ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - What's Next for Star Wars TV After Andor?

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Andor was the pinnacle of Star Wars television, but currently Lucasfilm has out Star Wars TV projects on hold. So what show should they make next? Explore the aftermath of Return of the Jedi? Revisit the Clone Wars? Or document the Rise of the First Order?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We fight you win. That means we lose and lose and lose until we're ready. Hey, welcome back to Screencrush. I'm Ryan Erie. And let's talk about what's next for Star Wars TV. Should Lucasfilm make a live action show about Luke Skywalker? Should they go back to the prequel era? A little later, I'm going to ask Tommy Bechtold and Liz Declan what they think, and I'm going to tell you my pick for a show that I think would save the sequel trilogy.

But first, let me explain where we are and how we got here and the possibilities for what Lucasfilm can do next. Remember, guys, Screencrush is available in all podcast platforms and join our merch store membership to get free stuff. Now, did you guys know that ever since The Mandalorian was released in 2019, we've actually had a minimum of one live-action Star Wars series every year. In fact, post-pandemic, we have had eight seasons of Star Wars TV shows in five years, not including three seasons of the Bad Batch, one season of the Clone Wars, and three mini-anthology shows. But now the only show being filmed is the second season of Asoka,

and that's probably because that show is setting up a type of. Star Wars Avenger crossover movie that's going to bring all the TV characters together to fight Thrawn. And this is because Disney has scaled back on these expensive shows to focus on movies. And really, that's a shame because The Mandalorian and Andor proved that Star Wars stories can be great on television. Or but what about the Book of Buffet? Or what about... I'm not here to litigate all the shows that didn't work. My point is, if you bring in great writers and you give them the ingredients, then they can cook.

So my question is simple. What Star Wars stories do we want to see Lucasfilm tell? So for me, one obvious answer is to recast Han, Luke, and Leah and show the events after Return of the Jedi. We've already seen a little bit of this in the comic book series of Battle of Jackoo, but I want to see it in live action. Post Return of the Jedi is a story that captures our imaginations the most. Hell, there were over a hundred novels written about this era. So show us Luke starting the new Jedi Order. Show us Leah, rebuilding the new Republic with Geneviva Riley's Mon Mothma. Tell this story. But you can't recast those characters? Sure you can. You can recast any.

Paramount recast Spock with Ethan Peck and he's great. You think you can't recast Tony Stark? Karen Colkin, there I fixed it. After Solo underperformed at the box office, Lucasfilm took that to mean that you can't recast the original three. But people didn't go see Solo because there was a different guy playing Han Solo. They didn't go see solo because we don't care about young Han Solo. So, showing the aftermath of Return of the Jedi. That's one idea. But I would also like to see some of the better Star Wars comics and novels adapted into live action. Like this is something that Lucasfilm has been reluctant to do because everything they make, even the theme park rides, are considered canon. But I've read some great Star Wars novels

that would work so well in live action or animation. Like, for instance, when Disney bought Lucasfilm, they scrapped a whole season of the Clone Wars that was in development. And some of those episodes were a love story between a Jedi named Quinlan Voss and a former set apprentice named Assange Ventress. And then this became the book, Dark Disciple, one of the best love stories in Star Wars. We actually saw the ending of that book recently, adapted in Tales of the Underworld. So, I think just go back and adapt the whole thing into like a movie made for Disney Plus. Or there's also the incredible Darth Vader comics written by Charles Sol

that show the aftermath of Revenge of the Sith and how Vader tried to resurrect Padmay and build his palace, his hunt for the Jedi, and how he got the Khyber crystal for his Red Sabre. And I would kill to see this moment in live action, when Vader is pinned down by rebel forces and he tells them, all I am surrounded by is dead men and fear. Or there's also the great Chuck Windig aftermath. trilogy that takes place in the immediate wake of return of the Jedi and features mostly new characters perfect for adaptation. Or they could also take characters from Andor and give them a spinoff series.

