What I Want from Star Wars

I love Star Wars.  It has long been my favourite movie series though the three prequels did leave much to be desired.  As we approach a new series of movies which continues the story after The Return of the Jedi it is natural for me to reflect on what I want from Star Wars.  The easiest way for me to begin this is to set forth what I don’t want.

Firstly, I don’t want a super villain.  The Star Trek franchise was ruined by the seemingly endless need to have super villains in every movie.  There seems to always be some rogue Klingon or rogue Romulan out there bent on destroying whichever captain is commanding in the current movie.  Plus they killed off Data which is unforgiveable!!!  So in that sense, the recent sequence of movies has featured plot repetition in my opinion.  With regard to Star Wars, the Return of the Jedi ends with two super villains being vanquished: one by being tossed into some sort of shaft that leads to a reactor, though why that shaft is open and exposed and is conveniently located near the head honcho remains a mystery, while the other was converted back to the light.  I would hate to see our heroes endlessly chasing after one super villain after another.

I also do not want the storyline from Timothy Zahn’s trilogy covering this period.  I found the story disappointing.  What makes this sad is that the premise of Zahn’s story makes sense.  It makes sense that once the Emperor is gone, various war lords would take control.  In the Zahn trilogy, Grand Admiral Thron manages to gather the remnants of the shattered Empire fleet and assume control.  I was surprised there were any admirals left after Darth Vader went through them like Captain Kirk went through red clad security personnel on board the Enterprise.  It also makes sense that the Grand Admiral wants to avoid fragmentation with various war lords claiming scattered territories.  So far so good.  But the problem with the Zahn trilogy is with Thron himself.  Thron is not a greedy bastard who sees an opportunity to enrich himself.  His character genuinely believes in the usefulness of the Empire and he wants to bring it back.  How anyone could long for the good old days of being ruled by a Sith is difficult to fathom unless you are a greedy opportunistic bastard.  That a noble character like Thron would want such a thing stretches credulity far too far.   Zahn’s trilogy casts Grand Admiral Thron as the new super villain.  But without being able to use the Force, he’s just an annoying war lord without the character of your run-of-the-mill war lord.  Logically, Thron’s noble character would want to work with the New Republic, not against it.

So in the upcoming movies, while I can certainly understand the Dark Side causing trouble in some way, I don’t want to see some new Sith lord emerge from the shadows in all his dark glory.  I would expect the Dark Side to be severely weakened after the events of The Return of the Jedi.  Otherwise we have Palpatine all over again.  And speaking of Palpatine, can we please not find out he didn’t really die in Return of the Jedi?

Now that I have stated what I don’t want, I can get to what I do want.  In terms of the upcoming movies, I want a story that is halfway realistic.  I expect Luke to restore some sort of Jedi training academy just as he does in the books.  I also expect the Jedi to have a different attitude toward the Dark Side than the complete avoidance attitude taught by Yoda.  I expect to see a fragmented galaxy plagued by war lords and some sort of New Republic struggling to gain relevance but which is forced to make some political changes.  And I think it would be realistic to see strong anti-force sentiment throughout the galaxy.  After all, it was a Sith using The Force which plunged the galaxy into chaos in the first place.

But why speak of realism?  This is a fantasy after all.  That’s the thing about Science Fiction or Fantasy.  You accept a few unreal things but you expect realism for the rest.  For example, I can except an all-pervading Force with beings capable of using The Force the way the Jedi and Sith do.  We don’t see this in our reality but I’m willing to accept this.  Plus I have sometimes wished I could telekinetically hurl people against the wall and choke them during meetings I have been in for work so in that sense, Darth Vader is super cool.  I am also willing to accept Jedi blocking blaster fire even though this violates the laws of physics.  For  Jedi to block something coming at them at the speed of light, they would need infinite mass to move at the speed required.  And even if we say the Jedi block by anticipating where the bolt will be thanks to The Force, I can see blocking one bolt that way, but not rapid fire blaster attacks.  But for the sake of cinematic coolness, I’ll let that pass too.  But when it comes to letting things pass, you have to stop somewhere and that is pretty much where I stop.  After that, I want to see something that does not necessitate me suspending my disbelief to the point of no return.

In short, then, what I want from the upcoming movies is to see a realistic political backdrop, a struggling New Republic, a Struggling Jedi order amid anti-force sentiment, and everything else that makes Star Wars so freaking awesome.

But what I really, really want has nothing to do with the movies.  What I really want is a re-write of all the movie based Star Wars novels into proper novels which are not hamstrung by the script.  I want to learn more about the Sith and more about the thoughts of the characters so we don’t see disconcerting plot leaps like Anakin’s sudden jump from “I’m not sure what I should do” to “yeah I’ll kill innocent Padawan children, no problem.”  I want to know why there are always only two Sith lords at a  time rather than just getting that bombshell from Yoda.  I want a real in depth story that doesn’t leave us with terrible script gaps such as Obiwan not knowing Luke had a sister in The Empire Strikes Back and being fully aware of this fact in Revenge of the Sith.  And speaking of revenge, why do the Sith hate the Jedi so much?  What did the Jedi ever do to them?  I’m sure it involved killing Sith, but when and why?  Despite the space opera nature of Star Wars it’s a great story and I want to see it told properly. And for these upcoming movies, I want to see the great story continue.