Lit Should Mara Jade exist in the nu Continuity?

Assuming that Luke is Rey's dad and that there was a mother figure out there as well at one point I just think things are so drastically different from the EU by now that there would be little point in incorporating Mara Jade into the story because she would be a totally different character anyways.

We know that Luke was off on his own doing his Jedi training thing as early as the Aftermath trilogy. And we also know that by the time of TFA this potential mother/wife figure had had little to no contact with Han and Leia, had a daughter that was kidnapped about the age of 5, and was likely already dead.

By this time what would be the point of giving Luke's wife from the new canon the same name of the wife he had in the EU who became a Jedi and fought in a war?

In my opinion if they are going to bring back any of the EU created Skywalker/Solo characters it should be Jaina. If they have Rey have a daughter and give her the name Jaina she could have a fairly similar story to the EU Jaina in that she had strong lineage ties to the Skywalker/Solo families and she would grow up to become one of the first great heroes of the New Jedi Order.

 

I'd love a reinterpreted Mara. They really could keep a lot of the core that made Mara, Mara. She wouldn't even need to marry look for it to work.

That being said, so far, they have done a really poor job of reintroducing canon characters. Vos is one of my favorite EU characters. But NEU Vos is just...a totally different character I don't like. I don't actively dislike NEU Thrawn. He is just so extremely unremarkable.

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Luke Skywalker had a dozen or so girlfriends in the EU.

Mara Jade as someone he was briefly involved with doesn't necessitate a massive change to canon and would be a nice nod even if they go their separate ways.

Albeit, making her effectively the Callista of the series.

You're probably not going to like this but isn't canon Jaina....Rey?

I mean, Rey is a badass female pilot/Jedi/mechanic with a close relationship with the new whiny Dark Lord of the Sith/Son of Han and Leia. She also had a close family-like relationship with Han and Leia for the brief time she knew/knows them.

They even look alike.

Of course, my opinion on the canon First Order and new characters is they basically are a broad strokes version of Legends continuity so far.

 

No I don't think the development of Rey was in anyway influenced by Jaina. The people who developed the character likely never even read the EU books anyway.

The opinion that the ST trilogy has been/and will be in the future heavily influenced by the EU was just something that was concocted by die hard EU fans so they could feel that their story was so good that the ST had to copy it.

In reality the ST was just heavily influenced by the OT. It only seems similar to the EU in some ways because LOTF was heavily influenced by the OT as well.


Edit.......

http://movieweb.com/star-wars-movies-tv-shows-mara-jade-wont-return/

Found this article and it looks like Mara Jade will indeed be kept strictly a legend.

 

LOL that article still is holding onto that Garris Shrike nonsense.

 

Yeah are they referring to the character that Woody Harrelson is playing who is supposedly a mentor to Han?

 

I really feel if they were going to decanonize the EU they should have left it and its denizens in peace. I really really don't want it strip mined.

 

Yeah and I don't think anyone but you feels the Legends is some sacred temple Indiana Jones is robbing. Then again, I see canon as a viable alternate universe and you....don't.

 

The only thing worse than seeing "Canon" continue to exist is seeing it ruin elements of the EU. Either give us stories featuring the true EU Mara, or give us nothing at all. I don't want to see some twisted Mara reboot anytime soon.

 

I agree as far as strong female characters go---we have (besides Leia) Rey, Jyn, etc. I could obviously go on to include the Rebels cast and so on. Adding her would nothing but a plus IF done well godisawesome said.

 

Canon can't affect anything in Legends because Legends is over and actually got not one but two Grand Finales.

 

I meant "ruin" it for the fans, as in younger fans only being aware of Disney's Thrawn, and not the original. Also two finales? Pardon me if I'm being stupid, but I don't remember two finales. I'd sure like to know.

 

The Crucible ending Luke, Leia, and Han's career.

Ania Solo destroying the last of the Sith.

 

Perhaps some form of her. It'd be interesting to see a passing fancy for Luke, and add fuel to the Rey Skywalker fire.

 

Well, Rey either is or isn't and we're going to find out this year.

 

What if Mara is Rey's mother, but the father is Luuke? I mean, if someone found the light saber they might have found the hand...


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I'd argue that aside from fans who are really interested in the storyline and dig into the history a bit (and I don't mean that in a sense of them somehow being 'better' fans than others in any way) as the new canon develops and new fans develop an interest they wouldn't necessarily be aware of "original" Thrawn anyway, its not like Disney would advertise Heir to the Empire for them. As time passes the Disney era will be Star Wars for new fans I guess in the same way some people couldn't get on with the prequels because it was so different from the OT which for them was Star Wars in its entirety for so long. I don't think that necessarily ruins things for anyone, as long as people enjoy the stories, new, old or both where's the harm?

I mean in this case I enjoy both legends and the new material, two separate sets of stories for me to enjoy in a universe I love. Elsewhere for example I think the recent Star Trek reboot movies are awful but that doesn't mean I enjoy the older movies or TV series less somehow because those new movies exist and reuse the characters.

