New Zealand funnyman Taika Waititi has catapulted into both popular and critical acclaim with the one-two punch of Thor: Ragnorak and Jojo Rabbit. While the former breathed new life into the previously dour Norse god series, the latter, a satirical send-up of the Nazi party as seen through the perspective of a ten-year old boy, is currently nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture.
Producers at Lucasfilm have been paying attention, with Waititi apparently approached to direct his own story set in a Galaxy far far away. This is a fascinating proposition considering his zany sense of humour, something that could translate quite well to the weird and wonderful world of Star Wars. It might also be just what the franchise needs considering the lacklustre response to both The Rise of Skywalker and Solo, which took much beloved characters and treated them more like mysteries to be solved than people in their own right.
While many directors have been fired or dropped out of Star Wars films, including Josh Trank, Phillip Lord and Chris Miller, Colin Treverrow and duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, we believe that Taika Waititi is far better suited to the job and will manage to maintain his own vision throughout. After all, he already has experience on a Star Wars set, having directed “Redemption”, the final episode of The Mandalorian’s first season. Balancing humour with winning set-pieces, it marked a promising proof-of-concept from the Kiwi director. But what would a feature-length Waititi-take on a Star Wars movie look like? We have a few ideas.
Time To Get Wacky
From a mockumentary about vampires to a Nazi satire to a runaway tale set in the New Zealand countryside, Taika Waititi thrives off oddball adventures that take established genres and find new ways to make them feel fresh again. He was even capable of transforming Thor from an overly serious bore into an intergalactic gladiator and comic genius in Thor: Ragnarok, the strangest entry in The Marvel Cinematic Universe. With this in mind one gets a sense that Waititi would start with the weirdest-looking characters in the Mos Eisley Cantina and develop a plot from there.
There is so much potential for a wacky Star Wars entry. One only has to take a brief look around the Star Wars world to see how many bizarre things there are in it. Nonetheless, quirky creatures like Babu Frik, Chewbacca and Kabe the bat dude are mostly relegated to supporting characters than heroes in their own right. A Waititi entry would lean harder into these weirder aspects, delivering upon the immense, undelivered promise found the first time Luke and Obi Wan enter into the Cantina in A New Hope.
Bury Your Masters
As his hilarious send up of Hitler in Jojo Rabbit shows, Taika Waititi has no problem using the worst people in history for comic laughs. Therefore its likely that a Waititi-directed Star Wars movie would gleefully tear down authority figures from the Dark Side, exposing their evil through comic means.
While its unlikely that his spin-off tale would feature anyone like Count Dooku, Emperor Palpatine or Darth Vadar – Lucasfilm producers probably afraid to mess around with established canon anymore – Waititi would have a lot of fun building up a quintessential Star Wars bad guy only to reduce their hubris into tiny pieces.
While Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were sadly kicked off Solo, leaving the dutiful Ron Howard to take over, their comic masterpiece The Lego Movie, with the inimitable President Business, provides the perfect satirical template. This could be a risky move considering the backlash to The Last Jedi, which viciously pulled the rug under Supreme Leader Snoke’s plans, yet there is a strong chance Waititi could make it work with less radioactive material than the Skywalker Saga.
Intergalactic Existential Crises
The most telling moment in “Redemption” is a short and hilarious vignette depicting the boredom of Stormtrooper life. In an attempt to pass the time before their package, Baby Yoda, is picked up, two ostensibly bad guys casually banter before attempting and failing to shoot a stray tin can just meters away. It’s a small comic observation on Stormtrooper’s notoriously bad aim that also opens us up into another world of Star Wars; the average people simply doing their jobs and trying to get by in The Galaxy.
The Force Awakens began with just an average Stormtrooper deciding to fight against the Dark Side as he knew deep down that what he was doing was wrong. Perhaps a Waititi-directed adventure could go even darker and stranger with this theme. Inspired by the contractor’s discussion in Kevin Smith’s Clerks, perhaps a Waititi film could focus on a couple of engineers on the Starkiller, contracted to help build a weapon that wipes out planets within minutes. The depiction of two average guys suddenly realizing they’re building something capable of genocide is rife with tragicomic potential, something the director of Jojo Rabbit could handle very well.
The Oddest Oddball Comedy of All
Thor and Hulk. A ten year old boy and an imaginary Hitler. A grumpy old man and a juvenile delinquent. All three of Waititi’s previous hits have centered around unusual comic pairings, making it likely that his take on Star Wars would follow in a similar vein.
There is some precedence from the original trilogy too: A New Hope copies the style of Akira Kurosawa’s A Hidden Fortress and starts with the bumbling adventures of R2D2 and C-3PO. While the robot duo only made up the first part of the classic film, a Waititi adventure – thriving on the incongruity of the pairing – could focus on this kind of dynamic throughout an entire film’s runtime. Through this he could comment once again on his key themes of stunted masculinity, father and son relationships, and the difficulty of coming to terms with the reality of the world around you. Either way, if he takes the job, we can’t wait to see what he has in store.
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