D&D 5E Do you care about setting "canon"?

[billd91]

Bolded for emphasis.

If every company had a Kevin Feige, then you wouldn't get Suicide Squad.

But the success of the MCU isn't just because of the source material; it's because the movies have some fan service (easter eggs, call outs), but, more importantly, tell fresh stories that appeal to the general movie-going public that doesn't care about canon or lore, and just wants to see a good movie, with some funny dialogue, good acting, and lots of people hitting each other with explosions.

In the end, what matters more is whether the story is good; not whether Heimdall ever looked exactly like Idris Elba in the comics.

The movies could be successful, but they wouldn't be Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man and so on. They'd be something else. That something else might be successful, but without the essential character of the originals, translated for the now and the screen, they wouldn't be the same intellectual property.

Edit: Importantly, the people running the MCU recognize this and actively manage this with an eye to maintaining more than just lip service to the originals or just preserving names.

 

[Imaro]

I'd also say that Disney's involvement has been comparatively minimal. Though they acquired Marvel in 2009, that's after the initial MCU was under way. Moreover, the MCU has only been integrated with Disney Studios and management since 2015, long after their strategy was already in place. A more important element in the MCU's success in translating the comic book lore to the screen has been the creative committee whose job it is to maintain the narrative integrity of the MCU, something Fox and Sony obviously don't have. These are guys well-versed in the history of the Marvel universe like Joe Quesada and Brian Michael Bendis. And while the MCU necessarily diverges from the comic book canon (How can it not? Most of the characters date back to the 1960s), they're the ones making the best fit with the character and themes of the original while making fresh stories.

I stand corrected, thanks. Thinking about it I reealize Marvel studios did start this before Disney was involved.

 

[Imaro]

That's not really true. The lore from the comics does matter - it just necessarily needs to be changed because the movies are introducing characters at a substantially different time from their originals. Tony Stark can't be wounded in Vietnam. Captain American can't be 20 years out of time, he has to be 70. Black Widow can't be a Stalingrad orphan. Yet Tony still gets wounded and needs his invented gear for his heart, Captain America is still the liberal guy he is thanks to being written by New York artists through the 1960s and 70s, Black Widow is still a Russian spy made to be ruthless as necessary. Hell, even the Hulk is still a result of military weaponry research - it's just super-soldier rather than gamma bomb.

Moreso they've stuck with their lore and canon after establishing it in their MCU...

 

[lowkey13]

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[Imaro]

The problem is that there are certain people that believe that the owners of the IP aren't allowed to change, modify, remove, subvert, or pick & choose what aspects of the IP because of CANON. Which is patently ridiculous. Good stories do well and become part of the so-called canon, bad stories do poorly, regardless of what canon warriors claim.

So was 4e canon change a good or bad story change? Ask 4e fans and they'll extole it's virtues... ask a Planescape fan and they'll tell you how bad and why... In other words it's all well and good to say that good stories succeed and bad stories do poorly but it's so subjective as to be near meaningless. As an example away from D&D I honestly think the Star Trek reboots have been pretty good and yet the last two didn't do well at the box office does that mean these are good stories or bad? Whose definition of doing well are we using? can a story be good and not do well? If so that kind of dis-proves your premise.

 

[lowkey13]

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[billd91]

Sure, there is something "core" about Batman. More dark than your average superhero. Doesn't have any innate superpowers (usually; arguably, being really smart, driven, and wealthy is a "power," but I would dispute that in comparison to most heroes). Origin story usually involves the whole parents being killed. Often has a butler named Alfred. Has cool toys. There are certain Batman archetypes that, if you mess with, you must do so knowingly and with caution. But that just speaks to the fact that it is an established property (an IP); not that canon cannot be changed.

What makes something an established IP except canon (barring legalistic objects like registered trademarks)? It's not that canon can't be changed, it's that some canon needs to be preserved even in the face of other changes to the canon.

Which takes us all the way back to the OP. When pemerton mentioned what makes a Greyhawk game was basic geography and history (like Hardby being ruled by the Gynarch and the Bright Desert being settled by Suel tribesmen) - that's canon every bit as minute as minutiae that he says he doesn't care about. So while some canon doesn't matter to him, other canon clearly does. The same is true with the MCU, Batman, and generic D&D creatures/classes/etc and the IP holder messes with it at some risk - that risk being rejection by the already established market for that IP.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Imaro]

Well, ask yourself what is canon? What is lore? I mean, I said this way back when, but technically, canon is only what the official person denotes as such. Yep. That's right. You don't get to say what the sacred texts are, and I don't, since we don't the control authorship or the IP.

So to use the canonical definition of canon, the audience has to just suck it up, buttercup.

Thats not the definition of canon.... Canon in so far as literature/written works are concerned is defined as...
[Middle English, from Late Latin, from Latin, standard]
a : an authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scripture
b : the authentic works of a writer
c : a sanctioned or accepted group or body of related works <the canon of great literature>

So actually If its not the authentic works of an author then its not canon... irregardless of who owns said works. And if a work is not accepted... it's not canon. Neither of these are what you seem to be claiming canon is... ie whatever the publishers of a work claim it to be...

 

[Imaro]

It is not sufficient to base an objection to something by simply claiming, "That isn't canon."

I disagree... if you have set up certain expectations through established canon... its perfectly sufficient to object to something because it broke those established expectations through a change in canon. If I go to see a DC comics Superman movie and its about a regular joe who programs computers with superhuman skill...I have every right to reject the movie based on it not being canon... whether the change is "good" or "bad"