Here's what you need to consider about story telling: Why is your story worth telling? If you say "for funsies," there's nothing wrong with that! However, holy shit, hold my beer! I want someone with passion telling a story that they feel will be enriching to the setting and the characters. The story comes first, the audience comes after. Next, you have to have some writing integrity and you have to be able to evaluate whether you're the guy to take the reigns; I'm not (but I have some ideas!). If you want to contribute to Star Wars, you should really do your research because it's a big universe with a lot of lore. If you don't know what you're doing, you might break something. Have some respect for the canon and let someone with more knowledge of the intellectual property go up to bat. Finally, handle everything else with care by having a goddamn plan. New Star Wars is basically a rough draft. The writers are making it up as they go (Rian Johnson admitted that he rejected JJ's notes). That's a shame. I think a writer who is also a seasoned Star Wars inductee should go through a few versions of their script to ensure quality; are their ideas developed and what matters?
So here's the thing. I'm not mad. I've seen my favorite intellectual properties tarnished. I'm over it, but I love watching the fall out! There's so much schadenfreude! Here's a message to Bob Iger: Bob, you suck. You ruined Star Wars. Yes, you were in charge, you ruined Star Wars. I hope you ask for forgiveness and try your best to make everything right again. I believe it can be done. Please please please for the love of god, only put talented, hardcore Star Wars nerds, people in charge of the next project. Emphasis on the hardcore nerd part. You can't go wrong with Dave Filoni. He's proven himself with his Clone Wars series. You know what? Just think of it like this: The people who are in charge of Star Wars should not be new to Star Wars (cough cough, Rian Johnson JJ Abrams, cough hack) in fact, they should be trained to tell a Star Wars story by the last keeper of the lore, like a master and his protege, and only that chain of master and protege should be in charge; like Dave fucking Filoni. Hire his cowboy hat wearing ass.
Or, you could put Star Wars in the public domain where it probably belongs.
I had some ideas just thinking about the subtitle The Force Awakens. It's a shit subtitle, but whatever. When I think of the Force awakening, I imagine that's a figurative way of saying that the Jedi order is back. The stories really should be about what happens after the original trilogy. Did Luke go on to rebuild the Jedi Order? I would fucking hope so! "And here's how it turned out after 30 years" should be the last line of the iconic text crawl for episode 7. Here's a list of things we haven't seen in the Star Wars universe (to my knowledge, hence, this is why I don't nominate myself to be in charge of Star Wars) that we could explore in episode 7:
- First and foremost, and most obvious of all, you could tell a story about HOW A JEDI ORDER GETS STARTED!
- Establish a character as a Jedi Knight and tell the story of how the Jedi Knight becomes a Jedi Master. We've seen Padawan's become Knights, but we haven't see how Knights become Masters.
- A Jedi who embraces the grey, middle ground between the light side and the dark side. What is the reception? How does this force user cope and evolve? Is this the redemption story of a dangerous social pariah or the start of something grand and new?
- How Jedi Hunters make a comeback after two generations of no Jedi, or at the very least, how Jedi Hunters even fucking start! Do they see a new opportunity for business and seize it like a boss or do they just some bored badass who wants a new challenge?
- How an exclusively light force user (such as a Jedi) comes to exclusively embrace the dark side. Essentially, tell a story about how a Sith is made when there are no Sith around to make a Sith.
- What kind of work does a Jedi Order in it's infancy do? Do they rescue princesses from dragons in a wilderness? Do they fight ninja thief clans on the boarderlands? Do they fight evil crime lords in a sprawling metropolis? What are some environments we haven't see in Star Wars yet? What if people think the Jedi are a pretentious, useless class?
Also, Rei is boring. I don't think that because I'm a misogynist or something. I'm not a misogynist, in fact, I like me a good female protagonist! I was watching Sailor Moon when I was 8 till it stopped airing and I read the manga in my early 20s, deal with it. Characters have to have conflict. Conflicts have stakes. What are stakes? That stakes are what is at stake: what you stand to gain if you succeed and lose if you fail. Conflicts affect each characters uniquely. Everyone can be united in their common goal to defeat the villain, but each of them has unique stakes. That's what makes characters unique and interesting. If everyone is literally there for the same reason (cough cough Final Fantasy 8), then the characters are basically interchangeable. So, why does Rei want to stop the First Order and defend the Republic? What's in it for her? She starts out with nothing, she gets swept up in the conflict, she stays for her friends. She has a problem with Kyloh Ren because he's a father figure murdering douche and Kyloh Ren wants her butt. OK, cool. So, where's the weight of this plot falling on Rei? What's the threat? What does she stand to gain for winning that's so important and why do we want it so bad? Is there a boot coming down on her neck that she's unprepared for (that's called tension, suspense, mystery, and complication)? In other words, why is she even here? I want to like Rei, but she's clearly there because the writers wanted a girl character and they don't have the guts to stress test her and put her through her paces. I want see this girl try as hard as she can and fail. I want it to hurt. I want her to learn something and change. I want her to adapt and then I want her to change the rules on her antagonists. Why? Because people like to see underdogs rise to glory. Even Jesus got his ass kicked.
Adversity means nothing unless you have something more important to care about. What does Rei care about? I don't know, but it remind of this anime movie called X. Look it up because it's got some neat concepts and art, but don't watch it because it's boring. In this movie, there's two groups of psychics in conflict for some reason. There's a good side and a bad side. Each side is playing for keeps and they each recruit a high school boy. The good team picks a boy who has no drive and he doesn't understand the plot, but he's special. He's some kind of prophesied chosen one or something. Every good character dies protecting him and it's sad and brutal and he doesn't even care or look like he knows what's going on. Then, after the bad guy actually kills someone the good school boy cares about in the last 30 second of the movie, the hero actually does something and effortlessly kills the major villain then he curls up into a ball and cries. Then the credits roll and you think "that fucking sucked." Rei is slightly more proactive than that.
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