Just for kicks, I recently decided to write my first fan fiction. Star Wars seems like the best property to take a crack at, as I feel like it’s the most in-flux, so I could pretend that I was crafting the next story that would occur after the infamous Rise Of Skywalker.
Star Wars: Converging Paths is my version of of what I’d like to see the Star Wars continuity look like in a post Sequel Trilogy timeline. There is, admittedly, some existing continuity cherry-picking that I used along the way. But I believe it will broadly fit in-line with what we’ve seen to this point.
I posted it on Archive Of Our Own, so give it a shot if you’re so inclined. I think you’ll enjoy it, if you do.
It’s been almost exactly one year since I posted about my grievances with Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker. Not much has happened in our favorite far, far away galaxy since then besides than The Book Of Boba Fett being a bit of a disappointment until it just turned into The Mandalorian Season 2.5 for the final three episodes. I had meant to do a follow-up post with my own pitch for the eventual Star Wars Episode X, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. So, here I am finally getting around to it.
For my starting point, I’m looking at the fact that the new Star Wars brain trust of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are spending a lot of time and resources in the unexplored period of time between Return Of The Jedi and The Force Awakens. My thinking is that they are trying to lay a sturdier groundwork for the future than the nostalgic quicksand that the sequel trilogy was built on. This may be optimistic, or I may just be way off the mark, but I’m choosing to believe there is a master plan in-place (again, unlike for the sequel trilogy).
My Star Wars X pitch starts – unsurprisingly – with Grogu. The most adorable little green dude in the galaxy would be in his 80’s when we come to the time after Rise Of Skywalker. My alien aging estimates are an imperfect science, but if 50 year-old Grogu acts a bit like a 5 year-old, then 80 year-old would make him about 8 years-old. I’m going to skew up a bit here, since Grogu would be a more functional lead character if he was behaving more like a 12-or-13-year-old. For the record – he is fully verbally communicating by this time, and not in a backward, Yoda manner either. In my mind he’s voiced by a Daniel Radcliffe or Tom Holland type.
In my mind, by the end of The Mandalorian’s run, Din Djarin is ruler of the planet Mandalore. He claimed the throne by wielding the Darksaber and by winning the trust and respect of his allies. Bo-Katan Kryze will still be involved, as she was a big part in helping Djarin’s rebuilding efforts. Both Djarin and Bo-Katan would be in their 60’s, and so vital enough to play the parts they are needed for. Grogu, as Djarin’s adopted son, was by his father’s side through the entire endeavor. This is why neither played a factor in the events of the sequel trilogy, and the war against the First Order.
Grogu has embraced his Mandalorian heritage, but he has also been training himself in the ways of the Jedi. Ahsoka Tano has helped him a bit along the way, but Grogu’s training has mostly been a personal journey. As he becomes more attuned to The Force, Grogu senses something dark and extremely dangerous growing in power. I’m not sure what this thing is, exactly, but it is absolutely not another Galactic Empire Wannabe, and it’s also not Sith-related. It’s something new and very old at the same time. Grogu feels the need to confront this emerging evil but, since he is still not what could be considered an adult, Djarin will not let his son fly out to face it alone.
Not really being able to hold his own in combat any longer – and having a planet to run – Djarin reaches out to their old friend Ahsoka Tano to accompany Grogu. Ahsoka, by this point, has been traveling for a while with fellow Jedi Ezra Bridger (rescued during the run of Ahsoka’s own show) and Mandalorian Sabine Wren (who helped with the aforementioned rescuing). I’m again speculating on the aging process of aliens, but Ahsoka will be fairly unchanged from the version we’ve seen in The Mandalorian and The Book Of Boba Fett. Ezra and Sabine may both middle-aged at this point but, for the most part, still in their primes. Grogu joins this crew, and they fly off to find one more powerful ally that they need.
Along their way, they pick up a couple of additional allies in the form of best buddies Poe Dameron and Finn. They’ve been living their best lives since defeating the First Order, but are still game to help out when it seems like trouble is on the rise. They are also more than happy to help the crew find the person they were seeking: Rey Skywalker.
Rey has started her own Jedi Academy on Tatooine where she teaches her students the value of finding balance in The Force, and not simply viewing things in terms of Light Side and Dark Side. When the crew arrives, Rey doesn’t hesitate to leave her star pupil in-charge (you may remember his as Broom Boy from The Last Jedi) as she goes where she is needed to help save the galaxy again. Maybe the whole gang swing into Mos Espa for a round of drinks, and chat with whomever takes over as Daimyo from the recently deceased Boba Feet before jetting off on their journey?
What happens after that? I’m not really sure. Space battles? Bitchin’ lightsaber action? Humorous bickering? Heart-warming discussions about found family? Some important lessons for Grogu as he continues growing into his own? Cool, Star Wars-y stuff like that.
