{"id":441121,"date":"2026-05-23T04:57:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T04:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/441121\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T04:57:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T04:57:15","slug":"looking-back-at-shadows-of-the-empire-30-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/441121\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking Back at SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE 30 Years Later"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thirty years ago, Star Wars was undergoing a big revival<\/a>. With a revamped toy line from Hasbro, the debut of the Star Wars Customizable Card Game<\/a>, and the wild success of the \u201cExpanded Universe\u201d thanks to the novels and comics, the franchise was seeing its biggest boom in years. With the Special Editions and Prequels still on the horizon, however, Lucasfilm needed to keep the momentum going.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where Shadows of the Empire<\/a> came in! A multimedia event release, meant as a \u201cmovie without a movie,\u201d complete with toys, a video game, and even a soundtrack to go with it. It was a massive, bold undertaking that would ultimately shape how Star Wars handled future endeavors beyond the films.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Bantam BooksMeet Lucy Autrey Wilson<\/p>\n

Such a monumental task, required monumental effort from numerous creatives. But only one person could wrangle them all to make it happen: Lucy Autrey Wilson. At the time, she served as the Director of Publishing at Lucasfilm, but her history with Star Wars goes all the way back to the beginning. As George Lucas\u2019 assistant in 1974, she has the unique distinction of being Lucasfilm\u2019s first permanent employee and served in numerous roles over the decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her extensive background within the franchise made her uniquely suited for shaping its future in the 90s, which proved fruitful when she picked Timothy Zahn to kick off a new line of novels with Heir to the Empire for Bantam Spectra. And again when she worked the deal with Dark Horse Comics to bring the iconic Dark Empire story to life. Truly, without Wilson, the Expanded Universe as we know it today, may have never existed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She spearheaded the idea for Shadows of the Empire, penning the initial outline for the story spanning across the book, comic, and game, and even gave the infamous new villain, Prince Xizor, his name. These days Wilson spends most of her time painting and exploring her love of fine art, but I recently had the privilege to chat with her about the iconic multi-media project, and its impact, on its 30th anniversary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Developing the Shadow<\/p>\n

Shadows\u2019 multi-media journey obviously started well before 1996, and initially came up as an idea during a 1994 meeting with Bantam publisher, Lou Aronica. \u201cI liked the idea because I was always looking for ways to keep our publishing program exciting,\u201d Wilson explained. \u201cBack at Lucasfilm, I brought the idea to Howard Roffman, my boss and the head of Lucasfilm Licensing at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The timing turned out to be rather fortuitous. Originally, George Lucas planned to release the first Prequel film in 1997\u2014which marked the original film\u2019s 20th anniversary. The lead up to that release would put the Special Editions in 1996, but when Episode I\u2019s release date pushed back, it left a big gap that needed filling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ArtLucasarts<\/p>\n

\u201cShadows fit the bill!\u201d Wilson said. \u201c[There was] a new opportunity to do something else\u2014marketing wise\u2014in 1996. Howard and I [then] came up with a rough story concept. We were limited in what we could do with many of the movie characters, so it made sense to come up with a new cast of characters. I remember discussing the need for a new powerful villain and exploring more of the criminal underbelly of the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

A project on this scale, going beyond a single book title, required George Lucas\u2019 approval. With his \u201cOK\u201d secured, planning began in earnest. Wilson told me, \u201cA meeting [with the major participants] was set up for November 1994\u2026to hash out a master plan that would include a hardcover book, comics, a computer game, and toy tie-ins being the main elements of the program for release in 1996. I thought it would be fun to also include a soundtrack (I was in charge of the books, comics and music) and made a deal with Robert Townson at Varese Sarabande to add this to the mix.<\/p>\n

\u201cI, my group\u2019s book and comic editors (Sue Rostoni and Alan Kausch) then got together with folks from the Lucasfilm games group (Jon Knoles), the author of the proposed hardcover hired by Bantam (Steve Perry), folks from Dark Horse Comics, and others.\u201d With this core creative team assembled, it was time to hammer out the story details more fully beyond the concepts Wilson had previously jotted down. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis was to be a standalone book project,\u201d she continued, \u201coutside the period our other hardcover books were covering\u2014after [Return of the Jedi]. [The] initial plan was to set the action between Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back but\u2026Jon Knoles wanted the game to be set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi so the time period changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Lucasarts<\/p>\n

