Making a prequel trilogy for the ST.

i feel like this is what the eu is for (and it's doing that job).

 

just to be clear, i don't think we need the eu.

i never got ino the now-legends eu stuff.
it was too weird for me personally and i felt it didn't add anything worth investing.
i've read most of the eu stuff for the ST because i am so invested; but even then i certainly don't love all of it.
it's just a "nice to have" sort of fun thing. : D

 

not really.

if something would make the people unhappy with the ST happier, i'm all for it.
but ultimately i don't worry about what other people like or don't like.
i'm only in control of and responsible for what i like and don't like.
i don't begrudge anyone who loves TCW, but it's not for me. it's for them.
i have no problem with sharing. : D

full stop. for many of us all this stuff is already self-explanatory.

part of the problem with the way Star Wars unfolded is that we watched the OT, we came up with ideas about how it all came about, then Lucas decided to tell his version of it. some people liked that, some didn't, but for good or for ill, it set a new expectation that everything could and should be explained in a canonical source.

i don't believe that this is the way storytelling must work. in fact, most great storytelling doesn't do this kind of dot-connecting at all.

what you come up with in your imagination (even here) is your version of the story and if you love it, that's awesome!
rather than force that story on everyone (or any story), let other people dream up their own stories too.

also, i get what you mean about the engagement level difference between movies and books. they are different mediums, different experiences.
but the only person's experience of Star Wars that i have any control over or say in is my own.
and for me personally: i like my own head canon about how we got to the ST just fine.
i wouldn't mind reading a book about it, but i reserve the right to reject it if i don't like it.
and it doesn't interest me as movie material when we could instead keep the story going forward.

 

head canon doesn't have to do anything.

if something new contradicted my head canon, i might love it, i might not.
i didn't want Ben to kill Han (even when i saw it coming), but it happened and, dramatically, i'm fine with that.
i try not to make prejudgments on things i don't know.

but i am pre-emptively saying that if i don't like it, that's okay.
it won't "ruin" Star Wars for me. and i'll be glad if other people do like it (as i said, i'm fine with sharing).
sadly, that is not what a lot of people who are upset with TLJ are saying. it's the polar opposite in fact, sometimes.

people who are inflexible in their thinking about head canon will suffer for it.
part of flexibility is the willingness to jettison not only your own head canon, but actual canon.
if i don't like Yoda wielding a light saber: *poof* that business with Dooku and Sidious never happened.
and if i believe Hux has a tooka named Millicent and a hopeless crush on Kylo Ren, then he does.
i sleep fine at night. XD

 

A pretty poor job though.

Kylux is canon, at least in the Cantina (if you know what I'm talking about). Hahaha!

About the actual topic: I think the ST should have started with the PT idea itself. => Ben Solo tunring to the dark side. It would have been exciting. Bascally the PT but without knowing whether Ben will turn or not.

Now I just want a book about Ben and Luke. That's all.

 

eh. i like more than i dislike in it so far.
and it's way early yet. we've got plenty of opportunity to continue to build with it.
Phasma being the only piece of it so far that actually rankles me. XD

 

The ST is a failure for me, part of that failure is the amount of essential events that it assumed before the action began in TFA, part of it in the way Rey mastered the Force without the presence and training of a Jedi master. Having a Prequel Trilogy might seek to correct the first problem, but for it to be successful it would need real planning, something I think the ST didn't have, also as you point out we're missing Leia and Luke and Hans need to be younger than the actors are and Harrison Ford is surely not interested. So they'd probably recast, but that won't have the wow factor and probably wouldn't pull in the punters.

 

If they want to explain stuff on TV/Animation/books for people who want it go for it. I have zero interest in having films for that stuff. It limits story telling

 

Things like Luke searching for Jedi stuff, training Ben, building New Republic, Snoke's backstory etc. should be explored with books like Bloodline. There were no major conflicts between RotJ and TFA (NR wouldn't just disband most of it's military if there were), so it's mostly character interactions over significant periods of time. SW is no longer movies+optional expansions, it is now a unified multimedia canon, so why not employ that to the fullest and leave the $200m movies for the major events and wars in the stars.

 

There are better ways to spend circa $700 million than telling a story we don't really need telling. There's really no benefit in telling an extensive backstory to the films that don't really need them? Han, Leia and Luke would have still made mistakes in raising Ben. Do we really need a seven-hour version of We need to talk about Kevin, but set in SW universe? I'm all for domestic drama, but I'm not really sure the haters are, especilly after TLJ. Maybe such films would've allowed to put blame on someone else, like Snoke, drugs or some other third party, but that would in fact strip away the poignancy of Luke's arc in TLJ. He feared losing a close one to the Dark Side (i.e. tainting his legacy and how the galaxy views him) so much that he found killing essentially his son a better choice than admitting to failing to raise him. A decision he immediately regrets not because of Ben noticing but because of failing Ben and his family and the galaxy by extent. Changing the culprit would make him going into exile would make the said exile lose all meaning, because Luke couldn't have made a mistake, could he?

Also - Luke has never been a badass. None of his actions in the films can be classified as such. His personality is also a very non-badass one. Luke is a guy with a good heart who loves his friends and tries to help them in the best way possible. His most heroic moment comes when he rejects violence and fear and choses peace and non-violence - when he throws his lightsaber away. His biggest attempts at badassery - going to Cloud City alone to face the Empire and save his friends or doing the same thing on the first Death Star with Han - fails miserably and ends with him needing the rescue (both times provided by Leia, the actual badass of the OT trio.)

Overall, I'd love to hear the story of Ben turning to the Dark Side, but I do not believe such a story would be a) received well by TLJ haters, as it would be an extended version of what they dislike in this film so much (i.e. "misrepresenting" OT trio or "turning them into failures") b) a waste of money. There are better stories to tell with films than an extended version of TLJ flashbacks, like a story set in a new era with a new cast of heroes.

 

Interesting idea, but I'd say you could do this via an animated series or a live action series on the forthcoming Disney streaming service. And, as @FN-3263827 said, you also have the books. Unfortunately the books have purposely avoided discussing Luke, for the most part. I hope that, at some point, we are going to get a book(s) or a series which does fill in some of the gaps.

 

I stopped there.

I would have maybe liked a Clone Wars/Rebels series that covered that time frame. Unfortunately that is probably the last best way they can explore it.

 

two brilliant open-ended sets of fates.
i don't need to know what happens, but if they tell us that's cool too.
that said (Battlefront spoiler below):

Spoiler

i was so sad to learn about Meeko's fate after i'd gotten so attached to him in Inferno Squad and Battlefront.
His brief interaction with Luke in particular was so sweet . : o (

 

I think this could work, and it would probably make for some very interesting movies that would redeem the events of the ST. However, it wouldn't change the quality of the actual ST films.

If the ST is so bad at world-building and respecting the franchise's history and lore, why even keep it as canon? It would be better to just remake the events of post-ROTJ.