EpisodeVIII Director Rian Johnson Added Creative Input to New Star Wars: Bloodline Novel

Rian JohnsonStar Wars: Episode VIII director Rian Johnson has reportedly contributed his creative skills to Star Wars: Bloodline, an upcoming novel written by author Claudia Gray. Bloodline follows events that take place five years prior to those seen in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Read on for more!

 

The Bloodline novel, follows Leia Organa as she tries to figure out a way to deal with the growing threat of the fledgling First Order.

 

Han and Leia

 

According to the Official Star Wars website, Johnson’s addition to the book isn’t the only notable detail either. A major portion of the Novel will reveal the start of the Resistance and details on how General Leia got involved. The book will delve into more personal parts of the soon to be Resistance Leaders life, including her relationship with the swashbuckling Han Solo. The reader will also find out a scandalous secret that involves Darth Vader.

 

Details on what Johnson’s actual contributions were not revealed. However, the author did have a few words to say about his involvement.

“We are indebted to him for his creativity and generosity,”

 

Bloodline

 

“Bloodline” promises back story information that will shed some light on the events that took place in the universe of “Star Wars” between the story of “Return of the Jedi” (1983) and “The Force Awakens” (2015).

 

Official Synopsis:

 

WITNESS THE BIRTH OF THE RESISTANCE

When the Rebellion defeated the Empire in the skies above Endor, Leia Organa believed it was the beginning to a lasting peace. But after decades of vicious infighting and partisan gridlock in the New Republic Senate, that hope seems like a distant memory.

Now a respected senator, Leia must grapple with the dangers that threaten to cripple the fledgling democracy—from both within and without. Underworld kingpins, treacherous politicians, and Imperial loyalists are sowing chaos in the galaxy. Desperate to take action, senators are calling for the election of a First Senator. It is their hope that this influential post will bring strong leadership to a divided galaxy.

As the daughter of Darth Vader, Leia faces with distrust the prospect of any one person holding such a powerful position—even when supporters suggest Leia herself for the job. But a new enemy may make this path Leia’s only option. For at the edges of the galaxy, a mysterious threat is growing.

 

Why do you think Rian Johnson was involved with Bloodline, and will this creative input help connect to Episode VIII? Talk about it below or in The Cantina forums.

 

Bloodline is set to hit shelves on May 3, 2016 from Penguin Random House. Our own Hard Case will post his review on the same date as well, so stay tuned. Here’s his initial reaction:

 

 

 

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96 thoughts on “EpisodeVIII Director Rian Johnson Added Creative Input to New Star Wars: Bloodline Novel

  • April 27, 2016 at 10:51 am
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    Ewwww boy this gets me excited for VIII

  • April 27, 2016 at 11:26 am
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    So glad when we get post Jedi canon. I am so spent on the original trilogy setting.

    • April 27, 2016 at 10:57 pm
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      This. I love the OT, obviously, but enough is enough. Those stories have been told.

  • April 27, 2016 at 11:47 am
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    So if this is set 6 years before TFA.. Ben Solo is 23 and still training with Luke. So it’s before Ben Solo turns to Kylo Ren. In Rey’s flashback We see Kylo Ren save a young girl. If this is Rey ?, Wouldn’t that make Rey around 5 yrs old ? So would this give credence to the theory of Rey being a clone ?

    • April 27, 2016 at 12:48 pm
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      Where does it say that Ben Solo is 23 and still training with Luke? In Rey’s forceback we see Kylo Ren plunge his lightsaber into the back of a member of the clan, no young girl was there.

      • April 27, 2016 at 3:00 pm
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        So what You’re saying is the flashback Shot of when Rey is on the ground is the perspective of a Knight Of Ren and it’s a clan member about to strike the Knight of Ren . So the link to the force vision is the lighsaber and Rey. So if Rey isn’t there as a child,the lightsaber in Kylo’s left hand had to be the link to the force-vision/flashback.
        But the vision then jumps to Rey as a child pining after a ship as it leaves. It changes, Rey is then the link.Or are there no links ? I’m more confused than ever,

        • April 27, 2016 at 3:17 pm
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          It’s my understand that originally the forceback scene was basically a timeline of Anakin’s lightsaber from Cloud City to Rey’s awakening. Read somewhere that J.J. shortened it as it gave too much away in TFA. The Knights of Ren scene is them attacking a village that belongs to ‘The Clan’, they were in search of Anakin’s lightsaber. Pablo Hidalgo confirmed the villager we see is a member of ‘The Clan’, as he explicitly refers to him by that name, and hinted that Rey was not actually there.

