3PO at a Loss

As a young missionary, I met a fellow cartoonist in the MTC. As we bonded over our love of silly pictures, we hatched a crazy idea. Over the course of our mission, we would co-create a comic book. 

Here's how it worked: one month, I would illustrate two pages and then mail them to Elder Lindseth. The next month, he would illustrate the next two pages of the story and mail them to me. Over the course of our mission, the two of us crafted a 40-page story that bobbed and weaved all over the place as we were constantly trying to place each other in impossible situations.

It was an incredibly fun way to create a low-stakes comic book (one that will never come close to being published).

It is a terrible way to run a $100 million tentpole movie franchise.

Remarkable, Disney didn't bother plotting out a three picture trilogy when they bought Star Wars from George Lucas. Instead, they set out to make The Force Awakens and then hired a completely different creative team to come up with The Last Jedi and then brought back the creative team from The Force Awakens to create The Rise of Skywalker. The result was tonal whiplash from movie to movie. Watching it all, I couldn't help but wonder if Elder Lindseth and I could have come up with something better.