Well… that was mediocre.

Okay, here’s some background:

(1) I am quite willing to stand up and defend the prequel trilogy films as being diamonds in rough. I feel that watching those films is roughly equivalent to watching the Special Edition versions of the original trilogy: There are good-to-great films buried in there, but they’ve been ruined by George Lucas’ inability to edit himself. The only difference is that we’ve seen the original versions of the A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi — that makes it (relatively) easy for us to ignore the crap Lucas has shoveled on top of those films. With the prequel trilogy, we’ve never seen the version without the fart jokes.

(2) The original Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series was broadcast on the Cartoon Network. It had a story by George Lucas, but the project was largely spearheaded by Genndy Tartakovsky. This series was single-handedly responsible for rekindling my love of Star Wars. After years of abusive mediocrity, I had literally forgotten how much I loved this universe. After watching Clone Wars, I tracked down high quality versions of the original versions of the original trilogy and, watching them, I realized just how much I still loved these films and how much damage George Lucas had inflicted on his own creation.

(3) I wasn’t alone. The Clone Wars series was so popular it got extended for a second series. And when that was a success, Lucas decided to turn it into a full-blown TV series. The animation was “upgraded” from 2D cell art to 3D CGI, and then Lucas felt that was going so well that he took the first several episodes and packaged them into a feature film for theatrical release.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the line Genndy Tartakovsky didn’t make the cut. (He’s apparently working on the sequel to The Dark Crystal, a fact which fills me with glee.) The loss of Tartakovsky is unfortunate because, frankly, Star Wars: The Clone Wars doesn’t capture the same magic as its progenitor. (Note the difference between Star Wars: Clone Wars and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Thanks for the crystal-clear titles.)

Basically, here’s the run-down:

(1) Visually, the animation style is surprisingly effective and often incredibly beautiful.

(2) Unfortunately, from a cinematic standpoint, the directing and visual storytelling just doesn’t cut it. There are lots of battles, for example, but none of them are particularly compelling or memorable.

(3) But certainly part of the problem the director has is that the script just isn’t that interesting. The story never manages to make me care about what’s going on (which is largely because nobody in the movie seems to care all that much), the dialogue is cliche-ridden, and the whole thing is riddled with plot holes and inconsistencies. Plus, while there’s often a lot of sound and fury, the author doesn’t find anything particularly unique to do with it. So in the battles, for example, there are lots of lasers being fired and lightsabers being swung around… but it’s just visual noise. Very pretty visual noise, but still utterly forgettable.

(4) Perhaps most disappointingly, the characters are largely flat (with one exception which I’ll note below). The only reason I even vaguely care about any of them is because of their previous appearances in other films. The argument could certainly be made that it would be difficult to do anything meaningful with characters who’s stories have already been told from beginning to end in the original six movies, but I can literally point directly at Tartakovsky’s work in the original animated series as an example of how you can always find fresh dramatic material.

(5) The pacing of the film is also very poor. But that leads me to a larger point, which is that this material was not originally intended to be a single feature film… and I think it shows. Amidala, for example, doesn’t show up until the third act of the film, and then plays an almost deus ex machina role in wrapping up the plot.

I suspect that if I had been watching this as three episodes of a television series, my reaction might have been more positive. (So I’m probably going to give the TV series a shot when it premieres.)

(6) It’s almost as if Lucas intentionally tries to find something incredibly stupid to put into his films. In this case, it’s Jabba the Hutt’s flamingly homosexual uncle. I just… I wish I was making that up.

(7) On the other hand, the one thing I did like was Anakin’s padawan, Ahsoka. Her initial introduction left me skeptical, but she rapidly grew on me despite the weak and repetitive nature of the script. She’s the one character that the film, on its own merits, makes me care about. And I’m mildly interested to see if the series can develop the serious dramatic potential in the relationship between Anakin and Ahsoka.

I’ve seen a few people trying to defend the weaknesses of this movie by saying that it’s “aimed at kids”.

Well, even if we ignore the PG rating of the film: So what? There is a difference between “aimed at kids” and “stupid”.

