Han Solo Movie

[mirth]

Even Shadows of Empire is a mediocre book and that got the full treatment from Lucas - games, comics, toys, a soundtrack album. It was basically a Star Wars movie without the actual movie. It was a middling book though.

[mirth]

I disagree.  I think the Zahn trilogy is pretty excellent.  The ones after Zahn are pretty uneven.

The ones after Zahn are mostly awful to the point of not being readable.

The Zahn books are readable, but I do not consider them excellent. They are above average Star Wars books where the average is pretty bad.

why do you hate freedom?

>:D

[JasonPratt]

The Thrawn trilogy (which was named something else that I don't recall offhand, but there are good reasons why they're unofficially known as the Thrawn trilogy now) was also, once upon a time, the officially sanctioned canonical stories for what would have otherwise been Eps 7-9.

I understand not making them, since the original actors would have been far too old (out of makeup anyway), and so would have at least required recasting, which... man, talk about a fan backlash landmine... But still. Have Zahn write your stories if not your scripts and pay him generously to do so. This isn't rocket science.

(The sfx are, I suppose, rocket science in several ways. But Lucasfilm and/or Disney and/or ILM have the equivalent of tons of rocket scientists to work on those. Doing quite well, too.)

[bayonetbrant]

Even Shadows of Empire is a mediocre book and that got the full treatment from Lucas - games, comics, toys, a soundtrack album. It was basically a Star Wars movie without the actual movie. It was a middling book though.

The comic wasn't bad.  The rest of it was.

The artwork on the Dark Empire comics was excellent.  The story on Dark Empire II was as bad as the artwork.

[bayonetbrant]

The Thrawn trilogy (which was named something else that I don't recall offhand, but there are good reasons why they're unofficially known as the Thrawn trilogy now)

Heir to the Empire

[mirth]

I would have been fine with Zahn writing screenplays. I like Zahn and I appreciate the contributions he has made to SW. He certainly could have done better than what JJ Abrams or Rian Johnson have done with the franchise.

[BanzaiCat]

I read them when they came out, so it's been a while. Maybe I need to re-read it. I remember being underwhelmed with it overall except for some parts that were interesting. Actually been wanting to re-read it since the prequel trilogy and it's focus on the Stormtrooper clones - was wondering how close to each other they are, if at all.

[mirth]

The thing I really give Zahn credit for is re-building fan interest at a time when it was pretty much dead. After Jedi, Lucas felt like he was done with Star Wars and very little happened until Zahn's books came along. I may not think they are great books, but fan interest absolutely exploded around them.

Zahn kinda brought Star Wars back from the dead and the renewed fan interest eventually led Lucas to make the prequels (for better or worse).

[BanzaiCat]

To an extent. West End Games helped keep SW alive a lot with the RPG they developed.

[mirth]

To an extent. West End Games helped keep SW alive a lot with the RPG they developed.

That was definitely some of the best Star Wars content available in the years immediately after  RotJ. Heck, it's still some of the best Star Wars content ever made. A lot of stuff out of the source books eventually made it into canon.

[BanzaiCat]

I loved some of those sourcebooks and modules - they were fun to read, even if I never got them to the table. My game group at the time were asshats.

[mirth]

This, I did not know:

Lucasfilm considered the West End Games' Star Wars sourcebooks so authoritative that when Timothy Zahn was hired to write what became the Thrawn trilogy, he was sent a box of West End Games Star Wars books and directed to base his novel on the background material presented within

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars%3A_The_Roleplaying_Game#Development

[Destraex]

I guess I just hate the idea of Han being a character that I would consider a dick. Han being just an arrogant gifted shit really would be a let down for me. I wanted him to be an responsible officer cadet that realised how bad the empire was and saved the wookies while escaping... then became a rogue in order to survive and avoid the empire. Eventually we see some of his true responsible self come back in episode IV although some of that rogue remains, that need to stay away and rely on himself. That is the story I wanted. Instead the children may get the message from what is essentially modern day "folk lore" that it's ok to be an arrogant shit and go around boosting cars, running scams and creating hell for absolutely no good reason other than that you "can". There will be a lot of emotion and then some rudimentary explanation one liners. The movie basically running on getting high on thrills and risk taking because.... he just magically manages to "reflex" his way out of things even though he is not paying attention. No effort, no thinking... just emotion for big rewards. Han seemed to be everybodies favourite character, the male lead. I wonder if this movie will be designed to "emasculate" him and turn him into a brainless idiot with an attitude.

[bbmike]

^I wouldn't worry. Look at how well they handled Luke's character in the last movie.  :hide:

[mirth]

I predict Hortas will be added to the next Star Wars movie.