star wars expanded universe canon

Canonically the green lightsaber is commonly used by wiser, senior Jedi, such as Yoda, Qui-Gon Jinn, and later Luke Skywalker after completing his Jedi training. So the Expanded Universe was very much separate. However, in order to allow this story to function as a whole, it was kept in an order of continuity. Disney-era Star Wars has consistently suggested the "legends" of the galaxy's ancient past, told in the old Expanded Universe, are still relevant. "The most definitive canon of the Star Wars universe is encompassed by the feature films and television productions in which George Lucas is directly involved. Many types of toys have been made. That's what Lucasfilm is now claiming, along with every comic book, novel and video game to bear the Star Wars moniker. Upon occasion, Lucas's new films, reedited original-trilogy films, or statements contradicted existing EU material, and several retcons were used to fix these inconsistencies. The following material, although released after April 25, 2014, is not considered canon: Manage all your favorite fandoms in one place! Having reached peace with the Yuuzhan Vong, the newly formed Galactic Federation of Free Alliances struggles to keep itself working as a single government. A graduate of Edge Hill University, Tom remains strongly connected with his alma mater as a volunteer chaplain. When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, the old Star Wars Expanded Universe was given the non-canon "Legends" designation. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions.George Lucas, from an interview in Starlog #337. However, Foster's 1978 novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, is thought of as the first Expanded Universe work to be released. The statement was accompanied by a new video from Lucasfilm about the. However, as soon as Disney bought Lucasfilm, an official Star Wars canon was established, and it only considered the first six Star Wars movies and Clone Wars as part of it. Heres what Star Wars creator George Lucas thought of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and whether the Old EU was ever Star Wars canon. In mission and quest solving, canon is assumed to be the fullest and best outcome possible of each mission/quest available as given in the briefing or scenario. The games are of the action role-playing game (RPG) genre, a type of RPG that is still turn based like most RPGs, but instead of waiting for the other player to take a turn, the turns are based on a rate of fire. You saw the movies. For those against Disney's treatment of the EU, consider when George Lucas headed Lucasfilm the Expanded Universe was allowed to flourish in all its . The general rule was that nothing in the Expanded Universe was allowed to contradict any other part of the Expanded Universe or the films. Star Wars has always been a transmedia franchise; the first official tie-in novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster, was published back in 1978 - before the release of The Empire Strikes Back. Most of those, however, ceased publication by the end of 2014. But this does not mean they do not exist. Taking their cues from the minimal words of description on a script page, these talented men and women have sketched, drawn and/or modeled creatures of magnificent breadth, unimaginable terror, and mind-boggling eccentricity. ", Warwick Davis reprised his role as Wicket W. Warrick in the two Ewok films, Ben Burtt was heavily involved in the later episodes of the, Special Edition and prequel trilogy producer. Star Wars was also a daily newspaper comic strip from 1979 to 1984. He started his professional life very young, as he was selected, during high school, to serve as a teacher in a tutoring program offered by one of the best universities in his state. The Rebellion starts to reform itself into a body of government, first as the Alliance of Free Planets, and later the New Republic. Problems can arise with customizable options such as the species, gender, or alignment of the main character, until Lucasfilm releases a definite answer on this. It's a conundrum that could have been easily skirted with a little planning and smart usage of the existing canon, in the form the Star Wars novels. Some windows are a bit foggier than others. Five years later the galaxy goes through the events of Star Wars: The Dark Nest Trilogy. Certain previously published Expanded Universe material remained in print as Legends stories. But it isn't canon for the newer films starting with The Force Awakens, as Disney-era Lucasfilm has its own "Canon" and a smaller, newer bunch of books/comics/games that have been released since 2014 or so. The EU has been re-termed "Legends," with related publications remaining in print under that banner. Statistics, on the contrary, are considered game mechanics. Well, now we have an official answer: It. But, fortunately, it's becoming clear the EU still matters - from a certain point of view. In any conflict of canon, the respective movie has precedent, though this is rarely an issue. Star Wars Fans Missed the Point of Palpatine Being Anakin's Father, Expanded Universe is no longer strictly canon, Star