In ten years' time, the Star Wars universe underwent a significant transformation.
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Bloody hell, a monumental shift in the galaxy far, far away occurred 10 years back on this very day! On April 25, 2014, Lucasfilm dropped a massive bomb, scrapping the influential Expanded Universe and churning out a new, interconnected canon for all Star Wars stories moving forward. In the years since, we've been blasted with a tidal wave of fresh narratives, but the decision to chuck out the old and embrace the new? Pure insanity, ain't it?
You can get the whole scoop on the announcement right here, but gawd, with a decade of hindsight, it's enough to give you whiplash. The announcement marked the end of an era and set the stage for stories that would resonate throughout the galaxy. And let's not forget—some elements of the Expanded Universe were always fair game for plundering.
A couple years prior, when the magical beans of Disney buying Lucasfilm and churning out new Star Wars movies first dropped, the question on everyone's lips was, "Are they just gonna regurgitate Heir to the Empire?" The EU stories were so popular, they became fan-fricken-fiction for Star Wars fanatics. Ain't that something? For years, fans picked and mixed elements, making up their own version of events, despite the EU stories not always fitting together like a well-oiled X-wing fighter. And the announcement made it clear—Episode VII would not be a repeat of Heir to the Empire. Nope, Heir to the Empire was now freakin' history. But look at us now—Grand Admiral Thrawn has made a comeback, and he's the baddie in a whole new Star Wars tale.
Another aspect worth considering is that while the announcement made it seem like there was no limits to the Star Wars storytelling dimension, most of the storytelling that followed stayed pretty contained. Yep, characters aged differently, but fam, not much more than a 100-year time span of Star Wars history has been explored since 2014. That slowly started to change with The High Republic in 2021, and now, in 2023, it enters the live-action game with The Acolyte. It's been a long bloody time, but hopefully, things will only get more interconnected and out-of-the-box in the future.
It's almost like, a decade after erasing the EU, Star Wars is just getting around to finally doing... a freakin' reboot of the EU, man! (Fun side note: it was revealed in 2018 that one reason for all this was because the EU offed Chewbacca, and they sure as hell didn't want to make a new movie without him).
Why did it take Star Wars so long to, you know, think big? Should we be stoked it's finally happening? It also makes you wonder what would've happened if Lucasfilm went the entirely opposite route—no official canon, just new Star Wars stories like the EU did in the old days. Maybe the movies could've stayed more contained? And let's not forget, 10 years ago, a Star Wars-centric television universe was far from plausible. So many things have changed, mate.
And while the discussion about Star Wars canon, the Expanded Universe, and more rages on, one thing we can all agree on—this discussion really got cooking 10 years ago today. Where will it be in 10 years? Only time will tell.
Want more io9 news? Check out the latest on the Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek universes, the next moves for the DC Universe on film and TV, and every piece of intel you need on the future of Doctor Who.
- Although the initial decision to scrap the Expanded Universe in 2014 was met with shock, hindsight reveals that Lucasfilm's move to create a cohesive Star Wars canon was a bold and necessary step.
- In the decade since the purge of the Expanded Universe, Star Wars has shown a striking lean towards technology and the future, as seen in the new movies and shows that have been released.
- While some fans may disagree, it is undeniable that the EU's discarding allowed for a more interconnected and expansive Star Wars universe, as seen in the recent return of characters like Grand Admiral Thrawn.
- Today, Euro Star Wars news enthusiasts can speculate on what the next 10 years will bring, with the possibly of a reboot of the Expanded Universe, expansion of the Star Wars television universe, and even more movies and shows in the Marvel, Star Trek, DC, and Doctor Who universes.
