The Star Wars Expanded Universe continued the story of familiar Star Wars characters and also introduced new ones, and fans turned to those stories to find out what happened to Luke, Leia, and Han after the events of Return of the Jedi. When Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, the Expanded Universe was considered canonical and was rebranded as "Legends." Of course, that upset some fans who enjoyed the Expanded Universe stories. However, Legends author Timothy Zahn admitted that the stories have its own flaws.
"The biggest problem I think with the Expanded Universe was it got so big and so complex," Zahn told Yahoo!. "It was hard, not only hard to keep track of everything, but hard to find someplace where you could put a story and hard to find something that hadn't been done before."
Even though a lot of stories from comic books, novels, and games were erased from canon, a lot of the elements from Legends made their way into the official canon. Grand Admiral Thrawn, one of Zahn's creations, even made it to the official canon in Star Wars Rebels and his recent Star Wars novels. Even the Imperial Remnant in Zahn's Heir to the Empire is similar to the First Order in The Force Awakens.
"I don't want to say that they were deliberately thinking about me when they did this, because a lot of the stuff they're doing is just logic," Zahn said about the sequels' similarities to his stories. "If we chase some of the Empire out into the Unknown Regions, the logical thing is for them to build up and then come back. It's not necessarily inspired; it's very easy parallel development as well."
Are you a fan of some of the elements of Star Wars Legends becoming part of the official canon?
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