Tag: alternate sequel trilogy

If you needed more proof (you didn’t) that I can’t draw older white people, here’s Chancellor Leia Organa and her husband Han Solo. I think Leia would’ve gotten upfront right away about Vader being her birth father, so there wouldn’t be any big strife in the middle of her political career. Plenty of people would be wary of her, but her big project as Senator of Alderaan was the founding of New Alderaan, a super-earth planet using the funds of the Alderaanian royal family to provide a refuge for all victims of the Empire’s attempted genocides (Alderaanians, Geonosians, people from Jedha City, which is where her red robe comes from, as a gift from the Brotherhood of Beatific Countenance). This massive success garnered near universal support, and she became well-loved for decades to come. At the time of your movie, though, the Mandalorian government is upset with the way things are run, and they have some ears in the Galactic Senate. Leia’s necklace is based on a prop seen on a wall in Ben Kenobi’s hut in A New Hope. I think if she named her son after him there should be more of a tie present.

Han Solo is, like you said, on both sides of the law. A lot of Senators see Han as a trophy husband, as he hasn’t had many ties to the military since the Battle of Endor. However, he keeps himself busy with both philanthropy and scoundrelry. While he definitely plays into a lot of criminal activity, he also acts like a bit of an enforcer (no drugs to kids, no slavery, etc.) He’s got a new jacket, and it actually looks new. The trim is gundark wool (perhaps Maz is a gundarkherd on top of everything else.) I love the square stripes on his pants in the OT, so I had to have a form of that back.

L.J.: The idea of a New Alderaan for the victims of genocide is so beautiful I may cry. Also I will never stop cackling at Han as a trophy husband because THE ACCURACY.

I can’t help myself, let me know if it’s too much. The prospect of a non-miserable Luke being alive in the same movie as Lando is too good to pass up. Lando’s got a retired general living in luxury vibe. His return to Cloud City was met with mixed results, but he helped unite the ex-Imperial sympathizers and Rebels under the New Republic. Helping him was Luke, who moved into Cloud City to start his Jedi Praexum. While Luke still has his lightsaber stored away somewhere (or maybe both), he hasn’t ignited it since the Death Star. The Jedi work more as a Doctors Without Borders, only working in medical, philanthropic, political, and peacekeeping fields. Lando’s mining companies do grant young Jedi the opportunity to acquire a lightsaber, and swordfighting is trained by some other Jedi (perhaps a cheeky Ahsoka Tano cameo.)

Originally, Luke was against restarting the Jedi Order, but on a visit to Kashyyyk, Luke and Lando met Lowbacca, a young force-sensitive Wookiee (from Legends) that struggled sleeping, what with hearing the voices of all the life around him. Lando helped him come to terms with the faults of the Jedi, and Luke decided to start the order to help those that need it. Lando is the Order’s primary funder, and often accompanies Luke on missions as a representative of the New Republic. The two could have a scene parting in the first movie.

Lando’s necklace was a gift from Luke, made with the force out of a dying star. Luke’s cloak is a gift from Lando, custom-made and designed by Lando himself. Luke’s belt is filled with badges made by his students. Lowbacca started the tradition, and each one is an Easter egg to a legends apprentice of Luke’s.
(Moth)

To wrap up the new main characters, an alternate take on Rey! Horrible art aside, I tried to make her look like Maisie Richardson-Sellers (maybe Daisy Ridley could play Korr Sella, and the role will be better than “woman dies horribly”). I loved your idea of Rey planet-hopping in search of her family, so I had her outfit reflect that. Her jumpsuit is kind of like a B-Wing pilot’s. Her belt is a TIE fighter pilot’s. Her staff is modified from a Geonosian spear. Also, she has a huge backpack, which is where, if the movie needed a bunch of Easter eggs, we would get references. The old training remote, one of Grievous’s hands, etc. etc.
(Moth)

I, of course, had to do Finn. I took a lot of inspiration from Mandalorian armor, particularly Jango Fett and Canderous Ordo. His boots are more like stormtroopers’ and his pauldrons are like death troopers’, but it’s mostly different from a stormtrooper, since your version of the First Order would probably want to fly under the radar, at least at first, in terms of its ties to the Empire. Finn’s belt is where I gave most of his character. Twin blasters in case his smg malfunctions. A vibro-axe for fighting melee users honorably. A tooth from a nexu he once fought hand-to-hand while on a trial in a jungle. And a toy bantha that he liberated from a pirate, and secretly hopes to reunite with its Jawa child owner. If anyone asks, it’s a souvenir.
(Moth)

If JJ asked me to make TFA less like ANH, here’s what I would do

1. No Resistance. Instead of rehashing the Rebels vs Empire conflict, I’d just have the Republic face the First Order directly.

