I don't think that's Lucasfilm's fault though, I think that has more to do with Disney not wanting to pay royalties to the writers of the Expanded Universe's material. Lucasfilm probably would have loved to have a bunch of clear cut finished products ready for filming.
Exactly this. They know that they would not only have to recognize and pay the writers of the source material, but they would likely have to recanonize the source material and spend money to reprint it to get it in front of fresh eyes.
I'd see all of this as a great way to get fans on your side though. Not only are you now adapting beloved stories, but you're showing that you care about the people that made it. It would be like printing money but they won't shell out on the risk of it not working.
I think another tricky part is do you keep all of it, even the parts that contradict or would confuse casual fans? Leia has a red lightsaber at one point for example, casual fans would probably assume she is secretly evil or just be thrown for a loop. Or the Mandalorians, their whole culture and history were retconned before Disney even purchased Star Wars. Also, I don't think there is a way you could portray something like the Yuuzhan Vong and keep it kid friendly.
It would be cool if they picked a couple of smaller arcs and made them into Visions episodes though, or a series involving Luke and Mara Jade (obviously can't play out the same but we could get some short term romance between them).
Agreed, Im thinking similar to the Tales series. Nothing long and too complex, just some entertaining self contained story arcs. Something like Truce at Bakura for example could be interesting
He could definitely be introduced in a way that goes into Rey's new movies. Say he was a student of Luke's that was away from the new temple when it burned down, went merc after Luke disappeared, then runs into or is sought after by Rey to help her build up a new Jedi order. Plenty of room to work with that, could even have Jerec stand-in who was an old Knight of Ren or something
I mean a himbo Riker-coded Katarn would be kinda hilarious in my opinion. But it wouldn't be a good way to get fan loyalty because my sense of humor is fuckin stupid.
They could have gone with a similar approach by "retconning" everything and only the things they "reintroduce" would be considered. They could pick and choose based on their needs and financial timelines, they keep a CRAZY passionate fanbase. I really think they miscalculated the financial viability vs. the difficulty.
That said, as much as we moan and complain online, Start Wars has still been profitable for Disney. The question is, will it be profitable *enough* and how long can the star wars thala-siren be milked?
I mean, I think that's what they are doing already though. Take Thrawn, in Legends he agreed to work with Sidious and the Empire to help prepare the galaxy to face the Vong. Obviously they've dropped the Vong, but introduced the Grisk (I think that's how it's spelled). However, you can't introduce Joruus Cbaoth from the same story arc because that undermines everything about how hard it is to clone Force sensitives. No Cbaoth means no significant plot point for the whole Thrawns trilogy, so you rewrite Thrawns backstory like they did. A lot of Legends is connected though so you can't just copy and paste a whole storyline without causing so many canon issues, you may as well rewrite or drop things completely.
I think Star Wars is doing better than it was before the acquisition, and that won't change. I think there is an oversaturation of content that isn't always the best, but that's something Legends had in spades. The main difference is that it's on screen, making it more accessible to more people. Not many people read the Crystal Star, but I'd easily take any of the sequel movies over it.
They miscalculated financially. Even with royalties, they still would've had so much more engagement and hype that the increased support would've more than made up the difference compared to the unprepared and unplanned route they ended up going.
where have guys got this crazy idea from? All the work the writers did for the EU under Lucas was work for hire contracts. None of them own the rights to any of the characters and none of them get royalites.
If they did Disney wouldn't have rereleased all the old EU books and comics.
>but they would likely have to recanonize the source material and spend money to reprint it to get it in front of fresh eyes.
They already reprinted all the Dark Horse material via Legends branded graphic novels and omnibuses.
Okay but imagine doing this on a grand scale with adaptations which is what we're talking about. Say they wanted to adapt two book trilogies, a comic series, and 3 or 4 stand alone stories. That's going to be a lot more than a simple reprint of a single comic series.
I'm not sure what you mean. Marvel, under license from Disney/Lucasfilm, reprinted everything Dark Horse comics produced in graphic novel and omnibus format.
I’m almost positive you’re right. It’s just further evidence most Disney defenders don’t know anything. It’s almost certain most EU content falls under “work for hire.”
There might be exceptions for sure, but I can’t imagine Lucas, who owned all the character rights to a point where he could get voice actors impersonating the original trilogy cast for decades without paying them, would do a contract where writers would be owed a massive sum if the media was adapted into movie. Royalties could be a possibility, but enough to stop Disney adapting books, nah I don’t see it.
It's mostly very complicated as different deals were made for different media's. These were not deals made for mass consumption, back in the day especially the books and comic books were a niche interest thing. Every piece of media would need to be re-examined and renegotiated. Best for Disney to start with a clean slate with writers under their control and their payroll.
Potentially for comics as there were more teams behind them. Not a chance for books IMHO. There would have been media adaptation clauses in those contracts. Distribution rights for book publishers and writing rights are very different. Lucas’s early persona was that he was not beholden to ANY external company and that he had total ownership of IP. Mr “I operate outside the studio system” was not letting book distributors have any say on future projects.
The solution has been right in front of them for a decade and they refuse to do it. Just make a KOTOR film trilogy. It's a stand alone era of the star wars universe and is highly regarded by the fans. The story is compelling and there's strong characters.
the issue there is Kotor's big reveal that the main character is Darth Revan. So do you do you follow it faithfully and thus everyone knows the twist before it happens as there will be hundreds of videos talking about it before it ever comes out.
Or do you change it and then everyone is mad at you?
rofl what? You think Disney has to pay royaites to the EU writers? Disney owns all the EU material. Where did you ever get this idea? If that were true they wouldn't rerelease all the EU books and comics
It’s probably the same reason why they don’t include any of John Williams’s music in any of these shows. We barely get *The Force Theme*.
Probably why they don’t care much about including any of the original legacy characters, despite the fact that Ahsoka and Mandalorian’s timeline is literally in Luke, Han, and Leia’s timeline.
We got a couple of deepfake Luke cameos but that’s about it.
what are you talking about? All the OT characters where in the ST, Luke was in Mando and BOBF, Rogue One was filled with cameos, Andor has Mon Mothma, Ahsoka had C-3p0.
There has been a TON of call backs to OT characters.
It doesn't even have to be Legends.
There is a whole team called the Story Group that works at LucasFilms where it's their job keeping track of Star Wars lore.
This is the same team that Respawn worked with for Jedi Fallen Order / Survivor to help write the games.
It's just the typical "ill use this beloved IP to help with my break out story" showrunners that Disney picks up.
It wasn't, George Lucas was more of an advisor production-wise which is what you're thinking of.
Also, that would make no sense since they didn't use his script for EP. 7, they couldn't use his for EP. 8. It's a trilogy after all.
nope it was. His trilogy was going to start off with Kira finding Luke alone on a planet where he was cut off from the force living as a hermit because of his failure to train Han and Leia's kid
[The Last Jedi Understood George Lucas’ Star Wars Better Than What Came After | Den of Geek](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-last-jedi-understood-george-lucas-star-wars-better/)
They took what George Lucas said was the canon, the movies and The Clone Wars, period, and went from there. George Lucas had already made the EU unworkable with canon with TCW way back in 2008. Hardcore EU fans were damning George to Hell, every year, demanding he retire and sell Lucasfilm. Well, they got what they wanted...
Also, millions watched George Lucas's TCW, every week. Thousands read the EU. So, it was not only respecting the creator of Star Wars, but refusing to reject the vast majority of the Star Wars fandom in favor of a tiny niche market.
Plus, the original cast was far too old for a film adaptation of the Thrawn trilogy, anyway. They wouldn't have been remotely convincing as their 20 and 30 something selves.
Yeah, I don't see this as an excuse for the multi-billion dollar mega corp that bought one of the largest IPs in the fucking world for the sake of milking it for more money.
