There’s a completely unsubstantiated rumor floating around that suggests Pixar might be taking on some form of Star Wars movie. Why not, right? Disney’s hefty portfolio of subsidiaries includes both Lucasfilm and Pixar, both of which are known for delivering family-friendly products. Star Wars is a proven success in animated formats (see also: both Star Wars: Clone Wars series’), and anyone who’s ever seen a Pixar movie knows that the people there are well-versed in pop culture. The team’s never taken on a licensed property before, but what filmmaker wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to tell a story set in the Star Wars universe?
What’s that? The Disney-owned Marvel Studios has also enjoyed animated success, so why not a Pixar Marvel movie? Shut up, that’s why.
We’re not willing to entertain this rumor as a real possibility – all due respect to Latino Review – until there’s something more concrete than one person making a vague claim about “hearing” something, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun with this. What would a Pixar take on Star Wars look like? Would it be set in the universe or would the story be more meta than that? Would we see anthropomorphized womp rats? Ewok slapstick? Some clever play on the Pixar lamp involving a lightsaber? Here are our long-considered (read: thrown together), scientifically formulated (read: brazenly copycat) pitches.
Kenner-Hasbro Toys Tale
Picture Toy Story, then Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope Then think back on your days spent playing with Star Wars figures, staging epic battles in which arms were torn off and magnifying glasses harnessed the power of the sun to forever disfigure their little plastic forms. Now mash all of that together. Kenner-Hasbro Toys Tale is a rough re-telling of the first Star Wars movie, as brought to life by action figures. The twist is that the Imperial faction is filled out by newer, Hasbro-produced creations with their jointed knees and elbows, while the Rebellion made up of Kenner’s stiff-limbed classics. These tragically pathetic relics of yesteryear try in vain to overcome their physical limitations while Randy Newman sings about their lacking joints.
In the same way that Toy Story functions as a meta-commentary on change and growth, Kenner-Hasbro Toys Tale is a parable for the death of classism, with Kenner’s outdated, robot-limbed armies marching into battle against the bendy elite. You’re not better just because you have the added articulation provided by a few extra tiny screws. Moral of this story: We are all talking action figures. We are all comically adorable. And we all break into tiny little pieces when flung enthusiastically against a brick wall.
TIE Fighterz
This is Cars meets A Bug’s Life (with apologies to Antz for stealing its naming convention). It’s a story that breathes sentience into the Imperial fleet’s workhorse spacecraft: the TIE Fighter. It’s hard to be a TIE Fighter, just one buzzing, unshielded starfighter in the midst of a homogenized swarm. Ty the TIE Fighter should be happy. He’s always surrounded by his brothers and sisters, and he never has to worry about feeling lonely. Yet he’s an outsider. His swarms of siblings are perfectly content to buzz obediently through space in the name of the Empire, even though orders sometimes recklessly send a completely unshielded spacecraft into the certain, fiery explosive doom of a dense asteroid field. Ty dreams of a more enlightened existence. He may be a lowly TIE Fighter, but he’s got the heart of a poet, and he’d rather be a TIE Lover.
Ty’s entire universe is turned on its head when an escaping Rebel spy uses him as a getaway craft. Soon, our plucky little TIE Fighter finds himself surrounded by haughty-yet-broken down X-Wings and Y-Wings. Randy Newman croons about how he’s an Imperial ship with no place to call home, no sense of identity. Ty’s very notion of Self is challenged when the Rebels decide to use him for an infiltration mission. You totally saw that one coming. Will Ty allow himself to be pitted against his former comrades? Or will he discover his true worth and help reduce the worthless, dickish Rebellion to ash – thus saving his swarms of brothers and sisters – before it’s too late?
Adorable Space Creatures, Inc.
Ewoks, Jawas, Tauntauns, even Bantha cubs. The cute and fuzzies of the Star Wars universe exist for one purpose: to delight children (and occasionally help stage a bloody coup against an unfeeling Empire). The Adorable Space Creatures, Inc. circus travels around the galaxy, putting on joy-filled shows for younglings (the ones that haven’t been beheaded by rogue Jedi). That’s how it looks from the outside, at any rate. In reality, the whole cute & cuddly circus is run by a Sith with a nefarious plan to take over the galaxy, planet by planet, community by community.
Every settlement visited is another settlement turned. Only one being has managed to catch onto the Dark Lord’s plans, and it happens to be an Adorable Space Creatures, Inc. outcast with an unfortunate nickname: the Ugly Ugnaught. Can she convince her traveling companions that dark deeds are afoot? Can Randy Newman’s heartfelt tune about channeling sadness and frustration into positive thinking save the day? Even the Ugly Ugnaught is successful, can the cutest, cuddliest beings in the Star Wars universe possibly hope to stand (adorably) against a true Dark Lord of the Sith? This is a Pixar movie, so probably.
2-1B
Poor 2-1B. He’s a medical droid with no purpose. Left alone and abandoned on the ice planet Hoth following a hurried Rebel escape, 2-1B – Toowon, for short – struggles to justify his existence now that the Imperials are gone and he’s surrounded by the bloody remains of his former allies. No one’s going to come back to rescue a lowly droid. Why would they? Toowon knows that he’s likely been replaced by his former owners with the newer 2-1C model, with its bigger, pointier needles and more charismatic personality. So our forlorn robot leaves the ruins of Echo Base behind while Randy Newman sings a dirge about absent friends and gaining strength from a loss.
Shunned by the planet’s creatures that hunger only for flesh and warmth – neither of which Toowon can provide – the lonely, forgotten droid travels freely. Over time, he comes to treasure his peaceful, carefree existence, unbound by material worries like horribly maimed humans or restraining bolts. Toowon settles into a comfortable groove and even builds himself a lovely little ice house out of Tauntaun carcasses. His idyllic solitude is shattered when, one day, he comes across the remains of a destroyed Imperial probe droid. Applying his skills as a healer to the blaster-scarred robot body, Toowon resuscitates the downed droid and quickly forms a friendship with his new Probot friend. That would be a happy ending, if not for the fact that the reactivated probe sends a signal to a nearby Imperial fleet, which recovers the two droids. It’s here that Probot is faced with a choice: continue to obey his former masters or buck against a system that wants to deconstruct his med droid friend piece by piece, in search of Rebel secrets. Yes, it’s like Wall-E. Except this droid is capable of stabbing people with long needles.
Jar Jar Binks Dies Repeatedly
This one’s for the fans. The synopsis is right there in the title: two and a half hours of an adorably animated Jar Jar Binks dying over and over again, in increasingly horrible (and adorable) ways. Also, every time Randy Newman starts to sing, a herd of angry, stampeding elephants drowns him out. Oscar bait.
Got some ideas for your own Star Wars-Pixar mash-ups? Share away in the comments below!
