ST The ST: What Would You Change/Revise?

In no particular order:
- Have a conflict that isn't rebels vs imperials 2.0
- Involve the 3 force ghosts more
- Have an actual new republic and new jedi order as a thing
- If you want to kill off some or all of the main 3 from the OT, fine, but make their stories not so tragic after the perfect ending of ROTJ
- Better world building (more original planets, ships, vehicles, etc)
- A bit more PT references
- Don't make the villain a skywalker again, that's been done already
- At least one new skywalker should be a main hero
- Epic battle scenes: there has been good action scenes in both movies, but none of them have been that large in scale (epic). Looks like TROS is correcting this though.

 

I agree with this.

 

JJ Abrams, Rian Johnson, Kathleen Kennedy

 

First Order obviously.

 

If we're going to bring back old Palpatine again, it should have been planned from the very beginning of Episode VII. And the way to work him in without invalidating Anakin's sacrifice is to take cues from The Twilight Zone episode "He's Alive."

The First Order would be a Neo-Nazi-like group hellbent on restoring the Galactic Empire under the leadership of Snoke, who is given the backstory as one of Palpatine's advisors in the Imperial Court.

Snoke has limited Force powers, useful as Palpatine's servant when he cannot trust Vader on errands while not threatening Palpatine's own power. Consequently, Snoke would have vast knowledge to the Force but can only use them through other Force users like Ben Solo. He's not overthrown by power-hungry people because he convinced Kylo Ren that the First Order is more than just being the Galactic Empire 2.0. and that he offers the path of enlightenment that would make him greater than a Sith or Jedi. And the Knights of Ren are more than capable to defend their master.

In reality, Snoke was lying about the whole enlightenment between Light and Dark. Turns out, he is trying to resurrect Darth Sidious back from the grave and the whole First Order is just paving way for his master to reclaim his Empire. Of course, like any Sith wannabe, Snoke gets too drunk with power and starts to think he could steal Sidious' power and become Emperor himself.

Kylo Ren is evil but he truly deluded himself into thinking that he's different from the Sith and that the First Order would be far superior than the wretched Galactic Empire. The Galactic Empire deserves to be in ashes and forgotten. Everything old must die to pave way for the new.

If Kylo Ren were to get redemption, he would realize that he has become the very Sith he once disdained and he was nothing more than a pawn for Palpatine to return.

 

I would have fleshed out the characters that have been introduced in the ST more. It's very difficult to try and have an emotional interest in characters that you know hardly anything about, especially after 2 movies.
There's more I would have said, but it's very late and it would be a much longer post, I fear.

 

Cant honestly say I've thought about this, but its been a hard day. I would not have made a 7,8 and 9 in all honesty. I would have planned out my trilogy in advance in broad steps, I either would have had the same director for all 3 or different ones. I would have made a new trilogy and had three force factions prior to the PT many years ago, it would have resulted in the middle portion being consumed by the other two - setting up a Jedi Sith conflict at the end.

I cant see a sequel trilogy without having an external threat that has no Jedi abilities without diminishing the ending of ROTJ and honestly there would not be any reason to do three more films unless that threat is larger, it makes no sense.

 

I absolutely agree. The only thing I would add is they should have had ALL of the OT cast be the main characters of TFA and let them go on one last adventure together. Then, at the end of TFA, they could have still had one or more of them die in an effort to save the rest, and the new heroes (Rey, Finn, Poe, etc), from the new threat. Then in TLJ, the new heroes could start to take center stage and the remaining OT heroes could eventually ride into the sunset completely by the end of TROS, leaving the future open for more movies/stories with the new characters. Finally, IMO the new threat should have been something like the Vong or the Grysk instead of the FO (Empire 2.0). Oh, and they could have thrown the Chiss Ascendancy in for good measure as either an opponent or as an ally against the Grysk.

 

-Rey a Skywalker/Solo from the start. Part of Luke's New Jedi Order.
-Finn is also a member of the New Jedi Order and Luke's apprentice along with Rey.
-Kylo Ren can stay but in Episode VII, have him start off as Ben Solo.
-Coruscant as the head of the New Republic
-Get rid of that Resistance crap
-A non-Imperial threat like an insurgency, terrorist organization, or politically tangible to the real world
-More politics to flesh out the galaxy's reaction to a post-Empire Republic.
-If the villains are neo-Imperial in nature, get rid of the stormtroopers and conventional war tactics to highlight them as a guerrilla organization.
-Planets that don't look like a director having nostalgia for the first half of A New Hope
-Anakin Skywalker playing a legitimate role in the ST
-Force Ghosts in general playing a larger role
-I think Luke dying is fine, but have it be in IX and give him a proper heroic end

 

All of this. I would have loved to see Luke's Jedi Order and how exactly Ben Solo turned.

 

Funny, and I agree with the last two. But for better or worse, a case can be made that perhaps Abrams should have directed all three movies in the Disney Trilogy, or at least kept a firmer hand on the storytelling till for TLJ.

