SPOILER Epilogue of Aftermath: Empire's End

What are the chances Thrawn might be around during the sequel trilogy? Could he show up in episode 8? Could he be Benicio's character? These questions keep popping to my head after checking out how aftermath ends!

 

I've read here that some people think BdT has a similar look but I'm not sure if it's something I would want

 

If memory serves me right, "Empire's End" says that the craft is a duplicate copy of the Imperialis.

 

Man, I'm pleasantly surprised that The Eclipse surviving was alluded to, as I predicted (based almost solely on throwaway text in Life Debt and the TFA Visual Guide).

Part of me doesn't want BdT to be Thrawn, and yet considering how things are lining up, it really wouldn't surprise me: Thrawn was introduced to the new canon for the first time last year in Rebels, Thrawn is due for release days before Celebration - which will serve to somewhat establish his origins in canon - and the first Episode VIII trailer is due, of course, on the second day of Celebration. Furthermore, the character was even name dropped in Empire's End, and while it's just as likely that BdT will be portraying someone else, let me ask: would it really be worth bringing him to the panel to unveil him as a villain if he's only portraying a corrupt senator or bounty hunter? I mean, he wouldn't even be able to talk about that - considering that to reveal a corrupt senator would ruin the surprise that such a senator is corrupt, for example, and revealing that he is a bounty hunter would lead us to believe that he is assigned to be chasing down one of our heroes. BdT would not be able to say much about his character if this was the case and, considering that we already know that he's a villain, doing so could easily spoil the film in ways that being announced as Thrawn would not (and it also gives a great financial boost to sales of the novel, from a business perspective).

Finally, BdT, to our knowledge, has not been present at any of the exterior sets for TLJ - such as Skellig Michael, Ireland, or Croatia - and so one might assume that his role is one largely portrayed in an interior set environment: such as the command bridge of a (Super) Star Destroyer, perhaps?

 

Also, Thrawn was "The Heir to the Empire" in Legends, right? Couldn't they by any chance be making a homage of sorts to that storyline?

 

Yeah, absolutely: in terms of an homage, I don't think there's much that they could do, but Thrawn could quite easily be incorporated to some extent into the film/s in my opinion, whether in a flashback or in the "present" era of th ST. Changes certainly had to be made to the Thrawn of the old EU anyway for him to be incorporated, regardless of the sequels existing, in my opinion: things such as the ysalamiri could really destroy the power balance if they were brought into canon, so I'm glad they weren't.

I mean, considering how deep the First Order supposedly is in the Unknown Regions, and having the knowledge to get around, it seems like a perfect play for a character such as Thrawn to uphold.

 

BdT as Thrawn would be an amazing reveal.. count me in! His character could be as compelling as Khan was to (gasp!) Star Trek II. And his reintroduction to canon and his knowledge of the Unknown Regions mentioned in Empire's End can't be a coincidence.

 

I would agree with you, but I have to say that the guys at Lucasfilm have been more balsy and daring in recent times... I think we're in for some unexpected surprises!

 

I feel like the fact that Snoke is still a holo in TFA tells us that there is a larger contingency of First Order in the universe. It may be that the eclipse is where Snoke is stationed and where Hux and Kylo are returning

 

It's interesting to me also that during the events of Bloodline (I just finished that book.. terrific!) is where we really first see/hear the words First Order. That a segment of the Senate from Centrist worlds were secretly planning for the eventual reveal of this First Order in the not too distant future. It would seem to me, though I could be wrong, that they were not aware at the time of the "remnant" waiting for them in the Unknown Regions? Lady Carise wondered to herself whatever happened to Brendal Hux and so many others. They were planning their own army with the help of the Amaxines and somewhere they were also amassing remnants of the Imperial Fleet (TIE's, Destroyers etc).

So are they ignorant of the fact that the true remnant in the Unknown Regions will eventually join themselves to this First Order? Or are there a relative few behind the scenes from the Centrists who have already made contact?

 

That's a good question. We really only get Lady Carise's POV and she might not know everything, but it seems to me that her little faction has been working pretty much only on funding for military equipment/operations for the future FO. But where does she think she's going to get troops from? And she seems completely clueless about Dark Side Force users potentially being at the helm. I guess it shouldn't surprise me that the FO might start out with small cells who are largely ignorant of the others laying the groundwork for it--that seems to be how the Empire developed the first Death Star, after all (per Catalyst).

 

Ah good point! I haven't read Catalyst yet.. it's definitely on the agenda before Thrawn hits. But I hadn't read Lost Stars yet, so I think I'm gonna hit that first to see if there's anything else that compliments what we know from Aftermath and Bloodline. Damn I can't wait for TLJ lol

 

I know! At least the books give us something to do in the meantime.

 

That sounds reasonable, I like that idea. But still, as Choose Light said, there seems to be no awareness or acknowledgement of a dark side presence in their midst. At least from Carise' POV. And if there WAS.. don't you think Carise and others in her camp would have welcomed the news that Leia was Vader's daughter? And also Luke, who they openly worried about his long absence from the galactic scene? If they were hungry for that power to be in their midst once again, I would figure they may want to tap further into the potential for Vader's power to re-emerge through his children. Though their expression of horror and fear is a perfectly logical reaction as well lol

 

A lot of folks are forgetting how short the timeline is between Bloodline (the book by Claudia Gray) and TFA.. approx 6 years. That's a relatively short time period when you consider Ben was still hopping the Galaxy with Luke, as far as Leia knew. And it was then, or shortly thereafter those events, that Ben would have learned of his mother and Uncle being the offspring of Darth Vader thru the Holonets, rather than from his parents. A lot happened in a relatively short period of time prior to TFA, including Ben "turning" in whatever form that took. When and how he met up with Snoke is a mystery.

As such, it was also a relative short period of time prior to the events of TFA that Snoke and the First Order were formed. When and where Luke had an Academy and how Ben turned into Kylo siding with Snoke, destroying said Academy with the "Knights of Ren", is anyone's guess. And given the timeline of Bloodline, it would also suggest Rey had absolutely nothing to do with said Academy.

 

IMHO, I think it's unlikely that Del Toro will play Thrawn, and it has to do with how the stories and characters in the movies interplay with the ones from canon non-movie content (books, comics, TV shows).
I feel that there's a clear separation between the movies and the non-movie content (talking only about canon content here, naturally).

While characters and stories introduced in the movies often make their way to books/comics/tv, the opposite is simply not true.
Which major character in a movie was introduced in a book/comic/tv?

A movie character might have their origin story told by books/comics/tv, but if they are important in the movies they always appear for the first time in the movies.
Pretty much all content that is originally created for a book/comic/tv show gets to, at most, be a cameo appearance on the movies.

That's why I usually disagree with people speculating about strong tie-ins between characters and stories created outside of the movies making their way into them.
That's why I don't think, IMHO, that we'll see Thrawn, Norra, Temmim, Sloane or characters from Rebels in the movies. Maybe at most as a cameo, like the Rebels subtle cameos on Rogue One, but that's it.