Star Wars Actor Explains Why Movies Are More Important Than The EU
When Disney purchased Lucasfilm and announced their intentions to make more Star Wars movies, [...]
The Lucas Approach
Witwer spoke about George Lucas' processes for incorporating stories and characters from the Extended Universe when he was the making decisions for Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
"Clone Wars, with George at the helm, I mean, it would go through this Expanded Universe stuff, and it would pick out ideas that George thought were particularly cool, and Dave would think, 'This is cool,' so we'd throw it in there," Witwer said. "But there was never an expectation that the film and TV stuff had to line up exactly with Karen Traviss' books, or Timothy Zahn's stuff, or Yuuzhan Vongstuff; there was never that expectation.
"I know the fans sometimes got upset when it didn't line up, but ultimately, I think George and everyone, and Dave, had done an incredible job of using stuff that's really cool from the old EU, and in fact they're still doing that. I mean, [Grand Admiral] Thrawn being in Rebels was long after they said, 'Oh, that old EU is the old EU.'"
Witwer added that there is a practical reason why the books and TV shows should not dictate what occurs in the movies without consideration.
"I think people are right to like what they like. All of the stuff that they like is still out there, it still exists," he said. "If you want to read about Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade, you still can. But the example I was giving, do Marvel Comics line up exactly with the movies? No, they don't. They don't line up with the Marvel movies exactly.
"They take, the movies draw inspiration from those comics, of course, but I don't see why Star Wars should be any different. Because ultimately, the situation you're in is, people who make books, comic books, all that stuff ... they can be put out a lot faster than you can make a movie or a TV show."
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