"Which brings us to the often-asked question: Just what is Star Wars canon, and what is not? The one sure answer: The Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition -- the three films themselves as executive-produced, and in the case of Star Wars written and directed, by George Lucas, are canon. Coming in a close second we have the authorised adaptations of the three films: the novels, radio dramas, and comics. After that, almost everything falls into a category of ”quasi-canon.”"»
-----Some also say that Lucas is involved in Star Wars EU, thus it must be canon. That is wrong - Gene Rodenberry was also involved in some Star Trek EU, but Star Trek EU is NOT canon.------
"And so, condensing all these comments, it appears that Lucas's involvement is both limited and rather passive in regards to the EU novels. He will answer questions that are directed to him, but does not actively guide the Expanded Universe novels by keeping abreast of their development in any significant way. As Shapiro suggested, he simply leaves it to Licensing for the most part."
“There are two worlds here,” explained Lucas. “There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe – the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. They don’t intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don’t get too involved in the parallel universe.”"
- George Lucas, Flannelled One, July 2002 - as reported on the Cinescape site, from Cinescape Magazine
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STARLOG: "The Star Wars Universe is so large and diverse. Do you ever find yourself confused by the subsidiary material that's in the novels, comics, and other offshoots?"
LUCAS: "I don't read that stuff. I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world. But I do try to keep it consistent. The way I do it now is they have a Star Wars Encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it up and see if it has already been used. When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions." (emphasis mine).
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TOTAL FILM: "The Star Wars universe has expanded far beyond the movies. How much leeway do the game makers and novel writers have?"
LUCAS: "They have their own kind of world. There's three pillars of Star Wars. I'll probably get in trouble for this but it's OK! There's three pillars: the father, the son and the holy ghost. I'm the father, Howard Roffman [president of Lucas Licensing] is the son and the holy ghost is the fans, this kind of ethereal world of people coming up with all kinds of different ideas and histories. Now these three different pillars don't always match, but the movies and TV shows are all under my control and they are consistent within themselves. Howard tries to be consistent but sometimes he goes off on tangents and it's hard to hold him back. He once said to me that there are two Star Trek universes: there's the TV show and then there's all the spin-offs. He said that these were completely different and didn't have anything to do with each other. So I said, "OK, go ahead." In the early days I told them that they couldn't do anything about how Darth Vader was born, for obvious reasons, but otherwise I pretty much let them do whatever they wanted. They created this whole amazing universe that goes on for millions of years!"
TOTAL FILM: "Are you happy for new Star Wars tales to be told after you're gone?" LUCAS: "I've left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII-IX. That's because there isn't any story. I mean, I never thought of anything. And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn't at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn't come back to life, the Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married..."
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In April 2005, when asked about Star Wars beyond Episode VI, he said that the "other books and everything kind of go off on their path, but I never ever really considered ever taking that particular story further."» Indeed, in his May 2005 view:
"”Han and Leia probably did get married,” Lucas conceded. ”They settled down. She became a senator, and they got a nice little house with a white picket fence. Han Solo is out there cooking burgers on the grill. Is that a movie? I don't think so.”"»
That strongly contrasts with the EU notion that Han and Leia were part of a rather absurd number of continuing adventures, not to mention Leia becoming a Jedi. And, while some EU authors have apparently believed they were getting a chance to make something real in George Lucas's Star Wars universe, Dark Horse Comics editor Peet James points out that "Lots of people have been working on lots of SW extrapolations for the last twenty years, in good faith. There were never any promises from George Lucas or Lucasfilm regarding the acceptance of their work into some wider canon."» Given that Lucas actually reads the comics (which is not the case with most EU material), this comment is quite meaningful indeed.
Of course, it's worth directly reiterating that even if Lucas were personally writing the EU novels (and hence had the highest possible level of involvement), it would still take just a single statement from him to render them canonically invalid.
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Another confirmation of fact that EU is separate universe, much like Star Trek EU, is fact that Lucas repeatedly stated that Boba Fett died on Tatooine, despite EU bringing him back. He also took name "Coruscant" from EU, but concept of city-covered planet is completely his.
"I don't know why. [Laughs] I'm mystified by it. He is, he's a, I mean I think he's a, he's a mysterious character, he's a provocative character. He seems like an all powerful character, except he gets killed. Although he's gotten killed, the people who write the books, and everybody else, the comics, are all 'We cant kill him, we gotta bring him back!', you know, 'He can't die! We refuse to let him die!'"
- George Lucas, Flannelled One, 1997 - MTV interview as reposted in Boba Fett Fan Club site FAQ
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"Do you have a map of this universe, every single creature, where they come from, what they eat, what their society back home is like? Or are you just making it up as you go?“
„Well, I think somewhere in some of the dark recesses of my company's files there is something like that, but I've never seen it. And I don't really know. Even though I live this, and I know the worlds very well, and I know what everything in them is, half the time I'm in the fortunate position to just make it up. So, when somebody asks me a question, I just...I know what the consistencies are. I know what is consistent with a particular environment and what isn't. And really that's the job of the director, to keep everything in line. I can do that on the movie. But I can't do that in the Star Wars universe."
