My list would be more of things NOT to do, since they did so many bad things. But I'll include a list of thoughts of how I'd do it after the "bad bad bad stop it" list
- The premise was not thought out very well and just a copy of A New Hope, with the roles reversed, but not really. It's like they really wanted to have the baddies - rebels dynamic but couldn't figure out how to make it happen, so they just said "Well, there it is. Take it or leave it."
- The whole trilogy is a long chain of macguffins. We need this to get that to get there to find this to get the other thing which will lead us to this. FULL STOP. We need a well written plot that's driven by something coherent
- They introduced a lot of new characters that they did nothing with. No characters in the trilogy had any sort of interesting story arc, aside from Kylo Ren. Rey was too all over the place to really call it an arc.
- If you're going to hint at something, do not just ignore it later. Finn's character was abandoned, and the premise was so fascinating at first, with his stormtrooper history and hints of force sensitivity.
- Never start a movie and never introduce the big baddie of the whole trilogy with: "Somehow..."
- The Hosni system being destroyed and visible from everywhere in the galaxy in real-time did not make sense and was very stupid. Obviously just done so they'd have that "Omg look up at the sky" scene. Boo
- The whole last hour was incredibly stupid. Star destroyers with death star lasers on their foreheads? What is this, austin powers? Who built them all and how? Who are they staffed by? Why can't they just fly away?
- The whole trilogy nobody was able to get a fleet of allies together to help out, but Lando was able to do it in 5 minutes, when it mattered the most. Huh?
- If it was so hard to get to this place where all these sharks with lasers on their heads were, how did that allied fleet arrive there so easily? I thought you had to go through all these maneuvers to get there.
- At the end of episode 8 a little boy is shown at the end, as a hint that the force maybe can just arise in anybody, and not just people with famous last names. But nope, that was abandoned and we never heard of this again.
- I'm getting sick of characters who are dead just magically coming back to life 4 movies later. If death is not so inevitable then it makes the act of a character dying feel less impactful when it happens.
- In The Last Jedi the part where Finn & Rose race towards the approaching baddies did not make much sense. What was their plan? How did they get back to the base? I had other problems with this scene, but can't 'member.
- The whole "Let's go to a casino to find a guy who can lead us to this thing that can lead us to this other thing" was stupid. It looked good maybe, but it was a waste of time that did not advance the story any.
- Phasma was presented to us like a full-of-herself bumbling fool, but then that was all abandoned and they did nothing interesting with her death or any part of her story.
- The main problem with the trilogy was really that there was no overarching story from start to finish. Each movie felt like a separate thing going on, with not much connecting them. Disney does not seem to know how to properly put together a trilogy.
It's not really easy to do Disney's job for them in 5 minutes and think up a new trilogy idea. A trilogy needs to have a coherent story running throughout all 3 movies, with characters evolving along the way, proper character development done so that we can get to know them and understand their motivations, and the protagonists having well thought out character acs that span the whole trilogy. All of this takes hard work and time to think up and properly plan and write, which is seemingly something Disney was not willing to do at all. It also isn't something I can do in 5 minutes. But let's see.. I might as well have a go at it. Let's assume episode 7 exists the way it does, with some key changes:
Episode 7:
- The Hosni system is not destroyed because that was stupid
- There is no Starkiller base, because that was stupid. Instead the climax of the movie is a showdown between Rey & Finn with Kylo Ren, the way we saw on screen, and the rest of the climax would be a space battle in which First Order ships engage the Resistance. At the end of the movie Snoke is seen escaping after his fleet has been destroyed, and that's when we see that he has a master, who we can't see.
- The movie would also tell us more about why the hell everything is backwards but isn't. This would be more like hints in dialogue and not a "Here's what happened..." sort of thing
- At the end of the movie I would have Finn put on his stormtrooper uniform again and go undercover, and disappear with the remnants of the First Order fleet, in an attempt to figure out more about them and get some intel.
