What false points? You made claims and I discussed them, and corrected the ones that were false. You claimed that TCW was not on the same level of canon as the movies and that's not true. George Lucas himself didn't make a distinction between the two, precisely because he was heavily involved. Then you move the goal posts over being deeply involved (Compared to what? How much depth of involvement is enough to be considered deep involvement?), then to what fans consider deeply involved (which fans? are we included?), then to "day to day" (who even thinks that?) then you claim that Lucas is contradicting himself with what was established in TCW when there's no evidence that that's the case. Now you're claiming that Shadows of the Empire content was used in the SEs when it was the other way around and we are mischaracterizing you?
As far as Lucas' involvement in The Clone Wars series [2008 iteration], it was massive. Stories and outcomes came from him, he was involved in all aspects of it, and he was constantly calling Filoni and giving him more ideas and changes. Here's some quotes regarding his involvement -
"George is so involved with the show, I'm not sure a lot of people realize that," Filoni said.
"I kind of liken his involvement in the show with what his involvement in 'Empire Strikes Back' or 'Return of the Jedi' was. Yes, I'm the overall supervising director of the series, [but]
George Lucas drives this whole thing. The story ideas, everything we do, it either originates with George or it goes through him for sure. Nothing gets up on that screen that he is not happy with or aware of."
'"Star Wars" is still an active item in his daily thoughts, and his notes for the "Clone Wars" team get very specific.'
'The fear with anything Lucas involves himself with -- he's always said that his word is gospel as far as the franchise goes -- is that something fundamental in the EU, something that fans love, runs the risk of being changed in some way.'"Obviously [George is] aware of the EU," Filoni said. "He is the creator of the universe for 'Star Wars' and he's got things he wants to do. We discuss a lot of the different characters and whatnot in the EU and it's really 'are we going to do that?' It's the same way the [new trilogy was] made.
It's not really beholden to [the EU], but it's always considered."
~ Dave Filoni MTV Interview, 'George Lucas Drives This Whole Thing', 2008
www.mtv.com/news/2435334/star-wars-the-clone-wars-supervising-director-dave-filoni-george-lucas-drives-this-whole-thing/..
"While Lucasfilm always strived to keep the stories created for the EU consistent with our film and television content as well as internally consistent, Lucas always made it clear that he was not beholden to the EU. He set the films he created as the canon. This includes the six Star Wars episodes, and the many hours of content he developed and produced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. These stories are the immovable objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all other tales must align."~ Lucasfilm, 2014 Announcement
www.starwars.com/news/the-legendary-star-wars-expanded-universe-turns-a-new-page[Disney didn't 'decanonize' a thing.]
"But Lucas allows for an Expanded Universe that
exists parallel to the one he directly oversees. […] Though these [Expanded Universe] stories may get his stamp of approval,
they don’t enter his canon unless they are depicted cinematically in one of his projects.”
~ Pablo Hidalgo, Star Wars: The Essential Reader’s Companion, 2012
"
George Lucas is involved from the initial story idea until the final sound mix. It's George's show. My job is to execute his vision."
George wanted a process where he could be involved creatively at every step."
~ Henry Gilroy, Head Writer TCW, Star Wars Insider 103
..
"
George always treated our animation on Clone Wars the same way he treated film, it’s all part of his story. At times there’s a tendency to treat animation as an “other” or as something for kids, and that’s not been my experience at Lucasfilm. We are telling stories and we happen to use the medium of animation to tell them."
~ Dave Filoni Interview, 'How George saw The Clone Wars series' [2008 itertion] AnimationMagazine.net, Feb. 23rd, 2018
..
IGN: I'm sure you're well aware that Star Wars fans get sort of hung up sometimes, wanting to know, "Is this canon. Is this official?" Do you consider this part of the official canon and does it tie in with the previous animated Clone Wars shorts? Do you think that the events in those shorts did indeed happen in the continuity of your show?"Well, that is one of the pivotal, galactic centers of the Star Wars debate. It always is. I think for me personally, to think of something I'm doing as canon, much like to think of myself working on this, is sometimes like, "Wow, really?"
But because of George's involvement, because I have him around all the time, and he very much feels like these stories are an extension of what he did theatrically… If fans want to get into that canon debate,
I would lean that it is canon, because it's coming from George. This isn't a third party story. This is him working with us to continue the Star Wars saga.When George had the previous Clone Wars, it was very much an
experiment to see how would Star Wars work as an animated form. And he found out, through those fantastic shorts of high action and energy, that wow, there was a real audience for that, because you never know. Star Wars could work one way, and possibly not another. I try to look at all the material that's out there for Star Wars when we do these shows. I try to bring a lot of it to George's attention, because Star Wars expanded and it's huge now. There are times and dates for everything.
But we aren't bound by those times and dates, because George has his universe that he's creating.
I don't look at there being any explicit connection, as far as the timeline with the prior Clone Wars, because those are almost like tales in an exaggerated form -- Mace Windu taking out hundreds of battle droids, when he didn't do that in the arena [in Attack of the Clones] -- but they're still exciting stories. It's more like, as Obi Wan would say, depending on your point of view. It's a different point of view."
