If Lucasfilm hired YOU to write Star Wars Episodes VII-IX

Episode VIII: There has been an uneven peace after episode VII. The galaxy, tired from decades of war (even if the 25 years of war between VI and VII has been slow-burning, with occasional hot years but usually a very slow chipping away at the old Empire), cannot find the political will to crush this newly declared Sith Empire, due to the Sith having passed into legend under the careful cultural proddings of Palpatine. They see the new Empire as no more threat than the old. The old apprentice, mentioned above, is the new Mistress of the Dark Side, however, and has been hunting down force-sensitives from her corner of the galaxy and conscripting them into a new Sith order. It has only been 5 years after she took over, but already her order is as large as the fledgeling Jedi order, that Luke and his acolytes have been cautiously building for the last 30 years, wary of making any major mistakes. She has also focused on rearmament on a grand scale, which has led to Imperial piracy in Republic space, and conscriptions of aliens and building of a new generation of Battle Droids to make the Sith military much more potent.

Her interest, however, is in the young Jedi padawan from VII, now mature and on the threshold of Knighthood. She sends him a vision of him dueling with the strict, monastic Cathar female that he is still paired with, planting the seeds of doubt in his heart, for there is dissension within the Jedi ranks, as the Conservative faction, dredging up the dogmas of the Clone Wars era Order, beseech Luke to abandon his more experimental ways (among other changes, in Luke's order, Jedi can marry and have kids, my way of pitching Mara Jade and Ben into the mix, though none of them feature prominently in this story) for fear that the new Sith order will reach out and claim acolytes. This has led them to become more intense and dogmatic, and forged a rift between the two padawan friends in particular as the Cathar has grown more obsessed with strengthening herself and preparing for the coming struggle. The young man and the Liberal faction begin to fear that it is the Conservatives who will be corrupted, and the protagonist begins honing his combat skill in the force strenuously, as the vision grows nearer.

The core of the movie plays out around investigations of Imperial piracy and arms shipments to the new Sith Empire. The smuggler woman from VII features into the story as the underworld contact of choice by the protagonists of the New Republic hierarchy, and the main plot plays out as suspicions between the Padawans boil over as they and the smuggler, without Luke this time who is now too busy dealing with the turmoil within the Jedi order, go out and track down arms shipments to the Sith Empire from Republic space. They meet a new Badass Normal companion, an Onderonian Beast Rider with a fierce animal companion who has been working for a major Rodian crime lord, now the dominant force in the galaxy, and find themselves in a reluctant alliance as the Rodian used to control the arms smuggling racket and has found it go out of his control, fighting Sith agents and rival gangsters as they go.

At last they reach a planet similar to Geonosis, a world with weapons-smith as its Hat, the main source of the illegal smuggling. A crisis involving their new friends and the ultimate clash between the male's The McCoy (we have to save them) and the female Cathar's The Spock (we must focus on the mission) solutions do, at last, lead them to blows. The Sith Lady, watching and waiting in the wings, swoops in and causes the whole situation to blow up. She leads the male to believe he has killed the Cathar, but he is badly injured and she steals him away.

The movie ends with his recovery under her twisted care, leading to a fall to the Dark Side as the Sith Empire's plans are unveiled and a big space battle only begins. The leader of the conservative jedi faction makes his mark in this battle, with the featured duel being against a Sith Apprentice.

Episode IX: 2 years after VIII

The plot runs as a basic fusion of Return and Revenge. Like Revenge, it's set at the climax of a fast-paced war. Like Return, the plot more involves rescue and redemption rather than downfall (which is in VIII). Mercenaries and pirates working for the Sith Empire have been capturing Jedi based on a bounty. The Onderonian Beast Rider and the smuggler woman tried to infiltrate a pirate group responsible for snagging Jedi, and got captured themselves. The Cathar female, demonstrating that she has learned the value of rescuing a few even when there are bigger fish to fry (namely the ongoing war) leads a rescue effort, reminiscent of Return of the Jedi.

Meanwhile the War goes on, and military figures from the Republic from the last few space battles work with the dwindling Jedi to fend off an assault on a critical sector, demonstrating the dire straits of the Republic in the course of the war.

