A pity they already had the entire EU to work from and decided to obliterate it all… until they fucked up their own shit so badly they started bringing it back.
We could have had another trilogy centered around an established strong female character.
Mara Jade.
Sure, mix and match in some new ideas to make it work better as films than novels. The idea of Finn (a defecting stormtrooper) absolutely works in this setting.
But the original cast is too old for that time period!
Well we’ve now seen that Luke can be portrayed reasonably well with another actor and face and voice changing tech.
Have a whole trilogy set in basically the Mando/Asoka time period, but use the Mandalorians in a more adult story about the difficulty of establishing and maintaining alliances when the New Republic is young, the Imperial Remnant still exists, and now basically its chaos as various factions are picking sides.
Thrawn can be the big bad, but his presence is barely hinted at in 7, makes his appearance in 8 and has a major victory, and is defeated in 9.
You could even work in Boba Fett and Asoka! Maybe Thrawn sends Fett to assassinate Luke in 8 and he is seriously wounded or his new gaggle of Jedi trainees are fucked up, but Asoka helps Luke fend him off on the Millennium Falcon!
But uh nope, instead we got A New Hope v2, A B and C plot clusterfuck with a side of break hyperspace and all space combat lore, followed by Duct Tape and Bullshit.
We could have had another trilogy centered around an established strong female character.
Mara Jade.
The character that could’ve broken the barrier against having older women do action would’ve been Princess Leia. And they were too gutless to have her do anything. She was in a coma for most of TLJ and hid in a bunker (too afraid to face her own son) for the rest of it. They say they make movies about strong women, but it’s only if they’re young. You can have older men do action, but they aren’t going to have an older woman do action.
Excellent point, I totally agree.
We got a poorly written Holdo instead, closest thing to a strong older female character… I think she shoots a blaster… once?
Only older woman doing action in a recent major movie I can think of is Sarah Connor.
Brought back Ford for another Indi movies, that whole series with Liam Neeson, all of the Expendables movies, etc.
But yeah, the voice and face morph tech was basically available, they could have used Hamil and Fisher for the lines and most of the acting (you know, CGI and/or stunt doubles for the more intense action scenes same as basically every actor over 50 other than Tom Cruise), just maybe de age their voices and faces a tad to be set more proximally after 6, and focus more on her training, grand tragedy of her and han and Jacen becoming Caedus…
There is absolutely enough established lore there that could be worked into a trilogy focusing on the growth of Leia, showcasing a strong mother and warrior and diplomat/leader.
It is honestly completely baffling to me still that they threw out the EU. Sure, not all the plot lines are great, but they could have gone in so many directions with it.
I had always assumed the obvious problem with making a new trilogy would be:
Ok, we have so, so much established canon to work with, what parts of it can we focus on or interweave and tweak a bit to tell precisely the kind if story we want?
But nope, they just fucking binned it all.
Yeah maybe I’m just bitter because they advertised TLJ as “being about strong women” and it made me think we were going to see Leia do some bad ass shit with a light saber. I was so down for that. Instead she Mary Poppinsed her way across the screen and was in a coma for most of the movie.
Having older people do action is always a challenge, check the scene where Liam Neeson is climbing over a fence and there’s like 20 cuts before he makes it. But Star Wars is the kind of thing where that isn’t much of an issue. Carrie Fisher could wave around a s stick and throw out her hand and with some CGI she’s be deflecting blaster shots and throwing around Stormtroopers using the force.
Instead we don’t see Leia with a lightsaber until RoS and it’s CGI. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate them finally showing Leia with a lightsaber. I will always defend RoS because of this… and Palpatine blasting X-Wings with lightning bolts, because fuck it, it’s Star Wars have some fun people.
Ok, we have so, so much established canon to work with, what parts of it can we focus on or interweave and tweak a bit to tell precisely the kind if story we want?
Yeah but you gotta consider what Star Wars is about at it’s core: some kids going on an adventure to save the galaxy. A lot of the EU wouldn’t work because the actors that portray the characters are too old to do those stories in the same way. Still they should’ve had Leia with a lightsaber and bring in Thrawn, who could have some younger underlings himself. And yeah Mara Jade could make an appearance too, but it wouldn’t be a starring role. But at least have the older characters doing things to help and maybe have the good old “I’ll deal with this” thing happen so the kids can get away.
TFA was the best of the three because Han Solo did stuff. Luke and Leia just didn’t feel all that relevant in the other movies. I give RoS a pass because Luke Skywalker was dead in the story and Carrie Fisher was dead in real life. Not much could be done at that point. TLJ was where things needed to go down, but it just didn’t.
