Lit The TT was never adaptable into movies, let's face it.

''Opponents'' to the new movies often point out that it would been so much better if they used the Thrawn Trilogy. The qualities of the book aside, the prequels made it utterly unfilmable.

Outside universe reasons :
A) Maybe if film in 1992 (ah) it would have been possible to hire the initial actors, but it was seriously stretching credibility already
B)The very well crafted Zahn narrative, especially the trademark double track, would have been extremely challenging (and costly), especially as he was not limiting himself to single biome worlds (granted, some worlds could have been cut, but the first movie would have required at the very least two low concept worlds (Myrk and Wayland), three ''high concept'' worlds (IE, costly to film), Kashhyk, Coruscant and Nklonn, plus Sluis Van…

Minor in-universe reasons
C) A key characterization kept in the current canon, that the Hutts are master criminals, is quietly contradicted by Zahn, who make of Karrde a reasonable and balanced criminal figure
D) Kashhhyk does not really look like in the movies (retconnable in ''it was a different area of the planet)
E) A lot of subtle hints show that the Imperial Navy was a much more ''grounded'' organization that it was shown later on, with Vader role for instance between downplayed

Major in-universe seasons (philosophical ones, shall we say)

F)The clones : the cloning technique, the clone madness, the clone masters, all of this is utterly incomptable with the Clone Wars. Of course it was retconned to be ANOTHER type of cloning, but, c'mon, viewers would have been insulted, deeply
G)The downplaying of the Force, while very well done, completely clash with was done in the future movies and other books. Mara Jade the space Black Widow who use sensibly the Force, the ''Muggle-empowering'' Ysalamaris, the fact that Jedis and their abilities are clonable…

 

Animated film, replacement voice actors as necessary, call it “Star Wars Legends: Heir to the Empire”, make sure all the marketing stresses that it’s completely non-canon. It could work.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I think a CGI one would have been fine.

And one made for Direct to DVD.

Mark Hamill would probably enjoy doing it. You could also modify it thussly:

1. The Clone Facility on Mount Tantiss would be Kamino themed.
2. Make Joruus C'boath actually a fallen Jedi Master rather than a clone. Maybe have Thrawn call him an Inquisitor at some point.
3. Have Thrawn make allusions to most of the Imperial Fleet being in the Unknown Regions and allude to the fact that's why he needs the Katana fleet.

 

I'm an opponent to "opponents of the new films", and this is still just silly. Nothing here sounds like a remotely insurmountable obstacle when it comes to an adaptation.

 

The clones is not only ''its the Spaarti process and not the Kaminoan one''. The process in the movies and in the trilogy are inconciliable, to the point that Spaarti cylinders would have been WAY cheaper and more efficient for the task at hand. Plus, if this was possible to clone Jedis, just clone them and let them loose on the actual Jedis.

 

Yes, you would change it for the movie.

 

Wait.

Is this an argument that anyone is still having?

Like, it just seems like someone from 2014 posted a "hot take" without reading the room.

 

I'm saying that if, for instance, you remove the cloning, you are removing a lot of the plot. You are removing the antagonist origin story, you are removing the final mission, you are removing the imperial wunderwaffen and you are removing Luuke and the plot device explaining why Mara Jade switched from wanting to kill Luke to want to play other ''lightsaber'' games with him.

 

Yes, people bring it like clockwork over TLJ.

 

Yeah, people bring up a lot of things.

But they haven't brought up this particular thing in this particular place in a very long time. And making an entire thread about it somewhere where people aren't saying it seems odd to say the least.

 

Certainly I've seen people stating that they prefer the novels to the ST, but an actual wish for them to override canon with film adaptions doesn't seem like a realistic or especially demanded thing.

But for sake of discussion, with any kind of book to screen adaptation there's always going to be changes. Of course the passage of time makes certain elements irreconcilable, mostly with the big three now being far older, but there's nothing in the prequels that especially makes the novels unfilmable.

1). You could alter the cloning aspect so that the new clone army was already at Wayland and have it be that they've been maturing/training right up to the point of events of the trilogy, handwave it to be Palpatine having one last ace up his sleeve.

2) Zahn himself has kind of made the cloning aspect of C'Baoth irrelevant when he introduced the original in Outbound Flight and had the character already be unstable and megalomaniacal. Have it be that version that survived would do the trick well enough.

3)You could probably do away with Luuke altogether and have Mara overcome Palpatine's manipulations another way. I say this as someone who adores the Thrawn Trilogy, but I've always found that whole part of Mara's arc to be a tad lazy. I think her own strength of character and her experiences with the real Luke could be enough to have her throw off Palpatine's programming.

 

I think people should also note IN-UNIVERSE that Thrawn use of the ysalamari is why they're dangerous.

They took a year normally.

So this is speeding them up anyway.

Also, Luuk didn't get his powers from being a clone. He gets all his powers from Joruus.

 

I don't get your "minor in-universe reasons" at all:
C) Are you somewhat implying that there shouldn't be crime bosses other than Hutts in the entire galaxy? Surely there's room for a wide array of criminals with their own moralities?
D) Even in canon, there is no contradiction. Kachirho (which we see in Episode III) is a coastal city, but inland cities like Rwookrrorro are built in the dense forest. This is not my persopnal theory, mind you, it's confirmed by official sources.
E) In this case, I must admit I don't follow where you're going.

