# So, what about that third Star Wars trilogy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 23, 2006, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889 "2006-06-23T17:24:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2006, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/41 "2006-06-24T15:54:12Z")
And you know what else? They could have Mark Hamill, the old ugly version, come on as a guest star playing some evil dude or sumptin. Would be cool. ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2006, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/42 "2006-06-24T16:10:47Z")
I’m just excited to see the many times Luke goes to the Tachi station to pick up some power convertors. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2006, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/43 "2006-06-24T21:07:15Z")
> [@Lemur Catta](#): > > If I recall my Roman history correctly, the Roman senate survived throughout the entire Imperial period, from the days of Augustus on–the Wikipedia article puts its last recorded acts at around 600 CE. The same could’ve been true of the Galactic Senate–kept around to act as a rubber stamp for the Emperor and offer a veneer of legitimacy. Yup, and who’s to say that the Republic controlled one section of space, the Empire another, and then the Empire (with the help of Vader), showed up and kicked the Republic’s ass? **Fish** , that put’s the fall of the Republic within Obi Wan’s lifetime, but what’s Obi Wan’s life span? A century? Two centuries? Yoda was like 900 freakin’ years old, and given that the Force could allow you to appear as a ghost after your body died, seems to me that it would be possible for a Jedi master to use the Force to prolong their physical life. ISTR, speculation when _Empire_ came out that that was why the Emperor looked so decrepit. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2006, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/44 "2006-06-24T23:46:55Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > 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?. Just film the story from “Knights of the Old Republic,”, editing for length. That movie would kick a lot of ass. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2006, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/45 "2006-06-25T05:17:12Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > **Fish** , that put’s the fall of the Republic within Obi Wan’s lifetime, but what’s Obi Wan’s life span? A century? Two centuries? Yoda was like 900 freakin’ years old… That’s using information you learned in the second film. I started off by accepting that the Republic fell within Obi-Wan’s lifetime, so some time in the last 50 years. I didn’t have any reason to assume particularly long-lived people. I also kinda figured from this statement: > [@Leia's hologram](#): > > General Kenobi: years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire. and > [@opening crawl](#): > > It is a period of civil war. …that the Clone Wars were a problem _prior_ to the Empire being a problem; and that the Empire is ( **is,** present tense) the other half of the civil war. If you’ve already got the sense that the Empire rose to power by destroying the Jedi Knights, it’s not hard to fill in the blanks and assume it can’t have been that long ago, if Leia’s father (read: Bail Organa) remembers General Kenobi as a real person, not as a disgraced ex-Jedi hiding in the desert. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2006, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/46 "2006-06-25T06:07:36Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Yup, and who’s to say that the Republic controlled one section of space, the Empire another, and then the Empire (with the help of Vader), showed up and kicked the Republic’s ass? > > **Fish** , that put’s the fall of the Republic within Obi Wan’s lifetime, but what’s Obi Wan’s life span? A century? Two centuries? Yoda was like 900 freakin’ years old, and given that the Force could allow you to appear as a ghost after your body died, seems to me that it would be possible for a Jedi master to use the Force to prolong their physical life. ISTR, speculation when _Empire_ came out that that was why the Emperor looked so decrepit. Tuckerfan, we know the Republic fell about twenty years before _A New Hope_ starts because Luke was born right around the Republic’s fall, and Luke is about twenty in _A New Hope_. Barring some bizarre, never-referenced carbonite freezing on Luke’s part, the Empire is about twenty years old when Episode IV starts. That said, I totally agree that Obi Wan could use the force to extend his lifespan. Actually, placing Obi Wan at around 35 in Episode III, why does he look so old in Episode IV? ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2006, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/47 "2006-06-25T10:27:53Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > Actually, placing Obi Wan at around 35 in Episode III, why does he look so old in Episode IV? Yep, see my Post#31 in this Thread. Obi-Wan really can’t be more than 35 in EpIII, given that he was still a padawan in EpI (about 20 or so?). Lucas obviously hadn’t thought the back story through thoroughly enough when making the original film, since Alec Guinness was really too old to be playing Obi-Wan. ---
**Author:** ![Sparrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Sparrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparrow)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2006, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/48 "2006-06-25T12:22:03Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > Actually, placing Obi Wan at around 35 in Episode III, why does he look so old in Episode IV? He’s spent the last 20 years living the life of a poor hermit on a primitive, desert planet. Of course he’s going to look way older than 55. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2006, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/49 "2006-06-25T23:31:47Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > Yep, see my Post#31 in this Thread. Obi-Wan really can’t be more than 35 in EpIII, given that he was still a padawan in EpI (about 20 or so?). Lucas obviously hadn’t thought the back story through thoroughly enough when making the original film, since Alec Guinness was really too old to be playing Obi-Wan. There’s another problem. In the first scene in the Death Star, Vader lectures the military guys about the Force. Han doesn’t believe in the force. But only 20 years before, the Jedi were still powerful, and not exactly a big secret! The military guys, in particular, had to be serving on the ships that Palpatine was using at the end of the Clone War - they don’t become generals overnight. How come everybody forgot about the Force and the Jedi in 20 years? That was one reason I thought the Republic had died more than 20 years before Ep IV. ---
**Author:** ![bubastis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d07c76/32.png) [@bubastis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bubastis)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2006, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/50 "2006-06-26T00:10:29Z")
> [@Lord Ashtar](#): > > 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? So the crawl would read, “not all that long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Meleemancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a183cd/32.png) [@Meleemancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meleemancer)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2006, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/51 "2006-06-26T00:25:43Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Just film the story from “Knights of the Old Republic,”, editing for length. That movie would kick a lot of ass. But which side would our now non-player-character protagonist end up rooting for? It’ll certainly make for a huge difference in the tone of the movie… Hmm. Y’know, we could borrow a page from other media’s children’s marketing and make it a matched pair of movies. KOTOR Red and KOTOR Blue, collect them all! …what? Seriously though. Just change the actor portraying the main character - maybe switch genders, even - and film roughly the same scenes with the rest of the actors, with the two versions gradually deviating more and more. Also, imagine the kiddies’ anticipation if, say, Jedi were rated PG but Sith PG-13? ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2006, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/52 "2006-06-26T00:38:41Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > That was one reason I thought the Republic had died more than 20 years before Ep IV. In hindsight, I’m going to pick this point as the biggest part of led to my apparantly erroneous conclusions. At that point, I defy anyone to tell me that Lucas had ANY long range plans concerning what ended up as a huge story arc. Again, anything Lucas saus after the fact is suspect to me because HAN SHOT FIRST!!! > [@bubastis](#): > > So the crawl would read, “not all that long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” “Existing in a time frame close to ours, but in a galaxy that the Hubble Constant requires now be even farther from us than it was in 1977…” ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2006, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/53 "2006-06-26T01:58:29Z")
This is not the trilogy you are looking for. You can go about your business. ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2006, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/54 "2006-06-26T03:29:20Z")
Well, we need some titles: _Brokeback Jedi_ _Dude, Where’s My Lightsabre?_ _Imperial Lampoon’s Vacation_ ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2006, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/55 "2006-06-26T05:25:54Z")
\*Sith Days, Seven Knights Looking For Mr. Ackbar Mr. Sith Goes to Washington How Green Was My Lightsaber Capes Fear, Anger, and Suffering Darth of a Salesman The Mandalorean Candidate Bl(ock)ade Runner The Empire Strikes Back to the Future\* ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2006, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/56 "2006-06-26T05:36:43Z")
> [@Revenant Threshold](#): > > 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. > [@silenus](#): > > No, leave the post-Jedi universe to people who can write. > [@ddgryphon](#): > > 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. > [@Troy McClure SF](#): > > I think another one in the lack of Darth Vader, one of the most recognizable “faces” in film. > [@Loopydude](#): > > So just take the idea…take it right out of Lucas’ hands so he can’t ruin it anymore, pay him all the royalties he wants to stay the fuck away, and have some Dark Side cult start taking over the Galaxy again. The Neo-Jedi must outwit and outfight them, and look way cool all the while. The solution to all of those issues? **silenus** got it right! > [@silenus](#): > > 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… Then give Security a picture of Lucas with orders to shoot to maim if he gets within a mile of the set. I’d pay a bunch to see that! ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2006, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/57 "2006-06-26T11:55:20Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > There’s another problem. In the first scene in the Death Star, Vader lectures the military guys about the Force. Han doesn’t believe in the force. But only 20 years before, the Jedi were still powerful, and not exactly a big secret! The military guys, in particular, had to be serving on the ships that Palpatine was using at the end of the Clone War - they don’t become generals overnight. How come everybody forgot about the Force and the Jedi in 20 years? > > That was one reason I thought the Republic had died more than 20 years before Ep IV. I see your point, but considering the vast size of the Republic/Empire, there really weren’t that many Jedi to go around. I’d imagine that most people would go through their entire lives without ever meeting one. Even on Coruscant. Don’t forget, the planet is completely covered in urban sprawl, including skyscrapers that appear to be hundreds upon hundreds of storys tall. The planet must certainly have a population in the hundreds of billions. Possibly even over a trillion. Given that, I can see where someone who doesn’t know much about the Jedi might think that Jedi powers are mostly mythical. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2006, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889/58 "2006-06-26T14:42:16Z")
I dunno about that. A grimey slave trader who’d probably never looked beyond the ass-crack of nowhere in the deserts of Tatooine knew enough about the Jedi to suspect (albeit, in jest) one was attempting to use the Force to influence his thinking. The problem here, quite simply, is Lucas is a crap writer. Great idea guy on the macro level. Fine chief of special effects. Utterly, conspicuously a shite crap writer when it comes to things like dialogue, character development, and internal consistency (he’s got to be the biggest backfiller in the history of film). Lucas tried almost blindly to have it both ways: Build the extinct Jedi up into mythical heroes of an ancient lost order, like futuristic Knights Templar, yet have the antagonists ascend to total power in about a generation, largely through rather mundane (and insipid, and boring) wonky politics. It’s a totally schizoid premise and largely indefensible stylistically and chronologically. The only reason folks didn’t notice is the first three flicks still managed to be fun, the cast had a level of charisma and campy appeal no member of Eps. I-III could even approach, and the Luke vs. Darth Vader struggle had an irresistable underdog appeal. Corellian pilots are the Best of the Best. They’ve been around. They’ve seen It All. It makes zero sense for one to be that skeptical of “Jedi magic”. So Lucas had some pretty half-baked ideas to begin with, but he got the overall space-opera pastiche and Cinderella-story components quite right. He also had the skeleton of a cool legendarium, these exalted Jedi Knights, with their super-human powers and laser swords. Great fodder for capable writers to chew on. Once Lucas got rich enough to shrug off all editorial oversight, you were left with a second trilogy with nothing to redeem it but great visual effects and the endlessly-recyclable coolness factor of the Jedi. Worse, the glaring conceptual and continuity problems of Eps. I-III wound up shining a rather harsh light on the many flaws of Eps. IV-VI, which still managed to be great fun despite them. In retrospect, unfortunately, they look a lot less like products of genius, given the overall quality of the SW films, and a lot more like the great luck of a one-hit wonder who milked that singular success beyond dessication. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-about-that-third-star-wars-trilogy/361889.md?page=2)