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What do you think of the Sequel Trilogy? - a general discussion thread — Page 11

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In my view, all they had to do was tell the same “hero’s journey” story but with a female lead instead of male. And they couldn’t even get that right. Three movies with no shared vision and a rushed ending.

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humanracer said:

In my view, all they had to do was tell the same “hero’s journey” story but with a female lead instead of male. And they couldn’t even get that right. Three movies with no shared vision and a rushed ending.

Rey’s journey naturally follows the Heroine’s Journey as much as it does the Hero’s Journey. She’s a girl after all. The problem I find is that The Rise of Skywalker has her go through trials that she already went through. Dark Rey is more or less the equivalent to the Mirror on Atch-To. There’s also a Throne Room with her biggest adversary at the given time in both films. It’s more or less the same in both except for the difference that Rey doesn’t need Kylo’s help to defeat Palpatine as she did with overcoming Snoke.

Not to mention she begins her journey alone on a desert and ends it alone on another desert. That’s so depressing to me for a character that longs for belonging. It just feels very sloppy. I think Rey had a lot of potential to be one of the best characters in the series but they didn’t know how to write her. The Force Awakens has her as an audience insert character more or less. The Last Jedi tries to get away from this. I don’t know what The Rise of Skywalker was doing with her except to hammer home she’s the protagonist and can do everything. I find everything is given to her because the plot says so or fills a need of nostalgia being used in the story like being given Luke’s X-Wing or Chewbacca.

It’s the problem too with letting her use advanced Force Powers like the Jedi Mind Trick and Force Pull. It took Luke and Anakin time to develop their skills. Anyone can use the Force and even be a Jedi but it’s meant to take time to develop the ability to use it. There’s no stakes otherwise as it makes it a magic trick. There’s a major misconception that having Rey as a “Nobody” is this revolutionary idea but it’s not. The Jedi as a whole were a bunch of nobodies. We just happened to be following a family saga for six films. I guess you can count Kylo/Ben with Han and Leia but it misses important contexts building through the story including The Clone Wars series. He should have a sister to counter him. George wisely had a Solowalker daughter and son.

Ulimately the major problem I find with Rey is they don’t allow her to be her own individual but instead shroud her in mystery boxes and various parentages. Luke and Leia both are individuals but you know they’re Anakin and Padme’s children as they share traits, and yet they still have a sense of self and character growth.

“Heroes come in all sizes, and you don’t have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It’s just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people - these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.” - George Lucas

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The thing that will eternally irk me about the ST is that earlier scripts for Episode 9 had a little something to say. The trilogy would not have been perfect, but there was finality in its conclusion, and it made some steps forward. Rey challenged old Jedi ways and refused the notion that they had to wall themselves off from love, and repress their ‘darkness’. She found new strength and a new approach to balance. This addressed issues that arguably caused Anakin to fall, and the Jedi order to fail. It was a Colin Treverrow script, which blows my mind. ‘Duel of the Fates’ was not without its issues, but there was some actual thought there.

Nearly everything that changed for TROS was for the worse. There was a role for Rose. Finn actually played a part and fulfilled his arc in leading defecting troopers. An uprising on Coruscant, people turning evil’s weapons against them. A First Order HQ to target, complete with Chancellor Hux and a glimpse of the various crime lords that funded them. A final duel on Mortis, Luke getting a cool heroic moment. There’s a bunch of stuff I’d tweak, but even as it was in the 2016 draft I read, it was much, much better than what replaced it.

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What, out of interest, would you say are some of the discrepancies between the Sequels and the Original Trilogy?

There’s a few I can remember.

The second Death Star being so intact despite it being vaporized in RotJ.

The fact that the Wayfinder on Mustafar apparently belonged to Vader, which would mean Vader knew about Exegol, yet he never told Luke about it as he was dying or as a ghost.

Characters repeatedly enter and exit hyperspace within a planet’s gravity well, or come out of hyperspace literally right above a planet’s surface, which should be basically impossible. In general, characters use hyperspace far more recklessly. Another example of that is lightspeed skipping, which really shouldn’t be able to happen.

Rey having to translate Chewie’s words to Luke, despite how long they’ve known each other.

