It is time to give my previous grumpy titles like Evolve, Smite, Heroes of the Storm, and WoW a short break and focus on a topic that I have completely overlooked until now: Star Wars. Don’t worry, it’s not about Battlefront. The game doesn’t even have a single-player campaign and is just a Battlefield with blasters and stormtroopers for me, but that’s not the point today…
An Expanded Universe – Lore to the Max
The Star Wars universe is gigantic. I don’t just mean the distances between the individual planets, but especially the wealth of background stories that have accumulated over nearly 40 years. This so-called “Expanded Universe” includes, for example, almost all the books published to date, the legendary tabletop RPG classics like “Knights of the Old Republic”, but also newer works like “SWTOR” or the “The Clone Wars” series.
All these productions have expanded the universe of the Jedi and Sith as we know it from the films, making it much more vibrant and tangible. A big part of the fascination for me comes from the extensive, internally logical world that spans several millennia of history. We know what the different skin colors of the Twi’lek mean, and if we wanted to, we could even speak Mandalorian (and I know people who can do that – trust me, those are exhausting evenings).
… and then came Mickey Mouse.
About 2.5 years ago, Disney bought all rights to Star Wars. You can think what you want about that (I personally don’t like Disney as a corporation and often joke about their merchandising saying “Disney – from children for children”). About a year ago, they quickly dealt with the “Expanded Universe”: Everything except the 6 previous episodes is no longer part of the canon, meaning it is no longer part of the officially recognized background story.
Some will probably shrug their shoulders and think that this doesn’t really matter. For me, as someone who connects a lot with Star Wars, whether it’s role-playing in SWTOR or a sleepless night under the reading lamp with the “Book of the Sith”, this is a slap in the face. With a single statement, over 99% of the Star Wars universe has been brushed aside as “non-existent”. I have spent many weeks in a galaxy far, far away and feel it is a devaluation of a beautiful time.
Sure, no one can take my memories of all the great things from me. But simply rejecting everything that exists so that Disney can basically rebuild the universe from scratch without “burdens” is, after all, the most inelegant way to deal with one of the largest and most loyal fan communities.
