AHC: Star Wars Cinematic Universe Based Off EU

We'll Get 'Em Next Time

In the past couple years, Disney have (A) scrapped the EU and made a controversial Sequel Trilogy, and (B) tried to create a Cinematic Universe based off Star Wars. With the failure of Solo, these plans have been put on the back burner for the indefinite future.

But what if Disney hadn't scrapped the EU, and based their stillborn universe off of it instead? Alternatively, what if Lucasfilm had done it independently in the 90's? It doesn't have to be all spin offs; it could just be a lot of main films ala Godzilla.

Could it be done?
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
I could see envision them making the sequel trilogy of the Timothy Zahn books, but most of the EU would either be ignored or explicitly discarded as OTL.
 

Nivek

We'll Get 'Em Next Time said:
In the past couple years, Disney have (A) scrapped the EU and made a controversial Sequel Trilogy, and (B) tried to create a Cinematic Universe based off Star Wars. With the failure of Solo, these plans have been put on the back burner for the indefinite future.

But what if Disney hadn't scrapped the EU, and based their stillborn universe off of it instead? Alternatively, what if Lucasfilm had done it independently in the 90's? It doesn't have to be all spin offs; it could just be a lot of main films ala Godzilla.

Could it be done?
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IIRC is that disney didn't want to pay royalties to the EU authors?
 

Kalvan

Well, for a sequel trilogy based on New Jedi Order, I would have cast Dina Meyer as Mara Jade, Shia LeBeof as Jacen, Jennifer Lawrence or Leelie Sobieski as Jaina, Melanie Griffith as Winter, and Mark Metcalfe or Ralph Feinnes in makeup as Non Amor.
 

Galba Otho Vitelius

The problem here is that the Lucas "world building" was mediocre. He talked about having a nine movie serial in his head but we know know he was making it up as he was going along. So there really wasn't material for nine movies unless you can find another creative artist to remake it.

And this almost happened with Thrawn but not quite. The interest here is Thrawn, not the Star Wars universe.

Disney purchased Marvel and just got lucky with Favreau, Wheedon, the Russos, and Waitiki being able to breath life into what had started as fairly one dimensional comic book characters. And they did well with the creative team behind Rogue One. I think the problem with the sequels was really the team lined up with the first. Lucas had pretty much been exhausted, but they should have gone with someone less of a hack. Also bring Thrawn in for the second movie.
 

Jukra

We'll Get 'Em Next Time said:
In the past couple years, Disney have (A) scrapped the EU and made a controversial Sequel Trilogy, and (B) tried to create a Cinematic Universe based off Star Wars. With the failure of Solo, these plans have been put on the back burner for the indefinite future.

But what if Disney hadn't scrapped the EU, and based their stillborn universe off of it instead? Alternatively, what if Lucasfilm had done it independently in the 90's? It doesn't have to be all spin offs; it could just be a lot of main films ala Godzilla.

Could it be done?
Click to expand...

Star Wars based in EU would be an interesting concept. In 1960's to 1990's a number of international co-operation European films were made. They were often clumsy, as work was shared in different countries and one had to find a smallest common denominator, but sci-fi could make this easier...

So, it's mid 70's and the EC decided to do a grand movie project to kick off European Hollywood. This effort is also launched to generate cultural goodwill between EC member states and to integrate Britain further into Europe.

There will be three episodes, titled IV-VI as there were fights over what episodes I-III should be about. Episode IV is produced with Italy in lead, Episode V with France in lead and Episode VI with UK in lead. West Germany provides money and sidekick actors.

The Episode IV - A New Hope is directed by Sergio Leone with Enrio Morricone providing soundtrack. The whole movie takes place in Tatooine, a desert planet greatly resembling Spaghetti Westerns. Luke Skywalker is not a clear cut hero but rather a man caught in flow of the events who tries, nevertheless, to do the right thing. Movie critics have likened the Luke Skywalker's role in Star Wars IV to the role of individual Italian during Fascist and WWII eras.

The Episode V - Empire Strikes Back was a musical directed by Jacques Demy, of Parapluies de Cherbourgh fame. It's focused on Leia trying to decide whether he should follow Luke - his brother - or Darth Vader - his father. Criticized as Valerian and Laureline ripoff. The City of Clouds is heavily influenced by Le Corbusier.

The Episode VI - Return of the Jedi was criticized as being "Battle of Britain meets Dam Busters - in space", a fairly straightforward space warfare films with massive dogfights with space fighters. Best remembered for the line "Gotcha!" as the Rebel Empire pilots destroy the Death Star. The entire Evil States cast spoke with irritating pseudo-German accent. Mon Mothma was used by fans of Maggie Thatcher in poster imitations, which was curious that Maggie was quite an EC critic.
 

GTStinger

IMHO the mistake was doing prequels in the late 90's. The best would be three sequels filming in the early 90's when the original actors' ages would be compatible with the EU being written at the time.
This also avoids the post Timothy Zahn EU that really got uneven quality and suffered from oversaturating the marked with books.

Pair Zahn with a top notch screenwriter and the results would be awesome. Unfortunately this runs counter to Lucas's need for creative control.
 

Arkenfolm

Although a lot of the EU is garbage or forgettable, you could keep audience interest with the solid parts like the Thrawn Trilogy adaption and maybe close with Hand of Thrawn and the peace between the Empire and New Republic, although that leaves the spectre of having an inferior quality "Part 2" of the Star Wars Cinematic Universe based on New Jedi Order.