          Maz happened to be at that village, she escaped with the lightsaber, hence its possession in her castle. Believe this scene takes place much closer to TFA as Kylo Ren is obviously a grown man, so it could be within ‘The Bloodline’ timeline.

          The link is Anakin’s lightsaber and Rey.

          • April 27, 2016 at 3:35 pm
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            Thank’s Kenny. i feel a little more up to speed now. . I think I’l be buying this book.. 🙂

          • April 27, 2016 at 7:10 pm
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            No worries man.

          • April 27, 2016 at 4:59 pm
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            well, shit… good to know.

          • April 27, 2016 at 8:17 pm
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            Maz said she had the lightsaber “for ages” which meas quite a while. But it would be no more than 31 years since it was lost in ESB.

          • April 27, 2016 at 8:20 pm
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            “for ages” could mean anything. My hoodie I’m currently wearing, I’ve had for ages (5 years).

          • April 28, 2016 at 2:54 am
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            But Maz was over 1000 years old. She must have figuratively been thinking what ages meant to the people she was directly talking to

          • April 28, 2016 at 3:28 am
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            Think when your holding onto something very significant that doesn’t belong to you awaiting the moment for it to be bestowed to the rightful person could be expressed as ages.

            From the leaked synopsis:

            “The lightsaber is being used by the CLAN against THE SEVEN [The Knight’s of Ren]. The last man is down and Kylo Ren approaches Rey. THE SEVEN are looting and we see Maz Kanata in the foreground taking an object. END OF VISION”.

        • April 27, 2016 at 3:57 pm
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          That’s not a knight of ren

      • April 27, 2016 at 3:13 pm
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        Force visions have never required a physical link of any kind in order to manifest. That is probably why you are getting tripped up here.

    • April 27, 2016 at 1:52 pm
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      ‘We see Kylo Ren save a young girl…’

      (On what plane of reality did THAT gem happen…..?)

      • April 27, 2016 at 2:01 pm
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        lol.. In Reys’ flashback there was a POV shot of a Knight Of Ren raise an arm to strike when Kylo’s lightsaber pierces through his/her chest. I assumed that this was Rey as a child.. Either at Her village or maybe when Kylo slaughters Luke’s Padawans. 🙂

        • April 27, 2016 at 2:40 pm
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          Pablo Hidalgo confirmed a few weeks back that Rey was not present in that scene.

          • April 27, 2016 at 3:18 pm
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            Agree – I took her ‘presence’ there to be the same as Harry ‘witnessing’ events in Dumbledore’s Pensieve…”there”, but not physically

          • April 27, 2016 at 3:19 pm
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            That was the tweet I was looking for.
            ‘Clan leader’ and Hidalgo confirming it happened somewhere else.

          • April 27, 2016 at 4:09 pm
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            Brill’ link .was a good read. Cheers. 🙂

        • April 27, 2016 at 3:31 pm
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          Rey isn’t present there any more than she is present in the Bespin corridor. It’s just a force vision seen through other people’s eyes.

        • April 27, 2016 at 7:19 pm
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          That wasnt a knight of ren…

        • April 28, 2016 at 2:03 am
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          I think the scene with the Knights of Ren in the rain was a future vision of the final showdown. You can see Kylo holding another lightsaber on his left hand so it might be Lukes. Maybe he has killed him and marches against her to finish it all.

    • April 28, 2016 at 7:55 pm
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      I always assumed that Rey was a member of Luke’s Jedi academy, but now that I think about it, there’s no real reason to think that.

  • April 27, 2016 at 3:04 pm
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    *raises eyebrow* Wouldn’t this be dangerous for their marketing of VIII? I mean, with hinted spoilers and stuff…

    • April 27, 2016 at 3:08 pm
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      Maybe Rian Johnson has a different idea in marketing compared to JJ

      • April 27, 2016 at 4:52 pm
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        most directors have very different ideas about it than JJ does

        • April 27, 2016 at 6:42 pm
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          Hahaha, yup.

