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Throughout its 30-plus-year existence, the concept of Star Wars canon has been relatively simple: Everything that happens in the movies counts, and everything that happened in any of the spinoff material — be it games, comic books, novels or television shows — doesn’t. The simple rule has served moviemakers well, but might leave fans thinking that the ancillary material isn’t worth their time or money. That might be why, in the future, things will get a little bit more complex.
Leland Chee, who works with Lucasfilm‘s story group, has been tweeting about changes to the way that Lucasfilm approaches Star Wars canon in the future. “Star Wars Canon is now determined by the Lucasfilm Story Group which [Pablo Hidalgo] and I are both a part of,” Chee tweeted on Sunday.
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The story group, he explained, “has a hand in all facets of Star Wars storytelling, including movies, TV, games and publishing.” When asked what the change meant, he wrote that “a primary goal” was to ensure that there was no hierarchy between the movies and spinoff material, but instead one cohesive canon across the entire franchise, adding that “more so than ever, the canon field will serve us internally simply for classification rather than setting hierarchy.”
As to when this new attitude toward Star Wars continuity will be noticeable to fans, Chee declined to answer, but considering the 2015 soft relaunch of the franchise — between the new movie and comic publishing moving to Marvel — it would seem like a perfect time for things to start being a little bit more inclusive, wouldn’t it?
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