Who are *your* Star Wars Architects?

If you had to pick five people, aside from George Lucas, who you would consider an "architect" of the Galaxy Far Far Away? Who would they be?

This could be based on how much they contributed to lore, or how important their contributions are to the larger Mythos, maybe they made up your favorite thing. Maybe it's a composer, or a director, not an author.

Which five human beings, in your estimation, have made Star Wars what it is more than anyone else.

Timothy Zahn is a free space on your bingo sheet.

 

James Luceno, Jason Fry, Greg Keyes, Tom Veitch, Sean Stewart

 

Ralph McQuarrie needs to be on the list.

 

Solid choices. Though Zahn gave us Mara, not K.J.A.

 

Brian Daley, James Luceno, A.C. Cripsin, John Wagner, John Jackson Miller, and Joe Schreiber.

 

Heir came out the year I was born!

 

James Luceno
Mathew Stover
Jan Duursema/John Ostrander (Legacy)
Ryder Windham
Christie Golden or Troy Denning

Also an honorable mention to Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Noesta.

 

No one mentioning John Williams here? He did more for the feel of SW than anyone except possibly Lucas himself, and even then it`s close. His score IS SW, and unlike even Lucas he never created anything I disagree with.

As for the other four...
Well I would name Kevin J Anderson and Timothy Zahn here, I don't like everything they did, but they build the EU, elevated it beyond just being addons to the movies.
To me also Lawrence Kasdan, he made SW darker, gave it more debt, made Empire Strikes back the in my opinion best movie. The Star Wars/ANH was incredibly and groundbreaking when it came out, but it was Empire that made SW the giant universe it is today.

As for the final one I wanted to include at least one actor, and ultimatley decided on James Earl Jones. Darth Vader is the most iconic SW character, and one of the most iconic characters of all time. And Jones voiced him, made him who he is. He was so amazing he kinda doomed the PT to some extend as neither Jake Lloyd nor Hayden Christensen could ever fill the tracks Jones left behind... guess only few actors could have TBH.

 

Tom Veitch