I’m sure you were all as gobsmacked as I was to find out about the new Star Wars trilogy being produced by the Walt Disney Company and directed by JJ Abrams. I personally never believed this would ever happen (and was a bit disappointed, as I’ve secretly always wanted to be the one who brought the films back!).
But once I got over my catatonic state, I got to thinking about what the new film would mean for the established canon. It seems to me that in order to be Episode VII, it’s going to take place after Return of the Jedi, and will probably overwrite much of the Expanded Universe material from then. However, there are certain characters with plot arcs that could well serve as inspiration for the makers of the new films.
Not only that, but some of these characters have, to my mind, ideal actors to portray them on the big screen, so it would be a shame to see existing good stories go to waste. With that in mind, I’ve drawn up a list of existing characters that could appear in the new films, and the actors who could bring them to life in a galaxy far, far away…
5. Mark Hamill As Luke Skywalker
This is kind of a cheat, I know, but it is quite a probable choice. Mark Hamill has mentioned how George Lucas brought up the idea of him playing a 60-year-old Luke as an off-hand comment way back in 1977. Also, Hamill is now older than Luke’s canonical age in the most recent expanded universe book, so the new film could then occur in ‘uncharted’ time, thus avoiding provoking the fans too much.
As a final note to this, Mark Hamill was reportedly the first person George Lucas told about the new film, which tells you something. Anyway, onto less conventional choices…
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13 Comments
Do you know anything about Star Wars? Kyle Katarn is a young guy; Luke passes the torch to Han and Leia’s twins; It sticks with the timeline if you have two twenty years old kids! Come on man.
Actually. Jaina is 34 in the Books at this time in the EU. Kyle was born around 23 BBY, and it is currently 43 ABY. That would make him 66 years old. That’s pretty old if ya ask me. He’s older than both Luke, and Leia.
As to the article I actually really like your picks for these EU characters.
I always picture Hutcherson as Ben…
It’s been stated a million times that episode 7,8, and 9 will be original stories, so I don’t know why you and countless other articles keep insisting that the movies will follow EU story lines. The sooner you accept this, the less disappointed you will be.
The two are not mutually exclusive…all Lucas has said is that the movies will be original stories, not adapted from EU stories. That means the original stories could contain elements established in the EU.
Not that I care either way whether they use the EU or overwrite it, but we won’t know which direction they are going in until some of the casting is announced.
Original story doesn’t disprove Expanded Universe characters making there way into an Original Story, sorry but your argument is a fallacy. There have been countless examples of series that took elements from expanded stories into the true story and even more examples of reimaginies of characters from old comic books into modern comics. Will this happen here… maybe, time shall tell however Disney’s President already stated the [Star Wars Expanded Universe] had 17,000 characters,1000 characters and 20000 years for Disney’s writers to “draw inspiration from”… and he said that the day the deal was announced.
No, I don’t expect even close to half to survive the inevitable cuts but there is quite a number of amazing character concepts/plot concepts already written… and here is the funny thing ideas, they never really die, so sooner of later a writer for Disney/LFL will make a pitch based on the EU and it will make its way into the new trilogy or spinoff movies. Look at Star Trek, Battlestar Galatica, Doctor Who, Marvel, etc… for countless examples of amazing reimainings of very old a poorly done character/plot/setting.
Gary Oldman as a sith would be ridiculously cool.
What Boo-urns said. If The Clone Wars has shown us anything, it’s that George Lucas does like to take EU characters and give them spotlights, like Quinlan Vos, republic commandos and Nightsisters. EU stories need not feature in the new films, but if they’re anything like I think they’re going to be, they’ll feature characters like this anyway. For instance, in George Lucas’s treatment, he probably won’t have named many of the new Jedi; can’t you just imagine the script meeting where someone says “let’s make this character into one of the fan favourite game characters just for the hell of it, they’ll love it!”
Bar Mark Hammil and Gary Oldman Id cast none of the others.
No Sith lords! Anakin Skywalker brought balance to the Force by destroying the last of the Sith.
I think the idea of jagged fel and kyle katarn are great, I think you are going with the great approach but may I remind you that at the end of the fate of the jedi series, Ben skywalker is in his late teens, also a new skywalker has to pave the way for the skywalkers mentioned in the Legacy comic series, as well as Allana Solo cause she is the promised QUeen of the jedi as prophesied in the fate of the jedi series, so around this time, she should be at least close to 12 or 14 , kinda like Padme Amidala in The Phantom Menace, so yeah all storylines got to pave the way for the legacy series, I think planets we should see is like Korriban, or dantooine, some more planets instead of the same ones in the previous two trilogy, also bring the mandolarion army, and more hutts like the descendants of Jabba or something, and I think Kristen Stewart would make a great Jaina solo, how about bringing in an Ewok Jedi knight, never saw one in the comics or books, that would be cool,.
I agreed with you Robert, they need to stick with the expanded universe story line and if you noticed too at the end of the fate of jedi series, not all of the sith are dead, the latest story so far is the book after Mercy Kills, which continue where fate of jedi left off and George Lucas once said that no stories are to be written about what happens 50 to 70 years ABY which means that episode 7 8 and 9 will be based on that, another thing is that Chewbacca is dead and there is nothing mentioned whatsoever about C-3po in the Legacy series, but R2-D2 is in there, so what happens with C-3PO? also there are a few skywalkers before the legacy skywalkers, so they need to make thier way too, yeah leagacy is 130 ABY but if you nailed it down, it takes place 126 years after return of the jedi, which means Luke or ben skywlaker grandkids right, cause fate of the jedi is 40 years after return of the jedi which leaves 80 years to go, so Luke will be dead, Ben kids will be old or dead, so that only leaves the skywalkers mentioned in Legacy, also wanted to point out that a lot of jedi died in the fate of the jedi series too, so there need to be a breaking point to introduce darth wyrrlox and darth krayt, they are mentioned in the books preceding the fate of the jedi series, so the new trilogy should focus on what they are doing to bring the order of the sith to light,
No ewoks, no c-3p0, no R2, no jabba. The prequal trilogy was ruined by too many original trilogy characters being planted in the films just for a kind of “hey guys you remember how much you loved chewie last time? Well here he is again!” They did the same in the hobbit with Galadriel and Saruman and that ruined it for me again there. I tend not to read EU books with the same characters from the original series coz lets be honest the two coolest characters in the OT were Vader and Palpatine and they’re dead so they won’t be popping up. I think that they can create new characters and make them better than douchey Luke skywalker. Look at the Darth Bane trilogy in the EU those were amazing and didn’t have any original trilogy characters. Red Harvest Was better than Death Troopers because it didn’t have Han Solo and Chewie escape ANOTHER impossible situation. Everybody died. There’s no word yet wether or not George Lucas has finally allowed any of the major characters to be killed off so unless episode seven has luke getting finished off in some epic battle with a new sith then don’t bother including him. Same with the other characters. And as for the guy who commented on there bein no sith coz Luke killed em then they may as well not make a new movie. Sith are the best thing about Star Wars. The Jedi are all kinda losers. Lets see the sith winning for a change. Put a downer on the whole trilogy and then when the inevitable 10, 11 and 12 get released it can be about how the Jedi retake the galaxy. Then we could have a war like the clone wars only good and spanning three movies. That’s what I want to see. Then do some of the old republic era. That would be awesome. Do 7 8 and 9 then go for Star Wars the old republic 1 2 and 3 then hit us with 10 11 and 13 and keep alternating between the two. Awesome!