When I was a kid I could tell the difference between the stuff that I actually liked and the stuff that was created by some adult trying to patronize me. I don’t think I was alone. And I reject out of hand the flawed logic that “it’s OK that it’s bad because it’s just for kids”.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars isn’t a mediocre movie because it’s aimed at young teens. It’s a mediocre movie because it’s a mediocre movie.

I thought I’d written this on here before, but apparently I was just imagining that. In regards to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:

I would like to thank George Lucas for making the Star Wars prequels. Without the valuable training I have gleaned from those films, I would have found it much more difficult to ignore all the ridiculous foibles of this film and enjoy it as much as I did.

The trick, you see, lies in being able to instantly assess that something is both incredibly lame and completely irrelevant to the film. You then jettison that information instantaneously and go back to enjoying the rest of the film (which is rather good).

Michelangelo is quoted as saying, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

I have a theory about George Lucas: He’s like Michelangelo. Except he’s gotten lazy and he doesn’t bother carving away all of the marble necessary to reveal the angel. The portions of the angel that you can see are still pretty awesome, but there’s all this other marble — the absurdities, the bathroom humor, the extraneous nonsense — getting in the way.

And, as I say, the Star Wars prequels trained me pretty well in the “fine art” of ignoring all that excess marble Lucas leaves lying around. So Lucas throws in some stupid scene with Shia LaBeouf swinging around like Tarzan and leading a tribe of monkeys, and I promptly reach into my brain, grab that idiocy, throw it away, and pretend as if the film existed without that scene (or the many other scenes like it).

And I’m happier for it.

Of course, the film itself is still flawed. But at least this way I can enjoy — in a somewhat marred fashion — the angel that could have been.

So, long story short vis-a-vis Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: A decent enough flick. I was hoping that Spielberg would be more successful in reining in Lucas’ excesses, but despite that it’s enjoyable enough. I mean, it’s not even close to being a Raiders of the Lost Ark or an Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but it’s fun enough.

This is possible the most awesome thing in creation:

There’s also a DVD available. It’s apparently a couple years old, but I have only just discovered it.

I have a theory when it comes to the Star Wars prequels: I think that they are, fundamentally, stories and theatrical experiences with the same depth, scope, grandeur, and quality of the original trilogy. This fundamental strength, however, is masked by the peculiar foibles that have, unfortunately, become emblematic of George Lucas’ recent work: The fart jokes. The anachronistic comedy. The self-indulgent special effects sequences.

But I would further hold that these foibles are, in fact, only cosmetic in nature. In fact, I think an analogy can be drawn to the Special Editions of the original trilogy. Here, too, we see the same foibles: The sinister rendered comical. Droids performing Three Stooges routines. Scenes reinstated which should have (and did) hit the cutting room floor because they lessened the films.

But if you take away all the foibles and sweep them away, you still have the fundamentally great movies we all remember and love.

I think the same thing is true of the prequels. The only difference is that we were never given the chance to see the great version of these films. Instead, all we’ve ever seen are the “special edition” edits — complete with all the foibles and flaws that turn greatness into heartbreaking mediocrity.

This is why, I think, there is a particular fascination with the “phantom edits” of these films (particularly The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones). I don’t think any of these “phantom edits” have, in fact, managed to be entirely successful — either due to lack of talent; insufficient technical facility; or the excesses of fanboy agendas — but that’s a subject for another time.

Instead, I want to talk about one of the things that I think Lucas does particularly well in the original trilogy: The scheming of Palpatine.

A common misunderstanding is that “everything goes just like Palpatine wants it to”. The reality is actually a lot subtler and more powerful than that.

THE ORIGINAL PLAN

Let’s begin at the beginning. Before The Phantom Menace opens, what is Palpatine’s plan? Well, to some degree, we need to interpolate (since Palpatine never deigns to monologue like a Bond villain). But the best answer would seem to be this:

As Senator Palpatine, arrange for the Senate to pass exorbitant tax laws targeting the trade guilds. Then, as Darth Sidious, use the outrage over these new tax laws to forge an alliance with the Trade Federation. Use the Trade Federation to trigger a crisis by having them invade his own home planet of Naboo. Use this crisis to trigger a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Velorum and then use his own political connections plus the sizable sympathy vote to be elected the new Supreme Chancellor.

