Why We Need Another STAR WARS Trilogy
When it was announced that Star Wars: Episode VII was going into production, I reacted like most Star Wars fans would: by jumping up and down in my living room and squealing like a teenage girl on prom night.
Okay, maybe not most fans, but you get the idea.
After a couple weeks of joyous bliss, however, a thought occurred to me. A thought that has since pervaded my thoughts on the film: “What if it sucks?” I had watched Fanboys long before this announcement, but it still rang true.
What if it sucks? What would that mean for Star Wars fans, especially those who have been grinding their teeth for 16 years since the release of Episode I? What about the casual fans, who didn't hate the disasters that were the prequels — how would this affect them?
I mused all this over for weeks, months even. Then someone asked me the single most important question anyone could ever ask about a sequel: “Why do you need ANOTHER Star Wars movie?” Well, I (as politely as possible) informed them that there was going to be a whole other trilogy, so naturally they asked “Why do you need three more movies?”
Why indeed?
For those of you unaware, not long after the acquisition of the Star Wars rights by Disney, they declared all books, games, shows, etc. as being non-canon. That was a tough pill to swallow for a lot of die-hard fans. We'd lived for years on the satisfaction that the prequel trilogy wasn't the end of the story, we had decades worth of other material to fill the hole in our souls George Lucas had selfishly yanked out for cold hard cash. Then, it was gone. Like that one girlfriend who just calls you up and says “It's over.” All of that information, all that wonderful storytelling, and all the characters we had grown to love; it all meant nothing.
So, why do we need another Star Wars trilogy? Because we deserve it.
Because all those years we spent locked in our apartments reading books, and playing games deserve to have meaning again. I'm not saying that this new trilogy will be everything we want it to be, because inevitably there will be disappointments. It may be too dark for the casual fan, or too light for the die hard fans who really know the depths of what Star Wars storytelling can offer. There may be too much action that drowns out the story or not enough action so people become bored. But we still deserve another chance. Regardless of whether or not you hate the prequels, they aren't the ending we deserved.
We deserve a J.J. Abrams Star Wars. Why? Because this franchise still exists because of the fans. Because we helped create back stories for completely inconsequential characters, and we helped give meaning to every little gesture, and reference to a past event we'd never seen. Because despite how much we are so disappointed with where Star Wars currently is, we still have the spark of hope that there could be a brighter tomorrow. Because despite our skepticism, we've watched Clone Wars and Rebels. We've begun the painful process of (in our minds) rewriting a history we already know. While Disney has said they will bring back some aspects of the former Expanded Universe, secretly we all know they won't bring back much.
So now we've rededicated ourselves to a universe we already knew and loved, to relearn and love again. The more little tidbits that we're shown from The Force Awakens, the more excited I become. Because this is a chance at redemption. This is a chance for everything we love about the Star Wars universe to shine through, and rebuild our relationship with this massive force in our lives. Then there will be more stories. After The Force Awakens, there will be more stories told for us to love. Episode VIII, and IX, several spin-off films, dozens of books, comics, and video games to tell us the stories that we deserve.
But why do we deserve all this?
Because WE are Star Wars, and Star Wars deserves to be great again.