logo Sign In

Episode VIII : The Last Jedi - Discussion * SPOILER THREAD * — Page 132

Author
Time

yotsuya said:

mfastx said:

DrDre said:
I agree. The PT ends where the OT begins, right down to the twin sunset on Tatooine. Going from ROTJ to TFA is far more jarring to me, where an obvious total victory is suddenly and without explanation completely reversed, while all the victors have become shadows of their former selves. General Solo has again become a smuggler in debt with everyone, who hides from his problems. Luke’s hiding from his problems on a rock, and has closed himself off from the Force. Even Leia has been demoted from princess, and senator to the general of an even smaller band of rebels, whilst Han and Leia have apparently won the worst parents of the year award.

This is my main issue with the ST. Despite the fact that they’re very good films, the story is just so nonsensical to me. What we’re told happened between VI and VII is far more interesting to me than what’s happening in VII and VIII. We’re right back where we started in the OT (if not worse, the rebels are down to a handful of folk on the falcon), with no real explanation as to how we got there after the triumphant victory in VI.

I would have much more enjoyed a story of how Ben got seduced by Snoke, how the First Order came to be, etc.

Many who don’t like it see things back where the OT began, but it isn’t. That is my point. While there are echoes of the OT in the ST (there were in the PT as well), the ST is telling a unique story that I don’t think we will totally see until the third story is out for us to follow the plots. In TLJ, the First Order has not yet taken over. Rey says it directly. While the Republic government and fleet have been wiped out, the First Order still has to actually seize power. They have only eliminated the other power that Snoke thought could stop him. We are no in the same place at the end of TLJ that we were at the beginning of ANH. It is a must different landscape. For one thing, there were no Jedi on the Galactic stage in ANH. There is Luke and Rey in TLJ and Luke has just left a lasting impression to give power to the new rebellion. Please find that in the years leading up to ANH. Even Rebels doesn’t have such a public display of power, and definitely not one that spread like wildfire across the galaxy.

The problem with saying that the First Order hasn’t technically won yet is that we’ve seen almost nothing of the Republic’s power in these new films, and what little we’ve seen of their planets shows them being filled with First Order sympathizers or in the process of being destroyed, or both. In the OT and the PT we are constantly shown the relative power of each side of the conflict, but as far as the visual storytelling of the ST so far, the Republic is no more.

And everyone keeps talking about Luke’s ‘public display of power’, but he didn’t defeat the First Order’s forces, or even defeat Kylo Ren. He just delayed them a little while at the cost of his life, and who would have seen this display of power? The remnants of the Resistance were running for their lives. Luke blowing up the Death Star surely had a bigger public impact than that. And now that you bring it up, I remember that Rebels did have a bigger public display of the power of the Force in the series finale, with the entire capital city of a planet watching in fear of their lives.

The mere existence of the Resistance and Leia’s role as its leader tells us that the new Republic is not what she had hoped and that she fears they do not take the First Order seriously. It paints a picture of a complacent Republic that is probably more worried about internal squabbles than a theoretical outside threat. That they had so few ships that the entire fleet was in orbit of the capital shows that it it was a very weak republic.

And I’ve seen several comments about continuing the OT the way George would do it, and guess what, they are. The basic plot elements, some of the very ones people are complaining the most about, were penned by George. They created their own cast of characters, but the broad arc of the trilogy seems to be following George’s treatment. Luke’s exile is the single item we can point to with absolutely certainty as coming directly from George himself, but the broad arcs fit with that. As does Luke now being the mentor as Ben was in the OT. The fact that George had an idea for a sequel and that it went so far as a treatment means he had conflict. It means he is the one who decided to derail the happy ending many imagine for post ROTJ. He seems to have given them a decade or two before ruining things for them Han and Leia have a son, there is a new Republic, but you can’t have the next chapter of a saga if things are all still rosy.

I seriously don’t get what some of you want. Do you want a sequel trilogy with a story or a pointless story set in a perfect Utopia? To get a story you have to have conflict and the easiest way to get it is for things to go wrong. In the ST we are getting, things went wrong about 15-20 years after ROTJ (and ROTJ wasn’t the last battle). That is 15-20 years when things went right. The Republic was flourishing and Han and Leia were together. And the worst part is you are blaming Kennedy, and Johnson and leaving out Lucas and Abrams. This whole ST is Lucas’s doing. He created a treatment, he sold his company, he turned it over to Kennedy. How much of his treatment they are using is unknown, but they are using his girl force sensitive hero and his exiled Luke and I bet there is a lot more they are using. But let’s sit tight and wait for IX before we write off the ST. We can’t even tell what the main story is, just like the redemption of Anakin/Vader didn’t become part of the story until ROTJ. In the PT, we all knew where it would end up so we knew the arc from the moment we heard the name Anakin.

We knew from Episode 1 that the galactic conflict was going to be Sith versus Republic.
We knew from Episode 4 that the conflict was going to be Rebellion versus Empire.
We should know from Episode 7 that the conflict is Resistance (made of Rebellion forces) versus First Order (made of Imperial forces).

For a sequel trilogy, they could easily have treated the war as if it never really ended. Our heroes from the last movie have been fighting for a new Republic for decades and have grown weary of the battles, and realize that their vision of a Republic and Jedi Order restored must fall to a new generation. You could even have the same backstory for the ST, with a First Order which has gained power in the Senate with the disappearance of the Jedi. Heck, even keep Luke’s cynical turn in questioning the Jedi religion. It would have similarities to the PT, but this time there’s no Snoke and no Starkiller Base, no sinister Sith to pull the strings, only a fight for the soul of the Jedi and what it truly means to bring peace and justice to the galaxy.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

Author
Time
 (Edited)

yotsuya said:

mfastx said:

DrDre said:
I agree. The PT ends where the OT begins, right down to the twin sunset on Tatooine. Going from ROTJ to TFA is far more jarring to me, where an obvious total victory is suddenly and without explanation completely reversed, while all the victors have become shadows of their former selves. General Solo has again become a smuggler in debt with everyone, who hides from his problems. Luke’s hiding from his problems on a rock, and has closed himself off from the Force. Even Leia has been demoted from princess, and senator to the general of an even smaller band of rebels, whilst Han and Leia have apparently won the worst parents of the year award.

This is my main issue with the ST. Despite the fact that they’re very good films, the story is just so nonsensical to me. What we’re told happened between VI and VII is far more interesting to me than what’s happening in VII and VIII. We’re right back where we started in the OT (if not worse, the rebels are down to a handful of folk on the falcon), with no real explanation as to how we got there after the triumphant victory in VI.

I would have much more enjoyed a story of how Ben got seduced by Snoke, how the First Order came to be, etc.

Many who don’t like it see things back where the OT began, but it isn’t. That is my point. While there are echoes of the OT in the ST (there were in the PT as well), the ST is telling a unique story that I don’t think we will totally see until the third story is out for us to follow the plots. In TLJ, the First Order has not yet taken over. Rey says it directly. While the Republic government and fleet have been wiped out, the First Order still has to actually seize power. They have only eliminated the other power that Snoke thought could stop him.

I disagree. The New Republic in TFA doesn’t play any role of significance, and by the start of TLJ it’s been written out of the story altogether. The destruction of Hosnian Prime is equivalent to the destruction of Alderaan, only bigger. The fact that the FO actually has to seize power also does not translate to the films, since the FO are behaving just like the Empire throughout both TFA and TLJ. There’s very little in the films, that suggest the FO are a rising power, a reality made all the more clear by the fact, that the destruction of the SKB doesn’t affect them in any way.

We are no in the same place at the end of TLJ that we were at the beginning of ANH. It is a must different landscape. For one thing, there were no Jedi on the Galactic stage in ANH. There is Luke and Rey in TLJ and Luke has just left a lasting impression to give power to the new rebellion. Please find that in the years leading up to ANH. Even Rebels doesn’t have such a public display of power, and definitely not one that spread like wildfire across the galaxy.

What public display of power? Luke made a symbolic act, only seen by a handful of rebels, and a legion of FO troops. The fact that people are inspired by this, is a good way to end the story on a note of hope, but considering that the rebels have been reduced to a dozen people on a single ship, I don’t see that as some great victory. I would consider the destruction of the first Death Star as being a far greater victory in both a military and symbolic sense. I would think the destruction of SKB, the FO’s home base, and their most powerful weapon should be much more important in a military, and symbolic sense, but RJ certainly turned that into a pretty hollow victory, considering TLJ’s events follow directly from TFA, and the fact that the FO were supposed to be a rising power. I predict, that the FO will have a firm grasp on the galaxy by the start of episode IX, whilst the rebels will still be struggling to survive. The fact that they survived at all, is to Luke’s credit, but considering he played a major role in getting the galaxy to this dark place, I again would not see it as a huge victory.

