Talking About 'Star Wars' Legends: Could Mara Jade Skywalker be incorporated into a canon Star Wars TV series or a movie?
Could Mara Jade Skywalker be incorporated into a canon Star Wars TV series or a movie?
Yes, but it probably would not be done in a way that fans of the old Expanded Universe would like.
As originally written in the 1990s and early 2000s, the iconic Emperor’s Hand who becomes an ally (and more) to Luke Skywalker would not be a good fit for the current canon. Why?
For starters, the ship for making Mara Jade, aka Mara Jade Skywalker, into a canon character (i.e., a major supporting character in an official Lucasfilm Ltd. production) sailed a long time ago in a production company that operates in a land not very far away (California).
Mara Jade is a character whose most important story arc occurs in the 1991–93 Thrawn Trilogy (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command). She was created by Timothy Zahn, a Hugo Award-winning author whose Star Wars novels stand out like diamonds in a sea of zirconias in the muddled mess that is the Star Wars Expanded Universe (which Lucasfilm has wisely rebranded as Legends).
If Lucasfilm, then led by George Lucas, had decided to adapt Zahn’s three-book cycle into the Sequel Trilogy in the early 1990s, starting with Heir to the Empire around 1994 or 1995, it’s possible that Mara, Talon Karrde, Dravis, and even Grand Admiral Thrawn could have been promoted to canon status from their “maybe canonical” existence. The timeline, of course, might have had to be altered slightly to account for the ages of Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford at the time; instead of taking place five years after the events depicted in Return of the Jedi, the Thrawn Trilogy films could have been set 10 years later, with only the most purist of Zahn’s fans protesting the changes.
What most of the Expanded Universe-is-MY-canon fans ignore (either honestly or disingenuously) is this: George Lucas never intended for the EU to overshadow his version of the canon, which in 1991 only consisted of the Original Trilogy and his upcoming Prequel Trilogy. He was okay with Lucasfilm allowing vetted authors and publishing companies to come in and create The Further Adventures of Luke Skywalker, which were stories that he was not really that interested in telling, so long as (a) they didn’t contradict the stories told in the movies and (b) it was understood that Lucas could take elements of the EU that he liked and make them canonical (such as the name “Coruscant”) but he could also override the licensed novels and even ignore their existence when making more Star Wars content after he completed the Prequels.
From George Lucas’s perspective at the time, the Expanded Universe was merely an exercise in merchandising, intended to reinvigorate a nearly moribund franchise and produce badly-needed revenue so that he and Lucasfilm could make the Prequel Trilogy and - maybe - more Star Wars content for various media. But it was not something that he oversaw personally, except to set several ground rules, especially in the early 1990s, such as “You can’t delve into the Clone Wars, and you can’t tell stories about how the Old Republic became Palpatine’s Empire.”
Mara Jade is a great character in the Thrawn Trilogy. She is a formidable foil for Luke Skywalker, and in many ways, her story arc is a mirror of Luke’s Hero’s Journey. Like Luke, her life is irretrievably changed when her path crosses a powerful Force user’s - in her case, Emperor Palpatine. Like Luke, she must enter a larger world than the one she lived in - the Emperor’s court - when the Galactic Civil War ends in a Rebel victory. When Palpatine dies at the Battle of Endor, Mara loses her mentor, just as Luke has lost Ben Kenobi and Yoda.
In many ways, Mara’s journey is a deliberate mirror of Luke’s, albeit with twists and turns that make it an interesting one for readers of Zahn’s novels.
But once Mara’s story arc is completed in The Last Command, Mara is only interesting in stories written by Zahn, even though she becomes a major recurring character in various Star Wars Expanded Universe series, including the New Jedi Order and Legacy of the Force; she dies in Karen Traviss’ Star Wars: Sacrifice, killed by her Dark Side-using nephew Jacen Solo.
Now, there is a large subset of Star Wars fans who have read every story ever written about Mara. Many of them are vocal about their belief that the EU is canon no matter what Lucasfilm says, and they probably would be happier than a drunk jawa in a junkyard if the studio ever makes Mara a canonical character.
Obviously, if Kathleen Kennedy, Kiri Hart, Dave Filoni, Pablo Hidalgo, and the rest of the Lucasfilm Story Group felt it necessary to make Mara Jade a canonical character, they could.
But first, they’d have to clear it with Timothy Zahn.
In 2018, after Zahn successfully retconned Grand Admiral Thrawn as a canonical character for both a new (and official) Thrawn Trilogy set in the early days of the Rebellion and as a major antagonist in Star Wars Rebels, Lucasfilm gave the author a lot of creative say-so regarding Mara Jade.
Last year, Screen Rant cited an interview Zahn gave to the podcast Talking Bay 94, in which the author discussed the possibility that a character in Episode IX named “Mara” is Mara Jade.
Per Screen Rant:
the author said he's unaware if Mara Jade is in the Episode IX screenplay. However, he would be interested in seeing the character make the leap from Legends to canon, as long as it was the right fit:
"If there was a generic, or organic, spot for her to fit into a story...I promise people, I will pitch it to the Lucasfilm story group, and then, it's their decision whether to allow it or not."
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