In talking about Disney's decision to not use the existing Extended Universe for further Star Wars media, The Mary Sue blog launched into a rant about the loss of meaning for canon. In short, the article claims that canon used to mean the separation of fanfic from authorized works, but now that even authorized work by the same company isn't necessarily included in the timeline (Star Wars novels as compared to the movies, for example), that the meaning, and even the need, for canon within fictional works is null and void.
Comic book continuities did it first. They hold a broader picture and an understanding of how to manage multiple continuities, if not necessarily elegance in their solution. Both Marvel and DC have many universes, one of which is the main universe which all the comics take place. (Marvel even says that our mundane real-life existence is a numbered universe in their pantheon.) The divisions of realities are different in that there is frequent crossover and knowledge of one another, but the writers make an explicit statement that multiple realities exist. Not so for Star Wars and other properties, but the time should come, in my humble opinion, to assume this is always the case.
The Star Wars universe does have their own system. In the Wikipedia article, G-canon is the films and anything said by George Lucas. T-canon is television canon, C-Canon is a continuity canon that includes the novels, and so on.
So what is the problem, according to The Mary Sue? Quote: "all it does is give copyright holders...a tool with which to exert control over our culture." I can somewhat see their point - that they want control over their own culture - that geeks today are more and more at the whim of companies since fandom is our life. That there is forever a renewed interest in classics that are in the public domain - Alice in Wonderland, Wizard of Oz, Shakespeare - shows that people want and need to reinterpret. So, in a sense, The Mary Sue and others who may agree with the sentiment are like Martin Luther, nailing a list to the church door, demanding a reformation. Likewise, I see that this division - what the crowd wants, and what the authority is willing to give them, like Protestant and Catholic - will continue indefinitely.
I don't know of a concrete answer. Maybe someone will think of something. Here's the only idea I could come up with - make a metastory IP whose property is already divided, and no one setting is paramount to the others. Purposefully make a movie, then make an equally expensive movie that completely blows canon out of the water. Then do it again and again, keeping the main themes intact. DC sort of does that with constant movie reinventions and universe realignments in the comics, but it fails because they are trying to get one setting that sticks, and then running with it. They don't want to un-canon-ize. But maybe, just maybe, that little trick where the sidekick takes on the superhero's persona when the main superhero dies just might be what everyone is looking for, metaphorically speaking. Keep the major themes, drop the protectiveness of what has to be. Keep the Batman, drop the Bruce Wayne, forever.
The problem with my idea, and with this whole sentiment of destroying the idea of canon, is that details create believability. In the tradition of Tolkien and Lucas, the more rabbit holes you can go down in a world, the more doors you can open in a level of a video game, the more believable and immersive it is. It would be a huge waste of time and money to create this huge playground, lucrative to the company, then dispose of it for no reason. Except that's what copyright law originally did - let the IP linger in the hands of the descendants for awhile to sustain them, and then it becomes property of the people. Does anyone believe that the descendants of Lewis Carroll are being shafted right now? Is George Romero, who accidentally let Night of the Living Dead become public domain by not renewing his copyright, suffering?
George Lucas has retired from Star Wars, for the most part. As bad as the prequels were, they were still his creations. Everyone who said that George Lucas ruined everyone's childhood by destroying Star Wars must realize that Disney only has good favor right now because they are a stand-in for the cypher that existed in everyone's minds called 'George Lucas' replacement'. But underneath, it is still one of those companies that runs IP into the ground. Disney, WB, DC, Marvel, every IP holder in the world whose last name isn't Watterson. Star Wars, Batman, Harry Potter - they will never die. The zombies aren't us - it is the media we consume.
I want to mention my half-assed solution again: Keep the Batman, drop the Bruce Wayne. Or, more generally, keep the superhero concept in movies, but don't keep banking on the popular ones over and over. The theme of (in this instance) superheroes can be even more universal, like the theme of buddy movies, or car chases. But it has to constantly be reinvented. Yes, the trope of buddy movies can be considered zombified if there's nothing new to the trope, ever, and one is just stuck in their summer lineup rotely every year. People will take the buddy movie and purposefully make it different, very different, just to be fresh. So far, it has worked with Disney/Marvel (no more grittification, let's just go down the snark hole and let tech get impossibly magical). And when that runs dry, drop it. Sony's Spiderman and Fox's X-men should already be dropped. If I ever wrote a popular book and sold the movie rights, I'd want to put in a reboot clause. An acquisition of this IP is allowed one iteration. No reboots or retroactive continuity is allowed.
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