In a post a few days ago I put forward a few names of science fiction authors who I thought would be wonderful to bring on as screenwriters for any rebooted Star Wars series. One of them was John Scalzi, who I’m a huge fan of. As it turns out, the day after that post, Mr. Scalzi put up a podcast in which, among other things, he discusses whether he would work in the Star Wars universe or not.
It seems he was asked to write a novel in the Extended Universe, and declined. Mostly because he has said some, er, critical things about Star Wars in the past. Given that, and given his critical stance towards the franchise, it seems that I’ll have to take back what I said about him being a good fit for a Star Wars screenplay, right?
Nope. I’m going to stand by it.
Wait, what? How could I say that someone who’s critical of the IP should work with it? Doesn’t that make no sense at all? On the contrary – I think that someone critical of an IP is in fact the very best sort of person to work with it for the simple reason that they aren’t so enamored with the thing that they can’t see where it falls down.
Would you want a fanboy/fangirl blind to the parts of Star Wars that either don’t work or don’t make sense writing a script, or someone who’s going to do his/her damnedest to excise the weaker parts of Star Wars in favour of creating a stronger story, stronger characters, and a stronger universe?
Well… when I put it that way…
So. I’m standing by what I said: John Scalzi would be an excellent choice to bring on for a Star Wars reboot screenplay.
