we already know he's not a big player in the post-Return of the Jedi era.

We do?

There is almost 40 years between RotJ and TFA.... We have barely scratched the surface of that period.

This again goes back to the EU/Legends purge. I have no doubt we will see a bevy of popular characters from the EU reappear in the timeline that Disney will surely lay down. It's right in line with what they said they intended to do, that we would likely see these named characters but that people should not expect their story/history/background would remain the same.

The mention of the Netflix shows will likely result in a flood of character I would think.

Don't worry folks! Hollywood seems to be experiencing a shortage on imagination, just look to see how many films and TV shows are reboots or adaptations. Spider-Man is going into his 3rd film franchise reboot in less than 2 decades!

I know that started out pessimistic, but it really isn't. Because it has led to some really, really fantastic characters I've loved in the past that never got a great representation on the small and big screen suddenly ending up in some fantastic shows. It's like a golden age of science fiction, fantasy, and comic books on the screen. And if you're a fan of geeky stuff then your stuff is more likely than ever to go mainstream with lots of merchandising, tie-ins, spin-offs, and the like.

Considering that this is the way that the industry works now, there is almost no way that Disney wouldn't dig through the old EU stuff for content to put into movies and TV shows. Why come up with new characters and plots when you can use the work of prior artists? As I got to thinking more and more, I'm 100% behind what 2P51 is saying. Thrawn is probably just the start, the first trickle coming out of the floodgates.

Why come up with new characters and plots when you can use the work of prior artists?

One word: royalties.

Years ago, before Enterprise was announced, many readers of Peter David's Star Trek: New Frontier novels hoped that the books would be used as the basis for the next tv series. David himself put it very bluntly as to why it would never happen: no one at Paramount would receive a penny in royalties for creating the show or characters. The flip side of that is also why, for example, Voyager's Tom Paris was Tom Paris instead of Jake Locarno (despite being virtually the same character, with the same personality, and the same actor), or why Enterprise's T'Pol was not T'Pau...using those existing characters meant credit and royalties to the writers of the respective earlier episodes in which they appeared. It's also similar to why the current incarnation of Doctor Who goes to the Dalek well so often: they paid a small fortune to Terry Nation's estate (given how British copyright works) to be able to use the Daleks, and want to get their money's worth.

I highly doubt any EU author gets a cent of royalty money. I'm willing to bet a digit they were all work for hire contracts and they don't get a cent or own any copyright on anything created.

I highly doubt any EU author gets a cent of royalty money. I'm willing to bet a digit they were all work for hire contracts and they don't get a cent or own any copyright on anything created.

A lot of work for hire contracts these days include some degree of royalties for reprints, etc. (Heck...going back as far as the early 80's, comics writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez get credit and a degree of royalties to this day for "creating" Nightwing, despite the fact that **** Grayson had existed for 43/44 years before trading in his Robin identity for the new one.) Granted, I don't claim to know what the contract structure is that Lucasfilm put into place for the books (and comics, and games, and....), but, at any rate, I was just floating a possibility as to why a studio/publisher/whatnot may not want to use existing characters, based upon real-world happenings.

It was a rhetorical question, because reusing old ideas is done so often now that it's a cliche.

What you usually see these days is that if the prior creator retains the rights to his/her creation (to any extent), that person becomes an executive producer or something else along those lines.

https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=xmXp802sFgQ

And here is the man himself played my Lars Mikkelson.

I highly doubt any EU author gets a cent of royalty money. I'm willing to bet a digit they were all work for hire contracts and they don't get a cent or own any copyright on anything created.

You'd be correct.

Once the author is paid for their work, it belongs 100% to Lucasfilm (and these days, by extension Disney), and they can do whatever they please with it. Timothy Zahn has noted this when asked about the death of Mara Jade, saying that while it would have been nice if he'd been consulted, he understood the character's fate was out of his hands from the moment he finished his last story that featured her.

Christopher West also noted that the maps he created for the YT-1300 aren't really his, as they were a commissioned work for WotC for their Polyhedron magazine, and by extension Lucasfilm, who again can use them however they like without having to pay Mister West a penny.

Now I imagine that Zahn is jazzed to see Thrawn making a return, especially since he's getting to write a new book for a franchise he's very much a fan of, but by all rights Filoni could have decided to use Thrawn in the series and cut Tim entirely out of the loop, all while never having to pay a cent to the character's creator.

It was a rhetorical question, because reusing old ideas is done so often now that it's a cliche.

What you usually see these days is that if the prior creator retains the rights to his/her creation (to any extent), that person becomes an executive producer or something else along those lines.

Sure it was a rhetorical question.

Just, sometimes, there's a business reason not to go with an existing character. That's all. Sorry I brought it up.