Like for instance, what did Vell's life look like during the rebellion? Now a little later, I'm going to tell you my favorite choice for a show that I think will improve the sequel trilogy, just like how the Clone Wars series improve the prequels. But before I bring on Liz and Tommy for their ideas, I want to run down a few more possibilities for Lucasfilm. They could just restart in a totally new era. For instance, the High Republic takes place about, you know, five to 300 years before the Phantom Menace, and also James Mangold is doing a Dawn of the Jedi movie set 10,000 years in the past. So that leaves a lot of Star Wars history wide open. They could do Knights of the Old Republic. They could do the birth of the Sith, or the Jedi Sith War a thousand years ago,

which is also when the Mandalorian sacked the Jedi temple and took the Dark Sabre. This is also when the Old Republic was replaced with the Republic. Or tell the story of Tar Visla, the Mandalorian Jedi who created the Dark Sabre and united Mandelor. The story of a warrior swore into a life of peace who breaks his vow to unite his warring planet? I mean, that's great material for a long-form serial. That's why it's so disappointing to see so much of Star Wars relying on old toys from the toolbox. Tony Gilroy told his Andor writing staff this guideline, leave more toys in the box than how you found it. Like this galaxy has room for unlimited expansion and I want to see some outsiders come in and tell new stories. But I am joined by two of my favorite friends of the channel. We have

Liz Declan and Tommy Bechtole, the guy who is always on break, and apparently is a giant Bill's fan as well. Thank you both for joining me. I guess my first question here, I'll throw it out to you, Tommy, is before we get into the kind of stuff or specifically the shows you hope they make, what do you think about the state of Star Wars TV right now? I mean, I'm riding high on it. I absolutely love Dan Dor. I'm a pretty home team guy. I love most Star Wars content. I'm not hypercritical of it, but I do. have my qualms with some of the shows, some of them lose my interest faster than others. I thought this last season of Andor was, I mean, it's been said a million times, so I won't go on, but it's really Star Wars for anyone. It's consumable content for fans of good storytelling, more so than fans of Star Wars, although

they always seem to remind you every 15 minutes by adding a goofy little guy in a scene. Whenever it's getting like too much, like it might just be like a good spy drama or a good like war movie, like a little alien guy will come up and be like, and then you remember it's Star Wars. I don't know about that. The closest thing to that I can think of is the old lady in episode 10,

you know, in the hospital. But I also think at Mon Motha's daughter's wedding scene, there was like that wacky guy dancing around. True, true, true. I mean, I don't, it's not obnoxious. I just think it's a nice touch to it. Yeah, now the wackiest guys

are those dudes in episode three playing rock paper scissors. I don't think we've ever seen two bigger idiots. Like, you talk about the Rosencrow. Kranson Guildenstein of Star Wars right there. Liz, what about you? What's your feelings on the state of Star Wars TV? And not just Andor, but, you know, going back to the past year or so. Yeah, so I loved Andor. I agree completely.

I think it was such a cool take on Star Wars. I think it was really nice to see. I keep referring to it as the boots on the ground effort of the rebellion, which I really liked. I also thought skeleton crew was really sweet, so different tonally than Andor. But I loved it. I loved that it had sort of a Goonies aesthetic. to it. In terms of how I feel about TV, I was glad at Star Wars Celebration to get a few more

announcements and a few updates because for a little while, it seemed like they were really steering away from television, especially live action TV shows. So I'm still curious to see what we're going to get with that because we have Asoka Season 2. Obviously, we just had Tales of the Underworld, which was animated. We have Mall, which is animated. But I'm, I really like the live action, so I'm hoping we get more of that, too. Yeah, they haven't announced one. And it's interesting because, you know, neither of you I noticed mentioned the Acolyte, which for the wrong reasons was very controversial. But I also think just in general, it was a show that I think should have had a second season.

There's an interesting little division in Lucasfilm right now between these new people they're bringing in, like Leslie Headland, Tony Gilroy, John Watts, who kind of get to play in the galaxy. And then they try to stay as far away from Dave Fallonius, possible because Dave Filoni and to a certain extent John Favro are more concerned with like using the toys that we all know about like from rebels and things like that. It's interesting to kind of note that there's a civil war happening there. Liz, what were your thoughts on the Acolyte? Just because you've never been here before. Welcome to the channel. Good to have you. What were your thoughts on the Acolyte? So I actually, I just, I do have an Acolyte poster behind me.

