We’re only a week away from the most critical moment in all Star Wars history – Star Wars Celebration. What was once thought to be the most impenetrable franchise of them all looks more like a wounded taun-taun these days. Star Wars Celebration 2019 is a public boardroom meeting to convince the world that this product is still worth investing in. While I’m hoping for a couple of great trailers, what I’m really looking for is a sense of direction from Kathleen Kennedy. The rumor is Kennedy was out if they could convince JJ to take over Star Wars. But JJ was too busy taking over the world. So Kennedy was spared.
In Kennedy’s defense, her job’s been difficult. She’s trying to expand the biggest franchise in the world without a blueprint for how to do so. She’s had some hits. Rogue One was a risk that paid off. But she’s made some bone-headed mistakes, such as not creating a roadmap for the most valuable piece of the Star Wars pie – the final trilogy in the Skywalker saga. Once audiences realized there wasn’t a plan in place, they made it known laziness would not be tolerated, shunning Star Wars’s next big release, Solo.
Another challenge for Kennedy has been giving the old school fans what they want while trying to build Star Wars for a new generation. Here, she seems confused. Her plan boils down to including more diversity in the casting and behind the camera (the behind the camera stuff is more on the upcoming television side) but she may have overcorrected, resulting in the OG fans feeling left out. And the OG fans are the ones who made Star Wars the juggernaut that it is. Whether or not it’s right for these fans to be upset, the reality is, they are. And you have to decide what you’re going to do about that. Do you Brie Larson it and say, “You’re living in a bygone era, old white guys. Either you’re with the new vision or we’ll see you later.” I suppose you could. But what if after they leave, you learn that the younger fans don’t care about Star Wars all that much? That they’d rather spend their dough on Snapchat, Fortnite, and Marvel? What then?
Let’s talk about those two big trailers likely to drop because they’ll be shaping a lot of the Star Wars narrative coming out of Celebration. The Mandalorian could go in a lot of different directions. Favreau (who’s showrunning The Mandalorian) loves Westerns. He once wrote a Western and not getting it made was a big reason why he did Cowboys vs. Aliens. Also, for old school Star Wars fans, the top of the Star Wars wish list has always been a story about bounty hunters. Despite massive demand from fans, Star Wars has never been able to figure this story out. The infamous unfinished 1313 video game was supposed to be about bounty hunters. Rogue One was initially conceived as a potential bounty hunter vehicle (but axed in favor of more likable versions of rogue characters). Since the Mandalorian armor is associated with the most famous bounty hunter of them all, Boba Fett, and the promotional shots appear to show him on a desert planet, logic would tell you that we’re getting a bounty hunter western TV show.
Yet another piece of the puzzle is that Jon Favreau loves Game of Thrones. You don’t have to be Stephen Hawking to deduce that Favreau will be looking to add the same level of scope as that show. Which means it won’t be just a bunch of bounty hunters being naughty, but there will be a larger mythical force encroaching on their missions. Since the Force is too obvious, I would love to see him bring in George Lucas’s upgrade of that mythology – the Whills.
What will be most interesting about the celebration is what they don’t tell us. If we go through an entire four days and Kathleen Kennedy never once mentions Rian Johnson’s new trilogy, or dodges questions about it, that would throw fuel on the fire of what many have been speculating for a year now – they’re scrapping it. The reason we’re morphing into Assumption Mode here is because they won’t come out and say it’s canceled. You don’t hold funerals during a celebration. But you know Kennedy’s going to be asked so we’re all going to have to pay close attention to the words she uses, as well as the micro-expressions and non-verbals, so we can hopefully put an end to one of the most unfortunate chapters in Star Wars history, right there behind Jar Jar Binks and Jake Lloyd. And to quote good old Jake, if that happens: “YIIIIPPPPPPEEEEEEE!!!”
If they do premiere an episode 9 trailer, what am I hoping for? AN ENTIRELY NEW MOVIE. I want new plot points and new characters and a brand new adventure. I don’t care if it has nothing to do with the other two movies because the truth is, there is no 7, 8, and 9 trilogy. 7 and 8 weren’t connected so to try and “conclude” that story with 9 would be pointless. The best thing they could do is create a new super-villain and have both sides team up to beat it. That’s the most interesting direction they could go, and it would forego having to manipulate the plot in a ton of artificial ways to make sense of the broken direction in the 8th film. George Lucas said one of the most annoying scenes he ever had to write was when Luke tells Leia that they’re brother and sister in Return of the Jedi. He did not want to write that scene because it stopped the whole movie to tell audiences something they already knew. But since it wouldn’t make sense if Luke didn’t tell her, he had to do it. I don’t want a whole movie of that in 9, where JJ includes a dozen exposition scenes to steer everything he set up in 7 back to a place where he could pay them off the way he originally intended to. Just make a new movie.
I also hope they announce they’re giving us one Star Wars movie a year as opposed to one every two years. I know certain people don’t like this because it lessens the “event” feeling of Star Wars. I don’t care. If you hire the right people and give them plenty of time to write the script and shoot the movie, you can make one good Star Wars movie a year. In my personal opinion, Second Guess Kennedy probably doesn’t have the Star Wars chops to pull that off. But maybe she’s learned a thing or to from Last Jedi and Solo. And you could always lower the budgets and make one “experimental” Star Wars movie a year. It would be unfortunate if the only chances you took were in TV. Let’s get some weird Star Wars movies!! I want a healthy franchise again. Expect opinions after this thing is over.