The Jedi human male, now apprenticed Sith Lord, leads the war effort along with the Sith Lady. His strength, especially in battle meditation, is unparalleled, and where he goes, the Sith Imperials are always victorious. Republic leadership hatches a council of war with the Jedi, resolved to send a special strike force, led by crack Jedi, to ambush the Apprentice in Sith-held space. Luke of all people is resigned to the fact that they'll likely have to kill his former student. The Cathar volunteers for the mission, with the Beast Rider and smuggler getting on board as part of the military attachment.

The Sith Lady has a vision of the Republic's plan and resolves to turn the tables, hiding on the Apprentice's flagship with a counterforce of Sith Acolytes. The final battle takes place aboard and around the flagship, with lots of Jedi-Sith dueling, including the Acolytes and high-class war droids swarming Luke to keep him pinned down. The Sith Lady stalks and kills other Jedi in the task force, until she confronts the leading Conservative Jedi from the last film. A climactic duel ends in her victory, relatively easily, but the Conservative utilizes something like a force storm to collapse the room they were in, rendering it a pyrrhic victory for her. Meanwhile, the Cathar and her old partner have a climactic duel of their own, where the Cathar convinces him not to switch back, but at least to stand down and rethink himself. Out of action, the Cathar goes to aid Luke just as the Sith Lady arrives on the scene. Her wounds have made her desperate and crazy, and she nearly kills everyone but for the saving intervention of the Cathar and the apprentice.

Not 100% on all the details, namely in the full motivations for the padawan's fall and redemption, but that's how i would put it. The general arc would be mostly about the Jedi Order learning from their old mistakes, but how the struggle against the Sith is still ongoing...

I'd completely leave out the standard callbacks ("I have a bad feeling about this", "What a wonderful smell you have discovered" etc.) from the films if I was hired. If you have to reference something, it better be something that hasn't been done too many times already.

Luke Skywalker is gazing off at a pinprick in the distance, which slowly but surely, Lawrence of Arabia-style, turns out to be Boba Fett walking up to attend his own funeral.

BAM.

S 7 AR WARS.

OPENING CREDITS.

edited 27th Sep '13 7:53:16 AM by PeiraIssaNoid

hmm... i don't know what i'd do. Episode 6 had such a good send off...

i guess i'd set up an Arc Villain. someone that can last three movies and still be interesting.

okay, what else... i'd put a Time Skip in between 6 and 7. twenty years should be good.

the main characters won't all be Jedi; it'd me a more eclectic group like the original trilogy. at least one Twi'Lek.

If I were to write the new Star Wars movies, I'd jump things to a distant time period (after all ROTJ was a pretty satisfactory end to Luke's journey) and follow a new generation of characters. I'd have a female protagonist (to mix things up and plus I love writing female protagonists) who has been expelled from the Jedi order. Her adventures would explore the nature of the Light and Dark side and how things aren't as black and white as the Jedi led her to believe. I'd also have a powerful Dark Side artifact that both good, bad, and evil factions are vying for to throw in some nice action beats between character moments.

　Sounds like the second Knights Of The Old Republic game, moreso since The Exile is canonically female

Heh, didn't realize that!

I can see the Belated Media video now: What if Star Wars episode VII were good?

edited 4th Nov '13 3:43:50 PM by BaconManiac5000

Or the Mr. Plinkett review: "Star Wars Episode VII is the worst thing since my taaaiiinnntttt!"

Episode 7: A sith from the future travels into the past after his plans were foiled by Cade Skywalker "Luke's" great grandson. So the sith lord travels back to a week/month/or a year after the second death star was destroyed. So this Sith Lord tries to kill Luke but Luke is saved by Cade and then Cade reveals to Luke that he's from the future and uses a mental force power to convince Luke and company that he's from the future. So Cade tells them that the Sith Lord traveled back in time using an ancient sith artifact and before Cade followed the Sith Lord. Cade destroyed the artifact so the Sith Lord is looking for the artifact in this time period. So Luke and company travel to the planet were the Sith artifact is and fighting the Sith's Lord army of droids. Luke and company finds the Sith Lord and the artifact. After fighting the Sith Lord they destroy the artifact and Sith Lord runs away.

Note: The artifact protect the users of the artifact from paradoxes even if the artifact is destroyed. Also the scene where Luke is attacked is in Coruscant and after the Sith Lord the planet is attacked by Droids.

