10 Simple Fixes That Would Have Saved The Star Wars Sequels

Australian Cinephile

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00:00The Star Wars sequels are some of the most divisive things in the entire film industry.

00:04Whether you hate them or love them though, for what it's worth, I really do like them.

00:08I think we can all agree that they didn't quite live up to their potential.

00:12There are great elements in there, but a few things just didn't quite hit the mark.

00:17So with that in mind, I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com and these are 10 simple fixes that would have saved the Star Wars sequels.

00:23Number 10, have a plan from the beginning.

00:25Now, I'm usually critical of planning too far in advance.

00:30The beauty of filmmaking is collaboration and course correction in my opinion,

00:35as you often don't know what works until an audience actually sees it and responds.

00:40Some of the greatest media ever, from Breaking Bad to the Dark Knight trilogy,

00:45had no grand plan from the beginning.

00:47And neither did the original Star Wars trilogy, incidentally.

00:51So much of those movies were just made up on the fly, from huge twists to wholesale characters and people loved it.

00:58But if there's another side to this coin, it's a series that signifies what it's like when there's no plan in place

01:04and worse, when the creatives aren't on the same page and sadly, it's the Star Wars sequel trilogy.

01:11Things might have shaken out better had we gotten three distinct filmmakers continuing the story

01:16and putting their own spin on things.

01:18But to have J.J. Abrams start the series, then have Rian Johnson put his own take on it,

01:23only to then go back to J.J. makes for a total incoherent mess.

01:28And worse, it led to retcons that attempted to hobble together some kind of sense for a unified vision,

01:34but which only made everything worse and resulted in so much of the story looking like a weird detour.

01:39The Rise of Skywalker retcons The Last Jedi, which retcons in turn The Force Awakens,

01:45and while not every beat should have been planned from the start,

01:48there should have at least been a general roadmap that was subject to change.

01:52Number 9, tease the Emperor at the end of Episode 8.

01:55One of the major complaints of The Rise of Skywalker is that good old Emperor Sheev Palpatine

02:00returned in the franchise's last movie with no better explanation

02:04than poor Dameron's exasperating, somehow, Palpatine has returned.

02:09Like, yeah, thanks for clearing that one up, J.J.

02:12While the Star Wars story team has since cleared up details of Palpatine's resurrection in other media,

02:18audiences shouldn't have to read books to enjoy a series which predominantly exists as a movie franchise.

02:24The Emperor's Shadow has always hung over Star Wars,

02:27and his return wasn't a bad idea in and of itself,

02:30but Sheev would have been better utilised in a more minor role,

02:33maybe taking the form of a pre-recorded hologram as present in Colin Trevorrow's rejected Episode 9 script.

02:40The most exciting thing to come out of The Last Jedi was Kylo Ren's status as the new leader of the First Order,

02:45and unfortunately, Palpatine's resurrection meant that we never got to see Supreme Leader Ren unleash his wrath.

02:52This decision led to Kylo following more or less the same story arc as Vader in the original trilogy,

02:58ensuring the Rise of Skywalker became such a carbon copy of Return of the Jedi

03:02as The Force Awakens was of A New Hope.

03:05So, to make this surprise appearance less disorientating,

03:08Disney really should have teased Palpatine's return at the end of Episode 8,

03:12and no, his brief mention by Luke doesn't count.

03:15At the very least, Palpatine's return could have been revealed on screen,

03:18rather than being casually mentioned in the worst opening crawl of the entire franchise.

03:23Yes, even worse than the taxation of trade routes is in dispute.

03:28Number 8, make Kylo Ren's motivations clear.

03:31Kylo Ren is the most interesting character of the sequel trilogy hands down,

03:35a fully-fledged realization of what Anakin could have been in the prequel trilogy

03:39in the hands of a better writer than George Lucas.

03:42Throughout the trilogy, Kylo struggles with the light side of the Force

03:44in a clear inversion of the temptation towards the dark side that our protagonists felt in the first six movies.

03:51While Kylo isn't sure about his place in the wider Star Wars mythos,

03:54the one thing that is clear is that he resents Snoke,

03:57who is holding him back from his true purpose.

04:00And, unfortunately, audiences never get to see what this true purpose is.

04:05Kylo establishes that he wants to let the past die,

04:08but he never indicates what he will replace it with.

04:11He asks Rey to take his hand, but he never tells her to what end.

04:15In The Force Awakens, the genocidal murderer, formerly known as Ben Solo,

04:18promised his grandfather's molten helmet that he would finish what you started.

04:24But we were never told what that meant.

04:26A redeemed Ben certainly helps Rey bring down the Emperor once and for all in the most minor way,

04:31but this can't be what he meant.

04:33Kylo didn't know the Emperor was even alive until Episode 9.

04:37Maybe he wanted to kill the remaining Jedi, but why?

04:40He resented the Sith as much as he did the Jedi in the first place.

04:44So, perhaps Kylo felt that Luke's Jedi Order was repeating the same mistakes it had during the prequels.

04:50It's up in the air.

