Transmedia Character Building

As the other chapters in this collection attest, Star Wars is a prime example both of contemporary transmedia storytelling and of media franchising. The story and brand spread across multiple media platforms and textual commodities, driven by the ongoing battle between the forces of good and evil. Star Wars is a “commercial supersystem of transmedia intertextuality,” or what Henry Jenkins, Marc Steinberg, and Colin B. Harvey, among others, have more recently described as the phenomenon of transmedia storytelling: a strategy informing the creation and development of mega-franchises like Star Wars through the dispersal of one storyworld across multiple media platforms. ¹ Transmedia storytelling and accompanying media franchising contribute to how Hollywood builds on its filmic output, ensuring longevity and financial success well beyond the first iteration of a text. For Derek Johnson, whereas “transmedia storytelling suggests cultural artistry and participatory culture, ‘franchising’ calls equal if not more attention to corporate structure and the economic organization of that productive labor.” ² In this chapter, I broaden Johnson’s discussion of the relationship between transmedia storytelling and media franchising to analyze recent developments in the Star Wars storyworld.