The mere existence of the Resistance and Leia’s role as its leader tells us that the new Republic is not what she had hoped and that she fears they do not take the First Order seriously. It paints a picture of a complacent Republic that is probably more worried about internal squabbles than a theoretical outside threat. That they had so few ships that the entire fleet was in orbit of the capital shows that it it was a very weak republic.

Yes, but in the service of rehashing the Empire versus rebels conflict of the OT. The only reason the New Republic is so complacent and weak, is because the writers of the ST desperately wanted to reset the Star Wars galaxy to a pre-BFE state, including a rebellion, stormtroopers, an Emperor figure, and a fallen Jedi student.

I seriously don’t get what some of you want. Do you want a sequel trilogy with a story or a pointless story set in a perfect Utopia? To get a story you have to have conflict and the easiest way to get it is for things to go wrong. In the ST we are getting, things went wrong about 15-20 years after ROTJ (and ROTJ wasn’t the last battle). That is 15-20 years when things went right. The Republic was flourishing and Han and Leia were together. And the worst part is you are blaming Kennedy, and Johnson and leaving out Lucas and Abrams. This whole ST is Lucas’s doing. He created a treatment, he sold his company, he turned it over to Kennedy. How much of his treatment they are using is unknown, but they are using his girl force sensitive hero and his exiled Luke and I bet there is a lot more they are using. But let’s sit tight and wait for IX before we write off the ST. We can’t even tell what the main story is, just like the redemption of Anakin/Vader didn’t become part of the story until ROTJ. In the PT, we all knew where it would end up so we knew the arc from the moment we heard the name Anakin.

I didn’t want two movies, that essentially remix the OT. I didn’t want Empire versus rebels 2.0 right down to the stormtroopers, x-wings, tie-fighters, and a Death Star. I didn’t want an another Jedi apprentice seduced by a Sith Lord wannabe. Been there, done that! What I wanted was an original story with original villains, and a completely different setup, that follows naturally from the events of ROTJ. I’m aware that’s a lot to ask for, but when it comes to Star Wars I have high expectations. I think TFA and TLJ are both pretty good films seen in a vaccuum, but as sequels to the OT, they’re a dissappointment to me.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Collipso said:
let’s play with some keywords here and see what we get:

“I would have much more enjoyed a story of how Anakin got seduced by The Emperor, how the Empire came to be, etc.”

sounds familiar?

That just further proves my point that the new story we’re getting is essentially the same exact thing as what’s already happened. Given the story we got, I would have rather they started from the beginning and tell it properly. One key unexplained element is Snoke, who is a neat, totally new character, except that he has no explanation or backstory and then is killed off. It’s important to flesh out his character because he isn’t relevant at all in the already established OT.

TV’s Frink said:
I can understand not liking what you got but how is that “nonsensical?”

There’s many reasons explained by others above, but basically all of the major, universe altering plot points that happen with no explanation given what’s established in the OT. They just waived their hand with major plot elements (New Republic all of the sudden completely destroyed (it was just one planet system?) by the new mysterious superweapon, ALL of Luke’s new crop of Jedi destroyed by Ben, etc.) just so they could have Rebels vs. Empire again.

Author
Time

DominicCobb said:

One thing that I’ve mentioned before that no one seems to really talk about is that Leia left the dice behind, presumably for Ben to find. It’s a small thing that tells me she’s still trying to reach out…

I agree. She’d know they would come in there looking for any survivors or clues to where they went. Since the film ends there, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him looking at them early in IX.

Forum Moderator
Author
Time
 (Edited)

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

mfastx said:

DrDre said:
I agree. The PT ends where the OT begins, right down to the twin sunset on Tatooine. Going from ROTJ to TFA is far more jarring to me, where an obvious total victory is suddenly and without explanation completely reversed, while all the victors have become shadows of their former selves. General Solo has again become a smuggler in debt with everyone, who hides from his problems. Luke’s hiding from his problems on a rock, and has closed himself off from the Force. Even Leia has been demoted from princess, and senator to the general of an even smaller band of rebels, whilst Han and Leia have apparently won the worst parents of the year award.

This is my main issue with the ST. Despite the fact that they’re very good films, the story is just so nonsensical to me. What we’re told happened between VI and VII is far more interesting to me than what’s happening in VII and VIII. We’re right back where we started in the OT (if not worse, the rebels are down to a handful of folk on the falcon), with no real explanation as to how we got there after the triumphant victory in VI.

I would have much more enjoyed a story of how Ben got seduced by Snoke, how the First Order came to be, etc.

Many who don’t like it see things back where the OT began, but it isn’t. That is my point. While there are echoes of the OT in the ST (there were in the PT as well), the ST is telling a unique story that I don’t think we will totally see until the third story is out for us to follow the plots. In TLJ, the First Order has not yet taken over. Rey says it directly. While the Republic government and fleet have been wiped out, the First Order still has to actually seize power. They have only eliminated the other power that Snoke thought could stop him.

I disagree. The New Republic in TFA doesn’t play any role of significance, and by the start of TLJ it’s been written out of the story altogether. The destruction of Hosnian Prime is equivalent to the destruction of Alderaan, only bigger. The fact that the FO actually has to seize power also does not translate to the films, since the FO are behaving just like the Empire throughout both TFA and TLJ. There’s very little in the films, that suggest the FO are a rising power, a reality made all the more clear by the fact, that the destruction of the SKB doesn’t affect them in any way.

We are no in the same place at the end of TLJ that we were at the beginning of ANH. It is a must different landscape. For one thing, there were no Jedi on the Galactic stage in ANH. There is Luke and Rey in TLJ and Luke has just left a lasting impression to give power to the new rebellion. Please find that in the years leading up to ANH. Even Rebels doesn’t have such a public display of power, and definitely not one that spread like wildfire across the galaxy.

What public display of power? Luke made a symbolic act, only seen by a handful of rebels, and a legion of FO troops. The fact that people are inspired by this, is a good way to end the story on a note of hope, but considering that the rebels have been reduced to a dozen people on a single ship, I don’t see that as some great victory. I would consider the destruction of the first Death Star as being a far greater victory in both a military and symbolic sense. I would think the destruction of SKB, the FO’s home base, and their most powerful weapon should be much more important in a military, and symbolic sense, but RJ certainly turned that into a pretty hollow victory, considering TLJ’s events follow directly from TFA, and the fact that the FO were supposed to be a rising power. I predict, that the FO will have a firm grasp on the galaxy by the start of episode IX, whilst the rebels will still be struggling to survive. The fact that they survived at all, is to Luke’s credit, but considering he played a major role in getting the galaxy to this dark place, I again would not see it as a huge victory.

The mere existence of the Resistance and Leia’s role as its leader tells us that the new Republic is not what she had hoped and that she fears they do not take the First Order seriously. It paints a picture of a complacent Republic that is probably more worried about internal squabbles than a theoretical outside threat. That they had so few ships that the entire fleet was in orbit of the capital shows that it it was a very weak republic.

Yes, but in the service of rehashing the Empire versus rebels conflict of the OT. The only reason the New Republic is so complacent and weak, is because the writers of the ST desperately wanted to reset the Star Wars galaxy to a pre-BFE state, including a rebellion, stormtroopers, an Emperor figure, and a fallen Jedi student.

I seriously don’t get what some of you want. Do you want a sequel trilogy with a story or a pointless story set in a perfect Utopia? To get a story you have to have conflict and the easiest way to get it is for things to go wrong. In the ST we are getting, things went wrong about 15-20 years after ROTJ (and ROTJ wasn’t the last battle). That is 15-20 years when things went right. The Republic was flourishing and Han and Leia were together. And the worst part is you are blaming Kennedy, and Johnson and leaving out Lucas and Abrams. This whole ST is Lucas’s doing. He created a treatment, he sold his company, he turned it over to Kennedy. How much of his treatment they are using is unknown, but they are using his girl force sensitive hero and his exiled Luke and I bet there is a lot more they are using. But let’s sit tight and wait for IX before we write off the ST. We can’t even tell what the main story is, just like the redemption of Anakin/Vader didn’t become part of the story until ROTJ. In the PT, we all knew where it would end up so we knew the arc from the moment we heard the name Anakin.