Once that’s been achieved, he would force Queen Amidala to sign a treaty with the Trade Federation, creating a home base for the Separatist movement. He could then gradually increase the scale and scope of the crisis until the Senate was forced to vote him emergency powers. Once he had those, he could tighten his grip on the universe.

THE PHANTOM MENACE

In The Phantom Menace we see these plans get disrupted — at least to some extent. With the help of Qui-Gonn and Obi-Wan, Queen Amidala escapes. Palpatine tries to cope with this situation by sending Darth Maul to recapture Amidala.

In fact, recapturing Amidala is absolutely crucial for the success of Palpatine’s original plan. But Amidala escapes again, finally reaching Coruscant. This forces Palpatine to adjust his scheme: He uses Amidala’s presence on Coruscant to trigger the no confidence vote.

But no sooner is that done than Amidala throws a new wrench into his plans by announcing her intention to return to Naboo. Palpatine tries to have Amidala killed (“Wipe them out, all of them.) — probably in the hopes of creating a martyr — but she thwarts him again, this time by winning the war and defeating the Trade Federation’s droid army.

Ironically, however, this helps Palpatine, too: He was elected Chancellor on a promise to clear up this Trade Federation problem and, within a matter of weeks, the problem has apparently been cleared up. Palpatine can undoubtedly use this huge success to solidify his political support and his position as Chancellor.

The brilliance of The Phantom Menace, masked by Lucas’ foibles, is a story in which the heroes win every single battle… and end up losing the war. And they don’t even know it.

ATTACK OF THE CLONES

To be fair, the heroes in The Phantom Menace probably delayed Palpatine’s plans — forcing him to re-trench and re-establish his plans for a Separatist movement.

But over the next ten years, Palpatine secretly uses his political connections to prevent any lasting repercussions from reaching the Trade Federation; somehow arranges for the creation of a Clone Army; and gets his plans for the Separatist movement back on track. In Attack of the Clones we see the Separatist movement create a crisis great enough for the Senate to vote Palpatine emergency powers (essentially giving him complete control of the government). Palpatine can then activate his clone army and create a conflagration across the galaxy.

The brilliance of Attack of the Clones, masked to a somewhat lesser extent by Lucas’ foibles, is a villain playing both sides of the game while making the heroes do all the work for him. For Palpatine it doesn’t actually matter which side wins the Clone Wars: He controls them both.

Attack of the Clones also features the type of rapid readjustment we saw Palpatine perform in The Phantom Menace. At the very beginning of the movie, there is an attempted assassination attempt on Senator Amidala. One reason for this assassination is explicitly given in the film: The Trade Federation wants her assassinated before they’ll agree to sign on with Count Dooku.

But there’s also a deeper level at work here: Amidala is the leader of the Loyalists, who are opposed to the Military Creation Act. Palpatine is publicly her ally in this, but privately he knows the time is fast-approaching when he’s going to be making a political about-face on this one (all the while talking about the “sad necessity” of his actions). Amidala, however, is an idealist and might prove troublesome. As a martyr, however, she’s not only out of the way — her death could be used as his reason for performing the about-face.

When the assassination attempt fails, however, Palpatine manipulates events again to achieve his desired results: He gets her to return home to Naboo. Meanwhile, on Coruscant, he manipulates the junior senator from Naboo (Jar-Jar) into proposing the very measure Amidala would have probably fought with her last breath.

On top of all that, I suspect an even deeper level of machination: Palpatine knows of Anakin’s feelings for Amidala. And not only does he manipulate the situation to get Amidala off Coruscant, he manipulates it so that she’s sent off of Coruscant with Anakin. Palpatine must suspect that this will create a love that he can then use as a lever to help turn Anakin to the dark side.

REVENGE OF THE SITH

Finally, in Revenge of the Sith, we see the end-game which allows Palpatine to simultaneously become Emperor and destroy the Jedi.

