Future Star Wars films

So you might be wondering, have I seen Rogue One? And if I have? Why haven't I done a review for it?

Well I don't know if I've actually stated this before but Star Wars is my favorite movies of all time. I love the prequels, I love almost everything about them. I know that the prequels are not good movies, but I still have a love for them that makes me watch them every year the same way I watch the original trilogy. I am also really into the expanded universe of Star Wars or what is now called "Legends". I've played almost all the video games, read some of the books, but above all, I was almost a historian of Star Wars lore and mythology up until they said fuck it and retconned all of cannon. I could make a whole post on that and I might have already, but my point is, I am an absolute Star War nutjob.

And that's why I don't do reviews for those movies. I didn't do one for The Force Awakens, I probably won't do one for Rogue One, and I probably won't do one for the entire saga. Who knows, I could change my mind, but for now, that's how I'm feeling. I don't think I could be partial and give you a really unbiased response to those films. Now I have been addressing some of my innate bias that I have for movies as of late, regardless of whether or not that bias is good or bad, so maybe I could change my mind, but I had to watch Rogue One twice to really point out the few things I didn't like about it. Also there are so many things that have already been said about the Prequels, that it's hard to really say anything new or meaningful.

So what do I do instead? I'm going to make a commentary of what I think of the Star Wars movies so far, and where I think the franchise is headed. These will probably be the closest things I will do that will resemble something like reviews for films like The Force Awakens or Rogue One, but overall, I'll be talking about how I think the franchise is doing so far and what kind of predictions I can make about it's future.

If you know about the history of Star Wars, you'll know that nobody, not even George Lucas thought this was going to be such a hit or even a huge story.

Initially Star Wars was George Lucas's middle finger to studios that wouldn't let him go off and make a Flash Gordon movie. And even when Star Wars became what it was, it was a simple concept of a fantasy set in space.

I mean think about it, it's a story about a young farm boy going off to save a princess from an evil space wizard with the help of a good space wizard. Like George Lucas says that Star Wars was supposed to be about family and about the relationships between fathers and sons, but a lot of people question if he even knew that Vader was going to end up being Luke's father when he started on this quest. He definitely didn't know that Luke and Leia were going to be brother and sister.

So the point here is that the movie definitely had humble beginnings and expanded beyond what anybody ever thought it was going to be.

Fast forward to the 2000s and Disney buys Lucasfilms and intends to make Star Wars a revitalized franchise similar to what they did with the Marvel movies. Their intention is to make 3 more episodes, continuing the story set up by the original trilogy and the prequels but set 20 years later.

And I'm not gonna lie, when I heard this was a thing, I thought that I died a little bit inside.

I mean look at that picture and tell me your soul doesn't cringe a little bit. Disney makes some great films, but you're handing over something I've loved for so long and something that has felt like it's own thing, and it's going to be commercialized to no end.

But to my wonderful surprise, the trailers came out for The Force Awakens, and then the movie came out and my tune changed very quickly.

Suddenly, I was incredibly excited about the incredible possibilities that could happen in the Star Wars galaxy. And while I initially was worried about the kinds of movies they were dishing out, after The Force Awakens, all I could think of was the possibilities. I was one of the few Star Wars fans that saw the possibility with retconning the cannon and the opportunity to make something totally new and great with the new cannon, especially with my revitalized confidence and excitement for the franchise.

We're given a timeline for these films with the promise that more are probably to come. I'll go through each one, the ones that have been released and the ones that are to be released and what I think of them.

So The Force Awakens comes out.

Contrary to some of my friend's beliefs, I do love The Force Awakens. It actually goes back and forth between my 3rd and 4th favorite Star Wars film, jumping rope with Return of the Jedi. The characters are strong, it's a great blend of old and new, and it's a great adventure.

And like I said, I was going to love anything they put out. I had my doubts when the movie first was announced and I didn't hear anything about it, but after I saw the first trailer, there was no way I wasn't going to have a lot of fun with this movie. And that's what it was, a lot of fun.

Are there problems with it? Oh yes. I could talk about those problems and while I'm writing this, I'm thinking I might as well do a review for this film, but I'm not sure yet.

The biggest problem I had with The Force Awakens is that it relied too much on nostalgia for the original trilogy and in many ways it felt like a retread of not only A New Hope, but Empire, and Jedi. In fact there's a great video that explains the pieces of Empire and Jedi that The Force Awakens takes from and repurposes it to make a great nostalgic journey but not really the Star Wars movie I was expecting.

My thoughts are, The Force Awakens was a necessary step for Disney. Above all, Disney is a smart business and they've been doing this long enough to know when to play it safe and when to make a leap of faith. The Force Awakens was not their time to take a leap of faith.

The Force Awakens was going to be the first outing into the Star Wars galaxy we had had for a decade, a decade of us bitching about the prequels and making George Lucas's life a living hell. Again, I know the prequels are bad films, but I will defend them to my dying breath because at the end of the day they are Star Wars films, and they're important to me.