I didn’t want two movies, that essentially remix the OT. I didn’t want Empire versus rebels 2.0 right down to the stormtroopers, x-wings, tie-fighters, and a Death Star. I didn’t want an another Jedi apprentice seduced by a Sith Lord wannabe. Been there, done that! What I wanted was an original story with original villains, and a completely different setup, that follows naturally from the events of ROTJ. I’m aware that’s a lot to ask for, but when it comes to Star Wars I have high expectations. I think TFA and TLJ are both pretty good films seen in a vaccuum, but as sequels to the OT, they’re a dissappointment to me.

But it is not a total rehash. Since you are focused on the Jedi/Sith part, in the PT you have Palpatine, a hidden sith lord, lose one apprentice, gain Dooku, all the while his aim is to turn Skywalker (the PT makes it very clear that Palpatine has been Anakin’s mentor from TPM on). In the OT, Palpatine has Vader. When they learn of Luke, they set the goal to turn him. When Luke finally comes before Palpatine, Palpatine no only tries to turn him, but tries to replace Vader. In the ST, Snoke has turned Ben/Kylo. Or has he. There is conflict an in order to end that conflict, Kylo kills his father only to find that conflict has grown not gone away. Snoke sees it and while Kylo tries to turn Rey, Snoke really doesn’t bother, instead having Kylo kill Rey. But that conflict has turned to resolve, not to destroy Rey, but to kill Snoke. And how the story plays out from there we don’t know. So from the Jedi/Sith/Whatever perspective, the three trilogies are completely different. In both the PT and the OT, the Jedi tale is much the same. Boy meets mentor, mentor dies, mentor arranges for another teacher. Boy is taught and becomes a Jedi. The third act for the PT and OT differ as one has the boy fall and the other has the boy redeem his father by sacrificing his life. The ST has a girl search for a mentor (the PT and OT didn’t have a search as the mentor just happened to find the boy), find him, have him refuse to teach her, relent and give some lessons. But then the girl leaves to learn on her own and the mentor dies and will train her from the grave. A couple of points are the same, but the rest is very very different in the ST.

And we don’t have an all powerful, galaxy wide empire. We have a power on the Rim invading the core. Their first strike was the PT equivalent of destroying the Coruscant system (not Alderaan) and decapitating the fledgling Republic. Nothing in TLJ says that the FO have actually conquered anything yet. Rey says it will happen in weeks. Only hours or days have passed since the end of TFA. So the FO is in the position of the invader, not the local power. They are more like the Separatists in the Clone Wars. They are not the nearly all powerful Empire of the OT. They are the aggressors where in the OT the Rebels are the aggressors trying to unseat the tyrannical power.

You keep focusing on some small points of similarity and saying it is the same, yet when you dig in to the details they are not. I am really finding the nature of this argument to be very much like the arguments against the PT (why is Anakin a boy, why all the politics, etc., etc., etc.), the only difference is the quality of the finished product - at least to some. I really can’t see the substance of all the TLJ hate. Most was setup in TFA and TLJ just carries on the story. And the story appears to be close to GL’s treatment (definitely the Luke arc), but with characters created by Abrams (one thing he is very good at).

Author
Time

mfastx said:

Collipso said:
let’s play with some keywords here and see what we get:

“I would have much more enjoyed a story of how Anakin got seduced by The Emperor, how the Empire came to be, etc.”

sounds familiar?

That just further proves my point that the new story we’re getting is essentially the same exact thing as what’s already happened. Given the story we got, I would have rather they started from the beginning and tell it properly. One key unexplained element is Snoke, who is a neat, totally new character, except that he has no explanation or backstory and then is killed off. It’s important to flesh out his character because he isn’t relevant at all in the already established OT.

TV’s Frink said:
I can understand not liking what you got but how is that “nonsensical?”

There’s many reasons explained by others above, but basically all of the major, universe altering plot points that happen with no explanation given what’s established in the OT. They just waived their hand with major plot elements (New Republic all of the sudden completely destroyed (it was just one planet system?) by the new mysterious superweapon, ALL of Luke’s new crop of Jedi destroyed by Ben, etc.) just so they could have Rebels vs. Empire again.

Except that we don’t have the Rebels vs. Empire again. Not really. They are indeed going for that feel, but in the OT we had a galaxy spanning empire and a scattered rebellion. In the ST we have a beheaded Republic, a cut down resistance, both in opposition to the invading First Order. So unlike the OT where the government of nearly every world is against you (because they are controlled by the Empire), now there are allies everywhere, and the Resistance can work to unite the planets trying to resist the First Order take over. While the fighting parties are very similar to what we see in the OT, in the OT that was one fleet of a much larger navy and in the ST, we can’t be sure how much larger the navy is than what we see (and in TLJ a lot of the FO ships were destroyed or badly damaged). So on the surface your argument seems to make sense, but when the full situation is laid out, the comparison falls flat as there are too many differences and too many ways the story can go that can be completely different in the third act.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

mfastx said:

DrDre said:
I agree. The PT ends where the OT begins, right down to the twin sunset on Tatooine. Going from ROTJ to TFA is far more jarring to me, where an obvious total victory is suddenly and without explanation completely reversed, while all the victors have become shadows of their former selves. General Solo has again become a smuggler in debt with everyone, who hides from his problems. Luke’s hiding from his problems on a rock, and has closed himself off from the Force. Even Leia has been demoted from princess, and senator to the general of an even smaller band of rebels, whilst Han and Leia have apparently won the worst parents of the year award.

This is my main issue with the ST. Despite the fact that they’re very good films, the story is just so nonsensical to me. What we’re told happened between VI and VII is far more interesting to me than what’s happening in VII and VIII. We’re right back where we started in the OT (if not worse, the rebels are down to a handful of folk on the falcon), with no real explanation as to how we got there after the triumphant victory in VI.

I would have much more enjoyed a story of how Ben got seduced by Snoke, how the First Order came to be, etc.

Many who don’t like it see things back where the OT began, but it isn’t. That is my point. While there are echoes of the OT in the ST (there were in the PT as well), the ST is telling a unique story that I don’t think we will totally see until the third story is out for us to follow the plots. In TLJ, the First Order has not yet taken over. Rey says it directly. While the Republic government and fleet have been wiped out, the First Order still has to actually seize power. They have only eliminated the other power that Snoke thought could stop him.

I disagree. The New Republic in TFA doesn’t play any role of significance, and by the start of TLJ it’s been written out of the story altogether. The destruction of Hosnian Prime is equivalent to the destruction of Alderaan, only bigger. The fact that the FO actually has to seize power also does not translate to the films, since the FO are behaving just like the Empire throughout both TFA and TLJ. There’s very little in the films, that suggest the FO are a rising power, a reality made all the more clear by the fact, that the destruction of the SKB doesn’t affect them in any way.

We are no in the same place at the end of TLJ that we were at the beginning of ANH. It is a must different landscape. For one thing, there were no Jedi on the Galactic stage in ANH. There is Luke and Rey in TLJ and Luke has just left a lasting impression to give power to the new rebellion. Please find that in the years leading up to ANH. Even Rebels doesn’t have such a public display of power, and definitely not one that spread like wildfire across the galaxy.

What public display of power? Luke made a symbolic act, only seen by a handful of rebels, and a legion of FO troops. The fact that people are inspired by this, is a good way to end the story on a note of hope, but considering that the rebels have been reduced to a dozen people on a single ship, I don’t see that as some great victory. I would consider the destruction of the first Death Star as being a far greater victory in both a military and symbolic sense. I would think the destruction of SKB, the FO’s home base, and their most powerful weapon should be much more important in a military, and symbolic sense, but RJ certainly turned that into a pretty hollow victory, considering TLJ’s events follow directly from TFA, and the fact that the FO were supposed to be a rising power. I predict, that the FO will have a firm grasp on the galaxy by the start of episode IX, whilst the rebels will still be struggling to survive. The fact that they survived at all, is to Luke’s credit, but considering he played a major role in getting the galaxy to this dark place, I again would not see it as a huge victory.

The mere existence of the Resistance and Leia’s role as its leader tells us that the new Republic is not what she had hoped and that she fears they do not take the First Order seriously. It paints a picture of a complacent Republic that is probably more worried about internal squabbles than a theoretical outside threat. That they had so few ships that the entire fleet was in orbit of the capital shows that it it was a very weak republic.

