 "Star Wars, Rogue One, Disney")
Star Wars once had a rich, painstakingly produced canon beyond its three original movies. Hundreds of authors, artists, and game developers drew from the stories told by creator George Lucas, crafting what would be called the Expanded Universe. For decades, they wrote books about the main characters’ descendants, side stories about bounty hunters and the evil Sith, and deep dives into the affairs of the Galactic Empire.
Then Disney tore it all down. Disney decided to set aside the Expanded Universe in 2014 because it wanted a clean slate for its writers and directors as they created new chapters of the space saga, such as 2015’s Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. The old stories were designated as “Legends,” myths that aren’t a part of the official Star Wars timeline.
Star Wars has the ability to generate legions of furrowed brows over its fictional intricacies, given its place inside the popular culture. But all this hyper geekdom is also very, very big business. So the canon, as the faithful call it, must be rebuilt.
The movies are the gleaming centrepiece of Disney’s reconstruction effort, and it all begins with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The film, released this week, tells the tale of rebel recruit Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones, and a team tasked with stealing the Death Star plans from the evil Empire to save the galaxy. A Han Solo film about the smuggler’s origins is also in the works and is set to be released in 2018. (We are going to assume the reader knows about the Death Star, the Empire, and people with names such as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo.)
These two new movies are meant to fit around and between the timelines of chronological “episodes,” the fourth of which, Star Wars: A New Hope, was the first to be released back in 1977. The seventh episode of this series was last year’s The Force Awakens, and the eighth episode is scheduled for 2017. Yes, the first six episodes have all been released, but out of order. Now back to the canon and Rogue One.
At the Hollywood premiere on Saturday night, there was no question that the Expanded Universe had a lot of wizened experts on hand. Vincent Cortez, 30, who serves in the Air Force, and his wife Megan, 29, wore helmets and jackets bearing the insignia of their fan club, the Mandalorian Mercs (named for one of Star Wars’s many cultures.) The Mandalorians became popular because of the armour was worn by the bounty hunter Boba Fett, who first appeared in the second Star Wars film but whose mythology has grown over the years in novels and comics.
“Nobody mines their properties better than this company,” Geetha Ranganathan, a media analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said of Disney. She pointed to its work weaving together Marvel’s ever-growing universe, and the years-long milking of its Frozen franchise, which includes a spinoff animated short film and even an ice show. Now Disney is pouring “a substantial amount of capital” into constructing Star Wars sections at its theme parks in Florida and California, Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger said in March.
