If Grievous hadn't been taken into Episode III, I would strongly dispute the cartoon's place in canon. The Ewok animation followed on from Episode VI; The Holiday Special followed on from Episode IV. Continuity from a canon source to some spin-off doesn't make the spin-off canon. Continuity from the spin-off back to the official source is a much better bet.
Even so, this is arguable. (I'm trying to recall old TheForce.Net debates here...)
basically, there's Movie-Level Canon, EU Canon, and "Infinities."
- The films, film adaptations, and radio dramas are Movie-Level Canon.
- The novels, all the in-continuity comics (which does, in fact, include the Marvel series with Jaxxon the space rabbit), the videogames, the Ewok made-for-TV movies, and the cartoons (Droids, Ewoks, and Clone Wars) are all considered equally valid EU Canon and are all understood to be in continuity with each other and the movies.
- Certain comics series (parodies and alternate-universe stories, mostly) and the Holiday Special are considered "Infinities," which is a cute marketing buzzword for "not canon"
Lucasfilm has been drawing the prequels, the Special Editions, and the EU into tighter orbits with each other as time goes on. elements from the EU pop up in the movies, and characters like Grievous who are designed to be in the movies are seeded in the EU first.
The Clone Wars storylines, especially, have been really tightly integrated. the idea was that the EU would pick up the ball at the end of AOTC, cover the entire conflict in a variety of media in "real time" for the three years between movies, and then drop things off at the big space battle at the beginning of ROTS, so that the whole thing is seamless. |
