I am new to posting here, but I couldn't agree with you more.
I love both the EU Clone Wars and the show but I feel they can't really co exist.
Would it really be that bad to have 2 Clone Wars timelines? I personally don't think so.
This way you could enjoy both without thinking whats right or wrong.

On another note I have 2 questions.
Is there anywhere online or in print that will show me the offical Star Wars canon timeline from the beginning of time thru the legacy era (excluding the Clone Wars of course)?

And is there any site that has the list of every single retcon in the star wars universe?

I will, but if it is broken, would not waiting be too little too late?

I know part of a lot of fans issue is the fact that this show TRUMPS ALL

Yeah it's GL's to do with what he wants. But does he have the last say on weather or not there is a second continuity? I know Mr. Chee you don't want one. But we do have 2. We have the one that EU Fans know of and (some) cry out when changes to TCW knock whole parts out of continuity. Then there is that which is being created by George as we speak. Sure you have a timeline- one we can't see- but I bet ya it's not complete. And why should it? GLs still creating as he goes, sure he had ideas for stuff down the line, but how far out does his roadmap of changes go?

I've long lost faith that George Lucas has a vision here that he's finally revealing. I feel he totally makes it up as he goes now, and uses ideas of his own both new and old, as well as other ideas, but since it's his he doesn't have to make effort to work with existing EU things.

Sure it's still a great story, and I'd love to enjoy it 100%, but every continuity change (I'd say error but GL doesn't MAKE errors like an author would be held to) that makes things un retconably changed is tiresome and takes away from the enjoyment.

What's worse is knowing Dave Filoni IS an EU Fan. I feel bad for the guy. "Hey fans we had a real cool idea about bringing in your favorite EU character..." shoe drops "and George wanted to re write the back story!"

Some one posted about the sandbox and the shovel- OH man great one!

I have to ask: How far out are things planned? Longer out then say the novels? Games?

And cheers to you Mr. Chee for all your hard work making sense of it all. Cause I know I'm having 9 hells of a time making sense out of the Clone Wars era now that BOTH of Georges Cartoon Clone Wars series have been released.

I agree- we need an Essential Guide to the (timeline/ continuity/ mess that the CW made of the overall story)

Cause I'm with Nathan Butler- it's almost that you need something telling you what to ignore and what not to ignore, or why something changed off screen- example being the Tantive 4. Or The Cave on Dagobah and Minch.

It's fine for those who DON'T KNOW any better, but those who do either are frustrated a lot, or are ignoring the series (which you really CAN'T DO since the series changes the continuity as it goes)

Now sure if these changes are not shown it's no biggie. But if they are not shown then why bother mentioning it? Sing's Force Sensitivity I'm thinking of you.

I know that a lot of fans who do love TCW the full 100% that even feel there is no way TCW and the existing EU continuity can co exist.

And for me that's the bottom line- I COULD enjoy TCW 100% with 0 complaints if I knew that this show existed on its own- like the Jedi Prince series. How elements from that still exist, but the series itself is in a limbo of having not all happened. Which is not what we have with TCWs with TCWs it's considered the "real deal".

If everyone just acknowledged the two continuities perhaps the divide amongst fans wouldn't feel so big...

I wrote in to the authors of the Atlas to ask about this (and they said I could share this part of their response) and they said that "the dates were our work, not a LFL directive" and that they were mostly trying to keep the Outer Rim Sieges intact. I'm not sure that the part about Obsesson was ever an official original plan that we learned about though.

Good catch; I'd forgotten about that.

I can't believe that anyone has not mentioned this yet that I know of. Darth Maul does take on a Nightsister named Mighella in the comic titled Darth Maul. Maul even recognizes that she is a Nightsister, but says she was inexperienced in doing battle with his kind. He probably was refering to the real Dark Side and Sith ways. The Brotherhood of Darkness even had a Sith training academy there long before the Clone Wars. Who's to say that the traditions stopped after the Brotherhood was destroyed. Thus we have the Zabrak training area for season three. Not a major connection, but I'm just thinking of possibilities. I find this ironic especially with the direction season three of the Clone Wars is headed.

I remember that being the original plan, but the Essential Atlas put the kibosh on that, since it specifically dated the Battle of Rendili at the end of the War.

Also, re: Iridonia:

Being from another planet does not negate the fact that Maul might have been kidnapped from Iridonia. Perhaps they were on vacation? Or otherwise visiting another Zabrak colony? Who knows?

---

"Support Hutt-on-Hutt Love."

Right. I was even one of those having pointed upwards this detail. I remember now.

It's just said by Dooku that Ventress hate helped her to survive to the duel on Coruscant. Not that this is THIS duel, nor any duel on Coruscant, that puts her in a bacta tank.

So, the connection is pretty easy. It's just need a little work. I truly, truly hope that Ventress won't go under big changes in the late Season 3 episodes, like Filoni said. A least, no big changes that will make her quit the Separatist camp, or something like that.
...
Even if it's the case, it can be possible for Dooku or one of his minions to track her down, wound her and take her to Dooku, for having her bacta treatment and reconditioning.

There are possibilities.

Plus, it's very clear in TCW that Anakin and Obi-Wan know Ventress pretty good. It's not in one month that it can be the case. All previous stories, Jabiim and Ohma-Dun, Rattatak, are justified.

