Should Disney Adapted The Thrawn Trilogy?

[Winter]

Before I start I would like to first thank you to everyone who shared their opinions on The Last Jedi. Whether you enjoyed it or disliked it, reading your thoughts on the film was truly interesting and gave me a lot to think about.

Now, onto the question at hand, given the overall mixed feelings of the Disney Era should Disney just Reboot everything post Return of the Jedi and Adapted The Thrawn Trilogy and take a leaf out of Peter Jackson's Book and film all three films back to back as the Epic Final Trilogy of the Star Wars film saga? With new actors to play Luke, Han, Leia and Lando so it can still take place five years after The Original Trilogy.

Obviously this question depends on how well Episode 9 does and if it does, indeed, turn out to be as good as A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back then that's that. However, if Episode 9 does poorly and puts the series on ice do you think Disney will seriously reconsider just wiping their films from canon and starting over from scratch?

There is a rumor, not confirmed, that Lucas had it in the contrast that the Prequel Trilogy and the Original Trilogy were to remain canon and preventing them from ever being rebooted. Whether this is the case or not I don't think Disney will ever reboot the Original Trilogy as that's an idea NO ONE would be behind.

This then leaves only two outcomes, either Disney tries to do their own thing again or they stick to what works and adapts the story that revitalized Star Wars in the first place. Get the approval of Lucas, Timothy Zahn and the surviving cast members of the Original Trilogy and make Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command Episodes 7, 8 and 9.

A few years ago I would have said that this would never happen, that Disney would stick to their guns and keep their canon and ignore the Original EU. However, given that Last dropped 68% in it's second weekend in the States, 92% drop in it's second weekend in China (in fact Last was so poorly received in China that all Star Wars film have to have their names changed in order to even see release in China now) and given that Solo is the First Star Wars film to Bomb at the Box Office and many members at Lucas art and Disney are now trying to win favor with fans I'd say it's entirely possible that Disney may just start over and making TTT canon again would be a good place to start.

Again this all depends on how well E9 does and at this point it's anyone's guess if it is a hit or not. Opinions?

[Yukaphile]

My view is that they should have started with the origins of the Republic, adapting Legends way back with Dawn of the Jedi, going to Tales of the Jedi, then KOTOR, then The Old Republic, then the Bane novels. The fans would eat that up. And Marvel has done very well adapting comics. This was a surefire move to make easy money. But no, those corporate study groups say we're the generation of nostalgia, so they just had to somehow con Han, Leia, and Luke into coming back. If that's the case, they probably should have started with an adventure that would lead into the post-Endor Legends series, yes. And ended with the Yuuzhan Vong War.

I want ALL of Legends canon again. I don't want them sacrificing so much history of fan world-building to corporate greed and soulless pandering to make a quick buck. It's... disgraceful.

[Nealithi]

I think if they want to adapt the Thrawn trilogy they need to animate it. That way you can get voice actors for those we have lost. And you don't need actors that are much older than they were in those stories to do stunts. At the end of the Thrawn trilogy they stop using those characters. Make their own. They are not incompetent in this regard. So you have the setting. You have good use of previous characters. And can really hit with the fans.
And while it might be a game. I point out the original Knights of the Old Republic had none of the original crew and still did well and felt a proper Star Wars story. So there is precedent that is can work and they do not need to play it safe by using all the originals all the time and anger fans by randomly killing them off.

[hammerofglass]

Honestly a movie trilogy of the Thrawn books would be terrible. Way too much happens in those, it would be a rushed mess. It would pretty much have to be a series.

A second reboot seems unlikely, though. Solo "bombed" because it was ridiculously expensive for a throwaway spinoff (it still brought in 400 million), but Last Jedi was still a massive money maker even if it didn't meet their projections.

Of course nothing is stopping them from making adaptations of the old EU as an alternate timeline under the Legends brand, that's what it's for after all...

[Karha of Honor]

My view is that they should have started with the origins of the Republic, adapting Legends way back with Dawn of the Jedi, going to Tales of the Jedi, then KOTOR, then The Old Republic, then the Bane novels. The fans would eat that up. And Marvel has done very well adapting comics. This was a surefire move to make easy money. But no, those corporate study groups say we're the generation of nostalgia, so they just had to somehow con Han, Leia, and Luke into coming back. If that's the case, they probably should have started with an adventure that would lead into the post-Endor Legends series, yes. And ended with the Yuuzhan Vong War.

I want ALL of Legends canon again. I don't want them sacrificing so much history of fan world-building to corporate greed and soulless pandering to make a quick buck. It's... disgraceful.

I love DOTJ but if i am an investor in Disney i don't want them starting with DOTJ.

Also they would have had to make their own story anyways.

[Winter]

Honestly a movie trilogy of the Thrawn books would be terrible. Way too much happens in those, it would be a rushed mess. It would pretty much have to be a series.

