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everything else is EU canon, which is not "wildly unofficial" by any stretch of the imagination. yes, there are a few huge clusterfucks like Boba Fett's origin, but there are a lot of other things from the EU incorporated into the movies, like, oh, say Coruscant, which originated in the EU. Lucas' plans for the galactic throneworld were very different, with a different name and a different design, but Lucas went with the EU version instead
The name Coruscant was introduced by Timothy Zahn in Heir to the Empire, although I have seen it claimed that Lucas gave Zahn a list of names to choose from. The idea of an Imperial Homeworld originates in a 1974 draft of "The Star Wars" as Alderaan: Capital of the New Galactic Empire. In the draft of ROTJ it has been renamed Had Abbadon.
To be fair to your argument, the Had Abbadon scenes were a magma arena where the Emperor, Luke and Vader duel, so nothing much like the TPM Coruscant -- but the "Capital of the New Galactic Empire" in the 1974 draft must have been dominated by cityscape, even if it wasn't the city-planet of Zahn's books and TPM onwards. The Empire, based on everything we know of its design aesthetic, politics and ideologies from ANH, would not have had a volcanic planet without cities as its central base.
But yes, the name Coruscant and at least some of its basic concept came from an EU text. However, it wasn't canon until it was "elevated" up to the primary text of TPM.
and it's now a major part of both trilogies. other aspects of the EU, like ship designs, characters, etc, have also been integrated into the movies.
The Outrider's appearance in the background of ANH:SE, where you have to freeze the DVD and peer at the screen to see it, does not count to me as a significant incorporation of an EU text. Neither is the appearance of, supposedly, a swoop in the ANH:SE Mos Eisley.
The best example for your argument is the appropriation of the EU Twi'lek Jedi Aayla Secura in AOTC. Lucas apparently saw the artwork for whatever Dark Horse comic she appeared in, and explicitly gave the order for her to be a character in Episode II.
But again, this just shows that sometimes LFL takes elements of the EU and transforms them into canon. It doesn't mean the EU tells us anything about the top level of canon -- they are irrelevant to canon until they're spotted and promoted to the only meaningful level, the films themselves.
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My source: Using the Force: Creativity, Community and Star Wars fans, Will Brooker, Continuum 2002. Not a flawless book but it's where I get all my SW fandom info from. Which does mean that my knowledge stops at a certain point, ie. 2002, but that's partly because I am experimenting with no spoilers for ROTS.
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the EU is very much an authoritative part of the SW mythos, even if it's a second tier part, and there's cross-fertilization.
I don't agree with this interpretation: it is not authoritative, it's a bank of information and ideas that Lucas can draw on if he so chooses -- and mostly doesn't choose to. There are, I believe, two really significant examples of the EU feeding into the films, and I listed them above. The others are just Easter Egg jokes.
That's not cross-fertilisation, because the process is almost entirely one-way: the films feeding into the EU.
the two are growing closer all the time, anyway. the Clone Wars EU is really tightly integrated with Episodes II and III, because they're making a more coordinated effort to have them play off each other.
OK, I don't know about this so I will accept that the dynamic is changing now. |
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