Huffington Magazine Issue 22 | Page 32

Voices SUNJEEV BERY HUFFINGTON 11.11.12 AVOID THE OTHER CHEAP TRICKS TOO: The Death Star was the original mega evil device. Since then, there have been about 84,000 movies with various evil devices that needed to be stopped/destroyed/stolen/buried forever. You can’t recreate the Death Star or anything like it. George Lucas already did that. Skip this plot device, and avoid all variants of it. STUDY THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE: When Senator Palpatine became the emperor, he defeated democracy. When Darth Vader destroyed Princess Leia’s home planet, he committed genocide. When the Rebel Alliance blew up the Death Star, they smashed a dictatorship. These are heavy matters. Sure, we didn’t always understand the storyline in these terms. But one reason why the original Star Wars trilogy lingered for so long in our minds was that as we climbed through our childhood years, the Star Wars universe gave us more and more to think about. The next movies must do this as well—but our minds are now much older, and much more stuck in their ways. WRITE A STAR WARS MYTHOLOGY FOR TODAY: Multiple human societ- ies are now in the midst of dramatic and diverse kinds of turmoil. At the risk of being grandiose, we need signs and stories to help us navigate This is the days ahead. We both an don’t all necessarily opportunity think we do, but we do. and treacherSomeone will soon ous territory. make the movies that Will a third help us understand trilogy make this global moment. up for the As laughable as it now flimsiness of sounds, if those movthe second?” ies have the words “Star Wars” in the title, if they can credibly embed these issues in the Star Wars universe, they will achieve a status that rivals the original franchise. Can Disney pull it off? Would Disney even want to? I’m extremely skeptical. Still, the creatives and executives tasked with producing the next Star Wars trilogy are going to be held to these standards, whether anyone realizes it or not. Powerful childhood experiences are not easily recreated. But that’s what anyone taking on the next Star Wars trilogy is agreeing to do.