Marvel’s season two of What If…? launched on December 22, with nine new animated episodes exploring alternate timelines in the Marvel multiverse. Star Wars fans and even the actor who played Anakin Skywalker in the prequel trilogy have expressed interest in possible alternate histories in Star Wars. And it could happen, as both Marvel and Star Wars are under the roof of the house of the mouse, and Marvel already handles Star Wars comics, formerly published by Dark Horse Comics before Disney acquired Lucasfilm.
Director of What If…?, Bryan Andrews told Moovy TV that a crossover between Star Wars and Marvel was pitched to Marvel president Kevin Feige but was rejected. We are not really interested in Marvel and Star Wars characters battling, but we see room for a one-off of Star Wars stories.
Hayden Christensen has speculated about a Star Wars What If. Culture Crave reported last June that Christensen said that he wanted to see a What If…? in which Anakin did not fall to the dark side.
Responding to Culture Crave, fans endorsed the possibility of seeing alternate Star Wars timelines:
Fans have more interest in a Star Wars What If…? than simply exploring alternate events in the prequels or original trilogy. A large swath of the fandom feels the sequel trilogy, Episodes 7-9, was mishandled, and they want a complete reboot of the films. What If…? is an outlet for fan discontent with the destruction of Luke Skywalker in the sequels. Fans want to see Luke return to glory, as he was destined in the novels that Kathleen Kennedy and Disney erased and re-branded as “Legends.” A What If…? could be proof of concept for fans who want to see Star Wars’ history rewritten.
Duel of the Fates
In episode two of Disney Gallery: Mandalorian, Dave Filoni discussed the importance of a singular event in Phantom Menace that determined the path of everything that would unfold in the galaxy after it. Deconstructing the duel between Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul in Episode I, Filoni said, “What’s at stake is really how Anakin is going to turn out. Because Qui-Gon is different than the rest of the Jedi, and you get that in the movie.
Qui-Gon is fighting because he knows he’s the father that Anakin needs, because Qui-Gon hasn’t given up on the fact that the Jedi are supposed to actually care, and love, and that that’s not a bad thing… So he’s fighting for Anakin, and that’s why it’s the Duel of the Fates. It’s the fate of this child. And depending on how this fight goes, his life is going to be dramatically different.”
The loss of Jinn was the loss of hope for Skywalker, who would be pushed to the Dark Side by the Draconian philosophies of the Jedi, who would not tolerate attachment, affection, love, or families – even practicing the Sith-like modus operandi of kidnapping children from their families and never allowing them to return to them.
If Jinn had survived (and Obi-Wan died in his place), it is thought that Jinn would have removed himself and Anakin from the Clone Wars once it became clear to Jinn that the Jedi were being used as weapons of war. The war played a large role in shaping Anakin into an authoritarian and a soldier. Jinn would have resisted the necessity of the war and would have taken Anakin away, completing his training outside the Jedi Order which had already doomed itself and willingly fought in a war that was orchestrated by the Sith lord.
If Anakin had not fallen, and assuming he still became romantically involved with Padmé Amidala, he would have matured in his skills and power to be capable of defeating Darth Sidious, and he would have been present to raise Luke and Leia. All of Star Wars history would be altered.
But there is another ‘what if’ in the duel on Naboo. What if Darth Maul was victorious against both Jinn and Kenobi? With both Jedi dead or with Jinn dead and Kenobi injured, Maul would have taken Anakin to train him with the intent of overthrowing his own master. The Sith hold no allegiance to each other. Their only law is that the powerful rule. Maul would have seen Anakin, as Sidious saw him, as a weapon to be shaped and wielded against his enemies.
Maul could factor into an alternate timeline at multiple other points, had he discovered Leia or Luke himself. In the animated show, Star Wars Rebels, Maul found Kenobi on Tatooine, though in the show, Maul was defeated by Kenobi. This death is not canon, and we were shown in 2018’s Solo that he was still alive in the years just before A New Hope. Had Maul kidnapped either of the twins, he could have raised them and trained them, just as he would have Anakin, to destroy Sidious.
George Lucas’ original plan for the sequel trilogy was for Maul to return as the central antagonist to Luke and his new Jedi academy. This brings us to the alternate timeline in the decades after Return of the Jedi and the fall of the empire.
Return of the Legends
There is a whole 40 years of divergent history already written for a Star Wars What If…? The novels and comics, now considered Legends, stretch from one year after RotJ through year 40. During the course of Legends, Darth Sidious did return via a clone and was killed by Luke and Leia, but that was early in the continuity. In the years after the second defeat of Sidious, Luke married Mara Jade, a former member of the Emperor’s Hands, and they had a son, Ben Skywalker. Leia and Han married and had three children: first twins, Jaina and Jacen, and then a son, Anakin.
