No, but seriously, if there are any writers whose livelihoods ChatGPT endangers, it's got to be the galaxy brains behind the Sequel Trilogy.
Funny you should mention that. I tried several times to get ChatGPT to write out alternatives to the SW sequel trilogy, by using various prompts. As I mentioned, it's
not good at creativity, so it's not even a threat to bad writers. But it can offer suggestions about (what the internet-at-large apparently thinks) is
wrong with the sequels.
It stands out that several notions keep coming back when you ask it for alternative ideas, which suggests to me that these are the common elements that many people wanted or expected to see in the sequels (and which ChatGPT has distilled from its vast data-set):
— The Rebel Alliance has become the New Republic. The New Republic is working to maintain peace and stability, but faces new challenges from both internal and external threats.
— Luke Skywalker has become a powerful Jedi Knight and is leading the effort to rebuild the Jedi Order. Luke has continued to train new Jedi and he leads the efforts to rebuild the Jedi Order, while also mentoring a new generation of heroes. Luke's role as a mentor would be a central element of the story, as he guides and teaches the new Jedi, while also facing new challenges and conflicts.
— Han Solo and Leia Organa are now married and working together to help lead the New Republic. They are faced with new challenges and difficult decisions as they navigate the politics of the galaxy and try maintain peace and stability in the galaxy. The sequel trilogy follows both their roles as leaders in the new Republic and their relationship as a couple. Their relationship, as two leaders in the New Republic, could be portrayed as a partnership, where they work together to make decisions that will benefit the galaxy and their relationship. They could be shown as a team.
— The remnants of the Empire are regrouping and seeking to regain control of the galaxy. The story would explore the motivations and ideologies of the Imperial officers and how they are regrouping and rebuilding to challenge the New Republic. The remnants of the Empire in this story could be portrayed as a diverse group with different motivations and agendas.
And that all checks out, as far as I can tell. Those really are some of the recurring (indeed, near-universal) elements that fans say they wanted to see in the sequels (but didn’t get). Again, there’s nothing specific or “deep” here, but if the makers of any sequel trilogy had taken these points as must-have key elements for the story, I think the result would almost invariably have been better-received than what we got. Of course, if you ask ChatGPT to come up with alternative ideas for SW sequels, its suggestions are (as you’ll by now expect) hopelessly generic. Even picking the best ideas and running with those leaves you with a premise/outline that seems to describe a middle-of-the-road “
here’s what they should have done” fanfic. Nothing about it is objectionable, but it isn’t exactly impressive, either.
If you want a taste of the absolute best it can produce (with a lot of selective filtering and prompting by the human party— in this case
me), I’ll edit together the responses it came up with in response to my request to create an original SW story. (Out of various attempts at alternative sequels and purely original stories, this original one turned out the most promising.) Note that what I’ve ended up with is not its “bare” output, but rather the result of a lot of follow-up questions, and repeatedly running with the best suggestions that it came up with (while ignoring the rest). And, of course, deleting most of every response, since the bulk is always just pure re-hashing of what it has already said earlier...
I’ll post the cleaned-up result later.