The Expanded Universe Grows
Star Tours launched at fascinating time in Star Wars’ internal canon in 1987. The movies were long over, and Marvel’s comic book continuation of the story and universe wrapped over the course of the prior year. Plans to keep the similarly legendary Kenner toy series afloat with its own original worldbuilding had fallen through as well. We now know that things were about to change in the next few years: the early ‘90s brought with it the Heir to the Empire trilogy, and with it, the explosive formation of what became the Star Wars Expanded Universe. But Star Tours inadvertently took its own huge step forward: although it wasn’t majorly acknowledged, the ride was actually set after the events of Return of the Jedi, with C-3PO referring to his capture at the hands of the Ewoks in the film as having taken place in the past.
Of course, considering that Star Tours included riders seeing the sight of a Death Star under construction, that was actually a wild thing to casually drop at the time. For years the topic was left untouched, even as the Expanded Universe flourished with its own post-film continuity that simply danced around Star Tours having any kind of determinate place within canon. It wasn’t until decades later that Lucasfilm tried to square the circle on the “Death Star III,” a term first officially raised in a 2005 article on the official Star Wars website, placing the ride’s story as taking place during the latter years of the Marvel Star Wars comics.