          Fans: “…The twist is X, isn’t it?”
          JJ: “N-NO!! It’s not!! It’s actually Y!!”
          *it’s fuckin’ X*
          JJ: “Haha, gotcha! Surprised~?”

          • April 28, 2016 at 9:25 pm
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            Come to think of it, he could have just made Cumberbatch a disciple/family member of Khan that somehow secretly got Khan out during the events of the film – allowing Khan to remain ‘vengeful’ as all hell when he wakes up and all his people remain in Federation containment and his disciple dead at Kirk/Spock’s hand.

            Nice trilogy ending…but alas…..

    • April 28, 2016 at 7:54 pm
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      My guess is that the book was mapped out and written in such a way as to dodge spoilers. We’ll learn enough reading this to maybe anticipate some of what we’ll see in E8, but nothing major.

      And that’s fine. I don’t need to know much about this movie before it debuts other than the title and whatever we see in the trailers. A lot of people here show a pretty juvenile level of entitlement and patience when it comes to this type of stuff. Lots of people were going off their rockers wanting information about The Force Awakens and that movie is now 4 months behind us.

  • April 27, 2016 at 3:23 pm
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    Wow scandalous secret involving Vader!? Maybe there was a Mrs Vader! Perhaps Rey is Luke & Leias half sister!

    • April 27, 2016 at 4:44 pm
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      -_-

    • April 27, 2016 at 4:57 pm
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      No… No that would not work.

      Rey is in her early 20s. Vader died 8 – 10 years before Rey was born.

      • April 27, 2016 at 8:14 pm
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        Rey is 19 in TFA according to story head Pablo Hidalgo and in his visual dictionary, He also said Kylo is 29 in TFA, as he was born about a year after ROTJ..

        • April 27, 2016 at 8:32 pm
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          Yeah, the age thing I was basing on Daisy Ridley’s actual age. So the age of 19 makes sense for what I was talking about.

          • April 28, 2016 at 2:51 am
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            Daisy was 21 when she filmed it.

          • April 28, 2016 at 11:47 am
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            Well she was 21 while filming so it was like 2 years off. No biggie.

  • April 27, 2016 at 6:42 pm
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    Could it be that Rey was actually being trained, when a child, to become a Knight of Ren? Maybe that’s why Kylo said… I can be your teacher…

    • April 27, 2016 at 7:48 pm
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      Its possible, what makes that improbable now though is that we know Luke’s Jedi Academy was still in service at least 6 years before TFA. So with Rey being 19 during the movie and shown being dropped off at Jakku at about age 5, she would have left the academy more than 8 years before it ended.

      • April 27, 2016 at 9:09 pm
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        But couldn’t the Knights of Ren be older than that?

      • April 28, 2016 at 4:14 pm
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        Perhaps she was never an academy student…

    • April 27, 2016 at 7:58 pm
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      I actually had a theory back in September she had some history with the KoR.. alas, it was based on bogus dialogue from the Kylo Ren talking doll.

  • April 27, 2016 at 8:04 pm
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    Starting to sound like Bloodline will be required reading for VIII, not just optional expansion.
    At least the author is quality.

    • April 27, 2016 at 9:08 pm
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      This is what I want. Things like the Thrawn trilogy are so beloved because they carried so much weight to the universe. We need more media that has weight to it, not just character studies. Don’t get me wrong. Character studies are nice, but stories with real consequences on the universe are even better.

      • April 28, 2016 at 7:50 pm
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        I think the difference is that Zahn in writing the Thrawn Trilogy had a certain amount of creative freedom that the current novelists don’t. There were no new films on the horizon, so the sky was the limit in terms of where the story goes. These new books are going to have to play second fiddle to the new spate of movies that will showcase the more significant events. I’m totally fine with that. I’d rather have more Star Wars movies and weaker books than stronger books and no movies.

        But I think the best things about the Thrawn Trilogy were the characters. I’m not a big EU fan and have often been quite critical of it, but I count Talon Karrde, Mara Jade, Bel Iblis, Winter, and Thrawn as Star Wars characters as legitimate as those on screen.

        The other EU stuff…meh.

        • April 28, 2016 at 8:03 pm
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          Agree. As the new trilogy gets closer to completion, though, I hope we can expect to see more weightier stories in the Vi-VII gap. It sounds like we might get some juicy bits in this new book, so that’s exciting.