~ Dave Filoni IGN Interview - The Clone Wars, 2008
www.ign.com/articles/2008/10/02/star-wars-the-clone-wars-whats-to-come..
IGN: So George does an editorial pass on the episodes?"Absolutely. I will ask him for specific answers and he makes a pass once we get it edit ready for him. He is a brilliant editor. And the things he sees on where to move pieces of the story and move the puzzle around, [me and] my editor, Jason Tucker, we're always amazed because we will beat that thing up, and it's like we're in George's film school. So he'll do an episode and then we'll try and do things like that on the next one. And he'll come in and watch something once and go, "Well take this thing here and this thing there." And, we're like, "What? That's not going to work." And then, you're like, "Nah, it worked again." He really knows his stuff. It's like being in a really great film class when he comes in to do the episode. So we're really lucky there."
~ Dave Filoni IGN Interview - The Clone Wars, 2008
www.ign.com/articles/2008/10/02/star-wars-the-clone-wars-whats-to-come..
IGN: Where does each episode's story come from? Do you sit around and pitch ideas with writers?"Usually we go through an outline period with George Lucas and Henry Gilroy, who was the story editor of Season 1.
George says "Let's do a story about this," or we pitch it to him like, "Hey can we do a story about Yoda?", for example. We then work it out and Henry would have a writer come in that would take that. But we would hash it out and argue about certain things and what we would like to do.
Then that gets presented back to George. And again, because he's the creator of the universe, we really want to make sure it's what he wants to see happen with the characters, especially someone like Yoda. And George feels very strongly about Yoda.
We come up with these ideas and then we send it back to him, and then we
get a script with notes back on it from George. And once we start shooting it, more like a feature film, a lot of developments happen then, where we'll change dialogue in the editorial quite constantly if we have to, and George will come in and do his pass.
So it's a very alive process. We really try to improve the characters and grow them. And what I take away from it is that it really is the Star Wars storytelling process when you see it up on screen, so it's exciting. But as you can imagine, the arguments you can get into with people about what's Yoda going to be like and what's he going to fight like, and talking to these clones. But in a way, it's one of the most fun things to do."
~ Dave Filoni IGN Interview - The Clone Wars, 2008
www.ign.com/articles/2008/10/02/star-wars-the-clone-wars-whats-to-come..
IGN TV: You've got a big event starting off this Friday. Can you talk a bit about bringing the Mandalorians into the fold?"If you're a Star Wars fan,
you'll know what the Mandalorians are. If you are a casual fan, you'll just kinda think they look like a bunch of Boba Fetts. But it's a big deal to the fans who get into the lore. And it's something that's been
much debated and written about in the [Expanded Universe], and up until now, really,
I don't think George [Lucas] has ever really revealed his visual history of it or what really makes this Mandalorian culture tick. So that's what we're gonna see Friday. We're gonna see the planet; we're gonna see the people; we're gonna get a part of the history of where famous looking "T" visor helmet and armor comes from, which gives a little bit of insight into the bigger history of a very niche Star Wars area."
~ Dave Filoni, IGN Interview - The Clone Wars - The Mandolorians in Lucas Canon, 2010
www.ign.com/articles/2010/01/28/star-wars-are-you-ready-for-the-mandalorians..
IGN: The Clone Wars's Mandalorians look very similar to Jango Fett, with the blue outfits. Did you debate a lot about their appearance? As you mentioned, the EU has done a lot of different interpretations."Mandalore is one of those cases where I really wanted a lot of input from George and was lucky that he was willing to give it. Doing a Mandalorian arc was George's idea, so when it came down to what the Mandalorians look like, we had talked about making them white like the original supercommando Mandalorians were going to be in The Empire Strikes Back, but because of the clones we couldn't do that. It would be too confusing for the viewer.
It was George who told us to make them silver, black and blue, much like Jango, so it kind of inferred that Jango's supercommando armor is pretty similar to the ones seen worn by the guys at almost the same time. We couldn't do the white paint scheme that was originally intended for them back in the 70's because of the clones."
~ Dave Filoni, IGN Interview - The Clone Wars - The Mandolorians in Lucas Canon, 2010
www.ign.com/articles/2010/01/28/star-wars-are-you-ready-for-the-mandalorians..
IGN: And then another interesting introduction that you're doing in this storyline is Satine, who introduces a whole new side of Obi-Wan."Satine was an idea that was around for a while. We kicked it around in Season 1 a lot and [discussed] how can we introduce this very strong female character?
In the end, it was George, again, that put her on Mandalore and decided to make her the Duchess of Mandalore and create this whole pacifistic plotline, where she's this really high official/leader. To my mind, I kinda riffed off of Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth for the performance of Satine and some of the design. I just loved the way she carried herself in that film, and it was a big inspiration for how to do this character because to have a female character that'… I wanted her to stand right there with Obi-Wan Kenobi and be every bit as smart. Stand toe to toe with him and even be a bit wiser perhaps, and I think she does that really nicely.