Resistance and First Order ships coming from the same arms dealer despite clearly being from different sources like the OT-era ships were.

Some of the new Force powers, like object teleportation. Or the fact that lightsabers now “call” to people, deliver visions, and “choose” their rightful wielder. Anakin’s lightsaber never called to Luke. Also, Rey being able to use a mind trick successfully despite not knowing what a mind trick is. In general, training is devalued in the sequels, and objects, like lightsabers, are overvalued based on their history.

The Resistance being so much smaller and weaker than the Rebellion, despite them being the victors in the last war.

And arguably, Force ghosts being able to use the Force directly on the physical world and grab physical objects. This one is debatable.

But we can’t turn back. Fear is their greatest defense. I doubt if the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust. And what there is is most likely directed towards a large-scale assault.

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A crazy idea but maybe they should make duel of the dates, and have EP IX as a dream. Yes it would seem silly but if DOTF was a much better movie, it would satisfy fans bring in more money to Disney and extend the franchise to 10 movies.

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Servii said:

What, out of interest, would you say are some of the discrepancies between the Sequels and the Original Trilogy?

There’s a few I can remember.

Thank you for those.

I admit the second Death Star being so intact took me out of TROS a little for a while. Was there any explanation or “nod” why from JJ or the writers? The DSII remnant we saw just didn’t need to be that large for the purpose it served in TROS.

The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.

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Stardust1138 said:
… but as long as films like Marvel and what Star Wars is becoming are successful the storyteller will be pushed out of the equation.

The MCU is light years ahead of the Star Wars franchise where consistent story and vision are concerned. Casting, writing, acting, depth, etc - all are significantly better that the Star Wars franchise. That consistent vision also translates to their TV shows as well.

Across both mediums, the MCU holds a solid and connected narrative. After 1977, Star Wars hasn’t even held a narrative from one film to the next.

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Anchorhead said:

Stardust1138 said:
… but as long as films like Marvel and what Star Wars is becoming are successful the storyteller will be pushed out of the equation.

The MCU is light years ahead of the Star Wars franchise where consistent story and vision are concerned. Casting, writing, acting, depth, etc - all are significantly better that the Star Wars franchise. That consistent vision also translates to their TV shows as well.

Across both mediums, the MCU holds a solid and connected narrative. After 1977, Star Wars hasn’t even held a narrative from one film to the next.

Sorry, but I heavily disagree. The casting in the MCU may be pretty great, but as far as writing and depth are concerned, the MCU is about as bland as a McDonalds cheeseburger. Every movie feels exactly the same, with virtually nothing interesting happening (especially after Endgame). And the MCU may have a consistent vision, but it’s a horrible vision: with godawful “comedic” dialogue, bland color grading, and distractingly obvious CGI.

Star Wars may not have a consistent direction, and some installments are much worse than others, but at least there’s actual artistry going on there. In my opinion, an inconsistent-quality franchise that has actual passion put behind it is always better than a consistent-quality franchise made by a soulless boardroom committee.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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For the criticisms I have with Disney’s Star Wars, their movies have mostly looked great. Much better than the MCU films, which are somehow constantly drab despite the colourful things happening on screen.

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I liked the aspect of Rey as a scavenger on Jakku, i liked her being like the original female version of Luke in how she was designed as a character like Ralph McQuarrie’s drawings and paintings. I liked the aspect of force awakens that reminded me of Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind. But on a whole i dislike nearly everything else JJ did. Except for Poe and Finn. I really resented Artoo being stuck in a corner for most of the movie and replaced by JJ’s robot Beach Ball 8. I didn’t get why Threepio had a red arm. There was no exposition on the new republic and no story for how Ben turned to the dark side and pursued the path of Vader. Poorly plotted, couldn’t be bothered to have Luke in it either.

Kylo’s Vader worship also makes no sense. His family would have told him about his grandfather returning to the light, or Anakin’s force ghost could have told him. The whole way its framed and he kills his father who loves him for no reason is so hamfistedly written and poorly done, makes me almost forgive the poor reasoning behind Anakin’s turn in episode III.

