How Disney Can Save Star Wars

Let's go back to Fall of 2012. The big news was George Lucas was selling Lucasfilm to Disney and that the long awaited Sequel Trilogy was happening for a winter 2015 release, and would be shot back to back to back. Remember how excited/optimistic fans were at the time? While Episode 7 disappointed many with the death of fan favorite character Han Solo, the end where Rey hands Luke the lightsaber that once belonged to him and his father was an incredible moment on film, and my only highlight of the sequel trilogy (the other is "Chewie, we're home!"). Then RJ happened, and we got a mess of Episode 8, which resulted in a mess with Episode 9 (which I felt was a better follow up to 7 than 8 was), and the franchise came crashing down. Now not all Disney has been bad. Rebels is enjoyable, although many wished it pushed more boundaries like Clone Wars did. Putting it on kid friendly DisneyXD wasn't a smart move, and they didn't even rerun it on Disney Channel (they did with Resistance), another mistake. The Mandalorian wowed fans, with the final episode of Season 2 giving us Luke Skywalker as many remembered him from older stories and a peak at a new series starring Boba Fett. But for every success there's a step back. Firing Gina Carano, green lighting an Ahoska series. Green lighting a Rogue Squadron movie, then shuttering it only to have it go back on again. Kathleen Kennedy gets a lot of blame, and rightfully so. Yes, the sequels were a mess. Yes, constantly firing directors is a production nightmare. Story telling really isn't her strength. But on some business decisions, yes she is good. Had changes not been made to Rogue One behind the scenes we would have likely gotten a bad film. It's not perfect but IMO it's Disney's best movie. Solo lacked firm direction so Ron Howard came in, and put up something that is okay to watch more than once. But it's a trend. Switching directors is sometime needed. There is an old saying: "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action". Running story groups AND a film studio is a tough task. I get it. But, I have a few ideas on what Disney can do to save itself trouble.

 1. KK must hire a story group leader. Whether it's Dave Filoni, who worked side by side with George Lucas, or someone like Kevin Feige with Marvel, that person should be planning out the stories. KK has been in the business side long enough and can do a better job when she isn't putting too many hands into the tills. That way she can focus on marketing, budgeting and casting, while the story group leader sets the stories, and vision of what future Star Wars projects should be. 

 2. Don't remake Episodes 1-6. Self explanatory there, but they haven't really pounced on the rumors this could happen. Normally they would stomped this out, yet oddly they haven't. If they did it's a bad idea. Bit it does lead to the 3rd suggestion: 

 3. Put Episodes 1-6 back in theaters for 2023. ROTJ celebrates it's 40th birthday that year, ANH it's 45th. Putting the Lucas Saga back in films would get people to movie theaters, and more importantly give people who were too young or not born when the Special Editions hit theaters in 1997. Plus it brings in box office bank, and would do so again. It's long overdue, IMO. 

 4. Make Finn a Jedi. Post Episode 9 stories will happen, no the sequels will not be retconned as many like me hope/want to happen. But making a Finn series starring John Boyega as Finn, or making Episodes 10-12 about him would be a good idea. He was perceived as the lead in the first teaser trailers for Episode 7, and he shows some Jedi like traits in Episode 9. So why would this work? Even those who aren't fans of the sequels liked Finn, and it would be nice to have a "everyman" become a great Jedi. Which would have worked for Rey but they made her a Palpatine then Skywalker. But that's another story for another time..

 5. More Visions type projects. Love it or hate it, Visions got people talking. Some stories were, well, bad. But some were really good! While I would love to see some Legends stories get adapted, they could animate some of the stories from Legends of Luke Skywalker or Leia of Alderaan. Doing a "What If?!" for Star Wars would also work. 

 6. Don't contradict prior Canon. This is self explanatory but it happens too often. Poe seemed surprised by flying Stormtroopers yet encountered them in his comic series. Caleb Dune, aka Kanan Jarris had his Order 66 survival shown in the Kanan: The Last Padawan. Yet his escape in the Bad Batch premiere was nothing like it. This is where having a story group head person would be in charge of. 

 7. Luke, Leia, Han & Lando need to be onscreen together. The most disappointing part of the sequels was not having our main heroes onscreen and all together. A Disney Plus mini series would be a perfect way to give fans not only something they want to see, but would definitely make the numbers of Disney Plus subscribers grow. So there you have it. I know I'm just some guy with a small blog but it has to start somewhere. These ideas are for all fans of Star Wars, and hopefully one day some of this stuff will actually happen.