As the episodes go on, we reveal more and more about their history and just what is it all about that they seem to know each other from the past. So that's a fun thing. And one of the things that we didn't really touch upon in Season 1 - expanding so much on a character like Obi-Wan Kenobi. But it definitely addresses some of the issues where people seem to think they know everything about these characters and everything about them and everything that's going to happen to them. I think this is a case where you'll find out that's just not the case, that there actually was something quite new to learn about Obi-Wan Kenobi."
~ Dave Filoni, IGN Interview - The Clone Wars - The Mandolorians in Lucas Canon, 2010
www.ign.com/articles/2010/01/28/star-wars-are-you-ready-for-the-mandalorians..
IGN: Well, speaking of lightsaber blades, that's an excellent segue for me, because we have an exclusive clip [see above!] running on IGN TV, featuring a very special lightsaber that is seen for the first time in Friday's episode."The Darksaber. That was a big deal.
And again that was an idea that came straight from George. Originally what Pre Vizsla was carrying was
something in the EU called a vibroblade; it's kind of an electric sword. George let me get away with it in the early phases of design and in the early shooting, but when the color came back and
he was watching the lightsaber we want to have combating this vibroblade, he said there's no way that can happen; there's no way that a non-lightsaber could block a lightsaber. So he had us do away with the vibroblade in that episode really late in the game,
and he created something called the Darksaber, which would be a black-bladed energy saber with a white edge. It has a crackle of electricity; it's kind of like a more ancient version of a lightsaber, and it's inferred in the episode that it's really one of a kind and that Pre Vizsla's ancestors stole it from the Jedi in the days of the Old Republic. So it's got all this neat history attached to it right away, and it sounds different.
Dave Acord and Matt Wood, we designed a special sound for it when it's fighting a lightsaber. It hums differently; it sings a little more, like a tuning fork. Also, a lightsaber if you look top down on it, it has a round blade all around; it's an energy beam. The Darksaber is flat like an actual sword, so it's thinner on one side and it's wider when you turn it. It's a really interesting thing
that George created for the Mandalorian to carry in the episode."
~ Dave Filoni, IGN Interview - The Clone Wars - The Mandolorians in Lucas Canon, 2010
ibb.co/89C2g39www.ign.com/articles/2010/01/28/star-wars-are-you-ready-for-the-mandalorians..
'When asked about Qunlan Vos and how he was used in the Clone Wars, Dave Filoni says essentially that Lucas likes artwork alot and he just saw him on the cover of a comic book and he liked the look of it but he goes on to explain that if he sees something that catches his eye, if he wants to use it he will but he will not be beholden to what the character was in the EU universe, he will do what he wants with the character, he doesn't know or care what they were like in the EU. This speaks to Aayla Secura, and anything he used from the EU, which were usually suggested to him by others because he didn't follow the EU.]'
How did he find Quinlan Vos?Dave Filoni - "He maybe picked up a comic book and said I like this guy,
but it doesn't mean he would be beholden to use that stuff as it was used [in the EU]. Mainly I found he liked the way something looked."
Pablo Hidalgo "Yeah, he's so visual.He gets first dibs on all Star Wars art that was ever made."
Dave Filoni -
"Anytime there's a real panic I'd go to Pablo and Leland and say "You're not gonna believe what we are doing... The Mandolorians are pacifists [What George Lucas told them]. How are we going to brace for this?"
[This was why the EU had to throw out Karen Traviss Mandolorian series, because Lucas's works also happen in the EU universe and if what he does conflicts with something they did in the EU universe, the EU universe had to change their stuff to comply with what Lucas said things were like, meaning that's how Lucas invisioned the Mandolorians and he didn't care how they may have been presented in the EU.]
The Untold Clone Wars Panel | Star Wars Celebration Anaheim, 2015
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yKM6RExLlI..
; What
George did with
the films and The Clone Wars was pretty much
his universe ,” Chee said. “
He didn’t really have that much concern for what we were doing in the books and games.
So the Expanded Universe was very much separate."
~ Leland Chee Interview, Continuity Database Adminstrator,SYFY WIRE Fandom Files#13, Jan, 2018
..
IGN: A really cool inclusion there were the zombie Geonosians [introduced in "Legacy of Terror"]. Who came up with that idea, and was that something that anyone was a little nervous about, content-wise? Or did you just say, "Let's go for it"?"Again, that was George. George came to us with all the Season 2 plots [Mandolorian story arc was in this season] . He wanted to do this and this, and he said, "This is a zombie episode." When you do a series, you're going to run into doing things you never thought of doing before, especially with something like Star Wars where people kinda put it into the hero's journey category of a myth, but there's so much more in a TV show you have to do to explore. It just became kind of, "Wow, this is really fun." And
it's so interesting that George is the one propelling us forward in that direction. But he always does that. He never just rests on what Star Wars is or was. He's always pushing for what it can be and how good can we make it. Zombie bugs; who knew? [Laughs] There's a lot of that in Season 2, where I'm like, "Wow, who knew? But this really works." It was fun.
