What is Shadows of the Empire?
In 1996, LucasArts will unveil its own video game platform and its first game, ‘Star Wars : Shadows of the Empire’. Their arrival will be promoted as a major media event in a year-long program with Bantam novels, a Dark Horse comic series, Kenner action figures, and other merchandise tied into the characters and events of the game.
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire is a multimedia project created by Lucasfilm Ltd. in 1996. The original idea was to create an interquel, a story set between the movies The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (a time no Star Wars novel had explored before), and to explore all commercial possibilities of a full motion picture release, without actually making the film. The venture paved the way for the theatrical release of the Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition in the following year, and the later releases of the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. Several products were released, including a novel, a junior novelization, comic series, video games, trading cards, a soundtrack, role-playing games, toy figurines, vinyl dolls, a series of Micro Machines toys, statuettes, model kits, a line of new action figures and vehicles, and so on. The entire Shadows of the Empire project, though not technically a film, can be collectively considered the closest project to a film in the Star Wars official