So again, The Force Awakens was not time to do something different, it was an opportunity to show the fans that the new movies were going to be like the original trilogy and not the prequels. It was also an opportunity to cash in on people's nostalgia for Star Wars. And that's where the easter eggs come in, that's where the similar storylines come in, that's where everything feels new, but isn't exactly to the point where it actually is new. Again, I think The Force Awakens was a good movie and it was a good stepping stone into the franchise, but it was a nostalgic stepping stone and it did borrow a lot from the original trilogy. A necessary step back so that we can hopefully take a step forward.

So since TFA made all the money and was pretty well received by critics, if I'm a Disney executive, I know that I can comfortably put money into future Star Wars episodes following this story and it's going to make money because people are interested. Check that box.

Rogue One was a different box all together.

Rogue One's job was to assure executives that Star Wars is profitable even if the main characters are not any of the recognizable names like Luke Skywalker, Rey, or even Darth Vader. Vader is in Rogue One but not nearly as much as he probably would be if the point of this movie was to prove that it could be done.

Disney's plan was to not just create three more episodes following the story of Luke, Han and Leia, but to create spinoff movies on side characters and expand the universe even more so we get more Star Wars as the years go by.

But even still, they had to be careful. While Rogue One is centered on characters that are totally new, it is full of call backs to the original trilogy that seem like they're just trying to make the audience feel comfortable and familiar while they're learning so many new things and meeting new people. Again, Darth Vader is in this film and he was incredibly prevalent in the trailers but I felt like we got Jared Leto Jokered a little bit because of how much he was in the trailers and yet he had about 2 scenes. They were great scenes, but still only two. But overall it felt like a marketing scheme more than an actual character. Now, he makes up for it because his scenes are awesome. But it's just an example along with a couple of other cameos and easter eggs that just felt like they were back to the tricks they pulled in The Force Awakens.

On top of that, the story, while something different, is directly tied in with A New Hope. Again, it's baby steps and Disney is seeing how far they can go and how much the audience is actually interested in before they do something different.

But overall, the biggest problems I had with Rogue One, being as objective as I can, were problems with certain moments, not arcs or scenes overall. I had an issue with the lack of Darth Vader, even though I feel like I was promised more, and just a few other scenes that felt weird or just poorly edited together.

Overall, I really enjoyed Rogue One and thought that they really toned down the nostalgic kicks to the stomach. And since it made all the money, I would hope the big thing they pull from this is that people are interested in Star Wars stories.

Rogue One was a different enough movie and had the objective to make us care about characters that weren't the Skywalkers. I still think it was a safe choice because how it was directly connected to A New Hope, but it could open the door to more spin offs and more Star Wars in general.

And that's all we have right now. There's been news about Episode 8 the Han Solo standalone film (and believe me we will get to that) but that's another thing about Star Wars that makes it hard to review, I don't like reading into these movies before they come out. I just want to go into it free of as much insight as I can and just enjoy them the way I did with the prequels and the original trilogy when my dad first showed them to me. I love theorizing about the films, but not to the level I do with Marvel and DC films.

So I will talk about Star Wars episode 8 and 9 very similarly because let's be honest. As much as I can point at the bad parts of The Force Awakens, I really liked it. I'm invested in the story of Rey, Finn, Poe, and everyone else in that story and nobody is going to not see both 8 and 9, even if they're bad. The Force Awakens was good enough that people are already curious of how it's going to end and they want to get the answers to their questions.

My only qualm with these movies is that I hope since The Force Awakens made all the money, it makes them realize that they don't need to rely on nostalgia and instead they can do original stories that aren't callbacks to the original trilogy so much. I have no doubt that the next two episodes are going to be good and I really can't believe that this time next year, I'll be talking about what I thought of Episode 8.

But the real impact I have seen in this past year is the effect that Rogue One will have on the future of the spinoff movies and this is not as clear cut.

Rogue One was a great step in what I consider the right direction because it centered on a part of the Star Wars story that was close enough to the original trilogy so it was familiar for audiences, but it still expanded the lore in a constructive way.

The only other standalone film that is confirmed right now is the Han Solo prequel film starring Alden Ehrenreich as the young Han Solo. And when I say young Han Solo, I'm pretty sure they mean, Han Solo when he's about the same age as he was in A New Hope or a tad younger. And that to me does not make any sense whatsoever.

This movie is being directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the guys who made the Lego movie and 22 Jump Street. They're very funny guys. On top of that Donald Glover, who I loved in Community, is playing Lando Calrissian. These are all choices I don't hate.

But while Rogue One was a step in the right direction, I can only feel like Han Solo is another step but in the absolutely wrong direction.

I mean, I get it. Han Solo had a pretty awesome role in The Force Awakens and with the revitalization of the franchise, I suppose someone thought, why not explore more into this beloved character.

But I can't help but feel like that was something we would have liked to see immediately after The Force Awakens came out, and if you've seen it you know why. Han Solo is such an important and emotional character in the movie that it's not surprising why they thought it'd be a good idea to explore that character more instead of letting it just sit with where he landed at the end of the movie.

