Thrawn Trilogy as Animated Film

I have been watching the final season, The Lost Missions, of the Clone Wars on Netflix and I must say the animation and storytelling are just incredible. The quality is practically on par with what Pixar, Dreamworks, and Walt Disney Animation are currently cranking out. All of this got me thinking about the future. 

Right now we know we are getting the sequel trilogy, which starts 30 years after Return of the Jedi. We are also going to get spin-off films that we speculate will follow the Marvel Cinematic Universe approach of single character stand-alone movies interspersed with an ensemble picture. We do not know in what time periods these stand alone films will occur, but they won't necessarily be constrained by the Sequel Trilogy timeline.

Meanwhile on television, we will have the regular animated series of Rebels that takes place during the dark times leading up to Episode IV. This looks to be a fun and very kid-friendly series with an all original cast and setting.

All these developments are exciting, but wouldn't it be neat if we got an animated theatrical Star Wars film? I know it was done before with the debut of the Clone Wars series, but that was ill advised since honestly the animation wasn't very good and the team that was put together was just getting started. I dare say that had a theatrical release been held until the end of the series, it would have had a much different reception from fans and critics alike.

I believe Disney-Lucasfilm has all the creative and technical resources to create excellent animated feature films. I think that if they do pursue this type of movie, the Thrawn trilogy would be a fantastic story to bring to life on the big screen.

Why?

First, it would side-step casting issues. Disney was able to create a youthful version of Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy, but these were only a handful of scenes. Attempting this technique over the course of an entire film with main characters like Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher would be foolhardy. The alternative of trying to recast those parts with new young actors would not be accepted because, let's face it, Han, Luke, and Leia are icons. Yes, you could use a different actor to portray a young Han Solo, but the Thrawn Trilogy takes place just a short time after Return of the Jedi. Animation avoids these visual problems and you can still use the principal actors as voices or even tap into the rich talents of a wide range of voice actors. 

Second, it is continuity-safe. With Episode VII jumping 30 years into the future and knowing that the Thrawn Trilogy doesn't have galaxy-disturbing events, such as the death of a major character, this story can be easily told. I am all for rebooting the EU, but I'd say of any of the 300+ EU novels, most people would put the Thrawn Trilogy at the top the essential reading list. 

Third, it will tap into the well-known demand for movie adaptations of books. Films like Twilight, Hunger Games, Divergent, and Harry Potter have racked up at the box office. The Thrawn books are well-known, loved, and are New York Times best sellers. It would also be the first Star Wars production where we will know the entire story, not just the ultimate ending, which will keep the snobby fan boy critiques quieted down (if that is even possible).

Fourth, it throws a bone to the EU fans. I expect the legion of fans who have read the legion of Star Wars novels and comic books will be disappointed as vast areas of the EU continuity are erased from the Star Wars galaxy in the Disney-owned reality. It would be an olive branch to those fans and open up the possibility of future animated films looking into other remnant pieces of the EU that could be dubbed "official" by Disney-Lucasfilm.

Last, Disney knows animation. The billion dollar movie, Frozen, proves that once again. Animation provides so much creative freedom you can't get with a live action film. I would love to see the combined forces of Disney and Lucasfilm for a project like this!

Episode VII Deal-killers

We are less than two years away until the premiere of Star Wars Episode VII. But now that we are finally getting some new content released from Disney, starting with the release of the main cast for the Star Wars Rebels animated series and then with Bob Iger's announcement that VII will take place 30 years after Return of the Jedi, it has gotten me thinking.

Now I am going to do my best to go along with whatever direction J. J. Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy, and the rest of the Lucasfilm leadership decide upon. I am already preparing myself for the possible (eventual) deaths of that core trio of the OT, Han, Luke, and Leia. I frankly will be shocked if Han is still alive by the end of VII. However, for me, there are some areas that could really kill off my enthusiasm for the sequel trilogy:

Artoo Detoo is destroyed - Never. Perish the thought! He is such a key part of the fabric of the Star Wars cinematic saga. It would not be Star Wars without Artoo existing out there somewhere. I don't care what other droid you might put in it's place, it is not the same. Threepio, on the other hand, is negotiable....

The Millennium Falcon is destroyed - This one is not so much about sentimentality, though there is quite a bit tangled up here, as it is just cliched. How many Star Trek films feature the destruction on the beloved Enterprise? Somehow the ship manages to survive all sorts of travails and close calls for season after season on TV, but as soon as it hits the big screen we have to have some massive destruction of the ship.

I am still traumatized from Transformers: The Movie (1986) where the creators pretty much destroyed every single character in the first ten minutes of the film and substituted their own, new creations. It is such an "easy out" that my respect for movie directors who go this direction always diminishes. I will say I was pleased that in Star Trek: Into Darkness, Abrams was able to restrain from the total destruction of that Enterprise, so I hold out hope that he won't resort to it in VII.