Yes, but in the service of rehashing the Empire versus rebels conflict of the OT. The only reason the New Republic is so complacent and weak, is because the writers of the ST desperately wanted to reset the Star Wars galaxy to a pre-BFE state, including a rebellion, stormtroopers, an Emperor figure, and a fallen Jedi student.

I seriously don’t get what some of you want. Do you want a sequel trilogy with a story or a pointless story set in a perfect Utopia? To get a story you have to have conflict and the easiest way to get it is for things to go wrong. In the ST we are getting, things went wrong about 15-20 years after ROTJ (and ROTJ wasn’t the last battle). That is 15-20 years when things went right. The Republic was flourishing and Han and Leia were together. And the worst part is you are blaming Kennedy, and Johnson and leaving out Lucas and Abrams. This whole ST is Lucas’s doing. He created a treatment, he sold his company, he turned it over to Kennedy. How much of his treatment they are using is unknown, but they are using his girl force sensitive hero and his exiled Luke and I bet there is a lot more they are using. But let’s sit tight and wait for IX before we write off the ST. We can’t even tell what the main story is, just like the redemption of Anakin/Vader didn’t become part of the story until ROTJ. In the PT, we all knew where it would end up so we knew the arc from the moment we heard the name Anakin.

I didn’t want two movies, that essentially remix the OT. I didn’t want Empire versus rebels 2.0 right down to the stormtroopers, x-wings, tie-fighters, and a Death Star. I didn’t want an another Jedi apprentice seduced by a Sith Lord wannabe. Been there, done that! What I wanted was an original story with original villains, and a completely different setup, that follows naturally from the events of ROTJ. I’m aware that’s a lot to ask for, but when it comes to Star Wars I have high expectations. I think TFA and TLJ are both pretty good films seen in a vaccuum, but as sequels to the OT, they’re a dissappointment to me.

But it is not a total rehash. Since you are focused on the Jedi/Sith part, in the PT you have Palpatine, a hidden sith lord, lose one apprentice, gain Dooku, all the while his aim is to turn Skywalker (the PT makes it very clear that Palpatine has been Anakin’s mentor from TPM on). In the OT, Palpatine has Vader. When they learn of Luke, they set the goal to turn him. When Luke finally comes before Palpatine, Palpatine no only tries to turn him, but tries to replace Vader. In the ST, Snoke has turned Ben/Kylo. Or has he. There is conflict an in order to end that conflict, Kylo kills his father only to find that conflict has grown not gone away. Snoke sees it and while Kylo tries to turn Rey, Snoke really doesn’t bother, instead having Kylo kill Rey. But that conflict has turned to resolve, not to destroy Rey, but to kill Snoke. And how the story plays out from there we don’t know. So from the Jedi/Sith/Whatever perspective, the three trilogies are completely different. In both the PT and the OT, the Jedi tale is much the same. Boy meets mentor, mentor dies, mentor arranges for another teacher. Boy is taught and becomes a Jedi. The third act for the PT and OT differ as one has the boy fall and the other has the boy redeem his father by sacrificing his life. The ST has a girl search for a mentor (the PT and OT didn’t have a search as the mentor just happened to find the boy), find him, have him refuse to teach her, relent and give some lessons. But then the girl leaves to learn on her own and the mentor dies and will train her from the grave. A couple of points are the same, but the rest is very very different in the ST.

And we don’t have an all powerful, galaxy wide empire. We have a power on the Rim invading the core. Their first strike was the PT equivalent of destroying the Coruscant system (not Alderaan) and decapitating the fledgling Republic. Nothing in TLJ says that the FO have actually conquered anything yet. Rey says it will happen in weeks. Only hours or days have passed since the end of TFA. So the FO is in the position of the invader, not the local power. They are more like the Separatists in the Clone Wars. They are not the nearly all powerful Empire of the OT. They are the aggressors where in the OT the Rebels are the aggressors trying to unseat the tyrannical power.

You keep focusing on some small points of similarity and saying it is the same, yet when you dig in to the details they are not. I am really finding the nature of this argument to be very much like the arguments against the PT (why is Anakin a boy, why all the politics, etc., etc., etc.), the only difference is the quality of the finished product - at least to some. I really can’t see the substance of all the TLJ hate. Most was setup in TFA and TLJ just carries on the story. And the story appears to be close to GL’s treatment (definitely the Luke arc), but with characters created by Abrams (one thing he is very good at).

It’s not details. Your focussing on some lines of throw away dialogue about how the FO will control all major systems in weeks. I’m focussing on what the ST shows us, and the movies consistently show us the Empire 2.0. The FO is shown to be an unstoppable force invading planets and systems at will. They’re using a super weapon to blow up planets like the Empire. Their troops, personel, and equipment look like the Empire. The destruction of SKB didn’t affect them at all, as they apparently have unlimited resources like the Empire. If the FO is supposed to be so different from the Empire then show us, that they are. Show a terrorist force fighting a guerilla war against the New Republic fleet, evading a direct confrontation. Create a new dynamic between the good guys, and the bad guys, rather than just replaying the Empire vs rebels narrative. This problem rears its ugly head throughout the ST on multiple occassions, Snoke and Kylo being another example. If Snoke and Kylo Ren are not supposed to be Sith, don’t tell us they are not, but show us. As with the FO Snoke and Kylo are Sith in all but name. The Resistance is the rebellion in all but name in TFA, and actually becomes the rebellion in TLJ. Another thing to consider is, that the FO is emulating the Empire, and the Resistance is emulating the rebellion is, because the writers wanted to reset the story to Empire vs rebels. This choice was not made to drive the story forward in new directions, or to be original, but because of brand recognition and nostalgia. Of course they had to come up with some sort of plausible backstory, but ultimately this just veneer. This is what I’m criticizing here.

Author
Time

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

mfastx said:

DrDre said:
I agree. The PT ends where the OT begins, right down to the twin sunset on Tatooine. Going from ROTJ to TFA is far more jarring to me, where an obvious total victory is suddenly and without explanation completely reversed, while all the victors have become shadows of their former selves. General Solo has again become a smuggler in debt with everyone, who hides from his problems. Luke’s hiding from his problems on a rock, and has closed himself off from the Force. Even Leia has been demoted from princess, and senator to the general of an even smaller band of rebels, whilst Han and Leia have apparently won the worst parents of the year award.

This is my main issue with the ST. Despite the fact that they’re very good films, the story is just so nonsensical to me. What we’re told happened between VI and VII is far more interesting to me than what’s happening in VII and VIII. We’re right back where we started in the OT (if not worse, the rebels are down to a handful of folk on the falcon), with no real explanation as to how we got there after the triumphant victory in VI.

I would have much more enjoyed a story of how Ben got seduced by Snoke, how the First Order came to be, etc.

Many who don’t like it see things back where the OT began, but it isn’t. That is my point. While there are echoes of the OT in the ST (there were in the PT as well), the ST is telling a unique story that I don’t think we will totally see until the third story is out for us to follow the plots. In TLJ, the First Order has not yet taken over. Rey says it directly. While the Republic government and fleet have been wiped out, the First Order still has to actually seize power. They have only eliminated the other power that Snoke thought could stop him.

I disagree. The New Republic in TFA doesn’t play any role of significance, and by the start of TLJ it’s been written out of the story altogether. The destruction of Hosnian Prime is equivalent to the destruction of Alderaan, only bigger. The fact that the FO actually has to seize power also does not translate to the films, since the FO are behaving just like the Empire throughout both TFA and TLJ. There’s very little in the films, that suggest the FO are a rising power, a reality made all the more clear by the fact, that the destruction of the SKB doesn’t affect them in any way.

We are no in the same place at the end of TLJ that we were at the beginning of ANH. It is a must different landscape. For one thing, there were no Jedi on the Galactic stage in ANH. There is Luke and Rey in TLJ and Luke has just left a lasting impression to give power to the new rebellion. Please find that in the years leading up to ANH. Even Rebels doesn’t have such a public display of power, and definitely not one that spread like wildfire across the galaxy.

