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Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker - Discussion * SPOILER THREAD * — Page 115

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SilverWook said:

Everybody who’s not going to see it, speak up now, for the record. 😉

Me!

“That Darth Vader, man. Sure does love eating Jedi.”

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I also worry that Abrams is going to botch it. My hope is that this ending is similar to the one Lucas wrote in the treatment and with him being consulted on the film, that gives me hope that Abrams won’t ruin it. I think all the problems I have with TFA were all flaws in the editing more than flaws in story structure. He could create the perfect explanation and then leave it out in the final edit. I have hope, but I am cautious because of past experience.

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It’s the end of the series, they’re going to ride off into the binary sunset.

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If the recently updated plot leaks are true then TROS will somehow actually be worse than TLJ, at least insofar as the writing of the story and characters.

Can’t wait for TROS to release to DVD, watch it once out of morbid curiousity and then try to forget the ST altogether for the rest of my life…

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Valheru_84 said:

If the recently updated plot leaks are true then TROS will somehow actually be worse than TLJ, at least insofar as the writing of the story and characters.

Can’t wait for TROS to release to DVD, watch it once out of morbid curiousity and then try to forget the ST altogether for the rest of my life…

I think there is more chance that people who won’t / will not like TROS, and some indeed seem to have made their minds up on IX before seeing it, will be endlessly posting about it everywhere.

Much like they have for TLJ or other new Star Wars films they don’t like.
 

Closed minds - closed hearts. Fandom seems to be more about hating on things these days, and letting others know endlessly about it. I can’t see many of the ST bashers forgetting about it just becuase the ST are coming to an end. Hate begets hate.

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Force-Abel said:

Valheru_84 said:

If the recently updated plot leaks are true then TROS will somehow actually be worse than TLJ, at least insofar as the writing of the story and characters.

Can’t wait for TROS to release to DVD, watch it once out of morbid curiousity and then try to forget the ST altogether for the rest of my life…

I think there is more chance that people who won’t / will not like TROS, and some indeed seem to have made their minds up on IX before seeing it, will be endlessly posting about it everywhere.

Much like they have for TLJ or other new Star Wars films they don’t like.
 

Closed minds - closed hearts. Fandom seems to be more about hating on things these days, and letting others know endlessly about it. I can’t see many of the ST bashers forgetting about it just becuase the ST are coming to an end. Hate begets hate.

Yeah, I’m trying to keep any open mind. A film is much more than just a plot summary. That said, there is one specific plot leak detail that I absolutely hate and hope is not true. While TLJ was subversive (not always in a satisfying way) it was at least respectful, but if this TROS plot detail is true I think it would be a total insult to the previous film and the audience. I don’t want to be jerked around and I don’t want to be treated like a dummy.

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The Seuqel trilogy movies from a directing, dialogue, and cinematography standpoint are much better than the prequels. But like the plots are just so much better with the prequels.

Take the plots of the Prequels and put them with competent writers and directors, and you’d have some damn good Star Wars movies.

I’m sure I’ll enjoy TROS, but the plot just sounds bad.

And I’m sure I’ll guiltily enjoy seeing Palpatine again, but when I really think about it, it just makes me feel like someone took a big crap on ROTJ.

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pleasehello said:
I don’t want to be jerked around and I don’t want to be treated like a dummy.

Nailed it, the slapdash retroactive structuring with little coherence and all convenience.

“The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.” - DV

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At this point I hope the tail doesn’t wag the dog; I hope they craft a fitting end to the trilogy as it is by this point, rather than moving away from their trajectory in paranoid reaction to perceived backlash.
I do wonder to what degree Palpatine is the sincere (potentially planned all along) conclusion of the story that’s developed, or corporate decision in reaction to what was done with TLJ.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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act on instinct said:

Nailed it, the slapdash retroactive structuring with little coherence and all convenience.

That’s basically Star Wars. Since around 1980 forward.

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Hal 9000 said:

At this point I hope the tail doesn’t wag the dog; I hope they craft a fitting end to the trilogy as it is by this point, rather than moving away from their trajectory in paranoid reaction to perceived backlash.
I do wonder to what degree Palpatine is the sincere (potentially planned all along) conclusion of the story that’s developed, or corporate decision in reaction to what was done with TLJ.

