ST The Star Wars Sequels Reimagined - Star Wars Episode 7, Galaxy At War

This is my own version of what I would imagine the sequel movies to be like. None of the artwork or pictures are mine, they are simply to help the reader better understand what I'm describing.
This is only an outline, not a full novel or screenplay. I am looking for feedback as to what you think of how the plot goes, and what I can do to improve it, before I ever try to flesh this out more fully.


Star Wars: Episode 7 – Galaxy at War

Opening Crawl

Over 30 years have passed since the destruction of the 2nd Death Star and the Rebellion’s victory over the Empire. Now firmly established as THE NEW REPUBLIC, this reclaimed democracy has freed all the core worlds and most of the mid-rim worlds from the grip of the former Empire.

The shattered Imperial Navy has retreated to the outer rim territories, with former Grand Moffs becoming warlord leaders of their own military factions, fighting with one another as much as with THE NEW REPUBLIC.

While some Imperial Warlords are content with the power they hold, others work in secret to unite all the factions and re-forge the Empire….

Camera pans down to reveal a battle taking place between 10 Imperial Star Destroyers, in orbit above a planet.



There are 3 Star Destroyers under the command of Admiral Thrawn (he is not a Grand Admiral yet). They bear the red stripes and symbols of Thrawn’s own faction.



He is fighting a much larger force of 7 Star Destroyers, with the blue stripes and symbols of Grand Moff Kosskan.

Though Thrawn’s forces are clearly outnumbered, his brilliant battle strategies not only manage to win him the battle, but disable 2 of Kosskan’s Star Destroyers so they can be added to his own fleet later.

Throughout the battle, Grand Moff Kosskan’s expressions change from looking angry, to surprised, to worried.

After Thrawn’s fleet defeats Kosskan’s, Thrawn’s stormtroopers land on the planet below and begin an assault on Kosskan’s fortress.

Although both sides are both using stormtroopers, the distinctive red markings on Thrawn’s troopers easily differentiate them from the ones with the blue markings of Kosskan’s army.



Thrawn figures out what kind of military leader Kosskan is, by studying his art. While staring closely at a portrait Kosskan once painted of himself, Thrown deduces that the power generator shielding the base is not the obvious one nearby, which is just a booby-trapped decoy, but it’s actually cloaked and on the other side of the fortress.

Thrawn's troopers find it, destroy it, and invade the building. After a fierce fight, Thrawn’s troops capture Kosskan himself.

Thrawn walks into the room, flanked by many different bodyguards, to see Kosskan in handcuffs. The Grand Moff angrily turns towards Thrawn. “You gain nothing from this attack! You haven’t defeated me. Most of my forces are in the Quaren system, but they’ll be here soon. And even if you kill me, my army doesn’t fall to you. My son will inherit everything!

Thrawn smiles and says “Yes, that’s what we were counting on.”

He then pulls out his blaster and shoots Kosskan. Then he turns to one of his officers and says “Contact Lieutenant Kosskan. Tell him I’ve held up my end of the deal.”

MEANWHILE…



On New Alderaan , a quick introduction to the New Jedi Temple is shown.

Luke did not want to put his new Jedi Temple on Yavin or Coruscant, because Coruscant put the Jedi too close to the world of politics, which he wanted out of. And Yavin’s temple would be too symbolic of them fully embracing the old ways. Luke, while keeping many of the old Jedi ways, has started a new order, with new rules. These new rules include the fact that it’s okay for Jedi to marry now.

All of this is explained as Luke is standing before a group of young padawans, teaching them.

After the class, Luke goes to the dueling ring, to watch his kids



Jake



and Versa perform, and outduel the other students. They are 17 years old, brother and sister, and their mother is Mara Jade, who is now one of the instructors at the New Jedi Order.

Luke meets up with Mara, they embrace and then watch from a balcony as the students duel with training sabers.

Jake is a little too aggressive during the fight, and Luke reminds him that a Jedi fights by letting the force flow through him, not by channeling and using it aggressively.

