this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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Star Wars

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Wookieepedia, the most popular Star Wars wiki, appears to have entered an unexpected moment of crisis. It's impossible to overstate how important Wookieepedia, the fan-run Wiki, is to the Star Wars fandom. It's one of the largest Fandom sites in existence, with 193,050 pages and counting, and the site has even been frequented by actors and writers as well as general fans.

There's probably no better online resource when it comes to Star Wars, with Wookieepedia guiding viewers seamlessly through Legends and canon information. Even more impressively, over the last few years, the "Wook" (as it is often called) has become an important part of the online fan community in its own right. Unfortunately, over the last week, the Wook has found itself at the heart of a major controversy.

Leslye Headland's The Acolyte has proved to be one of Lucasfilm's most controversial releases to date, with an online backlash and a pretty transparent review-bombing campaign. One of the strangest controversies was over the age of Jedi Master Ki-Adi-Mundi, a character who makes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in The Acolyte episode 4. This appearance contradicted a 1999 CD-ROM and a 2013 trading card, both of which established that Ki-Adi-Mundi shouldn't have been born yet. Neither are actually canon, and Lucas himself contradicted the CD-ROM later in the prequel trilogy when he changed Ki-Adi-Mundi's lightsaber color.

Ki-Adi-Mundi's age became an unlikely flashpoint, especially when the canon page on Ki-Adi-Mundi was edited on Wookieepedia to reflect his appearance in The Acolyte. This resulted in death threat messages against the editor, and these were publicly shared by Jordan Wilson - then a key member of the Social Media Team and administrator of the Wook. Wilson had not been given permission to make these public, however, and has since acknowledged that doing so was a mistake. This seems to be the inciting incident for a major change at Wookieepedia.

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[–] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 95 points 4 months ago (3 children)

"In episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we-- to believe that this is some sort of a-- a magic xylophone or something?"

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 33 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Let me ask you a question. Why would a man who's tshirt says genius at work spend all of his time watching a children's cartoon?

[–] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I...uh...I withdraw my question.

[–] mjhelto@lemm.ee 14 points 4 months ago

Man, I miss the days watching The Simpsons while eating dinner and not having to worry about taxes or the perceived downfall of society.

[–] rbos@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 months ago

I had a moment recently where I noticed that in Bluey, the kids were sticking their legs through the bottom of their plastic car (one of the Grannies eps) but in the next scene the car had turned over and clearly had a solid bottom panel.

Yep........ magic car apparently!

[–] son_named_bort@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

A wizard did it.

[–] Jyrdano@lemmy.world 70 points 4 months ago (4 children)

As always, the key to enjoying Star Wars is to stay the hell away from Star Wars fandom.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 27 points 4 months ago (3 children)

And to stop watching after Episode Six.

[–] wuphysics87@lemmy.ml 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

All of star wars is pretty decent if you look at it as "this is what I'm doing for the next two hours and then I'm going to move on with my life"

[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

I'd argue that ep9 at best wasted my two hours and at wort burnt some braincells

[–] JamesTBagg@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I haven't even seen Ep 9, Episode 8 burned me. I haven't even bothered to pirate download it.

[–] fsxylo@sh.itjust.works 8 points 4 months ago

Most memorable ep 8 moment:

"Huh, this scene is dragging on for a bit"

Looks at watch

Halfway through movie

"Oh. Oh no."

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[–] Agrivar@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago (3 children)

...and you start with Episode Four, right?

 

Right??

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well...Rogue One is pretty damn good.

[–] Agrivar@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

Sure is! I was just taking a dig at Episodes 1-3. I rather liked Andor as well.

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[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And this comment is exactly why you should stay away from the Star Wars fandom.

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[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 63 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Fandom isn't a good website anyway, maybe they can use the opportunity to move to their own site like Minecraft did a few months back.

[–] subtext@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago

The migration of the Old School RuneScape (and RS3) wikis to a standalone site was a night and day improvement in quality over the previous fandom. Something sponsored by the parent company is infinitely better.

https://osrs.wiki

[–] Fades@lemmy.world 59 points 4 months ago

Death threats??? It’s so fucking pathetically horrific, what the hell is wrong with people

[–] Zacryon@feddit.org 51 points 4 months ago (2 children)

This resulted in death threat messages against the editor

What the fuck is wrong with such people? Get help.