\u201cThat meant Han Solo would still be frozen in carbonite, thereby taking him out of the action, which impacted what we could do in the book. We now had Princess Leia without her romantic interest, which caused me to wonder if there might be some interesting interaction between her and our new villain Xizor.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat romantic angle, and the name of the new villain were my primary creative contributions. [Of course] to maintain Princess Leia\u2019s good character, Steve Perry attributed that sexual attraction to pheromones, while other characters and plot points came up to satisfy gameplay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Letting Them Cook<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s role in making Shadows of the Empire happen is major, but she continued to emphasize the team aspect behind it all. \u201cMy main job after the deal and story were set up was to let my, very professional, team work with our book, comic writers, and editors\u2026I was blessed at Lucasfilm with having really great publishing partners, who brought us professional talent and top editors.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI also had an internal editorial staff who were top notch. I would get involved in the inception of [the] project, give my opinion on the creative content, but stay out of the way once things were going well. So it was my editors who primarily worked to coordinate between games and the publishers on who did what, when.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following that big meeting in November, everyone went their separate ways and got to work. While there was still some coordination on certain key elements, the different parts of the project were largely independent of one another. If you\u2019ve ever wondered why there have been so many different depictions of Dash Rendar (between his muscle-bound look and more everyman appearance), this is why. \u201cThe hardest part of working on a multi-media project is that my team could only control the book, comic & music aspect. Not having control of everything could be frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frustrations aside, Wilson was undeterred in making Shadows of the Empire the best it could be. An experience that, even 30 years later, she continues to look on fondly. \u201cOne of the things I always enjoyed the most was working with talent\u2026.My favorite memory of working on Shadows was the chance to work with a team of [creators] at the top of their game.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Dark Horse Comics<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved meeting many talented artists including Drew Struzan<\/a> (who illustrated many of the Bantam book covers, including the Shadows novel), and the brothers Hildebrandt who I met when they created a line of cards for Topps. Dark Horse Comics also introduced me to many very creative talents including Dave Dorman and Cam Kennedy. In house, Lucasfilm had some incredible talent including Doug Chiang and many others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite her emphasis on the team work necessary for the project, Wilson was far from idle herself during those years of development. \u201cI spent more time on the soundtrack and other [Star Wars] books,\u201d she explained. \u201cMy work on the soundtrack was like most projects: I spent the most time putting the right team together. Once we had a contract with Varese Sarabande, producer Robert Townson brought on Joel McNeely as composer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing I did after that was go to the recording session in Scotland, which wasn\u2019t even really necessary!\u201d She laughed. Throughout our chat, it was obvious how much fun Wilson had during her time at Lucasfilm and on this project. \u201cBecause everyone was enthusiastic about the program. Lucasfilm was an exceptional company to work for mainly because of George Lucas, and the quality of people who worked there.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Foundational Impact<\/p>\n

With the release of the Special Editions the subsequent year, however, all projects turned their focus to the Prequels. Which meant despite its impact, Wilson says a sequel\/follow-up for Shadows of the Empire was never really a consideration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Shadows of the Empire ended up as a one-and-done project, the legacy it left behind had a dramatic impact on the future of Star Wars storytelling beyond the big screen. Thanks to Shadows\u2019 success the publishing\/licensing arms of Lucasfilm were stronger than ever.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Lucasarts<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch as I loved working on Shadows, I was happy to go back to projects managed primarily between my department and our publishing partners,\u201d Wilson told me. \u201cI think I preferred it when my department had more independence because I was spoiled.\u201d<\/p>\n

This didn\u2019t, however, put Wilson off from such large-scale projects. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the lessons learned from pulling Shadows of the Empire together helped establish a blueprint for grand storytelling projects down the road. Including one of their most bold endeavors outside the films\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were ongoing, and constant, collaborations between the different teams, especially because everyone was enthusiastic about the program. When I negotiated the new agreement with Ballantine Books for the prequel movie tie-ins, I included a new multi book title\u2014The New Jedi Order\u2014project limited in scope primarily to books.\u201d<\/p>\n

Considering The New Jedi Order also served as something of a template\/precursor to the more recent High Republic project<\/a>, it\u2019s fascinating to see just how important Shadows of the Empire turned out to be. None of which would have been possible if not for Wilson\u2019s leadership and skill at picking talented people to make it all a reality.<\/p>\n

This post has affiliate links, which means we may earn advertising money if you buy something. This doesn\u2019t cost you anything extra, we just have to give you the heads up for legal reasons. Click away!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thirty years ago, Star Wars was undergoing a big revival. With a revamped toy line from Hasbro, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-441121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}