What's canon?

[Raiders112390]

Hey--
One thing I'm unsure of is--What is ''canon'' in the Indyverse? Should the novels, video games, and Old Indy segments of YIJC, for example, be considered canon stories in the Indiana Jones universe?

[metalinvader]

Well,I consider EVERYTHING canon.But,I guess the offical canon would be just the four movies and the TV series.

[agentsands77]

I only consider the four films to be truly "canon."

[Attila the Professor]

Here's some relevant discussion.

Games in the Canon (http://raven.theraider.net/showthread.php?t=13159&highlight=canon)
Canon Generally (http://raven.theraider.net/showthread.php?t=15091&highlight=canon)
Young Indy Canon (http://raven.theraider.net/showthread.php?t=13017&highlight=canon)

[DocLathropBrown]

Well, everything is supposedly canon. The Lucasfilm Licensing dude who runs the "Indycron" says that it all is, however, the films and then Young Indy have higher prescedence over what's in the licensed material (like the comics or the original novels) so if something in the lower ranks contradicts the higher ranks, the specific inaccuracy is to be ignored.

Perfect example: In ToD, Wu Han says he followed Indy on "many adventures," but the game Emperor's Tomb places their first meeting earlier in the year. The game is in the wrong, as dictated by the film being on the higher level of canon. Thus, the game was not really their first meeting, but just another adventure.

So basically, it's all supposed to be canon (even the German-only novels!) but anything that contradicts the films or Young Indy is wrong (not non-canon, but simply wrong with the facts).

As for where I stand? I think the only "gospel" canon is the films and Young Indy, but personally, I love to consider all of the rest canon as well.

[caats]

i consider it all canon.

[Jorbex]

I would also give absolute precedence to the four movies and the Young Indy Chronicles. The next level of canonicity would probably go to novels and comics, and the last to video games.

Of course, that's just my point of view. :D

[Rocket Surgeon]

The Indycron continuity database is an internal database used by Lucasfilm which covers all forms of filmed, printed, and interactive Indiana Jones media. It is maintained by Leland Chee, keeper of the Star Wars Holocron. Says Chee, "We try to make things as consistent as possible so Indy doesn't get his hat twice or be introduced to Wu Han or Marcus Brody twice. We track things like when Indy was born, where and when he went to high school, when and where he got his college degrees, where he teaches and when, what kind of pistols does Indy use, what languages does Indy speak, and other things like that."

According to Leland Chee, the Indiana Jones canon hierarchy is organized as follows, relative to the Star Wars canon hierarchy:

Feature films = G canon
Television = T canon
Licensing = C and S canon
Each entry to the Indycron is categorized into one of the following:

Movie TV Licensing Non-Continuity Non-Fiction

Leland Chee MySpace:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=246963696


George Lucas characterized his creations in a recent interview as such:
I'm the father; [the films], that's my work. Then we have the licensing group, which does the games, toys and books, and all that other stuff. I call that the son - and the son does pretty much what he wants." He laughs. "Once in a while, they ask a question like 'Can we kill off Yoda?', things like that, but it's very loose. "Then we have the third group, the holy ghost, which is the bloggers and fans. They have created their own world. I worry about the father's world. The son and holy ghost can go their own way."

:dead:

[Morning Bell]

It's different for each person. I consider the books and video games to be canon and some of the comics. Ultimately it boils down to personal preference; there's really no right or wrong answer.

[Rocket Surgeon]

It's different for each person. I consider the books and video games to be canon and some of the comics. Ultimately it boils down to personal preference; there's really no right or wrong answer.

Huh? Just making this up as we go?

Sounds alot like Calvin Ball.

I think you're taking the "Indiana Jones belongs to the fans" comment by Spielberg a bit too literaly.

Personal preference? I read a story that claims Indy is transgender, so it's true as long as I believe it it's canon?

I don't think you're familiar with the definition of the term "canon".

So here yo go...

a rule or especially body of rules or principles generally established as valid and fundamental in a field or art or philosophy

Canon, in terms of a fictional universe, is any material that is considered to be "genuine," or can be directly referenced as material produced by the original author or creator of a series.

:dead:

[Dewy9]

Well, I guess it all is, but I personally pick and choose. IMO, it's most anything aside from Indy being married to anyone other than Marion.

[Morning Bell]

Huh? Just making this up as we go?

Sounds alot like Calvin Ball.

I think you're taking the "Indiana Jones belongs to the fans" comment by Spielberg a bit too literaly.

Personal preference? I read a story that claims Indy is transgender, so it's true as long as I believe it it's canon?

I don't think you're familiar with the definition of the term "canon".

So here yo go...

a rule or especially body of rules or principles generally established as valid and fundamental in a field or art or philosophy

Canon, in terms of a fictional universe, is any material that is considered to be "genuine," or can be directly referenced as material produced by the original author or creator of a series.

:dead:

My point was directed mainly at how many "official" items have been released. Indy would literally have to be on an adventure every day of his life in order to experience every book, video game, comic, film, Young Indy episode, graphic novel, etc.

I'm very familiar with what canon means but that doesn't mean that anything with Indy's name on it gets an automatic pass from me. We might as well include trading card and board games, coloring books, and anything else that even mildly represents a story. There's simply too much, at least for me, to be deemed as part of Indy's life. Part of the fun is listening to each fan's interpretation and timeline. Apparently you have a problem with that but it's not a big deal to me.

[Rocket Surgeon]

My point was directed mainly at how many "official" items have been released. Indy would literally have to be on an adventure every day of his life in order to experience every book, video game, comic, film, Young Indy episode, graphic novel, etc.

I'm very familiar with what canon means but that doesn't mean that anything with Indy's name on it gets an automatic pass from me. We might as well include trading card and board games, coloring books, and anything else that even mildly represents a story. There's simply too much, at least for me, to be deemed as part of Indy's life. Part of the fun is listening to each fan's interpretation and timeline. Apparently you have a problem with that but it's not a big deal to me.

