The Expanded Universe made a lot of big changes to the Star Wars Universe and a sizeable chunk of the franchise's fanbase was upset when Lucasfilm scrapped it shortly after Disney acquired the company. Over the years, the EU provided stories for novels, video games, and comic books but getting rid of it freed the studio up to tell new tales which obviously relates to the movies we're seeing now.
During a recent interview, Lucasfilm Story Group member Leland Chee (who overseas The Holocron, Lucasfilm's official "Wookieepedia") offered a more in-depth explanation for the EU being ditched and he pins it directly on the desire to being Chewbacca back after he was killed off in a comic book.
"For me it came down to simply that we had killed Chewbacca in the Legends — a big moon had fallen on him. Part of that [original decision] was Chewbacca, because he can’t speak and just speaks in growls, he was a challenging character to write for in novels. Publishing had decided they needed to kill somebody, and it was Chewbacca.
"But if you have the opportunity to bring back Chewbacca into a live action film, you’re not gonna deprive fans that. There’s no way that I’d want to do an Episode VII that didn’t have Chewbacca in it and have to explain that Chewbacca had a moon fall on his head. And if we were going to overturn a monumental decision like that, everything else was really just minor in comparison."
While there are obviously more reasons than just this for Lucasfilm's decision to bid farewell to the EU, it's interesting to see just how much Disney's vision for the franchise differed to all the decisions George Lucas made over the years. Then again, decisions made in movies like The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi have been every bit as divisive! What do you guys think? Share your thoughts below.