From the moment Disney announced it was making more Star Wars films, any ensuing conversation has been filled with speculation about how it might draw from the Expanded Universe, that ancillary narrative spawned by decades of Star Wars novels, comic books, video games, and disturbingly erotic fan fiction. However, according to writer Simon Kinberg, you can probably stop insisting that every new, young actor who hasn’t even officially been cast yet is obviously playing Mara Jade, to name just one of the many Expanded Universe characters who likely won’t be appearing in J.J. Abrams’ films.
“You know, it’s not off-limits, and it’s certainly inspiring—I’m working on an animated show for [Lucasfilm] as well, Star Wars: Rebels, that will take inspiration from everywhere, but—I know for the movies, the canon is the canon, and the canon is the six films that exist,” Kinberg recently told IGN, confirming fans’ worst fears that producers believe there are six Star Wars movies.
Instead, Kinberg—who’s currently writing one of the as-yet-unnamed standalone Star Wars films that may or may not be about Boba Fett—says the new movies will be about “honoring the original movies, and yet wanting to take a step forward, too, and tell a new story.” And that new story will most likely be one that fans haven’t had years to come to terms with and take fierce ownership of, meaning they’ll just have to adopt an open-minded, optimistic approach to allowing others to freely create them. In other words, everything should work out just fine and everyone will be happy.
On an equally positive note, deviating from the Expanded Universe allows Abrams and others plenty of latitude to start fresh with Lobot. What if the new movies are just everyone talking about how cool Lobot is? #BringBackLobot