Star Wars Novelist Shares His True Thoughts On 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'

Pretty much everyone who has seen the sequel trilogy has their opinion it and the individual films that make it up. Arguably, some of the most interesting opinions to hear are from those who have worked on Star Wars in some capacity. One such opinion that has recently gained attention is that of Alan Dean Foster, who was the ghost writer of the novelization for the original Star Wars film, as well as the writer of the first Expanded Universe novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye, an Attack of the Clones prelude of sorts titled The Approaching Storm, and the novelization for The Force Awakens.

In an interview on YouTube channel Midnight's Edge, Foster revealed that he was asked to remove romance-related elements pertaining to Rey and Finn, which surprised him a bit since he expected Episode VIII to pick up on the relationship in that manner. In the interview, he revealed his thoughts on the entire trilogy:

"I liked Episode VII very much. I thought it set up a lot of really neat things that were never addressed in Episode VIII. I hated Episode VIII, and I thought Episode IX was good. Not great, but good."

He disliked The Last Jedi so much that he started to think of how certain aspects of it could be "retconned," so to speak:

“Episode VIII was out, it was a done deal. And, I went and saw it, and I thought it was a terrible film. I thought it was a terrible Star Wars movie, and there’s no need to go into why because every fan already has. I thought, ‘How can this be retconned? How can we fix as much as possible from Episode VIII in a proposed Episode IX?’ And I wrote a partial treatment for that, attempting in that storyline to explain a lot of the really silly things that happened in Episode VIII.”

Of course, Disney and Lucasfilm would not utilize his rewrites. But Foster did not expect them to, as he explains, "I did that for the fans. I never expected Disney to do anything with that." One of the things that he was keen on addressing in this partial treatment was the reason for Rey "suddenly has more Force powers than anybody."

"How can I explain that away? And can I somehow tie that into the fact that she was abandoned on her planet on Jakku and bring those two things together?"

His idea ended up being to make Rey part droid, or a cyborg, which Foster believes would have tied into things pretty well.

"That gives her the ability to learn remarkably quickly and also enhances her existing Force powers, and that's how she can throw boulders around at the end of Episode VIII. Also, it allows her to be instantly simpatico with other droids. I thought this would be a really fun story element, as well as explaining why and how she's able to do these remarkable things."

He also goes into how he would have ended the trilogy, including his preferred ending for Luke Skywalker and more motivation for Rose Tico:

"At the end of it, there's a big battle on Coruscant with the Emperor's clones. I also manage to provide proper motivation for the character that they forced Boyega to fall in love with, I give her something proper to do that justifies her character. At the end of the film, Luke is dying under a tree, and Rey comes out. And Luke's last words are 'Aunt Beru,' which brings the whole thing full cycle."

He also believes that JJ Abrams was written into a corner having to elaborate on and handle "so many of the silly, ludicrous things that happened in Episode VIII. You can tell that I'm going to be asked to write Episode X (laughs)."

We keep on hearing about different versions of what could have happened in the trilogy, whether it be from Foster, Colin Trevorrow, or George Lucas the maker himself. Ultimately, the sequel trilogy, while not a crowd pleaser, is not going anywhere. It is not being retconned or remade anytime soon, as Star Wars is focused on moving forward with new projects.

Written By Steven Shinder

Syndicated From Culture Slate