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Post by Alexrd on Dec 29, 2020 18:38:15 GMT
It's a relevant example that highlights extremely strong business acumen on Lucas' part. Until TCW found its footing, I think there was maybe a little bit of hesitancy on his part to automatically give it the same status as the films. Filoni implies it was always "canon" from the start. And considering Lucas's involvement from the very start, even in the early episodes, along with his statements, I have no reason to question Filoni's implication. Most of the first episodes storylines came from Henry Gilroy and Dave Filoni, and were developed alongside (and supervised by) George. But even those storylines were a result of their training under George on how to make Star Wars. Not just from a storytelling perspective, but from a technical perspective (how to plan, shoot, etc). And even if we were to pretend that George had no involvement (even though he did), George also had final say over those episodes. Although the classifications may have been created independently of Lucas, the very existence of a T-canon level suggests there was some caution on some people's parts toward the notion that TCW should automatically stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the movies. If their boss was that adamant from the start about the series being just as canonical as the films, why was the T-canon tier even necessary? The same can be said of every other of their canon tiers. Why are they necessary when all those stories were not canon to "their boss"? But their boss isn't George Lucas. Their boss was Howard Roffman, the person who was in charge of Licensing and their works. The tiers are first and foremost for catalogue purposes. It was necessary (or cautionary) to Licensing's people, definitely. I don't question that. In a way, it's understandable. Lucasfilm had never developed any TV programming, with or without Lucas. They should keep track of what comes from there.
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Post by thephantomcalamari on Dec 30, 2020 2:41:49 GMT
That's not what was being discussed or what you were referring to originally. It's a relevant example that highlights extremely strong business acumen on Lucas' part. Until TCW found its footing, I think there was maybe a little bit of hesitancy on his part to automatically give it the same status as the films. Filoni implies it was always "canon" from the start. Although the classifications may have been created independently of Lucas, the very existence of a T-canon level suggests there was some caution on some people's parts toward the notion that TCW should automatically stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the movies. If their boss was that adamant from the start about the series being just as canonical as the films, why was the T-canon tier even necessary? Why don't we look at what George Lucas said? Has he ever drawn a distinction between the movies and the TV series. Ever? Even a single time? Or has he consistently grouped them together and drawn a distinction between them and everything else he considered non-canon, going back to the very beginning of the series? I honestly don't understand how Lucas's view on the matter can be disputed at this point. We have clear, direct quotes from him. e: The same can be said of every other of their canon tiers. Why are they necessary when all those stories were not canon to "their boss"? But their boss isn't George Lucas. Their boss was Howard Roffman, the person who was in charge of Licensing and their works. Nonsense. George Lucas clearly insisted on the creation of an S-canon categorization. Do you have any idea how many meetings it took to hash that out? He missed multiple kids' birthdays for it.
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Post by Cryogenic on Dec 30, 2020 4:27:49 GMT
It's a relevant example that highlights extremely strong business acumen on Lucas' part. Until TCW found its footing, I think there was maybe a little bit of hesitancy on his part to automatically give it the same status as the films. Filoni implies it was always "canon" from the start. And considering Lucas's involvement from the very start, even in the early episodes, along with his statements, I have no reason to question Filoni's implication. Most of the first episodes storylines came from Henry Gilroy and Dave Filoni, and were developed alongside (and supervised by) George. But even those storylines were a result of their training under George on how to make Star Wars. Not just from a storytelling perspective, but from a technical perspective (how to plan, shoot, etc). And even if we were to pretend that George had no involvement (even though he did), George also had final say over those episodes. Yeah. Fine. I'll just repeat myself from earlier: However, Lucas giving his blessing to something, and even being involved in something, doesn't entail that thing jumping to instant G-canon status. Now, again, that classification system may have been discontinued, and it may always have been an internal system, but it existed for long enough that I still see it as valid. G-canon wasn't put at the top for no reason at all. Back to you: Although the classifications may have been created independently of Lucas, the very existence of a T-canon level suggests there was some caution on some people's parts toward the notion that TCW should automatically stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the movies. If their boss was that adamant from the start about the series being just as canonical as the films, why was the T-canon tier even necessary? The same can be said of every other of their canon tiers. Why are they necessary when all those stories were not canon to "their boss"? But their boss isn't George Lucas. Their boss was Howard Roffman, the person who was in charge of Licensing and their works. I'm sure some level of division was to make things easier for the Licensing division. But unless there was some confusion between parties at Lucasfilm (and I guess there might have been), it seems that T-canon was being treated as slightly below G-canon to begin with -- despite the television series supposedly being equal to the movies. A fair point. I did think of that myself. Makes perfect sense. But I'm still curious about TCW being treated (initially, at least) as something of an outlier to the films. Did Lucas have some trepidation to begin with? Did he then soften on the whole thing and was willing to accept TCW being equal to the films? It may seem petty to ask the question, but I think we should be attentive to the nuances of history, number one. Two, Lucas is a filmmaker, first and foremost. At least, when it comes to giving sanction to what constitutes "the story" of Star Wars, he was firm (at the time) on Star Wars being six movies and nothing else. So it's conceivable he had a little bit of a mental block to overcome when embarking on an animated series. But maybe later on, he decided, "This is also part of my world." Around the time of the Mortis arc, maybe? That's all. It's a relevant example that highlights extremely strong business acumen on Lucas' part. Until TCW found its footing, I think there was maybe a little bit of hesitancy on his part to automatically give it the same status as the films. Filoni implies it was always "canon" from the start. Although the classifications may have been created independently of Lucas, the very existence of a T-canon level suggests there was some caution on some people's parts toward the notion that TCW should automatically stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the movies. If their boss was that adamant from the start about the series being just as canonical as the films, why was the T-canon tier even necessary? Why don't we look at what George Lucas said? Has he ever drawn a distinction between the movies and the TV series. Ever? Even a single time? Or has he consistently grouped them together and drawn a distinction between them and everything else he considered non-canon, going back to the very beginning of the series? I honestly don't understand how Lucas's view on the matter can be disputed at this point. We have clear, direct quotes from him. I've been looking at what George Lucas has said. But he has said different things at different times. As plain-speaking as he seems, he sometimes contradicts himself, or speaks with a small degree of vagueness or equivocation. That shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary. He protested for years that was no story beyond the first six episodes -- and look where we are today... I also think it's important to look at what Lucasfilm was saying publicly at the time. Lucas employed certain people and put out certain messages for a reason. For instance, I found this Wired article from August 2008, and there are some useful quotes I'd like to replicate: So even though there's a quote from Gilroy that TCW (or the animated film) "was continuing the story of the live-action movies", the article contains several assertions that the animated film and TV show were on an intermediate level of canon, between the aforementioned "G" and "C" levels at the unique level of T-canon. After all, a story can be continued, but not held to be the same level of canon (the way most fans here look at the Disney films). As I said before, it's like a mosaic, or to use the other analogy given: a series of windows, some a little more frosted and opaque than others (and some positively abstract). And again, if that canon classification system was purely internal, why was it being alluded to in a public article? Why didn't someone at least say: "We are grading it at the level of T-canon for now, but George would prefer us to place it at the highest level of canon." It makes no sense for high-ups within Lucasfilm to run their mouths off in a major industry magazine unless they had their boss's approval. Yet here on this website, for some reason, there's this desire to collapse fine distinctions and crush things down to mediocre absolutes. It's this way or you're wrong. Nee-nuh, nee-nuh. Not listening, not listening. The only thing murdered along the way is the muddy tapestry of history. Carry on then in a pristine, Kamino-like world of canon vs. non-canon, I guess.
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Post by thephantomcalamari on Dec 30, 2020 5:58:54 GMT
And considering Lucas's involvement from the very start, even in the early episodes, along with his statements, I have no reason to question Filoni's implication. Most of the first episodes storylines came from Henry Gilroy and Dave Filoni, and were developed alongside (and supervised by) George. But even those storylines were a result of their training under George on how to make Star Wars. Not just from a storytelling perspective, but from a technical perspective (how to plan, shoot, etc). And even if we were to pretend that George had no invGeorge also had final say over those episodes. Yeah. Fine. I'll just repeat myself from earlier: However, Lucas giving his blessing to something, and even being involved in something, doesn't entail that thing jumping to instant G-canon status. Now, again, that classification system may have been discontinued, and it may always have been an internal system, but it existed for long enough that I still see it as valid. G-canon wasn't put at the top for no reason at all. Back to you: The same can be said of every other of their canon tiers. Why are they necessary when all those stories were not canon to "their boss"? But their boss isn't George Lucas. Their boss was Howard Roffman, the person who was in charge of Licensing and their works. I'm sure some level of division was to make things easier for the Licensing division. But unless there was some confusion between parties at Lucasfilm (and I guess there might have been), it seems that T-canon was being treated as slightly below G-canon to begin with. A fair point. I did think of that myself. Makes perfect sense. But I'm still curious about TCW being treated (initially, at least) as something of an outlier to the films. Did Lucas have some trepidation to begin with? Did he then soften on the whole thing and was willing to accept TCW being equal to the films? It may seem petty to ask the question, but I think we should be attentive to the nuances of history, number one. Two, Lucas is a filmmaker, first and foremost. At least, when it comes to giving sanction to what constitutes "the story" of Star Wars, he was firm (at the time) on Star Wars being six movies and nothing else. So it's conceivable he had a little bit of a mental block to overcome when embarking on an animated series. But maybe later on, he decided, "This is also part of my world." Around the time of the Mortis arc, maybe? That's all. Why don't we look at what George Lucas said? Has he ever drawn a distinction between the movies and the TV series. Ever? Even a single time? Or has he consistently grouped them together and drawn a distinction between them and everything else he considered non-canon, going back to the very beginning of the series? I honestly don't understand how Lucas's view on the matter can be disputed at this point. We have clear, direct quotes from him. I've been looking at what George Lucas has said. But he has said different things at different times. As plain-speaking as he seems, he sometimes contradicts himself, or speaks with a small degree of vagueness or equivocation. That shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary. He protested for years that was no story beyond the first six episodes -- and look where we are today... I also think it's important to look at what Lucasfilm was saying publicly at the time. Lucas employed certain people and put out certain messages for a reason. For instance, I found this Wired article from August 2008, and there are some useful quotes I'd like to replicate: So even though there's a quote from Gilroy that TCW (or the animated film) "was continuing the story of the live-action movies", the article contains several assertions that the animated film and TV show were on an intermediate level of canon, between the aforementioned "G" and "C" levels at the unique level of T-canon. After all, a story can be continued, but not held to be the same level of canon (the way most fans here look at the Disney films). As I said before, it's like a mosaic, or to use the other analogy given: a series of windows, some a little more frosted and opaque than others (and some positively abstract). And again, if that canon classification system was purely internal, why was it being alluded to in a public article? Why didn't someone at least say: "We are grading it at the level of T-canon for now, but George would prefer us to place it at the highest level of canon." It makes no sense for high-ups within Lucasfilm to run their mouths off in a major industry magazine unless they had their boss's approval. Yet here on this website, for some reason, there's this desire to collapse fine distinctions and crush things down to mediocre absolutes. It's this way or you're wrong. Nee-nuh, nee-nuh. Not listening, not listening. The only thing murdered along the way is the muddy tapestry of history. Carry on then in a pristine, Kamino-like world of canon vs. non-canon, I guess. That's a lot of quotes attributed to Leland Chee which, once again, directly contradict what George Lucas is reported as saying to Dave Filoni and Henry Gilroy in the same article. Cryo, find me an instance, even just one, of George Lucas contradicting himself on this point. It's just so strange to me that George Lucas was apparently carrying on this double life where he, entirely off-the-record and in-secret, was communicating one thing to Howard Roffman and Leland Chee, while consistently saying the exact opposite whenever he was either directly quoted or quoted secondhand by people who literally spoke to him about this specific issue. That's some feat of compartmentalization! e: From here: “The G/C/S-level canon stuff is a construct specifically for the Holocron. Non-Holocron users would have no idea what this stuff even means and I would say most of the people who use the Holocron don’t use the field, instead looking specifically to the source of the material. Individual entries are not broken down by canon level.” –Leland Chee 2005
“I didn’t have any direct contact with George about Star Wars. - I would see some notes based on the interviews or the meetings. But I did not have direct contact with George about Star Wars continuity." –Leland Chee 2018
“No, GWL has not given directives as to how things are entered in the Holocron.” –Leland Chee, 2004.12.17Now come on. This was already a pretty slender reed you were hanging on. Leland Chee came up with these canon classifications all by himself, for the purposes of internal organization of his Holocron. He had no contact with Lucas, and these classifications were not based on any directives from Lucas. Chee simply decided, initially, that The Clone Wars deserved a separate classification in between the films and the tie-in material, but this was based on nothing other than his own inclinations and mistaken understanding. It has literally nothing to do with anything else.
