ST Bridging the gap, the screenwriters' challenge.

Kylo Ren is rumored to be a Sith artifact collector with an obsession on Sith and Jedi history, right? I'm sure he'd found some information on the "old Sith legend" of Plagueis. A holocron, perhaps? And Luke is guarding the ancient Sith tomb, which may or may not be Plagueis'. If it is, I could see him seeking help from Anakin, but I don't see them bringing back Hayden.

 

Not at all. That is the Star Wars way.

TESB is a movie with no beginning or ending. TESB's start is NOT ANH but what happened in-between the movies is. How do Luke, Vader, Leia and Han get to where they are at the start of the movie? Luke has somehow trained up to the point that Obi-Wan now sends him to Yoda. Why not years earlier? Vader goes from subordinate guy to the overall leader save the Emperor. Leia and Han are already in love it's just that she won't admit it. It's not about them falling in love like Anakin and Padme but admitting that it's already happened.

That isn't where ANH left off.

For each movie gaps between and what happened are not really explained onscreen. Lots of things went on between each movie. This is going to be the largest gap ever with 30 years.

In terms of looking at the movies in episode order we know all sorts of things that are either not mentioned or barely touched upon. So now a reference to TCW has so much more meaning. In TESB do they talk much about the events of ANH? No. In ROTJ do they talk much about the events of TESB? No and so on. We already know that so there is no real need to go over it again.

The way the movies structures work is that each part adds to the whole. There is little need to rehash things that we can already see for ourselves.

As Lucas explains on the ROTS commentary the larger poltical aspect of Palpatine's rise is not something that you are necessarily supposed to get directly from TPM or AOTC but something that you look back on from ROTS and then say "Oh that is how that worked."

So why wouldn't Luke 30 years later know pretty much the entire story of Anakin's life? If he didn't would be the thing that would need to be explained not that he does know. That doesn't need to be explained at all in the movies. That is for the books and comics to do.

In terms of TFA since we know what the Republic was and what the Empire was we won't need to know the details of the previous 30 years but only what is important for the now of the movie.

 

i like the idea of a plagueis being the "biggest fish" who was even playing palpatine, but who aside from people that post here paid so much attention that they would remember his name as palps former master? not many. still being said they could just fill in the blanks quickly and make it work. maybe after feigning death he went into a stasis in the cave for all those years.