04:51The introduction of Palpatine in Episode 9 and consequent re-establishment of Kylo as a minor henchman baddie

04:57means that fans will never find out,

04:59nor will they see Ren's vision for a balanced Order come to life.

05:03Kylo Ren's conflicting motivations might make him more compelling of a character,

05:07but the fact that audiences are never told what he wanted is indicative of poor character design

05:12and lack of a fully-fledged blueprint for the trilogy.

05:15Number 7.

05:16Don't waste cool supporting characters.

05:18The Force Awakens introduced a ton of cool concepts and character designs neglected in future sequel films.

05:25Captain Phasma and the Knights of Ren are the two most obvious examples of underused ideas,

05:30with their distinctive visual appearances and comparative lack of screen time,

05:34indicating that they were only ever created to shift action figures.

05:38However, Maz Kanata was the most underused of the bunch.

05:41Introduced in The Force Awakens, Maz hints that she is a Force user,

05:45despite never aligning herself to the Jedi or the Sith,

05:48making her the first neutral Force-sensitive character in the Skywalker saga.

05:53Unfortunately for Maz, whose Force scenes were cut from Episode 7's theatrical release,

05:57she was relegated to a minor, contract-fulfilling cameo in The Last Jedi,

06:01and returned as nothing more than a minor supporting character in Episode 9.

06:05So, not only do audiences never find out about Kitana's relationship to the original trilogy's rebellion,

06:10or just how she got her hands on Luke Skywalker's lightsaber,

06:14poor Maz was reduced to the most overtly fanservice moment of the entire sequel trilogy.

06:19That being, handing Chewbacca the medal that he never received at the end of A New Hope.

06:24Number 6.

06:25Swap Hosnian Prime for Coruscant.

06:27One of the most emotive shots of The Force Awakens is Starkiller Base's destruction of several planets

06:32that we learn in a passing throwaway line to be the Hosnian system.

06:36This line is easy to miss, so fans would be forgiven for thinking that the only planet that we see being destroyed up close

06:42was Coruscant, capital of the Republic in the original trilogy.

06:46After all, the telltale signs are there.

06:48Monumental skyscrapers as far as the eye can see,

06:51senators looking startled from a balcony,

06:53the fact that this planet was given particular emphasis as opposed to the anonymized destruction

06:58of the illus in the system, it all just kind of added up.

07:01But it turns out that the planet was not the same one that we had formed an attachment to in episodes 1 through 3,

07:07but rather a new, almost identical location that we'd never heard of before.

07:12Coruscant's destruction would have elicited more of an emotional reaction from the audience,

07:16as fans would watch a pivotal planet which had survived the Empire suddenly crumble under a new regime before their very eyes.

07:24The destruction of Coruscant would have helped cement the themes of Letting the Past Die

07:27that the entire sequel trilogy worked towards.

07:31Number 5, actually show us Anakin's Force Ghost instead of using a voice.

07:35Not only did the sequel trilogy fail to acknowledge the original Skywalker's pre-Darth Vader persona,

07:41I mean seriously, there's no way that Kylo Ren would have been unaware of his grandfather's redemption.

07:46It also gave Anakin's disembodied Force Ghost the worst line in the film.

07:50The first six movies in the Skywalker saga were all about Anakin,

07:54so it makes absolutely no sense that he didn't make a significant appearance in the sequel trilogy.

07:59Return of the Jedi established that Anakin could appear as a Force Ghost,

08:03so his absence in the sequel movies is startling,

08:06especially when you'd think that he'd probably want to put a few things right after all the damage he caused.

08:12Surely, he would have seen that Luke's Jedi Order was repeating the mistakes that the Jedi made in the prequel trilogy,

08:18and warned him to change his ways.

08:21Episode 9 made clear that Force users need to open themselves up to communication to Force Ghosts,

08:26but you'd think that Kylo Ren would have longed to speak to the grandfather that he idolized,

08:31and listening to his lessons about why following the Dark Side of the Force might not be the best decision that someone can make.

08:38Concept art for The Force Awakens showcased an Anakin Skywalker Force Ghost as well

08:41that was still corrupt with Dark Side of the Force that was half human and half machine.

08:47And this would have been super sick.

08:50Number 4, change Anakin's Force Ghost line.

08:53Okay, so yeah, this one's a double whammy.

08:55Despite being a comparatively minor change,

08:57this would have had the biggest implications not just for the sequel trilogy,

09:01but for the Skywalker saga as a whole.

09:03Amongst the voices of disembodied Jedi at the end of The Rise of Skywalker,

09:07Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker can be heard saying,

09:10Bring balance to the Force, as I did.

09:13This line was clearly included by the filmmakers to easily explain away any argument

09:17about Anakin's role in the first six movies being undermined,

09:21effectively telling fans that the so-called Chosen One did bring balance to the Force,

09:26whatever that means, but the Force simply fell out of balance again less than 30 years after his death.

09:32It's short enough to be disregarded,

09:34but this throwaway line only serves to highlight just how meaningless Anakin's sacrifice was

09:39at the end of Return of the Jedi.

