It Cannot Be Unseen

As noted elsewhere and soon to be fleshed out here, I do not consider the new Disney universe to be a continuation of the Lucas universe, but instead a new thing unto itself composed of Lucas and EU materials.

As such, while Rebels was growing on me and I am quite likely to watch the second season's premiere tonight, I'll have to give thought to continuing to watch.

After all, as obviated so well by all the EU fans who never could stop forcing EU ideas toward the works of Lucas even as he trampled the EU via TCW, the fact is that what has been seen cannot be unseen.

As Eric Geller so aptly put it (reminding me of Cerasi's old "foggy windows"), "printed stories continued to give fans a window into the universe [... t]he problem is that, from the perspective of the most authoritative Star Wars storytellers like George Lucas and Dave Filoni, the window opened by the Expanded Universe looked into an alternate reality."  And yet, like Shatner on the Twilight Zone connecting flight, you don't, and can't, forget what you saw.

Just as I still remember the notion that Star Wars space force personnel get queasy if things aren't upright, and just as I recall the suggestion from sone Trek non-canon that touching a Vulcan is thought quite rude, things get stuck in the brain that end up having nothing to do with the 'reality' of the universe you're trying to enjoy.

So, Rebels might be fun to watch, but as a person with a strong interest in assessing canon fact and discarding useless data, it simply doesn't make sense to expose myself to false data.  I am senile enough as it is, so trying to recall some moment of when so-and-so did such-and-such is already difficult.  Trying to maintain a separate compartmentalized section of my recall for Rebels is an absurd proposition.

Now, this actually contrasts strongly with Geller's final thoughts.  He argues:

"I’m not going to mince words here: It is manifestly unhealthy to invest yourself so heavily in the continuity of a fictional universe that you lose your taste for the stories when the house of cards collapses. (This is not to disparage continuity wonks. It’s great to care about the cohesiveness of a universe. The problem arises when your insistence on cohesiveness inhibits your ability to enjoy the stories as stories.)" 

He's not really wrong, insofar as the fact that any heavy fandom is indeed unhealthy and silly.  My brain is chock full of information that is, by any measure, utterly irrelevant from the perspective of a well-lived life.  Indeed, I think modern fiction generally, especially the drivel of modern Hollywood, is a dumbing force in society.  Panem et circenses has become government cheese and the boob tube.

That said, however, the Star Wars media empire and its focus on continuity is entirely based on building and expanding a fictional world, inviting fans to explore it and plumb its depths, as Chee's pre-Disney existence, along with the Story Group today, demonstrate.   To suddenly say "get a life!" when the world-building fails is hypocritical and rude at best.

A story may be the germ of omething good on its own, but if it doesn't fit, we must admit:  the world-building has failed.  And if we have invested ourselves in recalling and enjoying the details as we were invited to do, it is only natural that we would find it more difficult to enjoy the inconsistent work.