2. Han is an admiral in the Republic fleet and Chewie, Lando and Wedge are generals.

3. Luke would be looking for the first Jedi temple, but not because his Jedi order failed. He would be searching for answers to defeat the First Order. He would remain in contact with Leia through Artoo until said communication is suddenly lost. Artoo would be kidnapped by the First Order to try and pry Luke’s location from him and the assault on Starkiller Base would be about rescuing him. (The reason Luke stays on Ahch-to, which would be Tython in my version, is because he finds some terrible secret about the Jedi and decides he has to stay to protect it.)

4. Luke entrusts Leia to his Jedi order in his absence. The new Jedi temple is on Takodana.

5. Kylo Ren and Ben Solo are separate people. Kylo Ren is still a former student of Luke’s, but he doesn’t single-handedly destroy all his work. He’s a Jedi killer who collects lightsabers like General Grievous. (He’s the reason the Jedi temple is no longer based on Coruscant.) Ben Solo’s main drive is to best him after Ren humiliates him.

6. Jakku is a desert swamp like in the original concept art. Just to differentiate it from Tatooine.

7. Rey’s parents actually are nobody and this is cleared up pretty quickly. Star Wars isn’t about speculative fan theory mystery boxes; the reveals come out of nowhere. No one walked out of ANH thinking, “I bet Vader is Luke’s father!” Nobody’s going to wonder who Rey’s parents are either.

8. Ben Solo replaces Poe in the trio (not that there was much of one) but Poe is still an ace pilot and gets around the same amount of screentime as he does in TFA. Poe gets a bigger role in Episode VIII (more on that later.)

9. Starkiller Base is an ancient Sith weapon that was non-functional when the First Order found it. Snoke has just recently discovered how to fix it.

10. The map to Luke is actually an ancient paper map to Tython. Make it really clear that this is not a map to Luke, he didn’t say “I’m going to go hide, nobody follow me but I’m going to leave a piece of my map with my droid” and just not have that confusing stuff. The map is just a really old map that Lor San Tekka found that might lead to Luke’s location, but might not because Luke didn’t have a map and may have ended up in the wrong place.

With these, my plot would go like this:

Leia learns that Lor San Tekka has the map to Tython and sends her son Ben to meet with Lor San Tekka. When he gets there the First Order arrives to take the map. Ben gives it to BB-8 and tells him to take it. Kylo Ren kills Lor San Tekka and Ben attacks him. Ren defeats Ben and takes his saber.

FN-2187 decides to defect, but needs a pilot, so be breaks Ben out. This plays out like his escape with Poe except Ben doesn’t disappear during the crash. Instead they head out together in the desert to find an outpost so they can leave the planet.

Rey finds BB-8 and runs into Ben and Finn. Ben sees she’s Force sensitive and wants to take her with them, but Finn just wants to get off Jakku and Rey doesn’t want to leave because she’s waiting for her family. The three of them are forced to flee in a junk ship (not the Falcon, because Han still has it) and once they’re safe, Ben contacts his father to pick them up.

On board the Falcon, Ben tells Han of Rey’s Force sensitivity and says she needs to be brought to Leia for training. Rey just wants to go home and Finn just wants to go anywhere the First Order isn’t, and they bond over their disgust of Ben’s stubbornness. But when Finn tells them about Starkiller Base, Rey realizes she can’t go back to Jakku because the First Order might destroy it and declares that they have to stop them, but Finn still wants to run, so they tearfully part.

Rey is brought to Takodana where she is given a lightsaber by Leia. (Ben gets a new one to replace the one Ren stole, though he really wants to get his old one back.)

The First Order captures Finn and Kylo Ren decides to hold him hostage when he finds Rey in Finn’s mind. The First Order contact the Republic and demand the Jedi hand over Rey or Starkiller Base will destroy Coruscant. Ren tells Leia Finn is Force sensitive (he thinks he’s lying, but he’s actually right.) Leia and Ben go to Starkiller Base with Rey employing a ruse while Han amasses the Republic fleet to attack Starkiller Base.

