Neil Calloway looks at what Star Wars films Disney could make (but probably won’t)…
With Rogue One apparently well into production and The Force Awakens juggernaut rumbling on, it might seem like we’ve reached “Peak Star Wars”. Yesterday I saw a grown man wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase “Chewie, we’re home”. When people are quoting a film they can’t possibly have seen you know you have a phenomenon on your hands. Guillermo del Toro suggested a Godfather style movie about Jabba The Hutt, which seems like a movie too far, but why stop there? There are countless movies to set in the Star Wars Universe. Or should that be Star Wars Galaxy? Here are just a few…
Those Were The Droids… Is a Noah Baumbach indie movie starring Ben Stiller as the hapless Stormtrooper who falls for Obi Wan Kenobi’s Jedi Mind Trick in Mos Eisley. When his superiors realise he is the one that let the Death Star plans get away, he is fired and has to move back in with his parents. Reassessing his life in his childhood home, he forms a bond with a quirky young manic depressive artist played by Greta Gerwig.
If you’ve ever procrastinated with a long binge on Wookieepedia (that’s a real website; don’t go there though, you’ll get nothing done once it’s sucked you in) you’ll know of the fan theory of the Endor Holocaust. In short, after the destruction of the Second Death Star, the debris rained down on the Forest Moon, killing countless Ewoks. In Revenge of the Ewoks, a small band of survivors scour the galaxy looking for those who were unwittingly responsible for the genocide of their race. Remember that scene where Daniel Craig gets tortured in Casino Royale? Imagine a small furry animal doing that to Luke Skywalker and you get the picture. Or maybe Inglourious Basterds, but with Ewoks.
At the start of A New Hope, as R2 D2 and C3PO make their escape, two Imperial Troops are seen tracking their escape pod; “there goes another one” they are heard saying, suggesting at least one other escape pod was jettisoned. The Two That Got Away tells the story of one of these escape pods. Directed by David Gordon Green and starring James Franco and Seth Rogen as two drop-outs who found themselves working for the Rebel Alliance, and quickly made their escape when Darth Vader and the Empire capture the ship they are aboard. Escaping to Tatooine, they find themselves working at Jabba’s Palace, with a steady supply of illegal spice form the best smugglers in the galaxy. They seem to have a cushy life until a Bounty Hunter arrives offering a Wookiee in return for a piece of art on the wall…
The Kessel Runners will be directed by Justin Lin, and tells the story a stormtrooper who goes undercover with the smugglers who will do anything to break the famous 12 parsec record for the route. A thrilling speed movie with crashes and chases and explosions, and hopefully the start of a new franchise.
The Forgotten Droid would be a Pixar movie about the loneliness and despair of the R2 unit that the Jawas tried to sell Luke and his Uncle Owen, before a bad motivator put them off; an event that was just the latest in a long line of a lifetime of missing out. It will break your heart like no other film featuring droids since Silent Running.
If they can make a film about Apollo Creed’s son, then they can make at least one of these. It can’t be worse than The Phantom Menace, can it?
Neil Calloway is a pub quiz extraordinaire and Top Gun obsessive. Check back here every Sunday for future instalments.
Originally published July 19, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