Episode 8:
- A big part of the plot is Finn fermenting a stormtrooper rebellion, after he sends the resistance some intel about the Yuuzhan Vong empire being in the picture. It is them who have been helping the First Order set up their new digs. At the end of the movie the climax would include a stormtrooper rebellion taking over a small fleet of star destroyers and helping turn the tides in a big battle.
- The Knights of Ren are the main baddies in this movie, they abandon Kylo Ren and get their orders from Snoke directly. There is a scene where Kylo Ren fights them, but then escapes after putting up a good fight.
- I really liked the way Snoke was killed by Rey & Ren, so I would keep that in the story. They team up out of necessity, and leading up to that we see Kylo Ren questioning the First Resistance more and more. They kill Snoke about halfway through the movie, after which they go their separate ways.
- Rey goes looking for Luke, so she can be properly trained. She does not have any lightsaber with her, because that was stupid. She finds him at the very end of the movie.
- Kylo Ren goes on his own "I need to like, find myself dude" journey and ends up on some remote planet meditating. Something draws him there and he ends up meeting a new mentor.
- At the end of the movie Kylo Ren shows up with some new friends, but his motivations are unclear. He destroys the Knights of Ren but also fights the good guys a bit along the way. He goes after Snoke's old master, and there is a big lightsaber battle between them at the end of the movie, that more or less ends in a tie. They both go their separate ways afterwards, with the Resistance scratching their heads a bit as to what just happened. The Yuuzhan Vong fleet is more or less destroyed, but we see a wounded version of their fleet making a run for it and escaping, with Snoke's master on board.
Episode 9:
- The movie opens with Luke training Rey & Finn in the ways of the force. Eventually we find out that Rey can't be trained as a Jedi, because she has some hangups or something.
- Kylo Ren is shown with his own fleet and set of allies, and they all want to track down Snoke's old master and destroy him. A part of the story revolves around that. Kylo realizes that he can't destroy the Yuuzhan Vong & the First Order himself and that he probably needs to team up with the Resistance, but he refuses to do so.
- The Rey & Ren dryad thing that allows them to communicate over long distances would be in this movie. I found this silly, but it would help the story dynamics here.
- The whole movie would basically be a 3 way set of battles between The Resistance, spearheaded by Luke, Rey, Finn.... Kylo Ren's faction, which has a fleet and base of operations of their own and includes some elements of the First Order, and the big baddie ex-Snoke master & the First Order, along with the Yuuzhan Vong.
- Some of the story would revolve around how Kylo & Rey communicate and try to figure out a way to work together, but it just doesn't work out.
- In the final battle Kylo Ren sacrifices himself to take out Snoke's ex-master in an epic lightsaber duel that kills them both, while his fleet eventually teams up with the resistance in order to defeat the Vong & The First Order.
- Kylo ren dies in Rey's arms, who catches up with him after the duel was complete.
- Luke does not engage in any of the action himself directly, aside from flying around in an X-Wing and joining in the battle. In the climax of the movie he uses the force to swing a massive asteroid into the Vong capital ship, taking out half their fleet along with it. The act damages his X-Wing and he flies off into the void, as the battle continues to rage on.
- At the end of the movie Rey fights a duel with the Vong leader, who is also force sensitive. They have an epic showdown, in which Rey uses some of her Jedi training, but also some of the pain from Ren's death to fuel some rage inside her.
- The movie ends with Rey, Poe, and the other heroes celebrating their victory on Coruscant. Prime Minister Chewbacca gives them all medals. Fade out to black
No Solo in any of this, because he had his time and his story has already been told. Droids? Yeah, they'll be there for comic relief, here and there. Leia? We'd need to figure out a good way to squeeze her in too and pay the proper tribute. That would take a bit more thought.
See above and please see a few minutes of this. Timestamp: 27:43. It shows how spiritually different the prequels are.
). Ben flies into a rage, burns down the Jedi school, convinces some other students to join him and they become the Knights of Ren.
