Talking About 'Star Wars': Why doesn't Disney consider 'Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic' canon?

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© 2003 BioWare and LucasArts
Someone on Quora asks:

Why doesn't Disney consider 'Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic' canon?
Lucasfilm (not its parent, The Walt Disney Company) did not make Bioware/LucasArts’ 2003 video game Knights of the Old Republic or any of its sequels canon for the same reason the company never made X-Wing, TIE Fighter, or Star Wars: The Arcade Game canon: as far as canon is concerned, the movies and directly-derived materials (novelizations, comic book adaptations, and for a long time, the Radio Dramas) were the only materials accepted by franchise creator George Lucas as the “official story.” Period.
This was true in 2005, when it seemed as though no more Star Wars films would ever be made, although Lucas later amended his position on canon to include Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a television series he created and assigned Catherine Winder and Dave Filoni to develop for Time-Warner owned Cartoon Network.
No video games set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” were canon. They could, as Star Wars: Shadows of the Universe, Star Wars: Rebellion, and others surely did, draw on canon (the movies) for inspiration, but just like the Expanded Universe novels and comics that are now “Legends,” they were apocryphal side stories that had no canonical standing until - and unless - George Lucas said otherwise.
In the case of Knights of the Old Republic, when Lucasfilm Licensing discussed the game during the pre-development stage, Drew Karpyshyn and James Ohlen were given two timeline options for their game: the Old Republic era or the interval after Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Karpyshyn and Ohlen chose the Old Republic setting because they believed the other, closer-to-the-movies period would stifle their creative impulses.
George Lucas clearly appreciated the value of video games set in the Star Wars galaxy, but only as a source of income and to keep the Star Wars brand alive. That was also his take on the EU stories, which he relegated to Lucasfilm Licensing with a set of guidelines (no delving into the Rise of the Empire era during Lucas’s own development phase for the Prequels, nothing contradicts what happens in the films) with only some rare instances of direct acknowledgment of the EU in Lucas canon. (“Coruscant” and “Aayla Secura” are two instances of EU place names or characters that were made canonical by the Maker himself.)
But Lucas never, ever thought video games, including Shadows of the Empire, X-Wing Alliance, or even KOTOR and The Force Unleashed, were valid as a medium for storytelling. Cinema, and, to some extent, television, ruled as far as canon is concerned.
As with everything canonical, there’s always a possibility that Lucasfilm might take elements from KOTOR and adapt them into a film or TV project. Indeed, Kathleen Kennedy hinted at a recent Star Wars convention that this is something the company has been considering for some time now.
However, due to The Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm’s decision to slow the pace of making new Star Wars films, fans will have to wait a few years to see this come to fruition.

Comments

  1. GrimalkunMarch 12, 2020 at 10:59 AM

    "There's this notion that everything changed when everything became Legends. And I can see why people think that. But, you know, having worked with George I can tell you that it was always very clear -- and he made it very clear -- that the films and the TV shows were the only things that he considered Canon. That was it.*

    "So everything else was a world of fun ideas, exciting characters, great possibilities, the EU was created to explore all those things.And I know and I fully respect peoples opinions about it that some of the material said 'the next canon part of it' [It wasn't canon].... But from the filmmaking world I was brought into, *the films and TV shows were it".*
    ~ Dave Filoni speaking about working with George Lucas

    This is the actual video of when Dave Filoni said the above quotes during an interview on 'The Star Wars show' [41.40 mark]
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcNXPNXOv2A&t=16s




    https://ibb.co/nwXDXBQ

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alex Diaz-GranadosMarch 12, 2020 at 12:41 PM

      Thank you for the insightful comment! Much appreciated.

      Delete

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