3. Pre-Prequel
Im sure everyones first thought about the next Star Wars movie is that it would follow Return of the Jedi, either showing the next phase of the Rebel Alliances fight against the Empire or set far into the future after the age of Luke Skywalker. There is plenty of source material to draw from, such as the pretty good
Thrawn Trilogy novels. But this would inevitably run into some issues. If the movies feature the characters from the first movies, theyd have to use the much older Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford. That would probably make sense time-wise, but might be as painful as watching an aged Harrison Ford in the latest Indiana Jones movie. And setting it farther into the future would basically require creating an all new story. What about a pre-prequel, then, set in the earlier days of the Old Republic? There are comic books and even video games to use as source material. Not that video game movies ever turn out well, but Knights of the Old Republic actually had a pretty compelling storyline. By setting the next movies in the past, we can sidestep the tricky issues that arise from the really bad entries in the series. Maybe Anakin started his space pilot career by flying around a pod racer and playing with baby Rodians who giggle. Maybe he didnt. Doesnt matter, were 500 years in the past. Just look at how Prometheus let Alien fans pretend Alien: Resurrection and the Alien versus Predator movies didnt exist. Of course, back in the 1990s, when Lucafilms execs were planning the next Star Wars movies, Im sure one of them said, wait, instead of a sequel to Return of the Jedi, we can do prequels. That way we dont have to deal with the Ewoks at all!