The year 2025 marked the sixth without a new Star Wars movie in theaters since The Rise of Skywalker concluded the Sequel Trilogy. In the past few years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC superhero films have struggled with consistency at reaching their prior levels of box-office earnings and fan satisfaction. We found it interesting, then, that two 2025 superhero movies – the MCU's rebooted The Fantastic Four: First Steps and DC's new iteration of Superman – showcased several prominent storytelling elements that we wish Lucasfilm had been able to incorporate into the Sequel Trilogy, as we talked about on the blog and podcast when the Sequel Trilogy was in development and production. On this episode of Hyperspace Theories, Tricia Barr and B.J. Priester discuss how these two movies show the path that Star Wars missed in advancing new and important ideas for today's heroic tales.

These two superhero movies have three big ideas in common that would have worked well for the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, too. First, neither First Steps nor Superman is an origin story. The titular characters, the Fantastic Four quartet and the Metropolis icon, are already established celebrity superheroes on their worlds when the movies begin. Rather than learn how to use their powers, they instead face the challenges of how to use their powers – and what to do when their powers can't solve the problem they're facing. Second, both movies are focused on themes of family and teamwork, rather than the lone-hero formula so familiar from Joseph Campbell's monomyth. The Fantastic Four has two siblings, a husband, and a best friend, and each of them has a character arc. James Gunn's Superman finds support from several superhero allies while Clark Kent relies on his colleagues at The Daily Planet to help carry the day, and his emotional journey in the films is inseparable from his connections to his birth parents on Krypton and the adoptive Kents on Earth. Third, both The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman are works of aspirational heroic fiction, fitting audience expectations for the characters as well as finding human truths in their themes and characterizations that urge the audience to want to be better people, too.

In tandem with these analyses of the two superhero movies, we examine how the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy would have benefitted from similar storytelling elements. Star Wars contained plenty of examples for telling stories about Jedi apprentices who are already trained in the Force, rather than necessitating Rey's first movie to mirror Luke's in discovering her connection to the Force in the first instance. Similarly, the Sequel Trilogy mostly abandoned the Skywalker family saga and failed to form a consistent and coherent heroic trio like the Original and Prequel Trilogies did. The Sequel Trilogy also failed to successfully tell aspirational stories with its legacy characters or its new characters. Perhaps most importantly, the storytellers developing the Sequel Trilogy had access to plenty of precedent, both within Star Wars and in contemporary genre stories, to have been able to identify areas in which the Star Wars franchise could help to push forward new ideas and themes in today's storytelling, rather than simply repeating the old tropes and beats from the Lucas films.

Social Media:

• Tricia Barr (@fangirlcantina) Instagram | Threads | Blue Sky
• B.J. Priester (@redpenoflex) Instagram | Threads | Blue Sky
• Fangirl Zone on Facebook

A year after Part I, the Wicked movie franchise returns with For Good, an adaptation of the second act of the Broadway musical. In this episode of Hyperspace Theories, Tricia Barr and B.J. Priester examine how Wicked: For Good takes advantage of the movie format, and the passage of time since the original musical was written, to strengthen the character arcs of Elphaba, Glinda, and Fiyero in tandem with the story's themes. Like Part I, For Good also maximizes the opportunity to include locations, action sequences, and other visual elements which wouldn't be possible in a Broadway stage production.

The two new songs written for Wicked: For Good, Elphaba's "No Place Like Home" early in the movie and Glinda's "Girl in the Bubble" near the end, reinforce the two characters' motivations for their crucial decisions in the story. Each song also feels especially timely, directly addressing themes of resistance to oppression, the influence of propaganda, and the emotional and psychological obstacles that sometimes must be overcome to make the right choice and do the right thing. Although the characters had similar motivations in the original Broadway show, the new songs for Wicked: For Good reflect the impact of recent political and social events to drive home themes that perhaps felt a little more abstract and distant to many listeners two decades ago.

Along the path of their own respective journeys, Elphaba and Glinda also change the other Wicked characters around them, and ultimately Oz itself. Yet For Good also takes place in the background of The Wizard of Oz in a much more direct way than Part I's story. If there's a weak point in For Good, it's that this movie leans a bit too heavily on the assumption that its audience remembers the details of Dorothy's plotline from the earlier film, an assumption that may not be as workable for a mainstream movie release in 2025 compared to the theatrical musical attendees at the turn of the twenty-first century. Together, though, Wicked: Part I and Wicked: For Good tell a complete story for Elphaba and Glinda, and how they changed each other forever.

Related Links:

• Hyperspace Theories: WICKED Part I Rises to the Moment (Dec. 2024)
• Breaking Baz: Jon M. Chu On How The Breathtaking 'Wicked: For Good' Took Flight With New Songs For Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande, Plus A Secret Guest Star As Cowardly Lion (Deadline; Oct. 16, 2025)

Social Media:

• Tricia Barr (@fangirlcantina) Instagram | Threads | Blue Sky
• B.J. Priester (@redpenoflex) Instagram | Threads | Blue Sky
• Fangirl Zone on Facebook