EDITORIAL: Whats the story with "A Star Wars Story"?

So following the news (as reported by The Hollywood Reporter) that the next spin-off solo film in the now annual Star Wars franchise will be none other than the oft spoken and (for reasons passing my understanding) desired Obi-Wan Kenobi film, I thought it was a good idea to stop and take stock of where we are and what Disney and LucasFilm are doing in regards to these solo films and why I think both Kenobi: A Star Wars Story and Solo: A Star Wars Story are the wrong stories we should be telling.

Let’s start, at the beginning as the Julie Andrews song would have you believe is a very good place to start, when Disney acquired LucasFilm for a sum that I can neither conceive nor fathom they promptly announced an Episode VII would be in the works. Way back in good old...

*looks up date of announcement*

Wait a minute, 2012!

Jesus Christ where did that time go? Oblivion is ever marching forward people. There really is no time. Everything is futile.

Ahem.

Now before I lead into Rogue One and possibly come across as someone who just likes to bash Disney’s endeavours when it comes to Star Wars let me say that The Force Awakens may well be my favourite of the saga, it is the purest distillation of Star Wars and is exactly what the film needed to be and I feel JJ had a sort of thankless job in that undertaking and I feel Rian Johnson can now be unrestricted and go on to deliver something stellar and unique (and I think what will be a somewhat un-Star Wars, Star Wars film) in The Last Jedi – which I am all for.

Along with the plethora of news about Episode VII we also found out that, Star Wars was to no longer to be “event” cinema and instead be an annual franchise, alternating between a “Skywalker” Saga film and an anthology film — which would later be branded A Star Wars Story. A decision that I think is to the detriment of the Star Wars franchise and is even moreso one because of what Star Wars Story’s they’re giving us.

By the time 2020 rolls around we will have seen 6 new Star Wars films. Thats more than we saw in 38 years. Now people will point to the Marvel films and say “well thats nothing and they’re still going” but Star Wars works with something different, something magic and something special and by making it a regular thing with little variety will dull it.

That leads me to their less than stellar choices of spin-off films. The first of which followed the mission to retrieve the plans of the first Death Star titled Rogue One.

Admittedly the logical first choice that practically writes itself but as was readily stated on the twittersvere #RogueOneIsAPrequel. Now that may seem like a rather glib and inflammatory hashtag, because Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is in no way as poorly written, acted, directed or just plain dull as the prequel trilogy but it does however fall into similar pitfalls and there is an even higher and likely risk of the next two solo films doing the same.

The prequel trilogy had many shortcomings not least of which was dull characters and making what was once a magical and mythical universe feel very small. Rogue One suffers similarly – Garreth Edwards (and others?) first spin off film gave us characters that weren’t very well fleshed out and who we didn’t overly care for but they were new and they were doing something we cared about because we knew what the stakes were but we also knew what the outcome was. Which is always an issue with prequels, the problem is then you have to rely on the emotional connection and interest with the characters and their outcome to carry us through, because a film cannot be “pew pew” and “I recognise those guys from the cantina” alone.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story  failed in that aspect and as such felt hollow, oddly put together and as though we were watching someone play with their Star Wars action figures. It looked cool and was entertaining but it lacked substance to make it interesting and overly compelling –  it wasn’t brilliantly written and structured and it didn’t fully come together. Which is a shame because the concept of Rogue One is great for a first spin-off it takes a situation and mcguffin that the audience knows and is invested in and presents it with a different tone than we’re used to and populates it with original characters .

It was just not well executed enough, unfortunately the two anthology films that are to follow while I’m sure will be entertaining just through Kathleen Kennedy’s sheer force of will don’t have that conceptual balance, they go the other way with it and are, I feel very poor choices for A Star Wars Story.

I won’t comment too much on that here save to say that the change that I feel should have been made was moving the focus from Alden Ehrenreich (which is an unforunate surname to have in 2017’s political climate) to Donald Glover of Atlanta, Commmunity and Childish Gambino fame – also possibly Lethal Weapon.

Now I’m sure there’s a story there that could be told with a young Han Solo, and could be interesting — and seeing as the film is being written by Lawrence Kasdan I have high hopes it will be, the fact of the matter is however that Han Solo is a character we don’t really need to know more about.

