Star Wars canon in its current form is broken, but there is a way to potentially fix it using a system from the now-bygone Legends continuity. Since 1977, Star Wars has been a transmedia franchise, with numerous original stories supplementing the live-action films in other mediums. Until its rebranding as Legends (and designation as an alternate continuity), the Expanded Universe managed to keep a generally tidy timeline, maintaining respect for established lore and occasional retcons to avoid contradictions. The current canon thus far has had a far less consistent timeline, necessitating the revival of a Legends-era tier system to partially mitigate the issue.
The canonicity of Star Wars Legends is, understandably, often called into question, especially with a new and more mainstream canon currently dominating the perception of the Star Wars franchise. Before its Legends rebranding, the Star Wars Expanded Universe was repeatedly said by Lucasfilm officials and creatives to be the franchise’s official canon. If this was not the case, Lucasfilm would not have renamed it Legends and announced the start of a new canon in April 2014. The Legends-era tier system was not needed until perhaps the continuity’s final years, but it is now more necessary than ever to fix Star Wars’ current canon, whose timeline contains far more continuity issues.
