For those who have never heard of the Holocron Star Wars continuity database, it is a database I was hired to create back in January 2000 for Lucas Licensing’s Publishing department.
Licensing was working with Wizards of the Coast to create a new Star Wars roleplaying game and game designer and Star Wars author Bill Slavicsek at Wizards and then-Director-of-Publishing Lucy Autrey Wilson decided they needed an internal database to track all the new content that had been created and was being created for Star Wars. Until then, the folks at Lucasfilm tracked official Star Wars lore in large black binders known as bibles which contained story synopses and glossaries. These bibles didn’t just limit their scope to material from the films. Unlike other franchises that reboot with most every incarnation, Star Wars had proven itself over the years to be a singular universe. Everything outside of the films was collectively known as the Expanded Universe serving as an extension of the same universe as the films. If something happened in a book or a comic, it could potentially affect everything else happening in the universe. Any discrepancies that resulted would be resolved or retconned (short for retro active continuity, ie changes from previously established continuity) across the board to try and create some consistency.
As the Holocron grew, its value to other divisions outside of Licensing became apparent. The scope of the Holocron continuously expanded as we added new fields to the database to meet ever growing needs. In addition to tracking stories, discrepancies, images, and stats, the Holocron now included pronunciations, foreign translations, costume variations, and behind the scenes info. As I entered new information to the Holocron, I also began to compile other types of reference materials like style guides, timelines, spelling dictionaries, fonts, banks of trivia and quotes, and galaxy maps.
In early 2012, the Lucas Companies worked towards greater integration amongst the divisions and the Holocron transferred from being under the purview of Lucas Licensing to Lucasfilm’s Marketing division. Today, the Holocron contains over 55,000 entries including over 19,000 characters, 2,900 species, 5,300 worlds, and 2,100 different types of vehicles. New content from Animation, LucasArts, and Licensing is added every day from sources like The Clone Wars, The Old Republic, the latest books, magazines, toys, collectibles, and games, and other yet-to-be-released titles in development like Star Wars 1313.
In the end, my ongoing vision is that as long as there’s the Holocron, Star Wars will not reboot.
Leland Y Chee is the Keeper of the Holocron at Lucasfilm and writer of the Star Wars Insider magazine “Ask Lobot” feature. Send your “Ask Lobot” questions to starwarsinsider@titanemail.com. Also, you can follow @holocronkeeper on Twitter.
Tags: Expanded Universe, Holocron
“In the end, my ongoing vision is that as long as there’s the Holocron, Star Wars will not reboot.”
That’s a beautiful vision, my friend!
Do all official EU writers have access to the Holocron?
As a fan, I’d love to have access to that database and I bet that isn’t in the cards. So, Wookieepedia will have to do…
Thanks ! That was really fascinating, and I’d love to learn more. If you guys ever presented an in-depth article on this, I think many fans would be very grateful ! Continuity is a really big concern for such a vast franchise, and rightly so, since everyone wants to respect everyone’s input, from author to reader. There are things I disagree with, but at least understanding the thought processes like this blog post helps in informing my judgement of what is a very difficult task, be it the role of the author or that of the editor or the continuity compiler and archiver.
“In the end, my ongoing vision is that as long as there’s the Holocron, Star Wars will not reboot.”
YES! I share your vision!!
Nce. What software and database did you use for Holocron ?
Can we get a bigger screenshot of Holocron? Could be great to see how it really looks like
Let’s send a copy to Save Filoni.
Thank you, Leland! I think that continuity is very important. There’s no point in having a story about a “Star Wars” character if it gets contradicted by other stories.
I’m glad that someone like you is involved with ensuring that continuity is preserved.
Woah–this is really awesome!
It must be awesome having the chance to know everything about EVERYTHING in Star Wars!
Keep up the great work, Leland! You rock!
If this Holocron contains all information, why does TCW keep messing up the continuity?
I don’t like what I am hearing about Adi Gallia in season 5…
This kind of thing would be invaluable to fans…it could be published on the official site as “read only” of course for fans, constantly updated with new editions to the holocron. Any plans for that??
Amazing! It would be unbelievable to get a look at even a single page in the Holocron. I would assume that when a new book or something is proposed, it is checked to see if it would violate the Holocron, and when the book is finished, it is read & compared with the Holocron again to make certain that even the tiniest details do not violate some miniscule detail (ie. the color/size/shape of some minor item which only briefly appeared once) within the continuity.
I appreciate all that you do Leland, but a reboot of certain eras may be necessary. Star Wars EU has become more of a chore to keep up with and that makes it not as fun as it used to be. It’s hard for new or casual fans to get involved in the EU because of this. I gave up trying to read every SW EU title because I felt that it got too big to keep up with!
That being said, recent EU works such as Darth Plagueis have been FANTASTIC partly due to the integration of EU titles and the Clone Wars to make the films even better. Thanks to you and the holocron.
Well, Joey, not all of the EU are novels or comics. Video games are part of the EU as well, and sometimes include other things as well.
“The EU is a well of ideas, and there’s what’s on screen. They don’t line in the same universe. Everyone wants to think so, I know, and there is a lot of effort to make it work, but it’s pretty clear when you start really looking at it that when you take ideas from the printed realm and bring it on the screen, it’s not always the same. They relate. There are similarities. I still enjoy a lot of those stories. I think there are a lot of great ideas. They influence you. They inspire you, which I think is the whole point in having an EU. We try hard to honor things when we can, to give nods to things, but at the end of the day there is a difference between what you see in the Star Wars films and TV series and what you see in those books.” – Dave Filoni
It seems to me Filoni has undermined what you do. I’ve re-read this several times and I don’t think I’m reading it incorrectly. Can you comment to this?
Excellent! While we see every other franchise reboot, and reboot again, and again?! (Batman) It’s great to see Star Wars hasn’t and will not stoop to that level. However, I also agree they need to give you more authority, so you can reel-in people like Filoni. And in my opinion the EU was working pretty-darn well until the 3D Clone Wars Cartoon came out. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun, but I almost want to say it should be a lower level canon than it is, or like a “tales” or something. There are just too many conflicting problems with that show. Either that or you (Leland) will have your work cut out for you resolving conflicts once the show ends.
a holocron is box iside of the box human or an trooper or jedi
Hm. I like that somebody other than just Wookieepedia and the fans, is keeping up and providing canon answers and retcons, but what about TCW vs established Mandalorian canon? How has that been retconned?
rasengan barrage
[...] blogside, pro edition. Over at the Star Wars Blog, Leland Chee explains the Holocron, while Jonathan Rinzler introduces himself and writes about interviewing George [...]
Holocron continuity doesn’t have any authority over TCW, which is under the allmighty care of Lucas. All Leland can do is bend over backwards to accomodate what it produces.
No reboot is nice, of course. But when the problems that prompt such a solution in the first place, that lack of an iron-clad continuity, and a constant need for retcons, run as rampant as they do in SW, it becomes sort of a hollow promise. There is a reason Leland needs to repeat this over and over, and it isn’t that SW doesn’t have continuity problems for fans to get aggravated about.
By the way, Leland, would you mind copypasting the old blog post where you compliled all those comments by you regarding Holocron continuity?
At the moment, fandom stands without provable knowledge about any aspect of how the Holocron works. Both the old forums and blog are gone.
WILL DISNEY FOLLOW THE HOLOCRON DATABASE?
We must know! Before I do something rash like making molotovs and paying Disneyland a little visit.