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His family would have told him about his grandfather returning to the light, or Anakin’s force ghost could have told him.

That’s another thing about the new Canon that bugs me. Apparently, Luke, Han, and Leia all kept the identity of Ben’s grandfather a secret from him, and he only found out about it through the Holonet. I think that’s very out of character for all three of them. Realistically, Day 1 Lesson 1 of Ben’s Jedi training would be a Skywalker family history lesson, so that he could learn the cautionary tale of Anakin.

But we can’t turn back. Fear is their greatest defense. I doubt if the actual security there is any greater than it was on Aquilae or Sullust. And what there is is most likely directed towards a large-scale assault.

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This is why pushing the arguably more interesting aspects of the story in my opinion to backstory was a mistake. Context is missing from understanding why things are the way they are in favour of a modern retelling of the Original Trilogy.

I think George’s approach of having the Solowalker son fall to the Dark Side in Episode VII works better as you’d get to see him train under Luke and be warned but still be corrupted by Darth Talon and extension Darth Maul. Anakin’s Force Ghost naturally couldn’t interfere as it’s an unwritten but slightly written rule in universe that Force Ghosts can’t interfere with the temporal world. However you could still have Luke find his spark of hope through the Solowalker daughter over the course of the film to go try making things right to ulimately succeeding at rebuilding the Jedi Order by the end of the trilogy as the responsibility of bringing back the son rests on the daughter. It’s interesting how an early draft of the series had a sister trying to save her brother. So the idea came full circle.

Context matters.

StarkillerAG said:

Anchorhead said:

Stardust1138 said:
… but as long as films like Marvel and what Star Wars is becoming are successful the storyteller will be pushed out of the equation.

The MCU is light years ahead of the Star Wars franchise where consistent story and vision are concerned. Casting, writing, acting, depth, etc - all are significantly better that the Star Wars franchise. That consistent vision also translates to their TV shows as well.

Across both mediums, the MCU holds a solid and connected narrative. After 1977, Star Wars hasn’t even held a narrative from one film to the next.

Sorry, but I heavily disagree. The casting in the MCU may be pretty great, but as far as writing and depth are concerned, the MCU is about as bland as a McDonalds cheeseburger. Every movie feels exactly the same, with virtually nothing interesting happening (especially after Endgame). And the MCU may have a consistent vision, but it’s a horrible vision: with godawful “comedic” dialogue, bland color grading, and distractingly obvious CGI.

Star Wars may not have a consistent direction, and some installments are much worse than others, but at least there’s actual artistry going on there. In my opinion, an inconsistent-quality franchise that has actual passion put behind it is always better than a consistent-quality franchise made by a soulless boardroom committee.

Exactly but unfortunately Star Wars is becoming the very “soulless boardroom committee” filmmaking we fear. It started with the soft reboot and has only got progressively worse from a critical standpoint. George had a vision. It’s fine if you don’t like it but he had a story he wanted to tell. It just might not be the story you would’ve told. Marvel films are the exact opposite. The directors are hired with almost all of the work already done for them. It’s low risk, high reward.

“Heroes come in all sizes, and you don’t have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It’s just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people - these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.” - George Lucas

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George has had many visions, re-wrote history, lied, deceived, attempted to change the audience’s memories of the films for his many changing visions in the case of the OT.

He had the chance to make his Sequel Trilogy for many years, and chose not to, until his latest vision for the ST came to him circa 2012, with Leia now retconned to be made the Chosen One, not Anakin. No wonder the company he sold Star Wars to passed on it.
 

Thankfully we’re now in a place where we’re no longer held back by George and his supposed “vision”. There is so much in Star Wars (film, tv, books, comics, music, games) to take and enjoy, or to leave aside if not.

Of course everyone is grateful to George for Star Wars, his creation and his dedication, but Star Wars thankfully moved on far beyond George and his retconned and re-invented visions. There is so much more to try, to experience, and enjoy.

The Secret History of Star Wars | Star Wars Visual Comparisons | George Lucas: Star Wars Creator, Unreliable Narrator & Time-Travelling Revisionist

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ken-obi said:

George has had many visions, re-wrote history, lied, deceived, attempted to change the audience’s memories of the films for his many changing visions in the case of the OT.

