This weekend brought plenty of big Star Wars news due to Celebration Europe in London. And while the big reveals were fun for all, there was a fabulous bit of news for fans of the “Star Wars Legends” arc: Grand Admiral Thrawn is officially making his way back to canon, on both printed page and small screen.
Thrawn was one of the most popular Expanded Universe villains, created by Timothy Zahn for the Heir to the Empire trilogy. A humanoid with blue skin and red eyes, Thrawn rose through the ranks–despite the Empire’s xenophobic leanings–due to tactical brilliance and cunning. He was, by far, one of the most threatening antagonists that the Star Wars universe had on hand, and his seeming erasure once the Expanded Universe was relegated to “legend” status had many fans crying foul.
But Dave Filoni–the creator behind both the Clone Wars and Rebels television series–has done an expert job of weaving the best parts of the EU into the current Star Wars canon. At Celebration Europe, he admitted that reintroducing Thrawn had been on their wishlist for quite some time; it was just a matter of finding a story where they could do right by the character. With Rebels heading into its third season, it was the perfect time to bring back the fan favorite.
Filoni addressed the issue of treating Thrawn with the respect he required, comparing him to Darth Vader in terms of how he could be handled in a serial format: “There’s no one to defend them against Thrawn. We want to treat him like a big time villain, as much as Darth Vader, but on the strategic, military side of things.”
The Grand Admiral will be voiced by Lars Mikkelsen, brother of Mads Mikkelsen (Rogue One, Hannibal, Casino Royale), and the most recent big bad on Sherlock. Here’s a teaser that features Thrawn for Rebels season 3:
Wondering if those lizards on display in his tactical room are ysalamiri….
But that’s not all! Adding to the new library of Star Wars books, Thrawn is getting a brand new novel–written by his creator, Timothy Zahn. Thrawn will hit shelves next year, an exciting followup to the character’s re-assimilation into the universe.
Oh, very yes.
Only one question really remains at this point–where is Mara Jade?
News via IGN
THRAWN.
This news makes me most unreasonably excited. Oh so happy!!!!! My all-time favorite Star Wars non-movie villain. This is simply outstanding. And yes, I will buy that Zahn novel. Please take my money now.
Luke is looking at something that could be a tombstone at the end of TFA. Maybe there?
If there is somebody else who deserves to be resurrected from the Slough of Legends, it’s her.
I have only ready one book since the reboot- Paul S Kemp’s Lords of the Sith. So far nothing has really made me excited to read instead of just getting a plot point run down online. A new Zahn book about Thrawn? Mark me excited again.
The headline for this article misspells “Zahn” as “Zhan.”
(and now I see it’s fixed – thanks!)
They aren’t Ysalamiri. Filoni confirmed during the panel that Ydalamiri were not brought into canon, though the lizard things are in that shot as a Finnish reference to them.
Aalso, @2., that’s just a rock, and it’s part of the island.
Not Finnish, fannish
I cannot express the absolute Joy and triumph I felt at reading this post. I’ve been… supportive may be too strong of a word… understanding of Disney’s decision to create a new more integrated media universe for the movies to exist in. I think it was the right choice.
But my fandom belongs to the old EU. I read Zahn’s Heir to the Empire in 1993, while I was in middle school. Its almost as much Star Wars to me as Star Wars is. Certainly more than the Prequels ever were. And Thrawn was at the heart of that.
@5. I didn’t realize this matter had been settled. Can you please direct me to a resource for this?
Correction: Thrawn is being introduced to canon. He was never previously part of official Star Wars canon.
This has to be reiterated. The expanded universe was never official. Even the X-Wing series and Zahn novels make some mentions to the Clone Wars, and all of those mentions were contradicted and invalidated the minute Attack of the Clones was released, subverting all expectations of how the Clone Wars played out.
@9: wellll…that’s also not entirely true.
