There have been whole online volumes written about how to measure the " canonicity" of the EU - Lucas himself said that he believed all those stories took place in a "parallel universe" - but the point is, to many fans, the novels, comics and games were as real as the movies themselves. This is a cleaner, albeit less satisfying way of managing things.
If it fits into the existing franchise, great if something on screen contradicts it later, too bad. Star Trek makes it very clear that only what you see in the TV shows and films is "canon." That stuff "really happened," whereas all of the tie-in media is just a "what-if" story.
Authors, fans and corporate types alike dubbed this project the Expanded Universe.Ĭompare and contrast that to a franchise like Star Trek, which has just as many (and possibly more) comics, books and games associated with it. From "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" (Del Rey, 1978) and the Marvel comic series in the late '70s all the way up to "Crucible" (Del Rey, 2013) and the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO in the mid-2010s, almost every single Star Wars story on page and screen was part of the same continuity. But what's interesting about Star Wars is how all of its tie-ins tried to maintain some internal consistency. Star Wars wasn't the only sci-fi franchise to have tie-in books, comics, video games and tabletop adventures. One aspect of that merchandise is tie-in media. George Lucas pretty much invented the "summer blockbuster with merchandise" model that has carried Hollywood from 1977 into the modern day. Disney was only capitalizing on what was already there, both in terms of story and franchise structure. To be clear, I'm not saying that Star Wars was ever some kind of high-minded art project for the betterment of humankind. (Image credit: Lucasfilm) Your first step into a larger world