Can we have a do over?
That is all I am asking — an old fashioned-elementary school-playground decision to act like it never, ever happened. It worked when we were kids. It can work again. Trust me.
Can we pretend The Force never Awakened? Can we act like there was no Last Jedi? Could Skywalker never Rise?
I’m serious. I was as excited as anyone when I learned of the newer movies, and I liked Rey and Finn a whole lot early on, but then it all went to Dagobah and sank under a swamp of lazy writing and uninspired acting. I’m on record for admiring what Rian Johnson tried to do with The Last Jedi, but the whole thing was disjointed and disconnected within the larger SWU.
Why can’t we ignore them all and pretend it never happened, the way the Star Trek Universe pretty much just ignores Star Trek V, and have in the last five years decided to completely ignore the JJverse and the stupid decision to blow up Vulcan. Can we act like the Rey/Finn/Poe stories never even happened? Please? Pretty please, with blue bantha milk on top?
Instead, I honestly propose we use the fantastic characters created in the original continuation of the SWU, those fantastic novels which thrived through the 90s-late 00s — I’m looking at you Timothy Zahn. I’m not saying we revive the plots necessarily, because I’m not sure the Yuuzahn Vong are where I’d go with things right now but I really want to see Mara Skywalker (nee Jade) and the Solo kids. You know you want to see Timothee Chalamet play confused Jacen and Anya Taylor-Joy playing powerful Jaina? We need to see the smart-mouthed gunslinger Anakin Solo walk into a cantina and clean house.
Go ahead, recast the principals — we’ve paid homage to Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, and Vader. It’ll be okay.
Please? Pretty Please? Just, start over. It takes a lot of courage to start over, Rebellion kind of courage. Come on Disney — I believe you can do this. I mean, look what has been done with very minor ideas — the Mandalorian, Cassian Andor, and Mon Mothma and the way the energy is there and so is the fan base. And Rogue One was amazing.
Why not make a clean wash, recast the principals with older actors in middle age — You can do this. I know the Solo movie tanked and was awful, but that is because it was a truly awful movie. Don’t be afraid. Fear leads to the dark side.
Imagine a one movie treatment of Luke Skywalker with his niece and nephew at the Jedi Academy and all the dark side energy hidden inside the grandchildren of Vader. Can you see Jaina discovering something about her grandmother, Padme, and and then she goes a vengeance streak Force lightening deathscapade on those she holds responsible while Luke and Leia have to hunt her down and help her come to her senses? A whole movie of Han, Chewi, and Anakin doing something disastrously dangerous but needed to secure an alliance with The Chiss or against a Thrawn protege. I mean, come on! Those are the movies we want — those are the movies we deserve.
And then, once that is done, we can undo the three prequels, too. I have some ideas about that, too.
HMU, Disney. I got nothing but ideas and my pay scale is pretty reasonable.