Disney Should Remake the Star Wars Original Trilogy Movies

After Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the Star Wars Skywalker Saga has come to a close – but that does not mean it has achieved closure. The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy and standalones have created many new continuity knots, and Star Wars has generally gotten so much bigger than what George Lucas originally envisioned for the franchise. Instead of constantly bending modern Star Wars to fit the limited view of the Original Trilogy, we should now consider another option: Disney should remake the Star Wars Original Trilogy, for the good of the franchise and its fans.

That statement may seem controversial to just about every person in the current Star Wars fandom – but if you think about it, and allow for a quick breakdown, you may change your mind:

Preserve The Star Wars Originals

Ever since the Star Wars movie franchise started moving forward again in the ’90s, there’s been a push-pull conflict between the Original Trilogy and the new material that Lucasfilm produced. It started with George Lucas releasing the Star Wars Special Editions, where Lucas punched-up the original films with modern visual effects, new scenes, and even big changes to the previous canon (Han Shot First!). Fans were very split over the move, and with good reason: Lucas had arguably abandoned the low-budget and maverick filmmaking he did to create Star Wars outside the ’70s movie studio system, which is exactly what helped endear the film to fans in the first place.

There’s a lesson to be learned from fans’ reaction to the Star Wars Special Editions: We love the original Star Wars films for their kitschy magic, and there have been repeated calls to get the original (non-tampered) films released on modern services. Maybe it’s time to admit that the original Star Wars OT films deserve to be their own thing – and the larger modern Star Wars Skywalker Saga should maybe be a different thing.

The Prequels Are Kind of Reboots

No doubt the biggest and most jarring jump in viewing Star Wars is starting with the Star Wars Prequels and then going to the Original Trilogy. There was simply too much time between the ’70s / 80s era of the OT, and ’00s era of the PT, for the films to ever hope to sync up visually. In many respects, the Star Wars Prequels are almost like a reboot for the franchise, in terms of visual tone and format – one that feels much more in line with the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy that has come along after. Since Star Wars has already kind of given itself a fresh start in the 21st century, why not complete the process and make The Skywalker Saga one set of visually cohesive films by adding a modern-looking version of the OT to the lineup?

We Have The Actors

The immediate question fans will ask about this idea is: how could you recast the original Star Wars movies? It’s actually not that hard – we have the people to do it, and already know who they are!

As the Star Wars community has already pointed out, Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier star Sebastian Stan is a beloved stand-in for Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker. Carrie Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd is a breakout star in her own right, and fans would probably love to see her do a modern-minded version of Leia. Even Solo‘s Alden Ehrenreich has amassed a dedicated cult-following, calling for his return to the franchise – ditto for Donald Glover’s Lando. All of those actors are believable young versions of the OT actors who returned for the Sequel Trilogy, so the transition between OT and ST would still work. This would be almost too easy for Disney / Lucas to pull off, on the casting front.

Fix The Continuity

As stated at the start: One of the biggest problems in Star Wars is how the vastly expanded (and retconned) continuity under Disney gets harder and harder to fit with Lucas’ Original Trilogy. We’re already down to nitpicking minor extras in OT film scenes as “inspirations” for new Star Wars stories that can connect to the larger continuity. It’s getting silly.

A new version of Star Wars OT would have full knowledge of the Skywalker Saga canon in front of it. It could lend much more weight to details, new scenes, characters, and storylines that grow into bigger things down the line. The role of villains like Vader and Palpatine could be much more fleshed out, and the writing on OT heroes like Luke, Han, and Leia could be updated to better fit the older, modern,complex versions we met in the Sequel Trilogy.

We Lose NOTHING

The knee-jerk reaction is that this Disney remake idea somehow downgrades the original Star Wars films – but it’s quite the opposite. If Disney remakes the OT, it forever preserves Lucas’ original films as their own, separate, thing, which inspired a larger franchise reboot with the Prequels. There would be no need to tamper with Lucas’ original cuts anymore, as the entire point of the Lucas films would be to represent the cinematic culture of their time, while the Disney films would be a complete set, unto themselves. George Lucas would still have his imprint on the Disney franchise through the Prequels… it’s pretty much a win all around.

Would you ever support Disney remaking the Star Wars Original Trilogy? Let us know in the comments. Don’t yell.