Thirty years ago, Star Wars was undergoing a big revival. With a revamped toy line from Hasbro, the debut of the Star Wars Customizable Card Game, and the wild success of the “Expanded Universe” thanks to the novels and comics, the franchise was seeing its biggest boom in years. With the Special Editions and Prequels still on the horizon, however, Lucasfilm needed to keep the momentum going.
That’s where Shadows of the Empire came in! A multimedia event release, meant as a “movie without a movie,” complete with toys, a video game, and even a soundtrack to go with it. It was a massive, bold undertaking that would ultimately shape how Star Wars handled future endeavors beyond the films.
Meet Lucy Autrey Wilson
Such a monumental task, required monumental effort from numerous creatives. But only one person could wrangle them all to make it happen: Lucy Autrey Wilson. At the time, she served as the Director of Publishing at Lucasfilm, but her history with Star Wars goes all the way back to the beginning. As George Lucas’ assistant in 1974, she has the unique distinction of being Lucasfilm’s first permanent employee and served in numerous roles over the decades.
Her extensive background within the franchise made her uniquely suited for shaping its future in the 90s, which proved fruitful when she picked Timothy Zahn to kick off a new line of novels with Heir to the Empire for Bantam Spectra. And again when she worked the deal with Dark Horse Comics to bring the iconic Dark Empire story to life. Truly, without Wilson, the Expanded Universe as we know it today, may have never existed.
She spearheaded the idea for Shadows of the Empire, penning the initial outline for the story spanning across the book, comic, and game, and even gave the infamous new villain, Prince Xizor, his name. These days Wilson spends most of her time painting and exploring her love of fine art, but I recently had the privilege to chat with her about the iconic multi-media project, and its impact, on its 30th anniversary.
Developing the Shadow
Shadows’ multi-media journey obviously started well before 1996, and initially came up as an idea during a 1994 meeting with Bantam publisher, Lou Aronica. “I liked the idea because I was always looking for ways to keep our publishing program exciting,” Wilson explained. “Back at Lucasfilm, I brought the idea to Howard Roffman, my boss and the head of Lucasfilm Licensing at the time.”
The timing turned out to be rather fortuitous. Originally, George Lucas planned to release the first Prequel film in 1997—which marked the original film’s 20th anniversary. The lead up to that release would put the Special Editions in 1996, but when Episode I’s release date pushed back, it left a big gap that needed filling.
“Shadows fit the bill!” Wilson said. “[There was] a new opportunity to do something else—marketing wise—in 1996. Howard and I [then] came up with a rough story concept. We were limited in what we could do with many of the movie characters, so it made sense to come up with a new cast of characters. I remember discussing the need for a new powerful villain and exploring more of the criminal underbelly of the universe.”
A project on this scale, going beyond a single book title, required George Lucas’ approval. With his “OK” secured, planning began in earnest. Wilson told me, “A meeting [with the major participants] was set up for November 1994…to hash out a master plan that would include a hardcover book, comics, a computer game, and toy tie-ins being the main elements of the program for release in 1996. I thought it would be fun to also include a soundtrack (I was in charge of the books, comics and music) and made a deal with Robert Townson at Varese Sarabande to add this to the mix.
“I, my group’s book and comic editors (Sue Rostoni and Alan Kausch) then got together with folks from the Lucasfilm games group (Jon Knoles), the author of the proposed hardcover hired by Bantam (Steve Perry), folks from Dark Horse Comics, and others.” With this core creative team assembled, it was time to hammer out the story details more fully beyond the concepts Wilson had previously jotted down.
“This was to be a standalone book project,” she continued, “outside the period our other hardcover books were covering—after [Return of the Jedi]. [The] initial plan was to set the action between Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back but…Jon Knoles wanted the game to be set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi so the time period changed.
“That meant Han Solo would still be frozen in carbonite, thereby taking him out of the action, which impacted what we could do in the book. We now had Princess Leia without her romantic interest, which caused me to wonder if there might be some interesting interaction between her and our new villain Xizor.
