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So last year Star Wars celebrated their 40th anniversary. To celebrate they released a anthology book containing shorts stories about the many side characters in A New Hope writtin by several different writers. Some stories were written by Star Wars Expanded Universe writers like John Jackson Miller, Claudia Gray, Christie Golden, Chuck Wendig, Delilah S. Dawson and Alexander Freed, comic book writers like Charles Soule, Kieron Gillen, Greg Rucka, Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction and even some interesting choices like Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka Tano's voice actress), Paul Dini, Gary Whitta, Meg Cabot, Pablo Hidalgo and even Wesley Crusher himself, Wil Wheaton.
The book and the stories inside it are great. Expands the world, each story is very different and unique. Now given that The Empire Strikes Back is going to have it's 40th anniversary in 2020 and I think it's a no brainer to have a book like this again. So I'm going to write up a list of stories that I think will be told. One thing I won't do is what authors I want to write the stories. The last book had stories that were obviously their authors interpretation. So let's look at what characters we could see.
The Wampa Yes, I'm serious. In the last book they had a story from the perspective of the dianoga that was in the trash compactor. It was a very sad and tragic story from Nnedi Okorafor, but it was one of the best stories in that collection. This could be a strong story which kicks off the book, but also humanizes a creature that we often know just as a monster.
The Soldiers and Pilots Present at the Battle of Hoth So what made the original Expanded Universe (now Legends) work was how it gave backstory, depth and a look towards the side characters. I think the Battle of Hoth is a fertile piece of land of story potential. We could have a tragic story from Dak Ratler's perspective and talk about his history, what Wedge Antilles and Wes Janson did after the Battle of Hoth, General Rieekan commanding from Echo Base and most importantly what happened to the soldier played by John Ratzenberger, Major Bren Derlin.
But let's not make it just about the rebels, maybe we should shine a light on the Imperials. Have a story about General Veers, have a story about with the Snowtroopers on the battlefield and even have on about the people operating the AT-AT's. It's a fertile piece of story potential.
All the Imperials Vader Choked to Death So Vader choked a lot of the Imperial Officers in Empire. Like a lot. I think it would be great to have stories which garner sympathy for those poor unfortunate souls, or not. You make some of these people very unsympathetic and possibly have a bit of cathartic element to it.
The Bounty Hunters
This a no brainer. Each bounty hunter in that single scene has gotten popular with their unique designs and being a bunch of ensemble dark horses for the franchise. We've already had stories about Boba Fett, Bossk and Dengar in the new canon. We could have a continuation of Paul Dini's story but we can have stories about each hunter's own attempt to hunt Han Solo throughout the galaxy.
Emperor Palpatine In From a Certain Point of View, we had Ian Doescher, the writer of the Shakespeare Star Wars books, write a soliloquy for Palpatine. Do a follow up. They did a trilogy of short stories in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy so why not here. Be a fun read.
Lobot So Charles Soule been working his ass off lately in the Star Wars department. He's currently writing two Star Wars comic series (Darth Vader and Poe Dameron). But one of his earlier Star Wars works was a Lando Calrissian mini series in 2015. It was a fun story but it developed Lobot, as we learn about the implants and his love life. In the last book Soule wrote a fun Lando story there, which was a prequel to the comic so make a little sequel to the mini series.
Obi-Wan Kenobi He was a character in the film. Write about his experiences as a force ghost. It's simple.
The Citizens of Cloud City So remember all those extras running around Cloud City. Then give all the memorable Cloud City citizens a story. Do an Ugnaught story about their life working in the carbonite factories of Cloud City. Do a day in the life story about the Bespin Guard. Willrow Hood, the man with the ice cream maker, find out about his story. What I'm saying is do that one Rick and Morty episode.
Maz Kanata Empire was the film where Luke got his hand cut off while holding his lightsaber. We later find out that Maz Kanata, pirate queen and Chewbacca's girlfriend, later owns his lightsaber in The Force Awakens. I think this would be a perfect opportunity to answer that lingering plot thread.
Characters from Solo So the spin-off Han Solo movie is coming out (at the time of writing) and it's written by Lawrence Kasdan, the man who wrote Empire. So I think it would be a great thematic connection to have some of the characters from Solo have their own story. Especially because Han Solo gets frozen in the film. Now this is just pure conjecture because unlike Rogue One, which was basically a war movie you'd expect a lot of the main cast not living through the move (they didn't), but Solo being a heist movie could only few casualties. So it would make sense that one of the characters from this film have own story which would be them reacting to the news of Solo being frozen in carbonite.
So this was my ramblings on a novel that may or may not be published. But hey, conjecture. If my predictions don't come true I won't get stroppy.
