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

14. Coruscant First Appeared (And Was Named) In The Defining EU Book

Heir To The Empire is one of the most important pieces of Expanded Universe material ever made. Almost single-handedly reigniting interest among die-hard Star Wars fans and proving to George Lucas there was a hunger for more adventures in that galaxy far, far away, Timothy Zahn's novel continued the adventures of the original three while bringing iconic characters like Mara Jade and Grand Admiral Thrawn to life.

But that's not all. It also marked the introduction of Coruscant. Seriously - although Lucas had ideas of a city-planet capital for the Old Republic, it was Heir To The Empire that first fully realised it and coined the name.

Oddly enough, although The Force Awakens took a lot of the broad ideas of the New Republic from the book as set-up for, one thing it didn't do was keep the capital - the city planet that was destroyed there was in fact Hosnian Prime, a distinction made probably to resolutely distance Episode VII from the prequels.

Various other, more specific elements of the planet were seemingly borrowed from the EU too; the heavily industrial part of Coruscant where Palpatine hides out when in Sidious mode (seen at the end of both Attack Of The Clones when Dooku returns and the site of Vader's surgery in Revenge Of The Sith) is visually similar to the depiction of the capital in the Dark Side ending of Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight.