A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Cover art by Drew Struzan. (C) 1998 Bantam Spectra and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) One of the side effects of creating a literary "expanded universe" of a popular movie or television series is the studio's licensing division coming in and saying to a diverse group of authors something like  Okay, go ahead and write novels based on our characters and situations and carry the story forward, even though what counts as the Official Story is what we show on movie screens or TV shows. We will vet almost anything so long as it doesn't seriously contradict or affect any past or future project we may have later on. Lovely idea, this, since it keeps the fans happy with new stories set in their favorite universes and gives them new insights into the offscreen lives and "further adventures" of such characters as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the captains and crews of the various starships named  Enterprise , and, of course, the heroes and villains that populate George Luc...

(C) 1997 Bantam Spectra and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.... It is a period of turmoil in the galaxy. Three years after the deaths of Emperor Palpatine and Lord Darth Vader at the Battle of Endor, the recently declared New Republic is locked in a life-or-death struggle with the remnants of the evil Galactic Empire. Although Ysanne Isard, the Empire's new leader, has been forced to flee from the capital world, Coruscant, she and her sinister agents have unleashed the Krytos Virus, a bio-weapon engineered to specifically harm non-humans in a bid to divide the Rebellion by sowing fear, anger and mistrust in what she perceives to be a fragile coalition between humans and aliens. With her Super Star Destroyer and strong Imperial fleet units, Isard has made her way to the planet Thyferra and manipulated events to take control of that world and its precious supply of bacta, the "miracle fluid" used throughout the galaxy to treat var...

(C) 2010 Dark Horse Comics and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  Pros:  Three hard-to-find Star Wars comics series by Dark Horse; great writing; nice art Cons:  Shadows of the Empire has been edited somewhat. In 1996, one year before the 20th Anniversary of Star Wars ' theatrical premiere and almost three years prior to the release of Episode I: The Phantom Menace , Lucasfilm Limited commissioned a huge multimedia project titled Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire . With Steve Perry's hardcover novel of the same title at its core, Shadows of the Empire was Lucasfilm's "everything-but-the-movie" bid to tell the untold story of what happened between 1980's Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and 1983's  Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. In Shadows of the Empire, Luke Skywalker is still reeling from the duel with Darth Vader on Bespin, where he lost his right hand to the Dark Lord's lightsaber and was told that his mentors Ben Ken...