With the
shock news yesterday that not only has Disney purchased LucasFilm for a whopping $4.05 billion, but that they are planning to move forward with Star Wars Episode VII, the Internet geek collective exploded with theories about
who would be directing it, and what it might actually mean for the franchise as a whole. Being skeptics of Star Wars ever since George Lucas unleashed onto us his (mostly) abominable "new trilogy" of prequels, we can't help but be equally skeptical now that another new film - and potentially another trilogy - is heading our way. That said, without Lucas directing or even producing the project, it's possible that it can be a hit, if his successor is sure to avoid these pitfalls, which range from mistakes that Lucas is frequently criticised for already, to errors in judgement that plague sequels on the whole.
10. Telling The Same Story
There was the definite feeling at the end of Return of the Jedi that the story was neatly tied up, and there was nothing left to tell; Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie and Lando had kicked the Imperial's collective ass, Vader was dead, the Death Star was space dust, and the Ewoks even got to have a little dance. One sure problem is that in every piece of canonical sequel fiction ever written, that was far from the end, and the war continued to rage, with various Imperial administrators fighting for control, sparking a civil war that itself could probably take up a trilogy of films, while they also tried to contend with the rebels. The issue with saying "oh, you thought the war was over? Guess again!", is that it would forever devalue Episode VI's ending because, to be completely frank, people pay a lot more attention to a new movie than they do a spin-off novel, which most would assume is just non-canonical fan-fiction anyway. The best thing they can do with this new Episode is to divorce it as far as possible from Luke's legacy; perhaps make him a mythic figure of the past, and move on with a different, maybe more intimate but nevertheless epic story. Given the expansive nature of this Universe, and how successfully it has been re-interpreted in video games for one, it shouldn't be too difficult, especially if people more talented than Lucas are brought on board.