I know JJ and Kasdan are responsible for Solo's death, but I doubt -- and here I tread into unknowable counterfactual territory -- that Abrams would have killed Skywalker in the middle of this trilogy if he had been able to consistently call the shots.

 

I don't think J.J. Abrams is a good storyteller. I felt he had managed to rise to the occasion on two separate projects. But I don't think any of them were his two Star Trek movies or "The Force Awakens". He is a good director. But as a storyteller . . . not really. I think Lucasfilm made a mistake in hiring all three of them - Abrams, Kennedy and Johnson.

 

I would have loved to see someone who is a pure Star Wars fan write these movies. Yeah JJ says he's a fan and what not but someone like Filoni who knows the lore of it all.

 

That's fine. I'm not inclined to fight for JJ. He's earned all the slings and arrows. But between JJ and RJ, I know who I trust more.

The trilogy would have been better if the latter guy hadn't been brought in.

 

Still baffles me that he had the script complete before TFA was even finished and screened. RJ was on a mission to make this type of movie that people will be questioning and talking about for many years to come. I just don't get how LFL was 100% behind him from the start with no reshoots and rewrites.

 

It's because of the onerous demands of Disney that wanted a four year release schedule for the sequels so that they'd get a sequel movie released every two years (2015-2017-2019). Except the production schedule for a SW movie was usually three years a movie and in order to accommodate these demands, Rian Johnson basically had to start writing the script and pre-production while TFA was in post-production. Likewise for Trevorrow and later Abrams (who had to squeeze the writing process for TROS apparently in a matter of months).

 

I was thinking about this tonight and how I put more of this on Disney than Johnson, KK, etc because of this very tight release schedule and demands.

Disney got extremely confident that SW could work like Marvel and wanted a movie every year. But that's not how SW works. There was really no rush here. In a way I am kind of happy their plans backfired on them and now they have to stop with the movies and focus on actually making good products.

I would have waited for the TFA to be released then start pre production on 8. Just like the other trilogies. The longer wait would have gotten fans more anticipated I believe to. Also releasing the anthologies in between wasn't a good idea IMO despite me liking both of those movies.

 

best answer to this problem LOL.

 

I wouldn't say anticipation for VIII was a problem. Plenty of fans (myself included) were MORE than ready for more after TFA, however, the fly in the ointment was that the sequel was being written before Johnson even really knew what Episode VII was. Couple that with the fact that there were no restraints on him to keep any kind of continuous narrative and basically to just do his own thing, led to him completely de-railing the second act and causing a HUGE mess for IX to have to fix.

 

I would definitely make Rey a member of the Skywalker clan . . . Luke's daughter. And I would make her aware of her heritage from the beginning. I would maintain Finn's background as an ex-stormtrooper, but also make him a potential Force user. Meanwhile, I would portray Rey as someone who is reluctant to pursue training in the Force, due to the revelation of Anakin Skywalker as Darth Vader. They can still meet on Jakku, with Rey searching for BB-8 and Poe Dameron . . . but on behalf of the Republic and Leia.

And I would make the trilogy about a conflict between the New Republic and the First Order, with the latter as a militarized terrorist group trying to oust the Republic and take control of the galaxy. And yes, have Ben Solo remain a member of the First Order.

 

I'm sorry, but sometimes I feel that I'm in the middle of some propaganda campaign trying to convince me that "Solo" is a terrible movie, because it bombed at the box office. I just don't feel that way. I saw the movie twice in the theaters. And I loved it. I loved it just as much as I loved "Rogue One". Both movies had their flaws, but I thought their virtues had overshadowed their flaws . . . unlike the first two Sequel Trilogy films. And I still believe that the biggest problem with "Solo" was that Disney Studios and Lucasfilm had decided to release it five months after "The Last Jedi". I thought that was the real mistake. Sometimes, I think Disney and Lucasfilm wants to convince me that "Solo" was a terrible film, because they had been so reluctant to admit that they had screwed up with its release date.

I don't understand this comment. I see no real similarities between the Anakin/Padme romance and the Rey/Kylo Ren relationship. Anakin never really became the "bad boy" until three years after his marriage to Padme. And his turn to evil had more to do with his willingness to do anything to save Padme from a possible premature death. I see no such character background for his grandson. Nor was Anakin was some spoiled, over-priviledged, 30 year-old man child.

 

I don't think "Solo" needed any more injections of energy. And every movie has its "less exciting parts". Even adventure films cannot consist solely on action moments.

What "heroic virtues" do Kylo Ren possess for Rey? I haven't seen any signs of this in the past two ST movies. And I never had a problem with Anakin and Padme's chemistry. Their relationship was not only different from Rey's relationships with either Finn or Kylo Ren, but also Leia and Han's. And I have spotted dialogue problems in all of the Star Wars movies since "A New Hope".

 

Just imagine a Star Wars ST where Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau were the ones in charge and have Timothy Zahn write the stories! Oh, what could have been...