He had the chance to make his Sequel Trilogy for many years, and chose not to, until his latest vision for the ST came to him circa 2012, with Leia now retconned to be made the Chosen One, not Anakin. No wonder the company he sold Star Wars to passed on it.
 

I won’t get into the first bit as I don’t want to have another argument.

However with the second part I find context matters again. He started working on it in circa 2011 before Disney came into the picture. He always said before selling that the Sequels weren’t ever as fleshed out. It makes sense they’d need some work with what he already had originally. He had the same approach with the Prequels but more to work with when doing them as he had already developed it a great deal. There’s no retcon with Leia being made the “Chosen One”. He didn’t necessarily mean it literally per say but merely it seems to be an extension of the Mortis story arc in The Clone Wars series. He was merely recontextualising the story and adding new meanings to things we knew partial information to. A story grows and evolves. This is natural.

“Heroes come in all sizes, and you don’t have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It’s just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people - these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.” - George Lucas

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Stardust1138 said:

ken-obi said:

George has had many visions, re-wrote history, lied, deceived, attempted to change the audience’s memories of the films for his many changing visions in the case of the OT.

He had the chance to make his Sequel Trilogy for many years, and chose not to, until his latest vision for the ST came to him circa 2012, with Leia now retconned to be made the Chosen One, not Anakin. No wonder the company he sold Star Wars to passed on it.
 

I won’t get into the first bit as I don’t want to have another argument.

However with the second part I find context matters again. He started working on it in circa 2011 before Disney came into the picture. He always said before selling that the Sequels weren’t ever as fleshed out. It makes sense they’d need some work with what he already had originally. He had the same approach with the Prequels but more to work with when doing them as he had already developed it a great deal. There’s no retcon with Leia being made the “Chosen One”. He didn’t necessarily mean it literally per say but merely it seems to be an extension of the Mortis story arc in The Clone Wars series. He was merely recontextualising the story and adding new meanings to things we knew partial information to. A story grows and evolves. This is natural.

Stardust1138 said:

Greetings all! It’s been awhile. Further details of George’s Sequels leaked from the upcoming book “The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005”.

Here George gives a greater context to the story of the trilogy he wanted to tell beyond what we’ve heard with regards to the Whills, Luke being in exile to find his spark again in Episode VII, and the son of Han and Leia falling to the Dark Side.

THE CHOSEN ONE

George Lucas: "Darth Maul trained a girl, Darth Talon, who was in the comic books as his apprentice. She was the new Darth Vader, and most of the action was with her. So these were the two main villains of the trilogy. Maul eventually becomes the godfather of crime in the universe because, as the Empire falls, he takes over.

The movies are about how Leia—I mean, who else is going to be the leader?—is trying to build the Republic. They still have the apparatus of the Republic but they have to get it under control from the gangsters. That was the main story.

It starts out a few years after Return of the Jedi and we establish pretty quickly that there’s this underworld, there are these offshoot stormtroopers who started their own planets, and that Luke is trying to restart the Jedi. He puts the word out, so out of 100,000 Jedi, maybe 50 or 100 are left. The Jedi have to grow again from scratch, so Luke has to find two- and three-year-olds, and train them. It’ll be 20 years before you have a new generation of Jedi.

By the end of the trilogy Luke would have rebuilt much of the Jedi, and we would have the renewal of the New Republic, with Leia, Senator Organa, becoming the Supreme Chancellor in charge of everything. So she ended up being the Chosen One."

Seem pretty literal, and from George’s own mouth.

The Secret History of Star Wars | Star Wars Visual Comparisons | George Lucas: Star Wars Creator, Unreliable Narrator & Time-Travelling Revisionist

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Anchorhead said:

The MCU is light years ahead of the Star Wars franchise where consistent story and vision are concerned.

I wouldn’t call that “consistency” but more “industrial products”, and mostly delivering bad movies.

So long 🙌

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ken-obi said:

Stardust1138 said:

ken-obi said:

George has had many visions, re-wrote history, lied, deceived, attempted to change the audience’s memories of the films for his many changing visions in the case of the OT.

