Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) review

(Disclaimer: I promise that there’ll be no MAJOR spoilers in this review)

When Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was released in 2005, many assumed that this was the end of the Star Wars film franchise. After all, it was the final installment of the highly controversial prequel trilogy whose purpose was to officially close the gap on the story of how Anakin Skywalker fell to the Dark Side and became the Sith Lord Darth Vader. However, this all changed in 2012 when Lucasfilm was bought by Disney for $4.05 billion. Now the House of Mouse was in control of arguably the biggest franchise in all of pop culture and, sure enough, it immediately got to work on a new line of Star Wars films. It all began in 2015 when director J.J. Abrams returned audiences to a galaxy far, far away with Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. As was the case with the previous first installment of a new Star Wars trilogy, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, The Force Awakens was put under some of the heaviest expectations ever seen from the film fan community, as many hoped that it would deliver where they felt the prequel trilogy did not. Thankfully, the film did manage to meet those expectations, for the most part, as it was a major critical and commercial success upon its release. Oh sure, there are still the nagging criticisms that have been made by those who have accused the film of being a remake of Episode IV: A New Hope, but the film was well-received by critics and audiences and it became only the third film ever to gross over $2 billion worldwide.

One year later, Lucasfilm then initiated a new line of spin-off films (referred to as ‘Star Wars stories’) with Rogue One. Set in-between the events of Episodes III and IV, it focused on the Rebellion’s efforts to steal the plans for the Empire’s devastatingly powerful battle station, the Death Star. And overall, it proved to be another critical/commercial success for Disney, even after it had to go through some highly publicized reshoots to fix its ending. But now, the time has come for the next installment of the main saga, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. This time around, though, J.J. Abrams is not the one behind the camera. Instead, directorial duties go to Rian Johnson, and while this may technically be Johnson’s first big-budget outing as a director, he has made quite a name for himself in the film industry thanks to his work on several critically-acclaimed projects. This includes the 2005 neo-noir thriller Brick, 2012’s sci-fi action thriller Looper, and three of what many consider to be some of the best episodes of the iconic TV series Breaking Bad (headlined by the show’s antepenultimate episode, ‘Ozymandias’). And after the whole ‘TFA copied A New Hope’ incident, many fans are hoping that Johnson will deliver a fresh, new take on this legendary franchise. Does he do so? Well, I don’t know if I can call The Last Jedi that ‘fresh and new’, but what I can say is that Johnson does give us a highly satisfying follow-up to what was an equally terrific first installment of this new Star Wars trilogy.

At the end of The Force Awakens, Rey (Daisy Ridley), a young scavenger from the desert planet of Jakku, traveled to the remote planet of Ahch-To to find the elusive Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Having learned that she is capable of using the powerful essence known as the Force, Rey seeks Luke’s guidance in learning the ways of the Force in her efforts to realize her true potential. However, Luke is hesitant to train her at first after he had previously failed to protect his former protégé/nephew Ben Solo from the Dark Side, which ultimately led to him becoming the feared First Order commander Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Eventually, though, Luke does begin to train her in the Jedi arts when it becomes apparent that a connection has started to form between her and Kylo Ren, with the latter being shown to still be struggling with letting go of his past identity even after killing his father, Han Solo. Meanwhile, the Resistance, led by Luke’s sister (and Kylo Ren’s mother) General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), finds itself under attack from the First Order after their main base of operations is discovered. With the Resistance fleet at risk of being destroyed by the First Order, pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), ex-stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega), and mechanic Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) enact a desperate plan in order to help the Resistance escape their foe’s wrath.

