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In the past, many names, objects and ideas in the Star Wars universe were canon merely because Lucas said so, particularly somewhere in an interview (i.e., never appeared in the films, scripts, production notes or even novels).

As this question states, Lucas was "word of God" but now Disney owns the franchise and dictates canon.

The idea I'm particularly curious about is the meaning "bring[ing] balance to the Force." Wookieepedia notes Lucas's interpretation under Legends (the natural state of the Force is the Light Side and the Sith are destroyed) while the Canon page hints at this but also suggests it may not be so, being completely ambiguous. Are we to take Wookieepedia at face value, or has anyone at Disney or the LSG chimed in?

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  • I added another Lucas quote to that wookieepedia article, in which he talks about how both the dark and light side "need to be there" and that "everything is built on the push-pull tension created by two sides of the equation". So I don't think Lucas' position is as simple as "the light side is natural, bringing balance to the Force = eliminating the Dark Side". My interpretation is that the Sith were unbalancing the Force itself in favor of the Dark Side, as suggested by this answer, so balance was eliminating the Sith, but not the Dark Side.
    – Hypnosifl
    Jan 27, 2016 at 18:46
  • Lucas' interview comments fall under the category of "making of" or "behind the scenes" information and, as such are no longer considered to be canonical.
    – Valorum
    Jan 27, 2016 at 19:06
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    @Richard - Has anyone at Disney said that Lucas' statements should be put in the same category as "making of" or "behind the scenes", or is this your own inference? If the latter, it seems reasonable to me that Lucas' statements about how his universe works might be treated with some special authority different from other behind the scenes info, so this question would be worth leaving open as distinct from the other one.
    – Hypnosifl
    Jan 27, 2016 at 19:15
  • @Hypnosifl -To quote from the press-release "... the six Star Wars episodes, and the many hours of content he developed and produced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. These stories are the immovable objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all other tales must align. Note, only the stories are the immovable objects, not anything else.
    – Valorum
    Jan 27, 2016 at 19:50
  • @Hypnosifl - One of the main reasons why they nuked the old canon system was precisely because there were so many contradictions from Lucas' (and others) interviews, earlier stories, making-of featurettes, etc etc. Certainly his statements are to be treated with respect, but they're no longer canonical, not since he sold the rights to the SW universe to Disney.
    – Valorum
    Jan 27, 2016 at 19:55

1 Answer 1

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Canonicity in the Star Wars universe is, as of April 2014, determined by a working group comprised of representatives of Disney and Lucasfilm known as the Lucasfilm Story Group.

The primary change made is that the old canon system (G-Canon, T-Canon, etc) has been nuked from orbit and only the original six feature films (the Original Trilogy and the Prequel trilogy, as seen in the 2011 Blu-ray Edition), Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV show, Star Wars: The Clone Wars film and Star Wars: Rebels TV shows are considered to be part of the official Star Wars canon.

"While Lucasfilm always strived to keep the stories created for the EU consistent with our film and television content as well as internally consistent, Lucas always made it clear that he was not beholden to the EU. He set the films he created as the canon. This includes the six Star Wars episodes, and the many hours of content he developed and produced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. These stories are the immovable objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all other tales must align."

By definition, the other properties that were originally deemed to be "G-Canon" and "T-Canon" (the Star Wars Radio Dramatisations, Star Wars Holiday Special, earlier Star Wars: Clone Wars TV Show, Ewoks films, Star Wars : DroidsTV show and Star Wars: Ewoks TV show), along with any deleted scenes, making-of documentaries, behind-the-scenes documentaries, concept art books and previous versions of the scripts are now all considered to be "Legends" properties.

Taken at face value, this press-release would seem to include proclamations from Mr. Lucas and anyone else associated with the making of the films. Although their words are interesting and certainly deserve notice, they aren't one of the "immovable objects" to which everything else is subordinate.

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  • Is there an example of a word-of-God statement that Lucas previously made that has since been explicitly ignored? I'm curious to know if they are still de facto standards to adhere to, even if not immovable objects.
    – Thunderforge
    Jan 28, 2016 at 6:26
  • @thunderforge - In the making of star wars book, Lucas is quoted (via a statement by Leia) as saying that there are 23000 systems in the Republic. This has been extensively debunked by the films. That being said, it was debunked by Lucas himself before the sale to Disney.
    – Valorum
    Jan 28, 2016 at 8:15
  • I don't see how this answers the question. We already know how LSG defines canonicity, but the point of this question is that their definition says nothing about Word of God. So is it "everything we didn't explicitly list is not canon", or is it "everything that George worked on directly is canon, therefore everything he says is canon"?
    – Martha
    Jan 28, 2016 at 21:22
  • @Martha - They're very explicit that everything not on the list is not canon. In fairness, they've tweaked that a little to allow some stuff like the novelisations to sneak through, but those are an edge case.
    – Valorum
    Jan 28, 2016 at 21:24

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