What do you think of the Sequel Trilogy? - a general discussion thread — Page 4

and shows that even our heroes are people that fail

I just want to say, the OT already did this whole “heroes are fallible people, too” theme, just with more subtlety. Luke is constantly vulnerable throughout the trilogy, fails constantly in ESB, and has to be rescued at the climax of all three movies. By RotJ, he’s presenting himself as this big hero, but he’s still struggling with doubt and fear over the course of the movie. His victory in the end is very much a personal, spiritual one (rather than a glorious, material victory), which required him to “surrender” himself and take a leap of faith. It’s an unconventional end to a hero’s journey.

Star Wars was always subversive in its depiction of heroes. The OT just did a better job at it. Despite all his earlier bravado with Jabba, Luke standing at the top of the Throne Room stairs, softly saying “I will not fight you, father” makes abundantly clear what kind of hero he is on the inside.

(And I still don’t get why TLJ Luke was written to be such a prick. I don’t see what that has to do with the movie’s theme of failure. Luke being depressed is fine. Luke being a jerk for no reason is too much of a stretch.)

Servii said:

and shows that even our heroes are people that fail

I just want to say, the OT already did this whole “heroes are fallible people, too” theme, just with more subtlety. Luke is constantly vulnerable throughout the trilogy, fails constantly in ESB, and has to be rescued at the climax of all three movies. By RotJ, he’s presenting himself as this big hero, but he’s still struggling with doubt and fear over the course of the movie. His victory in the end is very much a personal, spiritual one (rather than a glorious, material victory), which required him to “surrender” himself and take a leap of faith. It’s an unconventional end to a hero’s journey.

Exactly. I think that’s one aspect of George’s planned Sequels that intrigues me the most. Luke would have stood up by the the end of the trilogy as restorer of the Jedi Order. He would’ve had his material victory after failing at first. It’s interesting to consider as it makes a compelling reason why his Jedi Order may have failed at first. He wasn’t ready for the mantel after being helped so many times as even within the trilogy that was the case with the Solowalker daughter bringing him out of his rut. I like the idea of her inheriting the mantel of Jedi Master for all she does to help Luke find his way after he passes on and how she is central in defeating Darth Maul and Datth Talon. It shows that we can’t accomplish things alone. Sometimes we need someone to help us. It’s a very core and main Star Wars theme. It makes me wonder though where the Solowalker son comes into all of this as he succumbs to the Dark Side.

I think it would’ve worked just fine for Luke and the Solowalker daughter to both have central roles in the trilogy. It doesn’t have to take away from the new characters to give Luke a bigger role to play. This goes for both George’s Sequels and the ones we were given.

It’s interesting to consider as it probably wouldn’t have gone exactly like this but it does make me consider lines that may have been drawn through the Trilogy that connect to the previous trilogies without stepping on top of them.

The Jedi were always important to the Republic as they settled conflicts and disputes as peacekeepers before the Clone War. It’s just they lost their way through mainly the war but through compliancy that was shown to have been there in the years prior. Palpatine’s deception also made it appear they weren’t needed. I mean it goes without saying as Luke was the Jedi figure within the Rebel Alliance as Obi-Wan would’ve been on Alderaan if they had been able to deliver to Bail the Death Star plans. The Rebels were just more focused on bringing down the Empire than Jedi affairs. That’s even the role Luke took within their ranks as with the Rebels being a Jedi was second to the common goal they shared. He was seen as Commamder Skywalker to the Rebels. The Jedi and Republic/Rebel Alliance are very much mutually connected but it’s not the focal point at the time of the Galactic Civil War. The question more so is how they would work together after the end of the Empire when everything is in flux.

thebluefrog said:

7 and 8 do not link together. The characters from 7 are not the characters from 8,

Rey was someone in TFA,

Snoke was a mysterious new emperor in TFA, TLJ said he was a joke nobody

This is just, literally factually false

Kylo was Vader obsessed in TFA, 4 minutes later in TLJ (in universe time) he isn’t

This is character development

When people defend 8, they are defending their love of the movie and their parasocial love of Rian, not its cohesiveness in the trilogy or how well it meshes with the other 2 films.

