Joss Whedon Would’ve Taken Star Wars In A Different Direction
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Since George Lucas announced his retirement and sold off his company Lucasfilm to Disney back in October 2012, the Walt Disney Corporation announced they would be making a new Star Wars sequel trilogy without George Lucas in the director’s chair. For better or worse, J.J. Abrams was announced as the new director of Star Wars: Episode VII, but for the weeks leading up to the announcement, many different names were rumored for the job, including geek icon Joss Whedon.
Whedon took his name out of the running for the Star Wars: Episode VII job because he’s busy overseeing the S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series and The Avengers sequel for Marvel Studios. In an interview with Digital Spy, Whedon speaks candidly about his vision of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, had he taken the job. Whedon says, “You know, I wouldn’t go back, I’d go forward. I would want to create characters that would resonate the way that they did.”
While it would be nice to see new characters in the Star Wars universe, keeping the new sequel trilogy cohesive with its predecessors is the better approach to re-capturing the magic George Lucas created with the original trilogy. The Skywalkers are synonymous with the Star Wars saga so it seems absolutely fitting that Episode VII would be connected to Episodes I through VI, with the re-introductions of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia.
Lucasfilm and Disney would be smart to follow this model for the sequel trilogy, but the stand-alone films could expand and explore other areas of the Star Wars universe. It’s less interesting to see stand-alone movies about the young Han Solo or young Yoda, rather than new adventures featuring characters from the expanded Star Wars universe, including Iella Wessiri Antilles, Dash Rendar, or Mara Jade Skywalker. Of course, a Boba Fett movie would be completely badass!