I highly doubt any EU author gets a cent of royalty money. I'm willing to bet a digit they were all work for hire contracts and they don't get a cent or own any copyright on anything created.

A lot of work for hire contracts these days include some degree of royalties for reprints, etc. (Heck...going back as far as the early 80's, comics writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez get credit and a degree of royalties to this day for "creating" Nightwing, despite the fact that **** Grayson had existed for 43/44 years before trading in his Robin identity for the new one.) Granted, I don't claim to know what the contract structure is that Lucasfilm put into place for the books (and comics, and games, and....), but, at any rate, I was just floating a possibility as to why a studio/publisher/whatnot may not want to use existing characters, based upon real-world happenings.

Marv Wolfman and George Perez were driving sales and could write contracts that the 'always stuggling' comicbook companies would agree to in order to sell comics. Lucasfilm and Disney now are media empires, it's not even remotely the same comparison. Star Wars never needed anyone to sell it, it sold itself.

I know for a fact Alan Dean Foster's novelization of TFA was work for hire for example.

I highly doubt any EU author gets a cent of royalty money. I'm willing to bet a digit they were all work for hire contracts and they don't get a cent or own any copyright on anything created.

A lot of work for hire contracts these days include some degree of royalties for reprints, etc. (Heck...going back as far as the early 80's, comics writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez get credit and a degree of royalties to this day for "creating" Nightwing, despite the fact that **** Grayson had existed for 43/44 years before trading in his Robin identity for the new one.) Granted, I don't claim to know what the contract structure is that Lucasfilm put into place for the books (and comics, and games, and....), but, at any rate, I was just floating a possibility as to why a studio/publisher/whatnot may not want to use existing characters, based upon real-world happenings.

Marv Wolfman and George Perez were driving sales and could write contracts that the 'always stuggling' comicbook companies would agree to in order to sell comics. Lucasfilm and Disney now are media empires, it's not even remotely the same comparison. Star Wars never needed anyone to sell it, it sold itself.

I know for a fact Alan Dean Foster's novelization of TFA was work for hire for example.

Again, just noting that there are situations in which there are business reasons for not going with an existing character.

One could, however, argue that the same qualities apply to the Trek franchise and Paramount that apply to the Star Wars franchise and Lucasfilm/Disney. Yet the fact remains, Paris was Paris and not Locarno so the Voyager production wouldn't have to pay Ron Moore and Naren Shankar for each appearance of the character; likewise with Enterprise's T'Pol and the original intent to use T'Pau from the original series episode "Amok Time." Possibly a more apt comparison with Thrawn on Rebels would be the Peter David/New Frontier example. The Excalibur, Calhoun, and the rest of the characters all belong to Paramount, but we'll (sadly) never see New Frontier adapted to the screen, because no one at Paramount would be in that position of being owed royalties for the characters (with the likely exceptions of Michael Piller for creating Shelby; Tracy Torme, Richard Manning, and Hans Beimler for creating Dr. Selar; and Joe Menosky and Philip LaZebnik for creating Robin Lefler). Or, maybe Paramount/Star Trek has an exceptionally unusual royalty system...one that, based upon the T'Pol/T'Pau decision, dates back to the 60's and hasn't been revised since.

Work for hire can still result in royalties, dependent upon the specific nature of the deal.

*Deleted post*

It was a rhetorical question, because reusing old ideas is done so often now that it's a cliche.

What you usually see these days is that if the prior creator retains the rights to his/her creation (to any extent), that person becomes an executive producer or something else along those lines.

Sure it was a rhetorical question.

Just, sometimes, there's a business reason not to go with an existing character. That's all. Sorry I brought it up.

No need to be sorry. You had a good point.

we already know he's not a big player in the post-Return of the Jedi era.

We do?

There is almost 40 years between RotJ and TFA.... We have barely scratched the surface of that period.

Well according to Wendig's trilogy Thrawn is not a player in the post RotJ Imperial remnant and that remnant leads to the First Order. So, unless Thrawn shows up in the movies he's not really around doing anything.

Sure, he could be shoe horned into there somewhere but only in a small peripheral role.

Well, in Thrawn's original debut, it was explained that he wasn't around for RotJ because the Emperor had sent him off to the Unknown Regions on what amounted to a glorified snipe hunt.

Honestly, I think fans are more excited that Thrawn is back, even if it only winds up being for a single season of Rebels. And it's quite possible that his exit from the series could be left open-ended, much as Ahsoka Tano's was.