Well considering the return of Palpatine would have been the ultimate cliffhanger for TLJ, and the first hint for his return was in a trailer for this film, which clearly indicates, they don’t consider it some big reveal in TROS, I would say it wasn’t planned at all.

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If it’s a question of whether anything you just saw in Star Wars was planned before they started making the movie you’re watching, the answer is almost always no.

Also: Bendemption is definitely happening. That was a foregone conclusion the second we found out Palpatine was back.

But Reylo isn’t gonna happen. Not unless you so heavily dilute what Reylo is until it basically just means “Kylo is nice to Rey once and helps her.” But there’s nothing romantic happening between the two.

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DrDre said:

Hal 9000 said:

At this point I hope the tail doesn’t wag the dog; I hope they craft a fitting end to the trilogy as it is by this point, rather than moving away from their trajectory in paranoid reaction to perceived backlash.
I do wonder to what degree Palpatine is the sincere (potentially planned all along) conclusion of the story that’s developed, or corporate decision in reaction to what was done with TLJ.

Well considering the return of Palpatine would have been the ultimate cliffhanger for TLJ, and the first hint for his return was in a trailer for this film, which clearly indicates, they don’t consider it some big reveal in TROS, I would say it wasn’t planned at all.

His theme was in TLJ though, so if we presume John Williams has a say in all this he might have known.

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Unlike many, I have no expectations whatsoever regarding this movie. In fact my interest in the ST in general died after watching TFA, and I fully expected TLJ to be much the same, a copy-paste of TESB like TFA is to the first SW movie, which thankfully wasn’t the case.

The moment they announced Abrams was being brought back to replace Trevorrow, which was a few months before TLJ premiered, was the moment the movie was officially dead to me, and watching the trailers it’s pretty obvious TROS will be another piece of regurgitated pop culture, just like anything directed by Abrams.

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I’ve started wondering if resurrecting Palpatine might have been in George’s original treatments. There is one particular piece of concept art in the TFA book that shows Darth Talon posing with a dark, ethereal figure standing over her (pg. 27). I wonder how much the artists knew about this “Uber” character beyond the him/it being powerful in the dark side that and pulling the strings from the shadows. It could be similar to how I think the Jedi Killer might have always been Han and Leia’s son, but it was kept secret for sometime before they told the artists, which has led some people to speculate that young Solo and Jedi Killer being different characters at some point during development.

Maybe the Talon-character was a servant of Palpatine, and was ordered by him to seduce the son of Han and Leia (Seduction 001-005, pg. 35). If IX reveals that Snoke was somehow a pawn of Palpatine, then Snoke may have been the merger of the ‘Uber’ and ‘Seducer’ characters, since Snoke functioned like Talon by seducing young Solo to the dark side.

There is another piece called Jedi Killer Contemplation, with this quote from one concept artist, Alzmann. “This was back when the MacGuffin was the melted helmet of Vader…” (pg. 79)

There’s also several pieces of the Death Star II submerged underwater, which we know they are bringing back into IX. Regarding one piece, Ian McCaig says, “So when the adventure is over, Kira finds a hidden map inside the Emperor’s tower of the second Death Star. And the map tells you where the Jedi are and where Luke is hiding.” (pg. 34). While the MacGuffin clearly evolved by this point, I can’t help but wonder if the importance of Vader’s helmet and the site of the Emperor’s “death” may have played some role involving Palpatine himself.

So let’s say that Abrams, Johnson and Kennedy weren’t 100% sure about bringing back Palpatine when producing TFA and TLJ, if the idea was at least there from the beginning, in the form of George’s treatments, then that might be why she is saying it was in the plans from the start (even though they obviously decided to diverge from his treatments while developing TFA).

But would George actually bring back Palpatine? It isn’t impossible. Tom Veitch, the writer of the Dark Empire comic, said the original antagonist of the story was going to be a Vader imposter, but George himself had him change it to the clone of Palpatine. So clearly Palpatine’s resurrection wasn’t blasphemy to even the creator.