“That romantic angle, and the name of the new villain were my primary creative contributions. [Of course] to maintain Princess Leia’s good character, Steve Perry attributed that sexual attraction to pheromones, while other characters and plot points came up to satisfy gameplay.”
Letting Them Cook
Wilson’s role in making Shadows of the Empire happen is major, but she continued to emphasize the team aspect behind it all. “My main job after the deal and story were set up was to let my, very professional, team work with our book, comic writers, and editors…I was blessed at Lucasfilm with having really great publishing partners, who brought us professional talent and top editors.
“I also had an internal editorial staff who were top notch. I would get involved in the inception of [the] project, give my opinion on the creative content, but stay out of the way once things were going well. So it was my editors who primarily worked to coordinate between games and the publishers on who did what, when.”
Following that big meeting in November, everyone went their separate ways and got to work. While there was still some coordination on certain key elements, the different parts of the project were largely independent of one another. If you’ve ever wondered why there have been so many different depictions of Dash Rendar (between his muscle-bound look and more everyman appearance), this is why. “The hardest part of working on a multi-media project is that my team could only control the book, comic & music aspect. Not having control of everything could be frustrating.”
Frustrations aside, Wilson was undeterred in making Shadows of the Empire the best it could be. An experience that, even 30 years later, she continues to look on fondly. “One of the things I always enjoyed the most was working with talent….My favorite memory of working on Shadows was the chance to work with a team of [creators] at the top of their game.
“I loved meeting many talented artists including Drew Struzan (who illustrated many of the Bantam book covers, including the Shadows novel), and the brothers Hildebrandt who I met when they created a line of cards for Topps. Dark Horse Comics also introduced me to many very creative talents including Dave Dorman and Cam Kennedy. In house, Lucasfilm had some incredible talent including Doug Chiang and many others.”
Despite her emphasis on the team work necessary for the project, Wilson was far from idle herself during those years of development. “I spent more time on the soundtrack and other [Star Wars] books,” she explained. “My work on the soundtrack was like most projects: I spent the most time putting the right team together. Once we had a contract with Varese Sarabande, producer Robert Townson brought on Joel McNeely as composer.”
“The only thing I did after that was go to the recording session in Scotland, which wasn’t even really necessary!” She laughed. Throughout our chat, it was obvious how much fun Wilson had during her time at Lucasfilm and on this project. “Because everyone was enthusiastic about the program. Lucasfilm was an exceptional company to work for mainly because of George Lucas, and the quality of people who worked there.”
A Foundational Impact
With the release of the Special Editions the subsequent year, however, all projects turned their focus to the Prequels. Which meant despite its impact, Wilson says a sequel/follow-up for Shadows of the Empire was never really a consideration.
While Shadows of the Empire ended up as a one-and-done project, the legacy it left behind had a dramatic impact on the future of Star Wars storytelling beyond the big screen. Thanks to Shadows’ success the publishing/licensing arms of Lucasfilm were stronger than ever.
“Much as I loved working on Shadows, I was happy to go back to projects managed primarily between my department and our publishing partners,” Wilson told me. “I think I preferred it when my department had more independence because I was spoiled.”
This didn’t, however, put Wilson off from such large-scale projects. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the lessons learned from pulling Shadows of the Empire together helped establish a blueprint for grand storytelling projects down the road. Including one of their most bold endeavors outside the films…
“There were ongoing, and constant, collaborations between the different teams, especially because everyone was enthusiastic about the program. When I negotiated the new agreement with Ballantine Books for the prequel movie tie-ins, I included a new multi book title—The New Jedi Order—project limited in scope primarily to books.”
Considering The New Jedi Order also served as something of a template/precursor to the more recent High Republic project, it’s fascinating to see just how important Shadows of the Empire turned out to be. None of which would have been possible if not for Wilson’s leadership and skill at picking talented people to make it all a reality.
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