He arrives to us in A New Hope fully formed and part of his scoundrel charm is we don’t know if the things that we hear of his past are even true. Seeing him make the Kessel Run isn’t interesting and I think he’s a character who’s past should be as shady as he is.

While it would be cool to see a smugglers story in the Star Wars universe, doing it with a character we have already seen though multiple films and who as an audience have seen his status quo and then see it broken and see him challenged and evolved, if we return to it , it would feel like a step backwards and more important than that, for a spin off film to focus on a character who is so prominent in 4 of the 7 main Star Wars film seems like a poor use of the anthology title.

Lando Calrissian however, a character who only had minor appearances in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi yet still managed to connect and form a fan base would be a much more appropriate candidate for A Star Wars Story especially considering Billy Dee Williams hasn’t managed to smooth talk and charm his way into the sequel trilogy. Donald Glover I think is supremely cast in the role and if the MARVEL Lando title is anything to go by we could have a smooth and fun film filled with charm and swashbuckle led by a character who objectively could be said we haven’t seen enough from, as opposed to one who’s arc from “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid” to 30 years late saying “It’s true. All of it. The Dark Side. The Jedi. They’re real,” we’ve seen.

Speaking of characters whose arc we’ve seen and who have had plenty of time in the forefront, the most recent “announced” Star Wars spin off film is set to focus on Obi-Wan Kenobi. Now as stated, one would think that a spin-off film would take a lesser known character and give them a spotlight, or a character from a different medium but still connected and bring them into a cinematic mainstream.

For those of you unaware Obi-Wan is a character that has appeared in; Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and while not appearing physically HIS VOICE is in Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. That’s 7 out of 8 current Star Wars films and I, even with my terrible mathematics skills can tell that’s a lot.

Now I’m aware that for reasons passing my own understanding there has been a lot of call for this on the interwebs maybe because Ewan deserves better than he got, but fans en masse very rarely know what’s good for them and creatively it’s not the most stimulating of ideas — in fact it’s one of the least interesting and the most moronic. We know pretty much everything we need to know about Obi-Wan. We saw what he did in the Star Wars trilogy and the Star Wars prequel trilogy. We had 100 episodes of what he was up to between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith and we’ve just seen him on Tatooine in REBEL’s between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.

What more is there?

A case can be made that Star Wars is arguably as much Kenobi’s story as it is the Skywalker’s and these films are supposed to stand apart from the main saga. Obi-Wan is as much a side character as Han Solo is which is to say, not very. The spin-off films should be focused on those we wish we saw and knew more of, or ones that could tell a different kind of story without being bound too heavily by what we know of them and where they’re going.

A Lando film, a film focused on Dengar, IG-88 and the other bounty hunters from Empire (not Boba Fett, stop trying to make Fett happen) or take from the new expanded continutiy and give us a Doctor Aphra film, which will also give Disney an opportunity to futher execute their diversity mandate and give us a main queer Star Wars character (other than Poe Dameron, obviously) or even failing that — wholly original characters and situations.

I know the cynical argument is always, “money” and “audiences are stupid so we have to give them what they’ve had before”. But the people who watch films are equally as intelligent as though that make them and nostalgia can only sustain something for so long, especially something that is determined to be a yearly occurrence. The business model is obviously sell something you know people will buy, but there is perhaps no brand you can have on something that would guarantee success as Star Wars, not even MARVEL and they managed to sell everyone a film with a sociopathic raccoon and a living tree that only says 3 words.

Star Wars will sell, always – but if you’re not leaning on it as a special event piece of cinema after awhile you’re going to need bring more to the table and if we only tell stories with the same characters then there are only so many stories we can tell and with each one we do, we aren’t achieving the potential of our fictional or our cinematic universe. Star Wars is annual. That’s a fact now, but Star Wars should never be stale and the palette cleansor that the A Star Wars Story anthology are supposed to provide can’t do their job if they’re about characters that we have spent the majority of the other films with.

Star Wars is an intellectual property that has such a vast sandbox, it invented the concept of expanded universe and varied stories in different mediums. Every character that appears on screen no matter how small has a Wookiepedia article. The universe has a lore and a history that can be utilised. And with Disney and LucasFilm’s erasing of the Star Wars canon, the platform is ready for new original cinematic stories.

We just have to tell the right ones.