Imagine the potential of a Clone Wars style TV series set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.
Luke “YOLO” Skywalker with a laser sword, no master, no training, bullshitting his way through the galaxy and somehow saving everyone despite having absolutely no idea??? what he’s doing????
Han “I won’t say I’m in love” Solo having a midlife crisis because he’s supposed to be a scoundrel?? But now he’s a rebel GENERAL and not sure how that happened? Also he may be in love with a actual princess what even is his life now???
Leia Organa being the youngest general in history, who can command a entire resistance but not legally order a drink yet. Who also accidentally uses the force on a regular basis but purposefully ignores it because there is already one feral wizard on the team and she has a actual job thank you very much.
Chewie having the time of his LIFE watching Han and Leia stumble around each other, providing the WORST wingman advice in the history of the galaxy. Also Wookie’s can live 600 years so there’s a damn good chance he’s heard of another reckless General Skywalker with a laser sword and should he mention that? No? Nah it’s probably nothing.
R2D2 knowing DAMN WELL who Darth Vader is and knowing Luke and Leia are twins and not telling anyone because he ain’t no snitch. Also he knows Tano and Ezra are out there somewhere and could train Luke but nah, this is way more fun.
Ahsoka “living cryptid” Tano trying to do her own shit when she hears about a Skywalker with a blue lightsaber running around and not believing it, nope, fake news.
Darth Vader realizing Luke is his son and losing his damn mind because we never got to see his reaction. Padme and he have a child who’s alive and force-sensitive and he’s on the wrong but he’s such a good pilot Vader’s so proud.
Vader banging his head on the wall because he searched for Obi-Wan for TWO KRIFFING DECADES and of COURSE the bitch was on TATOOINE with Vader’s SON, who was living under his REAL LAST NAME
Vader wondering how the hell Luke got R2D2??? and C3PO?? And is that his old lightsaber??? Palpatine sir we need to talk.
Like imagine the shenanigans. The character development. The pure chaos of THREE SKYWALKER’S alive at the same time.
Like:
Luke watching old Holo Vids of Clone War jedi and trying to copy the moves in his bedroom and Leia stop laughing this is serious jedi business LEIA-
“Luke why is there a hole in the wall shaped like your foot?”
“…Have you ever heard of Ataru?”
Luke and Han offering to teach Leia hand-to-hand and she absolutely wipes the floor with them. Han’s in love; Luke is in pain.
Han and Leia have to go undercover as a married couple for a mission and it goes as well as you think.
Luke Skywalker being the Chekov of the Alliance.
“Oh good, he’s nineteen.”
“We need someone to undertake this extremely risky mission-”
“I can do that! I can do that!”
Captain Rex still working for the Rebel Alliance, running into Luke and R2D2 in the hallway and having Vietnam flashbacks.
Rex telling Luke about Clone War Era Anakin - never saying he became Vader, but making sure Anakin’s son knows who his father really was. Rex becoming Luke’s family, because this kid lost his entire life in like 5 hours someone help him please
“Uncle Rex!”
*choking back tears* “Yeah, kid?”
Force Ghosts like Obi-Wan, Windu, and Plo Koon popping in at random to give advice. They regularly bicker with each other, but Luke and Leia are the only one’s who can see them. Han see’s them talking to themselves and is concerned
Cobb Vanth calling the Rebels for help when Imperials set up mines near Moss Pelgo. Can’t believe when old Wormie Lar’s shows up
“I blew up the Death Star!”
“Sure, Wormie. And I’m gonna be the town Marshal someday.”
“Yeah, you left your part-time job a Peli’s garage without warning her she’s might actually kill you.”
Other force-sensitives in the Alliance besides Luke. Luke having friends who understand because they’re just as scared and confused. None of them have any idea what they’re doing but they’re all doing their best, ok?
Luke meeting a force-sensitive Mandalorian named Korkie Kryze who looks a LOT like a young Obi-Wan and he has questions
Luke: *Finds a Sith Holocron* “Oh cool!”
Obi-Wan’s ghost: “Put that thing back where it came from or so help me-”
Han dodging both Boba Fett and Cad Bane. Han and Din knowing each other from past jobs.
