Episode 8 wish list

[Patroklos]

It's probably not too wise to think about Starkiller Base in that kind of detail.

I prefer to think the writers should have thought about it in that kind of detail. Or, maybe at least something more than not at all.

[Zor]

TIE Defenders. A minor point but I want them.

Zor

[The Romulan Republic]

TIE Defenders. A minor point but I want them.

Zor

If we're going for specific ship designs, I'd like to see an Eclipse class Star Dreadnought.

Or just more new, original designs.

[Crossroads Inc.]

All of A New Hope was about establishing just how amazing the Death Star and how much of a threat it was. It was mentioned in the opening titles, the reason Leia was chased by Vader, and the mcguffin of the plot was all about it. In The Force Awakens, by contrast, the entire plot was about finding Luke, with that being reflected in all of the above. Starkiller Base simply appeared and was used with no buildup, and then blown up almost immediately afterwards with no real work involved. There is an entire movie about the buildup to destroying the Death Star coming out in December. Starkiller Base was blown up with a clever trick from Han and incredibly lousy internal security.

The final battle should have reflected the rest of the plot of the movie and instead been about stealing the final map section, as they assumed the First Order had the only copy. You could then instead have a partial victory in that the heroes get out alive and prevent the First Order from finding Luke, but are unable to solve the problem. R2 finally wakes up with the final segment, having finally broken the encryption he has spent the last several years working on, gaining a bit of help from what Rey and Finn recovered.

As for a set piece, you could use something like the Star Forge instead of another Death Star, even using the visual of drawing from the star in a similar fashion. For the problem of dramatic timing, you could have the station trap Leia's command ship with tractor beams, as the First Order wants the section of the map that she controls given that they lost Rey when Han showed up. Destroying the station is the only means to free her, allowing the finale to play out as it did in the film, with Han and company blowing a hole in the station and Poe making his trench run. Leia could have been planning her own escape using a tactic to likely destroy her ship via ramming the station, with her own escape unlikely.

Thus you would have a battle that feels familiar in terms of setpieces, but is actually new in terms of tactics*.

This is by far the single best "re-do" to Ep7 I have seen 'IMHO' in terms of eliminating StarKiller McGuffin, and eliminating a whole host of needless plot devices and really REALLY bad engineering oversights. If I could honest wave a magic wand and re-write Time and Reality... I would like to see Ep7 done with the above changes.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I wish for the next film to respect the EU and not shit all over it like TFA did

And give R2 and C3PO some actual screentime instead of the red-armed cameo farce we just had.