When Disney acquired Lucasfilm back in 2012, the Mouse House made the first announcement any studio would if they’d just bought the rights to theStar Warssaga: a sequel trilogy consisting ofEpisodes VII,VIII, andIXwould hit theaters over the following few years. But Disney didn’t stop there. In the two-year gaps between sequel movies, they would also releaseStar Warsspin-offs – dubbed “Anthology” movies – telling smaller-scale stories from across the galaxy.
These “Anthology” movies opened up endless possibilities. Lucasfilm could go back 1,000 years before the prequel era and show the Jedi at the height of their powers, or setaBlade Runner-esque tech-noiron the neon-drenched streets of Coruscant, or explore the dark origin story of Darth Plagueis.
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Unfortunately, Lucasfilm didn’t use its new-fangled resources to tell new stories or discover new worlds. Instead, its first two “Anthology” movies – the second of which becameStar Wars’ first ever box office bomb, putting an indefinite end to the spin-offs – existed purely to patch up plot holes from George Lucas’ original 1977 masterpiece.
Rogue One Explains The Death Star’s Weaknesses
Lucasfilm’s firstStar Wars“Anthology” movie,Rogue One, started off with a terrific premise. Thanks to the opening text crawl, the original 1977 movie skips over how the Rebels managed to steal the Death Star plans from the Empire.Rogue Onetook this missing piece of the puzzle andturned it into an intergalactic heist movie.
But they couldn’t just tell a grounded story about Rebel spies extracting vital information.Rogue Onecobbles together an unnecessary backstory involving the hero’s father, Galen Erso, being abducted by the Empire and forced to design the Death Star for them.
When Luke blows up the Death Star in the originalStar Warsmovie, he sends two torpedoes down a thermal exhaust port and into the station’s core, destroying it. Fans have always wondered why the Death Star would be designed with such an exposed weakness – there’s a great gag about it inFamily Guy’s “Blue Harvest” parody– andRogue One’s backstory is a roundabout way to explain why.
After being forced to design the Death Star, Erso snuck in a vulnerability as an act of architectural sabotage to help the Rebels blow it up. This needlessly convoluted subplot distracts from what could’ve been a fun little heist movie, and ultimately, no one really cares that the Death Star was built with a glaring weakness. It doesn’t makeStar Warsany less of a perfect movie.
Solo Explains The “Parsec” Line
AfterRogue Oneraced past the billion-dollar benchmark, the second “Anthology” movie became theStar Warsfranchise’s first box office bomb. It seemed unprecedented that aStar Warsmovie could disappoint financially, butSolowas plagued with problems from the beginning.
Disney had released fourStar Warsmovies in three years, so fatigue was setting in, andthe polarized response toThe Last Jedi(which was released just a few months earlier) didn’t help.Solo’s original directors were fired for skewing too comedic and, as a result, the final product struggled to strike a consistent tone. And to top it all off, Disney barely marketed the movie.
Alden Ehrenreich gives a fine performance as a young Han Solo, embodying the ice-cool space pirate who flies by the seat of his pants as opposed to shallowly mimicking Harrison Ford, but one of the biggest reasons whySolofailed is simply that audiencesdidn’t feel Han needed an origin story. He already had a hero’s journey in the original trilogy, andSoloacted as more of an origin story for his stuff: his ship, his dice, his jacket.
The movie also provides an origin story for Han’s brag that the Falcon is “the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.” This line has always been mildly controversial, because it implies that the Falcon made the Kessel run faster than most ships can, but “parsec” is a unit of distance, not time. This could’ve just been dismissed by the fact that the story takes place in a fictional distant galaxy with its own laws of physics.
ButSolodedicates its entire climactic set-piece to explaining how making the Kessel run within a certain distance is still something to brag about. When Han attempts to make the Kessel run in the Falcon, he’s pursued by Imperial Star Destroyers and deviates his route through a monster-infested cosmic cloud. So, he made the Kessel run in “less than 12 parsecs” because he took a shortcut.
Lucasfilm Needs To Look At The Bigger Picture
Lucasfilm’s singular focus on nostalgia for the originalStar Warsmovie (not even the whole trilogy,just the first movie) is hurting the franchise.Rogue OneandSoloare both worthwhile intergalactic adventures, but by hinging on plot points from a familiar classic, they view a galaxy far, far away through a tiny pinhole.
The “Anthology” movies represent a bright future for theStar Warsfranchise. Spin-offs aboutnon-Skywalker-relatedStar Warsheroeshave the potential to explore uncharted planets, untold stories, and unseen eras from the galaxy’s political timeline. But the creative powers need to take Kylo Ren’s advice and let the past go. They’ve inherited one of the richest, vastest, most interesting fictional universes ever created – there are centuries of history between the Jedi and the Sith that still have yet to be depicted on-screen – yet this new age ofStar Warsremainsfixated on the Imperial era.
Based on Lucasfilm’s upcoming slate ofStar Warscontent, the studio is leaving behindRogue OneandSolo’s obsession with the original movie and venturing into more uncharted territories.The Acolytewill take place in the late High Republic era,Andorcould be the grounded Rebel spy thriller thatRogue Onepromised to be, andObi-Wan Kenobiis set during the Empire’s rise when Darth Vader was hunting down surviving Jedi.
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