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Post by Cryogenic on Dec 30, 2020 8:36:47 GMT
Cryo, find me an instance, even just one, of George Lucas contradicting himself on this point. I can't find you that. I can, however, analyse these ones: In the May 2008 quote, Lucas says the movies and TV shows "are consistent within themselves". In the Oct 2011 quote, Lucas says he "[doesn't] make a distinction between the series and the films". These sound relatively reassuring. But there's critical context for both. In the 2008 quote, Lucas never actually confirms that the movies and TV shows (or simply TCW) have equal canonicity or continuity with one another. He simply says they are under his control and are consistent within themselves. It's more like a biologist describing cells being cultured in a lab. He may have implied rough agreement between the two (movies and TV shows), but that's all it is: rough. It was more important to him that they be internally consistent within one another. Indeed, that's how he said he saw the films in 2005: Of course, that's not to say he wasn't trying to expand Star Wars beyond the films. But films and television are innately different mediums. The assumption that they are of equal impact/value is fine, but becomes a bit implausible to imagine all the merits of one medium crossing over into the other, or that all storytelling values are perfectly preserved across the two mediums. Ever heard of the terms "lost in translation" and "adaptation decay"? I think the 2011 quotation somewhat reflects that; even as Lucas tries to pretend it isn't an issue. Let's now analyse that one: In the 2011 quote, Lucas' answer is in response to a question about the production process. Saying he doesn't make a distinction between the series and the films, and that "each week is a Star Wars feature, boiled down to 22 minutes", is Lucas commenting more on the production quality of the two projects. Especially because his preceding sentence is a boast about their ambition and what they're achieving: "And we keep asking for more than can be delivered, so we're always reaching and the show is always improving." Ergo, his saying he doesn't "make a distinction" between the series and the films can be read as him saying he doesn't find the animated format limiting. Next sentence: "It's just a different format and a different delivery". So while there appears to be a lot of meat in those quotes, there really isn't much to go on in terms of canonicity or continuity. Rather, Lucas points to those aspects obliquely, but without landing on them directly. As I said before: the man wanted to have his cake and eat it. He did his best to imply that TCW had the same canonical weight or thematic heft as the movies, while steering clear of actually stating it concretely. It wouldn't have been hard for him to offer direct clarity if he'd wanted to. So there must be some reason he wasn't willing to be quite as "out there" about it as Dave Filoni (and vice versa). Well, people do compartmentalise and lead double lives. You act like you've never heard of the concept of cognitive dissonance, or public vs. private personas. Even what Lucas tells his various employees, no matter how close or far, isn't necessarily what he feels inside. You have to realistically take the financial realities of running a massive company like Lucasfilm into account. He brought Filoni on board and allowed him to play in his sandbox to expand the brand. If he'd wanted to make the series himself, he would have. Instead, he delegated it to another (while having a healthy amount of personal input). And while he may have firm views on some things, George Lucas isn't a guy to piss on other people's dreams. If you ask me, this is why he has been relatively restrained (compared to Filoni) in declaring TCW "canon". Lucas seems to casually disdain the word and understands these things are a touch more complicated than many like to paint them. Yet his pride in the series allows him to almost say it. Just never quite. By contrast, Filoni has had no problem presuming or declaring TCW as fully "canon" since Day One. Again, if you ask me, this reflects their relative levels of personal and professional investment in the series. Slender reeds are all we have here. Because, as established, there is no direct, unambiguous set of remarks you can point to from Lucas, when the context is examined, that clearly indicates Lucas declaring TCW as sitting on exactly the same tier as the films. Of course, this also applies to the Disney films. For example: "The fans will love it" is hardly a ringing endorsement of TFA. The original "Tragedy Of Darth Vader" -- that is: the first six movies -- sit on the highest plinth. Everything else, including TCW, is beneath that. Pre-2012, when Lucas was calling the shots, anyway. The Leland Chee quotes (as you presented them) are misleading. As with the various Lucas quotes that people love to throw around, they are lacking appropriate context. In 2004, for instance, Chee said: Evidently, the way Chee looked at things was very broad, with no particular separation or bifurcation between different types of Star Wars media. This other set of question-and-answer snippets makes that fairly plain: As for those newer 2017 and 2018 quotes: They perhaps need taking with a small pinch of salt. Resolving them within the wider context of his earlier quotes would seem to be the fair and reasonable thing to do. He looked at Star Wars as one giant multimedia text. He created organisational categories within the Holocron. There were permeable borders between the classifications, because, again, to Chee, there was "one overall continuity". Maybe to Lucas there wasn't. But like I said before: everyone has their own point of view, everyone is fighting for their own interpretation and piece of the pie. Lucas obviously places TCW above other EU material. I don't think anyone is arguing to the contrary about that. Yet it isn't fully consistent with the movies, either -- not in terms of lore, format, or delivery. I don't see why this is anything controversial. But then again, Catholics and Protestants fought a brutal Thirty Years War over theology/territory, so I guess strong disagreement about who has the "right" view of Scripture is baked into our DNA.
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Post by thephantomcalamari on Dec 30, 2020 8:44:46 GMT
Okay, Cryo. Obviously this is something I'm not going to convince you about. To each their own.
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Post by Cryogenic on Dec 30, 2020 8:51:36 GMT
Okay, Cryo. Obviously this is something I'm not going to convince you about. To each their own. You don't have to "convince" me of anything. I'm simply laying out the facts as I see them. To each their own, indeed.
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Post by mikeximus on Dec 30, 2020 16:41:44 GMT
I agree immensely about how every word in a sentence means something. Saying that the movies and tv show are "consistent within themselves", and not "consistent within each other", that means something. I don't think that does mean something, actually. I think it's a big stretch to read that as anything other than Lucas grouping the movies and the TV shows (obviously referring to The Clone Wars and the then-planned Underworld) together and saying they're internally consistent, as a unit. I mean, I don't think Lucas is speaking in riddles here. Even in some of the Archives excerpts that have been posted so far (my copy still hasn't shipped, unfortunately), we can see Lucas casually referring to episodes of The Clone Wars to explain pieces of his mythology, in the exact same way he refers to the movies. Well, I am not suggesting in the slightest that Lucas is speaking in riddles. I am in fact saying he is speaking plainly and to the exact point he wants to make. Saying that a couple things are "consistent within themselves" is not the same thing as them being "consistent within each other". A mother and fathers views on raising children are "consistent within themselves" is not the same thing as saying their philosophies are consistent within each other. Saying that two things are consistent within themselves draws a clear distinction between each "themself" and not a distinction that bridges one with the other. AS far as the archives excerpt. I cannot stress this enough, for the umpteenth time. I have acknowledged over and over and over again, that Lucas was involved in TCW. That there are parts of the show that are clearly his thoughts and views and extensions of his story and mythology. However, once again, what are his and what are Filoni's and what are the writers that wrote the episode. CLEARLY, LFL under Lucas felt that there was a clear line of separation between the movies and TCW. So much so they invented a separate level of canon for the show. Even if you want to believe that Lucas did not know about the Canon levels, which he did, or even if you believe that the Canon level were only intended for internal LFL stuff, which is wasn't, the FACT is still that there was a clear distinction between the movies and the show within LFL, you know the company that Lucas owned and operated...? Yet here on this website, for some reason, there's this desire to collapse fine distinctions and crush things down to mediocre absolutes. It's this way or you're wrong. Nee-nuh, nee-nuh. Not listening, not listening. The only thing murdered along the way is the muddy tapestry of history. Carry on then in a pristine, Kamino-like world of canon vs. non-canon, I guess. Absolutely correct Cryo. In all these partial quotes being thrown around, the history behind the issues of canon and continuity are lost or just blatantly ignored in order to put forth false events to back up arguments. Let us take for example the false comparison of TCW to Empire Strikes Back. Filoni clearly falls into the misconception that all Lucas did for Empire was give the story idea. That others wrote and directed and did the heavy lifting. Yet, any Star Wars fan worth their salt, now knows what really happened with ESB. Lucas was far more involved. Lucas pretty much wrote most of Empire, he was in fact still writing it when they were filming in Norway. I was reminded of this just recently while reading "Once Upon A Galaxy: A Journal of the Making of Empire Strikes Back". by Alan Arnold. In the book Arnold asks Kurtz why Lucas was not in Norway for the filming and Kurtz's response was that Lucas was back home writing: Lucas never wrote a single episode of TCW. So this false equivalency between Lucas's involvement in ESB and TCW is quite frustrating, especially when I provided quotes from people that actually work on TCW with Lucas saying that Lucas gave the overall beats of the story, and it was up to others to fill everything in. But that is part of the "history" that is being ignored. People do not like those quotes, so they are ignored and dismissed for... reasons... This whole conversation of the canon levels has a history to it. I am not sure how old you all are, but, I am 45 years old, and I remember the big controversy before the Prequel. Much of fractures in the Star Wars fandom is attributed to the Prequels, but, that the fandom was already fractured before that. That fracture was because of the Canon wars that were fought over and over again in the fandom. When the internet was in it's infancy, this argument was already heating up. So much so, that in the fall of 1994... yes, 1994! LFL felt the need to address it's stance on Canon by making an official statement about Star Wars Canon in it's premier issue of Star Wars Insider. This is the quote that has been thrown around in this thread about Gospel: Clearly here, there is a defined difference between what is gospel and what isn't. T-level canon seemed to be a way for George Lucas to have his cake and eat it. He never had to come out and say that TCW was on an equal footing with the movies, but he was obviously careful to tactically get the word out that it was resting within a superior category to all other levels of canon (outside of G-canon) from the beginning: resting (in effect) at the hand of the Father himself. People (specially on Wookieepedia) usually forget that these canon categories are internal classifications made by (and for) Lucasfilm Licensing. It was never meant for the public, and it says nothing about George Lucas. He didn't create any of these categories. Absolutely and categorically wrong. As I just pointed out, that as far back as 1994 LFL released it's official stance on Canon, to the public via it's Fan Club Magazine. As the years have gone on, every iteration of the Canon policy for LFL has been released to the public. Whether it was in Star Wars Insider or the Official Message Boards, there were constant questions and answers about what was and wasn't canon. Why? Because in part the canon policy was publicized as a response to the fandoms arguing over what was and wasn't Star Wars. It is clear that LFL wanted to quell the arguing that continued well into the 2000's on it's own message boards. So no, Canon policy was not something that was intended to be internal use only, and not for public consumption, when LFL released it's canon policy over 25 years ago and kept the public updated on it over the years via their official media outlets. As far as creating the categories, I will also quote and include Calamari here: Yeah, there's no way in hell George Lucas ever even heard the term "T-canon" in his life, let alone knew what it meant, let alone consciously employed it for any purpose. That's a pretty broad assumption to make when we know that Lucas himself has acknowledged that he sees the differences between his movies and the EU as a sort of tiered system with a hierarchy. This is where the quote from Lucas about "The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost" come in. Clearly Lucas has the mindset that there is a separation of tiers. I also present another quote that I have not seen thrown out there yet. From StarLogs issue #337, dated May 2005... The date is very important which will become clear in a second: OK, so here we have Lucas admitting to knowing about an "encyclopedia". This is in 2005, the Star Wars Holocron was created in 2000, clearly the "encyclopedia" Lucas is talking about is the Holocron. Which part of the Holocron was keeping the levels of canon clear. He clearly says he is using it in a way that if he comes up with a name for something he checks the holocron (he calls it the encyclopedia) to see if other writers have used the name in something else. For you two to suggest that Lucas was completely removed from knowing about the Holocron and it's canon levels is completely nonsensical. Lucas is the one the created the canon tiers himself when he has said over and over again that the EU was a separate universe from his. LFL took this concept and built on it. At the time of the Starlog interview, the Managing Editor of LLP is quoted as saying: Once again, you both are just wrong. It was by Lucas's own decree that there be a tiered system between his works and that of others. How does this work into TCW? Once again, LFL setup a completely separate tier of canon for TCW that was lower than the movies, but, higher than the EU. We know that Lucas, in 2005, is aware of the Holocron, and it's purposes, he admits to frickin using it FFS. We know that Lucas is the one that setup that there be a tiered system of hierarchy between his movies and everything else. If Lucas felt that TCW was on par with his movies, why would this tier be created in the Holocron? You can't say that Lucas did not know, because obviously he did know of the tiered system, he was the one that wanted it created. Obviously he knows of the Holocron, because he says he uses it in 2005. And again, the 'T" level of canon was only removed after the sale, announced in April of 2014, about 6 months after the sale.... Not prior to the sale... My opinion is that as part of the deal with Disney, Lucas wanted TCW to be pushed to the same level as his movies. That once he realized that his Star Wars days were done, he wanted TCW, the last Star Wars he influenced, to be on par with his movies. TO me, my opinion, that is the only thing that makes sense as to why the T-canon level was removed after the sale. Lucas knew that the EU was going to be "Order 66'ed". hell, he and LFL might have been contemplating squashing the EU themselves when he stilled owned LFL as things were starting to gear up for his Sequel Trilogy. However, when the sale started to look like a reality, Lucas and LFL may have put that on hold. Seems pretty clear-cut to me. We have Leland Chee admitting he had no contact with Lucas when it came to continuity, but confirming Dave Filoni did. We have Dave Filoni saying Lucas felt The Clone Wars and the films were "the canon, then there was everything else." We have George Lucas himself corroborating Filoni's claims, saying "I don't make a distinction between the series and the films." We have George Lucas embodying this view in practice, when he makes reference to Clone Wars episodes in the Archives book while elucidating his views on the saga. We have the further fact of Lucas's involvement in The Clone Wars at every stage of the production process, explaining why he would feel this way and make such statements when he is usually so consistently adamant about establishing a separation between his own work and derivative works. This case is closed. Why are you still using the quote: "I don't make a distinction between the series and the films." When I clearly debunked it the last time you brought it up. So I will repeat it again: First of all, this is the question that was supplied as to what Lucas was responding:
The question has nothing to do with whether Lucas believes the TCW show is at the same level of continuity as his movies. It's a question on the quality of the show.
