George Lucas Quotes on the Expanded Universe
STARLOG: “The Star Wars Universe is so large and diverse. Do you ever find yourself confused by the subsidiary material that’s in the novels, comics, and other offshoots?”
Lucas said of the Expanded Universe: 2005— https://ibb.co/Km1CcNs
“I don’t read that stuff. I haven’t read any of the novels. I don’t know anything about that world. That’s a different world than my world.… When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions.”
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“There are two worlds here,” explained Lucas. “There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe — the licensing world of the books, games and comic books.”
~ George Lucas, Cinescape, 2002
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”And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn’t at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn’t come back to life, the Emperor doesn’t get cloned and Luke doesn’t get married.”
~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, 2008
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”The novels and comic books are other authors’ interpretations of my creation. Sometimes, I tell them what they can and cant do, but I just don’t have the time to read them. They’re not my vision of what Star Wars is.”
~ George Lucas 2004
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“I like to refer to the Interview with Lucas in the Special Editions.When asked about the novels and what not, he simply says:
”Those are another author’s interpretation of what I’ve created, and not to be taken seriously, as far as what is really going on in the Star Wars world.”
~ George Lucas
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“Q: What do you think of the Expanded Universe of books?
A: ”The books are in a different universe. I’ve not read any of them, and I told them when they started writing I wouldn’t read any of them and I blocked out certain periods [they couldn’t touch where the real story happens].”
~ George Lucas 2003
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”Howard Roffman [President of Lucas Licensing], He once said to me that there are two Star Trek universes: there’s the TV show and then there’s all the spin-offs. He said that these were completely different and didn’t have anything to do with each other. So I said, “OK, go ahead.”
~ George Lucas 2008
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“Continuity is for wimps.”
~ George Lucas during TCW
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“TVGuide: Yet novelists have written “Star Wars” sequels using the same characters and extending their stories.
”Oh, sure. They’re done outside my little universe.”
~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, November 2001 — TV Guide interview
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“Q: Do you supervise the development of all the off-movie stories? After all, Star Wars exists in books, comics.
A: ”You know, I try not to think about that. I have my own world in movies and I follow it.”
~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, July 2002 — From a The Force.Net
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“The fact of the matter is that the merchandising side of Star Wars is something that never enters my mind during pre-production or even during production. Merchandising is only a secondary thought and is important for the fact that it makes the production of the prequels financially possible.”
~ George Lucas, 1997
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George Lucas says there has never been any war between the Jedi and the Sith in his Star Wars canon -
An excerpt from StarWars.com‘s oral history of Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace:
Everybody said, “Oh, well, there was a war between the Jedi and the Sith.” Well, that never happened. That’s just made up by fans or somebody. What really happened is, the Sith ruled the universe for a while, 2000 years ago. Each Sith has an apprentice, but the problem was, each Sith Lord got to be powerful. And the Sith Lords would try to kill each other because they all wanted to be the most powerful. So in the end they killed each other off, and there wasn’t anything left.
“But anyway, there’s a whole matrix of backstory that has never really come out. It’s really just history that I gathered up along the way.”
“It’s all based on backstories that I’d written setting up what the Jedi were, setting up what the Sith were, setting up what the Empire was, setting up what the Republic was, and how it all fit together.”
“I never really got a chance to explain the Whills part.”
‘George Lucas’ vision of the galaxy’s ancient times is clearly different from the Expanded Universe. Many wars between Jedi and Sith in the Old Republic era were told in games, books and comics. The current Lucasfilm’s canon didn’t explore this era yet.’
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Strange that this one from Barry Norman’s Film Night (broadcast 15th July 1999 on the BBC) hasn’t been raised yet ;)
GL: Yeah, I’m certainly not going to worry about that, and urm, the fans, they generate their own stories, their own ideas, they have their own fantasy life that goes around the movies and that’s fine but I try to keep away from all that; I don’t even read the offshoot books that come out based on Star Wars.
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”I don’t even read the offshoot books that come out based on Star Wars.”
~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, July 1999 — Film Night interview
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“So if we’ll never see it onscreen, what does happen to Princess Leia and Han Solo after they fall in love?
”Han and Leia probably did get married,” Lucas conceded. ”They settled down. She became a senator, and they got a nice little house with a white picket fence. Han Solo is out there cooking burgers on the grill. Is that a movie? I don’t think so.”~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, May 2005— MTV interview
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As noted in an interview with “Inside Reel”:
“Being independent, to me, is everything. I can’t stand to have some corporation bending everything you do . . . y’know, script notes coming out of the marketing department . . . that to me is not the way you make movies. That’s not what movies are.”»
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”This is Star Wars, and I don’t make a distinction between [The Clone Wars] series and the films.”
~ George Lucas, SciFiNow, October 2011
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Q: Can you quote any good story other than the movies?
A: ”No, I don’t think so. (laughs).”
~ George Lucas
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“Q: in that vein, is it possible we’ll see more Star Wars TV product?
A: Because I”m retiring from this part of my creative life, I’m open to more TV Product. but not more feature films, the story is complete. [and any other story wouldn’t be my philosophy and views,] the books are not the same philosophy as the movies.”
~ George Lucas 2003
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”The movies are Gospel, and everything else is Gossip.”
~ George Lucas
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“The question selected from The Furry Conflict poll was: How much does the Expanded Universe influence the movies?
“As I asked him, Lucas leaned back a moment and said to me “Very little.” When he first had agreed to let people write Expanded Universe books, he had said “I’m not gonna read ‘em” and it was a “different universe” and that he wanted to keep away from the time period of his saga. He jokingly complained, however, that now when he writes a script he has to look through an encyclopedia to make sure that a name he comes up with doesn’t come too close to something in the EU.”
- “Marc Xavier”, November 2003, “The Furry Conflict and the Great ‘Beard‘ of the Galaxy (report based on a Q&A session with George Lucas which occurred at USC on 11–19–03)
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“I’ve written everything I’ve done.”
~ George Lucas, 2019