As a franchise, Star Wars is known for being interconnected. All of the main series films play off of the original trilogy in some way, which is why they are referred to as the “prequels” and “sequels”. They are direct continuations of the story that was originally set up in the first three Star Wars movies and include a lot of the same characters, as well as plot lines that build off of or mirror the initial conflict set up in episodes IV-VI. Even a lot of the side stories – whether that’s movies like Rogue One or television series like The Clone Wars or The Mandalorian – directly reference these familiar heroes and villains, and sometimes even have those characters make appearances in the project itself.
In this way, Star Wars has always revolved around the Skywalkers and Solos, and the impact and legacy of these characters is felt in every single entry into the Star Wars franchise. While this often works for the narrative they’re trying to tell, the franchise can only go on like this for so long. They have such a vast universe to explore, and yet they’ve always kept the story very insular. It’s time for Star Wars to tell new stories, with a new crop of characters entirely unconnected to anyone else that audiences have seen in the franchise so far, and for a new conflict to arise that doesn’t involve the legacy of the Skywalkers in any way.
It seems like a lot of recent franchises run into the problem of feeling the need to connect every movie. Perhaps the creators worry that if they present a story that is entirely disconnected from everything else in the universe and doesn’t cross over with any previous characters, it will be jarring for the viewer, or it won’t be interesting enough to hold their attention, since those characters are the reason they fell in love with the franchise in the first place. But after a while, that franchise can start to feel stale, and like it’s reusing the same story over and over again.
After three whole film trilogies (and a few TV shows) spent with the Skywalker family, it’s time that Star Wars tried to chart some new territory, and branched out a little bit. They have an entire universe to explore, with innumerable interesting planets and weird alien creatures to explore, and yet the story always focuses on the same characters, and many of the same locations (or locations that heavily mirror each other, like Tatooine and Jakku, for instance). And yet, it seems like every time fans meet new characters in this universe, they’re connected to the Skywalkers in some way, or at least to the central conflicts of the movies that revolve around them.
While the Skywalkers and those around them are obviously important to the overall fate of their universe, they are still such a relatively small part of it. There is a whole galaxy full of people and places that have importance to the universe, but the audience doesn’t get to see them. It would be so interesting to discover new characters who are dealing with issues that are a little bit smaller than the fate of the Jedi or the universe, and to get more of a glimpse at what daily life in this galaxy is like.
In order to revive the franchise and ensure it’s something that can keep going for years into the future, Star Wars needs start exploring stories that aren’t just about the characters and places they already have. They can keep people invested in their universe by introducing new parts of it to viewers and delving into storylines and planets that haven’t had the chance to shine in the movies yet because there was no way to connect them to the Skywalker Saga. If they want to do more sets of trilogies, they should set up a new central conflict that is unrelated to anything resembling Palpatine, Vader, the Empire, or anything else that’s already been done in the Star Wars movies. If they come up with a new conflict and new heroes who are trying to resolve it and that story is totally unconnected from what Star Wars has done in the past, it would be a huge breath of fresh air for anyone invested in this universe.
In theory, the writers of any future Star Wars movie or TV show could write any story, and just set it in space. If it doesn’t need to connect to the previous movies in any way, it really opens up the possibilities of where they could go with the plot. It would allow a lot more freedom and creativity in the writers’ room and allow for different types of stories to be told, ideally ones with much more diversity than the trilogies Star Wars currently has. They could do a story with no human characters at all if they wanted to, or experiment with different genres rather than just doing straight adventure stories.
Star Wars could really set itself apart from other franchises by being the one that doesn’t rely on an interconnected story. The MCU always has to connect every movie to the next, sometimes to the detriment of the story, and it would be really interesting if Star Wars decided to take a different route and stop using that model of storytelling. The universe they have created over the years is so vast, and it would be a real shame if we only ever got to see the tiniest sliver of it.
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