When Disney bought Lucasfilm, the company threw almost every piece of Star Wars lore away. In a flash, literally decades of stories from its expanded universe were nixed from canon — cleaning the slate in order to give director J. J. Abrams freedom to tell a new tale starting moments after Return of the Jedi ended.
But those missing pieces are very quickly being filled by a new Star Wars universe that's equal parts expansive and expensive, costing both time and money to learn everything. The story of Star Wars, for the kind of fan that wants to know everything, is much bigger than the movies, spanning several novels, comic book series, video games, and TV shows.
It's almost impossible to keep track of everything, and for the casual Star Wars fan, none of this is likely necessary to know before going into The Force Awakens. But if you really want to know what's happened in the three decades between the new film and Return of the Jedi's final party scene, we're here to help.
Warning: While there are no spoilers from The Force Awakens itself, we'll be discussing plot details from pretty much every other piece of the canonical Star Wars fiction currently in existence.
So what happened after Return of the Jedi?
Episode VI's triumphant closing note suggests the immediate downfall of the Empire, but it's not all fireworks and Ewok celebrations. As specified in Chuck Wendig's first Aftermath novel, moments after the statue of the Emperor is cut down on the central planet of Coruscant, Imperial forces start a brutal crackdown, clearing city streets of anti-Empire protesters with lethal force.
Some Imperial commanders are able to lock down their far-flung corners of the galaxy, restricting access in and out in a bid to cut their losses and maintain control, while others try and fail to elevate new Emperors to positions of power. The largest contingent of Imperial forces coalesces around the minor planet of Akiva, where high-ranking members form the Imperial Future Council and discuss how what's left of the Empire can strike back against the Rebel forces currently picking them apart. Some suggest a military stand, while Yupe Tashu, one of the Emperor's advisors and a Sith cultist, suggests that the fleet goes on a hunt for a font of dark side energy that'll propel them back to power.
A font of dark side energy?
Don't worry about that part, actually.
Okay. Carry on.
The talks don't go so well, though, and Alliance ships arrive at Akiva, pushing the Empire back yet again to the planet of Jakku. The unassuming desert planet becomes the real last stand for the united Empire, one last do-or-die battle that ends in an overwhelming victory for the Rebels. If you'd like to change that outcome, you can play Star Wars Battlefront and win the day for the Empire, but the canonical fight ends with hundreds of ships, including iconic wedge-shaped Star Destroyers, smashing into the planet's surface.
It's one of those Star Destroyers that we've seen Rey poking around in for parts in The Force Awakens' trailers and TV spots. We also know one of those ships was called the Inflictor, and was deliberately crashed into the surface of the planet Jakku by its young captain after it was invaded by a boarding party, led by her Rebel lover.
Speaking of, where did the Rebel Alliance go?
After Jakku, the Rebels formalize the New Republic and start the process of beating back the last Imperial remnants across the galaxy. (A treaty between the New Republic and the Empire was eventually signed.) The new government moves its official capital world from Coruscant to Chandrila — famous in the old expanded universe for its history of political discourse and beautiful architecture — and invites democratically elected representatives from more than 100 worlds to join its new Senate.
Mon Mothma, head of the Rebel forces during the insurrection and now the boss of the New Republic, sheds both the emergency powers held by Emperor Palpatine and the majority of the military forces controlled by the fledgling New Republic. But with the Empire still a significant, if scattered, force in the galaxy, Mon Mothma's government can't throw down arms entirely. Instead, she decides to divert money so planets in the New Republic can build their own defense forces. At the same time, Admiral Ackbar remains head of the Republic's fleet of capital ships, kept in reserve to fight back when portions of the Empire reject the peace treaty signed after Jakku.
So where does the First Order fit? Are they a part of the Empire, or something else?