Luke then turns to Mara and tells her Jake reminds him of Leia when they first met.

MEANWHILE:

On another city on New Alderaan, Leia Solo is walking out to her ship, waiting on the landing platform, of the lavish mansion she and Han share.

She’s complaining that the time she has to spend debating in the Senate is getting longer and longer, while the New Republic is doing less and less about the remainder of the Empire.

Han just smiles at her and tells her if anyone can win an argument, it’s her. She gets playfully mad and asks if his flight school students are wondering where the scruffy-looking nerf-herder they call an instructor is. Han tells her that Chewy is already there, running them through some drills. He gives her a kiss, she says she’ll be back in 5 days, and Leia takes off.

MEANWHILE:

The former Lieutenant Kosskan, Grand Moff Kosskan’s son, who has now become the new Grand Moff Kosskan, is standing on stage in front of a huge gathering of stormtroopers and other imperials.



He is at his father’s funeral, who suddenly and tragically “passed away after an accidental explosion in the weapons storage.” Thrawn is among the imperials standing behind Kosskan on stage, watching his speech.

Kosskan then talks about how he will fulfill his father’s dreams of restoring the glory of the old empire. His speech becomes more and more impassioned, and he describes the end of petty border disputes among Imperials, about the destruction of the New Republic and the re-birth of the glorious empire. (As much as I dislike the sequels, General Hux’s speech in Episode 7 is what comes to mind here, that’s one of the few good parts)

Kosskan riles up the crowd after promising results very soon.

After the crowd cheers Kosskan goes backstage. Thrawn congratulates him and Kosskan angrily talks about how he hated his father. He hated how complacent he was, reveling in his own personal power instead of rebuilding the Empire as he should. Thrawn encourages Kosskan’s fanaticism even more, and subtly gives him the idea to follow the “Great Imperial leaders of the past into glory” by sacrificing himself for the great cause.

Even though the New Republic’s capital is protected by a very powerful planetary shield, Kosskan has the “Annihilator” which is the sister ship of the Super Star Destroyer “Executor”, which seen in the original trilogy. The idea is to use the pure mass of the “Annihilator” ship to break through the shields and crash into the capitol, kamikaze style. Kosskan is willing to pilot the ship himself, because he believes in doing this so much.




The only problem is, a Super Star Destroyer is so massive, it cannot travel extremely long distances at once. Kosskan’s home base is about as far from Coruscant as possible, so the Super Star Destroyer will have to stop several times along it’s journey to let the hyperdrive systems cool down and reset. However, if they are near populated systems, once they come out of hyperspace they’ll show up on scanners and the New Republic forces will report them.

Thrawn’s tells Kosskan he’ll need to jump from the least populated systems as possible, and quickly wipe out all Republic forces there before they can report the presence of a Super Star Destroyer. The plan to get to the core world of Coruscant is kind of like an intergalactic version of hiding from search lights while making your way to the center.

Thrawn tells Kosskan that once he’s aimed the ship right at the capitol on Coruscant, he can abandon ship and Thrawn will appear on a smaller, faster ship to pick him up and bring him back.

Thrawn doesn’t really think the plan will work, and is just playing on Kosskan’s fanaticism to remove him from the picture. He does not plan on actually rescuing Kosskan. Once Kosskan has accepted him as one of his advisors, Thrawn would become the new leader of Kosskan’s faction after Kosskan dies, thus strengthening the size of his own army a hundred times over.


MEANWHILE:


A school field trip on a space shuttle is touring the garbage dump planet of Ord Mantell. While the droid teacher is talking about how this used to be a regular planet with a thriving population, the Empire used it as their dumping ground, and now since it’s already ruined, the whole galaxy still uses it that way.



On board this ship/school bus is Rakkan Colto, one of the students, who is bullying a smaller boy, and trying to impress one of the girls.

Kosskan’s Super Star Destroyer suddenly comes out of hyperspace, and quickly destroys the two New Republic cruisers patrolling the orbit. In the firefight, the school bus shuttle is hit, and crashes onto the planet.

