With Admiral Akbar captured by the First Order, the Resistance launches a mission to rescue the famed leader of the Rebellion. The rescue team composed of some of the Resistance’s finest soldiers and droids apprehends a First Order protocol droid to find the location of the admiral’s imprisonment. They rescue the icon of the first Rebellion. However, misfortune strikes, crashing the team on a strange planet killing everyone but the droid.

Alone and stranded, the group of droids attempt to locate a distress beacon, but an ingenious species attacks the band of droids, leaving only C3PO and the captured First Order protocol droid to find the distress beacon. Acid rain falls, melting everything in site from wildlife to rocks, forcing the two droids to find shelter in a cave. With the distress beacon a few feet from the cave, the First Order droid walks out into the deathly rain activating the distress beacon and saving the life of a Resistance droid, the life of the enemy. Rescued by Poe, C3PO replaces his left arm with the red arm of the lost protocol droid to remember and honor his sacrifice.

In “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, C3PO sports the same red arm, but no explanation is offered throughout the entire movie. Released around the same time as the seventh installment to the Star Wars Universe, a stand alone comic offers an explanation through the above story.

The Star Wars movies, from episode one to “Rogue One”, offer a beloved story of a band of underdog heroes fighting an impossibly powerful evil that terrorizes the entire galaxy. Despite the greatness of these Star Wars movies, the galaxy far, far away has grown over the years, expanding upon the stories of the classic Star Wars characters and even creating new characters for fans to enjoy through comics, cartoons and games.

Premiered in 2008, “Star Wars: The Clones Wars” told the story of Anakin Skywalker between episodes two and three of the Star Wars prequels. This television show follows Anakin’s journey from the light side to the dark as he fights in the Clone Wars against the evil Separatist forces that threaten the entire galaxy over the course of six seasons. Currently, “Star Wars Rebels” going on its fourth season takes place between episodes three and four of the Star Wars trilogies and tells of the origins of the Rebellion as it blossoms from a ragtag team of smugglers into the Rebellion seen in “Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.”

“The books and cartoons really developed the whole Star Wars Universe beyond one singular plotline,” Zaaz Santhanam (’18) said. “The games were all just really well done and they allow players to take a fun, active role in the Star Wars Universe.”

This space opera has even inspired a series of games that allow fans to play as their beloved characters or as new characters that add to the Star Wars franchise. For example, in “The Battlefront” series, fans and interested people can participate in the classic Star Wars battles from Endor to Hoth to the Death Star and play anything from Jedi knights, Sith lords, CIS droids, Rebel fighters, to Imperial forces. In Battlefront II, players can even follow the journey of an elite squad of stormtroopers called the Infernal Squadron. For those who enjoy all aspects of sci fi universe and desire to work with others in an ever expanding massively multiplayer online role-playing game, “Star Wars: The Old Republic” allows participants to play several classes such Jedi knights, Sith warriors, or Bounty Hunters for either the Sith Empire or the Galactic Republic in a devastating and bloody war thousands of years before the events of the Star Wars prequels.

Though many fans adore the cartoons and the original trilogies, the science fiction series has inspired them and others to create new stories for old and new characters in the form of novels, artwork, comics and prolifera.