Is evil defeated in Star Wars X? Or does it simply launch a new trilogy? I’m not sure about this either, and it doesn’t really matter to me. The most important thing to me is that the Star Wars Universe begins thriving in the present, rather than dwelling in the past. And that it rushes full-speed ahead to the future that it deserves.
The Obi Wan Kenobi series on Disney+ is bringing back Hayden Christensen to presumably play some version of Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader. The questions are how and why.
The is all purely speculation on my part, but the how is very likely in some sort of guilt-and-loneliness-induced vision. Spending twenty years living in a cave on Tatooine after a lifetime of high adventure as a military commander and Jedi Knight is clearly not going to be an easy endeavor. So, using his memories to bring back the ghost of his best friend seems like a reasonable response for Obi Wan. But there’s one particular question I have, that may not have as simple an answer as one might think: Why did Obi Wan leave Anakin/Vader burning alive in the lava pits of Mustafar?
Was he unable to bring himself to kill the man he’d considered a brother? It’s possible. But, after watching the man he thought he knew effectively kill Amidala along with many Padawan children in the Jedi Temple, Obi Wan knew very well that the Sith Lord lying in the flames was no longer Anakin Skywalker. And Obi Wan knew very well that Darth Vader would do nothing less that cause mass death and destruction at the behest of his master, Darth Sidious. Ending this one life likely would have saved millions more.
Obi Wan Kenobi is an old school honorable man, but he’s also proven to be a realist in many instances. He had very sensible doubts about Qui Gon Jinn taking on young Anakin. He very distastefully used a blast to kill General Grievous. And, when he knew he was too old to fight at Luke Skywalker’s side, he allowed himself to be slain by Vader in order to continue helping Luke the best way he could: As a Force Ghost.
Back to the honorable man argument: Would killing a defeated opponent violate the Jedi Code? Very likely, yes. But he had just dismembered Vader, and left him burning alive alongside a river of lava. Wouldn’t it have been more merciful to just finish him off, rather than allowing him to suffer a slow, torturous death on the burning sands? Was it truly more ethical to leave Vader like that?
There’s not even a question of how, practically-speaking, Obi Wan could have finished off Vader. He would have just used the force to lift Vader off the sand, and levitate him over to take his head off. Every part of that was within Obi Wan’s power to accomplish.
Here’s a much more interesting theory: Did Obi Wan leave Vader alive to provide Darth Sidious with his prize? As damaged as Vader was after the duel with Obi Wan, that did not change the fact that Sidious invested more than a decade grooming Anakin via gaslighting and other temptations. He spent a whole lot of effort over a great amount of time poisoning Anakin’s mind to the point where he would willingly choose the Dark Side over the Jedi Order, and one couldn’t doubt just how determined Sidious was to turn The Chosen One over to his cause.
Obi Wan knew this just as well as he knew that Anakin’s and Padme’s children would shine like a beacon to Sidious if he’d had any desire to seek them out. With Vader by his side, Sidious had no reason to actively search for another apprentice. If he had been so inclined, he may well have found Luke and/or Leia before they were ready to defend themselves against him in any capacity. But Sidious had the prize that he had longed for, and set about his quest to consolidate power, and conquer the galaxy.
It’s possible that Sidious may not have been able to complete his conquest without Vader by his side. But Obi Wan had little reason to think that the evil Sith emperor was lacking in the resources necessary to accomplish his goal, with or without Vader. So, he used Darth Vader as a shield to protect Anakin Skywalker’s children until the time came where they would be capable of ending Darth Sidious’ reign.
I may be totally off-the-mark here, and Disney+ may really just be bringing Hayden Christensen back to get a little nostalgia bump. Or, maybe they actually want to give him a chance to play the role of Anakin/Vader with a more competent filmmaker than 1999-2005 George Lucas, and thus redeem himself from the bad reputation that he got saddled with due to the prequel trilogy. But they do have the chance to do something really cool, and really emotional when they get Christensen and Ewan McGregor back on-screen together for the first time in more than fifteen years. I hope they ask the question that I have here, and I hope the answer is at least as interesting as my theory. I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.
Way back in 2017 I wrote about The Ballad of Luke Skywalker. This was shortly before The Last Jedi was released, and I offered up some theories, and questions. The movie did answer the most important questions I had. Another of the questions was partially addressed by The Mandalorian when Luke sought out Grogu to train him. I certainly would like to see some more of that.
Luke did, essentially, get the big send off that I wanted to see in The Last Jedi. It wasn’t the way I’d imagined it, but it still worked for me. All-in-all I liked the Last Jedi quite a lot. It was a well-made movie that served up some interesting ideas to be explored in the final part of the trilogy.
Then Rise Of Skywalker happened. I’m not going to do a deep dive, because I’m a little late to the party, and pretty much every angle has already been covered 100 times. But I also wanted to wrap up my previous blog post from before my hiatus.
