Recently we were able to attend something called Library-Con here in Phoenix, Arizona.  Library-Con is described as an event that lets you “celebrate all of the stuff that you love including: comics, graphic novels, anime/manga, cosplay, cartoons, artists, horror movies, Sci-Fi/Fantasy books & movies, and games of all types.” It happens every year here in Maricopa County and this year it scored a really fantastic guest: Pablo Hidalgo.

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Hidalgo has worked at Lucasfilm for 15+ years  and is now the Creative Executive there.  He has written several books, including the Star Wars: The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary and the upcoming visual dictionary for Rogue One.  He is certinaly one of the most knowledgeable people in the world when it comes to Star Wars, and we were lucky enough to be a part of his Q & A.  We learned more than a few interesting tidbits about Star Wars canon and even some of his own personal theories.

  • A question was asked about Star Wars Rebels and where does it fit into the upcoming Rogue One film.  He implied that the two groups wouldn’t ever cross paths and that Rebels was the story about a Jedi (Ezra) being trained in the new post-Republic era.  This is unique because the dogmatic constraints of the Jedi Council aren’t there, so it’s kind of an experiment.
  • When asked about how much input he had on the story of The Force Awakens, he said that the story was already pretty well in place by the time he got his hands on it.  His biggest contribution was Maz’s Castle; it started out as a Cantina, but he said that it felt too much like the place in Episode IV, which then led to a new design to the place and ultimately its purpose was changed.
  • After answering the question about his input on The Force Awakens, he suggested that we ask him the same question about Rogue One after the film is released.  He implied that he had more than a little input on the first Star Wars spin-off film.
  • A kid asked whether Ezra in Rebels was actually Jabba the Hut (Ezra often gives his name as Jabba when he doesn’t want to give his real name), and Pablo said he wasn’t but that Jabba would probably be pretty mad if his name was being used by a kid like that.
  • Someone brought up Darth Plagueis and the novel with the same name.  They lamented that this book wasn’t considered canon, however Pablo interjected that it couldn’t be simply because there are several contradictions between what George believed about Plagueis and Palpatine’s origins and what the author extrapolated.  There was a rumor on the internet that the author of that book, James Luceno, worked directly with Lucas when creating the story, but Pablo shot that down saying that it wasn’t true.  At the end, though, he did say that Plagueis as a character is still canon and could be used in other stories very easily.
  • Someone asked about a 100,000 signature petition that had been going around asking Netflix and Lucasfilm to jointly produce a live-action series that deals with the Old Republic era (i.e. the stories in the same time as the Knights of the Old Republic video game series and other media).  He stated that while the gesture is awesome, big productions like that don’t get off the ground as a result of petitions.  He said that their timeline is very different than the petitioners.  He didn’t deny that there was something in the pipeline, but that it would be years out if they did.
  • A kid asked why Anakin became Darth Vader.  Pablo asked if he had seen Revenge of the Sith, and the kid replied that he had.  Pablo then explained that Anakin was willing to do whatever it took to not lose the people he loved.
  • Someone then asked about the prophecy and whether Anakin had brought balance to the Force. He then stated that it was his personal theory that Anakin WAS the imbalance in the Force, because of the way he was conceived and what not.  He then explicitly stated that this wasn’t canon, just his personal opinion.
  • A green robed Jedi cosplayer asked a question about whether or not there was a plan to bring back the green-robed Jedi (green-robed Jedi were in the expanded universe and never canon; they were allowed to marry).  Pablo stated that these particular Jedi were used as a stop-gap of sorts between George Lucas’s policy of the Jedi never having attachments and the expanded universe clearly having married Jedi.  While he said there’s always a possibility that they could be used in future stories, it’s not very likely.

 

That was about it.  What question would you ask?