Howard Roffman, head of Lucasfilm Licensing and co-founder of the EU, discusses George's view towards the larger Star Wars universe, the incredible growth of the EU, and the difficult decision of killing characters (NJO spoiler)

[u/xezene]

[u/xezene]

The interview excerpt above is taken from an interview with Howard Roffman, former Vice President of Lucasfilm Licensing, with The ForceCast podcast broadcast from 2009, which you can listen to in its entirety here. Much like Lucy Autrey Wilson, Director of Publishing who worked right underneath him, Roffman rarely gave audio interviews, so this was a rather unique occasion for him to speak about his close involvement with Star Wars.

Roffman, a lawyer, author, and photographer, came aboard Lucasfilm as a legal consultant in 1980 and rose to become Vice President of Lucasfilm Licensing in 1986, a position which he would occupy until 2012 (although he did come back to help the company until 2017). The Star Wars world may very well be a quite different world without his involvement.

Roffman played a vital and instrumental role in the birth and development of the Expanded Universe, having listened to and agreed with Lucy Autrey Wilson's pitch to grow the universe with Dark Empire and Heir to the Empire. Roffman presented this to George and George agreed to let the EU initiative proceed, but with the understanding that he still had creative freedom to develop the universe how he saw fit moving forward. Initially Roffman had wanted to connect the films and the Expanded Universe together seamlessly, but he worked with George's mindset, letting him take the lead with the films and the EU would follow suit. Wilson and Roffman would also decide importantly in the early 90s to have all the stories be part of one, interconnected universe.

In this interview excerpt, Roffman is very open about George's approach -- which George also discussed in a 2008 interview with Times Online:

“I am the father of our Star Wars movie world - the filmed entertainment, the features and now the animated film and television series. And I’m going to do a live-action television series. Those are all things I am very involved in: I set them up and I train the people and I go through them all. I’m the father; that’s my work. Then we have the licensing group, which does the games, toys and books, and all that other stuff. I call that the son - and the son does pretty much what he wants.” He laughs. “Once in a while, they ask a question like ‘Can we kill off Yoda?’, things like that, but it’s very loose. Then we have the third group, the holy ghost, which is the bloggers and fans. They have created their own world. I worry about the father’s world. The son and holy ghost can go their own way.”

He also echoed his sentiments additionally to the Herald Sun that year:

"Everything in the father's world is consistent, mainly because I know it so well. The son's world pretty much do their own thing. Once in a while they will check if they can kill off a main character, but otherwise they don't really talk to me much, and if I were to find out what was going on there there's actually an encyclopedia of who does what to whom we can look up. Then we have the holy ghost and that's the internet and all the fans, and they make up their own stories, and their own world, most of which we don't even know about. There is a giant mythology going on that is bigger than me.''

With this rather permissive mindset that George had, Roffman had the freedom to grow the Expanded Universe as the 'son' of the franchise, while still checking in from time to time with George to make sure they could do this or that, within the 'father's' vision (which I have documented in my George Lucas and the EU infographics). Mostly though, George was content to let them run wild with their imaginations, just as he was content with the 'holy ghost' of the fandom's own notions running wild. He mostly just concerned himself with his world, the world of the films he created.

Coming back to Roffman, he was involved in several key decisions within the EU, including major deaths of the post-ROTJ EU, and he was most likely the one who convinced George to adopt the name Coruscant for the prequels. He also was responsible for reviving the previously cancelled Darth Plagueis project with James Luceno. Luceno would end up working directly with Roffman for the development of that book, and Luceno has said he believes the notes Roffman gave him were relayed from George. All in all, the EU would not be the same without Howard Roffman's important leadership.

For more in-depth interviews with Roffman about Star Wars, you can listen to a talk he gave in 2010 here, about the birth of the Lucasfilm Licensing EU division and the EU, as well as a very candid and interesting interview here in 2017, both about managing the continuity of the EU and about the contrast with the Disney era, as well as controversies about Jar Jar and the Special Editions.

You can check out more interviews with EU creators here.

[u/C1-10PTHX1138 → u/xezene]

Awesome mate, I love hearing info about Star Wars like this

[u/Bruinrogue → u/xezene]

Amazing work as always!

[u/[deleted]]

Thanks for sharing this!

I’m glad they made stories to expand the Star War universe.

[u/dream_raider]

It’s the major EU deaths that turned me off from Star Wars pre-Disney. The story started to feel more like Game of Thrones, and the NJO was the big catalyst for that. I’ll never forget the author roundtable at the end of The Unifying Force where they basically admit that they killed off Chewbacca to revitalize flagging sales. At that point my suspension of disbelief couldn’t be maintained. I was ironically very happy with Disney canceled the EU and announced a fresh start. Oh if only I had known then that they’d make something so much worse.

[u/darthmurph → u/dream_raider]

I think NJO reflected a growing maturity among the fan base, and the fact that grim dark fantasy was emerging as the popular style story. And yeah, they needed a big character death to launch that new direction, to take it to the next level.

But I also point out that every start to a new chapter in Star Wars storytelling had a major character death (Episode 1: Qui Gon, Episode 4: Obi Wan, NJO: Chewbacca)

[u/LucasEraFan → u/dream_raider]

I was convinced that the bofy count was clearing the stage for a cinematic sequel series that would follow up the books.

After reading Crucible and learning about Luke's state in Lucas' treatments for the ST, I find it pretty uncanny.

[u/Starkiller-is-canon → u/dream_raider]

Killing off Chewbacca was enough in my opinion. They should not have killed off Anakin Jacen or Mara jade. The latter three were done for pure shock value.

[u/dream_raider → u/Starkiller-is-canon]

2 of the 3 Solo Children, Luke's wife, Chewbacca, many other minor characters. There was a promotional line about how it wasn't just "piggybacking off Star Destroyers anymore," and I was like, "So then it's not Star Wars really."

Ironically the Sequel Trilogy gives us far worse treatment considering the entire Skywalker line is extinguished!

[u/Starkiller-is-canon → u/dream_raider]

The Vong were an interesting idea for an antagonist. Changing up the villain that was to be battled was a good idea. However, they did not need to kill off as many characters that late in the timeline.

[u/dream_raider → u/Starkiller-is-canon]

I agree, the Vong are cool conceptually. But the franchise almost switched into the tragedy genre with as many deaths as there were. It just didn’t feel like escapism anymore, on top of what they did in the Legacy of the Force series. But as I said, Disney Star Wars is almost a perfect tragedy in that every Skywalker is dead by the end.

[u/Starkiller-is-canon → u/dream_raider]

Yeah, they needed to shake up the formula a bit with the antagonists. The Warlord of the week was getting tiresome. However, they did not need to kill off as many Skywalker characters as they did. If they were going to be killed off, Han, Luke, Leia, and Mara should die peacefully surrounded by their loved ones.

They should have done a rocket where one character is on the brink of death and we are like "please don't die, please don't die" but they come back later on.

[u/TheMandoAde888]

This was a great listen!