No,no no no no,not a big problem, your earlier post didn't hint to all this, not to me anyway. I'm of the mind that the Movies are the be all end all...even the novelizations, while good bad and ugly are just fluff. After a while of reading books, articles and the like I found it somewhat vindicating that GL has had to come out and set the record straight. Especially after all the disparate places the character of Indy has been taken.

I was a little peeved about Splinter of the Minds Eye, thinking it was the next story and feeling I had wasted my time when Empire came out...thankfully it was so much better. I can look back now and say eh...so what, but it tends to make you look at some of these stories as clap trap and unworthy. Some of the naming conventions ESPECIALLYin Star Wars expanded material are so "S#ITTY"! I laugh at some of the names in the Indy expanded material in the same way.

So, it's not a big deal...the Big Cheese has set the record straight, and I agree...people will always impose their own way on something, I hate to see someone like the starter of this thread labor over expansion "bulls#it" like it meant something! If in fact he/she cares!:dead:

[Morning Bell]

No,no no no no,not a big problem, your earlier post didn't hint to all this, not to me anyway. I'm of the mind that the Movies are the be all end all...even the novelizations, while good bad and ugly are just fluff. After a while of reading books, articles and the like I found it somewhat vindicating that GL has had to come out and set the record straight. Especially after all the disparate places the character of Indy has been taken.

I was a little peeved about Splinter of the Minds Eye, thinking it was the next story and feeling I had wasted my time when Empire came out...thankfully it was so much better. I can look back now and say eh...so what, but it tends to make you look at some of these stories as clap trap and unworthy. Some of the naming conventions ESPECIALLYin Star Wars expanded material are so "S#ITTY"! I laugh at some of the names in the Indy expanded material in the same way.

So, it's not a big deal...the Big Cheese has set the record straight, and I agree...people will always impose their own way on something, I hate to see someone like the starter of this thread labor over expansion "bulls#it" like it meant something! If in fact he/she cares!:dead:

Don't sweat it. I'm sorry my earlier post didn't indicate what I was going for. I'd be happy to see an official timeline from Lucas but unless we get that then it seems each person has to decide for themselves. It's all good.:)

[Nurhachi1991]

Everything that has been oficially liscened is true in the Indy universe to me that goes for the choose your own adventure books to :p

[LostArk]

Yeah, it's all canon. Contradictions in novels and comics are trumped by the facts provided by the movies and the series.

[Lonsome_Drifter]

I'm in the same boat as Morning Bell.
I like to take all the things in DK's Ultimate Indiana Jones Guide as canon. All of the other stuff seems like fluff, and there is no way for one man to experience all of that.
I know he is a fictional character, but I guess that I am just weird.

I am a big fan of Conan, and I just take the orginial Robert E. Howard stories, and some comics as canon, but never the later books or the movies.

[vf wing]

The Old Indy segments from YIJC present a curious rub. I think the right creative decision was made in deciding they weren't working. At the same time I really applaud Stoo's efforts to keep those available to longtime fans and new converts like me who wouldn't have a chance to see them otherwise. Are they canon? Lucasfilm might answer no to that, but that can hardly take away from a fan's enjoyment of them. I wonder sometimes if some of that material won't be recreated someday with Harrison himself.

Video games and find your fate adventures present conflicting facts within their own contexts, so it would be hard for me to personally accept them as canon, unless you just look at a single version of each story as presented. Like, if you're playing Indy in a game and he dies, well, that's clearly not canon. But if you make it all the way to the end of the adventure, it could be a kind of canon. Each gamer would have a unique perspective on that adventure, with particular relevance to the game that individual played. "I killed more Nazis than Jim Bob down the road, so my game was cooler!" That kind of thing.

So... yeah. Official canon and an individual's canon can be two different things, and, with Lucas, they often are.

:whip:

[DIrishB]

I'm a completist, so I'm of the mind that anything (besides of course the movies or YIJC) officially licensed and released (novels, comics, video games, RPGs, etc) is canon. Any contradicting facts are resolved based on the Indycron's approach of the movies/TV show being the highest level of canon, and each respective media format on down the line.

Sure, that equals a hell of a lot of adventures over the course of Indy's life, but so what? Its what he does.

[Attila the Professor]

Sure, that equals a hell of a lot of adventures over the course of Indy's life, but so what? Its what he does.

Well, it's <I>part</I> of what he does, and therein lies the problem of accepting everything - it means he's pretty much never at the college.

Me? I tend to say the films, Young Indy, Fate of Atlantis, Infernal Machine (although the revelation that Indy served in the OSS throws a couple of details out of whack), the Bantam novels, and probably the Dark Horse comics count. The most notable omission here, of course, is Emperor's Tomb, which simply doesn't make sense with canon, contradicting the McCoy novels and Temple of Doom itself all over the place.

[Indyologist]

Large. On wheels. Real heavy. Shoots large metal balls. Used a lot in the Civil War.

[DocWhiskey]

Canons belong in a museum! :mad:

[Rocket Surgeon]

One thing I'm unsure of is--What is ''canon'' in the Indyverse? Should the novels, video games, and Old Indy segments of YIJC, for example, be considered canon stories in the Indiana Jones universe?

Well as Lucas appied the "Trinity" metaphor in an interview, here's the "official" word. There is a tiered system with of course, the movies at the top!

The other "canons" are subject to change.

Q:The Indycron uses a letter designation system like Holocron, where does everything fall?

A:The Indycron assigns each entry to one of the following categories:
- Movie
- TV
- Licensing
- Non-Continuity
- Non-Fiction

So each iteration has it's own cannon, dependent on the films.

Movie = G
TV = T
Licensing = C & S

So how does that language barrier affect the treatment of those stories regarding continuity?
The books appear in our internal timelines, but because they aren't very accessible, the likelihood of them being referenced in other titles is much less likely.

Do cut scenes, like Old Indy, get the same treatment as disowned Star Wars scenes?
I've never been told to treat the Old Indy material as non-continuity. Like Star Wars, we'd treat everything case-by-case.

