Welcome to Part Three of CHUCK WENDIG CONTINUES TO RUIN STAR WARS! It’s the last part, unless I decide to do the prequels some day in order to procrastinate against whatever thing I should be writing at the time!

Anyway.

This one’s gonna be a tough one.

It’s gonna be tough because — and this is obviously very arguable and quite subjective — but The Rise of Skywalker feels the least “put-together” of the sequel trilogy (ST). I don’t mean that it’s bad. I don’t mean that it’s the “worst.” I like it a lot. I’m looking forward to seeing it again.

It’s just — well, for my mileage, The Force Awakens is this pure beam of light. It’s clean. And then The Last Jedi is a vein of complicated darkness — messier, but in a purposeful way, like someone who musses their hair artfully rather than just walking out into the world with bedhead galore. But TROS is all bedhead. It’s scruffy and sloppy in ways that are sometimes endearing, sometimes just a hot-ass mess. (Or even a hot ass-mess.) The parts don’t all line up. It’s like a poorly-tiled floor — you can see the cut lines, the bad grout, the clumsy patch jobs. And it instantly starts to fall apart under even the tiniest scrutiny, starting with, “Hey, where did Rey get that lightsaber? Didn’t that… didn’t it get torn in half? Are we gonna talk about it? We’re just gonna move past it? No? Okay.”

This is complicated even further by the fact Trevorrow’s ideas for the film have leaked (theoretically, who knows if they’re real). You can read about that at AV Club, but it would’ve been a pretty different film — in some ways, cooler, in some ways, ennnh maybe not so much. (I mean, there’s no Babu Frik, which is fucking disqualifying. If I don’t see a Baby Yoda / Babu Frik Disney-Plus series like, yesterday, I will shit kyber crystals. I will poop a lightsaber beam.)

What’s difficult is that what I’m doing here is trying to keep these three movies somewhat aligned, to ratchet the bolts tighter on connecting the whole ST, but this third film has so many loose bolts it’s hard to know what to change and what to keep without just scrapping it all and starting over.

So, the plan is to still keep relatively the same movie, but ooooh that’s gonna be tricksy. Note that going forward here this will be the one movie of the three I’d change the most. Again, that is not a knock against you liking it as-is! To reiterate, I too like this movie. But if it were the movie I’d make, it’d be different, as is the way with storytellers.

(Real quick: Part One, and Part Two, here.)

Broad Strokes

Instead of talking up individual pieces I’d excise or transform, we need to look at this thing from outer space. Big view, broad strokes.

This trilogy seems very much to be about people who do not know their place in a changing galaxy. That is a timely concern and a human one, and when Star Wars cleaves to these emotional journeys, it is operating at its best. Because small stories matter. Because these small stories matter more than big stories. The story of Luke Skywalker isn’t awesome because it’s about him fighting the Empire or learning Cool Jedi Shit, it’s about a boy trapped in a backward sandy-butt nowheresburg who wants to see the world (read: galaxy) and not fall into the role that has been set before him by his Aunt and Uncle — and once he does escape, he finds a bigger galaxy that ultimately is trying to get him to do the same thing, to fall into a role set before him by Vader, or Obi-Wan, or Yoda, and he has to find his own way through that. It’s a smaller, more human concern: destiny not in the grand and cosmic sense, but destiny as in the life others have planned for you. (And his journey is only made more human in TLJ: a journey of a man near the end of his life looking back and having to overcome his mistakes and failures, who has the opposite of a destiny to fulfill — now, he has to answer his own legacy.)

So, these are characters who are trying to figure out who they are and where they belong.

Poe: Hotshot hero of the Resistance. Smoldering. So sure of himself until he’s unsure of himself. TLJ had him reeling, questioning his judgment and his place in the Resistance, and by its end, Leia gives a de facto nod that he’s a leader now — responsible not just for himself, but for the lives around him. Part of the problem with TROS as I see it now is that it wants to re-litigate that same character arc for him, with the added bonus of “oh he was a criminal, did none of the background material mention that?” But my feeling is, TROS has to have him with that burden of leadership already on his shoulders, it has to continue from where TLJ left off with his arc. And to be honest, the way you achieve that is… by having Leia already be gone. It’s sad, I know. But you begin that film with her funeral, and you end that funeral with Poe realizing that he’s the real deal, now. A General in the Resistance. And it’s a lot of pressure, and he’s feeling it. His journey in this film should be him grappling with that burden, and learning how to carry it.

Finn: Has a feeling, a conscience. Escapes the First Order, finds a friend (and maybe more) in Poe, a purpose (and maybe more) in the Scavenger Girl, and by the end of TLJ, a home and cause in the Resistance. “Rebel scum,” certified. TROS wastes him, mostly. I mean, he does stuff, by which I mean, “Performs actions vital to the mechanisms of the plot,” but he’s mostly at home chasing Rey, yelling after her, and vaguely suggesting he’s Force sensitive. TROS should have a bigger place for him. TROS as written has him realizing that he’s Force sensitive, which is good! But it does literally nothing with it, which is less good. It’s a huge revelation, and it mostly treats it like a character trait, as if he’s tidy, or collects Pogs. So, in my version, Finn realizes he’s in service to something larger than the Resistance — not just Rey, not just the Resistance, but THE FORCE. Which has a nice echo back to his bullshitting about The Force in TFA — he was actually onto something.

Rose: Poor Rose. Rose, who gave voice to part of the point of TLJ — save what we love, don’t fight what we hate, a point that arguably carries on to the Rey and Kylo relationship at the end of TROS! — is scuttled like an old tugboat. She has probably as much screentime as the little training ball Rey is sabering at the fore. Sorry, but we need Rose. Unlike a lot of the others, I don’t know that she’s questioning her place in the galaxy. I do think she’s trying to do right by it, and make her sister’s sacrifice worth something. In my TROS, I think I’d have her be the Bondian Q to the Resistance — she’s the one inventing new gadgets, modding starfighters, and even being the one who (gasp) repairs the Skywalker saber for Rey. AND HER ASSISTANT IS BABU FRIK WHO IS IN EVERY FRAME OF THE MOVIE, YOU COWARDS, ahem, sorry, sorry, a little carried away there. Rose can also serve as the one who gives moral clarity to characters who need it. Who cuts through the bullshit with that kind of scrunched up “you’re great even though you don’t get it, ding-dong” look on her face (same face when she tells Finn, uhh, I saved you, dumbass).

Kylo Ben: I give real credit to these films that they have crafted what I consider to be a fairly elegant character: a character who is both somehow a heartstruck sadlad and a possible Nazi fanboy school-shooter type. It’s astonishing to see that balance crafted — to be clear, since I’m sure someone will get salty, I’m not suggesting he’s literally a Nazi fanboy, or that he literally kills children (no, ha ha, that’s Anakin Skywalker you’re thinking of). But he has the whiff of an angry white teenager, while also being somehow sad and precious and emo in equal measure. And I don’t think the films are confused about this or send a confused message — I think they walk that line, and do it well. TROS actually does it pretty well, but my version I think has to scrap that. We need to see that rift in him ripped wide — made all the worse because, as noted, his mother is now dead. And he wasn’t there for her. I don’t mean to suggest this has healed his heart. He’s not a “good guy.” But it’s time to see the Dark Side in a different way — the anger he feels, what if it’s turned on his own people? It’s still not healthy. It’s still horrible. And it’s grown. His anger is a beacon of awfulness, and he uses it against any who come at him. Until Rey shows him the light.

Rey: Last but not least! Rey, the Scavenger girl. Rey, the Last Jedi. Rey with drunken nobody parents, Rey from Nowhere, Rey who is the light who rises to meet the darkness. Rey, like Poe, is dealing with a considerable burden — as the Last Jedi, it’s her job to start it all anew, to lead, to be a warrior, to be a mentor, to do it all. And she can’t. It’s too much pressure. Everyone wants her to be this or that, to lead new younglings, to fight the First Order, to be Luke Skywalker, and she’s just not ready. So she trains. And trains. And studies. And pushes herself harder and harder. And in a way: hides. TROS as written gets her right, for the most part, but still focuses so much on her “identity” — and it’s something of a curse left by the end of Empire Strikes Back, this idea that your parent is a vital plot twist, not just one and done, but a rhyme and reiteration. But I think there’s so much more to her than that, too — about who she is, what she’s afraid of, and so forth. The end of TLJ leaves her feeling both lost and found, right? Her parents were Jakku drunks, but she is in fact the Last Jedi — she helps her friends escape the cave on Crait, but then discovers Luke Skywalker is gone. Not just gone — gone-gone, done-zo fun-zo. And yet! Luke leaves with peace and purpose, too. In my TROS, Leia is gone, now, too — and once again that leaves Rey feeling lost. Reeling. Unable to do it, whatever “it” is. Unsure of herself and her place in… all of this. Is she just a Resistance member? Is she a Jedi, and does that even matter? What is her relation to Kylo, with whom she shares an unshakeable cosmic bond, a literal bond? What is her relation to Finn, with whom she also shares a bond — though one more of choice and determination, of friendship (or more?).

In a way, this is about characters coming to adulthood.

Going from young and naive to learning to who others want you to be, to realizing who you really are, and who you need to be for yourself and in relation to your found family — the family you choose, the family you make. In a strange way, you have to respect Kylo’s idea (though not his cruel implementation of it) of letting the old ways die. Luke’s desire, too — to kill it, to start over. Because sometimes things get in locked into a pattern — too many rhymes, too many reiterations.