He had the chance to make his Sequel Trilogy for many years, and chose not to, until his latest vision for the ST came to him circa 2012, with Leia now retconned to be made the Chosen One, not Anakin. No wonder the company he sold Star Wars to passed on it.
 

I won’t get into the first bit as I don’t want to have another argument.

However with the second part I find context matters again. He started working on it in circa 2011 before Disney came into the picture. He always said before selling that the Sequels weren’t ever as fleshed out. It makes sense they’d need some work with what he already had originally. He had the same approach with the Prequels but more to work with when doing them as he had already developed it a great deal. There’s no retcon with Leia being made the “Chosen One”. He didn’t necessarily mean it literally per say but merely it seems to be an extension of the Mortis story arc in The Clone Wars series. He was merely recontextualising the story and adding new meanings to things we knew partial information to. A story grows and evolves. This is natural.

Stardust1138 said:

Greetings all! It’s been awhile. Further details of George’s Sequels leaked from the upcoming book “The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005”.

Here George gives a greater context to the story of the trilogy he wanted to tell beyond what we’ve heard with regards to the Whills, Luke being in exile to find his spark again in Episode VII, and the son of Han and Leia falling to the Dark Side.

THE CHOSEN ONE

George Lucas: "Darth Maul trained a girl, Darth Talon, who was in the comic books as his apprentice. She was the new Darth Vader, and most of the action was with her. So these were the two main villains of the trilogy. Maul eventually becomes the godfather of crime in the universe because, as the Empire falls, he takes over.

The movies are about how Leia—I mean, who else is going to be the leader?—is trying to build the Republic. They still have the apparatus of the Republic but they have to get it under control from the gangsters. That was the main story.

It starts out a few years after Return of the Jedi and we establish pretty quickly that there’s this underworld, there are these offshoot stormtroopers who started their own planets, and that Luke is trying to restart the Jedi. He puts the word out, so out of 100,000 Jedi, maybe 50 or 100 are left. The Jedi have to grow again from scratch, so Luke has to find two- and three-year-olds, and train them. It’ll be 20 years before you have a new generation of Jedi.

By the end of the trilogy Luke would have rebuilt much of the Jedi, and we would have the renewal of the New Republic, with Leia, Senator Organa, becoming the Supreme Chancellor in charge of everything. So she ended up being the Chosen One."

Seem pretty literal, and from George’s own mouth.

I dont’t find it as literal as it may seem. I own the book the quote comes from. Different things mean different things just as it does within the book or a story. Context changes within different parts of the story being added to. Sometimes you have to dig deeper than only taking what is given to you at face value. The cake beneath the surface. He thought through his decisions and why he’d do them. He acted on intuition and knew what he felt was best for serving the stories he wanted to tell. He has a different approach to changing things than how fans take them to mean.

“Heroes come in all sizes, and you don’t have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It’s just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people - these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.” - George Lucas

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Stardust1138 said:

ken-obi said:

Stardust1138 said:

ken-obi said:

George has had many visions, re-wrote history, lied, deceived, attempted to change the audience’s memories of the films for his many changing visions in the case of the OT.

He had the chance to make his Sequel Trilogy for many years, and chose not to, until his latest vision for the ST came to him circa 2012, with Leia now retconned to be made the Chosen One, not Anakin. No wonder the company he sold Star Wars to passed on it.
 

I won’t get into the first bit as I don’t want to have another argument.

However with the second part I find context matters again. He started working on it in circa 2011 before Disney came into the picture. He always said before selling that the Sequels weren’t ever as fleshed out. It makes sense they’d need some work with what he already had originally. He had the same approach with the Prequels but more to work with when doing them as he had already developed it a great deal. There’s no retcon with Leia being made the “Chosen One”. He didn’t necessarily mean it literally per say but merely it seems to be an extension of the Mortis story arc in The Clone Wars series. He was merely recontextualising the story and adding new meanings to things we knew partial information to. A story grows and evolves. This is natural.

Stardust1138 said:

Greetings all! It’s been awhile. Further details of George’s Sequels leaked from the upcoming book “The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005”.