It's fun to work with him." ~ Dave Filoni, IGN Interview - The Clone Wars - The Mandolorians in Lucas Canon, 2010
www.ign.com/articles/2010/01/28/star-wars-are-you-ready-for-the-mandalorians..
'What do you do to tie the Expanded Universe, the movies, the comics, and everything together?'
"At the end of the day it’s a rather simple formula.
The big thing that I’m held to is working with the films. George Lucas has his six “Star Wars” films which our series is meant to work in continuity with. He also has his many scripts that he’s written for the live-action “Star Wars” project that in different ways can affect certain things that we’ve done.
George works with us to make sure all the stories that he’s written over the years, the films, and his various TV projects work in concert with one another. I will bring up different things to George that I’ve read or that I know have happened in the comic books or the novels. It’s really up to him. He’s the final word on whether we continue with that line of thinking or whether we scrap it in favor of something new. In that way, those properties are very much an expanded universe
of ideas. Sometimes things cross over,
but for the most part our main and only real continuity is with the films themselves and the other feature projects."
~ Dave Filoni Interview about working with George Lucas on The Clone Wars series [2008], 2009
poptug.com/interview-clone-wars-supervising-director-dave-filoni-talks-about-working-with-george-lucas/......
Just to be clear about Lucas' thoughts on the EU -
"
And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn't at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn't come back to life,
the Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married."~ George Lucas,Total Film Magazine Interview, 2008
ibb.co/x5q1RrQ..
"I get asked all the time, 'What happens after "Return of the Jedi"?,' and there really is no answer for that," he said. "The movies were the story of Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker, and when Luke saves the galaxy and redeems his father, that's where that story ends.""
- George Lucas, Flannelled One, May 2008, "George Lucas: 'Star Wars' won't go beyond Darth Vader", interview with Los Angeles Times
..
Genndy Tartakovsky Speaks Out About His Star Wars: Clone Wars Animated Series
Prior to the premiere of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the traditionally animated Clone Wars was deemed “non-canon” by Lucasfilm. Tartakovsky recently addressed that in a new interview with Digital Spy.
Clone Wars aired on Cartoon Network beginning in 2003 before it was cancelled in 2005 and
later declared non-canonical by George Lucas“It’s frustrating that they tried to erase it from being canon,” explained Tartakovsky. “
At first, it was canon. And then once George [Lucas] started doing the CG version, he wanted to clean the slate. And so they de-canonised ours.”
“The whole Star Wars thing — I’ve moved on. I don’t lose sleep over it,” related Tartakovsky. “It’s fun to have people still love it, and for new people to still discover it.”
~ Genndy Tartakovsky Interview with Digital Spy, 2020
www.superherohype.com/tv/475912-genndy-tartakovsky-speaks-out-about-his-star-wars-clone-wars-animated-serieswww.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a30629880/star-wars-clone-wars-force-awakens-director-similarities/..
”
The novels and comic books are other authors' interpretations of my creation. Sometimes, I tell them what they can and cant do, but I just don't have the time to read them.
They're not my vision of what Star Wars is."
~ George Lucas, 2004
..
"
I don't even read the offshoot books that come out based on Star Wars."
~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, July 1999 - Film Night interview
..
Q: Can you quote any good story other than the movies? A: "
No, I don't think so. (laughs)."
~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, July 2002 - From a The Force.Net
..
"TVGuide: Yet novelists have written "Star Wars" sequels using the same characters and extending their stories."Oh, sure.
They're done outside my little universe."
~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, November 2001 - TV Guide interview
..
"Q: Do you supervise the development of all the off-movie stories? After all, Star Wars exists in books, comics.A: "
You know, I try not to think about that. I have my own world in movies and I follow it."
~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, July 2002 - From a The Force.Net
..
"
George Lucas says there has never been any war between the Jedi and the Sith in his Star Wars Canon" - An excerpt from StarWars.com‘s oral history of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace:
"Everybody said, “Oh, well, there was a war between the Jedi and the Sith.” Well, that never happened. That’s just made up by fans or somebody. What really happened is, the Sith ruled the universe for a while, 2000 years ago. Each Sith has an apprentice, but the problem was, each Sith Lord got to be powerful. And the Sith Lords would try to kill each other because they all wanted to be the most powerful. So in the end they killed each other off, and there wasn’t anything left.
"But anyway, there’s a whole matrix of backstory that has never really come out. It’s really just history that I gathered up along the way. It’s all based on backstories that I’d written setting up what the Jedi were, setting up what the Sith were, setting up what the Empire was, setting up what the Republic was, and how it all fit together I never really got a chance to explain the Whills part."
George Lucas’ vision of the galaxy’s ancient times is clearly different from the Expanded Universe. Many wars between Jedi and Sith in the Old Republic era were told in games, books and comics. The current Lucasfilm’s canon didn’t explore this era yet.'
naboonews.wordpress.com/2019/05/25/george-lucas-says-there-has-never-been-any-war-between-the-jedi-and-the-sith-in-his-canon/..