Luke created a new Jedi Order, but his nephew, Jacen, was seduced by the Dark Side and became Darth Caedus. The Legends stories were not a perfect narrative, but fans desired that the central ingredients remain: Luke’s new Order, Mara Jade, Ben Skywalker, and the Solo twins. These are the parts that What If…? can bring to life on-screen.
What was most lacking in the sequel stories of Legends was a villain. The heroes would face clones of Sidious, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Abeloth, and an invading intergalactic species known as the Yhuuzan Vong. George Lucas’ intent to use Darth Maul as the new antagonist remains the best choice. The narrative needed this connection to the beginning. Fans desired such an echo, and when The Force Awakens was released, many fans were convinced that Snoke was Darth Plageius, having survived the attempt on his life by his pupil, Sidious.
If there were an episode set in this timeline in which Luke is married to Mara Jade, we would want to see it blended with Lucas’ sequel plan, with Luke battling the Sith who changed his father’s and his own destiny, Maul.
What If… Revenge of the Sith
The duel between Jinn, Kenobi and Maul in Phantom Menace is the most consequential event for the youth of Anakin. But the duel in which Anakin’s decision would alter his path for the rest of his life came in Revenge of the Sith, when he arrived at Palpatine’s office during the Sith Lord’s battle with Mace Windu. Windu, the greatest duelist in the galaxy, had disarmed Sidious and was on the verge of defeating him, reflecting his lightning back upon the Sith.
Anakin was faced with a binary choice: kill Sidious or kill Windu. From a certain point of view, Anakin faced two different empires. Democracy was not one of the choices available to the young Jedi, who still lacked the fighting experience to successfully slay both men.
The alternate choice of killing Sidious, has been on the minds of fans since they saw the movie in 2005. Despite everything that had gone sideways for Anakin in his youth, this was his opportunity to take hold of his own destiny. He made a choice based on his secret marriage to Padmé.
Had Anakin killed Sidious while he was unable to defend himself, Windu would have been faced with a rebellion in the Senate for assassination/execution of the Supreme Chancellor (basically, the president), with no arrest or trial. The only path forward for Windu, Anakin and the Jedi would be to resist their own arrest and overthrow the Republic, declaring the Jedi Council as the controlling power over the Republic.
What If… The Force Awakens
During the course of the release of the three sequel films, and even after, fans have envisioned a parallel timeline in which Ben Solo never left the Jedi, but Rey was discovered by Snoke Sidious and raised to be a Sith, and to eventually serve as the new host to Sidious’ soul/consciousness. The third film, The Rise of Skywalker, gave us a glimpse of Rey’s alternate fate. Through the years, multiple artists have created concepts of alternate timeline versions of Ben Solo and Finn.
The effect of Luke not allowing himself or Ben to be manipulated into conflict by Sidious would have meant that not only would Luke not have gone into isolation, but his new Jedi Order would have never been slaughtered by Ben. Sidious/Rey would have had to deal with Luke, Ben, and their apprentices. The First Order may never have had the oxygen, provided by Luke’s absence, to have risen. The puppet, Snoke, would have been dealt with by the time when The Force Awakens took place, and Sidious would have been found out by Luke.
Formats Beyond Animation
Marvel’s What If…? has been produced with computer-generated animation with a flat-shaded aesthetic. In a Star Wars What If…?, we want to see multiple formats used across the nine episodes, including hand-drawn animation and live-action. The episodes could never all be live-action. Carrie Fisher has passed away, Harrison Ford is unlikely to return, and Adam Driver expressed his disinterest on the SmartLess podcast in ever participating in anything Star Wars again, saying, “They’re doing stuff, but not with me.”
In December, Driver said on the Rich Eisen Show, “The character was never supposed to soften up and be redeemed as Ben Solo. In fact, the original plan was apparently just the opposite. Kylo Ren was supposed to become more evil during the trilogy, not a conflicted anti-hero.”
We also want this speculative season of Star Wars What If…? to be defined visually from the first two seasons. This can be an opportunity for past animated Star Wars styles to see a return, such as the flat style of the original Clone Wars cartoons, directed by Samurai Jack creator, Genndy Tartakovsky.
What fans really want is live action, if only in one or two episodes – the one(s) in which Anakin does not turn to the Dark Side and the one(s) about a young adult Luke facing Maul. Hayden Christensen wants to play Anakin as a Jedi Master, defeating Sidious and redefining the rules of the Jedi. Likewise, we want to see the lightsaber duel between Luke and Maul in live action, with fan-cast favorite Sebastian Stan, stepping into the role of Luke. The CGI/deepfake monstrosity we saw in The Book of Boba Fett is not welcome.
