Unsurprisingly, the decision boils down to the only official canon consisting of the original six films, J.J. Abrams' new trilogy, and the animated series Rebels and The Clone Wars. Any new content produced will be approved by Lucasfilm and part of the new cohesive canon, not really all that different from what Disney has done with Marvel's movies. But because the old expanded universe content remain big money makers with tons of followers, they will be housed under the new "Legends" banner. They won't be part of official continuity, but at least they will continue to see print and be made available to those who want to buy them.
A six-minute featurette honoring the Star Wars expanded universe has also been released, but to be honest it felt like one big brush-off, a "good bye" to all the stuff fans bought thinking it would have relevance forever. That no longer seems to the be the case. Honestly, it's for the best. There were waaaay too many Star Wars books out there confusing things and contradicting one another. This has been a long time coming. The full press release and featurette is below.
For over 35 years, the Expanded Universe has enriched the Star Wars experience for fans seeking to continue the adventure beyond what is seen on the screen. When he created "Star Wars," George Lucas built a universe that sparked the imagination, and inspired others to create. He opened up that universe to be a creative space for other people to tell their own tales. This became the Expanded Universe, or EU, of comics, novels, videogames, and more.
While Lucasfilm always strived to keep the stories created for the EU consistent with our film and television content as well as internally consistent, Lucas always made it clear that he was not beholden to the EU. He set the films he created as the canon. This includes the six "Star Wars" episodes, and the many hours of content he developed and produced in "Star Wars: The Clone Wars". These stories are the immovable objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all other tales must align.
Now, with an exciting future filled with new cinematic installments of Star Wars, all aspects of "Star Wars" storytelling moving forward will be connected. Under Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy's direction, the company for the first time ever has formed a story group to oversee and coordinate all Star Wars creative development.
"We have an unprecedented slate of new Star Wars entertainment on the horizon," said Kennedy. "We're set to bring Star Wars back to the big screen, and continue the adventure through games, books, comics, and new formats that are just emerging. This future of interconnected storytelling will allow fans to explore this galaxy in deeper ways than ever before."
In order to give maximum creative freedom to the filmmakers and also preserve an element of surprise and discovery for the audience, "Star Wars" Episodes VII-IX will not tell the same story told in the post-"Return of the Jedi" Expanded Universe. While the universe that readers knew is changing, it is not being discarded. Creators of new "Star Wars" entertainment have full access to the rich content of the Expanded Universe. For example, elements of the EU are included in "Star Wars Rebels". The Inquisitor, the Imperial Security Bureau, and Sienar Fleet Systems are story elements in the new animated series, and all these ideas find their origins in roleplaying game material published in the 1980s.
Demand for past tales of the Expanded Universe will keep them in print, presented under the new Legends banner.
On the screen, the first new canon to appear will be "Star Wars Rebels". In print, the first new books to come from this creative collaboration include novels from Del Rey Books. First to be announced, John Jackson Miller is writing a novel that precedes the events of Star Wars Rebels and offers insight into a key character's backstory, with input directly from executive producers Dave Filoni, Simon Kinberg, and Greg Weisman.
And this is just the beginning of a creatively aligned program of "Star Wars" storytelling created by the collaboration of incredibly talented people united by their love of that galaxy far, far away....
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