What does Expanded Universe (EU) mean?
Expanded Universe (usually abbreviated to EU) refers to all officially licensed material including, but not limited to, books, comics, short stories, video games and toys, that continue the Star Wars story beyond the six movies: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi; with a sense of continuity. That is, events that occur in Expanded Universe material do not, on the whole, contradict events that have occurred in the films. Where a deliberate contradiction occurs, those materials are not considered part of the Expanded Universe and as such their events never occurred, for example the Infinities comic story adaptation of A New Hope cannot be classed as a part of the Expanded Universe because the events portrayed in that particular story are derived from the premise that Luke Skywalker failed to destroy the Death Star at the battle of Yavin, a clear contradiction with the events portrayed in A New Hope.
