Everyone loves Star Wars, but even a man with a Rebel Alliance logo tattooed on his perineum would be hard pressed to defend what George Lucas did with episodes 1-3. He turned the most terrifying man in the galaxy into a little twonk with an attitude problem and destroyed years worth of goodwill and fuzzy feelings in the name of toys and commerce.
We can’t let this lie. Some of us love Star Wars more than our own mothers at SciFiNow, and we can’t have our children grow up in a world where uttering ‘Star Wars’ elicits a response of ‘hahaha yeah man, the Gungans were well funny innit!’
No doubt, at the back of our George’s mind, he’s needling away at the plot for another trilogy, because he just can’t leave anything alone. Let me remind you, this is the man who went back to his films 20 odd years later and turned Boba Fett into a New Zealander.
We’d rather he left Star Wars alone now, but if he does decide to have another crack, we hope he takes heed of the following:
1. Leave it alone George
George Lucas was a good filmmaker at one time. Unfortunately that time has passed. Any directing prowess he may have had was well and truly shot by the time The Phantom Menace happened. Poorly paced, incoherent and unimaginative, it showed a man well past his prime behind a camera. Let’s get other people writing and directing it this time. George can still be there producing and shouting at coffee boys, but for Christ’s sake don’t let him near the script.
2. Leave the original trilogy alone too
The temptation for George to drag Messieurs Hamill, Ford and Fisher back to play their characters will be too great. My suggestion? Leave them be. It’s bad enough seeing the heroes being dragged through mud with dreadful tie in novel after dreadful tie in novel. We don’t need to see their legacy piddled away on screen as well. And don’t use cloning technology on Kimino to bring back Samuel L Jackson or Ewen McGregor, because I know you were thinking about that George.
3. No politics or economics
The original trilogy worked because it was a simple tale of good versus evil, heavily informed by the monomyth (hero’s journey). It had character growth, adversity and redemption. The new trilogy had trade federations, committees and zzzzz. Less of that please.
4. Characters we can relate to
The only person people vaguely liked in the new trilogy was Qui Gon Jinn, because he fit beautifully into the’ wise master’ Alec Guinness role. And then he got killed by a member of Slipknot because Ewen McGregor forgot he could run really fast. There was no roguish Han Solo to aspire to, and Anakin really was an unpleasant little oik throughout the movies. God knows what Natalie Portman saw in him. Let’s have some likeable characters again please.
5. Put away that lightsaber
When a lightsaber was unsheathed in the original trilogy, you knew something was going down. Playtime was over, and someone was going to lose a limb. In the new trilogy though, lightsabers were brandished with depressingly regular nonchalance. Droid soldiers giving you a bit of gip? ‘SNAP HISSSSS.’ Door won’t open? ‘SNAP HISSSSSSS.’ Moths doing your head in? ‘SNAP HISSSSSSSS.’ When a lightsaber sizzles on it should be an event, not something that makes you think ‘oh bloody hell here we go again.’
6. Make the fights exciting
The fights in episodes 1-3 were dazzling, quick and expertly choreographed. And really boring. They were soulless, dour and utterly devoid of passion.
See?
Remember how stirring Luke’s final showdown with Darth Vader was? Now THAT had impact. No amount of fleet footed trickery will ever be as exciting as someone losing their rag and going genuinely uncontrollably berserk. More of that passion for the next films.
7. Don’t use CGI all the time numbnuts
The original trilogy had a wonderful physicality and sense of place. The Death Star corridors had a terrifying jackbooted sheen and Mos Eisley was a gloriously ramshackle dive of a place. In comparison, Naboo was like pre-rendered scenery from an old PlayStation game and the less said about the bouncy castle Blade Runner stylings of Coruscant the better. Constant green screen nonsense leaves the actors looking displaced and utterly bored and confused. And having characters spout hammy exposition whilst constantly staring out of windows at said computer generated backdrops is just LAZY.
8. Inadvertent and utterly hilarious genocide of the Gungans
The Ewoks were rubbish, but at least they can be justified in some way. They served as a nice little allegory of the Vietcong, as they used their guerrilla tactics and cute little faces to take on the Evil Empire. The Gungans served no such purpose. The Gungans served to make children think Jamaican accents were funny. A scene where the entire race is taken out thanks to an administrative cock up by the new bad guys would be excellent. Maybe new baddy Darth Rosskemp could get a bit frisky with the Juri juice and blow up Naboo for a laugh in his new Death Star, taking out the floppy eared tits along with it. I can think of no better apology for the state of the prequels.
9. Don’t get a fanboy to write it
If they were to bring Star Wars back for a last slew of hurrahs, the last thing we want is a script by a diehard fan. We’ll just get bad fanfiction. Jek Porkins will be brought back to life with inexplicable force powers and a resurrected Dash Rendar from the Shadows Of The Empire game/novel will have a romantic tryst with a resurrected Kit Fisto and oh my god I wish fanfiction.net had never existed.
10. Get Uwe Boll to direct it
Just kidding.
