Lit Could/Should Star Wars do a Musical Episode?

You know why I ask this, Star Trek Strange New Worlds recently did and I was surprised at how well that one turned out.

Now, SW got plenty of music and singing moments already, be that inuniverse bands, the Holiday Special, out of universe Dancing with the SW Stars in Disney Parks, etc. and that shows it is ripe for music and such entertainment.

But how about a musical episode that is NOT Lego Star Wars, fully canon and fully musical for a fully explained reason? It could be done, it could even be done well even if it requires the right people in the right places for it.

Which actors/actresses can sing or would you want to hear sing like that?
Which D+ show might/should attempt it?
Which aliens/species would you want to sing and dance?
How shall it be explained?

Note, I do not want dancing Mandos, but I can see that work too. Getting the old Rebels crew to sing though would be fun like Ahsoka's show or any follow up. Explain it f.e. like Tilotny, Waru, Pomojema or any other supernatural entity makes people sing before being defeated! Or a Force/Dathomiri Witch bewitching people to sing and dance instead of fighting her. Heck... can David Bowie come back from the dead please to reprise his role of THE LABYRINTHs Goblin King? Bringing that into SW Multiversial fold would be fun, too.

It would be a fun opportunity to bring Zeltros to the big screen, add in some local Hutt crimelords musical court, Falleen pheromones making people sing or do weird things? Writes itself practically! And a Falleen would be remniscient as a callback to the epic Buffy Musical Episodes dancing Demon.

While I would love such weird stuff for Legends characters more, canon can do it as well.

PS: And before anybody warns me of the Holiday Special songs.. I know, I know. But these days everything can be redeemed! So long they do not hire the folks that sang at the Galaxys Edge Hotel *shudders* no thx. No cheap produced excuses for overpriced fan experiences which failed epically. Hire the right folks and spend some on the good folks to make it work.

 

This might be a hard sell. I can see LEGO SW doing this really well. But fully canon? Maybe if its an in-universe opera or holo-thriller. IDK.

 

You could focus a show around Musical acts.

Max Rebo on tour or a "battle of the bands" at the Coruscant Opera House or something in this regard.

If you use the premise in a real "world building" way, then I think people would accept it.

Having Ahsoka or Din doing a song and dance number would be the end of all things.

 

Star Wars did it 40 years ago.

 

Or Aphra kicks over a totem that lets everyone go musically nuts. And likes it.

 

I think it could be done someday, I just don't think the tone of any of the current shows works for it. Rebels could've pulled it off.

An ancient artifact would be an interesting way to go about it.

 

Rebels did pull it off.

 

Here's another direction they could go:

 

I was thinking of that scene, but to me it takes more than one musical number to make something a "musical episode"

 

Why is “the musical episode” even a thing? Is this another crime against humanity that can be laid at Joss Whedon’s feet? Was Oscar-winner Akiva Goldsman really incapable of understanding why a campy, jokey concept for revealing character drama would work on a campy, jokey teen soap opera like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and not a self-serious science fiction morality play like Star Trek used to be?

But the answer is yes. They should do a musical episode on every Star Wars show. The more blatantly they evoke Earth musical traditions the better. Lizzo already exists in Star Wars, just Star Wars-ify some of her lyrics. “Just took a midi-chlorian test,” etc. It’s sure to be beloved and remembered by modern streaming audiences for at least a week.

 

Well the musical numbers for SW from Robot Chicken WERE good! Palpatine can pull it of for canon too!

 

Triple-Zero singing a villain song would be just great. Bun in general, IMO, fully canon SW musical is too much, even Star Trek's recent one was too goofy (even though before ST had a whole episode dedicated to a baseball game during a time of massive and bloody conflict in its darkest show, and that was still a good episode).

This clip's ending is one of the saddest moments in Rebels.

 

Yes. Some characters from some show, I don't care who, should go see The Kallea Cycle, which will then completely fill the remainder of the runtime. Viewers at home will probably be confused that they're watching an hours-long opera performed entirely in Old Brentaal. I do not care about the opinions of such viewers, though I guess we can throw them a bone with some subtitles.

 

Absolutely they should have a musical, but also, all media ever should do musicals.

 

@ColeFardreamer You know, I think your a great guy and I have nothing against you but I hate this idea lol.

 

MAUL, an adult Zabrak male, comes on to the stage. He stands on a box, the metal legs whirring. He bears a lightsaber, and ignites it. In the red light of the blade, six MANDALORIANS are revealed standing behind him. The music starts, and all seven start . . . to dance!

(To the tune of "Good 4 U," by Olivia Rodrigo.)

 

No, I've always hated musical episodes of shows that weren't specifically musically related like say Schmigadoon.

 

Come on... I just need an excuse to get Dathomir Witches to sing chants. Hapan language sounds so musical like it is space french... and Zeltros always is up for a song and dance.

Bring it, it will fit!!!

Upcoming Lando or Aphra Shows i am counting on you! Bonus points for a young Holdo singing.

