Brie Larson Reportedly Talking With Lucasfilm About Mara Jade Role In Star Wars

[Winter]

I think a lot of Mara Jade's popularity is sheer seniority. There's been so many badass redheaded female warrior types in Star Wars now that it's a cliche, but Mara was there when The Thrawn Trilogy kicked off the EU as A Thing.

Personally I think what makes Mara so popular is the that she's just a good character, on par with the Original Trilogy characters. She has a tragic past that rivals Vader's, the snark of Han, the resourcefulness and wit of Leia and the nobility of Luke. Honestly, while it's called the Thrawn Trilogy this Trilogy is really the story of Mara Jade as her arc and motives shape the events of the story more so then any other character, even the titular villain.

She is the only character to directly confront both Thrawn and C'baoth, it's her choice to go behind Karrde's back and her choice to rescue him that leads to Thrawn's downfall and she is the one to land the killing blow and C'baoth and she is the one who does the most to protect the Skywalker/Solo clan out of both villains reach.

I've mentioned before that I found Rey to be a rather weak character given her lack of flaws and character growth. It's very telling that after learning in The Last Jedi that Rey comes from nothing which, for Rey, should be the most devastating blow to her sense of self the next time we see her she's shooting tie-fighters with a huge smile like nothing happened. When Mara learns that Palpatine had lied to her and that he wasn't who she thought he was it starts a downward spiral that only ends once she excepts that her adoptive father was a terrible person who doesn't deserve her love and respect.

Rey has no such arc, she starts the Trilogy the same way she ended, a loner in the desert more interested in the past then the future. Mara grows as a character in TTT, she starts as someone who hates Luke and cares only for her revenge but at the end she comes to befriend Luke and finds a true family.

To make a long story short (to late) Mara Jade is a great character because she's allowed to be flawed and learn from her mistakes.

[clearspira]

STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS are not allowed to be flawed in modern films. They need to achieve everything easily (Rey), they to be emotionally validated at all times (Rey), and they cannot be overshadowed by any of the leading men (Rey).

You watch, this won't be the Mara Jade that her fans are waiting for. And if she is, praise the Lord, because we have finally reached a new era of women being allowed to actually be human as opposed to ''role models for girls''. And films will be all the better for it.

Not holding my breath though.

[Captain Crimson]

I'm curious, I thought you weren't a reader of the Legends EU, clearspira? So why do you care?

TBH, if you want a female character who shows realistic vulnerabilities, that'd be Tenel Ka. Personally, I don't want Mara Jade in DSWC because it just robs the reboot of the kinda creativity they could have and claimed they wanted seven years ago, how they justified discontinuing the EU despite the new Legends label, though TBF, that boat has sailed long ago, I knew that when TFA turned out just be a big LOTF repeat. I never wanted Thrawn in Mr. Filoni's kiddy BS, especially after all all the potshots he took at the EU fans back in the day. And I don't like these little shallow "recanonized" nods. It's just deflection to try to get everyone to get mad at the SWL fans. "See, see? They're trying to make you happy, these EU fans are just too stubborn to listen! You're holding them back from what they could be doing! Stop asking for more EU!"

But then as I said, this wouldn't really be Mara Jade to me, just a redhead who happens to share the same name. No, LF wants the justification, such as the demand from EU casuals to add something they love "back to canon," to cherry-pick lore and act like they invented it for marketing purposes, and OFC when it fails, everyone can turn around and have a convenient scapegoat all ready, as I said, SWL fans. Refer to no acknowledgment given to where their ideas for TROS came from, even though we know it was DE, there's been online articles discussing this! But then the cat's out of the bag on the whole company being jam-packed with narcissistic liars. Yeah, though, given the further expansion to the DSWC timeline, this really can't be the universe we knew and loved. I just wish so many EU fans didn't fall for the trap every time. It's just NOT POSSIBLE for SWL what fans love to be "canon" again, and why do we want that? Now, a continuation of SWL alongside DSWC...

