'Star Wars' Spinoffs to Be Origin Stories: Does This Risk Making Prequel Trilogy Mistakes Again?

While Disney has never said it's going to pretend the Star Wars prequels never happened, the studio's actions since buying Lucasfilm have definitely made it look that way. Disney is making the Sequel Trilogy finally happen, with original Star Wars stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford rumored to be returning. Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the acclaimed animated series set between Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones and Stars Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, was canceled quickly after Disney's Lucasfilm purchase was announced. Everything that Kathleen Kennedy and Episode VII director JJ Abrams have said make it sound like the studio is serious about returning to the look and feel of the Original Trilogy.

All of that is why when Disney Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo said on Thursday that the standalone spinoff Star Wars movie released between the three installments of the Sequel Trilogy would be origin stories, I was a bit surprised. This fits in with previous rumors we had heard that Boba Fett, Han Solo or Yoda could be in line their own films, but is Disney risking repeating the mistakes of the Prequel Trilogy?

Even if the prequels had managed to match the quality of the original Star Wars movies, they were always at the disadvantage that audiences knew how they would end. Spoiler alert: Anakin Skywalker was always going to become Darth Vader. Sure, the steps to get there still had to be filled in, but unless George Lucas had pulled some crazy and revealed that the Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace Obi-Wan Kenobi had died during the Clone Wars and was replaced by an evil clone who we eventually saw train Luke Skywalker during the original Star Wars movie, the ending had already been written.

I don't want to see Yoda or Han Solo's origin stories. We already know way too much about Yoda thanks to the prequels. That knowledge has diminished his introduction in The Empire Strikes Back. Do we want to do that to Han Solo too? Isn't it cool that we meet him at the same moment Luke does in the cantina? What else is there to tell about Boba Fett? Attack of the Clones showed us where he came from. The Clones Wars cartoon filled in some of the gaps.

The new Star Wars movies should advance these stories forward. Tell us what comes next. Reveal secrets that we don't already know the ending to.