<P> In April 2014, Lucasfilm rebranded the Expanded Universe material as Star Wars Legends and declared it non-canon to the franchise . Chee said in a 2014 Twitter post that a "primary goal" of the Story Group would be to replace the previous hierarchical canon with one cohesive one . The company's focus would be shifted towards a restructured Star Wars canon based on new material . Lucasfilm explained that the only preexisting works to be considered canonical within the franchise would be the original and prequel trilogies of films, The Clone Wars film, the stand - alone Dark Horse Comics which was based on unproduced scripts from The Clone Wars TV series, and the 2008 The Clone Wars animated series . The announcement called these works "the immovable objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all the other (subsequent) tales must align". It was also made clear that a planned Star Wars sequel trilogy, and subsequent works developed within the restructured canon, would not be based on Legends material but could possibly draw from it . The previous levels of the Holocron became obsolete, because going forward all works would share the same level of canon as the films . </P> <P> Lucas had previously used the character Aayla Secura, introduced in 2000 in the Star Wars: Republic comic book series, in Attack of the Clones . He also used Coruscant, the New Republic capital planet created by Zahn in the Thrawn trilogy, in his prequel trilogy of films and the Special Edition release of Return of the Jedi . Thrawn himself was reintroduced into the canon in the 2016 third season of the CGI - animated television series Star Wars Rebels by supervising director Dave Filoni, who has used multiple characters and elements from Legends works in the series . Filoni explained that he followed Lucas's example in considering the films and television series canon, but allowing for the use of Legends material as necessary . </P> <P> The first new canon novel was Star Wars: A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller, published in September 2014, followed by the animated series Star Wars Rebels a month later . Marvel Comics began publishing a series of Star Wars comic book titles in January 2015 . Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released in December 2015, and marked the beginning of the sequel trilogy of films . </P>

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