Earlier this week, a sketchy Star Wars rumor made its way around the Internet. In a nutshell, the rumor claimed that casting calls were put out for the twin sibling characters of Jaina Solo and Jacen Solo, two young Jedi in training. Along with it came a complete breakdown of what would happen to these characters over the course of Episode VII, Episode VIII and Episode IX. Sure.
The director of Episode VII, J.J. Abrams, is the same director who still won't admit that Khan is the villain in his Star Trek movie that came out a month ago, yet he's going to mail out the synopsis of three Star Wars movies to who-the-hell-knows? Anyway.
Not to mention that the Solo twins -- children of Han Solo and Princess Leia -- are Expanded Universe characters, something we've already been told won't be used as a reference for the new films. (For what it's worth, Hitfix's Drew McWeeny fairly convincingly debunked this rumor.) Regardless of all that, telling a story of young Skywalker children training to be Jedi would be a mistake for a few reasons. The main reason being that Jedi are boring.
Yes, Jedi are boring. Boring!
The original Star Wars trilogy had very little to do with Jedi. We heard about the myth, but we didn't know a lot about them. The original trilogy was about the Rebel Alliance's struggle against the Galactic Empire. Sure, to help defeat the Empire, Luke Skywalker went through Jedi training, but he doesn't become a Jedi until Return of the Jedi. Not coincidentally, Luke didn't become boring until Return of the Jedi. I mean, sure, Luke whined a lot in Star Wars, but at least he had a personality. (Luke Skywalker was only legitimately cool in The Empire Strikes Back. He made out with girls -- yeah, it was his sister; whatever, he didn't know -- and wore cool beige fatigues.)
Now, the prequels are littered with Jedi. Most of the main characters are Jedi. Not surprisingly, there are very few interesting characters in the Star Wars prequels. I have nothing against Jedi, I just liked them better when they were all dead. Jedi were always better left up to the imagination. I mean, the original trilogy is about a scrappy group of freedom fighters who, against insurmountable odds, defeat their much larger enemy. The prequels are about god-like characters with super powers who live by a code that removes pretty much all fun from their lives. I wouldn't want to spend my Friday night hanging out with a Jedi, let alone watch three more Star Wars movies about these people.
In the original Star Wars, there is barely any Jedi nonsense. Perhaps unsurprisingly, everyone loves that movie. Think about it, not one object flies through the air through any sort of Force power at any time during Star Wars. Ben Kenobi tricks a Stormtrooper and Darth Vader chokes an Imperial officer, that's pretty much it -- and at the time, before we learned more about Jedi in later movies, both of those things could have been considered mind tricks. Even when we hear Ben talking to Luke during the assault on the Death Star, we're not 100 percent sure if that's actually Ben or just a voice in Luke's head. It wasn't until The Empire Strikes Back that we started to see some real Jedi power. Anyway, my point: less Jedi is more Jedi.
The conventional wisdom about the new films still seems to be that it will be about the offspring of characters from the original trilogy. So, yes, a Skywalker descendent trains to be a Jedi, turns to the dark side, then becomes a Sith (which, spoiler alert, is what happens to Jacen Solo in the books). This is already the plot of the prequels; there is no way that the next movies will resemble anything remotely like the prequels. (The now Disney-owned Lucasfilm already seems to be distancing themselves from the prequels as we lead up to Episode VII, but that's a subject for another time.)
I am not going to sit here and tell you that I know what a perfect plot to the next three Star Wars movies should be. I do know that I want to see Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia again. I do know that I want to see the Millennium Falcon fly again. And I do know that I would rather hear about the Jedi than see Jedi. (Well, other than Luke. He gets a pass.) I do not need to see another snotty kid being trained to be a Jedi. If you want to see hundreds of Jedi flipping around, go watch the prequels again. I have become convinced that's there just no way to make a Jedi interesting. (Yes, Alec Guinness' Ben Kenobi was interesting, but he was playing more of a wise sage in Star Wars, as opposed to a full-fledged Jedi.)
The original Star Wars movies worked because we related with Han, Luke and Leia. It's impossible to relate with a Jedi. Also, who would even want to relate to a Jedi? They're boring.
Mike Ryan is senior writer for Huffington Post Entertainment. You can contact him directly on Twitter.