"I'm not going to do it. I'm too old. I've got other movies I want to do. And I don't want anybody else to do it, so I've locked it up so Nobody can ever do it. There may be TV offshoots from people,
but the saga itself, the story of the Skywalker family, is over!"
~ George Lucas, Entertainment Weekly #785 interview September 24, 2004
[Obviously he changed his mind in 2011]
..
"
According to Lucas' son Jett, he spent about a year before the Lucasfilm sale developing a sequel trilogy, which would have continued the saga."
youtu.be/lnr18AUym-o?t=509collider.com/star-wars-sequel-trilogy-george-lucas-jj-abrams/makingstarwars.net/2013/10/jett-lucas-discusses-star-wars-episode-vii-sequel-trilogy/This TFN thread from 2017, which I see you were involved in, has a bevy of quotes on the matter of what Lucas considered canon.
This post by Ancient Whills and
this post by GrimOnTheDarkSide make for solid reading.
I feel that Lucas maybe considered TCW to be on an intermediate level of canon to begin with. But as he got more into the series, whether as a producer, a storyteller, or a fan, he eased up on the idea of it holding (roughly) equal canonicity with the movies. I'm not sure he ever fully got there, however. The latter post cited above has quite a number of quotes from Dave Filoni which suggest Filoni got it into his head that he could go around pronouncing TCW as having (or enjoying) the same level of canon as the movies. And why wouldn't he? But if you look at the Lucas quotes, most of them are a little more cautious and evasive.
For instance, in 2008, Lucas more or less declared the TV shows to have equal standing with the movies, but he didn't quite come out and say they were
equal to or consistent with one another (instead, he used the term "consistent
with(in) themselves" -- a subtle but important difference):
Let me try and clear a few things up. Firstly, the canon tiers had nothing to do with Lucas, they were not official policy company wide, they were only used by Lucas Licensing and they had absolutely nothing to do with actual canonicity. There were used as the filing system for input and retrieval of information on the Holocron Database. - Leland Chee mislead people with that system because he was trying to make it out like the EU had more legitimacy than it did because they wanted peoples money and Lucas was constantly saying the were separate universes and he he didn't consider them valid. Here's Leland Chee and Pablo Hidalgo what those canon levels really meant. -
"
I think people over emphasize the importance of the canon level. The intent of the canon levels was, as the main intent was 'if someones looking for the ships from a film, they can than use those fields to check for them only in the films,and thus seperate that from what was in the EU. So we can look at it case by case.
I think there is an over emphasis of what those fields mean and what they represent".
~ Leland Chee, Continuity Database Adminstrator for Lucas Licensing
"
That 'level of canon' thus helps in terms of bookkeeping. Those 'canon levels' are
for the holocron."
~ Pablo Hidalgo
ForceCast #273: The Galaxy Is Reading - Interview with Leland Chee and Pablo Hidalgo, 2013 Approximately the 1 hour mark so 1:00 - 1:02 mark
www.forcecast.net/story/home/ForceCast_273_The_Galaxy_Is_Reading_154431.asp- saying on TV- Lucas did not acknowledge 'levels of canon', there was canon and not canon. His works were canon. No one elses were.
Lucas did consider the TCWs [2008] series canon and on equal footing as the movies and he said so - Here's the quote. -
"I didn't want to limit myself in the stories I wanted to tell. This is Star Wars,
and I don't make a distinction between The Clone Wars series and the films."
~ George Lucas, SciFiNow, about 'The Clone Wars' series [2008 series], 2011
ibb.co/XYvZBPgHowever, most TCW fans would probably read this quote, in combination with various utterances from Dave Filoni since then, and take it to mean TCW is on an equal footing with the films.
Here's what Dave Filoni said about what George Lucas considered canon on national TV
"There's this notion that everything changed when everything became
Legends. And I can see why people think that. But, you know, having worked with
George I can tell you that it was always very clear --
and he made it very clear -- that the films and the TV shows were the only things that he considered Canon. That was it."Dave Filoni interview on 'The Star Wars show' [41.40 mark]-
youtu.be/hcNXPNXOv2A?t=2500And again
"The terminology of "Expanded Universe" was a careful one; it expanded on the world created in the core stories, but was never officially meant to be Star Wars canon, according to the Maker himself, George Lucas." ~ Dave Filoni, Comicbook.com interview, 2017
"There is no more clear illustration of the difference between the Expanded Universe and the Star Wars created by George Lucas. The EU is a well of ideas, and there's what's on screen. They don't live in the same universe. Everyone wants to think so, I know… We just need to think of it all as a creative collection of fun ideas separate from what George Lucas has made."~ Dave Filoni, Star Wars Insider # 134, 2012
'You had mentioned in the press conference that when you were doing The Clone Wars you could take stuff from Legends [Expanded Universe than], like you made Darth Bane canon, thank you for that by the way!,and at one point you were gonna get Darth Revan in there [that never happened tho, it was cut from the Episode during the Mortis Arc at George Lucas's order], but you guys were the only game in town at that time [canon],so you were able to pulls things from it [EU] and make them canon [In The Clone Wars series][..] Now when you pull things from the new canon, it's history. So is that overwelming now?'"Honestly, it's not very different from how I worked before. You know my main concentraition is of course the stories I'm telling and the films. I think what we are more careful about now,
as you know, before, we were the only thing really happening in canon when we did Clone Wars.[2008 iteration] - Now, you do have to say 'is anyone doing anything with that?''No, okay, can we put some flags around that so we have that so when we're ready we can get that..'and everyone is pretty good at doing that."
