Lit CORRAN IS PRATT!? Mike Stackpole interview: EU Luke is "whiny", Isard's fate, & more

Theforce.net is hosting my Mike Stackpole. Read on for his Star Wars sequel trilogy hopes, that controversial moment in I, Jedi where Corran Horn lays the smackdown on Luke, and whether or not he thinks Isard actually died in the final chapters of Isard's Revenge.

 

Brilliant.

With that attitude, it makes it very easy to understand and let go.



Thanks for this, IG_2000.

 

Love the interview. I like how down to earth Stackpole is about everything, whilst simultaneously is so passionate.

And being a fan of Dune, I liked his analogy to MacLachlan having wanted to play the role from having read the book as a boy, which has me feeling the same as Stackpole, and hoping the actors in the ST are passionate about the roles. Which isn't saying they need to have read the novels and want their characters to be as popular as Jaina or Jacen were, but just that I always like when an actor obviously is enjoying their work, and not just doing it for the pay cheque.

 

It's always impressive to me just how little ego the Bantam-era writers seem to have had about their work. I always sort of thought of Stackpole as the worst in that regard, since his blowup with Del Ray has stuck so long, but here he seems to be just as humble about his work. It's nice to see.

Really interesting explanations for some writing decisions, too, like Loor's development being meant partially as a way to establish reader sympathies when Isard pulled the "you have failed me" card. Or where he was coming from where creating Corran. The part about wanting to avoid treating Corellians as a sci-fi monoculture is particularly interesting - and sort of ironic, since Corran actually furthered the development of Corellian stereotypes by still being a brash hotshot pilot even though he was on the side of the law.

On a more negative note, though, this does also sort of show off just how poor the Bantam era was with cohesiveness. He talks about setting up Luke's development in another case of his frequent collaborations with Zahn, but that collaboration comes at the cost of just dismissing and excluding everything in between as "Luke being whiny".

 

I've been hoping for this for so long, and it seems like such an obvious move in the wake of BSG and GoT doing so well. Surely something like this will get started as a counterpart to Rebels or its successor.
I'm dreaming of Whedon directing (hey, he's burnt out on blockbusters, AoS is soaring along fine, and I think he'd be better on the small screen than an Episode anyways) and these guys playing Janson and Hobbie.
(Ben Browder and Michael Shanks, respectively.)
I'm not the most tuned-in to social media myself, but we fans should push to get this out there.

 

Good to have some additional confirmation of this

 

I still wish the Clone Wars had lasted ten years....

 

I can just see him saying "Yub, yub, Commander," with that John Crichton grin.

 

Well, I think it's more of being wishy-washy about it. They should've either had a total blackout of the dates (they certainly enforced that on WEG) or had George actually commit to something... but we're talking about the guy who can't commit to something even after he's made it.

 

They're both just too perfect. Whenever I read Hobbie's lines, I hear Shanks' voice.
"...it's worse than that."
Most importantly, the group dynamic and actor chemistry in SG-1 is the closest thing to the Stackpole and Allston books that I've ever seen on screen. (Not to mention Browder's Jansonesque antics on Farscape.)
Now I'm just trying not to derail this into a fancasting thread by opining about Corran - but I bet anakinfansince1983 can guess who I'd cast as Isard (I'm sure she'd have great fun as a straight-up villain).

 

Well, I don't think he would've done it if they hadn't told him the Clone Wars was 'around x amount of years ago'. But I get your point.

 

Just pretend it does. I certainly do.

 

Well, there's definitely enough material for it to have.

 

"Plus, the great thing is that I really like writing politics"

I forgot this before the interview and regretted it later, but I would've liked to know how much he was (consciously, that is) drawing on real world politics, especially when it comes to the relationship between political alignments and identity politics (species-based tribalism in the books), because I think he and Allston might've gone farther than anyone in fleshing out that part of the universe. Which also goes some way towards explaining how people would choose their politics in the Galactic Civil War. Presumably, for a lot of people, being an Imperial is simply a matter of supporting Team Human, and being a Rebel is simply a matter of supporting Team (whatever species you are that's getting majorly crapped on). That's very often exactly how it's worked for a lot of people throughout history.

The reason I'd have asked about real world politics is that to me at least, Borsk Fey'lya, and by the NJO his entire faction of supporters, come off like a conservative's critique of "political correctness"/"reverse racism" taken to the max, with humans in the role of white people. Conversely, Isard and Krennel's conversation at the beginning of Isard's Revenge read like a liberal's critique of strategies designed to continue appealing to white racial anxieties in a post-Civil Rights Movement world. Might be reading too much into it because I tend to follow politics a lot, but as apparently he "likes writing politics..."

 

This is fun for me, because following a re-read of Truce at Bakura (I first read it when it first came out AGES ago, when I was a kid), I'm about to get into reading the X-Wing stuff for the first time. Reading the comics first, then will head into the novels. It may be old-and-done Legends, but it's all mostly brand spanking new to me. I get to experience this version of this part of the timeline in both Legends AND in the LSG version of Aftermath/Shattered Empire at basically the same time. Two divergent timelines covering the same era, both new to me.

Guys, it's super fun.

 

Awesome, hope you enjoy the x-wing books, I first read them when I was a kid, seems like a very long time ago now. Still among my favorite Star Wars stories, certainly got me into the EU. Likewise I'm excited about Aftermath and Shattered Empire and that time period in general.

Anyways, nice interview, thanks for posting IG 2000.

 

While I am emotionally destroyed that none of my own questions were asked, I really have issue with this

You get to Tim's Hand of Thrawn books, Luke thinks, "You know, Corran wasn't wrong. We've really got to lock this in." And Luke does.

Is Mike really saying it takes Luke 8 years to go gee maybe Corran was right !!!!!!!!!!

And what was Corran right about anyway, his actions in IJedi seemed to so stupid that it was more about Stackers showing how cool Corran was, more than anything else. Summed up by that ridiculous fight scene between Luke and Corran.

 

Lack of supervision of apprentices, leading to multiple Falls, springs to mind.

This is brought up in the Dark Tide duology: "In the end, it isn't even Kyp's fault. Mostly it's mine. You explained as much to me, remember?"

 

The German audio play of The Last Command has a few Janson lines in it, and they got the voice actor who regularly dubs Will Smith. Mind blown.