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Discussing Star Wars, a lot of the time, is like trying to make dinner while a horse is looking at you, notes Alasdair Stuart.  There’s sensible, useful stuff to do and talk about, but the horse is going to neigh at some point and you just know that’s going to throw you off your stride.

So with that in mind, whatever terrible opinion people feel the need to have about modern Star Wars can go right here.

Feel better?

Great! Let’s talk about a just astonishing fumble that Adam Driver has revealed Disney made.

Talking to AP about his most recent work, Driver revealed he spent two years developing a Star Wars movie with his Logan Lucky director Steven Soderbergh and writer Rebecca Blunt. Called The Hunt for Ben Solo, and set after The Rise of Skywalker, it would have brought back the fan favourite character and, presumably, served as an interesting companion piece to that Rey spin-off movie that will, eventually Please GOD, actually release.

‘Soderbergh and Rebecca Blunt outlined a story that the group then pitched to Kennedy, Lucasfilm vice president Cary Beck and Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni. They were interested, so the filmmakers then pulled in Scott Z. Burns to write a script. Driver calls the result “one of the coolest (expletive) scripts I had ever been a part of.”’

Driver has proven star power and arguably this was the peak of his career to date. He recruited Soderbergh and Blunt, whose combined credits include Logan Lucky, Out of Sight, Ocean’s Eleven, Contagion, Erin Brockovich and Black Bag. That’s about as great a foundation as you could hope for. Kennedy and Filoni are functionally the two custodians of modern Star Wars and they loved it.  Burns has written for Soderbergh multiple times too as well as uncredited rewrites on No Time to Die and Rogue One.

ROGUE ONE.

This is a group of people who are very, very good at what they do and know the subject matter inside and out and have a proven track record. Sounds great! When’s it out?

Never.

“We presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea. They totally understood our angle and why we were doing it,” Driver says. “We took it to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman and they said no. They didn’t see how Ben Solo was alive. And that was that.

“It was called ‘The Hunt for Ben Solo’ and it was really cool,” adds Driver. “But it is no more, so I can finally talk about it.”

I’m honestly at a loss for words. Cards on the table, I think Ben is both horrifically over exposed and badly utilised in the third movie especially, and he’s a character I was never especially interested or invested in. But other people were! A lot of them! And they wanted a lot more of him! And were happy to pay! And some of the most talented people in the industry were ready to do it! And because two white guys whose job is to collect bonuses and float ever upward didn’t get it, the easiest win in Star Wars history withered on the vine. Just… come ON, lads!

There hasn’t been a new Star Wars movie for six years. That will, finally, change next year on May 22nd when The Mandalorian and Grogu is released and a year later when Starfighter follows it. I’m definitely excited about one of those, and definitely very, very tired of Disney’s ethical and competency bankruptcy getting in the way of the art it controls. Ben Solo deserved better. So do we.