The Force Awakens was released in 2015 and was a global box office smash. Critics seemed to overlook its reliance on nostalgia and familiarity – fans did too, at least at first. The two films that followed were both lightning rods for controversy in their own ways. In the years since, while it has its share of defenders, these three movies have also galvanized fans, both old and new. 
I watched The Force Awakens with my entire family in a theater with very nice seats, in Atlanta, Georgia. It was one of the last times that the four of us got to see a movie together. I’ve been a Star Wars fan since my Dad showed me A New Hope when I was probably 8 or 9. From there, I played the SNES games and read many of the books – my favorites being Shadows of the Empire and Tales of the Bounty Hunters. I even had a Boba Fett statue. While I didn’t love the prequels, I thought they had enough fun moments to justify their existence. 
All that to say, as a fan, I was very disappointed with the Force Awakens and realized that Star Wars was no longer for me. I had high hopes – I was a fan of the first couple of seasons of Lost and I thought the 2009 Star Trek movie was one of the best movies of that year. I thought JJ Abrams was a very talented director and I looked forward to what he would do. Unfortunately, we got the bad JJ: the movie was too recycled, the new characters were simplistic and boring, and the fun that I had in the first movies felt forced and formulaic here. This was the Super 8 JJ and not the Star Trek JJ. 
I have never seen any of the other films of the sequel trilogy. One of my close friends stopped after the second movie. Suffice it to say, these movies did not unite the fandom.
I think telling a compelling story with all the build up over the years since the prequels would have been difficult for any creator. With the purchase of Lucas Arts by Disney, there was an added wrinkle – the need to make the story as widely appealing as possible to sell the most tickets and merch. Disney paid $4B for Lucas Arts and they were going to try to get their money back (and more) as quickly as they could.
A quick note on Rogue One. I still haven’t seen Solo or any of the new Disney Star Wars TV shows but I have seen Rogue One. I think Rogue One is about 30% of a great movie – basically, the last act. You can see the influence from The Battle of Algiers on the setting and shot selection. Gareth Edwards has a very distinct style and some of the wide shots do a better job than any other Star Wars movie on giving you the sheer scale of action scenes but even the smaller scenes look fresh and new – there’s a very brief scene with Mon Mothma and Bail Organa that matches the old style of the original movies but also looks fresh. The action scenes, are likewise, great – they move in a very fluid, easily followable way. The stakes feel appropriately high; you believe that the characters are in real imminent danger. Setting the action scenes on a beach is different from anything else in the Star Wars universe – this is the closest thing we’ll probably ever get to a Star Wars war movie. 
My issue with the movie is that the first 70% is largely forgettable and the characters don’t feel unique or interesting. When you have an ensemble cast, it’s important for the writing to be economical. You can do this through dialogue or through visualization but you have to find a way to make each character feel like an individual, even in this large cast of characters. 
One way to do this is to have different motivations for characters even if the goals are the same. Here’s an example – Bill and Bob are brothers. They both want to own the largest car dealership in their state. For both of them, this is their goal. Bob wants to do this to make a lot of money, so that he impresses the local news reporter. Bill wants to do this to show their dad that they are capable businessmen. Both Bill and Bob share the same goal but have different motivations for achieving that goal. 
Does Rogue One do this well? I don’t recall because it’s been a few years since I’ve seen the movie but I’m guessing that one of the reasons that the characters didn’t pop the way they have in other Star Wars movies is because of goals and motivations. 
Another issue are the visuals. Yes, I just praised Gareth Edwards’ shot selection and cinematography BUT it’s also ugly. Part of the issue is that the movie is going for a gritty war feel – in the Star Wars universe, where the main characters tend to be space wizards. Everything in the world before we get to Scarif has a brownish-gray quality to it that, while giving you the feel that these characters have led rough, hardscrabble lives, makes each of them largely indistinguishable. Do each of the characters dress and look basically the same? Yes, they do. Other than maybe Forest Whitaker’s character – who has a breathing apparatus similar to a certain Sith Lord who pops up a couple of times in the movie – they fail what Jimmy George of the Writers / Blockbusters Screenwriting Podcast calls the Action Figure Test – do each of the characters look cool and unique in their own way?
