Star Wars Writers Say Lucasfilm Keeps Blocking the Return of Mara Jade

Lucasfilm continues to block the return of popular Star Wars extended universe character Mara Jade — despite attempts by various writers to bring her into the saga's Disney-sanctioned canon. Introduced in Timothy Zahn's beloved Star Wars novel Heir to the Empire, set years after Return of the Jedi, Mara Jade is initially depicted as a Force-sensitive assassin allied to Emperor Palpatine. But over the course of Zahn's subsequent novels, Mara Jade evolves into a character who respects Luke Skywalker — and ultimately marries him. Jade went on to appear in numerous later books, graphic novels, and video games, and became a key character in Star Wars' ongoing legacy storyline. She received officially-licensed action figures and other merchandise, including replicas of her iconic purple lightsaber. But all of her appearances are now deemed non-canon by Disney, which of course established its own version of what happened post-Return of the Jedi with the Star Wars sequel movies. And now, while numerous other elements from the Legends stories have been successfully re-introduced, Lucasfilm reportedly remains resistant to Jade returning in particular. Speaking at MegaCon 2026 (via Popverse),