Star Wars: Episode VIII - 8 Things That Definitely Shouldn't Happen

7. Reinterpret The Plot Of The Empire Strikes Back In Any Way, Shape Or Form

There's no use pretending that The Force Awakens was anything other than a repackaged, rebooted version of the original Star Wars. And that was fine: that's probably what was needed, given the hype - a movie that could deliver a large dollop of nostalgia whilst edging the franchise towards the modern era. Now, though, it's time to shake things up. Episode VIII, above all, can't be a repackaged version of The Empire Strikes Back. Nobody wants to see the story beats of that picture echoed in the story of this new trilogy. It was okay to kick off the new trilogy using the original trilogy as a starting point, but The Force Awakens had no choice but to do that. Now, Episode VIII needs to be its own beast entirely. Nothing about it should say "Empire." Thematically, it's okay for the film to have things in common with what is arguably the greatest Star Wars film, but there shouldn't be anything as obvious as Starkiller Base this time around, or characters that are thinly-veiled clones of other, more popular characters. Plainly, there should be no feeling that Rian Johnson shaped his film around Episode V.