To the best of my knowledge, the Ewok movies weren’t released in theaters, but the Clone Wars pilot was. So where is the line drawn? Somewhere on the sane side of the Holiday Special, one would hope.
Look, I’ll be honest, I loved the Thrawn trilogy back when I read it (in high school, I think) when it first came out. But looking back… eh… it’s not all it’s been hyped up to be. Better than most EU, yes, but that doesn’t say much. There’s a bunch of stuff in there that I would not want to see again. And lets face it, the number of people who’ve read ANY EU at all pales against the number who’ve seen the movies. (or even the CW show.) Having seen the cute nods to the fans that Abrams put in ST (Admiral Archer’s prize Beagle) and ST:ID, (tribbles, Mudd, Carol…) they might wink at the EU at best.
Besides, the Thrawn trilogy was what? 5 years post ROTJ? We’re now 30 years post-ROTJ. We know Hamill, Ford, and Fisher will reprise their roles, but they ain’t playing themselves 25 years ago without some Gollum-style digital makeup. I love them all, but have you seen them lately? I’m betting on cameos from them, with “Next Generation” heroes taking up the forefront. (which would be fitting; each trilogy being about the kids of the previous one). They might be Jaina, Jacen, etc. from the EU, but if they are, bet on them using names only as a wink and rewriting completely their characters and stories. More likely would be brand new characters.
Lucas’ most recent version is always canon, superseding previous versions. So (as one example), like it or not, Greedo shooting first is canon. Han shooting first is not.
Has Disney actually said “trilogy”? Is it possible they might decide to Roddenberry the franchise and just keep cranking stuff out till interest wanes?
Disney has promised a new trilogy AND standalone movies. One movie per year, every other year part of the trilogy and the off years being the standalones.
I’d be shocked if they stop at three. Disney paid Lucas four billion dollars for the rights, and they’d be hard pressed to make that much money back with only three films. Even if each film makes 1.3 billion dollars (which is not unheard of but better than any of the LOTR movies did), they’ve only just made back their purchase from Lucas. I think that we’re looking at a new Star Wars film every couple years from now until seventy years after George Lucas dies and the copyright runs out.
That might not be a bad thing; it’s a model not unlike the James Bond films, which I’m not a fan of but are very good considering how long that series has lasted.
Mmm, that would be an awesome fit. You can cast all-new actors for all the roles, expand on the cool Crimson Guards that show up briefly in the other movies, yet still tie it in by having Luke appear. There might be a problem using Mark Hamill since having him do swordfights as a 60 year old Luke might not work well, not to mention having a 60 year old guard getting his revenge 40 years later. They could always just leave Luke out and just go with the “he takes out false pretenders” storyline.
The Star Wars franchise is more than just the movies, though - toys, video games, novels, TV shows… they could make that four billion back without ever making a single theatrical release.