Then the question becomes, and I apologize if I’m rambling a bit, is that what Star Wars is, or has become? Too many rhymes, too many reiterations? Locked into a pattern? Can it break it?

Should it break it?

Maybe we’ll answer that, maybe we won’t.

In the meantime, onward we go.

Option One: The Quick Fix

So, if you really wanted to quick fix the movie —

Leia is gone. Open on her funeral. It’s sad. But it’s a moment of respect in and out of the galaxy. She leaves behind a huge legacy, and it’s a call to action to someone like Lando — who shows up, and who accepts Poe’s mission to try to restore hope and faith in the Resistance.

Cut out Pasaana — I mean, do we really need another desert planet in these movies? Every fucking time we see a trailer it’s like, “They’re on Tatooine!” Because basically, they’re all Tatooine.

Remove the ticking clock thing.

Introduce the Sith fleet early — a gift, perhaps, from Uncle Palpatine. And the trick to the fleet isn’t that they’re Out There Somewhere, in some weird holding pattern, but rather, now they’re taking over the galaxy. (Because in TROS, what are they waiting for?) It’s a true Final Order, because it’s the last thing the First Order needs to complete authoritarian control of the galaxy. And clarify too that the New Republic will fall because of this new fleet and these new troopers. Part of the TROS problem for me is that it begins with no meaningful update to the galaxy. The Resistance seems fine. The First Order exists as-is. Clarify the worldbuilding shift that has happened — dominoes are falling and the First Order’s control will soon be complete.

Since JJA loves his fucking maps, keep the Sith Wayfinder, except now it’s a Holocron, because why the shit wasn’t it a Holocron to begin with? That’s a thing in Star Wars, so maybe use it?

In skipping Pasaana, we go right to Kijimi. Listen, the plot to find Exegol is weirdly convoluted, and the moment you start to ask questions about it, it all kinda falls apart — Ochi and a dagger that seems ancient but somehow mysteriously matches the profile of a Death Star that fell only 30 years ago, Rey’s parents and a ship they steal that’s actually Ochi’s ship so why do they have it at all, mysteries answered by pure happenstance and not by character wherewithal, Palpatine wants Rey but wants her dead but what the fuck, and on and on. It feels like a book report by someone who didn’t read the book and so they just keep making up new shit in the hopes you fade out and let it go. Sometimes stories, genre tales in particular, have a problem I like to think of as “false complexity.” It adds bends to the maze for the sake of adding bends to the maze — in lieu of doing good character work, or making a plot be born from characters, the storyteller just keeps layering on external plot moves, adding in what amount to “recipe steps” that fail to add depth or complexity to the narrative dish.

The simpler cut is:

The mole tells them Palpatine is back. Something-something Exegol. Found Sith script in Kylo Ren’s weirdly white museum chamber (same place you find the Vader mask) — same script Ren obviously used to find the wayfinder. Only person who can translate that script is Threepio, but his brain somehow won’t let him, so they have to unlock his brain, and thus, Babu Frik is where they gotta go.

Only problem is, Kijimi is under First Order occupation because, that’s the state of the galaxy now. You play that out longer, making it roughly a third of the movie — sure, at first they wanna just get to Baby Babu and go, but they get embroiled in gunfights and they do what the Resistance does best, which is somewhat accidentally lead a Resistance, and they have to get to Babu and then escape amid the chaos they essentially caused. And we see more of Poe’s leadership skills as a result.

But here you might say, “But what about Rey’s parents and Ochi and [insert plot litany]?” You don’t need any of that. When Rey goes to the Death Star, and she enters the chamber to find the HolocroaaahImeanWayfinderugh, my disappointment is that the chamber is super fucking boring. Palpatine has a secret room. Repeat: PALPATINE HAS A SECRET ROOM. That shit should be FASCINATING. It looks like a walk-in closet, but it should be Creepy Sith Shit wall to fucking wall. Masks and humming cubes and some dead body in a tank and tapestries that hiss at you and oh yeah the secret annals of Palpatine, and the reason the room opens for her in the first place is because she’s a Palpatine. Maybe there’s a creepy Sith Droid there who recognizes her, welcoming “Empress Palpatine” into her chamber. This grants us Rey answers without Kylo having to be like, “hey P.S., the Emperor fucks now, and yo, you’re his evil seed.” If the room welcomes her as a Palpatine, and gives her a vision of her parents stealing her, ditching her, and then dying without giving up her location — boom, wow, we just cut out a bunch of needless complexity and made the discovery entirely organic to her journey. And did not require an, “As you know, Rey,” moment, and further, doesn’t require a male character to know the truth and mansplain it to the young woman. Let her have access to her own truth and find it on her own — and let her be a step ahead of Kylo, not a step behind.

Then from there, things proceed mostly as desired with some key changes:

– Kylo’s redemption does not come from Han, but from Luke’s ghost (“See ya around, kid.”) I like the scene as it is in TROS, it’s beautiful, honestly — but it’s also easy to misread as Kylo effectively accepting his own redemption, absolving himself. It’s clear he seeks forgiveness from Luke, and vice versa, and giving them that moment would be powerful — all the more so because Luke is real, a sentient spirit capable of that absolution and also able to clarify what must yet be done.

– Finn tells Rey he’s Force sensitive, probably somewhere at the midpoint of the film.

– More romantic tension between characters and a romantic conclusion — a Finn / Poe kiss, a polycule hand-holding cuddle-party, some of it, all of it, whatever.

– Jannah isn’t just an ex-stormtrooper, but one whose platoon took inspiration from Finn when it came time to liberate themselves from the First Order.

– Nobody knew Rey was a Palpatine before Rey. (Except Palps, I guess.)

– Rose has to have a bigger part. She has to be a part of the gang, has to be their tech person, has to be the one who knows Babu Frik. And Poe doesn’t want to go to Kijimi not because he used to run drugs for those pirates — but because he’s fought those pirates before, and also had a tempestuous affair with one of them. (Making Poe a drug runner is both potentially racist and also something of a retcon, if you care much about canon. Which you don’t have to, because canon is half bullshit anyway.)

– If you’re gonna crack open Threepio’s head, first, the loss of his identity has to either be obviously permanent or not a problem — you can’t half-ass that. “Oh no, my memory. Just taking one last look at my DROID SNIF friends.” “Hey, Threepio, doesn’t Artoo have backups?” “I mean, yes, but it’s been a couple months.” “Oh.” Also, second, you might as well have him drop the nugget that Darth Vader made him as a toddler. Just get weird with it. I’d love the moment where they’re all standing around Babu Frik’s workshop like, “Did… did Threepio just say that Darth Vader made him when he was like, a little kid? WTF. WTF, man. Jesus. Is that — how the — whew, fuck.”

The third act / final battle then is less about “oh we need to stop the Sith Fleet in this weird Nowhere Space,” which didn’t really make much sense to me — they essentially seem to need an antenna to know how to fly out of this chaos space? But nobody else needs that. And the wayfinder should chart the path? Having a super-mega-death-fleet be linked by a single control module is an epic technological step backward — far more glaring than having to shoot a proton torpedo up the Death Star’s exposed butthole.

And in this redo, the Sith fleet is already out there, doing damage. So our end battle becomes about either fighting the fleet, or clearing a path for Rey to reach Exegol. And then the “on your left” moment where Lando shows up with every spaceship you’ve ever seen in Star Wars doesn’t happen lickety-split with no effort or time passing — it’s something Poe asks Lando to do at the start of the film, and we know Lando has been calling in favors left and right, cashing in Space Chits or whatever, and so when he fails to show up right away, you think he spaced, or he failed. But then it’s all YAHOO MOTHERFUCKERS, UNCLE LANDO IS HERE, and yay.

Finally, I’d keep Kylo alive to face his redemption and the work that must be done.

And I’d end with a whole bevy of Force Ghosts on Tatooine watching Rey begin to train her first pupil: BABU FRIK. … *checks notes* wait no, I mean Finn. Finn!

Option Two: A More Radical Rewrite

Or, we can do it bigger.

A much more dramatic re-do of the film.

(A note: a lot of this is super spitball-y. Be advised.)

I’m not gonna write a whole new opening crawl, but here is the state of the galaxy as MY NEW EMPIRE I mean MY NEW RUINOUS VERSION OF TROS begins —

The First Order is ascendant. They have claimed the galaxy. They went from being the fringe militia to being a dominant force — the New Republic is left to the Core Worlds, and those Core Worlds are under siege. They are holding up against the siege — but for how long?

Kylo Ren is imprisoned by the First Order. He and Rey killed Snoke — it is known. And (in my TLJ) he abandoned the fight only to show up too late, losing to the fucking phantom of Luke Skywalker and letting the last of the Resistance escape. He has failed them. Ren sits, awaiting a tribunal and likely execution. As if that’s not bad enough, he shares his cell with one person: SPACE GHOST COAST TO wait I mean, the Force Ghost of Luke Skywalker himself. (“See ya around, kid.”)

Armitage Hux is Supreme Leader of the First Order. A venomous, power-hungry man. He is a fascist, committed to reaping the galaxy’s resources for his own pleasure. He wants payback for all who have ever tormented him or dismissed him. Starting with Kylo Ren.

