Almost from the moment of its announcement, longtime
Star Wars fans have been decrying the decision by Lucasfilm and Disney to discard the stories of the
Expanded Universe - the books and comics from the '80s and '90s that told stories from the
Star Wars universe set after the events of
The Return of the Jedi.
You can read the original 2014 announcement by
CLICKING HERE. The official statement reads, "
In order to give maximum creative freedom to the filmmakers and also preserve an element of surprise and discovery for the audience, Star Wars Episodes VII-IX will not tell the same story told in the post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe."
Fast forward to 2019 and most
Star Wars fans would agree that they would have rather seen the
Expanded Universe adapted for film instead of the tale that's unfolded so far in
The Force Awakens and
The Last Jedi. While it's possible that J.J. Abrams'
The Rise of Skywalker could rectify a lot of the perceived missteps, the damage to the brand will remain and is a large factor in why
Star Wars movies are going on hiatus, per Disney co-chairman Bob Iger.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy touched on the difficulties that have been encountered thus far while making
Episode VII and
VIII and her answer will likely make the
Star Wars fandom highly irritable.
"
Every one of these movies is a particularly hard nut to crack. There’s no source material. We don’t have comic books. We don’t have 800-page novels. We don’t have anything other than passionate storytellers who get together and talk about what the next iteration might be. We go through a really normal development process that everybody else does. You start by talking to filmmakers who you think exhibit the sensibilities that you’re looking for."
Kennedy went on to add that the development process starts with carefully considering a select number of filmmakers who can deliver on certain sensibilities that Lucasfilm is looking for. From there, it's about navigating the reality that what you may have planned to do might not "
work out exactly the way you want."
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