After the box office disappointment of Solo: A Star Wars Story, there were rumors that Disney would be stopping the “Anthology” spin-off movies or at least putting them on pause while they readjusted the strategy. Solo’s failure was attributed to “Star Wars fatigue,” but that’s not really it either.
Moviegoers across the world love Star Wars and love escaping into that world – however, it’s all in how the filmmakers go about it. Chapters in the Skywalker saga will always pique people’s interest. The same goes for stories that fill in gaps in the Skywalker saga, like Rogue One. It’s all in the angle and the focus and the execution. With that in mind, here are 10 Star Wars Spin-Offs The Fans Want And How To Make Them Work.
Darth Plagueis
A lot of stories about Darth Plagueis have been consigned to the “Star Wars Legends” label that Disney slapped on everything outside the core six movies when they bought Lucasfilm in the first place. However, Palpatine managed to slip in a reference to Plagueis in Revenge of the Sith, so we know he still exists in the canon.
A Darth Plagueis movie would be the perfect opportunity to depict all the really dark, really frightening events that led to the rise of Darth Vader, the fall of the Jedi, the dominion of the Empire etc. The movie could even end with Plagueis materializing Anakin inside his mother’s womb (since she said he just, like, appeared inside her one day).
Young Lando
While Solo: A Star Wars Story was not to everyone’s tastes, it did give us one brilliant new part of the Star Wars franchise: Donald Glover as young Lando Calrissian. He was the best thing in the movie, and everybody loves Donald Glover right now, thanks to his music under the name Childish Gambino and his highly acclaimed FX show Atlanta.
The best way to make a film focused on his incarnation of Lando is simply to let him take charge. If he and his brother Stephen Glover provide a script in the style of how their canceled Deadpool animated series has been described, which will please diehard fans as well as mainstream audiences, then why not just go with it?
Ahsoka Tano
Ahsoka Tano may just be from the animated TV shows, but she’s still considered to be one of the best Star Wars characters of all time by the dedicated fan base. A spin-off would be an interesting way to bring her into the mainstream. The best way to make an Ahsoka movie work would all be in the casting.
It has to be the perfect actor in terms of both the look and the attitude, and they have to really understand the character from years of fandom. It could just be an animated movie, but animation doesn’t have the kind of escapism that is allowed by truly immersive and well-realized live-action.
Yoda
A lot of incredible movies revolve around characters who have been out of action for a while, but get reluctantly drawn back into the world they left behind, because they can’t refuse to help people in need. And after the fall of the Jedi Order, Yoda exiled himself to Dagobah. Before Luke showed up, someone could’ve found him and begged him to save their people, who are being sold into slavery or something.
Imagine if Yoda had been on an amazing journey after being called upon to help out with a refugee crisis or he ended up single-handedly taking down an entire intergalactic trafficking ring with his immense Force abilities. He just never mentioned it, because he’s humble. It would make a great movie.
Darth Maul
Darth Maul’s surprise reappearance in Solo: A Star Wars Story told mainstream audiences that he wasn’t actually dead following the events of The Phantom Menace – and therefore might be seen in the future. Emilia Clarke is signed on to make more movies as Qi’ra, so we could even explore how Maul managed to get his hooks in her and corrupt her so much that she abandoned her childhood sweetheart to do his bidding.
This might place it too close to the seldom-seen Solo: A Star Wars Story, especially if the timelines of the two movies overlap, but if the movie is made without assuming that viewers have already seem Solo, it should be able to work.
Jyn Erso
Rogue One did spectacularly at the box office, so it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if Disney decided to expand the world of just that one spin-off movie, despite all the characters (SPOILER ALERT!) getting wiped out at the end. One character whose story they should definitely dive back into is that of Jyn Erso.
Felicity Jones is open to it: “I was very fortunate in some respects that it was a one-off, so we very much explored that. But I loved playing that character, so I actually, in an opposite way, I would really like to have a little more consistency and bring Jyn back. I would actually like that for a couple of years, just to have a little bit of that stability.” It would have to be a prequel, but maybe just a standalone adventure with no universe tie-ins or cliff-hanger endings – just a simple, clean, start-to-finish space adventure.
Jabba the Hutt
This one is simple: go with Guillermo del Toro’s idea. When Disney first announced their intentions to produce “Anthology” movies that would be spun off from the Star Wars saga and take us to unexplored corners of that universe, del Toro excitedly pitched an epic trilogy charting the rise and fall of Jabba the Hutt in the seedy criminal underworld of the Star Wars universe.
As soon as he announced this idea, fans were clamoring for it. Del Toro said recently, “I have talked to [Lucasfilm’s] Kathleen Kennedy and John Knoll about ideas,” but nothing is concrete yet. Disney needs to make this movie the del Toro way and they’ll have a hit – or at least a masterpiece.
Darth Vader
A lot of the “Anthology” movies could be made purely to cover the ground between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy. Most of the saga’s characters had to put their lives on hold while Luke and Leia grew up and amassed enough power to restore order to the galaxy.
For a couple of decades, the Empire had been taking over. We skipped from Anakin Skywalker turning his back on the Jedi, killing his wife, and getting put in a black suit to him suddenly being in charge of the armies that are dominating the world. Let’s see him build the Empire under the tutelage of the Emperor.
Boba Fett
After bouncing around various attached talent – Josh Trank, James Mangold, Simon Kinberg – Disney has announced that the Boba Fett movie isn’t happening and they’ll instead be focusing their efforts on The Mandalorian. The Mandalorian isn’t about Boba Fett, but it is about the adventures of a bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe, so it’s the same basic idea.
The best way to make a Boba Fett movie would be to go small-scale and focus on an intimate conflict. Jeremy Bulloch’s performance as Fett in the original trilogy was influenced by Clint Eastwood’s ice-cool portrayal of the Man with No Name in the Dollars trilogy. Boba Fett drifting into a town and getting caught between two rivaling criminal families – in other words, A Fistful of Dollars in space – would make a terrific movie.
Obi-Wan Kenobi
The worst way to do an Obi-Wan movie would be to do a Solo-style origin story with a new actor and a bunch of hammy scenes that explain things that didn’t need to be explained, like where he got his last name from or why his ship’s navigation system is so good.
Despite the universal hatred of the prequels, Ewan McGregor’s performance as Obi-Wan was one of the few things fans loved in them. We’ve seen that he’s eager to return to the role and there’s a huge gap between when he dropped off Luke with his aunt and uncle on Tatooine in Episode III and when he returned as a grizzled old man in Episode IV. Let’s explore that with a movie.