Furthermore, here is Lucas's complete answer:
Clearly, with the entire context of his complete answer in place, we see Lucas is not talking about whether he sees a difference in canon (for lack of a better word) between his movies and TCW. He is simply talking about how he does not approach making the show any different than he would making a movie. He does not make a distinction between the two mediums that they fall in. This has nothing to do with Lucas sayign that he believes the show exists at the same level of continuity or canon as his movies.
So you are using a partial quote in a misleading way, when it was already pointed out to you that the way you were using it was wrong.
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Post by Alexrd on Dec 30, 2020 18:28:12 GMT
Even if you want to believe that Lucas did not know about the Canon levels, which he did, or even if you believe that the Canon level were only intended for internal LFL stuff, which is wasn't,
We have the people responsible for the Holocron stating that it was and always has been internal.
the FACT is still that there was a clear distinction between the movies and the show within LFL, you know the company that Lucas owned and operated...? Within Lucasfilm Licensing (not Lucasfilm Ltd nor George Lucas), the branch of Lucasfilm that's responsible for the spin-off material (EU) who's boss is Howard Roffman. Lucas never wrote a single episode of TCW. So this false equivalency between Lucas's involvement in ESB and TCW is quite frustrating, especially when I provided quotes from people that actually work on TCW with Lucas saying that Lucas gave the overall beats of the story, and it was up to others to fill everything in. Comparing TESB and TCW is indeed a false equivalence. That said, Lucas did write the stories for the episodes. From those stories, the writers developed them in scripts, broke them into acts, etc, until they were finalized. All of this with Lucas's involvement, supervision and approval. There's no shortage of footage and pictures of Lucas in the writer's room, with the writers, developing the stories and breaking them up. And he was doing the exact same thing with the Underworld team. What the others ended up filling up (and there's stuff that we know didn't come from Lucas) still had to be filtered and approved by Lucas in the end. This whole conversation of the canon levels has a history to it. I am not sure how old you all are, but, I am 45 years old, and I remember the big controversy before the Prequel. Much of fractures in the Star Wars fandom is attributed to the Prequels, but, that the fandom was already fractured before that. That fracture was because of the Canon wars that were fought over and over again in the fandom. When the internet was in it's infancy, this argument was already heating up. So much so, that in the fall of 1994... yes, 1994! LFL felt the need to address it's stance on Canon by making an official statement about Star Wars Canon in it's premier issue of Star Wars Insider. This is the quote that has been thrown around in this thread about Gospel: Again, you're conflating Lucasfilm Licensing with the parent company and/or George Lucas. They are not the same thing. Absolutely and categorically wrong. As I just pointed out, that as far back as 1994 LFL released it's official stance on Canon, to the public via it's Fan Club Magazine. Once again, the publishing/licensing branch. It's "absolutely and categorically wrong" to pretend that the branch is LFL or George Lucas. It isn't, never was. It's a branch. That's a pretty broad assumption to make when we know that Lucas himself has acknowledged that he sees the differences between his movies and the EU as a sort of tiered system with a hierarchy. This is where the quote from Lucas about "The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost" come in. Clearly Lucas has the mindset that there is a separation of tiers. I also present another quote that I have not seen thrown out there yet. He did no such thing. He made the distinction between his world, the licensing world and the fan's world. The three are different universes. OK, so here we have Lucas admitting to knowing about an "encyclopedia". This is in 2005, the Star Wars Holocron was created in 2000, clearly the "encyclopedia" Lucas is talking about is the Holocron. Which part of the Holocron was keeping the levels of canon clear. He clearly says he is using it in a way that if he comes up with a name for something he checks the holocron (he calls it the encyclopedia) to see if other writers have used the name in something else. The Holocron was meant to keep track of everything, and they did it through an internal "canon" tier system developed by the Holocron and for the Holocron. George Lucas is not responsible for that tier system, it's meaningless to him. The only canon that matters is his own, as he made explicit many times. For you two to suggest that Lucas was completely removed from knowing about the Holocron and it's canon levels is completely nonsensical. Lucas is the one the created the canon tiers himself when he has said over and over again that the EU was a separate universe from his. LFL took this concept and built on it. Nonsensical is to assume that he knows or care about the canon levels based on the knowledge that there is a Star Wars "encyclopedia" that a couple of people are in charge of. he admits to frickin using it FFS. We know that Lucas is the one that setup that there be a tiered system of hierarchy between his movies and everything else. Those are baseless assumptions that have no evidence to back them up. He admits to use the "encyclopedia" to know if some stuff already exists or not, nothing more. There's nothing to support the idea that he uses canon tiers or that he was the one who set them up. If Lucas felt that TCW was on par with his movies, why would this tier be created in the Holocron? Because (for the 1000th time,)George Lucas is not Lucasfilm Licensing and as such he doesn't have the job or the tasks of that branch. And Lucas did feel that TCW and Underworld were on par with his movies, as he has admitted. TO me, my opinion, that is the only thing that makes sense as to why the T-canon level was removed after the sale. T-canon wasn't removed after the sale. The entire system was ditched. Disney rebooted the license, only bringing the movies and TCW from the past.
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Post by jppiper on Dec 30, 2020 19:20:56 GMT
mikeximus Let us take for example the false comparison of TCW to Empire Strikes Back. Filoni clearly falls into the misconception that all Lucas did for Empire was give the story idea. That others wrote and directed and did the heavy lifting. Yet, any Star Wars fan worth their salt, now knows what really happened with ESB. Lucas was far more involved. Lucas pretty much wrote most of Empire, he was in fact still writing it when they were filming in Norway. I was reminded of this just recently while reading "Once Upon A Galaxy: A Journal of the Making of Empire Strikes Back". by Alan Arnold. In the book Arnold asks Kurtz why Lucas was not in Norway for the filming and Kurtz's response was that Lucas was back home writing: Lucas never wrote a single episode of TCW. So this false equivalency between Lucas's involvement in ESB and TCW is quite frustrating, especially when I provided quotes from people that actually work on TCW with Lucas saying that Lucas gave the overall beats of the story, and it was up to others to fill everything in. But that is part of the "history" that is being ignored. People do not like those quotes, so they are ignored and dismissed for... reasons... This whole conversation of the canon levels has a history to it. I am not sure how old you all are, but, I am 45 years old, and I remember the big controversy before the Prequel. Much of fractures in the Star Wars fandom is attributed to the Prequels, but, that the fandom was already fractured before that. That fracture was because of the Canon wars that were fought over and over again in the fandom. When the internet was in it's infancy, this argument was already heating up. So much so, that in the fall of 1994... yes, 1994! LFL felt the need to address it's stance on Canon by making an official statement about Star Wars Canon in it's premier issue of Star Wars Insider. This is the quote that has been thrown around in this thread about Gospel: Clearly here, there is a defined difference between what is gospel and what isn't. People (specially on Wookieepedia) usually forget that these canon categories are internal classifications made by (and for) Lucasfilm Licensing. It was never meant for the public, and it says nothing about George Lucas. He didn't create any of these categories. Absolutely and categorically wrong. As I just pointed out, that as far back as 1994 LFL released it's official stance on Canon, to the public via it's Fan Club Magazine. As the years have gone on, every iteration of the Canon policy for LFL has been released to the public. Whether it was in Star Wars Insider or the Official Message Boards, there were constant questions and answers about what was and wasn't canon. Why? Because in part the canon policy was publicized as a response to the fandoms arguing over what was and wasn't Star Wars. It is clear that LFL wanted to quell the arguing that continued well into the 2000's on it's own message boards. So no, Canon policy was not something that was intended to be internal use only, and not for public consumption, when LFL released it's canon policy over 25 years ago and kept the public updated on it over the years via their official media outlets. As far as creating the categories, I will also quote and include Calamari here: Yeah, there's no way in hell George Lucas ever even heard the term "T-canon" in his life, let alone knew what it meant, let alone consciously employed it for any purpose. That's a pretty broad assumption to make when we know that Lucas himself has acknowledged that he sees the differences between his movies and the EU as a sort of tiered system with a hierarchy. This is where the quote from Lucas about "The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost" come in. Clearly Lucas has the mindset that there is a separation of tiers. I also present another quote that I have not seen thrown out there yet. From StarLogs issue #337, dated May 2005... The date is very important which will become clear in a second: OK, so here we have Lucas admitting to knowing about an "encyclopedia". This is in 2005, the Star Wars Holocron was created in 2000, clearly the "encyclopedia" Lucas is talking about is the Holocron. Which part of the Holocron was keeping the levels of canon clear. He clearly says he is using it in a way that if he comes up with a name for something he checks the holocron (he calls it the encyclopedia) to see if other writers have used the name in something else. For you two to suggest that Lucas was completely removed from knowing about the Holocron and it's canon levels is completely nonsensical. Lucas is the one the created the canon tiers himself when he has said over and over again that the EU was a separate universe from his. LFL took this concept and built on it. At the time of the Starlog interview, the Managing Editor of LLP is quoted as saying: Once again, you both are just wrong. It was by Lucas's own decree that there be a tiered system between his works and that of others. How does this work into TCW? Once again, LFL setup a completely separate tier of canon for TCW that was lower than the movies, but, higher than the EU. We know that Lucas, in 2005, is aware of the Holocron, and it's purposes, he admits to frickin using it FFS. We know that Lucas is the one that setup that there be a tiered system of hierarchy between his movies and everything else. If Lucas felt that TCW was on par with his movies, why would this tier be created in the Holocron? You can't say that Lucas did not know, because obviously he did know of the tiered system, he was the one that wanted it created. Obviously he knows of the Holocron, because he says he uses it in 2005. And again, the 'T" level of canon was only removed after the sale, announced in April of 2014, about 6 months after the sale.... Not prior to the sale... My opinion is that as part of the deal with Disney, Lucas wanted TCW to be pushed to the same level as his movies. That once he realized that his Star Wars days were done, he wanted TCW, the last Star Wars he influenced, to be on par with his movies. TO me, my opinion, that is the only thing that makes sense as to why the T-canon level was removed after the sale. Lucas knew that the EU was going to be "Order 66'ed". hell, he and LFL might have been contemplating squashing the EU themselves when he stilled owned LFL as things were starting to gear up for his Sequel Trilogy. However, when the sale started to look like a reality, Lucas and LFL may have put that on hold. Seems pretty clear-cut to me. We have Leland Chee admitting he had no contact with Lucas when it came to continuity, but confirming Dave Filoni did. We have Dave Filoni saying Lucas felt The Clone Wars and the films were "the canon, then there was everything else." We have George Lucas himself corroborating Filoni's claims, saying "I don't make a distinction between the series and the films." We have George Lucas embodying this view in practice, when he makes reference to Clone Wars episodes in the Archives book while elucidating his views on the saga. We have the further fact of Lucas's involvement in The Clone Wars at every stage of the production process, explaining why he would feel this way and make such statements when he is usually so consistently adamant about establishing a separation between his own work and derivative works. This case is closed. Why are you still using the quote: "I don't make a distinction between the series and the films." When I clearly debunked it the last time you brought it up. So I will repeat it again: First of all, this is the question that was supplied as to what Lucas was responding:
The question has nothing to do with whether Lucas believes the TCW show is at the same level of continuity as his movies. It's a question on the quality of the show.
Furthermore, here is Lucas's complete answer:
Clearly, with the entire context of his complete answer in place, we see Lucas is not talking about whether he sees a difference in canon (for lack of a better word) between his movies and TCW. He is simply talking about how he does not approach making the show any different than he would making a movie. He does not make a distinction between the two mediums that they fall in. This has nothing to do with Lucas sayign that he believes the show exists at the same level of continuity or canon as his movies.
