Star Wars: 10 Most Ridiculous Stories From The Expanded Universe

There's a reason why it's not considered canon anymore.

Palpatine Clones
Lucasfilm

When Disney paid George Lucas the GDP of a small nation for the rights to Star Wars, the entirety of its extensive canon was restructured. As a result, only the (then) six episodic films, the Clone Wars film and TV series, and the Rebels TV series remained in the official Star Wars canon.

This meant that decade’s worth of novels, comic books, video games and spin-offs were relegated to a status hovering around that of fan fiction. While many EU fans lamented the loss, this culling has enabled Disney to move forward with new Star Wars stories without being bogged down by the dense and sometimes absurd storylines found in the Expanded Universe.

To be fair, the main Star Wars canon isn't without its cringe worthy moments (Jar Jar Binks, Emo Vader), but the EU has some shocking plot threads. So it’s probably for the best that these stories are now under the Star Wars "Legends" banner.

While there are some really excellent stories to be found in the EU (case in point, The Thrawn Trilogy), a lot of it was utter rubbish and completely ridiculous.

10. Emotionally Scarring Spinoff Movies

Palpatine Clones
Lucasfilm

The Ewoks take their fair share of flak from fans. Some people accuse them of ruining the final chapter of the original Star Wars trilogy. Some folks criticize them for being nothing but a transparent attempt at increasing toy sales. Some think they’re cute. Whatever your opinion on these little furballs, you probably were not aware that there is not one, but two Ewok-centric spin-off movies that were made for television.

After George Lucas royally bungled the first attempt at bringing Star Wars to the small screen, he decided to develop spin-off films that wouldn’t harm the integrity of the characters in the main film. The result was the 1984 film Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure. It revolves around a family who crash lands on the forest moon of Endor. The parents are taken by a giant monster thing and the kids are taken in by the Ewoks, who then help the kids in their quest to rescue their parents.

This was followed by a sequel the following year, titled Ewoks: Battle For Endor. These two television films are bizarre curiosities, as they feature more supernatural and mystical elements over the regular science fiction tropes. Despite being made specifically for children, they are dark as hell.

The first movie features the death of one of the main Ewoks, but the sequel takes the emotional scarring up to a whole other level as the young daughter of the human family from the first film watches on as her parents and brother are killed in horrific ways. This all happens within the first ten minutes of the film by the way. And Wilford “Dia-beetus” Brimley is in it as well.

Contributor
Contributor

Ryan Lynch is a freelance journalist from the United States. He currently lives in Adelaide, Australia and writes for Adelaide-based music magazine Rip It Up. He wishes he could live like Hank Moody, but he watches too much TV and plays too many videogames to be that nonchalant.