Paul S. Kemp’s upcoming “Star Wars” novel “Lords of the Sith” recently made news because it will bring the first LGBT character into the canon of a galaxy far, far away. The key word here is canon, of course; LGBT characters previously existed in the “Legacy of the Force” novels that ran from 2006 to 2008, but recent developments at Lucasfilm have since knocked those books out of official continuity.
In April 2014, the company behind “Star Wars” announced a massive change to the old canonical hierarchy used to organize the way the films and television series interact with books, comic books and games. Titles belonging to what was then known as the Expanded Universe — pretty much everything released prior to that decisive article’s publication — transitioned to new banner called Legends. Any material published since April 2014 is now considered canon, which is another way of saying that it exists in the same continuity as the “Star Wars” films and television series.
The decision to reset the official canon, established across 35 years of novels, comics, games and more came about because of the franchise’s sale to Disney and the announcement of new, expansive slate of feature films. Lucasfilm’s statement regarding the Expanded Universe reads, “In order to give maximum creative freedom to the filmmakers and also preserve an element of surprise and discovery for the audience, ‘Star Wars Episodes VII-IX’ will not tell the same story told in the post-‘Return of the Jedi’ Expanded Universe.”
With that in mind, and to get a clear idea of how things stand now, we have to take a look at how “Star Wars” grew from one standalone sci-fi throwback film in the late ’70s to a massive universe of interconnected stories in 2014.
Click below to read the full article.
