Mistakes have definitely been made when it comes to Star Wars, but compounding them by making them even worse would likely start to do the nearly impossible, which is turn off the die hards and force them to simply walk away. At this point the idea of erasing the current Star Wars trilogy is more of a rumor than anything and is waiting to be debunked in a big way, but it’s definitely turned enough heads that people are talking about it. Realistically it’s not something that should be taken too lightly at this time since Disney has been known to bend the knee to the desires of the fans in the past, and there have been quite a few voices raised in favor of simply scrapping the current trilogy and starting over. But apart from the production costs and the idea that the cast would either need to be replaced or reconditioned, there are several problems with this idea that would need to be addressed before the Mouse House could even think about moving forward. First and foremost would be the admittance that they made a good number of mistakes with the trilogy and took off in a direction that so completely unexpected that it could have been great but somehow took a serious turn into lunacy and gave fans a movie where the protagonist was already awesome for….reasons.
Let me explain that. Rey being Force-sensitive wasn’t a bad part of the movie, as there have been Force-sensitive individuals throughout the history of Star Wars in the movies, the books, the comics, and the games, and they tend to vary in strength and skill. But Rey was a scrapper, a person that made her meager living on what she could find in the desert to trade for food and supplies. Her fighting experience was part intuition no doubt and part adapted skill that she needed to survive and get by. Her lack of formal training meant that a lightsaber should have been an alien concept to her and its use should have been as dangerous to her as it was to Kylo Ren. On top of that, unless storm troopers were being given lightsaber combat training, Finn shouldn’t have been able to wield the weapon that easily either, at least not without some injury. Plus, a hit to his spine with a lightsaber? We’ve seen such weapon melt steel and go through other materials with ease, so how in the world did a lightsaber just graze his back without splitting him in half?
Then we come to The Last Jedi, which, without bias, was a work in feminism as Star Wars was being primed to accept more and more female characters. That was all well and good since the franchise could use such a push, but the manner in which it was done left a bad taste in a lot of mouths since it came at the expense of turning the greatest hero in the franchise, Luke Skywalker, into a fussy old hermit that looked ridiculous. Yeah, that wasn’t the best idea. The throne room fight almost redeemed this movie, though of course slowing it down just a tad makes any discerning fan realize that the guards likely should have given Kylo and Rey a beat down with or without the Force on their side. Plus, the Snoke death was so unsatisfying after such a buildup that it’s not much wonder why a lot of people were walking out of the theater looking disgusted. And then the Rise of Skywalker came, and everyone was hoping that this would be the redemptive movie that would cap off the trilogy, and it kind of fizzled and sputtered near the end, and throughout much of the movie. The Knights of Ren did nothing except look intimidating before being eliminated, while Emperor Palpatine, or a clone, was basically the old man on the throne again with lightning at his command that could bring down starships. So yes, erasing all this and starting over might be seen as a good idea. Only, it isn’t.
The reason why is due to the simple question: what would Disney do next? How would the rectify the trilogy, and what would the story look like moving forward? Would they decide to use the Legends canon or would they go completely off script again and try to use the de-aging software to bring back Luke and Leia, and possibly Han, for another round of movies? It’s hard to say, but it’s also harder to see Harrison Ford having anything else to do with Star Wars since he’s already said he’s done. But more than anything, erasing the trilogy would be a mistake since it would be a huge disservice to the fan base, almost akin to saying “Whoops, my bad, deal with it and let’s move on.”. Admittedly there is some truth to that, but it still feels like a huge dodge that would allow Disney to just shrug their collective shoulders and try again. Keep in mind this is more rumor than reality at this point, but cross your fingers and hope that Disney doesn’t bend that knee again.
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