To put it quite simply, Star Wars: The Last Jedi has it all. In terms of visuals, it’s one of the best-looking Star Wars films to date thanks to the excellent cinematography from Rian Johnson regular Steve Yedlin and the franchise’s consistently strong visual effects. As one might expect, this results in some excellent action sequences that range from epic lightsaber duels to high-octane space battles. But just like The Force Awakens, this film’s writing (which was handled solely by Johnson for this installment) is just as strong as its visual game. As a follow-up to its immediate predecessor, the film does an excellent job of continuing the story that was established in The Force Awakens while also further developing both its new collection of main protagonists and the saga’s iconic returning characters. And really, Johnson deserves a lot of credit for getting so much depth out of what could arguably be described as a simple chase plot. If I had any sort of issue with this film, it’d be that it does admittedly feel a tad bit overlong due to its hefty two and a half hour runtime. Now, to be clear, it’s not like there were any parts of this film that dragged or anything because there weren’t any. It’s just that, without spoiling anything, by the time that the finale rolls around… there’s still about half an hour of the film to go. But again, this isn’t really that much of a shortcoming in a film that is solidly paced.

If I had to list what my favorite aspect of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was, it would have to be its characters. Even when dealing with the franchise’s consistently high expectations, many of the new characters introduced in The Force Awakens proved to be just as endearing as the saga’s original heroes. Sure enough, this trend continues with The Last Jedi, starting with the new trilogy’s lead trio of Rey, Finn, and Poe. All three of them are great once again thanks in large part to the excellent performances from Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac, respectively. The same goes for the film’s main antagonist as well, as Adam Driver is fantastic once again as the fascinatingly complex Kylo Ren. And while there’s not really a lot of new characters introduced in this film, the ones that are do prove to be quite memorable, including Laura Dern as the Resistance’s Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo and Kelly Marie Tran as Rose, the latter of whom proves to be a delightful addition to this trilogy’s group of main protagonists. But, of course, we cannot forget about the iconic leads from the original Star Wars trilogy, Luke and Leia. After only having a brief non-speaking role in The Force Awakens’ final scene, Luke now takes on a far more substantial role in this film’s story where he gets some great new bits of character development that give us an idea of how much he’s changed since Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. And as for Leia… well, as we all know, this was sadly Carrie Fisher’s last time in the role following her death this past December. Not much more to say about this except that, for what is her last appearance as one of the most iconic sci-fi heroines of all-time, it may arguably be her greatest performance in said role.  

Well, given my stance on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I guess that it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that I quite enjoyed Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Now, granted, I don’t mean this in the sense that I found it to be a ‘fresh’ new take on the franchise as I’ve seen some critics opine (though, at the same time, that doesn’t mean that I think that Johnson’s directorial vision was neutered by Lucasfilm… as I’ve also seen some critics claim). When I say that I loved this film, I mean that more in the sense that it just simply delivered on everything you’d want from a great Star Wars film; a strong story, great characters, and terrific visuals and action sequences. If you loved The Force Awakens, then I’m sure that you’ll probably love The Last Jedi as it proves to be an excellent continuation of the story that its predecessor set up. And, sure enough, it sets up the groundwork nicely for the final installment of this new trilogy that will be coming in 2019, Episode IX, which will see J.J. Abrams returning to the role of director. And while I know that some feel that he’s ‘too safe’ of a choice for director after what Rian Johnson did with this film, the quality of TFA is more than enough to give me full confidence in my favorite director working today to once again deliver when it comes to this franchise. To paraphrase one of the biggest lines from The Force Awakens, I fully believe that J.J. “will finish… what [he] started…”

Rating: 5/5!

