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Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker - Discussion * SPOILER THREAD * — Page 119

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DrDre said:

Why not? I don’t even dislike TFA, but in my view TFA is a product created with the intent to cash in on the popularity of Star Wars. It’s a movie created by committee, where the movie wasn’t based on someone’s creative vision, but deliberately tailored to put bums into seats through the power of nostalgia by emulating someone else’s artistic expression.

The same applies to TLJ and TRS, it’s cashing in on nostalgia for OT while at the same time destroying its legacy.
TRS is a corporate product created by a commitee, not someone’s creative vision. 3/4 of the movie were reshot, it has several endings because Disney is concerned that it might flop after the Solo fiasco. Now Lucas has to help them with the ending.

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Those are false rumors. It doesn’t have several endings, and 3/4ths of the film wasn’t reshot. I don’t know where you heard that, but they’re providing bunk information and are unreliable.

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OutboundFlight said:

This is what RJ possibly “ruined” about Star Wars:

  • Luke’s ultimate fate is sit around moaning about his failure before he returns to form and sacrifices himself.
  • You can now hyperspace attack.
  • Animal cruelty exists in Star Wars.

-Luke was the archetypal hero. He single-handedly saved the Rebellion, he believed there was good in Vader, one of the most evil people in the galaxy, he did not fall to temptations of the dark side by the Emperor. This character would never become a grumpy old man with self-pity. Let alone try to kill his nephew in his sleep(wtf?).
-Hyperspace was a separate dimension which did not directly interact with Real Space, hyperspace ramming creates countless continuity issues. Big ships and stations wouldn’t exist in this universe, everyone would be launching hyperspace missiles at each other.
-Animal rights agenda was poorly shoved in

OutboundFlight said:
Compared to the PT:

  • Anakin wasn’t a brave warrior, he was a creep.
  • The Jedi were idiots.
  • Padmé died of a broken heart.
  • Stormtroopers are clones of Boba Fett’s father.
  • There’s a ton of weird names.
  • It’s potentially racist (likely accidental).
  • The Jedi Purge happened in a day.
  • Anakin built C-3PO and knew R2.
  • Anakin knew about Uncle Owen but never checked up on him.

-Anakin was not a coward, he was not creepier than your average sex deprived teenager
-The jedi were clouded by the dark side
-It’s strongly implied that Anakin/Vader killed Padmé
-A mandalorian bounty-hunter makes good material for clone soldiers
-Not weirder than the OT names
-George is not a racist and worked with a diverse cast. Someone who sees racism in his work, only sees what he wants to see.
-Most jedi were either on the battlefield commanding troops or in the jedi temple, it was a good opportunity to stike at them
-Ok, that’s dumb.
-He didn’t like sand 😛

OutboundFlight said:

Yes, TLJ is way worse than the PT! /s I can see the argument TFA is the worst one, although I beg to differ, but I don’t understand how RJ gets SW worse than GL.

Yes, TLJ is way worse than the PT. The Prequels didn’t become cinematic masterpieces, but now people realize that they could have been much worse. And that Star Wars is only Star Wars if Lucas is involved.

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I overall have little issue with how Luke in TLJ was portrayed. From my perspective, Luke always had this fear of losing his closet friends whom largely became his family. It’s what prompted him to leave Dagobah and head straight into the Bespin death trap. In ROTJ, he lost his cool whenever Vader mentioned Leia. His core fear is losing anyone tragically and he tends to act irrationally whenever that possibility arises. Therefore, when it came to Ben Solo, and how seemingly one Padawan could ruin the peace he worked so hard to create, he reverted back to his instinctual fear.
You could say he should grow into a wise sage that never succumbs to those kind of emotions but I like to think he held onto those humanly flaws. It would had been very bizarre if he had actually killed Ben, but the good in Luke that is always within him stops that aggression that plagued Vader.

It’s not the Luke many of us wanted to see post-Jedi, but that’s pretty much one of the few RJ choices I could get behind. I still, however, view TLJ as a terrible middle act overall.