This is probably true but doesn’t actually mean anything. TLJ fans would probably still like TLJ even if it didn’t link up well with TFA, but it doesn’t change the facts.

and ROS he is back to Vader obsessed.

There is no way that Rian thought she was a secret Palpatine when he made 8.

ROS then said he was back to being a mysterious new emperor (clone thing). This is on record that JJ did not expect Rian to kill off the big bad unceremoniously.

These are true but have nothing to do with how 7 and 8 link up whatsoever.

For the record, I don’t really buy that the contradictions between 8 and 9 have anything to do with this feud between JJ and Rian. Especially given JJ’s reaction to TLJ, his Rian’s involvement in TFA and JJ’s involvement in TLJ, and JJ’s… entire mentality and behavior during the production. I think it’s more likely that JJ doesn’t care enough about or have enough of a concrete idea of where he wanted to take the characters and story of the ST to really agree or disagree with Rian’s decisions in TLJ.

I mean, if JJ always wanted Rey to be a Palpatine or a Kenobi or whatever, or Snoke to be Mace Windu or Plagueis, you’d think he’d put literally any of that in TFA. Or at least say something about it to Rian during the production of TLJ.

Servii said:

The Rebellion didn’t treat Luke that way. They didn’t hinge all their hopes on whether or not he showed up to help. Despite his abilities, he was still just one man, and one small part of a larger faction.

This is a good point, but given that there’s more than a generation between RotJ and TFA, and given the in-universe circumstances of the ST compared to the OT, it’s not like it’s unbelievable they’d put that much fixation on Luke in TFA but not in ESB or RotJ.

TFA puts in a lot more effort setting this up than setting up any other alternative. They spend a lot of time going on about how the galaxy views Luke as this legendary badass, whose mere presence would turn the tide of the war. Compared to the complete lack of time they spend on why Luke coming back would be a big deal, like if he was making some secret weapon on the island or looking for some ancient Jedi artifact.

This implies that JJ cares about anything past ANH where Luke was the galaxy-saving hero.

Rey was lucky in being able to do the mind trick to escape.

How is that luck?

Of course, the poor treatment of the OT heroes could be excused or at least tolerated if the new heroes designed to replace them were well written characters you could get equally invested in. That’s really the key thing the whole ST hinged on. The ST characters had to be good enough for the “passing of the torch” to feel earned and satisfying.

The best recent example I can think of that nailed this aspect was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. I loved Miles Morales as a character, and his relationship with the older Peter Parker, and it was really satisfying to watch him finally take up the mantle as a true Spider-Man at the end. The movie earned that payoff.

Rey, Finn, and Poe weren’t written well enough for me to get invested in them. I liked the concepts behind Finn and Rey as characters, but the execution of those concepts was severely lacking. By the end of TFA, I’d lost interest in the new characters, which made the very character-driven TLJ a slog to sit through, and made the treatment of the OT heroes that much harder to swallow because it was done for the sake of the new characters.

As for the discussion of whether TLJ lines up well with TFA, I just remembered this quote from Mary Jo Markey, one of the editors of TFA, that’s relevant to that topic.

“It’s very strange to have the second film so consciously undo the storytelling of the first one. I’m sorry that’s what it felt like. I don’t even feel that’s true about the third film. It took where the second film ended and just tried to tell a story. I didn’t feel like it was consciously trying to undo — it just didn’t feel that way to me.”

Servii said:

As for the discussion of whether TLJ lines up well with TFA, I just remembered this quote from Mary Jo Markey, one of the editors of TFA, that’s relevant to that topic.

