Speculation Villains for the Spin-offs

The problem is that Thrawn isn't a very good character for film. Maybe in literary form, you can make him interesting because you portray his complex interiority. But on film, he's blue and likes art. Oh, and I forgot, he wears a chilling dairy-colored sailor suit.

Movie goer: "Is this blue guy Sith? What does he do?"
EU fan: "He's an art collector."
Movie goer: "Why's he blue then?"
EU fan: "That's how his whole race looks."
Movie goer: "So what makes him special? What's his power?"
EU fan: "He's a grand admiral. He ... he reads his enemies like art."
Movie goer: "Like art?"
EU fan: "Yeah, that's right. Like art."
Movie goer: "His eyes are red. What does that mean?"
EU fan: "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

 

I don't know what kind of movie goers you're hanging out with, but who goes around asking why aliens in movies are the colors that they are? I've honestly never heard of anyone doing this. Do your friends all ask you why R2-D2 has blue stripes instead of yellow ones?

 

I would love a brief and tasteful appearance by Darth Vader, with James Earl Jones voice and everything. Not for him to be the main villain but maybe a part of the story.

 

kinda difficult to imagine a villain in a Spin off.. because they are minor stories from a bigger picture!!!

examples:

Boba Fett spin off: main enemy: vader, xizor, bounty hunter guild, ig88, bossk?
Han solo spin off: Corellian police, boba fett, Jabba?
Obi Wan spin off: .... hiding from palp and vader... inner demons, monsters from the depths of the force in tatooine.

 

I agree on Thrawn working poorly as a film villain despite being one of the EU's few iconic characters. He doesn't even come into direct contact with most of the protagonists in the Thrawn Trilogy, which is fine for a novel series, but would be disappointing on the silver screen. He just strikes me as too subtle a villain to really carry a Star Wars movie on his own. He would need to be part of an ensemble cast of villains in a film if he were to appear in most cases, with the sole possible exception being a spin-off movie entirely focused on space combat. e.g., something like Rogue and Wraith Squadrons going up against Grand Admiral Thrawn's forces.

If anything, I actually see Thrawn working better as a TV spinoff villain, where you could tie various minor villains and subplots to a grander plan of his over many episodes. If you watch Sherlock, think of the way Moriarity is presented over the first two seasons. Incidentally, even though I know it will never happen, Benedict Cumberbatch would be a cool Thrawn since..well, Thrawn is an evil Sherlock Holmes and Pellaeon is Watson. Though I can't see Martin Freeman as Pellaeon. Little short for a Star Destroyer Captain.

I don't actually think Thrawn or any EU villain will actually appear, mind you. I do suspect however that you'll see new villains taking cues from the EU, though. We won't see Thrawn appear, but I wouldn't be shocked if a different villain had his art collecting habit as a way to send the message that he's a sophisticated, intellectual villain.

 

I really don't think this is a problem. The Fifth Element pulled it off - the main hero and villain never meet, nor even communicate in any way IIRC. More relevantly, Palpatine only briefly comes into direct contact with one of the protagonists in the original trilogy, and at its very end. Frodo never encounters Sauron or Sarumon. Katniss and President Snow meet a couple times but never actually fight. I don't think it's wise for Star Wars to follow the comic book model, which requires the main villain to directly clash in combat multiple times with the good guys. Maybe this would be an issue for Episodes 7-9 - and I'm not a proponent of including Thrawn in those at all - but it's fine for the spin-offs. And while I'm an EU fan, I'm open to changes - we can throw in some scenes of Leia negotiating with Thrawn, or make the Noghri who winds up killing him a bigger character or something if you want more direct contact.

 

wouldnt the clone wars in a sense be a form of spinoff?

i mean if they really had to they could introduce cad bane ( not to fond of him but still)

 

Cad Bane would be cool indeed. I think there is just nothing more to say about it.

Boba Flick. Cad Bane as Villain.

Done.

