Her character was in dire need of more help from the studio, which could have been a better investment than The Acolyte for Star Wars.
George Lucas set the president for a number of things when he made the original trilogy, which would spawn one of the biggest franchises in modern Hollywood. One of the main things that the modern era of Star Wars has looked towards was breaking the mold when it came to setting trends in the story.
Be it The Force Awakens, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, or The Mandalorian, there was a hunger among the creatives over at Star Wars to introduce and deconstruct some concepts that have been part of the lore established by Geroge Lucas for quite some time.
One of these entries would be Solo: A Star Wars Story, which tried to chronicle the early history of Han Solo before he crossed paths with Luke Skywalker and joined the rebellion. Emilia Clarke would play an important role in the film, breaking the mold in a way that fans had not yet seen in live-action.
Emilia Clarke liked the character of Qi’ra for one reason
Speaking with Vanity Fair, Emilia Clarke was able to talk about a slew of things that she enjoyed about being in Star Wars, coming off of her recent success with Game of Thrones.
For almost the entirety of the previous decade, Emilia Clarke had ruled the small screen as Daenerys Targaryen. The reason she was so keen on doing the character was that Star Wars had a tradition of characters being morally upright. Rarely was it the case that morally gray characters were ever played by women, ever. She said:
We’re going to hit you with a character that could very easily well be a dude, because you question her motives.
While fans never got to see Qi’ra again in the Star Wars universe, there was a lot of potential that the character could have had in the films. Especially given the reveal that she was working for Darth Maul the entire time, the creators of the film could have created something akin to Andor with the character, cementing Qi’ra as a bigger part of the Star Wars universe.
Star Wars has a long road to recovery ahead of it
While shows like Andor and films like Rogue One have really managed to hold the Star Wars fandom together, there have been more than a few misses that have caused the IP to sort of fall off the map. For every Andor and The Mandalorian that the IP produces, there seems to be a Last Jedi, The Acolyte, and The Book of Boba Fett to weigh it down.
Star Wars currently has a lot of projects in production and Kathleen Kennedy seems to be going nowhere anytime soon. It remains to be seen how the franchise will recover itself in the coming years, and whether Disney can take the appropriate steps to reposition the franchise in a manner that caters to the fans that it alienated.
