Yesterday it came out that one of the key reasons which Lucasfilm decided to turn “The Expanded Universe” into “Legends” was from the death of Chewbacca in the novels and now that appears to be incorrect. In the original interview, Leland Chee was quoted saying “publishing had decided they needed to kill somebody, and it was Chewbacca.” He went on to say that part of the reason Lucasfilm decided to make these works non-canon was that “if you have the opportunity to bring back Chewbacca into a live action film, you’re not gonna deprive fans that.”
This partially sounded like it could be coming from one of the ultimate Chewy fans out there and while I wasn’t against the idea, it looks like that wasn’t the case after all. The decision to restart everything ‘Star Wars’ already happened before Leland Chee, who runs ‘The Holocron’ which is Lucasfilm’s ‘official “Wookieepedia” came aboard and mentioned this. In fact, he started off the statement with “For me, it came down to simply that we had killed Chewbacca in the Legends — a big moon had fallen on him.”
So what actually happened? We don’t have the entire scoop yet but he did clarify these comments saying:
And the decision was made long before I joined the Story Group.
— Leland Chee (@HolocronKeeper) January 15, 2018
He also went on to justify that at the time it really did make sense. When George Lucas was busy thinking of potentially only a prequel trilogy and any sequels far off, the majority of ‘Star Wars’ lore was being told in novel form – Chewy wouldn’t have been able to add too much dialogue-wise.
A rational decision when novels are the dominant storytelling medium in that point in the timeline.
— Leland Chee (@HolocronKeeper) January 15, 2018
It makes sense for the novels to write him out when so many were being published at the time, but it doesn’t make the loss of any of our leading characters that much easier to stomach. Now it appears that this loss wasn’t one of the reasons for the rebooted universe to even happen and just one fan’s take on the creative team as to why it should have.
Are you happy or sad that Chewy’s death wasn’t actually a factor in turning “The Extended Universe” into “Legends”? Do you agree that it was the right thing to do for the films moving forward for everyone who hadn’t read these works or should they have been made into films? Share your thoughts below!
