Well... is it CANON???

 This past week contained May the Fourth and I can't help but think of Star Wars.

Always.

The two posters that literally hover over me in my home office

Back in 2010, I went to Star Wars Celebration V in Orlando, FL (which now feels like a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away). I was excited for a lot of reasons but up on top was that Leland Chee, the manager of the Holocron, the "Lucasfilm continuity database," was giving a presentation on the new continuity rules moving forward after the recent Disney acquisition.

If you were like me, you were a Star Wars fan of the 90s, but if you weren't one of us specific weirdos - let me describe it to you: we were desperate for any media. Hell, salivating for any memorabilia we could get our hands on. When Taco Bell had merchandise tie-ins with the Nintendo 64 Shadows of the Empire game? Yeah we were on that. I had every book that was structured like Tales from Jabba's Palace that gave the backstory of every stray puppet that had been given a name.

And George Lucas had been sure to give them all really bad names.

It was an era when anyone who could string a sentence together could get George Lucas to sign off on a spin-off book. Why? 🤷 Sure, why not? I don't want to make it seem like it was all chuff because there's still gems like the Heir to the Empire series that are still making ripples in the current Star Wars universe.

But that was the question, right? Where did this stuff land in the proper Star Wars universe? Was it... you know... canon?!

It feels like if a piece of media isn't canon then its a strike against it. It's no longer a part of the rubric of things expected for folks to watch. It's tossed aside as merely a historical novelty but nothing of note.

I know we're bouncing around between 2010 and the 90s, but stick with me as we bounce once again to the summer of 2003. I was in college, trying to figure out what the heck I was doing, but the one thing I did know what I was doing was watching the Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars miniseries on Cartoon Network.

It was filled with the same frenetic energy Tartakovsky was known for with Samurai Jack and it was a blast. Yes, the prequels were new media but... man... it was hard to be genuinely excited for them. This was the first time I was watching new Star Wars media that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Also Mace Windu is legit a Bad Ass in the cartoon

We hadn't yet met General Grievous in the films, only saw him in this and he was terrifying.

And then we got Dave Filoni with his Clone Wars series. It was obviously influenced by the visual style of Tartakovsky's existing media. All the primary voice actors from Tartakovsky's show continued on as their characters in Filoni's. It felt like Filoni was either intentionally continuing what Tartakovsky started or at least had marching orders from Lucasfilm as such.

Which takes us back to 2010. I was curious where Tartakovsky's contribution to Star Wars landed in the continuity. Not to be a spoiler but the end of the miniseries literally led to the beginning of Revenge of the Sith so I felt it had to be canon. Right?

In the presentation, Chee explained that there were tiers of how canon something can be. The Movie Tier was up on top as "word of God" stuff. Below that was the Television Tier - if something on television contradicted something from a movie it wasn't "canon." And then it kind of got washy to levels of A, B, C, and D tiers. A was the good stuff that was beloved and didn't contradict anything from shows or movies (like the Knights of the Old Republic games). B tier was less beloved but also - easy to avoid contradiction (the Ewok movies - hey, don't look at me; I think they belong in the Movie Tier, too). C is where it takes place somewhere and might be okay (think the 90s books like Tales from Jabba's Palace). And then D. The only example Chee gave was the Star Wars Holiday Special. Rude!

And he opens up for questions. And I take my shot. And you can see him wince cause apparently there's some mook in all of these presentations that asks this particular question.

"That's in the D category."

My heart dropped. I was outraged. How could something this entertaining that had a palpable influence on canonical media be on the bottom tier? This outrage was fueled when Disney+ first premiered - one of the "locked in the vault and not yet on streaming" pieces of media was Tartakovsky's Clone Wars.

Now we're in 2026. Star Wars media is a glut. Teenage me would be having a field day trying to keep up. But adult me? I'm just tired. Partially from being the adult version of me that's a parent with a full-time job, but also just from the fire hose of content is one that I can't keep up with. One that I really don't feel the need to keep up with anymore.

And it feels like to watch one show you need to have watched two other shows and a movie to know what's going on. I mean, the new Mandalorian and Grogu movie comes out this summer and built on the assumption that you've seen two seasons of that show, probably the one season of the Boba Fett show that came out a few years back, and apparently includes a prominent character from Star Wars Rebels, another animated show from a decade back (it's worth noting that Rebels actually is really good but who has time to check out all these shows, right?). That's a lot of required reading for a film.

I am no longer outraged that Tartakovsky's entertaining miniseries is no longer canon. I frankly don't have the energy to care if its canon or not. If you come down to it, its actually freeing that it isn't. There's no version of me trying to do the math of where this specifically fits down to the second of the films. It is simply a show I watched 23 years ago that I picked up off of eBay in a stint of outrage, and now brings me comfort. It takes me back to watching it in a cramped apartment with some of my closest friends, getting excited for a movie.