The war he has created and orchestrated from both sides has served not only to create a military state that he rigidly controls, it has also thinned the ranks of the Jedi. Both of these are necessary for the successful execution of Order 66, which paves the way for the dissolution of the Jedi Council and the extermination of the Jedi.

Once those goals have been accomplished, Palpatine quickly brings the civil war to an end. (Easily accomplished, since he controls both sides.) Like an antique Roman, Palpatine refuses to relinquish his emergency powers and becomes Emperor.

THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY

Between the end of Revenge of the Sith and the beginning of A New Hope, Palpatine has continued to “tighten his grip” (as Princess Leia puts it). In terms of the Jedi, this means Darth Vader’s hunting down and destroying the last of that “ancient order”. In the case of the Empire, it means steadily strengthening the regional governors and weakening the Senate.

As A New Hope begins, Palpatine is actually laying down the finishing touches of his Imperial dreams: The Senate has been dissolved and he will rule directly through the governors. All of this is possible, however, only because the Death Star gives him an absolute threat of tyrannical force with which to enforce his will.

When the Death Star is destroyed, Palpatine is dealt a serious blow. What we see in The Empire Strikes Back is the Empire trying to maintain its absolute power using the Imperial Navy. But Palpatine knew that would never be sufficient (that’s why he built the Death Star in the first place) — and, just as Princess Leia predicted, more and more systems are slipping through his fingers. The Rebel Alliance is growing in strength, although it’s still on the run.

In Return of the Jedi we see it all fall apart: The new Death Star is Palpatine’s attempt to restore the control he tried to grasp in A New Hope. And, of course, it fails rather dramatically.

POLITICS AND THE FORCE

This little essay has dealt primarily with Palpatine’s political machinations. But one of the things that makes Star Wars particularly powerful is that there are actually three meta-stories being woven throughout the saga:

First, there are Palpatine’s political machinations — the story of the rise and fall of the Empire.

Second, there is Palpatine’s war against the Jedi — the story of the rise and fall of the Sith (and, conversely, the fall and rebirth of the Jedi).

Third, there is the saga of the Skywalkers — the corruption of Anakin and the pure hero quest of Luke. (Particularly notable here is that a strong argument can be made that Palpatine actually fights a battle against prophecy and, for a limited time, wins. As Obi-Wan tearfully cries out in Revenge of the Sith, Anakin was the Chosen One… and Palpatine took that away from him.)

And although I’m not going to go into it here, there is as much depth and complexity in the second and third tales, in my opinion, as there is in the first.

A few years ago I was asked, based on my analysis of the intrigues of the prequel trilogy, to share my thoughts on what a sequel to the original Star Wars trilogy would look like. The result was the following essay. Originally written shortly before the release of Revenge of the Sith, it has been given a minor revision to take into account the particulars of that last film.

EPISODES VII, VIII, and IX

Everything I’ve read would seem to indicate that George Lucas originally intended for Episodes VII-IX to be the “Further Adventures of Luke Skywalker”, and that a lot of that material got rolled into Return of the Jedi. (Although, of course, the story fluctuates.)

But let’s speculate.

Each STAR WARS trilogy would seem to be formed of two components:

(1) A Star War. In the original trilogy this was the Rebellion. In the prequel trilogy this is the Clone War or the Separatist Civil War.

(2) The Skywalker Saga. To some extent this can be thought of as “the story of Anakin Skywalker” — and Lucas has certainly tried to spin it that way in pulling his dramatic commitment back to six films – but the reality is the prequel trilogy is the story of Anakin and the original trilogy is the story of Luke. Anakin’s story certainly continues into Luke’s, but claiming that the focus of the second trilogy is Anakin’s redemption would be wildly inaccurate.

So what might a sequel trilogy look like?

Well, first off we need a star war: It’s right there in the title. What would it be? The Extended Universe certainly shows us some intriguing possibilities, ranging from a resurgent Empire to intergalactic invaders. But here’s my thought: A Droid Uprising. (Obi-Wan: “If druids could think, there’d be none of us here.”) There’s a rather serious disconnect between the attitudes we see people holding towards druids in the Star Wars universe — whether it’s Obi-Wan’s off-hand comment or the casual wiping of droid memories — and the intelligent, independent, and sentient behavior we actually see droids like C3-PO and (particularly) R2-D2 engaging in.

