TOPIC: EU Adventure Part 1: Thrawn Trilogy

I actually hope they don't make a movie out of this trilogy.

Before you form a lynch mob, wait a moment and hear me out. If you think about how much goes on in each book, you'd have to cut a lot out in order to fit one into a movie. So as much as I'd love to be able to watch these books rather than read them, I don't think it would work well. (Unless they pulled a Harry Potter and broke each book into a couple of movies or something.)

Now, what I would like to see are some of the elements from this book used in canon SW. Thrawn, Talon Karrde, Mara Jade, Myrkr, Mount Tantiss, and Stohkli spray sticks, to name a few, are elements I would love to see be "official" and that would add to the detail and complexity of the SW setting.

Another possibility just occurred to me, though... TV mini-series? Adult-targeted, perhaps? (People who read the books when they came out are adults now. Hell, people who were born when the books came out are adults now.)

TV mini-series would be good. IMO animated series would be best.. 2 seasons per each book or so?

I would watch that mini-series in a heartbeat, whether live-action or animated! The trilogy was so good and it only got better with Zahn's later duology. It could be the next Game of Thrones! Only, you know, without the constant MURDER.

I'm a little over halfway through Heir now, it's getting interesting. There are certain things about it where I see the vibe and the atmosphere of the EU in general was rooted in. Some of it I dislike and I think is a little too contrived, but it's a very small qualm and I'm really enjoying it. I can't wait to listen to the audiobooks when I'm done!

MommyHoldMe wrote: I can see arguments for an animated series, but I'd prefer it be live-action. An animated series is a huge advantage for special effects, but one of the things that I like about the Thrawn trilogy is that it's mostly people-focused rather than technology-focused. In terms of special effects, you really don't have to do much that Star Trek wasn't doing for a weekly show decades ago. Animated TV still says "kids' show" to a lot of people, which would be bad--this is definitely not kids'-show material.

On the other hand, if you did an animated series, I know exactly who to get for Luke Skywalker's voice actor--the guy who has done voice acting for the Joker (starting with Batman: The Animated Series and running for a couple decades now)!

I also think you could get everything done in one season of one-hour shows; probably a lot less. There are far more than three two-hour movies there, certainly, but a season of one-hour shows gives you about 18 hours to work with (since "one-hour" shows actually have maybe 45 minutes of actual show to them). That's almost three times as much screen time as a SW movie trilogy, and I think that would be sufficient.

The interesting thing is that, from what I remember, I don't think they'd need to change all that much to stay in current canon. The twins become just Ben, change a few of the Clone Wars references, and you're mostly set. These books were basically the start of the EU, so there wasn't anything assumed that wasn't already in the Original Trilogy; likewise, these books take place roughly a couple decades before TFA, so there would be plenty of time for things to change to what we see there.

Do I actually think this will happen? Not even a little. But it's interesting to realize that it's not completely absurd.

Vyk wrote:
I see what you did there.

You saying that reminded of the clip on youtube where the fan asked the question at SWC last year what the conversation would be like if Joker was telling Luke that he was Luke's father. And Mark did it beautifully.

MommyHoldMe wrote: OMG, I had never seen that before! That was awesome! In return (if you haven't seen it already) I present to you Darth Pooh:



....and, no, at this point it has nothing to do with the original topic, it's just an excuse to post an amusing vid.

I have around 75 SW books on my shelf and I gotta say Thrawn trilogy is among the best. Always wished they turned it into movies...guess everything is possible, looks like Disney is keen on borrowing stuff from the EU

Finished Heir to the Empire on Saturday! My journey into book two will begin on Wed when my sister can get me the other book.

On to the next book!

So.. how did you like the first book? Second one is a great read. You will enjoy it a lot.

Thrawne is a BAMF! Such a great villiian!!

I really hope they bring someone with his intelligence and gravitas into the movies.

I read these when I was younger and recently "reread" them on audiobook which I highly highly recommend!! The voice acting is amazing and there's sound effects and star wars music, it's a really cool experience and you can experience the books, well, in my case, when I'm stuck in traffic.

I've actually been listening to the 20th anniversary audiobook for Heir since I finished reading it. It's quite good. And the voices are almost exactly as I imagined them.

Heir was great. It wasn't amazing amazing but it was a fantastic start and made me look forward to certain thread resolutions. Mara, so far, is not exactly what I expected, but quite close. She seems more of a loose cannon and less collected than I expected, but that's not a deal breaker. Thrawn is everything I expected. Looking forward to seeing more brilliant ruthlessness from him.

A few things seemed forced (especially all the references to the movies lines), but it wasn't really that bad and I suppose the references made sense being years after the movies were first released with no SW content to consume. I'm enjoying it thoroughly.

I love Mara in these books. Even she isn't quite sure whose side she's on sometimes.

You're correct about the movie lines. They do seem a little awkward when i read them now, but they made sense when I originally read the books in the '90s.

That's what makes her such a great character. The icing on the cake is that she's

h2soy wrote:
Right? Though as much as I love those books,

Almost to the end of Book 2. On the last chapter. So far, this indeed has been the better book. Not that the first was bad, but this one was more exciting, interesting, and had a lot going on.

So I've said like to see this as a movie but would be hard cause the cast is to old now but wait I've found a new Luke or is it luuke

Finished! A fantastic trilogy. I think the second book was probably the best. The third was good but it seemed to have a fairly abrupt ending. I expected more on the space battle. At least as much as the Wayland battle. Thrawn's death also seemed rather abrupt. I was fairly disappointed with that, actually. But still, a fitting way for him to go out out of the blue, even if certain motivations weren't really fleshed out.

I'm looking ahead to what I should read next. The Jedi Academy trilogy is next, obviously. But I've also heard that it's not that great and I'm especially interested in Mara Jade's character development, of which she's apparently painfully absent. Yet it sets up much of what follows for the rest of the New Republic era. I've been reading online that many discourage skipping 10 years of events and going straight to the Hand of Thrawn Duology, where Mara and Luke's relationship starts moving forward.

So what in your opinion do you consider is REALLY good and REALLY essential to read before moving onto the Hand of Thrawn books?