Official This Is?: When Non-Canonical Fan Art is Promoted by Lucasfilm
Master Yoda. That badass little green guy we all know and love. Even people who have never seen Star Wars know his name. However, not even the most devout of Star Wars aficionados could tell you the name of Yoda’s race. In “legend-izing” most of Yoda’s backstory there is now even less we can draw from to try and determine more about our favorite tiny green Jedi. However, this curse can be just as much of a blessing, giving fans a huge area of unknown to play about in. But what happens when things that are created within that unknown are showcased and supported by Lucasfilm?
For example, art-awakens.tumblr was created to house a Force Awakens fan art contest run by Lucasfilm. Their page consists of fan art for the new movie, ranging in many different styles and levels of expertise. However, this concept art of Yoda, created by Marco Teixeira, in particular stuck out to me, because unlike every other picture that was a homage to the future film by recreating images from the various other films and trailer, this picture was something that according to Lucasfilm doesn’t exist. Stuck in the blog equivalent of canonical purgatory, where does this promoted yet non-canonical piece fall?
In her blog post, Melanie Kohnen compares the strengths and weaknesses of official and fan produced transmedia. She goes about this by looking at official The Hunger Games ARG (Alternate Reality Game) and the fan produced Panem October. She argues that while the official ARG has more resources to pull from, and is a legitimate source, it is limited to what it can reveal (as to not dip into movie profits) and it “cannot stray too far from ‘canon.’”
“Working within these constraints leads to transmedia elements that focus on exploring places and settings rather than on expanding plot or characterizations” (Kohnen).
Fan produced work on the other hand is free to dabble in the world of possibility, as well as focusing in on characters and their relationships more. However “their creations are not officially sanctioned and often exist in a legal gray area, and they don’t usually have access to the resources that fuel official transmedia” (Kohnen).
“...These divergent sets of constraints in official and fan-produced transmedia enable new and largely complementary perspectives on the world of [the story]. This co-existence is less harmonious when fan productions appear too “official,”...” (Kohnen).
Which bring us back to the art-awakens tumblr and our non-canonical little friend. This tumblr in itself is a meshing of these two worlds. On one hand it is sanctioned and funded by Lucasfilm, but on the other it has been birthed from the minds of fans. Granted Lucasfilm does get to decide what goes up on the blog, but in choosing this particular piece they themselves have blurred the line of official and fan produced by making the fan produced (somewhat) official.
Kohnen, Melanie. "Creating a Spark: Official and Fan-Produced Transmedia for The Hunger Games." Antenna RSS. N.p., 11 May 2012. Web.
Teixeira, Marco. The Young Jedi Master. Digital image. Artstation. N.p., 2014. Web.