So you are using a partial quote in a misleading way, when it was already pointed out to you that the way you were using it was wrong. and yet people still praise Lawrence Kasdan for writing Empire and kissed his ass when he came back for TFA because he wrote TESB it's Disgusting
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Post by thephantomcalamari on Dec 30, 2020 20:41:18 GMT
I don't think that does mean something, actually. I think it's a big stretch to read that as anything other than Lucas grouping the movies and the TV shows (obviously referring to The Clone Wars and the then-planned Underworld) together and saying they're internally consistent, as a unit. I mean, I don't think Lucas is speaking in riddles here. Even in some of the Archives excerpts that have been posted so far (my copy still hasn't shipped, unfortunately), we can see Lucas casually referring to episodes of The Clone Wars to explain pieces of his mythology, in the exact same way he refers to the movies. Well, I am not suggesting in the slightest that Lucas is speaking in riddles. I am in fact saying he is speaking plainly and to the exact point he wants to make. Saying that a couple things are "consistent within themselves" is not the same thing as them being "consistent within each other". A mother and fathers views on raising children are "consistent within themselves" is not the same thing as saying their philosophies are consistent within each other. Saying that two things are consistent within themselves draws a clear distinction between each "themself" and not a distinction that bridges one with the other. AS far as the archives excerpt. I cannot stress this enough, for the umpteenth time. I have acknowledged over and over and over again, that Lucas was involved in TCW. That there are parts of the show that are clearly his thoughts and views and extensions of his story and mythology. However, once again, what are his and what are Filoni's and what are the writers that wrote the episode. CLEARLY, LFL under Lucas felt that there was a clear line of separation between the movies and TCW. So much so they invented a separate level of canon for the show. Even if you want to believe that Lucas did not know about the Canon levels, which he did, or even if you believe that the Canon level were only intended for internal LFL stuff, which is wasn't, the FACT is still that there was a clear distinction between the movies and the show within LFL, you know the company that Lucas owned and operated...? Yet here on this website, for some reason, there's this desire to collapse fine distinctions and crush things down to mediocre absolutes. It's this way or you're wrong. Nee-nuh, nee-nuh. Not listening, not listening. The only thing murdered along the way is the muddy tapestry of history. Carry on then in a pristine, Kamino-like world of canon vs. non-canon, I guess. Absolutely correct Cryo. In all these partial quotes being thrown around, the history behind the issues of canon and continuity are lost or just blatantly ignored in order to put forth false events to back up arguments. Let us take for example the false comparison of TCW to Empire Strikes Back. Filoni clearly falls into the misconception that all Lucas did for Empire was give the story idea. That others wrote and directed and did the heavy lifting. Yet, any Star Wars fan worth their salt, now knows what really happened with ESB. Lucas was far more involved. Lucas pretty much wrote most of Empire, he was in fact still writing it when they were filming in Norway. I was reminded of this just recently while reading "Once Upon A Galaxy: A Journal of the Making of Empire Strikes Back". by Alan Arnold. In the book Arnold asks Kurtz why Lucas was not in Norway for the filming and Kurtz's response was that Lucas was back home writing: Lucas never wrote a single episode of TCW. So this false equivalency between Lucas's involvement in ESB and TCW is quite frustrating, especially when I provided quotes from people that actually work on TCW with Lucas saying that Lucas gave the overall beats of the story, and it was up to others to fill everything in. But that is part of the "history" that is being ignored. People do not like those quotes, so they are ignored and dismissed for... reasons... This whole conversation of the canon levels has a history to it. I am not sure how old you all are, but, I am 45 years old, and I remember the big controversy before the Prequel. Much of fractures in the Star Wars fandom is attributed to the Prequels, but, that the fandom was already fractured before that. That fracture was because of the Canon wars that were fought over and over again in the fandom. When the internet was in it's infancy, this argument was already heating up. So much so, that in the fall of 1994... yes, 1994! LFL felt the need to address it's stance on Canon by making an official statement about Star Wars Canon in it's premier issue of Star Wars Insider. This is the quote that has been thrown around in this thread about Gospel: Clearly here, there is a defined difference between what is gospel and what isn't. People (specially on Wookieepedia) usually forget that these canon categories are internal classifications made by (and for) Lucasfilm Licensing. It was never meant for the public, and it says nothing about George Lucas. He didn't create any of these categories. Absolutely and categorically wrong. As I just pointed out, that as far back as 1994 LFL released it's official stance on Canon, to the public via it's Fan Club Magazine. As the years have gone on, every iteration of the Canon policy for LFL has been released to the public. Whether it was in Star Wars Insider or the Official Message Boards, there were constant questions and answers about what was and wasn't canon. Why? Because in part the canon policy was publicized as a response to the fandoms arguing over what was and wasn't Star Wars. It is clear that LFL wanted to quell the arguing that continued well into the 2000's on it's own message boards. So no, Canon policy was not something that was intended to be internal use only, and not for public consumption, when LFL released it's canon policy over 25 years ago and kept the public updated on it over the years via their official media outlets. As far as creating the categories, I will also quote and include Calamari here: Yeah, there's no way in hell George Lucas ever even heard the term "T-canon" in his life, let alone knew what it meant, let alone consciously employed it for any purpose. That's a pretty broad assumption to make when we know that Lucas himself has acknowledged that he sees the differences between his movies and the EU as a sort of tiered system with a hierarchy. This is where the quote from Lucas about "The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost" come in. Clearly Lucas has the mindset that there is a separation of tiers. I also present another quote that I have not seen thrown out there yet. From StarLogs issue #337, dated May 2005... The date is very important which will become clear in a second: OK, so here we have Lucas admitting to knowing about an "encyclopedia". This is in 2005, the Star Wars Holocron was created in 2000, clearly the "encyclopedia" Lucas is talking about is the Holocron. Which part of the Holocron was keeping the levels of canon clear. He clearly says he is using it in a way that if he comes up with a name for something he checks the holocron (he calls it the encyclopedia) to see if other writers have used the name in something else. For you two to suggest that Lucas was completely removed from knowing about the Holocron and it's canon levels is completely nonsensical. Lucas is the one the created the canon tiers himself when he has said over and over again that the EU was a separate universe from his. LFL took this concept and built on it. At the time of the Starlog interview, the Managing Editor of LLP is quoted as saying: Once again, you both are just wrong. It was by Lucas's own decree that there be a tiered system between his works and that of others. How does this work into TCW? Once again, LFL setup a completely separate tier of canon for TCW that was lower than the movies, but, higher than the EU. We know that Lucas, in 2005, is aware of the Holocron, and it's purposes, he admits to frickin using it FFS. We know that Lucas is the one that setup that there be a tiered system of hierarchy between his movies and everything else. If Lucas felt that TCW was on par with his movies, why would this tier be created in the Holocron? You can't say that Lucas did not know, because obviously he did know of the tiered system, he was the one that wanted it created. Obviously he knows of the Holocron, because he says he uses it in 2005. And again, the 'T" level of canon was only removed after the sale, announced in April of 2014, about 6 months after the sale.... Not prior to the sale... My opinion is that as part of the deal with Disney, Lucas wanted TCW to be pushed to the same level as his movies. That once he realized that his Star Wars days were done, he wanted TCW, the last Star Wars he influenced, to be on par with his movies. TO me, my opinion, that is the only thing that makes sense as to why the T-canon level was removed after the sale. Lucas knew that the EU was going to be "Order 66'ed". hell, he and LFL might have been contemplating squashing the EU themselves when he stilled owned LFL as things were starting to gear up for his Sequel Trilogy. However, when the sale started to look like a reality, Lucas and LFL may have put that on hold. Seems pretty clear-cut to me. We have Leland Chee admitting he had no contact with Lucas when it came to continuity, but confirming Dave Filoni did. We have Dave Filoni saying Lucas felt The Clone Wars and the films were "the canon, then there was everything else." We have George Lucas himself corroborating Filoni's claims, saying "I don't make a distinction between the series and the films." We have George Lucas embodying this view in practice, when he makes reference to Clone Wars episodes in the Archives book while elucidating his views on the saga. We have the further fact of Lucas's involvement in The Clone Wars at every stage of the production process, explaining why he would feel this way and make such statements when he is usually so consistently adamant about establishing a separation between his own work and derivative works. This case is closed. Why are you still using the quote: "I don't make a distinction between the series and the films." When I clearly debunked it the last time you brought it up. So I will repeat it again: First of all, this is the question that was supplied as to what Lucas was responding:
The question has nothing to do with whether Lucas believes the TCW show is at the same level of continuity as his movies. It's a question on the quality of the show.
Furthermore, here is Lucas's complete answer:
Clearly, with the entire context of his complete answer in place, we see Lucas is not talking about whether he sees a difference in canon (for lack of a better word) between his movies and TCW. He is simply talking about how he does not approach making the show any different than he would making a movie. He does not make a distinction between the two mediums that they fall in. This has nothing to do with Lucas sayign that he believes the show exists at the same level of continuity or canon as his movies.
So you are using a partial quote in a misleading way, when it was already pointed out to you that the way you were using it was wrong. We have Lucas on record clearly stating his position, we have Dave Filoni on record clearly confirming that position, we have Leland Chee confirming that Lucas had nothing to do with the canon categorizations in the Holocron. This isn't in any way complicated or ambiguous. It doesn't require huge reams of text to litigate. Frankly, these contortions you're going through to deny this obvious reality are really silly. Sorry. I don't think anyone's buying it except you and Cryo. I'm not going to argue with you further, though. It's like arguing if the sky is blue or not. Happy to discuss anything else with you.
