Canon in the sense of "world consistency" is absolutely important for a story. Luke is a human. Luke grew up on Tatooine. Those are canon. Is Luke suddenly appear in Return of the Jedi as a purple alien it wouldn't make sense.
From scanning over this thread, it sounds like your issue is more with writers trying to explain every little detail of the canon "Hey they mentioned the Kessel Run that one time, let's make a movie about it", which is not the same thing as having a canon to begin with.
The problem with canon is that when you focus on it too much, it ends up that your stories constantly have to one up each other (see Doctor Who and Star Wars)
Jack Bennett
What the fuck was the Resistance resisting?
Brayden Martinez
>Doctor Who >canon
That show's whole schitck is that it has virtually no continuity whatsoever beyond the seasonal level, which is how they're able to change actors constantly.
