Editing Star Wars (section)

==The Basic Concept==
Star Wars was originally a series of epic science-fantasy "space operas" that roughly followed the mythic cycle that's been around since Homer. They're set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," [Note: this makes the entire series a fairy tale] where a mysterious life force called (reasonably enough) [[the Force]] permeates everything. This, in turn, can be wielded by certain people, giving them pseudo-magical abilities; thank the Emperor ([[Emperor|no, the other one]]) there were no Commissars in that galaxy. Those who use it for good become mystical, selfless warrior monks called Jedi, whereas those who use it for evil are ruthless, self-serving bastards called Sith. However, the Force must always be in balance, so any time the Sith arise to cause imbalance, the Jedi have to pull together and take them out to restore the natural order (so we are told in the prequels).

A financial, critical, popular and cultural success, these movies are basically the filter through which Generation X perceives the world... for better or worse.

The so-called Original Trilogy (made up of films IV through VI, released from 1977 to 1983) follows a young man named Luke Skywalker as he learns the ways of the Jedi. Meanwhile, the Rebel Alliance is fighting to end the oppressive Galactic Empire which Darth Vader, a Lord of the Sith, serves. The first movie (initially known as just ''Star Wars'' upon release in 1978 - if you can track down an increasingly rare copy of the original cinematic release, you can see there was no subtitle in the opening crawl - but retroactively tagged ''Episode IV: A New Hope'' in later re-releases and remasterings as sequels were made and the series expanded) posits that the military imperium holds the Emperor as figurehead leader of a Senate, soon to be abolished; as the movies continue, we learn that the emprah is secretly Vader's master. Luke's Rebel companions in ''Episode VI: Return of the Jedi'' defeat the evil Emperor, but along the way Luke discovers who's his daddy - ME! Darth Vader! I'm yo daddy because I did this to yo mama. The third movie's novelization, at last, names the emperor: "Palpatine".

In between we got an "<strike>Extended</strike>Expanded Universe", which LucasArts commissioned, and some leaks of variants of the movies' scripts. We learned from the early drafts that "Starkiller" was the first floated name for Luke, that a "padawan" is an apprentice, and so on. We learned from a ''RotJ'' leak that the Empire's base is <strike>Trantor</strike> Coruscant, a city built over an entire planet. The canonical 1996 All-But-The-Movie multimedia ''Shadows of the Empire'' - which was naff despite being canon, you totally don't have to deal with it yourself, excepting Joel McNeely's soundtrack which was awesome - has scenes on Coruscant. The Expanded Universe goes far, far beyond just this; beyond what the movies demand as canon - as it should be, because by Aristotle we shouldn't need to assume facts not in evidence. As for all the masses and masses of extra lore here, see below.

The so-called Prequel Trilogy (made up of films I through III, released from 1999 to 2005) explained how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader and how the Galactic Empire was established. This involves a lot of convoluted politicking in the Republic, which is then torn apart in the Clone Wars, where the Republic (with an army of clones led by the Jedi) fights against the Confederacy (with an army of robots led by [[Necrons|General Grievous]]) with both sides secretly being controlled by the Sith. It was not as well received as the first trilogy, for reasons we'll talk about below.

There's also a so-called Sequel Trilogy (made up of films VII, VIII, and IX), which started in 2015 and picked up the story some three decades after the Emperor's defeat with a new generation of heroes taking on the remains of the evil Empire, which is a group of extremist former Imperials calling themselves the First Order. However, Episode VII aka ''The Force Awakens'', was directed by J.J. Abrams, who's mostly known for the [[skub|skubtastic]] [[Star Trek]] reboot and was widely criticized for ripping off Episode IV (the whole trilogy apes the original trilogy a lot but none as much as VII) and a [[Mary Sue]] protagonist. Meanwhile Episode VIII was written and directed by Rian Johnson who was a young director known for plot twists and genre experimentation on a handful of movies and television episodes that openly said he wanted to "subvert expectations" and make half of viewers dislike his work, then got pissed when half of them disliked his work. The result managed to fracture the Star Wars fan-base over issues of dull rehashing for VII and a whole laundry list of reasons for VIII (ranging from small ones such as it being too different, to major issues like half the movie being filler and the plot not even making basic sense), as well as those who still enjoyed them and very little common ground between the three groups. Abrams returned for Episode IX which got a mixed reception from both those who liked VIII and those who didn't.

The general issue with the sequels is that, unlike prior films, with long lead-times between releases so every film felt special and the creative forces had lots of time to think and drink in reception, Disney wanted to crank out a ''Star Wars'' film every year and a mainline installment every two years, but didn't want to do the legwork. As a result, because there was no plan on what to do in each part of the trilogy and they came up with everything as they went along, but unlike Lucas didn't have time to work things out between it really shows. It really feels like the whole trilogy lacks direction, as it was directed by two guys with conflicting visions, yet almost complete freedom to do what they wanted, including [[derp|undoing stuff done in the other guy's movie]].

Finally, there are the so-called Anthology movies, standalone one-shots involving characters and plot lines that aren't a part of the main "Saga" films, except they kind of are.  The first, Rogue One (2016), is an immediate prequel to Episode IV that follows those Rebel spies who stole the Death Star plans.  The second film follows a young Han Solo and pals Chewie and Lando.  <s>A third rumored one follows Boba Fett</s> Became a series.

There are also four separate TV series. The first one, ''Clone Wars'', was based on traditional animation, whereas the later one, '''''The''' Clone Wars'', was a weird 3D animation. They're both pretty good. There was also a terrible theatrical release that was basically just an advertisement for ''The Clone Wars'', but, since it's quite bad (hint: babysitting Jabba the Hutt's kid), nobody talks about it much. The third series is Disney's ''"Rebels"'' which is set between Episodes III-IV and it takes itself far less seriously than either ''Clone Wars'' did, and is more of a homage to the original trilogy since not every character in the series is the owner of a lightsaber nor are they constantly talking about grown-up politics, senators and trade embargoes, which played a large role in the prequel trilogy and found their way to ''The Clone Wars'' as well. Finally there is ''Resistance'', which only lasted two seasons (for comparison, Clone Wars lasted 7 and Rebels lasted 4) and wasn't particularly well received by the fans, largely due to general lack of interest in the [[fluff]] of the sequel trilogy.

And so, after voicing a Mandalorian character one time in an episode of Clone Wars, Jon Favreau’s ego boner couldn’t contain itself any longer and gave birth to the first live action Star Wars TV series, ''The Mandalorian'' - building on the Disney version of Mandalorians as a sort of [[Eldar Corsairs|weedy, neo space Viking]], which seems feeble when compared to the old EU version of Mandalorians, who were more like space [[Orks|Maoris]]. Still, it ended up being pretty good; good enough for Disney to  go ahead with another <s>two</s> four live action series (because if there is anyone who loves to rub skub into their pores, they are Star Wars fans). The first is a prequel to the ''Rogue One'' film, y’know, to build on the backstories of people you never needed to know about in the first place. The second series will focus on Obi Wan Kenobi’s time in exile after saddling Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru with a kid, though which fans have been begging for for a while. There’s also gonna be a one season series on Ahsoka (from 3D Clone Wars) and one on Boba Fett.

Anyway, that's the basic concept. As to how it's been handled in the interim, and especially since Lucas dropped the reins . . .