STAR WARS: Darker #wattys2017

HOW I WOULD HAVE MADE THE RISE Of SKYWALKER (Non-Fiction)

I have been a lifelong Star Wars fan. Or at least I was until Disney pretty much upended the franchise with their uneven sequel trilogy. The Rise Of Skywalker is the third and final film in said uneven trilogy. For the record, I have not yet seen The Rise Of Skywalker, although I already pretty much figured out the plot when they said they were bringing back Emperor Palpatine for no apparent reason other than to put butts in the theater seats similar to what J.J. Abrams-who, of course, directed ROS-did with The Force Awakens (which was pretty much a blatant rip-off of A New Hope).

I was thinking how I would have made The Rise Of Skywalker. Of course, I am not an "official" Star Wars writer nor am I "associated" with SW and/or Lucasfilm in any way. Though I have written SW fanfic on Wattpad. (My WP username is @AngelRay66 for anyone who is interested.)

First off, I wouldn't have named this movie The Rise Of Skywalker since the character Luke Skywalker had very little to do in this film (thanks in large part to the character being unceremoniously killed off in Rian Johnson's "polarizing" Star Wars flick The Last Jedi). I would have instead called it something like The Rise Of The Resistance or Revenge Of The First Order-which I think would have been a more appropriate title for the second film but I digress-or something along those lines. Frankly, I think the third and final film should have been titled The Last Jedi but, again, I digress.

In the opening crawl, I would've said something like: "These are dark times for the Resistance. With Jedi master Luke Skywalker gone and the Republic destroyed, there seems to be little hope for the small band of freedom fighters that now make up the Resistance."

The opening crawl would go on to say how the First Order, now led by Kylo Ren a.k.a. Ben Solo as Supreme Leader, has constructed a new weapon that's capable of destroying a planet like Starkiller base and/or the Death Star. (I haven't decided if said weapon would be a space station of a huge ship.) As a result, the opening crawl would say, the First Order is poised to take over the galaxy.

The movie would start off with Princess Leia's ship being chased by a First Order ship similar to how her ship was chased by Darth Vader's Star Destroyer in the opening of A New Hope. Chewbacca and Poe Dameron are rushing in on the Millennium Falcon to try to rescue her but it's too late as her ship gets destroyed. (And, no, her son Ben is not on the ship that destroys his mother's ship.)

In this movie, Kylo Ren is a total psycho and is not the whiny emo-type he was in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. He has constructed a new helmet that more resembles his grandfather's which he wears throughout almost the entire movie. (One of the many mistakes I feel the sequel trilogy made was that he kept removing his helmet thereby robbing viewers of the "mystery" of who he was.) Kylo sends out the Knights Of Ren to search for Rey-whom he is obsessed with finding (similar to how Vader was obsessed with finding Luke)-along with the rest of the Resistance. (BTW, if I was making the sequel trilogy, I would have done away with the whole Knights Of Ren thing and just made Kylo Ren into a Sith lord like his grandfather.) At one point during the film, while he's "talking" to Darth's charred mask, Anakin Skywalker appears-starring Hayden Christensen reprising his role from the much-maligned prequels-as a Force ghost where he tries to warn his power-hungry grandson of the dark path he is on and tries to convince him to come back to the light side of the Force. Of course, Kylo doesn't listen to Anakin and tells him he was going to finish what he had started. (I actually wrote a SW fanfic about this on Wattpad for, again, anyone who is interested.)

Besides Anakin Skywalker, other past characters I would bring back would be Captain Phasma from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi and DJ from The Last Jedi. Captain Phasma, in this movie, would be more of a "cyborg" ala Darth Vader as she would have her limbs replaced with robotic limbs ala Luke Skywalker that she lost in the explosion she was in during her fight with Finn in TLJ. (One thing I never could understand was why they made such a big deal about having a "female" villain like Captain Phasma in the sequel trilogy and yet they really did nothing with her character.) Also in this movie, Phasma would be conspiring with General Hux to overthrow Kylo Ren as Supreme Leader since they suspect he was the one who actually killed Snoke rather than Rey in TLJ.