What public display of power? Luke made a symbolic act, only seen by a handful of rebels, and a legion of FO troops. The fact that people are inspired by this, is a good way to end the story on a note of hope, but considering that the rebels have been reduced to a dozen people on a single ship, I don’t see that as some great victory. I would consider the destruction of the first Death Star as being a far greater victory in both a military and symbolic sense. I would think the destruction of SKB, the FO’s home base, and their most powerful weapon should be much more important in a military, and symbolic sense, but RJ certainly turned that into a pretty hollow victory, considering TLJ’s events follow directly from TFA, and the fact that the FO were supposed to be a rising power. I predict, that the FO will have a firm grasp on the galaxy by the start of episode IX, whilst the rebels will still be struggling to survive. The fact that they survived at all, is to Luke’s credit, but considering he played a major role in getting the galaxy to this dark place, I again would not see it as a huge victory.

The mere existence of the Resistance and Leia’s role as its leader tells us that the new Republic is not what she had hoped and that she fears they do not take the First Order seriously. It paints a picture of a complacent Republic that is probably more worried about internal squabbles than a theoretical outside threat. That they had so few ships that the entire fleet was in orbit of the capital shows that it it was a very weak republic.

Yes, but in the service of rehashing the Empire versus rebels conflict of the OT. The only reason the New Republic is so complacent and weak, is because the writers of the ST desperately wanted to reset the Star Wars galaxy to a pre-BFE state, including a rebellion, stormtroopers, an Emperor figure, and a fallen Jedi student.

I seriously don’t get what some of you want. Do you want a sequel trilogy with a story or a pointless story set in a perfect Utopia? To get a story you have to have conflict and the easiest way to get it is for things to go wrong. In the ST we are getting, things went wrong about 15-20 years after ROTJ (and ROTJ wasn’t the last battle). That is 15-20 years when things went right. The Republic was flourishing and Han and Leia were together. And the worst part is you are blaming Kennedy, and Johnson and leaving out Lucas and Abrams. This whole ST is Lucas’s doing. He created a treatment, he sold his company, he turned it over to Kennedy. How much of his treatment they are using is unknown, but they are using his girl force sensitive hero and his exiled Luke and I bet there is a lot more they are using. But let’s sit tight and wait for IX before we write off the ST. We can’t even tell what the main story is, just like the redemption of Anakin/Vader didn’t become part of the story until ROTJ. In the PT, we all knew where it would end up so we knew the arc from the moment we heard the name Anakin.

I didn’t want two movies, that essentially remix the OT. I didn’t want Empire versus rebels 2.0 right down to the stormtroopers, x-wings, tie-fighters, and a Death Star. I didn’t want an another Jedi apprentice seduced by a Sith Lord wannabe. Been there, done that! What I wanted was an original story with original villains, and a completely different setup, that follows naturally from the events of ROTJ. I’m aware that’s a lot to ask for, but when it comes to Star Wars I have high expectations. I think TFA and TLJ are both pretty good films seen in a vaccuum, but as sequels to the OT, they’re a dissappointment to me.

But it is not a total rehash. Since you are focused on the Jedi/Sith part, in the PT you have Palpatine, a hidden sith lord, lose one apprentice, gain Dooku, all the while his aim is to turn Skywalker (the PT makes it very clear that Palpatine has been Anakin’s mentor from TPM on). In the OT, Palpatine has Vader. When they learn of Luke, they set the goal to turn him. When Luke finally comes before Palpatine, Palpatine no only tries to turn him, but tries to replace Vader. In the ST, Snoke has turned Ben/Kylo. Or has he. There is conflict an in order to end that conflict, Kylo kills his father only to find that conflict has grown not gone away. Snoke sees it and while Kylo tries to turn Rey, Snoke really doesn’t bother, instead having Kylo kill Rey. But that conflict has turned to resolve, not to destroy Rey, but to kill Snoke. And how the story plays out from there we don’t know. So from the Jedi/Sith/Whatever perspective, the three trilogies are completely different. In both the PT and the OT, the Jedi tale is much the same. Boy meets mentor, mentor dies, mentor arranges for another teacher. Boy is taught and becomes a Jedi. The third act for the PT and OT differ as one has the boy fall and the other has the boy redeem his father by sacrificing his life. The ST has a girl search for a mentor (the PT and OT didn’t have a search as the mentor just happened to find the boy), find him, have him refuse to teach her, relent and give some lessons. But then the girl leaves to learn on her own and the mentor dies and will train her from the grave. A couple of points are the same, but the rest is very very different in the ST.

i find it interesting that you think there are more similarities between the PT and the OT than the OT with the ST Jedi-wise. i think that most similarities between the PT and the OT are some very few plot points that were executed drastically differently using very different characters and a much different context, making your comparison feel forced to me.

and i still think that in the ST there have been more similarities (to the OT) in that regard anyway: comparing the trilogy’s Jedi’s journey itself, (which ends up being Rey’s journey) to Luke’s - both had a kind mentor who liked them and never refused to teach them stuff in the first movie, that ended up dying. then in the second installment they have to go to a distant place to find another mentor to train them, except that this time the mentor is, well, not what they expected at all, even refusing to train them at first. Rey/Luke even decide to leave the planet before they complete the training due to outside reasons.

now, Anakin has none of those similarities. he’s a kid in the first one, he loses his master, yes, but Obi-Wan never refuses to train him. he refuses to ‘rank him up’, but that’s a very different thing. from a certain point of view it might not be as different as i’m saying it is, but i still think it is regardless.

not to mention how similar the rest of the ST’s plot is to the OT’s makes it look like Rey is Luke 2.0 even more, except that she’s an overpowered version of him.

And we don’t have an all powerful, galaxy wide empire. We have a power on the Rim invading the core. Their first strike was the PT equivalent of destroying the Coruscant system (not Alderaan) and decapitating the fledgling Republic. Nothing in TLJ says that the FO have actually conquered anything yet. Rey says it will happen in weeks. Only hours or days have passed since the end of TFA. So the FO is in the position of the invader, not the local power. They are more like the Separatists in the Clone Wars. They are not the nearly all powerful Empire of the OT. They are the aggressors where in the OT the Rebels are the aggressors trying to unseat the tyrannical power.

but we do have a galaxy wide empire. let’s take a look at what the movies show us: in SW, the movie shows us a strong Empire, one that even has the power to blow up a planet! they have this huge moon-sized Death Star, and several cruisers. at the end of the movie, the moon sized battle station is destroyed, which is a big hit to the empire. after that we see several cruisers in TESB and even more cruisers and another half completed DS in RotJ. those are the imperial forces that are shown to us in the OT, and they give us the idea that the empire is a very wealthy, influent and large organization, given that even when their superweapon was destroyed they were still extremely powerful.

with that in mind, let’s head on to TFA. it shows us that the FO has a humongous force too. they have built not a moon sized battle station, but a planet sized one. that’s huge, and must have cost a lot of money and manpower. plus we see a few cruisers. now, at the end of that movie the battle station is destroyed too, like in SW, which, of course, leads us to believe that it’s going to be a great hit to the FO.

TLJ follows TFA directly (as you said, one movie is hours apart from the other), so they had the opportunity to show us a scattered First Order, struggling to survive now that the Resistance blew up the thing they had invested in the most, not only making all that investment pretty ineffective but also killing billions of their men. instead, TLJ shows us a First Order that’s stronger than TESB’s Empire. they didn’t even seem to take the hit of the destruction of the base at all, to the point where it’s mentioned MAYBE twice in the movie - which is telling of their power.

considering all of that i find it hard to believe that the First Order is a limping force in the galaxy and not the dominant one.

You keep focusing on some small points of similarity and saying it is the same, yet when you dig in to the details they are not. I am really finding the nature of this argument to be very much like the arguments against the PT (why is Anakin a boy, why all the politics, etc., etc., etc.), the only difference is the quality of the finished product - at least to some. I really can’t see the substance of all the TLJ hate. Most was setup in TFA and TLJ just carries on the story. And the story appears to be close to GL’s treatment (definitely the Luke arc), but with characters created by Abrams (one thing he is very good at).

a couple of plot points in the PT are the same as in the OT, yes, but it’s nothing compared to how TFA’s plot was basically Star Wars’. and the natural progression to that story was there in TLJ again - we basically had TESB and RotJ for the first 3 acts of TLJ, with the 4th act being the most original aspect of the movie (alongside canto bight and a other story beats).

the thing is, the similarities between the OT and the PT are nothing more than a few plot points. the similarities between the OT and the ST are not only a heck of a lot of plot points, but how similarly executed they are, even with the story being told getting similar at times.

