I am working on a rewrite of the Star Wars sequels to address many shortcomings, missteps, and missed opportunities that I saw in those films. My critiques are not those of a certain subset of SW fans who believe the films were too “woke”. In fact, the things I have planned for my rewrite would probably give those guys a heart attack.
I understand that I will never be able to monetize this, otherwise the big Mouse will drop a Death Star on my head.
My intent is to start with completing a written treatment of my vision of Episode 7 and then produce that in video format using my own art assets and non-copyright music that sounds John Williams-esque. Once I get some response to that, I think then I would like to flesh out the ideas I have for Episodes 8 and 9.
I’m happy to share concepts and bounce ideas if interested! One of the main througlines of this trilogy is an armed Droid Revolution.
It pretty much require a full rewrite of both the nature of New Republic and First Order.
What I’m currently doing, since I’m scifi starship nerd, is re-designing ships and fighters for both side. No more copy-paste Galactic Civil War-era ships in different color, but something that both unique and represent a development from their predecessor and how they might fit evolving doctrine. Think of how ARC-170 and Z-95 led to X-wing.
Very similar to what I’ve got going on. It seems like the most basic question that should have been hammered out as soon as possible. In the very first scene of ANH we see what the Empire is all about, and we see the Rebels fighting back. Even TPM had a grasp on this concept of showing us the nature of the Trade Fed right away.
Ship designs is one of many areas that the sequels fell short. I would gladly take V-Wings over repainted X-Wings.
The issue I now face in this regard is that while it’s easy to draft up a ship, creating one that fit the world is a whole another story.
I want to follow the same path I did when designing my own Star Trek ship. I want to avoid a common tropes in fan-designed ship that only focus on the ship’s capability. Way too many designed are basically a bigger, more badass version of existing ship, with minimal regard to why or how it would exist in the first place. Instead, I want to emphasize that a ship is a complex combination of numerous systems that is influenced by numerous factors such as military doctrine, economic, politics, technology, and much more. To do that, I have to flesh out New Republic, the Imperial Remnants, the First Order/New Sith Empire, and pretty much the entire galactic astropolitics as well.
Since you said rewrite I feel compelled to bring something obvious to your attention: You need to think about how the galaxy got here from RotJ.
The legends was, in a nutshell, civil war and warlords. Disney said all way well until the empire 2.0 appeared out of thin air. [or vacuum whatever] My suggestion would be a limited new Republic that was forced to make uneasy truces with a bunch of warlords that still control large swathes of the galaxy. Whatever you do, I doubt you could do worse than disney.
For a change, maybe don’t give the sith the limelight, at least for the first film. I know a star wars saying sith/jedi are gone forever only to being them back isn’t the best trope, but it’s infinitely better than “you thought the empire/emperor is gone, but here they are with a repaint, now with stupid buffs we’ll have to write around”.
You’ll need big evil things to destroy, at least two. It’s star wars, you can’t not have it. If you want to go smaller scale, it can be just about anything that’s important enough to call it a day upon destruction. If it’s going to be big scale, and the end of 9 needs something big scale, I only ask that you be original. Planet sized death star that did 9/11 times a hundred was just creatively bankrupt and it got worse after that. It can be a place of the dark side, some ancient magic thing that does bad things etc. Just keep in mind that the first death star fucked the galactic markets and the second one would’ve bankrupted the empire even if it was finished.
The big bads. Again, the mastermind+enforcer is a decent formula and shows the multiple facets of the villains much better than a single big bad. If you want to mess with this one, you’ll have to work hard to make it good.
Best of luck!
Awesome input. Yes I agree. I am trying to make a plausible backstory for my neo-Imperial baddies. Any backstory at all would be better than what the Mouse had to offer (nothing). In the backstory I have thus far, the Rebels liberated Coruscant from Imperial control in 6 ABY, founded the New Republic the same year, then fought the remnants of the Empire for a couple of years before eventually agreeing to a ceasefire in 8 ABY.
One promise I am going to keep is that Palpatine does not come back in any way shape or form. Not a clone or a ghost or anything like that. He is history. There is another bad guy, he has a loose connection to Palpatine, but he is not Palpatine.
One of the main plot points of Episode 7 is that the New Republic has constructed a giant terraforming space station, in an effort to create new habitable land to house the countless refugees created by the various extractive and oppressive activities of the Galactic Empire. It’s not intended to be a good guy equivalent of a “death star”, but in the wrong hands it can do just as much damage.
One of the ways I set out to make the conflict more interesting than the Disney films’ was to work with the fact that a post-Palpatine galaxy is going to be a much more complex place.
There is more than one set of bad guys in this trilogy, and for a brief time it’s up in the air who the “good guys” even are. I’m hoping to do a better version of what Rian Johnson was going for, not to spoil too much. This is what Episode 8 will focus on, so for now it’s on the backburner while I hammer out the details of 7.
I love you. You have all the warm fuzzies I can send your way.