Star Wars Episode IX - Colin Trevorrow Out, J.J. Abrams Back In

Well, we’ve got yet another directorial shake-up on our hands in the Star Wars universe. Just a few months after Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were booted from the Han Solo spin-off film and replaced by Ron Howard, the same has now happened with the ninth installment of the main series, Episode IX. Originally, the film was set to be directed by Colin Trevorrow, who was fresh off 2015’s worldwide smash hit Jurassic World… and this year’s critically derided Book of Henry (more on that in a bit). However, like Lord and Miller, it was recently announced that Trevorrow had backed out of directing the film due to, what else, creative differences with Lucasfilm. But, once again, the search for a new director did not last long, and in this case, it was an old familiar face who stepped in to finish the job. Yes, folks, J.J. Abrams, the man, myth, and legend who kick-started the new Star Wars trilogy on the right note with The Force Awakens is coming back to write and direct Episode IX. Given the critical/commercial success of TFA, it seems like this would be a well-received decision, right? Well, not exactly… Yes, folks, the Star Wars franchise has been in quite a state of flux as of late due to several of the recent developments surrounding its upcoming films. This is the second time in a row now that a Star Wars director has been ‘fired’ from the job due to creative differences with the studio and producer Kathleen Kennedy (three if you count the time when Josh Trank stepped down from helming a spin-off film presumably due to his behavior during the disastrous production of the 2015 reboot of Fantastic Four). This has, unfortunately, put Kennedy in a tough situation as she’s been subjected to tons of flak that, dare I say, verges a bit on sexism. I’ve gone over this before when I discussed the Han Solo incident so I won’t repeat myself too much here other than the fact that, given her prestigious career in the industry, Ms. Kennedy doesn’t deserve all this criticism over something that could happen to any film producer.

I mean, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; film productions don’t always go perfectly. There will be times where a film will be affected by problems that may often require something along the lines of reshoots, script rewrites, and so on and so forth. However, just because a film has a troubled production doesn’t automatically mean that it’s doomed to failure. Seriously, it’s because of incidents like this that I’m extremely happy that social media wasn’t around in the time of films like Jaws and the original Star Wars; good lord, we would’ve never heard the end of those films’ production woes had that been the case. And in terms of what’s going on right now with Episode IX, at least this wasn’t like what happened with the Han Solo film where the director switcheroo occurred more than halfway through filming. Episode IX, on the other hand, hasn’t even started production yet. In fact, not long after J.J.’s hiring was confirmed, it was also announced that the film had been pushed back to the franchise’s preferred release month of December 2019, which effectively gives J.J. more time to prepare for it instead of rushing through it so that it’d be out by its original May 2019 release date. Now, granted, I am aware that these recent bits of production turmoil have been somewhat of a common occurrence as of late with the Disney-owned era Star Wars films. Aside from these recent directorial hiccups, there was also, of course, the dilemma that Rogue One faced when it had to go through reshoots, namely to rework its third act. Ultimately, though, all the hubbub surrounding these events is just a consequence of an age where we can practically know anything about a film’s production.

With that said, though, let me make something clear; unless proven otherwise, I’m 100% confident that Trevorrow wasn’t kicked off Episode IX because of the negative reception towards The Book of Henry. I’ve talked before about how the internet over-reacted quite a bit when the film came out to the point where several articles posed the same exact question; ‘Is Episode IX in trouble?’… even though the film wasn’t even in production yet. Heck, even the polarizing reaction to Jurassic World played a factor into the hesitation surrounding Trevorrow’s hiring. It got to the point where, apparently, some people were ‘happy’ when the news broke of his departure. This ties into something that I’ve always questioned about the online film fan community and that is its tendency to focus more on films that they dislike rather than those that they did like. I mean, seriously, if Trevorrow had truly gotten canned just because of Book of Henry, then J.J. Abrams could’ve been denied from directing The Force Awakens just because of the blowback that he got over Star Trek Into Darkness’ use of elements from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Heck, imagine if this mentality was implemented with the Marvel Cinematic Universe films; I guarantee you that NONE of the MCU directors would’ve even been hired if judged solely for their misfires. I mean, after all, the director of the Guardians of the Galaxy films did write the live-action Scooby-Doo films. Or remember when the directors of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, and the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War directed You, Me, and Dupree? Bottom line, the validity of a director’s qualifications for a certain project shouldn’t be judged solely because of one bad film that they made. Case in point, even though Trevorrow attracted a lot of flak for Jurassic World and Book of Henry, he did also direct 2012’s indie hit Safety Not Guaranteed.  