          Right there with you on the EU. Thrawn Trilogy, X-Wing novels, TIE Fighter video games, Brian Daley Han Solo series, KOTOR. These were all gems. The rest of it though? Was pretty hit or miss, and mostly miss. That’s why I’m hoping they recanonize a lot of the stuff from the previously mentioned stuff: Thrawn, Jade, Corran Horn, some of the cooler ships/technology/etc. They’ve started doing a bit of that. I just can’t wait for the inevitable (?) return of Thrawn. He, along with Darth Vader and Han Solo, is my favorite Star Wars character.

          • April 28, 2016 at 8:49 pm
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            I’d definitely be on board for some meaty novels that go the distance in terms of character development and advancing what we know about the galaxy. I expect that as time goes by, we’ll see some weightier stories. This new unified story and timeline is still really, really young and I think it’s fair to give it some time to find its footing and really get rolling. It’ll grow into its own.

            Yeah. I beat up on the EU a lot, but I do actually have a massive soft-spot for the early stuff from the 90’s. Now that’s is rather far behind us, it’s taken on its own identity as a Star Wars “era” similar to how I view the OT era. I never played KOTOR, but I enjoyed the X-Wing novels and a lot of the earlier LucasArts video games. God, I miss TIE Fighter and X-Wing. I’d love to revisit those games.

            I really soured on the EU after the NJO stuff started. There were a lot of duds prior to that story, but the EU from that point forward really didn’t do much for me.

          • May 2, 2016 at 6:12 am
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            I miss X-wing too, bro.

    • April 28, 2016 at 4:13 pm
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      I doubt it’ll be required reading. I can’t think of many movies whose narrative rests on anything needing to be read beforehand.

  • April 27, 2016 at 8:26 pm
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    Here’s an interesting morsel of info regarding Trevorrow and Episode IX: http://thr.cm/S7a4l2

    “Trevorrow still has a lot that he could include in his texts as he’s writing the screenplay with frequent collaborator Derek Connolly. That said, it would be understandable if he kept his texts brief. He’s also juggling Star Wars: Episode IX, which he will direct from a script he co-wrote with Connolly, and his The Book of Henry will roll out sometime in 2016, as well”

    • April 27, 2016 at 8:41 pm
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      i thought rian johnson was also writing episode IX?

      • April 27, 2016 at 8:58 pm
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        he’s writing the story for IX, Trevorrow is doing the screenplay

    • April 28, 2016 at 5:15 am
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      Seriously ? The 2 guys that have written the poor story of Jurassic World ?F**k. i hope JJ and Rian are keeping an eye on IX.

  • April 27, 2016 at 8:31 pm
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    Any parliamentary republic needs a chief executive officer, who may be called prime minister, chancellor, or “first senator”. There is nothing wrong with that as long as the “first senator” is elected or confirmed by an absolute majority in the Senate and may be removed from office on a vote of no confidence. I don’t see why Leia would see that as “dangerous”. If the New Republic operates without a chief executive, it is probably just a loose confederation of planets/systems and, therefore, highly ineffective and toothless.

    • April 27, 2016 at 9:05 pm
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      Maybe Leia’s a Libertarian?

      • April 28, 2016 at 4:50 pm
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        Rather, an ‘Anti-Federalist’

    • April 28, 2016 at 4:11 pm
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      Maybe that’s the thrust of some of the political issues we’ll see. I think it would make sense. And you’re absolutely right. Without some sort of chief executive giving some sort of continuity and cohesion to the galaxy, there are going to end up being a million small fires to put out. But I can also see a galaxy still reeling from the tyranny of Palpatine a bit gun-shy when it comes to any one person with that kind of vested power.