Edited by: Le Passant on Aug 18, 2010 1:32 AM

It's pretty easy to take all TCW material and put it between Rendili and Obsession. The only thing is to make enough room BEFORE TCW for all the comics (and others), and to imagine a new duel between Anakin and Asajj on Coruscant, after TCW. And we are naturally on Obsession.

I hope that this solution will be considered, but we will have to wait...

Thanks for replying, it really is good to hear that the EU fans aren't forgotten. All I mean is that even the occasional announcement that something can't quite be addressed yet would help (as you often do on Twitter, albeit in a limited manner because of the character limit). For example, a recent tweet: "The Clone Wars Character Encyclopedia listed Asajj Ventress's species and homeworld as "Unknown" but Rattatak hasn't been forgotten." This is good information to know.

I'm also looking forward to at least some timeline issues being addressed this soon, if that ends up happening.



I'm not asking to know what individual aspects have become T, C, S, N etc. Just a slightly more consistent version of what's on the Twitter feed--maybe something like "Possible change in the number of Onderon's moons" when an episode airs--so fans don't have to go rooting around in various places to try and find what information has been released. This wouldn't require any more transparency of the Holocron, just a convenient place to find information that would be released anyway.

I think the recent Tantive IV retcon is a good example of this. I agree that if there was some sort of public Holocron cutaway that showed S and N in C, people might panic a bit, but if the fact that the Tantive IV is no longer in Revenge of the Sith was made easier to find than in the Blueprints book and a forum post, then fewer people might get confused next time they read something with the new information. I think giving the public more information would ultimately cause less consternation every time a retcon came out (to a point, of course), and this is where we disagree. There certainly are fans who completely freak out every time they change something and announce it, and these same fans might just roll their eyes if the first they heard of the retcon was in a book, but I would hope these fans were in the minority. Maybe you've seen enough to know that's not true.

I, and I'm sure many other fans would agree, simply think that if there was some kind of frequently-updated information source that explained what was being retconned, what would be affected, and why, EU fans might not have to feel neglected.

You are being overly optimistic, Milo.

From the start Leland has told us that Holocron continuity is an internal system, and that he would not be enlightening us on which elements are what level at any given time. When he and others still give us something to go on, that must be considered gravy, not a right, not even a reasonable privilege.

Thing is, even without TCW, the only way Licensing could possibly labor under the guise of there being a single coherent continuity, as well as the only conceivable reason for their tracking by individual element rather than entire source, would be if a ton of stuff we assume to be continuity because it was released post-testing, in reality isn't according to the internal system. And if they did reveal the extent of material that has been slashed to preserve continuity to us, our trust in it would be shaken, perhaps more than it already is. This I sincerely believe, even though I can't prove it by a longshot.

Remember we discussed retconned dates, Milo? How, obviously, dates being changed did not demote the entire source they were part of? That sorta fits into what I'm saying. Tracking by individual element can allow that to happen. But it also presents a scary precedent. That any individual element of any individual source, can be demoted or discarded as needed. Leaving us with a ton of C-canon sources that are potentially full of S or N bits, completely without our knowledge, so as to maintain a coherent continuity from an internal perspective. We wouldn't be able to trust anything. Naturally they wouldn't tell us that!

But by the same rationale, the admissions you are asking for, in addition to not being any of our beeswax, could only ever harm business, as they inevitably would have to lift the curtain on what elements we take for good fish has been demoted or worse, discarded. Which in turn would lead to a reveal of how anything is up for grabs, not just by Lucas, but always. Better for them to keep doing as I suspect they have for the last decade: slice and dice continuity as needed, use the finished result as a basis for later work, release these under the guise of continuity, and leave us none the wiser.

As you yourself said, they have been in dialogue with us before. If they have stopped now, there has to be a reason for that..

Sorry for being so cynical about this, and if Leland decided to tell me I was a complete dounce and this isn't how things are at all, I would cry with joy even as he embarrassed me. But until such time, that is really the only conclusion I have been able to reach: We are being kept in the dark for business purposes, as frankly is the be expected, of this company or another.

Edited by: DarthMRN on Aug 17, 2010 12:05 PM

Regarding Maul's homeworld - Yes, it's a change to say that he's no longer from Iridonia, but seeing that we never showed Maul there, I'm not sure how much that's going to break continuity.

As far as communicating continuity changes to fans, I certainly take your comments to heart. But for me, it's all a matter of trying to figure out the most time-effective way to deliver the message to the most number of fans, and Twitter has been this outlet. And certainly there are other ways to deliver news about retcons, such as Dave Filoni's video talking about Eeth Koth's appearance. Sometimes we don't deliver news because we haven't made a final decision on what the fix is. But rest assured that we only discard EU only if there is no other plausible explanation, which was the case with Ryloth's rotation, the timing of Onaconda Farr's death, and some of the specifics of Boba's experience in the Clone Wars. But look at some other things like the dominant species of Maridun, Felucia, and Malastare, a pacifistic faction of Mandalorians, and hopefully you'll see the hard work that our authors have been doing to preserve the bulk of the existing continuity.

The Clone Wars timeline is a whole 'nother issue, but I'm betting that as we get into Season 3, we'll finally be able to start addressing a few things. One of the big hurdles was the existence of the many prequel episodes and it's looking like we'll be done with prequels midway through this season. The timeline is definitely something that Dave Filoni is aware of and is constantly thinking of ways to address.