Re: Star Wars Anthology: Rogue One
No Jedi or Skywalkers in that one either right?
Nope.
Great example of humor in what amounts to a military heist film, and in which people die. It can be done.
It's not that. It's that when we shoehorn familiar characters into every story it comes off as fan service and it makes the galaxy seem smaller.
I agree, more or less. There are specific instances that
do work...
That guy in the clone wars who was the template for the clones was cool. The fact that he was boba fett's dad made him less cool.
I know I've drawn flak for going on about my rewrites, but that was one thing that bugged me enough to fix. I had multiple donors, because it was the Death Watch who had commissioned the clone army, because they just didn't have the sheer numbers. When Obi-Wan followed the clues there, he did find Jango Fett... there to try to retrieve his younger brother Boba, who had gotten involved with the Death Watch as rebellion against his older brother. When Jango got killed as a result of his "friends", he quit and went back to Mandalore to become a Protector, and the Republic gained possession of the clone army.
A lot of the characters from the OT were their because they were at the right place at the right time. And when we continually find reasons to implicate them into this saga it feels like there is a larger fate thing going on.
At the same time, there should be some throughline for continuity and the narrative leitmotif of revisiting familiar elements, evolved. I.e., in my rewrite (*waits for eyerolls to stop*), my opening shot of Episode I is the shiny, clean, freshly-painted
Tantive IV approaching Naboo from the angle made famous by Star Wars. Senator Bail Organa is there on a secret mission from the Chancellor. So a generation later, the "theme" is revisited in A New Hope when we see the same ship, more worn down, pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, and bearing Bail's daughter. In neither case is it dwelled on, and the action doesn't stay on those ships and characters, but they help establish the larger generations-spanning narrative.
But I totally agree, and maintain there's a big gulf between the occasional touchstone and everything and everyone related to everything and everyone else. However, George did maintain that the whole thing was essentially told from the droids' point of view, and that can be handled well (Original Trilogy) or less well (Prequels). He kinda fell victim to his general tendency to forget what he'd said back in the '70s. :unsure
--Jonah
