At long last, we have a new Nerd roundtable ready for you: This week, we focus on what we would like to see Disney do with stand alone films for 'Star Wars.'
Jason Powers: 
I actually would love to see something that doesn’t feature the Jedi or the Empire in any way. I know this won’t happen, even if that rumored
Boba Fett standalone film happens. I really think that the universe that Lucas created could support whole scores of stories about regular people doing regular things.
One thing I think would work very well is a film noir type mystery set on Coruscant, with just an average Joe private detective, ala “Blade Runner” investigating some random crime. If they really had to, they could make the featured mystery part of a bigger plot concerning the Jedi, and if they wanted to bring in the bounty hunters or some peripheral characters during that process, that would be awesome.
I also think that
Tag and Bink deserve their own movie. Though expressly non-cannon, their comedic series of comics were extremely entertaining. The series follows two minor background characters as they somehow interact with every other character in the original trilogy, and manage to influence all the pivotal plot elements through sheer ineptitude. It will never happen, but it would be fun to see on screen.
Matt Clayton 
I’m a sucker for anything involving Han Solo or Boba Fett. I can’t really explain why, but the interaction between the two characters is something that I’ve always enjoyed. I would love to see a film about each character that details the history of the two. That might be two different movies.
Something else I would like to see the folks at Disney explore is the life and times of Lando Calrissian. Plenty of work has already been done about him done in “The Adventures of Lando Calrissian” series of novels.
Chris Moore 
For a stand-alone Star Wars movie, I would perhaps like to see the tales of Dash Rendar. Dash Rendar became well known during the events of the book Shadows of the Empire (Side note: GREAT Nintendo 64 game) that took place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. He was hired by Lando to track down Han Solo after he was taken by Boba Fett.
After Dash helped blow up the Skyhook, most principle cast members of the Star Wars series thought he died after believing his ship, The Outrider, hit some debris. However, in actuality he jumped into hyperspace at the last minute and was gone. I would like to see the later adventures of his life after that event. Who knows, if the movie gets real popular we could perhaps see a game franchise return of the character. (Hint: Make that happen, Disney/LucasArts)
Anna Codutti 
I want to see a light-hearted show on one of Disney's many TV networks called "Jedi Academy." So far, viewers have seen the jedi younglings only for a few moments ... and then Anakin Skywalker wipes out the kids in "Revenge of the Sith."
The show should be set during the years leading up to "Episode 1" so as to avoid reconciling the drama that occurs as Palpatine amasses his dark power (while still leaving the possibility that familiar names from Lucas' movies will come up). I'm envisioning something like "Sky High," but with some of the gravity of "Ender's Game." It would focus on those Jedi initiates in the time leading up to their adolescence, before they're paired with a Jedi Master as a Padawan. In the world of "Star Wars," younglings studied together for something like 10 years in clans of about a dozen.
The lead character of "Jedi Academy" would be a talented new student whose proclivity for the Force has been developing independently on some remote planet before he or she is discovered by an aging Jedi Master whose job it is to travel the galaxies far, far away searching for Force-sensitive youths whose families hid them from Jedi recruiting agents. Through this character's perspective, the audience would learn about the progression of Jedi education without having to see a bunch of toddlers running around Jedi kindergarten.
James Royal 
The rumored movie that I'm most interested in would be a Jedi take on Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai." The story is ready-made for seven Jedi, and it could be set in any time period to allow the writers to pull in any established characters that they want. We could see characters like Mace Windu fleshed out, or we could see an entirely new cast or with characters drawn from the Expanded Universe, entirely new characters or a combination of both.
The other project I'd like to see would be a "Knights of the Old Republic" movie. The Star Wars universe has a rich history from which stories can be drawn thanks to decades of books, comic books and video games, and the "Knight of the Old Republic" games and comics have some of the best tales and characters.
Michael Dambold 
I'm going to take a different approach and talk about what I want to see in the movies for environments and locations. I've talked so much about the actual story structure, I want to deviate from that and explain what I'm looking for thematically.
I'd love to see the same style of technology that we saw in Episodes IV-VI, with a stark contrast of Rebel and Empire technology. It's only been 20 years from the VI to VII, so not much will change in a galaxy touting similar technology tens of thousands of years ago. I want to see the Jedi Academy on Yavin IV (assuming they even follow that line of plot from the EU). I also want to see new, weird worlds that do not look like Pandora, but are completely unique in terms of style, form and design. I want to see how the Empire is faring with the loss of the figurehead. What kind of internal struggles does the Empire face now? In Episode IV we hear that the regional governments control galactic territories and that somehow the Republic has dissolved. I'd love to see follow-ups to those issues.
Do you have a topic you would like the Prairie Nerds to address? Let us know at PrairieNerds@tulsaworld.com
