Official Star Wars Details That Weren't Created By George Lucas
George Lucas is the man simply for creating Star Wars, but he didn't create every single element in the films. There's dozens of things that you have seen in the film that don't come from the mind of Lucas (or Mickey Mouse), but from the mind of the many hands that went into the now-defunct Extended Universe. Yes, the main Star Wars films have taken tons of things from books, comics, and games that were either never official or were once official but aren't anymore. Things like...
Double-sided lightsabers
You know, like Darth Maul's? Yes, one of the most famous of all Star Wars lightsabers wasn't actually created by George Lucas. Sure, he put it in The Phantom Menace, but it was actually created much earlier, in Tales of the Jedi, a comic about tax returns. No. It's about Jedi, c'mon.
It was made up in the early '90s by Tom Veitch and Christian Gosset — writer and artist respectively — who believed that each lightsaber should fit the Jedi it belongs to, instead of being a one-size-fits-all design. Lucas later took the design and added it to Darth Maul, making for one of the coolest things in Star Wars ... which, again, he didn't create.
Since it's creation, it's had a long history expanded upon in the old Extended Universe, under a ton of different, hilarious names including, "Saberstaff, Lightsaber Lance, Doublesaber, Dualsaber, or Lightstaff," which is literally the same four words shuffled around. Next time your kid cousin forces you to watch Phantom Menace, imagine Darth Maul trying to figure out which of those terms to call his saber. It might make the film almost enjoyable enough to sit through!
Aayla Secura
You might not recognize Aayla Secura by her name, although just by looking at it, you can tell she's from Star Wars. She's one of the many Jedi featured in the battle scene at the end of Attack of the Clones, which began the Clone Wars which ends in Revenge of the Sith with Order 66, the order Palpatine gives to the clones to kill all of the Jedi.
When he does, we see a bunch of different Jedi being gunned down. One is a scantily clad, blue alien, with two long tentacles. That's Aayla Secura. (If you still don't remember her, just check out the video.) She was created for the Dark Horse Star Wars comics in 2000, but then George Lucas saw her and was like, "Dang, she purty" (probably), and added her to Attack of the Clones. He then put her into the betweenquel show he oversaw, Clone Wars. After that, she appeared in dozens of other things — ranging from comics, to short stories, to video games — because you can't go wrong with an awesome blue alien Jedi girl, even if her "canon" debut was to die really, really quickly.
501st Legion
The 501st Legion is also known as Vader's Fist, because that's an awesome, awesome name. It's also the role the group takes in the Star Wars universe — they're the personal army of Darth Vader himself. They're the ones who storm Princess Leia's ship at the beginning of A New Hope. They're the group that goes with Vader when he kills all the "Younglings" in Revenge of the Sith.
The funny thing is, they're real. However, in real life, they're much cooler and do the exact opposite of killing children. The group is a huge community of Imperial cosplayers — if you don't know what that is, hello grandpa, how you doing? — who visit children in hospitals for free, raising their spirits and hopefully their will to survive. Sometimes, they attend promotional activities, at which time they donate the proceeds they raised. Yep, the 501st Legion somehow made a charity out of dressing up as space Nazis.
For their awesome work, Lucas added them to Revenge of the Sith, retconning them as Vader's personal army.
Kylo Ren's silly lightsaber
Remember dorky Kylo Ren's dorky lightsaber? It had weird crossguards that shot out fire energy, maybe? It was undoubtedly the weirdest thing in The Force Awakens, a movie which has Han Solo smuggling Hentai characters.
This is yet another weirdo lightsaber that made its first appearance in a Star Wars comic, this one called Star Wars: Republic. The series takes place during the Clone Wars, which we're pretty sure means Kylo Ren is a hipster? "Uh, like yeah, my lightsaber's design is from the war my grandfather fought in. It's a classic. Like totally retro, you wouldn't understand."
The lightsaber appeared in a handful of other comics but also, interestingly enough, the MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, which came out before The Force Awakens. This means there are some people out there who saw Kylo's lightsaber and didn't think, "Pssh, what a dork," but, "Oh my God, that's the exact lightsaber I use!" Hopefully they don't respond to in-game deaths or server crashed like we imagine Kylo Ren might.
New Jedi Order
Depending on your level of nerd, you hear about the New Jedi Order and either gasp happily or go, "Uh ... what?"
The New Jedi Order was a creation of Luke Skywalker's, an entire new order of Jedis! Bet you didn't guess that! It's a group he teaches and raises, basically becoming the replacement of the organization Vader slaughtered in Revenge of the Sith. You might be thinking that this sounds familiar and that's probably because it's the exact backstory of Luke Skywalker in The Force Awakens. Only difference is, in the Extended Universe, he actually succeeded, whereas in Force Awakens, he failed and all of his young students were slaughtered.
