Star Wars in other media
Star Wars has been expanded to media other than the original films. This spin-off material is licensed and moderated by Lucasfilm, though during his involvement with the franchise Star Wars creator George Lucas reserved the right to both draw from and contradict it in his own works. Such derivative works have been produced concurrently with, between, and after the original, prequel, and sequel trilogies, as well as the spin-off films and television series. Commonly explored Star Wars media include books, comic books, and video games, though other forms such as audio dramas have also been produced.
With the exception of the CGI-animated The Clone Wars TV series, non-film material produced prior to April 2014 was collectively known as the Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU). Lucasfilm, now under Disney, later rebranded the Expanded Universe as Star Wars Legends and declared it non-canonical to the franchise. Most works produced after April 25, 2014 are part of the official canon as defined by Lucasfilm, although a handful of Legends media has still been released after said date.
Publication history[edit]
1976–1987: Early films and television series[edit]
The first Star Wars spinoff material was Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker (1976), the novelization of the 1977 film. Lucas later commissioned Alan Dean Foster, who ghostwrote the novelization, to write a sequel, which resulted in Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978). Lucas originally intended to use this as the basis for a potential low-budget sequel to Star Wars, but when it became one of the most successful films of all time, Lucas decided to write his own story for the film sequel, The Empire Strikes Back (1980).[1] While this was in production, Lucas approved the Star Wars Holiday Special (1978), with which he had limited involvement.
Running from April 1977 to May 1986,[2][3][4] the Star Wars comic book series from Marvel Comics met with such strong sales that former Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter credited it with saving Marvel financially in 1977 and 1978.[5] The series became one of the industry's top selling titles in 1979 and 1980.[6] An adaptation of the third theatrical film, Return of the Jedi, was released as a separate four-issue limited series (1983–1984).[7]
Two novel trilogies with original storylines were written, The Han Solo Adventures by Brian Daley (1979–1980),[8] and 1983's The Adventures of Lando Calrissian by L. Neil Smith.[9][10] Daley also wrote radio dramatizations of the original trilogy, which aired in 1981, 1983, and 1996.
The first Star Wars electronic game was released in 1979 by Kenner,[11] followed by a handful of Atari and Parker Brothers video games in the early 1980s, mainly adaptations of film scenes.
Two spin-off television films focusing on the life of the Ewoks, introduced in Return of the Jedi, aired in 1984 and 1985. The furry creatures were also the subject of an American/Canadian animated television series produced by Nelvana, which ran for two seasons between 1985 and 1986. A sister series, Droids, features the further adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO. In 1985, Marvel Comics' Star Comics imprint published a bi-monthly Ewoks tie-in comic, which ran for two years, and in 1986, published an eight-issue Droids series.[12] The two series featured a crossover storyline.[13]
The Star Tours ride was opened at Disney Parks in 1987 to commemorate the saga's 10th anniversary.
1987–1991: "The Dark Times"[edit]
Following the series' 10th anniversary, the release of Star Wars spin-off media was largely halted. In 1987, the fan newsletter Bantha Tracks was absorbed by the official Lucasfilm magazine, which focused on the company's projects outside of Star Wars.[10] Some fans feared that the franchise had come to an end, and the period between 1987 and 1991 has been called the "Dark Times."[10]
There were some bright spots in this era, however. In 1987, West End Games began publishing Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, and the subsequent ancillary role-playing game material such as sourcebooks, gamebooks, and adventure modules. These have been called "the first publications to expand greatly beyond what was known from the vintage era of the movies," and would serve as a resource for a number of franchise novelists.[14]
1991–1996: Thrawn novels and Dark Empire comics[edit]
The lack of new Star Wars material ended with the 1991 release of Timothy Zahn's novel Heir to the Empire.[10] Heir to the Empire, which reached #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list,[15] began what would become a large collection of works set before, between, and especially after the original films.[16] StarWars.com wrote in 2014 that the novel "jumpstarted a publishing program that endures to this day and formalized the Expanded Universe".[16] It introduced, among others, the popular characters Grand Admiral Thrawn and Mara Jade, and was followed by the sequels Dark Force Rising (1992) and The Last Command (1993).[16][17] The Thrawn trilogy is widely credited with revitalizing the Star Wars franchise.[16][18][19] In The Secret History of Star Wars, Michael Kaminski suggests this renewed interest was a factor in Lucas's decision to create the prequel trilogy.[19]
Around this same time, the comics license was transferred to Dark Horse Comics, who launched a number of series set after the original film trilogy, including the popular Dark Empire sequence (1991–1995) by Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy.[20] The comic launched months after the first Thrawn novel and was a sequel to those novels; it notably resurrected the film characters Emperor Palpatine and Boba Fett. Zahn was critical of the concept of resurrecting Emperor Palpatine through cloned bodies, feeling it undermined and contradicted the meaning of the ending of Return of the Jedi.[21]
The Jedi Prince series of young-reader novels, released between 1992 and 1993, depicts Luke, Leia, and Han about a year after Return of the Jedi.[22] The Truce at Bakura (1993) depicts the immediate aftermath of the aforementioned film.[22] In 1993, Dark Horse published Tales of the Jedi, expanding the fictional universe to the time of the Old Republic, approximately 4,000 years before the films. Later, the series spawned the Knights of the Old Republic computer roleplaying games, which led to many new productions set during the Old Republic era, such as the Bane Trilogy and the Knights of the Old Republic comic line.[23]
In 1994, Lucas Licensing's Allan Kausch and Sue Rostoni discussed the relationship between Lucas' creations and the derivative works by other authors:
The Star Wars Legends fictional universe spans multiple eras. The names, symbols, and dates of the publishing eras were first introduced in October 2000[93] and were refined[94] up to February 2015:[95]