R2-D2 as leader of a Droid Rebellion? Nah. That’s a little too weird. But what about Grievous, the Droid General? Obi-Wan may have thought he destroyed him by burning out the organic organs in his chest, but what if those remains were recovered and preserved? (The most obvious questions would be, “By who?” and “For what purpose?”) Combine these speculations with the very old rumor that a character from the prequel trilogy would be frozen in carbonite only to return in the sequel trilogy and you start getting some very interesting synergies.

Let’s turn our attention from that and take a look at the Skywalker Saga for a moment. From what we’ve seen, the Skywalkers seem irrevocably tied up with the Prophecy of the Chosen One. Now, frankly, I’m still pretty damn hazy on exactly what this Prophecy is all about. What, exactly, does it mean to “bring balance to the Force”? The obvious interpretation of the words seems rather belied by the fact that none of the Jedi say, “The Chosen One? Kill him now before he can revive the Dark Side in order to balance out our massive success as practitioners of the Light Side of the Force!”

(Tangent: One interesting theory I came up with a while back was the idea that the whole Skywalker-as-Chosen-One thing is a red herring. What if Palpatine is the Chosen One who brings balance by orchestrating the destruction of the Jedi, whose wide-spread use of the Force created unnatural imbalances? It doesn’t fully track, but it’s an interesting thought.)

In any case, there’s actually two questions here: What do the Jedi THINK the Prophecy means? And what does the Prophecy ACTUALLY mean?

I’m not sure what the Jedi think the Prophecy means, but I believe that what the Prophecy actually refers to is the finding of a third path: A balance within the individual Force-user between the Light and Dark sides of the Force. A healing of the philosophical schism which occurred when the Sith and the Jedi parted ways a millennia ago, the former succumbing to self-destructive egomania; the latter becoming the caretakers of a stagnating civilization.

In such an interpretation, the Chosen One is not, of course, Anakin: It’s Luke. And what we see in Return of the Jedi is not just the rebirth of the Republic, it’s a rebirth of the Jedi. It’s not just a return of the Jedi wiped out twenty years before: It’s a return of the True Jedi, whose path was lost in an artificial schism.

(REVISION NOTE: The Jedi’s interpretation of the Prophecy would appear to rely on the dichotomy between the Living Force (sensitivity to the moment arising from the interconnection of all things) and the Unified Force (the binding nature of the Force which results in destiny and shapes the future). Finding balance between these two sides of the Force would be seen as a positive way to escape the stagnation inherent in the Old Jedi Order’s reliance upon the Unified Force.)

Now, in the Extended Universe, we’ve seen a persistence of the old Light/Dark dichotomy. But, personally, I believe that Luke’s teachings would be influenced by that moment in Return of the Jedi where he opened his heart to the Dark Side… and DIDN’T fall. His New Jedi Order would be a rediscovery of how to walk the Path of Balance.

Where does all that take us? I’m not sure. But let’s talk about the Skywalkers some more. Looking at the Star Wars saga from a structural standpoint, we also see a generational transition between the trilogies, and I would expect to see the same thing happen again with the sequel trilogy. The Skywalker(s) at the center of the sequel trilogy would be the children of either Luke or Leia (or both).

But what’s their story? In the prequel trilogy we see the Fall of Anakin Skywalker. In the original trilogy we not only see Luke avoid that fall, we also see Anakin’s Redemption. Is there a third angle to this story? Or is the cycle complete, and all we could see is redundancy?

(Another tangent: One of the things I find brilliant about the prequels is the subtle enhancement of Luke’s character arc in the original trilogy. Having seen only part of Anakin’s fall, I find that I “worry” a lot more about Luke falling to the Dark Side. Having seen only the original trilogy, Luke is clearly the Hero of the tale; you just expect him to resist temptation. But having seen his father — and Luke is so very much like his father — you can’t help but begin to entertain the worrisome notion that Luke could be just as vulnerable to temptation. But I digress.)