“It’s very strange to have the second film so consciously undo the storytelling of the first one. I’m sorry that’s what it felt like. I don’t even feel that’s true about the third film. It took where the second film ended and just tried to tell a story. I didn’t feel like it was consciously trying to undo — it just didn’t feel that way to me.”

Mary Jo Markey of Bad Robot? JJ Abrams’ production company - that produced both TFA and TROS…

Still deflecting blame away from themselves onto others for TROS, eh? I am stunned 😉
 

oojason, exactly! While The Last Jedi isn’t perfect with the transition between it and The Force Awakens it at least continues the narrative established. The Rise of Skywalker just feels like a reset as Rey goes through the same trials and tribulations she overcame in The Last Jedi. People often talk about how the Throne Room in The Last Jedi rips off straight from Return of the Jedi but don’t mention how The Rise of Skywalker does the very same thing when Rey confronts Palpatine. Dark Rey is more or less the equivalent to the mirror cave. It goes on and on. The Rise of Skywalker feels like J.J. was continuing the story he felt should’ve happened after The Force Awakens with a few tweaks to accommodate things that couldn’t be undone like Luke’s death.

Omni, I can’t wait to read this book. She also gives her thoughts on the Prequels. It should be a great read. I agree with her. I like Kathleen Kennedy. Just not always with Star Wars. There’s no disputing she’s had a great career as a producer. However as president of Lucasfilm I don’t think she’s the right person to head the company. I agree with her about Han. I think what she’s saying is spot on. There’s no consequences or payoff from Han’s death. They played a little with it in The Last Jedi but only on face value versus delving into how it haunts Kylo. I guess you could say The Rise of Skywalker does a little with his redemption but the context is jumbled up. The same could be said with Luke’s death. It has no consequence on the story. I agree with her about Rey. We don’t know anything about her as she’s surrounded in mystery and how she comes to use the Force is very inconsistent with established rules and lore.

Her comments abou Luke, Leia, and Han remind me of this exchange from George and Lawrence Kasdan.

Kasdan: I think you should kill Luke and have Leia take over.

Lucas: You don’t want to kill Luke.

Kasdan: Okay, then kill Yoda.

Lucas: I don’t want to kill Yoda. You don’t have to kill people. You’re a product of the 1980s. You don’t go around killing people. It’s not nice.

Kasdan: No, I’m not. I’m trying to give the story some kind of an edge to it.

Lucas: I know you’re trying to make it more realistic, which is what I tried to do when I killed Ben—but I managed to take the edge off of it—and it’s what I tried to do when I froze Han. But this is the end of the trilogy and we’ve already established that there are real dangers. I don’t think we have to kill anyone to prove it.

Kasdan: No one has been hurt.

Lucas: Ben and Han, they’ve both—Luke got his hand cut off.

Kasdan: Ben and Han are fine. Luke got a new hand two cuts later.

Lucas: By killing somebody, I think you alienate the audience.

Kasdan: I’m saying that the movie has more emotional weight if someone you love is lost along the way; the journey has more impact.

Lucas: I don’t like that and I don’t believe that.

Kasdan: Well, that’s all right.

Lucas: I have always hated that in movies, when you go along and one of the main characters gets killed. This is a fairytale. You want everybody to live happily ever after and nothing bad happens to anybody.

Kasdan: I hate it when characters get killed, too.

Lucas: Oh, you do.

Kasdan: I do.

Lucas: I resent it and I resented it when I was a little kid. I would watch and there would be these five guys and one of them would be the funny clown and halfway through, one of them gets killed. Why did they kill the lead? He was the best character.

Marquand: I felt that about Ben the first time I saw Star Wars.

Kasdan: But that one worked like crazy.

Lucas: Yes, I know. But we’ve done that. The same thing with Han. The biggest reaction we got was when people asked, “How can you leave the movie half finished?” Well, the main thrust of this one is that it has to be fun.

Kasdan: All of our material here is not fun.

Lucas: Well, I know we’ve got the serious side.

Kasdan: We have a lot of grim stuff here.

