Speculation Villains for the Spin-offs

Oh, I wouldn't use Thrawn. I would use a more active villain.

 

you say thrawn wouldnt transition well but how would palapitine or even plaegus?


thrawn would be the best fit for that though and im not saying that because im a eu fanboy but how are you going to take darth maul a sith and simply redesign him? there is absolutley nothing interesting about grievous imo hes only a droid plain and simple and big whoop dooku trained him and thats it.

the pt covered the orgins of obiwan anakin and maul imo

just like how aotc covered more of dooku , obiwan and anakin

episode 3 covered pretty much palpatine anakin obiwan. to me those are in a way orgins because we saw how those charachters we know and love became to be on screen already.

i know i dont want a yoda movie spinoff simply because to me we sort of discovered what is orgins was in esb.

i want something new. i just feel if disney rehashes the same charachter over and over again alot of non and current star wars fans wont be interested and itll be like how wb and dc are with batman. release a rehash every 5 to 10 years and keep that formula going without doing anything new . you also have to take into account and think that would these new orgin stories sort of be like a new continuity wile the original is dead and gone? i know the pt gets alot of hate but i would rather see the great sith war or the mandalorian war instead of some han solo orgins spinoff film

 

Well I'd say that firstly... Yes I'd agree... l'd much rather have a plethora of new and original characters rather than those we've seem already. I'm very much in favour of that. However, I'm sure I don't need to point out that Thrawn isn't original - he's appeared in 3 books already... and IMHO, he's probably the weakest and most vanilla villain to appear in a spin off (again that's only my opinion and no slight to any Thrawn fans). So yes - my preference would be for a villain that we know nothing, or little about.

Secondly... my point in the previous post was that in terms of marketing and publicity, it's much easier to sell a returning villain than a new one. It may not be our preference, but I think Maul or Grievious or Palpatine or Vader or whoever; is a much easier sell than an unknown. If the spin offs aren't being badged as 'EPISODE...' then characters with existing iconography will probably be more appealing to general audiences.

 

but dont you think now would be a good time to introduce villains that are new? i mean how can vader who died be brought back? also how would grevious be good for marketing? its not like he has that great of a backstory let alone orgin to match what a darth vader was and now is wich is iconic.

am i suggesting thrawn is iconic ? in a darth vader sense no but i do believe if he was put into the new trilogy (episode's 7, 8,9) and really delivers i think that would gear non eu readers to go and pick up the heir to the empire novels wich than would expose those new fans to not just thrawn but other new charachters as well. hell id love to see mara jade be the villainess that fights luke in this new trilogy. as i said before i dont mind some changes for charachters to work on screen and everyone fans and non hardcore fans love lightsaber fights so i dont see an issue with mj being in for that despite how alot of people dislike her in the books.

i know all us star wars nerds have our specific favorites we want to see and im not saying im 100% right but a lot of what people are asking like a dark krayt or a darth revan, boba fett , ect has zero chance of happening .

 

Pretty much any existing EU villain has a zero chance of being put on the screen.
There is no reason do to adaptations of existing works, when you can pretty much create anything you want.

 

What I'd like to see on screen and what I think the filmmakers believe to be more commercially viable are two distinct and seperate things. I don't particularly think Grevious will make a return... I was just using him as a convenient example... However, if we were to use him as an example... Grevious has very little backstory on screen yet he was/is a popular character... not only appearing in ROTS but The Clone Wars Cartoons, Star Wars Lego etc. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people out there who were kids when the PT came out and who thought General Grevious was 'cool'. Commercially that creates a 'hook' straight away... and that's the type of thing filmmakers look to when making films based on existing situations/characters. Again, the same can be applied to Maul, Boba, Jango, Jabba etc. I'm not arguing that I want to see these characters personally... just that it's more likely that these are the type of characters they'll look to make a return.

I think Thrawn's inclusion is more about your preferences than it is about what's more probable... and I don't have an issue with that... but I thought we were simply talking about who/what was more likely to appear. As I said before, I don't have a downer on Thrawn per se... other than he's a bit vanilla/bland and not high profile enough.

I agree... although I would be surprised if Boba Fett didn't make it back in one form or other.