Pre-Disney Star Wars didn’t have a single canon. It was a tiered system managed in a database called the Holocron. There were levels of canonicity, like G-canon (anything directly from George Lucas, i.e. movies), and C-canon, which was what most of the Expanded Universe was contained in. Lucas Licensing managed C-canon very carefully; pretty much all of the books, comics, and video games were carefully checked against and fit into C-canon.
It’s quite disingenuous to say that Thrawn was never part of “official” Star Wars canon; in fact I’d go as far to say that that’s just not true. Given the amount of work that went into managing the C-canon (and the T- and S-canon levels) by Lucas Licensing, the official stewards of the Star Wars franchise, Thrawn was definitely part of “the canon.”
Yes, the G-canon invalidated a lot of things we thought we knew about the Clone Wars when the prequels came out, but nothing specifically contradicted by G-canon material precluded the existence of Thrawn from Star Wars officially. C-canon was always considered official unless superceded by G- or T-canons.
Was it a messy, convoluted system? Sure, and personally I’m kind of glad everything is flattened into one level of canonicity now. But this is absolutely how Star Wars was managed as a media franchise for many, many years.
Maybe I will get into the new books. Certain implications of the movie have made me unwilling to delve into the period between ROTJ and TFA but Thrawn might be worth it.
Hm. I like Zahn and definitely enjoyed (most of) the old EU but I’d prefer a clean break.
@8. Well, besides Hamill’s statements at Celebration this weekend, (possibly on YouTube now?), people have been to the island and confirmed that it’s a natural part of the area. Set photos from other angles also help make this clear. I think Pablo Hidalgo of the Story Group also debunked it, but that would have been on Twitter, so I probably won’t be able to find it.
Sorry that this mostly is a “look around yourself” sort of response, but most of the places that chronicle this stuff also include actual spoilers, and I am trying to avoid those.
@10, thanks for putting that better/more politely than I would have.
@11. Which implications were they? The novels have taken steps to combat some of mine, but I’m not sure if I felt as you do.
Oh, a bit more on the panel. Someone asked about Mara, and Filoni gave as close to a hard “no” as I’ve ever heard from him. Not that he dislikes the character, but she pretty much isn’t going to be in Rebels. He followed this up by bringing up, at Maul/Palpatine voice Sam Witwer’s request, the Ysalamiri issue. He’d talked with George about it before, and they felt the ysalamiri force bubbles didn’t really fit with the Force as Lucas sees it, hence their lack of appearance in Rebels and the Thrawn novel. But they’re iconic enough that he wanted to use the image in that introductory shot.
Now going back to celebrating my favorite living author writing a new a Star Wars book, and Thrawn being in Rebels!
@13. https://twitter.com/pablohidalgo/status/733747743290580992
Now on to find another theory (though nobody has yet disproved my Han Solo theory, bwahaha… to my knowledge).
Yay for Thrawn! That is sooo exciting. He’s a terrifying villain, terrific antagonist. So glad he’s coming “back”.
@13 Mostly that the personal arcs of Han and Leia, all of their growth from the original trilogy (not to mention everything in Legends) seemed to have been undone. I mean, I get that sequels mean everything can’t have gone perfectly but did it have to end in such a personal nadir. This is mostly Lisamarie’s fault btw, I’d had a much more positive impression of the movie before certain comments were made :p
@16.
That’s what I thought it was. Claudia Gray’s Bloodline makes some steps toward fixing some of those implications, (and clarifying the state of the galaxy pre-TFA), though it can’t walk back the events we actually see on screen. Its a Leia-centric political novel set a few years before the new film, and it’s one of the best stories in the new canon.
(I also enjoyed, surprisingly, Battlefront: Twilight Company for a war story, Lost Stars for a romance across the battle lines, A New Dawn and Servants of the Empire for Rebels tie-ins and investigation of the philosophy of Empire [dont be put off by the “for kids” marketing of SotE]. Actually, most of the books for the younger set have been really good. The rest of the recent novels have been, IMO, more miss than hit.)
OH!
Sorry to spam up this thread, but they’ve also confirmed that the book will be a prequel to Thrawn’s appearance on the show.
OH, how Thrawn makes my heart beat so fast! I can’t wait for this book. In the meantime, I’ll just be over here rereading The Thrawn Trilogy.
Aw man, I hate feeling like I ruined somebody else’s enjoyment, haha. I really am trying to come to terms with the ‘new normal’ and while I haven’t gotten into any of the new books yet, they do look intriguing (Lost Stars actually looks pretty good despite the YA label but I’m kind of a sucker for romance dramas). And I’m pretty pumped to see Zahn able to contribute to the new canon as well; if any author deserves it, it’s him. (I’d love to see Stackpole get a chance too, personally. Or Stover, although he’s not quite as classic, but I was so impressed with the atmosphere and prose of all his books. Possible minority opinion but I’ve also really enjoyed Karen Traviss’s books, although they didn’t quite mesh.).
Now that I’m not on my phone:
Actually, I am glad they’re not bringing Mara back, even though I love her. If she was going to come back, I’d want her to be Luke’s wife too (because it would just seem kind of sad to me if she wasn’t. Granted, I spent most of my adolescence in love with Luke Skywalker, so the idea of an ‘alternate universe’ self that DOESN’T get to be married to Luke Skywalker is kind of a tragedy to me, ha :D). And again, there’d be the ‘eye twitchy’ factor of it being a character from the old EU, but not quite the same. I’d rather see the new canon just create their own characters and stories, and let the old EU stand on its own. Which is not to say this (bringing Thrawn into the canon) might not be a cool idea and that I’m unilaterally against it.
But making her Luke’s wife would basically mean she’s dead (unless we’re doing another estrangement thing), so boo on that.
(I mean really, Disney, was it so hard? The two things that started turning me off the existing EU was the creeping darkness what with Han and Leia’s son going to the dark side, and Luke’s wife getting killed and I was pretty pumped to see a fresh start with the new movies…so…way to go with that guys ;) You’re 1 for 2 so far.).
I mean, really, I’m still rather irritated that no matter how you cut it my favorite hero is all depressed on an island somewhere to mull over how most of his life’s accomplishments have been reduced to ash (saving his father’s soul aside). I just want to give the guy a hug!
THRAWN. That is all.
The EU was never canon b/c Lucas never took it into account when making his movies and shows. That’s the end of the discussion.
Glad to see Thrawn coming into Rebels.
@22. Please refer to comment #10 above, and this Wikipedia article on original Star Wars canon. While you are right they’re not part of the G-level canon, they are part of the old Star Wars Canon. The EU were part of the third tier (C-Level) which meant that anything that was not directly contradicted by G- or T-Level could be considered canon, unless a new work in those higher levels said otherwise.
Though, in my humble opinion, there is no such thing as “canon.” All works that do not mesh with the main continuity are merely alternate realities in some massive multiverse. It makes enjoying media so much easier, as I don’t find myself worrying about whether something really happened or not in a fictional setting.
@23, I know all about that stuff and it doesn’t change what I said or the fact that George Lucas did not adhere to the EU when making his films and shows, which is the actual definition of what canon is: do we have to account for these stories when making new ones?
We can go on and on about the levels of canon, but there literally can’t be levels to canon b/c if everything is canon UNLESS contradicted by the top level, then only the top level is truly canon and we are all just kidding ourselves about the rest of it.
I don’t care whether something is canon or not, I still own every EU novel and enjoyed many of them, but was also thrilled to LFL jettison them for something new and more coherent.
But people who say it was canon are wrong: George Lucas himself never saw the EU as canon. The tiers were created as an internal guide for LFL and George didn’t care about them at all. Which was one of the problems that hurt the EU, which always had to scramble to retcon for his stories. But George never had to retcon something to fit the EU. Which means…it wasn’t canon.
But it was still fun.
@25. You’re obviously unfamiliar with the Biba Integrity Model, which does allow for levels of canon.
@25, I obviously don’t think it applies to stories set in a fictional universe as much as it does to data.