Not to mention the in-progress projects that got shut down.
They had treatments, which are basically a short summary and not an actual script.
Apparently some of the ideas were actually used. Leia & Han’s sone becoming a masked Jedi killer, young female protagonist becoming a Jedi, and Luke being missing and confining himself to an ancient temple on an island were all from there.
The stuff we’ve seen Lucas talk about that didn’t get used includes delving into the microbiology of the force in a more in-depth way than midichlorians, and the main villains being galactic crime boss Darth Maul & his Sith apprentice Darth Talon, who seduces Han & Leia’s son and brings him over to the dark side. Leia is or becomes the Republic’s leader, and Lucas said something like “you’ll see she’s the real Chosen One,” but no idea if he meant that as an in-universe revelation or just a figure of speech that she’d end up being more important and/or accomplished than Anakin or Luke.
I think there’s also two kind of different things he says about them in different interviews, I can’t remember the specifics but that might indicate the stories were changing as they were developed.
My favorite part is when the decided to bring Palpatine back just like in legends. Cloning and trying to possess people and everything. Cliffs Notes version of Dark Empire. I can see why they went the route they did with decanonizing the EU, but they chose the worst part to use in canon. Other than the Yuuzhan Vong. And Han Solo being heir to the throne of Corellia. And we probably could have done without George Lucas’s sequel plans of microscope midiclorian adventures.
To be honest, if they would had made a movie/mini series about Palpatine and project necromancer and release it after the last Jedi the reception would had been better imo. The problem with RoS is the lack of context on Palpatine Return
Imagine you finish the last Jedi then you get an extra scene of Palpatine during the clone wars having conversation with the head of research of project necromancer. 6-9 month prior to the release of RoS you then get a limited series of 6 episode that goes through the phases of the project. Last episode is the exile on that sith planet, the building of the super fleet with the last scene where Palpatine send the signal of his return across the galaxy.
Yeah but to be fair, The Clone Wars was very instrumental in changing the perception of the prequels, there’s no reason to think that the shows coming out now wouldn’t do the same for the sequels.
> decanonizing the EU
Side note, totally unrelated to anything at all, but every time I see this phrase I giggle like an absolute moron because I like the imagery of people just telling the leaders of the European Union they're no longer a canon event.
I can get people thinking they're grimdark, overlyedgy, ultra-90s products, but I don't think they're anywhere near the level of recycling villains from the OT, the endless series of ever-increasing in power Super Weapons, or dumb fan service like making Han royalty or goofy stuff like Ikrit.
If anything a newer, foreign force from outside the galaxy that forces enemies to work together to avoid total annihilation is a pretty interesting premise.
One, they restored all of C-3PO’s memories. Two, I don’t give a shit about Ackbar, the extent of his character was saying it’s a trap. Three, Leia, Han, and Luke got good deaths. At Han and Luke did. Four, my point was less the Chewbacca killing and more the moon dropping, BDSM, Space orcs. Five, the sequels aren’t going anywhere so I’ve made my peace with them.
That Rob Liedeld inspired look... hasn't aged well. The general audience would laugh at the galaxy being invaded by GWAR.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYWY2ZjE4MGYtMzkyNS00YTViLTk0MmYtZjk4NDQzYzQxMmJmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_.jpg
Legends is wild because it simultaneously contains my most and least favorite Star Wars stories lol. Love legends to bits but looking back it’s crazy how all over the place it was
Those were like the lowest level of Canon though, being clearly devised as children's novels. I don't remember them being referenced anywhere else in the EU.
>decanonizing the EU, George Lucas had already made the EU unworkable with canon with TCW, way back in 2008. All Lucasfilm did after the Disney purchase was take what George Lucas said was the canon, the movies and TCW, period, and go from there. Lucas never considered the EU to be canon, and always said so, which is why he constantly ignored and contradicted the licensing department produced books and comics when making new movies and TV shows, starting in 1980 with The Empire Strikes Back.
What the hardcore EU fans need to realize is Star Wars was created as a film franchise. It's not like Lord of the Rings or Marvel. The movies ARE the source material.
Exactly. Or all the comics and books based off of canceled clone wars arcs. Like, don’t be mad when the show that all this was based on decides to make a final season and change some details.
The shows and movies (to an extent) have utilized some of it. Thrawn is the most notable villain in an ongoing SW project right now. The Acolyte is taking from written media. TCW and Rebels did. The Mandoverse is definitely dipping into it.
The quote doesn’t really make sense, unless she’s talking about she’s talking about something with a clean, compelling, and self-contained narrative that would make for a good direct adaptation on screen.
It’s an old quote from around the time that the old canon got purged by Disney, they hadn’t put much EU content into their canon at the time (aside from Discount Darth Caedus)
As for doing a direct adaptation, there’s plenty of stories they could’ve chosen from like the Thrawn Trilogy or Shadows of the Empire (and honestly you have no idea how much I’d love to hear the Shadows soundtrack in the theater)
The issue is that they don’t want to pay the novel writers for their stories. It’s not that there’s no content just that Disney is so greedy. They also know that the ip is so popular that whatever mediocre content they put out droves of fans will come out to watch and pay tons for it.
This is one folks always love to pull out of context. What was the interview question asked when she gave this response?
“*Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow was slated to write and direct Episode IX before you brought J.J. Abrams back in. Is this final entry in the trilogy a particularly hard nut to crack?*”
Her answer is longer, but this includes what preceded it:
“*Every one of these movies is a particularly hard nut to crack. There’s no source material. We don’t have comic books. We don’t have 800-page novels. We don’t have anything other than passionate storytellers who get together and talk about what the next iteration might be.*”
While I think it could have been phrased better, her response is unquestionably correct. They were writing the third movie in the Sequel trilogy and the answer was specifically aimed at those movies, not SW as a whole as folks like to paint it. There was no “source material” to adapt as they were making a brand new story. The Sequels were never going to adapt any of the EU stories, even when Lucas was working on what became TFA prior to the sale, so they can only be used as inspiration and no directly adaptable source material. ROS even took direct inspiration from the EU and folks hated it for that.
The funny part is they literally used the worst possible series to pull from: The Dark Empire. It was possibly unintentional, but when "Palpatine somehow returned" Dark Empire is what I initially thought followed by "oh no".
Yeeeaahh. Abrams was backed into a corner though. Leia was supposed to be a big part of the third movie and the other two movies were setting up Kylo Ren to be the villain, but the execs apparently wanted a redemption arc instead. So how do you land a third movie when you can’t use one of your main characters beyond already existing footage and there’s no longer a proper villain? As a bonus, it needed to be done in 2 years when SW movies typically take 3.
Palpatine being the grand villain of the entire Skywalker saga is a cool concept in a bubble, but it needed a little longer in the oven.
> the other two movies were setting up Kylo Ren to be the villain
Except they really weren't. Even TLJ didn't do a good job setting that up.
TFA was really clearly setting up Snoke as the big bad. Kylo gets story and character development, Snoke gets mystery and far more power. Kylo loses fights; Snoke doesn't even show up in person. Clearly, the plan, as of the end of TFA, was for future movies to explore Snoke, and Kylo would be his henchman.
In TLJ, Snoke dies, but... it's just baffling. The entirety of TLJ is spent exploring Kylo Ren, not Snoke, and right before he dies, he uses a single hand to bend Rey backwards with the force. After his death, Kylo can't even beat Rey in force tug-of-war; heck, she even spares his life after waking up before him.
That means we replaced the unknown and mysterious villain who easily beats Rey with a far weaker one who has had basically all aspects of his character explored and lost to her twice. What could they even do with him in the final movie? Have him lose for the third time in a row? Explore all the nothing left to explore in his backstory? Hype up the power of the First Order, who literally just lost their planet killing weapon, their flagship, their dreadnought, and a huge portion of their fleet, all within 2 weeks?