Rise Of Skywalker was terrible. Very likely the worst Star Wars movie I’ve ever seen. Attack Of The Clones had a strong claim to the throne for a while, but that was just the middle part of a prequel trilogy. Rise Of Skywalker was not only the final chapter of the long-awaited sequel trilogy, but also the final chapter in an extraordinarily beloved movie series that stems back more than 40 years.
Among the interesting ideas posed by The Last Jedi was that Rey was just an ordinary person who happened to be strong with The Force. Sure, I was rooting for her to be Luke’s kid, but I was fine with the fact that she wasn’t. In fact, that message was sort of inspiring in that it told us that anyone can be special.
Rise Of Skywalker decided that Rey was Emperor Palpatine’s granddaughter. Or, like, the daughter of a Palpatine clone who didn’t have any powers. Or some such nonsense that was never really explained in the movie, but was discussed in subsequent interviews. What the hell, Rise Of Skywalker?
On the same note, Broom Boy’s whimsically casual use of The Force at the end of The Last Jedi offered up another fun option. Maybe Rey would travel the galaxy to find these Force-Sensitive people, and enlist them in the final battle to defeat the First Order. Something like that could have been displayed similarly to the epic portals scene of Avengers: Endgame. Only, instead of superheroes and wizards, it would have been common people standing together and using what power they had to defeat the evil empire.
Rise Of Skywalker made no mention of Broom Boy, or anyone else like him at all. Sure, they alluded to Finn all of a sudden being Force-Sensitive, but then did absolutely nothing with him besides yelling “REY!” over and over again. Speaking of Finn, he also had a big secret that he wanted to tell Rey. He never told her, and therefore the audience never found out. But we were again told after-the-fact that he wanted to tell her he was Force-Sensitive. This revelation also would have made no difference to the events of the film regardless, so who really cares. What the hell, Rise Of Skywalker?
Kylo Ren was made into a really interesting shades-of-gray character by The Last Jedi, before decided to stick to the Dark Side and slice his way to Supreme Leader status. The clear conflict within him sizzled up ever scene he was in, especially his scenes with Rey.
In Rise Of Skywalker, he falls immediately back in-line under Palpatine like Darth Vader 2.0, even though he had made a big deal of becoming the true big boss man of the First Order in the previous movie. So, he’s just bad again until he talks to a hallucination of his dead father, Han Solo, and is suddenly not bad anymore. Han was not a Force Ghost, not really a memory, and also not explained at all by the movie. What the hell, Rise Of Skywalker?
Honestly, I could go on and on about this stuff, so here’s a few more quick takes.
Palpatine is just back, which is super lame, and you would have only seen it coming if you played Fortnite. What the hell, Rise Of Skywalker?
Rose Tico just doesn’t matter anymore, even though she spent the entirety of The Last Jedi building a pretty fun relationship with Finn. What the hell, Rise Of Skywalker?
Poe and Rey have one scene of a kinda flirty Han-and-Leia interaction, and then it’s never mentioned again. But Poe’s ex-girlfriend shows up for a few scenes to waste time on a subplot that could have been wrapped up in one or two scenes. What the hell, Rise Of Skywalker?
Chewbacca and C-3PO die, or are erased, in service of the greater good. Until they’re back, and right as rain 10 minutes later. Even dramatic sacrifices are brushed aside, and immediately retconned (like J.J Abrams tried to do with the entirety of The Last Jedi). What the hell, Rise Of Skywalker?
When Ben Solo finally completes his slapdash redemption arc, and somehow manages to make a couple of cool moments happen, he’s immediately blasted down a bottomless pit before he can even take a swing at Palpatine. He could have, at least, battled Palpatine’s army of faceless fans(?) in the stands while Rey took on Palpy himself. But, nah. What the hell, Rise Of Skywalker?
And many, many more issues that became even more prevalent when I finally decided to give Rise Of Skywalker a second chance after almost a full year.
At any rate, I wanted to put a bow on my 2017 blog about Luke Skywalker, and I have. I’ve very happy that the Star Wars universe is expanding, and I freakin’ love The Mandalorian. I’m also very much looking forward to some of the other announced projects coming, especially the Ashoka Tano, Obi Wan Kenobi, and Boba Fett shows.
The only issue is that all those projects take place in the past, meaning that for the foreseeable future, Rise Of Skywalker is the end of the Star Wars Saga. I really hope that’s not the case for long.
They’ve finally got the right people in-place to shepherd Star Wars back to greener pastures (yes, another shot at J.J) with Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni’s Mando staff. I’m also happy to hear that Rian Johnson is still set to make more Star Wars movies as well. If they’d given him Rise Of Skywalker it probably would have been more “Hell Yeah!” than “What The Hell?”
So, I will hold out hope that Star Wars Episode X, or whatever they end up calling it, can turn Star Wars back into the Crown Jewel that Disney envisioned when they bought the rights from Lucasfilms. Hope, after all, is where this whole thing started in that long time ago galaxy of 1977.
