Yes, and one of the first rules is "They don't have sequels."
"Happily ever after" is the end.
You don't check in on Rapunzel in 30 years to see how she's doing. If you did, what kind of story would you get? It would be one of two things:
1. "She's good. Uh.........that's about it. Thanks for stopping by."
or
2. "Oh man...so, you know how she met that prince who rescued her? Turns out he was actually a goblin in disguise! Crazy, right?! Anyway, they had a couple of kids, but it was before she found out he was a goblin, and now their half-goblin/half-human kids had to grow up facing serious prejudice and hatred from the humans in the kingdom, and their goblin dad was killed by an angry mob, and the duke from the neighboring duchy has asserted his right to rule their barony, all because the kids -- legally, anyway -- can't be legitimate heirs to the baronial seat because they're half goblin!"
Now, I suppose you could "soften" option 2 and make it less bleak. Maybe the goblin dad is alive, and the unrest hasn't really happened yet. But unless you really shake things up, there's not much for the new heroes -- the half-goblin/half-human kids -- to do in this story.
I absolutely agree that they earned their happy endings. But, well, it just won't be much of a story if things don't deteriorate some time between the end of ROTJ and the end of TFA (more like the first 1/3 of TFA, really). In some way, somehow, you have to undo the good they did or else there's just not going to be a whole hell of a lot for anyone to do in the sequels.
Alternatively, you need a much longer time skip, the OT heroes lived happily ever after, and now we're in the time of their great-grandkids who have grown up after generations of peace and prosperity, and who know nothing of war or the struggles of their great grandparents. But that also means no hanging out with the old gang outside of holo footage or ghostly visitations.
Well, I haven't seen ROS yet, and I've mostly stayed in a media blackout about it (i gather Palps comes back in some fashion, but not clear to me yet how), but you're taking rather literally my overall point. Basically, the heroes of WWII did not "live happily ever after." They faced more hardship. There were more conflicts. Some would argue that many of those conflicts were the continuation of older conflicts. Others would say that they were the natural outgrowth of WWII and the end of the "Great Powers" era into the "Two Superpowers" era.
It doesn't really matter though. My main point is that, if you wanted Luke and Han and Leia to get their "happily ever after," then that's it. ROTJ is the end of their story. Otherwise, they end up having future hardships that they have to deal with.
What you seem to be saying is that the hardships they faced were the "wrong" ones or that you would have preferred they faced different hardships. That's cool. That's your choice, man. I'm not gonna tell you you're wrong, but I'm also not going to tell you you're right because I don't think there is a right answer here. I think any choice would've had its downsides to it, and a lot of the downsides would come from the fact that we're forced to confront our heroes entering senior citizen territory, and that kind of confrontation with mortality is itself uncomfortable.
Well said.
It also ties into something we've been discussing here in terms of "fairy tale" vs. "drama."
People often want to treat Star Wars as a space fairy tale. And I think the OT, as originally depicted, does fall into that realm. But once you add in the PT, it stops being a fairy tale. And certainly, when you add in the ST and the other films (R1 and Solo) it's no longer really a fairytale. It's an ongoing narrative that can shift in tone and focus. In my opinion, Star Wars hasn't really been a fairy tale since 1983.....and that's fine. It's good, actually, at least if you want more stories.
A fairy tale, by definition, ends with "Happily ever after" in most cases. If your kid says "And then what happened, Daddy?" the answer is "Nothing. Go to bed." Or it's "They grew old and died. Now go to bed." Whatever the answer is...there is no continuation of the story after you say "happily ever after." The story is over.
That's not how the real world works, certainly. And it's not how narratives work when they are longer than just the fairy tale. If you want more Star Wars, then you need to decide on what terms you'll accept it. And those terms should really be realistic. Maybe you'll get another fairy tale...but if you do, it won't be with the characters from the last one having gotten their "happily ever after."
"EVER AFTER" means "for the rest of their lives." It doesn't mean "For 30 years, until a new threat arose and they were called forth to action once again, right after taking their metamucil and calcium pills."
Now, I suppose you could try to preserve the victory they won, really leave the Empire defeated....but that would end up being like a lot of the weakest portions of the EU novels. It would probably be the same kind of lame fan fiction that most people would come up with where Han and Luke and Leia just end up going on "more of the same" adventures well beyond their primes. And then maybe you get one where they hand things off to a new batch of kids and just go retire and live the rest of their lives basically off screen, but....that seems pretty lame to me. It doesn't really ring true. These guys are heroes. Even into their dotage, are they just going to say "Nah, not my problem"? Even Luke in TLJ finally does step up when finally faced with the threat the First Order poses. Whatever reluctance he showed, he finally steps up, and sacrifices himself in the process, in what I think is a truly beautiful moment in the film.
But, like, what kind of story would it be if the heroes are just off screen, chillin', the whole time? To me, that'd diminish their heroism even more. Likewise, it would end up feeling pretty lame if they all just kept on keepin' on, surviving all the scrapes and making wisecracks alongside the youngins as the movies continue, and, I think it would diminish the heroism of the younger characters. Like, if a bunch of geriatric heroes from days of yore could save the day....what'd they need the kids for?
Bottom line, there's just no really effective way to fuse together "And they lived happily ever after" with any film that shows the OT heroes in their twilight years that actually sells the drama and threat posed by...whatever is threatening the galaxy. You can't really do an effective "handoff" film if everything is hunky-dory.
