What do you mean the Star Wars Stories are on hold?
The Princess Leia-Ben Kenobi movie needs to happen, like, TODAY. Timelines demand it.
Lucasfilm is reportedly putting the production of future “Star Wars Story” movies on hold, supposedly because the second in the “Story” series featuring a young Han Solo disappointed at the box office.
This is unfortunate, because I have a concept that could right the ship and at the very least finish off a trilogy of Story movies that all provide backstory for the original Star Wars trilogy that started with 1977’s A New Hope. The challenge is that right now is the ideal release date, based on the right role-right time ages of two stellar actors.
There’s been talk about there being a Princess Leia standalone, focusing on her teen years and starring “Stranger Things” actress Millie Bobby Brown. She really is perfect, definitely has the acting chops, and has expressed the desire to play the role. An Obi-Wan Kenobi movie has also been floated, which could keep Ewan McGregor in the role as the more-aged Jedi Knight. Another character whose name has been associated with a Story movie has been the bounty hunter Boba Fett … but let’s set that idea aside for the moment and focus on Leia and Obi-Wan.
My concept is to combine Leia and Obi-Wan’s stories into one. While it underperformed, the Han Solo movie had the benefit, at least, of featuring not only Han Solo but also Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca. Building entire movies around Leia and Obi-Wan separately — as beloved as they each are by the fanbase — might spread the plot elements too thin. For all we know, Leia spent her teen years safely coddled on Alderaan, raised as a princess; and Obi-Wan was hanging out in the desert on Tatooine. But what if there was a political or military incident that brought the two together, or at least in proximity to each other on parallel adventures?
I realize there have been some canonical happenings for each character in the animated Rebels and Forces of Destiny series … and I freely admit, I am not sure where those fall on the saga’s timeline. What I do know is that Millie Bobby Brown and Ewan McGregor are the perfect ages to play these characters in a movie together.
In actual movie-release years, Princess Leia (along with Luke) was “born” in 2005, the year “Revenge of the Sith” was released. In that movie, McGregor’s character was 38. In “A New Hope,” Carrie Fisher’s Leia character was 19 years old, and Alec Guiness’ “Ben” Kenobi was 58, 20 years later. (Incidentally, “Solo” took place 9 years after the events of “Sith,” with Han being 19 years old at that point.)
A Leia-Obi-Wan storyline could be slotted in between “Solo” and “Rogue One,” which took place over about a year just before “A New Hope:”
- Leia would be 14–15 years old…
- Ewan McGregor has aged one year at a time since the release of 2005’s “Revenge of the Sith”…
- Millie Bobby Brown, the perfect actress to play a teenage Leia, was born in 2004 and is currently 14 years old…
…So a 2019 release of, shall we say, “Alderaan: A Star Wars Story” would feature a 15-year-old Brown playing a 14–15 year old Leia, and a 48-year old McGregor (he was playing Obi-Wan a bit older in “Sith,”) playing a 52-year old Ben. Featuring the two characters in one movie would give it the equivalent of “Solo’s” ‘dream-team’ of Han-Chewie-Lando. The Boba Fett standalone concept, by comparison, is sounding more like a made-for-streaming story (which could be handled similar to Marvel’s “street-level” Netflix series like Daredevil and Jessica Jones).
A Star Wars Story III: Alderaan
Now, this obviously isn’t going to happen in 2019 because the third installment of the modern-day trilogy is due, “Star Wars IX” directed by J.J. Abrams. But (ideally) 2020 or (less ideally) 2021 could still work for Brown and McGregor, and it would fall in line with the typical release cadence of the recent Trilogy and Story movies.
So back to the plot: I’d leave that to the Kasdans, seriously, and their ability to drum up massive amounts of fan service in the “Solo” film. But while I found that movie to be an entertaining romp, it was perhaps a bit too frenetic and missed more than a few opportunities to explore Han Solo’s character more in-depth. I can envision the third Story movie being less action-packed, and allow us to learn more about Leia’s life as a princess and how she became so directly involved in the Rebellion. Some screen time could also focus on Obi-Wan’s seclusion and turmoil in exile.
As far as the trademark Star Wars action, there will be opportunities, and some pretty cool ones at that: They could tie together the apparent seeds of the Rebellion in the “Solo” movie’s Cloud Riders and Enfyst Nest, with the five-years-later origin story of the rebels. This timeframe would begin to coincide with the animated “Star Wars Rebels” series, of course. Some of the well-regarded action from that series could be re-created in live action — such as Obi-Wan’s final duel with Maul, or elements of the “Princess Leia episode,” A Princess on Lothal from season 2 — while other plot elements could happen alongside the Rebels series happenings, where Leia and Obi Wan make important but brief cameos. The canonical Rebels episodes certainly do step on this idea of a five-years-before-Rogue One/A New Hope movie plot (like, do you just toss Ezra Bridger in there, or ignore him?), but how much fun would it be to make it happen seamlessly?
So, I have to wonder if Lucasfilm is really thinking this whole “pause” thing through. Brown and McGregor have both indicated that they’re on board; the Rebels series provides all the plot scaffolding they’d need to bridge the events between “Solo” and “Rogue One;” and can I also mention this would be the perfect opportunity to have a female director at the helm of a Star Wars film? Leia’s backstory in the hands of Brown and the right director could create an elegant tribute to the late Carrie Fisher.
All I can guess being said at Lucasfilm is, “Nope, it’s too perfect.”
