So, what about that third Star Wars trilogy?

Cafe Society
#1

When The Empire Strikes Back was released, Lucas said he planned three Star Wars trilogies – the third to take place after Return of the Jedi. Is it ever gonna happen? Maybe Lucas could license out the project to some other director?

It would be a rare creative challenge – the story of rebuilding the Republic after the destruction of the Emperor and Darth Vader. I mean, then the Alliance would have to confront all the political problems they would have put on the back burner during the war. Do they want something just like the old Republic? Considering how it self-destructed? Maybe there’s a better way? And maybe some planets that supported the Alliance were really, in their own minds, fighting for total independence – a galaxy with no interstellar government. And maybe some of those planets, left to their own devices, would fall under some very nasty local dictatorships . . . We’ve already seen how chattel slavery was practiced on worlds outside the Republic’s control . . . It would have to be a very different set of stories, much less black-and-white. It would involve very bitter conflicts, perhaps, between servants of the Light Side of the Force, who have differing opinions on what the right thing is.

Considering their subject matter, the SW films up to now have strangely ignored political questions as such. It’s often been said that the Rebels might have been Nazis for all we knew of their politics. We sided with them because we could see their faces. The Stormtroopers are armored and anonymous. Besides, the Empire uses ruthless methods and shows indifference to the rights of the individual – a democratic government would never do that . . . right? [cough]Guantanamo[cough]

#2

One thing that should be pointed out is that at the end of RotJ, the Empire is not destroyed. The Emperor and Vader are dead, the Death Star and much of the fleet there is destroyed, but it’s not like the sub-heads of the Empire are just going to roll up and die. It’s a victory, but not a final victory.

In the EU, the Empire isn’t actually ever defeated; they’re forced into a smaller region of space, and eventually form a coalition with the Republic when they both need it.

#3

Two major problems to overcome before that could happen: 1) the whole EU, and 2) Lucas. Given what he did with the prequels, how bad would the third trilogy suck? Like a black hole the size of a galaxy, that’s how much. No, leave the post-Jedi universe to people who can write.

#4

[quote]
Considering their subject matter, the SW films up to now have strangely ignored political questions as such. It’s often been said that the Rebels might have been Nazis for all we knew of their politics. We sided with them because we could see their faces. The Stormtroopers are armored and anonymous. Besides, the Empire uses ruthless methods and shows indifference to the rights of the individual – a democratic government would never do that . . . right? [cough]Guantanamo[cough]You mean, other than minor details like destroying a planet of millions or billions of people with no military value, just to demonstrate that they can? I think it’s made pretty black-and-white, set in stone clear that the Empire is Eeee-vil. And when you’ve got an empire that evil, opposing it is inherently a good cause. OK, sure, maybe not everyone on the side of the Rebellion is good (we don’t really know), but the Rebellion itself is good.

#5

I think another one in the lack of Darth Vader, one of the most recognizable “faces” in film. He dominated 4-6, and that legend was enough to carry the prequels, despite the little twerp portraying Ani.

#6
  1. Luke Skywalker sits around telling war stories that everyone he knows is thoroughly sick of.
  2. Han Solo is dead, his reaction time just a bit too slow this one last time.
  3. Chewbacca is in the old wookie home, living up to his name, and often missing the spittoon.
  4. Princess Leia has contracted Alzheimer’s.
  5. C3PO finally marries R2D2.
  6. Yoda catched the bouqet.
#7

Only if Lucas turns them over to somebody with some sense of story and an ability to dialogue and stays the hell out of it.

#8

It could be done if they go WAY far into the future, like 10,000 years or so to the point where the Skywalkers are just a myth. Wouldn’t that bypass all the EU stuff?

#9

I thought they should go in the other direction, and show the origins of the Old Republic, the split between the Jedi and the Sith, and the wars that split engendered. What I’d really love to see is some sort of concrete articulation of just what the Sith believe in, what their creed is, like we got for the Jedi in Empire. But more than that, I want to see a full-scale battle where both sides have lightsabers and force powers. How cool would that be?

Needless to say, its imperative that Lucas have nothing to do with it.

#10

Why is EU a problem? It’s not canon, is it?

