What Do YOU Think Star Wars Should Do Next? — Page 6

Anakin Starkiller said:

They’re a large corporation literally named the Trade Federation. It feels implicit to me they’re against taxation.

How do you know they’re a large corporation? They have Senate representation and an army. Maybe they’re more like some international agency like the World Trade Organization. The word “Federation” usually suggests something more like a governmental or intergovernmental agency, coalition or guild.

Of course, I’m playing Devil’s advocate. I have access to Wookiepedia. I know that canonically the Trade Federation is a large corporation. But the movie doesn’t even make that basic detail particularly clear, other than to call them “greedy” in the opening crawl. The fact is, the entity in Star Wars called the “Trade Federation” does not have any exact parallel in real life. They’re not like Weyland Yutani of the Alien franchise or OmniCorp of Robocop, which are both very explicitly an example of the “dystopian mega-corporation” sci-fi trope. The closest parallel is probably something like the British East India Company, which hasn’t existed for centuries. The point is, it was not clear to a lot of people in 1999 what the Trade Federation even is.

To provide some more insight into this, here’s an essay written by some Star Wars nerd in 1999. It’s written from a Prequel fan perspective, it’s not critical of Phantom Menace. But it tries to earnestly figure out what the Trade Federation actually is using clues from the movie. It begins by saying “Very little is known about the Trade Federation. Is it a corporation? Is it a species? Is it the government of a planet? What are the motives of its leaders, and what is their grievance with Naboo or the Republic? We know only a handful of things”. It does ultimately conclude the Trade Federation is a corporation, but notes that it is quite different from real life corporations in many ways.

“The finger thing means the taxes!”

I get that the whole plot is simply a way for Palpatine to move from Senator to Chancellor or whatever the ranks were, but I was never clear on what the overall scheme was. Back in the day someone gave me a bootleg of the film on video because you had to wait a long time to see a movie again (remember that?) and that must have been when I first thought about it. After the WOW of the spectacle, pod races, etc, was gone I couldn’t summarise it.

The irony is that in the sequel trilogy a serious flaw is that way it’s all so small. There are no space politics, no big picture ideas. In SW you don’t need to understand because they just talk about an evil empire, and that’s a straightforward concept. But having both governments and resistance forces? What? Anything that the franchise does next needs to strike a proper balance on this.

Spartacus01 said:

Vladius said:

I will say that the Darth Plagueis book does a magnificent job of turning the prequels into a coherent setting where almost everything does actually make sense in context, but that’s just the issue, it takes an entire extra book’s worth of context. People that have read that book are going to retroactively imagine details in the movies that were never there and were not explained at all.

I said it before, I will say it again. The Prequels are a really good story if you take the time to explain everything in detail. But three movies are not enough to explain everything that needs to be explained in detail, and the Prequels should have never been movies in the first place. The Prequels should have been either a long, live action TV series (4+ seasons), or an Expanded Universe multimedia project of books, comics and video games that are interconnected to each other, something along the lines of the Clone Wars Multimedia Project that existed in real life, but including the main story of the movies too. The problem is not the story that Lucas was trying to convey to the audience, but rather the fact that the story is not suitable to be portrayed in three movies. The story is way too complex and contains a lot of information. Three movies are not enough.

I think the problem was the story he was trying to convey, or at least the details of the story. The extra details that fleshed it out and made it make sense came later from other people doing their own interpretations, and those extra details didn’t exist at the time. There essentially was an EU multimedia project, just not all at once. But there shouldn’t have to be. It’s a movie series that exists to be watched as movies, and it’s unreasonable (especially in 1999-2005) to expect everyone to invest time, money, and energy into puzzling together your story for you like homework. You have almost 7 full hours of screentime, plus the direct exposition from opening crawls. So much of that is wasted, or in the case of the “taxation of trade routes” thing we’re talking about, actively makes it less clear.

I mostly fall into the GL camp. Where I digress from him is how hard he pushed making the Prequels digitally, when that was at an era in filmmaking when they still could have been made to look like classic films. It’s a shame we didn’t get one last hurrah for practical filmmaking. I can’t deny he was ahead of his time, though.

Here’s things from your list I agree with and some ideas of my own I would also love to see:

• Theatrical cuts of the OT made available.