Finn escapes and tries to create a stormtrooper rebellion only for Phasma to stop him. Ben, Rey and Leia come to his rescue, sending Phasma on the run. Finn takes the stormtroopers he’s managed to convert on a mission to cripple Starkiller’s shields and weapon, while Ben goes off to confront Kylo Ren. Leia and Rey search for Artoo.

Rey and Leia find Artoo and Leia takes him to their ship while Rey goes in search of Finn, who has just managed to get the shields down. She finds Ben about to get his butt handed to him by Kylo Ren and distracts Ren by attacking him. The two of them fight together.

Finn realizes he needs the Force to shut down the shields and goes off to find Rey and Ben, who are Force sensitive (he doesn’t know that he is too.) He arrives just in time for Rey to receive the wound he receives in The Force Awakens. Finn picks up Rey’s saber and he and Ben fight Kylo Ren. Finn’s stormtrooper rebels come to the rescue with Leia and Finn hightails it with a wounded Ben and an unconscious Rey.

Ben and Leia shut down the firing mechanism while the Republic’s bombers damage it permanently, as well as taking out most of the station’s mobility. The protagonists all flee with several new stormtrooper defectors.

Finn tells Rey he loves her and Ben promises to pass on the message when she wakes up. Ben, Rey and Leia head off with Artoo to find Luke while Finn gets acquainted with Poe. Finn talks with Han and Poe about turning his stormtrooper band into an elite Republic squadron.

Episode VIII- Finn joins Black Squadron to learn some piloting skills while training his stormtrooper commandos. Finn and Rose would be Poe’s wingmen and they’d form a trio. Ben would struggle with feelings for Rey, knowing that Finn loves Rey and Rey loves Finn and ultimately choosing their happiness. Luke’s secret would be something dark, and to his shame, he would have used this secret, a shocking reveal made by Kylo Ren at the end of the film. However, I would make it something that would be within Luke’s character. Maybe it’s a forbidden dark side power or something. Luke would sacrifice himself, but his death would mean something this time and the battle would take place on Tython. Finn’s Force sensitivity would be revealed (after being hinted at to the audience in the previous film) and he and Rey would be united again to kick butt in IX. Rey would see Luke as a father figure and take on the Skywalker name.

Episode VIII would not be called The Last Jedi because that’s a stupid and uncreative title. Rian Johnson would not be involved in any way with VIII.

No idea what I’d do with IX but I know Rey, Finn, Ben, Poe and Rose would form the baddest gang in the galaxy and restore motherflippin peace to the galaxy. I’d probably have Finnrey Jedi babies to show that this is the VERY VERY end of the Skywalker saga. Luke’s ghost would play a major role in IX. JJ would not be in charge of this one because he’s bad at satisfyingly ending things but for consistency’s sake he will be consulted heavily (unlike with TLJ.)

Anyway that’s my ST. I couldn’t find a place for Maz Kanata which is a shame because I like the concept of a Force sensitive smuggler who runs a castle bar. Maybe I’d have that instead of Canto Bight. (Although the “on the run low on fuel” plot from TLJ is hot garbage and I wouldn’t have VIII do anything like it.)

Edit: I just clicked submit on my idea for Episode VII and totally
forgot that I was going to have R2 be the one to bust Finn from his
cell, and then when Finn went off to start his rebellion, R2 and 3PO
would go hack into the First Order’s computers to delete the memories
they stole from R2 (they didn’t find anything on Luke because Luke put a
Force lock on those files, the way a holocron works.) And then he and
Leia would find each other.

This is another concept art, this time of Ben Solo. I kept the idea of him being obsessed with a powerful grandfather, only in this case, society doesn’t see a problem with him emulating Bail Organa, and his love for stylish capes. His belt is similar to Leia’s in A New Hope, and his vest is Han’s. Basically, keeping his fixation on legacy, even down to wearing a padawan braid, voluntarily. Probably a red flag, but who’s going to tell the Chancellor’s son to get a haircut?
(Moth)

Would Han, Chewie, and Lando show up in your Episode VII?

