Ultimately, however, these events serve as the backdrop to the personal saga of the Skywalker family, beginning with Anakin Skywalker's journey to becoming a Jedi Knight and following through to his fall to the Dark Side, the birth of his children Luke and Leia, Anakin being redeemed by Luke, Leia's son Ben Solo's own fall to the Dark Side and salvation at the hands of the Jedi Rey. Who can forget Walrus Man at the Mos Eisley cantina, or Lando’s co-pilot Nien Numb-to say nothing of Sy Snoodles and the Rebo Band-in Return of the Jedi.Released from 1977-2019, The Skywalker Saga encompasses nine movies and three trilogies covering major events in Star Wars history like the Clone Wars, the rise of the Galactic Empire, the Galactic Civil War and the First Order/Resistance War.

As early as 1978, Kenner toy company’s action figures gave names to characters otherwise unmentioned in the movies. The casual viewer of a Star Wars movie may think that the only stories extant are the ones in the (now) seven films, but the Expanded Universe used George Lucas’s films as a launching pad for new narratives.

It was, as Obi-Wan Kenobi might have put it, “as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.” In its place would be a new Expanded Universe, one crafted to complement Disney’s multiyear plan for the world’s most beloved space opera.

In April 2014, Disney-which had purchased the series in 2012, when it bought Lucasfilm-announced that all such previous efforts would have no bearing on future Star Wars projects. While the arrival of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a new beginning for the storied franchise, it’s a painful reminder of something else: More than 30 years of novel, toy, game, and comic book-tie-ins collectively known as the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

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