The story ofStar Warshas always revolved around the Skywalkers, for better or for worse. Most of the films include them directly as characters, or at least indirectly connect to them in some way, whether it’s through the plot (like inRogue One) or through characters who will eventually be very important in their story (like inSolo). It’s only in recently thatStar Warshas even attempted to tell stories that are at all divorced from the Skywalkers, but even with shows likeThe MandalorianorThe Bad Batch, familiarStar Warscharacters show up, and there’s never really been a story that has had absolutely nothing to do with any previousStar Warsstory.
In 2013, directorZack Snyder was working with Lucasfilmto create his ownStar Warsmovie, which he claimed would have focused on a group of Jedi entirely unconnected from the Skywalker Saga. The film would have featured no previous characters from any otherStar Warsstory, and would have truly been its own unconnected narrative. Though this eventually fell through, Zack Snyder clearly had the right idea about how to invigorate theStar Warsfranchise and finally give audiences a new story.
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The universe ofStar Warsis so vast, and yet the audience only ever gets to see a tiny portion of it. All of the filmsrevolving around the Skywalkersjust makes the galaxy feel very small. There are so many stories that could potentially be told if Star Wars were to branch out a bit and explore the far reaches of the world that they’ve created, but for as long as it’s been around,Star Warshas stayed focused on a small part of the world. And that’s fine for the stories they’ve decided to tell, but the franchise might start to feel stagnant if the same story is told over and over again. They have a world full of different planets and alien races, and it would be really interesting to see a story entirely unconnected from anything we’ve seen before. It would really reviveStar Warsand keep it feeling fresh and new.
This is seeminglywhat Zack Snyder had in mindwhen he was workshopping hisStar Warsstory. That story he had planned out, involving the Jedi, was unconnected from any of the characters or plot lines that had appeared in theStar Warsuniverse before. It seems that he had his own idea of where to takeStar Wars, and it would have been really interesting to see what that would have entailed. Snyder claims that he had still worked on the movie apart from the connection toStar Wars, and had developed it into a solid sci-fi plot that now exists on its own outside of theStar Warsuniverse.
It’s not clear why the movie never came to fruition, but it may have been at least partly due to the fact that 2013 wasa big year for Snyder in terms of his career, as it was the yearMan of Steelreleased, and he would have been hard at work with the DCEU, and perhaps not able to lend much of his time to another big franchise. It seems that both Snyder andStar Warshave moved on from the potential collaboration, but it’s interesting to consider what might have been had it all worked out.
Again,Star Warscould really benefit from a big change to their formula, and one way to do that would be to explore other stories in the universe that are unconnected from the ones the audience is already familiar with. Any franchise is going to suffer from rehashing the same plot over and over again (this is something that critics of the MCU will often bring up), and for a franchise that’s been around for as long asStar Warshas, they need to work to keep the formula fresh. Sure, part of the appeal ofStar Warsis the familiarity and nostalgia, butthere’s only so far that nostalgia can take them.
With so many other perspectives to explore in theStar Warsuniverse, it’s strange that it’s taken the franchise this long to even beginto branch out from the Skywalker family. Perhaps they’ll move more in that direction in the future, but it’s fun to think about how different the franchise might look right now if Snyder had actually gotten hisStar Warsstory off the ground. Would it have been a success and changed the way thatStar Warswas approached? Or would it have been a box office failure because it didn’t include enough characters that fans were familiar with? Perhaps an unconnected story wouldn’t have worked in 2013, but that kind of plot is exactly whatStar Warsneeds in the present moment. Maybe one day,Zack Snyder will lend his directorial eyeto the franchise for real, or maybe someday that original story he worked on will see the light of day, even if it doesn’t carry theStar Warsname.
