Mini Series Darth Plagueis the Canonized (Spoilers)

So I think that Plagueis's role vis-a-vis The Acolyte will be to provide a much more traditionally pure evil counterpoint to Qimir and Osha.

Qimir and Osha have very human reasons for wanting to use the dark side, but Plagueis will probably be on another level, doing and desiring things so awful that it will be impossible to empathize with him.

 

One of the real issues DLF seem to have is not really understanding the relative strengths of their own resources which are available to them. The Darth Plagueis novel could be adapted to make a great TV show or film. Same goes for the Bane trilogy. I don't really understand why they don't want to touch these things, or KOTOR, but seem more keen to dance around the edges and struggle to develop new stories... not mutually exclusive of course.

 

Maybe it's a taste tester with that as a possibility? I would love a Bane Trilogy

 

I’m confused. We can only see the upper part of Plagueis’s nose in the show, and it’s undoubtedly flat, as it is in all Plagueis designs except for the terrible Tenebrous Way version.

 

I can see the issues id LFL changes things from the books and fans are angered like with many adaptations. Like Darth Bane in canon is different then book Bane. One is more samurai warrior one and one is more of a hulk. Will Darth Plagueis be different in anyway, who knows.

 

Adapting the books is a waste of time and effort in my opinion. Those stories are already done and work fine on the page (and may not translate well on screen). Give me something new.

 

Not to mention risky. While the EU book fans might be the first to clamor for these books to be adapted to the small screen, those same fans will be the very first out the door with torches and pitchforks to denounce the showrunners for their poor adaptation choices.

 

The lesson here is, if you’re going to adapt a book to screen, do it well, or else we’ll come for you. Whoever you are, nebulous screenwriter.

 

My wording was ambiguous. I meant that Plagueis in the show basically has “no nose,” just like San Hill or the book cover art. I realize that, technically, he must still have a nose, but to me, visually, that’s basically no nose. So this is what I meant by not a flattened nose (art by Gregory Titus):



By contrast, when I called the alternative design a “flattened nose,” I was using the description from the book, but referring to the more prominent, three-dimensional nose we see in TCW, the Tenebrous Way, and some concept art. So, this is what I meant by a flattened nose (art by Sang Jun Lee):



But I see how that term is confusing and could also be interpreted to mean what I thought of as “no nose” but was really just a very flat nose. Especially when you look at designs like Iain McCaig’s, where you can tell that there’s a nose but the face looks completely flat.

I think, though cannot prove, Lucasfilm under Disney is generally trying to make a version of Star Wars—movies, series, books, and comics—that is more unified and closer to the vision Lucas had for this universe. That’s not saying they don’t diverge significantly, or that they don’t take risks. But I do think there might be stories from the EU that are in greater opposition to Lucas’s own vision, and that’s why LFL might not be in a hurry to adapt those stories. I can see how that might apply to KOTOR, the Bane books, and the Plagueis novel. All of these have essential aspects to them that might go against whatever Lucas might’ve developed related to these topics (related to Sith history or Palpatine’s backstory).

I don’t think their plan is to remake the EU and gradually convert stories from the old continuity to the new canon. Legends is Legends and despite some creators’ love for those works (Filoni, Headland), that’s probably not going to change. From a financial point of view, Lucasfilm wants to give new creators the freedom to explore new stories set in those time periods the EU already covered. For example, the Jedi origins movie that is in the works will likely not be beholden to anything the EU set up for that time period. Even Filoni, who is mining that Thrawn trilogy territory, is still basically telling a wholly new story. No one is really adapting EU works, nor should they, in my opinion.

 

So The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, James Bond, The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, Sherlock Holmes etc. etc. were all a waste of time and effort? I don't believe so. Adapting something that works well on the page, and is popular with audiences, is one of the surest ways of getting something that has the reach. Of course they have to be adapted well and made with the required skill and competence, and some 'purists' will always be unhappy... but that's pretty much applicable to everything... be it an adaptation or original.

 

Ah, I see. Yeah. Glad he doesn’t have a nose. That squashed nose look is terrible.

 

I wouldn't even consider a full on adaptation of Plagueis novels, but to cherry pick a few elements that have stood out in those novels can bring something to the story. These stories are still very fresh too, it's not like going back to a 30 to 40 year old comic or novel and literally reconstructing the story. But I can see Disney wanting to do that, they've adapted many Marvel comics into successful films so it isn't a stretch that they may see that for SW.

 

I think there will be differences like with Thrawn, post ROTJ differences between OT heroes in legends and canon.

 

Big difference with Star Wars is the idea that everything "counts". So regardless of the Legends reboot, any adaptation will almost certainly be seen as an inferior replacement of the original story.

The other IPs named above don't pretend that the books and films co-exist within a single timeline.

 

Yes, they seem to have looked at the Plagueis novel for his design. Which is good.

 

Some people will still see whatever they do as inferior, even if it’s wholly new material so I don’t think they’d have anything to lose.

 

Darth Plagueis will be the big bogeyman everyone is scared off.

 

I'd actually never equated the concept of adapting EU books to the general practice of adapting non-Star Wars books. Ever since Disney bought Lucasfilm and reset the canon, I only thought of EU works as potential sources of characters, plots, or ideas that might be mined by the new canon piecemeal if desired. But I now get what you mean, that fans of a book might want to see that same story adapted as faithfully as possible onscreen because of their love of that story itself and not only to feed the new canon new ideas. That is a very interesting perspective, so thank you for sharing it.

Part of why I never made that connection was because I'd grown fairly tired of the new material we were getting from the EU around 2012, when Lucas sold the company. The Darth Plagueis novel was frankly the last truly good piece of EU that I can remember, so I was excited to see Star Wars get refreshed, to see the cumbersome and sometimes haphazard continuity that had been built over decades be trimmed into something simpler and more cohesive. And I do think that was the intention of the new canon, and to be fair it has done a generally decent job of being more unified than the EU was at times. But despite having corporate unity, the new canon lacks the visionary unity that came from having Lucas at the helm, and we have seen how books and comics generally seem to inhabit a new EU of its own that may or may not be respected by the movies. Hell, even the filmmakers couldn't manage to make a cohesive film trilogy.

So, my impression of the new canon is not what it was ten years ago. I now tend to take each new story at a time rather than focus too much on the bigger picture. Some books I like, some I don't. Some series I enjoy, others I don't. So it might be a good time for me to reevaluate the EU and think about what each of those stories really means to me on their own and not as part of a bigger canon.

 

That’s not strictly correct. Not all Star Wars books are ‘canon’, they are classified as ‘legends’ I.e. they don’t happen within the same timeline (hence some of the debate around The Acolyte repurposing stuff). Besides, that’s not even really germane to the point re. adaptation of popular works, and how there’s a plethora of classic films/TV shows that have been successfully adapted from existing material.

 

Snoke was supposed to be that and look how he ended up.

 

That's what happens when you have two different filmmakers that don't see eye to eye.

 

Snoke was a the CGI Emperor until the real Emperor

 

Well there was never a plan a road map for how the trilogy would end, just pieces stuck together.

And not very good at that.

 

A creative invents their own, characters they get paid; if they use another’s creation, they don’t. “Sith magic” not midichlorians. Oh, I’m sorry, M’s.

We need an M-Count over here! Plagueis minus the midichlorian manipulation is just not the same. Plagueis LOVES to manipulate them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk