Once upon a time, fans emerged from movie theaters everywhere, fresh after watching the exciting new entry in the Star Wars franchise, and because it was such a cultural phenomenon, there was a ton of media coverage of the entire event, both before and after the screening. Before viewing, fans everywhere were going crazy after all those months of secrecy and anticipation, what with all those questions about the new characters and their respective secrets within the story. After viewing, fans were very satisfied and they left the theater after what they considered an amazing cinematic experience they planned to repeat many a-time over. However, when the excitement wore off, public perception began to change, and people eventually grew to more or less dislike the movie and its subsequent titles. That movie was The Force Awakens.
Well, sorta. The joke was that the movie was meant to be The Phantom Menace, and it might not be entirely correct to say Force Awakens is as disliked as the infamous episode that gave us Darth Jar Jar... At the time of this article's writing, the titular seventh episode stands on IMDB with a decent 7.9 for what it's worth, which I don't think counts for much because ratings seldom do. And I think it's fair to say that, of all three new entries in the saga it is the most well-liked, again, for what it's worth. But I also almost wanna say that most problems people point out with The Last Jedi and Rise of the Skywalker can be traced back to the very beginning, because if the writers didn't have a solid plan going in, then trying to create a decent one halfway through simply wouldn't work. All the storytelling confusion stems from the origin, and if this first entry was overhauled, the whole saga might have been, not only better, but it might also have been proper Star Wars. And I say that because my main problem with these new entries, including Rogue One and Solo, is that when they aren't outright bad, confusing or completely feverish, they are just bland, quite like if you stripped them of any identifiable traits, people would consider them to be bootlegs.
The first change I'd make is one mostly regarding the spirit of the whole franchise rather than the actual story per say – I'd greatly tone down the nostalgia factor. For some reason this seems to be a recurring theme in recent movies... Whenever a big franchise is reawakened the writers always find ways, or rather force ways, to include beloved characters or details from the older movies. It may give us a warm fuzzy feeling but it doesn't last long and we quickly realize it only waters down the previous entries. So, in pragmatic terms, I'd have to reduce the screen time of Han, Luke and Leia in this film. The latter though would stick around to be the focal point of the political aspect of the story, not as a rebel, but as a senator. I know nobody wants to sit through long and boring senate scenes, but it makes no sense that after the end of Return of the Jedi things became exactly as they were before, only difference is the Empire has gotten a new name. In recycling A New Hope the writers of this film didn't seem to care much for continuity, perhaps outsourcing it to a long-winded explanation in the extended universe. To me, not only does this not make any sense, but the opposite would actually make much more sense. In other words, the group that was once the rebellion is now in power, and jedi training has become prevalent, though not quite what it used to be. That is because, with no one left to fight, they became weak and complacent, and the Force is now becoming relegated to myth and legend. Through it all there's a political faction called the First Order that has been slowly but surely gaining supporters, much to the dismay of Leia, who constantly casts omens about their wicked intentions. However, her pleas are seen as silly conspiracy theories and she's pressured to resign due to old age. Clearly someone is pulling the strings from behind the curtain, someone wants to maintain jedi complacency...
To be perfectly fair though, a lot of Leia's pleas are only correct because she has obtained secret information through illegal means. That sort of dirty work is the specialty of Poe Dameron, a hotshot pilot whose job consists of traveling the galaxy so as to infiltrate various organizations, both with stealth and with charisma. Obviously he'd be the new Han and his adventures could lead to some scenes similar to those of the original movies, not in plot, but in spirit. In infiltrating the First Order, Poe would meet Finn, who could remain as a stormtrooper who has become desperate to abandon his platoon. Obviously he's not called a stormtrooper in name because at this point the First Order isn't open about its allegiance to the sith, but he has slowly realized he's part of a violent cult-like faction and thus wants to leave after refusing to undertake certain questionable orders. The meeting of these two characters could go more or less the same way, with them having to work together in order to escape. And because they have the fairly similar goal of returning to Leia, they might as well stick together. Because of all the mistakes this trilogy made, a good chunk of them could have been mitigated if only our lead heroes had remained together throughout most of the story.