Overall, I think it’s a good movie that could have been stronger – I don’t know how much the “too many cooks” that this movie is alleged to have had harmed it but I would still recommend it to anyone who is a sci-fi fan. I don’t think you have to have a deep knowledge of Star Wars before going in, but it helps. 
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This episode is going to be my pitch for a different trilogy – or at least the first movie of one. If you search the internet, you’re going to find a galaxy full of these – I just wanted to join the fun. To give some background, I in no way shape or form feel beholden to any part of the new trilogy – I am going to take some of the more interesting bits and discard most of it; partly, because I simply haven’t seen the last two movies and partly because what I have seen I wasn’t particularly impressed by. This is my version of the trilogy I wished I had gotten and not the Abrams-Johnson-Abrams version that I got.
As I noted above, I think one of the hardest things to do is to have to create something that is primarily built on the works of other people. I think JJ and Kathleen Kennedy and everyone involved in making the movie did a really good job of checking off the aesthetic boxes of what makes something Star Wars (Lightsabers, Space Battles, Jedis) but missed some of the deeper themes that were there. Instead of coming up with new and interesting takes that felt modern, I feel that they mostly repackaged what Lucas did and remixed it/remade it for a global audience that was begging for new Star Wars content. Because of when the movie was made, I’m sure there were debates about how to incorporate the legacy characters and to what extent they should be used. Most people say they want new things – until they don’t and Disney, in my eyes, mostly went with a safe bet. The box office proves this – the Sequels made like 10% more than the LotR Trilogy, which were a massive, massive hit in its own right. From a box office perspective, Disney clearly made the right decision but…without further ado, let’s go into my idea for the first film of a different Sequel trilogy.
My trilogy starts with, of course, the crawl. Set right after the explosion of the second death star, the rebel alliance soon realizes that their small yet mighty army will have difficulty turning swords into plowshares – it will take time for a government to form across the galaxy now that the empire is in fragments. Crime syndicates and warlords fill this vacuum. The Rebel Alliance is slowly becoming the Galactic Republic but infighting and subterfuge are slowing progress. 
My movie begins on a desert planet called Vestol and a storm trooper unit on patrol. Something is wrong and they soon learn that the explosion from the second Death Star has cut off their coms and they cannot contact anyone. They soon return to an Empire base to find it abandoned, most of the food and vehicles gone. The squad leader, TK-239, orders them to bunker down and await further instructions “We sit and we wait”. The stormtroopers are nervous and afraid but they obey. With comms completely dead, no way to get off the planet, and no food, the unit leaves the base and begs a small, poor village for food and credits. Our main character is Finn, the only main character I am taking from the sequels. He feels bad about stealing food from the hungry villagers but does so reluctantly.
The unit talks about the Empire being gone – most miss the money. The squad leader is, unsurprisingly, the most pro-Empire – he comes from a wealthy family and joined the Empire for “the adventure…discipline and order”. Finn will miss the chance of being a TIE pilot. We learn here that he is a Stormtrooper but was about to be promoted and shipped off to the TIE academy to learn how to pilot TIE fighters.
TK-239 believes that the villagers are not grateful for the Empire’s protection and are holding out on the Stormtroopers. Conflict between the villagers and stormtroopers escalates and a firefight occurs, killing several villagers and a single stormtrooper. The unit moves on until, at night, Finn deserts, unable to handle the guilt of being part of the massacre. Finn wanders the desert until he comes across a small city. He strips off his stormtrooper uniform and finds clothes drying in the desert heat with a few credits  in its pockets. He goes to the nearest saloon, buys some blue milk, and tries to find a buyer for his blaster. In the saloon, a group of locals, pushed off their land by the growing crime syndicate, debate what to do next. Finn learns that, with the Death Star destroyed, the Empire is in tatters. This has emboldened the criminals. Less concerned about the fate of the greater world off planet, they decide to fight back and reclaim their land. Finn joins, saying, “I can handle a blaster”.
