So all these companies hoping to get in on Ep. 1 kept waiting, and waiting. They needed *something*. So, Licensing came up with Shadows. /4— Stablo CHUDalgo (@pablohidalgo) October 25, 2017
There's a long retrospective here:
According to Lucasfilm Licensing president Howard Roffman, Shadows of the Empire actually rose out of an opportunity which presented itself after Lucas adjusted his Episode I writing schedule. "At the time, the idea was that he was going to release Episode I in 1997 for the 20th anniversary of Star Wars," says Roffman. "Around the same time, he got this idea to bring the original Star Wars back to the theaters, and we would do that in 1996 as kind of a prelude to Episode I. Well, lo and behold, as George gets down the road in 1995, the script isn't progressing as quickly as he thought, so we faced the bitter reality that there's no way we're going to get the film done for 1997.