  • April 28, 2016 at 2:20 am
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    I´m sorry, but this book is really strange:
    Han and Leia still together and Han having a shipping company. 6 years before “you are Han Solo? I used to be” Come on, Han, it wasn´t that long!
    Ben Solo still training with Luke. 6 years before Kylo is Master of Knights of Ren and apprentice to the dark side. Hmm, seems to be a bad student meesa think. Because after years of training with Luke, he would blow Rey out of that wood in a matter of seconds. Okay….But, after so many years Luke didn´t feel anything bad inside Ben? Ben is so many years with Luke and then he just turns?
    6 years before TFA Luke trains new apprentices and now he and the Jedi are A MYTH????? Han is talking about him as if he didn´t see him for decades!!! It was 6 years or less!!
    The most important part: at the end of Jedi only 2 person in the whole universe knew Leia was Vader´s daughter. Luke….and Leia. Because she was the youngest senator and extremely wise and blah blah blah it seems imposible that she would tell anyone the dirty secret. I don´t buy it. It would make her the dumbest person in Star Wars. Whoever invents these stories should do his homework and at least try some continuity in this story…

    • April 28, 2016 at 4:03 am
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      Maybe you should wait until the book is actually out. I’m sure these snippets will be filled with more details regarding the circumstances

    • April 28, 2016 at 4:20 am
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      More likely a Borsk Fey’la type Senator found out and made it public to discredit her.

    • April 28, 2016 at 4:08 pm
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      That’s a pretty big indictment of a book you’ve not read. My guess is that the author did, in fact, do her homework. Just because the timelines don’t quite match what you assumed they were, hardly means a shoddy and careless job was done mapping out this narrative.

      • April 28, 2016 at 4:21 pm
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        I have absolutely zero faith in any storytelling JJ Abrams is a big part of. Hopefully Im wrong.

        • April 28, 2016 at 4:38 pm
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          Your statement makes no sense. JJ was not writing the story, Kasdan did (thank god).

          • April 28, 2016 at 5:46 pm
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            JJ had a huge part in all stories related to The Force Awakens, because he wrote The Force Awakens along with Kasdan.

          • April 29, 2016 at 8:38 pm
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            Assisted yes, wrote, not quite. This is what you got writer for. He did collaborate on direction of the story but that’s pretty much it. “Huge part” is definitely an overstatement.

          • April 30, 2016 at 2:20 am
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            We must have been reading different articles about it.

        • April 28, 2016 at 5:46 pm
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          I don’t. I quite like him.

        • April 28, 2016 at 8:08 pm
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          Why does everyone forget about Lawrence Kasdan?

          • April 28, 2016 at 8:26 pm
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            Why do you assume I forgot about him? I would guess he did his best to make the story strong, but JJ had final say.

    • April 28, 2016 at 8:07 pm
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      Even if it was 10 to 15 years, why would it matter all that much more?

    • April 28, 2016 at 10:36 pm
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      Prior to “Bloodline”, the conventional wisdom was that Ben had turned to the dark side at least 10 years before TFA, or even earlier than that. So, if this new revised timeline ends up being canonical, it will be a big twist. The new timeline also implies Rey was left on Jakku long before Ben turned and the Jedi academy was destroyed, which reinforces the theory that Rey may be unrelated to the Skywalker bloodline.

  • April 28, 2016 at 4:19 am
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    So it’s common knowledge that Leia is Vader’s Daughter? That’s a new twist they tried in the old EU that could be interesting. Do they know Luke is his son too?

    • April 28, 2016 at 4:05 pm
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      It’ll be interesting to see how that all plays out. I always wondered if and how Leia and Luke would make it known that Vader was their father. Of course, it’s quite possible that someone totally unrelated to them brought this information to light.

      Still, it makes sense. It would seem a bit out of character for them to keep this crucial piece of information secret. Would people be turned off by their connection to Vader? Absolutely. But the damage would be far greater if folks found out that Luke and Leia were intentionally withholding their ancestry. I would guess that those two would play a bit above-board when it comes to these sorts of things.

      • April 29, 2016 at 1:26 pm
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        Jj

      • April 29, 2016 at 1:32 pm
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        I can’t imagine they’d publily acknowledge it considering what a millstone a last name can be in real world politics. Darth Vader is like the Stalin or Mao of SW so everybody has probably had at least one family member killed by him and obviously most of the galaxy is too simple to understamd the nuances between the Jedi or Sith.

        Something I would have liked to have seen in the films as well. It was never really touched upon at all in the old EU so this is a great way to cover new ground.

        • April 29, 2016 at 3:09 pm
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          No doubt it would create massive difficulties for them. I just think it would be incredibly out of character for them to lie or conceal something like that. If word were to leak out, they’d be in an even more difficult position. But yeah, I’m not sure I’d be down with Hitler Jr. running for chancellor of Germany; all claims of benevolence aside.