Wars Just Gave The Jedi Their Version Of Captain America, Star Wars Art Showcases Unique Lightsaber of Greatest Jedi Swordsman, Tony Stark Is Becoming the IRON SHOGUN with New Samurai Armor & Swords, Civil War's Alternate Ending Unleashed Iron Man's Ultimate Weapon, DC's Most Powerful Hero Is a Justice League D-Lister (According to Batman). LEGO has cooperated with LucasArts to make four video games (LEGO Star Wars 1, 2, 3 and Complete Saga). He included a conversion table (from the previous d6 versions to the new d20 version) at the end of the third edition that helped Star Wars gamers adapt to the new d20 version. Rogue Squadron saw two sequels, both on the Nintendo GameCube system. On August 4, 2004, when asked if the G and C-levels formed separate and independent canons, Leland Chee responded by stating that both were part of a single canon:[25], In a December 7, 2005 post, Chee commented on how the Holocron is applied to licensees:[26], In a December 6, 2006 post, Chee contradicted his original statements regarding the canonicity of the Holocron and how it applied to the Star Wars universe:[27], On a post made on the following day, Chee stated that:[5]. When playing the board game, the players could put in the tape, which would play while they were in a game. Rogue Squadron was a cross-platform title on Nintendo 64 and PC which allowed the player to experience a more arcade-action version of the same gameplay in X-Wing and TIE Fighter, similar to the action in the Nintendo 64 title Shadows of the Empire. Recently, a toy line called Star Wars: The Original Trilogy Collection brought back elements of the original vintage toy line, such as vintage packaging. But it wasn't until the 1990s that the franchise's potential began to be realized at last, after Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy and Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy Dark Empire. Both films were later officially confirmed as part of the continuity of Star Wars Legends and no longer canon. The original Star Wars Databank entries distinguished movie information and EU information, providing them in separate tabs. Star Wars Legends, formerly known as the Expanded Universe (abbreviated EU), encompasses every one of the licensed and background stories of the Star Wars universe, outside of the original six Star Wars films produced by George Lucas and certain other material such as Star Wars: The Clone Wars, created before April 25, 2014. Superficially, one allure of the films is that they are organized numerically and logically whereas the Expanded Universe was published out of chronological sequence and occasionally contained minor contradictions and in some cases even major discrepancies, despite the best efforts of Lucas Licensing. Now venture out into the wider worlds of Star Wars!From the introduction to the Expanded Universe featured in certain e-book editions of Expanded Universe titles. Splinter drew inspiration primarily from an early draft of the Star Wars script. George Lucas Star Wars sequels would have also featured a new character named Kira in a leading role. Other early titles include the Star Wars Nintendo Entertainment System game (published by JVC) and three other titles for the Atari 2600. USA Today: 'Star Wars' books are soldiering on, 'Star Wars' spinoffs; Videogames, novels, TV keep mythology alive, "Should Star Wars Restart Its Continuity? The decision of labeling the old EU as non-canon will forever remain controversial, but its important to point out that George Lucas never thought of the Expanded Universe as being part of his Star Wars story. Meanwhile, Star Wars: Republic supplemented the show, filling in various empty spaces Clone Wars left while providing more context for all three prequel movies. However, Wookieepedia articles assume that the player picks the light side choice for all scenarios; therefore, even the secondary choices and events pertaining to the dark side or triggered by relevant choices are considered non-canon. For example, Prophets of the Dark Side featured the wedding of Han Solo and Princess Leia, but Dave Wolverton ignored this and featured the same event in his novel The Courtship of Princess Leia, which was released a few years later. The Disney "Star Wars" Legacy. Answer (1 of 52): Lets start from the beginning: The old Expanded Universe (EU) - now known as Legends - encompassed all of the officially licensed stories from the Star Wars universe; except for the main Star Wars films (plus The Clone Wars, Rebels & the most recent books). Health, shield, and Force repository are also game mechanics. In print, the first new books to come from this creative collaboration include novels from Del Rey Books. This style of RPG is somewhat new and made big waves for its innovative style. Prior to the release of The Phantom Menace, Lucasfilm specifically prohibited development of the decades prior to A New Hope in the Expanded Universe. The most important example is Coruscant, a name that was created by Timothy Zahn for the Republics capital described by George Lucas in an early draft of Return of the Jedi. Attack of the Clones, on the other hand, finally delved into the long-anticipated Clone Wars