They raid the warlord’s compound where every member of the local group is killed except for Finn, who is saved by Han Solo. Han is part of a special unit cleaning up the galaxy, planet by planet – working in tandem with Leia’s council. Finn tells Han his story (except for the stormtrooper part) and Han is moved by the locals fight against overwhelming odds, seeing it in the same light as the Rebellion against the Empire. Han introduces Finn to Leia (and R2-D2) who is soon disillusioned by the politics of the new republic as they squabble internally, having a tendency, outside of Han and Leia, towards inaction. Leia, recognizing the need for a new approach to the warlord problem (and something special in Finn), sends him to Luke, who is on Dagobah building a Jedi temple. He is introduced to one of Luke’s few students, Muzen. After hearing Finn’s story and sensing his desire for justice and atonement, Luke sends Finn with Muzen to investigate the Black Sun, the galaxy’s leading crime syndicate. His past as a Stormtrooper will give him a convincing cover story and allow him to quickly gather information as he moves up in the organization.
We have a quick scene here of Finn’s old stormtrooper unit reaching the same saloon that Finn met the locals with TK-239 inquiring the saloon owner about where to “find the services of a bounty hunter.”
The pair travels to Ord Mantell – not the headquarters of the organization but an outpost where they can acquire additional information without arising attention of the Black Sun headquarters. Finn takes a job as an assistant to Nitab, a high-ranking Twi’lek enforcer, who runs a Lylek fighting pit as one of his many schemes. Finn is hired by Nitab after giving him an exaggerated story about his stormtrooper past and lying about how easy it is for him to hurt others. Nitab’s main confidant, Theen, a Falleen, does not believe Finn and, using his pheromones, makes Finn nervous enough to give his real name, which Muzen chides him for. 
Finn does odd jobs for Nitab – which he hates. He struggles to remain undercover while committing acts of violence but is counseled by Muzen – this mission is critical to peace and stability in the universe. He cannot abandon it due to negative personal feelings. 
With Muzen’s council, Finn continues with his job and is effective. We see him deescalate a potentially bloody encounter between two rival factions of the Black Sun earning praise from Nitab and suspicion and jealousy from Thuul. Finn works his way up the ranks where he discovers a conspiracy – the Black Sun is thriving and funneling resources towards rebuilding the Empire. If the Rebellion and Empire are constantly fighting, the Black Sun can operate with impunity. To facilitate the chaos, they have spies in Leia’s galactic council who are adding to the ineffectiveness and indecision.   
Finn learns of an upcoming meeting between Black Sun and a high-ranking member of the former Empire, a Client Number One – to take place in a few moons time. Finn is told that this will BE A VERY BIG DEAL.  
Finn wants to immediately return to the council while Muzen advocates patience – the best place to gather information is on Ord Mantell and, if they leave, additional information may be lost.  Finn’s anger flashes – his pain and guilt turn to rage against the methodical Muzen. 
Thuul goes fact finding - using his Falleen pheromonal powers, he speaks to many of the former stormtroopers who have flocked to Black Sun in the wake of the destruction of the Death Star to try to find out more about Finn. A bounty hunter has learned Finn’s whereabouts and that a Falleen is asking a lot of questions. He relays this information to TK-239, who travels to the planet – he wants to handle Finn himself and is curious as to why someone also wants an insignificant stormtrooper dead so badly. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this”. 
He finds Thuul, confiding that Finn deserted his unit and that this is an act of treason, per the Empire’s old laws – “The Rogue Protocol”. Thuul reminds TK-239 that the Empire’s laws no longer apply. TK-239 counters that, while true, his personal adherence to them has not swayed – the sentence for treason is death. 
They agree to work together – they both want him dead and would like to make that death as long and as slow as possible.
The two of them discover Finn’s connection to Muzen, causing TK-239 to believe that Finn was a Rebel spy in cahoots with the Jedi the entire time. Muzen prevents Finn from killing TK-239 and Finn and Muzen are surrounded and captured. Before TK-239 can deliver a killing blow, Thuul says, “I have an idea” and whispers something to TK-239.
The pair are taken to Nitab, who feels angered and betrayed. He suggests a cool but slow-moving torturous death – the two are tied together and lowered by a rope into Nitab’s Lylek pit, which he, possibly in an effort to feel better about the betrayal, charges admission for. 
Muzen, who up this point has had all the charisma of a school master, becomes a Jedi wrecking ball. Finn realizes what he wants to be when he grows up and they manage to escape the planet with Finn piloting a getaway spaceship that Muzen had stashed.  They are, of course, chased by the fleeing Black Sun but manage to hit hyperdrive with Finn piloting and Muzen firing the guns.