• Ever evolving special editions for the OT and PT. Just keep growing the movies and updating them.

• A new season (or single movie) of Clone Wars in live action with de-aged Hayden Christensen, Ewan McGregor, Samuel Jackson and Natalie Portman. Along with Ariana Greenblatt as Ahsoka. Does not have to overlap or contradict other stories, just set it before the finale sequence of the last two seasons. I think it should show us what Thrawn was doing during the Clone Wars, and tie in Ahsoka characters like Baylen.

• Luke Skywalker post-Jedi series. Rebuilding the order, or at least showing the start of it. Tie it into Thrawn why not. Do an adaptation of Heir but with wiggle room to account for a broader canvas of stories outside of that. Also for this, I would prefer a NEW ACTOR, not AI Mark Hamill. We love the character. Yes we love Mark too and what he did to create it, but in the end it is the character we love. Put a new actor in who can continue that growth.

• Give us proper continuations of Boba Fett, Obiwan, and Solo. These are all beloved characters that were not done justice. But on the other hand, all three of these stories were not outright terrible (well some people would say they were but I dont think so), however they did not live up to their characters. Give us one sequel per each of these just to put a bow on these characters. 1 movie or tv season each. Obi vs Maul, Boba growing his empire, Han Solo getting into debt with Jabba (can tie in young Boba, Lando, Kira and Maul, in fact Han doesnt even necessarily need to be the main character).

• I don’t have much of an opinion on eras beyond, because I think the storytelling potential of focusing in a close time period is so much greater than spreading thin to multiple disconnected eras. I did love both Kotor games back in the day, but a problem I have is, it’s supposed to be set 4000 years before, yet it doesn’t feel like it. If you told me it was 1000 years, I might believe that easier. But the lack of change over so long I think is unreasonable, and honestly dissapointing. In terms of design, I think High Republic actually did great in terms of style and palettes. I buy the idea that its the 100 years before the PT. But Old Republic being 4000 years? No way, not even a chance. In my personal head canon, it is only 1000 years before. And I think that is the danger in jumping so freely in the timeline outside of what is developed already.

Spartacus01 said:

Vladius said:

Spartacus01 said:

Vladius said:

I will say that the Darth Plagueis book does a magnificent job of turning the prequels into a coherent setting where almost everything does actually make sense in context, but that’s just the issue, it takes an entire extra book’s worth of context. People that have read that book are going to retroactively imagine details in the movies that were never there and were not explained at all.

I said it before, I will say it again. The Prequels are a really good story if you take the time to explain everything in detail. But three movies are not enough to explain everything that needs to be explained in detail, and the Prequels should have never been movies in the first place. The Prequels should have been either a long, live action TV series (4+ seasons), or an Expanded Universe multimedia project of books, comics and video games that are interconnected to each other, something along the lines of the Clone Wars Multimedia Project that existed in real life, but including the main story of the movies too. The problem is not the story that Lucas was trying to convey to the audience, but rather the fact that the story is not suitable to be portrayed in three movies. The story is way too complex and contains a lot of information. Three movies are not enough.

I think the problem was the story he was trying to convey, or at least the details of the story. The extra details that fleshed it out and made it make sense came later from other people doing their own interpretations, and those extra details didn’t exist at the time. There essentially was an EU multimedia project, just not all at once. But there shouldn’t have to be. It’s a movie series that exists to be watched as movies, and it’s unreasonable (especially in 1999-2005) to expect everyone to invest time, money, and energy into puzzling together your story for you like homework. You have almost 7 full hours of screentime, plus the direct exposition from opening crawls. So much of that is wasted, or in the case of the “taxation of trade routes” thing we’re talking about, actively makes it less clear.

I think that you missed the point of what I was trying to say, though. I didn’t say that you are required to spend money and time reading and experiencing EU stories to fill in the gaps, I said that the Prequels should have been conceived as an integral part of the EU from the very beginning. We shouldn’t have Prequel movies, we should only have Prequel books, comics and video games, and possibly a TV show. This is the only way to preserve the core elements of the story that Lucas was trying to convey, while simultaneously expanding them, exploring the overall setting, locations and characters in detail, and making everything feel more believable. The Original Trilogy is able to stand on its own, because it is a simple adventure, a classical hero’s journey that doesn’t require a very complex world-building. But Anakin’s story from his childhood to his transformation into Darth Vader? The Clone Wars? Palpatine’s rise to power? Nah, these are all things that necessarily require a complex story, a lot of world-building and a lot of explanations, all of which are not feasible for three movies, unless you end up making movies of 6 hours each.

