Earlier this year, Star Wars gave fans hope that the now-defunct Expanded Universe could be salvaged when fan-favorite Thrawn appeared on Star Wars Rebels. That hope was stoked when Thrawn creator Timothy Zahn announced he’d be writing a brand-new origin for the character in an upcoming novel. But if you give Star Wars fans a resurrected piece of lore, they’ll just keep asking for more, and that’s what’s happening.
Hence there’s a Change.org petition asking Lucasfilm to team up with Netflix to create a Knights of the Old Republic television series that came to have over 161,000 signatures as of this writing. For those not in the know, KOTOR is a series of popular Star Wars games set thousands of years before the events of the main trilogy. The franchise even spawned an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) that is still one of the most profitable free-to-play games in the genre, despite now being stricken from the official storylines. KOTOR is also home to one of the most beloved Expanded Universe characters outside the novels — Revan.
Unfortunately for fans, KOTOR is solidly out of the lore now. No amount of petition signatures will restore the rise and fall of Revan to the continuity, just as no amount of wishful thinking will bring Vader’s secret apprentice Starkiller back to canon. That’s not to say fans can’t enjoy these “legends.” But for those hanging on by a thread that somehow a petition would sway the hearts and minds at Lucasfilm, creative executive Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group just effectively cut said thread, sending diehard fans screaming into the abyss of reality with a single tweet.
https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/831922564465381376
Of course, with the return of Thrawn to Star Wars, it proves the Story Group isn’t above pilfering the best elements from the wreckage of the Expanded Universe. Revan could still well make an appearance. Mara Jade could return in some fashion. Prince Xizor might be waiting in the wings. But to think Lucasfilm will pull KOTOR from the ashes fully-formed to become a television show? Not going to happen.