 

all i can say is as long as the movie is good and fun i truely dont care who they throw in

movies arent fun as they use to be. yea we have comic films but ever since the nolan batman trilogy every nolanite was like comics should follow the realistic dark formula. to me i think that worked fine as it did for that trilogy and mos.

i just cant see it work with things like green lantern flash aquaman or nova corps from marvel or xmen you know what i mean?

for me comic films work simply because its meant to be fun its meant to be goofy and in a sense kind of cheesey.

alot of people hated the avengers because it didnt have a story but to me i enjoyed it because it was 2 hours of non stop fun

same with man of steel. im no superman purist but i loved every second of that film and i admit i teared up at the kal-el and jor-el scenes as well as the clark and pa kent scenes.

as a movie goer i expected a sequel for mos and when i heard batman was in i was like guh already and in the second film? dont get me wrong im still seeing it but to me i just feel batman is more of a 3rd movie type introduction into supermans franchise. again thats just me

 

Cad Bane please

 

You're right. My movie-going friends aren't stupid (I also believe the movie-going public is smarter than you give them credit for). They understand that one of the problems of film and TV is how shallow the characters can be, who are just blue or purple for an arbitrary reason, with nothing connecting the look to story or character. My friends and I hate bad storytelling and we don't overlook it in sci-fi or fantasy just because there's a tradition of poor writing there. Obviously, the color of a robot is less important sometimes (not always) than the look of an alien. Why a race is blue should be important and not simply because someone likes the color blue.

Anyway, you seem to miss the point of my satire anyway, because the real issue is that Thrawn isn't a great character for film. I agree with one of the recent posters who said he would be better for TV. TV allows for more internal development (more time) than film. And at some point, you do want a showdown with the mastermind villain. I find it hard to believe people use examples like Palpatine when we all know that he engaged in plenty of action in the PT and OT. Maybe Harry Potter would have been better if Voldemort was just always in another room pushing buttons. These arguments are sort of a waste of time responding to, since they already undermine themselves.

 

Whilst I think Cad Bane is a character that could easily be transposed from cartoon to live action... the inference is that he'd be the villain to Boba Fett's 'hero'? I really don't want a film with Boba as a hero (or anti hero) because he's always been portrayed as a villain in the movies (IMHO). I don't want to see him face some moral dilemma or fight a just cause... I want to see him hunting down women, children whatever... because he's a hard nosed son of a b**ch bounty hunter.

There is something in what you say... However I thought MOS was a poor film. As soon as Jor El starting punching/shooting people I knew it was going to be everything a Superman film shouldn't be - but that's me...

As for The Avengers - yes it did show that a comic book film can be light and funny as opposed to dark and brooding (which was a welcome departure) but again for me, that particular film was more style over substance. I think the best balance I've seen in this genre (over recent years) has been Raimi's Spiderman 1 and 2 and the first Iron Man.

 

I remember some popular late '70s sci-fi movie--Star something--in which the protagonist and antagonists never meet.

Sure they do in the sequels, but that didn't stop the first one from making a buck or two.

 

Dark, gritty, realistic are all great for buffering the inherent cartoonishness of some fantasy and sci-fi. But if the industry isn't careful, they'll turn it into another ineffective cliche that becomes too boring to watch. In fact, I haven't even wanted to watch MOS yet for this very reason -- although dark may be the perfect style for Supes. Darth PJ gives some good examples of films that haven't needed to Dark Knight themselves in order to be interesting.

As far as Cad Bane goes, he seems more like a proper villain than Boba Fett, especially since now we know that Boba's world was destroyed by the Jedi when they killed his father. I think this makes him a perfect anti-hero. We want to have some sympathy for him because we understand his motivations, and when we see him in the OT, acting like a villain, it makes our response more complex than just hating him (maybe we feel conflicted or even horrified by what he's doing).

Count Yubnub:

Vader and Luke fight each other in space. Vader and Obi have a saber fight. Vader tortures Leia. Tarkin and Leia face off in psychological combat over Alderaan, which he destroys. Is this what you mean?

Count Yubnub:

This is an important point. When you view the films as a whole saga, you can have less face to face confrontation between hero and villain because fans know that in one of the sequels the confrontation will happen. But in a spin off? An origin story? No thanks. More often than not, the effect of no confrontation, or at least indirect confrontation, would feel empty. Even absurd.

A few other examples people have given illustrate my point: in LOTR, the agents of the big villains can stand in for them and we still have plenty of conflict that's logically connected to the Big Bad. Eventually though, LOTR is a saga that eventually shows the good guys bring the Big Bads down, one at a time, even if that confrontation is sometimes indirect.