          Several years ago I ran a West End Games Star Wars RPG adventure which was based on my idea of a post-ROTJ storyline. It took place a few years after the collapse of the Empire which I placed about a year after the deaths of the Emperor and Vader. In this storyline, Luke Skywalker wasn’t anything close to a public figure. He was still developing his Jedi skills and working on behalf of the newly formed Republic, but he was doing so from far behind the scenes. He knew the weight and antipathy his name would carry. Leia took a similar approach. She was active in the formation of the new government, but also started to distance herself from the public eye. That wasn’t actually the main point of the adventure, but it was the backdrop that I felt realistic based on what these people know about their lineage.

          • April 29, 2016 at 3:27 pm
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            True but in the new canon, Luke is considered a myth in just 30 years time so it can go either way. Though I like it being public knowledge now as it explains why The Resistance is such a pariah to the New Republic as well as why she left politics for the military.

            Sounds like a combination of where Lucas and Kasdan originally wanted to take it in the 80’s. I would have liked to have seen a 1986-1992 ST, Especially since Speilburg might have gotten his chance to direct then and he was still in his prime. I like to think the Trek films of that era is somewhat how it would have turned out effects wise.

          • April 29, 2016 at 5:06 pm
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            Well, he’s myth according to one scavenger girl from a backwater planet. We really don’t have much of an indication of how folks on planets such as Corellia or Coruscant see him. Perhaps he never was a public figure. He grew up on Tatooine and spent the OT years as part of the Rebellion; which I’m guessing didn’t exactly advertise it’s roster. He could have lived pretty off-the-grid after ROTJ.

            ” I would have liked to have seen a 1986-1992 ST, Especially since Speilburg might have gotten his chance to direct then and he was still in his prime.”

            I’m mostly liking the new direction of Star Wars, but yeah, that would be have been pretty awesome to see. I’d still like a glimpse of what Lucas had in mind for the ST. Make no mistake, what we’re seeing now is the official story, but I do like a good what-could-have-been scenario. That’s what intrigued me about the Infinities comics. My guess is that there’s money to be had with some sort of telling of Lucas’s story and we’ll see it in comic form or something.

          • May 1, 2016 at 1:22 am
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            True. If Leia and Luke are publicly outed as the children of Vader then it would also go a long way toward expaining why she only had about 16 fighters and he was never much of a public figure too.

            Though Speilburg is still around, He hasn’t really made a SW type film in ages and isn’t really the same type of director anymore. All I know is he wanted teenage leads and Luke to have an academy but that’s all I can find on his plans for it. Someone on here said that Disney may be hesistant to do that for fear of some fans preferring his ideas over theirs. So maybe not anytime soon but well after the new trilogy ends in the future.

          • May 1, 2016 at 4:33 am
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            That would make sense. I can’t see millions of folks necessarily flocking to the banner of Vader’s daughter. Once her lineage was outed (if, in fact, that’s how it plays out) then I can imagine folks generally being a bit less receptive to her leadership.

            Yeah. A “vintage” ST would have been something else. But then I’ve also always imagined would a “vintage” PT would have looked like. Ah well. Maybe in another life. Still, I don’t know if Disney really has anything to do with the current direction of Star Wars. Folks are pretty quick to fault Disney for this or that, but I’ve not seen any real evidence that they’re calling many of the shots. Star Wars is still a Lucasfilm property; ultimately under the auspices of Disney, perhaps, but still largely doing their own thing. Until I see something that convinces me otherwise, a lot of the anti-Disney noise is…well…just noise.

          • May 2, 2016 at 3:37 pm
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            Exactly, That’s why I read the EU. To make sense of all the little details like that they don’t have time to cover in the films. That should be it’s main purpose. The ones I hated the most were those that tried to outdo the films themselves which isn’t really possible or lost sight of the fact that SW is Sci-Fi light and tried to get too Treky with things. The books work best when they are character driven while the films should always be plot driven. Maybe not the spin offs though since they aren’t meant to be epics

            Or a vintage PT. Well, I’m sure the new theme park stuff was a major reason for the purchase and as Lucas said all the money is now in the merchandise which is their domain. I’m sure the move from the creative dictatorship to the shared one of the Story Group was probably their idea as well. I think Rebels though is the most Disney project of theirs yet considering how much Ezra looks like Aladdin, Sabine resembles an Asian Elsa, and the Stormtroopers serve as sort of stock goofy baddies.