You can think of them more as an outside group inspired by the Empire. Contingents like the First Order have a whole galaxy to hang out in, giving themselves time to get all nice and cult-ish out of sight. They're not the only such group: Aftermath introduces the "Acolytes of the Beyond," aiming to reunite Darth Vader's lightsaber with its owner in death. The connection between the Acolytes and The Force Awakens' Knights of Ren isn't yet clear, but both factions seem to share the same fetish for Sith memorabilia, and from the loving way Kylo Ren is talking to Vader's helmet in the film's trailers, it looks like he, too, is in the midst of a scavenger hunt for the Sith lord's things.
Enough talk about politics. Seriously, where's Luke?
That's still the big question, isn't it? Frankly, we don't know. But we have a few ideas. Soon after the Battle of Endor, Luke resumes the pilgrimage he started with his trip to Dagobah, traveling to the planet of Devaron — home of the devil-horned Devaronians — after having visited one of the many secret research stations on the edge of the galaxy that Palpatine set up while he was still alive.
From there, Luke's place in post-RotJ canon trails off, but we're guessing he didn't try to bring back the Jedi council. As Solo alluded to in the trailers, the Force is probably still considered some hokey religion. Think about it: The Jedi have been off the scene for more than 60 years at the time of the new movie — nobody but Luke's close friends know that he can use the Force — and even though the galaxy was ruled by one of the most powerful Sith of all time just 30 years previous, Palpatine took great care to hide his dark side powers. For the wider galaxy, the Sith are little more than boogeymen.
And Chewbacca? Han? Leia? What have they been up to?
There are also pretty big gaps on the fate of the main film characters, but here's what we know so far. Leia becomes a general in the rapidly demilitarizing New Republic, and Han and Chewie set off to save the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk from slave-driving Imperial remnants.
The fate of other major characters are left more ambiguous. Boba Fett's armor makes it out of the Sarlacc Pit — the iconic green Mandalorian plate is cleaned up and sold by Jawa scavengers during Aftermath — but it's not clear what happened to the man inside. Given that Sarlacc can take up to a thousand years to digest bodies, and Fett's wide array of wrist-mounted weaponry, it's a good bet we'll be seeing the bounty hunter find his way in the post-Imperial galaxy again.
Any word on Lando Calrissian? He's my all-time favorite!
Not really, but longtime Star Wars screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan seems to think Lando might come back at some point — just not in The Force Awakens.
So what about the new kids? Do you really think their parents are —
Let's stop right there and just say we don't know, but if past Star Wars films are any indication, lineage will play a big role here with Rey / Finn / Kylo Ren.
Here's one we do feel confident about, however: it's a fairly sure bet that Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is the son of Rebel soldiers Shara Bey and husband Kes, introduced in the Shattered Empire comic. That background explains how Oscar Isaac's character came to become a crack pilot — he was born and raised in the Rebellion.
There are still hundreds of questions about the new Star Wars we haven't had answered. Why are Han, Leia, and others now fighting for the Resistance, not the New Republic? What exactly does Kylo Ren want? Where is Luke? And was Jar Jar Binks really the Sith architect behind the rise of the Empire?
Some of those questions will be answered by The Force Awakens this week, but still more will be answered by the huge slate of books, comics, video games, and TV shows that Disney has planned over the coming years. The galaxy might have been destroyed last year, but it's very quickly expanding.
Ross Miller contributed to this report.
A brief history of the canonical Star Wars universe
Note: Years in the Star Wars galaxy were previously designated "BBY" or "ABY" to designate time before / after the Battle of Yavin, when the first Death Star was destroyed. It's not clear whether the new canon will adopt this designation, but for ease of reading, in this case we'll use The Phantom Menace as year zero. Years below are noted "ABN" — after the Battle of Naboo.
Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Sent to the planet Naboo to broker a series of astoundingly boring trade disputes and tax negotiations, Jedis Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn find Anakin Skywalker, an eight-year-old who's ultra-strong in the Force thanks to — ugh — his huge number of midichlorians. Darth Maul takes time off from fronting his black metal band to kill Qui-Gon Jinn and get sliced in half by Obi-Wan, but the real threat — the Phantom Menace, if you will — is Naboo's nefarious Senator Palpatine, who is maneuvering himself into a position of power. Watch out for this guy, he's kind of a dick.
(0 ABN)
Obi-Wan & Anakin (comic)
Obi-Wan and Anakin, now Jedi and Padawan — that's Jedi for "intern" — get into a decade of unspecified scrapes together, before rolling right into Episode II. The comics won't see the light of day until early January 2016 but we can assume it's around this time Anakin Skywalker morphs from Jake Lloyd to Hayden Christensen and grows a horrible rat tail of hair.
(3 ABN)
Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Anakin, now grown from bratty kid to bratty teenager, falls in love with Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo, and the existence of the Republic's secret clone army is revealed. Those clones — unsurprisingly given the movie's title — then attack, and the Clone Wars start proper. On one side, the Republic's army of clone soldiers, dressed up like retro stormtroopers. On the other, the droid forces of the Separatists. The Jedi, traditionally the peacekeeping force of the galaxy, step into roles as generals.
(10 ABN)
The Clone Wars (TV)
The Clone Wars rumble on for two years, as detailed in six seasons of The Clone Wars animated TV show, one of the few things from before Disney bought Star Wars to remain in the official canon. Anakin gets his own Padawan — a teenage Togruta named Ahsoka Tano — who teaches him about humility and respect by being super irritating and running straight into fights she can't win.
New characters like Ahsoka and clone soldiers Rex and Cody are joined by returning faces like the brilliantly named Jedi Master Kit Fisto and Darth Maul, who recovers from being cut in half by living in a trash compactor and trading food with a giant snake until he gets some new legs. Seriously.
The Clone Wars starts slow but hides a number of pivotal moments, most important of which is Anakin's rejection of his mantle as the Jedi's chosen one — the person who'll bring balance to the Force. Anakin also gets particularly pissed off at the Jedi when they excommunicate Ahsoka, after she's framed for murder, making his eventual turn against the Jedi more logical.
(10-13 ABN)
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
The war ends with a victory for the Republic soldiers, but a devastating loss for the Jedi. Palpatine, who secretly ensured all clone soldiers have a chip in their heads that ensures unswerving obedience, initiates Order 66, which sees the clones turning on their Jedi masters and slaughtering them all. The movie ends with Palpatine initiating emergency measures and taking control of a new Galactic Empire, and finalizes Anakin's shift to the dark side, as he kills a room full of defenseless younglings, has most of his limbs sliced off by Obi-Wan, gets bundled into his Darth Vader suit, and moans an infamous "noooo" when he's told he's responsible for his wife's death.
(13 ABN)
Kanan: The Last Padawan (comic)
Order 66 was supposed to eradicate the Jedi but Obi-Wan manages to get a message out ahead of time, allowing some Force users to slip away from their would-be murderers. Caleb Dume is one such individual. Dume escapes from clone forces, hides on the planet of Kaller, rejects his Jedi background as a liability, and takes a new name — Kanan Jarrus.
(13-14 ABN)
Lords of the Sith (novel)
Now well-and-truly dark side, Anakin Skywalker is put through a battery of tests by his new master, who wants to check his evilness. The Emperor's got a lot riding on Darth Vader — so much that he willingly orders a Star Destroyer into a trap laid by Twi'lek freedom fighters. The Twi'leks — remember those guys, with the tails hanging from their heads — are led by a guy called Cham Syndulla, and successfully blow up the Star Destroyer, but are unable to kill both Palpatine and Vader, who crash-land on the planet of Ryloth, climb into a nest of monster bugs, and murder a village of down-home Twi'leks, just to show how evil Anakin Skywalker has become. The answer? Pretty evil.