I’ve been thinking about that. Outwardly Han would be similar to his Bloodline self, running charity races, maybe teaching pilots, with a legitimate business on the side. Unlike Bloodline he is also deep in the Coruscant social web, both legitimate and less legitimate, in support of Leia’s agenda. He serves as an unofficial spymaster for Leia, basically, in contrast to Poe who has an official rank though Poe’s work may also be frequently off the books. Han could be Leia’s channel to the underground of Republic space and beyond, where she might turn when she can’t get things done through legitimate channels–which is a lot of the time, with the Senate so deadlocked. Leia would not be unlike Vader in this regard, recognizing that she needs to rule and use not only the Republic’s daytime life but its buried night realms as well, its criminal and illegal elements. If personal principles and Republic protocol don’t allow her to get too deeply involved, well, that’s where Han comes in.

That’s a long prelude to saying Han is likely to be the man to turn to when the Republic’s system quickly starts to fail and careens toward war. When Rey helps Finn and his surviving crew escape the Republic military, they obviously can’t ask the authorities for help. Enter Han, who helps them disappear into the back streets of Coruscant with the hope that they can smuggle Finn in to testify before the Senate and avert a war. Alas, Ben’s attempt to rescue Leia causes chaos and death, Leia is forced to go on the run, and war breaks out in earnest.

As for Lando, I was thinking he could play a role in the war or rather the attempt to stop it and find out the truth. Han could contact him to get a ship for Finn and Rey, and Bespin’s security forces could cover Leia’s retreat from Republic space. Maybe in a later pivotal scene Lando’s fleet approaches the evenly-matched Republic and Mandalorian forces, with some suspense which side he would join–but instead he gets between them and orders them to stop firing at each other.

I’d like to see Chewie not solely at Han’s side but at Kashyyk leading his own life as a leader with his own family. Ben and Leia could flee there to seek refuge, and maybe this is where the nature of the threat becomes clear–a group of ex-Republic and ex-Empire officers had been kidnapping children, mainly Mandalorian, to pit Mandalore and the Republic against each other. This could also be where Ben decides this group makes sense and he will join them because the Republic is irretrievably broken. Chewie and Leia would try to stop him but Ben seriously wounds Chewie, saying he didn’t want to. He has had enough of the Republic and thinks the only way forward is to destroy it. He tells his mother that he loves her and she will understand someday.

This is a concept art of Poe Dameron from your Proposed Episode VII. I gave him more of a spy-vibe, with less obvious Rebellion influences, since he’s backed by the Republic in your version. His pistol has “Bey” written in Aurebesh on it. His headband references Raymus Antilles in RotS, and his close affiliation with Alderaan. Finally, his backpack expands into a spacesuit/jet pack, as it’s about time technology advances in the Star Wars universe. I’m not a great artist, and his face looks a bit off, but I loved your idea, and hope you like mine!
(Moth)

Hey I’ve always wondered, if you were in charge of the Sequels, how would you have done it? Would you of continued the story or would you have taken Finn, Rey, and Poe on an entirely different adventure and left the Empire Vs Rebels storyline stay with the OT?

I would not have repeated the OT’s central conflict quite so blatantly, mostly because unlike JJ I had no idea that it could sell, much less be a record-breaking hit 😂 My vision of the ST would probably have been a more PT-like affair, but about the struggle of building a New Republic in contrast to the ending of the Old. 

A brief summary because I ended up writing a monstrosity under the cut: Poe’s adventures as a New Republic pilot and spy reporting to Leia the Republic Chancellor, a more gradual deprogramming process for Finn who is a kidnapped Mandalorian child soldier and the main antagonist for the whole first movie, Rey as a world-weary space scavenger looking for her family. Ben Solo starts out as a powerful but arrogant Jedi whose outsized pride and understandable resentments lead him over three movies to become the Big Bad while Finn goes in the opposite direction, reclaiming his heritage and fighting back against the organization that stole him as a child.

I’d have made Poe an officer in the New Republic (which is his actual background in the ST, of course) leading a mission given him by Chancellor/First Senator Leia Organa to investigate a disturbance in Mandalorian space. The NR and the Mandalorians are negotiating peace and trade treaties, but the Mandalorians are distracted by raids on their outlying settlements and, most disturbingly, their children being stolen. They blame the Republic, or at least its inability to reign in the chaos in their space which they believe simply pushed the raiders and slavers into Mandalore space. The Mandalorians also bitterly remember how clones of one of their warriors were used as slave soldiers by the old Republic. Some even suspect the Republic is trying to build another Mandalorian army. Leia wants to stop these raids, but it’s not easy gaining a skittish Senate’s support for missions outside Republic space. Poe has to find the smoking gun on these raiders to bring the Senate around. Along the way he is helped by Master Luke Skywalker and his apprentice, Jedi Knight Ben Solo, who ends up coming along with his old friend and rival (and implied old flame, depending on how much I can get away with).