 

There's really nothing here that would prevent an adaptation. I wonder if the problem in this "Legends should have been the new stories!" idea is that the idea of adapting -- changing! -- the Thrawn Trilogy is inconceivable to some. Would it be canon? Would it overwrite the books? Could it be classed as Legends if it didn't adhere strictly to Zahn's story?

 

It's not. But at the same time, as recently as yesterday in the "Do you like the new canon" thread, the idea that the reboot was unnecessary and that the ST could have somehow been made in such a way as to be in full continuity with the thirty-odd years and 100+ books and comic books worth of post-ROTJ EU storytelling was revived. Fans don't always factor "realistic" into the equation, unfortunately.

 

Bruh, Joruus should obviously be replaced with Quui-Gon/Qui-Goon in this scenario.

 

Now that would be one heck of a feat to see.

 

They had Thrawn get tangled in a chimaera onboard the Chimaera while screaming for Pelly. If they're willing to go that far, I'm sure they're going to do other zany things with Zahn's books.

We're looking at least one of three possible outcomes in relation to the old TT:

1) They continue to pick and choose random ideas and scenarios from the trilogy to incorporate in the new EU (something they are pursuing with gusto it seems).

2) Now that we have space/time bending portals and whatever, maybe we'll see cameo appearances or weird quasi-universes involving scenarios from the original TT. Ezra sort of wrecked it, but Thrawn did have a functional Gateway on the Chimaera. Who knows. This could be done any number of ways in the force, even without portals, like someone simply pulling an Infinity War Dr. Strange and seeing a bazillion scenarios into the future. (oooo that's a great setup for Thrawn witnessing TTT Thrawn's death and making a snippy comment on "It was so artistically done...")

3) Like others have said, they could actually do a quick Legends animation on the original trilogy. I don't think it's likely, but there's a market, there are upcoming anniversaries, and they clearly haven't dropped the Legends titles yet because they're still swamping the bookstores. I can see this done as a joke put up on the OS/Disney's Youtube channel someday.

 

I see two basic things getting in the way of it literally having been an exact alternative to the ST:
1) Obviously the original actors couldn't play those roles in 2015.
2) 3 novels have too much story in them to be adaptable verbatim into 3 films.

That said, otherwise I don't think that there are too many issues, especially with things like planetary biomes or the presence of clones, the latter of which could be adjusted to resemble prequel cloning inasmuch as it even matters to show anything about that in detail (I don't think that it matters much to the story). And Mara Jade isn't that much like Black Widow, aside from her red hair, is she?

The tricky bits are Luuke Skywalker and the Ysalamiri. The former is a wild card, but if the films threw out the "uu" naming convention, would it have been a bad thing to have a mad, deranged clone? Hard to say. For my money, that's the only really tough cookie to crack in making the TT filmable.

As far as the Ysalamiri, I think that they could be easily tweaked so that maybe instead of creating a void in the Force, they distort it somehow, like miniature disruptions. That makes them more dangerous and perhaps explains why they aren't everywhere, and allows them to be used as some form of protection against Jedi, but keeps the notion that the Force is everywhere.

 

I will try to explain what I meant by ''downplaying'' the Force. Zahn, in all his books, write as an author who is conscious that storylines about people able to jump around like Cirque du Soleil performers on PCP might get boring real fast. He thus have antagonists (Mara, Thrawn) using less the Force as a mystical fount of power than a tool.

Ysalamaris are the kryptonite of SW (and a far more credible than ''well, everyone just happen to have clothes laced with cortosis able to diffuse lightsaber blows, and even petty criminals mugging you have cortosis blades..) and their existence beyond a few books is a challenge to the EU : do you really think that when ''Force users of a different allegiance than mine are in power, let's take power'' is the numero uno geopolitical problem, no one but smuggler kingpin would have knowledge of something that negate completely the powers of those pesky acrobats ? (Ysalamaris are perfect for an Agents of S.H.I.E..L.D approach to the surnatural, and an oddity in a setting where, all in all, half the cast if not two third of the cast are Force users and/or mooks to get killed by the Force users)

 

The Prequels have kind of played with the Force as it's very useful but not gamebreaking now.

People can fight Jedi without the Force.

Just not WELL.

 

1. Make it non-canon. Star Wars' equivalent of the DCAU.
2. The clone thing is fixable. Have the "clone madness" be a symptom of cloning force users. If anyone could clone force users why wouldn't we see more of them? Because they come out of the tubes insane.

 

I don’t know, I may be alone here but I’m happy they are just books (and comics). I prefer them as such.

 

When people say they should have adapted the thrawn trilogy, they seem to be simply repeating what they've heard, and those books, which started the old canon, are the most well known. If they had really kept the old continuity intact, the sequels would have simply picked up where things were at in 2014. Luke is in his early-mid 60's(same as Mark Hamill) and about to retire. The "next generation" is dead or grown up, save Ben Skywalker, and it's time for new characters.

I wouldn't want them to go back and reinterpret the thrawn story for the movies. It simply wouldn't work 40 years after the OT. It relies heavily on being shortly after the fall of the empire. Nor would I want a retelling of LotF, or indeed, a retelling of the first 6 films as they've sort of done. I think the most fitting final trilogy in a trilogy of trilogies would be a totally new journey that peels the onion deeper, and explores more of the mysteries, and brings a fuller understanding of the story. Each trilogy should compliment and elevate the others, and should revolve around the skywalker family.

Any book series can be adapted to film, but the book will almost always be superior.

 

It is kind of funny on Jedi Council Ken almost in the same breath mocking Luuke and then praising TTT for reviving Star Wars. Does he.. not actually remember what plot went with what book?