In part one, I discussed why I was cautiously optimistic for a new Star Wars trilogy backed by Disney. In part two, I give my thoughts on what should and should not be done based on the numerous examples of failure with which Disney and Lucas Film have had experience.

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Don’t Pull a Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

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Assuming Disney people have seen it, the lackluster fourth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise should have taught them that people don’t want to see their childhood heroes old and not awesome. Sure, Indiana Jones was in the movie, but he just wasn’t quite as on the ball as he used to be. They also made the odd decision to bring back Marion Ravenwood, even though Karen Allen's acting career and chops were less than spectacular. Disney, don’t try to shoehorn in characters from the past Star Wars films. We don’t want to see an old Han Solo and old Luke Skywalker and old Leia doing things that people half their age couldn’t do. Please, limit yourself to bringing one character back (ghost Yoda?) and just focus on telling a good story in the Star Wars universe.

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Milking Franchises Only Ends in Bad Milk

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You know what was a cool movie? Pirates of the Caribbean. You know what was a load of crap? Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. You see, something happens when you make too many movies that don’t add anything of value to a series: audiences catch onto you. Turns out that people can tell the between a cash grab and making movies to tell a story. In the case of Disney’s pirate films; they were just going for the money. If Disney is going to be helming a Star Wars trilogy (and realistically films beyond that), don’t exhaust film-goers with space opera schlock.

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Appealing to Children Is Stupid

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One of the biggest problems with the Star Wars prequels was that they tried to appeal to kids. Why is that a problem? For starters we have people getting cut in half, forcible dismemberment, beheadings, murder, assassination attempts, implied rape, slavery, etc. In amongst all of those violent actions and themes, we have forced comedic dialogue, stupid kids, Jar-Jar Binks, and other needless scenes that really work to undermine the films. Disney, what you should take away from this is that people like consistent tone and scenes that work well together. Having a wacky kid being all silly and accidentally blowing up a strategically important ship and then cutting to a battle where a Jedi is stabbed and a Sith is cut in half is not a great combination and will only breed hatred for your films.

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Shoot on Location

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The trend in Hollywood is to shoot things on a green screen and fill in the backgrounds later. Don’t do that with Star Wars. We already saw what happens when you film almost every single scene in front of a green screen in the prequels and we don’t want that again. Take the time to fly the crew to a desert or build sets. Yeah, it is harder, but it pays off when everything looks substantial and your actors can interact with real objects.