Posted in: Denver Comic Con, Movies | Tagged: denver comic con, entertainment, film, Hana Zittle, Jason Monroe, Jonathon Horton, Seana O'Grady, star wars

Denver Comic Con '15: Star Wars: The New Canon

Published Sun, 24 May 2015 12:15:00 -0500

by Dan Wickline

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Evan Fries writes from the Denver Comic Con

Denver Public Library has quite a presence at the convention this year, and they put together a panel called "Star Wars: The New Canon" aimed at clearing up some of the confusion for the more passive Star Wars fans about issues with canon and continuity. While there weren't any new bits of information revealed at this panel, panelists Jonathon Horton, Seana O'Grady, Jason Monroe, Hana Zittel, and Todd Darnell put together an informative and concise presentation to help guide both veteran Star Wars readers and newbies into the new frontier of the Star Wars universe that exists outside the movies.

Right off the bat, there was a neat little bookmark placed on every seat in the room that had a list of all the novels, movies and television shows (so far) that make up the new Star Wars canon. After Disney acquired Lucasfilm and the new movies were in development, instead of allowing themselves to be bogged down by over three decades of continuity scattered across mediums, the powers that be at Lucasfilm decided to move forward with a clean slate, meaning that the only things that were technically canon at this point were the movies.

Of course, this was met with mixed response. On one hand, you had a large contingent of fans feeling slighted by the fact that their favorite characters and stories no longer factored in to the "official" Star Wars universe, and on the other, you had people happy to see the years of tangled continuity go. As panelist Jason Monroe pointed out, "it's not uncommon for comics or movies to reboot and reboot, why is Star Wars any different?" This was coupled with the notion that the main Star Wars movies we all fell in love with still exist, and still matter. As for the stories that now fall under the "Legends" banner outside of continuity, the panel made it clear that whether it is canon or not, these Star Wars stories still exist and can still be consumed and enjoyed. It's like the example that Pablo Hidalgo gave recently called Schrodinger's Fett: "Boba Fett is both simultaneously alive and dead inside the Sarlacc Pit until a story pulls him out."

Interestingly enough, when they moved on to the multimedia interconnectivity of the Star Wars universe moving forward through film, television, comics, books and games, I noticed that one item was missing from the list: Darth Maul, Son of Dathomir. It's been said that this Darth Maul story that ties in to The Clone Wars counts, despite being published by Dark Horse, but it was absent from the comprehensive guide that they had put together.

The panel was a lot of fun, and when it ended twenty minutes early, the panelists engaged with the audience in a very informal Q&A session that quickly became a passionate group talk about all things Star Wars and loving all things Star Wars. The panel also featured a running game called "Canon or Wishful Thinking," where some folks learned that the Star Wars Holiday Special is, indeed, not Canon.