The shuttle crashes on top of a tall cliff, and is about to slide off into a very deep pit below. The girl Rakkan liked calls for help, as she is pinned by a bar to her seat, but Rakkan is too scared to help and runs out of the shuttle. The smaller boy he was bullying then goes over to save her, and Rakkan feels tremendous shame, realizing he is a coward.

Just after the boy and girl escape the shuttle to join Rakkan on solid ground, the shuttle slides off the cliff into the pit below, a distant explosion is heard.

In the silence that follows, Rakkan asks the boy how he found the strength to do that, and the boy responds that you have to care about others more than yourself to be brave.

Kosskan’s troops then land on the planet, making sure no one survived to warn the New Republic about the impending attack. The troops spot the boy and girl and shoot them before they can get away, but Rakkan remains hidden under a garbage pile and survives. While staying hidden, he overhears the soldiers talking about how the new Grand Moff Kosskan is only trusting the most devoted soldiers to come with him on this suicide mission to destroy the capital of the New Republic.

MEANWHILE:


On Naboo, Luke is working to keep the New Jedi Order running. When the New Republic starts hearing about the mysterious communication silences from their forces around the galaxy, they ask Luke to send a few Jedi to investigate.

Luke sends several of his students to different Star Systems to investigate, and he sends Jake and Versa to Ord Mantell, because he thinks it’s the least likely place for anything bad to be. He wants to keep his kids safe.

MEANWHILE:



Rakkan has been surviving on his own for a while, running and hiding from mutated creatures in the massive, endless garbage piles on the planet, barely escaping sometimes by jumping on hover trains (yes this is a direct nod to Shadows of the Empire)

One day while running and hiding he breaks through the floor and finds himself in an ancient wrecked Sith ship that was below. He sinks to the floor and wearily says “Will I never find peace?”

An automated response suddenly responds “Peace is a lie. There is only passion.” It recites the whole Sith code. (The first 30 seconds of this)

An almost-sentient hologram of the ancient Sith Lord Naga Sadow then appears in the room.




Rakkan’s connection to the force has activated Sadow’s Sith Holocron. The Holocron contains the teachings of Sadow, and is programed to act and respond in ways that Sadow would, even though the hologram of him is not actually alive.

Also in the room is Darth Sadow’s lightsaber, which Rakkan takes.

Over the next few days, Sadow’s hologram trains Rakkan in how to use the force, by letting anger flow, as well as a few basic lightsaber wielding techniques.

MEANWHILE:

On the Senate floor on Coruscant, debates about continuing the war are raging. Leia makes an argument for the sake of the people trapped on Imperial worlds, to continue to free them. Others argue that the cost of life for New Republic soldiers is too high, while other say it’s clear that the Imperial Warlords are fighting each other, that they should just wait a few years and let them weaken each other.

Supreme Chancellor Mon Mothma seems sympathetic to Leia’s side, but there aren’t enough votes for her position. She says based on the votes she’s received, and combined with the fact that the Imperial Warlords do not pose an immediate invasion threat to the New Republic, that further world-freeing attempts will be stopped until further notice.

MEANWHILE:




Rakkan is out in the endless junkyard dunes, practicing with his lightsaber, when he spots an older, ugly, rusted ship descending from the sky.



The ship belongs to Aliisa Schacwol, a young female mechanic and junk-dealer, who makes a living in her rusted ship (which she stole) by visiting the vast junkyard planet of Ord Mantell, and scavenging for valuable parts.



Along with her is QT-794- usually called “Cutie” by Aliisa, is a very large, ugly and rusted, modified loading droid, with a brain which makes him smarter than other loader droids, and slim robot arms branching off of his thick ones, so that he can handle the detailed controls of being the co-pilot of Alissa’s ship. He helps with protection for Alissa when exploring the dangerous areas, and carries the larger, heavier parts and other valuables they find. He is only sentient to a small degree, and cannot hold a conversation very well. He is much more suited to working a job than having a conversation. It comes across as surly and very robotic, but Aliisa is very attached to him, since she was the one who modified him from a regular broken loading droid, which she found in all the junk.

