Soon after Disney boughtStar Wars from Lucasfilm, the studio made its intentions clear by cleaning out the continuity that grew wildly inconsistent over the years.

Now known as "Legends," the shows, comics, and novels that followed the first sixStar Wars films were sequestered to their own canon and allowed Disney to work with a clean slate. However, in the past eight years, that slate has gotten pretty muddy, and it appears Disney has no intention of cleaning it.

From the start, many of the "Legends" stories conflicted, making understanding what was and wasn't canon all that more difficult for hardcore fans. One of the continuity experts working for Lucasfilm who later made the transition to Disney, Pablo Hidalgo, once addressed the rampant inconsistencies, saying, "if you had to throw a dinner party and invite everyone who had ever stolen the Death Star plans, you'd be surprised at how many place settings you'd have to worry about."

As Disney set out to reach new audiences and revitalize theStar Wars franchise, it seemed best to clear away the canon most fans weren't familiar with. The general rule of thumb became that only select properties, including the six live-action films and the CGI-animatedStar Wars: The Clone Wars, would be canon, and from that point on, all the projects Disney produced were to be regarded as canon, allowing the company to manage the continuity closely.

But part of the problem in understandingStar Wars continuity is that it comes built with a rat's nest of inconsistencies in the films. Each film in the Original Trilogy instituted retcons to statements established in the previous film. The Prequel Era only compounded the problem, proving extremely inconsistent with the history established in the Original Trilogy.

Disney did very little to clear up those problems when first taking ownership of the property, instead electing to ignore them moving forward. This left the world ofStar Wars with some puzzling questions. What's worse, the inconsistencies in the franchise grew once Disney's began producing its own projects.

Star Wars Dark Empire Cover Luke Skywalker Holding Green Lightsaber

Ifeverything Disney produced was to be considered canon, then the company's retellings of already established stories would be canon. Unfortunately, for fans, they began to conflict rather quickly. TheGalaxy of Adventures YouTube series, for instance, depicts Darth Vader sending two giant doors flying off the hinges of the Rebel's hidden base with the Force despite him doing nothing of the sort in the live-action film. Similarly, his duel with Luke proves fast-paced and athletic in a manner that shows the capabilities of the fighters as being drastically different from the precedent.

With that in mind, it's hard for fans to know which story takes priority. "Legends" continuity developed an approach in which they gave different tiers of the canon a different level of priority. The live-action films superseded anything that seemed to contradict them, and various series or properties with an endorsement from creator George Lucas were classified as different "degrees" of canon. But Disney has no such system in place, and any revisions they do to the original films could justifiably be treated on equal terms of canonicity with the originals themselves.

YouTube series likeGalaxy of Adventures or children's books likeChewie and the Porgs barely reach a wide enough audience for the problems of canonicity to become widespread, but it's one that will only expand over time. There's no telling how officials like Pablo Hidalgo will guide Disney in addressing such concerns, but as the ire overThe Rise of Skywalker proves, this is a matter that fans treat with severe gravity.

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