The Rise of Failures

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Imperial, I feel like the type of rationalizations you’re making for the prequels, with the same logic, could be just as easily applied to your issues with TLJ to excuse them. I can imagine someone having this exact same conversations 5 years from now, but trashing the newest trilogy as objectively terrible while talking about how the Sequel Trilogy is not as bad and “could’ve been much worse” in retrospect.

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I continue to be amused by you PT & ST fanboys. You’re both so quick to notice the speck in the other’s trilogy while failing to notice the beam in your own.

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TavorX said:

I overall have little issue with how Luke in TLJ was portrayed. From my perspective, Luke always had this fear of losing his closet friends whom largely became his family. It’s what prompted him to leave Dagobah and head straight into the Bespin death trap. In ROTJ, he lost his cool whenever Vader mentioned Leia. His core fear is losing anyone tragically and he tends to act irrationally whenever that possibility arises. Therefore, when it came to Ben Solo, and how seemingly one Padawan could ruin the peace he worked so hard to create, he reverted back to his instinctual fear.
You could say he should grow into a wise sage that never succumbs to those kind of emotions but I like to think he held onto those humanly flaws. It would had been very bizarre if he had actually killed Ben, but the good in Luke that is always within him stops that aggression that plagued Vader.

It’s not the Luke many of us wanted to see post-Jedi, but that’s pretty much one of the few RJ choices I could get behind. I still, however, view TLJ as a terrible middle act overall.

I liked the vibe of it (and unlike many fans I loved the ‘Luke wasn’t really there’ showdown/death) but I still concur with other fans that the idea of murdering Kylo (however fleeting) was off. I’d have preferred something like Luke being locked in a sense of prophecy where the only outcome he could foresee was killing Kylo in the future. If they shared such a vision it would feed Kylo’s paranoia about uncle Luke wanting to kill him whilst justifying Luke’s going AWOL to seek better answers.

I know…wrong thread…

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RogueLeader said:

Imperial, I feel like the type of rationalizations you’re making for the prequels, with the same logic, could be just as easily applied to your issues with TLJ to excuse them. I can imagine someone having this exact same conversations 5 years from now, but trashing the newest trilogy as objectively terrible while talking about how the Sequel Trilogy is not as bad and “could’ve been much worse” in retrospect.

I don’t believe so. Unless the next trilogy is going to be directed by Rian Johnson.
Disney is ruining old characters(Han, Luke) simply to market the new characters(Rey, Kylo). Instead they should have gone with George’s idea of a Skywalker soap opera where the old generation passes the torch to the next generation. Then they could have their own thing without pissing on which came before.

And the new characters are missed opportunities:
Finn started interesting as a conflicted Stormtrooper who goes AWOL, but is now just comedic relief.
Rey is the protagonist, but she doesn’t follow the Hero’s Journey. Nothing is challenging for her.
Kylo Ren is the most pathetic villain ever. I don’t buy that he killed Luke’s students.
Snoke was JJs mystery box, but after TLJ is nothing but a joke.

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I don’t even want to begin to open that can of worms.

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DuracellEnergizer said:

I continue to be amused by you PT & ST fanboys. You’re both so quick to notice the speck in the other’s trilogy while failing to notice the beam in your own.

Lol, righto.

All three trilogies have their issues but the ST is the only one creatively bankrupt, made by committee and without the involvement of the series’ creator. If J.K. Rowling bought the Tolkien estate and wrote a Lord of the Rings sequel she’d be well within her right to, but nobody would regard it as such, just as that Cursed Child nonsense was rejected by the Harry Potter fanbase. The ST only gets a pass from some because of the ungodly amount of money and marketing pumped into the thing by one of the biggest film corporations in the world; but it’s really no different at all. Literal corporate fan fiction, and not even good fan fiction.

For all the prequel trilogy’s faults it’s not creatively bankrupt, it wasn’t made by committee and most importantly it had direct involvement from the series’ creator. How anybody could think “The Rise of Skywalker” is the conclusion to George Lucas’ story is beyond me.

