lj-writes:

1. Choose ONE writer. This will be the George Lucas of the new age. JJ Abrams, Dave Filoni, just choose someone you think will take care of the franchise the way George did. (I am not saying JJ or Filoni should have been the ones in this position, but they wouldn’t be the worst.)

2. Balance out Lucas’s successor with a different director or multiple different directors. The Kershners and Marquands of the new age.

3. Spend THREE YEARS on each episode the way it’s ALWAYS been done. Absolutely no cranking out saga installments.

4. Keep an animated show handy to tide people over. Ideally, this show could tie into the sequels, taking place between them the way the 2003 Clone Wars miniseries tied directly into Revenge of the Sith and got people hyped for it after Attack of the Clones. Or, better yet, devote a show explaining what happened between ROTJ and Episode VII. But under NO circumstances assume people will watch it and not have to have it explained in the film. Give enough exposition for people who only watch the movies.

5. The anthology films are a good idea, much like the TV show. Work on them at more or less the same time as the saga films with a different crew and release them between saga installments. Again, three year gaps provide a nice middle year for anthology films to be released. Lucasfilm could get away with cranking these out instead of devoting huge effort to them, but obviously they don’t want people losing interest in the franchise.

6. Make the film clear for the Internet™ and explain it to them, because they won’t understand. None of this “is Reylo going to happen” BS. People should know what Lucasfilm’s intentions are and what messages it’s promoting.

7. The mystery box approach isn’t really the best thing for Star Wars. No one walked out of A New Hope thinking, “I bet Vader is Luke’s father!” or “I bet Leia is Luke’s sister!” Those iconic reveals punched us in the gut instead of building anticipation (during which time, theorists would figure out the twist before it happened.) On the other hand, be sure to subtly set up the reveals so they don’t come off as butt-pulls (coughs at Rey Nobody.)

swan2swan:

You know what really would have been something special in The Last Jedi but wasn’t included because it would have both given Rey character and given the audience a second to breathe?

If Luke had asked Rey what stories she had heard about him.

And she tells him that she’s heard so many, because he’s THE Luke Skywalker, but she knows a lot of them are myths. She’s pretty sure he blew up the Death Star but doesn’t think he blew up both, she doubts he moved a planet and knows there’s no way he rode a Sando Aqua Monster (“That one’s true, actually.”), but of course the most popular and mysterious one is about how he single-handedly killed Darth Vader and the Emperor.

Because everyone knows that story.

No one knows exactly how it happened, but they know Luke Skywalker went into the Emperor’s throne room with Darth Vader present and that both of them perished there. Some tales eventually began to say that Darth Vader was actually Luke Skywalker’s father, and that the two of them worked together to kill the Emperor, and then Luke Skywalker killed Vader in order to free the galaxy.

But the one Rey says she likes the most is one where Luke tried to save Vader, where he tried to bring him back, where they killed the Emperor but Vader was badly wounded, taking a fatal blow meant for his son. She likes it because it means that family matters, that people can be heroes even if no one else believes.

And Luke is astonished to see that someone is here who is not only powerful, but hopeful. And it’s not naivete, because she’s correct. And after years of people calling him the Emperor’s Bane, after years of people rejecting him once they learned of his heritage, after so much time spent in isolation believing that people would only want him back to bring a fiery sword upon the evildoers of the galaxy, here is a girl who gets it.

And finally, the Last Jedi knows that he can return.