The Yuuzhan Vong exists and is prominent - I'm sorry EU fans, but I am not a fan of the direction the Expanded Universe took in creating the Vong. I think it was a desparate attempt for new creativity after so many years of Original Trilogy retreads that passed for new novels. If I wanted to see/read that stuff, I can go to Alien and/or Predator. It is too gross/weird/disturbing for the wonderful space opera that Lucas himself said is made for ten year olds. Plus the Force has no affect on them. How lame will that be when all the Jedi are doing are moving their arms around to no effect? I can do that myself. I don't need a movie exploring that possibility. It would remove some the magic of the GFFA.

I mean look at one of the plot points in the last novel of the Vong series: "an awakened but still weakened Jaina Solo is told by the Shamed One, who believes that she is the human avatar of the Vong Trickster goddess Yun-Harla, that he had attained his Force powers by grafting yammosk DNA to his own neural tissue in order to emulate the gods' works in creating the universe." This is supposed to be Star Wars?!

We should have an answer to this question pretty quickly when the trailer comes out. The 30 year time mark that Bob Iger announced is well into the Yuuzhan Vong invasion according to the EU timeline. If Lucasfilm is following such a timeline, which I both doubt and hope not, Episode VII will open up in a very strange world filled with terraformed and destroyed planets. I have my fingers crossed the Vong will be just a footnote to the Star Wars universe!

The Emperor Returns - Can we please be original? I won't mind a cameo of the great Ian McDiarmid's character, but I don't want a reincarnated or cloned Emperor. We've already seen that in the Dark Empire graphic novel. Surely there are other villains out there that we can discover?

Oh, and the EU has pretty much used up all the good "Darth" names. I think the only ones left are Darth Milquetoast, Darth Sithman, and Darth Darth.

Star Wars on QuizUp

I first learned about the mobile phone trivia game, QuizUp, on the fantastic Star Wars news site, Jedi News. They were spreading the word that the Star Wars OT topic was just posted on the app. OT is short for Original Trilogy, which is my personal favorite time period for the Star Wars saga. Since downloading the app I have been hooked on it! Not only do they have Star Wars OT, but also a Star Wars topic that spans all six films.

You can challenge your friends and family and see how you rank with people nearby, in your state, in your country, and in the world. It is a blast taking on a trivia challenge with someone in Singapore, then the UK, then Texas.

But the app has much more than Star Wars trivia - a lot more. There is a topic for just about any subject you can think of - 18th Century History, Name That Food, Harry Potter Spells, Logos, Disney, Jane Austen, Downton Abbey, Grammar, and even Star Trek (just to name a few).

Now just today, the Star Wars Expanded Universe just went live. I am excited for many reasons, but I must admit one of those reasons is that I wrote about 250 of the questions! I hope I did a good enough job and that everyone enjoys them.

If you haven't tried the app yet, you should! The Android version came out just a day or two ago, so it should be widely available now.

Original Blu Ray Still Available

The Original Star Wars Blu Ray

I procrastinated and I almost missed it. I remember on Star Wars Day back in 2011 (May the Fourth), they announced that the entire Star Wars saga would be released on Blu Ray for the first time in September of that year. While I was excited about the release on a new format, I have been pretty underwhelmed by the whole Blu Ray thing. Yes it is incredible resolution, but the discs are slow to load and all the animated menus are more of an annoyance than convenience for me.

So September came and went and I could not bring myself to plop down close to three figures for another set of Star Wars movies. I already have the 2006 two disc original trilogy releases than included the original theatrical versions of the films, plus another set of the original trilogy from 2004 that includes a bonus disc featuring Empire of Dreams (which is a great documentary by the way).

Fast forward to 2013 and the announced sale of Lucasfilm to Disney. So now I am a little concerned about the availability of the Blu Ray set. I figured there would be a new release, and so there was. However, the releases did not feature the bonus discs in the original set. Now I am a little worried. I see that Amazon has the original set, but with the link to "buy it here" third party sites. The prices are not as good.

Well recently I have seen that Amazon has it back in stock themselves at a price of around $98. I was about to go ahead and buy it when I found it at Target yesterday for $88. This wasn't even a sale price. It seems lately that Amazon's prices have not been as good as they once were. Anyway, I went ahead to bought them and was thankful for the chance.

Now I will say, my wife was very kind to me by not rolling her eyes and asking me why I need *another* copy of the same set of movies. Of course, I have been indulgent in her geek-out of all things Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, so I guess it all evens out.

Anyhow, I sat down and looked through some of the bonus content. Wow - it is amazing. To see out-takes of scenes I have memorized practically frame-by-frame is hard to wrap my head around. For example, when Luke is recovering at the Hoth hospital and Han comes in and tells him he looks strong enough to pull the ears off a gundark, Leia is on the other side of the room. She has *always* been on the other side of the room. But now I know that scene started with her touching, dare I say caressing, Luke's wounded face before walking to the side door. It's little things like this that make all the difference and makes me glad I had a second chance from procrastinating.