Make ‘Star Wars’ Great Again: Part 7 – Finale

Dealing with the Damage

By now, you might be thinking, “Okay, Hotshot. How would you fix the Star Wars series?” Well, first off, I would fire Kathleen Kennedy. Her managerial missteps and politicization of the franchise have led to creative ruin, diminishing financial returns, and increasing division in the audience. Second, fire Rian Johnson and cancel his ill-conceived trilogy of films. His ridiculous vision for this universe, as well as his immature responses to criticism, should be halted before it gets any worse.

On a more positive note, I would promote Dave Filoni. Serving as a writer and director of several animated projects, he and his team learned extensively from George Lucas himself after working directly under the famous filmmaker on a creative level for years on The Clone Wars. At the risk of sounding overindulgent, you could say that Filoni was Lucas’s Padawan.

Who better to take the place of the teacher than the former student? As we’ve seen in both The Clone Wars and Rebels, he knows how to introduce new concepts into the saga while making those additions feel like an organic part of the mythos. In addition, he and his team have demonstrated their affinity for the saga and the lore many times over.

One instance that comes to mind was something that I didn’t even notice until it was pointed out to me. During the third season of Rebels, the revenge-driven Darth Maul finally catches up with the aged Obi-Wan Kenobi, the object of his obsession and the one responsible for sending him down a decades-long path of suffering. After igniting his lightsaber, Old Ben initially assumes his stance from Revenge of the Sith and The Clone Wars.

Then, he shifts that stance to mirror his late master, Qui-Gon Jinn, whom Maul killed in The Phantom Menace.

This attention to detail enriches what is already a phenomenal showdown, one that sends off the tortured villain in such a satisfying fashion that I can’t imagine it being done any better.

Among Filoni’s more noticeable additions are the hidden portals between time and space. Through the Force, these act as bridges that connect every event and location in the galaxy. Anyone who finds them can emerge at any point in Star Wars history. With these mystical doorways, a character could potentially rewrite the entire timeline of the series.

This is what I would base the story on when it came to Episode IX. Not only would it make the film and TV content feel more connected, but I could also see it working well in relation to the themes that the filmmakers have attempted to set up. Kylo Ren has repeatedly expressed his goal to “let the past die.” He even asked Rey to help him tear down the two sides of the current conflict, the First Order and the Resistance, and start something new. This ambition could lead him to seek out the aforementioned portals. What better way to start fresh than to remake the galaxy’s entire timeline from the ground up?

In their quest to stop him, the heroes would learn a valuable lesson: if we forget the past, then we are doomed to repeat it. Killing even the most unpleasant past means that we can’t build a better future. At the end of this tale, they could even take a page out of the X-Men films and bring back all of the characters who were unceremoniously killed off. Give the original heroes the happy ending that they deserve and that audiences feel they should have. This would succeed in both satisfying disgruntled fans and hammering home the message.

After that, I would let the film series rest. Give audiences a chances to build up their appetites for another cinematic experience. Make them really want it. Further, although this may seem like a foreign concept to the hacks of Hollywood, try to craft any future spin-offs as something more than just a visual Wikipedia biography. We don’t need to see every event that a character passingly described in the other films; whatever you show should deepen his/her intrigue rather than cheapen what we saw before.

While you’re at it, why not have them take the form of an anthology TV series. Use the same approach as Fargo and True Detective, with each season revolving around a different protagonist and featuring an entirely new cast. Here, you would be able to devote much more time to character and lore instead of bombastic, blockbuster action scenes. At the same time, the budget of a limited series would still allow it to look visually convincing. The effects and production values available on television are becoming more cinematic by the day. After seeing how stunning the recent remake of Lost in Space was on Netflix, you cannot honestly tell me that bringing the Star Wars galaxy to the small screen in live-action is out of the question.

Finally, don’t just focus on characters and stories that we’ve seen before or are in the mainstream. If you want something ongoing that people will tune into, don’t be afraid to explore more nooks and crannies of this galaxy and its cultures.

On that note, why not give hardcore fans what they’ve wanted for years: a story set in the era of Knights of the Old Republic. Largely responsible for putting developer BioWare on the map, these role-playing games are definitely an aesthetic departure from what we’ve seen before, but they nevertheless remain unmistakable as Star Wars.

Since they take place thousands of years before the films, you could show the Jedi’s part in shaping the foundations of the Old Republic, making a point of how religion intersects with politics. Alternatively, you could craft a story in the same vein as Vikings, emphasizing exploration and showing the Jedi’s first encounters with the Sith. This would offer a way to flesh out the differing philosophies of the two sides. How do they develop their ideologies? They have both discovered ways of wielding the Force, so how do hostilities arise when their religions clash? Once the fire is ignited, the ensuing war could span multiple generations (again, a la Vikings). During the conflict, some characters might become disillusioned and switch sides. This would set the stage for the first instances of Jedi turning to the Dark Side and vice versa.

Of course, this is all just speculation and suggestion from one fan. In the eyes of said fan, this once-proud sci-fi franchise is rapidly descending into infamy. If the people in charge would have the audience reunify, then changes must be made. These are just some of what I would do to make Star Wars tolerable again.