A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

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 i...

Photo Credit: Alex Diaz-Granados What would it take to recreate the Star Wars sequels based on the Star Wars Expanded Universe rather than the new Canon? For this to occur, you would need to be living in a totally different universe, one where: George and Marcia Lucas had never gotten divorced, thereby creating an environment in which a less stressed-out Lucas would not have taken a hiatus from making  Star Wars  films Lucas personally oversaw the Expanded Universe and gave it co-equal canon status to the films The EU was consistently good and written by a core of authors who could work with Lucasfilm - and George himself - and not have any tonal or narrative dissonance The EU authors would not bring any of their non- Star Wars  “eccentricities” or import weird versions of crossover stuff from other franchises ( Star Trek ) thinly disguised as  Star Wars Luke Skywalker would not become a ridiculously overpowered demigod whose portrayal differs from one a...

© 2017 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Why was Luke Skywalker made to look so weak and cowardly in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and is it possible to bring him back? Luke Skywalker was neither weak nor cowardly in  Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.  Only those viewers who either don’t understand human nature or invested much of their devotion to the “lore” of the  Star Wars  Expanded Universe like to think that the Luke they see in  The Last Jedi  is a coward or weak. As a matter of fact, the old EU (now wisely called Legends) Luke Skywalker was  never portrayed in a way that was either believable or consistent . Only a few writers, including Hugo Award-winning Timothy Zahn, ever wrote stories or plot lines that showed Luke as a realistic character with human flaws or weaknesses. In those stories and specifically Zahn’s  Thrawn Trilogy,  EU Luke was so faithful to Original Trilogy Luke that I could hear actor Mark Hamill’s voice in my h...

© 1978 Ballantine Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. (as The Star Wars Corporation) Should the Star Wars Expanded Universe (Legends) be continued even though Disney made it non-Canon? No. Contrary to the belief held by many  Star Wars  fans who really dig the Expanded Universe (EU) novels, comic books, roleplaying game supplements, and even video game backstories, Lucasfilm Ltd. always considered them apocryphal. In other words, as far as the company and its founder, George Lucas, were concerned, the EU that began with the publication of Marvel Comics’  Star Wars #7  in October of 1977 and Alan Dean Foster’s  Splinter of the Mind’s Eye  several months later was  never  canon. Marvel Comics' Star Wars #7 was arguably the first Expanded Universe publication. © 1977 Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm Ltd. As I wrote in my answer to  What exactly did Disney add and remove from the Star Wars universe/story? The main issue behind  What exa...

What is the reason Disney got rid of so much good Star Wars content by making the Expanded Universe legends? There are several reasons why Lucasfilm ( not  Disney) decided to “get rid of” much of the Expanded Universe. First, if Lucasfilm was going to make new films, it needed to have full creative license to do so without being beholden to stories that other writers had written between 1978 and 2014. This includes the Marvel Comics issues that  were not  adaptations of the Original Trilogy movies, Alan Dean Foster’s  Splinter of the Mind’s Eye,  the Brian Daley  Han Solo  trilogy, and the various novels and comics published by Bantam Spectra, Dark Horse Comics, Bantam Skylark, Del Rey Books, and other licensees. No self-respecting screenwriter or film director, much less the Lucasfilm Story Group, would have wanted to wade through a thicket of superficially connected but wildly uneven stories. Second, I hate to break it to you, but  n...

Would Star Wars: The Last Jedi have been way better if Luke actually was there for the fight, instead of just a Force projection of him?  A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack. -  Yoda to Luke Skywalker,  Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back Questions like this, quite frankly, leave me cold. They reflect only the barest understanding of  Star Wars,  its mythos, its themes, and its character arcs. They also reinforce my opinion that the Expanded Universe (now called Legends) has an unhealthy grip on many  Star Wars  fans’ minds that makes them unable to understand the dynamics of the saga. Contrary to the oft-seen complaint that Kathleen Kennedy, Rian Johnson, and J.J. Abrams ruined  Star Wars  and that Luke Skywalker’s character was not written in a way that fits the “lore,”  Star Wars: The Last Jedi  did a great job at depicting a very human Luke who, despite his failure to proper...

Cover art by Drew Struzan. © 1992 Bantam Skylark and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) If you have ever been a regular reader of non-canon fiction based on a motion picture or television franchise, you've probably noticed that the quality of the writing tends to be uneven. I ought to know; I've been reading novels and other literary works (short stories, comic books, and reference books) set in the Star Trek and Star Wars universes, and I've run across some stinkers in both. Most of the Star Wars stinkers that I've read are aimed at the general reading audience - ages 12 and up; that is the demographic that most readers belong to, including me. They also were published as part of the old  Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU), or what the Lucasfilm Story Group now calls Star Wars Legends, and include stories told in the following formats: Novels ( The New Rebellion, almost any book written by Kevin J. Anderson, The Crystal Star ) Comics/Graphic Novels ( Dark Empire trilogy) Y...

A carded example of 'Star Wars Unleashed: Boba Fett.' (C) 2003 Hasbro, Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) As the hungry Sarlacc holds Boba Fett in its lashing tentacles, you would expect Fett to rage at fate for bringing him to this hideous circumstance. But Fett never allows himself a second of weakness or self-pity. – Boba Fett, Hasbro Star Wars Unleashed collection For almost 25 years (26 if you count the Nelvana Star Wars Holiday Special that aired on CBS in 1978), Boba Fett's armored figure has menaced the Heroes of the Rebellion and captured the imagination of legions of Star Wars fans. Since his introduction in the aforementioned TV special in an animated segment and his "official" film debut in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Fett has become one of the iconic "bad guys" in the Star Wars mythos. Canny, calculating, and relentless, the man encased in the Mandalorian armor says little but acts decisively. From the moment he wi...

Cover art by Drew Struzan. (C) 1998 Bantam Spectra and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) One of the side effects of creating a literary "expanded universe" of a popular movie or television series is the studio's licensing division coming in and saying to a diverse group of authors something like  Okay, go ahead and write novels based on our characters and situations and carry the story forward, even though what counts as the Official Story is what we show on movie screens or TV shows. We will vet almost anything so long as it doesn't seriously contradict or affect any past or future project we may have later on. Lovely idea, this, since it keeps the fans happy with new stories set in their favorite universes and gives them new insights into the offscreen lives and "further adventures" of such characters as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the captains and crews of the various starships named  Enterprise , and, of course, the heroes and villains that populate George Luc...

(C) 1997 Bantam Spectra and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.... It is a period of turmoil in the galaxy. Three years after the deaths of Emperor Palpatine and Lord Darth Vader at the Battle of Endor, the recently declared New Republic is locked in a life-or-death struggle with the remnants of the evil Galactic Empire. Although Ysanne Isard, the Empire's new leader, has been forced to flee from the capital world, Coruscant, she and her sinister agents have unleashed the Krytos Virus, a bio-weapon engineered to specifically harm non-humans in a bid to divide the Rebellion by sowing fear, anger and mistrust in what she perceives to be a fragile coalition between humans and aliens. With her Super Star Destroyer and strong Imperial fleet units, Isard has made her way to the planet Thyferra and manipulated events to take control of that world and its precious supply of bacta, the "miracle fluid" used throughout the galaxy to treat var...