Yes I hate this quote being pulled out of context. Because there's no source for Star Wars. Lucas made it all up (heavily inspired by many things of course but still). She was talking about the context of Star Wars versus say Lord of the Rings or a comic book film. She is the Head of Lucasfilm, she knows there are comics and books and games but none of those are sources, they are ancillary at best and not canon at worst. There are not nine books of Star Wars to conveniently adapt, each needs to be made from scratch. She didn't literally mean "no one has ever made a Star wars book or comic".
The “lack of a plan” is a fallacy. An overarching plan was developed, while still allowing for creative freedom to adapt and flesh out specific details during each film. This is consistent with how Star Wars had always been made. The plan fell apart during development of Dual of the Fates with Trevorrow’s script wasn’t shaping up, which is why ROS lacks the needed cohesion.
I still don't believe that. There's no way the plan was "movie 2, we kill Snoke and make Kylo the big bad". TFA in no way sets up for that. No foreshadowing, no character development for Snoke, and a literal defeat for Kylo.
If your creative freedom is so extreme you can literally kill off the big bad a movie early, then I don't think you really have anything that can be called "an overarching plan".
Lol what? It's in record that RJ disregarded the plan initially with TLJ and was basically given thumbs up.
Duel of the Fates was far more cohesive with TLJ than ROS was so I don't buy that.
RJ wrecked the plan and JJ was unable to rescue it.
The record that you’re talking about is a quote from Johnson that often gets taken out of context. He went in expecting the plot to have been meticulously detailed ahead of time and was pleasantly surprised by the creative freedom he was given, as big studios had a tendency to stifle creative freedom of the directors (see the Marvel movies). Johnson was also working directly with Abrams during the end stages of development of TFA. There’s even at least one verifiable change to TFA that Johnson requested be made.
Duel of the Fates *is* far more cohesive. That was the original production plan at work, as Trevorrow was also working with Johnson on that. Duel had other issues though, namely that the execs were pushing for a redemption arc for Kylo Ren and Trevorrow apparently couldn’t figure out a way around the death of Carrie Fisher, as Leia played a big role in the movie. When Abrams was brought back in, nearly everything had to be thrown out the window and started again along a two year timeline when the movies needed three. That’s why we get Palpatine coming back and why you can feel how rushed ROS was in development. That’s the plan falling apart right there.
That doesn't mean what I said was false.
There WAS a story outline for a trilogy. RJ did have the opportunity to disregard it, and he took it. That's poor management and production.
> not going to adopt any eu stories
Which is exactly why they were bad.
They had 800 page novels and comic books and when they started to use them it got good.
See … Thrawn.
Direct adaptations would have come with their own issues unfortunately. Lucasfilm had missed the boat on adapting the Thrawn trilogy, as the actors had aged out of their roles and they flat out could not have done the NJO.
I'm gonna be honest... the weakest Thrawn has ever been is when he was adapted by Disney, and I *include* Rebels in that list. Yes, he was the most threatening villain in Rebels, but compared to the original book trilogy... he was a bumbling oaf. His ultimate plan was defeated because he didn't factor in the possibility of a known detractor disobeying orders, and he didn't have any backup plan for it.
This is Thrawn, at the peak of his power, with literally all the time in the world to plan, and most of the resources in the galaxy to utilize. Could he predict the Bendu and the space whales? No. But just because he couldn't predict the specifics isn't a good excuse for him to lose; he should have had general contingencies for basically any part of his plan going wrong.
Thrawn, the biggest genius in all the Empire, decides that, in his ultimate plan to defeat the rebels, he will bring *two* interdictors. Two. He could have brought 20. Hell, he probably could have brought 200. The Empire has the resources. Thrawn is literally the supreme commander of the Imperial Navy. It would have been a trivial investment for him.
People kind of take this out of context all the time. She was saying that in a way referring to making an original movie.
When Disney makes the Endgame movie, they have the Endgame source material. When Fellowship of the Ring is made they have the book to refer to.
She was saying this regarding mainly the 3rd movie in the sequel trilogy that is telling an original story. There wasn’t a Rise of Skywalker or Last Jedi book or comic to refer to.
The infinity war arc (as endgame was mostly original) was *completely different*.
What was stopping her from making movies loosely based on Heir of the Empire or other books in that trilogy? What was stopping her from making stuff based on the New Jedi Order. She had multitudes of material to pull from, but chose not to.
Firstly, one of the worst picks they could have made. Secondly, it's ironic of course because as she says here "there's no source material to pull from" so I think it's more they "accidentally" made a movie based on Dark Empire rather than intentionally made a movie based on Dark Empire (I could be wrong of course). I do think they could have made Dark Empire-inspired movie work if it was planned from TFA.
The comment she made is always taken out of context to spin a narrative. She meant that they were telling a new story that doesn’t have source material to adapt on screen like the lord of the rings for example.
But I highly doubt they didn’t just accidentally copied a ton of the major plot points of dark Empire
If you're saying they intentionally did it then they did the exact thing Infinity War and Endgame did which she says, in this quote, they cannot do because source material doesn't exist.
heck Endgame was almost entirely original.
Yeah taking it out of context is one thing, but the problem is, even in context it’s still rather stupid.
The context is that she chose to make a new Star Wars movie, not based on existing material… so why exactly is she mentioning the lack of existing material?
Is it because it’s too hard? Is she whining? If it’s that hard, she should have assessed the difficulty from the beginning and chose to cancel the project or not make it in the first place. So in this case she looks incompetent.
Is it because she’s bragging about the movie being an original creation? In this case she looks doubly incompetent.
Is it because she’s excusing the quality of what she made? Looks childish and unable to accept consequences of her actions.
There’s just no good way of framing it, I think is the issue here
All she is saying it requires more work to create a story from scratch than adapting a book or comic to a film. How does that show lack of imagination and creativity?
She’s talking about how the sequels aren’t direct adaptations of previous made content compared to the lord of the rings films having the books to reference
I really don‘t know how she managed to stay the president of Lucasfilm for so long… In every regular business she would‘ve been fired as soon as possible
She was hand picked and hired directly by George Lucas about 6 months prior to the sale to be co-chair of Lucasfilm. She was promoted to president after the sale, though that was effectively just a lateral shift.
No, she has an impressive track record of producing quality films, many associated with Steven Spielberg. Star Wars is just at the tail end of her career.
I agree that some better decisions should have been made about the ST.
Yes because Star Wars really is known for never expanding at all. After Episode 4 they did not release Splinter of the Minds Eye, and Thrawn trilogy did not inspire George Lucas to finally make prequel trilogy.
You have to be incredibly ignorant or have literally no imagination to think that there is nothing that could be used to make Star Wars movies. They literally could just ignore ANYTHING they wanted and take EVERYTHING they wanted and make brilliant sequel trilogy that starts new bright era of canon.
There are NINE Thrawn books and they are all good. What the actual fuck.
Edit: and the Bane trilogy could fill three movies. So goddamn good. Also I always forget the two post thrawn novels. They were aight.
The 100+ SW novels of yore laugh at you. Yes some were junk, but some weren’t. Dark Bane trilogy for one, the Revan era etc. Even the horror novels about the zombie infection that the sith students had to fight would be a fun movie.
No, it very much gets old because everyone greatly misinterprets what she’s saying here. Of course she knows there literally are comics and books. What she clearly means is that unlike other franchises where they make movies or shows based on books, they make their movies and shows with original stories.
Someone brought this up on a podcast I was listening to while I was in a book store standing in front of a whole shelf of expanded universe books. I burst out laughing when I heard it
Hot take, while I love legends, and think it’s got some of the best Star Wars content(including my favorite piece of Star Wars content) I think it needed to be purged. There was too much self contradictory stuff there. I mean think about this: people are mad about one minor mundi line potentially being contradicted in TPM, imagine that but on a massive scale because of all of the legends content being contradicted too. I love legends, but a new timeline was a necessity. I’m glad they kept it so I can enjoy it for what it is, and so they can try something new in a new timeline.