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No musical episodes ever, thanks. Actors generally always get way too giddy and excited whenever song and/or dance is involved in a production. They get paid enough as it is, they don't need to enjoy themselves as well.

 

Ohhhhhhh they should do a meta-musical about the production of all these Star Wars shows, from the POV of the actors/writers/etc...

...50 years in the future and extremely candid.

 

Strange New Worlds's musical episode was incredible. One of the best hours of television I've seen in a long, long time. You could tell that everyone involved in it had a blast making it, the actors most of all. A huge amount of working actors have musical theater backgrounds, and most of the cast knocked it out of the park. Even the ones who obviously don't have that background, like Babs Olusanmokun, got to sing a few lines, and Dr. M'Benga made the fun almost-meta comment "Even I was singing, Captain. And I do not sing."

It worked so well in Strange New Worlds because it's a show that isn't afraid to not take itself too seriously. In just two seasons it's embraced so much of what makes Star Trek great, including the fact that Trek is often just plain silly. Subspace Rhapsody never once felt like it didn't fit in with the eighteen preceding episodes of the show.

But could Star Wars do that? Ehhhhhh no. Not now, anyway. And not in live action. Every SW live action show we've gotten has thought of itself as a pretty serious show. With serious people saying grim and solemn things to each other. None of them have had anything approaching the fun spirit of Strange New Worlds, and the only one that's continued for more than one season doesn't have a core cast, that seems like it hangs out and has a great camaraderie, like the SNW cast does. Hell, its lead actor probably didn't stop by set even once during the making of Season 3.

The SW live-action shows also aren't weekly episodic shows like SNW, in the style of classic Trek, is. Mando does sometimes have an adventure of the week, sure --- sometimes even fun ones with guest stars like Jack Black and Lizzo, who would be all over a musical episode --- but it's much more serialized than SNW, and a musical episode would feel far more like an interlude, or even an unwelcome, tangential interruption, than did Subspace Rhapsody (which itself didn't shy away from furthering a few ongoing storylines via singing).

The toxically negative part of SW's fandom is also much worse than the negative part of Trek's fandom, so the uproar would be far more severe. Not that that should stop SW creators from taking risks, but it's worth pointing out.

Can SW be fun? Sure! It can and often has been. And a musical episode could totally happen in a Lego special, or maybe even in some other animated show. Could Rebels or Resistance have done one? Maybe! I didn't watch them. You tell me. But Strange New Worlds was the perfect storm for a musical episode in a way that nothing in current-day SW is. Modern-day Trek and modern-day Wars are apples and oranges.

 

To be fair to modern SW, most Star Wars media not aimed specifically at kids since, like, 1983 or so, could rightly (if reductively) be described as "serious people saying grim and solemn things to each other." Andor arguably took that a step further than prior projects, but honestly the live-action series as a whole haven't introduced some new, self-serious tone beyond what has already been present in the franchise for quite a while now.

Also, Resistance absolutely could have pulled off a musical episode - the tone of the series was just right, and I suspect Oscar Isaac could carry a tune if given the opportunity. The toxic fans would have savaged it, but no one should be paying attention to them at this point.

 

@Jeff_Ferguson Yes SW takes itself too serious and that is why it needs an injection of Strange New Worlds and deconstruction akin to brilliant The Last Jedi by Rian Johnson. He could do a SW Musical I bet that is canon and feels as fitting and working like the Star Trek one.

And to be honest, the toxic negative fandom should not influence what is made or is not made, if they alienate it to go away even better. The fans that left after the reboot were not the toxic ones, but Legends loving ones sadly. The toxic stayed.

 

I dunno. I don't think the injection could be that sudden. Like The Positive Fan says, live-action SW hasn't been all that light-hearted in decades. With some exceptions, of course, like a lot of the Baby Yoda stuff in the first two Mando seasons, and the MCU-style quippiness in the sequel trilogy. But a musical episode couldn't come out of nowhere without feeling pretty jarring --- it would need a few years' worth of setup.

Trek couldn't have produced a musical episode two or three years ago, after the first couple seasons of Discovery and Picard, which were seriously lacking in the levity department. It had nearly two full seasons of Strange New World to lead up to it, as well as three seasons of the wonderful insanity that is Lower Decks --- not to mention a crossover between the two that further illustrated just how fun SNW could allow itself to be. The proper foundation had already been lain for a musical.

Live-action SW would need to take a sharp turn away from its current style and give itself time to build up the kind of atmosphere that could support a musical. Maybe it doesn't need to take upwards of three years --- Lando has the potential to be hella fun, depending on the direction the Glovers want to take it, and if it gives us five light-hearted, adventurous romps, hey, maybe the sixth could be a musical without feeling all that weird. But a sudden one-off SW musical event on Disney Plus, like the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special but with even more singing? I really feel like that would only work if it were Lego.

 

I have been hoping for a Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren duet for a while now. "Please, Mr. Palpatine"?