How "Star Wars VII" Should Go. Mike's Version

I have never been to a convention; I have never dressed like a storm trooper on Halloween, I have not read any of the books of the expanded universe and yet I still maintain that I am a huge fan of Star Wars. The reason why I am a big fan might explain why I don’t participate in any of the nerdy activities that lesser fans than me partake in.

The reason I like Star Wars is because I just find the original trilogy to be classically great filmmaking. I don’t like it because it is cerebral and has a message behind it, I don’t like it because the special effects are cool, and I don’ like it because Vader looks so damn cool in his suit. I like it because whenever I watch the films I feel like a kid again and have lots of fun. So in a way it is a temporary anti-ageing serum. That being said I cannot ignore how the prequels made me feel. I am not utterly against them but as a traditional fan of Star Wars they did miss a lot of opportunities. The biggest one they missed was the chance to take advantage of the universe and expand within it with new characters to love or hate. All they did was make everyone a lot younger and in lieu of creating brand new characters they assumed that the parents of the trio we know and love would suffice. And that’s where I come in. I don’t want the sequel trilogy to fail like that so I have taken the liberty of writing out an entire plot that might not be the best in terms of intellectual inspiration or story development but it would put the series back on track. It is a bit long, as I felt quite a few details were necessary. So for the benefit of the Star Wars fans out there who felt like the prequels where a stab in our back (and those who thought The Clone Wars was twisting the knife), here is the plot of Star Wars Episode VII as I would have it.

A large space station is floating above Coruscant. An evil looking man is sneaking around killing people and working his way towards the bridge. When he gets there he hacks his way into a system and opens a container that holds a glowing blue crystal. He takes the crystal making the computers go a bit crazy because they are running out of power, but then a small hoard of Jedi burst in with lightsabers and surround him. They ask him to surrender but then he puts on a mask, covers himself in some type of shield, he presses a button on his wrist and shoots the bridge window out with his blaster. The Jedi get sucked out into space but the man latches on to a small vehicle that he apparently called for when he pushed the button on his wrist. He flies away safely but a large piece of machinery falls off the vehicle and floats away into space. The large ship loses power and slowly crashes into Coruscant.

Nearby is a barren planet slightly populated, a bit like Tatooine only instead of sand deserts and canyons its covered by mostly grey rock, and it is called Rontis. On there is a cantina that is full of people and they are around a table where a drinking game is happening. A disgusting looking alien is going against a young man that looks about 20 years old and they are both speaking in an alien language. Everyone is cheering around them. The alien takes a drink but vomits it out on the floor. The agreement is that if the kid can stomach the next drink he will win the title to the cantina. He takes the drink and after some close calls he stands up and everyone cheers. He takes a bunch of papers from the alien and puts them in a drawer behind the bar. The alien goes up behind the kid, points a screen at his stomach area and it shows an alcohol absorption stone in him. The alien gets angry and starts a fight. Everyone cheers as they fight all over the cantina breaking stuff all over the place while the band is still playing. Finally the alien pulls out a blaster but before he shoots the kid kicks him into the furnace nearby burning him. Everyone goes silent for a moment even the band but a moment later everyone starts cheering again and the bands starts playing. Later that evening the kid makes everyone go away as he is closing up. Someone comes in and the kid at first says that they are closed but he looks up at the person and sees that it is a beautiful young woman and invites her in.

They chat and flirt for a while. The kid introduces himself as Noah Dralmus and the girl as Penelope Amaris. She is a pilot for a trade between Rontis and Coruscant, and he is gambler. His father owned the cantina but when his parents died, instead of maintaining it he gave it to the alien to run while he traveled and went on adventures and gambled. He met his friend a little alien named Flox who is no larger than a cat but looks more like a gremlin. When he came back the alien he left the cantina to felt entitled to keep it so Noah challenged him for it. They flirt for some time and just as they are about to kiss, there is a big crash outside. They go outside in the back and see that a piece of machinery has landed right outside the cantina. Penelope indentifies it as a piece from a space vehicle but hasn’t seen a model like it before. The audience knows that it is the piece that broke from the crystal thief’s ship.

Back on Coruscant the council is worried because the stolen crystal was a huge source of energy that not only powered the ship that crashed but it also powered the entire Jedi fleet, and now they don’t have enough energy to protect themselves should an attack happen. Also the crystal can be turned into a weapon against them. A Jedi padowan named Joel wants to help investigate the crashing of the large ship but is instead sent over to Rontis to investigate the piece that broke off the thief’s ship. His master Zacharias goes to the big ship so Joel has to go to Rontis alone.

When Joel gets to Rontis he goes to Noah’s cantina and examines the piece. He describes it to Zacharias in a hologram and they both seem confused by the fact that it doesn’t belong to any registered vehicle in the republic. Zacharias tells Joel to seek advice from the port nearby to see if a pilot might be able to reconstruct what the full vehicle might look like.

