Sturn said:

Sturn said:

Well, considering that the 360 odd star wars book titles that do exist have sold about 160 million copies, bad math and all things considered, means that that there's not many people who have read (all) these books (some people buy a book, don't read it, some people buy many copies and so on), compared to people that have watched the films… someone somewhere said 30%, I think its much less of the fan base that have read or kept up to date on the Expanded Universe's various molestations of the universe - I am one of those people though. Most people have a relationship to the films - this is what they're going to take into account, I think…? fear…? hope..?

So I don't think (hope?) we're getting the Thrawn Trilogy - not even in a Shamalalamalalamaman messed up way like that dreadful film Avatar: the last airbender, which was a complete cockup of the animated series - random scenes where included, but there was no continuity and all that… I seriously hope they stay away from such a collage of the various (70 odd) authors' visions of somesuch Star Warsy thing and story.

Corradus said:

Well, the six films that do exist are the Skywalker saga (see starwars.com "trailer") - anything beyond that could be about someone else, its what GL wanted to do with that tv-series that has disappeared (for now).

I trembled when I read the news.

Whether out of excitement or fear (or some combination of the two), I don't know…

I'll be hoping for the best and expecting the wor… who am I kidding - I'll be expecting the best as well, but prepared for disappointment.

:)

 A Star Wars remake could do a lot to help Star Wars gaming.

More Jedi in the Rebellion period for a start. Limit hyperspace jumps to set routes and jump points possibly.

Much like movies based on comics borrow and stray from their source, so too can movies based on the Star Wars universe. We could see a trilogy based on the Thrawn books or the Yuuzhon Vong series or something new. They could skip to the Legacy Era (comic) where the "hero" is Cade Skywalker and there is both Jedi and Sith and a Galactic Empire and a Rebellion so they can hit all the notes. Or it could go back in time to the time of the Old Republic and tell the story of Revan. There is plenty of inspiration to draw on and plenty of room to add something new. I look forward to seeing what they do.

I don't see the need to bemoan anything. Disney has done all right with Marvel so far. They'd be foolish to mess too much with Star Wars as it is a cash cow.

mouthymerc said:

Heck, not just Marvel, but look at Pixar.  I think as long as Lucasfilm continues to generate income for Disney while producing quality material, they're probably not going to be making any drastically sweeping changes.  They've pretty much told Pixar "here's the keys to the company lot, now go do what you do best," and it's worked, as Pixar has yet to make a movie that's flopped at the box office.

As for the new trilogy… I say place it well after the events of RotJ, past the New Jedi Order series and even the Fate of the Jedi stuff.

Have Mark Hamill appear as Grand Master Luke Skywalker, taking up the role of Yoda to a restored Jedi Order.  Maybe have brief cameo appearances by other Star Wars icons.

But ultimately, have a new set of heroes.  Perhaps one of them is Luke's grandson, giving this new generation of heroes a tie to the ones from the Original Trilogy.

As much as I liked JJ Adams' Trek reboot, the Star Wars franchise doesn't really need it.  The Trek franchise did because Enterprise and Nemesis had pretty much killed it off in terms of fan interest.

But Star Wars is still going strong, thanks to the Clone Wars and games like Star Wars: The Old Republic, Force Unleashed, and the upcoming 1313.  It's not a dead/dying property by any stretch.

So instead of retreading old ground or doing remakes, I really do hope Disney does something truly new with the franchise.

On a side note, I wonder how long it'll be before Leia (possibly even Padme) gets adopted into the ranks of the Disney Princesses?

 I'll put myself in the camp that hopes the new material is in no way constrained of influenced by anything in the EU. Let the new creators tell their own stories, or interpret whatever good idea GL wants to pass on.

 When I heard this I heard Ackbar telling me that this was a trap. Sure it could turn out to be something awesome or it could be utter rubbish. My main concern is that these new movies will break the back of post RotJ EU, some of which is rather good. I would love to see the Thrawn trilogy turned into movies, but for some reason I think we are going to see some rubbish that brings final death to the EU. Guess we will have to wait and see.

I had high hopes…. Then I read this….

"The trilogy will continue the story of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia beyond "Return of the Jedi," and that hope left.

They are already messing it up. No way is Ford going to sign on for this, and that means a new actor playing the same character, and they are going to try and play it off like it didn't happen. I can't stand that! Hated it in the old Batman's, vacations, etc… still don't like it now.

$hamrock said:

ErikB said:

Yes Marvel Heroic Roleplay is good, but only if you pretty much live in the States, as MWP can't get international publishing rights and Disney seem impossible to work with. They aquired the N. American rights from Marvel before they signed on the dotted line with Disney, since then nothing, if you live in the UK you can only buy the books via PDF or grey import and as a retailer this is not much good to me.

I don't think this is good news at all for FFG, I hope they've got it all signed off, but even so when it comes time to renew the contract things will fall apart, if they want to carry on the franchise beyond these 3 books they should start negotiating now.

Venthrac said:

Fully agree. Just ignore the EU and make a completely new story. If it's set 10, 50, or a 1000 years after ep 6 doesn't matter but, the current state of the EU is just a mess where too many stories have been produced without any narrative direction. Not saying that all of the EU stuff is bad, but honestly, I wouldn't touch ~95% of it with a stick. Youzhan vong, legacy, euwww… 

gruntl said:

+1.

If they're continuing the story of the characters from the earlier trilogies, there are two options for taking the whole line of movies forward:-

(1) Make one of the EU storylines into a movie. Ooooof. Not a nice idea. As mentioned above, the quality is iffy.

(2) Discard the whole post-RotJ EU material in favour of new stuff. Result: alienate the more rabid fanboys who actually bother to keep up with the EU and cause a canon pile-up.

If they're determined to stick with the strange idea of continuing Leia/Han Sol/Luke etc's storylines, I suspect Disney will go for option (2). Fanboy whining about a lost EU won't move the average cinemagoer/casual SW fan…or affect box office receipts. 

But I would agree that it just seems far less messy for Disney to abandon the existing characters and move to a different part of the Star Wars galaxy…oh well, we shall see!  

I would rather see them do something totally new whether 100s or 1000s of years in the past. But even if the new trilogy finishes off the story of the old characters as they pass on the torch to a new generation they have already said there will be more than just three movies but new Star Wars movies every two to three years in the long term. So much galaxy and time to explore they possibilities are endless.

Venthrac said:

Apparently the deal doesn't include distribution rights to the existing films, so the original cuts of the OT may still be in limbo.