It’s been a long while since I read this book, and hopefully someone knows what I’m talking about… is there anything in current canon that rules out some kind of adaption of ‘Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader’ by James Luceno? The novel mostly takes place starting 4 weeks after Order 66, beginning with a Republic attack on Murkhana, and ending with an Imperial occupation of Kashyyk.
I’ve often wondered what a film adaption taking at least the basic premise of the book would be like. The main story is two Jedi trying to survive in the wake of Order 66: Jedi knight Roan Shryne and padawan Olee Starstone, whose master is killed in a duel with Vader in the first act. A film would introduce these characters as a trio, marking out the master (Bol Chatak) as the most powerful, only for her to be killed confronting Darth Vader, which establishes how much of a threat he is. From that point on the film would be about the undisciplined Shryne having to rise to the occasion and becoming a mentor to Starstone; it would be a James Cameron-like storyline of characters forming a makeshift family unit while trying to survive, like what happens in Aliens. The two Jedi are also helped by a gang of pirates, who transport them offworld.
Vader would function as the villain, instead of a more Vader-centric story, but he is given his own separate character moments. As in the novel, he would be remastering the Force and coming to terms with his new identity, and at the end of the film, when Shryne confronts him on Kashyyk and is beaten, Vader tells him his former identity as Anakin before killing him. I always thought it was unusual of Vader to acknowledge his past so this moment deserves significance.
I would cut a lot of stuff in the 2nd act like visiting Alderaan and Shryne’s mother, and replace it, but that’s the basic premise. I also think starting with a Republic invasion and ending with an Imperial invasion would be a great way to visually compare the two - or show how the Republic had basically become the Empire long before the war ended.