Episode 8: The Sith Lord is gathering the Imperial Remnants to declare war on the new republic. Cade tells Luke things about the future and they gather allies such as kyle kantarn, boba fett, other jedis of the new order, Jensaarai, Mara Jade and others. While the Sith Lord is gathering force sensitives that are with the dark side to create a sith army. Finally Luke, Cade, and company go to the Yuzihan Vong planet to convince the Vongs to fight with the new republic. However the Vongs are either allied with the Sith empire and traps Luke and company or the Vongs planet is attacked by the Sith empire forces. Either way Luke and the Sith Lord fight but the Sith Lord talks about how sad Luke will become because his wife was killed by his nephew who turned to the dark side. So the Sith Lord does some crazy moves and kills Luke by stabbing Luke in the heart and he tells Luke that he did this to spare Luke's pain. However Cade comes rushing to Luke and tries to use his force healing to save Luke but it doesn't work but Cade try again and again. Until Cade focus his power so strongly that he brings back his great grandfather from the dead. However the process kills Cade and Luke and company regroups to mourn and plan ahead for new battles.

Note: Luke and Mara Jade might fight each other in this episode.

Episode 9: There will be a twenty-thirty years time skip this movie will focus on the kids of the Luke skywalker and Leia Solo during the final battles of the war. The sith empire has all but won and the movie opens with an attack at the New Jedi academy. Luke's kid and Leia kid investigates and helps the New Republic anyway they can. There space battles and ground battles but Luke's kid and Leia's kid is trying to find a superweapon that will destroy the whole galaxy. So Luke and company demands that the sith empire surrenders or the galaxy burns. Unknown to them that the sith forces have disabled the superweapon and the jedis are attacked by an army of siths. Luke and the Sith lord fight and Luke finally kills him then the movies ends with Luke an old man. Talking about the growth of the new republic and the many adventures that new jedis had including his children and leia children.

Note: The Sith Lord from the future had a dark side power that completely stole a person free will and Sith Lord in this film has already turned a large part of the galaxy into mindless zombies with only a few thousand people still having free will. After the future Sith Lord death free will is given back to the galaxy.

I maintain that turning Star Wars into TERMINATOR: In Space would be an awful idea.

edited 2nd Jan '14 9:40:01 PM by Canid117

How would this be at all like terminator and how would do the sequel trilogy then?

This;

Versus this:

Couldn't for some episodes of Doctor Who as well and besides that one point that's where the similarities ended.

Skynet sends a machine back in time skynet itself doesn't go back in time and terminator only had one mission kill Sarah. The Sith lord just wants to be king of the mountain and cause havoc killing Luke and company is incidental to all of that also no horrible future Cade that is trying to prevent. Also in the terminator films they never send John or his kids in the past to protect the connors either. The only reason my idea resemble terminator at all is becuase it has a time traveling bad guy and good guy but that's where the similarites ended especially in the later episodes.

However either way I'm posting my story ideas as thread requested if people like it great if they don't that their problem not mine if they have some constructive criticism for my story I'll be glad to hear it otherwise goodbye.

The constructive criticism is "use something that isn't recognizably Terminator" AKA one of the few movie franchises that even remotely approaches Star Wars in terms of cultural impact. Star Wars has a certain tone. Its an epic fantasy in space and thus should use epic fantasy themes, tones and stylistic choices or you are going to break the movie and turn it into a confused mess. Ancient evils coming from parts unknown or being unsealed from long slumber to unleash doom upon the forces of good is well within the tone of Star Wars. A nut showing up from the future to destroy the heroes who is foiled by laser sword wielding Kyle Reese (who even looks◊ like Kyle Reese) just would not fit especially if you are just using it to shoe horn in a couple of EU characters you happen to like.

edited 3rd Jan '14 4:34:09 PM by Canid117

The key critique to a time-travel plot is that The Galaxy is *huge*, depending on how you source it, 1000+ star sectors, maybe a million plus inhabited star systems (large enough to register as inhabited, barring small operations or bases like Bespin), and a lot of unexplored territory on the fringes besides. Is this vast galaxy so devoid of opportunity that some threat has to rise from the distant past or come back from the future? Even as I advocate that the threat has to tie into the light side-dark side struggle (while some here seem to be advocating for a sequel series very light on Jedi antics), it can certainly do so while still exploring the vastness of the galaxy far, far away.