The Resistance, with Black Squadron in tow, is reduced to a bare-bones A-Team of members hiding out on a rainforesty jungle planet called AKIVA YEAH THAT’S RIGHT I’M INCLUDING A PLANET I MADE UP FOR AFTERMATH YOU SHUT UP. Ahem. (Less Oregon Endor and more Amazon rainforest, if you care.) They don’t know what to do. They’re left reeling. In the time after the Last Jedi, their diminished numbers allowed the infection of the First Order to grow — and with it, cruelty and cowardice have spread across the galaxy. A malevolent spiritual disease with no known immune response. Do they need a new weapon? A superweapon to compete with the First Order’s numbers? Horrible that any would even consider it. But that leads us to…

Poe Dameron is the leader of this rag-tag militia, and has no answers. The First Order has subjugated or allied with worlds beyond the core. Can the galaxy be turned around? Poe thought by now he might have a new group of Jedi to help — or at least Rey herself to carry the beacon lit by the spark of Luke Skywalker, but…

Rey is training. Training, training. She’s not good enough, she fears. And she fears losing herself to this fight. She fears not earning the saber — the one that Rose re-built for her. She fears not living up to Luke and Leia’s legacy. She hasn’t returned to her link with Kylo, nor he with her. Poe is frustrated with her. Finn seems distant…

Meanwhile, Finn and Rose are doing what they started to do in (my version of) TLJ — rescuing children from the clutches of the First Order. Children who will not grow up to be stormtroopers but who will grow up free. And some of which… might be Force sensitive. They’ve seen that these children may be targeted — and maybe we catch a glimpse now of a strange symbol, a sigil of the Sith Empire. Why do they want these Force-sensitive children? Finn feels their struggle, their pain — he, too, is Force sensitive. Rose has seen it, too. How could she not have? He and her are on-again and off-again romantically — just as he and Poe are, too.

And now —

A Moment On Dramatic Tension

The Rise of Skywalker as it exists now really wants you to believe there’s some kind of tension between the characters, but it does little to give it any bones — it’s there for the hollow drama, less for the “making of emotional sense.”

So, we give it reason. We give it teeth.

First, again, is the tension born of the struggle between their roles. Everyone is under a lot of pressure, and each one would really like it if everybody else would share that burden. Poe needs leaders. Finn needs a mentor. Rey needs confidence. They all need hope. The stress is plain to see.

But, there’s also romantic tension. You start from a place of broken relationships — Poe and Finn had been together, but the stress of Poe’s job and Finn’s attachment to Rose and Rey were too much, and Poe’s too damn spicy to be so easily contained. So now Poe’s in with one relationship after the next. Finn is with Rose, but Rose worries she’s not the one he really wants to be with. Finn is connected to Rey, but is that based on anything other than him being Force sensitive? Does he even understand that relationship? And Rey has never really explained to him why she was pulling Kylo from the wreckage of Snoke’s ship… because Rey doesn’t really understand her relationship to Kylo Ben.

So, I like the tension.

I also like reasons behind it.

And honestly, LOVE RHOMBUS 4 EVA.

Back to the Radical Rewrite…

First half of the film is pretty different than TROS, right?

Poe decides, we need an edge. Why do the bad guys always have a superweapon? So he decided to go to find the wreckage of the old Death Star to see if they can reconstitute its laser — if they can start blasting First Order Star Destroyers out of the sky, that’s not nothing. They can steal an old Imperial Star Destroyer, strap that shit onto it, and maybe lead the charge. And maybe if they lead that charge, the rest of the galaxy will follow suit. But he can’t do that alone — and he needs Rose to go with him, because she knows tech.

Which means Finn goes, too. (OoooOOOooh, more romantic tension.)

Bonus: you get a twist on the SW trope of the superweapon. Hey, now the good guys are building one! That’s fine, right? Probably? Fellas? Fellas? Hello?

Kylo is sentenced to death by Tribunal. As he awaits on Space Death Row, Luke Skywalker taunts him — he sounds like the Luke of Achthchhthch-To (gesundheit), the one who wanted the Jedi to die, who had seen balance, a darker Luke. The one who himself wanted to die. He helps Kylo unlock his anger, his rage. The cell is guarded against Force manipulation, but Kylo’s fury cannot be contained — he overwhelms his prison, and like Thor, summons his fucking lightsaber through half the ship, until it is has torn through most of the craft and is now his hand.

He begins to fight his way free —

But there he encounters a new fighting force — elite stormtroopers, all in red, who have the ability to lightly wield the Force themselves. Sith Troopers. With the symbol of the Sith and everything. Maybe he sabers one of their masks off and they’re young men, but with the Dark Side-striated faces of Vader — pale, veined with sinister magical infection. Each battalion of them is lead by a Knight of Ren, now also wearing some of the Sith raiment and symbol. Kylo is no chump, though.

And then, cut to Rey. As she’s training again and again, mercilessly upon herself, Chewie watching over her, she’s able to summon someone’s Force Ghost. I’m privy to Anakin’s — because maybe he senses his saber, and also maybe because honestly I’d like to see Hayden again in the role, given something more to do than be pouty and horrible. But maybe it’s Qui-Gon, I don’t know. It’s then that they hint that she has all the Jedi within her if she wants — but then suddenly —

Her connection to Kylo snaps to it, and for a moment, she sees him — someone she barely recognizes. Consumed with fury and vengeance, an unholy angel of the Dark Side — he sees her, and for a moment, calm overtakes him — a blaster shot cuts through him, and he’s badly injured. He brings the floor down on the troopers and manages just barely to escape the ship by stealing a shuttle. But he’s bleeding. He’s dying.

Meanwhile, on the Ocean Moon of Endor (I’m not calling it Kef Bir, it sounds like a product you drink to help with your intestinal flora), Poe is working on extracting the BIG WEAPON SHOOTY PARTS of the Death Star, but only after they’re threatened by a group of inhabitants led by Jannah — and here we do a course correct where Jannah isn’t simply a stormtrooper who fled the First Order, but one who took inspiration from Finn. (I’ve seen this idea elsewhere, said by folks wiser than I, I can’t take credit for it. It’s really good, tho.) She’s an enemy turned to a wary ally.

They hit a snag with the Death Star laser — they need kyber crystals. And they don’t know where to get them. Thing is, Finn knows. He just knows. He knows where they are — there’s a stash of them right there, on another part of the collapsed Death Star, and he thinks he can get them. Already there’s trepidation, right? Rose and Finn know they’re doing something anathema — using a superweapon is a BAD GUY thing, but, is it really that different from picking up a blaster? And they trust Poe with it. So onward they go.

That’s when Finn discovers the Emperor’s throne room —

And it lets him in, because he has the Force.

And what’s in there is more than the barebones nothing we saw in TROS — it’s a shrine, a museum, a monument to both the Emperor and the Sith. And yes, it’s also where the kyber crystals are stored. But it’s also where Palpatine’s plans are stored, in a holocron. He opens it and sees the scope of what’s happening, eyes wide, mouth in a scream —

They need Rey. He needs her to know. To see.

Meanwhile, it’s not just Sith Troopers. It’s Sith Destroyers — the First Order rebrands as the Final Order, begins rolling out ships. Not with planet destroying capabilities, necessarily, though I guess that’s fine — it’s more that they’re high-test, high-power, destroyers. I’d rather see ships that almost manifest the Dark Side — Force lightning lancing out from them. They’re leverage. Siege weapons. With these ships, the Core Worlds will crack, and they will fall, and the Final Order will be complete. The galaxy will have truly fallen. This time to something worse than the Empire. Something whose very soul is rot, and decay — a true Sith Empire.

Rey goes to Kylo. He’s dying. They talk. He’s still angry, maybe they even fight — like he can’t control it. But she stops him. Heals him. (And here I’d argue we’d need an earlier scene of her healing something, as TROS gives us now. A creature on Akiva? A creature that intercepts her training, but she saves its life instead of killing it? Perhaps instead of dropping a tree on BB-8, she drops it on a local beast, and must rescue it and heal it.) This ends up like the moment from the film, but at a different point, with different stakes. There’s no fetch quest. It’s just her and him. She could kill him, or let him die, but she heals him instead. (Bonus if we learn at this point what we learn in Trevorrow’s script — the reason Ren knows about her parents is that he killed them. He tells her, and she still heals him? Whoa, mind blown. But that may be a bridge too far.)

And then she receives the communique by Finn —

She has to go.

And here I’m torn — I think it’d be great if Kylo pulled a Zuko and went with her. I mean, haha, it won’t go well. They’ll show up on the Ocean Moon of Endor and nobody’s happy to see Kylo Fucking Ren, but what emotional pyrotechnics! Imagine that Kylo shows up, and Finn sees him, and summons Rey’s saber to his own hand and fights Ren before Rey can step in and put a stop to it. And then its also like, “Hey, hi, Finn, do you… have the Force?” “Been meaning to talk to you about that but you seemed busy.” Yadda yadda. Fun scene.

Then they enter Palpatine’s Creepy Sith Museum and it’s there they see exposed some of Palpatine’s post-death plans — the rise of a Sith Empire in the wake of the Fallen Galactic Empire, grown in the Unknown Regions, a rotten and ruinous seed planted in the deep dark of space. Unleashing the Dark Side from a distant world called Exegol — a world serving like an antennae, creating servitors and summoning powers and granting them to those who serve. And here, lo and behold, is the map.

(JJA loves him some fuckin’ maps, after all.)

It seems convenient, but it’s their only path. And maybe it’s Force Ghost Luke who helps Kylo find, or translate, that map — which is a hint of something bad, isn’t it?