Where do educational books (Indiana Jones Explores) stand.
They fall under a separate Non-Fiction category.

Anyway, just curious where the fictional books come into play with the Indycron. I know there are some Indy stories out there, and I believe they had some young Indiana Jones tales as well. Are those considered canon and incorporated into the over-all storyline or Indiana Jones, or are they just skipped over and ignored?
The letter system described earlier in this thread refers to a continuity system which we use to resolve continuity discrepencies. Lucas Licensing considers everything part of a single continuity, but gives greater weight to the films and then the television shows when resolving discrepencies.

My question involves a discrepancy between the Young Indy series and the adult novel series. In Young Indy, he begins college in 1920, but in Indiana Jones and the Peril of Delphi, he's graduating in 1920. So what I'm trying to ask is how those two differing sources mesh, and whether one outweighs the other. I know the book came before the later Young Indy episodes.
Now we're finally getting into the real continuity stuff here. Indy starts attending the University of Chicago in 1920, and graduates in 1922. Later that year he begins studying at the Sorbonne. Peril of Delphi actually covers two different periods of time.

How many crystal skulls?
In the Indy world, there's at least three maybe four.

Anna Jones: influenza or scarlet fever?
Scarlet fever in 1912. Helen Seymour died of influenza.

And the Emperor's tomb... was Emperor Qin's Heart of the Dragon carrying head found in 1934 by architects who put it back on the body, placed it inside a magic vortex, redesigned the layout and then took that jewel encrusted map of the world as payment for Indy to re-open it in 1935?
Yet to be resolved.

With the licensing program ratcheting up for KotCS, how much old Licensing-level material do you think we'll get to see in the new works? Have authors been proactively using old Licensing material from the Indycron (and/or the original sources), or has it so far been used primarily as a way to avoid continuity flubs?

Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide will contain a great deal of "Expanded Adventures" material. You'll also find Expanded Adventures tidbits here and there in the Lost Journal of Indiana Jones. On the fiction side of things, the stories are more stand-alone, so there's less of a reliance on existing material outside the films. I'll conclude by saying that the use of previous Expanded Adventures material is not restricted to Publishing.

The fate of the Peacock's Eye has yet to be determined.

[Stoo]

This stuff has been posted here before and it always makes me groan so, please, allow me to vent again.
The letter system described earlier in this thread refers to a continuity system which we use to resolve continuity discrepencies. Lucas Licensing considers everything part of a single continuity, but gives greater weight to the films and then the television shows when resolving discrepencies.The lettering system is ridiculous. G = Movie, etc.?:confused: How does one get the letter "G" from the word "movie"? Where's the logic? (I also really dislike the name, "Indycron".:sick:)
Now we're finally getting into the real continuity stuff here. Indy starts attending the University of Chicago in 1920, and graduates in 1922. Later that year he begins studying at the Sorbonne. Peril of Delphi actually covers two different periods of time.Given the evidence at hand, this is a rather poor (and incorrect) solution. Indy's College Life (http://raven.theraider.net/showthread.php?t=15259&highlight=Sorbonne)
Anna Jones: influenza or scarlet fever?
Scarlet fever in 1912. Helen Seymour died of influenza.I'm sorry but...what a complete crock. Indy says "influenza" in the bridging sequence of "Spring Break Adventure"! So much for giving "greater weight to the films and then the televesion shows". More on the subject: The Death of Anna Jones (http://raven.theraider.net/showthread.php?t=16863&highlight=scarlet+fever)

Seriously, if anyone is looking for continuity answers, do NOT refer to the "Indycron" thing. Come to The Raven and ask questions instead. Collectively, there's more information available here than from just one guy. The amount of errors from legitimate sources, is an absolute travesty.

[Rocket Surgeon]

This stuff has been posted here before and it always makes me groan so, please, allow me to vent again.
The lettering system is ridiculous. G = Movie, etc.?:confused: How does one get the letter "G" from the word "movie"? Where's the logic? (I also really dislike the name, "Indycron".:sick:)

And yet the questions continue to be asked! G=George Lucas, the bottom line.

Seriously, if anyone is looking for continuity answers, do NOT refer to the "Indycron" thing. Come to The Raven and ask questions instead. Collectively, there's more information available here than from just one guy. The amount of errors from legitimate sources, is an absolute travesty.

Wow Stoo is "Off the Reservation"! Would it make any difference if it was on the Starlog website?:p

[Crack that whip]

This stuff has been posted here before and it always makes me groan so, please, allow me to vent again.
The lettering system is ridiculous. G = Movie, etc.?:confused: How does one get the letter "G" from the word "movie"? Where's the logic? (I also really dislike the name, "Indycron".:sick:)

As I understand it, it's a carryover from the Star Wars canon hierarchy, which uses the same designations, with the movies designated "G" for George, as in Lucas. Of course, given that, I'd personally expect lots of the television stuff from both series (the made-for-TV Ewok movies and the current Clone Wars, for example, in the Star Wars universe, and a certainly woefully underappreciated, utterly wonderful show about the early days of a certain hero in a universe a little closer to home) to also be designated "G," but for whatever reason it's not, presumably because the TV shows aren't seen as being as important as the movies, or something.

That said, at least with regard to the Indy universe it doesn't seem to matter much in practice, since there really isn't anything in the TV series that conflicts with the movies, and vice versa - the show conflicts with itself, mind you, in the form of the differences between The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and The Adventures of Indiana Jones (plus the odd discrepancy in "Adventures" occasionally arising from the melding of originally-distinct episodes, sometimes out of order), but either version at least seems completely compatible with the movies. Especially now that the movie series has itself incorporated direct, specific reference to the TV show (at least a little sliver of it), I see no reason not to give the show as much canon weight as the movies themselves.

Similarly to the canon designations, I think "Indycron" (FWIW) is simply a play on "Holocron," LFL's internal SW canon and continuity database, which itself is named after an identically named Jedi device within the fiction of the SW universe, as opposed to "Indycron" being called that as an original compounding of "Indy" and "c(h)ronology." Just FWIW, of course; I know another term might (would) be preferable, but at least it has something behind it besides jamming stuff together and dropping an "h" - not much, maybe, but something...

