Allow the Star Wars: Legends Brand to Continue

Fans of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, I address you with a matter of great importance to the fandom.

As you know, George Lucas has sold Lucasfilm to Walt Disney Studios and they plan on making a sequel trilogy, along with a number of stand-alone films. In my mind, these were bad decisions on his part, but I was willing to let it pass. However, when Mr. Lucas made the claim that the films would not deal with material already in the Expanded Universe, alarm bells started going off in my head. How would he be able to do such a thing without disturbing already established events from the novels and games? This question was answered by the recent shocking decision by Lucasfilm that all Star Wars stories outside of the films and cartoon were now to be labeled as non-canon.

This was a major blow to the Star Wars fandom, of whom most considered the Expanded Universe to be canonical; rightfully so, as it has slowly been established over the course of more than twenty years. Lucasfilm has claimed that while all the already created works will continue to be sold under the “Legends” brand, but they have also claimed that no more stories under the “Legends” brand will be published in the future. For a Star Wars fan such as myself this decision is intolerable. The Expanded Universe told many great stories of the Star Wars universe, and it still held promise many more stories yet to be told.

Obviously, we can’t convince Lucasfilm to cancel production of future films; they’ve already spent too much time and money for that. Likewise, we can’t convince them to withdraw their claims that the “Legends” brand is non-canon, as that would work against their film production. However, one thing we can convince them to do, with enough strength, is to allow more works to be created under the “Legends” brand. Just because they don’t view it as canon doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be allowed to continue following it. In the end, it would simply be a matter of there being two separate Star Wars universes, allowing each fan to decide for themselves which one they want to follow. And knowing the fans, many of them will probably decide to follow both.

That being said, if they did properly separate the two “canons” and allow them both to continue, some work would have to be done. The main thing that would have to happen is that the “Legends” brand would have to disregard most of what happened in the “Clone Wars” cartoon. The reason for this is that the cartoon was the biggest part of the franchise that contradicted events that occurred in books of the old Expanded Universe. However, some events from the cartoon would have to be included in the “Legends” brand because some of the later books and short stories mentioned or dealt with events that occurred in the cartoon. Even so, it would most likely have to be altered so that it didn’t contradict events, lore, or facts from works in the “Legends” brand. Most likely a novelization of those episodes with necessary alterations to their stories would have to be written. This shouldn’t be very difficult. A Star Wars novelist who has read most of the Expanded Universe novels could do it easily enough.

So I appeal to Star Wars fans everywhere. Tell Lucasfilm to allow the “Legends” brand to continue and publish future works. Let the Expanded Universe we grew up with to continue.

Sign this petition.

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And get as many others as you can to sign it as well. Also, if you want to send your own complaints to Disney and Lucasfilm, email them at the following addresses:

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We already have a thread devoted to discussion of the EU/Legends and Disney. Locking now.