And it doesn’t matter what I think or what you think: Lucas didn’t think they were canon, thus, they were not.
That’s what the Story Group is changing now: making sure all storytelling is accounted for and informed by each other. It’s a good thing. I wouldn’t want the new movies constrained by some of the inane EU (like Dark Empire, for instance). But taking the best of the EU and bringing it over is a smart move.
@26 I disagree. Biba has many non-computer applications (see the examples on religion and military, for example).
Canon, be it for fiction or religion, is a body of laws within a certain scope. Saying that George Lucas’ word is the only canon is akin to saying state laws don’t count, ’cause they’re not federal. They only don’t count if you’re not in that state. Either way, the canon of the books would never be able to constrain or alter the canon of the films (unless they provided an alternate storyline for Episodes I-III…).
I understand your argument, and it’s obvious we’re operating from a different definition of the term “canon,” whereas you seem to think it pertains only to edicts of the pope, and I seem to think that it includes even the lower orders. Of course, that being said, I am canon-agnostic, preferring instead a more universalist (or dare I say multiversalist) approach to continuity.
Thrawn! Yay! This news made me happy. Even though I realize that for me Thrawn doesn’t mean just scary blue red-eyed villain, but the whole story of Thrawn trilogy and duology, and there’s no way we’ll get that. So why I’m even happy about it? Also, on my list of favorite EU characters is, with Thrawn and Mara Jade, also Talon Karrde.
27 – OMG can we not bring theology into this ;) As an FYI, not even in the Catholic Church is canon considered ‘only the edicts of the Pope’. (see: the aptly named code of canon law, which I tried reading once, but gave up after a few pages, haha. And it’s definitely changeable. Or even the general mode of governance of dioceses, etc).
Regarding Star Wars canon, for my own headcanon (because it’s basically in our heads, right?) I took the tiered approach – I was happy to accept the EU as ‘what really happened’ but also acknowledged that GL had the final say if he desired. I do like having a single, unified (as possible) story though and I appreciated the work that went into it even in the old EU, and what they are trying to do now.
But I also accept that other people, for example, don’t want to acknowledge the prequels, or this, or that, or what have you so I also accept that other people can define their headcanon how they want (although I would expect anything ‘official’ to at least have its own internal consistency). I even wrote my own fan fic at times and that’s kind of its own little continuity.
@29,
I agree with you. I read every EU novel (stayed away from the comics, too many to keep up) since 1991 until the end, but I always knew, even as a 12 year old, that if Lucas wanted to blow it all up (and he did with Fett and the Mandalorians), he was within his rights to do so.
Everyone of course is welcome to their own personal headcanon, but when they act like the EU was sacred until Disney came along, I have to step in haha.
It’s terrific that we have so many Star Wars stories to fall back on and to look forward to. Enjoy!
@30 I think it’s more like it was sacred until George came back. He’d basically abandoned the project for a few decades after all and the EU was where the story continued. Once the prequels and shows started up again, the mess got wobblier but there was still a consensus that the EU was what “happened” after the original trilogy. That seems to be a sufficient definition of canon to me.
After all, there’s nothing stopping the next Star Wars moving from ret-conning something from the first six. So they’re no more canon that the EU was, according to your definition.
@31,
There were issues with the EU before then, such as the ysalamiri, which don’t really fit into George’s view of the Force and Zahn implying the Clone Wars was the clones against the Republic (as most of us did), which, as you say, were muddied when George came back to it, but he was licensing out Star Wars, allowing others to play in his world. He could have made Thrawn into a rancor if he wanted, canon be damned.
I don’t understand your last point because the Story Group is actually there to stop that from happening. They are keeping the 6 movies and the Clone Wars as having happened. They are respectful of what came before, so I don’t see them doing anything like that. Sure there is nothing STOPPING them, other than they are there to prevent something like that from happening.
So everything moving forward is actually more canon than ever, according to my definition.