Given the evidence at hand, this is a rather poor (and incorrect) solution. Indy's College Life (http://raven.theraider.net/showthread.php?t=15259&highlight=Sorbonne)
I'm sorry but...what a complete crock. Indy says "influenza" in the bridging sequence of "Spring Break Adventure"! So much for giving "greater weight to the films and then the televesion shows". More on the subject: The Death of Anna Jones (http://raven.theraider.net/showthread.php?t=16863&highlight=scarlet+fever)

Seriously, if anyone is looking for continuity answers, do NOT refer to the "Indycron" thing. Come to The Raven and ask questions instead. Collectively, there's more information available here than from just one guy. The amount of errors from legitimate sources, is an absolute travesty.

LFL clearly does need more and/or better efforts put into maintaining IJ continuity. I'd like to see them revised the Ultimate Guide, Lost Journal, etc. and publish them with new, consistent, logical dates and whatnot, nail everything down and stick to it, and insist any all all future ancillary publications - novels, games, comics, etc. - adhere to it. If only...

[Stoo]

And yet the questions continue to be asked! G=George Lucas, the bottom line.O.K. That make sense but it isn't very straightforward. (What about C & S = Licensing? Comics & Stories?) An A/B/C/D system would have been much more self-explanatory.
Wow Stoo is "Off the Reservation"! Would it make any difference if it was on the Starlog website?:p:confused: Yeah...whatever. Don't be such a sore loser, Hermie.:p:gun:
As I understand it, it's a carryover from the Star Wars canon hierarchy, which uses the same designations, with the movies designated "G" for George, as in Lucas. Of course, given that, I'd personally expect lots of the television stuff from both series (the made-for-TV Ewok movies and the current Clone Wars, for example, in the Star Wars universe, and a certainly woefully underappreciated, utterly wonderful show about the early days of a certain hero in a universe a little closer to home) to also be designated "G," but for whatever reason it's not, presumably because the TV shows aren't seen as being as important as the movies, or something.
This further illustrates why the lettering system is a joke. As if "George" had nothing to do with the TV series. Gimme a break.:rolleyes: Furthermore, as I understand it, the "Indycron" thing (:sick:) is on a "Star Wars" website! It should be on the offical Indy site. Why would an Indy fan, interested in his life's chronology, have to poke around a SW website to seek out information?
since there really isn't anything in the TV series that conflicts with the movies,I agree with you but there are, at least, two things that conflict...(and I know you've provided an explanation for one of them before because we've discussed it.);)
I know another term might (would) be preferable, but at least it has something behind it besides jamming stuff together and dropping an "h" - not much, maybe, but something...If you have another suggestion, then let's hear it! "Indycron":sick: is much too "techno" sounding (if that make any sense) for the era of Indiana Jones tales.
LFL clearly does need more and/or better efforts put into maintaining IJ continuity. I'd like to see them revised the Ultimate Guide, Lost Journal, etc. and publish them with new, consistent, logical dates and whatnot, nail everything down and stick to it, and insist any all all future ancillary publications - novels, games, comics, etc. - adhere to it. If only...Agreed but I'm not holding my breath. (Question: Does anyone know if publications are handed over to Mr. Chee for quality control or is he just the "cleaner" of information after the fact?)

[Rocket Surgeon]

Yeah...whatever. Don't be such a sore loser, Hermie.:p:gun:


Good one Paris Hilton! Zing!

Besides not providing a shred of credible proof or for your outlandish opinions...other then pictures of a magazine cover on an auction site, your complaints about a franchise that doesn't generate the money it's older and more popular sibling does, (that's why you have to poke around a SW site!) really make you sound like Jan Brady!

Marsha Marsha Marsha!

Loser indeed!
:p :rolleyes: :whip: :gun: :sick: :hat:
whooo! Smilies are fun!

No matter how much you love Young Indy, uh, it's always going to be the red headed step child of the films...


(Warning: Trolling ahead!)As a matter of fact I'd say that the total lack of quality of The Young Indy TV show is what keeps Indy relegated to the kids table.
:hat:

[Crack that whip]

Furthermore, as I understand it, the "Indycron" thing (:sick:) is on a "Star Wars" website! It should be on the offical Indy site. Why would an Indy fan, interested in his life's chronology, have to poke around a SW website to seek out information?

Is it "on" a Star Wars site? I was under the impression it's not even directly accessible to fans, but is instead an internal Lucasfilm thing, and Leland Chee simply answered a few questions with it in the forums or on his blog. Then again, it's getting harder to find stuff on the SW site for me these days...

Anyway, I think the answer as to why it's not on the actual Indy site is the same reason lots of cool stuff isn't - they turned the whole site into a promo site for the fourth movie's theatrical release and the whole movie series' DVD release, so they only have more superficial stuff there right now. What I really want to know is when it'll go back to having the same sort of stuff it used to have - not that the promotional stuff isn't entertaining, but there's no reason they couldn't have it there alongside the other articles and whatnot...

I agree with you but there are, at least, two things that conflict...(and I know you've provided an explanation for one of them before because we've discussed it.);)

Erm... hm? The only thing I can even remember mentioning that possibly conflicts with the movies would be 10-year-old Indy's reactions to the snakes in "British East Africa, September 1909" / Passion for Life (and yeah, I do think that's explainable by the different circumstances of the encounter, and also that it doesn't necessarily denote an out-and-out ophidiophobia - as I mentioned earlier, he doesn't freak out when he sees the snake charmer's cobra in Egypt in 1908). I assume that's the thing you were referring to my explaining; what's the other one? (I ask that, somewhat fearing that you'll tell me and I won't be able to come up with an explanation, and I'll be unable to appreciate it all any longer... :eek: )

If you have another suggestion, then let's hear it! "Indycron":sick: is much too "techno" sounding (if that make any sense) for the era of Indiana Jones tales.

