Ten years in the past this week, the publication of A New Daybreak—a prequel novel meant to tie into the then-upcoming Star Wars Rebels, the primary TV present made underneath Lucasfilm’s possession by Disney—formally launched a revised Star Wars canon. It was information the fandom had identified was coming for a whereas as much as that time, with the basic Expanded Universe, now dubbed Legends, formally coming to its finish a few months prior in April 2014. However now a decade on, the influence of this determination will not be felt a lot within the tales being instructed, however the broader Star Wars fandom’s relationship with them.
That is, after all, partially due to the sorts of tales which are being chosen to inform, and when these tales are set. The reset of Star Wars continuity right down to its most simple parts—the then-six Star Wars films and the 3DCG Clone Wars TV present—now left a inventive canvas as broad as not like something the Expanded Universe had seen virtually since its inception to inform new tales. However the brand new canon additionally got here with a rule the EU had by no means actually performed with: the whole lot going ahead, together with video games, comics, books, TV exhibits, and the newly introduced sequel trilogy, can be in narrative lockstep with one another. Exterior of a few very particular alternatives of media, all Star Wars going ahead “mattered” to exploring and filling on this newly condensed canon.
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The Expanded Universe had lengthy operated on a striated method to continuity. By and enormous, most occasions had been comparatively in sync with one another, however tiers of canonicity might override each other, particularly with the arrival of the Clone Wars TV present as a product created by Lucas himself, resulting in a number of controversial retcons—just like the present’s method to Mandalorian tradition. However even then, the EU had been round for therefore lengthy at that time, and there had been so many alternative sources for materials even with out Lucasfilm creating new films or exhibits past Clone Wars itself after the prequel trilogy, that some particulars typically contradicted one another anyway, giving characters previous and new arcane, difficult backstories that had been a nightmare to navigate for all however essentially the most seasoned of followers. However this new, all-in method to canon—one beholden by the shadow of then-incoming films sworn to secrecy—traded that drawback for one more. The muddled mess of contradictions and a long time of lore the EU had developed was gone, however so too was the sheer breadth of storytelling it had virtually instantly begun to play with.
In some methods, this is smart. At the very least when it comes to ahead momentum past the unique trilogy, the EU by no means had a explicit situation with the considered extra “official” Star Wars on the rapid horizon like the brand new canon did, and continually having to mess around ready for that content material to ascertain the way forward for the franchise. The prequels didn’t come till virtually a decade after the EU had formally started in earnest with the discharge of Inheritor to the Empire, however even earlier than Inheritor, Star Wars storytellers virtually instantly started exploring tales of what got here after Return of the Jedi in Marvel’s Star Wars comedian after it was achieved adapting the film itself. When the prequels got here alongside, that solely served to push the EU’s breadth wider. New films set a few a long time previous to A New Hope? The EU went again to inform the story of the galaxy a long time earlier than that, after which hundreds of years earlier than that with the likes of Tales of the Jedi or Knights of the Previous Republic. And after they had been achieved, and gave the EU a complete new playground to mess about in, it nonetheless regarded forward lots of of years past the movies with sequence like Legacy.
In the meantime the final decade of Star Wars has had suits and begins to develop the sequence’ horizon throughout mediums, however continuity has by and enormous caught to the obscure time-frame across the films, even with the enlargement to 9 entries within the Star Wars saga by 2019. Exterior of 1 main initiative, Star Wars: The Excessive Republic, which started telling tales a number of centuries earlier than the time of the films, a lot materials made because the reset has served to fill within the video games between movies, fairly than past and even largely previous to them. The virtually 70-year interval that makes up the the “Skywalker Saga” is now stacked with official materials, particularly the time-frame of the prequel and unique trilogies. We all know, arguably, way more concerning the occasions within the 20 12 months hole between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope—the interval now formally often known as the Reign of the Empire—or the years between the unique movies in official continuity than maybe some other interval of Star Wars, whereas our information of the 30-year hole between Return of the Jedi and The Power Awakens is essentially constrained to a few occasions instantly after Jedi, the final interval loosely drawn round The Mandalorian and its affiliated exhibits (a focus that’s an ever-increasing precedence for Lucasfilm as of late). For as reticent as Star Wars has felt to maneuver on past this timeframe after the disappointing response to The Rise of Skywalker 5 years in the past, because it now stays an ongoing, perpetually increasing franchise, it’s going to take a lot greater than the 10 years it’s already taken for present continuity to get to the scope of the EU at its peak due to that restriction.
