Zahn's trilogy is the only one I would consider watching. I highly doubt though that Lucas would want to use someone else's work, especially seeing how adamant he seems to be about writing his own stuff.
I would guess we'd either see 7-9 take place a fair time ahead of 4-6, or focus on a different group of people and have the original crew do mostly cameos.
Though I'd doubt it that Lucas would take any of the books(I love all of them except a select few), I don't think Zahn's would work well just because of character ages...
However, Stackpole's X-Wing series(probably my favorite of the books) could be done without having to worry too much about characters. I'm quite happy with continuity after Jedi, though...
Actually, I found Zahn's book to be kinda stale and unimaginative. I would hope that if they did indeed to Episodes 7-9, it wouldn't be based off Zahn's books.
However, if I had to choose between Zahn's writing and Lucas writing....I'd pick Zahn of course!
But maybe having someone like Kasdan write would be better. Like Joshua suggested. Or maybe just some really good writer I'm not aware of....that's out there somewhere. And of course....don't let Lucas direct. Just produce.....heh heh.
An interesting rumor I heard a while back was that 20th Century Fox was going to buy the 'franchise' rights from Lucas. With his go-ahead they were just going to make their own Star Wars films. Set in the Star Wars universe....their own choice of writers and directors. With this, perhaps we can see other eras and characters outside the Skywalkers explored.
This could be good or bad. Good, if the studio puts together the right creative team and thus make a movie that us fans (that were disappointed with Ep. 1 & 2) would truly feel gave us more of what we wanted. Or Bad.....if they get people that are even worse than Lucas when it comes to directing and writing. Although I doubt that could happen.....the odds.....hmmmm.......
....but then again, Hollywood amazes me sometimes. Anyways, I never confirmed if this was true or not. But I think it would be cool. Give a chance for other creative teams to play in Lucas' Star Wars setting.
I could see Lucas doing the executive producer/story writer thing for it and handing the reigns to a different director. Probably someone who he has worked with at ILM.
As much as I liked the Zahn books (Thrawn was great) I had problems with the last book. I would not like to see them made into films. I have no idea what 7-9 would be about as Star Wars 1-6 are about the rise, fall and redemption of Anakin Skywalker. For me, the story has been told. But there is no way I would miss any additional films.
Since Mark Hammil would do it they could have the restoration of the Jedi order or something like that. Or maybe it could be an Ewokcentric trilogy. Wicket becomes a Jedi or something creative like that.
I've read all 5 of the Zahn books as well as a fair number of the others, including about half of the New Jedi Order.
I think that you could take elements of the Zahn books and they would make good novels. They did have the action, the character development, and this sense of scale that a lot of the others completely failed to capture. They did one thing wrong, though, in my opinion. Often times, for pages at a time, the characters would just sit around pontificating. It was as though he had nothing more to say, so the characters would just start talking about whatever struck their fancy for a while. I'm not saying that this sort of thing wouldn't happen in real life, but it certainly wasn't an element in either the prequels or the classic trilogy.
The other problem that I see is his second two-book series. I like where it ends up, but
that whole scandal about how the bothans sold out a race, causing the empire to hunt them to exctinction was, in my opinion, not likely to have happened in the Star Wars universe. There was also the part where Luke was caught in what amounts to an overblown mousetrap in space.
Now, on to the New Jedi Order. Man, I really wanted to like these books. I really did, especially since Salvatore wrote the first one of the series and then
proceeded to kill off a beloved wookie. The problem I see with this series is that half way through it they've killed off Anakin Solo, effectively destroyed Corruscant along with several other homeworlds of species that played major roles in the movies. In short, they changed so much that I'm not sure I still recognize it as Star Wars.
I'll probably get around to reading the last half of the series, but based on the first half, I think its severely flawed and not really what I was looking for in the series.
Personally I feel that if they do VII, VIII, & IX, they should ditch NJO completely, take the Zahn books as canon, but leave it in the past since the actors are now way too old to be playing the characters as they appear in those novels, and then show what happens to the next generation of Skywalkers. I think there's a lot of story left to tell, but it will require some major adjustments to the expanded universe as it currently exists.
An interesting rumor I heard a while back was that 20th Century Fox was going to buy the 'franchise' rights from Lucas. With his go-ahead they were just going to make their own Star Wars films. Set in the Star Wars universe....their own choice of writers and directors. With this, perhaps we can see other eras and characters outside the Skywalkers explored.
This could be good or bad. Good, if the studio puts together the right creative team and thus make a movie that us fans (that were disappointed with Ep. 1 & 2) would truly feel gave us more of what we wanted. Or Bad.....if they get people that are even worse than Lucas when it comes to directing and writing. Although I doubt that could happen.....the odds.....hmmmm.......
That is a scary thought. While the prequels so far have underwhelmed me, I would hate to see the studio execs put in charge. I really think Lucas needs to maintain some measure of control over his universe.
