Commentary: ‘Star Wars Visions’ Is A New Kind Of Canon

The importance of canon varies from franchise to franchise. In terms of Star Wars, it tends to be extremely important as it has a very solid timeline from which all of its stories hang. Marvel, by contrast, has a stable of characters with a looser canon that changes from story to story, allowing creators to really tell different types of stories depending on their needs. It’s harder for Star Wars to do that since the timeline is so fixed. It hasn’t really stopped them from experimenting with different types of Star Wars storytelling, though. A great example of this is the animated anthology Star Wars Visions.

The concept behind Visions is very simple. It’s a merger of Japanese culture and animation with themes and subjects from within the Star Wars universe. For the most part, the stories are considered out of canon, meaning that they are not official tales slotted into the Star Wars timeline. At the same time, the show’s creators do not discredit the episodes completely from the canon. Instead, they offer up a status that kind of borders both worlds. Meaning, there might be plausibility for the stories to fit within the Star Wars timeline if allowed.

So Star Wars Visions has essentially created a new kind of canon — which is “not yet.” This status means that the stories weren’t created to officially be canon, but since the qualifications are there then something else has to come around to confirm it as being an official part of the Star Wars timeline. This is a very new and interesting type of story. It has the benefits of being free from the rigid Star Wars structure to really do what it wants to do, but these episodes and characters were crafted with the possibility of fitting into the timeline if they choose to do so later on. More franchises should take this approach with new content.

Star Wars Visions is now streaming on Disney+.