(18 ABN)
Tarkin (novel)
In the meantime, Imperial Moff Wilhuff Tarkin is climbing the ranks to become the man to command the soon-to-be-complete Death Star, deftly destroying a group of dissidents after they strike at a few Imperial outposts. The group isn't big, well funded, or well organized, but they're not the only beings in the galaxy organizing to shake off the Emperor's control.
(18 ABN)
A New Dawn (novel)
Kanan Jarrus has transitioned from baby Jedi to an itinerant life of drinking and brawling his way across the galaxy. During a stop on the mining planet of Gorse, he has a chance meeting with Hera Syndulla, the politically aware daughter of Twi'lek fighter Cham, who's visiting the world to spy on Imperial industrialist Count Vidian. The two start a fruitful partnership and Vidian — more metal than man after his face was eaten off by a horrible disease — has to face off against a coordinated assault.
(21 ABN)
Star Wars Rebels (TV)
More organized now and flying together, Hera, Kanan, and their crew start with small-scale sabotage operations on the planet of Lothal, annoying Imperial forces enough during the first season of Star Wars: Rebels that an Imperial Inquisitor — a kind of "diet Sith," complete with spinning lightsaber — is sent to deal with them.
But Hera, Kanan, and crew soon graduate to a larger operation, and joined by Force-sensitive youngster Ezra Bridger, they meet up with Ahsoka Tano, 15 years older but still alive after being booted out of the Jedi Order. Together they form a guerrilla cell that looks like the Rebels you'll recognize from Episode IV, with orange jumpsuits and weird helmets, striking out at Imperial targets from a Rebel fleet, before coming face to face with Darth Vader himself.
(27-28 ABN)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
The first Star Wars spinoff movie will show how the burgeoning Rebel Alliance is able to procure the plans for the Death Star that the Empire is building in secret. Very few details have been released so far, but based on the name alone, it's a good bet legendary X-wing group Rogue Squadron will have a part to play.
(32 ABN)
Episode IV: A New Hope
Luke Skywalker finds himself wanting adventure, and ends up single-handedly destroying the Death Star — but not before he meets Han Solo, helps rescue Princess Leia, and watches Obi-Wan Kenobi get cut down by Darth Vader. The peaceful planet of Alderaan is the movie's biggest casualty, billions of souls blown to bits by the power of the Empire's fully operational battle station.
(32 ABN)
Princess Leia (comic)
Princess Leia leaves Yavin IV to round up those Alderaanians lucky enough to be off-world when the planet was blown up by the Death Star, teaming up with pilot Evaan Verlaine to scout the galaxy for others left alive from her home planet.
(32 ABN)
Chewbacca (comic)
Chewbacca crash-lands on an Imperial-held planet and has to team up with a local to avoid patrols, stay safe, and conquer the language issues you'll have when you can only speak in weird growls to get flying again.
(32 ABN)
Darth Vader (comic)
Darth Vader has become a near-mythical figure in a galaxy that doesn't know the Emperor is a Sith lord and thinks all the Jedi are dead, but the destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars: A New Hope prompts Emperor Palpatine to reconsider the Darth Vader experiment. He takes control of the Imperial military away from Vader, who in turn discovers that his master has tasked a mad scientist in a secret Imperial facility to trial possible replacements as his main henchman. Vader wins his master's trust back after he defeats his potential replacements, but not before he becomes aware of Luke Skywalker's existence.
(32 ABN)
Skywalker Strikes (comic)
Fresh off the back of their own solo escapades, the four major characters — Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie — combine for another offensive push, striking out at an Imperial weapons factory on Cymoon 1 and successfully blowing up a TIE fighter assembly line. Things don't go so smoothly afterwards, though — Luke has his first meeting with Boba Fett, the infamous bounty hunter having been hired by Vader to bring in the Force-sensitive son he doesn't yet know. Han and Leia — who have been looking for a new site for a Rebel base — are forced into hiding on a far-off world by surprise Imperial ships.