[–] Nythos@sh.itjust.works 21 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Nobody hates Star Wars content and its fans as much as Star Wars fans do.

[–] Sarsoar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 4 months ago

But you don't get it, this one has trans people, and a lesbian, and a lesbian showrunner, and only like 2 white guys and one of them is the bad guy, and the main character is a fem presenting strong character (and theres 2 of them). They aren't even white.

Why would Disney alienate their core audience, me a cis white straight bigot that is already mad that women and minorities and queers exist without them shoving it down my throat?

Don't you get that this is a threat to my privilege?

[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 42 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (10 children)

The inciting incident was that the only canon that existed that had a birth date for Ki Adi Mundi indicated his birth as being a good number of decades after the Acolyte takes place, combined with more lore and canon stating that his species is relatively short lived.

Then, someone edited his listed birth date to be roughly 30 or 40 years before the Acolyte takes place, with absolutely no citation, so as to allow Mundi to be alive in the show.

That is what blew up into the insane drama which has apparently now resulted in death threats. Someone just took it upon themselves to invent a vague time frame of possible birth date with no actual source.

Cereans (Mundi's species) who live to 60 years are considered 'ancient', and well, now that the Acolyte show exists, Mundi would be 120 or 130 in the prequels. This would be akin to a human living to something like 220 years old with 0 explanation.

The other reason people are angry about the retcon is because Mundi has nearly no lines in the prequels, but one of the few he gets is to express shock at a report of Sith:

Impossible. The Sith have been extinct for a millennium.

Yet, in the Acolyte, he is shown to be aware of a rogue force user as he receives reports of this.

Basically, him being alive or not aside, this means that either he is a moron/incompetent who never followed up on this report, or a liar covering up a conspiracy... and because he says this amongst the Jedi High Council, this becomes transitive and means they are all some combination of either incompetent and/or knowingly going along with a lie, and have been for decades.

In the Prequels, the excuse for the incompetence of the Jedi High Council is that basically Palpatine was exuding some kind of Dark Side 'confusion' 'mind clouding' effect that made the Jedi never realize what was going on, being unable to sense a Sith in relatively close proximity to them.

This does not work going backwards about 100 years as Palpatine would not have been alive.

Who knows, maybe episode 8 will offer some kind of explanation for this?

EDIT: Ok, I have now seen episode 8.

While the show very much seems to be setting up for a second season... given that this is easily the most controversial, poorly received by fans and least watched of the Disney + Star Wars shows... I do not know if that is going to happen.

As it stands...

Err, well, ok:

SPOILER WARNINGEvery single Jedi involved in the original Brendok incident is dead.

Every Jedi tasked with investigating Mae's murders is also dead.

Osha and Smilo have escaped, Mae had her memory wiped for everything after she started the fire...

And Venestra is leading a coverup of the entire affair, and has pinned all of the recent Jedi deaths on Sol.

The last scene is Venestra approaching Yoda and saying 'we need to talk'.

While this arguably makes Ki Adi Mundi less of an idiot and or liar, as presumably the cover up would involve a fake explanation for what he had heard...

...This now makes Yoda into seemingly knowing most of what has gone on as Venestra would presumably tell him the truth, and they would together mastermind a coverup.

Venestra is earlier shown force sensing Smilo and would presumably know he is a Sith simply from detecting him, and also later mentioning that he was her former apprentice who turned.

This means Venestra knows a Sith exists.

So now instead of Ki Adi Mundi, a minor character, being either a moron or conspiratorial liar...

Now it is Yoda who is almost certainly a conspiratorial liar in the Prequels and Original Trilogy, who knows that Sith have existed in the not so distant past, and has collaborated with Venestra to cover this all up.

As for what I would consider not major spoilers:

Welp, much of what was established and agreed upon by a great deal of I guess 'formerly' canon material about khyber crystals (sp), how they work, how lightsabers are constructed, etc, that has all been changed or just ignored.

(Which reminds me, the original article this whole thread is about says that Ki Adi Mundi's lightsaber being a different color in a film as opposed to other stuff means that all of that is not canon anymore? No, it does not, it just means Mundi constructed another lightsaber at some point.)

(Further, the author just states 'neither of these are canon'. The entire problem that older Star Wars fans have had with Disney Star Wars is that Disney is exceedingly inconsistent when it comes to what they consider canon and non canon.)