So the pair manage to escape but not without trouble. As such they had to land on the first planet they saw, and thus, very coincidentally, or perhaps not coincidentally at all, they meet Rey. Now, in order to complete the trio, Rey needs to be changed quite a bit... Instead of the whole orphan backstory, she would instead be a jedi in training, and a not very talented one at that. She studies and trains a lot but has seemingly no natural talent at all, and instead spends her time going over and over the same things instead of venturing out into the proverbial unknown. The desert planet she's on is now way too small for her, she's a weak jedi because she doesn't push herself, it's simply time to leave home... The only reason she remains is because her jedi master has left on a voyage and, having promised to return, she has yet to do so, having disappeared without a trace. I believe this change gives Rey some justification for her powerful skills later on, and it would have made her a much more believable and relatable character through her struggles, similar to Rock Lee from Naruto, for example, and it would have made the lightsaber duel in the end much more powerful, as we would have been earlier on led to believe Finn was gonna be the new Luke.
I think with this ragtag team of misfits we essentially have our first act done. We have the gang together and, though circumstances may separate them in the second film, only to be reunited in the third, for now they stick together and go on their journey. I suppose you could say the Force works in mysterious ways, and though strange things are afoot, these three have now been brought together by destiny to embark on a journey that will change their lives. If it sounds cliché it's because it is, but it's also because it works. It's a storytelling device that's been going on for thousands of years, and if it ain't broke... But on this point specifically, these movies needed to keep their ace characters together and to build them up rather than shift them around or, even worse, constantly introduce new ones, especially when they still have the old school characters stealing their thunder.
Speaking of which, they could run into Han Solo, not through the randomness of finding the Millennium Falcon just casually sitting there and then Han waltzing in out of nowhere, but by hiring him as a drunken mentor who doesn't care much about anything anymore. It's not great and it's definitely been done before, but I can't think of anything better. Perhaps having divorced Leia and sensing the dark side rising, Han fell into pessimism, a darkness from which he might only recover with a sacrifice... With that we meet our villain who, instead of being some guy who joined the dark side of the Force for I don't even know what reasons, he could remain as Han and Leia's son, only at this point he's an activist for the First Order, further establishing the political themes that, let's face it, the writers of this saga wanted to criticize in the real world. Through a string of adventures, the gang would end up way out of their league, deep in enemy territory, and then, to prove his undying loyalty, Kylo kills Han.
And he would do just that, not because Harrison Ford wanted it, but because it sets up the prodigal son parable, probably the only great thing about the last movie. Han's death comes as a win for the First Order as its sith apprentice completes his training, and then through other political developments they are now in place to make their coup. Still, there's a chance for the heroes to win because Han's sacrifice bought the gang just enough time to escape. But before they manage to, Finn has to go up against Kylo, is quickly defeated, though not gravely injured, and then we get the now infamous reveal of Rey taking up the lightsaber. But at best, this fight would be a draw. Rey simply can't win here, our villain has to be strong and intimidating, and the only reason she even manages to not get killed in my version is because she was defending Finn... And then Leia's fears are all confirmed as the First Order seize control and immediately display their power by destroying an entire planet. This is the most important change to me – the First Order has to begin tame and end as an unflinching dictatorship, we simply can't have all the jedi gone just because... On that note we can have our cake and eat it too, that is to say, we can make it similar to A New Hope but without repeating it, we just invert the order of some things. Because the reason those old films worked so well was because they tapped into universal themes of storytelling, themes without which no story, at least no story of this genre, is ever made memorable.
The movie then ends and we feel like all the hardship our heroes went through was in vain, they tried their best and still lost miserably. It sounds pessimistic but there are two recent movies that did the same thing – Infinity War and The Last Jedi. With the former it worked pretty damn well because it perfectly set the story for the next movie, and it made their villain very memorable. But with the latter it didn't work at all because there was just too much new ground to cover before wrapping things up. Truth is, this trilogy ended before it even began... So I hope my changes, which I understand can be slightly vague in some aspects, would give this saga a better direction from the beginning, hopefully good enough to make it so that the subsequent movies would have been much, much better. In a nutshell, my goal is to give Rey a lot more character depth to address the Mary Sue criticisms, to build the bond between her, Finn and Poe from the beginning, as opposed to only in the last movie as a total afterthought, and to enrich the entire world by giving us a little background on how the jedi lost their way and the sith set their sneaky plan in motion. So that even after a crushing defeat, it would make perfect sense for Rey to now go in search of Luke so as to complete her training, a quest that gives hope to an otherwise hopeless situation.
In conclusion, I don't know what to do for the second film but I would just say that, as long as the focus is on the three lead heroes, it would have worked out. Simply developing and deepening their stories would have made this trilogy far better than what we got, rather than the confusion of villains, unnecessary twists and characters who serve no purpose... In short, keep it simple, Disney.
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