Poe feels all the more impetus to get the weapon up and running — but they all know what that takes. It takes ruining the kyber crystals. Breaking them, poisoning them. Using them for darkness, not light. And they have to decide, who are they all, really? What is the Resistance? Are they a military force? A force for destruction? They have to be something bigger than that, don’t they? Better? Save what you love, not fight what you hate. Finn receives a vision. Sees in a Force prophecy what would be to come — a glimpse of Poe, mad with power, perhaps. Or just ruined ships and worlds. But it’s he who comes out and convinces Poe — Finn doesn’t serve just the Resistance, or some government. He serves it all. The balance. The Force. Insert Han Solo voice: “All of it.”

Poe sees the light. He can’t just rely on tricks and weapons. Leaders lead, and that’s what he hasn’t been doing. If he’s going to summon the galaxy in a grand uprising, then that’s on him. He can do it. So he sets up with a broadcast and decides to head out, summon the galaxy’s greatest and best — starting with Lando Calrissian, that charismatic old swindler — to take on the Final Order. They’ll zip around, sending the equivalent to dropped leaflet propaganda, transmitted to the Core Worlds and beyond in the Falcon. They owe it to the galaxy. they owe it to Leia.

Meanwhile, Rey and Kylo go together to Exegol to see what awaits them there — if they can power down this strange Dark Side battery, maybe they can give the Resistance, and the galaxy, an edge in their uprising.

But what waits them there powers the battery —

What waits them there is Palpatine himself.

And here the great twist is, the Force Ghost of Luke that’s been plaguing Kylo was never Luke at all — but really, a trick by JAR-JAR Binnooo okay that’s not right. Nah, it’s Palpatine. Imagine that as the twist — not something given up by the trailer. Or by the opening minutes of the film. But a true third act WHOA DAMN moment. Palpatine is back! Whoa! Palpatine’s wretched body is hooked up to Exegol — not shooting lightning out of his fingertips but literally a sort of undead, unliving battery for the Dark Side. All he needs now is a proper body.

If we still want any kind of twist here, it’s at this point we learn that Rey is either his granddaughter, or created by him as he did Anakin. (I know there’s a feeling Palpatine was lying about that, but who said he had to be lying?) She was supposed to be his dark heir but she escaped him, a beacon of the light, but now she has come home. His cruel spirit inhabits her — his young Empress! — and now, she and Kylo fight tooth and nail. Kylo’s rage roars with him and he matches her step for step, Dark Side versus Dark Side, a brutal battle —

That he realizes is, again, not the point.

He doesn’t want to kill her. He can’t kill her.

Save what you love.

Don’t fight what you hate.

He gives up. Throws his saber away — a real Skywalker move, that one.

She moves to kill him, strike him down —

And can’t.

Meanwhile, MASSIVE SPACE BATTLE that is less about “destroy that one space widget!” and more about, the battle itself. It’s got that push and pull, right? The Resistance attacks. Starts to lose. Then Poe shows up with all the reinforcements — the “On Your Left” moment, but this time not conjured straight out of nowhere, but built up. Wedge and Hera and all that. AND BABU FRIK AND BABY YODA RIDING A GIANT SPACE WHALE I dunno shut up, I told you this was spitball-y. It’s also a ground battle — we see scenes on worlds we know, worlds we don’t, of Sith Troopers and those who are uprising against them —

But even still, they’re losing — the Sith Fleet is indomitable. The Troopers wield the Dark Side.

The Resistance is losing.

And we cut back to Exegol, where Rey has paused — she can’t kill Kylo, because she loves Kylo. Through sheer willshe ejects the spirit of Palpatine, and back to his wretched unliving body he goes. So he decides instead (Emperor voice: “So be it”) to simply kill them. Maybe there’s more of that Force Dyad Vampire business. Or maybe he sends all his Sith Cultists after them, and they’re overwhelmed. But together — together! — just as they’re nearly overwhelmed, they summon those Jedi who came before them. Maybe it’s their voices, but maybe also it’s their lightsaber fighting styles. Maybe we see the ghosts themselves. Is this more fan-servicey than what we got? Oh, it totally is. Credit to JJA, the moment in the film is quiet and wonderful, and all those voices like stars in the sky — I’m good with it. But I’m also cool if it goes the other way. Sometimes: go big or go home, y’know?

They destroy the Emperor, and his cultists turn to dust.

Then we cut to the GIANT BATTLE and woo hoo, the Sith troopers no longer wield the Dark Side. They turn to dust inside their suits. The First Order officers and troopers remain, but are not enough to overwhelm — and they lose, badly, to the Resistance. Ships go boom. Goodness prevails.

Is there a noble sacrifice at the end? Does Rey die, and then Kylo to save her?

Nah.

I liked TROS as it played out — but I’m also interested to see when characters have to remain and deal with consequences. Kylo Ren is a war criminal, and what a thing to see him give himself up at the end, while also choosing to be there, in yet another prison, to help Rey when she needs it. And Rey, instead of simply going and burying a couple lightsabers, instead starts with her first pupil — Finn. And all of them, our favorite heroes, come together in the end. They do as they do in TROS — they hold hands, they laugh, they hug, kiss cheeks. We get the sense that their relationships are bigger than what we know, now, that they’re all together in a big ol’ cuddle-puddle. We definitely get a kiss between Poe and Finn because shut up, that’s why. Then they fuck in an X-Wing.

At the end of the day, we reinforce the theme —

Save what you love, don’t fight what you hate.

And we see characters who have found their families and are not bound by the past — they have, in a way, killed the past and found their futures. Together.

The Babu Frik Problem

None of this features Babu Frik, and that’s admittedly bullshit, so that’s how you know this whole thing is wrong and why the TROS you get in theaters is arguably the superior story, if only because of the presence of the president of the galaxy, Babu Gods Damn Frik, okay?

So that’s it. That’s the cut of it.

Is it good? No idea. Is it better? Shrug. Do I like TROS as-is? I do. Is it a mess? It is. Is mine any less messier? I guess? Does any of this matter? It does not. Am I gonna keep asking myself rhetorical questions? Apparently.

Sound off in the comments with what you might’ve done with the sequel trilogy.

Or don’t, I’m not your Space Mom.

p.s. Snap Wexley lives

Welcome to PART TWO: CHUCK WENDIG RUINS THE STAR WARS SEQUEL TRILOGY. In case you missed part one, welp, it’s right over here.

Now, it’s time to discuss: The Last Jedi.

Two things we need to get out of the way at the fore:

First, I really love this movie. Truly. I think it’s great. I don’t know that it’s my favorite Star Wars movie, or that it’s the “best” in terms of quality, but it’s up there for me on both. Let’s be clear, the sequence that takes us from Throne Room Fight Scene to Execution to Torn Lightsaber to Holdo Maneuver is one of the tightest in the whole nine films.

Just the same, I do not consider it a perfect movie, in part because no perfect movie exists. Also, the curious way that they made this trilogy — a little bit Whisper Down The Lane, wasn’t it? — lead to a quilt where each square doesn’t always feel like it matches the one next to it.

Second, this movie is way less subversive than everybody says it is. It introduces some big question marks, yes. What if the Jedi were just ego-fed shitheads and need to die? What if Kylo is right? What if the Resistance is just as bad as the First Order? Should Benicio del Toro stop playing comically mush-mouthed nobodies? Truth is, most of the subversive elements are put to bed.

Consider:

a) Kylo wants “the past to die,” but it’s really only because he hates being haunted by it. He wants it all to “end” but continues to lead the First Order and continues his fight against the Jedi and Skywalker and the Resistance. He doesn’t turn over a new leaf, he’s just the same leaf.

b) What’s Luke gonna do, go out and face the old First Order with a laser sword? Turns out, yeah, that’s exactly what he’s gonna do.

c) Sure, you’re saying, “But he did it in a way that was passive, and non-aggressive.” You mean like how he ended ROTJ? By giving up the fight?

d) “He threw away his lightsaber!” Again, which is one the last acts we saw from Luke… in ROTJ. He threw away his lightsaber. It’s not odd that he starts by throwing it away, and then they complete the circuit by having him pick it back up again at the end (illusory though it may be). Even Broom Boy at the end is seen… hoisting a pretend saber. This isn’t subversive, this is just Star Wars.

e) “Oh my god, the weapons dealer is selling to the Resistance, too, the unnamed hacker guy said so, I guess we’re all bad, so Don’t Join.” Right, except Mister Don’t Join turns out to be a skeevy piece of shit, and it only confirms Finn’s choice to be, in his words, “Rebel Scum.”

f) “Oh shit, Yoda just destroyed the Sacred Tree and the Jedi Texts!” Except Yoda is a tricksy little gremblin, and says, paraphrased, Rey already possesses what she requires. Which is to say, he knows she took the books.

g) “The hot shot hero plan didn’t work! It always works!” Except when it doesn’t, like in ESB, where Luke abandons his training and accomplishes nothing except for getting his hand chopped off. And then honestly, Holdo kinda does her own hot shot hero move anyway?

h) “This movie is all about failure! Nobody wins!” Again, ESB anyone? That film is a series of cascading failures. One after the next. Poor choices left and right.

i) “But Luke is an embittered old trickster now!” Cough cough, Yoda, cough cough Obi-Wan.

) “The Jedi must end.” And then at the end, Luke is like, “Wait, no, fuck that shit, Rey is the Last Jedi.” He undoes what he’s done. He has reconnected to the Force. He’s returned to the fight. He’s saved the Resistance, saved the Jedi, and become the Master he was meant to be. It’s not a shattering of the old ways and the order, it’s — to use their metaphor — a spark to relight the fire.

