In 1996, Star Wars was in a weird spot. The Original Trilogy was a long time ago, and the Prequel Trilogy was still far, far away, but thanks to the rapidly expanding Expanded Universe in the form of books, comics and games, fans had plenty keeping them busy. So, to capitalize on this, and test the waters for interest in a new movie, Lucasfilm did the next best thing to making a movie: making everything BUT a movie, with Shadows of the Empire, a multimedia project that took the form of a novel, a comic series, a Nintendo 64 game, a score, multiple toy lines, scale model kits, and even a pop-up book. Filling in the blanks between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, it was the most coordinated assault Star Wars fans had seen since the Battle of Endor, and it arrived just as we were getting into that galaxy far, far away in a big way. So, let’s look back on why this was so special, what worked, what didn’t, and what’s made its way back into the official canon.

Intro contains clips from Clerks, a Kenner Shadows of the Empire action figure commercial (voiced by Mark Hammil), a promotional video for Shadows of the Empire and an Arakyd Viper Imperial Probe Droid.