(32 ABN)
Showdown on the Smuggler's Moon (comic)
Solo and the Princess finally get off-world, but not without help from an unexpected source — Han's wife. At least, she says she's his wife. Sana Solo — given name Sana Starros — claims she married Han years before. Han says the ceremony was a ruse, but the couple definitely share a few tricks — Sana visits Tatooine and shoots one of Greedo's friends in the knees to find out where her erstwhile partner has gone. Leia copes admirably with the revelation that Han was maybe or maybe not secretly married while flirting hard with her, but to be fair, she's only a few months away from sticking her tongue down her brother's throat in the Empire Strikes Back.
Luke himself is on Tatooine, where he finds a journal written by Obi-Wan Kenobi. The journal sends him on a mission to find out more about the Jedi — and himself — that starts with a trip to smuggler's moon of Nar Shaddaa, run by the Hutts. Luke wants the help of the Hutts to sneak him into the Jedi temple on Coruscant but unfortunately Luke's still pretty new at this whole "Rebel" thing. He ends up captured by Grakkus the Hutt, a Jabba-sized slug whose major is in Jedi artefacts. In some ways, it's good for Luke — he gets to sift through Grakkus' collection — but in one key way, it's pretty bad — the young Jedi ends up facing off against something called "Kongo the Disemboweler," a bigger, nastier, lightsaber-proof version of Return of the Jedi's rancor.
(32 ABN)
Heir to the Jedi (novel)
Luke, on the other hand, is tracing a path of light. Fresh off his victory over the Empire's most fearsome battlestation, Leia and Admiral Ackbar send young Skywalker out on a mission to break out a cryptographer who could become a Rebel spy. Luke uses the experience to learn more about the Force, to chat to the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and to calm his ego, raging after blowing up the Death Star. But to the rest of the Rebellion, he's no Jedi — they're all dead, remember? — just a farm boy that got lucky with his proton torpedo.
(32 ABN)
Lando (comic)
After his introduction in Star Wars: Rebels, Lando Calrissian also gets his own comic book adventure. The five-issue Lando series sees the smooth-talking swindler and smuggler steal Palpatine's personal space-yacht, winking and talking his way out of trouble, and becoming head of Cloud City's mining operation just in time for The Empire Strikes Back.
(32-35 ABN)
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Episode V sees Darth Vader confronting Luke with the news he only learned shortly before — that the whiny farmboy who likes boasting about shooting defenseless rodents with laser weaponry is his son. Luke gets his hand lopped off, Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite, and the Rebels lose their base on Hoth, the icy planet Leia settled on as the home of the Rebel operations after her previous mission.
(35 ABN)
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
The Empire Strikes Back ends with the Rebel Alliance reeling, but Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, sticks the lightsaber into the heart of the Empire. After years of menacing breathing and youngling massacres, Vader is finally redeemed by his son, after Anakin overpowers the Emperor and throws him into a brightly lit tube. As Luke and Anakin come face to horribly scarred face for the first time, Rebel and Imperial forces battle above and on the forest moon of Endor — with the help of way too many Ewoks.
(36 ABN)
Battlefront (video game)
You can play that withdrawal from Hoth — turning it into a canonically correct victory, or helping the Empire crush the Rebel scum in one fell swoop — in Star Wars: Battlefront. The game spans the gamut of the movies, with maps set on Return of the Jedi's Endor, Tatooine, volcanic Sullust, and other worlds, the constant conflicts showing the regular battles between Rebel and Imperial forces that took place in the background of the Civil War.
(32-37 ABN)
Battlefront: Twilight Company (novel)
The escape from Hoth forms part of a wider fallback later called "the Mid Rim retreat," as the Empire gets serious about the Rebel threat, and starts to push enemy forces off worlds across the galaxy. The Twilight Company novel — a tie-in to Star Wars Battlefront — shows this process from the gritty perspective of Rebel ground soldiers fighting across Hoth, as well as Coyerti, Haidoral Prime, and the volcanic planet of Sullust.