So, that’s a long way to say: not as subversive as you think. Maybe still subversive in some ways, but usually in ways that surprise us, plot-wise.

With all that said, let us speak of what I’d change.

I Kinda Hate The Force Awakens Cliffhanger

The cliffhanger at the end of TFA is a bit gormless, isn’t it? It’s predicated on a question of… oooh, ahhh, will he take the lightsaber or not? It has no teeth. It’s not a compelling leave-off point. Not life-or-death. Not big-holy-shit-consequence. And it then forces the next film, this one, to begin right where the last one ended. Which is so… not Star Wars.

So, and I know this should’ve gone in the last post, I might fuck that up a bit. I’d end TFA on Rey leaving the Resistance base — and that’s it. You leave on the promise of adventure. The hope that Luke is out there somewhere.

Then, in this film, you open weeks later.

The Resistance base has moved already — because they evacuated upon threat of annihilation like anyone would — and Rey has been gone for weeks. No peep. Maybe a broken communication or something like that. But hope is fleeting.

So, the big question then is, Where’s Rey? She’s discovered that finding Luke on a whole damn planet isn’t that fucking easy. She’s on Ahtchhrthch-To (I can never spell it) with Chewie and Artoo, about to give up — and who knows, maybe it’s a Force vision, or maybe Artoo gives a clue, or maybe they just fucking see Luke standing there like a curmudgeonly jerk waving his cane to GET OFF MY ISLAND YOU DAMN KIDS. But she finally finds him. (TBH, I’d have her summoned by the creepy tree, and while she’s in there, Luke finds her.)

When the film opens, the New Republic is in tatters and has retreated only to the Core Worlds, the new Resistance base has been discovered, and they’re having to evacuate again. Which leads to the question already of, how are they being tracked? Is there a mole? (It should be their first question.) They have to flee, and mount a hasty evacuation as the dreadnaught rolls in, and mostly the film proceeds apace from there.

DJ And The Casino Planet

The middle of this movie vexes me.

It vexes me.

I like it in theory, but it presents for me a few problems:

a) It’s a simplistic thematic jab — “Wealth is a corrupter! Slavery is bad! Money funds the First Order” without ever really giving those big ideas their due. It’s too short and too simplistic to really bring those ideas home to land. And tying into the rest of the film feels muddy.

b) It’s like a 20 minute farcical spy movie in the middle of… something that is decidedly not. It feels tonally strange, an odd narrative diversion that should either be the whole film, or none of the film.

c) It’s a bit too shiny. It has that prequel-era glitz-and-gloss, when most of Star Wars is a little down-and-dingy. A bit too CGI. And then you get the singing balloon lady and the GARSH GEE OFFICER Texan alien (wtf) and the too-shiny Spaceballs security force?

d) It’s both heinously convenient and inconvenient in equal measure. They show up. The guy they want is unavailable. They end up in jail with a guy who can do exactly (!) what they need even though there was only one cracker in the whole damn galaxy who could do it (?) and then they steal a ship and ride some Space Donkeys and — fuck, I dunno.

I love Rose. I love Finn. I want more for them.

The big reason this section vexes me is because I don’t know precisely what to do with it. It’s mostly a fetch quest — “Go get this guy, okay you got someone like him, and good job, you wrecked some shit along the way.” It has a POV, though, and a thing to say, and I appreciate anytime anything has a thing to say — it turns a fetch quest into something that isn’t shallow.

That still doesn’t mean it sings for its supper though.

Two options, here.

Option One

Dirty this sequence up a bit. Put it in a Casablanca / Marrakesh stand-in. Hot, sweltering, filthy. Hive of scum and villainy. But still full of rich people — think Indy versus Belloq in terms of vibe. Bond versus Le Chiffre. Less operahouse and more Rick’s, y’dig? It’s swarming with ex-Imperials and First Order officers who are either AWOL or making weapons deals or whatever. You can’t just waltz around the place. We learn that Rose grew up here or near here and it’s a whole thing for her — she gets to still have her crusade against the corruptive power of money, the abuse of the racing animals, what-have-you. Finn gets to witness her pain, see what the Resistance is rebelling against — a hint of power structures that have to come crashing down. A hint of a fight far larger than just… blasting stormtroopers (or being them).

Maybe it’s Lando who facilitates the meeting with the slicer? The slicer, not-DJ, would have a fucking name, for one thing. (It annoys me that they meet this stuttering Jughead, never ask his name, get on his ship, and just… follow him blindly onboard a massive First Order ship. “Don’t Join” is not a name.) I think he’s literally the slicer that has been recommended to them, and they escape First Order clutches or security details to get to him — and he’s like Han, he wants money, a promise of money, but you think because Lando recommended him he’s above board. And he isn’t.

He eventually betrays them, just as DJ does.

Because sometimes the Lowest Common Denominator is just that.

This option gives you most of the same beats, but addresses a couple of my issues — it cuts out some plot middlemen, it puts it in what for me would be a more trilogy-appropriate location, and you could still have some cool action sequences. Maybe less “riding random creatures,” which feels just as exploitative” and more a scene as they run across the track, which causes havoc, and still lets them free the Space Donkeys. Because who doesn’t love Space Donkeys?

(Fathiers, I know, I know.)

(Here some chode will note that I misspelled “fathiers” in Aftermath, calling them “faithiers” but that’s how it was initially spelled when it got popped into that draft.)

Or —

Option Two

Cut the whole sequence.

Cut out DJ.

Instead: Rose knows how to shut off the hyperspace tracker. Finn knows his way around a big-damn First Order ship. Poe concocts some crazy-ass plan to get them on board — hiding in the wreckage of one of their own ships, and as Snoke’s Pleasure Palace cruises by overhead, they jet on board? I dunno. Or BB-8 has some slicey-slicey ability. It really doesn’t matter. Just get to the point, and the point is putting them on that ship.

You get some nice bonuses out of this option —

– You can do worldbuilding. We can see what life on Snoke’s Pleasure Palace is like — has he introduced plant life, or does he play shah-tezh chess, or have an opera house? Do we see where the stormtrooper children are housed and trained, ala Delilah’s Phasma novel? Some Palpatine echoes here would go a long way to presaging what’s to come.

– Finn and Rose have some pent-up anger about the First Order. They killed her sister. They stole him from his home. If Rose and Finn see kids being taken and brainwashed, now we’ve presented him and her with a real dilemma — do the mission and shut off the tracker, or save these kids? Can they do both? You can bet they’d try. (And now we have a new origin for where Broom Boy comes from.) Saving kids is noble, and powerful, and generational. (And note, the kids they meet in the current film… are still slaves at the end of it. Which feels a little gross.)

– Phasma can have more of a presence as she hunts Finn and Rose to capture them. We don’t need a DJ-betrays-them scene, we just need Phasma to be in on the communication that Poe gives, thus accidentally selling out Holdo’s plan.

– And best of all, we can start working on Finn’s true arc, hinting at what will come in Rise of Skywalker — he’s fucking Force sensitive. When Rey steps on board that ship? He senses her. Which he doesn’t understand, but he knows it’s true. It’ll blip our radars and be a feeling that the act of him picking up the saber in part one, and his attachment to Rey, is about more than just Finn being Finn. He’s connected to the Force.

Again, this allows the movie to mostly play out as it does, but it cuts a lot of fat out of the middle, and gives us a stronger focus on Finn and Rose in the heart of the beast.

The Fuck Is Black Squadron?

Tiny point, but where the fuck is Black Squadron? WHERE MAH SNAP WEXLEY AT. Jess Pava! Kare Kun! At least tell us that they’re zipping around the galaxy, trying to scare up support for the Resistance, yeah?

Poe and Holdo

There’s some argument here made by minds wiser than I, that there is a racial component at play here — Poe being the hotheaded Latino, Holdo being the stern white lady reprimanding him. I can’t speak to that, and it’s not my place to be a Woke Scold, but I trust if people tell me that’s how they feel, then that’s a consideration to be made. Easy enough solve here is to cast Holdo as a woman of color. If you want an older actress, but still glamorous as Holdo is — Angela Bassett, Salma Hayek, Michelle Yeoh. I’d be sad to lose Laura Dern because, c’mon, Laura Dern. She makes a pyoo sound as she shoots her blaster! How adorable! At the same time, imagine any of those other women in that role and oof, mmm, yeah. It works. And it theoretically changes any racial dynamic at play.

Address Leia’s Force Training

It amounts to two lines of dialogue, but someone marveling at Leia’s Force ability would be nice — and then a response that they heard she trained with her brother for a time, but then gave it up. That’s true to Aftermath, too, somewhat, and would feed nicely into TROS. And it leaves us with the question of why she gave it up. Leaving people with questions is good — but to get to questions, we have to at least ask them, and answer them halfway. Halfway answers are great — it gives us some satisfaction, but still leaves us hungry.

Rey and Kylo

I love their relationship in this.

I mostly am good with how it goes.

But! Given TROS, in retrospect, I’d make a change —

I’d say after they fight over the saber, she rescues him. Takes him away from the burning ship. She pulls him away, saves his life, then abandons him to go fight with the Resistance. Even gives us a chance to have Finn see her saving him — causing tension between them. He finds her on a fiery ship, and she’s saving Kylo Ren?! Jealousy and confusion rage in him. So then on Crait, Ren basically shows up late — she’s already in the sky, fighting. He’s lost, confused, and then there’s Skywalker and his rage overtakes him.