But by the time 2019 rolls around, we're going to have so many other questions and interests in the Star Wars franchise that a Han Solo film will just be weird and we'll have to revert back to the original question, why try and recreate a character that was so quintessentially Harrison Ford?

But it's also going in the wrong direction because it doesn't really expand the universe in the right way.

Han Solo was such a great character because it didn't matter where he came from, what his backstory was, he was just a smooth scoundrel that we came to know and love because of his actions during the original trilogy. And I don't want that changed at all.

I don't really need to know how he got his hands on the Millenium Falcon, I don't need to know how he met Chewbacca, I just don't need an origin story of a character who is already so awesome.

But because Disney wants to cash in on a public interest in a character that has honestly died down to normal levels by now, they're missing the opportunity to do a lot of different stuff and find something new to make a movie of.

The reason Rogue One was such a good movie was because it was different enough that it didn't feel like an episode but it was connected enough to be fun and relatable to a new fledgling audience.

Han Solo seems like a safe choice that nobody wants and we miss out of hearing the other great tales they could be telling, but they don't want to yet for this reason or that.

Now if Disney wants to stay on the safe route, I think there are better stories to be told in the Star Wars universe than Han Solo. There are even talks about those particular films and I think the best example would be that of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Now it just so happens that Obi-Wan Kenobi is one of my top 2 favorite characters in all of Star Wars, (oddly enough sharing number 1 with Han Solo). But the reason this makes more sense than a Han Solo standalone film is for a couple of reasons.

Execs at Disney and LucasFilms have suggested that Obi-Wan's role in the Star Wars episodes might not be over and we could still see him in episode 8 or 9.

I am personally of the belief that Rey is actually the granddaughter of Obi-Wan Kenobi, which would make his own personal story of what he's doing between Episode 3 and 4 all the more interesting and compelling of a story. But even if Rey's parentage has nothing to do with Obi-Wan Kenobi, having a wise Jedi like that as the main character, going on an adventure in the 20 years that we only assume he's been just hanging out on Tattoine could create for a great adventure.

And Ewan McGregor is about the right age to portray a slightly older Obi-Wan but not too old that he's blending into Alec Guiness. There's no need for a recast of an iconic character and it makes for a smoother movie. On top of that, Obi-Wan could continue the path that Rogue One had where there is some familiarity to it, but still introduces new characters, new worlds, and new dilemmas that aren't directly tied to the stories we're familiar with.

Not to mention, it is cannon that Darth Maul is still alive... so that could always be something that comes back.

I think Obi-Wan is a great segway into those totally different stories that they don't want to do now because they're playing it safe.

The prime example of a story that should be made but won't because of Disney's safe play is that of Knights of The Old Republic.

Everyone who is a real Star Wars fan has been waiting for this movie to be announced and there's a very good reason for that. If you don't know the property, it takes place thousands of years before the events of the Star Wars episodes and it tells the story of a battle between the ancient Jedi and the ancient Sith.

Now, there are a couple reasons why I don't think they've made this game into a movie. The first reason is that it is so far removed from the events of the Star Wars episodes that Disney might be worried that there aren't enough people who would be able to find this relatable. While Rogue One had totally new characters, they had cameos from familiar characters throughout. Knights of the Old Republic would be totally new characters in a time with no connection to the original trilogy.

But I think the big reason is actually the fact that this would be a video game movie.

I still haven't seen Assassins Creed... or Warcraft for that matter, but we still live in a time where Video Game movies just don't make money and even if they do, they're critically panned.

I thought for a long time that KOTOR wasn't being made into a movie because of the time period it falls under and how there is nothing familiar within it. And while this is still the case, I think the studio is also shying away from it because they haven't seen a video game movie do well. And you may be saying that this would be a Star Wars story adaptation, not a video game adaptation, but I don't think that matters to studio executives.

I don't know, I could be wrong, but if Rogue One has told me anything it's that there can be movies that expand the universe and focus on other stories beyond the Skywalkers and they can be done on film.

The first thing I thought of after the second time I watched Rogue One was why don't they make a Jedi Outcast film. It follows similar characters and while it takes place close to the events of the original trilogy, they can still do something different and have cameos from familiar characters. But again the question of would Disney adapt a video game comes up.

And that's something that Disney needs to overcome. I don't know if it will take every movie being a success or for one of the films to be a failure, but I think there's a bright future for the Star Wars franchise, it just needs to find itself in the spinoff movies it does after episode 9, cause I'll tell you, as much as I want Boba Fett to come back, I don't want a standalone film focused on him.

But those are my thoughts on the future Star Wars films. I felt like this post was more of a rant than something with an actual point, but I wanted to say something about Star Wars with the release of Rogue One and the increased interest that comes with Star Wars around this time of the year now.

What're your thoughts? What kinds of spinoffs should be made after the trilogy we're on is done? Obi-Wan? KOTOR, Jedi Outcast? Let me know! Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future or topics I should discuss. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Maybe this is too easy but here's the How it Should have Ended for A New Hope. Enjoy!