Ummm... you've got me! :o I'd like to go with something appropriately academic-sounding, like some sort of classic library archive. If we knew the names of the libraries at Marshall College, I think one of those would be ideal...

Agreed but I'm not holding my breath. (Question: Does anyone know if publications are handed over to Mr. Chee for quality control or is he just the "cleaner" of information after the fact?)

I don't know; this is just conjecture. That said, I get the impression they don't have someone like him meticulously vetting everything, but instead just have general mandates for writers - "don't use Belloq in this date range," say, or "no long-lost brothers," that sort of thing, and maybe supply writers with copies of existing tales - just dumping a bunch of the Bantam paperbacks in their laps, say - and otherwise letting writers of new material fumble their way around, hopefully not getting too many threads tangled, and at some point Mr. Chee gets to read it and make notes for the... (sorry, I have to say it) Indycron, and tries to sort stuff out as best he can, if necessary, whenever he has the time. But I'd like to think there's more to it than that...

[Stoo]

Loser indeed!
:p :rolleyes: :whip: :gun: :sick: :hat:Rocket, I thought you were a cool cat but apparently not...:(
No matter how much you love Young Indy, uh, it's always going to be the red headed step child of the films...Yes, I *do* know this (which is something you don't realize) but we're on a board about all-things-Indy.
As a matter of fact I'd say that the total lack of quality of The Young Indy TV show is what keeps Indy relegated to the kids table.Right...that's why the 12-15 year olds are posting on the main Indy boards.:rolleyes:

[Rocket Surgeon]

Rocket, I thought you were a cool cat but apparently not...:(
Oooh, left handed compliment comming through!I'm not about to ask forgiveness, but I did think if you could dish it...Yes, I *do* know this (which is something you don't realize) but we're on a board about all-things-Indy....and now I know, I'm not telekenetic like Irina, and knowing is...Right...that's why the 12-15 year olds are posting on the main Indy boards.:rolleyes:Uh...and? :hat:

[Stoo]

Is it "on" a Star Wars site? I was under the impression it's not even directly accessible to fans, but is instead an internal Lucasfilm thing, and Leland Chee simply answered a few questions with it in the forums or on his blog. Then again, it's getting harder to find stuff on the SW site for me these days...Actually, I believe you're right in that the "Indycron":sick: thing is not directly accesible but Mr. Chee's blog is part of a "Star Wars" website. (This is going from a post made last year. Things might have changed since then.)
Anyway, I think the answer as to why it's not on the actual Indy site is the same reason lots of cool stuff isn't - they turned the whole site into a promo site for the fourth movie's theatrical release and the whole movie series' DVD release, so they only have more superficial stuff there right now. What I really want to know is when it'll go back to having the same sort of stuff it used to have - not that the promotional stuff isn't entertaining, but there's no reason they couldn't have it there alongside the other articles and whatnot...No kidding. It's been over a year now. Time to get that website (and all it's info) back in place!
Erm... hm? The only thing I can even remember mentioning that possibly conflicts with the movies would be 10-year-old Indy's reactions to the snakes in "British East Africa, September 1909" / Passion for Life (and yeah, I do think that's explainable by the different circumstances of the encounter, and also that it doesn't necessarily denote an out-and-out ophidiophobia - as I mentioned earlier, he doesn't freak out when he sees the snake charmer's cobra in Egypt in 1908). I assume that's the thing you were referring to my explaining; what's the other one? (I ask that, somewhat fearing that you'll tell me and I won't be able to come up with an explanation, and I'll be unable to appreciate it all any longer... :eek: )Yes, the fear of snakes was one problematic issue (and your explanation is excatly what I was referring to) but the other big one is his inability to fly a plane in "Doom". Given all his experience in "Attack of the Hawkmen" sitting in the co-pilot seat (which usually had all the same instruments), he should have known the basics of flight. To me, this is the biggest contradiction in the series. (How to rectify it? Erm...Young Indy was too pre-occupied/naive to pay attention?)
Ummm... you've got me! :o I'd like to go with something appropriately academic-sounding, like some sort of classic library archive. If we knew the names of the libraries at Marshall College, I think one of those would be ideal...Rightly so, but anything with the word "Chronology" would've be good enough. ("cron"?:sick:)
I don't know; this is just conjecture. That said, I get the impression they don't have someone like him meticulously vetting everything, but instead just have general mandates for writers - "don't use Belloq in this date range," say, or "no long-lost brothers," that sort of thing, and maybe supply writers with copies of existing tales - just dumping a bunch of the Bantam paperbacks in their laps, say - and otherwise letting writers of new material fumble their way around, hopefully not getting too many threads tangled, and at some point Mr. Chee gets to read it and make notes for the... (sorry, I have to say it) Indycron, and tries to sort stuff out as best he can, if necessary, whenever he has the time. But I'd like to think there's more to it than that...As you say, one would like to think that "there's more to it than that" but until we see better, I don't have much confidence in ever achieving a cohesive Indy timeline/canonicty.

[Nurhachi1991]

I love Young Indy

[Crack that whip]

Yes, the fear of snakes was one problematic issue (and your explanation is excatly what I was referring to) but the other big one is his inability to fly a plane in "Doom". Given all his experience in "Attack of the Hawkmen" sitting in the co-pilot seat (which usually had all the same instruments), he should have known the basics of flight. To me, this is the biggest contradiction in the series. (How to rectify it? Erm...Young Indy was too pre-occupied/naive to pay attention?)

Ah, Ok. I didn't (and don't) see this one as a problem at all. Having been in the seat or not, he still definitely wasn't flying the plane, and yeah, I do think that, between trying to get pictures and trying not to get shot or fall out and all, he more than had his hands full. Certainly there just doesn't appear to have been time for any sort of detailed flying lesson - and if he'd learned in the first part of "Hawkmen," he wouldn't have needed someone to fly him in and out of the mission site for the second half, so the show itself clearly isn't intended to give the impression he learned how to fly. Couple this with his professed dislike for flying (which might raise a few eyebrows among people familiar only with the movies, but it makes sense for the time, given what flying was like in the era of the show and how much it changes in the next couple decades) and I think you have an entirely consistent scenario.