Now, here’s the thing — a little part of me wants that to go even bigger, right? Like, she drags him off the ship, and they go off somewhere, together, and it’s REYLO time, baby. It’s Anakin and Padme, redux, except this time, they both know the score. They’ve both “let old things die,” they’ve escaped to some offworld paradise, away from their roles, their identities, no Light Side, no Dark Side, just them. Separate from the conflict. Gone from war.

And I know you’re saying, “But Rey! Rey’s part of the Resistance!” Like… not really? She meets them for ten minutes then fucks off to find Luke. She’s not a rebel yet.

While she and Kylo are on their sexy sojourn —

The war still rages.

Though the Resistance has escaped for a time, they hole up on an old base in Crait, and the First Order finds them and begins a days-, even weeks-long siege of that place, until they eventually roll out enough firepower (The Big Gun) to crack it open. Rey discovers what’s happening — maybe Finn finds her using the Force — and she has to leave her idyll, despite the fact Ren wants her to stay. And he of course follows after, and they resume their roles, but only after time away with each other.

Only reason I want to see this is to really earn that kiss and the attempted redemption that occurs at the end of TROS. And also to put Finn in the mix — both as a jealous figure and arguably someone who deserves her love more, and who needs her teaching. And it puts him into the arms of Rose, which maybe makes Poe jealous and — I’m just saying, SEXY SPACE RHOMBUS. Okay? Okay.

Is this an essential change? Nah. But I like it. I think.

Everything Else Is Pretty Solid

Like I said, I love this movie. It works as-is. You don’t have to change anything, really, but for my mileage, the above stuff is where I’d make some changes. Okay, I might do a couple other little things — Luke should actually teach his third lesson (he doesn’t get to that, does he?). But he still guzzles green tiddy milk. He’s still a curmudgeon. Yoda still gives him that beautiful paean to failure. He still faces down the First Order as an illusion. Snoke gets turned into hot dogs. Ren and Rey fight the guards in that wicked lightsaber ballet. Poe’s arc is one of him going from hot shot pilot to leader. Finn’s is about realizing he’s not just in this for Rey, but he’s Rebel Scum, now. (His fight against Phasma should have more teeth, though — more anger at who she is and what she did to him.)

And that’s it. That’s part two.

Next week, I’ll try to finish up, and cover The Rise of Skywalker.

See you on the other side, Baby Yodas.

*clears throat, steps up to the podium, taps microphone*

We should all get back to blogging. Listen, I know. I know. It’s blogging. It’s old. It’s telegrams and buggy whips. I get it, I feel you, you’re probably not wrong, but here is a counterpoint:

Our choices for social media are occasionally hellish, and are arguably helping to hasten our collective destruction. Don’t get it twisted, social media also helps us become more informed and entertained — mis/disinformation spreads like norovirus, but good information moves fast, too. I just don’t know which one moves faster, and that’s a grim race I can hardly bear to consider. Point is, though, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, they’re a place you go — like a bar, it’s frequently fun, occasionally interesting, often loud and deranged and usually full of one corner of belligerent drunken assholes who won’t leave you alone. (Unlike a bar, it’s also full of sock puppets and bots. So I guess it’s like a weird sci-fi muppet bar staffed by droids? Fuck, I don’t know, I think I’m losing the thread of the conversation here.)

What I mean is —

Those social media sites are external.

They aren’t yours.

Maybe collectively they can be ours, if we claim them, but just the same: we lack actual ownership. But you need a place to call your own. A place to which you can escape. A place to call home. 

And so I present to you —

*wheels out rickety-ass cart with squeaky wheels*

*whips off the blanket covering it*

*inside is a janky old pile of blog*

BLOGS

ta-da

*does a clumsy pirouette*

Remember those? Remember this place, right here, the one you’re reading? Holy shit, it’s a blog*! Did you even realize you were witnessing such rara avis as a gods-danged blog? That’s right, it’s a “weblog” or “web journal” — not quite as antiquated as a dial-up BBS (and you bet your sweet ass I’d go back to SysOpping one of those if I could), yet still feels like a relic of a bygone era. Most hot takes are done on Twitter. Most cold takes are done on Facebook. Instagram is where you see the pretty pictures. Mastodon is where you go for 10 minutes when you’re fed up with Twitter, then you go back to Twitter because now you remember why you don’t go to Mastodon. Livejournal is where you to go buy Russian dick pills, I think? I dunno. Point is, blogs feel like raggedy junk piles — crashed star destroyers and X-Wings in the Jakku graveyard. Even the name sound awful. BLOOOOG. BLAAAAAHG. BLOOORRRRG. It’s onomatopoeiac: a regurgitative sound, the sound of a dog horking up whatever weird yard garbage it ate.

Here is why we should all get back to writing and reading blogs again:

a) Because Fuck Twitter And Facebook

I mean, c’mon.

b) Because We Need Our Attention Spans Back

Remember being able to read something that took you more than two, three minutes to consume? Not just one glib tweet, not just an article you reshare because you peeped the headline and that’s probably good enough, not some SASSY MEME or ANIMATORTED GIF FILE. Wasn’t that fun? Not having the attention span of a high-anxiety, cocaine-sniffing chipmunk?

c) Because Nuance Is Good, Actually

You can’t build complex flavors on Twitter. It’s social Doritos, man. Delicious. Tasty crunch. Fast to consume. You can’t layer in complexity, though — it’s pretty much just a nacho cheese salt bomb in terms of content. You want nuance, you need more than 240 characters. Yes, Twitter has threading, and I like threads, but it’s still a string of popcorn more than it is a proper meal.

d) Because You Own It

It’s nice to own your stuff. You don’t really own your content on other sites. Okay, yes, technically you kinda do — but trust me when I tell you, the government has ruled that those sites own your shit. Why? So they can petition those places for your info. Twitter doesn’t claim to, or want to, own your shit, but the government says they do anyway, which creates a somewhat sticky situation, legally-speaking. As a person who has literally had tweets turned into a movie, lemme just say: this complicates things. So, as a writer, I note to other writers especially: owning your space, having an Online Place to call your own, is actually pretty great.

e) Because You Control It

I moderate this space. It is not a troll bridge. I control what I say here and who can say what in return. Now, true, Twitter looks to be instituting more robust controls for content posters, which is actually a positive by my metric. So, yay. Just the same, I can institute control over how the information is seen, dispensed, and commented upon without being at the mercy of any kind of giant company, especially one that seems to care very little about the presence of Nazis and a whole lot about the hurt feelings of Nazis. Also, one mis-step on Twitter or one mob campaign can get you suspended or banned outright, losing access to your entire bank of content and access to all your earned friends/followers.

f) Because People Quit Other Social Media Platforms Like They’re Bad Habits

It’s a constant refrain of people saying, “I gotta get off of [insert social media platform here] because it’s bad for me, bad for the world,” whatever. But nobody ever quits blogs. It’s like quitting vegetables. They’re just good for you. Probably. Maybe. Shut up and eat your WORD CABBAGE, jerks.

g) Because It Is Good Writing Practice

This one is for writers expressly, but it’s actually a really good place to churn words and develop a voice, a habit, a feel for language. Twitter is good for jokes, but not long-form content, and most of what writers will actually get paid for is longform content. Not a bad place to cut your teeth. And what the fuck does that mean, anyway? “Cut your teeth.” How would you even cut a tooth, anyway? Scroll saw? Laser torch? Don’t cut teeth, you barbarian. Your teeth are fine the way they are.

h) Because Blogs Can Also Be Newsletters

Newsletters are a new niche hotness, but you can have it both ways: this blog, if you subscribe, becomes a newsletter. Comes right to your email. Oooh. Fancy. High-tech. Mmm.

Of course, blogs have some downsides, too.

You don’t get an instantaneous response, for one. I tweet something and it’s chum in the water — it’s snappy, responsive, lickety-quick. Sometimes you write a blog and… maybe it sits a while. You’ve gone fishing and best put on your PATIENCE PANTS. It’s also not as sexy as Twitter — it’s still the hottest club in town, which means all the COOL PEOPLE are there, even though also all the AWFUL PEOPLE are there, too. For writers, this can feel like there’s less influence in blogs, but it’s also worth noting that publishers, agents and freelance clients might actually want to see some of your work on display. And though I’ve certainly gotten a lot of work over Twitter (Star Wars, the movie, theoretically a portion of my publishing career in general), the blog has long-formed the foundation of my so-called “platform.” (Hate that term, but when I say it, you know what I mean.)

It’s also, if done right, costly — compared to, say, free social media. Which means what I’m suggesting is a privileged option for many. There are of course free ways to go bloggy or do newsletters, just make sure you own what you put up, and be aware what happens if the service shits the bed on you. I own this blog, its domain, and I pay for the hosting (which is not cheap, regrettably), but I know what goes here is mine. I back it all up, and keep it going, and it’s all mine, miiiine, MIIIIIINE MOO HOO HA HA HA ahem. But I’m also trying to justify that by now convincing you all that blogs are a really good idea, and not at all antiquated, but please ignore the selfishness of my request and hie thee hence to the blog factory.

Blogs: they’re not just for breakfast anymore.

Or something.

Anyway, let’s blog. Let’s blog together! Or at least come read my stupid blog, which will continue on being what it will be in the year 2020 — I’m gonna try to get back here and write more longform content. Hope you’ll join me. Feel free to subscribe. And if you want to help pay for it, then buy my books, like Wanderers, which I hear is maybe good? Books: they’re like blogs, but older and longer!