          • May 2, 2016 at 5:20 pm
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            I’m not sure I see that. Disney has an enormous repertoire of established characters. No matter what the characters in Rebels looked like, someone would find some parallel to someone in a Disney feature. I’m not sure what Disney would gain by making their main character resemble someone in a 23 year old movie (um…just saying that made me feel old). But yeah, Ezra does resemble Aladdin. I’ve never seen Frozen. Still, even if Disney is all over Rebels, it’s a children’s cartoon with a pretty defined audience. I really enjoy it, but I have two young boys who love to watch it so maybe that’s part of the experience. Would I watch it if I had no kids? I don’t know. Maybe not. Or maybe down the road when the show was finished and I could binge through the entire series.

            Other than that, I’m not seeing Disney’s fingerprints on much of the Star Wars content just as I’m not seeing it on their Marvel content. I like Disney enough, but let’s hope it stays that way.

            My favorite EU stories were the smaller scale ones that shied away from situations of galactic consequence. Even the Thrawn Trilogy was smaller scale. Thrawn was a great tactician and certainly stood to make himself an immense nuisance for the New Republic, but with the state of the Imperial Remnant, I never saw any real risk of the Republic falling back into their grasp. That left the story open to a real focus on character development. And it did that wonderfully.

          • May 3, 2016 at 3:20 pm
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            I know they largely used the same TCW crew but I’m sure the Disney animators had some degree of influence over it who are usually trained in a specific animation style hence all the similarities like in all their animated films. Plus a lot of their old classics recycled character designs all the time as well. The last season ended on a high note but I hope they increase the budget successively because Lucas was pretty much a spend thrift on The Clone Wars while Disney is much more conservative about the budget due to being a much larger company with so many things going on.

            Well, The Marvel influence would be the whole rebooting thing which they do pretty liberally. Although I’m not really a huge fan of their current SW work, It is a lot better than their 70’s/80’s ones due to having a strict canon. I doubt the whole spinoff idea would have happened either had the MCU not been so successful which itself is just a takeoff of all their one shots and limited series.

            Yeah, They killed it for everybody when they started doing multi-part epics where the authors all had wildly different ideas of where to take the story that never quite meshed. I think TTT worked since Zahn had a beginning, middle, and end to his trilogy with minimal publisher interferance. It’s why the Story Group is so important since each film has new writer and director so they need people who truly understand the universe to make it work. Like SCOTUS Justices, I’m sure all of them will stay on until retirement or death.

    • April 28, 2016 at 4:35 pm
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      True, in old days the galaxy was pretty much stupid and clueless. Luke was carrying the Skywalker name loud and proud, and it’s like nobody noticed.

      • April 28, 2016 at 4:37 pm
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        Pre-prequel EU though – we were never sure how well known Anakin was prior to Clone Wars

        • April 28, 2016 at 7:43 pm
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          That’s a great point. Obviously this wasn’t in anyone’s head when Star Wars was made or Luke probably would have had a different last name.

      • April 29, 2016 at 1:25 pm
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        I think Pablo said the name was common in the galaxy which might be why no one picked up on that. Kind of like Antilles.

  • April 28, 2016 at 5:03 am
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    The sarcasm is strong in this post.

  • April 28, 2016 at 2:05 pm
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    “Generosity” is the word that people use way too frequently in SW and around Disney nowadays. Look, I have absolutely no problem of people talking good about another people, but all this seems so forced to sound like Disney’s farytale (pun intended) that in the end, simply feels annoying, wrong and unrealistic.

  • April 28, 2016 at 4:43 pm
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    There’s a lot of assumptions being made from this short article lol

    1 – There is no mention of the Knights of Ren or Luke’s academy.
    2 – There is no information about Han Solo.
    3 – There is no indication that the information provided by this story will be limited to what happens in the story. There very well may be information doled out regarding the previous 25 years as Leia rationalizes her actions in this book.

  • April 29, 2016 at 7:12 am
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    Rian Johnson probably just spellchecked the whole thing.

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