Author
Time

One minor point as I rewatch the movie - Finn and Rose are able to escape the Raddus undetected by either party and go to another planet. Since Holdo’s plan is to rely on reinforcements from the Outer Rim after boosting the signal from Crait, why couldn’t a few Resistance soldiers have taken that cloaked hyperspace ship and gone to Crait ahead of the Raddus? Or have been ferrying people off the Raddus onto Crait for hours, preventing a situation where all of the Resistance’s eggs are in one basket?

Frink would say I’m trying to dislike this movie.
But I like nitpicking the plot.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

Author
Time

NeverarGreat said:

One minor point as I rewatch the movie - Finn and Rose are able to escape the Raddus undetected by either party and go to another planet. Since Holdo’s plan is to rely on reinforcements from the Outer Rim after boosting the signal from Crait, why couldn’t a few Resistance soldiers have taken that cloaked hyperspace ship and gone to Crait ahead of the Raddus? Or have been ferrying people off the Raddus onto Crait for hours, preventing a situation where all of the Resistance’s eggs are in one basket?

Frink would say I’m trying to dislike this movie.
But I like nitpicking the plot.

Good point, but one that can be made for wide variety of historical incidents so it’s not really an issue. They did what they thought of at the time.

Author
Time

Movies show us some things and tell us others to paint the picture of the galaxy. The crawl is part of that. You cant take what the movies show and ignore what they tell and you can’t take what they tell and ignore what they show. Both parts go together to give us the setting and setup. The TFA crawl sets up the situation, just like the ANH crawl setup that situation. Both make it clear which side is wide spread and which side is fighting. In ANH, there are but two sides, the Empire and the Rebellion. In TFA there is the new Republic, the First Order, and the Resistance. The FO decapitates the Republic but has taken no action to invade. When are they doing that? Well, that so called throw away line from Rey where she says weeks. The way you guys are describing it, the First Order, just by destroying the Republic capital and fleet has taken over every planet in the Republic and that is very silly.

As for Starkiller base, just how many people were there? We don’t know. It obviously wasn’t the heart of the First Order. Snoke wasn’t there. So yeah, a lot of investment was destroyed, but their fleet wasn’t nor was their home base. And we still don’t know where that is.

How you are reading this nonsense into two movies that very clearly are giving us as much data as the OT ever did and which OT fans have pulled out and poured over for decades is beyond me. I know you have issues with the movie(s), but you are going to extreme lengths to make points that are inaccurate and do not fit what we are shown and told. I was going to extreme lengths to show that there is a much different story from the one you think these movies are telling. You are only pointing out things that fit your point of view rather than taking everything into account. Stop blaming the story telling that is perfectly in line with the previous 6 films (and a lot of it seems to original with GL himself) and just admit you don’t like things about it. You don’t need long detailed reasons. My reasons for hating certain Star Trek movies are very plain, simple, and I don’t try to rip apart every aspect of the films. I know what I don’t like and what ruins it for me. Abrams bad editing and poor science (it is Star Wars, but GL was always pretty good about making things seem reasonable while Abrams just pulled a Bruckheimer as far as I’m concerned) are why I dislike TFA. Though to me honest, it might also have something to do with seeing it in 3D and hating the 3D effect that made it look so fake. I’m waiting until IX to really delve into it in detail. But saying this is a reset and rehash of the OT fails to account for the goal of a finale in the form of IX. You see a reset, I see a setup. I see things moving toward an ending. Frankly the idea that they reset it makes no sense with IX being the saga finale. No sense at all.

Author
Time

yotsuya said:

Movies show us some things and tell us others to paint the picture of the galaxy. The crawl is part of that. You cant take what the movies show and ignore what they tell and you can’t take what they tell and ignore what they show. Both parts go together to give us the setting and setup. The TFA crawl sets up the situation, just like the ANH crawl setup that situation. Both make it clear which side is wide spread and which side is fighting. In ANH, there are but two sides, the Empire and the Rebellion. In TFA there is the new Republic, the First Order, and the Resistance. The FO decapitates the Republic but has taken no action to invade. When are they doing that? Well, that so called throw away line from Rey where she says weeks. The way you guys are describing it, the First Order, just by destroying the Republic capital and fleet has taken over every planet in the Republic and that is very silly.

As for Starkiller base, just how many people were there? We don’t know. It obviously wasn’t the heart of the First Order. Snoke wasn’t there. So yeah, a lot of investment was destroyed, but their fleet wasn’t nor was their home base. And we still don’t know where that is.

How you are reading this nonsense into two movies that very clearly are giving us as much data as the OT ever did and which OT fans have pulled out and poured over for decades is beyond me. I know you have issues with the movie(s), but you are going to extreme lengths to make points that are inaccurate and do not fit what we are shown and told. I was going to extreme lengths to show that there is a much different story from the one you think these movies are telling. You are only pointing out things that fit your point of view rather than taking everything into account. Stop blaming the story telling that is perfectly in line with the previous 6 films (and a lot of it seems to original with GL himself) and just admit you don’t like things about it. You don’t need long detailed reasons. My reasons for hating certain Star Trek movies are very plain, simple, and I don’t try to rip apart every aspect of the films. I know what I don’t like and what ruins it for me. Abrams bad editing and poor science (it is Star Wars, but GL was always pretty good about making things seem reasonable while Abrams just pulled a Bruckheimer as far as I’m concerned) are why I dislike TFA. Though to me honest, it might also have something to do with seeing it in 3D and hating the 3D effect that made it look so fake. I’m waiting until IX to really delve into it in detail. But saying this is a reset and rehash of the OT fails to account for the goal of a finale in the form of IX. You see a reset, I see a setup. I see things moving toward an ending. Frankly the idea that they reset it makes no sense with IX being the saga finale. No sense at all.

I pretty much agree with this overall. There is one more film after all despite TLJ feeling like a finished product (which I thought was a real plus for the flick btw).

Author
Time
 (Edited)

yotsuya said:

Frankly the idea that they reset it makes no sense with IX being the saga finale. No sense at all.

For almost 40 years, movie three of the OT was the end of the Star Wars saga. You know, the movie where all the major villains were killed and everyone assumed that the Rebellion had won, and which in TFA’s backstory it actually had. George’s idea for sequel trilogies was constantly changing, and was at times going to be about the Wookiee planet, or the world of the Midichlorians, or about Luke finding his mysterious twin sister across the galaxy and requiring her to defeat the Emperor, at least before he got tired of Star Wars and rushed to the conclusion in ROTJ. Why are we taking George’s plans seriously at all anymore?

So yes, George Lucas and JJ Abrams and Michael Arndt reset the conflict in the universe for another trilogy. To draw a comparison: Mordor is again filled with bigger, meaner orcs with another evil spirit leading them, Aragorn has given up on the world of Men and gone into hiding, and another hobbit hero will need to find a wizard mentor and make everything right with the world. Again.

And it’s just a shame, since the seeds of greatness are within TFA from the beginning. A Republic split between a strong, centralized ‘Imperial’ government and a united confederation of self-ruled star systems would provide ample opportunity for conflict. Add to this the questioning of bringing back what is essentially a state-sanctioned theocratic order, and the rehabilitation of generations of soldiers conditioned for war, and you’ve got the beginning of a truly new chapter in what can really call itself the continuing Star Wars saga. And it actually is that sort of a movie, until the Senate is blown up by another superweapon and the Resistance becomes the Rebellion.

Finally, I’m somewhat amused at how much faith you put in a man who is famed for his inability to stick the landing of his stories, when he has to do it now not just for this trilogy, but for the entire Star Wars saga.
I don’t envy him his job.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

Author
Time
 (Edited)

If IX follows the story that’s been set up so far, we’ll see the trilogy end with the FO defeated to some extent, but with the clear implication that this isn’t a happy ROTJ-esque where everything is and will be great forever - quite the opposite - there’ll be a suggestion that it’s only a matter of time before the dark side rises again. And everyone will complain that they’re just setting up another trilogy, when really they’ll be making a statement about how the fight with never be over, but as long as there are people who will stand to face it, good will win out.

I haven’t read LOTR in awhile but I recall that there’s a similar mindset with the Scouring of the Shire and all that, where the idea is that defeating evil once isn’t enough, you always have to be on the lookout for it.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

It’s some of that, yes, but I think the Scouring of the Shire was more specifically about Tolkien expressing his fears about industrialization in Britain after the wars, and using this as a way to bring the conflict home to the characters on a deeply personal level.