I really enjoyed it. That's a cool poster. Thank you. We got that when we went to the premiere. I did the theatrical release, the first two episodes. Nice. For screen rant. Yeah, yes, I think so. And by the way, you can, and the reason, Liz, I asked you on here is because I loved your articles on Andor for Screen Rant, some great Easter eggs, things that we miss. So it's really a pleasure to meet you and have you on here. Thank you so much. I was so excited to get the invite. So I'm really excited.

But, yeah, I loved the accolate. I think that, like you were already saying, it received a lot of heat for a lot of the wrong reasons, which I think is really a shame. And I thought it was interesting to see that difference with Andor, because I found them. thematically similar in certain ways. So for me, I enjoyed the accolade. My one criticism of the accolade would be, I think they hedged their bets too much that they were getting a season two.

I think they set up to too much without a guarantee that it was coming. And so the ending, I was disappointed a bit. Oh, because there was no ending. I think they were told they were going to get a season two pre-Iger. Because remember, that show has been in development since. I mean, they announced it in, what, 2021 at their big info dump?

So, yeah, I'm with you guys. I'm always, I'm with Tommy. I'm always going to like something Star Wars. I just can't, I'm rewatching Asoka right now. And it's just when you compare it or anything else to Andor, it just really doesn't hold up. But now that, like you said, they've wiped the slate clean, we do have an opportunity to introduce all sorts of different kinds of stuff. Now, earlier I talked about how they could adapt things from the comics or from the books and how they can introduce new eras. A lot of people, like I had a tweet go off about it,

Luke Skywalker post Return of the Jedi series that people seem to want to see. Liz, what about you? What kind of live action or animated Star Wars do you want to see? So this is controversial. I know it already, but I'll say I'm a kid of the 90s, and I love Hayden Christensen, and I loved his take on Anakin Skywalker.

So I would love to see a Vader show or a live action Clone Wars. And I do think more so than Vader, Ewan McGregor, and Hayden Christensen have both teased Clone Wars. So I'm really curious to see if we get that. Well, with Clone Wars, there's stories. I mean, obviously, it's seven seasons of a pretty great show. But there's stories.

There's going to be gaps in there they haven't told. And they could also do some big culminating things. Like, are there, I can't think of anything in particular that was referenced later on that we didn't get in the show. But they could also maybe foreshadow Palpatine returning. That's always fun to throw in there. They would have to D.H. Hayden Christensen, though. That was one of the drawbacks of Obi-1.

I noticed like, ah, you know, my guy's in his 40s. now and it shows. Tommy, what do you think about that, a Clone Wars live action? How would they, you know, are we going to just continue what we've seen or like to make it a bigger event? What do you think? I would absolutely love a Clone Wars adaptation live action because I would say one of my kind of struggles with Star Wars is they have all this great animation and I just struggle to connect with it more than I do the live action. But there are episodes of Clone Wars that I've watched, whether it's for a project or for just for pleasure, that I've really enjoyed. I just have trouble sticking with it. So to see those stories unfold in live action,

I think would be it would be a treat. I love it. Liz, Liz, would you want to see an adaptation or stories we haven't seen before? You know, there are some stories from the Lost Tales that were never adapted that where they just released the animatics. There's that. What would you like to see? So I will say one event in particular that I'm shocked has never been shown on screen in canon is Anakin's Nighting Ceremony. It was in the 2003 Clone Wars, but we've never seen it on screen. We would definitely need a big de-aging for that. But I would love to see. It's surprising that we haven't seen that before.

Yeah, and like you said, and the Jindy Tarotovsky, I mispronounce his name every time, that we did see it, but, you know, I'm with you on that, that would be a lot of fun. I kind of think your idea of a Vader show is just a win-win for everybody.

Like those Darth Vader comics, both runs were fantastic, and earlier I talked about how, you know, there was the one run that was right after New Hope where he finds out that Padmay didn't die and he starts to plot against the emperor. And those comics did a great job of showing,

hey, how does Vader get? get to the point where he tries to usurp the emperor and ask Luke to join him. How does he get to the point where he turns to the good side? So you could do that. Or there's this amazing 20-year gap where, yeah, we've seen it explored, but we haven't seen Darth Vader explored that much. We haven't seen him hunt down the Jedi Knights. The first few days after, you know, he turned to the dark side. What was that like? It's been in a comic, but you know, do you guys want to see it in live action? Absolutely.