(If you want a good example lately of blogging working for an author, look no further than this very hilarious blog post about designer dogs by author Janel Comeau. I don’t think it’d work in Twitter format, honestly. But now I know who she is! Yay, blogs.)

* for an additional “holy shit,” recognize that I started this very blog in October of the YEAR TWO THOUSAND, which is to say, in nine months this fucker will damn near be old enough to drink, which really does mean I’m old, doesn’t it? fuuuuuuuuck

* * *

WANDERERS: A Novel, out now.

A decadent rock star. A deeply religious radio host. A disgraced scientist. And a teenage girl who may be the world’s last hope. An astonishing tapestry of humanity that Harlan Coben calls “a suspenseful, twisty, satisfying, surprising, thought-provoking epic.”

A sleepwalking phenomenon awakens terror and violence in America. The real danger may not be the epidemic, but the fear of it. With society collapsing—and an ultraviolent militia threatening to exterminate them—the fate of the sleepwalkers and the shepherds who guide them depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart—or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world.

Print: Indiebound | Let’s Play Books (signed) | The Signed Page | B&N | BAM | Amazon

eBook: Amazon | Apple Books | B&N | Kobo | Google Play | BAM

Audio: Audible | Libro.FM

As both a licensed Star Wars nerd and an unlicensed Story Doctor, I am somewhat fascinated with the question of, “What would I have done differently?” Now that the sequel trilogy (heretofore referred to as “the ST”) is over, I’m driven specifically to that span of films — what would I do if I magically got control of making these three movies from the beginning?

Let’s first and foremost note that I don’t mean, “What would I do to fix them?” because I don’t consider them broken. I like the ST movies a whole damn bunch, and do not consider the trilogy broken. But as a person who writes books for a living, I also recognize that we as storytellers put our own heart stamp on the tales we tell (at least, if we’re telling them right and true), and so I wonder then what would my version of the ST look like?

Why me? Well, I’m a jabroni with a blog, and I am allowed to just say stuff here. But I’m also a jabroni who has — and here you’ll need to excuse the not-so-humble flex — written a whole damn Star Wars trilogy himself, and there aren’t a lot of people who have done that. And I wrote the Marvel adaptation of the film, so I mean, I’m uniquely qualified.*

*not actually qualified, just a nerd

So, fuck it, let’s do this.

Mission Statement, and Caveats

Let’s start off with a massive lack of bravery (and work) on my part and say, I like the ST in its current iteration enough that, honestly, I’d keep most of it. Rey, Finn and Poe are my godsdamn favorites, and I wouldn’t ever want to lose them. They are a darling basket of warm cinnamon buns and don’t you dare touch them. Same with Kylo! And Rose! So, the goal is to keep the relative framework of these films, but see where I’d diverge. If we’re talking about creating a whole new sequel trilogy out of thin air — well, I’d need to get a paycheck for that kind of intellectual heavy lifting. *clears throat*

Final caveat here is that, and I hate I have to say this, but *turns on megaphone* THIS IS ALL JUST ONE JABRONI’S OPINION, I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER RETCONNING THIS FILM, YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE MAD AT ME.

I’m not trying to rile anybody up, ease off the throttle.

So, let’s take this film by film, see what I’d keep, tweak, and where we diverge.

We begin with:

The Force Awakens

I totally love this movie. Unironically, unabashedly, I love it. It’s both a love letter to Star Wars and also an endeavor to use a familiar formula in a new way (that also helps re-center characters who are not, for instance, handsome white boys, Kylo excepted). It’s great. Like Return of the Jedi, I can re-watch this movie endlessly, and just not care about whatever is wrong with it. But, just the same, I have changes, because I am a Star Wars fan, and Star Wars fans have Star Wars opinions.

Here’s what I’d change:

It’s too fast, so I’d expand the timeline out a little.

I’ll write a longer, larger post at some point about how modern blockbusters have forsaken breathing room in their narrative for breathless plotting — and TFA falls right into that trap. Outside of Rey’s one instance of getting some sleep, the movie feels like it takes place in the span of its own running time, like an episode of 24, but in space. It feels hasty as shit. (A problem that tROS accelerates, especially in the first half of its running time.)

Why is this? I dunno. I think filmmakers feel like this will create urgency, but all it does it become a rhythmless din of noise and event. It used to be that, because resources were limited and CGI didn’t exist, you had to do a lot with a little. Which meant every scene couldn’t be WHIZ BANG BOOM, you had to… you know, actually have characters just sit around somewhere and talk. Like in Jaws, sometimes the shark breaks, and you learn that less is definitely more.

It offers the added value of letting us get to know the characters. And they’re why we come to the movies. We want to know who they are. We want to see them play off one another. We want to deepen our relationship with them as they deepen their relationships with one another. Just throwing automatons into danger again and again isn’t exciting, because we don’t give one cold fuck about a bunch of automatons. I’m not suggesting this film has that exact problem — it gives us reason to care enough. But it also shortcuts that journey a little.

So, here’s what we (read: I) do.

Halfway through the film. Finn has “rescued” Rey by which I mean, Rey has mostly rescued Finn. First Order attack. “The garbage will do!”

Finn and Rey steal the Falcon. They blast their way free, through the Ravager —

But from there they don’t go right into space. They hunker down somewhere on Jakku — somewhere Rey thinks is safe. Hiding from First Order patrols whizzing overhead, etc. The hunters are closing in. They know their time is dwindling. They’ll get found. But they can’t just escape, either. Remember: there’s supposed to be a goddamn blockade, but somehow in the film it gets relegated to like, one star destroyer? And despite them being in a known ship when they leave Jakku — literally nobody from the First Order is there in space waiting for them.

So, they stay on Jakku.

And that’s when Solo and Chewie track them there.

This is gonna cut the Rathtar business — it’s a fun scene, and I’m loathe to cut a franchise-appropriate creature scene (see: trash compactor, space worm, rancor), but it just doesn’t feel essential. Yes, the Rathtar bullshit gives us the sense that Solo is still a smuggler, back to his old ways, but there’s another way we can earn that.

Solo and Chewie show up and say, hey, yeah, we’re stealing the Falcon back. Finn and Rey decide to go with (because they gotta escape the First Order and also, c’mon, it’s Han Motherfucking Solo), but that still means escaping a First Order blockade. One of Solo’s great skills is blockade running, so let’s see it — a return to form. And then let’s complicate it further — as the Falcon blasts into space, Ren senses the ship. And also jumping into frame are the Guavian Death Gang and Kanjiklub, both attracted by seeing a Falcon ping on their Plot-Convenient Space Radars. So, you get a crazy space battle as they have to stunt-fly the Falcon through the chaos, playing the three separate forces off one another so they shoot each other instead. Meanwhile, Hyperdrive isn’t working, so Rey has to help fix that, still showing off her mechanical skills. (If we want her pilot skills shown off, maybe Chewie mans guns as she helps get the hyperdrive compressor working, showing off skills in two directions — co-piloting the ship and keeping it running.) Shit, maybe Unkar Plutt comes after them here instead of later (per deleted scenes), gets blasted out of the sky.

Just as Kylo Ren is about to descend upon the Falcon, they leap to hyperspace.

And then — we let that play out.

They don’t just leap to the next system.

The talk that Han gives her — “Hey, you’re good in a fight, join my crew?”

In this version, she takes him up on that offer. She says yes. See, TFA wants to set up this dichotomy where both Kylo and her consider Solo a father figure, but it lends the story no time to believably achieve that. (This isn’t new to Star Wars. Ben Kenobi is super-important to Luke, but their time in training consists of one scene with that little dickhead laser-bauble.) We need Rey to have a real relationship with Han Solo — so he becomes a proxy father figure. This is, in a sense, part of her journey, right? Realizing she doesn’t need whoever abandoned her on Jakku first, and relying on Found Family — and then also eventually coming to terms she doesn’t necessarily “need” them either, she needs herself. (Not in a way that diminishes her friends, but in a way that empowers herself as a singular being in the galaxy. With family by choice, not by reliance.)

So. Rey and Finn join his crew. BB-8 has important information, sure, and it needs to get to the Resistance — but remember, Finn is pretending to be a Resistance agent. And he likes Rey. (It’s unclear in TFA how much of this is that he like-likes her, but in this, we’d make that more explicit. More on this at the end of the post.) Further, Rey just wants to go back to Jakku soon as she has the chance. Either choice — they go find the Resistance base, they go back to Jakku — likely ends Finn’s journey, and it takes him away from Rey. So, he convinces her to stay with the crew. Go on a few adventures. And it’s not like Han wants to go to the Resistance, either. (More on that in a few.) That way, Finn gets to not be a stormtrooper and continue the illusion that he’s… somebody, a Resistance agent, a smuggler, anybody at all but the unnamed soldier.

(Here we get to the heart of a lot of this trilogy: people trying to figure out who they are, and where they belong. It’s a beautiful thing. And as true a story as any, in terms of a story we all understand.)

Now, we don’t need to see them go on a bunch of missions with Han Solo. (Though a montage would be doable, I guess.) We just need to move the needle forward in time. We need to see them come out of hyperspace, going to Maz Kanata’s castle, with the sense that they’ve had some adventures. Weeks. Months. Whatever. New outfits, a new rapport, some mild drama and conflict between the “crew,” and so on. Stretch out the narrative. Just make it a little more lived in. And we also know that Han’s onto Finn (“Big Deal”). Maybe BB-8 is getting antsy, and someone gets the droid to spill what he’s carrying (leading to the “It’s true, all of it,” scene with Han talking about Luke).

