A few days ago, I took 25 years’ worth of Star Wars novels off my bookshelf, put them in boxes, and tucked them away. I couldn’t look at them anymore. It wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t productive. It was a sad moment for me, but it was necessary. The Star Wars Extended Universe as I knew it is over. A casualty of the Disney buyout, the EU has been brushed aside to make room for whatever comes next.
But as I packed those books away, I couldn’t help but feel excited for what waits around the corner. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re aware that a bevy of new Star Wars movies are on their way. J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy are forging a new path in a galaxy far far away, and while the EU as many of us knew it isn’t part of those plans, things are bright on the horizon. A new canon trilogy starts in December. Anthology films will explore heretofore-uncharted areas of the galaxy, and a new EU—one that is being created in concert with movie canon—is emerging through comics and new novels. With Comic Con wrapping up over the weekend, new footage from Episode VII being shown, and the cast—both generations—praising the work Abrams and Kennedy have been doing, things have never looked brighter in the universe that George Lucas created.
I’m not the only one that mourns the passing of the “Old EU.” Ever since the Disney deal was announced, the fate of Jacen, Jaina, Ben and all the rest has been a hot topic among Star Wars fans. The continuation of the original saga, ignited with the force of the Big Bang by Timothy Zahn in 1991, was a watershed moment for fans. Many of us were more invested in the EU novels than we were in the prequel films, or the Clone Wars cartoon. Even with its bloat and its missteps, the EU felt like Star Wars. It was continuing proof that Lucas’s universe was still alive and evolving. When that came to a crashing halt, even the most ardent New Jedi Order haters took pause.
Was 25 years of dedication to this line of books, to this universe, nerfed in an instant? By a money-grubbing mouse, nonetheless?
I’ve come to realize that the answer is “no.”
Those books are no longer on my shelf, but the stories remain an essential part of me. They may no longer “count” in continuity (whatever that means at this point) but they still count for something. At the time of publication, they were a tether to some of the most memorable characters and locales to ever grace page or screen. They were the living, beating heart of Star Wars fandom when the movies receded from the collective conscious. They weren’t placeholders—they kept Star Wars alive. They were catalysts for growth. They created a feedback loop to the point where the novels influenced the prequel trilogy and the cartoons that followed.
They were canon.
And then they weren’t.
But despair no longer. Chuck Wendig is the new Timothy Zahn. Kathleen Kennedy and Jennifer Heddle are the new Sue Rostoni. On September 4, 2015 Wendig’s Aftermath will begin the new canon.
Reboots are nothing new. DC and Marvel have killed their universes and started over more than once. Even Star Trek rebooted to a degree of success (thanks to J. J. Abrams…). As I was taking volumes of Fate of the Jedi off the shelves and boxing them up with dog-eared copies of Aaron Allston’s X-Wing series, I realized that the end of the Extended Universe wasn’t necessarily the end of the world.
We sci-fi and fantasy fans tend to think of these stories—not just Star Wars, but ALL the stories—as ours. We’re personally invested. We’ve lived with these characters, grown with them, laughed and cried with them. We care about them. Deeply. And we often feel that no cares as much as we do. Sometimes, though, we fans fail to see the forest through the trees. Sometimes you need to make room on the shelf for what’s coming next, instead of desperately holding on to what came before. No one is going to ever take my EU books away from me. I’ll always have those stories. But now, I’ll have new ones too. And that is a good thing.