If it's still a problem, I'd suggest the very idea that he does take a stab at flying the Trimotor could show him trying to recall whatever little bit of the earlier experience he might've gotten, and of course he does seem to eventually figure out an eensy bit of it, but under the circumstances (plane without fuel) it winds up not mattering anyway. I further see his line about "Fly? Yes; land, no" in Last Crusade as pretty much a direct allusion to this (since he'd gotten a smidge of flying experience, but never gotten to land), though others questioned it at the time as some sort of error. I never could; it just didn't seem to me that someone was likely to learn a great deal about flying a plane without bothering to learn how to land, and even if one were, the gap between the two stories is plenty of time to have learned, anyway (though note that in Raiders, between the two, he still has someone like Jock to fly him around, rather than flying a plane himself).

So, anyway... nah, I don't see it as an issue. He could pick something up from the aerial recon experience, but if so, it just makes sense to say that's what he uses when first feeling his way around the controls in the Trimotor, and eventually in more comfortably handling the biplane - and why not? It's now been less time since he was last behind a plane's controls (the time from Temple to Crusade) than it was the last time he was in one (the time from Hawkmen to Temple).

______________________

Now, having said all that, and undoubtedly come off like the total fanboy apologist I am... :o I did just remember that there is one thing that represents a potential discontinuity between the TV show and the movies, and while I'm satisfied with my own reasoning behind the snakes and the flying, I'm not sure I have a compelling explanation for this one. I do at least have one (a few, actually), and it's not something that would change any storylines anyway - it's just a missing reaction when I'd expect one (as opposed to 10-year-old Indy's reaction to a snake at a time when you wouldn't expect it, which if anything should be harder to explain), so one could easily blow it off as just being one of those things that's "there" but we don't get to see.

It's simply that for someone who obviously holds a deathly fear of heights in "Travels With Father," Henry Sr. doesn't seem to have all that difficult a time boarding the biplane below the airship in Last Crusade, and I'd have thought that'd be damn near impossible for someone with acrophobia (I mean, can you imagine the view down, and this thin little ladder you hang onto? I don't have a particular fear of heights, and I think it'd give me pause...). I have to imagine either a) he really was terrified and we just didn't get to hear him say it, or b) he was making a point of not paying attention to the view below so he could descend the ladder, or c) he decided he'd simply rather face heights than Nazis. This is my favorite idea, since it goes so well with the disgust and contempt he so clearly expresses for the Nazis more than once in the movie, not to mention his statement a short while before "When we're airborne, with Germany behind us, then I'll share that sentiment" (and of course, it could be a combination of this plus one or both of the other two). I'm still not quite as comfortable with it as I'd like, but I can live with it.

[Plaristes]

A few comments on stuff said in recent posts:

Both the Star Wars Holocron and the Indycron are internal Lucasfilm databases. As such, they are not available to the public, as they contain info from unpublished internal notes, as well as upcoming material that hasn't been published yet.

G-Canon is for "George-Canon." The reason T-Canon isn't G is because it contains a lot more input from people other than George (the films aren't entirely George's ideas, but he has more direct input in them than he does the tv shows). Nevertheless, since George has more input in the tv shows than the licensed material, they are generally given more weight than licensed material when contradictions are found (but not always). C-Canon stands for "Continuity-Canon," i.e., stuff intended to exist within the overall continuity that isn't G or T-Canon. S-Canon means "Secondary-Canon." This is funky category. The basic idea is that some older material that was produced before there was an effort to maintain a consistent overall continuity may or may not fit within that continuity. Good examples would be the Marvel Star Wars and Indy comics. When Leland created the Holocron and Indycron, this older material had not been vetted properly to check its consistency with more recent material, so he input the material with an "S" in the canon field to indicate that it could use more thorough checking, and to indicate that new authors aren't necessarily constrained by said material (but they are free to reference it if they want). Given recent LFL policy, it seems that most stuff initially labelled S-Canon is being treated as if it should be included in the overall continuity (this is more obvious in the case of Star Wars than Indy, but then again, recall the coverage of the Marvel Indy comics in the Indy mag).

As for a replacement name for the Indycron, since Indy knows Latin, how about the Summa Indiania?

[Crack that whip]

Thanks for the info, Plaristes. Would you happen to have an internal connection yourself?

G-Canon is for "George-Canon." The reason T-Canon isn't G is because it contains a lot more input from people other than George (the films aren't entirely George's ideas, but he has more direct input in them than he does the tv shows). Nevertheless, since George has more input in the tv shows than the licensed material, they are generally given more weight than licensed material when contradictions are found (but not always).

That's surprising, and more than a little disappointing. While I do know he didn't write the detailed scripts (nor did he do so for the movies, of course), I also know he laid out the basic template for where Indy would go and whom he would meet and all that, and I'd always had the idea he frankly had at least as much input into the series as he did the movies. Certainly he appears to have regarded it as a labor of love, into which he put a tremendous amount of effort and resources. I'd think that as an actual, filmic production of Lucasfilm, Ltd., it'd be treated the same way as the movies themselves, since it's the same in principal - to me, it seems the only reason there are so many more people with input is because there are so many more episodes (that is, the show overall might have dozens of writers, but any one given episode won't have that many more than any one movie - the opposite, if anything, since I don't think most of the series' scripts went through so many drastically different revisions and writers as the last couple movies did).

I'm really curious about your last sentence here (the shows having "generally given more weight than licensed material when contradictions are found (but not always)," specifically the parts I've bolded). It implies there are some situations when licensed material actually takes precedence over the show. If so, what specific situations would these be, and why (if you know)? Personally, I'm much inclined to go the opposite way, on the basis of a) the show tending to have much greater overall consistency with itself and with the movies than licensed works do (since they can and do conflict not only with the show, and perhaps even the lastest movie(s), but with other licensed works as well), and b) on just plain quality - while undoubtedly virtually all the licensed works are more like the movies in terms of the style and tone, the pulpiness, etc, very few of them are as just plain good, IMO (but I do recognize my opinion isn't universally shared, here).