I personally feel that time travel is a bit much. I say, unless time travel is used to rewrite the prequels in some form, it shouldn't be used.

However, on the subject of light vs dark, I feel retreading the Light Is Good Dark Is Evil theme is tired. I think I said this already in this thread, but I'd like to see future films explore the difference between dark, light, good, and evil and how they are not so easily defined.

Oh, and we need an HK-47 expy somewhere...

Grey and Grey morality, which seems to me to be the logical end result of exploring what good and evil actually are, would be too complex for teh kidz, who according to Hollywood are the audience for Star Wars.

If you wanted to redo the prequels you could just straight up reboot them. It's not like the fans would mind much as long as the studio made a point to say "Jar Jar does show up but he gets run over by a tank and dies in the background 2 seconds into his appearance" or something during marketing.

The foundations of grey morality were there almost from the beginning, or at least as far in as "Return". A Certain Point of View was the centerpoint for shaking the idea that Jedi were absolute good, that they could, effectively, lie to enact their agendas even with the justification of the greater good. Return also showed that the road to the Dark Side could be paved with good intentions, with Palpatine's tempting Luke to strike him down, or Luke's fury against Vader. None would suggest that the Galaxy wasn't better off with Palpatine and Vader both dead, so the desire to kill them wasn't pure Dark, as Obi-Wan's version of the truth was not pure light.

The prequels helped establish this further, with a stubborn, frigid, dogmatic Jedi order, while once again the road to the Dark Side was, in Dooku and Anakin's cases, paved with good intentions. The key is that at the end of the day The Dark Side Makes You Forget, that the light is not perfect (and indeed, should improve itself), but the temptations of the quick and easy path will destroy you.

Quick and easy? Sir its the path of snazzy duds thats why I like it.

If I was writing, I'd steer clear of trying to introduce ambiguity into the light/dark dichotomy. That's something best left to the expanded universe. The new movies need to do what the prequels didn't quite achieve, and recapture the adventure and spirit of the original trilogy. That means a certain amount of melodrama in its depictions of villainy.

Honestly I would tell Lucasfilm I think the general public has lost interest in major science fiction franchises but ask them to seriously consider my reboot of Howard The Duck.

edited 27th Feb '14 5:10:19 AM by joeyjojo

I've been thinking quite a lot about the plot i devised, spending needless amounts of time poring over how the Imperial Hierarchy continued to function in the absence of the Emperor. I changed the timeline from a 25-year gap from Return to VII to a 30-year gap, set up a history for the Remnant that sorta paralleled the EU at the beginning, then diverged, starting with Sate Pestage running the show, then a short peace, then a war with Intelligence Director Isard (from the Rogue Squadron novels), then peace, then the Empire was led by the Council of Grand Moffs, peace, then a triumvirate between a Grand Moff, Grand Admiral, and Isard's successor, whose defeat killed off the last of the Grand Moffs and Grand Admirals. Then it gets around to the guy I mentioned, a common Admiral who pluckily manages to seize control of the Remnant by gaining the trust of critical officers and Moffs left in the Empire.

The Sith Remnant would have been a splinter group from the "Rule of Two", an apprentice who was focused not on the Grand Plan, but on studying the mysteries of the Dark Side. This caused a rift with his master, who tried to kill him, and thought he succeeded. The apprentice fled to a secret world, where a battle with the ancient Sith Empire left a small colony founded by survivors of the battle, lost to history, Sith by species rather than Dark Force users. The splinter-line that was founded there, venturing out only once in a while to find apprentices of non-Sith blood to mix things up, remained hidden and focused on "local" control (like C'Baoth in the Thrawn Trilogy). So the Master and the Sith Apprentice in Episode VII would need to be lured out by the Imperial Warlord, since the Master said that he wasn't interested in building an Empire: all the Warlord could give him would be easy access to new students, so he could continue his studies into dominating the lives of the local colonial Sith.

The Apprentice, herself a Sith-species woman, was not content with that. She wanted both the dream of the "normal" Sith and of her own line: to rule the Galaxy both in breadth and depth, controlling it politically but creating a network of Dark Force users to dominate day-to-day lives around the galaxy as well. Thus she betrays her master and the Warlord.