~ Dave Filoni Interview with'Jedi Council.net', 2015
Video link -
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd-xeroG_is...........
How early on did you know that the show [Clone Wars series] would be considered canon?"Everything that I’ve worked on at Lucasfilm has been considered canon. Working on Clone Wars, it was always canon. I never really worry about it. I always figured that most
things that are done in a cinematic form, whether it be television or movies, are the only things that George considered canon because it was the stuff that he helped produce. So,it made sense that this would be, as well."
~ Dave Filoni Interview, 2014
collider.com/star-wars-rebels-easter-eggs-episode-7/....
"The nice thing I can say is, it’s all more connected than it’s ever been at Lucasfilm. Before, we would change something in Clone Wars and people would be like,
“Why are you changing canon?” We’re like, “Actually, we’re not. This is the way George wants it.” Now, that is a unified approach where I’m talking to several different people on different projects, and we’re all aware of what each other’s doing. We all get great ideas from each other and share ideas, so it’s a much more unified effort."
~ Dave Filoni, IGN Interview, 2014
ibb.co/xFKpcwZ.....
“For me and my training here at Lucasfilm, working with George, he and I always thought the Expanded Universe was just that. It was an expanded universe. Basically it’s stories that are really fun and really exciting, but they’re a view on Star Wars,
not necessarily canon to him.That was the way it was from the day I walked into Lucasfilm with him all through Clone Wars, everything we worked on, he felt the Clone Wars series and his movies were what was actually the reality of it all, the canon," Filoni said, "
then there was everything else. So it wasn't a big dynamic shift for me mentally when there was this big announcement saying the EU is now Legends. I'm like, 'Okay, well, it's kind of the same thing to me because that the way I work.' What George and I always used to do though is look at what was out there, and you would see characters like Ventress and go, 'My gosh, what a great character.' People love this character. He saw Aayla Secura; He puts her in the film. So there was this great collaborative way where you could take these ideas, but you have to always kind of apply
the Star Wars Cinematic Universe of what the canon is to those characters when you translate them."
~ Dave Filoni, ComicBook.com Interview, Sept 5th, 2017
ibb.co/fppPqv4.....
Do you considerThe Clone Wars canon or part of the Expanded Universe? Is the old Cartoon Network show canon? How do the two relate and where do the two series fit in the Star Wars Universe?"That’s one of the biggest debates in Star Wars, what counts? The idea of what is canon?
When I talk to George I know that he considers his movies, this series and his live-action series canon."
But there's never an implicit connection between the micro-series that Cartoon Network did previously and the series that we're doing now.
~ Dave Filoni, SW:TCW, CBR Interview, 2008
.....
'What do you do to tie the Expanded Universe, the movies, the comics, and everything together?'"At the end of the day it’s a rather simple formula. The big thing that I’m held to is working with the films.
George Lucas has his six “Star Wars” films which our series is meant to work in continuity with. He also has his many scripts that he’s written for the live-action “Star Wars” project that in different ways can affect certain things that we’ve done.
George works with us to make sure all the stories that he’s written over the years, the films, and his various TV projects work in concert with one another. I will bring up different things to George that I’ve read or that I know have happened in the comic books or the novels. It’s really up to him. He’s the final word on whether we continue with that line of thinking or whether we scrap it in favor of something new. In that way, those properties are very much an expanded universe of ideas. Sometimes things cross over,
but for the most part our main and only real continuity is with the films themselves and the other feature projects."
~ Dave Filoni Interview about working with George Lucas on The Clone Wars series [2008], 2009
poptug.com/interview-clone-wars-supervising-director-dave-filoni-talks-about-working-with-george-lucas/..
Technically, if Darth Vader appeared in a novelisation first, then the character was actually a novelisation element before a film element. Because where do you draw the line? That same novelisation begins with a prologue that was only fleshed out in the prequels. In a sense, even though derived from Lucas' notes which he may have always intended to eventually turn into another set of movies, the prologue explaining the fall of the Galactic Republic was a novelisation element before it was a film element. Indeed, for many years, it was all fans had to go on for the backstory, in addition to little bits 'n' pieces in the OT movies themselves.
