EXCLUSIVE: Marvel Announces "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" Adaptation

[Xi'an Chi Xan]

Mjolnir, first of all, love your avatar! Second, yes. "Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir" is considered canon. This website has excellent information on what is in the "new canon". http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timel...canon_media#js

[ImprobableQuestion]

The movie adaption/novel adds a little bit extra stuff, but nothing major. I think a lot of the things left unsaid were left unsaid not because of editing/time constraints, but rather because they want it left unsaid. Things like Kylo's history, or who is XYZ's parents, etc... are obviously left to the imagination to be fleshed out in the next movie or two. Just my two cents, though.

Oh yes. A lot of the stuff we don't know is for VIII and IX, and for official novels that take place between VI and VII after the trilogy ends. Little stuff about the New Republic would be appreciated though.

[ImprobableQuestion]

How do you think they'd break up the movie into five parts?

My guess (forgive me if my memory of how long things play out for is off, haven't seen it since December):

Also, RUINOUS SPOILERS IN THIS TINY BOX.
spoilers:

#1 - Text Crawl to Finn and Poe's crash landing on Jakku. #2 - Everything covering the escape from Jakku to meeting Han Solo #3 - Lots of exposition from Han, Maz, and Snoke. Ends with Kylo Ren landing at the Cantina. #4 - Everything up to the Resistance's departure for Starkiller. End on Han's promise to "bring their son back." #5 - Battle of Starkiller Base

end of spoilers

[Chintzy Beatnik]

Question for someone that might know. One of Dark Horses final Star Wars stories they printed was the Darth Maul: Son of Dathmoir mini which was based off the un-animated script of the final episodes of the Clone Wars before that show got cancelled. Lucasfilm has said that the Clone Wars show is cannon, but what about those scripts that Dark Horse adapted for Darth Maul's final story in that era? Marvel had a little fun with Darth Maul's presence in Shattered Empire when Leia entered the hangar where he fought Qui-Gonn and Obi-Wan.

I think Son of Dathomir is special and exists in both Cannon and Legends.

[Eisenhorn]

*Meh* Luke Ross. Considering the guys they had working on the main Star Wars book -- Cassaday, Immonen, Bianchi, Deodato and Yu -- Ross is a huge step down. The best thing I can say about him is that he's always on time. That said, I hope he gets a good inker and he's not rushing his art. He's not one of those artists that has a very large room for error between terrible and passable -- just look at that angled Rey study (the one where her hair is flying) in the preview art.

At least it wasn't Mark Bagley whom they assigned to this -- Poe, Finn and Rey would look like Archie characters if he drew this.

[Blueraider]

Interesting! This will probably be a TBP purchase for me.

[ChrisIII]

I wonder if there will be deleted scenes? IDW for instance did an adaptation of Abram's Star Trek pretty much a year or so after the film came out, but included a lot of the deleted material such as Spock's birth, some more of Nero's backstory etc.

Of course the other Star Wars comics adaptations from Marvel and Dark Horse pretty much came out the same time as the films and didn't know what would be in the final edit, so they had a lot of deleted stuff too-Marvel's original adaptation had all that Biggs stuff as well, ESB had the whole Wampa subplot that was cut as well as additional Yoda stuff etc. ROTJ I think was actually fairly close to the final film, possibly because it was a bit shorter and somewhat rushed (Some of Art Williamson's work there wasn't quite as good as on his ESB adaptation).

It'd be interesting if they embellished things a bit like the manga adaptations did, but that's kind of a different format anyway.

[Taral-DLOS]

I'd get this (though probably as a TPB). I was hoping for a movie adaptation that would flow into a new ongoing set between Episodes VII and VIII. I understand how unlikely that would be -- the status quo at the end of Episode VII is such that you wouldn't get any interesting stories from several key characters (at best, you'd have the adventures of Poe and Finn, random encounters against the First Order, ideally slowly revealing more pre-VII backstory).

The comic adaptations of the prequels were decent. Indeed, all four issues of the Episode I adaptation were the bestselling comics of May 1999 (the first and I think only time a Dark Horse comic got anywhere near #1). They included some interesting extra visuals, some of which were quite cool, though none spring to mind immediately. Some were inconsistent with other sources, either coming out at the same time or later (a couple of deaths in Episode III; a different group of aliens hanging out with Dooku and Gunray in Episode II). I recall one change I didn't like: a reveal shot of Jango Fett early in Episode II (when he gives the poisonous critters to Zam), rather than have his identity be a mystery until later.

The "Special Edition" adaptation of Episode IV is hilarious, because it's filled with extra panels of useless crap, and includes the best possible version of a "Greedo Shot First" scenario (panel 1: Greedo shoots; panel 2: Han dodges the blast, gives a "wtf?" look; panel 3: Han shoots back.)

In the end, past adaptations have been enjoyable for what they are. Some have some cool visuals unique to the medium. Others have been inconsistent with the movies (though with this one coming out six months after the fact, this is less likely). I think this one will be cool, though I'll probably wait for a TPB.