Star Wars in other media
fictional background of the Star Wars universe outside of the feature films
Star Wars has been expanded to other media since the eponymous 1977 film, including many books, comic books, and video games, as well as other forms such as audio dramas. Licensed and moderated by Lucasfilm, these derivative works have been produced concurrently with, between, and after the original, prequel, and sequel trilogies, as well as the spin-off films and television series.
Star Wars creator George Lucas reserved the right to draw from and contradict spin-off media in his own works. Non-film material produced before 2014, with the exception of the animated The Clone Wars TV series, was collectively known as the Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU). On April 25, 2014, Lucasfilm—which had been acquired by Disney in 2012—renamed the Expanded Universe Star Wars Legends and declared it non-canonical to the franchise. Since then, most but not all new Star Wars works have been part of the official Lucasfilm canon.
Publication history
1976–1987: Early films and television series
The first Star Wars spinoff material was Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker (1976), the novelization of the 1977 film. Lucas later commissioned Alan Dean Foster, who ghostwrote the novelization, to write a sequel, which resulted in Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978). Lucas originally intended to use this as the basis for a potential low-budget sequel to Star Wars, but when it became one of the most successful films of all time, Lucas decided to write his own story for the film sequel, The Empire Strikes Back (1980). While this was in production, Lucas approved the Star Wars Holiday Special (1978), with which he had limited involvement.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Star Wars in other media” as fictional background of the Star Wars universe outside of the feature films. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3551295. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1977, 2014, 2012 and 1976.
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This entry incorporates text from “Star Wars in other media” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.