Star Wars: Bookends - A Prologue & Epilogue to the Original Trilogy — Page 2

Hey guys, my brain decided it wanted to revisit this old idea, so I have updated the original post with new thoughts.

The Last Jedi doesn’t stand alone. At the end there’s still Kylo Ren to deal with, and the resistance has been reduced to a handful of people that can all fit comfortably in the Falcon. You might as well say that The Force Awakens stands alone.

Honestly it just sounds like a reason for another Revenge of the Sith edit, which is fine. I like when people try to make it fit the original trilogy.

Even if TLJ leaves some narrative threads open, I kind of think it stands on its own regarding the thematic elements it has. Even if we don’t see what happens with Kylo Ren, or we don’t the restoration of the Jedi or the Republic proper, we know there are still people that the fight will continue after the film ends, and they will eventually succeed.

I also kind of like the parallels TLJ shares with Le Morte D’Arthur, where King Arthur story ends with a duel with his wicked kin, Mordred, and the ruin of his kingdom, but there is hope that Arthur will return from Avalon one day and restore the kingdom.

Like Arthur, the OT and these bookends could be seen as focusing on the birth, life and death of Luke Skywalker. Ironically, though, I don’t know if I actually would want to show Luke dying in this version. I like the idea of leaving his fate ambiguous, allowing the audience to choose what happens to him. Does Luke die there on the island and become one with the Force, or will he live on to restore the Jedi Order as Lucas intended to depict?

Kind of the same idea with Kylo. I like how TLJ ends showing Kylo “winning” the battle, but losing spiritually. And the audience is left to wonder if Kylo is doomed to the dark side, or if there is still hope for redemption.

Regarding George’s ST ideas, we know that at some point George suggested combining the Jedi Killer character with Han and Leia’s son. So in some version of his treatment, he still fell to the dark side just as he did in the final version of those films, but we don’t know what his fate would have been in George’s version. So leaving Kylo’s eventual fate ambiguous and letting the audience ponder on it fits with what little we know about Lucas’ version of the sequel trilogy.

And the intentional ambiguity of what comes after mirrors the intentional ambiguity of what comes before the prologue. By having ROTS operate as a standalone film, the audience can be left to imagine a version of how Anakin and Obi-Wan met that is more in line with what the original trilogy tells us: Anakin followed Obi-Wan on a idealistic crusade, and Owen thought Anakin should’ve stayed on Tatooine and not gotten involved.
That’s not really what we see in the actual films, but by not showing how they met and coming in on their story in medias res, the audience could choose to imagine the events before the prologue however they want, whether it be more in like with the OT, or how it is depicted in the rest of the PT.

RogueLeader said:

Even if TLJ leaves some narrative threads open, I kind of think it stands on its own regarding the thematic elements it has. Even if we don’t see what happens with Kylo Ren, or we don’t the restoration of the Jedi or the Republic proper, we know there are still people that the fight will continue after the film ends, and they will eventually succeed.

I also kind of like the parallels TLJ shares with Le Morte D’Arthur, where King Arthur story ends with a duel with his wicked kin, Mordred, and the ruin of his kingdom, but there is hope that Arthur will return from Avalon one day and restore the kingdom.

Like Arthur, the OT and these bookends could be seen as focusing on the birth, life and death of Luke Skywalker. Ironically, though, I don’t know if I actually would want to show Luke dying in this version. I like the idea of leaving his fate ambiguous, allowing the audience to choose what happens to him. Does Luke die there on the island and become one with the Force, or will he live on to restore the Jedi Order as Lucas intended to depict?

Kind of the same idea with Kylo. I like how TLJ ends showing Kylo “winning” the battle, but losing spiritually. And the audience is left to wonder if Kylo is doomed to the dark side, or if there is still hope for redemption.

Regarding George’s ST ideas, we know that at some point George suggested combining the Jedi Killer character with Han and Leia’s son. So in some version of his treatment, he still fell to the dark side just as he did in the final version of those films, but we don’t know what his fate would have been in George’s version. So leaving Kylo’s eventual fate ambiguous and letting the audience ponder on it fits with what little we know about Lucas’ version of the sequel trilogy.

And the intentional ambiguity of what comes after mirrors the intentional ambiguity of what comes before the prologue. By having ROTS operate as a standalone film, the audience can be left to imagine a version of how Anakin and Obi-Wan met that is more in line with what the original trilogy tells us: Anakin followed Obi-Wan on a idealistic crusade, and Owen thought Anakin should’ve stayed on Tatooine and not gotten involved.
That’s not really what we see in the actual films, but by not showing how they met and coming in on their story in medias res, the audience could choose to imagine the events before the prologue however they want, whether it be more in like with the OT, or how it is depicted in the rest of the PT.

I don’t think it finishes thematically either. People love the broom kid for some reason but it doesn’t show anything new or inspiring. Ordinary people can be force sensitive? People believe in legends about Luke Skywalker? We knew that already. That was what Rey was about. Likewise Kylo Ren’s story. What is the lesson there? Luke has to learn that certain people can’t be redeemed and he should just abandon them? All the sequels have the same problem of retreading the same ground as the original trilogy and the prequels, and The Last Jedi is no different.

In the sense you’re talking about, every episode could be standalone (the original movie was designed to be but none of the others were.) But it’s your edit, do what you want.

Lol, always appreciate you trying to keep my ideas grounded Vladius! 😂

Always wanted to say that this is just creative exercise atm. I don’t have any plans to work on any Prequel or Sequel Trilogy stuff anytime soon.

I wasn’t sure if I would’ve ended with broom boy. Regarding Kylo’s fate, there’s an openness to his ending in TLJ that I like. I don’t think Luke believes he is beyond salvation, he just accepts that he can’t be what he was for Vader because of what he did to Ben.

Luke: I came to face him, Leia. And I can’t save him.

Leia: I held out hope for so long, but I know my son is gone.

Luke: No one is ever really gone.

But again, people heard that and still felt that Kylo is past the point of no return. I think that is valid too. And like I said, since we don’t know the fate of the Solo son/Jedi Killer Lucas would have given this character, I liked the idea of keeping it open. Not trying to start another TLJ debate if anything!

Admittedly, this idea has sort of evolved from just a rather simple edit to something a little different.

The idea is kind of inspired by the Greek Epic Cycle. A lot of people know major story beats of the Trojan War, like Achilles’ being shot with an arrow by Paris, the Trojan horse, and the sacking of Troy, but most of that comes from summaries of lost poems that we got from secondary sources. They aren’t actually depicted in the Iliad. So I like this idea of creating a simulacrum of Lucas’ vision of the Sequel Trilogy using the visual medium of the Sequel Trilogy we got.

And even that idea is not perfect, because they obviously don’t have the same visual flair Lucas would’ve given it, and Lucas’s ideas for the ST evolved and changed over time, but it is simply meant to evoke the feeling of what it could have been like. Perhaps using a dubbed or silent movie approach could help use further plot points from we know of his story, but that might take away from the experience for people.

Anyway, just a thought experiment! A part of me thinks it would be fun to give yourself these rules/guidelines of “Here are these Lucas ST story beats. How can we get these ideas across with the available footage that we have?” But there are other edits I would like to work on before I would really consider working on this anyway, so I was just interested to hear other people’s thoughts and ideas too.

I’ve always thought an interesting way to do the prequels could be a miniseries, since the characters age up between movies, and Anakin even changes actors, it could be reminiscent of something like HBO’s House of the Dragon.

I really like your prologue and epilogue idea though.