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Post by Cryogenic on Dec 30, 2020 22:18:26 GMT
Even if you want to believe that Lucas did not know about the Canon levels, which he did, or even if you believe that the Canon level were only intended for internal LFL stuff, which is wasn't, We have the people responsible for the Holocron stating that it was and always has been internal. That's simply false. While the canon levels and the Holocron as a whole may have been primarily intended for internal LFL matters, those basic aspects (but not the Holocron itself), or the basic existence of both, have been disseminated publicly: in Star Wars magazine articles, on the official (if now defunct) message boards, and even in interviews with external publications like Wired magazine (as I showed earlier). the FACT is still that there was a clear distinction between the movies and the show within LFL, you know the company that Lucas owned and operated...? Within Lucasfilm Licensing (not Lucasfilm Ltd nor George Lucas), the branch of Lucasfilm that's responsible for the spin-off material (EU) who's boss is Howard Roffman. That's a pedantic distinction. Lucasfilm Licensing is or was a subsidiary of Lucasfilm Ltd. Just as Lucasfilm Ltd is itself now a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios, which is a business segment of The Walt Disney Company. Whether positive or negative (or somewhere in-between) in their opinions regarding the transition, I think most fans are comfortable referring to Disney and Lucasfilm interchangeably. You do it yourself, no? Lucasfilm Licensing and Lucasfilm Ltd, as the latter now exists under Disney, were and are answerable to their parent companies and leading executives. This is an inescapable fact of business and organisational logistics. Yet you somehow want to keep Lucas and his Licensing division separate on a petty -- and meaningless -- distinction. This whole conversation of the canon levels has a history to it. I am not sure how old you all are, but, I am 45 years old, and I remember the big controversy before the Prequel. Much of fractures in the Star Wars fandom is attributed to the Prequels, but, that the fandom was already fractured before that. That fracture was because of the Canon wars that were fought over and over again in the fandom. When the internet was in it's infancy, this argument was already heating up. So much so, that in the fall of 1994... yes, 1994! LFL felt the need to address it's stance on Canon by making an official statement about Star Wars Canon in it's premier issue of Star Wars Insider. This is the quote that has been thrown around in this thread about Gospel: Again, you're conflating Lucasfilm Licensing with the parent company and/or George Lucas. They are not the same thing. I don't think you're in much of a position to lecture someone else about conflating companies or individuals, when you yourself conflate utterances of Lucas to try and indicate that TCW is just as canonical as the films. The same with saying that the Holocron is/was merely an internal thing. Both are hasty and incorrect. Absolutely and categorically wrong. As I just pointed out, that as far back as 1994 LFL released it's official stance on Canon, to the public via it's Fan Club Magazine. Once again, the publishing/licensing branch. It's "absolutely and categorically wrong" to pretend that the branch is LFL or George Lucas. It isn't, never was. It's a branch. OMG. That "branch" comes off the same tree. You're again picking at straws. Maybe Lucas wasn't beholden to those largely internal rankings (which were nonetheless disseminated publicly), but you're acting like he was totally ignorant of what was being said on the matter. I find that unlikely. That's a pretty broad assumption to make when we know that Lucas himself has acknowledged that he sees the differences between his movies and the EU as a sort of tiered system with a hierarchy. This is where the quote from Lucas about "The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost" come in. Clearly Lucas has the mindset that there is a separation of tiers. I also present another quote that I have not seen thrown out there yet. He did no such thing. He made the distinction between his world, the licensing world and the fan's world. The three are different universes. Yes, that's a more accurate definition, but you're doing it again: taking a basic observation and skewing it. Mike was suggesting that Lucas set the precedent for different tiers of canon and authority with his Holy Trinity analogy. Technically, his analogy suggests that he oversees what "The Son" and "The Holy Ghost" are up to; even if they still have (or had) some level of "free will". His world, for the longest time, was only the movies. He was explicit about this. That's why this whole argument is happening, really. TCW eventually came along and was given its own level of canon, separate to "G-canon", in the Holocron. Why? Don't say "internal" or "licensing". It was even publicly mentioned in that Wired article I linked to earlier. TO me, my opinion, that is the only thing that makes sense as to why the T-canon level was removed after the sale. T-canon wasn't removed after the sale. The entire system was ditched. Disney rebooted the license, only bringing the movies and TCW from the past. And T-canon was ditched along with it. Yet TCW survived and snuck through to the level of official canon (equivalent to G-canon in the Holocron canon system). Before, it seemed to occupy a space just below the films, and not quite alongside them. Was there anything as clear-cut, concerning the canonicity of TCW, as what Disney did when they dropped the system and rendered everything else (below TCW) into "Legends"? Why didn't Lucas do that all the time he owned Lucasfilm? He had several years to take such action -- what was stopping him? I think Mike's conjecture is on-point. Lucas basically bit the bullet and decided, since he was selling, he ought to make TCW be placed on the same level as the films. It was, after all, the last big Star Wars project he was involved with and had given his blessing to. So there was presumably something written into the sale deal where Disney/LFL agreed they would make an announcement a year or two down the road and TCW would be given special exemption (from demotion into the "Legends" junkpile). This sounds reasonable to me, anyway. We have Lucas on record clearly stating his position, we have Dave Filoni on record clearly confirming that position, we have Leland Chee confirming that Lucas had nothing to do with the canon categorizations in the Holocron. This isn't in any way complicated or ambiguous. It doesn't require huge reams of text to litigate. Frankly, these contortions you're going through to deny this obvious reality are really silly. Sorry. I don't think anyone's buying it except you and Cryo. I'm not going to argue with you further, though. It's like arguing if the sky is blue or not. Happy to discuss anything else with you. Happy to discuss anything else -- or happy to keep being condescending and using poor math? To assert that no-one else is "buying it", except Mike and I, is pretty rude and silly. By my reckoning, there are only four people discussing the topic in here: Me, Mike, Alex, and you. Two people are of one opinion, the other two are of an opposing opinion. That means there's a 50/50 split. I'm sure a few other people here would be inclined to agree with you and Alex, but they haven't said a word thus far. So that just leaves us sorry four. I don't like it when someone keeps resorting to sarcasm and condescension and tries to elevate their opinion with shallow tactics over someone else. I think it speaks to an inherent weakness in that person's position. There's no reason to be so childish or supercilious just because you think you're right. As for your assertions: I think Mike and I covered this one pretty well. Lucas has tended to speak more about the storytelling potential and production quality of TCW when asked. Some fans have a tendency to seize on these remarks as Lucas making some authoritative statement about the canonicity or continuity aspects of TCW. Quotes being mined and dishonestly presented a certain way compounds on the bias and confusion. He's hardly an unbiased source. He has every reason to want to believe his own show is uniquely aligned with the movies and has the unqualified approval of the franchise's creator. And for marketing purposes, at the very least, Lucas wouldn't have been in any rush to correct him. Yet Chee also said "There is one overall continuity" ( in 2004, anyway), and that "Anybody can have their own perception of what is and isn't canon" ( in 2005). And when the marketing for TCW got underway, he publicly said (or gave the article writer the sense) that the animated film and series "fall somewhere in between the Expanded Universe and the G Canon of the films" and that "the action didn't quite fit in with the films, and didn't quite fit into the Expanded Universe". Chee was obviously getting that impression from somewhere. Indeed, the Wired article contains a link to an old post by Chee on the official Star Wars message boards, in which Chee asserted: Note that there were prior animated and live-action television ventures in the Star Wars universe, but these were obviously placed in lower tiers of canon in the Holocron. This would include the then-recent Clone Wars "micro-series" by Genndy Tartakovsky (i.e., not just "Droids", the "Ewoks" movies, or the infamous "Holiday Special" from a pre-PT era). Did Chee really take it upon himself to create this new canon tier because he felt like it? Some discussion obviously took place -- or why not just toss TCW and other upcoming projects straight into the "G" tier above or the "C" tier below? This new tier of "T-canon" was clearly created to accommodate Lucas' emerging whim to create something that was more canonically justified than previous spin-off material, but without instantly tying it straight into the same tier as the movies. Because Lucas has never been a man that likes to be shackled or painted into a corner in advance. That -- to me -- is the most coherent explanation.
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Post by mikeximus on Dec 31, 2020 2:59:02 GMT
Even if you want to believe that Lucas did not know about the Canon levels, which he did, or even if you believe that the Canon level were only intended for internal LFL stuff, which is wasn't, We have the people responsible for the Holocron stating that it was and always has been internal.
Show the quotes! With you and Calamari continuing to falsely push the "I don't make a distinction between the series and the films" quote from Lucas as proof that he sees the TV show and Movies as the same canonically, even though I debunked that claim earlier in this thread, I would much rather see the quotes with my own eyes so that I can research them, rather than rely on your judgement. Obviously the Holocron was for internal use. It was not something open to the public use. Neither you or I could access it, so yes, it is for internal use for people at LFL. However, you continue to ignore that for 25+ years LFL released to the public, through it's official media structures, how it's system of canon and continuity worked. This information was clearly released to the fandom for a reason. This was not some kind of super secret project that was leaked. The policy was officially released, those in charge routinely answered fans questions on how the holocron (and it's previous incarnations, ie the gospel or bible or encyclopedia) worked. This information was given to the fandom as a direct result of the fandom wars on Canon. As Cryogenic has said, you are purposefully ignoring the history of how and why they got to using the Holocron in the first place. A lot of it was making sure that everything in the Star Wars Universe, even the EU stuff tried to adhere to Lucas's vision as close as possible so the fans wouldn't bitch when one author says Taun Tauns came from Hoth, and another author says Taun Tauns came from Hath... Which is one of the prevailing arguments that was used against the early EU, there were gaps and direct contradictions in the materials. the FACT is still that there was a clear distinction between the movies and the show within LFL, you know the company that Lucas owned and operated...? Within Lucasfilm Licensing (not Lucasfilm Ltd nor George Lucas), the branch of Lucasfilm that's responsible for the spin-off material (EU) who's boss is Howard Roffman. This whole conversation of the canon levels has a history to it. I am not sure how old you all are, but, I am 45 years old, and I remember the big controversy before the Prequel. Much of fractures in the Star Wars fandom is attributed to the Prequels, but, that the fandom was already fractured before that. That fracture was because of the Canon wars that were fought over and over again in the fandom. When the internet was in it's infancy, this argument was already heating up. So much so, that in the fall of 1994... yes, 1994! LFL felt the need to address it's stance on Canon by making an official statement about Star Wars Canon in it's premier issue of Star Wars Insider. This is the quote that has been thrown around in this thread about Gospel: Again, you're conflating Lucasfilm Licensing with the parent company and/or George Lucas. They are not the same thing. Absolutely and categorically wrong. As I just pointed out, that as far back as 1994 LFL released it's official stance on Canon, to the public via it's Fan Club Magazine. Once again, the publishing/licensing branch. It's "absolutely and categorically wrong" to pretend that the branch is LFL or George Lucas. It isn't, never was. It's a branch. Holy smokes.. really? This is what you are hanging onto as truth and being right. Again, do you ever research what you say in order to make sure you are not putting false information out there, or at the very least so that you can't be told you are wrong? In 2003, there was a huge re-organization of LFL. In 2003, many of the companies that used to be separate from LFL were now brought under the LFL banner and company. One of those companies was Lucas Licensing.. So I know what I am talking about when I use LFL and not LL. All those now, sub-divisions or "branches", were part of LFL. All those sub-divisions, while operating independently of one another now answered to the big boys and girls at LFL. There was no more Lucas over seeing multiple individual businesses, but now LFL oversaw those businesses of which Lucas over saw LFL as chairman of the Board and CEO of LFL. www.writerswrite.com/lucasfilm-announces-reorganization-2222003588But keep trying to make some special distinction that LFL and LL were completely separate of one another. The holocron was a company wide tool, that was obviously available to other divisions that were not Lucas Licensing. Case in point would be LucasArts when developing the Star Wars video games, they would use the Holocron and information from their materials were added to the Holocron. In fact, the Holocron, in 2012, was moved from the "purview" of Lucas Licensing over to Marketing, bot of which were under LFL. www.starwars.com/news/what-is-the-holocronThat is a short, but, informative look at what the Holocron was and why. Lucas never wrote a single episode of TCW. So this false equivalency between Lucas's involvement in ESB and TCW is quite frustrating, especially when I provided quotes from people that actually work on TCW with Lucas saying that Lucas gave the overall beats of the story, and it was up to others to fill everything in. Comparing TESB and TCW is indeed a false equivalence. That said, Lucas did write the stories for the episodes. From those stories, the writers developed them in scripts, broke them into acts, etc, until they were finalized. All of this with Lucas's involvement, supervision and approval. There's no shortage of footage and pictures of Lucas in the writer's room, with the writers, developing the stories and breaking them up. And he was doing the exact same thing with the Underworld team. What the others ended up filling up (and there's stuff that we know didn't come from Lucas) still had to be filtered and approved by Lucas in the end. And yet, once again, there is not one single episode written by George Lucas. Not one. Once again, I have provided actual quotes from Filoni and others that worked on the show, that said Lucas gave the overall beats of what he wanted and left it up to them to write. I will take their word for it over your "pictures" that only prove Lucas was in a room. That's a pretty broad assumption to make when we know that Lucas himself has acknowledged that he sees the differences between his movies and the EU as a sort of tiered system with a hierarchy. This is where the quote from Lucas about "The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost" come in. Clearly Lucas has the mindset that there is a separation of tiers. I also present another quote that I have not seen thrown out there yet. He did no such thing. He made the distinction between his world, the licensing world and the fan's world. The three are different universes. Yes, and that distinction being a tiered hierarchy between the different universes... LMFAO. Or do you really think that Lucas is putting the Fans Universe at the same level of him? Here is the full Q&A when it comes to that quote, because again, context matters: Now avoiding any religious arguments about what the Holy Trinity is and isn't, it is clear here that Lucas is answering a question about the EU, and his answer is to point out that he sees the situation is a hierarchy. There is no way in any reasonable persons mind that is operating with a minuscule amount of common sense that Lucas would put himself on equal footing with the fans. There's his universe which is the movies, there's the licensing universe overseen by Roffman, and than there's the fans universe which creates their own stories and consumes the materials from the Father and Son. Lucas puts himself as the Father or aka God the Father, than comes the son, which is also a part of God, but in the form of Jesus, the offspring of god, than there is the Holy Ghost or spirit. Again, God (Lucas) is apart of this universe, but it is neither God himself, nor the Son the offspring of God. There is a clear hierarchy here, where God (Lucas) is in all three tiers equally, but, each tier is not the same or equal to one another. Jesus (The EU) is not God (Lucas), The Holy Spirit (The Fans) is not God (Lucas), even though God(Lucas) is in both of them equally. OK, so here we have Lucas admitting to knowing about an "encyclopedia". This is in 2005, the Star Wars Holocron was created in 2000, clearly the "encyclopedia" Lucas is talking about is the Holocron. Which part of the Holocron was keeping the levels of canon clear. He clearly says he is using it in a way that if he comes up with a name for something he checks the holocron (he calls it the encyclopedia) to see if other writers have used the name in something else. The Holocron was meant to keep track of everything, and they did it through an internal "canon" tier system developed by the Holocron and for the Holocron. George Lucas is not responsible for that tier system, it's meaningless to him. The only canon that matters is his own, as he made explicit many times. The Holocron was created because before the Holocron LFL used something called the Bible, which was a mess of Black Binders. The holocron was the progression and updating of a system that was already in place to streamline it for all of LFL. You can call it meaningless to Lucas, yet, I have provided a quote in which Lucas says he uses the system. But your assertion is that it is meaningless to him, as he admits to using it, as he says it's the way HE does it "now". Yeah... OK... That's all the time I have right now, but, trust me, there is more to come.