#11

I don’t think it’s going to happen, and I don’t think it should.

#12

I wouldn’t mind seeing a story involving Sidious betraying Darth Plageous, and Sifo Dyas as Yoda’s padawan, secretly getting turned by Darth Sidious, then staging his death and becoming Count Dooku and ordering the clone army. Also maybe a young Qui-Gon kicking some other Sith lackey’s ass, and so on.

Written and Directed by Joss Whedon.
[sub]Original characters by George Lucas[/sub].

#13

Movie trilogy? No.

TV series, such as on the Sci-Fi channel? Sure, I’d go for that. (And I don’t even have cable. Maybe that’s why I wouldn’t mind it being on TV.)

Get a stable of writers to create an ongoing Trek-like series, with a few occasional inter-threading season-long storylines.

More importantly, write the Star Wars TV Show Bible beforehand that delimits what the technology (and the Force) can and cannot do. Part of the appeal of Star Wars was that there wasn’t always a mystical technobabble reason why you networked the Jeffries Tubes through the turbolift chips and created a resonant fruiton particle array out of the deflector dish every week. Delimit the babble beforehand and make the show about characters (ala Buffy, Firefly, etc).

#14

I wonder what Lucas had in mind for the third trilogy.

The real problem is - what is the critical problem that has to be solved? 4-5-6 had a good one - defeat the Empire and restore freedom to the galaxy. The first trilogy never had one - except maybe from the point of view of the Sith. I only read the first EU trilogy before being disgusted, but all the later ones, from the summaries in the SF Book Club mailings, seem to be invent a menace, have the old and new characters defeat it, and repeat.

Maybe, just maybe, if Luke is the chose one, not Anakin, it could show what is meant by the prophecy, and end up with a galaxy in harmony. Which would probably suck.

#15

It’s canon UNTIL/UNLESS Lucas says it isn’t. Lucas has been rather kind to the EU for the most part. He’s actually taken a lot of EU stuff and worked it into the prequels. (Coruscant and the Jedi Aayla Secura for example).

#16

You’ll get strong arguments both for and against it, but I think Grand Admiral Thrawn would make a good villian for the last trilogy. Just get Zahn to write the scripts from his books, have Joss rewrite and direct the first one, get Bryan Singer to do the middle one, and let them flip for who gets to direct the last one. Then give Security a picture of Lucas with orders to shoot to maim if he gets within a mile of the set.

#17

One thing that really bothered me about Eps I-III was the timing. After watching the first releases of Eps IV-IV, I and all my sci-fi friends were under the impression that the Empire was a very long lived entity. Perhaps on the order of Asimov’s Foundation series’ old empire. And maybe we read too much into conversations the British Nazi guys had with Vader in Ep IV (which used to be plain old Star Wars, no episode numbers). And we thought that the prequel trilogy would be far back in time, and the sequel trilogy would be a good bit forward.

Then, Lucas comes out and tells us that this empire is only about 20 years old? WTF? So, it’s likely to be just a tiny bump in the long history (forward and back) of the Republic.

Anyone else go thru this line of thought way back when? Before all the books and games, that is, back when the first trilogy was an infant.

#18

I thought it was pretty clear that the Empire as we know it is a somewhat recent development. After all, in A New Hope, we learn that the Emperor has just dissolved the Senate, and given direct control of the planets to the local governors. That implies that, just prior to the movie, the Senate had possessed some power, even if it had been in a decline for a while.

And the rebels also seemed like a new movement to me.

#19

The Senate could’ve been part of the Empire. Perhaps a system similar to the Dune system, which seemed to follow the British way, King, House of Lords (a senate of sorts), and House of Commons (?), which would be similar to the US House of reps, perhaps. Speaking more of the Dune system, and not any specifics about the UK, btw, a VERY generalised thought.) Again, I default to having had read tons of old Sci-Fi which dealt with really old systems of government, having many of them fitting into a predictable mold.

Colored my thinking when the original trilogy was new, it seems.

#20

“For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire. … A young pupil of mine named Darth Vader helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. … Now the Jedi are all but extinct.”

That seems to put the end of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire squarely in the lifetime of Obi-Wan, doesn’t it?