Aliisa Schacwol and QT-794’s ship flies down from the sky and land off in the distance.

Rakkan hears Sadow’s voice in his head telling him to kill the pilot and take the ship for himself to escape the planet.

But when Rakkan finds Aliisa’s ship, she and her droid are under attack from other scavengers and mutated monsters. Rakkan jumps in with his lightsaber, slaughters the monsters and saves them both. Alissa is very grateful for his help, especially after seeing Rakkan doesn’t try to rob them, even though he could. She is very nice to him. Rakkan decides to ignore the voice in his head urging him to kill her and her droid, and they end up being friends. She agrees to help Rakkan get off the planet.

When Aliisa asks Rakkan how he ended up being stranded on the planet, he tells her, along with the fact that the soldiers said they were on some kind of suicide mission to destroy the New Republic.

Aliisa is troubled by this, but isn’t sure what to do about it.




When they lift off from the planet, a new ship comes out of hyperspace, this one with Jake and Versa Skywalker inside.

The Skywalker’s ship contact Aliisa’s and ask what happened here, and Rakkan tells them the whole story as well.

Jake and Versa contact Luke and tell him what happened, who in turn tells Leia to warn Coruscant to prepare for danger. Luke then tells his kids to come back to New Alderaan, and to bring the two new people they found.

Then Aliisa realizes that Super Star Destroyers, because of their extreme size, leave a certain type of ion trail which her ship can track, because her ship has special modified sensors that she uses to find valuable parts on Ord Mantell. So both Aliisa’s ship and the Skywalkers ship, follow the trail.

They eventually catch up to the Super Star Destroyer, right before it makes it’s final hyperspace jump to the Coruscant system.

When approaching the Super Star Destroyer, their two ships are so tiny as to be almost unnoticeable, but when an imperial officer contacts them and demands they identify or be shot, Jake and Versa work together to force-influence the imperial to think they are on his side, and to let them land in a hangar bay.

Once they are inside, they sneak around trying to get to the bridge, to stop the ship. (The droid QT stays on Aliisa’s ship, since he is too big and slow to sneak around)

Despite getting close to the bridge, they are overwhelmed by defenders, and all 4 are captured, and imprisoned. inside ray shielded cells.


Jake and Versa have their lightsabers taken away. Rakkan did not bring his lightsaber, because he didn’t think he was trained enough with it for it to be of use in a battle against soldiers. He brought a blaster instead. He had given his lightsaber to QT when they landed on the Star Destroyer’s bridge, and told him to keep it secret. Jake and Versa don’t know about his lightsaber, or his connection with the force, but Aliisa does.

Throughout the whole battle, Rakkan has been visibly very anxious, though not as cowardly as he was near the beginning of the movie.

When the imperials realize they have caught 2 Jedi, and that they are the children of Luke Skywalker himself, Grand Moff Kosskan has them completely restrained in cuffs and ray shielded mobile prisons, and brings them to the bridge. He knows about Luke Skywalkers role in destroying the first death star and bringing about the New Republic, and he is very smug about making his children watch from the bridge with him, as they plunge towards the capitol city.

Rakkan and Aliisa are left in their individual cells. Rakkan is feeling very despondent when QT comes bursting through the doors, being blasted by laser fire. QT manages to free Aliisa and Rakkan before crumbling to bits under the blaster fire. QT has also brought Rakkan his lightsaber. Aliisa is screaming because her droid friend is destroyed.

Suddenly Rakkan hears Sadow’s voice in his head “LET THE HATE FLOW THROUGH YOU” His eyes turn yellow, and he force pulls his lightsaber to him. He then starts murdering all the imperials.

He fights his way down the hall, Aliisa hesitantly following his path of destruction. When Rakkan gets to the bridge, the heavy defenses hold them off and Rakkan’s lightsaber gets shot out of his hand to skid down the hallway. But the imperial officer who has Jake and Versa’s lightsabers is there, and Rakkan force pulls the officer to him, takes the lightsabers, and kills the officer.

