Star Wars Canon, Expanded Universe, & Legends Explained

In April 2014, the Star Wars franchise made its biggest canon and continuity change in its 47-year history. Disney purchased Lucasfilm and Star Wars in 2012, and two years later the studio announced a partial reboot. There are now two Star Wars continues, canon and Legends; what is (and was) canon is not always clear, especially concerning the original Expanded Universe that has now been rebranded as Legends.

Star Wars has always been a transmedia franchise. The noveliization of the first movie (later retitled A New Hope) came out six moths before the film’s theatrical release, and new stories were being told in other mediums within a year of the film’s debut. For the past 47 years, Star Wars stories have been told in every medium and across two mainstream continuities, but their respective canonical statuses have changed over time, with April 2014’s partial reboot being the most significant change.

How Star Wars Canon Evolved Under George Lucas

Most viewers know Star Wars as a movie franchise, but in truth there’s a lot more to it than that; there are comics, novels, Mangas, computer games, trading card games, RPGs, and more. The term “Expanded Universe” is used to refer to these other mediums, and to their contribution to Star Wars continuity – at least until 2014. The EU had always been part of Star Wars, but it notably flourished in 1991, after the release of Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire and Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy’s Dark Empire.

George Lucas never treated the Expanded Universe consistently. For most of the Star Wars franchise’s history, George Lucas has treated the EU as though it was canon. Lucas often brought elements of non-movie material into the films themselves, gave the materials his approval, vetoed ideas that did not fit with his vision of the Star Wars franchise, and gave varying degrees of input to creatives for their respective projects.

Despite this, Lucas would later claim he saw his movies and the EU as different worlds, even noting he does not imagine Luke Skywalker getting married (to Mara Jade) nor Palpatine being resurrected – even though that was his idea and mandate for Dark Empire. Lucas worked closely with Dave Filoni on the 2008 movie and TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which constantly contradicted EU lore from that era – including ideas Lucas one approved of or even came up with. Lucas was even infamously quoted by Filoni as saying “Continuity is for wimps.”

Star Wars creatives gradually realized Lucas’s inconsistent attitude towards the Expanded Universe, with author Kevin J. Anderson noting in the introduction to a graphic novel printing of Dark Empire:

When you read Dark Empire, or any of the other novels, remember that although Lucasfilm has approved them, they are our sequels, not George Lucas’s. If Lucasfilm ever makes films that take place after Return of the Jedi, they will be George Lucas’s own creations, probably with no connection to anything we have written.

The Star Wars Expanded Universe Was Always A Central Part Of Canon

Despite Lucas’ ambivalent and inconsistent relationship with the EU, the truth is that before the 2014 Legends rebranding, the Star Wars Expanded Universe was officially canon. Lucasfilm executives and creatives went to great lengths to ensure that all properties – be they live-action films or non-movie material – fit together. George Lucas is correctly credited as the primary creator of the Star Wars universe, but as soon as other creators told original stories in an official capacity, it became a collective body of work rather than solely George Lucas’s.

Speaking to Wired in 2008, Lucasfilm executives Leland Chee and Howard Roffman discussed the canonicity of Expanded Universe works. “The thing about Star Wars is that there’s one universe,” Chee observed. “Everyone wants to know stuff, like, where did Mace Windu get that purple lightsaber? We want to establish that there’s one and only one answer.” Roffman also weighed in, reinforcing the point. “We set parameters,” Roffman noted. “It had to be an important extension of the continuity, and it had to have an internal integrity with the events portrayed in the films.”

The EU did have a safety net, however, in the form of a tier system to potentially mitigate the inevitable continuity issues that might arise in a massive transmedia franchise – and, of course, Lucas’ occasional contradictions. As definitively stated by Lucasfilm Production Editor Sue Rostoni and Continuity Editor Allan Kausch in the first issue of Star Wars Insider:

‘Gospel,’ or canon as we refer to it, includes the screenplays, the films, the radio dramas and the novelizations. These works spin out of George Lucas’ original stories, the rest are written by other writers. However, between us, we’ve read everything, and much of it is taken into account in the overall continuity. The entire catalog of published works comprises a vast history — with many off-shoots, variations and tangents — like any other well-developed mythology.