Yes. But is there a reason to not do it? Because the other thing here, and this is like the whole full whole Filoni versus the outsiders. Can Star Wars grow if we keep doing this? Because we keep talking about, oh, God, Andor's so great, andor's so great. But what made it great is Tony Gilroy had this axi and we told his writers where it's like leave more toys in the box than you took out. Don't just be like a kid bashing up action figures create for others. The Darth Vader series gave us Dr. Afra, one of the best Star Wars characters.

I'd love to see her in live action too. You know, I think, Ryan, it occurs to me that like one of the pitfalls of adapting a like a series around Vader is like, it gets grimmer and grimmer the more we learn about him, right? Like, the redemption story of him has already been told in Return of the Jedi, right? Like, we already, we've already seen how it ends, you know, his happy ending, quote, unquote. Everything that is revealed to us in these shows and in Rogue One is just him murdering people. Like, becoming less and less human. So I do think it's like, you know, well, as a Star Wars fan and as a Vader fan, like, as a fan of the character, like, that could be a lot of fun.

I don't know how many, I mean, how many episodes of him just seeking, hunting down people and killing them with, like, no compassion or any empathy, like, that we can root for. But again, I'm going to go to the comics here. That's what made Dr. Afra such a good foil for him, is that she was by his side and was trying to figure out how to not get murdered by him the entire time. So she kind of became a proxy protagonist for us. But then there's also, there's stories where he has gone to planets that he knew as Anakin, where he and Padmay were. Like there's a great novel, Thrawn Alliances, where it goes back and forth between Anakin meeting Thrawn during the Clone Wars and Darth Vader with Thrawn in the present day. There's things they could do there, Liz, that would combine both of your thoughts. You know, what do you think, how do you think a Vader series could work given what Tommy just said that it's kind of hard to root for a guy who's just murdering?

Yeah, I think that's a fair comment. I would say, I know from the comics, there are two stories I would be really interested in, one of which is when he has his hypercountercels. crystal that he turns to red for his lightsaber, which we haven't seen on screen. But in the comics, he actually has this really incredible moment of conflict, which we don't get outside of, you know, Revenge of the Sith before he really takes that fall. He has this incredible moment of conflict where he's experiencing, seeing Padme, seeing Obi-1, and it suggests that he gets pulled more toward the light for a second. So I think that would be really interesting.

I'd also love to see his attempts to resurrect Padmae because that has always felt, it's in the comics, but it's always felt like a gap for me in the shows because Padmae hasn't really been mentioned by name very often. And so I think that's something that I would like to see because it's such a natural progression of his story. Of course he would be obsessed with resurrecting Padma. Yes, he choked her on Mostapar, but of course he would want to resurrect her. So I think that would be interesting.

And to answer your other question, I think for me, it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive to explore new stories and also draw from the resources they know work for fans. Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, they are always going to get audiences pulled back in for better or worse. And, you know, not to be grim, but we have a limited amount of time where that can really work. And so I think take advantage now while they're both interested while they can deage a little bit. So for me, I love new stories, but I'm also not of the camp that's like no more Skywalker's because I love the Skywalkers. Me too. I'm with you. You know, we could also get into, you know, telling me some of these stories in an animation, right? I mean, a lot of, I've talked earlier about showing Luke post-return of the Jedi. You could do it in animation if you don't want to recast

Leah, you know, or anybody like that from that era. If you want to include Hana, and you could totally do that. I mean, Luke, you've got to admit some of the animation stuff they're doing is some of the best Star Wars of the Disney era. But Tommy, I'm taking time away from you here. What is it you want to see TV show focus on next? Yes. Well, you know, I say this with my tongue slightly in my cheek, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it is something I've never been able to apply to my own life. But I think Star Wars needs to apply. I would like the creative team behind Andor to do a show set on the Yavin Rebel Base. I think, and I would like them to keep a similar structure to season two of Andor, where each year is three episodes. And we can explore