Thus, prior to these recent turn of events, I was optimistic about Trevorrow’s hiring and confident in his ability to make an entertaining Star Wars film. But, of course, that isn’t happening anymore so now we get to look forward to another J.J. Abrams-directed Star Wars film. Hurrah! However, as noted in the intro, the news of J.J.’s return hasn’t really gone over well with everybody and the main reason why is that some feel that he’s too ‘safe’ of a choice to direct the film. That might have something to do with the one thing that I’m sure many of you have already guessed about when I said the word ‘safe’. Yep, it’s the common criticism of The Force Awakens’ shared similarities with Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Really, there’s not much more that I can bring to this discussion other than my belief that the internet’s just beating a dead horse at this point. Heck, even Ron Howard’s hiring for the Han Solo film was deemed as a ‘safe’ pick to replace Phil Lord and Chris Miller. All this just goes to show the increasing pressure that the franchise has been under recently from fans who have been demanding that they enlist more ‘auteur’ directors who can bring something ‘new’ to the franchise. And while I’m not against that, for the record, from what I can gather, the main reason why Lord, Miller, and even Trevorrow were let go was that their directorial personalities clashed with Lucasfilm’s vision for the franchise. And as controversial as it will undoubtedly sound to some of you, I think that this was ultimately for the best. Again, I’m all for new takes on the Star Wars franchise. However, the amount of creative clout that a director is given on a film can sometimes end up having a severely negative effect on it (e.g. Batman Returns, Sucker Punch). Heck, this has even happened before with this franchise; just look at when the prequels came out.

And it’s a shame, really, that these recent ‘studio vs. director’ controversies have had a negative impact on J.J. Abrams’ return to the franchise. Given the ever-present ‘it’s just a rehash of A New Hope’ argument, it feels like the internet’s collective opinion of The Force Awakens has changed quite drastically since it came out. It’s legitimately at the point now where I’m beginning to wonder if it and Rogue One were truly the critical/commercial hits that they were. Oh sure, they both did well with critics and have collectively grossed over $3 billion at the box-office, a total which will surely increase by another $1-2 billion once The Last Jedi comes out. But in an age where shows like Honest Trailers and Cinemasins are becoming more and more prominent, it’s becoming a lot harder for films to maintain the positive reputation that they had upon their initial release. It also just goes to show how Star Wars is easily the most scrutinized film franchise of all-time, as the expectations for it are bigger than the Marvel and DC Cinematic Universes, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings franchises combined. Even when it’s doing well, there are always plenty of naysayers out there who will try and bring it down. And given these recent turn of events, it feels like this is all just putting more overt pressure on Rian Johnson to truly deliver with The Last Jedi. However, despite all the behind-the-scenes drama that’s been going on as of late, I’m still looking forward to these next few Star Wars films. Because if they do turn out great, then all the pre-judgmental backlash directed against them will have just been utterly pointless. And while I know that I’m undoubtedly biased because he’s one of my favorite directors working today, the announcement of J.J. Abrams’ return for Episode IX just makes me even more excited for it because of how much I loved The Force Awakens. In other words, to quote the classic hashtag created by popular Star Wars Youtuber HelloGreedo, #InJJWeTrust.

And, just for the hell of it, it’s time for the return of a classic meme that I created prior to the release of The Force Awakens. Feel free to use it as you see fit.