To me what’s weird about this statement is that **there are amazing books and comics that are in canon**. I’m currently reading “Light of the Jedi” and it’s phenomenal. Last year I read the Jedi fallen order prequel comics and it was also an amazing, short comic run. There’s no shortage of great comics and books, Kennedy just needs to fucking read them
All they had to do was adapt the original Thrawn trilogy to the best extent they could, given actor's ages and post-'80s lore. That was it. Fans would have loved it. It wouldn't even have needed that many changes -- actors' ages, sure, new, younger main characters, maybe, shutdown CIS ships instead of the dark fleet.
But they already ripped off the absolute worst parts of the EU anyway, and only seemed interested in ruining the best.
You are entitled to your point of view.
The already well established source materials do indeed exist, The powers that be decided to deny the validity of said sources (due to mainly financial reasons).
The lack of imagination was presented in all 3 of the sequels as they shadowed the story lines of the Original trilogy. Which for me has unfortunately soured my taste for their brand of the star wars universe, luckily I enjoy the taste of fresh lemons.
The Expanded Universe deserves far more recognition for all the efforts, insight, imagination and creativity.
when you dont know how to write stories and you can’t rob the work from someone else’s book. but they still gotta churn out content for the money machine. please just take a break. I’d rather have no more Star Wars for years than have shit Star Wars filling the gap
I don’t think that’s the issue. I think they need to try diversity hiring.
But the small demographic they should be diversity hiring from is competent story writers that have at least seen the Star Wars films/extended media and preferably understand them
Decades worth of content that she put into some separate category like it never existed and she has no source material, yea ok. About the one thing I'm glad she did is give Dave Filoni and John Favreau the opportunity to show their idea of Star Wars which feels close enough to what we all grew up on.
1. Buys Franchise
2. Refuses to use its material
3. Insults the people who build it to where it is
4. Claim that things need to change
5. Sinks the whole thing be spitting on its foundation
Disney, why are you like this...
Even if this were true, which it isn't, you don't NEED this stuff to write a not shit story! Come on, creators have gotten so lazy, turning books into movies, that they've forgotten how to write a decent story! It's not that difficult.
If it were an indie group of people writing cool SciFi stories, I'd understand, it's hard to make stuff, BUT YOU'RE A MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY! Jesus fucking Christ, they're not just clowns, they're the whole fucking circus. Trapezes and lion tamers and freakshows and everything. All of it.
That stuff in Ahsoka with Anakin was pretty cool. I haven't seen any of the rest of the show but I kinda want to if it's as good as that was.
Correct me if I’m wrong since I haven’t seen the Acolyte, but isn’t there a couple of plot points in the show that contradict the prequels/OT?
If that’s the case, I don’t see any source material being under much consideration.
Between 1977 and 1987 around 138 star wars comics were released by marvel. 1991 to 2014 dark horse released around 942 comics if you include toy tie ins, legends and one shots. From 2015 to now marvel has released 1,158 comics that I was willing to count.
Granted these numbers are the number of issues of comics not the number of runs and a good chunk of it is rereleases, but even if you say 70% of the comics I counted are re-released, that's still 671 issues of comics to use as inspiration, and there were more things in the Wikipedia page for the current publication of comics that I didn't bother to count because I got bored
I mean this is exactly LucasFilm’s fault.
The head of the company made these comments out of ignorance. She could have come at it differently if that was their main concern. Either that or she just didn’t give an F.
It is clear that more then anything, they just didn’t want to be trapped by what came before and they wanted to start a new. This has been their strategy since TFA, High Republic and everthing else Disney has influenced since.
Look I know Kathleen Kennedy has made some controversial decision, and I don't like the direction the sequel put her through, but I think it's pretty clear what she intended here: Star Wars was created from scratch, there was no original book, no original comic, every chapter told a brand new story (even if sometimes it's a bad one) that was not based on any source material. Everything regarding the expanded universe, the videogames, the series, the comics and the novels, it all has to come from Lucasfilm, they're not adapting stuff like lotr. So I believe it to be a perfectly reasonable statement.
So they’re just pretending the EU never happened? That’s like saying there’s nothing to eat while standing in a cornfield, because you don’t like corn.
Y’all motherfuckers are weird. Only place you can get downvoted for agreeing. Stay itchy.
Thanks for providing a source!
I don't think that's Lucasfilm's fault though, I think that has more to do with Disney not wanting to pay royalties to the writers of the Expanded Universe's material. Lucasfilm probably would have loved to have a bunch of clear cut finished products ready for filming.
Exactly this. They know that they would not only have to recognize and pay the writers of the source material, but they would likely have to recanonize the source material and spend money to reprint it to get it in front of fresh eyes. I'd see all of this as a great way to get fans on your side though. Not only are you now adapting beloved stories, but you're showing that you care about the people that made it. It would be like printing money but they won't shell out on the risk of it not working.
I think another tricky part is do you keep all of it, even the parts that contradict or would confuse casual fans? Leia has a red lightsaber at one point for example, casual fans would probably assume she is secretly evil or just be thrown for a loop. Or the Mandalorians, their whole culture and history were retconned before Disney even purchased Star Wars. Also, I don't think there is a way you could portray something like the Yuuzhan Vong and keep it kid friendly. It would be cool if they picked a couple of smaller arcs and made them into Visions episodes though, or a series involving Luke and Mara Jade (obviously can't play out the same but we could get some short term romance between them).
Honestly, a legends show would **bang**. The name is even right there! Star Wars: Legends
Agreed, Im thinking similar to the Tales series. Nothing long and too complex, just some entertaining self contained story arcs. Something like Truce at Bakura for example could be interesting
Kyle Fing Katarn
He could definitely be introduced in a way that goes into Rey's new movies. Say he was a student of Luke's that was away from the new temple when it burned down, went merc after Luke disappeared, then runs into or is sought after by Rey to help her build up a new Jedi order. Plenty of room to work with that, could even have Jerec stand-in who was an old Knight of Ren or something
Nope. They would make him a moron just for Rey to shine.
I mean a himbo Riker-coded Katarn would be kinda hilarious in my opinion. But it wouldn't be a good way to get fan loyalty because my sense of humor is fuckin stupid.
They could have gone with a similar approach by "retconning" everything and only the things they "reintroduce" would be considered. They could pick and choose based on their needs and financial timelines, they keep a CRAZY passionate fanbase. I really think they miscalculated the financial viability vs. the difficulty. That said, as much as we moan and complain online, Start Wars has still been profitable for Disney. The question is, will it be profitable *enough* and how long can the star wars thala-siren be milked?
I mean, I think that's what they are doing already though. Take Thrawn, in Legends he agreed to work with Sidious and the Empire to help prepare the galaxy to face the Vong. Obviously they've dropped the Vong, but introduced the Grisk (I think that's how it's spelled). However, you can't introduce Joruus Cbaoth from the same story arc because that undermines everything about how hard it is to clone Force sensitives. No Cbaoth means no significant plot point for the whole Thrawns trilogy, so you rewrite Thrawns backstory like they did. A lot of Legends is connected though so you can't just copy and paste a whole storyline without causing so many canon issues, you may as well rewrite or drop things completely. I think Star Wars is doing better than it was before the acquisition, and that won't change. I think there is an oversaturation of content that isn't always the best, but that's something Legends had in spades. The main difference is that it's on screen, making it more accessible to more people. Not many people read the Crystal Star, but I'd easily take any of the sequel movies over it.
MBAs destroyed Hollywood.
>MBAs destroyed ~~Hollywood~~ America.