However, you are probably right in the more concrete sense that many of those design assets in SOTE were first developed for the Special Editions. From the "Development" section of
the Wookiepedia entry for SOTE:
The first three notes there (i.e., all the cited notes in the first paragraph) derive from information pulled from the following book:
starwars.fandom.com/wiki/The_Secrets_of_Star_Wars:_Shadows_of_the_EmpireShadows of the Empire was never canon either. None of the EU was and even the EU authors acknowledge that in interviews. Here's Steve Perry, Author of Shadows of the Empire in a video interview saying nothing from the EU was canon, only the movies were - Some other EU author quotes will follow it
Podcast Interview with Steve Perry, Author of Shadows of the Empire from the Expanded Universe - Interviewer - 'So what are your thoughts about your book and all the ones that came other than this last year are no longer part of the Official Star Wars Canon ever since Disney took over?Steve Perry - "Ohh they never were! Nothing was ever canon other than the movies."The Ritual Misery Podcast with hosts Amos and Kent, 2015
www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2569&v=opbMcVJolSA&feature=emb_logo....
'In 2014, Disney declared the Expanded Universe was no longer canon. It became ‘Legends’. What do you think of this, seeing all of your work suddenly become non-canon?'“Those of us writing the EU were always told, all along, from the very beginning (have I stressed that strongly enough?), “
Only the Movies are Canon.” Sure, it was disappointing.”
~ Kathy Tyers, EU author [Truce at Bakura, Balance Point] Interview, 2018
starwarsinterviews.com/various/authors/kathy-tyers-author/..
Dark Empire Introduction - Kevin J. Anderson -
www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/2tg9rk/excerpt_from_kevin_jandersons_intro_to_the_dark/"When you read Dark Empire, or any of the other novels [EU] remember that although Lucasfilm has approved them, these are our sequels,
not George Lucas's."
"If Lucasfilm ever makes films that take place after Return of the Jedi,
they will be George Lucas's own creations, probably with no connect to anything we have written."But in the meantime, enjoy these graphic stories, read the novels of Timothy Zahn, Kathy Tyers, Kenneth Flynt, Dave Wolverton, and myself.[Kevin J. Anderson]"
..
"That said, I think
George has always felt that the comics were
an “alternate Star Wars universe” from the films.
I don’t think he ever saw the comics as canon — although he did use them as a resource for ideas and images."
Tom Veitch Interview, EU Author, Dark Empire Trilogy 2016
ibb.co/CKXHGby............
"
I don't read that stuff, I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world. But I do try and keep it consistent. The way I do it is they have a Star Wars encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it and see if it has already been used.
When I said other people could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have TWO universes: My Universe and than this other one. They try to make
THEIR universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions."
~ George Lucas Starlog Magazine Interview, 2005 -
ibb.co/Km1CcNs..
“There are two worlds here,” explained Lucas. “There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created,
which I say is the parallel universe – the licensing world of the books, games and comic books."
~ George Lucas, Cinescape, 2002
..
"Q: What do you think of the expanded universe of books?A:
The books are in a different universe. I've not read any of them, and I told them when they started writing I wouldn't read any of them and I blocked out certain periods."
~ George Lucas - "The Furry Conflict and the Great ‘Beard‘ of the Galaxy"
(report based on a Q&A session with George Lucas which occurred at USC on 11-19-03)
..
"The question selected from The Furry Conflict poll was: How much does the Expanded Universe influence the movies?
As I asked him, Lucas leaned back a moment and said to me “Very little.” When he first had agreed to let people write
Expanded Universe books, he had said
“I’m not gonna read ‘em” and it was a “different universe” that he wanted to keep away from the time period of his saga. He jokingly complained, however, that now when he writes a script he has to look through an encyclopedia to make sure that a name he comes up with doesn’t come too close to something in the EU."
- "Marc Xavier", November 2003, "The Furry Conflict and the Great ‘Beard‘ of the Galaxy"
(report based on a Q&A session with George Lucas which occurred at USC on 11-19-03)
..
"From Star Wars Insider [The Official Star Wars Magazine] - Issue 77 , Using Dark Empire & The Thrawn Trilogy As Examples. "So do episodes beyond Return of the Jedi exist? Nothing beyond possible story points and ideas, certainly not fleshed out story treatments or scripts. Fans often wonder if Dark Empire or the Thrawn Trilogy were based off those notes or are meant to be Episodes VII, VIII, IX. -
That's not the case.
Those works are the creation of their respective authors with the guidance of editors at Lucas Licensing.
They are not, nor ever were, meant to be George Lucas' definitive vision of what happens next"
~ Pablo Hidalgo, 2004 -
ibb.co/K9PMgH3..
As many fans know, when it comes to Star Wars knowledge, there are degrees of ”canon.”
The only true canon are the films themselves. For years, Lucas Books has stayed clear of characters, events, or the timeframe that George might want to deal with in the Star Wars prequels. While such things as the Clone Wars, the fall of the Jedi, and Palpatine's rise to power were on that list, Boba Fett wasn't considered to be of major concern.
But like any great storyteller, George starts to develop a script and it sometimes takes on a life of its own, with characters coming to life and demanding a say. He has told us that Boba Fett will have a role in Episode II--just as Fett first appeared in the second film of the classic trilogy--so we may finally learn the bounty hunter's true genesis. As for whether Fett really survived his descent into the cavernous maw of the Sarlacc in Return of the Jedi...what do you think?"
