Star Wars: 15 Things The Movies Stole From The Expanded Universe

5. The Mural In Palpatine's Office Depicts The Great Hyperspace War

As the Star Wars franchise expands outside of the main movies with a bevy of spin-offs, many fans are clamouring for a movie depicting the Knights Of The Old Republic era. And while that'll be a long way off in Disney's plans (if a possibility at all), that doesn't mean there won't be any Old Republic elements in the movies. In fact, there already are.

The mural in Palpatine's office, where he finally reveals his true identity to a painfully oblivious Anakin, depicts The Great Hyperspace War, a massive conflict between the Sith Empire and the Republic set 5000 years before the main movies told in the Tales Of The Jedi comics. The whole thing went down a millennium before the beloved RPG and its sequel, although it does get namechecked in both and was a distant catalyst for the events of MMO The Old Republic.

George Lucas conceived of the frieze simply as depicting a random historic battle, which led the production designers to taking inspiration from the EU's intricate history. There's some debate over whether it was actually inspired by The Great Hyperspace War or the Battle of Russan (the event where the Jedi believed they killed all the Sith), but the official statement is that it's the former. Either way, it's the canonisation of a pretty big event in the galaxy's past.