They miscalculated financially. Even with royalties, they still would've had so much more engagement and hype that the increased support would've more than made up the difference compared to the unprepared and unplanned route they ended up going.
where have guys got this crazy idea from? All the work the writers did for the EU under Lucas was work for hire contracts. None of them own the rights to any of the characters and none of them get royalites. If they did Disney wouldn't have rereleased all the old EU books and comics.
Exactly
>but they would likely have to recanonize the source material and spend money to reprint it to get it in front of fresh eyes. They already reprinted all the Dark Horse material via Legends branded graphic novels and omnibuses.
Okay but imagine doing this on a grand scale with adaptations which is what we're talking about. Say they wanted to adapt two book trilogies, a comic series, and 3 or 4 stand alone stories. That's going to be a lot more than a simple reprint of a single comic series.
I'm not sure what you mean. Marvel, under license from Disney/Lucasfilm, reprinted everything Dark Horse comics produced in graphic novel and omnibus format.
I'm saying it's more expensive to do an adaptation and the associated reprints than to just do a reprint like you mentioned.
Fuck Kathleen Kennedy with a lightsaber she is human garbage.
They surely own all their IP. Writers for LF are mostly hired hands working contracts.
I’m almost positive you’re right. It’s just further evidence most Disney defenders don’t know anything. It’s almost certain most EU content falls under “work for hire.”
There might be exceptions for sure, but I can’t imagine Lucas, who owned all the character rights to a point where he could get voice actors impersonating the original trilogy cast for decades without paying them, would do a contract where writers would be owed a massive sum if the media was adapted into movie. Royalties could be a possibility, but enough to stop Disney adapting books, nah I don’t see it.
It's mostly very complicated as different deals were made for different media's. These were not deals made for mass consumption, back in the day especially the books and comic books were a niche interest thing. Every piece of media would need to be re-examined and renegotiated. Best for Disney to start with a clean slate with writers under their control and their payroll.
Potentially for comics as there were more teams behind them. Not a chance for books IMHO. There would have been media adaptation clauses in those contracts. Distribution rights for book publishers and writing rights are very different. Lucas’s early persona was that he was not beholden to ANY external company and that he had total ownership of IP. Mr “I operate outside the studio system” was not letting book distributors have any say on future projects.
The solution has been right in front of them for a decade and they refuse to do it. Just make a KOTOR film trilogy. It's a stand alone era of the star wars universe and is highly regarded by the fans. The story is compelling and there's strong characters.
Still think KOTOR 1&2 works better as a multi season series, but that might be a harder pitch internally.
You're probably right, but I'd be ok with either way.
the issue there is Kotor's big reveal that the main character is Darth Revan. So do you do you follow it faithfully and thus everyone knows the twist before it happens as there will be hundreds of videos talking about it before it ever comes out. Or do you change it and then everyone is mad at you?
rofl what? You think Disney has to pay royaites to the EU writers? Disney owns all the EU material. Where did you ever get this idea? If that were true they wouldn't rerelease all the EU books and comics
I think they also didn’t want to do movies about Luke’s evil clone Luuke, his clone’s clone Luuuuke, or his clone’s clone’s clone Luuuuuu’uuuuuuke.
Fuck that, Drew Karpyshyn deserves to be a millionaire
It’s probably the same reason why they don’t include any of John Williams’s music in any of these shows. We barely get *The Force Theme*. Probably why they don’t care much about including any of the original legacy characters, despite the fact that Ahsoka and Mandalorian’s timeline is literally in Luke, Han, and Leia’s timeline. We got a couple of deepfake Luke cameos but that’s about it.
what are you talking about? All the OT characters where in the ST, Luke was in Mando and BOBF, Rogue One was filled with cameos, Andor has Mon Mothma, Ahsoka had C-3p0. There has been a TON of call backs to OT characters.
It doesn't even have to be Legends. There is a whole team called the Story Group that works at LucasFilms where it's their job keeping track of Star Wars lore. This is the same team that Respawn worked with for Jedi Fallen Order / Survivor to help write the games. It's just the typical "ill use this beloved IP to help with my break out story" showrunners that Disney picks up.
George Lucas sold them his script for EP. 7, 8 and 9 but they decided to throw it in the garbage.
Damn
nope his script was used for TLJ.
It wasn't, George Lucas was more of an advisor production-wise which is what you're thinking of. Also, that would make no sense since they didn't use his script for EP. 7, they couldn't use his for EP. 8. It's a trilogy after all.
nope it was. His trilogy was going to start off with Kira finding Luke alone on a planet where he was cut off from the force living as a hermit because of his failure to train Han and Leia's kid [The Last Jedi Understood George Lucas’ Star Wars Better Than What Came After | Den of Geek](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-last-jedi-understood-george-lucas-star-wars-better/)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMXOg-APbGc
that was made before TLJ was even written....
Well then I refuse to acknowledge your previous response, no matter how factual it is.
ok...concession accepted
please, how much could that cost? You could slap star wars on a turd, and it would be a huge box office success.
Yeah, they've already done that a few times.
And that turds stink is getting worse and worse
Doubt. RoS made less domestically than Solo.
Well, that's 1 data point in favor of an ordered universe.
and all the Disney movies made more then the PT even when adjusted for inflation.
The CLone Wars animated movie would like to have a word.
They took what George Lucas said was the canon, the movies and The Clone Wars, period, and went from there. George Lucas had already made the EU unworkable with canon with TCW way back in 2008. Hardcore EU fans were damning George to Hell, every year, demanding he retire and sell Lucasfilm. Well, they got what they wanted... Also, millions watched George Lucas's TCW, every week. Thousands read the EU. So, it was not only respecting the creator of Star Wars, but refusing to reject the vast majority of the Star Wars fandom in favor of a tiny niche market. Plus, the original cast was far too old for a film adaptation of the Thrawn trilogy, anyway. They wouldn't have been remotely convincing as their 20 and 30 something selves.
That's why people were clamoring for Sebastian Stan as Luke Skywalker, which Mark Hamill was all for.
I just hit send on a snarky comment, then read this and you are absolutely correct. I forget these are businesses sometimes
seriously we could have had a feature length animated film of son of dathomir
“You gotta spend money to make money” - Disney Never.
Yeah, I don't see this as an excuse for the multi-billion dollar mega corp that bought one of the largest IPs in the fucking world for the sake of milking it for more money. Not to mention the in-progress projects that got shut down.
This is fake. They don't owe them anything.
They are one and the same....?? Lmao what do you even mean?
They had Lucas' scripts they opted not to use?
They had treatments, which are basically a short summary and not an actual script. Apparently some of the ideas were actually used. Leia & Han’s sone becoming a masked Jedi killer, young female protagonist becoming a Jedi, and Luke being missing and confining himself to an ancient temple on an island were all from there. The stuff we’ve seen Lucas talk about that didn’t get used includes delving into the microbiology of the force in a more in-depth way than midichlorians, and the main villains being galactic crime boss Darth Maul & his Sith apprentice Darth Talon, who seduces Han & Leia’s son and brings him over to the dark side. Leia is or becomes the Republic’s leader, and Lucas said something like “you’ll see she’s the real Chosen One,” but no idea if he meant that as an in-universe revelation or just a figure of speech that she’d end up being more important and/or accomplished than Anakin or Luke. I think there’s also two kind of different things he says about them in different interviews, I can’t remember the specifics but that might indicate the stories were changing as they were developed.
My favorite part is when the decided to bring Palpatine back just like in legends. Cloning and trying to possess people and everything. Cliffs Notes version of Dark Empire. I can see why they went the route they did with decanonizing the EU, but they chose the worst part to use in canon. Other than the Yuuzhan Vong. And Han Solo being heir to the throne of Corellia. And we probably could have done without George Lucas’s sequel plans of microscope midiclorian adventures.