They return to the council and tell Leia, Han, and Chewie what they have discovered. The spies on the council are removed. Leia takes control and a plan is hatched – Finn is to resume his old role as Black Sun operative and infiltrate the HQ and learn the identity of Client Number One. If confronted, he will say that Muzen is his prisoner and Muzen used Jedi mind tricks to force him into the betrayal of the Black Sun. He is giving the Jedi to the head of Black Sun as a gift. R2-D2 will go with the pair to capture the identification of Client Number One. Meanwhile, Han, Leia, and Chewie are to act as a decoy, as well pretending to “drop in” as envoys of the new galactic empire – this is to force Black Sun to split their security personal between the two priorities.
Thuul has also rushed to HQ to try to warn the Black Sun of the betrayal by Finn and the Jedis.  
Leia, Han, and Chewbacca are forced into a firefight when the head of the syndicate suspects something is up – and, just when all hope looks to be lost, Luke Skywalker comes to the rescue with his young Jedis (“need a hand sis”?). All four share an on screen shot together before laying waste to a large retinue of the Syndicate baddies – the head escaping.
Finn, Muzen, and R2 manage to determine and record the identity of Client Number One but before they can relay the information, Thuul and TK-239 ambush Finn and Muzen. Muzen pulls his lightsaber but it is knocked out of his hands by TK-239’s stun weapon. 
Thuul uses his Falleen powers to drive Finn to anger – Muzen tells him to resist and to ask himself, “who is the real Finn?” Finn struggles but uses the lightsaber to strike TK-239 and Thuul is shocked that his powers did not have the intended impact. Muzen uses this distraction to force push Thuul to the ground and the two escape – Finn, over his shoulder, tells TK-239 that he has resigned from the Stromtroopers.
Finn stares longingly at the TIE Fighters before remembering the other members in his new crew and selects a light freighter, one of the vehicles in the syndicate’s bay. 
Finn pilots a light freighter with R2-D2 navigating and Muzen on the cannons to escape the firefight. 
There is a final montage sequence –
1. A handshake between Client Number One and the head of the Black Sun – Thuul, TK-239, and Nitab all stand and applaud
2. Leia, Han, and Chewbacca at a rebel base examine the hologram. They are deeply worried about Client Number One
3. Luke and Muzen continue to train – more young jedis arrive – Luke smiles
4. In the last scene, we see Finn return to Vestol and serve as an Ombudsman to the village where the massacre took place. The town has recognized him with a decommissioned TIE Fighter, colored white with black edging to reflect Finn’s stormtrooper past. We see a small child painting the TIE Fighter near Finn’s house and he runs to Finn in time to watch a rebel fighter cross the sky.
Music swells. The end.
George Lucas has used Star Wars to comment on politics in the past – the Galactic Empire, technologically superior but homogenous and dismissive of anything alien, was a stand in for the United States in the original trilogy. The prequel trilogy theme of trading freedom for safety echoed the fears of many Liberals and Progressives during the Bush years. Likewise, this new trilogy could be a way for American audiences to view the aftermath of the Forever Wars of Iraq and Afghanistan through a prism of atonement and redemption. A stormtrooper with PTSD (the coolest part of the Force Awakens, IMO) is a perfect entry point to exploring this theme. 
I wanted to focus on the major actions scenes but I would also have 2 or 3 scenes of Muzen and Finn discussing how he can control his anger – where it comes from and how to direct it moving forward. 
I also want Finn to use the line “I just want what happened at Vestol to never happen again. To anyone” at some point in the movie.
I don’t think what I have is better than what the Force Awakens is but it’s much more to my taste – it’s certainly less of a sprawling space epic and more tightly focused on a single character. I think JJ Abrams is a skilled visual storyteller but the Force Awakens tries to do too much – it has to introduce new characters while reminding you, incessantly, about how much you love the old characters. 
It takes the first two movies of the trilogy and remixes them and the result are just tepid – like reheating four-day old pizza. This lack of freshness comes through not only in recycled plot elements (The First Order, the star killer base) but also in the characterization.
