@ TV’s Frink

I responded to your friend’s passage that you posted. I think it apparent that he is generalizing. I think that generalization is wrong. The main point is that I think there is nothing wrong with the vast majority of negative expressions concerning this movie and we needn’t paint with a broad brush to question motivations.

I think it is really hard to take someone else’s work and make something good and faithful to the source material. I’ve been working on a non-Star Wars writing project based on an old work, and the following quote from Johnson resonated with me: “There’s a lot of possibilities with how to take it… Even just as a Star Wars fan, you realize there are patterns etched into your brain of how you think it should go. It’s tough, because you don’t want to let yourself be guided by those deep-set grooves in your brain, but you also don’t want to make creative decisions just to spite those. It’s an interesting line to ride.”

Even when one doesn’t mean to, it is easy to fall into certain traps. (Where is Admiral Ackbar when you need him? Oh yeah…) Characters can become shadows of themselves or props (R2, Chewie) because they should be there but you don’t know what to do with them. Inevitably, a new creator has different sensibilities than the original creator. I think these forces help explain a lot about what we liked and didn’t like in the movie. I think there were elements of Star Wars that Johnson understood very well and others he didn’t understand at all.