And but, the brand new canon additionally faces a restriction that neither it nor its masters might’ve ever actually managed: a fanbase that has been educated by altering cultural developments within the final 10-15 years to eat media and its canon. The rise of Star Wars‘ continuity reset came adjacent to what was the beginning of the apex of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and its popularization of the “all-connected” shared universe as a force to be reckoned with in popular culture. In 2014, the second phase of Marvel’s cinematic endeavors was nicely underway, having proved that it might pull off this type of fandom-rewarding continuity throughout movie and TV. DC and numerous different manufacturers had been already wanting to comply with go well with in their very own makes an attempt to chase Marvel’s dominance on the field workplace. However whereas it might be unfair to say that Star Wars was a kind of manufacturers doing the chasing, the brand new continuity got here at a crossroads in popular culture fandom (and its rise as being more and more co-opted by company entities) and media, and their shared method to “It All Matters” continuities: putting an significance on the cultivation of information above some other connection to the narrative.
Each time a new situation of Marvel’s relaunched Star Wars comedian dropped, there got here a new “confirmation” of a basic, additive factoid to continuity. Each new guide was virtually instantly picked aside for the uncooked info of occasions, characters, and references that had been now being stitched again into the tapestry of the franchise. With the whole lot cleaned and so new, each new media launch was a likelihood to be taught one thing that may be the primary of its sort on this new age, one thing that may very well be meticulously added to fandom wikis inside minutes and hours of latest materials popping out. All the pieces could have mattered to continuity in a sense that it was all in lockstep with one another, but it surely grew to become more and more clear what mattered most to a good chunk of the viewers was not the storytelling itself, however the information buried inside it. Even now, 10 years in, as Star Wars finds itself in seeking to see what tales are instructed subsequent, these attitudes are laborious to surrender, with particulars and unfastened aspersions to the Expanded Universe picked aside and re-integrated again into the brand new canon much less for his or her thematic weight, however as a result of they’re a issues followers can level at and acknowledge, and be lauded for doing so.
However neither of those are deadly issues going through the present Star Wars canon. If something, that issues maintain increasing 10 years in is a testomony to the truth that, regardless of the cultural sea adjustments the saga has confronted in that interval, there may be nonetheless loads of alternative for brand spanking new Star Wars tales to be instructed. Like we mentioned, Star Wars is at the moment at one thing of a crossroads, in methods good and unhealthy. The lack of The Acolyte seemingly heralds the sluggish finish to one among Star Wars‘ freshest areas of exploration for the foreseeable future, and its concentration on stories that focus around the success of The Mandalorian threatens to condense Star Wars‘ potential and its worldview even more narrowly. But there is hope to expand those horizons again in projects like Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s New Jedi Order film, the primary canonical materials to grapple with the Star Wars galaxy after the occasions of The Rise of Skywalker, or James Mangold’s Daybreak of the Jedi undertaking, set hundreds of years previously (if both will get to the large display screen in any respect, that’s). Star Wars books have thrived on this potential no matter constraint, giving us tales that discover totally different types, eras, and approaches to Star Wars that the live-action media has barely managed to scratch the floor of.
Ten years into its personal lifespan, the Expanded Universe as we come to knew it was nonetheless solely simply getting began. Ten years into this newest period of Star Wars continuity, the sensation is far the identical—and even with the cultural challenges it has confronted, there may be nonetheless a complete broad galaxy of potential on the market to discover, a hope that burns simply as brightly now because it did a decade in the past.
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