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Post #1260354

Author
DrDre
Parent topic
Episode VIII : The Last Jedi - Discussion * SPOILER THREAD *
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1260354/action/topic#1260354
Date created
18-Dec-2018, 1:09 AM

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

rodneyfaile said:

Haarspalter said:
So Star Wars is now a learning-lessons-about-life-meta-documentary which uses a fictional space fantasy fairy tale as a backdrop some old bearded guy invented in the 70s?

Meh.

Star Wars should be about escapism, not realism.

Sounds like you didn’t understand the other movies either.

I don’t understand why this is needed. I didn’t like TLJ for a whole host of reasons, but I’m not going to tell you you don’t understand Star Wars for liking what I consider to be a deeply flawed film, that puts a post-modern perspective on a modern myth, by turning the saga into a meta commentary on itself, and has the characters in the mythology question the merits of their own reality. You might just accept that Star Wars is different things to different people. It’s fine that you consider TLJ a great film, and you’ve stated the reasons why, but many others including myself feel the ST and particulary TLJ weakens the overall saga, and its mythology as a whole for the reasons stated above, and the fact that it resets the galaxy to an Empire vs rebels conflict without proper context, or explanation to give us an alternate reality version of the OT, where great effort is taken to push a number of new characters to the foreground at the expense of the old.

Forgive me if I only focus on this paragraph, but after reading it I felt a couple of things needed to be answered. First, this is a new trilogy and it is supposed to focus on new characters and push the old into supporting roles. That was the vision of it from the get go. That is what Lucas told Hamill 30 years ago. The role we see for Luke, Han, and Leia is exactly what it is supposed to be. This is not their time any longer. That is the entire point of setting it 30 years later. Each trilogy is a different era of a much larger story. The OT is the core story - the rebellion and redemption. It is the classic myth in origin. The PT is the back story, the history. It is stilted and old fashioned in tone and depicts the events before and during the fall. The ST is now the new generation. This is Rey, Poe, Finn, and Kylo’s story. Han, Luke, and Leia are old people passing on the torch and sharing their wisdom. It is not their trilogy so the new characters are supposed to be pushed to the foreground at their expense. This is not Heir to Empire where the old group were still in their prime.

This is where what I keep talking about with expectations comes in. Just from that one sentence that you ended that paragraph with I can see you expected a new trilogy with the old characters and that was never the plan. Lucas never intended the third trilogy to be about 3 old farts saving things again. They were supposed to be the familiar faces to introduce the new heroes, and that is exactly what we got. In all the old myths and legends, there are sequels for a new generation where the old heroes are the ones who have become the mentors to the new heroes. Coming into this trilogy with any expectations for the cast of the OT to have big roles was setting yourself up for disappointment. It was never going to happen. That was the books of the EU (now Legends). This is something new. Something to bind the other 6 films together and bring the saga to a conclusion. This is a new tale of good vs. evil with something else to say. I think the point will be clear when IX comes out. But it is obvious from the way you describe what you didn’t like about TLJ that you had expected something different and a lot of your dislike lies in that. You have made some other really good points, but every time I read your posts on TLJ, it comes back to what about Luke, Han, and Leia you didn’t like and how it didn’t meet your expectations. And what you don’t like about their part in the ST is that they were derailed from where we left them in ROTJ by what happened to Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. That was the core of TFA and TLJ and as I understand it, George Lucas’s treatment for the ST.

As for the familiar feel to the two sides, that is often the way of history. Abrams did the setup and yet the ire is aimed at Johnson. Abrams failed to give us the little details Lucas loved to throw in to paint the picture. But we are stuck with what Abrams left us with in TFA. But it also isn’t that unreasonable. There has to be some conflict (it is called Star Wars after all) and making a weak republic and eliminating its government and fleet were a simple way to start the story. Abrams could have done better setting things up, but in the end, both Abrams and Johnson are focusing on the things that really matter - the characters that take us to the end of the Saga. What that end will be we don’t know and can only guess at this point.

You misunderstand me. I did not expect the old guard to be the focus of this story, but I don’t like the idea of turning the old crew into a bunch of losers, such that the new guard can shine by comparison. The entire outcome of the OT and much of the character arcs therein were undone without much context or explanation to reset the story to a highly similar premise of Empire vs rebels/Jedi vs Sith. That to me is not natural story progression, but a soft reboot.

It was explained, multiple times in both movies or shown in various ways. The crux is the fall of Ben Solo, which happened off screen. Luke vanished, Han and Leia broke up and went back to what they were good at. With Kylo and the Knights of Ren, the First Order rose and took the old Empire tech and improved on it and developed a new super weapon. About the only thing missing is any clear details about the new Republic, but they are wiped out in TFA. If you need to have everyone in the same place as 30 years ago or super detailed reasons why they aren’t, then you expect them to be main characters still instead of supporting characters. I can understand being critical of the film, but many of your points are based of a false assumption that the old cast is still the focus. This trilogy belongs wholly to the younger cast.

I don’t expect everyone to be in the same place, but I did expect an original story, that builds on what previous films established. In stead much of what was built has been broken down to give us something very similar. This might make money sense, since it’s the perfect way to maintain brand recognition by keeping the galaxy locked into an Empire vs rebels state, but in my view it doesn’t make much story sense. Palpatine was unique in the sense, that he alone through cunning was able to destroy a Republic that had stood for at least a thousand years. Snoke is just some random guy, who somehow seduced Ben Solo and essentially rebuilt the Empire in the unknown regions, while the Republic was looking the other way for plot convenience, and used a superweapon to turn back the clock some 35 years. No more explanation required according to the current creators. The fact that such a scenerio is possible, and we can point to real world examples to fill in the blanks, doesn’t mean it makes dramatic or story sense. It just seems like lazy writing, and makes the ST feel tacked on.