Warning! This story contains spoilers for the entire Loki series.
When it was announced that writer Michael Waldron would be brought on to script the Kevin Feige-produced Star Wars movie, the fandom collectively agreed, “We will watch your career with great interest.”
With Feige being on as a producer, Star Wars fans were unanimously in agreement that the Marvel head would have what it takes to produce a Star Wars movie. And since there’s been a writer attached to his project, it gives us more clues about what we can expect to see from his film.
Waldron is coming over from Rick and Morty, the Adult Swim cartoon, but his most recent project has been the talk of the town: the Loki series.
With Waldron being the head writer for Loki and the scriptwriter for Feige’s Star Wars movie, this made me curious about what Loki’s six episodes would bring to the table. Star Wars and the MCU aren’t so different. They’re branded under the same Disney umbrella. They both contain multitudes of legacy characters. And they’re both diving into the world of live-action television series that interconnect with their broader world of movies.
So, now that the Loki series has officially aired its final episode — of season 1, that is — does this have us looking forward to the Feige Star Wars movie? Absolutely.
Building strong characters
The thing that inspires the most amount of hope for this upcoming Star Wars movie is how Waldron and his writing team were able to create compelling stories for brand new characters. As we know it, the Skywalker saga is over. This means we won’t be seeing much more of the original Star Wars characters that the franchise was built on. (At least, in the movies.)
In Loki, the entire series was basically made up of new characters, and audiences embraced them as if they had been around as long as Loki himself.
Arguably, Mobius and Sylvie stole the show as new characters — both expressing their own complex character nuances in each episode. But even smaller characters like Classic Loki, Kid Loki, Alligator Loki and even the loveable TVA worker Casey were handled with the type of care that makes you instantly fall in love with them. As with any movie franchise, Star Wars’ foundation is built upon its strong character. So here’s to hoping the new movie will do just as good of a job when it comes to creating original characters.
Excellent dialogue
The Loki series, to put it broadly, also displayed a general sense of strong writing skills. But the writing in this, in particular, really shined when it came to character dialogue. Unlike the other two Marvel series (WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), Loki featured long scenes where characters took the time to flesh out their thoughts through these more intimate moments.
We saw this in the very first episode during the screening room scene with Loki and Mobius — and it’s very rare in an action-genre series that you have quieter moments like those where the characters just take time to talk about what they think, who they are, and what their motives are.
The one downside to that, though, was demonstrated during the finale scene featuring Jonathan Majors’ character — who perhaps was given a little bit too much time to monologue at the expense of seeing some more exciting, action-driven scenes. But we’re comparing a series to a movie. So with the shortened amount of time, we’re still likely to see scenes feature strong dialogue between the characters. But they just might not be as drawn out as they are in Loki.
As a quick aside, I’m also looking forward to what humor they will draw into the movie when it comes to dialogue and other situations. Having a background with Rick and Morty will ensure Waldron knows how to hit the comedic notes. But for Loki, he had to scale the humor back to a tasteful amount. And that will likely be the same story for Star Wars as well.
A thrilling plot
Finally, each episode of the Loki series has featured a strong story. And for many of the episodes, it felt like each one was better than the last. An exciting, not-so-predictable plot is exactly what makes any movie good. And after a sequel trilogy that perhaps borrowed too many elements from the original, we could use a fresh Star Wars story to liven things up. True, we have television shows like The Mandalorian that handle some of that heavy lifting. But once it’s time for Lucasfilm to put out these new movies, audiences will want to see… well, new movies.
Much like WandaVision, in Loki, you could never really tell what was waiting for you around the corner. Loki having to hunt down a rogue version of himself? That said version of himself is actually a woman? He then develops feelings for that variant and then teams up to take down the organization that captured them both? There are so many sweet moments and twists in this series, and they absolutely show that writing an exciting plot should not be a problem when it comes to the Star Wars movie. We just may be in for one of the most epic Star Wars movies to date. (Well, we’ll have to see what creative concoctions come out of Taika Waititi’s brain for his Star Wars movie first.)
All in all, Loki had a variety of strengths throughout the season. The excitement for the season finale as well as season 2 inspires hope for his Star Wars movie. And as we watch his career with growing interest, our eyes will be on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which is one of the next big projects he’s penning.
What did you think of the Loki finale? Let us know in the comments.