Arguably the most authoritative , game - changing event in the history of Star Wars storytelling chance 10 years ago today . On April 25 , 2014 , Lucasfilm announced that theStar Wars Expanded Universewas being pushed away . All future storytelling would be part of the same , cohesive canon , and theEU stories fans knew and lovedover the year would become disconnected “ caption . ”
you could record the prescribed announcementat this link , and doing so with 10 days of hindsight is kind of mind - boggling . In the ten since , Star Wars lover have been so inundate with new stories , all of which connect , we almost take for deed over that Lucasfilm had to make the conscious decisiveness to take all those previous narrative , move them to the side , and intelligibly determine that all stories move forwards were officially part of the same world . Plus , at the same time , there ’s explicit acknowledgement that elements of the EUwould , could , and should be take over .
Two years prior to this , when news broke that Disney was buy Lucasfilm and new Star Wars moving picture were do , one of the first questions fans had was “ Are they just run to remake Heir to the Empire ? ” That ’s how pop those EU chronicle had become . In the decades since their unveiling , EU stories had basically become headcanon for fan . Even though much of what was written by different authors over dissimilar mediums did n’t all 100 % line up , it did n’t matter . devotee picked and chose what they want to believe and it was all fine . This news show specifically made it clear that was n’t run to be materialise anymore . Episode VII would not be inheritor to the Empire . Heir to the Empire was nothing . And yet now , 10 years later , it kind of has started to come back , with Grand Admiral Thrawn becoming the vainglorious bad in a whole other Star Wars story .
The cover of Star Wars: The Last Command by Timothy Zahn.Image: Lucasfilm
Another facial expression to deal is that while this newsworthiness sure made it seem as if there was no terminal point to the scope of succeeding Star Wars storytelling , most of that storytelling that ’s happened so far has been largely contained . Some characters are sometime , some are young , but from 2014 to now , very few stories have broken out of a roughly 100 - yr period of time of Star Wars chronicle . That slowly started to change with The High Republic in 2021 and now , this year it ’ll in the end make its manner to hold up action with The Acolyte , cement it for everyone . But that ’s a long time .
essentially , it ’s taken a decade for Star Wars to break out of its mold and embrace the kind of big - baseball swing , all - ERA storytelling the EU bring home the bacon decade before . That could continue further too if ( and that ’s a big “ if ” when it comes to Star Wars picture show ) James Mangold ’s Dawn of the Jedi pic becomes a world . It ’s almost like , in the 10 years since erasing the EU , Star Wars has lastly made it around to just start up … redoing the EU again . ( merriment side note : it was revealedin 2018 one grounds all this happenedwas because the EU killed Chewbacca and the studio did n’t want to make a young film without him . )
Why has it take so long for Star Wars to consider going out of the boxful ? Should we just be glad that it ’s ultimately encounter ? You also ca n’t facilitate but wonder what would ’ve happened if Lucasfilm went the exclusively diametrical way . What if there was no tried and true canon ? What if we just got new Star Wars stories like the EU did them ? Maybe just the movies could ’ve been contained ? You also have to remember that , 10 years ago , Star Wars becoming a TV - forward franchise never would ’ve seemed plausible , so that ’s a whole other angle .
And while the discussion around Star Wars canyon , the Expanded Universe , and more rage on , there is one fact we can all agree on . That discussion truly kicked into power train 10 year ago today . Where will it be 10 years from now ?
Want more io9 news ? ascertain out when to expect the latestMarvel , Star Wars , andStar Trekreleases , what ’s next for theDC Universe on pic and idiot box , and everything you require to know about the future ofDoctor Who .
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