Disney announces that new Star Wars films will not include characters from ‘expanded universe’

FOR Star Wars tragics, it’s the end of the (expanded) universe: the characters and concepts created for franchise spin-offs will not feature in the new films.

FOR most people, the Star Wars saga ended with the death of Darth Vader, the destruction of the evil galactic Empire, and our heroes partying with the Ewoks in the treetops.

These were the events that concluded episode six in the franchise, Return of the Jedi, which was released in 1983.

But for many fans, that ending was only the beginning of an astonishing range of books, comics and games that sought to take the Star Wars story forward.

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In this “expanded universe”, Han and Leia had a son who became a Jedi knight, Luke found love, the universe got invaded by a new bunch of alien baddies, and characters who had only the most fleeting mentions in the original Star Wars movies found themselves fleshed out and cast in their own spin-off series.

News_Image_File: Star Wars comic creator Tom Taylor displays some of his ‘expanded universe’ work.

But with Disney working on episodes seven, eight and nine of the saga, as well as a rumoured Boba Fett spin-off, the film makers have announced that they are sidelining the characters and concepts developed for the expanded universe.

In a statement released to fans at starwars.com, the original six movies and its film and TV offshoot, The Clone Wars, are described as “the immovable objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all other tales must align”.

“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.”

The statement also notes that while Star Wars creator George Lucas strove to keep “expanded universe” stories consistent with the original films, he “always made it clear that he was not beholden to the (expanded universe)”.

News_Image_File: Lightsabres and lightning ... everything is possible in the Star Wars expanded universe.

In fact, the “expanded universe” is almost as old as the Star Wars franchise itself.

In the wake of the runaway success of the original film in 1977, George Lucas commissioned a novel the following year which featured Luke, Leia, Darth Vader, C3PO and R2D2.

That novel, Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, was written by Alan Dean Foster and featured, among many other oddities, a lightsabre battle between Darth Vader and Princess Leia, and a considerable amount of sexual tension between Luke and Leia, who were revealed to be siblings in Return of the Jedi.

The events of the novel were not referenced in the second instalment of the Star Wars trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back (1980), thus invoking the idea of a “canonical” and “non-canonical” rendering of the Star Wars universe.

Meanwhile, rumours about the first Disney-produced Star Wars film are spreading widely, with reports that Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) and Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) are all set to reprise their roles from the original films, although they are not expected to feature prominently.

COMING UP: Seven things to expect from Star Wars Episode VII