I think you can set up the chekov’s not-a-gun by showing the machine failing or almost failing. Since it’s not intended to be a weapon some old fart (Peter Cushing forgive me) telling us it can destroy planets might not suffice.
Anyway, I can’t wait to see your title crawl!
Here is an idea that might derail everything, but I’d like this to be considered. The force can be coded to represent idealism. Idealism can work by ignoring natural processes as the force defies natural processes. Not everyone can use the force, but everyone can use scientific tools. The Jedi are liberals that think that they can wield the same unnatural power over non force users, just like the fascist Sith. The Sith always recruit from the Jedi because the Jedi already scrounge the galaxy for those special enough to wield the force and train them on how to use the force to some degree (less work for the Sith to do). The Sith understand the nature of the force and how it allows the strong to oppress the weak without any of the processes of nature. They deny the material similarities and symbiotic relationship with the world around them and become one with the force itself. The force is a malignant force of nature in the universe that disconnects sentient beings from the world that created them. I’d like to rewrite the Jedi and Sith to cling to demonstrably false conclusions frequently in manners that get people killed very frequently. The will of the force fights against class consciousness by exalting some people excempt from the rules. It would be interesting to have the will of the force be a slowly revealed antagonist of the liberation of droids and other sentient beings.
You can make it so that the computation modules for droid brains can’t be hacked by most force users, so they can’t actually psychologically manipulate them. Which makes them more likely to develop class consciousness. The droids are subjected to memory wipes to prevent them from realizing the contradictions of the system they live in. It would be interesting to have Jedi have an “aura of peace” that they can project via meditation every day wherever they are to psychologically reinforce the idea in everyone’s minds for some radius that it is good to have people around that can defy these natural processes because of how special they are and by extension accept capitalism. The Sith also do the same thing with an “aura of domination”. The droids not subject to this bullshit can more easily become radicalized.
I think it would also be interesting if the droid liberation army promoted harmony with nature. Sentient living beings in the droid liberation army that are force sensitive would be encouraged to not pursue increasing their effectiveness with it because it leads them away from the harmony with nature. Jedi and Sith might defect to the droid liberation army and practice a meditation that projects a meme to counter the Jedi and Sith brainwashing. This can allow other class conscious sentient living beings to join in the class struggle.
It would be interesting if the superstructure during the clone wars made people more hostile towards robots in such a manner that the sentient droids became class conscious before their memory wipes could stop them.
I’ve got some pretty big twists planned when it comes to the whole Jedi-Sith thing which I don’t want to spoil just yet. I appreciate the input though. A lot to chew on. 😉
This might prevent your writing from sounding like Rick and Morty.
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=-AhtKvgy6MA
he seems to be suggesting to apply dialectics to writing, but he might not know that.
I play fast and kinda loose with “canon” because that’s always been the approach taken, even before the Disney purchase. When you have so many writers across many decades adding their takes and storylines and pet characters, then the “canon” becomes more of a personal thing. Like in Trek, or 40K.
Personally I have played some of the older games and read a couple of Legends EU novels here and there but I have never been that obsessive about the extra-cinematic material. That being the case, I will go ahead and declare that the only properties which are confirmed to be canon with my work are the Original and Prequel Trilogies. The only works which are definitely not canon with my works are those produced by the Mouse.
At the end of the day, what I am trying to produce is something for those fans who liked both the Original and Prequel trilogies. I used to be pretty harsh on the Prequels but watching the Disney films changed that a great deal, and I think one of their major storytelling missteps was almost entirely ignoring the Prequels’ worldbuilding. At least from the worldbuilding perspective, I believe the Prequels actually equal the Originals. Unfortunately the Disney films did the opposite of worldbuilding.
However there will be a carefully-chosen handful of elements pulled from the Disney trilogy and remixed/spiced up/enhanced in my own way; you will recognize them when you see them. One thing I will reveal right away is that the first time we see Luke Skywalker in this trilogy, he’s definitely not Jake Skywalker from TLJ. I knew what the fans really wanted to see when he pulled up in an X-Wing in the season 2 finale of The Mando.😉
I also had to sacrifice some non-Mouse works that I really liked, such as KOTOR and Kyle Katarn. That kind of hurt, but I have endeavored to try to incorporate some elements of those works into my trilogy.
You may not agree with some of my choices, however we as socialist Star Wars geeks should be OK with that. I’m not trying to crap on anybody else’s idea of what constitutes their canon.
“Always in motion is the future.” ✨️👐✨️
My first attempt at the opening crawl…
STAR WARS
EPISODE VII: CHILDREN OF THE FORCE
After the fall of Darth Sidious, the New Republic maintains an ceasefire with the Loyalists of the Empire and the heroic Luke Skywalker has raised a new generation of Jedi Knights.
Meanwhile, the New Republic has constructed the WORLD ENGINE, a massive space station with the power to move planets. They seek to bring life to dead worlds.
The new forces of evil, craving vengeance, are launching an audacious strike against the World Engine. The galaxy once again stands on the brink of war….