Just you wait if Mara Jade returns and her characterization is botched. For one thing, while a few EU casuals were asking for this, I was not and neither was anyone else in my Facebook and Discord communities - we ask for the continuation of SWL literature, not "recanonized" this or that. We are smart enough to know this wouldn't play out the way it did in the books. But they will have no problem blaming us nevertheless. Especially if she survives past Luke's death, even, since she was the one to die in the books. It'd be the complete 180 here. And it made sense, TBH. The only thing to gimp the "Luke problem," as the writers thought of it, for Jacen's descent into Darth Caedus was to put him too close to it, or he'd own him in a heartbeat, like he did Lumiya, Brakiss, and countless others. So it's like, "Well, he can't kill Caedus now, he's afraid of the dark side!" Like, seriously, what happens if Mara Jade "returned" to canon? She's not gonna be married to Luke. And if she is, does she walk out on him? How about their son Ben? He can't exist in DSWC, and to shoehorn him is insulting. BTW, Ben/Vestara Khai for life! It's not Ben Skywalker unless he's crushing after a Sith girl.

Really, wishful-thinking headcanon is a plague on the SW fandom now.

[clearspira]

I'm curious, I thought you weren't a reader of the Legends EU, clearspira? So why do you care?

TBH, if you want a female character who shows realistic vulnerabilities, that'd be Tenel Ka. Personally, I don't want Mara Jade in DSWC because it just robs the reboot of the kinda creativity they could have and claimed they wanted seven years ago, how they justified discontinuing the EU despite the new Legends label, though TBF, that boat has sailed long ago, I knew that when TFA turned out just be a big LOTF repeat. I never wanted Thrawn in Mr. Filoni's kiddy BS, especially after all all the potshots he took at the EU fans back in the day. And I don't like these little shallow "recanonized" nods. It's just deflection to try to get everyone to get mad at the SWL fans. "See, see? They're trying to make you happy, these EU fans are just too stubborn to listen! You're holding them back from what they could be doing! Stop asking for more EU!"

But then as I said, this wouldn't really be Mara Jade to me, just a redhead who happens to share the same name. No, LF wants the justification, such as the demand from EU casuals to add something they love "back to canon," to cherry-pick lore and act like they invented it for marketing purposes, and OFC when it fails, everyone can turn around and have a convenient scapegoat all ready, as I said, SWL fans. Refer to no acknowledgment given to where their ideas for TROS came from, even though we know it was DE, there's been online articles discussing this! But then the cat's out of the bag on the whole company being jam-packed with narcissistic liars. Yeah, though, given the further expansion to the DSWC timeline, this really can't be the universe we knew and loved. I just wish so many EU fans didn't fall for the trap every time. It's just NOT POSSIBLE for SWL what fans love to be "canon" again, and why do we want that? Now, a continuation of SWL alongside DSWC...

Just you wait if Mara Jade returns and her characterization is botched. For one thing, while a few EU casuals were asking for this, I was not and neither was anyone else in my Facebook and Discord communities - we ask for the continuation of SWL literature, not "recanonized" this or that. We are smart enough to know this wouldn't play out the way it did in the books. But they will have no problem blaming us nevertheless. Especially if she survives past Luke's death, even, since she was the one to die in the books. It'd be the complete 180 here. And it made sense, TBH. The only thing to gimp the "Luke problem," as the writers thought of it, for Jacen's descent into Darth Caedus was to put him too close to it, or he'd own him in a heartbeat, like he did Lumiya, Brakiss, and countless others. So it's like, "Well, he can't kill Caedus now, he's afraid of the dark side!" Like, seriously, what happens if Mara Jade "returned" to canon? She's not gonna be married to Luke. And if she is, does she walk out on him? How about their son Ben? He can't exist in DSWC, and to shoehorn him is insulting. BTW, Ben/Vestara Khai for life! It's not Ben Skywalker unless he's crushing after a Sith girl.