from the creation of the base all the way up until, you know, the destruction of the second death star. You know, like how just, and we have so many characters we can pull from from Star Wars, rebels, from books, from comics, all of these characters that are fan favorites. Now, that could turn into a bit of a love boat type show where it's like Celebrity of the Week. Yeah, I was about to say, it sounds a little bit like we're going to do a sitcom with a laugh track and it's going to focus on the doctors in the war and they're going to yeah right well i mean listen my my my brain that only produces you know critically panned material would love that i would i would personally tune into that show every week but i do think you could make you know keep it in the tone of and or this is

war we are in a rebellion right now there are huge losses and huge gains being made every day and there's these decisions that are like one person waiting just a second too long can like put the entire rebellion in jeopardy or one person making an impulsive decision and giving someone permission to go off on a secret mission can jet can propel the the rebellion forward i just think like the the soil is fertile for that type of material right now and they have the right team in place i don't know that tony gilward want to jump in and do another show anytime soon but there are other people that worked on that show that that can follow his message other writers and obviously the team that made and or look the way it looked uh so that's really

what I, if I had my druthers, what I would have. Well, let me, let me advance that just a step further. I got an idea. I'm going to build on it like we're in a writer's room. I like that. For one thing, I'm going to go ahead and add in the caveat. Maybe it could be animation, but I prefer live action. And you're right, there are other people involved besides Tony Gilroy,

give an executive producer credit. So he makes the money on it. But that show did leave us with Wilman. It left us with Vell. It left us with, you know, probably not Bix because she's going to be raising her kid, but it left us with all the, Clea, all these other characters, we don't really know the fate of. Hell, even Deirdre Mira, what happened to Dejra after you haven't?

But if you read the comics and you watch Rebels, you know there's all these characters floating around like Kess Dameron, you know, Po Dameron's mother, all these different people who are out there at the same time, but we never got to see them interact. I always thought Star Wars Rebels before it came out was going to be about the rebellion as we know it. Now, it was interesting to see it form from one cell to join others,

But I was always disappointed, Liz, that the scope never increased beyond Lothal and characters I didn't care about, like Ezra Bridger. What are your thoughts on, like, a Rebel series that I hate that character. He's a Luke proxy. That's it. He's just another Luke to sell little lightsaber blasters to kids. His journey undermines the journey of Luke Skywalker, take him out of that show, makes Sabine the May character, and the show dramatically increases. I'm going to make a video about this, I promise. It's just I get so visceral when I talk about how much I can't stand.

that character is. My hair's standing up on my arms just based on your passion. I can't. I just, I get that it's a show for kids, but like if you watch the whole thing chronologically, you watch this, oh, wow, this Ezra guy seems like he's the main character. And they're like, oh, he's not. Which, by the way, it's hilarious. And if you guys have watched Andor, then Rogue One, the New Hope, but it's hilarious to see Han and Luke swoop in and get medals at the last minute after everything else these guys have done. And people complain about Chewbacca not getting a medal, Where's clay as metal? Where's Cal's Cal's metal?

You know, where's Cassian's made one of the wall? Yeah. There should be an entire wall of like a memorial wall to all the people who gave their lives in much more high stakes. I'm sure there is. They gave one of the clones, but it was like in a part of Corrassant nobody ever went to. Liz, what about you? I want to give you a shot here. What do you think about a rebellion series, live action, or otherwise?

I would love that. And I think one thing I was so glad and or didn't do, I like briefed a sigh of relief at the end. of season two was they didn't make these characters linked to the major heroes of the original trip, for example. So the rumor that Clea was really Leia, I hated, in part because it's so goofy to think her cover name would rhyme with her. Yeah. Just put a K.L. in front of it. No one's going to notice. Yeah. Or that she was Cassian's sister. They didn't do any of that stuff because not everybody's going to be related in a galaxy full trillions of people. Yes. And I think that was so realistic too, right? It's not realistic that he would have found his sister. And I think it's beautifully

painful that in the end he never does, right? We know he dies in Rogue One. So that's never a resolved plot. And we don't know what happens to her. I know a lot of people are assuming she died, but I think it's almost as sad to think she's just out there somewhere. Um, so I never knew her brother was a hero. Right. Right. I think that's realistic. So, I would absolutely love that. There was another rumor that Luton was a Jedi survivor of Order 66. I'm so glad that was... Yeah, we did a video on that that I didn't think was accurate,

but there was this like Star Wars Insider short story that was about a former Jedi-turned art collector, and I was like, all right, I got to mention this. Like, this is too interesting to... Yeah, but I'm glad they didn't do it. So I would love that. I love rebels, though. And I do think Canaan is one of the best examples of a Jedi we get in Star Wars.