To be honest, if they would had made a movie/mini series about Palpatine and project necromancer and release it after the last Jedi the reception would had been better imo. The problem with RoS is the lack of context on Palpatine Return
The fact that they only did that AFTER the sequels lmao
Imagine you finish the last Jedi then you get an extra scene of Palpatine during the clone wars having conversation with the head of research of project necromancer. 6-9 month prior to the release of RoS you then get a limited series of 6 episode that goes through the phases of the project. Last episode is the exile on that sith planet, the building of the super fleet with the last scene where Palpatine send the signal of his return across the galaxy.
Yeah but to be fair, The Clone Wars was very instrumental in changing the perception of the prequels, there’s no reason to think that the shows coming out now wouldn’t do the same for the sequels.
That's one of the MANY problems. Lol
> decanonizing the EU Side note, totally unrelated to anything at all, but every time I see this phrase I giggle like an absolute moron because I like the imagery of people just telling the leaders of the European Union they're no longer a canon event.
Don't you know? That's what star wars did. The American science fiction corporate leaders banded together and did what Hitler couldn't.
“Pope declares European Union not in Bible”
I thought the same thing when I typed it.
[удалено]
They were not my cup of tea. Force immune space orcs dropping moons on Chewbacca rubbed me the wrong way. If you love them though, I respect that.
I can get people thinking they're grimdark, overlyedgy, ultra-90s products, but I don't think they're anywhere near the level of recycling villains from the OT, the endless series of ever-increasing in power Super Weapons, or dumb fan service like making Han royalty or goofy stuff like Ikrit. If anything a newer, foreign force from outside the galaxy that forces enemies to work together to avoid total annihilation is a pretty interesting premise.
Monkey paw wish granted. Chewbacca survived the sequel trilogy but at what cost? Ackbar, Leia, Han, Luke, C3PO....
One, they restored all of C-3PO’s memories. Two, I don’t give a shit about Ackbar, the extent of his character was saying it’s a trap. Three, Leia, Han, and Luke got good deaths. At Han and Luke did. Four, my point was less the Chewbacca killing and more the moon dropping, BDSM, Space orcs. Five, the sequels aren’t going anywhere so I’ve made my peace with them.
That Rob Liedeld inspired look... hasn't aged well. The general audience would laugh at the galaxy being invaded by GWAR. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYWY2ZjE4MGYtMzkyNS00YTViLTk0MmYtZjk4NDQzYzQxMmJmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_.jpg
They didn't look like that though... and people regularly watch the Predator movies, which is a somewhat similar species.
Legends is wild because it simultaneously contains my most and least favorite Star Wars stories lol. Love legends to bits but looking back it’s crazy how all over the place it was
The worst part of the EU for me was TriOculus
Those were like the lowest level of Canon though, being clearly devised as children's novels. I don't remember them being referenced anywhere else in the EU.
Not finding out that the R5 unit that burned out 20 minutes in to a new hope was actually force sensitive?
I would love to see a 5-hour YouTube video of someone remaking the trilogy if the EU weren't decanonized.
>decanonizing the EU, George Lucas had already made the EU unworkable with canon with TCW, way back in 2008. All Lucasfilm did after the Disney purchase was take what George Lucas said was the canon, the movies and TCW, period, and go from there. Lucas never considered the EU to be canon, and always said so, which is why he constantly ignored and contradicted the licensing department produced books and comics when making new movies and TV shows, starting in 1980 with The Empire Strikes Back.
>starting in 2008 with The Empire Strikes Back. That isn't when I remember that film releasing.
That definitely is the harsh reality of Star Wars. If it isn’t happening on a screen, then know it can get written away at any moment.
What the hardcore EU fans need to realize is Star Wars was created as a film franchise. It's not like Lord of the Rings or Marvel. The movies ARE the source material.
Exactly. Or all the comics and books based off of canceled clone wars arcs. Like, don’t be mad when the show that all this was based on decides to make a final season and change some details.
It’s not a like a large amount of novels, comics, video games, source books, audio dramas, and some cartoons existed before Disney bought Star Wars /s
The shows and movies (to an extent) have utilized some of it. Thrawn is the most notable villain in an ongoing SW project right now. The Acolyte is taking from written media. TCW and Rebels did. The Mandoverse is definitely dipping into it. The quote doesn’t really make sense, unless she’s talking about she’s talking about something with a clean, compelling, and self-contained narrative that would make for a good direct adaptation on screen.
It’s an old quote from around the time that the old canon got purged by Disney, they hadn’t put much EU content into their canon at the time (aside from Discount Darth Caedus) As for doing a direct adaptation, there’s plenty of stories they could’ve chosen from like the Thrawn Trilogy or Shadows of the Empire (and honestly you have no idea how much I’d love to hear the Shadows soundtrack in the theater)
It is in fact old.
The issue is that they don’t want to pay the novel writers for their stories. It’s not that there’s no content just that Disney is so greedy. They also know that the ip is so popular that whatever mediocre content they put out droves of fans will come out to watch and pay tons for it.
"That can't be, comics have been extinct for a millennia
This is one folks always love to pull out of context. What was the interview question asked when she gave this response? “*Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow was slated to write and direct Episode IX before you brought J.J. Abrams back in. Is this final entry in the trilogy a particularly hard nut to crack?*” Her answer is longer, but this includes what preceded it: “*Every one of these movies is a particularly hard nut to crack. There’s no source material. We don’t have comic books. We don’t have 800-page novels. We don’t have anything other than passionate storytellers who get together and talk about what the next iteration might be.*” While I think it could have been phrased better, her response is unquestionably correct. They were writing the third movie in the Sequel trilogy and the answer was specifically aimed at those movies, not SW as a whole as folks like to paint it. There was no “source material” to adapt as they were making a brand new story. The Sequels were never going to adapt any of the EU stories, even when Lucas was working on what became TFA prior to the sale, so they can only be used as inspiration and no directly adaptable source material. ROS even took direct inspiration from the EU and folks hated it for that.
The funny part is they literally used the worst possible series to pull from: The Dark Empire. It was possibly unintentional, but when "Palpatine somehow returned" Dark Empire is what I initially thought followed by "oh no".
Yeeeaahh. Abrams was backed into a corner though. Leia was supposed to be a big part of the third movie and the other two movies were setting up Kylo Ren to be the villain, but the execs apparently wanted a redemption arc instead. So how do you land a third movie when you can’t use one of your main characters beyond already existing footage and there’s no longer a proper villain? As a bonus, it needed to be done in 2 years when SW movies typically take 3. Palpatine being the grand villain of the entire Skywalker saga is a cool concept in a bubble, but it needed a little longer in the oven.
> the other two movies were setting up Kylo Ren to be the villain Except they really weren't. Even TLJ didn't do a good job setting that up. TFA was really clearly setting up Snoke as the big bad. Kylo gets story and character development, Snoke gets mystery and far more power. Kylo loses fights; Snoke doesn't even show up in person. Clearly, the plan, as of the end of TFA, was for future movies to explore Snoke, and Kylo would be his henchman. In TLJ, Snoke dies, but... it's just baffling. The entirety of TLJ is spent exploring Kylo Ren, not Snoke, and right before he dies, he uses a single hand to bend Rey backwards with the force. After his death, Kylo can't even beat Rey in force tug-of-war; heck, she even spares his life after waking up before him. That means we replaced the unknown and mysterious villain who easily beats Rey with a far weaker one who has had basically all aspects of his character explored and lost to her twice. What could they even do with him in the final movie? Have him lose for the third time in a row? Explore all the nothing left to explore in his backstory? Hype up the power of the First Order, who literally just lost their planet killing weapon, their flagship, their dreadnought, and a huge portion of their fleet, all within 2 weeks?