Lucas: Well, that’s why we have to concentrate on the fun.

Kasdan: There isn’t much fun stuff. There is the Jabba stuff.

Lucas: That’s fun.

Kasdan: And the Ewok stuff and that’s it.

Lucas: There are three parts to the movie: Jabba, the Ewoks, and Luke and the Emperor. Luke and the Emperor are not fun and the other two are. I think that we can roll along with the fun parts and still have this undercurrent of a fairly serious study of father and son, and good and evil. The whole concept of the original film is that Luke redeems his father, which is the classic fairytale: a good father/bad father who the good son will turn back into the good father. We can have a serious line and still have a fairly light film.

The whole point of the film, the whole emotion that I am trying to get at the end of this film, is for you to be real uplifted, emotionally and spiritually, and feel absolutely good about life. That is the greatest thing that we could possibly ever do.

Omni said:

It seems that Marcia Lucas has some strong feelings about the ST.

Based Marcia.

This says a lot when someone so closely involved with the development of the OT speaks out so frankly about the ST in such a critical way. This isn’t something that can be easily dismissed, and frankly, after all the attempts by the media to gaslight ST detractors and make it seem like their criticisms aren’t legitimate, this feels rather vindicating.

BedeHistory731 said:

So, are people who like the ST awful people for liking it?

Nobody has said that. In fact, the opposite is said much more often.

People can like whatever they want.

It’s important to understand that, when it comes to liking or disliking a fictional space movie, morality has no bearing on a person’s opinion. Whether or not you like a space adventure movie says nothing about you as a human being, because it’s just a movie.

I remember after TLJ came out, and for the next couple years, there was a massive wave of articles by journalists that tried to either trivialize or vilify criticizers of the film. “It’s just Russian bots.” “It’s just a small group of racist trolls online.” “They’re not real fans, anyway. They’re just manbabies who don’t understand the true meaning of Star Wars.” I heard all of these repeatedly from journalists, with similar sentiments even being repeated by Lucasfilm employees. Of course, antagonizing your own customers is never a good idea, no matter how little you care about them. But the whole thing was so bizarre, I still can’t fully wrap my head around it.

People have often used the bullying and harassment of ST actors as proof that ST detractors are vile, hateful people. And the people who do those things are vile and hateful. Yet people seem quick to forget when Reylos harassed John Boyega and said a bunch of vitriolic, borderline racist things to him because he made a joke about their ship. Or when Reylos stalked Daisy Ridley, as well as Adam Driver and his family. Or when ST fans attacked Mark Hamill for posting a photoshopped image of all the OT heroes in the cockpit of the Falcon together. Or when Star Wars writer Chuck Wendig went on an extended Twitter rant calling detractors various words for “scum” and “human garbage”.

The point is, in a debate over a fictional story, there’s no “good side” or “bad side”, and it’s not helpful to view a debate like that in such terms. It’s important to take a step back sometimes and remember these are just movies. Anyone who views arguing over fictional, pop culture media as some sort of moral crusade is not in a healthy frame of mind.

Servii said:

It’s important to understand that, when it comes to liking or disliking a fictional space movie, morality has no bearing on a person’s opinion. Whether or not you like a space adventure movie says nothing about you as a human being, because it’s just a movie.

I remember after TLJ came out, and for the next couple years, there was a massive wave of articles by journalists that tried to either trivialize or vilify criticizers of the film. “It’s just Russian bots.” “It’s just a small group of racist trolls online.” “They’re not real fans, anyway. They’re just manbabies who don’t understand the true meaning of Star Wars.” I heard all of these repeatedly from journalists, with similar sentiments even being repeated by Lucasfilm employees. Of course, antagonizing your own customers is never a good idea, no matter how little you care about them. But the whole thing was so bizarre, I still can’t fully wrap my head around it.

That was because it was true (the part about Russian bots, trolls spammers - the racists, sexists and homophobes - we even had numbers of them on here). There is a massive disconnect between criticising and outing these fuckwits - and ‘antagonizing your own customers’, as you claim.