The Extended Universe, in fact, offers many faceted views of this fall-and-redemption cycle. Perhaps the least satisfying of these is Dark Empire — in which (MINOR SPOILERS) Luke falls himself and then finds redemption. Although there are a lot of interesting things about Dark Empire, Luke’s fall is not only a redundant telling of his father’s story, it also directly saps the power and conviction of the conclusion of Return of the Jedi. (The Emperor’s resurrection also detracts from the conclusive nature of  Return of the Jedi, in my opinion.) Perhaps the most interesting is the Knights of the Old Republic computer roleplaying game, which I won’t spoil here for anyone who hasn’t played it. (You should.) Mara Jade is another obvious example here.

Perhaps the mirror here is one of letting Luke play his role as the Chosen One to save his children (or Leia’s children). Luke is the Redeemer. (Doc Brown: “It’s not you, Marty. It’s your kids!”) This, of course, raises the question of how Luke let things go wrong in the first place. (Maybe he wasn’t there? Maybe Luke disappeared years ago and part of the story of the new trilogy is figuring out where he went and why.)

The larger problem with such a story, though, is its inherently unfocused nature: Is it a story of the kid’s fall? Their redemption? One or the other has strength. Both in the same arc would tend to make them a pale imitation of the previous trilogies (each of which was allowed to focus on one theme over the other).

Let me make a major digression here and look at the trilogies from a Campbellian perspective: It’s interesting to note that Lucas takes a Campbellian hero cycle and, to at least some extent, extends it into a generational epic. Shmi Skywalker is the metaphorical World Goddess, her virgin womb the wellspring of the Skywalker hero-legacy. In Anakin the promise of the hero (Chosen One) is twisted as his hero-journey is warped: The corrupted nature of Anakin’s reunion with his mother lays the seed; the death of one father-figure (Qui-Gon) and the failure of another (Obi-Wan) open the door for the corrupted father-figure of Palpatine to turn Anakin’s Apotheosis into a Fall. The result is the transformation of a hero-cycle into a Greco-tragedy.

But the hero-seed of Shmi Skywalker does not end its journey in Anakin Skywalker, it jumps to Luke. In this way Lucas raises Campbell ‘s cosmogonic cycle from a single hero and extends it to the Skywalker family as a whole. Luke’s hero-cycle, unlike that of his father, cannot be corrupted.

Campbell writes: “Two degrees of initiation are to be distinguished in the mansion of the father. From the first, the son returns as emissary, but from the second, with the knowledge that ‘I and the father are one’. Heroes of this second, highest illumination, are the world redeemers, the so-called incarnations, in the highest sense. Their myths open out to cosmic proportions. Their words carry an authority beyond anything pronounced by the heroes of the scepter and the book.”

Luke is a hero of the second sort: “I am a Jedi… like my father.” And Luke is also given his father’s blessing: “Tell your sister you were right… You were right…” This indoctrinates him as the Redeemer.

(Actually, Lucas’ working of the hero-cycle at the end of Return of the Jedi is both intricate and subtle. Campbell also writes: “Stated in direct terms: the work of the hero is to slay the tenacious aspect of the father (dragon, tester, ogre king) and release from its ban the vital energies that will feed the universe.” Luke doesn’t actually slay his father, but metaphorically the content is obviously there. More subtly, however, is the fact that Anakin’s moment of redemption is ALSO a father-slaying: The warped father-figure of Palpatine.)

But there’s one major leg of the cosmogonic hero-cycle missing here: The hero’s return. The Redeemer’s revolution and transformation of society. This would seem to be Luke’s destiny, with his revolution being the New Order of True Jedi walking the Path of Balance and his new society being that of the New Republic . (This is also an interesting mirror with Anakin: In Anakin’s failed apotheosis we see the destruction of the Jedi and the fall of the Republic. In Luke’s successful apotheosis we see the founding of a new Jedi Order and the return of the Republic.)

