What if the sequel trilogy had been good?

[TauntaunScout]

I was gonna derail a thread with this but I thought I'd just start a new one.

I put forth that the sequel trilogy was doomed due to the attempt to have an all new cast, and that the worst of its issues sprang from that.

I put forth that the sequels should have proceeded thusly.

Harrison Ford was not interested in revisiting the character of Han Solo, so, kill him off between episodes and don't get into any detail about it. Star Wars trademark mystique: preserved.

Give all of Han's screentime to Lando and a new character who is a woman of color. Diversity: achieved.

Then make the movie actually about what Luke and Leia are up to in their 60's like we all have been waiting for with baited breath since the the 1980's.

Discuss.

[Ray]

I'd be tempted to have Lando's woman be a cyborg made up from parts of L3-37, making a dual-character in what would normally be considered a multiple-personality syndrome (or whatever they call it today), but the three of them make it work.

Not make Luke Skywalker an @$$h0le*. But leave Yoda being an @$$h0le*, because, well, it's Yoda.

Hell, if we're daydreaming... Make Padme the first owner of the Falcon, built at Corellia but modified on Naboo to be sleek and chrome. Make the trilogies about the Millenium Falcon, and how it's been there, done that, seen history.

Rather than R2 and 3P0 being the ones to lay witness to the change of time, have it be the ship.

[CRMcNeill]

[Whill]

Well TS, your desires for sequels speak to your biases against the prequels.

I've always liked the idea that SW trilogies should be generational, and I fully expected a third "trinity" of characters in the spirit of Obi-Wan/Anakin/Padmé and Han/Luke/Leia. Padmé died in her own trilogy, Obi-Wan became an old mentor character who kinda died in the first part of the the CT, and Anakin became a villain in the CT. I'm ok with an ST new trinity being a third generation, something like Rey-Finn-Poe for another trilogy, just not the specific "sequel trilogy" story that we got. One thing I liked about TFA is that Han moved into the Obi-Wan role of ANH in general and died in a significant way to the story. Han is my fave SW character but he completed his story arc in RotJ by being the rogue who resolves his scoundrelness and chooses to be the good guy hero for the cause. So killing off Han is good. I'll agree that killing off Luke and Leia (before the final episode, if at all) is unacceptable. But Luke and Leia should be the older leaders and mentors to the new generation. They can be important to the story, but they shouldn't be the main protagonists, IMO. They had their day in their trilogy. They were young then. They got old. They should also have set the films an amount of time after RotJ that better reflects the actor aging. Of course I wouldn't have minded if they had started the films sooner when the actors looked a little younger and Carrie Fisher would live to conclude them. I would have liked to see Luke and Leia both being Jedi Masters.

TS, what I think you would have liked is for them to have not made the PT at all and instead they just started make the ongoing adventures of Luke and Leia as less older than what we got, not even necessarily a trilogy just film after film after film expanding the story in chronologically subsequent ways from RotJ. We got tons of novels about that. What does Luke do next? Then what does Luke do? Then what do they do. Etc. That's typical Hollywood sequelitis and that would probably get boring to me.

What I think would have been cool is if they had made animated movies of Shadows of the Empire and The Thrawn Trilogy, with the original actors performing voices, just not the same wooden beard/knobby nose/gigantic eye animation norm in the franchise now. It wouldn't have even had to have been "3D animation". Just more realistic-proportioned looking animation. Actor aging and appearance wouldn't be much of a factor to animated films because they can more easily voice characters younger than they are (except Fisher's voice did seem to change a lot so I'm not sure about her). They still could have eventually rebooted the post-RotJ continuity like they did and made live action movies set in a different universe, but we would have gotten more Luke and Leia (and some more Han).

But anyway, this is all fantasy since we got what we got and it is what it is. Mark Hamill is almost certainly done with Star Wars, Harrison Ford is most certainly done with Star Wars, and Carrie Fishers is sadly deceased. The only real point to discussing What Ifs is that we as fans and GMs are not bound by the DT continuity for our personal SWUs, so we can make our own versions of a post-RotJ timeline for our head canons, and possibly even games. I am devising my own personal Sequel Trilogy that will be adventures that are a part of a campaign set a generation after RotJ. There will be PCs like Rey, Finn, and Poe, but they won't be the same as in the films. There will be a villain Kylo Ren but not the same Kylo Ren. (Rey and Ren will definitely not have the same true identities). Luke and Leia (and Han, Chewie, Lando, Artoo, Threepio, and Ackbar) will be important NPCs. Han will die at some point. Some DT characters may exist in some form, and some others definitely won't. Some non-film characters will exist. I am developing my own post-RotJ timeline and the galaxy will be a lot different in my SWU than in the films.

[Ray]

I'm just hoping the Falcon has a better life under Lando and Wedge that she did with Poe. Even Chewie couldn't stop Poe.

[TauntaunScout]

Well we were specifically told in an interview that the sequels were going to be to see what these characters were doing in their 60's.

I'm not bringing SOLO or other such films into this.

[CRMcNeill]

[Whill]

By the way, I forgot to reply above that I really don't like the idea of Han having died offscreen in between trilogies. He deserves a cinematic death. But hey, whatever works for you in your fantasy.

[Whill]

[TauntaunScout]

Well SOLO & R1 came out in the middle of the ST so it's not like they could've properly accounted for it in the making of the ST. I try to be fair to the makers of the ST even though I don't like the films.

[Whill]

[Ray]

A scene where Han, Chewie, Luke, Leia, and Lando are all in the Falcon having a fight for their lives.

[Whill]

[CRMcNeill]

I'd've been okay with a plot that allowed the heroes of Yavin to pass the torch to a new generation in a respectful manner, but that's not what we got. IMO, any discussion of "what if the sequels had been good" needs to include "what if the prequels had been good", because there's a lot of balls that got dropped w/r/t making the entire nine-film arc have coherency. I didn't come into the sequels with much in the way of specific expectations, but I was at least hoping for some sort of resolution to the whole "bring balance to the Force" prophecy in the prequels.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

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[Ray]