sued for denouncing the canon status unless there was a preexisting and legally binding agreement not to. Canon itself is really just a mutual agreement among the audience about what is an isn't factually correct about this fictional universe, usually defined by what the creator says, but things get much more complicated when some or all of a universe has been passed around different people. As much as I usually side with the creator on matters of canon, can it really be said that George Lucas is the creator of Star Wars? When so many people have been involved in it, not to mention the extended universe (which has apparently been swept under the rug), can any one person claim what is and isn't canon just because they legally own it? I don't know, really, but to be honest, when something has reached the point that Star Wars has reached, I start to put less and less stock into the canon defining authority of whoever just so happens to hold the purse strings at that moment. This raises the question of why? Why exactly do the audience need to accept the extended universe as non-canon just because some Johnny-come-lately corporation that has had no hand in Star War's creation decides it's financially beneficial to sweep it under the rug? As I said, canon isn't a legal matter, so the fact that they legally own it doesn't really mean that people need to take their word on it when indulging the universe. Honestly, issues with canon are actually a fascinating topic of discussion, and I'm not sure there's a clear cut black and white answer to it that's anything more than personal ideology. As for whether people will think less of it if George Lucas denounces it, aside from some massive fan boys, would anyone care what Mr George "Jar-Jar Binks" Lucas considers canon at this point? And for people who might think I'm simply bitter about the extended universe being scrapped, I think it's unfortunate, but I've never even read any of it, so I have no horse in this race. In fact, I don't even care that much about Stars Wars itself, so I really don't have a horse in this race. Honestly, as much as this will likely step on some people's toes, I think it's one of the most overrated pieces of pop culture around, and the fact that it's held up as a great example science fiction despite being so light on anything resembling science or even world building feels like a disservice to the genre. I'm well aware of how snobbish this sounds, but its status as a masterpiece of science fiction just serves as a painful reminder that to the masses, science fiction is about action films that just so happen to also include space ships and laser guns, rather than speculation about how science could change society, and the philosophical implications of such developments. Now, for people who might be offended by my completely unasked for opinion, just know, I don't actually dislike Star Wars, in fact, I think it's a pretty good trilogy of space opera films with a pretty mediocre prequel trilogy bolted onto it, but "pretty good" is about where my opinion begins and ends.
Star Wars isn't science fiction. I think the reason canon matters to fans is that all new products moving forward are going to presume the new Canon reflects the true state of the fictional universe and the stories are going to move forward on that basis. If you're a fan, then that's not insignificant.
Apparently the only thing that is canon now are The movies (obviously), Clone wars tv series, the new comic series, newer novels and the comic series by Marvel and I think maybe Star Wars rebel is? Then all the old EU stuff is still being printed under the Legends title.
True. But I think it requires an investment in the fandom to give coin to the idea. Kinda' the way I feel about Brian Herbert. Yeah, Brian, you know what you did. I've got a gom jabbar with your name on it.
Star Wars fans got off easy! One reboot! LUCKY! I'm a superhero fan (well comic fan in general but I do love Marvel and DC hero stuff) it never ends......retcons and reboots, retcons and reboots, retcons and reboots. The most recent one in DC happened in 2011 and Marvel is doing some kinda one atm and you bet in twenty to thirty years it will happen again. Likely DC But still. Lucky lucky Star Wars fan and their one reboot.
You mean like Fantastic 4? I'm still stumped as to why that needed a reboot SOOOOOoooooo soon after the last version. What next? Every 2 years a reboot? Rediculous...
Rise of the Silver Surfer came out in 2007, there were 8 years to a reboot. On the other hand there's only 5 years between Spider Man III and The Amazing Spiderman, and the new spiderman reboot is slated for 2017, so we're actually looking at a reboot ever three years.
For the longest time, I only ever watched the movies (4-6), even though I watched them a LOT. Never read the comics or the novels. And I could not, for the life of me, figure out why people were so nuts over Boba Fett.
By time the cartoon came out, the prequels kinda soured me on anything beyond the original trilogy. For one, I kept hoping BabyVader would get sucked into one of those podracer turbines.