~ Steve Sansweet, LFL/Fan Relations, April 2000 - "Are we going to get more details about Boba Fett's past?", StarWars.com
ibb.co/Bcf0Pcm..
Question: I'm excited that Boba Fett is going to be in Episode II. Are we going to get more details about how he was once Jaster Mereel and killed another Journeyman Protector on the planet Concord Dawn before becoming a bounty hunter?
Answer: Highly unlikely.
My advice:
Forget everything you knew, or thought you knew about the origins of Boba Fett. While none of us have seen a script of Episode II or have an idea of the direction in which George Lucas is taking the character, it's fairly safe to say that he won't be held to any of the back stories that have arisen over the years to try to explain the roots of this strong, mostly silent type.
If there is any hint of Fett's beginnings, it will be all George.
At the same time, what you've read to this point was probably misinformation anyhow. A bounty hunter like Boba Fett has much to gain by having numerous myths of his origin in circulation among potential employers and potential victims. That is why the Star Wars Encyclopedia states: "Many tales are told of his background and exploits, but there are very few verifiable facts, perhaps by design."
~ Steven Sansweet, Head of Fan Relations at Lucasfilm, 2000
ibb.co/Zf0p03K..
"
In the canon debate, it is important to notice that LucasFilm and Lucas are different entities.
The only canon source of Star Wars are the radio plays, the movie novels and the movies themselves -
in Lucas' mind, nothing else exists, and no authorized LucasFilm novel will restrict his creativity in any way."
~ Steven Sansweet, Lucasfilm Author - Director of Content Management and Head of Fan Relations at Lucasfilm Ltd., Star Wars Convention, Australia, 1998
..
"Steven Sansweet was asked specifically if any of the characters like Admiral Thrawn and so on would make appearances in AoTC or the movie thereafter, and he responded quite clearly that
all the EU material is ”taking place in a separate universe”.... there were quite a few nasty mumbles from the audience when he (Sansweet) said what he said."
Steven Sansweet, EU Author - Director of Content Management and Head of Fan Relations at Lucasfilm, Comic-Con, 2001
..
"
When it comes to absolute canon, the real story of Star Wars, you must turn to the films themselves - and only the films. Even novelizations are interpretations of the film, and while they are largely true to George Lucas' vision (he works quite closely with the novel authors), the method in which they are written does allow for some minor differences. The novelizations are written concurrently with the film's production, so variations in detail do creep in from time to time. Nonetheless, they should be regarded as very accurate depictions of the fictional Star Wars movies."
~ Steve Sansweet (and Chris Cerasi of LucasBooks), August 2001
..
"It is unfortunate that Karen Traviss is [EU author] moving on because of her opinion that canon is being changed.
I guess the big problem is the assumption that her work is canon in the first place. After working with George on The Clone Wars series I know there are elements of her work that are not in line with his vision of Star Wars.."
~ Henry Gilroy, TCW series Head Writer/ EU Author [Comics] 2008
..
Entertainment Weekly reached the author in his Oregon lair to find out what he knew about Lucas’ plans for the post-Jedi chronology, and what he hopes those films might take from his still-beloved books.
That means Zahn’s books won’t be directly adapted,
but the author says that was always the case: “The books were always just the books.” “It could be an entirely new storyline, but if he picks and chooses bits and pieces from the expanded universe, we’d all be thrilled to death.”
~ Timothy Zahn, Entertainment Weekly Interview, 2012
ew.com/article/2012/11/02/star-wars-sequels-timothy-zahn/...
"As far as I know, George Lucas himself is not involved. He has a liaison group that deals with the book people, the game people, etc. They do the day-to-day work. Occasionally, he will be asked a question and will give an answer."
"I did meet Lucas once for a few minutes."
~ Timothy Zahn, 'The Book Report' Interview, 1997
..
"It's not something we can really worry about, so we don't. Lots of people have been working on lots of SW extrapolations for the last twenty years, in good faith.
There were never any promises from George Lucas or Lucasfilm regarding the acceptance of their work into some wider canon."
~ Peet Janes, Dark Horse Comics Editor, 1998
..
"Someone brought up Darth Plagueis and the novel with the same name. They lamented that this book wasn’t considered canon, however Pablo interjected that it couldn’t be simply because t
here are several contradictions between what George believed about Plagueis and Palpatine’s origins and what the author extrapolated. There was a rumor on the internet that the author of that book, James Luceno, worked directly with Lucas when creating the story, but Pablo shot that down saying that it wasn’t true. At the end, though, he did say that Plagueis as a character is still canon and could be used in other stories very easily."
~ Pablo Hidalgo interview, Library-Con, 2016
thecinemafiles.com/2016/10/26/q-a-with-pablo-hidalgo-the-head-of-the-star-wars-story-group-at-disney/..
Sounds like two meaty opening posts for a fan-work thread. 