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Ryan-SWI said:
the ST is the only one creatively bankrupt, made by committee and without the involvement of the series’ creator.

These are basically just empty buzzwords. It’s not creatively bankrupt, ALL movies are made by committee, and George Lucas is still involved in the making of the films. Granted, he’s nowhere near AS involved as he used to be, that’s primarily because he sold the company years ago because he didn’t want to be involved anymore, partially because for about a decade straight most of his biggest “fans” couldn’t stop themselves from raking him over the coals the instant an opportunity presented itself and he decided there was no point in spending the last couple decades of his life eating shit.

None of these Star Wars movies are creatively bankrupt. Some are just better than others. Some are just plain bad. And some are very good even if they’re not the most original things ever released to theaters. Which is fine, because there’s plenty of originality at the theaters if you choose to seek it out, it just won’t very frequently come in the form of big-budget, corporate-distributed, heavily-marketed family films. Sometimes that does happen, yes. But not frequently. Usually, if what you really care about is originality, you’ve realized you might need to find that outside of a single mass-marketed franchise movie series. Or two.

The Rise of Skywalker, according to its spoilers, seems like it’s going to have elements of Return of the Jedi in it. Not very original, sure. But there’s also going to be some pretty weird stuff introduced, so there’s some originality there. It looks like a lot of people came together to help realize the vision that Abrams ultimately landed on for the final chapter in the saga. I guess you could call that a “committee.” I don’t know how that committee is any different than any of the other creative teams that came together to help George make Attack of the Clones (a movie distributed by a multinational corporation and paid for for thanks to a 3 billion dollar merchandising deal with Pepsi), but hey.

Will it work on an emotional level? Will it seem fun? Will it be exciting? Will it elicit the feelings it sets out to make you feel? These are pretty important questions to take into a theater with you.

(btw J.K. Rowling helped write Cursed Child)

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Broom Kid said:

These are basically just empty buzzwords.

Nope, not really. And repeating the “but what 'bout the marketing” argument for the prequels is just tiresome at this point. If George only cared about merchandising money he would have done what Disney is doing with the ‘sequels.’

As far as creative bankruptcy goes, I’d call basing an entire trilogy on nostalgia without an actual story plan as pretty creatively bankrupt. This trilogy isn’t about anything and it contributes nothing to the story told in Episodes I - VI. It’s just a bunch of random stuff about random people set in the Star Wars universe. If the Skywalker Saga were a video game then the ST would be a $1.99 skin pack dlc.

These films are not made by Lucas, approved by Lucas, or even have a hair of Lucas’ involvement, so it can’t be an ending to his story.
Him being on set for a day as a courtesy visit doesn’t count as a contribution; if he had any role in the new films he’d be credited beyond just a “based on a story by…” credit.

Trevorrow has a bigger credit than Lucas on TROS and he left before the cameras started rolling.

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You act like something got taken away from him. He sold the company. He chose to do it. He didn’t want to do this anymore. Your definition of creative bankruptcy is, itself, bankrupt. Your idea of how movies get made doesn’t seem to be built out of anything other than behind-the-scenes documentaries on Star Wars - and even that ignored everything that doesn’t fit into a pre-established mythologized idea of Lucas The Creator. That’s why it sounds like you’re just using buzzwords for the sake of feeling self-righteous.

All that really matters is whether the movies are good at what they’re trying to do. That’s all that’s ever mattered from the audience POV. Everything else is just fantasy football for people who hate sports.

Nobody who ever became a fan of these movies in their youth did so because they knew a lick of ANYTHING about how the movies were made. Using behind-the-scenes myths as the basis for your dislike doesn’t make any sense. You weren’t behind-the-scenes at any point and it doesn’t really matter if you were. All that matters is whether the movie is good at doing what it wants to do. Star Wars does this sometimes. Other times it doesn’t.

But the notion that it needs to follow a single, “true” path to creation and any variations off that path matter just as much, if not more, than the final product? I don’t agree with that at all. I don’t work at Lucasfilm, or for Lucasfilm, so how they made it literally has nothing to do with me and my role in this - which is to do nothing more than simply watch a thing and hopefully like it.