If there was a discrepancy between two works, whichever one belonged to a higher tier would be considered canonical. While this worked in theory, in practice the tier system was unnecessary, because skillful writers smoothed out any inconsistencies. Attack of the Clones, for instance, contradicted Boba Fett’s multiple origin stories and the original description of the Clone Wars in Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy; later EU works established retcons that fixed this, explaining away Boba Fett’s “false” backstories and integrating Zahn’s vision of the Clone Wars as the Siege of Saleucami.

Star Wars Canon Began To Fracture With The Clone Wars

The consistency and canonicity of the Star Wars Expanded Universe truly began to falter with the release of 2008’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Throughout the show’s theatrical film and first six seasons (before its 2020 revival on Disney+), The Clone Wars created a massive number of continuity problems, ignoring established lore from the original Clone Wars multimedia project in ways too glaring to be fixed with the usual retcons. While the show gained a loyal following, it never belonged in the established Expanded Universe canon, as it only adhered to what was shown in the original and prequel trilogies.

In 2012, The Clone Wars showrunner Dave Filoni confirmed that he never saw the series as being part of the established Expanded Universe. As he explained in Star Wars Insider #134, “The EU is a well of ideas, and there’s what’s on screen. They don’t live in the same universe.” Since the modern Star Wars canon would go on to be built around the original six saga films and Filoni’s series, The Clone Wars must be handwaved as exclusive to the modern canon and not part of what is now Star Wars Legends.

Why Disney Relaunched The Star Wars Canon In 2014

Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, and established the Lucasfilm Story Group in 2013 to facilitate storytelling and guide the development of the sequel trilogy. The Expanded Universe’s place in the franchise’s future was uncertain, especially given The Clone Wars’ continuity problem. On April 25, 2014, Lucasfilm announced that the Expanded Universe was now rebranded as Legends and that a new Star Wars canon had been initiated. The only properties that would initially be part of the new canon were the original six Star Wars saga films and The Clone Wars. Legends was considered an alternate continuity.

The reason for the partial continuity reboot was to maximize creative freedom for the Star Wars sequel trilogy.Fascinatingly, just as Dave Filoni treated the Expanded Universe as a source of inspiration rather than canonical materials that The Clone Wars was beholden to, Legends would be used to inspire numerous elements of modern canon properties. The fall of Han and Leia’s son Jacen in Legends mirrors Kylo Ren, Palpatine’s Dark Empire resurrection inspired Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and Legends characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn have become vital to canon.

Jacen Solo would serve as the basis for Kylo Ren, and Palpatine’s Dark Empire would inspire the Sith Eternal and Final Order. A reimagined version of Grand Admiral Thrawn would debut in Star Wars Rebels and later make his live-action debut in Ahsoka.

Disney’s New Canon Has Grown At An Incredible Rate

Now owned by Disney, Star Wars has become far more mainstream. In addition to the three sequel movies, modern canon includes two live-action spinoffs and numerous live-action and animated TV shows. There has been a constant stream of new comics, novels, and video games. Since its partial reboot, the Star Wars franchise has grown at an astounding rate. This can be seen by comparing the number of canon books to Legends – a continuity that had far longer to develop.

Disney has had a notably different attitude toward continuity than Legends. With a clean slate and a new Lucasfilm Story Group, it initially seemed as though continuity would be more consistent. This has not been the case, however, as there have been many Star Wars continuity problems in the Disney era – usually flowing from Star Wars TV shows retconning published works. Lucasfilm seem to consider continuity something that is true “from a certain point of view,” but to remain consistent, the tiered system – never needed for EU – feels like a necessity for the modern Star Wars canon.

Ultimately, Legends used retcons to make properties matter more, while the modern canon uses retcons to make properties matter less. This, of course, does not mean that either canon or Legends is in any way superior or more legitimate than the other. The two timelines simply have different approaches to the concept of continuity. Legends sought to make every property equally canonical, crafting a seamless story woven through live-action films, published works, video games, and TV shows. The modern canon approaches Star Wars as a tall tale, treating discrepancies as a benign inevitability instead of a problem.

Star Wars

Star Wars is a multimedia franchise that started in 1977 by creator George Lucas. After the release of Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope (originally just titled Star Wars), the franchise quickly exploded, spawning multiple sequels, prequels, TV shows, video games, comics, and much more. After Disney acquired the rights to the franchise, they quickly expanded the universe on Disney+, starting with The Mandalorian.