When you combine old characters with new characters, you get scenes like Rey piloting the Millenium Falcon better than Han, someone who has been flying his ship for decades at this point. When they try to give old characters a new coat of paint (literally with C-3PO), it feels even worse – Leia hugging Rey before Chewbacca after the death of Han Solo is a prime example of “what are we doing here”. My movie would be much more focused on moving on from these characters – using them in key roles as advisors but making the focus much more on the world after the original trilogy. In my version, Rey, Ben Kenobi, and Poe would not exist – frankly, I thought they were all lame characters. Adam Driver can portray elevated emotion as well as anyone acting today but the whiny Darth Vader clone just didn’t do anything for me. 
I wanted to have at least a single shot of all the major characters from the original trilogy together as I know this was a common criticism of the sequels. I understand wanting to keep the characters separated – once they are together, there aren’t many problems that the four of them can’t handle. They also, inevitably, take away from the mystique and uniqueness of the new characters when they are on screen. If you tell a Robin story, you have to find a way to get Batman out of the story because, 9 times out of 10, Batman is a more compelling and effective problem solver than the Boy Wonder.
As you can probably tell from this, Client Number One is something of a MacGuffin – he serves as a central mystery to the story but his identity ultimately doesn’t matter all that much. Obviously, you could go in a few different directions here: I have never read the Thrawn trilogy but I am aware that the major new character in that book, Grand Admiral Thrawn, is considered to be one of the best non-Lucas created characters in the entire saga. Because I haven’t read the books, I’m not sure if he would fit here – you would just have to springle some foreshadowing in the first act to make sure his reveal didn’t come out of left field – maybe have Leia talk about the threats to galactic peace, with the biggest being a partnership with the remnants of the old Empire and the growing crime syndicate. 
If you didn’t want to go with Thrawn, you could take it in more of a Sith-based direction. Maybe Client Number One is a complete unknown and is simply a figurehead for more powerful actors behind the scenes. The same rules as above apply here – you would have to foreshadow this in your first act. 
My movie couldn’t get made with the original characters reprising their roles – you have some work arounds for this, all of them bad options:
1. You could go the animated route – This would be similar to Marvel’s animated show What If? or to keep it Star Wars specific, Star Wars Tales. Star Wars Tales are one offs done in an animated style.
2. You could recast younger actors for these parts – I also think this is probably not advisable given how iconoclastic these characters have become.
3. You do what they did in Rogue One – Welcome to the Uncanny Valley. Use archival footage and mo-cap to recreate the characters from the original trilogy. Peter Cushing’s Grand Admiral Tarkin is onscreen for all of five minutes. He didn’t actually look that bad – I thought Carrie Fisher’s Leia actually looked worse. I think with some clever editing this could be done but it would be tough.
My movie also probably would not have been the marketing bonanza of the Sequels – there are no BB8s or other new droids (I have no idea what to do with C-3P0, so he’s not in the movie. Maybe give him a scene with R2 for old times’ sake but I don’t think it’s 100% necessary for the plot). Most of the new characters are villains – so that also may be a marketing problem. 
More could have been done with the subterfuge aspect – so another mystery (and subplot) could be Leia trying to suss out where the leaks are coming from. Maybe she knows about Black Sun but is not able to get a mole inside the organization because of the spy network – Finn could be a work around for this. 
The other character I would want more depth on would be Nitab. Does he take Finn under his wing? Why does he do what he does? What are his motivations? Is he trying to reach the highest ranks of the organization or is he happy with his fighting pits?
If I was developing this for a screenplay, those are some things I would want to examine more because I think it would create a richer story.
For now, you have trilogy potential with a clear motivation for the villains and the heroes – the crime syndicate wants to keep attaining power and making money, seeing a partnership with a revitalized Empire as the best way to achieve this, the nascent Galactic Senate wants to stop them, Luke wants to train Jedis and rebuild the Jedi academy, and Finn wants peace.
What else do you need from a galaxy far far away, a long time ago?
Special shoutout to the Star Wars name generator – I will leave a link in the show notes if you want to check that out. 
Note: I’m sure there are some contradictions and continuity errors in here somewhere. I didn’t fact check this treatment. Hopefully, most of it is correct but I’m sure there are some things that are wrong here too. 
Thank you for listening to this episode of Elegant Ramblings. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard, please consider liking and subscribing to the channel on YouTube or iTunes. You’ll be able to find show notes there. Hope you enjoyed. Bye for now.