- George Lucas, Flannelled One, Summer 1999
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"I don't even read the offshoot books that come out based on Star Wars."
- George Lucas, Flannelled One, July 1999 - Film Night interview
(which is in direct contradiction to notion that everything is approved by him)
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"What would it take for you to do a third trilogy, with episodes VII, VIII and IX?”
“Each time I do a trilogy it's 10 years out of my life. I'll finish ”Episode III” and I'll be 60. And the next 20 years after that I want to spend doing something other than ”Star Wars.” If at 80 I'm still lively and having a good time and think I can work hard for another 10 years between 80 and 90, I might consider it. But don't count on it. There's nothing written, and it's not like I'm completing something. I'd have to start from scratch. [The idea of episodes VII, VIII, and IX] was more of a media thing than it was me.”
“Do you know how many fans would be willing to feed you Cream of Wheat and wheel you around in your chair if you did?”
“I don't think that's going to happen. Time catches up with you.”
“Yet novelists have written "Star Wars" sequels using the same characters and extending their stories.”
“Oh, sure. They're done outside of my little universe. ”Star Wars” has had a lot of different lives that have been worked on by a lot of other people. It works without me."
- George Lucas, Flannelled One, Nov. 2001 - "Matters of Life and Darth" interview in the Nov. 24-30 2001 TV Guide, pp. 24-25
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“There are two worlds here,” explained Lucas. “There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe – the licensing world of the books, games and comic books. They don’t intrude on my world, which is a select period of time, [but] they do intrude in between the movies. I don’t get too involved in the parallel universe.”"
- George Lucas, Flannelled One, July 2002 - as reported on the Cinescape site, from Cinescape Magazine
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"Q: Do you supervise the development of all the off-movie stories? After all, Star Wars exists in books, comics.
A: You know, I try not to think about that. I have my own world in movies and I follow it. Of course that the people who expand this universe work for me, but I can't follow up all that they produce.
Q: Can you quote any good story other than the movies?
A: No, I don't think so. (laughs)."
- George Lucas, Flannelled One, July 2002 - From a TheForce.Net translation of a Brazilian site's interview
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From above quotes, it is quite clear that EU is not canon, not even "lower canon".
Also, one must realize difference between branding strategy and canon. Whatever carries label "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" is part of respective brand. But that does not mean it is canon - only that Lucasfilm or Paramount get part of money made from selling that product. For example, Star Trek games are part of Star Trek brand, but that does not mean these games are canon. Quote from Wikipedia below quite clearly shows that CANON =/= OFFICIAL:
"When there are multiple "official" works or original media, the question of what is and what is not canon can be unclear. This is resolved either by explicitly excluding certain media from the status of canon or by assigning different levels of canonicity to different media, or not at all."
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There is also argument that beacouse LucasArts partially approve stories in EU, these stories must be canon. Well, aside from their utter faliure at being consistent with canon, we have same situation with Star Trek EU, which, despite being closely monitored by Paramount (1), is not canon. Therefore, saying that EU is canon beacouse it is monitored is pure logical fallacy - bullshit, if you want to be direct.
CONCLUSION:
From above, we see that only Lucas' work (two Trilogies and their novelizations + radio dramas and TV series) are canon, while EU is not canon, but is separate universe, like Star Trek EU. Also, new versions of movies override old versions.
http://www.canonwars.com/SWCanonlayer.html
Link above gives good 'layering' of SW canon:
The Films
Screenplays
Novelizations
NPR Radio Plays
Anything else (including EU) is not canon. The end.
NOTE: RotS novelization is only partially canon.
"Not only has Mr. Lucas succeeded in tying together the entire six-film cycle (and elegantly, too), but I've managed to weave in a significant amount of the Expanded Universe material in as well -- having started in the Star Wars realm as an EU author, after all. I was really trying to bring the whole Star Wars Universe together in this story, and while Mr. Lucas, in his line-edit, decided to excise a fair amount of the EU material, he also left a fair amount of it in... so I guess that makes whatever's left just a hair short of "G canon," for all the purists out there."
"As I said above, part of my aim here was to create a novel that would work as part of the EU as well as a companion piece to the film."
- Matthew Stover, Author (Ep3 and EU) and EU Guerrilla, Mar 2005 - "Inside Del Rey's Episode III Library" on StarWars.com
In short, he managed to sneak some non-canon into RotS novelization past Lucas, automatically lowering in on canon rating. Also, some of his claims are just ridiculous in veiw of canon evidence, such as battles occuring at near-lightspeed.
Regarding The Force Unleashed:
" Dan Wasson (Project Lead - Wii Platform) mentioned during his talk that the Force Unleashed story line is now official cannon for the Star Wars universe. And that future work could involve these characters or involve these characters in side stories and other appearances within the story's time frame. And since the scripts for the Star Wars Live Action show have yet to be written, it's possible that some of the game's characters could end up making guest appearances in the TV show."
However, given that some people see official = canon, I am sceptical about any game being canon; so, until Lucas confirms (or denies) this, I will treat The Force Unleashed as being decidedly non-canon, or, at best, low canon - equivalent of TCW.