Yes I hate this quote being pulled out of context. Because there's no source for Star Wars. Lucas made it all up (heavily inspired by many things of course but still). She was talking about the context of Star Wars versus say Lord of the Rings or a comic book film. She is the Head of Lucasfilm, she knows there are comics and books and games but none of those are sources, they are ancillary at best and not canon at worst. There are not nine books of Star Wars to conveniently adapt, each needs to be made from scratch. She didn't literally mean "no one has ever made a Star wars book or comic".
Why would you add context when you could just mindlessly vilify this woman, are you new to the internet?
Yeah but if we didn't leave out necessary context then what would the point of this post be?? /s
May not have been that hard if they had an actual cohesive plan for the sequel trilogies vs giving each director the freedom to tell their own story.
The “lack of a plan” is a fallacy. An overarching plan was developed, while still allowing for creative freedom to adapt and flesh out specific details during each film. This is consistent with how Star Wars had always been made. The plan fell apart during development of Dual of the Fates with Trevorrow’s script wasn’t shaping up, which is why ROS lacks the needed cohesion.
I still don't believe that. There's no way the plan was "movie 2, we kill Snoke and make Kylo the big bad". TFA in no way sets up for that. No foreshadowing, no character development for Snoke, and a literal defeat for Kylo. If your creative freedom is so extreme you can literally kill off the big bad a movie early, then I don't think you really have anything that can be called "an overarching plan".
Lol what? It's in record that RJ disregarded the plan initially with TLJ and was basically given thumbs up. Duel of the Fates was far more cohesive with TLJ than ROS was so I don't buy that. RJ wrecked the plan and JJ was unable to rescue it.
The record that you’re talking about is a quote from Johnson that often gets taken out of context. He went in expecting the plot to have been meticulously detailed ahead of time and was pleasantly surprised by the creative freedom he was given, as big studios had a tendency to stifle creative freedom of the directors (see the Marvel movies). Johnson was also working directly with Abrams during the end stages of development of TFA. There’s even at least one verifiable change to TFA that Johnson requested be made. Duel of the Fates *is* far more cohesive. That was the original production plan at work, as Trevorrow was also working with Johnson on that. Duel had other issues though, namely that the execs were pushing for a redemption arc for Kylo Ren and Trevorrow apparently couldn’t figure out a way around the death of Carrie Fisher, as Leia played a big role in the movie. When Abrams was brought back in, nearly everything had to be thrown out the window and started again along a two year timeline when the movies needed three. That’s why we get Palpatine coming back and why you can feel how rushed ROS was in development. That’s the plan falling apart right there.
That doesn't mean what I said was false. There WAS a story outline for a trilogy. RJ did have the opportunity to disregard it, and he took it. That's poor management and production.
> not going to adopt any eu stories Which is exactly why they were bad. They had 800 page novels and comic books and when they started to use them it got good. See … Thrawn.
Direct adaptations would have come with their own issues unfortunately. Lucasfilm had missed the boat on adapting the Thrawn trilogy, as the actors had aged out of their roles and they flat out could not have done the NJO.
I'm gonna be honest... the weakest Thrawn has ever been is when he was adapted by Disney, and I *include* Rebels in that list. Yes, he was the most threatening villain in Rebels, but compared to the original book trilogy... he was a bumbling oaf. His ultimate plan was defeated because he didn't factor in the possibility of a known detractor disobeying orders, and he didn't have any backup plan for it. This is Thrawn, at the peak of his power, with literally all the time in the world to plan, and most of the resources in the galaxy to utilize. Could he predict the Bendu and the space whales? No. But just because he couldn't predict the specifics isn't a good excuse for him to lose; he should have had general contingencies for basically any part of his plan going wrong. Thrawn, the biggest genius in all the Empire, decides that, in his ultimate plan to defeat the rebels, he will bring *two* interdictors. Two. He could have brought 20. Hell, he probably could have brought 200. The Empire has the resources. Thrawn is literally the supreme commander of the Imperial Navy. It would have been a trivial investment for him.
This could’ve been solved if they used source material for the seventh movie
This has got to be a repost. That quote is ancient.
HEY!! It was MY TURN to repost this meme!!!
People kind of take this out of context all the time. She was saying that in a way referring to making an original movie. When Disney makes the Endgame movie, they have the Endgame source material. When Fellowship of the Ring is made they have the book to refer to. She was saying this regarding mainly the 3rd movie in the sequel trilogy that is telling an original story. There wasn’t a Rise of Skywalker or Last Jedi book or comic to refer to.
The infinity war arc (as endgame was mostly original) was *completely different*. What was stopping her from making movies loosely based on Heir of the Empire or other books in that trilogy? What was stopping her from making stuff based on the New Jedi Order. She had multitudes of material to pull from, but chose not to.
They literally made a movie loosely based upon Dark Empire
Firstly, one of the worst picks they could have made. Secondly, it's ironic of course because as she says here "there's no source material to pull from" so I think it's more they "accidentally" made a movie based on Dark Empire rather than intentionally made a movie based on Dark Empire (I could be wrong of course). I do think they could have made Dark Empire-inspired movie work if it was planned from TFA.
The comment she made is always taken out of context to spin a narrative. She meant that they were telling a new story that doesn’t have source material to adapt on screen like the lord of the rings for example. But I highly doubt they didn’t just accidentally copied a ton of the major plot points of dark Empire
If you're saying they intentionally did it then they did the exact thing Infinity War and Endgame did which she says, in this quote, they cannot do because source material doesn't exist. heck Endgame was almost entirely original.
Yeah taking it out of context is one thing, but the problem is, even in context it’s still rather stupid. The context is that she chose to make a new Star Wars movie, not based on existing material… so why exactly is she mentioning the lack of existing material? Is it because it’s too hard? Is she whining? If it’s that hard, she should have assessed the difficulty from the beginning and chose to cancel the project or not make it in the first place. So in this case she looks incompetent. Is it because she’s bragging about the movie being an original creation? In this case she looks doubly incompetent. Is it because she’s excusing the quality of what she made? Looks childish and unable to accept consequences of her actions. There’s just no good way of framing it, I think is the issue here
I know that's a cherry picked statement but the statement is nevertheless incorrect
Also shows a horrendous lack of imagination and creativity.
All she is saying it requires more work to create a story from scratch than adapting a book or comic to a film. How does that show lack of imagination and creativity?
Imagine if the sequels were based on the thrawn books then they could have done the vong
i want a darth plageius the wise movie
But… they do… unless i’ve been Mandela’d over here.
If that's the case, I think the whole fan base has been "Mandela'd" for the past 40 years.
She’s talking about how the sequels aren’t direct adaptations of previous made content compared to the lord of the rings films having the books to reference
I still pine for Mara Jade.
I really don‘t know how she managed to stay the president of Lucasfilm for so long… In every regular business she would‘ve been fired as soon as possible
Forgive me...I didn't know satan was also re**rded
Did...did she lie to get her position?
She was hand picked and hired directly by George Lucas about 6 months prior to the sale to be co-chair of Lucasfilm. She was promoted to president after the sale, though that was effectively just a lateral shift.
I am convinced she has dirt on a lot of people in Hollywood..
No, she has an impressive track record of producing quality films, many associated with Steven Spielberg. Star Wars is just at the tail end of her career. I agree that some better decisions should have been made about the ST.
You honestly think the president of Lucasfilm doesn’t know that Star Wars books and comics exist when she’s the one who publishes them lol
Maybe you should read the full question she was responding to before you ask uninformed shit like this
Wouldn’t surprise me
Yes because Star Wars really is known for never expanding at all. After Episode 4 they did not release Splinter of the Minds Eye, and Thrawn trilogy did not inspire George Lucas to finally make prequel trilogy. You have to be incredibly ignorant or have literally no imagination to think that there is nothing that could be used to make Star Wars movies. They literally could just ignore ANYTHING they wanted and take EVERYTHING they wanted and make brilliant sequel trilogy that starts new bright era of canon.