What you'd need is good writers who can salvage anything workable out of all the bad EU books. There's also some EU books (like Glove of Darth Vader) which should be totally dropped since they add nothing. You'd definitely need someone like Tim Zahn supervising things at some level to keep it coherent. But if done right, it could definitely work and produce many memorable films.
 

CountDVB

In all honesty, it depends on what. The stuff set in the distant past like Knights of the Old Republic and others should've been kept since they add alot to the lore and mythos of the world yet including enough room for future writers to build off of, especially in the more recent pasts or even older. However, regarding the stuff post-Episode VI, I think the only thing worth saving was the Thrawn trilogy. Everything else I think should've been tossed by the wayside. Not because it's bad necessarily, but because it's limiting. The Thrawn trilogy is good enough to be kept without any changes or little change, but after that, well, space and room has to be made for new writers and new characters, which will be hard if the focus will always be insisted on a narrow view.

As for a prequel trilogy... hard to say. Telling the story of Anakin to becoming Darth Vader and the fall of the Republic to the Empire is difficult. They are actually two stories, but stories that are vastly interconnected. Anakin Skywalker's descent into Vader is intimately tied in with instrumental aspects of Palpatine's rise. Hoenstly, I think it would be easier to tell the prequel trilogy first as a television series. Fully fleshout all the characters and so on. And then either take the Anakin-centric highlights and adapt those into the films or have the prequels focus between that series and Anakin being coated into the armor.
 

We'll Get 'Em Next Time

metalinvader665 said:
Although a lot of the EU is garbage or forgettable, you could keep audience interest with the solid parts like the Thrawn Trilogy adaption and maybe close with Hand of Thrawn and the peace between the Empire and New Republic, although that leaves the spectre of having an inferior quality "Part 2" of the Star Wars Cinematic Universe based on New Jedi Order.

What you'd need is good writers who can salvage anything workable out of all the bad EU books. There's also some EU books (like Glove of Darth Vader) which should be totally dropped since they add nothing. You'd definitely need someone like Tim Zahn supervising things at some level to keep it coherent. But if done right, it could definitely work and produce many memorable films.
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NJO was good until it went grimdark (Anakin's death and Jacen's fall).

Hypothetically, just how many movies could you make out of the post RotJ EU?
 

We'll Get 'Em Next Time

CountDVB said:
In all honesty, it depends on what. The stuff set in the distant past like Knights of the Old Republic and others should've been kept since they add alot to the lore and mythos of the world yet including enough room for future writers to build off of, especially in the more recent pasts or even older. However, regarding the stuff post-Episode VI, I think the only thing worth saving was the Thrawn trilogy. Everything else I think should've been tossed by the wayside. Not because it's bad necessarily, but because it's limiting. The Thrawn trilogy is good enough to be kept without any changes or little change, but after that, well, space and room has to be made for new writers and new characters, which will be hard if the focus will always be insisted on a narrow view.

As for a prequel trilogy... hard to say. Telling the story of Anakin to becoming Darth Vader and the fall of the Republic to the Empire is difficult. They are actually two stories, but stories that are vastly interconnected. Anakin Skywalker's descent into Vader is intimately tied in with instrumental aspects of Palpatine's rise. Hoenstly, I think it would be easier to tell the prequel trilogy first as a television series. Fully fleshout all the characters and so on. And then either take the Anakin-centric highlights and adapt those into the films or have the prequels focus between that series and Anakin being coated into the armor.
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I mean, the Thrawn Trilogy does set up both Hand of Thrawn and Dark Empire.
 

Arkenfolm

We'll Get 'Em Next Time said:
Hypothetically, just how many movies could you make out of the post RotJ EU?
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If you went one movie per book (comics would be a bit of a different case) you could get dozens. Now, yes, there are books like the aforementioned Glove of Darth Vader or Crystal Star you wouldn't bother to adapt but you'd still be looking at something just as lengthy as the MCU.
 

We'll Get 'Em Next Time

metalinvader665 said:
If you went one movie per book (comics would be a bit of a different case) you could get dozens. Now, yes, there are books like the aforementioned Glove of Darth Vader or Crystal Star you wouldn't bother to adapt but you'd still be looking at something just as lengthy as the MCU.
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I mean, Thrawn, DE, Jedi Academy etc would be simple, but what about things like NJO, which has 19 books? And just how would you adapt the comics?
Also, when would this start? Late 80's when Thrawn makes the most sense?
 

Arkenfolm

I'd think by the time you got to NJO you'd have deviated enough from the books taking out the serviceable characters/plot lines and ditching the rest that you'd end up with something a bit different. Lucas himself will obviously want a lot more say in how this is written than he did when the EU writers wrote the source material so he'll put his own ideas in at times, so anything from unused ideas from the OT (midichlorians) to revisiting stuff from the PT (Naboo, Jar Jar, etc.), none of which is necessarily bad if approached right. How this would fit with the PT I don't know--I think it would be done after 2005. There'd likely be that cancelled live-action show made TTL too, so that's another source of characters and plots.

Now once you're done with that you're at the second arc with NJO, which could be just as long as the first arc. Maybe there'd be viewer fatigue by that point, maybe not.
 

GTStinger

Nice point of the KotoR era.

Could it be possible to have the wider EU (Books, computer games, etc) set in the far past with a tightly controlled post-RotJ EU focused on movies about the continuing exploits of the main characters.

The clone wars and rise of the Empire era get nothing but passing mention until the 2010s.
 
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