I don't think that would be the case as, well, look at Lord of the Rings. A Lot Happened in the books and a lot of that was cut out of the films and it didn't hurt all that much. As The Dom said in his review of Watchmen knowing what to cut out is just as important as knowing what to leave it and LOTR was able to take three Really long books and make them all into three feature length films that worked very well on their own. Sure they were all 2+ hours but they still worked and with that in mind I don't see why TTT can't do the same.

For example, a lot of Luke's story could be cut in half in Heir to the Empire, like him going to Dagobah isn't something that's really all that important to the plot or his character arc. Also Han's first scene in the novel could be reworked and relocated in the story with no real effect on anything. There's also a lot of minor scenes in the novel like Mara and Karrde talking about the situation that is really there more to remind everyone they're still in the story, that can be completely removed Any real consequence.

You could also combined key characters and remove them and give their contributions over to other characters. Winter, for example, could be given a few of Ghent's scenes while 3P0 could be given a few of Winter's scenes.

And some subplots and characters could be removed all together the Bothan senator could be removed altogether as could Ackbar's imprisonment and while both help show Thrawn's skill at manipulating via politics neither are really all that important to the Trilogy's main story.

Things that, of course, have to remain is Leia's confrontation with the Noghri assassins, Han's attempts to make an alliance with Karrde's gang along with most of Mara's overall story which includes her first scene in the book as a lot of set up and character establishment happens in that first scene.

Also most of Luke and Mara's interactions would have to remain given how important they are, not only to the main plot but also to Mara and Luke's characters. Leia being pregnant would also have to stay in for a number of plot and character reasons.

Would it take work, Hell yes, but it can be done and still keep the most of the Trilogy's story intact.

[Wargriffin]

Frankly if they reboot the origin, They should just Dump half the additions BW added cause Their the Fuckers that ruined the KOTOR setting to begin with


I'd almost prefer a Thrawn Miniseries to preserve the flavor, since a movie trilogy would be tempted to make things more "Cinematic"

IE Thrawn's death is poetic in the book... wouldn't really be a satisfying movie death.

[Winter]

Frankly if they reboot the origin, They should just Dump half the additions BW added cause Their the Fuckers that ruined the KOTOR setting to begin with


I'd almost prefer a Thrawn Miniseries to preserve the flavor, since a movie trilogy would be tempted to make things more "Cinematic"

IE Thrawn's death is poetic in the book... wouldn't really be a satisfying movie death.

Same could be said about Vader's death in Return of the Jedi and even Anakin's "Death" in Revenge of the Sith. The latter "dies" while slowly being engulfed in flames after being lectured by his former friend while the former dies quietly in his son's arms and both are done with very quite music.

The Star Wars films are no stranger to deaths that are made to be that are more quite rather then big and loud so Thrawn's death would fit right in and it could be just as powerful so long as the films remember to keep his more, for lack of a better term, human moments. C'baoth's death on the other hand I wouldn't mind being made to be more cinematic with some of his dialogue being cut and just letting the sound and music take over to reflect his anger reaching the breaking point.

In regards to SW films as a whole what I would like to see is TTT getting a theatrical release and then following that up is a couple of TV series and miniseries that are also adaptations of other popular EU stories, like Dawn of the Jedi, The Knights of the Old Republic comic series and The Hand of Thrawn.

One thing I really liked about the Clone Wars animated series was how it adapted several of the EU ideas of the Clone Wars comic and books and brought them together to make a number of stories that I felt were better then their originals. I feel something similar should be done with the other EU stories. Get a team together, have them read and play Every Single EU story, and then make a plan for how to make this all into a series of stories.

Some stories don't need adaptation like KotOR games or TOR as adapting video games is quite possibly the hardest media to adapted. Honestly with some of the older games I say just re-release them so they can play on current gen systems.

There are a number of things from the EU I would change the most notable among them being the Death of Mara Jade Skywalker. Her death was more a means to show how far Jacen had fallen and to motivate the other characters into action. IE shoving her into the fridge. There was no need to kill her and it was a rather $#!t way for her to go and I would have rather have seen her and Jaina to team up to kill Darth Caedus in the end.

But that's just what I would like to see and in all honesty I would be completely okay with TTT being made into a TV miniseries. All I would ask for if that's what we got would for the MS to still have the opening crawl and the music closing credits of the films.

Hell for the ending critics of The Last Command I would love for it to be A New Hope's End Title to give a sense of the series coming full circle and, of course, that wonderful sense of nostalgia.

[Riedquat]

Only in that not doing so has thrown out one of the highlights of the EU. Coming up with something set after it might've worked though, with enough familiar elements around (could still have old favourites like X-wings) but completely new stories with new characters.

[brokentorpedo]

...With new actors to play Luke, Han, Leia and Lando...

This alone is a big No for me... I'd accept an animated adaptation but not this.