ST POLL: The OT Characters In The Sequel Trilogy

I hear what you are saying. For some, flashbacks of Luke's fall weren't enough. Also, I think that Lucasfilm really underestimated the fact that, for A LOT of fans, the EU/postROTJ Luke was very impactful. For better or worse, the creators of TLJ aren't just dealing with who Luke was in Episodes 4-6, they are essentially having to negate EU Luke. Problem is, regardless of the "official canon", many fans had this vision of post ROTJ Luke for 20+ years. The fact that he is different is in TLJ is a bitter pill for some to swallow.

*The writer of Rocky 3 is the same person who wrote all of the Rocky films....Sylvester Stallone. I think that he is totally underrated as a talent. People lump him together with Ahnold, but Stallone is a better actor and more of an artist.

I get your point. That said, the OT characters are family. They are connected as such. So, a family tragedy was bound to affect all of them in various ways. Considering what happened with Kylo Ren, how would any of them (Han, Luke, Leia) be okay?

I think this is the challenge of creating a new trilogy. ROTJ was a "happily ever after" ending. Any sequel* was going to undo this.

My favorite (by far) EU work is Dark Empire. It just felt and read the most like "authentic Star Wars." That said, Luke joins the Dark Side and serves The Empire. It is completely out of character and flies in the face of what happened/Luke's characterization in the OT. I didn't care because I was so happy to have this story/sequel with Dark Empire.

So, it's a tradeoff....you want a sequel to the ST? Yes? Well, what bad thing(s) is going to have to happen to our OT heroes?

 

To me, SW’s world is not really that interesting to explore... it all seems like gobity gook. But it does work as set dressing for the chemistry and relationship between Han, Luke and Leia fighting the bad guys with their trusted friends. That is why I had no interest in the prequels, let alone that I felt they were terrible clunky movies on their own.
So for the sequel trilogy, it only works as a continuation of the Han, Leia, Luke dynamic. For me it’s more if Friends or Seinfeld did a reunion, both shows wouldn’t work as Friends/Seinfeld: The Next Generation. I mean, if that’s the case, put a Rey, Finn and Poe character and make a scinfinfantasy space series where the audience is like, Ohhh this is like a throwback to Star Wars and Flash Gordon, how refreshing. (But I get it’s a business and has to be attached to a proven brand.)
But none of these next generation things I feel have ever worked.... and TV shows seems to be doing them all the time in the last decade, and they’re all fleeting, with most viewers just wanting the original leads back or excited for their cameos.
I’ve said it before and will say, er post it again... there was the potential of something so strong with bringing back the three leads and keeping it their story. They have the audience so focus groups wouldn’t matter. They had the chance to show us kids turning middle aged and losing that dreamer quality that we CAN still be kids, CAN still have adventures like Han, Luke and Leia. And kids seeing these movies would also have the strong impression that heroes don’t have to look 20-28 all the time. They can have wrinkles, a little extra poundage, some grey hair.
And it would show that even when there is happily ever after, there is always the good fight to fight and to keep struggling. I think it could’ve been beautiful.
As it is, I like what they did with the three in their stations in life, as a starting out point for the new trilogy. Just wish it was the starting off point and they all get back together.
The most successful scene for me so far has been so simple... Han and Leia facing off on that jungle planet, with 3PO popping his head in, and Chewie hugging Leia. So simple, yet movie magic. Or Luke entering a two-shot frame with Leia and gently taking her hand. These moments work.

 

It was not necessary to negate the happily ever after of ROTJ. I reject that notion completely. It only takes the slightest imagination to dispel that notion.

You can even have the troubled son of Han and Leia and still avoid negating the happy ending. Ben can still have difficulties with Han, with Han not understanding him, the Force, or the Skywalker legacy, and still keep the happy ending. It’s simple. Many fathers are unable to understand their sons, especially those with different talents. The blue collar, grease monkey father may struggle to understand his artist son (was this not the case between George Lucas and his father? George wanted to be an artist, his dad wanted him to take over the family business?) This can result in distance or estrangement. That alone brings drama and conflict. It doesn’t need to lead to patricide, or Ben falling to the dark side. You can have Jedi Ben Solo struggle to connect with his father, struggle to live up to the Skywalker legacy, struggle to deal with a galaxy so different from the one his parents and uncle grew up under, and not fall to the dark side, much less murder his own father. Not only can you do this, but imo it’s a better idea. The “destroy everything” idea isn’t better, imo. It’s not necessary, desirable, or fitting the ST’s place in the saga, imo.

I never wanted a Sequel Trilogy, but you can have one that doesn’t shatter the happy ending of ROTJ so brutally, doesn’t destroy the OT heroes so thoroughly and depressingly, and still have conflict, drama, and even bad things happen to our heroes. There’s plenty of middle ground between something bad happening to you and patricide and the utter destruction of everything you’ve spent your life fighting for. There’s plenty of bad things that can happen that don’t go as far as that, and those bad things can provide enough drama to make entertaining movies.

 

I understand what you are saying. I don't know for sure, but I think that (because of The Prequels) there was a big push to get back to what the OT was all about. Maybe they pushed too far, but I don't think so. Furthermore, there was a concentrated effort to jettison the EU (which is very similar to what you are describing) and bring bits that worked* back in piece by piece. Thanks for the talk.