 

Bastard daughter of Palpatine. Nuff said.

 

wait... you say thrawns bland and not high profile enough and yet you want grevious? are you honestly going to say grevious isnt not just bland but boring as hell?

i have to ask do you talk to other fans of the franchise outside of theforce.net or do you just assume such a thing? i can can pretty much assume fans would prefer thrawn over grevious.

and yea i am biased what fan isnt of a particular charachter?

 

Maybe a new interpretation of Thrawn could be done?

 

wich im fine with. look it is well known movies that follow a book pretty much change things to transition on screen and im fine with that as long as it works and the villain dosent get killed off in the first movie of a trilogy.

 

Darth Sphincter!!!

 

I think your bias is clouding your judgement on this and making you take this way too personally. Do I think a 7ft tall Jedi killing cyborg, who can wield 4 spinning lightsabres, is more cinematic than an art loving psuedo intellectual imperial? Not nessersarily... but I'm pragmatic enough to understand that one translates far better to live action movies than the other... And I'm not sure of the relevance of you asking about fans views outside of the theforce.net? Do you think these movies should be made specifically for the kind of fans who read the Thrawn trilogy in the 90's? That's a rather myopic view to have if you trully believe that.

The ratio of General Grievous merchandise versus Thrawn merchandise is enough to show you which one has the higer profile. Ergo there is little chance of a cinematic future in Thrawn or those Thrawn stories... IMHO. I'm not even a fan of General Grievous per se, but the point is that even he is a more likely candidate for inclusion in new films than Thrawn. I'm quite happy to admit that Darth Bane, for example, will probably never make it to the big screen... and I think he's infinetly more interesting than either Grievous or Thrawn. So I'm not sure why you are taking ths view of Thrawn not being suitable enough as a personal slight?

 

Are we talking about Thrawn or Yawn? I can't tell the difference.

Hey, Grievous was just underused in ROTS. I think they've made him really interesting on The Clone Wars. Love his voice and cowardliness, yet his thinking himself a great warrior. Fine stuff.

And Thrawn. As threatening as a blueberry.

"What is your plan for the Jedi, my lord?" asks an Imperial officer.

Thrawn: "I plan to compare them to my Edvard Munch over a glass of wine."

Exciting.

 

I'm guessing somebody new. Thrawn or any other EU baddie would probably be too much backstory to explain and a legal/accounting nightmare with regard to the royalties.

Just create somebody new who can easily be shoehorned into the EU should somebody feel the need to do so and leave it at that.

 

General Grievous could be a viable villain in a spinoff film set in the Clone Wars era. I'm not sure he's compelling enough to be the main villain (Dooku would make more sense, as the head of the CIS), but I wonder if they could portray him closer to the pre-TCW Clone Wars EU and the micro-series versions that actually showed him to be a fearsome warrior and well-respected general who was more than capable of taking on Jedi, killing them, and collecting their lightsabers as trophies. Rather than being the coward he seemed to be depicted as throughout RotS and TCW (something I don't agree entirely on, BTW, as I consider his retreats tactical), we can perhaps actually see Grievous not back down from a fight and instead triumph over multiple adversaries like he did on Hypori early on in the Clone Wars. And cue awesome pre-battle speech:
"Jedi, you are surrounded. Your armies decimated. Make peace with the Force now, for this is your final hour. But know that I, General Grievous, am not completely without mercy. I will grant you a warrior's death. Prepare!"
It would be nice if the powers that be decided to better reconcile the Grievous of the films/TCW with that of the EU, and actually make him a competent opponent for the Jedi and the Republic, both as a warrior and as a military commander.

On the subject of villains for Clone Wars era spinoffs (or shortly after TPM), I really want to see more done with Count Dooku's character. The EU did a good job of elaborating on his background and what makes him tick, but AotC and RotS gave him precious little screen-time, and simply didn't do his character enough justice, IMO. We only barely glimpsed a hint of his political idealism before it became clear he was a Sith Lord, embracing the Dark Side in the promise of greater power and influence. We can perhaps see Dooku more as a Well-Intentioned Extremist originally, before further seduction to the Dark Side completes his fall. A spinoff with Dooku could really rectify the missed opportunity I felt he was in the PT, which showed him to be largely Sidious' transitional apprentice between Maul and Vader, and a pawn to ignite the Clone Wars. The only problem I see would be that Sir Christopher Lee will probably be too old to play the part, and have to likely be recast. In which case I'd prefer Dooku to be a side character as opposed to the actual protagonist, which is admittedly slim to none anyway.