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Post by thephantomcalamari on Dec 31, 2020 5:21:08 GMT
Happy to discuss anything else -- or happy to keep being condescending and using poor math? To assert that no-one else is "buying it", except Mike and I, is pretty rude and silly. By my reckoning, there are only four people discussing the topic in here: Me, Mike, Alex, and you. Two people are of one opinion, the other two are of an opposing opinion. That means there's a 50/50 split. I'm sure a few other people here would be inclined to agree with you and Alex, but they haven't said a word thus far. So that just leaves us sorry four. I don't like it when someone keeps resorting to sarcasm and condescension and tries to elevate their opinion with shallow tactics over someone else. I think it speaks to an inherent weakness in that person's position. There's no reason to be so childish or supercilious just because you think you're right. Cryo, you know as well as anyone that I could argue about this indefinitely if I actually wanted to. I don't want to. I'm not getting anything out of this discussion. It's absurd. e: And yet, once again, there is not one single episode written by George Lucas. Not one. Once again, I have provided actual quotes from Filoni and others that worked on the show, that said Lucas gave the overall beats of what he wanted and left it up to them to write. I will take their word for it over your "pictures" that only prove Lucas was in a room. Okay, I have to chime in here. Mike, this is literally just you not understanding what a television executive producer is and does. In television, the executive producer is like the director of a movie. They determine the overall creative direction of the show. They edit and approve all the scripts, and hire all the directors. Sometimes, they may write and/or direct certain episodes themselves, but this does not mean they had no creative control over the episodes they didn't write or direct. This fact would not change even if they didn't have a writing or directing credit on a single episode. It would just mean they chose not to write or direct any individual episodes. They would still possess overall creative control over the show. There is nothing strange or new about how George Lucas approached his role as executive producer of The Clone Wars. He hired writers, brought them together so he could break the stories to them, talk about how those stories should be structured as scripts, and then assigned individual people to write those scripts. This is a very standard process for creating television. Had George Lucas chosen, he could have written one or more of the scripts himself, giving him some degree of greater individual control over those individual scripts, but he did not, just as most executive producers on TV shows choose not to do for the majority of the scripts that must be written for a show. This does not mean that he did not have creative control of the show. Vince Gilligan only has writing credits on 13 out of 62 episodes of Breaking Bad. This does not mean Vince Gilligan only had creative control over 21% of Breaking Bad. He had creative control over the entire show. This would remain true had he written 47, 13, 6, or 0 out of 62 episodes, because it is not the number of episode writing credits which determines creative control over a television production. This is not controversial, this is literally just the way things work on literally every television show. I know none of this will probably make any difference to you, but you're operating on an absurd misunderstanding on a basic aspect of television production in general, and using it to make a very weird specific argument against George Lucas having creative control over the show for which he was as active an executive producer as you could ask for--running the writer's room, editing and approving scripts, supervising the production process at every stage, even calling in to recording sessions to make last-minute line edits. You are wrong, and you are wrong in a way that should be embarrassing for you. You simply do not know what you are talking about. You should listen to me when I tell you this instead of doubling down. I know people who work in television and I know how it works.
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Post by mikeximus on Dec 31, 2020 10:48:15 GMT
Happy to discuss anything else -- or happy to keep being condescending and using poor math? To assert that no-one else is "buying it", except Mike and I, is pretty rude and silly. By my reckoning, there are only four people discussing the topic in here: Me, Mike, Alex, and you. Two people are of one opinion, the other two are of an opposing opinion. That means there's a 50/50 split. I'm sure a few other people here would be inclined to agree with you and Alex, but they haven't said a word thus far. So that just leaves us sorry four. I don't like it when someone keeps resorting to sarcasm and condescension and tries to elevate their opinion with shallow tactics over someone else. I think it speaks to an inherent weakness in that person's position. There's no reason to be so childish or supercilious just because you think you're right. Cryo, you know as well as anyone that I could argue about this indefinitely if I actually wanted to. I don't want to. I'm not getting anything out of this discussion. It's absurd. e: And yet, once again, there is not one single episode written by George Lucas. Not one. Once again, I have provided actual quotes from Filoni and others that worked on the show, that said Lucas gave the overall beats of what he wanted and left it up to them to write. I will take their word for it over your "pictures" that only prove Lucas was in a room. Okay, I have to chime in here. Mike, this is literally just you not understanding what a television executive producer is and does. In television, the executive producer is like the director of a movie. They determine the overall creative direction of the show. They edit and approve all the scripts, and hire all the directors. Sometimes, they may write and/or direct certain episodes themselves, but this does not mean they had no creative control over the episodes they didn't write or direct. This fact would not change even if they didn't have a writing or directing credit on a single episode. It would just mean they chose not to write or direct any individual episodes. They would still possess overall creative control over the show. There is nothing strange or new about how George Lucas approached his role as executive producer of The Clone Wars. He hired writers, brought them together so he could break the stories to them, talk about how those stories should be structured as scripts, and then assigned individual people to write those scripts. This is a very standard process for creating television. Had George Lucas chosen, he could have written one or more of the scripts himself, giving him some degree of greater individual control over those individual scripts, but he did not, just as most executive producers on TV shows choose not to do for the majority of the scripts that must be written for a show. This does not mean that he did not have creative control of the show. Vince Gilligan only has writing credits on 13 out of 62 episodes of Breaking Bad. This does not mean Vince Gilligan only had creative control over 21% of Breaking Bad. He had creative control over the entire show. This would remain true had he written 47, 13, 6, or 0 out of 62 episodes, because it is not the number of episode writing credits which determines creative control over a television production. This is not controversial, this is literally just the way things work on literally every television show. I know none of this will probably make any difference to you, but you're operating on an absurd misunderstanding on a basic aspect of television production in general, and using it to make a very weird specific argument against George Lucas having creative control over the show for which he was as active an executive producer as you could ask for--running the writer's room, editing and approving scripts, supervising the production process at every stage, even calling in to recording sessions to make last-minute line edits. You are wrong, and you are wrong in a way that should be embarrassing for you. You simply do not know what you are talking about. You should listen to me when I tell you this instead of doubling down. I know people who work in television and I know how it works. Are you done yet? Because your self aggrandizing is rather nauseating. I am so incredibly tired of repeating myself with you, so this will be the last time I do it. For what feels like the hundredth time... I have acknowledged over and over and over and over in this thread Lucas’s involvement in the show. His creative involvement in the show, that there are parts of the Clone Wars that come directly from him, that carry on his story and mythology. Once again... the problem that I have continuously spoken too is what parts are Lucas’s story, and what parts are the creative freedoms that Lucas allows Filoni and the writers. Lucas was not involved in the day to day operations of the show. FFS, the comment you are replying too was not some single, one off comment I made. It is part of the larger discussion and points I’ve been making that’s been going on for pages now, about Lucas’s role in the show combined with Filoni and the writers, and how that may connect to the T-canon given to TCW and not G-canon. This mix of creative talents, all bringing their own views and bias to the show may have been enough to keep the show separate from the movies in canon. We see this in how Filoni portrayed the Jedi being at fault in the show which seemingly runs opposite of what Lucas has said about the Jedi. These inconsistencies between the creative talents that put together the show may have been enough to keep TCW from g-canon status as LFL knew Lucas would never beholden himself to something someone else wrote even if he gave it his approval. The simple fact is that Lucas has not written a single show, ppl associated with the show have routinely said that Lucas (for the most part) was just giving them the “broad beats” and “directives” of the story, no full on fleshed out storylines. He left that up to the writers. Obviously there were some stories that he was involved with more than others. One writer for the “rookies” episode said that all he got from Lucas was make an episode about the clones. Whereas that same writer that wrote the Mortis Arc said that Lucas was very involved and spent quite a bit of time with the writer answering his questions. Once again, what parts of the Mortis Arc are Lucas’s? Which aren’t? He did not write the episode so we cannot assume all of it is how Lucas would have gone as he clearly allowed Filoni and crew a lot of creative freedom. I am so happy you know ppl in TV. Good for you! I am quite content with the argument I’ve laid out over the pages of this thread. Not embarrassed one bit. I guess I should be embarrassed though as you, the upmost authority on TV shows, because you know people, has told me I should be... lmao.
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Post by thephantomcalamari on Dec 31, 2020 11:16:50 GMT
Cryo, you know as well as anyone that I could argue about this indefinitely if I actually wanted to. I don't want to. I'm not getting anything out of this discussion. It's absurd. e: Okay, I have to chime in here. Mike, this is literally just you not understanding what a television executive producer is and does. In television, the executive producer is like the director of a movie. They determine the overall creative direction of the show. They edit and approve all the scripts, and hire all the directors. Sometimes, they may write and/or direct certain episodes themselves, but this does not mean they had no creative control over the episodes they didn't write or direct. This fact would not change even if they didn't have a writing or directing credit on a single episode. It would just mean they chose not to write or direct any individual episodes. They would still possess overall creative control over the show. There is nothing strange or new about how George Lucas approached his role as executive producer of The Clone Wars. He hired writers, brought them together so he could break the stories to them, talk about how those stories should be structured as scripts, and then assigned individual people to write those scripts. This is a very standard process for creating television. Had George Lucas chosen, he could have written one or more of the scripts himself, giving him some degree of greater individual control over those individual scripts, but he did not, just as most executive producers on TV shows choose not to do for the majority of the scripts that must be written for a show. This does not mean that he did not have creative control of the show. Vince Gilligan only has writing credits on 13 out of 62 episodes of Breaking Bad. This does not mean Vince Gilligan only had creative control over 21% of Breaking Bad. He had creative control over the entire show. This would remain true had he written 47, 13, 6, or 0 out of 62 episodes, because it is not the number of episode writing credits which determines creative control over a television production. This is not controversial, this is literally just the way things work on literally every television show. I know none of this will probably make any difference to you, but you're operating on an absurd misunderstanding on a basic aspect of television production in general, and using it to make a very weird specific argument against George Lucas having creative control over the show for which he was as active an executive producer as you could ask for--running the writer's room, editing and approving scripts, supervising the production process at every stage, even calling in to recording sessions to make last-minute line edits. You are wrong, and you are wrong in a way that should be embarrassing for you. You simply do not know what you are talking about. You should listen to me when I tell you this instead of doubling down. I know people who work in television and I know how it works. Are you done yet? Because your self aggrandizing is rather nauseating. I am so incredibly tired of repeating myself with you, so this will be the last time I do it. For what feels like the hundredth time... I have acknowledged over and over and over and over in this thread Lucas’s involvement in the show. His creative involvement in the show, that there are parts of the Clone Wars that come directly from him, that carry on his story and mythology. Once again... the problem that I have continuously spoken too is what parts are Lucas’s story, and what parts are the creative freedoms that Lucas allows Filoni and the writers. Lucas was not involved in the day to day operations of the show. FFS, the comment you are replying too was not some single, one off comment I made. It is part of the larger discussion and points I’ve been making that’s been going on for pages now, about Lucas’s role in the show combined with Filoni and the writers, and how that may connect to the T-canon given to TCW and not G-canon. This mix of creative talents, all bringing their own views and bias to the show may have been enough to keep the show separate from the movies in canon. We see this in how Filoni portrayed the Jedi being at fault in the show which seemingly runs opposite of what Lucas has said about the Jedi. These inconsistencies between the creative talents that put together the show may have been enough to keep TCW from g-canon status as LFL knew Lucas would never beholden himself to something someone else wrote even if he gave it his approval. The simple fact is that Lucas has not written a single show, ppl associated with the show have routinely said that Lucas (for the most part) was just giving them the “broad beats” and “directives” of the story, no full on fleshed out storylines. He left that up to the writers. Obviously there were some stories that he was involved with more than others. One writer for the “rookies” episode said that all he got from Lucas was make an episode about the clones. Whereas that same writer that wrote the Mortis Arc said that Lucas was very involved and spent quite a bit of time with the writer answering his questions. Once again, what parts of the Mortis Arc are Lucas’s? Which aren’t? He did not write the episode so we cannot assume all of it is how Lucas would have gone as he clearly allowed Filoni and crew a lot of creative freedom. I am so happy you know ppl in TV. Good for you! I am quite content with the argument I’ve laid out over the pages of this thread. Not embarrassed one bit. I guess I should be embarrassed though as you, the upmost authority on TV shows, because you know people, has told me I should be... lmao. Yes, again, this is what an executive producer does. Sometimes they establish broad story beats and then leave it to the individual writer to flesh out more specific details of the plot. Sometimes they go into more initial detail in the way the story should unfold. But they always review the script, make changes as they see fit, and then approve or reject it based on whether they're satisfied that it conforms to their vision for the production. None of this is unusual, nor is it meaningful to establishing whether or not Lucas feels artistic ownership over the end product. It's essentially the same thing as Lucas giving Lawrence Kasdan a broad directive to write a love scene between Han and Leia. Lucas still has complete creative control over the final shape that love scene takes, even if he didn't write it or even conceive many details of it, because he gets to decide whether it conforms to his vision or not, or whether it needs changes. This is what television executive producers do and how they work. It's completely standard. I'm trying to tell you about something which I understand and you clearly don't, because you appear to think Lucas engaging in the normal activities of an executive producer of a television show has any bearing on your argument (whatever that argument even is at this point). I'm sorry this is making you angry.
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Post by Cryogenic on Dec 31, 2020 11:39:31 GMT
Happy to discuss anything else -- or happy to keep being condescending and using poor math? To assert that no-one else is "buying it", except Mike and I, is pretty rude and silly. By my reckoning, there are only four people discussing the topic in here: Me, Mike, Alex, and you. Two people are of one opinion, the other two are of an opposing opinion. That means there's a 50/50 split. I'm sure a few other people here would be inclined to agree with you and Alex, but they haven't said a word thus far. So that just leaves us sorry four. I don't like it when someone keeps resorting to sarcasm and condescension and tries to elevate their opinion with shallow tactics over someone else. I think it speaks to an inherent weakness in that person's position. There's no reason to be so childish or supercilious just because you think you're right. Cryo, you know as well as anyone that I could argue about this indefinitely if I actually wanted to. I don't want to. I'm not getting anything out of this discussion. It's absurd. Then why do you keep chipping in? You already asserted the following in prior posts: Okay, Cryo. Obviously this is something I'm not going to convince you about. To each their own. Yet you continue to interject and now double down with sarcasm and condescension. Either you've said your piece or you haven't. It can't be both. And yet, once again, there is not one single episode written by George Lucas. Not one. Once again, I have provided actual quotes from Filoni and others that worked on the show, that said Lucas gave the overall beats of what he wanted and left it up to them to write. I will take their word for it over your "pictures" that only prove Lucas was in a room. Okay, I have to chime in here. Mike, this is literally just you not understanding what a television executive producer is and does. In television, the executive producer is like the director of a movie. They determine the overall creative direction of the show. They edit and approve all the scripts, and hire all the directors. Sometimes, they may write and/or direct certain episodes themselves, but this does not mean they had no creative control over the episodes they didn't write or direct. This fact would not change even if they didn't have a writing or directing credit on a single episode. It would just mean they chose not to write or direct any individual episodes. They would still possess overall creative control over the show. [...] You are wrong, and you are wrong in a way that should be embarrassing for you. You simply do not know what you are talking about. You should listen to me when I tell you this instead of doubling down. I know people who work in television and I know how it works. Oh, brother. This is like a prequel basher proclaiming they "know" what "good filmmaking is", or they have a degree in "English Literature", or whatever, and so they have the "authority" to recognise that the prequels are "objectively bad movies". Cute that you know people in the industry. Happy it works for you. But unfortunately, your anecdotal wisdom doesn't really address the cogent observations that Mike has made. George Lucas certainly left his mark on TCW, and I don't think anyone's disputing that. He came up with the basic concept, wrote stories, approved various characters and plot elements, and shaped the overall direction of the show. However, there's a difference between a showrunner and an executive producer, which you should know: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_producerA little bit more on what a showrunner is/does: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShowrunnerGeorge Lucas and Dave Filoni were executive producers on TCW. Dave Filoni (along with Henry Gilroy -- initially, anyway) was also the showrunner (which even the TV Tropes entry lists as an example). Lucas delegated him this role and left Filoni to call most of the shots and oversee the day-to-day running of the series. George Lucas being George Lucas, of course he couldn't help but stay involved, sometimes ramping up his involvement and having a strong(er) creative hand in particular episodes or seasons. But Filoni was the one making most of the decisions because Lucas handed that responsibility to him. Just run a quick Google search and you'll run into a slew of articles where Filoni is referred to as the showrunner. Here's a few from this year: www.gamesradar.com/uk/star-wars-clone-wars-season-8-dave-filoni-probably-not/www.thathashtagshow.com/2020/06/10/how-star-wars-showrunner-dave-filoni-met-george-lucas/www.comicbookmovie.com/tv/star_wars/the_clone_wars/the-clone-wars-series-is-definitely-over-according-to-showrunner-dave-filoni-a175994#gs.pdluhmepicstream.com/news/TinyDiapana/Star-Wars-The-Clone-Wars-Showrunner-Dave-Filoni-On-The-Questions-The-Finale-Answerswinteriscoming.net/2020/07/13/star-wars-the-clone-wars-dave-filoni-finale-anakin-ahsoka-rex-maul/www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/tv/star-wars-clone-wars-showrunner-dave-filoni-says-there-will-%E2%80%9Cprobably-not%E2%80%9D-be-another-season/ar-BB15nTwjwww.cinemablend.com/television/2548236/star-wars-the-clone-wars-showrunner-clears-up-order-66-plot-holegeektyrant.com/news/the-clone-wars-showrunner-dave-filoni-hints-that-ahsoka-tano-is-still-alive-in-the-star-wars-universeSome more links preceding the sale to Disney in 2012 where Filoni is referred to as the showrunner: www.scifinow.co.uk/interviews/george-lucas-and-dave-filoni-talk-star-wars-the-clone-wars-2/www.scifinow.co.uk/interviews/star-wars-interview-james-arnold-taylor/www.thehdroom.com/news/star-wars-the-clone-wars-season-4-interview-with-showrunner-dave-filoni-38212/www.thehdroom.com/news/star-wars-the-clone-wars-season-4-interview-with-catherine-taber-38217/Arguably, the whole point of TCW was it being an experiment in Lucas handing off the reins of his franchise to a natural successor: one whom he could mentor and mold to carry on his legacy, in a way not too dissimilar to what was intended to be the main motif of the sequel trilogy (i.e., one generation passing the wisdom of the Jedi on to the next). This makes perfect sense given that Lucas was technically "done" with the main saga, but wanted to tell a few more stories and grow the brand of Star Wars in a post-PT popular-culture geek-franchise space, where new possibilities were opening up in television and audio-visual media (e.g., video games, streaming services, and video-sharing platforms like YouTube). This might be why an intermediate level of canon was created in the Holocron: the aforementioned T-canon classification. TCW had Lucas' blessing and he was involved in the development of the show in a way totally unlike anything he'd ever embarked on (outside of the movies) before. But it wasn't quite at movie-level, either. Better than what had come before in the TV domain, but lacking the gravity and betrothal quality of the films (Lucas had previously asserted that making films as writer, producer, and director is like a marriage: requiring his absolute, unstinting commitment, taking several years of his life to complete, and being something he'd probably "have to live with" for the rest of his life thereafter). But in your desire to thunder back at opponents and belittle them, it seems to have escaped your attention that TCW was essentially a transitional, interregnum sandbox, with more than one creative head: a franchise-expanding chimera, if you like. With Lucas finding a balance between his creative and overseer impulses, where he gave himself the luxury of sitting back and handing the bulk of the responsibility (for bringing the show to fruition) to other people. Thus, again, the unique level of canon in the Holocron generated specifically for the show (and for future shows where it was imagined that additional ones would follow the same production template and creative-overseer arrangement from The Maker himself).
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Post by mikeximus on Dec 31, 2020 11:52:13 GMT
Are you done yet? Because your self aggrandizing is rather nauseating. I am so incredibly tired of repeating myself with you, so this will be the last time I do it. For what feels like the hundredth time... I have acknowledged over and over and over and over in this thread Lucas’s involvement in the show. His creative involvement in the show, that there are parts of the Clone Wars that come directly from him, that carry on his story and mythology. Once again... the problem that I have continuously spoken too is what parts are Lucas’s story, and what parts are the creative freedoms that Lucas allows Filoni and the writers. Lucas was not involved in the day to day operations of the show. FFS, the comment you are replying too was not some single, one off comment I made. It is part of the larger discussion and points I’ve been making that’s been going on for pages now, about Lucas’s role in the show combined with Filoni and the writers, and how that may connect to the T-canon given to TCW and not G-canon. This mix of creative talents, all bringing their own views and bias to the show may have been enough to keep the show separate from the movies in canon. We see this in how Filoni portrayed the Jedi being at fault in the show which seemingly runs opposite of what Lucas has said about the Jedi. These inconsistencies between the creative talents that put together the show may have been enough to keep TCW from g-canon status as LFL knew Lucas would never beholden himself to something someone else wrote even if he gave it his approval. The simple fact is that Lucas has not written a single show, ppl associated with the show have routinely said that Lucas (for the most part) was just giving them the “broad beats” and “directives” of the story, no full on fleshed out storylines. He left that up to the writers. Obviously there were some stories that he was involved with more than others. One writer for the “rookies” episode said that all he got from Lucas was make an episode about the clones. Whereas that same writer that wrote the Mortis Arc said that Lucas was very involved and spent quite a bit of time with the writer answering his questions. Once again, what parts of the Mortis Arc are Lucas’s? Which aren’t? He did not write the episode so we cannot assume all of it is how Lucas would have gone as he clearly allowed Filoni and crew a lot of creative freedom. I am so happy you know ppl in TV. Good for you! I am quite content with the argument I’ve laid out over the pages of this thread. Not embarrassed one bit. I guess I should be embarrassed though as you, the upmost authority on TV shows, because you know people, has told me I should be... lmao. Yes, again, this is what an executive producer does. Sometimes they establish broad story beats and then leave it to the individual writer to flesh out more specific details of the plot. Sometimes they go into more initial detail in the way the story should unfold. But they always review the script, make changes as they see fit, and then approve or reject it based on whether they're satisfied that it conforms to their vision for the production. None of this is unusual, nor is it meaningful to establishing whether or not Lucas feels artistic ownership over the end product. It's essentially the same thing as Lucas giving Lawrence Kasdan a broad directive to write a love scene between Han and Leia. Lucas still has complete creative control over the final shape that love scene takes, even if he didn't write it or even conceive many details of it, because he gets to decide whether it conforms to his vision or not, or whether it needs changes. This is what television executive producers do and how they work. It's completely standard. I'm trying to tell you about something which I understand and you clearly don't, because you appear to think Lucas engaging in the normal activities of an executive producer of a television show has any bearing on your argument (whatever that argument even is at this point). I'm sorry this is making you angry. No.. you are presuming I don’t understand something, and your presumption is wrong. Your presumptions just make you look arrogant and pompous. The conversation has had nothing to do with what an executive producer does or doesn’t do. This whole conversation about T-Canon was started by me. The how’s and why’s of TCW getting T-Canon and not G-canon was started by me pointing out that Lucas was not involved in the day to day operations of TCW like so many believed he was, that there is no way to separate the materials in TCW down to their creators. Lucas owned LFL and Star Wars. He could have sat in his PJ’s, watching porn, rubbed one off, and still call himself executive producer, and he would have been in his rights to do so. This conversation has never been about whether he was following his role as an executive producer or not. It has always been about how much of the show Thebes, stories, characters etc etc etc are his, Filoni’s , or whatever writer that was chosen to write that episode or arc. This executive producer argument is just you thinking you have some Eric Cartman “respect my authority” moment because you “know people” and that gives you some kind of authoritative power to call me out on a tooic that has nothing to do with what is being discussed. All you’re doing is injecting information and a straw man argument into the discussion that was never part of the conversation at all, and has nothing to do with what the conversation was about. Now plz, go take your big wheel for a ride.