With both lightsabers, Rakkan manages to kill the rest of the defenders and slice through the doors of the bridge.

Once inside, Rakkan is defending against more blaster fire, when Grand Moff Kosskan shoots him with a Geonosian style shock wave gun that throws him against the wall, which knocks him out.

He casually walks over to Rakkan’s unconscious body, ready to shoot him with a regular blaster, but Aliisa has snuck around and let Jake and Versa out of their cells.




They force-call their lightsabers to them, deflect incoming fire and dodge Grand Moff Kosskan’s shockwave blaster shots.

Jake manages to flip around and stab Kosskan.

As he is dying, Kosskan turns and looks to see Alissa is at the controls, pulling the ship up out of orbit and bringing it to a halt. Kosskan’s dream dies with him and his eyes are full of hate before he dies completely.

The movie ends with the Super Star Destroyer being re-fit and painted in the New Republic’s colors, and Jake, Versa, Aliisa and Rakkan are hailed as heroes in a big ceremony.

No one but Aliisa knows about Rakkan’s red lightsaber, which she picked up after it skidded down the hall during the battle, but all of them realize Rakkan must have some connection to the force, and Luke promises to teach Rakkan more at his academy.

The move ends with a shot of everyone at the big celebration in Coruscant.




IMPORANT THINGS THIS MOVIE COVERS:

The state of the galaxy. We now know what has happened in the last 30 years, and what the balance of power is like now. We know what most of the main characters have been up to in the last 30 years, and that they’ve all been doing well, which is what most of us wanted.

The Sith were truly destroyed by Anakin, there wasn’t another one hiding in the shadows somewhere, so Anakin truly did fulfill the prophecy of destroying the Sith. BUT some of their teachings still remain, and Rakkan is starting to learn them.

BRAND NEW THINGS THIS MOVIE WILL FEATURE

Battles between Imperial factions

A battle that goes all the way from the ships in orbit to the successful ground invasion

Like the hallway battle at the beginning of Episode 4, there is no “main character” that the battle follows, it simply follows the action, with a few cutback shots of Thrawn calling the shots.

Actual battle tactics will be used

The brand new Ord Mantell junkyard planet will be shown, and the vast scale and absolutely massive junkpiles and cool broken down old things will be emphasized.

First time a Sith Holocron is seen and activated.

Episode 7 Super Short Summary

Tactical genius Admiral Thrawn tricks an overzealous Grand Moff Kosskan into going into a suicide mission against the New Republic, just so he can control the rest of his army.

Rakkan Colto is a bully and a coward who gets stranded on the junkyard planet of Ord Mantell. There he discovers an ancient Sith ship, which contains Darth Sadow's lightsaber, and his Sith Holorcron. The Holocron produces a hologram of Naga Sadow , which teaches Rakkan how to use the dark side of the force. Rakkan doesn’t realize there is a dark or light side, he thinks he’s just learning how the force works, and how to be stronger than he was.

Aliisa Schacwol and her droid QT-794 are junkyard part scavengers, and they arrive at the planet to look for more stuff when they find Rakkan. Rakkan hears a voice in his head telling him to kill them to take the ship, but Aliisa is so nice to him so he decides not to.

They meet up with Jake and Versa Skywalker, and tell them what happened. They manage to track down Kosskan’s Super Star Destroyer, get on board and stop it right before it smashes into the capitol city. This avoids the whole end-of-the-sci-fi-movie-has-a-giant-thing-blowing-up cliché. Instead, they save the city AND add a giant new battleship to the New Republic’s side.

The droid is destroyed in the battle, but Jake, Versa, Aliissa and Rakkan are all hailed as heroes, and Luke Skywalker tells Rakkan he wants to tell him more about the force, not realizing he already has a little training from the Darth Sadow's holocron, or that Rakkan had a red lightsaber. Rakkan is keeping this secret, and he still has the holorcon with him. He does not know that Aliisa picked up his red lightsaber.

Thanks for reading, may the force be with you!