So if the sequel trilogy is the story of Luke as Redeemer, wouldn’t that mean the sequel trilogy would focus on Luke and not the next generation of Skywalkers? Not necessarily. No moreso than the story of Anakin’s redemption was told to us with Anakin as the focus of the story. Indeed, part of the strength of the STAR WARS saga to date is the fact that the second half of Anakin’s story became merely part of Luke’s story: A large tapestry woven into an even larger saga.

So, how would we see Luke’s story as the Redeemer and World-Changer similarly reflected as being merely a part of the larger story of his children?

It would definitely be interesting to see how Lucas would answer that question.

But for our own entertainment, let’s throw a few pieces out on the table and see what happens with them:

A DROID UPRISING

This is the central crisis on which we hang our plot. It’s the focus of tension and conflict, and provides all the pretty pyrotechnics you need for a grand space opera. It grows naturally out of the themes and elements we’ve already seen in the STAR WARS saga, while also staying true to the saga’s basic palette of classic, Golden Age science fiction.

MARA JADE

Mara may belong to the Extended Universe, but her love story of redemption is so perfect in the role of Luke’s wife that if she didn’t exist we’d have to create her. (And it wouldn’t be the first time that a creation of Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy made the jump to the big screen.) She wouldn’t necessarily be the Mara Jade of the Extended Universe, but she would be a Force-using servant of the Emperor who comes into direct conflict with Luke in the struggles which follow the destruction of the second Death Star. Although all of this would have happened off-screen, in her redemption we have the dark temptress transformed into the life-womb of the Skywalker Children. Speaking of which…

THE SKYWALKER CHILDREN

Here I see influence from the Children of the Lens (E.E. “Doc” Smith). The twin daughters of Luke and Mara; the twin sons of Han and Leia. They form the nucleus of the New Jedi Order, and their collective hero-cycle redemption is the thematic core of this third act in the Skywalker Saga. But the journey will not be smooth or predestined, for the twins are fated to be pitted one against the other.

THE NEW JEDI ORDER

In this we see Luke’s role as the Redeemer. Although twenty years have passed and the foundations of the New Order are already becoming firm, in its mere existence we can see the fruits of Luke’s apotheosis. The Order is the backbone of the New Republic, and the Skywalker Children are the nucleus of the Order: Thus we see how Luke’s role as the Redeemer is subsumed into the hero-cycle of his children.

A GRAIL QUEST

The Arthurian Grail Quest is an inversion of the hero-quest, in which the hero-quest itself becomes a tragic form. What would the grail-object be in the world of STAR WARS? I’m not sure. But in a grail-quest we would see that elusive third facet of the hero-cycle: In Anakin we see a failed hero-cycle lead to tragedy. In Luke we see a successful hero-cycle turned to apotheosis. In the Skywalker children we would see a grail-quest in which some would rise to ascension and others would be debased.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LUKE SKYWALKER

After the world-change, the hero must depart — it’s the final stage of his existence. In the case of Luke, his disappearance would not only play a part in triggering the crisis which initiates the hero-cycle of his children, it would also be the breadcrumbs on the path which would lead them to the grail-quest.

And how about some droid Force users? Or, rather, not Force users. Because the Force binds together *living* things. But if that’s the case, who are the Droid Knights? And how can they do the things they do?

EPISODE VII: THE FORGOTTEN SHADOW

The last remnants of the Empire have been swept away at the Battle of Talame. But in the aftermath of victory a dark mystery prevails: At the height of the battle, Jedi Master LUKE SKYWALKER vanished, his ship disappearing without a trace.

As the galaxy searches for the lost Jedi Master, Luke’s wife, MARA JADE, and his daughter, AMELIA, are dispatched to the Republic shipyards at Halon Prime, to investigate the facility’s sudden communications silence.

Meanwhile, on the small world of Pelori IV, an ancient menace has returned — an old threat for a New Republic …

Pan down to the ship of Mara and Amelia, running silent through intergalactic space. Cut inside to a brief conversation between Mara and her daughter. Even here, a micro-jump from Halon Prime, there’s no sign of any communications in the system. They jump. After a few seconds, they drop out of hyperspace into catastrophe: Hundreds of ruined Republican ships litter the starways, their still-burning hulls drifting listlessly through an endless field of debris…