Look, we're not scientists or anything here, but we're pretty positive that means that Force Awakens exist in the darkest timeline, and in about thirty years we're going to see a movie about a super-duper-old Rey going back to the past and accidentally changing everything. Maybe JJ Abrams can direct that one too.
The New Republic
Remember that scene in Force Awakens where the big weird pseudo-Death Star absolutely destroys a series of small planets, while the Neo-Neo-Space-Nazis celebrate? Okay, well, that group of planets is the New Republic, the group that the First Order (the baddies of TFA) are fighting against.
And yes, it comes from the Extended Universe. It's hard to specify what exact comic or book created it, because it's such a huge, expansive thing. The idea of a New Republic rising after the end of the war between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire is, in a nutshell, one of the main ideas of the Extended Universe.
You know what doesn't happen to it, though? It doesn't get nuked from orbit, like in TFA. Instead it goes on to help unite the galaxy and fight a huge war against evil Cthulhu-esque creatures from beyond time and space. The series went off the rails a bit towards the end, is what we're saying. But the point still stands that this awesome idea was taken from the Extended Universe and put into TFA, only to be horrifically destroyed. Again, TFA is the Darkest Timeline.
Thrawn
Oh, man, even if you've never read the Extended Universe, there's a good chance that you've heard of Thrawn. The Thrawn Trilogy is basically what established the Extended Star Wars Universe as something that would span thousands of words and comics and games. Before that, it was just a small collection of random bits.
This series, about an evil usurper to the Empire, ready to take it over in the chaos after the destruction of the second Death Star, is considered one of the best parts of the Extended Universe. It's so good, in fact, Thrawn was just ripped entirely from it and thrown into Star Wars: Rebels, the in-canon Star Wars cartoon taking place around the time of Rogue One.
In case that's not clear enough, that means there's a good chance we might get Thrawn as a big bad in a later Star Wars film. Hell, some people are even saying that he might be in Episode VIII! If that actually happens, we're officially saying it's because of us. Yeah, that's right. This article right here is why Thrawn will be in VIII. Unless he's not. Then it's also our fault, somehow. We control everything.
Coruscant
Yes, Coruscant — the city where a huge amount of the prequel trilogy takes place — was created, in part, by Timothy Zahn in his book Heir to the Empire, the first book in the Thrawn Trilogy. At this point, we're pretty sure that trilogy is responsible for more of the Star Wars canon than Lucas is.
Granted, Lucas did come up with the idea of it being a gigantic, galactic city-planet, but it was Zahn who named it and set things on it first. Lucas wanted to name it Had Abaddon, which is just the worst name ever. Had Abaddon (gag) was later reused in the Extended Universe as a secret lost city, which is pretty meta of them. Though, at this point, we have to ask ... did George Lucas actually come up with anything in Star Wars? We already know that he stole most of it from Flash Gordon, and it seems like he just took the rest from people who worked on the Extended Universe.
Oh wait, Jar-Jar. He thought of Jar-Jar. Three cheers for George!
The Starkiller
The main weapon of Force Awakens is a huge machine that can destroy entire solar systems. The First Order named it the Starkiller, after the fact that it literally kills stars. You can fault the Order for a lot of things, but being vague is not one of them.
In the Extended Universe, there's a huge superweapon named the Sun Crusher that can destroy entire solar systems, by literally destroying stars (or, suns). Yep, the Starkiller Base is another thing that the main Star Wars universe ripped off wholesale from the Extended Universe. Of course, there are some differences: Starkiller sucks the energy out of a star and uses that to destroy solar systems (which makes absolutely zero sense, but that would take an entire article to debunk, so let's put that to the side), whereas Sun Crusher destroys entire solar systems by forcing its sun to go supernova. That not only makes a certain bit of scientific sense, it's also a much cooler idea then "suck the sun's energy and vomit it at someone."
Han Solo's evil son
Here's the story: once there was a young Jedi, the son of Han and Leia, who trained with Luke and grew strong in the Force. One day, he turned evil and started killing all those who stood in his way, brutally killing people who had raised him. That's Kylo Ren, right? Sure, but it's also Darth Cauedus, or ... Jacen Solo.
That's right, Kylo Ren's entire backstory appeared in the Extended Universe first. Although Kacen didn't kill Han Solo, just Luke Skywalker's wife. Yep, Luke has a wife in the books, and a kid. Named Ben! Just like Kylo Ren's real name. And really, isn't Luke like a (brutally estranged) father to Ren, especially now that his actual father is all sorts of corpsey?
And now for the speculation: in the Extended Universe, Jacen has a sister named Jaina. She fights against him, as she's another strong Jedi. Now, we're not saying it's positive, but ... Jacen/Jaina ... Ren/Rey ... maybe? No one knows who Rey's parents are, she had a strong connection to Han Solo, and it certainly wouldn't be the first time twins were split up, with one being dumped on a desert planet to keep them safe.
Look, we're not saying the new Star Wars movies are straight up adaptations of the Extended Universe, but *waves hand at rest of article.*