10 Facts Everyone Always Gets Wrong About Star Wars

4. The Expanded Universe Is Illogical

The Misconception: Star Wars has always been more than just a movie franchise. Since the very early days, with Marvel tie-in comics and spin-off novel Splinter Of The Mind's Eye it's been clear there's more to the story than just the movies. In the decades since we've seen the Expanded Universe create a dense mythology for that galaxy far, far away, reaching centuries into the future (on top of the continued adventures of the original cast, we've seen the antics of Luke's descendants) and millennia into the past (thanks to Knights Of The Old Republic and their ilk we know fully the origins of the Sith).

But it's all a bit of silly hokum made to keep fans engaged, turning background extras into big heroes for the sake of it. This appears to be proven by the fact that Lucasfilm announced that anything released before Disney acquired the company (bar The Clone Wars TV series) is considered non-canon.

The Truth: The main reason the conventional Expanded Universe was relegated to Legends status is because it would have been too restrictive for the movie franchise going forward. The post-Return Of The Jedi landscape has been heavily mapped out, with stories detailing Luke's Jedi Academy on Yavin IV, Han and Leia's son becoming a Sith Lord and Chewie dying at the hands of an extra-galactic race; it had become incredibly convoluted.

This is all now essentially an alternate reality, giving filmmakers total freedom with the sequel trilogyaa. That doesn't mean the stuff in the EU is bad, however. The quality varies, but the stories are normally solid Star Wars adventures that really respect the central films. In a way it's a shame that they've now been made irrelevant.