conflict first mentioned in A New Hope. The Star Wars Expanded Universe is, at this . Novelists and comic creators used West End Games' supplements as reference material. Disneys first creative decision upon acquiring Lucasfilm was to label anything Star Wars that George Lucas was not directly involved with as non-canon. Game mechanics are the "artistic license" properties of the game that separate any computer game from reality and serve to make one more playable and enjoyable; for example Kyle Katarn carrying 10 weapons simultaneously, fully and immediately recovering from wounds simply by touching a bacta tank, bodies of defeated enemies disappearing etc., are things not realistically possible. Specifically, the Yuuzhan Vong first appeared in the first New Jedi Order book, The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime. In this era, the Jedi are numerous, and serve as guardians of peace and justice. These examples sometimes ended up confusing the issue, having blurred the lines between the Expanded Universe and "his world.". But it's naturally a lot more difficult when it comes to Expanded Universe content set during the movie time-periods. Lucasfilm and publisher Bantam Spectra contracted inventive sci-fi writers, up to and including the legendary. Everything else that had been released from 1977 to 2012 including books, comics, and video games was then labeled as Legends, putting an end to the Star Wars EU. before Disney hit the reset button on the saga's "Expanded Universe" of books . For Star Wars, this began with the 1991 novel Heir to the Empire, launching the Expanded Universe most readers are familiar with. This effectively decanonized hundreds if not thousands of comics, games, books, and so on that. Stats include details such as weapon damage, speed, and character attributes (strength, intelligence, dexterity, health points, etc). In the introduction to the 1994 printing of Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Lucas offered his view on the evolution of the Star Wars saga:[7], This quote from an interview in the August/September 1999 issue of Star Wars Insider is also notable:[8], In an interview done in 2001, and published in "Cinescape magazine July 2002, issue #62: JEDI Master - George Lucas discusses STAR WARS Episode II" Lucas gave his opinion on the matter of what is canon in Star Wars:[9][10], Further, in an August 2005 interview in Starlog magazine:[11], Lucas' statements in Starlog were commented on a post made in December 7, 2005 by Leland Chee:[12]. Welcome to the Star Wars Canon Extended Wikia This Wiki is about the Canon of the new Star Wars universe and it works to incorporate some of the elements of the old Legends universe who could potentially make an appearance. [2][3] Today, some of the only Legends products that are still being released are the video game Star Wars: The Old Republic, along with short stories published on the Star Wars blog. He's heavily involved with his local church, and anyone who checks him out on Twitter will swiftly learn he's into British politics too. There are numerous errors that inevitably arise between the stories simply because different authors have their own ways of telling the story and may not have the time and resources to perfectly align the details. Much of the early Legends material from the early 1980s contained analogies to the real world, which belied the impression that the Star Wars universe had no connection to Earth or our own time. A few years ago, the LEGO creators invented light-up lightsabers for their figures. Like the great Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi said, 'many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. The Star Wars Expanded Universe had an incredible amount of worldbuilding with several characters, locations, and storylines but how exactly the Star Wars EU fits into George Lucas vision for the saga and its canon is a tricky question. The Expanded Universe had a continuity with few wrinkles. Star Wars Reading Chronology: Expanded Universe (Legends) A guide on the chronology of Star Wars books. On April 25, 2014, Lucasfilm Ltd. announced that in preparation for the upcoming sequel trilogy, the Expanded Universe would be rebranded as Legends and no longer adhered to; past tales of the Expanded Universe would be printed under the Star Wars Legends banner, and a new continuity would be established that consisted only of the original six films, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and all future material from that point onward. For example, the spin-off films: Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor were written by George Lucas and are films, but neither of them is one of the six main films in the series, so they were usually considered a part of the Expanded Universe. It was discontinued with the April 2014 reboot. After the seemingly final defeat of the Sith, the Republic enters a state of complacency. The term "Expanded Universe" was first used with Kenner's assortments of action figures based on the various Star Wars novels, comic books, and video games. The Holocron continuity database was an internal database maintained by Lucas Licensing for the express