It’s The Perfect Time For Disney To Adapt Star Wars’ Heir To The Empire
When Disney first announced that everything in the Star Wars Expanded Universe was now considered non-canon until further notice, many fans were sad that they would never get a proper adaptation of the Heir to the Empire series of novels. Fast forward to the present day, and it looks like Dave Filoni might be adapting the original Thrawn trilogy after all, judging by the way Ahsoka is setting things up. If that’s true, he couldn’t have picked a better time to do so.
Heir to the Empire is largely responsible for the Star Wars fandom as we know it today. Before 1991, fans loved Star Wars films. After 1991, fans loved Star Wars, period.
Originally published in 1991, Heir to the Empire was the real start of what used to be known as the Star Wars Expanded Universe but now goes by the name Legends. There were earlier novels like Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and Brian Daley’s Han Solo trilogy, but most of what came before Heir to the Empire was disjointed and self-contained.
It wasn’t until Timothy Zahn decided to tell a tale set after the events of Return of the Jedi—at the time considered the last Star Wars movie—that an interconnected universe of stories all fitting into the same continuity but existing outside of the films was born.
The original novel introduced the character of Grand Admiral Thrawn to the Star Wars universe as well as the concept of Coruscant—a planet-sized city that most regimes consider the capital of the galaxy.
Without hyperbole, Heir to the Empire is largely responsible for the Star Wars fandom as we know it today. Before 1991, fans loved Star Wars films. After 1991, fans loved Star Wars, period.
That’s what makes Heir to the Empire—as well as the rest of the original Thrawn trilogy—the perfect story to unite a fractured fanbase before it gets any worse. But how can one Legends story please old-school fans and new-school fans together?
Simple. Retell it using the Rebels crew instead of Luke and Co.
It’s not a perfect 1:1, but it’s closer than most fans think. With the seeds that Ahsoka is already planting with Thrawn’s return—Ahsoka even refers to Thrawn as the “Heir to the Empire” at one point—it wouldn’t be hard at all for Dave Filoni to spin his current Star Wars storyline into an Heir to the Empire adaptation. Some changes would have to be made, obviously, but it could definitely work.
To address the elephant in the room, no, it wouldn’t star Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, or Han Solo (although cameos are definitely not out of the question). But that’s okay because Dave Filoni has given us the perfect proxies to carry out the same roles. Enter the Rebels.
Ahsoka is a no-brainer to replace Luke, who in this timeline is off starting a new Jedi order somewhere. Likewise, Hera could fill Han Solo’s role in the book. In Heir to the Empire, Han is tasked with beefing up the New Republic’s shipping capabilities by offering contracts to all his old smuggler buddies.
There’s no reason that Hera Syndulla couldn’t do the same thing. They were both outlaws in the Star Wars universe and probably have many of the same contacts.
Meanwhile, one of those contacts could still turn out to be Talon Karrde, the Legends crime boss with a heart of gold who takes over much of Jabba’s business after the bloated one bites the big one. If Filoni canonizes Talon Karrde, chances are Mara Jade wouldn’t be far behind.
Mara Jade
Fans have been clamoring for Mara Jade—the only Legends character that could give Thrawn a run for his money in terms of mainstream popularity—to join the Disney Star Wars canon for years, and relatively speaking there’s no better time than now
We say relatively speaking because chances are, if Heir to the Empire is directly adapted, it will most likely be the currently untitled Star Wars movie that Dave Filoni is slated to direct.
Most fans had given up on seeing Mara Jade on screen after it was revealed that Luke Skywalker never married or had any romantic entanglements, as far as we know. Frankly, though, that would be a stupid reason to keep Jade out of canon continuity.
For starters, though there is some mild flirting, Mara and Luke’s romance doesn’t blossom until after the Heir to the Empire trilogy concludes. Secondly, when we said replace Luke with Ahsoka, we meant it.
There’s no reason that Mara and Luke’s relationship can’t be modified to be Mara and Ahsoka’s relationship, and that includes all aspects. Not just the romantic aspect but the one where Mara Jade wants to murder Luke Skywalker for three books.
At a time when the toxic Star Wars fans are infecting the whole fandom, an adaptation of Heir to the Empire that blends old Legends concepts with canon characters could be just what Star Wars needs to heal.
Without getting into Mara Jade’s whole Wookiepedia entry, she used to be a secret assassin for Emperor Palpatine, known as the Emperor’s Hand. Palpy’s last command was for her to kill Luke Skywalker. It would be so easy for Mara to keep her backstory but replace an order to kill Luke with an order to dispatch Vader’s former apprentice.
Some characters may have already been replaced. We wouldn’t be the first to suggest that Baylan Skoll might end up being a stand-in for Heir to the Empire‘s Joruus C’baoth, a cloned Jedi Master in Thrawn’s employ. C’baoth only works for Thrawn because the Grand Admiral promised him Leia Organa’s unborn twins to train as his own apprentices.
There’s no reason that Thrawn couldn’t have promised Baylan Skoll that he would kidnap either Ben Solo or even Jacen Syndulla for the dark Jedi to train.
At a time when the toxic Star Wars fans are infecting the whole fandom, an adaptation of Heir to the Empire that blends old Legends concepts with canon characters could be just what Star Wars needs to heal.
Plus, the curiosity alone guarantees the movie would make like a billion dollars at the box office, and we know Disney could use the money right now.