Valid, reasoned and constructive criticism was never really the main issue - though fans would do well to find such reviews and critiques in amongst the sheer volume of clickbait, toxic, alt-right tickbox wording, algorithm-led videos and sensationalist articles out there. Some of it is indeed disingenuous - as certain youtubers did a 180 on their initial stance on the films and then decided to board the toxicity train for the clicks, publicity and money… along with a seemingly guaranteed number of subscribers championing it all.

^ That was main issue… the sheer volume of Russian bots, trolls spammers - the racists, sexists and homophobes - along with toxic, tickboxed, algorithm-led videos and content - it actually dwarfed any actual the valid, reasoned and constructive criticism.

Even some fans on message boards who had genuine criticism of the films (even on here), agreed with, or stayed quiet, and even overlooked… some of the trolls, sexists and homophobes negative comments. Instead of calling the toxic trolls out… they silently ignored them - often making posts in amongst racist, sexist and homophobic posts - and then were somehow ‘surprised’ when they were lumbered in with the toxic elements themselves, or felt ‘maligned’ when their views were ignored or dismissed because of it.
 

People have often used the bullying and harassment of ST actors as proof that ST detractors are vile, hateful people. And the people who do those things are vile and hateful. Yet people seem quick to forget when Reylos harassed John Boyega and said a bunch of vitriolic, borderline racist things to him because he made a joke about their ship. Or when Reylos stalked Daisy Ridley, as well as Adam Driver and his family. Or when ST fans attacked Mark Hamill for posting a photoshopped image of all the OT heroes in the cockpit of the Falcon together. Or when Star Wars writer Chuck Wendig went on an extended Twitter rant calling detractors various words for “scum” and “human garbage”.

People aren’t so ‘quick to forget’ the issues with Boyega and Reylos, Daisy Ridley or Adam Driver - as they likely don’t know about such issues, or weren’t in their consciousness for long. I’ve never heard of Driver and his family being harassed (I quickly asked around some pro-Sequel fans… they don’t recall that either… not saying it didn’t happen - just that people may not have known, or have since forgot). I vaguely remember something Daisy and John having issues with ‘Reylos’ - though this was after the film had premiered and possibly after the furore over the films had past, along with mentions of it in the news.

Re Chuck Wendig… you mean Wendig’s “Civility is for normalcy. When things are normal and working as intended, civility is part of maintaining balance. But when that balance is gone … your civility gives them cover for evil.” vs those in and around Comicsgate (Van Sciver and followers?), an alt-right campaign to fight the spread of diversity in comics that has a history of harassing leftist and progressive comics creators, who sought to persistently attack Wendig himself.

The point is, in a debate over a fictional story, there’s no “good side” or “bad side”, and it’s not helpful to view a debate like that in such terms. It’s important to take a step back sometimes and remember these are just movies. Anyone who views arguing over fictional, pop culture media as some sort of moral crusade is not in a healthy frame of mind.

Agreed. Yet it is also important to remember and question just who is disseminating that information / views, reviews and criticism - and why - to say nothing of examining the validity of such content.
 

Much of your post covers matters already discussed to death in the TLJ and TROS threads. Let’s leave it there and get back to discussing the Sequel Trilogy itself as a whole - thank you.
 

Omni said:

It seems that Marcia Lucas has some strong feelings about the ST.

I have a lot of respect for Marcia for marvellously editing my favourite Star Wars film, and arguably rescuing it from being a badly executed movie. I also have a lot of criticisms of the sequel trilogy myself. That said, I think these are some of the most idiotic things you could criticise the trilogy for.

She seems angry that Han and Luke died in the movies. Not even the way in which they died, but the fact that they died at all. And that their deaths mean that the writers “don’t get the magic of Star Wars”. So what, beloved characters should have unlimited shelf lives? The “rhyme or reason” to those deaths is that they serve the story, particularly so with Han. Surely she must have known that Harrison Ford, for example, wouldn’t have returned to Star Wars unless he knew his character would have a meaningful death? He’d been advocating that since the making of Return of the Jedi.