Poe ends up being captured, however, just as he and Ben are nearing the raiders’ base. Poe kills one of the raiders that he took as a Mandalorian pirate and then is taken down by one of the dead man’s fellows–another seeming Mandalorian who fights with devastating effectiveness and ejects Ben into space before taking Poe prisoner. This is Finn. Poe escapes later when Ben, who had saved himself with the Force, comes back to save him, seething with wounded pride–something he has quite a lot of–that he was bested and almost killed by a non-Force user. He, Ben Solo, Master Skywalker’s finest student! A Skywalker by blood! He vows that there will be a rematch.

Poe and Ben have escaped, but are far from home free. The ship they stole to escape is damaged in pursuit and they hide from pursuers in a debris field, occasionally bickering, and several scavengers come upon them only to squabble among themselves over salvage rights. The winner is a tough young woman who arrived in a cloaked ship before blasting everyone else away–Rey, who’s a lot like Valkyrie from Thor: Ragnarok and is played by Devery Jacobs the way God intended. Ben and Poe instead convince her to help them out and they’ll give her anything she likes. What she really wants is to find her family, in search of whom she’s been traveling ever since she got off the junkyard planet Jakku. Poe promises the full support of the Republic for her search.

According to the information Poe had managed to extract from the ship’s databanks it turns out that someone is building an army with stolen children and, what’s more, this started decades ago. They appear to be remnants of the Empire. The mysterious warrior Finn may have been one of the first wave that was taken, judging by his age. Poe and the others need to take this information to the Senate and Mandalore, but are slowed by Finn’s dogged pursuit before Rey sets a clever trap and they take him and his crew prisoner. Finn fully expects to be tortured and killed, and is angry at the death of his friend Slip at Poe’s hands. Finn refuses to divulge anything but Poe and the others can tell just from the way he talks about the Republic that he was heavily indoctrinated his whole life. He is honorable, however–he asks that Poe spare his crew and that they execute just Finn himself as an example. Rey thinks Finn is a lost cause, which stance Ben is inclined to side with, but Poe tries to get Finn into the reality-based community which mostly has the effect of making Finn defensive. More than actual facts, however, Finn is confused at how well he and his crew are treated. On the one hand he suspects a trick, obviously, but the first seeds of doubt are planted.

Finn, however, is far from naive–he has extensive knowledge of galactic politics and military and makes some sharp critiques of the Republic’s incompetence and injustices, and his arguments actually have an effect on both Poe and Ben. Ben has seen the pressures his mother is under trying to run the Republic, how self-serving and cowardly the Senators are. Finn’s argument that only a strong central leadership backed up with credible threats of force can make the galaxy governable resonates in particular with Ben. This will be the start of Ben’s own fall as he is increasingly consumed with the thought that only he can right the ship of the galactic state.

Meanwhile Rey finds latent memories coming back from snatches of Finn’s conversation and the way he fights. Could he hold the key to finding her family? Was she a stolen child soldier like he was? She also respects Finn, and he her, for their respective skills. She doesn’t have a bone to pick in this fight and there’s no personal enmity between them. She thinks she might have liked him if he weren’t a brainwashed stiff. Scratch that, maybe she likes him nonetheless. Their interactions are increasingly filled with banter and borderline flirting.

At the end of it all Poe’s party bring the information and the prisoners to Republic space, but it is too late–the Mandalorians have invaded Republic space. They have decided that if the Republic will not keep the order they will do it themselves. Leia calls for a measured response, but the Senate quickly overrules her and actually issues a vote of no-confidence, then arrests her as a Mandalorian collaborator and would-be dictator. The situation escalates to war and Ben seethes at what happened to his mother. He runs off to rescue Leia and enlists Poe’s help. The Republic military takes in Finn and his crew and brutalize one of them when they resist, showing that Finn is in danger of much worse treatment than he was with Poe. Rey sneaks after Finn’s prisoner transport, unwilling to lose this possible lead to her family. End first movie.