(Ok, I mean sure there are a bunch of other problems people have, some legit criticisms, others very stupid and based entirely in bigoted views, but damnit this is my sperg post.)

(Prior to Disney taking over, there was an entire established hierarchy of canonicity, and now with Disney, they throw out entire huge plot arcs, time periods and characters and world mechanics that were canon, invent new things that break existing mainline and more ancillary canon, and then also mix and match some things that they originally said were not canon but apparently now are, back into their new stuff)

Osha is... either able to do something that has, to my knowledge, never before happened anywhere in anything Star Wars before, or, more likely, it was just done as a visual metaphor with little regard to existing canon, which probably won't be explained.

[–] Squorlple@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

EDIT: Ok, I have now seen episode 8.

While the show very much seems to be setting up for a second season… given that this is easily the most controversial, poorly received by fans and least watched of the Disney + Star Wars shows… I do not know if that is going to happen.

As it stands…

[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I have been adding to and editing my post as you replied, so apologies for that but...

I am seeing two ways to read this post, and I am not quite sure which one you are going for.

  1. You are with me writhing in pain as older established characters continue to be significantly altered in a way that is detrimental to the overall narrative of pre Disney Star Wars

  2. You are implying that Yoda is referencing these things that occured 100 years ago in a scene where he very clearly is not.

Sorry, I am in full autism mode trying attempt to understand how basically any of the canon works at all, at this point.

[–] Squorlple@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Mostly the first option, but the second option was also intended as a joking subtext about his new connection to these events

[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Damn, it has been a long time since I have seen or heard someone intentionally say or post something that has two or more distinct interpretations, and all of them are intended.

Bravo on that, haha.

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[–] Squorlple@lemmy.world 19 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Just say the Acolyte showed Ki-Adi Mundi Sr. and the prequel movies showed Ki-Adi Mundi Jr.

[–] DemBoSain@midwest.social 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ki-Adi Mundians reproduce through budding like yeast does. Once the head is large enough, it pops off and forms its own Ki-Adi Mundi, a genetic duplicate of the parent.

Ahh, the miracles of life.

[–] Arbiter@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Actually, according to legends Ki-Adi Mundi fucks.

A lot.

He has 5 wives whom he does not love.

[–] Squorlple@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Which is why the Sr./Jr. explanation can make sense here. Both would be males of the endangered species so the Jedi allowed each to breed. The reason Mundi Jr. knows nothing about the Sith is because his father never said to him “I love you, son”, “Want to play catch, sport?”, or “There are Sith currently”

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[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 12 points 4 months ago

It did seem an odd fuss over what could be easily hand-waved away if required. However, his previous age doesn't seem to be canon, so I assume this was approved from higher up as it gives us two known GR Jedi on the Council at the time.

[–] SirSamuel@lemmy.world 18 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Movies>shows>books>comics>games>Christmas Specials

This was figured out a long time ago picardfacepalm.jpg

[–] Arbiter@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You have it backwards, Christmas special is the ONLY definitive canon.

[–] SirSamuel@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

Actually, after sleeping, I'd like to amend my statement:

Original trilogy > anything written by Timothy Zhan > KOTOR > The Clone Wars > Andor > personal headcanon > ~~George Lucas' fever dream~~ The Prequels > Cool shit I read on Wookieepedia no matter the source > Books/Comics/Games > Disney > Christmas Special > Sequels

[–] BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And below the Xmas Special are the sequels.

[–] SirSamuel@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago

What sequels?

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[–] half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Which one of the buttons on Darth Vader's suit call his mom to come take him home? Huh? Can you tell me that wookiepedia?

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[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

All of this because of a minor character with, what, 5 lines and roughly 3 minutes of screentime throughout 3 movies?

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[–] mobilehugh@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

In the olden daze folks would argue over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Fighting over a sociopathic multi-national's IP canon seems very much like arguing over pin heads and angels.

[–] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] eyes@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Listen here you bastard, it's three tops

[–] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'll poke you with sticks for ten thousand years.

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[–] rustydomino@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

No one hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans.

[–] drislands@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago (3 children)

This is totally unrelated, but --

Wookieepedia is the only lore site that makes sense to be written in the past tense. The stories take place a long time ago, after all.

In contrast, I hate the Forgotten Realms wiki. There's no good reason for entries there to be written in the past tense. Grr.

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