Din taking a bounty on Han Solo and Chewie. Din going after LUKE, because he thinks he’s Han’s new crew member and look this isn’t personal, please stop looking at me like that
“Call me…uh, Wormie!”
“…Mando.”
(Luke doesn’t recognize him later in his shiny new armor. Din not recognizing Jedi!Luke later because he met a boyish farmboy and wait what do you mean that Jedi was Wormie, Han Solo’s smuggler co-pilot?!?!)
A grown-up Omega joining the Alliance. Sabine Wren and Leia training. Fennic Shand popping in as a anti-hero. Mentions and references of the Rogue One crew. Cara working in the alliance as a shock trooper and getting a proper backstory.
Just…original trilogy expansion WITHOUT betraying the characters (looking at you, Sequeal! Luke) or dramatically changing the original plot. Yeah, that takes some finagling but hey it worked last time.
Watching them go from ‘allies of convenience’ to ‘I will walk out of a base during a snowstorm on Hoth to find you’ friends.
*Add any other ideas you have!
I love this so much. Had Lucas not sold to Disney and TCW finished as intended, I could easily see them having done this (and still called it Star Wars: Rebels, since its a good name).
So let me throw a few ideas into the ring:
- Lots of nods to what is now Legends. I love how TCW used to casually nod to older lore, especially with things like Bane and Revan in the Yoda arc.
- Foreshadowing for future events, mostly ESB and RotJ but also beyond. In the Disney era that’d (unfortunately) be sequel trilogy stuff, but I can imagine this in an older era and getting a scene of Palpy musing about threats past the Outer Rim and the camera forebodingly panning over a Yuuzhan Vong skull or a mural of Abeloth or something like that.
-Palpy dropping lore from every past Sith Lord under the sun as “inspirational quotes” to Vader. By the show’s end, every Sith Lord from both canons has had a mention.
- On Han repeatedly failing to repay Jabba… He loses the money multiple times and every time he gets it back he tells Leia he’ll totally go to Jabba this time, but then Rebel shenanigans happen and he never does.
- Leia gets lightsaber scenes. Obviously she can’t go into training here no matter which version of the lore’s used, but at one point Luke’s captured, she carries the saber til he gets back and ends up needing to use it to defend herself, finding herself surprisingly adept for a first timer. Part of her slowly realising she’s force sensitive, alongside seeing ghosts.
- Luke repeatedly runs into Clone Wars era characters who see Anakin in him immediately. He ends up rescuing a Rebel sympathetic senator at one point and its fucking Jar Jar, who will happily espouse how the kid is just like his dad.
- Ahsoka repeatedly crosses paths with the gang and becomes a trusted ally, but refuses to train Luke. She quickly realises he’s basically her nephew, but doesn’t clock he and Leia are twins til force ghost Obi-wan pulls her aside privately (an actual reunion after Luke told her Vader killed him) and drops the facts. Obviously she has to keep it to herself, though.
- Final season jumps from after ANH to between ESB and RotJ as an epilogue to it all. The running gag of Han not paying Jabba is replaced by the gang repeatedly failing to recover carbonite Han. Han also appears in a flashback story or two to balance him not being there.
Thoughts?
Edit: Oh! Bonus thought!
- Show absolutely runs through and into the events of ESB and RotJ, but does the thing the last season of TCW did where it mostly focuses on characters who are in the show but not in the movies as a second perspective for those events. ;)
Ah, what could have been. If nothing else, I would love to hear something about that merc Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors, maybe heard some mention of Rahm Kota and his militia or Garm Bel Iblis (that right there sounds like a dip into an Andor-style recipe of the continued internal politics of the Rebellion). You could even dip into the pre-Remnant lives of some of the Grand Admirals or other Imperial figures such as Zinsj, Terradoc, and Ysanne Isard (if George was sufficiently enthused to bring them up to a higher level of canon).
Well, it's a good thing I have a fanfic going on anyways (I get to blend the changed events of the Clone Wars *and* the Galactic Civil War era thanks to time travel) (that's **not** related to the World Between Worlds, because the direction that quickly took could be a post all its own)