Also, worth pointing out that Kanan and Ezra do exist in canon, it's just that we don't see them during the original films, which is an entirely separate matter. It's been postulated that the reason we don't come across those two Jedi is that they're off doing their own thing during the time of the movies. With Kanan being blind, it's entirely possible that he's opted to take a back seat to active field duty, and circumstances never arose to give him a chance to take Luke Skywalker under his wing as an apprentice. Given that Ezra is going to treading a darker path this season, it's possible that he'll have no interest in taking an apprentice, especially one that's about the same age as him or may be too busy fighting the Empire in other parts of the galaxy (it is a big place after all) to even be able to give Luke so much as a pointer in how to be a Jedi.

We'll see. I'm really interested to see what happens to Kanan and Ezra (and Ahsoka).

Originally Ahsoka was supposed to die as a Jedi. But when making the end of Clone Wars Season 5 Filoni found a way to save her in subsequent script drafts (she was going to rejoin the Order instead of walking off into the sunset).

Rebels has established that Yoda knows they are around and that Kanan is a knight.

But they're not necessarily going to stop themselves from being inconsistent with thinks Yoda tells Luke (or they'll chalk it up to "depends on your point of view" again).

we already know he's not a big player in the post-Return of the Jedi era.

We do?

There is almost 40 years between RotJ and TFA.... We have barely scratched the surface of that period.

Well according to Wendig's trilogy Thrawn is not a player in the post RotJ Imperial remnant and that remnant leads to the First Order. So, unless Thrawn shows up in the movies he's not really around doing anything.

Sure, he could be shoe horned into there somewhere but only in a small peripheral role.

we already know he's not a big player in the post-Return of the Jedi era.

We do?

There is almost 40 years between RotJ and TFA.... We have barely scratched the surface of that period.

Well according to Wendig's trilogy Thrawn is not a player in the post RotJ Imperial remnant and that remnant leads to the First Order. So, unless Thrawn shows up in the movies he's not really around doing anything.

Sure, he could be shoe horned into there somewhere but only in a small peripheral role.

Consider the present tense writing of those novels. Thrawn could b acting outside the awareness of Sloane, Amedda, and Rax.

Sure. But that means he's not really part of the remnant. Or maybe he's got another part of the remnant with him.

I'm not trying to say he can't ever show up after RotJ but if they're going to keep things consistent it looks like the only space for him is way out on the sideline or they're going to pull the trick of having multiple remnants around who don't know much about each other. It's possible but it would be repetitive and going from "Imperial Remnant" to "First Order reborn from the Empire" is repetitive enough.

The impression I've got from the current cannon is that the Imperial remnant pretty much solidifies and has it's last fight at the Battle of Jakku before being dormant until the First Order arises. That's not the only way it has to play out but they've already got "imperial remnant" in the story line and I don't see them going for "suprise, another different imperial remnant" story line.

I'd also be very surprised if he's part of the new movie trilogy. Snoke is in charge and Hux appears to be his top military leader (and it seems like Snoke would send his best guy to run his superweapon and hunt down Luke who Snoke seems to fear the most). That doesn't mean Thrawn isn't there or out there somewhere but it seems to me that if he is still there (or out there somewhere) he's very much on the sidelines as compared to what he was in Legends.

Maybe they could stick him in as part of the early First Order but he's not around anymore for some reason.

Two things:

1) Being repetitive/redundant appears to be a feature if Star Wars rather than a bug.

2) Even in Legends, Thrawn wasn't in a prominent role until almost all of the other fsctions had expended themselves. Even then, his time in the spotlight was rather brief. Behind the scenes, they did that whole pocket empire of his over by the Ascendancy, but most Imperials knew nothing about that.

One possible arrangement would be, (at the end of a seasson of course) that we see Tarkin walking up to a nearly victorius Thrawn with words like "Your Mission here is over the Emperor commands you to a new post. There is something you have to achieve in the far outskirts of the outer rim.

then because Thrawn is away the rebels can achiev a semi-victory (like surviving the trap thrawn lured them in), he is gone from the screen and everybody may forget about him... just to return once again in the time between RotJ and TFA in another series of 3 books... in which he is defeated uterly... by being assasinated by his own Bodyguard, that likes let's say Leia more than him...

at least that could work... it did once

One possible arrangement would be, (at the end of a seasson of course) that we see Tarkin walking up to a nearly victorius Thrawn with words like "Your Mission here is over the Emperor commands you to a new post. There is something you have to achieve in the far outskirts of the outer rim.

then because Thrawn is away the rebels can achiev a semi-victory (like surviving the trap thrawn lured them in), he is gone from the screen and everybody may forget about him... just to return once again in the time between RotJ and TFA in another series of 3 books... in which he is defeated uterly... by being assasinated by his own Bodyguard, that likes let's say Leia more than him...

at least that could work... it did once

Which could be part of how the Imperial Remnants became the Fist Order, I'm sorry the FIRST order.