Top 5 Star Wars Spin-Off films that I want to See

I really have to hand it to Disney in regards to how they have been handling the ‘Star Wars’ franchise ever since they purchased Lucasfilm from George Lucas in October 2012. This is especially in regards to the directors that they’ve picked to helm the next few ‘Star Wars’ films. Back in January 2013, I released a post in which I expressed much excitement over the news that one of my favorite directors working today, J.J. Abrams, was hired to direct the first new Disney-produced ‘Star Wars’ film, ‘Episode VII’. And just a few months ago I did another post where I praised the cast that they’ve picked, one that consisted of both returning members of the franchise and some very promising new additions including the likes of Andy Serkis, Oscar Isaac, and John Boyega. Now of course, those two posts were mostly based on speculation and we’re still more than a year away from the release of the film. However, it looks like Abrams won’t be returning to direct the rest of the ‘sequel trilogy’ which is sad but at the same time I don’t really blame him because I can understand if he doesn’t want to spend the next few years of his life just working on these ‘Star Wars’ films. And besides, Disney did find a really great director to follow in Abrams’ immediate footsteps. It was recently announced that Rian Johnson (‘Looper’) was hired to direct ‘Episode VIII’ and he will also be writing a treatment for ‘Episode IX’. Of his films, I’ve only seen ‘Looper’ but that is such a great film that I don’t think that I really need any more proof that Johnson is a great choice to direct a ‘Star Wars’ film… that and he also directed the best episode of ‘Breaking Bad’, ‘Ozymandias’ so yeah, I’m already convinced.

But those aren’t the only ‘Star Wars’ films that we will be getting in the next few years as it was also revealed, around the time that Abrams was hired to direct ‘Episode VII’, that a couple of spin-off films were in development. These spin-offs, which are expected to be released between the official sequel trilogy films, are not intended to cross-over with the main trilogy but they will still be a part of the ‘Star Wars’ universe. Recently, Disney has revealed two of the directors that they’ve hired to helm their own spin-off films. Gareth Edwards, fresh off of the ‘Godzilla’ reboot, will be helming the first spin-off, currently set for a December 2016 release date. Just a few weeks after this announcement, Josh Trank, director of the excellent found-footage film ‘Chronicle’ was hired for the second spin-off. At this time, it has not been officially confirmed as to what films these two are doing which has led to a lot of speculation in regards to which characters are possibly getting their own spin-offs. I’ve been speculating as well because quite frankly I am really excited at the prospect of seeing a new ‘Star Wars’ film every year. So with that in mind, today I’ll be doing my own list of the Top 5 ‘Star Wars’ spin-off films that I personally want to see. I will be focusing on certain characters and not on any storylines from the Expanded Universe, and on that note this is mostly going to be characters from the films themselves and not really any characters from the Expanded Universe (e.g. books, video-games, comics, etc…). I do apologize in advance for this but for the most part I’m fairly unfamiliar with most of that material. So, without further ado, let’s get started with my Number 5 choice for a possible ‘Star Wars’ spin-off film.

5. OBI-WAN KENOBI

I’ve noted before that I’m not as critical on the prequel films as pretty much everyone else in the world is. Now for the record I do agree that the original films are way better in every sense of the word but at the same time I feel like the prequels, although certainly flawed, aren’t really ‘that bad’. One of the highlights of the prequels was easily Ewan McGregor as young Obi-Wan Kenobi. While most of the prequel cast was either wasted or, more commonly, rather weak in regards to their performances, McGregor was easily the best actor in the entire trilogy managing to get around the silly dialogue, even though the character didn’t really get that much to do (especially in the first film). I’ve seen quite a lot of people give their opinions on how the prequels could’ve been fixed, and one of the ‘solutions’ that they thought up was to have Obi-Wan be the official main character of the trilogy just like Luke Skywalker was in the original trilogy and while I’m not certain how much this would’ve actually helped fix the prequels, I definitely agree that this would’ve certainly been a step in the right direction.

