Lucas Torpedoes STAR WARS Expanded Universe

[fuzzchile]

Al Williamson, Ron Frenz ,Tom Palmer and Walt Simonson, Cynthia Martin (among many others) are just as important as Lucas in evolving the Star Wars universe. Marvel did a good job on E.U ..I distrust anything that goes along with trends ..its either good or bad usually everything that doesn't stand out from the crowd aint remembered although Dark Horse has done some nice stuff too like The Biggs Darklighter story and Crimson Empire.. but i'd rather they didn't talk about events 20 or 30 years after Jedi .. plus it don't look Star Wars

[Thundershot]

For me, the Rogue Squadron comics were the best thing to come out of Star Wars spin-offs..All of the space fighter action with none of that Jedi stuff getting in the way,Wedge & the rest of the cast were all nicely rounded out characters & the art work just got better & better!

[Chopper]

For me, the Rogue Squadron comics were the best thing to come out of Star Wars spin-offs..All of the space fighter action with none of that Jedi stuff getting in the way,Wedge & the rest of the cast were all nicely rounded out characters & the art work just got better & better!

Best damn Star Wars video games ever too. Got the lot, including Battle for Naboo. Original wire frame Star Wars for the Atari 800 is next then Battlefront and Knights of the old republic. I've always been keen to read the books, never quite got around to it.

[Space Commander]

Al Williamson, Ron Frenz ,Tom Palmer and Walt Simonson, Cynthia Martin (among many others) are just as important as Lucas in evolving the Star Wars universe. Marvel did a good job on E.U ..I distrust anything that goes along with trends ..its either good or bad usually everything that doesn't stand out from the crowd aint remembered although Dark Horse has done some nice stuff too like The Biggs Darklighter story and Crimson Empire.. but i'd rather they didn't talk about events 20 or 30 years after Jedi .. plus it don't look Star Wars

Al Williamson; what a genius. He worked on Flash Gordon for years, too!

As for Biggs Darklighter, here's a true story.

In the late 1990s / early 2000s, I had a brief flirtation with a writing career. I'd had a few children's books published, (only locally, mind you), and I was hoping that from that beginning I might contribute to a modern legend, be it Star Wars back in those days... or maybe now !

Anyway, I was intrigued by the idea that a main character had been almost entirely cut out of the original Star Wars film; the character of Biggs Darklighter, Luke's best friend. Remember, this was before any Star Wars films were available on dvd, the Lucasfilm archives had not yet been revealed on the internet or in a series of hardback books, and the content of the Star Wars deleted scenes was, at the time, a matter of great mystery and speculation.

What I did was this; I took an old copy of the Star Wars (1977) screenplay from which Biggs' scenes had not yet been deleted, the 1976 Star Wars novel (written by Alan Dean Foster but credited to George Lucas as it was based on an early version of George's shooting script), and a reprint of the Marvel comic of the film, and I pieced together all of the scenes of the film concerning Biggs Darklighter, deleted or otherwise.

I then placed these scenes into a story in which Biggs "jumps ship" from the cruiser Rand Ecliptic, and embarks on an adventure on a jungle planet whilst trying to find the Rebellion and his childhood friend, Luke.

Bare in mind I was still quite young at the time and didn't realise just how impenetrable the industry was / is. No agent wanted to take an inexperienced writer and present that writer's story to Lucasfilm; Lucas is just too damned big. They only wanted writers with a fair bit of clout behind them.

I even sent a copy of my story to Biggs actor Garrick Hagon's agent, who kindly forwarded it to Garrick himself. He sent me a signed letter in which he said how much he'd enjoyed the story, but also pointed out that if people who actually worked on Star Wars, (he mentioned one of the artists), couldn't get a green light from Lucasfilm to get their own Star Wars projects off the ground, then he didn't hold out much hope for my chances.

He was right, and so I sent my story to Dark Horse Comics.

I realise that as the license holders for Star Wars, Dark Horse were within their legal rights to do almost anything they wanted with Star Wars, and as a kid from a village in the middle of nowhere someplace in England, I had no rights whatsoever. But I believed in the story and so I took a chance and sent it to them.

Dark Horse never replied. I never heard a single word from them.

A couple of years later I was in a comic shop in Cambridge when I spotted..., you guessed it..., a Biggs Darklighter comic.

Naturally, I bought the thing.

Certainly there were differences between this story and mine, but there were also many very close similarities, (not least of which was the whole jungle adventure!), some so close that I couldn't help but wonder....

And that's the absolute 100% truth.


SPACE COMMANDER

[paulitoy]

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What a brilliant post Space Commander!

Many Thanks,

[Space Commander]

Thanks, Paul. I was worried I was gonna get a kickin' for posting all that!


SPACE COMMANDER

[Chopper]

That's cool SC, a good read. Do you still have you're version?

[Space Commander]

I think it was on a bloody ancient Word Processor disk..., remember those things?

If I can find it..., (I've moved several times since then), I'll try to see if the PC can read it's format..., but don't hold your breath, matey!

Thanks for the interest, though. Maybe I should write an story instead, !


SPACE COMMANDER

[Chopper]

I've had a bit of experience in file/disk conversion (Atari/Amiga user of old) if you need any help. I've been thinking of the whole idea of writing AF stories. Why not? It'd be pretty cool.

[fuzzchile]

Kind of like the feeling I got when Dave Gibbons "The Originals " came out .. I 've been drawing a story about futuristic Mods and Rockers since about 1996 when that came out I was gutted as it felt like my idea .. (guess we were just on the same wave length lol) Its that just that Dave Gibbons is known worldwide and i'm not lol , but it sounds like they stole your idea wholesale ..gotta say its one of best Star Wars stories Dark Horse produced though .