By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Long before the prequels disappointed us and the sequels redefined what disappointment was, the Star Wars Special Editions of the Original Trilogy were the worst thing to happen to our favorite franchise from a galaxy far, far away. Old-school fans generally hated how these editions changed beloved scenes, added useless CGI slop, and generally made iconic films into weird parodies of themselves. Now that the Sequel Trilogy has crashed and burned, though, I have an idea even crazier than one of Han Solo’s schemes: simply put, the Star Wars sequels need their own Special Editions to fix what’s wrong with them.
I know this sounds insane, but hear me out. The essential problem with the original Star Wars Special Editions was that they mostly served to deface some of the best films ever made. Almost nobody could understand George Lucas’ desire to mess with perfection, and sure enough, the legendary director released deeply imperfect versions of his earlier work. But now that Lucas sold the rights to Disney and the House of Mouse subsequently bungled their Star Wars sequels, the truth is that these awful films could only be improved by Special Editions.
For skeptical Star Wars fans, I should clarify something important: the kinds of Special Editions the sequels require are more akin to a good fan edit rather than the SEs we got back in the late ‘90s. That is, we don’t need to add goofy scenes, bad edits, and intrusive CGI. Instead, we need to do what Disney should have done in the first place. Namely, we need to edit these movies so that this feels like a cohesive trilogy rather than three very different movies made without any real focus on the big picture.
Now for the hard part: what would we have to add, change, or rearrange with the Star Wars sequels for the Special Editions to be much better films? For one thing, we can entirely remove the setups for payoffs that we never got, like hearing Obi-Wan saying Rey’s name in The Force Awakens. Speaking of that movie, it would be fairly simple to remove Maz Kanata’s line about how her acquisition of Luke Skywalker’s lost lightsaber is “a good story, for another time” since, you know, we never got to hear the story.
Speaking of removing confusing stuff from the Star Wars sequels, Special Editions would be able to remove or re-dub the details about Rey’s parents. The original films originally claimed that her mother and father were nobody junkies who sold Rey for beer money only to eventually reveal that she was the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, making dear old dad something akin to Sith royalty. This is just one of many glaring and confusing narrative errors in this film that some tight and creative editing would be able to easily fix.
Those edits could possibly remove some of the cringier lines of dialogue from the Sequel Trilogy. How much better would these films be if The Rise of Skywalker didn’t have awful lines like, “Somehow, Palpatine returned,” or if The Last Jedi didn’t prominently feature a yo mama joke in its opening scenes? Conversely, some added dialogue (added via simple ADR or even voiceover narration) could provide clarification on some very basic plot points, including how Leia actually died.
It would take a little more work than just removing or adding lines, but the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy getting its own Special Editions could smooth over certain plot points. This includes properly explaining why the heck Rey could only track down the Emperor’s location by holding a special dagger on, inexplicably enough, the remains of the second Death Star.
We could also remove much of Finn and Rose’s misadventures on Canto Bight, which would instantly improve The Last Jedi. Speaking of which, it would be fairly easy to remove controversial moments like Luke Skywalker throwing away his lightsaber to make an idiotic point.
At this point, any video editors reading this are screaming at me that a good fan edit could accomplish much of this. And that’s kind of the point: if a dedicated fan could fix most of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy with an editing program and some creativity, a powerhouse studio like Disney could invest in making proper Special Editions, and they’d quickly recoup the costs by re-releasing these films in theaters and on Blu-Ray. Short of just rebooting this universe altogether (something that is long overdue), throwing a Special Edition Hail Mary might be the only way to save our favorite sci-fi franchise.
