Expanded Universe (Star Wars)

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The Expanded Universe is a collection of fictional background material from the Star Wars universe that is derived from official novels, comic books, and various other media besides the movies themselves. The Expanded Universe is not considered canonical by most fans of the movie series. However the Expanded Universe has a continuity on its own. The general rule is that nothing in the Expanded Universe is allowed to contradict any other part of the Expanded Universe or the films. The films, however, do contradict the Expanded Universe on occasion, and off-hand explanations are often created in the Expanded Universe to explain these contradictions.

Probably the first inconsistency between the Expanded Universe and the films involves Jabba the Hutt. Since the Expanded Universe materials were created after the original trilogy and most of the Expanded Universe deals with events after these movies take place, most of the inconsistencies occur with regards to the prequel trilogy. There is an exception, however. In Return of the Jedi, Yoda said after he passed away that Luke would be the last Jedi. However, many publications following the release of Return of the Jedi involve Jedi whom Yoda seems to have overlooked. This can be explained by assuming that Yoda somehow did not know about these, did not consider them to be Jedi, or some combination of the two.

The earlist works involving Star Wars chronologically are the Tales of the Jedi comics series, which is set millennia before the films are. The most recent is the New Jedi Order, which is set about twenty years after Return of the Jedi.

Table of contents

1 The beginning
2 The early years
3 A turning point
4 New threats
5 Feedback
6 Characters
7 Locations
8 See also
9 External links

The beginning

The Expanded Universe is actually older than the Star Wars movies themselves. It started in 1977 when the novelization of Star Wars hit book stands before the movie was released in theatres. The novelization was ghost written by Alan Dean Foster. Since Foster was writing the book before the final cuts had been made to it, there were several scenes that he wrote for the book that would not appear in the film thus expanding the Star Wars Universe.

The early years

The early years of the Expanded Universe where sporadic and unrefined because there was very little for the authors to go on. The first EU novel to not be an adaptation of the films, Splinter of the Minds Eye by Alan Dean Foster, drew inspiration largely from one of the original drafts of Star Wars. Many of the books and comics from the 80s were contradictory and made many analogies to our reality. It wasn't until West End Games started publishing material for the Star Wars roleplaying game that the EU really began to be fleshed out.

A turning point

The EU was by and large not very successful in its early years. Many readers were turned off by the apparent lack of consistency of it all. It wasn't until Timothy Zahn wrote Heir to the Empire in the early 90s that it really began to catch on. Heir to the Empire was the first book in Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy and it sparked a revolution in Star Wars literature. After Zahn followed numerous Star Wars novels, most being well received.

New threats

It was decided at one point that using the Empire as the villains over and over again was getting old. Hence a new threat, the Yuuzhan Vong, was introduced in the New Jedi Order. The prequels also brought a range of new possibilities. Since The Phantom Menace was set in a time of peace, it was hard to invent any kind threat for the heroes to fight aganist. Attack of the Clones, on the other hand, introduced another fresh conflict -- one which fans had wanted to see for over twenty years.

Feedback

It seems that elements of the expanded universe influenced George Lucas in the writing of the Star War prequels, at least insofar as knowledge of the EU helps in understanding the prequels. For example, in episodes 4-6, the concept of Darth Vader being "The Lord of the Sith", or the emperor being called "Palpatine" are not really explained on screen. The fan fiction, or EU concepts that were developed however seem to have been adopted by Lucas in his newer movies. In fact, in Attack of the Clones there is a Jedi character, Aayla Secura, who was made for use in the Star Wars comic book. Lucas liked the way the character looked so much that he had a costume of the character made for the movie.

Characters

Locations