And, if the visual dictionaries are only canon until something else overrules it, why have visual dictionaries at all? They place unnecessary restrictions on storytellers (they would have to compromise between telling their story the way they want to tell it to ensure everything lines up with whatever Pablo Hidalgo typed up), not by the Lucasfilm Story Group - who seem OK with retconning the visual dictionaries - but from fans obsessed with having a perfect universe without retcons.
Now, as I’ve stated in previous articles, I hate the visual dictionaries.
It says that “the design of the Xyston-class Star Destroyer was informed by the design of the Mandator IV-class Siege Dreadnought.” But as a fan of TROS, I have to say, for a film that provides very few answers to what’s going on, the visual dictionary does not do a good job of making the Xyston fleet (or Sith Eternal fleet, or Final Order fleet, or whatever you want to call it) make more sense. The old Empire’s grave was the desert planet of Jakku, and the new Empire is rising up “out of the grave” from below the surface of the desert on Exegol. I love the parallel to The Force Awakens. One of many contentious plot points in The Rise of Skywalker.
