Year ago, I took my first excursion into the Star Wars Expanded Universe with Timothy Zahn’s novels, commonly referred to as the Thrawn Trilogy. They take place about 5 years after Return of the Jedi and deal with the New Republic’s battle against the remnant of the Empire. The series was very good and is highly praised by most Star Wars fans. It also introduced some of the most popular Expanded Universe characters, including Mara Jade.
Apparently, there’s a movement going on to turn these books into movie form. The intention is to rally together enough fan support to make 3 feature length films (all digitally animated — like Shrek or Toy Story) for everyone to enjoy. It’s a non-profit project; it’s simply being done for the love of the series.
If you’re interested in checking it out (including a trailer) or trying to help in some way, go to www.CreateStarWars.org.
May the Force be with you…
the lazy side 
I’d be all for this, but would appreciate a movie with actors more than an animated one.
you know, the only problem with that is that it’d probably be more expensive. Furthermore, you’d have to recast Luke, Han, Leia, Lando, etc, because these events all take place only 5 years after RoTJ. All those original actors are 25 years older now, and I just can’t see anyone else playing those parts…
I didn’t even know there was a Star Wars wiki. Heavy.
Oh yes. I waste far too much time there. 🙂
The CreateStarWars.org site appears to have disappeared.
It’s been several months and the site is gone. No reassuring message from the team, no signs of life – simply gone.
Not surprising when you take a look at the elements they were emphasizing to the public on their site and the roadblocks which seemed to have doomed this project from the beginning.
Taking a peek at the talent roster, one couldn’t escape the fact that they had no one in the areas of writing, scripting, or voice acting. Everyone onboard either performed sound or visual design.
The next disaster indicator surfaced when the “project leader” announced on their website that their script and scene planning basically consisted of cracking open book one of the trilogy and faithfully recreating each scene as they originally appeared. Someone should have told him that what works well in one medium often requires thought, creativity, and condensing in order to be adapted to another (Lord of the Rings comes to mind).
None of this went unnoticed by others as well. When these same concerns began appearing on their message board, things began to change. The more visitors to the website who questioned the apparent holes in the project, the less feedback we were all getting. One got the feeling that the creative team may have suddenly realized their miscalculation in the project’s scope.
The passion behind the idea was great and so was some of the talent driving it forward. Its just too bad that this great idea had to become yet another casualty of weak project planning and management.