So anyway, picking up where I left off … having a vision. My philosophy is that you can’t write a script without an outline, you can’t write an outline without a treatment, you can’t write a treatment without a story, and you can’t write a story without a vision.
What should The Force Awakens have really been about?
I was struck by the first trailer I saw in early 2015:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCc2v7izk8wPrior to seeing that trailer, I had no interest in the new Disney trilogy. I thought the story was over, it had already been told, and all I cared about was “just give me the damn OOT”.
But then I saw that trailer (it was awesome), and I thought, you know what? Yeah, a new generation of young people should have their own Star Wars too. I was sold on the idea of passing the torch to the next generation.
So what gives with the story we got? I think Luke Skywalker should have played the mentor role and not Han Solo. Harrison Ford was terrific in this movie, no question. He wasn’t old Harrison Ford; he was Han Solo, just like old times. But what was his role in the film? Why have him (instead of Luke) act as a father figure for Rey?..
Finally, what about the setting? The world of the story, in my opinion, really completes the idea of the vision.
I loved the opening shot in that trailer, with Rey speeding past the hazy wreckage of the Star Destroyer and the X-wing lying in the background. What a fantastic shot. The war between the Empire and the Rebellion has long since passed, but has the galaxy been at peace for the last thirty years? No!
Power vacuums don’t lead to peace and prosperity – they lead to more conflict. That’s good, because we need conflict for stories. In my world for TFA, the New Republic is in the process of installing peace and order throughout the galaxy, but there are still dangerous elements out there – terrorists, gangsters / criminals, evil breakaway organizations, etc.
And TFA seems to have been going in that direction with The First Order. Well done.
But what’s the angle here? What’s the last piece of the puzzle that makes the First Order’s antagonism so compelling? This is where we come back to the idea of the vision.
If Skywalker and the rest of our legacy heroes are trying to pass the torch to the next generation, then the antagonists, The First Order, have to be doing the opposite…
I have always considered the OT and it's backstory to be a complete saga cycle. There can be no ST because the story is told. The Kingdom has come. Happily ever after. The Hero's Journey is complete. There is no more. I have always ignored all post-ROTJ EU for exactly this reason.
I was a little swept up in the idea of more of SW and seeing the OT crew. I thought TFA was well worth the ticket price with much to recommend it (while having great flaws) but I've come away with my anti-post-ROTJ position reinforced.
Trouble is, the moment we admit that there is ANYTHING after ROTJ, we are consigning the future of our favorite characters to pure tragedy and breaking the promise of victory. It's just illusory and temporary respite so the characters can feel their future miseries more acutely. And we can't trust in any success thereafter.
I suppose the ST could be set in the distant future after thousands of years of peace, freedom and prosperity, but at that point you might as well create an alternate universe and start with a clean slate.
Some day, I hope we get a truly retro(with careful modern enhancements) reboot of the PT/remake of the OT.