 

Thanks. I sure wish the latter had more time to develop; Those last issues felt so rushed. Disney happens!

 

Simply because Ren is more well known and hence popular doesn't mean in the slightest he's a superior character to Jacen.

Jacen has a detailed backstory, compelling characterization, and a good story to boot.

Kylo(for me at least) will always be a pale imitation of a much superior character.

 

I don't see the point. Mara Jade is a character who existed in the EU. She was an assassin for the Emperor who hated Luke yet had sexual tension with him but, between his kindness and her time with Talon Karrde, she mellowed and became a better person and eventually married Luke and became a Jedi Knight. That's all pretty cool. But if you import that character wholesale, she doesn't really fit with the established setting. Luke ran and hid, so where is she? If their relationship didn't last long, that doesn't give them time for the long thaw that characterized their relationship and just turns it into this cliche thing where Luke falls for a bad girl and redeems her quickly. And it's just . . . that story's already been done. It was great. But it's been done. Why would you want to get it all over again? Shouldn't a new continuity take advantage of the opportunity to do something different? And if they do something different, why assign the same name to Luke's love interest? Just to do it? Let a different character be a different character. Let her stand on her own, have her own personality and background, do something fresh. And if you just want to bring her back as some kind of Rebellion-era cameo based off her backstory, why? If you want to have the Emperor's personal assassin show up, make a new character with a new name so you can do something interesting without that baggage. Give that character a chance to develop in her own direction without the expectations that come from the character's EU arc, that she would be redeemed, be not that bad, be a romantic interest for Luke. Maybe it would be better if the Emperor's assassin were allowed to be genuinely villainous, make a good antagonist. But then would Mara fans complain? Would fans complain that this isn't their Mara? Just make her a different character.

I think people really misunderstand the comic book comparison. Comic books have been ongoing for decades. They're based around a storytelling model in which the core elements are the characters and the basic premise. Batman fights the Joker for eighty years in an infinite present. Peter Parker will never get gray hair. There's a reason that adaptations keep going back to their origin stories -- the origin stories are the only actual stories that really matter. Everything after that is just repeating the basic premise indefinitely. There's a reason that most heroes, in fifty-plus years of existence, only have about five or so storylines that are really important to the character and fans see as crucial, these often being ones that have a significant impact on the basic premise of the comic. So comics, and their adaptations, are all about finding new ways to play with the same set of characters and the same premise. This time we'll emphasize this, this time we'll do that, this time we'll reconfigure the origin story this way, this time that supporting character will be different this way.

Star Wars isn't a comic book. Luke, Han, and Leia haven't spent forty years in an endless present, fighting Darth Vader in a chronologically flexible Galactic Civil War. We haven't spent forty years getting "new takes" on various different Luke Skywalker origin stories. We haven't gotten new versions of Darth Vader for each adaptation. Star Wars is one movie series, with spinoff books and games and all that, that tell a story. A story that moves forward, that goes through distinct events. A story that's important, not just an excuse to rehash the same premise. Many of the stories don't even feature the main characters, many are set far in the past. All the stories have moved the characters forward through time, and constantly shifted the status quo. Villains get defeated for good, and new ones get introduced. It's not about constantly reiterating a defined cast of characters through an effectively fixed premise -- it's about telling stories that move a fluid cast of characters through a defined chronology. That doesn't lend itself to rebooting different versions of characters.

Now, yes, there's been one reset button pushed. But that doesn't alter the fundamental way the storytelling universe works, which is that the stories move through time, that new stories are more important than keeping the same premise, and as a consequence of not being premise-dependent, the cast isn't locked in. The movie cast, yes, because the movies were kept, but the ST wasn't about finding a new way to tell the NJO, about a new Jaina and Jacen and Anakin and Kyp. Rogue One wasn't about doing a new adaptation of the Kyle Katarn story. New stories, new characters. It's not about redoing the same thing. It's not about new versions of the established things. It's about new things entirely. Doing the old thing over again misses the whole point of this kind of storytelling.

 

Unfortunately its more profitable to follow the comic book model.

 

Listen, I LOVE Jacen but the element which Ren immitates, which is Jacen falling to the Dark Side, is one which NEVER worked because Denning/Travis/Allston all had different ideas about the character. Ren, by virtue of being a character envisioned from the start from falling, will always have it over Jacen in terms of being the better Sith Lord. Jacen certainly has a much richer history as a character overall but give the guy time.

 

Havac I agree w/you regarding comics. As a comics fan for 20 years few stories are important and some that want to be fail, I just came off IvX and was EXTREMELY underwhelmed. With SW however the movies are the base point and everything else are tie-ins and spinoffs through which we can learn new events between movies (like in the SW comics series of C-3PO one-shot) or get new characters like the crew of the Ghost and R1 characters among others.