And that’s a good message for a book, but not at all cinematic to have an extended cleanup after the main conflict has ended. Peter Jackson understood that at least.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

Author
Time

NeverarGreat said:

Finally, I’m somewhat amused at how much faith you put in a man who is famed for his inability to stick the landing of his stories, when he has to do it now not just for this trilogy, but for the entire Star Wars saga.

This is why I looked forward to TFA with guarded optimism, but was surprised and disappointed to experience an OT rehash in a universe rife with possibilities. I expect nostalgia and sentimentality will take the place of storytelling in Episode IX, so people will leave the theater feeling good, but ultimately the conclusion will feel empty upon subsequent viewings.

I don’t believe that this is the end of the saga, though. Disney isn’t going to close the door on future numbered films. Too much money there. Kylo and Rey could have a Force-sensitive superbaby to keep the bloodline going (assuming we don’t get a Rey retcon in IX that makes her a Skywalker).

Forum Administrator

MTFBWY…A

Author
Time

NeverAreGreat said -" And it’s just a shame, since the seeds of greatness are within TFA from the beginning. A Republic split between a strong, centralized ‘Imperial’ government and a united confederation of self-ruled star systems would provide ample opportunity for conflict." …funny he should mention that , and while I feel that you should not need a novel or comic etc to explain the movie to you , I also feel that they can be quite an enjoyable experience at times . The novel Bloodline was a great read in my opinion and is premised on this exact scenario . It is part of the "official " canon back story to TFA . I have the audio book and it is a fantastic production. puts me in a mood to watch TFA and Last Jedi again…http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bloodline_(novel)

https://screamsinthevoid.deviantart.com/

Author
Time
 (Edited)

yotsuya said:

Movies show us some things and tell us others to paint the picture of the galaxy. The crawl is part of that. You cant take what the movies show and ignore what they tell and you can’t take what they tell and ignore what they show. Both parts go together to give us the setting and setup. The TFA crawl sets up the situation, just like the ANH crawl setup that situation. Both make it clear which side is wide spread and which side is fighting. In ANH, there are but two sides, the Empire and the Rebellion. In TFA there is the new Republic, the First Order, and the Resistance. The FO decapitates the Republic but has taken no action to invade. When are they doing that? Well, that so called throw away line from Rey where she says weeks. The way you guys are describing it, the First Order, just by destroying the Republic capital and fleet has taken over every planet in the Republic and that is very silly.

As for Starkiller base, just how many people were there? We don’t know. It obviously wasn’t the heart of the First Order. Snoke wasn’t there. So yeah, a lot of investment was destroyed, but their fleet wasn’t nor was their home base. And we still don’t know where that is.

How you are reading this nonsense into two movies that very clearly are giving us as much data as the OT ever did and which OT fans have pulled out and poured over for decades is beyond me. I know you have issues with the movie(s), but you are going to extreme lengths to make points that are inaccurate and do not fit what we are shown and told. I was going to extreme lengths to show that there is a much different story from the one you think these movies are telling. You are only pointing out things that fit your point of view rather than taking everything into account. Stop blaming the story telling that is perfectly in line with the previous 6 films (and a lot of it seems to original with GL himself) and just admit you don’t like things about it. You don’t need long detailed reasons. My reasons for hating certain Star Trek movies are very plain, simple, and I don’t try to rip apart every aspect of the films. I know what I don’t like and what ruins it for me. Abrams bad editing and poor science (it is Star Wars, but GL was always pretty good about making things seem reasonable while Abrams just pulled a Bruckheimer as far as I’m concerned) are why I dislike TFA. Though to me honest, it might also have something to do with seeing it in 3D and hating the 3D effect that made it look so fake. I’m waiting until IX to really delve into it in detail. But saying this is a reset and rehash of the OT fails to account for the goal of a finale in the form of IX. You see a reset, I see a setup. I see things moving toward an ending. Frankly the idea that they reset it makes no sense with IX being the saga finale. No sense at all.

What are you talking about? I’ve admitted I don’t like things about the movie ad nauseum, as many here will profess. There are differences in the story, but you don’t have to be a genius to notice the obvious visual and narrative simularities between the the OT and the ST. TFA has been widely criticized for this. TFA is a hommage to ANH. TLJ appears to follow suit, but uses several story twists to keep the audience on their toes. Someone else noted this yesterday, but the problem with this is, that once the novelty of the twists wear off, the narrative similarities between TLJ, and TESB/ROTJ become more obvious, leading to a continuous sense of déja vu while watching the movie just like for TFA, even if the outcome of events is different. A perfect example for this is the throne room sequence, which delibirately recycles the throne room sequence of ROTJ, with Rey having the same motivations as Luke, and even repeats some of the same dialogue, but then introduces a big twist to change the dynamic of the story. TFA left RJ with the difficult job of continuing a highly derivative story. He decided to use our expectations against us, and created a story that seems to rehash large chunks of TESB and ROTJ, but uses twists and turns to get us to a very different conclusion. Episode IX may be totally unique and different. I certainly hope so, but even if that turns out to be the case, we had to watch two highly self-referential, and derivative films to get there, and that’s a shame from a certain point of view. In my view it should not take two highly derivative movies to setup what might become a mostly original story for episode IX.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

screams in the void said:

the throne room scene aboard General Grevious’ flagship at the start of ROTS could have the same argument made for it . Just an observation.

To an extend yes, but the circumstances surrounding Grievous’ flagship are very different, as is the characters’ motivations for being there. TLJ uses the same basic setup of ROTJ, where the hero lets himself/herself be captured by the villain in the hope, that she will be able to turn the villain to the good side, whilst a rebellion is in dire straits, a fact used by the villain’s master to taunt the hero.

Author
Time

yotsuya said:
Except that we don’t have the Rebels vs. Empire again. Not really. They are indeed going for that feel, but in the OT we had a galaxy spanning empire and a scattered rebellion. In the ST we have a beheaded Republic, a cut down resistance, both in opposition to the invading First Order. So unlike the OT where the government of nearly every world is against you (because they are controlled by the Empire), now there are allies everywhere, and the Resistance can work to unite the planets trying to resist the First Order take over. While the fighting parties are very similar to what we see in the OT, in the OT that was one fleet of a much larger navy and in the ST, we can’t be sure how much larger the navy is than what we see (and in TLJ a lot of the FO ships were destroyed or badly damaged). So on the surface your argument seems to make sense, but when the full situation is laid out, the comparison falls flat as there are too many differences and too many ways the story can go that can be completely different in the third act.

Maybe not technically, but they’re going for the feel alright, and that’s what I didn’t want. The Republic isn’t just beheaded it seems, it was totally wiped out in one shot. According to C3PO, the entire fleet was destroyed in that one shot by SKB.

Also, the resistance is totally destroyed, leaving just a handful of folks in the MF. They even start calling themselves “rebels” by the end of the film.

I hope they take the story in an interesting and new way in Episode IX and flesh out some things.

Author
Time

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

Movies show us some things and tell us others to paint the picture of the galaxy. The crawl is part of that. You cant take what the movies show and ignore what they tell and you can’t take what they tell and ignore what they show. Both parts go together to give us the setting and setup. The TFA crawl sets up the situation, just like the ANH crawl setup that situation. Both make it clear which side is wide spread and which side is fighting. In ANH, there are but two sides, the Empire and the Rebellion. In TFA there is the new Republic, the First Order, and the Resistance. The FO decapitates the Republic but has taken no action to invade. When are they doing that? Well, that so called throw away line from Rey where she says weeks. The way you guys are describing it, the First Order, just by destroying the Republic capital and fleet has taken over every planet in the Republic and that is very silly.

As for Starkiller base, just how many people were there? We don’t know. It obviously wasn’t the heart of the First Order. Snoke wasn’t there. So yeah, a lot of investment was destroyed, but their fleet wasn’t nor was their home base. And we still don’t know where that is.

How you are reading this nonsense into two movies that very clearly are giving us as much data as the OT ever did and which OT fans have pulled out and poured over for decades is beyond me. I know you have issues with the movie(s), but you are going to extreme lengths to make points that are inaccurate and do not fit what we are shown and told. I was going to extreme lengths to show that there is a much different story from the one you think these movies are telling. You are only pointing out things that fit your point of view rather than taking everything into account. Stop blaming the story telling that is perfectly in line with the previous 6 films (and a lot of it seems to original with GL himself) and just admit you don’t like things about it. You don’t need long detailed reasons. My reasons for hating certain Star Trek movies are very plain, simple, and I don’t try to rip apart every aspect of the films. I know what I don’t like and what ruins it for me. Abrams bad editing and poor science (it is Star Wars, but GL was always pretty good about making things seem reasonable while Abrams just pulled a Bruckheimer as far as I’m concerned) are why I dislike TFA. Though to me honest, it might also have something to do with seeing it in 3D and hating the 3D effect that made it look so fake. I’m waiting until IX to really delve into it in detail. But saying this is a reset and rehash of the OT fails to account for the goal of a finale in the form of IX. You see a reset, I see a setup. I see things moving toward an ending. Frankly the idea that they reset it makes no sense with IX being the saga finale. No sense at all.