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Post by thephantomcalamari on Jan 1, 2021 12:27:16 GMT
Cryo, you know as well as anyone that I could argue about this indefinitely if I actually wanted to. I don't want to. I'm not getting anything out of this discussion. It's absurd. Then why do you keep chipping in? You already asserted the following in prior posts: Okay, Cryo. Obviously this is something I'm not going to convince you about. To each their own. Yet you continue to interject and now double down with sarcasm and condescension. Either you've said your piece or you haven't. It can't be both. Okay, I have to chime in here. Mike, this is literally just you not understanding what a television executive producer is and does. In television, the executive producer is like the director of a movie. They determine the overall creative direction of the show. They edit and approve all the scripts, and hire all the directors. Sometimes, they may write and/or direct certain episodes themselves, but this does not mean they had no creative control over the episodes they didn't write or direct. This fact would not change even if they didn't have a writing or directing credit on a single episode. It would just mean they chose not to write or direct any individual episodes. They would still possess overall creative control over the show. [...] You are wrong, and you are wrong in a way that should be embarrassing for you. You simply do not know what you are talking about. You should listen to me when I tell you this instead of doubling down. I know people who work in television and I know how it works. Oh, brother. This is like a prequel basher proclaiming they "know" what "good filmmaking is", or they have a degree in "English Literature", or whatever, and so they have the "authority" to recognise that the prequels are "objectively bad movies". Cute that you know people in the industry. Happy it works for you. But unfortunately, your anecdotal wisdom doesn't really address the cogent observations that Mike has made. George Lucas certainly left his mark on TCW, and I don't think anyone's disputing that. He came up with the basic concept, wrote stories, approved various characters and plot elements, and shaped the overall direction of the show. However, there's a difference between a showrunner and an executive producer, which you should know: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_producerA little bit more on what a showrunner is/does: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShowrunnerGeorge Lucas and Dave Filoni were executive producers on TCW. Dave Filoni (along with Henry Gilroy -- initially, anyway) was also the showrunner (which even the TV Tropes entry lists as an example). Lucas delegated him this role and left Filoni to call most of the shots and oversee the day-to-day running of the series. George Lucas being George Lucas, of course he couldn't help but stay involved, sometimes ramping up his involvement and having a strong(er) creative hand in particular episodes or seasons. But Filoni was the one making most of the decisions because Lucas handed that responsibility to him. Just run a quick Google search and you'll run into a slew of articles where Filoni is referred to as the showrunner. Here's a few from this year: www.gamesradar.com/uk/star-wars-clone-wars-season-8-dave-filoni-probably-not/www.thathashtagshow.com/2020/06/10/how-star-wars-showrunner-dave-filoni-met-george-lucas/www.comicbookmovie.com/tv/star_wars/the_clone_wars/the-clone-wars-series-is-definitely-over-according-to-showrunner-dave-filoni-a175994#gs.pdluhmepicstream.com/news/TinyDiapana/Star-Wars-The-Clone-Wars-Showrunner-Dave-Filoni-On-The-Questions-The-Finale-Answerswinteriscoming.net/2020/07/13/star-wars-the-clone-wars-dave-filoni-finale-anakin-ahsoka-rex-maul/www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/tv/star-wars-clone-wars-showrunner-dave-filoni-says-there-will-%E2%80%9Cprobably-not%E2%80%9D-be-another-season/ar-BB15nTwjwww.cinemablend.com/television/2548236/star-wars-the-clone-wars-showrunner-clears-up-order-66-plot-holegeektyrant.com/news/the-clone-wars-showrunner-dave-filoni-hints-that-ahsoka-tano-is-still-alive-in-the-star-wars-universeSome more links preceding the sale to Disney in 2012 where Filoni is referred to as the showrunner: www.scifinow.co.uk/interviews/george-lucas-and-dave-filoni-talk-star-wars-the-clone-wars-2/www.scifinow.co.uk/interviews/star-wars-interview-james-arnold-taylor/www.thehdroom.com/news/star-wars-the-clone-wars-season-4-interview-with-showrunner-dave-filoni-38212/www.thehdroom.com/news/star-wars-the-clone-wars-season-4-interview-with-catherine-taber-38217/Arguably, the whole point of TCW was it being an experiment in Lucas handing off the reins of his franchise to a natural successor: one whom he could mentor and mold to carry on his legacy, in a way not too dissimilar to what was intended to be the main motif of the sequel trilogy (i.e., one generation passing the wisdom of the Jedi on to the next). This makes perfect sense given that Lucas was technically "done" with the main saga, but wanted to tell a few more stories and grow the brand of Star Wars in a post-PT popular-culture geek-franchise space, where new possibilities were opening up in television and audio-visual media (e.g., video games, streaming services, and video-sharing platforms like YouTube). This might be why an intermediate level of canon was created in the Holocron: the aforementioned T-canon classification. TCW had Lucas' blessing and he was involved in the development of the show in a way totally unlike anything he'd ever embarked on (outside of the movies) before. But it wasn't quite at movie-level, either. Better than what had come before in the TV domain, but lacking the gravity and betrothal quality of the films (Lucas had previously asserted that making films as writer, producer, and director is like a marriage: requiring his absolute, unstinting commitment, taking several years of his life to complete, and being something he'd probably "have to live with" for the rest of his life thereafter). But in your desire to thunder back at opponents and belittle them, it seems to have escaped your attention that TCW was essentially a transitional, interregnum sandbox, with more than one creative head: a franchise-expanding chimera, if you like. With Lucas finding a balance between his creative and overseer impulses, where he gave himself the luxury of sitting back and handing the bulk of the responsibility (for bringing the show to fruition) to other people. Thus, again, the unique level of canon in the Holocron generated specifically for the show (and for future shows where it was imagined that additional ones would follow the same production template and creative-overseer arrangement from The Maker himself). Cryo, you don't know what you're talking about either, despite doing a bit of frantic Googling as I see you have. I don't care what Dave Filoni is referred to in articles written about him. His official title is supervising director, and though he took on certain duties that might define him as a showrunner, so did George Lucas, and George Lucas was creatively in charge. Again, using Vince Gilligan, who was executive producer and showrunner of Breaking Bad, as an example: His job was to run the writer's room, edit and approve scripts, maintain the overall tone and consistency of the show, and supervise the show throughout various stages of production, among other duties. Sounds a lot like what George Lucas did, no? The title of showrunner is generally used to differentiate between the person who is actually creatively responsible for the show (who usually also takes on the title of executive producer, which Dave Filoni significantly did not during George's tenure) from a person who simply retains the title of executive producer because they created, financed, or played some other less creatively significant but otherwise important role in the show's creation or production. That was not the case with The Clone Wars, and that's why Dave Filoni's title was "supervising director"--he was halfway between being a showrunner and being a director. George Lucas was creatively in charge and took on some of the most important duties of the showrunner, such as running the writer's room and taking ultimate responsibility for setting the creative direction of the show. George did not simply finance the show and then screw off with his E.P. title--he remained actively involved in what anyone in the industry would consider to be a showrunner capacity. This is why Dave Filoni always emphasized in interviews that George was heavily involved in the show and that George was ultimately responsible for everything that ended up on the screen. This was the truth, not a lie. And again, we come back to the fact that we have George Lucas on record as saying he does not differentiate between the films and The Clone Wars, the topic which this discussion was ostensibly about, despite being intentionally derailed onto another tangential topic in order to deflect from you having to contend with this bit of irrefutable evidence. I know you would have us believe that George Lucas was simply saying he didn't distinguish his films from The Clone Wars in terms of style, tone, and thematic content, not in terms of "canonicity," but we all know that these are all the same thing from George's perspective. George would never, ever, ever conflate any other Star Wars product with the films in such a definitive way were he not to truly mean it on every level. You and I both know this. You are just choosing to pretend you believe otherwise, for reasons that I truly can't fathom. You and Mike would apparently have us believe that George Lucas's statement that he didn't differentiate his films from The Clone Wars must have had a completely non-intuitive meaning that renders Dave Filoni and several others either liars or very badly mistaken, but you and Mike completely and conveniently correct. Alternatively, I am saying that George Lucas meant exactly what he said in exactly the way most people would interpret it, and that when he appeared to be saying exactly what Dave Filoni said he told him on multiple occasions over the course of more than half a decade, he in fact was saying it. Let's apply Occam's razor to both statements and see where that gets us. My only conclusion is that you and Mike have some sort of emotional or ideological reasoning for wanting to deny Lucas's full embrace of The Clone Wars as part his authorial canon. I don't know exactly why, but I do know now that that is what is essentially going on. As for whether I intended to bow out of the discussion or not--I did, because I wanted to avoid saying what I'm saying now. But you've goaded me into it, so here it is. I don't know why it means so much to you to avoid such an obvious reality, but surprise surprise, when you insist on doing things like this, it tends to irritate. You know I've greatly disagreed with you before, and that's been absolutely no issue, because I knew you were operating in good faith. That is not the case here, because I feel you are not operating in good faith, and I feel that that is very disrespectful on a personal level, even if this is a silly online discussion about Star Wars minutiae. Now, my irritation with you and Mike extends not a centimeter further than the bounds of this discussion, but within these bounds, boy is it great and mighty. I consider this whole thing to be an insulting exercise in sophistry. I might actually be done at this point, because I'm not sure what else more I can possibly say (except Happy New Year).
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Post by Cryogenic on Jan 1, 2021 14:56:30 GMT
Cryo, you don't know what you're talking about either, despite doing a bit of frantic Googling as I see you have. Thanks. But I think I do. At the end of the day, this just boils down to different opinions. You even recognised that earlier (somewhat), when you said, "To each their own". But since then, you've obviously had a re-think and want to proselytise and scold further. Good LORD! Neither Mike nor I have argued differently on the matter. Your assertions here are plainly ridiculous -- because exactly what you just said has already been acknowledged. The show started more firmly under Lucas' care, with Lucas steering and mentoring his creatives, including Filoni, very closely. But over time, the situation changed. Once Lucas was confident that Filoni and his people knew what they were doing, he stepped back more, and at that point, Filoni basically became the de facto showrunner. Mike himself introduced a lengthy quote from Filoni himself, on the official site, that spelled this out. Here it is again: Back to you: No-one has asserted it was a "lie". Filoni had to have Lucas' approval. Mike and I have said this repeatedly. In fact, Mike, in particular, has gone out of his way to make it clear to you that he acknowledges that facet of the show, even though you and Alex have continually tried downplaying or outright strawmanning his position -- and, obviously, a strawmanned position is easier to attack and ridicule. Filoni had several titles when working on TCW. The Clone Wars Wiki, for instance, lists him as "supervising director, a writer, and executive producer". This article, on the other hand, describes him as "producer-scribe-supervising-director-animator". Clearly, he occupied a number of roles, second only to Lucas himself -- and then (as established above), some years into the production, he essentially became the showrunner (even if he still had to run any number of decisions by his boss George Lucas). For all intents and purposes, the show was basically entrusted to Filoni and passed on to a new generation of storytellers. This, I feel, was Lucas' underlying intent with TCW (and any subsequent spin-off projects) all along. There was absolutely no intentional "derailment" or avoidance of any topic from me or from Mike. It's pretty stupid you would hurl an accusation like this from out of nowhere. Mike is a very thorough debater. As am I. Even you and Alex are quite capable when you want to be. Just take a look at the length of the last couple of pages. Some of the posts are pretty voluminous. And I have done my best to painstakingly check and source every single quote I've used. In a lengthy discussion involving several impassioned participants, there will naturally be some slips -- and maybe a few items that one or more participants feels hasn't been adequately addressed. It happens. Obviously. But to imply wilful evasion is really lame and quite crass on your part. Indeed, you're the one who several times held your nose in the air and insinuated the whole discussion was beneath you; making out you were finished with the whole conversation. And now you come out with a piece of bullshit like this? Laughable. We're not having you "believe" anything -- it's simply the truth from our point of view. But Mike was right to say there was dishonesty on yours and Alex's parts for honing in on that one remark and dropping the surrounding context. In the interview itself, Lucas is clearly responding to a question about production quality. Is he using it as an opportunity to signal something about TCW's canonicity? Maybe. It's debatable. But first and foremost, when looking at his full set of remarks in that portion of the interview, he is obviously expressing pride at the high-quality nature of the show, and also affirming that the condensed run-time and animated format didn't hinder his creativity. So, yes, in a way, he gives the impression that the films and TCW are interchangeable with one another. That it's all one thing called "Star Wars". Sure. There's nothing controversial in that. But it's still possible to argue the point because he never resolutely said -- any time, ever, that I'm aware of -- that TCW was equally canonical with the films. That only (officially) came later after the sale to Disney and the restructuring of the EU. You may think we're being awkward and intransigent on that point and that's okay. But we're certainly not being disingenuous about it. It's disingenuous of you to imply we are. A lot of what Lucas says and does has either a non-obvious or non-intuitive meaning. That's what has kept us all returning to the deep well of his saga and his other works for so long. The "liar" term is again your ignominious assumption/projection. Nobody is calling Dave Filoni a liar. He's one of the most significant creatives that Lucasfilm has ever had, and he should be proud of what he has added to the tapestry of this sprawling mythology and multimedia giant we love. However, I don't think that Dave Filoni is free of ego or above painting a narrative that is favourable to himself and his efforts -- who is? Congratulations for your Jedi-like powers of perception. Everyone applies some form of emotional or ideological reasoning here. It's fucking Star Wars -- not civil engineering. Equally, I could accuse you of being hostile to our reasoning in favour of your own. Believe it or not, but it's possible for several people to look at something and come to a different conclusion about what it means or could mean. Perhaps you need to familiarise yourself with the parable of the blind men and the elephant? Goaded you? Own your damn choices instead of shifting blame onto others. You're the one that kept purring you were done with the discussion and that everything being said (by Mike and I) was "absurd". How is you choosing to come back and opine more on the topic all of a sudden, and spew more fallacies in our direction, our fault? Wanted to avoid saying? Yeah, you're a hero, sparing us the horrible lash of your tongue all that time, even when you were being blatantly smug and contentious and obviously trying to goad us into lashing back before: The same can be said of every other of their canon tiers. Why are they necessary when all those stories were not canon to "their boss"? But their boss isn't George Lucas. Their boss was Howard Roffman, the person who was in charge of Licensing and their works. Nonsense. George Lucas clearly insisted on the creation of an S-canon categorization. Do you have any idea how many meetings it took to hash that out? He missed multiple kids' birthdays for it. Or when you told Mike he should be "embarrassed" for standing by his own opinions and that you were blessed by the Holy Water of insider knowledge: You are wrong, and you are wrong in a way that should be embarrassing for you. You simply do not know what you are talking about. You should listen to me when I tell you this instead of doubling down. I know people who work in television and I know how it works. Back to your latest holy offering: Get out of town with that condescending, self-pitying crap. If anyone is operating from a bad faith position, it's you -- accusing us of calling Dave Filoni a "liar", of intentional thread derailment, of "pretending" to believe otherwise about our own opinions, of using "emotional or ideological reasoning"; and on top of all this, you have the nerve to mock and belittle statements we've made, and you've even tried to shame us from continuing, because our lack of knowledge of the entertainment industry is "embarrassing" while yours is (of course) far superior (so superior that it apparently means discussion should end). And that is your own doing. You made this personal. Not us. Yeah, well, you keep saying that, so... By the way: I don't consider it an insulting exercise in sophistry. I consider it a conversation. One that you have repeatedly tried to usurp and claim the high ground over (no wonder it's one of my favourite prequel lines). That, of course, is not how good faith discussion is meant to proceed. Adults should strive to put their points across, and if there are divides in opinion, to calmly disagree. I haven't always managed this, but I can certainly recognise when shallow tactics are being used and arrogant posturing has taken the place of sincere debate.
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