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All I can think of:

Han Solo: No time to discuss this as a committee!

Princess Leia: I am not a committee!

The Rise of Failures

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If only the prequels had any real creativity in them. Instead it’s all embarrassing ideas that good editors had the sense to cut from the OOT, mixed with George’s idea of fanservice. You could argue it was at least the creator’s original vision, but then how much of the original vision is really his to begin with? After all George has always been more of an accountant than an artist. See? You can argue this either way just the same. Endless circular debates.

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Man it is crazy how much the dialogue has changed between 2012 and now.

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RogueLeader said:

Man it is crazy how much the dialogue has changed between 2012 and now.

Right? I remember the hype for the new movies was pretty overwhelming back then, and it felt subversive to say stuff in praise of Lucas:

https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/656632

There’s a little vindication going on, yeah.

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

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Broom Kid said:

You act like something got taken away from him.

I think it might be more apt to say they feel it was taken away from them.

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

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You were pretty spot on!

With the prequels, it seems people have gone from a black and white perspective to a more grey perspective as the years have gone by.

I feel a lot people will get to that point with the sequels as well, but they haven’t got there yet and they don’t think they ever will, even though they probably thought the same thing in regards to the prequels just a few years ago. I’m not saying people will see it as the best thing on God’s green earth, but they will see the good with the bad, just like the prequels.

I’m sure I’ll have people tell me, “That’ll never happen with me!” Maybe it won’t, but I just get the strong feeling of history repeating itself. I think it will take time for people to see the grey in situations, but for now people would sing along with “Bob Iger Raped my Childhood” and fail to see the irony.

Again, I’m not trying to downplay people’s criticisms (a lot of the prequel criticisms were fair too), if I didn’t think the sequels had flaws I wouldn’t be as interested in fan-editing. But I think there is some good in them too, just like the prequels, but maybe their sequel-hurt is too fresh in people’s minds to see any of that, or they’ve yet to hear a compelling alternative perspective.

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I just wanted to jump in real quick to say that the posters on this site seem way more intelligent and forward-thinking than most of the posters on other Star Wars communities across the Internet. Some of the observations above in regards to how the PT consensus has changed over time, as well as how the ST consensus is likely to change in the future, has really helped me to resolve a lot of my own thoughts about both trilogies. So I just wanted to say thanks, and keep up the good conversation!

FWIW; TFA is my favorite post-OT film, but that has more to do with personal reasons on my part, because as a kid I always dreamed of seeing a “soft reboot” type of film (before that was even really a thing, mind you) with the classic trio actors returning as older versions of their respective characters. So, despite TFA’s flaws, I was just happy to finally have something close to the movie I had dreamed about ever since I was a kid. With that being said, however, when taking my own personal bias out of the equation as much as possible, I can see why that doesn’t work for everyone, and why it would be unfair to consider TFA as having more “objective value,” so to speak, than any of the other post-OT films.

More on topic; I am still looking forward to TRoS, and I have a feeling it might replace TFA as my new post-OT favorite.

http://henrynsilva.blogspot.com/2023/10/full-circle-order-new-way-to-watch-star.html?m=1

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TFA in many ways was brilliant, but people tend to forget that brilliance because it has become part of the broader saga story and in that way its flaws become much more apparent. As a standalone experience it works gangbusters, but once people really stepped back and saw it as a continuation of a six-part series it feels a lot like a soft reboot. Similarly the ending works really well as a hook for the next installment but once that came out and failed to live up to many people’s expectations it too cast a pall over TFA.

Looking forward to TROS, a lot hangs in the balance in terms of how TFA will be viewed.

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

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The only constant is that the Original Unaltered Trilogy is placed supremely above the other trilogies. Everything else is expected to meet or exceed it, which is seemingly a dangling carrot in front of us.

The Rise of Failures

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Your_friendly_Imperial said:
-Hyperspace was a separate dimension which did not directly interact with Real Space

“Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that’d end your trip real quick, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it speaks of the trinity; casting light at the sun with its wandering eye”