3 Alternate Plots
Often times while waiting for a next part of a franchise to arrive I like to speculate on what could be the plot line of the upcoming installments. Here are three plot lines that could have been amazing but the creators missed the boat and failed to implement.
Darth Jar Jar
In Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, the much maligned Jar Jar Binks shows 2 particularly important characteristics. First, he is completely innocent, peaceful, and childlike in his naïveté and wonder. He is the representative of those same aspects of the planet Naboo.
Second, Jar Jar is insanely lucky, to the point that, in the Star Wars Universe, it is abundantly clear he has a strong connection with The Force, to the point that he also should be trained by the Jedi if they only took him seriously.
After Phantom Menace, I came up with the plot line that someone did take Jar Jar seriously, and that was Darth Sidious. My idea before episode 2 came out was that Jar Jar would be captured by the Sith and twisted and bent into a Sith himself. Anakin, on seeing this twist of innocence into something dreadfully evil, and having to fight and destroy his childhood friend would be another motivation on his own path to the Dark Side. I later thought that this would give further motivation for his acting out Order 66 on the “younglings” (god I hate Star Wars nomenclature sometimes) in the Jedi Temple. Knowing that they will lose their innocense, just as Jar Jar and now, he has, gives an extra motivation to killing the Jedi children before they lose theirs.
There are lots of conversations on the internet discussing the idea of the Darth Jar Jar theory, or at least as his being force sensitive, but I’ve never seen anyone talk about this angle of Sidious using Jar Jar as a means of turning Anakin to the dark, and I think Lucas missed an opportunity here. It looks like the new Legos Star Wars may have something to tell us about Darth Jar Jar, though. We’ll see.
Gilderoy Lionheart
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets we are introduced to Gilderoy Lockheart, a wizard good at memory spells (erasing and implanting) who would steal the exploits of better wizards to increase his own celebrity and fortune. He writes several autobiographical books outlining his faked exploits, none of which were actually his. We end the book with a visit by H/R/H to St. Mungo’s Hospital to see a very deflated Gilderoy, a husk of his former self-inflated self, remembering nothing.
What I wanted to see JKR do with the character was have him actually read is own biographical books and fully believe that this was his real history. By finally actually believing in himself, he becomes the wizard he always pretended to be. He then sees the opportunity to help his fellow St. Mungo’s inmates and trains them, just as Harry trained Dumbledore’s Army, in the Defense Against Dark Arts.
This sets up re-introducing Lockheart and his St. Mungo’s trainees at a crucial time, with Lockheart heroically aiding the cause. The Battle of Hogwarts becomes very dire at several points, and having Lockheart’s Army coming in to help turn the tide, would have been a perfect resolution and redemption of the character. JKR wasn’t smart enough to see this in her own character, and I keep it as head canon in spite of her failure.
Squid Game Exile
After season one of Squid Game I saw the opportunity to split the narrative for season 2. Our hero Gi-hun was out and rich and motivated to take the game down, but I really didn’t need to see him go through the games again. I thought the creators would agree, and we would see Gi-hun working on the outside to destroy the games. This would give us a glimpse into the international aspect of the games and how the VIPs worked. One thought was even having him infiltrate the VIP’s, (now that he’s rich) and having him work from the outside to bring it all down. The VIP’s, in their gambling on the participants, are playing their own set of games, and we’d get insights on how their part of the system works and what masters are overseeing them as well.
At the same time, Jun-ho, still working the detective side would infiltrate the game itself, this time as a player instead of an employee. There would be some way for he and Gi-hun to communicate and coordinate… perhaps not at first, but as the games get under way they would be able to pass information back and forth to support taking the games down from both directions.
Meanwhile Jun-ho’s brother In-ho has taken over running the game and Jun-ho has the added difficulty of having to hide his identity from him as well as keeping ahead of the game. This sets up confrontation when Jun-ho is unmasked and In-ho has to make a decision where his loyalties lie, with the game or with his brother.
They did do something similar, in Season 2, by having Jun-ho trying to figure things out on the outside with Gi-hun on the inside, but that really limited both of their growth arcs through the season, where as moving everyone up a rung would have really given some more breadth. I honestly don’t know why they chose to have In-ho enter the games as Il-nam did before him. It felt redundant and repetitive. There were some good back and forths between Gi-hun and him, and it does show Gi-hun’s having to juggle his ethics, but it felt like 2 steps forwardin season 1 and 2 steps back in season 2 for both characters, Again, missed opportunities here, which possibly could get picked up for Season 3, depending on how Season 2 ends.
These are representative of how my brain works around these franchises, and how much I wish the creators understood their own characters better. These shows would be a lot more interesting, I think. I’m still interested in how Squid Games pans out, but I’m a little less hopeful for it, and I definitely lost heart in both Harry Potter and Star Wars because of the underutilization and actual mishandling of characters after the early work.