5 Things We Want to See in the New ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy

4.  Build the backstory

The prequels had a lot of promise with back story. Most Star Wars fans can remember Obi-Wan talking about fighting along side Anakin Skywalker in the Clone Wars, and immediately their minds jumped to an epic battle that caused the fate of the galaxy to shift. That piece of backstory was shattered during the prequels. We saw more political battles than dogfights between starfighters. More ominous talk than lightsaber diplomacy. It was a massive letdown for almost all fans. This piled on top of numerous other items that seemed to go against the popular visions many fans had. How many people thought Anakin would be a child pod racer, rather than the established pilot that Obi-Wan talks about in A New Hope?  Backstory that propelled the mythology of the first films, was subsequently destroyed by the prequels.

It’s important to build the backstory up, and once again create mystery within the Star Wars universe. Lucas left little to the imagination, and took something magical, and made it into a political commentary. Lucas let current political frustrations turn into allegory within his story, and stripped it of a lot of its original meaning.

Are they going to fix it? Yes, I think they will. Disney paid a pretty sum for the series, and don’t seem to want to do one trilogy and call it a day. There are already talks about one-off productions around characters and separate trilogies.  Star Wars can be as expansive as they need it to be, and can stretch as far as you want in either direction. As they’ve done with Marvel, they’ll build up franchise characters to sell a complete universe tied together on film.

The tricky part is how do you handle the Star Wars Expanded Universe? With Marvel it is easy, because the films are adaptations of the comics they are based on, and have no bearing on the stories within the comics. The Star Wars EU is directly tied to the films, and adding a lot of new backstory could eliminate a lot of the stories built up over the past three decades. In some instances this might be for the best, but there are a few truly great books in the Star Wars EU. Do you make it known that some of the stories are canon, while others are not?

I’ve read a good portion of the EU, but stopped almost a decade ago when the stories became too bloated for their own good. It might be better at this point to scrap the majority of it, and move on without being constricted to dozens of other writer’s fantasies.

Next page: Lightsabers

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Blake Fehl

Member of the St. Louis Film Critics Association. Co-Founder of Saint Brewis and Review St. Louis. Digital Strategist by day, film/beer/hockey fanatic by night.

View Comments

  • You say anakin wasnt the published pilot like obi-wan led luke to believe. But let me remind you the clone wars lasted a couple years. Enough time for anakin to claim the title of a great pilot.

  • "If there is one thing that the prequels did right, it was lightsaber duels."

    Cannot agree. Lightsabre fights in original films did a number of things:

    Create tension
    Expose character
    Advance the plot via storytelling
    Provide unpredictable finales
    Spectacle via good action

    Duels in prequels are elongated segments of dull spectacle.

    They failed to provide tension.
    They didn't expose character.
    They didn't advance the plot via storytelling but via spectacle.
    Ok, there was *some* unpredictability but it was uninspired.
    It was all spectacle for spectacle's sake.

    There is not a single lightsabre duel in the prequels that I enjoyed the way I did any instance of lightsabre action in the originals.

  • One thing you failed to mention was the use of practical effects. In the original trilogy, those effects really stood out and had a memorable presence. In the prequel trilogy, we got way too much CGI, with even entire settings being digital. J.J. Abrams needs to create more real sets, more practical effects, and limit the amount of CGI in the movie.

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