purpose of trying to maintain continuity. For more than a decade, Rebel Mission to Ord Mantell was the only Star Wars audio drama not adapted from a feature film. In other words, as far as Luke . Technically, George Lucas has been doing continuity all along by mapping out the nine films. A turning point was reached when West End Games began publishing the Star Wars roleplaying game in 1987. The reason is pretty obvious; Disney, Marvel, and Lucasfilm want to tell fresh and new stories with much-loved characters, and Legends would have restricted them. Select posts by me regarding continuity. Some are decidedly abstract. On the other hand, ambiguity is maintained when it comes to alternative choices and solutions to puzzles with the same outcome. While new material released on or after April 25, 2014 is generally considered canon, a certain amount of new material has continued to be released under the Star Wars Legends brand. The third and final season is set in the days leading up until the very beginning of Revenge of the Sith. Sequels to the novels were being published as comics and vice versa, and the scope of the Expanded Universe grew at a prodigious rate. In short, it's a series of tie-in novels and TV series that, yes, expand the world of "Star Wars" past the Skywalker family, the Empire, the Jedi and the Sith. But many threats from inside are joined by a danger that comes from the remains of the dark side. George Lucas plans for the Star Wars sequels, most of which were revealed in The Star Wars Archives: Episodes IIII, 19992005, prove that Lucas would have ignored the Star Wars Expanded Universe for his version of episodes VII, VIII, and IX. These planets were introduced in the Expanded Universe, and the sourcebook describes many details from the comics. In addition, both the original "X-Wing" and "TIE Fighter" games saw two collector's edition releases (one for DOS and another for Windows 9x) which featured enhanced graphics quality and added missions. Since 1983, over 120 video games have been published bearing the Star Wars name, beginning with Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back published for the Atari 2600 by Parker Brothers. Both those who liked the Star Wars sequels and those who didnt try to compare the sequel trilogy with how George Lucas envisioned the Star Wars franchise an interesting change considering the amount of criticism Lucas received for the prequels. Fans tried to fix this problem by suggesting that, since the scene in Prophets of the Dark Side concludes just as Han and Leia are walking down the aisle, the event was disrupted and postponed until the time of The Courtship of Princess Leia; the authors of Prophets of the Dark Side confirmed that they had planned to write another series of novels which would begin with the wedding's disruption, but their contract was cancelled before they could do so. Subsequent questioning over which continuity was "more official" revealed that Mr. Chee favored film + EU continuity, but in the end it was up to the individual fan:[28], On May 8 2008, Chee confirmed that Lucas' feature films and television production are both separate from the Expanded Universe:[20], On the following day, answering for questions about Lucas' mention of "three pillars" he clarified it even further:[21]. Although George Lucas's name is on the cover of the original Star Wars novelization, Alan Dean Foster ghostwrote it. The first Star Wars first-person shooter, Dark Forces, was introduced by LucasArts in February 1995. It's the same reason Lucasfilm originally decided to erase the EU from canon in the first place. ", If you don't believe in the EU version of the story or didn't like it, then perhaps this new revelation that [] suits you better. For years, hardcore Star Wars fans had considered the content of the Expanded Universe to be canon, and while only a mega-fan would have read all of the EU content there are well over 200 . Each respective level typically overrode anything later in the list; for example, Boba Fett's backstory was radically altered with the release of Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones, forcing the retcon of older source material to fall in line with the new G-canon backstory. A conversation between Lucas and John Knoll in a web diary during the production of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith showed more of the movie/Expanded Universe relationship: During ShoWest 2008, Lucas gave an interview where he mentioned the difference between "his world", "the licensing world" and the "fans' world":[13], Another noteworthy exchange between Lucas and an interviewer appeared in the May 2008 edition of Total Film magazine:[14], In August 2009, Mixnmojo made an interview with Mary Bihr, LucasArts' Vice President of Global Publishing back in 2009. The first edition (a d6 version) was published by West End Games in 1987. Warning: The guide below contains spoilers for various elements of the Star Wars universe. Game mechanics are also some special effects accompanying the use of Force powers, such as sounds and glow surrounding the caster, which never appear in the movies. 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