As nice as Clone Wars era-spinoffs would be, I don't foresee Disney focusing on that era much in the near future, at least until they've sufficiently distanced themselves from TCW with the passage of time.

 

It doesn't need to be live-action, it could be animated. But yeah, oddly, Dooku's backstory and the origins of the CIS are as of yet more-or-less unexplored by the EU, which is odd IMO. Definitely some room there for material.

 

The fact that nearly all the top grossing films every year nowadays are adaptations, remakes, or sequels says otherwise.

 

No, all it says is that Hollywood has no courage to support innovative ideas that do not have instant established brand recognizability.
It does not speak of quality, it speaks of lack of ideas. Something that Star Wars has no need to be associated with, since you can do whatever the hell you want in that vast universe, and still make a profit, without copying and adapting existing mediocre novels that make up a considerable majority of EU material.

 

I wonder which is the greater problem? Brand recognizability or lack of ideas? Probably the former, since the big companies need a certain profit margin and therefore can't take risks on unknown commodities.

The EU villains might be considered if the books were any good; if the villains were any good. But most are not. I agree that these are mediocre novels written by second rate writers. Maybe some EU fans can't recognize this. Before I studied writing myself and read the EU, I didn't realize how poor some of it was. Although even back then Thrawn seemed an odd villain for SW. Looking back on it now, Zahn was trying to do something literary with him, suggesting that art critics could be dangerous opponents. I just can't see this sort of character even getting interest from the hack crowd in Hollywood since they know people are looking for something more exciting in villains.

One of the few exceptions might be Darth Plagueis, but I've always felt the look of a Muun was prohibitive to film for the same reason as Thrawn: they simply don't look threatening enough.

 

I just want to make it perfectly clear though - I'm not bashing EU, I've got roughly 50 books and dozens of comics on my shelves. I had fun reading it all. I see the potential in it. I love Thrawn, I think the idea of someone studying a race's art and getting to know them better is a very, very good idea. But I also cannot close my eyes to the fact that those are, mostly, mediocre novels where the potentially great ideas are not exploited to their full potential. Any character can be made interesting if presented proprely and I would not underestimate the audience to say that they cannot appreciate the subtler villains.

All I'm saying is, there is no need to rehash what has already been done when you've got a whole universe to do whatver you want and move the franchise and the story forward.

 

I'd make a distinction between bashing EU and criticizing it. Obviously there are ideas in it I like as well: Sidious returning (not as a clone), the Purebloods and Korriban, grey Jedi and Imperial Knights.I actually enjoyed The Clones Wars more than the PT, and that's technically EU, although of a much higher grade talent wise than the typical fair.

I've read tons of the books and comics too, so I feel I'm allowed to give my honest assessment of it. For example, one of the problems with Thrawn's "power" of art criticism is it's so general as to be absurd. It's like saying you can look at one kind of art from Earth from one particular period and have an idea of what all humanity is like as a race. That's absurd. Is it an interesting idea that could be executed better? Sure. But for Star Wars? Eh, I don't think it fits the fantasy/sci-fi genre very well myself.

Anyway, I'd be shocked if JJ and these acclaimed screenwriters are interested in most of the EU material. Maybe general aspects or concepts, but I agree with The Hellhammer: look for them not to feel overly confined to the EU and to let their imaginations run wild.

 

General, friendly reminder to not veer too far into general EU discussion territory... there's a thread for that.

 

What if we discussed the European Union? Would that be okay?

 

i respect that i really do but the whole not rehash thing is tricky because that would include luke han and leia plus lando and chewie so should episode 7 8 and 9 focus on the solo twins as adults and go from there? and would the st with the solo twins as the main charachters be a success instead of the ones who people grew up with?

 

That's what I meant. Which EU were you guys discussing?