Sometimes I like to wonder, what if I made a Thedude3445 Star Wars Trilogy? If I were given full creative control over my favorite popular franchise, what would I do? This is all purely hypothetical since it would never, ever happen, but I like to imagine it anyway.
Let me take you on the journey of a hypothetical Thedude3445 Star Wars Trilogy I proposed in 2019, and hopefully win you over a bit:
The Gist of the Thedude3445 Star Wars Trilogy
So the main concept for me is the idea of a generational saga.
Yeah, Star Wars is already that in the Skywalker saga. Nine movies about a couple families of influential people who change the galaxy forever. A story about how generational cycles can be broken, then unbroken. About how blood ties affect destiny.
But… how about a family saga that’s NOT about galaxy-ending stakes and the fate of entire governments? How about a story about a family that isn’t the most important ever? That’s what I’d focus on with a Thedude3445 Star Wars Trilogy.
I’d make an epic family saga of some non-important characters living out their lives across fifty-plus years. Each movie would span a generation representing each of the three Skywalker Saga trilogies. It would weave in and out of the eras established in the nine movies (plus all the spinoffs); the characters would be involved in the same events we’ve already seen, but from a completely new point of view.
We’ve seen some stories of this nature in the Star Wars books, comics, etc., but never to the extent that I’d like to see. The book Lost Stars takes place over many years, but not a whole family across multiple eras. I’m talking the friggin’ Godfather of Star Wars, in storytelling scope.
All three movies would be about three hours long, and standalone enough that you don’t NEED to watch the whole trilogy for the full story. You wouldn’t even need to see the original movies, necessarily.
Also, it’d primarily feature aliens, with very few human characters. I have a bit of a problem with the Star Wars movies, constantly putting humans front and center. Give us some aliens now and again! Even if it means making a movie that’s 75% CGI, it’s worth it.
Movie #1: The Clone Wars
The first movie would be set around the Clone Wars, and it would be primarily about podracing.
It’s about a once-successful podracing pilot who’s washed up and out of money. They’re on a decline and they know it.
Let’s say it’s… Gasgano. Everyone’s favorite four-armed Xexto podracer.
(You are now legally compelled to read my article celebrating The Phantom Meance.)
Gasgano is hemorrhaging money, and his extended family that’s in crisis mode due to certain squabbles. Plus, all the while, their home planet Troiken is in upheaval: their decision to join or reject the Separatist Alliance could determine the fate of the whole species.
When Troiken does indeed join the Separatists, Gasgano finds himself in a very peculiar place: he becomes face of pro-CIS propaganda. He is propped up as a planetary hero, despite having nothing to do with the conflict, and now his personal issues have become decidedly more serious.
The movie sort of follows a similar plot to Hunger Games Mockingjay Part One; it’s about a glorious rebellion movement that uses shady tactics to promote its ideals and may not be so different from its enemy after all. But that’s just the start.
So Gasgano’s family is thrust into a complicated situation when one member is suddenly a propaganda mouthpiece, and soon the Republic comes to Troiken in the Outer Rim Sieges. The planet is, bit by bit, destroyed by war, and our cast unable to leave.
The movie carries on through the Clone Wars, and into the Imperial Era. Like most nonhuman worlds, Gasgano’s family and entire world are subjugated and enslaved. He himself able to escape into Hutt Space, but the only way they can survive and free his family is for him to, of course, become a podracing pilot once again.
Basically, the movie is a podracing film that takes place over the course of ten or fifteen years. But it’s also about establishing this family and showing the effects of the Clone Wars on ordinary, non-Jedi, non-soldier people.
Movie #2: Empire & Republic
The second movie in the Thedude3445 Star Wars Trilogy would be set years later, in the height of Imperial power.
A different family member, a teenage Xexto born into slavery and not successfully freed by Gasgano.
She and the others have been forced into hard labor to help build great war machines. The Rebellion is growing in power, and the Empire knows it. But this young woman, biding her time, is able to make her escape! But when she returns to her home world of Troiken, she finds it a desolate apocalyptic wasteland. The whole planet had been ravaged by the Clone Wars, and further destroyed when the Empire took control.
She wants to reunite her family but it won’t happen overnight; she’s got to help rebuild her planet first. The plot is wrapped up in the Galactic Civil War, of course, and Troiken eventually becomes a hotspot for yet another war. But ultimately it’s another family saga.
At some point in the movie, though? The Empire loses. The New Republic takes over Coruscant and the government changes.
But… Troiken is still in ruins. The governments have changed, but, just as the first movie predicted, nothing improved.
Movie #3: The First Order
The third movie, set decades later, is set right in the midst of the Sequel Trilogy.
It features this same family again as one of its members has become an influential politician in the New Republic. However, the New Republic is on the verge of collapse, and the First Order is rising. We see how the family has changed and how the underdog commoners have made their way into status and power. They’ve fallen into graft and corruption and it will take a new galaxy-wide war to change things.
I don’t have a good sense for how this movie would actually play out, but a political drama in the Star Wars world sounds really interesting.
The Fate of the Thedude3445 Star Wars Trilogy
…And then all three movies would be box office bombs because they cost $200 million to make, probably.
Conclusion
None of this will ever happen in real life, but it’s fun to think about. Star Wars is producing a ton of new stuff these days with TV shows and movies, and maybe some of these projects will do something similar to an epic family saga!
Though… none of them will be the Thedude3445 Star Wars Trilogy :'(
Wanna read more Star Wars blog posts by me? Read about my opinions on The Rise of Skywalker, circa August 2020.
Oh no! The post starts with “What if Sometimes I like to wonder, what if”
Also, I like how Gasgano and the rest of the Gasganos have really long arms. There are not that many non-human leads in Star Wars films and the number of new ones actually DEcreased in the latest trilogy…this despite the fact that everyone loves Yoda and that robot from Rogue One was my favorite part of that film.
Typo? What typo? I don’t see it.
I like the weird aliens that aren’t that humanlike at all. We barely even have the mostly-human ones in important roles, either! We’re at the point where actors go around playing de-aged versions of themselves for an entire movie and we had an entire “live action” Lion King movie with a bunch of photo-realistic animals. Surely we can have a main character of a movie be a dude in a rubber mask like Ki Adi Mundi or something, right?