Over the course of Timothy Zahn's "Heir to the Empire" trilogy, fans met Mara Jade and learned she was once the Emperor's Hand. Undercover in Jabba the Hutt's palace during Return of the Jedi, she didn't make it onto the sail barge so was unable to stop Luke and blamed him both for her Master's defeat and the fact she lost everything.
Despite initially wanting to kill the Jedi, Mara ultimately realises that Palpatine planted the idea in her head at the moment of his death and embraces the idea of being a Jedi too...after ridding herself of the Sith's voice by dealing the killing blow to Luuke, a clone of Luke created by Dark Jedi Jorrus C'baoth.
Eventually, she and Luke marry and have children, something we know doesn't happen after watching the sequels. We could, however, still get an awesome new female protagonist who is front and centre in this next era of storytelling, and the hope is that Dave Filoni will introduce her in his upcoming Star Wars movie.
During a recent appearance at Fan EXPO San Francisco, Star Wars Rebels actress Vanessa Marshall - the voice of Hera Syndulla - shared her hope to work with Filoni in a live-action capacity, singling Mara out as the character she wants to tackle next in this Galaxy Far, Far Away.
"I would love to play Mara Jade," she told fans in attendance (via StarWarsNews.net). "Can you call Dave Filoni and just let him know that I’d love to play Mara Jade? I think we would all just like to be in live-action in some way. We haven’t had the opportunity to do it yet. But my background is in live-action."
Marshall looks the part, but it really depends on what Lucasfilm has planned for the character. The moment to explore a romance with Luke has largely passed, and if she's still the Emperor's Hand, that locks the studio into casting a version of Mara in a very specific age group.
With so many Disney+ characters expected to eventually assemble in Filoni's Star Wars movie, chances are there won't be room to throw Mara into the mix. There's always a chance she could appear elsewhere, though, with the upcoming Rey project a solid possibility.
There's always a chance Mara could debut in animation first and, if so, it will be the perfect opportunity for Marshall to portray this character. While she remains the voice of Hera in animation, that role has since been taken over in live-action by Ahsoka star Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
Do you think we'll eventually see Mara on screen?