Video: How Clone Wars and Rebels changed Star Wars

Pablo Hidalgo at Salt Lake Comic Con

Of the many great Star Wars panels at Salt Lake Comic Con a few weeks ago, one of the highlights was the “Clone Wars & Rebels: How Animation Changed Star Wars” panel. Moderated by Bryan Young, the panelists included Lucasfilm creative executive Pablo Hidalgo, veteran voice actor Dee Bradley Baker, and artist Scott Harben.


Bryan Young moderated another panel that would interest EU fans. He had authors R. A. Salvatore and Mike Stackpole discuss “Why We Killed Chewbacca” bringing in how the decision was made and the fallout from that event.

Salvatore on Chewbacca’s death: “I don’t think I’d go back and do that one again.”

Author R. A. Salvatore is doing a question and answer session on Reddit today. Most of the questions are about his other works, but there is one about about Vector Prime and its most controversial event, the death of Chewbacca. Salvatore’s response:

I was in a conference call with DelRey and Lucasfilm when the editors expressed that they loved the outline. (paraphrasing here) “This is exactly what we want, but didn’t anyone tell you? You have to kill Chewey.”

I won’t type the next two words that came out of my mouth. After a couple of days of arguments and, well, terror, they had convinced me that they were doing it for the right reasons, and well, George was down with it, and it’s his galaxy far, far away, so I did it.

The responses have been mixed, with some people loving the new direction, other people devastated. I think it might be the only thing I’ve ever regretted; I don’t think I’d go back and do that one again.

I’m not sure how long the chat will be going on, but there may be time to slip in other questions about Star Wars. Salvatore also wrote the novelization for Attack of the Clones.

Catching up with the Expanded Universe

I spotted The Star Wars Vault at Barnes & Noble today, though the TOS is listing it for October 30th release. Interesting.

Drew Karpyshyn talks about the recent EA buyout of Bioware, the Rule of Two manuscript and an event that happened… last Saturday. Whoops.

R.A. Salvatore talks a bit about his Star Wars novel experience about halfway through his interview with Fantasy Book Critic. The SW bits handily start just about where you see the Vector Prime book cover.