Again, they have 100 percent control over this. That being said, I’ve never understood why people, in any area, would take something and then change it. This bothered me with the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. Why are you taking the name and then rewriting the whole thing? Why not just create your own new thing?
So, I’d obviously like to see Thrawn as I created him. If they change him too much … or any of my other characters, I’m not sure I’d see the point of why they call it that character in the first place. But again, it’s all owned by them. They get to do what they want to. So, we’ll see what happens. And again, I haven’t heard anything official from [Lucasfilm] about whether that rumor is even right.
Timothy Zahn at AwesomeCon about his characters in new Star Wars
http://www.dailydot.com/geek/star-wars-timothy-zahn-expanded-universe-awesome-con-interview/
Answering the following question:
Lucasfilm hew closely to the character you created—with elements such as his ability to learn an enemy’s battle tactics by analyzing their art—or would you prefer to see a different kind of Thrawn based on the same basic premise?