Tag: Star Wars

‘Star Wars’ In Trouble & How I Would Fix It Going Forward

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I have a theory about Star Wars that goes like this — the moment Lando Calrissian was not a woman, the entire thing was doomed. The reason is — if that character’s gender was flipped, instantly Luke would have had a romantic interest and a major flaw in the whole saga would have been fixed. But, whoops!

So, really, this is what I would do.

I would let Episode 9 come out. Then I would take a long, hard look at the state of the franchise. I would blow the whole thing up. Burn it to the ground. Then boil it down to what the fan base loves about it and use that as the foundation of a new cycle.

Some suggestions.

A young male protagonist.
A strong-willed female romantic lead.
A rake.
Cool robots and aliens.
A task (NOT Death Star related)
Lots of call backs to the original universe.

To top it all off, I would stop being greedy and “woke.” Make the movie far more serious — in a sense — and think about storytelling not selling toys or a not-so-subtle liberal-progressive message. Just tell a damn good story and if you get to subtly tell a story that gets your political agenda across, all the better.

The issue is the “base” of Star Wars is center-Right and the management of Disney is center-Left and very, very greedy. I think there’s even some sort of media theory about this situation. I would, if I was in charge of Disney, accept that the base is center-Right and embrace it while also “dog whistling,” if you will more woke people. It’s not impossible, people.

No one listens to me.




The Death Of Star Wars & The Potential Rise of “Foundation” In The Age Of MX

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’m developing and writing a novel and as such I have storytelling on the brain. The more professional in my mentality towards this endeavor, the less I want to talk about exactly what I’m doing and how.

But I do find the future of storytelling worth writing about while all of this is going on. It seems to me that the traditional film industry is about to have its Napster moment. Not because some punch in his bedroom creates and app that destroys the movie industry’s business model, but because at some point we’re going to find ourselves in the Ready Player One universe for real for real.

I just don’t see the titans of the movie industry being as fleet footed as the gaming industry. There’s going to come a point between now and, say, 2030, when some upstart gaming startup figures out a way to give us OASIS. When that happens, the passive movies will become the vinyl of Generation Z or beyond.

This is not something I look forward to. I love traditional movies, but the writing is on the wall as they say. All that needs to happen is for MX gear’s price point to be low enough and wireless broadband speeds to be fast enough that it makes economic sense. Traditional Hollywood film studios aren’t going to know what hit them.

Why watch Star Wars, A New Hope, when you can “play” it (or something similar) with a few million other people. The Star Wars universe is big enough that should a MX startup, say, buy Disney, they could create an OASIS-type environment large enough for that to happen. Now, I also love the Foundation series, so logically, it would make more sense for such a startup to buy the rights to Foundation, flesh out the saga’s universe in an MX environment and make $1 trillion.

But, sadly, no one — but no one — listens to me.

And, yet, this is on the horizon. This is happening. It’s just a matter of the details of how, exactly, it does so.

My Personal Vision For The Plot Of A Star Wars Movie To Save The Franchise

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

First Act

We open to learn that not only is Bubba Fett alive and well, but he has Ray trapped in carbonite. He looks at her frozen body, trapped in eternal agony and adjusts a few dials on her artificial frozen tumb.

Bubba Fett contacts a mysterious new villain whom we only hear the voice of in garbled form. We quickly learn that the First Order is gone now and there’s a new very powerful new super-Jedi like person who is quickly taking over the Galaxy. (LucasArts buys a big chunk of the rights to the Foundation Series from the Isaac Asimov Estate, so the following can happen.)

We learn that someone calling himself The Mule is at the center of this new empire and that he has many of the same abilities of a Jedi, only more so. He mysteriously can change someone’s mind subtly without them even knowing about it.

Inciting Incident

The inciting incident is when Bubba Fett’s ship experiences an unexpected malfunction going through hyperspace and when it comes out, Ray is gone. Ray has vanished somewhere out in the galaxy.

For the rest of the act, we see where the main characters of the new Star Wars films now find themselves as well are introduced to a new cast of cute little characters. I would also introduce a new Luke Skywalker-type dude who would be Ray’s heteronormative boyfriend because….let’s go back to basics folks.