*Example: Thrawn is now canon and I love it.

 

I think they’ve proven they don’t have the slightest clue as to what the OT was about. I think both TFA and TLJ prove this.

If they were trying to jettison the EU, they ironically ended up having a lot in common with the least liked elements of Legends. More Death Stars and superweapons? Check. The Empire hanging around forever? The FO is just the Empire again. X-Wings vs TIE fighters and Star Destroyers decades after ROTJ? Check. Inability to pass the torch to the next generation? See TLJ. Too much grim darkness? See TFA and TLJ. Jacen Solo turning into Darth Caedus? See Kylo Ren.

 

Whose the bad-guy in the version of an ST where the republic and Jedi order are intact but struggling?

It only makes sense to make this the continuation of the central conflict of the ST and OT. It's the story of the rise and fall of the empire. This is the aftermath of the fall of the empire. I think they legitimately had to break some things to make that happen. I don't see it making sense with any kind of Jedi order with Luke in charge.

Taking Luke out of commission and getting rid of the Republic and makes room for the FO to be the continuation of the empire, and thus makes room for the ST to be the final chapter of the galactic empire conflict.

 

It would make it not the saga.
I don't think anybody, including Lucas, was ever going to do this. It seems very Trek.

 

I dunno. Things like the Yuuzhan Vong always seemed like a very scifi (Star Trek) element tacked on to a fairytale/fantasy story. I feel as if many of the EU novels (even Tim Zahn's first trilogy) seemed to be missing something essential to the saga. It's like the Joseph Campbell/heroic journey had been scrubbed away from these novels.

I've said it before, but my favorite EU thing was Dark Empire. That's not just because The Emperor was back, it's because it maintained the Dark Side vs Light family drama. I think Star Wars is deceptively simple, but really easy to get "not quite right."

 

This is already "not the saga".

They could go deep into the lore established already as canon in TCW and produce extraordinary villains and movies. The Son, The Daughter and the Father could be an amazing source for stories. GL's ideas for the microbiotic world give you a whole different level of Force lore. An ancient hidden threat that has been waiting in the shadows (instead of Palpatine - the easy way out of a narrative dead end) could have been a great villain. A mystical will of the Force that for whatever reason gives birth to dark side users across the galaxy, another one. The remnant of the Empire with Palpatine returning and Kylo Ren turning against his family is for me the least imaginative route. So much potential without deconstructing anyone.

 

Nah. Sure they talked of biotech but the way NJO used it was far closer to magic - one of the biggest schisms at the time over NJO in part was due to the reluctance of the writers to actually set any kind of scientific limits on what the Vong tech could and couldn't do. Often the way it worked was because the story said so, which works OK for fantasy but not SF.

 

I wonder how Lucas would have brought this idea to cinema. Would he have full-sized characters that are able to manipulate microbiology? Would some characters be microbiotic organisms? Would Lucas have given names to the microbiotic organisms? Would viruses and germs play a role in this new level of world-building? He could have fleshed out something that eventually made sense with Lucasfilm conceptual artists.

EDIT: And then would there be microbiotic organisms that correlate to Original Trilogy characters? Microbiotic Luke? Microbiotic Leia? Is there a battle at the microbiotic level that offers another level of light side versus dark side? If so, what can this tell us about the *REAL world we live in on Earth?

I won't know until I see Episode 9 and it resolves all the tension that has built up. Strong feelings on this but only after I watch Ep. 9.

 

This is more accurate. I guess what I am getting at is, to me, they weren't very Star Wars-y at all.

 

Avengers Endgame is the highest grossing film of all time and it had the Quantum Realm, which, allowed people to go back in time.

 

I still find it incredible that we never got a scene with the OT3 reunited, it just doesn't make sense. In retrospect, I think I knew the ST was doomed when they killed Han before Luke showed up. It was just way too soon, and crystalized the project's cannibalistic attitude towards the source material.

As to the debate over the "big threat", I don't think there actually needed to be any massive military faction to rival the New Republic like a new empire or Yuzann Vong. The ST could have been focused on the new generation of Jedi under Luke, and the temptations/disagreements they face during adventures across the GFFA. There could be a Sith conspiracy looming in the background, as well as a rogue's gallery of villains trying to pull off heists in the post-Empire chaos. There was no need to recreate the Rebels vs Empire dynamic.

I see people bring up the legendary "microbiotic world" that Lucas was supposedly working. That quote is used out of context, a lot. He wasn't talking about the characters shrinking down into little submarines and flying through blood vessels. He was talking about a spiritual/biological storyline, something more interested in the philosophical themes of the OT. That's what I found most disappointing about Luke in TLJ, it never felt like the character was actually ruminating on the spiritual aspect of Star Wars, just faking introspection and regret.

 

I completely disagree with this. The saga is more than the continuing adventures of somebody named Skywalker.

No galactic civil war, no saga. No sith v. jedi no saga. Those are the core of what makes the saga the saga.

 

To put it bluntly, no Anakin (especially played by Hayden Christensen) in TROS is pretty much a deal-breaker for me. That and Rey not being a Skywalker, even if she's a Palpatine.

 

Yup, deal-breaker for me too!

 

Palpatine coming back was the deal-breaker for me.