Star Wars VII: Essential Characters And Who Should Play Them – PART II

5. Bill Nighy - Shimrra Jamaane Who: Since first reading the New Jedi Order novels, I always thought that they would be amazing movies. They took the Star Wars universe and flipped it upside down and made every character expendable from original characters in the films to a library of Expanded Universe characters that the reader had grown to love. The introduction of the Yuuzhan Vong was a stroke of genius because of the scale of galactic destruction that it unleashed. At the beginning of the series, it was easy to believe that our heroes might actually fail and ultimately die. The leader of this race of aliens known as the Yuuzhan Vong was Overlord Shimrra Jamaane. Through much of the opening series, Shimrra was only ever hinted at until finally making his appearance about midway through the series. The Yuuzhan Vong is a species that are completely absent from the Force and cannot be sensed or felt. This raises a lot of questions among the Jedi ranks as to how this is possible because of the belief that €œeverything€ revolves within the Force. The Jedi are eventually hunted by the Yuuzhan Vong throughout the series which leads to exciting battles of epic proportion. If we ever get a chance at seeing an adaptation with the Yuuzhan Vong, Shimrra would have to be a central character in that plot. Actor: When I tried to consider someone that could play Shimrra I found myself struggling a bit. Specific actors that I did consider felt as though they needed to be placed elsewhere within the Star Wars Universe. This is a character that I would like to leave open to debate in the comment section. At the end I came up with Bill Nighy mostly because of his role as Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Nighy is no stranger to fanboy material and I could easily see him as the leader of the Yuuzhan Vong war machine that attacks the Star Wars universe. His ability to carry strong dialogue as well as a strong presence makes him a good fit for this role. That€™s it for Part II. I hope you enjoyed the focus this week on other prominent characters that lay a little more outside of the Skywalker/Solo families. We€™ll explain more pivotal characters next week and look to get more villains involved. Please leave your comments because I€™d love to hear your input and debate back and forth with you. Until next time, may the Force be with you!