I just absolutely love him. I think he's such a good example that attachment is so much more complex than I think the prequel trilogy because he doesn't, he's not possessive, right? And that's the big difference between, I think, Canaan and Anakin in terms of their romantic ties is Anakin was very possessive, especially of Padma. A little bit. Yeah, just a little bit, yeah. Well, and in the way you mentioned it earlier, but in the way Anakin tries to resurrect Padmae,

is also very possessive because he's not trying to do it for her at all. He's doing it for himself and never even seem to, I mean, you know, never mind. Yeah, he's doing it for himself. You're absolutely right. Do you think, just to circle back to what's really important here, Liz, do you think Ezra's a good character or do you think that the show's dramatically improved without him? I mean, I also like rebels. Rebels have some good episodes, but then they also have episodes where Ezra calls himself Jabba the Hut that make me want to throw things at my TV. What was your thoughts on Ezra? So here's what I'll say about

Ezra. I think Imana Spondi is one of the best casting choices Star Wars has ever made. I absolutely love him. I love how much he adores Ezra. I got to see him in person in Philly last year. And he's really sold me on this character. I don't know if you follow him on social media or I've seen his post, but he lives and leaves Ezra. And that's great. That's great. Great. He and I are on opposite sides of the Ezra spectrum. I can't think of somebody I would follow less on Instagram. The guy who's always posting about Ezra. My sworn enemy of the Star Wars galaxy.

Well, but see, the core of Ezra for me, though, goes back to kind of what I mentioned earlier. And look, Star Wars is a restaurant, order whatever you want off the menu. And that's why I think shows like the Akely, which focus on a Sith protagonist, it shows like Skeleton Crew. They all fit, even Andor, which is more mature. I do struggle with like a lot of the stuff Faloni's done in live, like specifically Asoka, because one, it's Rebel Season 5. Two, it's a bad Rebel season five. I never understood why nobody was ever really given concrete motivation related to their character, in my opinion.

So, but I don't want to, that's a whole other video. My point is that at Lucas film, there is this like push, pull between something new and something nostalgic. So in a broader sense, we've had fun talking about specific things, but how do you guys think they negotiate? that going forward. Is Andor the perfect balance? Is it perfect Star Wars because it's the right combo, familiar and new? Whoever wants to take the question, go for it. It's really tough to answer because they've had such struggles doing it so far. Like when Force Awakens came out, everybody, an instant reaction was, what a triumph. And then the analysis started rolling in and how similar it was to a new hope and how, wow, we really just got fed a bunch of member berries or whatever

you want to say and all of a sudden people soured on it and the in the whole entire uh uh sequels trilogy kind of became a you know maligned for better for better you know without a better more eloquent way to put it i i just don't think that i think you have to have the base of the original george lucas storytelling in pretty much every project i think anytime you try to get too far away from it like the threads we can too much for like the average fan like the average star wars fan has these like 10 characters in star wars that they know vader obiwan luke lea cheery and they characters have to at least kind of resemble those archetypes or literally have their names or use their old weapons so i mean that's just

my opinion i would love if they took big risks but i think in order to succeed you kind of have to keep going back to like the original tree and taking like you know seeds from that tree and planning them rather than just trying to, like, you know, create a completely new orchard. Well, I've got a thought on that I think is, I think you're half right. But first, I want to hear what Liz has to say. So I'm going to take it in a different direction. I hope that's all right. I think for me, the push and pull. Get him. No, no, no. Drag me. Get him. Of course it's all right. I have a different sort of talking point, which is I think they don't know what to do with the divisive nature of the fan base.

