{"id":54996,"date":"2014-01-09T18:07:24","date_gmt":"2014-01-09T18:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=54996"},"modified":"2014-01-27T18:47:55","modified_gmt":"2014-01-27T18:47:55","slug":"star-wars-canon-change-risks-pissing-off-a-lot-of-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/news\/star-wars-canon-change-risks-pissing-off-a-lot-of-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Wars canon change risks “pissing off a lot of people”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sam<\/a>
Sam Witwer voiced Darth Maul in Star Wars: The Clone Wars<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The embodiment of fan done good, Being Human US<\/strong><\/em> star Sam Witwer voiced Starkiller in The Force Unleashed<\/strong><\/em> videogame franchise and Darth Maul (and the sinister Son) in Star Wars: The Clone Wars<\/strong> <\/em><\/a>animated series, so he’s a man with a certain amount of interest in the recent decision by Lucasfilm to drop George Lucas’ canon hierarch<\/a>y in favour of one unified continuity in the run up to Star Wars: Episode VII<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I think if they can pull it off it will be worth it,” said Witwer speaking exclusively to SciFiNow<\/strong>, “otherwise they’re going to piss off a lot of people.<\/p>\n

“I know there’s been a lot of outcry with The Clone Wars<\/strong><\/em> when something would show up and it wasn’t exactly what they’d read about, like the Mandalorians, but the funny thing about George Lucas’ Star Wars<\/strong><\/em> is that he really did pull as much as they could from the Expanded Universe and change stuff where necessary.<\/p>\n

“If you go back before Star Trek: Next Generation<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, there was an expanded universe for Star Trek<\/strong><\/em>, a wealth of books floating around there, and there was only maybe a couple of movies and an old TV series, and there was this big expanded universe and when Gene Rodenberry started making Next Generation<\/strong><\/em>, all of that got thrown out.<\/p>\n

“The Klingons and Romulans and everything were different from what people had read about, everything was changed. People seem to forget that, and at least with Star Wars<\/strong><\/em> there was a real effort.<\/p>\n

“They used visual concepts from the Expanded Universe and characters were brought in, the Mandalorians – they’re a pacifistic people, but they used to be warlike, and they may yet be warlike again – that type of thing. These are consistencies that people take for granted and they get angry when some things change, but look at the Star Trek<\/strong><\/em> fans – they got nothing! We at least have some cohesion.”<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/a>
Sam Witwer as Starkiller in The Force Unleashed II<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While Star Wars: <\/strong>The Clone Wars<\/strong><\/em> was considered T-canon – one step down from the movies – Star Wars: <\/strong>The Force Unleashed<\/strong><\/em> was on a rung below that – C-canon – with some elements, like the Dark Side ending being right at the bottom of the pack when it comes to legitimacy – N-canon, or non-canon.<\/p>\n

Now, Clone Wars<\/strong><\/em> supervising director Dave Filoni is working on Star Wars: Rebels<\/strong><\/em><\/a> – DIsney’s new animated series set between the trilogies – there’s no danger of Witwer’s voice work as the horned Sith Lord being left out in the cold, but the videogame continuity is totally up for grabs.<\/p>\n

The company’s gaming arm LucasArts closed in April 2013, with Star Wars 1313<\/strong><\/em> and Star Wars: First Assault<\/strong><\/em> junked so Disney could move onto the more cost-effective\/profit-friendly business of licensing the universe out rather than developing rewarding new storytelling worlds internally.<\/p>\n

Basically, 2008’s The Force Unleashed<\/strong><\/em> and its 2010 sequel could easily find themselves dropped from canon entirely, and Sam Witwer’s fan-favourite Force-wielding bad-ass Galen ‘Starkiller’ Marek along with it.<\/p>\n

\"Gameplay<\/a>
Gameplay from The Force Unleashed II<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“I know Force Unleashed<\/strong><\/em> was sold as canon,” says Witwer. “I don’t know if George remembers this, but he helped create that story. I don’t know if he’s entirely aware because he didn’t spend a lot of time on it – he was busy working on Clone Wars<\/strong><\/em> – but he would come in, they would have story conferences and then he would go away for a while and come back almost year later.<\/p>\n

“But the scenes that we did in Force Unleashed<\/strong><\/em> and the places that we went and the bold moves we made were in some cases sanctioned by George, but in other cases he made us do it!<\/p>\n

“He was like, ‘Do the formation of the Rebel Alliance; what about Darth Vader’s secret accomplice?’ I don’t know how Force Unleashed<\/strong><\/em> is going to be treated in the future, I don’t know if Star Wars: Rebels<\/strong><\/em> is going to contradict it or not, but George was there, and the things we did were George mandates, so it’s an interesting thing. But like anything, stories evolve.<\/p>\n

“For the most part, you’re hoping that it’s thematically the same, that we’re still talking about the same issues and that we still have the same heart.”<\/p>\n

Star Wars: Episode VII<\/em> is due in cinemas 18 December<\/strong> 2015. You can buy Star Wars: The Complete Saga<\/em> for £57.99 on Blu-ray<\/a> from Amazon<\/a>.co.uk.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5UfA_aKBGMc<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clone Wars star Sam Witwer on canon change fears ahead of Star Wars: Episode VII<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":54999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2615,1718,7,3],"tags":[3211,3391],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Darth-Maul.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54996"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}