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Is the Force still with you if your stories are no longer canon? Ron Marz examines what does & doesn't "count" when it comes to Star Wars continuity.
[I]Full article [URL=http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/shelf-life-laser-canon-does-story-matter-didnt-really-happen]here[/URL].[/I]
It matters in the sense that it made you experience something while reading it. It does not matter because in most cases it will have little effect on the characters and stories that you are following in an ongoing narrative...
Here's how I view it...
Let's say you're in a relationship with someone and it's going great, you spend lots of time together and you're having a really good time with them for, I dunno, let's say over 20 years.
Then it turns out they were married to someone else the entire time and you were the person they were seeing on the side.
Sure, you enjoyed the good times when you were having them, but the memories are tainted with the knowledge that your relationship never really counted.
Now all you're left with are the scars, questioning why you spent all that money, all that time getting emotionally invested... wondering if they ever really meant it when they'd told you that Boba Fett escaped the Sarlacc...
I've always had a particular thought regarding expanded universe stuff.
"Here are some more stories featuring those characters from that thing you like. We're going to do our best not to contradict the official storyline as it currently stands, but they're under no obligation to do likewise."
This is just that, but on a much larger scale.
It's troubling, to say the least. As also an X-Files fan, I'm experimenting it twice, since the comics' "season 10" will now be erased by an actual season 10. Since those comics were correct but not that great, it's not such a loss. Not as much as erasing Mara Jade, Thrawn, Cade Skywalker and countless others.
But there are some ways around it :
- Myths, or stories elevated to that status, very often have various iterations. There are many many more or less contradicting versions of Hercules, Orpheus, and so on ( and more recently, Dracula, or Sherlock Holmes ), and no one has ever complained about that ( I love BBC Sherlock, I like Elementary Sherlock and Downey Sherlock, and I suspect I'll love McKellen Sherlock : where's the problem ? )
- Star Wars' audience is likely to be familiar with the concept of alternate timelines, so I'll consider the Mara/Cade timeline and the Rey/Kylo timeline as such. That said, I'll be able to still enjoy stories that belong to both, which is, as you said, the main point.
It has always mattered for me. I dunno, I guess it makes the story more interesting if I know the actions of characters will have consequences down the line in future stories. Or when something is referenced that happened in an actual issue way back when. That was the 'hook' in which got me into collecting comics in the first place way back in the 80s. I see comics as one big continuing story.
I do see where Ron is coming from when comparing it to the Tetris screen that eventually needs to be wiped. This is definitely true for the little details, but for the more big overlapping character defining moments, I think those pieces are essential. I think people have a need to say they 'were there' (or in this case, read it) when a specific event happened and then was mentioned later on. "Q: Oh, did you hear about that walk off home run last night? A: yeah man, I was THERE at the game!!/ Q: Wow, Magneto ripped out Wolverine's adamantium and that's why he has bone claws now? A: Yeah, I actually read the issue...it was brutal!!"
This even applies to movies. Stand alone movies are good for a quick bang, but a storyline that overlaps multiple movies and references past movies pays big dividends and is obviously pretty popular (i.e. Star Wars movies and Marvel movies).
I can kind of see both sides. On one hand they are just stories. On the other, from a new fan's perspective, there's not much reason, other than curiosity, to go back now and read all those Dark Horse Star Wars comics and whatever else. Why read them now if they're not tied to the current movies? I didn't invest a lot in that stuff personally, but I kind of see why people are upset after spending 20 years or so reading all these comics that now aren't canon anymore. On the other hand, I can understand when making new movies and such it was a lot easier to just wipe all that stuff away.
[QUOTE=roguematt7;1745255]Here's how I view it...
Let's say you're in a relationship with someone and it's going great, you spend lots of time together and you're having a really good time with them for, I dunno, let's say over 20 years.
Then it turns out they were married to someone else the entire time and you were the person they were seeing on the side.
Sure, you enjoyed the good times when you were having them, but the memories are tainted with the knowledge that your relationship never really counted.
Now all you're left with are the scars, questioning why you spent all that money, all that time getting emotionally invested... wondering if they ever really meant it when they'd told you that Boba Fett escaped the Sarlacc...[/QUOTE]
I haven't posted here in a long time, but I have to say this. Your analogy doesn't work. You have a relationship with a real live person. A fictional story, either a comic and/or a novel, is at the mercy of its creator(s). They can change anything they want.
As for spending time and money on this type of entertainment, if you enjoyed what you watched or read, that's what really matters. In other words, Han shooting Greedo was something that I saw in Star Wars back in '77. Changing it in a reissue years later doesn't make me like what I saw originally any less. And even if the original print no longer exists, it doesn't change my memories. I saw what I saw and I'm not crazy because other people saw the same thing.