And I think the push and pull is, do we acquiesce to this division? Do we appeal to the loudest voices? Or do we proceed, you know, however we see fit? And so I think that is part of the push and pull from my perspective. And I think that's really a shame because my opinion is there are always going to be those people who are just here to bash Star Wars because it's not. engagement. Yeah, as a moneymaker for several prominent people online just to hate everything Star Wars puts up. Who are really boring people because you already know what they're going to say before

they open their stupid mouths. So let me just kind of combine your two points here. One thing that makes Star Wars Star Wars, says for one thing, there's never been a better Star Wars writer than George Lucas. And what made Star Wars was, it was a mix of his personal experience and political viewpoints, but also he took the familiar in the new. He combined westerns and sci-fi and all this other stuff into one mix. I think when you look at some of the best, most successful Star Wars storytelling, they have said, like John Favreau said, when they made the Mandalorian, they wanted to go back to the things that influenced George. And I think, for instance, Dave Filoni has a tendency to make things to just keep continuing the stories of George, or keep continuing and adding to it,

instead of going back and saying, okay, so what kind of story of retelling? What are our themes? What can we draw inspiration from? And what sets Andor apart is Andoror, you know, I forget the guy's name, the writer of episodes 10 through 12 was a student of revolutions. Tony Gilroy studied revolutions for years because that's what he was interested in. So when you rewatch that,

you see inspirations from films like Soikuba or the Battle of Algiers mixed in with real world, you know, like the Russian Revolution. All of that mixed together and then placed in the Star Wars Galaxy is what gave you Andor. You know, other things maybe haven't resonated

with audiences because they haven't had that starter theme or because they, like, I think the acolyte got too muddled and confused about what its narrative was actually about for a while and twins. And I think it just got too esoteric. And I think with the acolyte, it just, the time jumps back and forth didn't work. So for me, I think Star Wars always boils down to the familiar and new, personally. I agree. And I think that was really well said, what you said, Liz. I think that that was, I think, the correct.

Really, ultimately, it's kind of the thing that's always uncomfortable to talk about. but probably the most true is like, yeah, there's just a lot of, there's a, there's not a lot, but there's a very loud subsection of the fan base that seems to get the majority of the air time when it comes to like talking about these projects on certain social media apps, and it just gets exhausting. Yeah, and I, Liz, I just don't engage with them. Like, honestly, I'll see something outrageous that some idiot said, and I'm like, I just don't, just they exist in a vacuum to me.

But I want to thank you both for joining. I want to just in a second tell you guys my number one pick for the, for the Star Wars story that I think they should do in live action or if we have to animation. But first, I want to thank Tommy and Liz for coming on. You can find their social links below. Liz writes for screen rant, other sites. And just a fantastic Star Wars fan. Thank you both for coming on. Now, earlier I mentioned that they should adapt some of the better Star Wars novels. And my top pick for this is a great book by Claudia Gray called Star Wars Bloodline. This is a conspiracy thriller that takes place five years before the Force Awakens. It

details the political struggles in the New Republic with two major parties. The centrist, who are more pro empire and want more government control and the populace who want a decentralized government. So Leah teams up with a member of the opposition party and they uncover a vast conspiracy that is funding a group that turns out to be the first order. I think a book like this is essential for the sequel trilogy. Like it always bothered me how after Return the Jedi we just pick up and the empire suddenly back. It makes the history and accomplishments of the original trilogy seem hollow. But this book actually shows how this happened. The failures in government and human nature that led to the rise of fascism. And

This series could even lay more groundwork for Snoke and the return of Palpatine. Like, I doubt they could get Adam Driver, but if he did, it would be amazing to see his fall to the dark side play out on screen, even if it's animated instead of live action. Most of us would say that the sequel trilogy was overall a disappointment. So why not create a series that bolsters and improves that trilogy? We can see the rise of the first order, see Luke's arrogance leading to his fall, see Han and Chewy become race car drivers, which is exactly what they do in the book, by the way. Give us something familiar but new.

I mean, there's nothing more Star Wars than that. But guys, what do you think? What TV do you want to see Lucasfilm make next? What are the mistakes you think they've made? Let me hear your thoughts down in the comments or at me on Twitter, blue sky threads, or on our free-to-join Discord server, links for all of those are below. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe and smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie.

Thank you.