(26-35 ABN)
Shattered Empire (comic)
We see how the battle ends for Luke, Leia, and Han in Return of the Jedi, but the Shattered Empire comic series shows us what the second Death Star's destruction looks like for rank and file Rebel troops. The comic's told through the eyes of Rebel Lieutenant Shara Bey. Bey fights on Endor, before being chosen to protect Leia in the immediate aftermath of Endor, while her husband — a man named Kes Dameron — joins Han Solo's commando team as the Rebel Alliance tries its best to dismantle the Empire. With the Emperor's death comes the start of Operation Cinder, a failsafe scheme set up by Palpatine in the event of his death that sparks a series of disasters on his home planet of Naboo, one last dick move for the Sith lord on this plane of existence.
(36 ABN)
Aftermath (novel)
The rest of the Empire isn't necessarily ready to lay down and die, either. A number of Imperial remnants fall back to the galaxy's outer rim, to planets like Akiva, where they try to plan for the future — whether to consolidate an autocratic regime in a few sectors, or seek out a mythical "wellspring" of dark side power somewhere on the edge of the galaxy. Before they can make a decision, however, the New Republic fleet strikes, pushing them back from Akiva and even further into the Outer Rim.
A year after Return of the Jedi's Ewok dance party, the brand new New Republic's military is back in action, fighting above the desert world Jakku. Billed as the last chance for the Empire to win against the increasingly successful Rebels, Imperial boss Grand Moff Randd squanders the Imperial fleet, superior New Republic forces sending vast Star Destroyers smashing into the surface of the desert planet. The battle seems to be the end of the Empire, but there are two more books planned in the Aftermath trilogy.
(36 ABN)
Lost Stars (novel)
As Kanan and Hera team up, another star-crossed couple across the galaxy find each other. Thane Kyrell and Ciena Ree, two kids from different sides of the tracks on the planet Jelucan, meet 11 years before Episode IV and become fast friends. Five years later, they're both in the Imperial military, but where Ciena is assigned to a Star Destroyer, Thane becomes a TIE pilot, separating the two. Both witness first-hand pivotal moments in the Star Wars saga, including the destruction of both Alderaan and Death Star, but where Ciena resolves to change the Empire from the inside, Thane defects and joins the ranks of the Rebels.
Years later, with Thane a respected commando, Ciena in charge of her own Star Destroyer, and the Emperor dead, the two meet over Jakku. Thane leads a boarding party to knock the huge capital ship out of orbit and succeeds, almost dooming his lover to go down with her command. Fortunately, he's able to stun her and get her to safety, but her Imperial friends — hiding out and rebuilding in the dense cluster of stars at the center of the galaxy — believe she died on the surface of Jakku and plot revenge, showing that the death of the Empire might have been prematurely announced.
(21-37 ABN)
Star Wars: Uprising (video game)
In the wake of the Emperor's death, some of the more remote reaches of Imperial space simply shut down, their commanders trying to consolidate control on their handful of worlds rather than reestablish a galactic government. The Anoat sector is one such region, ruled by Governor Adelhard, who initiates "the Iron Blockade" in the wake of the Battle of Endor. It's up to a network of Rebel smugglers — built up by iOS and Android players — to get supplies and news of the war through to beings on planets like Bespin, Mataou, and Burnin Konn.
(36 ABN)
Episode VII: The Force Awakens
With the Empire apparently in tatters and the New Republic in the ascendancy so soon after the Battle of Endor, you'd think the galaxy would be at peace. But with the appearance of The Force Awakens' First Order and the existence of the new Resistance, that doesn't seem to be the case. Did the Resistance form from the ashes of the New Republic? Certainly the presence of General Leia Organa among its military officials suggests that, as the Republic and Empire before it, that government has fallen, too.
(66 ABN)