Because of that, shall we say, ‘lost opportunity’, I am pretty interested in seeing a spin-off film from Obi-Wan’s perspective and it could possibly be done in two different ways. One of the ways could focus on his origins. What’s his back-story? How did he meet up with Qui-Gon Jinn and become his Padawan? Or perhaps maybe they can focus on the time he spent on Tatooine after the events of ‘Revenge of the Sith’ and before all that happens in ‘A New Hope’ before he became known as ‘Ben Kenobi’. Not only that, but this scenario could also let us see how much he was affected by the whole situation of his Padawan/Friend Anakin Skywalker turning to the Dark Side and becoming Darth Vader. In other words, how will Obi-Wan try and deal with his greatest failure? Now the reason why this is only Number 5 for me is because being that he was one of the main characters of the prequels, I’m not really sure how likely it is that he will be one of the characters that are being considered right now for a spin-off film and if it is made, will Ewan McGregor return to the role? Hopefully he will, but regardless of whether or not that will happen, if they ever did do an Obi-Wan spin-off, I would be interested in seeing it.

4. A MOVIE SET IN THE ‘OLD REPUBLIC’ ERA

Okay, I’m sort of cheating here by focusing more on an era of the Star Wars universe than an actual character, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who wants to see an ‘Old Republic’ movie. Now I just want to note that I actually haven’t played either of the two ‘Knights of the Old Republic’ games or the ‘Old Republic’ MMORPG though I do own the first two games on Steam and I did create an account for the ‘Old Republic’ MMO but I haven’t used it yet. Still, I’m really interested in seeing some of the storylines from this era which, if you’re not familiar with it, takes place about 3,000 years before any of the events of the prequel trilogy. In ‘Episode I: The Phantom Menace’, it is established that the Jedi believe that the Sith have been extinct for a long time which means that there clearly must have been quite a lot of Sith Lords that were around during the ‘Old Republic’ era (again keep in mind this is from the perspective of someone who hasn’t played the games so I’m not too familiar with any of the storylines of that time period) so because of that, I really want to see an ‘Old Republic’ era movie be made sometime in the near future. Make it happen, Disney!

3. EMPEROR PALPATINE

One of the best characters in the entire ‘Star Wars’ franchise has to be Emperor Palpatine. Set up perfectly in the original trilogy, the Emperor was certainly an unforgettable menacing villain in ‘Return of the Jedi’ but also a character that was shrouded in mystery. As for his role in the prequels, it’s safe to say that Ian McDiarmid’s performance in the role was one of the best elements of the prequel trilogy, even though in Episode III he was quite over-the-top at times. It was still entertaining but he did come off as being very hammy once he truly became the Emperor. Still, I’d love to see an ‘Emperor Palpatine’ spin-off film. This is another character whose backstory I’m really interested in seeing. We already know that he was once a senator on Naboo before he became the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic but there’s one major question that has been, for the most part, left unanswered and that is in regards to his fateful turn to the Dark Side and how it happened. Was he always a bad guy? Was he once a good guy who become ‘seduced by the Dark Side’ like Anakin Skywalker was? From the perspective of someone who, again, isn’t familiar with a lot of the ‘Expanded Universe’ material, which I’m guessing explains all of this, this is a story that I’d love to see unfold on the big screen. If this film happens, I’m pretty sure that they’ll probably recast the role but who knows, maybe McDiarmid can make a cameo appearance in it. After all, it was once reported that he was to appear in ‘Episode VII’ even though the character was killed off in ‘Jedi’. Of course, that was later proven false but I’d love to see McDiarmid reprise the role at least one more time in a movie and I’m certain a Palpatine spin-off would be the best place to make that cameo.

2. DARTH MAUL

There’s one very specific reason as to why I chose these next two characters that I feel deserve their own spinoffs and that is because of ‘wasted opportunities’. First off, we have Darth Maul, one of the main villains of ‘Episode I: The Phantom Menace’. It’s safe to say that his role in the film was built up quite a lot (a close-up of his face dominates the upper half of the original poster) and, like the Emperor in ‘Return of the Jedi’, his character’s backstory was pretty much completely shrouded in mystery. Plus, he even ends up killing one of the main characters, Qui-Gon… and then Obi-Wan then proceeds to slice him in half and that’s the last we ever see of him in the prequels. Earlier, I noted that some feel that Obi-Wan should’ve been the main character in the prequel trilogy and there are also some who believe that Darth Maul should’ve been the ‘Darth Vader’ of the prequel trilogy in that he isn’t the main villain of the trilogy but is more of a rival to Obi-Wan, which would make sense seeing how he killed his master. Now I am aware that Darth Maul did appear in the computer-animated ‘Clone Wars’ TV series, which was set after the events of Episode I, and that there was some mentions of his back-story but I didn’t really see any of the episodes that he appeared in so because of that, I think that Darth Maul deserves his own spin-off film. After all, he’s become such a popular character amongst fans and that’s saying a lot considering how the character was kind of screwed over in Episode I… then again, the same scenario also applies to my Number 1 pick as well…

