Episode I
It is a period of change. In 2012, the Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm, and the sprawling Star Wars saga with it. Two years after the acquisition, Disney erased much of the Expanded Universe lore from the official canon — countless stories comprising novels, comics, video games, television shows, holiday specials, radio series, magazine issues and reference books are said to have no longer taken place. These stories — rebranded as “Star Wars legends” — live on in the minds of few, committed fans.
Still, the current Canon timeline is vast, even without all of the events from Legends stories. Below is a recap of the major eras in the current Star Wars canon. Years are marked as either occurring before the Battle of Yavin (BBY), or after (ABY).
But in comparing the Canon and Legends timelines, the difference emerges. The timespan of events covered in Legends media is far longer, and more in-depth than that of Canon. Whereas the Canon timeline primarily focuses on the conflicts between the Jedi and Sith, or the Republic and the Empire, the Legends timeline explores many different power structures and societies, and is continually marked by upheaval — whether it's the Indecta Era, Draggulch Period, or the Great Manifest Period, there is a great breadth of culture and history explored in the Legends stories.
You may fully explore the differences between Canon and Legends events in this interactive timeline. Canon events are depicted on the left, and Legends events on the right. You may notice an emphasis on military research, space exploration and technology in Legends or a tightening of post-Battle of Yavin events in Canon.
Want to see just how much the Star Wars universe relies on the EU? Try deactivating the lightsabers next to "Extended Universe" and see how the timeline changes (or select the "Color by media" option instead).
Hover over an event for more details.
Haven't watched something, and don't want spoilers? Deactivate the lightsabers to filter out events from that piece of media in the timeline.
This project was made in support of the authors behind the #DisneyMustPay movement. Want more context? Watch my video essay on the matter:
Methodology: Data was scraped from Wookieepedia. Both the events and source attributions were scraped, and the attribution text was fuzzy matched to known Star Wars media in order to bucket sources into the types of media. ("Anthology Films," "Original Trilogy," etc.). Github link coming shortly.