Really, wishful-thinking headcanon is a plague on the SW fandom now.

In fairness, I wasn't an EU reader. It was always the OT and later the Prequels for me growing up. If it wasn't on-screen it was nothing.

Buuuuuttttt.... I would feel for you if we got Token Mara Jade because Star Trek's hopeful future meant so much to me growing up. I rail on ''Picard'' because Picard the character got me through some of my darkest times. I know that sounds odd, but sometimes you latch onto stuff when you need to y'know?

I don't have the same attachment to Wars as I do Trek; but I know that some people do. And to see what Disney has done to it up until this point has been insulting. And what really tickles my anger glands on this is that when Disney/Marvel decided to create the MCU, they used what was already there to make the films. Civil War, the Infinity Gauntlet, the Winter Soldier. These are all existing stories.

Disney, or more accurately Bob Igor and Kathleen Kennedy, COULD have adapted the EU in such a way that fans new and old would have been happy. But they didn't. And only wanted to when their crappy new universe they tried to make failed.

[Captain Crimson]

In fairness, I wasn't an EU reader. It was always the OT and later the Prequels for me growing up. If it wasn't on-screen it was nothing.

Buuuuuttttt.... I would feel for you if we got Token Mara Jade because Star Trek's hopeful future meant so much to me growing up. I rail on ''Picard'' because Picard the character got me through some of my darkest times. I know that sounds odd, but sometimes you latch onto stuff when you need to y'know?

I don't have the same attachment to Wars as I do Trek; but I know that some people do. And to see what Disney has done to it up until this point has been insulting. And what really tickles my anger glands on this is that when Disney/Marvel decided to create the MCU, they used what was already there to make the films. Civil War, the Infinity Gauntlet, the Winter Soldier. These are all existing stories.

Disney, or more accurately Bob Igor and Kathleen Kennedy, COULD have adapted the EU in such a way that fans new and old would have been happy. But they didn't. And only wanted to when their crappy new universe they tried to make failed.

Well, that's selling yourself short, IMO.

As I've said before, I think there are a few roles Ms. Larson could play within SWL, such as Siri Tachi. But I really don't want more SWL characters in DSWC because it's just cheating them of any creativity they could have, even this late into the game. And it is diminishing and watering them, no matter how close it comes to the original. Because it can never be the original.

I agree with what others have posted - it was really kind of inevitable given DSW was always gonna try to appeal to the mass mainstream crowd, and the EU was too dense to catch up on. Okay. Their big misstep, if not deliberately, was to refuse to allow the rebranded EU to continue on as Legends by Del Rey and Dark Horse, or Marvel, since they were always gonna go in-house. I mean, that they threw it out, claimed "creativity," and then wound up taking practically whole plotlines from it is like they tried to adapt EU anyway. They were just woefully incompetent at it. I mean, it's Kybo, not Kylo Ren.

I think even now, despite sparse SWL since 2014, there's far more hope for our continuity than yours, if you dislike the direction it's headed in. Because as an alternate timeline, the campaign for new SWL is not for easter eggs in the new canon, but as a continuation in the forms of books and comics. And if you've hated TLJ, let me tell you right now, take something like Rise of the Shadow Academy. It is the total opposite to that film.

1) Luke has a student who's fallen to the dark side. He never gives up trying to restore him.
2) The brainwashed stormtrooper becomes increasingly disillusioned with the Second Imperium and so finally accepts his comfortable exile on Yavin IV, while Finn's arc was jumbled.
3) Tenel Ka's own hubris causes her to lose her arm in a lightsaber accident, something Rey has never had happen to her on screen. She chooses not to get a prosthetic.
4) The next generation of Jedi Knights is being trained by Luke on Yavin IV, rather than being torched and burned to the ground.
5) Instead of desecrating Jedi lore, there's a learned Jedi Master in the Praxeum well versed in Jedi history, dating back to the time of Nomi Sunrider.
6) Rather than Canto Blight, Lando's got a nice Corusca mining operation going on around the gas giant of Yavin.
7) Instead of tossing away the iconic lightsaber, we intricately go through the process of building it for the next generation. One's even a rancor-tooth handle.
8) Instead of running away, when the final duel comes, Luke owns the villain in just two minutes, and doesn't seek to murder, but disarm, choosing to deliberately avoid lopping off the enemy's arm.

