The Librarians

So in the hills of Marin County in California is situated the Skywalker Ranch. This is the posh, private enclave of George Lucas, father of Star Wars. It's nestled amongst redwoods and sits a short drive across the Golden Gate from San Francisco. The forests surrounding it apparently inspired Endor, while the giant cranes across the bay in Oakland inspired the AT-AT walkers.

The ranch holds the Lucasfilm Library, a compendium of data and research spanning years of cinema that loving librarians keep on hand for check out only by permitted Lucas Film employees researching for movies or other projects.

What I have heard, living near this area and knowing vicariously some of the staff thanks to hanging about nerdy comic shop circles, is that apparently every. single. book. that is officially licensed gets checked to make sure it passes canon and stays congruent to already established story lines. Now, whether this is true or not - considering how much source material is involved - I can't say, but supposedly this is how the sacred system worked for all the years up to the Disney buyout.

Now of course we expect the mouse to screw it all up, but to the extent the canon has been fundamentally altered I doubt it very much. Disney seems more keen on movies / series / merchandise than book sales, although Star Wars comic books still dominate the shelves as well. That said, it's troubling that they've already fallen behind paying royalties to some Star Wars authors including Alan Dean Foster, a science fiction legend who refused to sign an NDA and called them out on their bad behavior.

We know big corporations ruin things, and yet they persist as inevitably as death or taxes. Mayhaps though, some kind librarians can still save the day - assuming Lucasfilm under the new Mickey ears' keeps them employed.