Once again this backs up the idea that Thrawn would be better in a longer saga or TV series rather than a one shot. Sure, Thrawn can have agents stand in for him too, but in a short film with no sequels, it would seem really odd in a traditional genre film for there to be no direct confrontation between him and the heroes. Direct confrontation can cover a lot of things though -- Thrawn could die in space battle similar to Tarkin. But doesn't this just negate any reason for bringing Thrawn in? If he's just another Imperial like Tarkin, bringing him in for just one film really casts him as a minor villain, which his advocates disagree with.

So does that mean he should be a Saga villain? I would argue No. The reason is by the end of the Saga, you'd need to have him in some sort of direct confrontation as satisfying as Palpatine. It would be a real letdown to simply see him arrested or blown up from afar.

So if you want to make him out to be as good as the books supposedly make him, TV is the most likely way to go, since you can establish that he's really something more than just another Tarkin, and that his special "art" power is actually something to be respected.

 

maybe we see something like this for the Han Solo spin off, a Bounty Hunter will work as a main villain

 

hey to each there own. i hated everything about ironman 3 when i saw it but others loved it. to me ironman 3 felt way to much like lethal weapon and i know people hated im2 but i had zero issues with 2 and i think thats because that was gearing torwards avengers wile im3 didnt really gear torwards anything

also tonight is agents of shield ( take splace after avengers) on abc by wheadon so tune in

again i may talk like i know everything but i dont because when it comes to comics i am more of a cosmic continum scifi reader for both marvel and dc. when i hear of new movies coming i take the time and do research on them to get a sense of who or what it is. alot of people dont do that

 

I would like the movie to be like this film! Cad Bane always made me think of them...wonder why.







I don't know who would be the "Ugly" but a stand off at the end kinda like this would be awsome! Hell, just remake the whole movie with SW characters! I'd go see it!

 

The main character doesn't really fight the antagonists in space--Luke and Vader in space are only space ships with nameless pilots to one another.

Count Yubnub:

This is an important point. When you view the films as a whole saga, you can have less face to face confrontation between hero and villain because fans know that in one of the sequels the confrontation will happen.[/quote]
At the time, it was just a single movie--no "saga" yet--and it was popular.

Anyway, I haven't read the Thrawn books so I cannot imagine how they'd translate to the screen.

IIRC on the Blu-ray they say that George Lucas wanted Cad Bane to be based on Lee Van Cleef in TGTB&TU.

 

I'm not an EU guy by any stretch, but I wouldn't mind Prince Xizor as the villain in a Fett spinzo.

 

But they actually do fight one another -- it's no illusion. What's important is that the audience knows who's facing each other. The audience knows this is the big confrontation: Luke vs. the villain who appeared to kill Ben. Vader even senses something about Luke though in the ANH space battle and supposedly that's the reason he begins obsessively tracking him down in ESB.

But the point is its mainly about the audience. They typically expect some kind of face off. In ANH Vader has the ability to fly and fight and choke people and saber fight and even survive defeat. Tarkin shows himself to be limited in comparison as he's stuck on the Death Star, thinks he's going to win, and then blows up. Would Thrawn be much of a different villain in a single film? He's as limited as Tarkin except for the fact that he's blue and red and collects art. If you want his subtleties to be appreciated by an audience, he either needs more time and space to show his artsy critical side, or he needs to be able to fight.

Cad Bane is a better option for a main villain in a spin off because he's not only smart and resourceful, but can kick some butt too.

 

Cad Bane because He's Duros.

That needs to be a series.

 

Well, to be fair, they could put Thrawn into one sweet mecha suit for the final confrontation.

 

True. Like a good writer, you're always full of solutions. I'm fine with the idea that they alter Thrawn in some way if they want to use him in the films. I'm just saying how he was portrayed in the books wouldn't be very good for solo films.

Anyway, I'd rather see Mandos or bounty hunters as villains. Or wanna be Sith.

 

The thing is though if you have to re-write or re-design a character to fit them in (especially into such a key role) then you have to ask yourself 'why not just invent an original character?'. This is why I'm convinced they would not use Thrawn. I think it would be easier to write a new antagonist than it would to translate Thrawn to the big screen. In fact I think it would be more worthwhile (from a publicity/marketing perspective) to write an explanation as to how Sidious, Maul or Grievous survived rather than reinvent charcaters that have only prebioulsy existed in a literary form.

 

Yes.

Especially if you respect the character of Thrawn in his literary form.