Point is, they still get to go to Maz’s place, and with minimal narrative rejiggering, you’ve created a whole different impact while keeping structure relatively the same. We can have a moment of quiet contemplation still where Rey regards so much green in the galaxy (play it out like the opposite of Luke regarding the twin suns of Tatooine, because there he’s regarding a galaxy he yearns yet to see, and here she’s regarding a galaxy she didn’t know existed). Then it… roughly works out the same. The one obvious difference is that I don’t think you can have Finn bailing for the same reason of theoretical cowardice — I think it’s more that he knows the adventure is about at its end, Rey and BB-8 will go on without him, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Poe’s Return

I’m torn on this, but fuck it, this is all theoretical — I think I’d like to see Poe’s return to the world play out on screen. His escape from Jakku could even coincide with the Falcon leaving the planet, seeing it fly overhead. I don’t think it needs to be like, 20 minutes of screentime — but a short bit of him crawling his way into Niima Outpost or some shit.

I say this because the reveal he’s alive in TFA feels less plotted as a “reveal” and more accidental, like we weren’t ever supposed to think he was dead in the first place.

(Which is likely accurate, since Poe was supposed to die, initially.)

That Dipshit Map

I don’t know why, but JJ Abrams loves himself a fetch quest. Find the droid, the map, the girl, find the Sith wayfinder, the saber, the Cosmic Porg, the whatever. It’s less mythic and more video game? Less Campbell and more Kojima.

It’s MacGuffins all the way down.

So: let’s talk about the “map” to find Luke.

Now, it’s not all video-gamey — there is something to a “treasure map” that’s intriguing here, but it just doesn’t make a lick of sense. That’s not a huge knock against Star Wars, because a lot of Star Wars… enh, doesn’t make a huge lick of sense. But this feels really unsound, especially since we’ve never really cared much before about “maps” in this galaxy. We care about planets and coordinates, and that’s easy enough, isn’t it? In Star Wars-ian terms, we know the galaxy is home to hundreds, maybe thousands of planets, and Luke Skywalker has gone to one of them, and we don’t know which one. Thassit. Easy. But he’s left behind the coordinates with one man, Max Von Sydow (shut up, I prefer to believe Max Von Sydow is the actual character, because honestly that’s a pretty Star Warsy name). So, when they finally get to the Resistance Base on D’Qar, they think, “We can go get Luke!”

But, turns out, the data is encoded. It’s gibberish. Locked behind a cipher.

And who has the key to that cipher? Artoo.

This also prevents us from having Artoo be nebulously “dormant,” which further prevents Threepio’s weird “As you know, BB-8” scene. (Sidenote: I petition all writing advice to refer to expository dialogue infodumps not as “As You Know, Bob” scenes, but rather, “As You Know, BB-8” scenes, please and thank you.)

Also, Why Don’t They Evacuate D’Qar?

Why don’t the Resistance fighters on D’Qar evacuate the base? They know they’re being targeted by BOMBAD DESTRUCTION from Starkiller Base, right? And yet they’re all like, “Gosh, I hope it doesn’t happen” instead of like, just running to spaceships and being like, “welp, fuck this shit, we out.” In Empire Strikes Back, the Hoth base isn’t in the sights of the Empire and they… evacuate. I guess there’s an argument here as to why they don’t evacuate Yavin IV in A New Hope, but I’d argue there it’s because the GIANT DEATH MOON is coming at you like a big laser-faced Pac-Man. Where you gonna go? Anyway. In my TFA, they simultaneously mount an evacuation while sending the rest of their forces to attack Starkiller.

(And yes, we keep Starkiller. Is it stupid that there’s DEATH STAR TRIPLE XXXTREME? Sure. But the First Order are Empire fanboys, and even in real life, mankind seems ever more interested in huge, nation-killing weapons.)

Clarity of Opposition

I’d also do a little work to establish what the First Order and the Resistance actually are — it’s never made super clear, and I’d clarify that the First Order is basically a rogue nation. Fascist Imperial fanboys who have glommed onto old Imperial tech and forbidden brainwashing techniques to bolster their forces (and this presages a bit of the Palpatine stuff, because, how’d they get all this shit?). Use the Crawl maybe and a few worldbuilding lines remind us that the New Republic has locked down the galaxy’s core, but its edges are wild fuckin’ space, man, full of rogue nations and criminal enterprises and they’re all jockeying for power. First Order has that power. They’re not the old Soviet Union or Nazi Germany or even the Roman Empire — they’re somewhere between North Korea and an American militia, politically speaking. Been trying to get a superweapon, now they have one.

The Resistance operates in the shadow of the New Republic — an “unauthorized” A-Team of problem solvers who push back these rogue nations in an effort to protect worlds the New Republic can’t get support for in the Senate. They lead literal resistance movements around the galaxy — a seed planting as far back as The Clone Wars cartoon, and carried on in Aftermath. It would explain why they’re such a small fighting force — because they explicitly aren’t a rebellion. They train rebellions, something Leia is, and has been, good at. It’s also why they don’t have tons of support in the galaxy — they have some allies, but they’re not some massive galaxy-wide presence. They’re small, nimble, and leave few fingerprints. Get these pole positions right and it clarifies the “geopolitical” landscape of the films a bit more, I think.

The Lightsaber Dream

What if…? (That’s what this post is, in a lot of ways — a big bag of what ifs.) What if, when Rey was having her lightsaber dream, and she sees Kylo out there — he sees her, too? It establishes the first Force link between them. Just a touch. Maybe that’s what brings the First Order to Maz’s castle…

Han & Leia

The story needs to commit to their fracture. As it plays out, it feels dramatically weak — they seem to love each other, they’re just off doing shit away from one another. Commit to it, and actually have their son’s radicalization by Snoke be a breaking point. They had some blow-up, blow-out, and it broke them apart. Haven’t seen each other for some amount of time. It makes sense — the two of them run hot. They’re Hulk and Thor, two fires that fire together. We don’t want to infer Ben Solo came from a dysfunctional family (though perhaps a really busy one), but rather, that his fall to the dark side made them dysfunctional. Because it should.

The value-add here is that it gives us a chance to get Han and Leia back together — and in a way that’s a bit more romantic than the weird fatherly hug he gives her at the end? A call back to the I Love You / I Know scene, maybe, or just, like, they figure it out. They fall back in love, or realize they were never out of it. They crash back together like two celestial bodies. (Not inferring they make sexy-times in the Falcon refresher, to be clear.) But we definitely want that sense of two of our series’ epic heroes finding each other again. More than a gee-shucks nostalgia reunion.

Love Is Love Is Love

Here is the big one. One that has ramifications beyond this movie.

So. These films seem to stridently try to avoid most romantic entanglements. Right? Even Han and Leia’s romance now just seems soft, like old fruit. Part of me thinks this is because romance in these genres can be awfully tropey — ahh, of course there is a WOMAN and a MAN and they are gonna ROMANCE EACH OTHER. Something something destiny, just make out already, you hornballs.

Except… the tropey part of it is also a part I like. Though the romance in the prequel trilogy feels awfully strained, it’s still essential to the core of that story. And it should be essential to the core of this one, too. These films are space operas. Operas are… about drama, and conflict, and not just about BIG DAMN SPACE CONFLICTS but more about the relationships between characters. Love and hate and jealousy and friendship. The ST does well with friendship, and… not much else.

In TFA, then, the biggest change is yet a subtle one, and one that is already almost there — you gotta start planting seeds that these characters are gonna fall in love with each other. And I say “these characters” because I mean, all of them. The scope of the changes I’d make would be to put in play a love-triangle that becomes a love rhombus that becomes a love pentagram that becomes, I dunno, some kind of midichlorian fuck-pile. Or cuddle-kissy-pile. It is PG-13, after all.

This one sets up Finn being in love with Rey. (Suggested above, this romantic interesting beind why he doesn’t want to go back to Jakku or to D’Qar.)

It also sets him and Poe being a thing. They have chemistry. They flirt. It’s there already.

Rey needs to meet Poe, too, at the end of all this. Not at the end of TLJ. But here and now. (It doesn’t really add up that she never meets him, so put that shit on screen.)

Eventually, it factors in Rose and Kylo — AND PALPATINE HIMSELF okay lol no, not that one. Ew. *hurrk* Sorry. I went too far. But seriously: friendships are nice, and yay friendships, but these are young adults in a rough, raw galaxy, and sometimes the spark isn’t just about the rebellion, y’know? SOMETIMES IT’S ABOUT A SPARK IN YOUR SPACE PANTS. Also, your space heart. *audience awwws collectively*

And That’s It

Not much else to change here, I don’t think. Han still dies. Phasma still gives up Starkiller Base. It’s a good movie, it holds together, it’s a lot of fun. Again, were I doing a *total rewrite* I might do some stuff really different — it’d be all new characters, Snap Wexley and Mister Bones would be major protagonists, there’d probably be a sexy robot? I’d make changes. But again, going with the raw material of the film as-is, these are the changes I’d make. Probably. Ask me tomorrow, I’d probably change my mind. This shit ain’t math. It’s space math, and space math is some flyboy stuntwork.

Remember, too: Star Wars is junk.

Soon: my re-do of The Last Jedi.

RELEASE THE WENDIG CUT**

** there is no Wendig Cut***

*** there also isn’t likely a JJ Cut, or a Snyder Cut, or whatever, shut up