Star Wars: The Last Jedi - 9 Episode VII Problems It Must Avoid

While the decision to lean so heavily on A New Hope can be looked at as a fond homage to a film that's so well-loved, how the Lucasfilm Story Group got there could do some serious damage to Star Wars as a whole. Because the set-up for The Force Awakens meant bringing the franchise back to exactly where it was in 1977.

Return Of The Jedi showcased a bigger and more organised Rebellion than ever before, and ended with a serious blow being dealt to the Empire. But over the following thirty years, there are stories of the rise of the First Order, the demilitarisation of the New Republic, and Leia once again becoming the leader of a ragtag band of rebels against impossible odds, because a sizeable chunk of the stories between Return Of The Jedi and The Force Awakens have the goal of pretty much undoing everything that happened in the Original Trilogy for the sake of hitting the audience's nostalgic buttons.

The original Expanded Universe went a bit heavy on the Imperial Remnant using increasingly powerful super-weapons, but it deliberately kept the flipped power dynamic of the New Republic hunting down a splintered Empire, before bringing in new villains like the Yuuzhan Vong and the One Sith to keep things varied. The stories weren't always great, but, like the Prequels, things were changed rather than trying to recapture the glory days of the Original Trilogy. An approach that Star Wars now needs more than ever.

What The Last Jedi Should Do: Move the franchise forward, instead of trying to recreate the state of the galaxy during the Original Trilogy.

What problems with Episode VII do you think The Last Jedi must avoid? Let us know in the comments below...