09:41The idea that the Force had been balanced so soon before needing balancing again

09:44raises questions of its own.

09:46Does the Force periodically get thrown out of balance every few decades,

09:50needing a new Chosen One to come around and set it straight again?

09:53Throughout the entire saga, we are never told really what balance to the Force actually means,

09:58and this line does nothing to clarify this concept.

10:01Instead of telling Rey to bring balance to the Force as I did,

10:05Anakin's Force ghost should have said something like,

10:07Finish what I started and bring balance to the Force.

10:10But probably snappier, I mean, I'm not a screenwriter.

10:12As well as maintaining the meaningfulness of Anakin's legacy,

10:15he weakened the Emperor so that Rey could destroy him,

10:18this line would have recalled Kylo's promise to his grandfather that he would finish what he started.

10:23Number 3, Shor Vader's Castle.

10:25Turns out that the anonymous-looking red planet Kylo Ren made a very brief trip to

10:29at the start of The Rise of Skywalker was actually Mustafar of Revenge of the Sith fame.

10:34Not that you'd notice it if you hadn't read the film's visual dictionary.

10:38I mean, you would be forgiven for not realizing, of course,

10:40as Mustafar looked nothing like it did in the last Skywalker saga appearance.

10:45Lava fields have been replaced by dark trees thrown against an ominous red mist,

10:49and there's none of these symbolic more machine than man metal structures

10:53which helped make Obi-Wan and Anakin's final fight so visually compelling.

10:57This isn't the first time Disney's Star Wars has smuggled in this planet though

11:01without actually acknowledging its existence.

11:03The planet last appeared in 2017's Rogue One,

11:06a movie which made a big deal of labeling the names of its planets on screen.

11:10The staggeringly short shot of Mustafar, however, didn't get the same treatment.

11:14Regardless though, it turns out that Kylo Ren was looking for a Sith wayfinder

11:18amongst the ruins of Vader's castle,

11:20which had somehow become a forest overrun by trees in the space of around 30 years.

11:26Seeing Vader's castle in all of its sinister glory would have not only made it obvious

11:29that this opening planet actually had a connection to the other movies in the franchise,

11:33but it also would have been a pretty cool backdrop to an action-packed scene.

11:36Number 2, more exciting planets.

11:39See what you like about the prequels,

11:41but at least George Lucas' ill-fated second trilogy introduced interesting planets to the mix,

11:46rather than delivering the same mono-environment locations featured in the first three movies.

11:51And put simply, Anakin would have absolutely hated the sequel trilogy

11:56because it introduces not one, but two all-new sand planets.

12:01Compare the sequel trilogy's dull locations to vibrant planets like Naboo,

12:05which treated us to cities coexisting with a symbiotic underwater kingdom,

12:09and Coruscant, a planet-sprawling metropolis with its buzzing criminal underworld,

12:14and even Kamino with its startling white clone factory and its dramatic seascape.

12:19Act 2 was pretty nice visually, but there still wasn't much there,

12:24and the most exciting planet introduced in the entire sequel trilogy was Canto Blight,

12:28which was wasted at best.

12:30Number 1, a more original start to the trilogy.

12:33Being essentially a soft reboot after the disappointment that was the prequel trilogy,

12:37it was inevitable that Disney's punt at a trio of Skywalker stories would lean heavily

12:41on what made the original trilogy such a lovable cash cow in the first place.

12:46Namely, props and sets that imitated a lived-in world rather than shoddy CGI,

12:50character-centric stories, and a compelling mythos which left no room for midi-chlorians.

12:56But J.J. Abrams and crew might have taken their exercise in nostalgia a step too far.

13:01Rather than just imitating the filmmaking techniques and principles that cemented the 1977 Star Wars as a classic,

13:06they copied the whole story altogether.

13:10Of course, some things are different, but the similarities between The Force Awakens and A New Hope

13:14are too obvious to overlook.

13:16There's the old mentor figure, the evil military regime, the hero from a desert planet,

13:22the list stretches on and on for so long that it probably warrants its own article of its own.

13:27While The Force Awakens served as the perfect franchise reset after the sour taste of the prequels,

13:31in hindsight, a lot of its story decisions are just a little bit uninteresting.

13:36What's more, Episode 7's decision to retell the story of A New Hope only makes the original trilogy redundant.

13:42All of the Resistance's sacrifices are rendered null,

13:44given that the galaxy reverted back to the exact same state they had found it in,

13:48which...

13:49It never got resolved, really, did that?

13:51Look, we get that Star Wars is about, well, wars.

13:54But maybe this could have involved a different threat rather than a third galactic civil war.

14:00But, hey, that's a conversation for the next three movies.

14:04So, that's our list.

14:05I want to know what you guys think down in the comments below.

14:06What do you think about the sequel trilogy and what changes would you have made?

14:10While you're down there as well, could you please give us a like, share, subscribe,

14:12and head over to whatculture.com for more lists and news like this every single day.

14:17Even if you don't though, I've been Josh.

14:18Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.

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