From Sequel to Quasi-Novelization

The transmedia phenomenon is a common and perhaps all-too-familiar strategy in Hollywood’s contemporary blockbuster fiction factory, so often tied up with corporate notions of brand-building, “cash nexuses,” ¹ and the use of intellectual property as a “marketing assault.” ² Yet, the history of the Star Wars franchise paints a slightly different picture, one that points to a far more independent model of what is now deemed transmedia storytelling. Though the industrial history of transmedia storytelling has been traced to the dawn of the twentieth century, ³ the early construction and expansion of the Star Wars storyworld in the late 1970s encapsulates a number of the developments and—notably—challenges now associated with the telling of stories across multiple media.