With Kathleen Kennedy expected to relinquish control of Lucasfilm in 2024, and news on November 21st ofDave Filoni’s ascension to the role of chief creative officer, fans ofStar Warsare bristling to see the sequel trilogy go the way ofStar Wars Legendsand be rebooted.The sequel trilogywent completely sideways, with Snoke being killed in the second act, Darth Sidious being brought back in the third movie (devaluing Vader’s choice inReturn of the Jedi), and the Skywalker line all dying.
Episode 7was a triumphant return for the franchise, but it would become apparent inEpisode 8that this trilogy was begun with no outline. The sequels had two flaws: they did not focus on Luke Skywalker, and the choices of villains were disastrous. The sequels introduced a giant CGI cartoon villain that became an analog for Donald Trump in the second chapter, but the CGI illusion turned into an illusion in the plot in the third chapter. InEpisode 9, we learned that Snoke was a meat puppet being controlled by Darth Sidious from afar. There were many possible conflicts for Lucasfilm to explore in the sequel trilogy, but it just reverted to Darth Sidious. Below, we explore 10 of the best antagonists that could be used in a reboot ofEpisodes 7,8, and9,starring Sebastian Stan as Luke Skywalker, Billie Lourd as Leia Solo, and Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo.
Sovereign Systems and Civil War
What if our starting antagonists of the new trilogy are sympathetic? What if they are the ones on the side of good, but are cast as evil by the New Republic? This option for the story echoes the time we live in, as countries around the world are experiencing a populist political movement towards national sovereignty/identity and away from globalism. For the New Republic, the Sovereign Systems that refuse to join their galactic union are automatically branded as “against us.”
Following the fall of the empire, planets across the galaxy would have celebrated regaining their sovereignty, but shortly after, the New Republic was created, and these planets found themselves paying taxes to a new militarist faction that demanded financing to prosecute their never-ending war against every boogeyman that raises its head in the galaxy (all appearing on this list). From a certain point of view, the New Republic will just evolve into another empire, asBaylan Skoll predicted in theAhsokastreaming seriesand as it actually did in the novels set afterReturn of the Jedi.
The New Republic and Queen Leia
We might enter the narrative of the sequels with a confederacy portrayed as villains, but the true antagonists could be the New Republic, which is nothing more than a monarchy under Queen Leia. She was always a dictator, she was always an authoritarian monarch and a militant. She is everything that was dark in Anakin Skywalker. We have to project ourselves into the mind of Leia, in her early 20s, having lost her entire adoptive planet and family, her wealth and status, and learning that Darth Vader was a true father.
Luke defied his fate to become his father, but Leia embraces the war after the war – she is the one who should have always been the one to fall to the Dark Side in the novels and sequel films. Leia’s destiny to follow the path of her father is projected inReturn of the Jediwhen she takes on a false identity as a bounty hunter in a respirator mask, which augments her voice, making her sound mechanical.
The rebels themselves are foreshadowed to become the fascist thing they are fighting against in the original trilogy. In the final scene ofA New Hope, the rebels host a victory ceremony for Han, Chewie, and Luke in the ancient Sith temples of Yavin IV. The scene ismodeled directly from the Nazi propaganda film,Triumph of the Will.
Mace Windu and the Fallen Order
Mace Windu fell to the Dark Side in his pursuit to kill the Sith. He gave Anakin two options – either the Sith would rule or the Jedi would. Windu is widely believed to have survived his battle with Sidious, which ended in his hand being cut off and him being thrown from the window of the Supreme Chancellor’s office by force lightning. Somewhere in the galaxy, there is an angry, scarred, and aging Windu, with a remnant of Jedi that survived the purge, and who have waited for the fall of the empire, but now that it has happened, it is the children of Skywalker who have taken leadership of the New Republic and the Jedi.
The Fallen, or Dark Jedi, are dark force users who are not believers of the Sith ways. Their lightsabers may or may not be red. Baylan and Shin Hati have red-orange lightsabers. Windu’s saber is purple. The central dividing points between the Dark Jedi and Sith is that they are not bound to the rule of two, and they may maintain a council – there is not a singular ruler/master.
Related:Star Wars: 4 Ways Samuel L. Jackson Could Return as Mace Windu
Darth Malgus
There is a Sith Lord out there in the galaxy, waiting to be awakened and to wage a new war to enslave the galaxy under a Sith empire. Darth Malgus is a human Sith from the days of the Old Republic, 3700 years before the events ofPhantom Menace. Malgus was frozen in carbonite and apparently remains so after the fall of Darth Sidious and Darth Vader. The location of Malgus’ sarcophagus is unknown, and finding it, may be the driving narrative ofEpisode 7.
Darth Malgus wore a respirator over his nose and mouth due to a previous battle wound. His head was bald, his skin pale, and scarred from war. He is said to have murdered the love of his life to destroy the light in himself and cause psychological pain to draw him deeper into the Dark Side. If this Sith were to be found and awakened, it would test Luke Skywalker against one of the most powerful Sith Lords of the Old Republic.