Many others I could probably name. Personally, I think DSWC is a great defense to the old EU for disappointed fans. And our goal is to just increase the interest and carry the flame.

You know, another character Ms. Larson could play quite adeptly is Guri, the human replica droid to Prince Xizor, leader of the Black Sun criminal syndicate. Most especially poignant in my mind is that scene where she's been reprogrammed to no longer so fanatically serve Prince Xizor, and so smiles for the first time. If anti-SJWs think she's cold or tone-deaf, this works for a dethawing robot girl. Think Cameron from TSCC.

[clearspira]

In fairness, I wasn't an EU reader. It was always the OT and later the Prequels for me growing up. If it wasn't on-screen it was nothing.

Buuuuuttttt.... I would feel for you if we got Token Mara Jade because Star Trek's hopeful future meant so much to me growing up. I rail on ''Picard'' because Picard the character got me through some of my darkest times. I know that sounds odd, but sometimes you latch onto stuff when you need to y'know?

I don't have the same attachment to Wars as I do Trek; but I know that some people do. And to see what Disney has done to it up until this point has been insulting. And what really tickles my anger glands on this is that when Disney/Marvel decided to create the MCU, they used what was already there to make the films. Civil War, the Infinity Gauntlet, the Winter Soldier. These are all existing stories.

Disney, or more accurately Bob Igor and Kathleen Kennedy, COULD have adapted the EU in such a way that fans new and old would have been happy. But they didn't. And only wanted to when their crappy new universe they tried to make failed.

Well, that's selling yourself short, IMO.

As I've said before, I think there are a few roles Ms. Larson could play within SWL, such as Siri Tachi. But I really don't want more SWL characters in DSWC because it's just cheating them of any creativity they could have, even this late into the game. And it is diminishing and watering them, no matter how close it comes to the original. Because it can never be the original.

I agree with what others have posted - it was really kind of inevitable given DSW was always gonna try to appeal to the mass mainstream crowd, and the EU was too dense to catch up on. Okay. Their big misstep, if not deliberately, was to refuse to allow the rebranded EU to continue on as Legends by Del Rey and Dark Horse, or Marvel, since they were always gonna go in-house. I mean, that they threw it out, claimed "creativity," and then wound up taking practically whole plotlines from it is like they tried to adapt EU anyway. They were just woefully incompetent at it. I mean, it's Kybo, not Kylo Ren.

I think even now, despite sparse SWL since 2014, there's far more hope for our continuity than yours, if you dislike the direction it's headed in. Because as an alternate timeline, the campaign for new SWL is not for easter eggs in the new canon, but as a continuation in the forms of books and comics. And if you've hated TLJ, let me tell you right now, take something like Rise of the Shadow Academy. It is the total opposite to that film.

1) Luke has a student who's fallen to the dark side. He never gives up trying to restore him.
2) The brainwashed stormtrooper becomes increasingly disillusioned with the Second Imperium and so finally accepts his comfortable exile on Yavin IV, while Finn's arc was jumbled.
3) Tenel Ka's own hubris causes her to lose her arm in a lightsaber accident, something Rey has never had happen to her on screen. She chooses not to get a prosthetic.
4) The next generation of Jedi Knights is being trained by Luke on Yavin IV, rather than being torched and burned to the ground.
5) Instead of desecrating Jedi lore, there's a learned Jedi Master in the Praxeum well versed in Jedi history, dating back to the time of Nomi Sunrider.
6) Rather than Canto Blight, Lando's got a nice Corusca mining operation going on around the gas giant of Yavin.
7) Instead of tossing away the iconic lightsaber, we intricately go through the process of building it for the next generation. One's even a rancor-tooth handle.
8) Instead of running away, when the final duel comes, Luke owns the villain in just two minutes, and doesn't seek to murder, but disarm, choosing to deliberately avoid lopping off the enemy's arm.