C-Canon stands for "Continuity-Canon," i.e., stuff intended to exist within the overall continuity that isn't G or T-Canon. S-Canon means "Secondary-Canon." This is funky category. The basic idea is that some older material that was produced before there was an effort to maintain a consistent overall continuity may or may not fit within that continuity. Good examples would be the Marvel Star Wars and Indy comics. When Leland created the Holocron and Indycron, this older material had not been vetted properly to check its consistency with more recent material, so he input the material with an "S" in the canon field to indicate that it could use more thorough checking, and to indicate that new authors aren't necessarily constrained by said material (but they are free to reference it if they want). Given recent LFL policy, it seems that most stuff initially labelled S-Canon is being treated as if it should be included in the overall continuity (this is more obvious in the case of Star Wars than Indy, but then again, recall the coverage of the Marvel Indy comics in the Indy mag).

This I know about, and it makes sense. It is hard to fit some of the Marvel-era stories and whatnot into the grand Indy tapestry (the same with Star Wars), but they're fun all the same.

As for a replacement name for the Indycron, since Indy knows Latin, how about the Summa Indiania?

Ooooh, I like it! :up:

[Plaristes]

Hah, I wish I had an internal connection! :cool: No, I'm just a fellow fan. Since I'm also a Star Wars fan, I've followed the discussions about canon policy for a while now, which have had more detailed input from LFL officials (like Leland) than have Indy discussions on the same point. Leland has addressed these issues for the Indycron, though, just not in as much depth (sometimes at the promting of Indy fans; I was the guy who asked the question in the Indycron thread about whether Leland has official translations of the Hohlbein and French material).
Leland has stated several times that the official policy on discrepancies between different sources (no matter their canon designation) is always decided on a case by case basis. So, it is possible for G or T-Canon material to be overridden. I can't think of any Indy examples, but a good Star Wars example is Boba Fett. George has said several times that it was always his intention that the scene in Return of the Jedi where Fett falls into the sarlacc is supposed to be his death scene. However, Marvel and later Dark Horse comics wrote stories that claimed that Fett eventually crawled his way out and lived for years afterwards. LFL has deemed the comics to be correct here, so even though there is a G-Canon source (the film) saying Fett dies in the sarlacc, the official stance of Lucasfilm is that Fett survived.
There are very few instances of this, though. There are lots of examples of G or T-Canon material overriding C and S-Canon (e.g., Boba Fett's backstory was blasted to bits when Attack of the Clones was released). So, while it's possible in principle for a novel, comic or game to override one of the films or tv shows, this almost never happens.

[Crack that whip]

Yes, I remember that; I'm a huge Star Wars fan myself (actually, it's probably most accurate to say I'm simply a big Lucas / Lucasfilm fan), and used to read all the Star Wars EU material. It's clear the movie was intended as Boba's death scene, but of course the many comics that maintained he survived didn't actually contradict that scene, since they still showed him going into the Sarlacc and all, simply surviving.

In recent years I've become somewhat disenchanted with the SW EU, and tend to reject pretty much all of it published after a certain point in the '80s (it's just as well, since I couldn't possibly afford the money or time required to keep up with it all now). Most of the "EA" (if we may now refer to the Expanded Adventures for Indy the way we do the Expanded Universe for Star Wars), though, doesn't "rub me the wrong way" nearly so much as so much of the EU does (even if I don't necessarily accept all of it as canon, either).

[Stoo]

Ah, Ok. I didn't (and don't) see this one as a problem at all. Having been in the seat or not, he still definitely wasn't flying the plane, and yeah, I do think that, between trying to get pictures and trying not to get shot or fall out and all, he more than had his hands full. Certainly there just doesn't appear to have been time for any sort of detailed flying lesson - and if he'd learned in the first part of "Hawkmen," he wouldn't have needed someone to fly him in and out of the mission site for the second half, so the show itself clearly isn't intended to give the impression he learned how to fly. Couple this with his professed dislike for flying (which might raise a few eyebrows among people familiar only with the movies, but it makes sense for the time, given what flying was like in the era of the show and how much it changes in the next couple decades) and I think you have an entirely consistent scenario.The problem I have is that, while you're in the air, flying itself is not that difficult. Landing is the tough part! Indy was with the Lafayette Escadrille for almost a month. He should have picked something up (about flying, not taking off/landing) since he wouldn't be required to snap photos until they reached their target. However, I will give Indy the benefit of doubt by the mere fact that motorized flight was still relatively new in 1917 and he was probably a bit too overwhelmed/afraid to retain any information.

Both the Star Wars Holocron and the Indycron are internal Lucasfilm databases. As such, they are not available to the public, as they contain info from unpublished internal notes, as well as upcoming material that hasn't been published yet.Thanks for your answers to my questions regarding the lettering system, Plaristes.:hat:

So, while it's possible in principle for a novel, comic or game to override one of the films or tv shows, this almost never happens.Well, it has with the cause of Anna Jones' death (which is just plain silly).:down:

As for "Star Wars", I saw it in the cinema when I was 10 so I'm one of those original SW kids who lived, breathed & collected it for years before the renaissance that started with the Timothy Zahn books. I have "Heir to the Empire" but after reading a book of short stories that were so filled with mistakes (did those authours actually see the movies?), I pretty much gave up on all future expanded tales. True, I've bought a few games, comics, etc. but there was just way too much to keep up with and contented myself with the smaller Indy World. (Still love SW, though!)

Re: Boba Fett. What I liked about Marvel's return of Fett was that he got out of the Sarlacc, had a little adventure and ended up back inside. His backstory (that was thrown out the window with "Clones") is actually not completely Expanded Universe material since the origins are from a brief description in 1980's "Empire Strikes Back Sketchbook", a legit source.

[Rocket Surgeon]

Since they treat the "Indyverse" much the same, but with less care I thought this article was pretty relevant to the discussion...