No, I got that. I don’t think that’s a good idea either. You could also do the prequels as a simple adventure. But the thing that it’s trying to be is a classical or Shakespearean tragedy. Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, etc. have all been performed or adapted in under 7 hours, and did not require multimedia campaigns. “Worldbuilding” as an end in itself is a very modern concept that doesn’t actually result in good stories.

I’m fine with Luke’s story being told in comics and novels but the quality has to be good. Who am I kidding, its Disney I should be happy if its mid as the kids say.

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Anakin Starkiller said:

Reminder that George Lucas commissioned several nude twi’lek paintings.

I for one would’ve appreciated Rian Johnson’s quote about Ben and Rey touching being taken a lot more literally, but they obviously couldn’t in family-friendly Star Wars.

Haha, well I know George was obsessed with his Twi’leks but I never heard of him commissioning “nude paintings” of them. You have any evidence for that?

Anakin Starkiller said:

Patali said:

• I don’t have much of an opinion on eras beyond, because I think the storytelling potential of focusing in a close time period is so much greater than spreading thin to multiple disconnected eras. I did love both Kotor games back in the day, but a problem I have is, it’s supposed to be set 4000 years before, yet it doesn’t feel like it. If you told me it was 1000 years, I might believe that easier. But the lack of change over so long I think is unreasonable, and honestly dissapointing. In terms of design, I think High Republic actually did great in terms of style and palettes. I buy the idea that its the 100 years before the PT. But Old Republic being 4000 years? No way, not even a chance. In my personal head canon, it is only 1000 years before. And I think that is the danger in jumping so freely in the timeline outside of what is developed already.

This 100%. The technological and political stagnancy over literal millennia is laughable and immersion breaking. It’s just a roundabout way of making an alternate universe at that point. Remember the hyperdrive booster rings in the Prequels? How 'bout every starfighter needs them. And if you go further back only capital ships have hyperdrives. Little touches like that to make it feel older.

This is a complaint some have expressed with Tolkien’s Middle Earth. The stories take place over millenia yet there is ZERO technological advancements.

Anakin Starkiller said:

Patali said:

• I don’t have much of an opinion on eras beyond, because I think the storytelling potential of focusing in a close time period is so much greater than spreading thin to multiple disconnected eras. I did love both Kotor games back in the day, but a problem I have is, it’s supposed to be set 4000 years before, yet it doesn’t feel like it. If you told me it was 1000 years, I might believe that easier. But the lack of change over so long I think is unreasonable, and honestly dissapointing. In terms of design, I think High Republic actually did great in terms of style and palettes. I buy the idea that its the 100 years before the PT. But Old Republic being 4000 years? No way, not even a chance. In my personal head canon, it is only 1000 years before. And I think that is the danger in jumping so freely in the timeline outside of what is developed already.

This 100%. The technological and political stagnancy over literal millennia is laughable and immersion breaking. It’s just a roundabout way of making an alternate universe at that point. Remember the hyperdrive booster rings in the Prequels? How 'bout every starfighter needs them. And if you go further back only capital ships have hyperdrives. Little touches like that to make it feel older.

I think this is just an assumption people have from living in the 20th and 21st centuries. We live with an exponential increase in technology every few years but that doesn’t mean that we always will. It’s possible that a plateau can be reached where it’s mainly incremental changes. There could be a regression under certain circumstances, and sometimes there are just hard physical limits.

The technology level is already extremely high to start with and takes fully sentient robots, cloning, and faster than light travel for granted, so I have no problem believing that you can’t go much further beyond that. Or that maybe some species or civilizations can, but that there are cultural and economic factors that prevent those advancements from spreading or catching on.

fmalover said:

Anakin Starkiller said:

Patali said:

• I don’t have much of an opinion on eras beyond, because I think the storytelling potential of focusing in a close time period is so much greater than spreading thin to multiple disconnected eras. I did love both Kotor games back in the day, but a problem I have is, it’s supposed to be set 4000 years before, yet it doesn’t feel like it. If you told me it was 1000 years, I might believe that easier. But the lack of change over so long I think is unreasonable, and honestly dissapointing. In terms of design, I think High Republic actually did great in terms of style and palettes. I buy the idea that its the 100 years before the PT. But Old Republic being 4000 years? No way, not even a chance. In my personal head canon, it is only 1000 years before. And I think that is the danger in jumping so freely in the timeline outside of what is developed already.