So Neo-Luke wakes up to Ray’s frozen body out in the boonies of the galaxy and that’s the setup of not only a new Star Wars adventure, but long-term love interest for Ray. Maybe our Neo-Luke for some reason was raised by the cute little new characters for some reason. You’re smart, you figure it out.

Anyway, if you’ve finally stolen all the best bits of Foundation legally, you introduce to Star Wars the notion that the Elder Scrolls tell of a plan to bring peace and harmony to the galaxy under the watch of the Force. Or something. Maybe there’s a secret Second Jedi Council or something that watches from the shadows to ensure this plan works. The point of all this is at the end of the first act, the newly re-assembled main characters of the new Star Wars canon go to this site expecting to learn one thing, only to have the evil forces of The Mule capture them. Along the way they meet a goofy Jack McBrayer-type dude who plays a really cool instrument and runs around looking like a hippie. Before they’re attacked by the forces of The Mule, the New Canon Star Wars people learn about the home planet of The Mule and how it might help them defeat him. Meanwhile, our Neo-Luke has fallen in love with the frozen Ray. He makes up all these romantic stories about her and for this dude at the end of the first act, the evil forces of The Mule kill his family (the Star Wars fans go nuts) and his Hero’s journey begins when he barely escapes with the frozen body of Ray in one of those cool Black Imperial X-Wings.

Second Act

This act deals with two seperate things — one one hand the old people of New Star Wars Canon run around looking for The Mule’s home planet, not knowing Ray is still alive. Their goofy new friend cracks jokes and kind of lurks in the background as occasional comic relief. Our Neo-Luke struggles to find not only clues about Ray but the equipment to unfreeze her.

Midpoint

At the midpoint, you figure out a way so these two story lines meet.

The rest of the story is a continued search for the home of The Mule and finally we find it, only to find that Kylo Ren is there waiting for them. Ren is now a student of The Mule and here is where we get the be revel — the goofy Jack McBrayer character is The Mule!

Oh no, all is lost!

Third Act

The Mule is kind enough to unfreeze Ray and Ray uses her super-dooper Jedi powers against The Mule, barely allowing the New Star Wars Canon characters to leave. Maybe she loses and arm along the way.

We see her, in an homage to the end of Empire, getting a new arm, romantically cuddling with Neo-Luke along the way.

The End…for now!

How To Save Star Wars, A Few Ideas

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

One idea is to steal more from The Foundation Saga and instead of having something to blow up, you have an evil Super Jedi (or whatever) who begins to acrew power across the universe using sooper-dooper “Jedi mind tricks.” Who he / she is a mystery for a few films and we learn that he has been there in front of us all along as a goofy Jack McBrayer-type character.

Might freak little kids out, but, hey, when you have a few billion riding on something, that’s not that bad a risk to take. Maybe.

Another idea is to put Ray in carbonatite, scatter the main characters we’ve established to date and have Ray’s frozen body pop up somewhere unexpected. Extra points if you can somehow resurrect Bubba Fett and make him a good guy.

That’s all I can think of right now.

I will note that had Lando been a woman instead of a dude, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation because you would have opened The Force Awakens with a brown-skinned Ray doing her thing and…ta-da, series saved!

AT-ATs — A Star Wars Lie

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

AT-ATs are a lie.

If you’re a galaxy-spanning evil empire and you want to dominate one particular planet, using huge machines with legs that are easily…tripped… is a pretty dumb way to go about it.

We know for a fact that the Empire has levitation technology good enough to allow a Imperial Destroyer to hover pretty damn close over the ground of a planet.

So why not use that technology to build something like an AT-AT, but with no legs to dominate a planet?

Dumb.
Dumb.
Dumb.

V-Log: How To Fix The Star Wars Franchise

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumagarls

In this video I spend an hour talking about how fucked up the Star Wars franchise is and how I, personally, would fix it. It involves Bubba Fett, Ray in carbonite and and using an obscure existing character as the new Hero.

V-Log — Star Wars, Kevin Smith & Identity Politics’ Destruction Of Storytelling

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Some thoughts.