More on-topic, I wonder if Star Wars is going to be more rigorous about space combat. The EU and old movies weren’t consistent about how space fighting worked, depending on if the main characters were pilots or not. Granted, TFA isn’t a promising start to that end but I’d prefer it if Thrawn’s brilliance was more crunchy than hand-wavy.
See, I WILL be kind of irritated if the movies start (blatantly) conflicting each other. I mean – I know there are some inconsistencies here and there or things that get missed, which is probably bound to happen in any franchise. But I don’t want to see them just decide, for the purposes of whatever current story they are writing, to disregard the story they are a part of. Because then that makes me feel, ‘well, why should I ‘trust’ whatever is going on in this story, then’?
Deliberately not addressing the question of canon, what about the real issue brought up by this announcement?
The Rebels must be in for a really bad run. If they keep winning, then Thrawn is incompetent. If they keep turning almost-losses into wins, then Thrawn is ineffectual. If he is to reclaim the mantle of his old character, then he has to be a real threat that actually causes long-reaching and significant problems for the rebellion.
I predict that the rebels will have some early success (retrieving a squadron of decommissioned Y-Wings, for one), but it will come to a head about halfway into the season, when they’re riding high on their accomplishments and get a little ambitious. Thrawn will then spring his trap and undo much of what they’ve accomplished. Maybe some of the characters will die (the clones seem likely candidates). The bottom half of the season will be them barely getting away as their organization is dismantled piece by piece. Only Imperial politics will save them in the end, when Thrawn is transferred to the Far Rim or something, probably because his superiors think the Rebellion is as good as defeated and somebody wants to give one of their loyal subordinates the career-advancing job of cleanup.
As an aside, I’m still hoping the TIE Defender makes an appearance. Episode VIII would be perfect for it, and easy to plug them in, but as the Rebels timeline advances maybe we can see a TIE/x7 or two…
I really hope they show Thrawn being a strategic genius by showing the work, so to speak, not just by having him look at art and then guessing the plot. That was cool when I was 12. I would like a little more now.
ERMAGHERD!!!!! YESSSS!!!! YES!!!!! THRAWN!!!!
Oh, and the Bendu is voiced by Tom Baker. Fourth Doctor Tom Baker from Doctor Who. :)
@17 – random: I can attest to Bloodline’s quality. I enjoyed it a lot, as I did with Servants of the Empire. Go read them, people.
@35 – Porphyrogenitus: Exactly, Thrawn will deal a great blow to the Rebellion, and then he will get transferred away to the Unknown Regions by the Emperor himself (who is his only superior, at least in the old EU the Grand Admirals answered only to the him). He may even decide to leave himself due to a great threat looming beyond the Unknown Regions… wink wink.
@37:
If this reset gives us danger from the Unknown regions that ISN’T the Vong, I’ll be happy as peaches for the reset.
Vong of a sort /are/ canon (a scout ship would have appeared in TCW at some point, and uncompleted TCW concepts are still canon), but I agree with your hopes.
I was researching on the pant playable species in the SWTOR game, and as I searched “Chiss” in the Wookieepedia browser, and it took me to the article I wanted, but labelled under the CANON continuity, as in separated from its LEGENDS counterpart, I was puzzled. “Wait, since when are the Chiss canon again?” I asked. Before getting my answer my mind raced with possibilities. Maybe they appeared in the new SW Revels. Maybe they will appear on Rogue One, the first SW spin-off film. Then I checked which character represented the blue guys in the CANON continuity, and, under the “notable members” mark was the name Thrawn. Never a name had such weight in someone’s life since Charles Foster Kane and his Rosebud.
As I opened the link, I was baffled to see a Thrawn article under CANON, and I had much joy in witnessing such memorable character return to the “true” continuity. JUst to clarify, Thrawn and everything related to the Empire Remnant is far from my scope, since in terms of the old EU (now LEGENDS) I am a very passionate Sith fanboy (screw you, Jedi!), especially the Old Republic era, and everything related to Thrawn is just window shopping to me, but even with Thrawn being as related to the Sith as the sea is related to the desert, I am still joyful of his return.