“My sequel anime is also named Bort.”

Also, I’m being glib when I call Peter Cushing “Just Some Guy,” as when you have Cushing acting in your film, you’re gonna use him. But it does reinforce that Vader is basically a cool design first and anything else a distant second.

Like, Vader is a cool design, yes, but he’s also just a non-character in two out of the three onscreen appearances he had prior to the prequel trilogy.

When I was a kid, we had a VHS tape that had the following three films in order:

Return of the Jedi
King Kong vs. Godzilla
Gremlins

It’s like the Alien trilogy, in a way. Little guys-> BIG guys -> little guys.

I used to love that movie as a kid, and as an adult I found that there’s so many jokes and details that flew over my young head.

“But the liquor store guy… he knew” is such a great joke no child is gonna understand.

The Alien franchise was at its best when it was just a series of really good directors doing total genre reinventions vaguely centered around a(n upscale) creature feature script. Just go back to that: grab an interesting up-and-comer and let them cook, and ignore all the franchise shit.