What are you talking about? I’ve admitted I don’t like things about the movie ad nauseum, as many here will profess. There are differences in the story, but you don’t have to be a genius to notice the obvious visual and narrative simularities between the the OT and the ST. TFA has been widely criticized for this. TFA is a hommage to ANH. TLJ appears to follow suit, but uses several story twists to keep the audience on their toes. Someone else noted this yesterday, but the problem with this is, that once the novelty of the twists wear off, the narrative similarities between TLJ, and TESB/ROTJ become more obvious, leading to a continuous sense of déja vu while watching the movie just like for TFA, even if the outcome of events is different. A perfect example for this is the throne room sequence, which delibirately recycles the throne room sequence of ROTJ, with Rey having the same motivations as Luke, and even repeats some of the same dialogue, but then introduces a big twist to change the dynamic of the story. TFA left RJ with the difficult job of continuing a highly derivative story. He decided to use our expectations against us, and created a story that seems to rehash large chunks of TESB and ROTJ, but uses twists and turns to get us to a very different conclusion. Episode IX may be totally unique and different. I certainly hope so, but even if that turns out to be the case, we had to watch two highly self-referential, and derivative films to get there, and that’s a shame from a certain point of view. In my view it should not take two highly derivative movies to setup what might become a mostly original story for episode IX.

What I’m talking about is that so many who claim similarities are focusing solely on the similarities in your complaints and ignoring the differences. You can do the exact same thing with the PT. Exactly. The echoes in story telling were deliberate on Lucas’s part. It is the differences that are important. And in some of the similarities you point out, you have to really force it to make it sound the same.

Author
Time

NeverarGreat said:

yotsuya said:

Frankly the idea that they reset it makes no sense with IX being the saga finale. No sense at all.

For almost 40 years, movie three of the OT was the end of the Star Wars saga. You know, the movie where all the major villains were killed and everyone assumed that the Rebellion had won, and which in TFA’s backstory it actually had. George’s idea for sequel trilogies was constantly changing, and was at times going to be about the Wookiee planet, or the world of the Midichlorians, or about Luke finding his mysterious twin sister across the galaxy and requiring her to defeat the Emperor, at least before he got tired of Star Wars and rushed to the conclusion in ROTJ. Why are we taking George’s plans seriously at all anymore?

So yes, George Lucas and JJ Abrams and Michael Arndt reset the conflict in the universe for another trilogy. To draw a comparison: Mordor is again filled with bigger, meaner orcs with another evil spirit leading them, Aragorn has given up on the world of Men and gone into hiding, and another hobbit hero will need to find a wizard mentor and make everything right with the world. Again.

And it’s just a shame, since the seeds of greatness are within TFA from the beginning. A Republic split between a strong, centralized ‘Imperial’ government and a united confederation of self-ruled star systems would provide ample opportunity for conflict. Add to this the questioning of bringing back what is essentially a state-sanctioned theocratic order, and the rehabilitation of generations of soldiers conditioned for war, and you’ve got the beginning of a truly new chapter in what can really call itself the continuing Star Wars saga. And it actually is that sort of a movie, until the Senate is blown up by another superweapon and the Resistance becomes the Rebellion.

Finally, I’m somewhat amused at how much faith you put in a man who is famed for his inability to stick the landing of his stories, when he has to do it now not just for this trilogy, but for the entire Star Wars saga.
I don’t envy him his job.

I have no faith what so ever that Abrams can craft an ending to this trilogy much less the saga. But George did a treatment with an ending. We know they are using his treatment as the basis for at least some of the story. If they use George’s ending, I’m confident that Abrams can pull it off because he is a good director, just not a good writer. I do worry he will muck it up in editing like he did TFA.

And I do think this saga will end and not be picked up again. Disney has plans to explore more corners of the Star Wars galaxy. There are thousands of years of the past to delve into. Lots of good Jedi/Sith stuff, lots of good wars and conflicts. They have plans for two trilogies that are not connected to the Skywalker saga.

Author
Time

mfastx said:
Also, the resistance is totally destroyed, leaving just a handful of folks in the MF. They even start calling themselves “rebels” by the end of the film.

I hope they take the story in an interesting and new way in Episode IX and flesh out some things.

Agree on both points. I hope they get us a ways away from the last film, visually as well as story. There were parts of this that had a Prequel look. Fine for a lot of this story, e.g., Canto Bight and Snoke’s red room, but I very much prefer the Rogue One and Solo look.

Story-wise, we’re deep into a sort of revisit of the OT type framework. That doesnt bother me as much as it does some around here, but I do wish they would have gone with a less is more philosophy. Both films would have worked as good or better (to me) if they would have left Starkiller Base, Snoke, and Phasma on the cutting room floor.

Either way, I’ll go see it and I suspect I won’t dislike it. I like Last Jedi more now after having watched it for the second and third times this week. Shut up. 😉

There are portions I skip though. I dont find any of that red throne room scene interesting, the Maz scene feels shoehorned and unnecessary, and I skip past most of the beginning and pick up just after Finn does the comedic leaking Bacta suit walk. eye roll

Glad I gave it a second look. There are some nuances with Rey and Luke that I really enjoy.

Forum Moderator
Author
Time
 (Edited)

I think Mon Mothma should have been Snoke. Hear me out…

What if instead of CGI Snoke we’d been presented with a hooded female/crone-type figure (something like Palpatine in the prequels but a woman)? She’d have the same hologram relationship with Kylo and Hux in TFA, and of course speculation would run rampant as to who she was. Did Palpatine have a sister? Is she Plagueis, or a Kenobi, or Luke’s great grandmother etc etc.

In TLJ we’d suspect Holdo on the back of the Poe/Holdo dynamic. But this would be rebutted when Holdo does her self-sacrifice. Maybe Commander D’arcy might be looking suspicious at this point (possibly a double agent for Mothma) - or any of the other women populating the Resistance. Amongst all this we’d get a small scene with Mon Mothma. She and Leia would share a tender moment where Mothma, formerly Ben Solo’s mentor/tutor during the formation of the New Republic and now running a college campus/military training centre in the Bothan system, would express to Leia that Ben had a good soul and will surely find the right path. Fans would write the scene off (for good or ill) as mere fan service and pay it little heed. Basically it would mirror the Palpatine/Sidious vibe of the PT but in this instance the audience would have no idea.

So in ep IX Snokette would be revealed to be Mon Mothma. It turns out that back in the day she’d been an confidant/aide to Palpatine and he’d shown her the Dark Side (people would speculate as to whether they’d been Sith Lords with special benefits but the film wouldn’t state so). Mothma had agreed to kill the Bothan spies herself and deliver the false information to the rebels, in exchange for the Bothan system being spared as well as a seat of power at Palpatine’s right hand. The rebel victory scuttled her plans which bore bitter fruit in the intervening years. While Han and Leia were off rebuilding the Republic, Mothma was secretly rebuilding the Empire and filling poor neglected Ben’s head with lies about how his sword-tutor (uncle Luke) had selfishly betrayed his grandfather and brought about the destruction of nice old Palpatine’s vision for a unified galaxy.

I’m sure there are a million better ideas out there, but here is an example of a wild story concept that would completely honour the OT and its conclusion whilst providing a plausible reason/motivation for things to go awry down the line. We’d get a good motivation for a Palpatine successor, a good motivation for Ben’s switching sides, a new war situation that doesn’t simply write off the RoTJ victory, and the ‘subversion’ would be in the new way we would interpret the “many Bothans died…” scene.

P.S. as soon as I wrote this I googled ‘Mon Mothma double agent’ to see if anyone else had had the same idea and found this Reddit article. It doesn’t propose her as a ‘new Palpatine for the ST’ but it does speculate she was on his side during RoTJ (and with benefits)…
https://www.reddit.com/r/starwarsspeculation/comments/5kttz6/mon_mothma_is_really_palpatines_wifesecret/