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EU News & Updates

Star Wars circa 2009: when declaring the EU non-canon was simply an April Fool's joke


Boy how things have changed. A sad reminder of what on Wookiepedia was once considered so incredible that it was fodder for April Fools' Day. Wookiepedia's cruel but effective prank on April Fools' of 2009 was to convince us that in its editorial judgment the EU was no longer to be considered canon.

They added out-of-context quotes from Lucas seeming to back them up (where have we seen that before?). They tweaked Mara Jade's article to imply she didn't exist. They stated that, since only the films were canon, that Boba Fett had indeed died in Return of the Jedi. The depth of their joke was impressive.

The backlash was fierce. But April 2nd came and everyone realized it was a joke. And it was well played. Wookiepedia was one of the main hubs of Star Wars fandom in those days - the days when there was no artificial distinction between films and the EU; when it was all simply Star Wars. And it was fun to see how well they got our number.

Five April's later, sadly, the EU was declared no longer canon for real. What was worse, there were no announced plans to continue its storyline along an alternate path. Fortunately Wookiepedia didn't delete the EU entries, though they've buried them under distinct Legends tabs.

Boy how things have changed.


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