Re: Star Wars Episode VII
But the point that many have tried to make about Episodes VII, VIII and IX is that they are extensions of the very same lives and series of events that took place with all those characters that we have been familiar with in Episodes I - VI.
Question:
Why?
Why does Ep. VII-IX have to have anything to do with the characters or specific events of Eps. I-VI?
This is the kind of myopia to which fans (and executives) fall prey. "But...it's Ep. VII. It kinda HAS to be about the previous characters."
No it doesn't. It has to be about the same universe, and there has to be
A connection to the previous films, but that doesn't necessarily mean the same characters or events. It could be about the great grandchildren of the Skywalker family. It could be about the gradual breakdown of order two generations hence when the government becomes corrupt. It could be about a split in the new Jedi order, leading to a Jedi civil war three hundred years in the future. These could all reference back to the events of the previous films and the characters who appeared in them, but there's no need for a connection beyond that.
Eps. I - VI were, arguably, a single story. That story is told and finished. Ep. VII does not NEED to be some continuation merely because it has "Episode VII" in the title. The more tightly tied to the originals these new films are, the less room they have to maneuver.
And really, what further tales NEED to be told with the OT heroes or the characters from the PT? The bad guys lost, the good guys won, and they lived happily ever after. That's the message in Ep. VI. The story is done. Telling new stories is fine, but there's no NEED for those stories to be about the old characters, or event to involve them in anything other than some oblique reference, like Luke appearing in a holographic recording, or a reference to the Leia Organa-Solo Memorial Hospital For Diplomats or whatever.
I'll put it this way. If they were to include the characters from the previous films, the only way I'd want to see them are the way that Bilbo Baggins is included in LOTR. Namely, not really at all, or only for about 5 minutes total. An important 5 minutes, sure, but it's a cameo appearance and then off you go. The ONLY character I could see serving any larger role is Luke. And even then, I'd want him to be a smaller role and preferably NOT some obvious "I'll be like Obi-Wan, train the new generation, and then get killed."
We've done that. We did it with Qui-Gon, we did it with Obi-Wan. We don't need to do it with Luke. That's just the obvious repetitive crap that fans come up with.
As for that rich, vast, other part of Star Wars that is out there waiting and wanting to be explored, we've been promised other feature films to deal with that, and hopefully it will be THOSE ones that deal with something other than Han, Luke, Leia, Lando, R2, whomever...
Those films may not happen if the new trilogy is a failure. And anyway, the new trilogy can and should do ALL of that. All the exploration of new stuff, all the capitalizing on the rich background the universe provides, all of that should be in the new trilogy, not relegated to subsequent films.
The OT and PT as a six-episode cycle is finished. Nothing more needs to be told. The appearance of numbers in the title doesn't necessitate that Luke Wan Kenobi does the same crap we saw before, or that Han Solo has anything more than 3 minutes of screen time in the entire new trilogy. Or anyoen else from the OT for that matter.
We can do better. We SHOULD do better. Make it about new characters in new situations, but take into account the state of the galaxy 30 years past the defeat of the Empire IF YOU MUST (And I don't think you must, anyway.) The impact of the OT heroes could still be felt even if they never appeared in the new films at all.