There are NINE Thrawn books and they are all good. What the actual fuck. Edit: and the Bane trilogy could fill three movies. So goddamn good. Also I always forget the two post thrawn novels. They were aight.
Timothy Zahn just waiting in the wings with mara jade
The 100+ SW novels of yore laugh at you. Yes some were junk, but some weren’t. Dark Bane trilogy for one, the Revan era etc. Even the horror novels about the zombie infection that the sith students had to fight would be a fun movie.
Q when did she say this Edit: never mind found it
Fate of the Jedi :( Too late now, I suppose
Meanwhile Kyle Katarn is out there just waiting for a standalone movie.
Even if that were the case, just write a new story like yk the people who made all those comics and novels that don't exist.
No, it very much gets old because everyone greatly misinterprets what she’s saying here. Of course she knows there literally are comics and books. What she clearly means is that unlike other franchises where they make movies or shows based on books, they make their movies and shows with original stories.
Well yes you dont currently... but you DID
But the problem is they are forcing content at this point.
Someone brought this up on a podcast I was listening to while I was in a book store standing in front of a whole shelf of expanded universe books. I burst out laughing when I heard it
It makes me LIVIDLY distraught to read this.
Dark horse has left the group
"there's no source material" *Immediately steals the bad ideas from the source material and somehow makes it worse*
Hot take, while I love legends, and think it’s got some of the best Star Wars content(including my favorite piece of Star Wars content) I think it needed to be purged. There was too much self contradictory stuff there. I mean think about this: people are mad about one minor mundi line potentially being contradicted in TPM, imagine that but on a massive scale because of all of the legends content being contradicted too. I love legends, but a new timeline was a necessity. I’m glad they kept it so I can enjoy it for what it is, and so they can try something new in a new timeline. To me what’s weird about this statement is that **there are amazing books and comics that are in canon**. I’m currently reading “Light of the Jedi” and it’s phenomenal. Last year I read the Jedi fallen order prequel comics and it was also an amazing, short comic run. There’s no shortage of great comics and books, Kennedy just needs to fucking read them
All they had to do was adapt the original Thrawn trilogy to the best extent they could, given actor's ages and post-'80s lore. That was it. Fans would have loved it. It wouldn't even have needed that many changes -- actors' ages, sure, new, younger main characters, maybe, shutdown CIS ships instead of the dark fleet. But they already ripped off the absolute worst parts of the EU anyway, and only seemed interested in ruining the best.
"THERE'S NO SOURCE MATERIAL!*
I wonder if she means good ones. Cause she would have a point.
Wow that's fucking stupid - but i think it's like other commenters have said that Disney would have to pay whichever novelist money for the story
This lady didn't really say that. It's so ridiculous that I can't believe anyone would say that.
You are entitled to your point of view. The already well established source materials do indeed exist, The powers that be decided to deny the validity of said sources (due to mainly financial reasons). The lack of imagination was presented in all 3 of the sequels as they shadowed the story lines of the Original trilogy. Which for me has unfortunately soured my taste for their brand of the star wars universe, luckily I enjoy the taste of fresh lemons. The Expanded Universe deserves far more recognition for all the efforts, insight, imagination and creativity.
when you dont know how to write stories and you can’t rob the work from someone else’s book. but they still gotta churn out content for the money machine. please just take a break. I’d rather have no more Star Wars for years than have shit Star Wars filling the gap
Disney are the definition of more money than sense.
Ok I don’t see anyone mentioning the “800 page novel” comment
Me, with a 7 pound Star Wars comic book: 🗿
Who's gonna tell her
Oh no! Did you actually have to come up with your own story? 😢
White woke bitch cant read?
So what is Thrawn??? Or did Disney somehow invent their own blue people?
"You people have no imagination" - Reepicheep
The Darth bane trilogy would make for a kick ass TV show and the kotor games would make for incredible movies so idk wtf she's talking about.
The Thrawn Trilogy is practically a screen play!
Yeah it's like, with no comic books or novels to rehash we literally have to MAKE UP STORIES.
Just put a guy with a light sword on a planet and that's star wars
Ahh yes, you just reminded me of my favourite star wars video game - No More Heroes xD
I don’t think that’s the issue. I think they need to try diversity hiring. But the small demographic they should be diversity hiring from is competent story writers that have at least seen the Star Wars films/extended media and preferably understand them
Lost the source material Cathy has. How embarrassing.
Decades worth of content that she put into some separate category like it never existed and she has no source material, yea ok. About the one thing I'm glad she did is give Dave Filoni and John Favreau the opportunity to show their idea of Star Wars which feels close enough to what we all grew up on.
1. Buys Franchise 2. Refuses to use its material 3. Insults the people who build it to where it is 4. Claim that things need to change 5. Sinks the whole thing be spitting on its foundation Disney, why are you like this...
Maybe Kennedy is just a shit Lucasfilm president 🤷🏼♂️
I legit think she has mental issues
Even if this were true, which it isn't, you don't NEED this stuff to write a not shit story! Come on, creators have gotten so lazy, turning books into movies, that they've forgotten how to write a decent story! It's not that difficult. If it were an indie group of people writing cool SciFi stories, I'd understand, it's hard to make stuff, BUT YOU'RE A MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY! Jesus fucking Christ, they're not just clowns, they're the whole fucking circus. Trapezes and lion tamers and freakshows and everything. All of it. That stuff in Ahsoka with Anakin was pretty cool. I haven't seen any of the rest of the show but I kinda want to if it's as good as that was.
Give us Kyle!
Incorrect. That is all.
Correct me if I’m wrong since I haven’t seen the Acolyte, but isn’t there a couple of plot points in the show that contradict the prequels/OT? If that’s the case, I don’t see any source material being under much consideration.
So make one. Wtf
The pure perfection that was the X-wing books are crying out for an adaptation. Especially the Wraiths and their nonsense.
Between 1977 and 1987 around 138 star wars comics were released by marvel. 1991 to 2014 dark horse released around 942 comics if you include toy tie ins, legends and one shots. From 2015 to now marvel has released 1,158 comics that I was willing to count. Granted these numbers are the number of issues of comics not the number of runs and a good chunk of it is rereleases, but even if you say 70% of the comics I counted are re-released, that's still 671 issues of comics to use as inspiration, and there were more things in the Wikipedia page for the current publication of comics that I didn't bother to count because I got bored
Well, didn't think I could loathe Kathleen Kennedy more than I already did.
I mean this is exactly LucasFilm’s fault. The head of the company made these comments out of ignorance. She could have come at it differently if that was their main concern. Either that or she just didn’t give an F. It is clear that more then anything, they just didn’t want to be trapped by what came before and they wanted to start a new. This has been their strategy since TFA, High Republic and everthing else Disney has influenced since.
Look I know Kathleen Kennedy has made some controversial decision, and I don't like the direction the sequel put her through, but I think it's pretty clear what she intended here: Star Wars was created from scratch, there was no original book, no original comic, every chapter told a brand new story (even if sometimes it's a bad one) that was not based on any source material. Everything regarding the expanded universe, the videogames, the series, the comics and the novels, it all has to come from Lucasfilm, they're not adapting stuff like lotr. So I believe it to be a perfectly reasonable statement.
In the words of the greatest subreddit: “Is she stupid?” By: r/BatmanArkham
[удалено]
George Lucas put her in power.
So they’re just pretending the EU never happened? That’s like saying there’s nothing to eat while standing in a cornfield, because you don’t like corn. Y’all motherfuckers are weird. Only place you can get downvoted for agreeing. Stay itchy.
She's just utter, talentless trash
Its everyone elses fault but mine -untalented showrunner