August 9th, 2009, 9:44 am · Post a Comment · posted by Jayson Peters
An author who has worked extensively in the Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU), fleshing out bounty hunter Boba Fett and the clones that make up the Grand Army of the Republic, announced Saturday on her blog and official Web site that she was ending her involvement in George Lucas’ Galaxy Far, Far Away.

Karen Traviss decided to make the as-yet-untitled Imperial Commando 2 her last Star Wars novel because of clashes in continuity emerging from the upcoming second season of the Clone Wars animated series:

I’ve been receiving mail from Star Wars fans who have bought the new visual guide to the second season of the Clone Wars TV cartoon, and have been perplexed by detail in it. They’ve noticed changes in canon. They’re mailing me to ask what’s going on because it appears to affect areas that my novels deal with. I admit I didn’t know there was a guide coming out this early, let alone what would be revealed in it. But now that it has, and you’re asking me what’s happened, it would be naive to stall you when you have the book in front in you, and pretty rude to ignore you.

I can’t discuss the canon issues because of the standard non-disclosure agreement that all writers sign. I’m not even going to discuss the ones that are public now, and I know little of the full detail anyway. So please don’t ask me. All I can say is that I was given enough of the detail in January to realise that changes in continuity were such that I wouldn’t be able to carry on as originally planned with the storylines you were expecting to see continued in my books. It would have required a lot more than routine retcon.

The only solution I could think of that could accommodate the changes was a complete reboot, and I seriously considered doing that. But starting over, when I had so many other books on my plate? The knock-on effect on my other work was a problem, because most of my income doesn’t come from Star Wars. And then there was the risk of alienating readers. Pulling the rug from under them after so many books - that wouldn’t go down well, and “I was only following orders” doesn’t appease anybody these days.

Her Star Wars credits include the novelization of The Clone Wars, the big-screen launch to the animated series, and the follow-up novel No Prisoners; four novels in the Republic Commando series; Imperial Commando: 501st and its upcoming sequel; and three novels in the Legacy of the Force series that breathed new and unexpected life into the character of Boba Fett. She is the author of her own Wess’har series of sci-fi novels as well as several tie-ins with the Gears of War video games.

Traviss’ contributions to Star Wars will surely be missed going forward. But since she’s not giving up writing great sci-fi, the loss is Lucas’. Maybe if his Empire would collaborate more with the diverse voices working across the books, comics and video game media that comprise the EU, rather than leaving them to learn of problems directly from fans, there wouldn’t be such as ruckus when continuity issues arise. Imagine that, canon wrinkles being smoothed out before they get to the consumer level.

[Plaristes]

Yeah, I read Karen's blog yesterday. It's very depressing news, as she's one of my favorite SW authors. The precedent is ominous, too. If George is willing to basically say, "you know what, I've got my ideas, so I don't care that by pushing forward with my story, I'm basically saying that the events in 9 adult length novels beloved by many fans never happened," then this is perilously close to eliminating the canon policies of LFL. And of course, since this is an Indy forum, I have to point out that, while in one sense I would love for an Indy 5, the prospect fills me with dread, since it would give George another chance to steamroll previous Indy material (e.g., "Deirdre Campball? She's not a part of my vision. Let's add a line about how Indy never married prior to KotCS").

[Crack that whip]

Fascinating. It's surprising to see something like this publicly aired (speaking of that, where was this first posted, Rocket?), though not surprising that such issues arise. In all fairness, I think the SW EU is surprisingly well-coordinated given the volume of material being produced; it's just that there's so much being produced now it'd be practically impossible to keep the canon continuity as smooth as it should be. Of course, the obvious solution would be to just produce vastly less of it and not have some huge number of comics and novels published seemingly every week, but presumably there's not much call for restraint when there's so much money to be made from publishing.

(On the other hand, given how I felt about some of the novels, I was frankly glad to see how some of the details in some of them were contradicted by the newer Lucasfilm screen productions, since it diminished the grounds for considering them canon...)

Stoo, by any chance was the short story compilation you mentioned one of the "Tales From..." books (Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina, Tales From Jabba's Palace, Tales of the Bounty Hunters)? I wasn't crazy about those, either - oh, I definitely liked some individual stories, but not all, and of course the ones I liked least were those by Kevin J. Anderson, who not only co-edited those volumes but also wrote a huge number of other Star Wars books to boot - for a while he seemed to be the principal author of licensed Star Wars fiction, a fact that really bothered me since I thought he didn't really "get" a lot of the characters and their relationships, he got little technical details wrong, etc.

[Rocket Surgeon]

Fascinating. It's surprising to see something like this publicly aired (speaking of that, where was this first posted, Rocket?), though not surprising that such issues arise. (On the other hand, given how I felt about some of the novels, I was frankly glad to see how some of the details in some of them were contradicted by the newer Lucasfilm screen productions, since it diminished the grounds for considering them canon...)

I found it here:

http://nerdvana.freedomblogging.com/2009/08/09/star-wars-canon-is-finally-shooting-itself-in-the-foot/26259/

I'm content knowing the EU is in the space between spaces and only crosses over on the occations that the material merits...as decided by GL.

I think a lot of it is laughable and while fun and escapist, it isn't satisfying and just doesn't live up to my expectations.

I've posted this before, and it amazes me how people feel they have some ownership of the character and the weight they freely give to some of this stuff. But here goes again:

George Lucas characterized his creations in a recent interview as such:
I'm the father; [the films], that's my work. Then we have the licensing group, which does the games, toys and books, and all that other stuff. I call that the son - and the son does pretty much what he wants." He laughs. "Once in a while, they ask a question like 'Can we kill off Yoda?', things like that, but it's very loose. "Then we have the third group, the holy ghost, which is the bloggers and fans. They have created their own world. I worry about the father's world. The son and holy ghost can go their own way."

He doesn't care about the EU Scheiße!
If something strikes his fancy he may include it...but it's not really Indiana Jones. Not until it's in a film.