Many others I could probably name. Personally, I think DSWC is a great defense to the old EU for disappointed fans. And our goal is to just increase the interest and carry the flame.

You know, another character Ms. Larson could play quite adeptly is Guri, the human replica droid to Prince Xizor, leader of the Black Sun criminal syndicate. Most especially poignant in my mind is that scene where she's been reprogrammed to no longer so fanatically serve Prince Xizor, and so smiles for the first time. If anti-SJWs think she's cold or tone-deaf, this works for a dethawing robot girl. Think Cameron from TSCC.

That is of course the other problem with Brie Larson - the woman went to the Kristen Stewart school of acting. She's perfect to play an android.

[McAvoy]

I have only seen her in the MCU and the Kong movie. In the Kong movie I don't remember much about her and even forgot she was in it until it was brought up she was in it.

Captain Marvel though if that is her range of acting then it's pretty bad. I suspect (and have heard that it may be in fact true) that her wooden acting was done on purpose.

So I honestly don't know about her. Though her interviews with other Endgame cast members were pretty cringe.

With the Disney Star Wars this will not be the Mara Jade we read about for 30 years. It might as well be Lara Fade.

[Captain Crimson]

Calling it now - it's why they're so hesitant to "recanonize" Mara Jade with her proven strong woman cred and high standing in the fandom to the point even casuals know who she is as the wife of Luke Skywalker - if the Disney purified version of Mara Jade makes a return, she's inevitably going to be either race-swapped or blonde. Hence the rumors with Ms. Larson, which I don't buy, but who knows, they have occasionally been right once in a blue moon. Like, a leap year's blue moon.

It's kinda weird, but after a while, it's hard to deny Hollywood has some kinda vendetta against redheads. It's bizarre. H, I dislike to get all conspiratorial, but one has to wonder if that's one reason they don't let Mr. Zahn write up a new Legends book exploring Mara Jade's origins, given the request for new Legends and fans willing to buy bootleg copies to just get more SWL. You may think it's farfetched, but given how hard they try to please all portions of fanbase in order to shut down the nonstop noise, Mr. Zahn is the go-to for a surefire success. Yet they don't utilize him as the asset he is.

Wish I knew what's happening behind the locked doors at LF.

[CharlesPhipps]

Brie Larson can dye her hair red.

I'm just saying.

[Captain Crimson]

A) Assuming this rumor holds weight.
B) They want her to stay redhead.

Actually, in recent years, a lot of gingers have been race-swapped. So it is definitely within the realm of possibility. Not passing judgment, just observing that. And even in SW itself, look at Jyn Erso and Rey and Kylo Ren. Also, it's not like Disney-owned LF really cares that much on staying true to the source material anyway. Remember, according to them, they don't have any! No 800-page novels or comic books. No siree, none of that here! Even though the 'forementioned characters are just Jan Ors, Jaina solo, and Darth Caedus.

But as I said, I really don't trust WGTC. And besides, Mr. Zahn and other executives and creatives within LF have said they have no intention to bring her back, which may disappoint EU casuals, but it's fine by me. Unless, of course, it is just corporate spin. Similar to how Mr. Favreau insisted that there'd be no Jedi and no Force tricks in TM, and that's a promise quickly broken with the introduction of Grogu. So who knows. Your guess is as good as mine.

Mr. Zahn had said the only way he'd write for her in the DSWC is if it flowed organically from the story, but that's pretty much it. I'd rate this rumor as a 3.5 on the believability scale.