Oddly enough the pilot sent to reconstruct it is Penelope. As she tries to recreate what the ship would look like she spends quite some time with Joel and Noah gets a bit jealous. The next day Penelope tells Joel that it is harder than she first thought because she has never seen technology like it before. But as the three of them are thinking in the cantina 3 people walk in. Noah tells them they aren’t open yet but then they pull out blasters and start firing at them. Joel and Penelope manage to fight off 2 of the attackers with his lightsaber and her blaster quite easily but Noah barely avoids the 3^rd attacker until Flox his alien friend helps him take out his blaster. The other attackers die but the 3^rd gets away and flees back to a secret invisible space station where the crystal thief is hiding.

The thief- now identified as Tarlak by the attacker- inquires about the failure of the bounty hunters. When the bounty hunter asks why the piece is so important Tarlak explains that it can be traced back to him. Tarlak is very angry that the piece wasn’t retrieved but the bounty hunter asks what Tarlak did to need to hide. Tarlak gets so mad by this question that he shoots the bounty hunter. He then calls to his right hand man to call for more bounty hunters. When the man asks Tarlak why he doesn’t go get the piece himself he explains that he is too busy overseeing the construction of his weapon. The weapon is powered by the crystal and has the ability to drain any ship of its power causing it to drop down to a nearby planet and crash. If it gets made he will be able to destroy the entire republic fleet.

Back on Rontis Penelope finally manages to reconstruct the vehicle. She says she has never seen anything like it but by its construction and the trail the falling piece left she might be able to track where the ship went to. Noah insists that he comes with them because he has the right to know who put a hole in the back lot of his cantina but it’s obvious that he just wants to be with Penelope. They reach the coordinates that Penelope estimated but they don’t see anything. They realize however that there is an invisible ship there when a small ship passing by just disappears right before their eyes. Joel wants to notify Zacharias that he found where the thief is but Noah stops him. He convinces Joel that if he goes alone it will show initiative and he might even be promoted to Jedi knight if they get the crystal back.

They go in quietly but they are discovered immediately. The guard asks if they are the bounty hunters they have been expecting and they play along. They are brought before Tarlak and they coerce his plan out of them as they pose as bounty hunters. As a bonus Noah gets Tarlak to pay them a lot of money in advance. Tarlak offers them rooms to prepare themselves, so when they are alone, they figure out where the crystal must be hidden and decide to try and get it. Once they get to the area the real bounty hunters show up so Tarlak’s men catch on to the trio and attack them. Joel holds off Tarlak who Joel recognizes as an ex Jedi who was exiled years ago. They have a saber fight the two of them while Penelope and Noah try to get into the crystal room. Noah is trying to hack the doors open while Penelope is covering him with her blaster which she is great at using. Noah finally gets the door open and they get inside. Noah removes the crystal from its location and the computers around go crazy because apparently the crystal was helping the ship maintain power. They indicate that the ship will explode soon because power gained by the crystal can’t be contained.

Joel is no match for Tarlak who is toying around with him and teasing him. With the help of Flox though, Tarlak loses his lightsaber. He decides to stop playing around and he pulls out his blaster. He shoots at Joel but Joel dodges it and the beam hits a pipe that falls down on him knocking him out. Noah and Penelope manage to get the unconscious Joel into their ship and they fly around in it trying to get out of the invisible ship but all of Tarlak’s men are shooting at them and stopping them. They finally shoot their way out and start flying away but Tarlak and his troops are still chasing them. They evade most of the attacks and Tarlak who is in a ship himself is shooting his own men who are shooting at the trio because he is afraid that they will destroy the crystal.

At the climax Tarlak is close on their tail but then the invisible ship explodes. Penelope strategically flies right towards the fire. Tarlak in his ship does the same but cowards out at the last minute and maneuvers away. Penelope barely manages to maneuver away safely but she goes in the other direction than where Tarlak went and they escape. Joel wakes up in the ship and all 3 of them cheer as they fly away.

Back at Coruscant the trio and Flox are sitting in a room being chewed out by a person whose face the audience doesn’t see. He calls on how dangerous it was and how they should have notified them so the Jedi could take care of it. But then he changes his tone and congratulates them on a job well done. That is when the audience finally sees that they are talking to an old Luke Skywalker. Joel asks if they will be rewarded for what they did. Luke tells them that Queen Leia doesn’t just give medals to any old group of fools who decide to take things into their own hands like she used to but that they can take comfort in the fact that Joel will now be a Jedi knight and Penelope will be promoted to commander. Joel feels sorry that Noah didn’t get anything for his trouble but Noah assures him that the 100000 credits he got from Tarlak was more than enough to make it worth his trouble. They all gather in Noah’s cantina and celebrate, with Noah and Joel having a drinking contest.

In a post credit sequence, Luke is talking with Zacharias. They show concern over the fact that Tarlak is still on the loose. Luke asks Zacharias if he ever told Joel why Tarlak was exiled and then the film ends.

Now since this is part of a friendly contest between me and Thomas to start off this collaborative blog strongly, please click here to vote on which Idea you liked best for the new Star Wars. The poll closes on the 9th of June at 10 pm so please spread the word!