While clearly context has changed significantly from when he first had the idea of Episodes 7-9, before 6 was released, he had the idea of 6 culminating in just a confrontation with Vader, and 7-9 being about Luke finding his long-lost sister and finally confronting the Emperor in Episode IX. It makes me think of early drafts of Star Wars, where the climax was reminiscent of ROTJ, where natives (Wookiees) helped play a role in destroying the Death Star. George realized it was too much for one movie, and while not entirely accurate, I think this is where George says he split the one movie into three movies. But instead of inventing a new climax for the third movie, he brought back the natives idea, as well as another Death Star that must be destroyed. So if this is George’s idea, he’s basically done the same thing, but with Palpatine.

Abrams has said they consulted George for this film, which gives some credence to the idea that bringing back Palpatine is somehow related to Lucas. Also, if bringing back Palpatine is an idea that came from George himself, it would give legitimacy to this plot point that could be controversial to some fans. It wouldn’t be the first time fans have been perplexed by George’s ideas (midichlorians, Ahsoka Tano, etc.), but if the man who invented the Chosen One prophecy doesn’t think resurrecting the last Sith undermines that idea, then I think some fans who feel skeptical are more likely to eventually accept it.

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Swazzy said:

Prequels are substance without excitement. Sequels are excitement with (less) substance. OT is a balance of both.

This is honestly one of the best (and succinct) descriptions of the polarized critique and praise that the ST and PT has received that I’ve seen, and it also explains really well why both are liked by different types of SW fans. F.ex. it’s interesting how EU fans tend to gravitate towards the PT because despite the flaws in film-making, Lucas did make some pretty interesting lore. On the other hand, people who prefer just the movies don’t care much extended about lore and just want to be entertained. And the ST certainly entertains, and has a much higher quality of writing, acting, effects, etc. It’s also funny to see Hollywood simply reversing their tactic when one method didn’t work, instead of trying to analyse the pros and cons. ‘Just do the complete opposite and hope it works’ seems to be the mantra of modern franchise film-making.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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This is why I think studios listening to fans can sometimes be a problem. Kennedy, Iger and Abrams were probably reluctant to use George’s treatments because of how poorly fans received the prequels (yeah, people still hated the prequels as recently as 2012), so they wanted to go in a different direction. But sentiment has changed and fans apparently love George Lucas and the prequels now, so after Carrie passed away and they had to scrap Trevorrow’s script entirely (assuming) to rewrite the story without Carrie, Abrams and Kennedy may have seen this as an opportunity to work with George and reestablish some of his ideas in order to please the new fan consensus and add legitimacy to the trilogy in the eyes of detractors. Personally, I don’t know how much they really care about this, but I can see a number of reasons why they would want to consult with George. But from an optics perspective it definitely wouldn’t hurt them either, not the same way it would’ve been seen only seven years ago.

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Broom Kid said:

act on instinct said:

Nailed it, the slapdash retroactive structuring with little coherence and all convenience.

That’s basically Star Wars. Since around 1980 forward.

Probably stands to reason why ANH is my favorite

“The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.” - DV

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RogueLeader said:

This is why I think studios listening to fans can sometimes be a problem.

Listening to fans is basically never good. Studios shouldn’t really do it at all, honestly. If you can’t trust the filmmakers you hire to make a movie without bringing up the comments section to backseat drive, you’re always going to end up with compromised storytelling. Well, compromised beyond what happens to it beyond normal storytelling.

If you make a great movie, you’ll have fans. If you aim your movie AT fans, you’re almost always going to sacrifice any potential for greatness. It’s limiting. It’s the difference between Quentin Tarantino’s career and Kevin Smith’s.

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Swazzy said:

Prequels are substance without excitement. Sequels are excitement with (less) substance. OT is a balance of both.

THIS^^^ This is easily the easiest way to describe my feelings towards the ST in the context of the other two trilogies.

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I wasn’t entertained by either TFA or the 40-odd minutes I watched of TLJ. On the contrary, ennui was my primary reaction.