This 100%. The technological and political stagnancy over literal millennia is laughable and immersion breaking. It’s just a roundabout way of making an alternate universe at that point. Remember the hyperdrive booster rings in the Prequels? How 'bout every starfighter needs them. And if you go further back only capital ships have hyperdrives. Little touches like that to make it feel older.

This is a complaint some have expressed with Tolkien’s Middle Earth. The stories take place over millenia yet there is ZERO technological advancements.

They have magic. They have supernaturally good and plentiful food, medicine, architecture, and metallurgy, not to mention more explicit stuff like seeing stones. Those are all forms of technology. Also in a thematic sense, 1. Tolkien and the good guys in the story are not fans of industrialization and avoid it on purpose, and 2. one of the biggest themes of the setting is physical and spiritual decline.

Again this relates to our modern bias where we automatically see “advancement” as inevitable and desirable and not something that can stop or even go backwards.

Not to mention humans have been around on earth for nearly 200 millennia and we didn’t even crack the bronze age until about 5 millennia ago.

I think the old Tales of the Jedi comics did the thing we’re talking about. It felt like older tech and clothing…a.more interesting visual style than Jedi robes and Tie Fighter looking ships from the KOTOR style era.

I think Star Wars needs to take a break. A very long break. I don’t think the universe needs to get bigger but smaller. For me, less is more when it comes to Star Wars. For me, Star Wars was at its best in the pre-prequel era because projects were coming out minimally, and when they did, it was special. I feel like there was a more quality over quantity approach. We need to get back to that. Rather than having 10 shows running at the same time, I would rather have one show with all those resources put into it. That would be an Emmy award-winning masterpiece like breaking bad, or the Sopranos or Game of Thrones. Instead of releasing 100 books a year release three, but make the contents, super impactful to the universe and significant. But I know Disney will never do this. And this is why I wish Star Wars was more like back to the future. Smaller. Less is more.

I always thought there would be a good story in regards to who made the prophecy of the chosen one. You can take this into a lot of directions. You can make the prophecy a lie or the truth. Have it take place during one of those old Republic Jedi versus Sith wars. Make it a Game of Thrones style series with the movie tie in

Spartacus01 said:

Connor MacLeod said:

I think Star Wars needs to take a break. A very long break. I don’t think the universe needs to get bigger but smaller. For me, less is more when it comes to Star Wars. For me, Star Wars was at its best in the pre-prequel era because projects were coming out minimally, and when they did, it was special. I feel like there was a more quality over quantity approach. We need to get back to that. Rather than having 10 shows running at the same time, I would rather have one show with all those resources put into it. That would be an Emmy award-winning masterpiece like breaking bad, or the Sopranos or Game of Thrones. Instead of releasing 100 books a year release three, but make the contents, super impactful to the universe and significant.

I agree with everything you said here.

Superweapon VII said:

Fan_edit_fan said:

I think the old Tales of the Jedi comics did the thing we’re talking about. It felt like older tech and clothing…a.more interesting visual style than Jedi robes and Tie Fighter looking ships from the KOTOR style era.

Indeed. It’s like creators post-1998 got together and said “We don’t have to be creative anymore; we got the prequels now.” SW has been a coprophagic ouroboros ever since.

You know, I think that even if the prequelization of the Jedi and Sith orders was introduced in-universe only after the Battle of Russan, you would still say that the EU authors were not creative enough. Why? Because the vast majority of the stories within the EU take place between 1,000 BBY and 4 ABY, so you would still have the majority of EU stories portraying the Sith and the Jedi in a prequelized way.

I would say a massive amount of the EU stories are set after Return of the Jedi, just in terms of sheer text. A good chunk of other EU stories are 4000 BBY and were changed to be more movie-like with the release of KOTOR. KOTOR is great though, and I think part of it was just how difficult it would be to translate all the lavish comic book artwork into a 2003 video game. So I don’t blame them visually, at least.