As for the classic complaint about Rey (who she bitterly describes as “this female”) and her abilities, Lucas asks where she got her Jedi powers. I believe the answer she’s looking for is: the Force. I guess she means training, but it’s not exactly well articulated. As for how we don’t know “who she is”, if Marcia Lucas actually watched the films she was bemoaning, she’d know that Rey’s heritage is actually revealed in the third film. Again, that is a story direction that can be criticised, but that’s not what Marcia is taking issue with.

It’s like she grabbed a bunch of common sequel complaints off the internet and very badly put them in her own words.

I think Han’s death should mostly get a pass simply because Ford probably would have insisted on it happening in VII no matter what, though it probably would have sat better with a lot of fans if it hadn’t followed a period of estrangement from his wife and a trauma-induced regression to his old career as an escape.

The logic and implementation of Luke’s death were magnificent—the ultimate manifestation of using the Force for knowledge and defense. But there were two issues with it. There’s the meta problem that they stuck with the decision when they knew Carrie’s passing would leave Episode IX without Leia’s intended role as OT Big Three anchor/primary mentor. Luke’s TLJ death easily could have been replaced with Luke raising his X-Wing, allowing him to take a more active role in Rey’s Jedi training as well as helping guide the Resistance (with the severe toll of Force Projection still explaining why Luke couldn’t just be the badass Uber-Jedi savior winning the new heroes’ fight for them).

Then there’s the narrative problem: Luke dies with his major unfinished business—restoring the Jedi Order—unfulfilled and presumably transferred to Rey (only for Abrams to end the Saga with Rey not doing anything about it either). That’s an inexcusable, inexplicable omission, a failure to deliver on perfectly-rational fan expectations, and one major point on which the old Expanded Universe will always have an edge over Disney canon.

oojason said:

Servii said:

It’s important to understand that, when it comes to liking or disliking a fictional space movie, morality has no bearing on a person’s opinion. Whether or not you like a space adventure movie says nothing about you as a human being, because it’s just a movie.

I remember after TLJ came out, and for the next couple years, there was a massive wave of articles by journalists that tried to either trivialize or vilify criticizers of the film. “It’s just Russian bots.” “It’s just a small group of racist trolls online.” “They’re not real fans, anyway. They’re just manbabies who don’t understand the true meaning of Star Wars.” I heard all of these repeatedly from journalists, with similar sentiments even being repeated by Lucasfilm employees. Of course, antagonizing your own customers is never a good idea, no matter how little you care about them. But the whole thing was so bizarre, I still can’t fully wrap my head around it.

That was because it was true (the part about Russian bots, trolls spammers - the racists, sexists and homophobes - we even had numbers of them on here). There is a massive disconnect between criticising and outing these fuckwits - and ‘antagonizing your own customers’, as you claim.

This is true, but it’s at least worth mentioning that there’s a vocal minority of trigger-happy ST fans who’ll happily lump valid criticism in with bad faith actors.

Cadavra said:

Then there’s the narrative problem: Luke dies with his major unfinished business—restoring the Jedi Order—unfulfilled and presumably transferred to Rey (only for Abrams to end the Saga with Rey not doing anything about it either). That’s an inexcusable, inexplicable omission, a failure to deliver on perfectly-rational fan expectations, and one major point on which the old Expanded Universe will always have an edge over Disney canon.

This is the one thing I think TLJ did to screw over Episode 9, Luke probably should have lived. Whatever. I kind of think this was a Bob Iger or Kathleen Kennedy decision, the higher ups wanted each ST movie to be dedicated to one of the OT trio, and it’s an interesting coincidence that each one dies in “their” movie. Not that this is a defense of TLJ killing off Luke, but it’s interesting and worth mentioning.