But first, before I get to Number 1, I’m going just throw out two honorable mentions:

My first honorable mention is Lando Calrissian, mostly because he was certainly one of the coolest characters in the original trilogy and I’m interested in seeing his back-story, most specifically his relationship with Han Solo. The second honorable mention I’m going to throw out is Yoda, which could be a difficult one to do seeing how at this point Yoda is obviously going to have to be a CGI character, but at the same time he lived to be about 900 years old, so that means that there is quite a lot of material that can be explored with using this character. Going back to what I just said about Lando and his relationship with Han Solo, I know that there have been rumors about a Han Solo spin-off movie but quite frankly I feel like that one is going to be a really tough one to do, mostly because of casting. It’s clear that if they did that film, the role of Han Solo is likely going to be re-cast and I’m sorry but it’s going to be hard to top Harrison Ford and what he did in the role. Now I’m not saying that it’s impossible but if this film is made, the casting of the role is very, very crucial.

1. BOBA FETT

Yeah, I know this one’s a bit obvious and it has been rumored that this is the spin-off film that Gareth Edwards is doing but in all seriousness, Boba Fett definitely deserves his own spin-off film regardless of whether or not it is currently in production. Like with Darth Maul, this was another character that became very popular amongst fans despite the fact that his role in the films was actually very limited. He first appears in ‘Episode V’ (and yes, I know that he first appeared in the infamous ‘Holiday Special’ but for now I’m focusing on the movies… plus we’ll ignore the scene in ‘A New Hope’ that was added into the Special Edition in which he makes a brief appearance) as this mysterious bounty hunter hired by Darth Vader to track down the Millennium Falcon after it escapes the Empire’s grasp following the Battle of Hoth. Here was yet another character whose back-story was shrouded in mystery which made him even more menacing and at the end of the film, he succeeds in capturing Han Solo, has him frozen in carbonite, and hands him over to Jabba the Hutt. Then, in Episode VI… he’s quickly defeated by Han Solo and is swallowed by the Sarlacc. Once again, a wasted opportunity and I think the character deserves better than that.

In fact, this ties into something that I want to see done in a ‘Star Wars’ film and that is a storyline centered around the galaxy’s bounty hunters. I mean for the most part Boba Fett and his father Jango have been the only major bounty hunters featured in the movies, even though there were some other bounty hunters that appeared briefly in Episode V and I feel that a movie based around that would be really cool. Like I said before back when I did the ‘J.J. Abrams directing Episode VII’ post, one thing that I really want to see done in these ‘Star Wars’ movies is that the filmmakers do a greater job at exploring the ‘Star Wars’ universe and not just copy what had been done before in the previous films. Sure, they can go back to old and familiar locations but I want to see new worlds and new characters and I know that the franchise has done that in other forms of media (e.g. TV shows, video games, etc…) but I’m specifically want to see that happen in the new movies themselves. The way I see it, a movie centered on Boba Fett and the world of the galaxy’s most infamous bounty hunters will open the door to plenty of new opportunities but we’re still quite some time away from seeing these films, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

So those are the Top 5 ‘Star Wars’ spin-off films that I personally want to see, but I’m curious as to what other characters you want to see get their own spin-offs so sound off in the comments with your own picks. Thanks for Reading folks, and may be the force be with you!