This week, Neil Calloway looks at the possibility of a combined Star Wars/MCU movie…
This week Stan Lee talked about the possibility of a Marvel/Star Wars crossover movie. It’s a tantalising prospect that throws up so many potential plot lines and will excite as many people as it infuriates.
As both Marvel and Lucasfilm are now owned by Disney, it’s a possibility, albeit it a remote one, though you can guarantee that some studio accountant has done a presentation that combined box office figures for Star Wars and MCU films (around $7 billion dollars and counting) in an attempt to get the movie green lit. There are of course several hurdles to overcome before it becomes a reality.
First of all, the films in the MCU are, more or less, set now, on Earth, whereas quite famously, Star Wars takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. To be fair though, that hasn’t stopped previous Star Wars crossovers. In E.T., directed by Lucas’s friend and sometime collaborator, when everyone’s favourite alien in suburbia is taken trick or treating on Halloween, he passes someone dressed as everyone’s favourite alien in Dagobah, Yoda, points at him and says “home”, pointing to a possible origin for E.T.. Lucas returned the favour with the prequels, putting some creatures very similar to E.T. in the Galactic Senate. If you’ve ever procrastinated with a wookieepedia binge, you may also be aware of Into the Great Unknown, a non-canon comic book story in which features Han Solo and Chewbacca accidentally going to a different galaxy and landing on a planet unknown to them. After the Millennium Falcon crash lands Han and Chewie are attacked, Han is killed, and Chewbacca lives on, occasionally being glimpsed by the natives. Years later, an archaeologist from that planet by the name of Indiana Jones, searching for Big Foot, stumbles across the crashed ship and Solo’s body, which is oddly familiar to him.
Of course, a couple of jokey, tongue in cheek references are different to films with budgets that can be counted in the hundreds of millions, but we have Batman v Superman, with had Alien vs Predator (a few times) so why can’t we have Avengers vs Jedi?
First, the expectation would be too great; people (you know who you are) get excited in the run up to the release of a new trailer for a Star Wars or a Marvel film, and this hype and expectation would be doubled for Star Wars Meets The Avengers.
Second, with Avengers: Infinity War apparently featuring 67 Marvel characters, where would you find room for all those characters plus people from Star Wars? You’d have to reduce some parts to cameos with no lines. Can you imagine watching a film where say, Luke Skywalker appears but doesn’t say anything? It’s a ridiculous idea.
Third, it’d spawn an unhealthy amount of other crossover movies; who is to say Star Trek couldn’t collide with the DC Comic movies (well, Warner Bros. and Paramount would have a lot to say about the rights, I imagine, but once they sorted the rights out you’d have Captain Kirk vs Batman vs Superman vs Suicide Squad and everyone would be confused as to who was on whose side. Not satisfied with pre-empting the whole plot of Spectre with Rogue Nation, the producers of Mission: Impossible could suggest a James Bond/IMF movie, where they either team up or work against each other.
The people who complain about too many comic book movies would go on to complain that there were too many comic crossover movies. On the other hand, the potential for comic book crossovers means that the Fantastic Four might actually appear in a film people liked.
The idea of an Avengers/Star Wars crossover is just that; a nice idea, a fun game to play with friends; you can argue over who would be on whose side, how would Iron Man use his Jedi powers? How would Spider-Man relate to Luke Skywalker (they have similar upbringings)? It’d be a nice thing to explore in some fun non-canon comics, maybe even in a game, but a movie would be surely be too much; it’d stretch credulity too far and have to please too many people for it to be a success. Having said that, you know it’d be a huge success at the box office.
Neil Calloway is a pub quiz extraordinaire and Top Gun obsessive. Check back here every Sunday for future instalments.
https://youtu.be/0aIsNl6XwEk?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published January 24, 2016. Updated November 29, 2022.