Darth Maul
Following the death of Darth Sidious, the mantle of Lord of the Sith passes toDarth Maul, if the character chooses to assume his position as heir to the Sith in this rewrite of the timeline. Maul was originally part ofGeorge Lucas’ plan for the sequel trilogyas the central villain for the whole trilogy. We last saw the bisected cyborg Zabrak at the end of theSolofilm, confirming he has survived his battle with Obi Wan in the live-action films, as we saw in the cartoons. Qi’ra, played by Emilia Clarke, became Maul’s apprentice, and in this period, whereEpisode 7might be set, a decade afterReturn of the Jedi, she might return under a new name:Mara Jade.
Luke Skywalker facing Maul is poetic. It is Maul who reshaped the fate of the galaxy when he killed Qui-Gon Jinn inPhantom Menace. The fight,as Dave Filoni describes it, was a literal duel of the fates. Had Jinn survived, Anakin would not have fallen to the Dark Side. Obi Wan could not be the master that Anakin needed. Luke’s fate is tied to Maul.
The Pure Sith
The Pure Sith, or Sith Purebloods, were an alien species that founded the Sith Order and established its teachings and traditions. The Pure Sith were humanoids with red skin from the planet Korriban. The males of the species had tendrils at the corners of their mouths, and some had tendrils on their jaw line too. The Sith species were either all killed or the remnant retreated to the unknown regions of the galaxy over a thousand years beforePhantom Menace.
We have never seen a Pure Sith in a movie, and there are no toys of the species, despite their importance to the history of the galaxy. After the fall of the empire, with a Republic in its infancy and marred by civil war against sovereign planets, and with only one Jedi Master left, this period would be the opportunity the remnant has waited for to make their return and fill the power vacuum.
Related:Sebastian Stan Would Play Luke Skywalker: ‘Never say never’
Thrawn and the Nightsisters
Thrawn was a Chiss Grand Admiral in Darth Sidious’ former empire. The Chiss are a blue-skinned species with dark hair and red eyes. Thrawn was the most brilliant commander in the empire and a strategic genius in the art of war. He found himself exiled in another galaxy during the events of the original trilogy of films, which allowed him to escape the fate of the imperials at the Battle of Endor. In the last episode ofAhsoka, Grand Admiral Thrawn, played by Lars Mikkelsen, made his return to the Skyriver Galaxy with three Nightsisters and an unknown cargo. The cargo may be frozen Zabraks who remained on Peridea while the majority of their species fled thousands of years ago and established themselves on Dathomir.
Thrawn is already set up for a potential reboot of theStar Warssequels. His return has been teased through multipleStar Warsstreaming shows, and fans have waited over 30 years to see the character brought to life in live-action. He was first introduced in 1991 in the novel,Heir to the Empire. Fans do not want whatever comes next in theStar Warsfranchise to be an explanation of why Thrawn was missing in the dead horse of a sequel trilogy – they want Thrawn to save them from that narrative.
The finale of Ahsoka left us with Baylan Skoll standing on a mountain carving of the mythological Jedi figure known as The Father. Screen-right, was a carving of The Son, and to the left, the ruined remains of the carving of The Daughter. What Skoll was traveling to in this foreign galaxy is not known, but fans have speculated that Skoll will discover Abeloth, an ancient, Dark Side being, who is the missing puzzle in the family myth, The Mother.
In the books, Abeloth was awakened and becomes the central antagonist for a short time. Abeloth is one of the most powerful Force entities in the books, andthe Jedi and the Sith had to work togetherto defeat her, assuming the roles of The Daughter and The Son in the myth.
More ancient than the Sith, the Rakata were an amphibious alien race with elongated skulls and eyes that were situated on the sides of their heads, similar to the Mon Calamari. The Rakata had two arms and two legs, with three digits on each hand and foot. 30,000 years beforePhantom Menace, the Rakata ruled the galaxy for five thousand years as the Infinite Empire. They used the Dark Side of the Force to enslave the galaxy and to operate their technology, which included the Star Forge, an automated machine that sucked up plasma from stars to use as fuel to manufacture an unending supply of battleships – basically a giant AI-operated 3D printer.
The Rakata’s empire fell to a bioengineered, gene-targeted plague that swept through the species, killing most of the population and disconnecting the survivors from the Force. Whoever created the bioweapon remains a mystery. Like the Sith, some of the Rakata are suspected to have quarantined themselves and journeyed to another galaxy or to a planet in the unknown regions, where they have restored their population, built a new Star Forge, and have quietly planned their revenge for thousands of years.
Yuuzhan Vong
The Yuuzhan Vong were an invading speciesfrom another galaxy in the novels set afterReturn of the Jedi. The Vong were humanoid, but wore living armor that would disfigure their faces and cause them constant pain. With the story moving to a new galaxy inAhsoka, and with the heroes stranded there at the end of season one, there is a greater possibility than ever that the Vong will appear as villains in the near future of the live-actionStar Warsuniverse. We can tell from the condition of Thrawn’s Star Destroyer and his storm troopers, both patched with gold from battles, that something has been giving them trouble in the new galaxy during their exile.
Further evidence of the Vong inAhsokacame in the design of the howler, a new animal species introduced on the planet Peridea. The howler’s design closely resembles the vornskr, a force-sensitive animal in the comics and novels which the Vong mixed with the fero xyn to create the voxyn, a bio-weapon, designed to hunt down and kill Jedi.
