Yeah, and then you also had Shadows of the Empire which was released as a multimedia event meant to rival that of a new Star Wars movie release, with an onslaught of toys, comics and novels to go with the game.

Like I said earlier, there is a chart which Lucasfilm Licensing has which illustrates the various levels of canon, and it includes details of the level of accuracy to the source material that it needs to have to achieve that grade of canon. So basically all material is considered canon to a certain level, but only the movies and TV series are cast iron canon if you will. I'll have to see if I can dig it up, it is quite interesting actually. Even fan fiction is considering something like Z-grade canon or something.

I generally consider only the movies and shows to be canon myself, but then you get this level of cross-pollination between the EU and the movies when George Lucas sees something he likes from the EU and puts it in the movies (the Outrider ship from Shadows of the Empire appearing in the ANH Special Edition, Aayla Secura from the Dark Horse Star Wars comics appearing in the prequels, not to mention her master Quinlan Vos being name checked by Obi Wan in Ep3) instantly heightening the canon level, so I guess if he considers EU material close enough to his vision to put in the movies, then they deserve to be seen as such. And when games such as The Force Unleashed come out which are so closely intertwined with the plots of the movies the line between canon Star Wars and the EU becomes a little blurred.

Heh heh, I hear ya.