Here George gives a greater context to the story of the trilogy he wanted to tell beyond what we’ve heard with regards to the Whills, Luke being in exile to find his spark again in Episode VII, and the son of Han and Leia falling to the Dark Side.

THE CHOSEN ONE

George Lucas: "Darth Maul trained a girl, Darth Talon, who was in the comic books as his apprentice. She was the new Darth Vader, and most of the action was with her. So these were the two main villains of the trilogy. Maul eventually becomes the godfather of crime in the universe because, as the Empire falls, he takes over.

The movies are about how Leia—I mean, who else is going to be the leader?—is trying to build the Republic. They still have the apparatus of the Republic but they have to get it under control from the gangsters. That was the main story.

It starts out a few years after Return of the Jedi and we establish pretty quickly that there’s this underworld, there are these offshoot stormtroopers who started their own planets, and that Luke is trying to restart the Jedi. He puts the word out, so out of 100,000 Jedi, maybe 50 or 100 are left. The Jedi have to grow again from scratch, so Luke has to find two- and three-year-olds, and train them. It’ll be 20 years before you have a new generation of Jedi.

By the end of the trilogy Luke would have rebuilt much of the Jedi, and we would have the renewal of the New Republic, with Leia, Senator Organa, becoming the Supreme Chancellor in charge of everything. So she ended up being the Chosen One."

Seem pretty literal, and from George’s own mouth.

I dont’t find it as literal as it may seem. I own the book the quote comes from. Different things mean different things just as it does within the book or a story. Context changes within different parts of the story being added to. Sometimes you have to dig deeper than only taking what is given to you at face value. The cake beneath the surface. He thought through his decisions and why he’d do them. He acted on intuition and knew what he felt was best for serving the stories he wanted to tell. He has a different approach to changing things than how fans take them to mean.

Again, the quotes above seems pretty literal, and are from George’s own mouth.

George is on record as retconning Leia to be the “Chosen One” in his 2012 ST treatments. That is just a simple fact.

I’ll take the facts at hand over someone’s highly personal interpretation of “context” on this.

If you want to believe otherwise that is up to you.
 

As someone on here once posted, and probably something to remember: “facts don’t cease to exist because they are ignored”.

The Secret History of Star Wars | Star Wars Visual Comparisons | George Lucas: Star Wars Creator, Unreliable Narrator & Time-Travelling Revisionist

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 (Edited)

I liked the aspect of the force being more democratic and mysterious and its choosing a neophyte no one to restore the balance. I liked that Last Jedi basically made the whole mutant inherited bloodline thing, irrelevant. Only for Rise to make Rey a Palpatine and undo the idea of Star Wars going back to the style of the original where Luke was a no one, who had the courage to leave Tatooine and confront the Empire. Originally Luke was a brave kid who went on an adventure he wasn’t the son of a super-villain/mutant with the most mitochondrial DNA or midichlorians whatsits in existence to some prophecy. Its undermines the force and free will. Its junk.

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JadedSkywalker said:

I liked the aspect of the force being more democratic and mysterious and its choosing a neophyte no one to restore the balance. I liked that Last Jedi basically made the whole mutant inherited bloodline thing, irrelevant. Only for Rise to make Rey a Palpatine and undo the idea of Star Wars going back to the style of a the original where Luke was a no one, who had the courage to leave Tatooine and confront the Empire. Originally Luke was a brave kid who went on an adventure he wasn’t the son of a super-villain/mutant with the most mitochondrial DNA or midichlorians whatsits in existence to some prophecy. Its undermines the force and free will. Its junk.

The thing is George never said the Force was exclusive to bloodlines. I think what he says about is just the opposite from how both J.J. and Rian took it to mean.

He said:

"A lot of people get confused about the Force. They see it as some special thing that you can find and pick up and put it on your head and suddenly you have the Force. Whereas it’s always been designed so that every [living] being has the Force.

The amount of Force, which is like talent or intelligence, is different in every person. Some of it is inherited, but it’s no more than a talent. It’s not something you can acquire – it’s something you can learn to use. I have the power to lift that cup off the table using the Force, but I can’t do it unless I have been trained to do it."

And with the Whills. They tie into the idea of free will and destiny:

“The Whills are a microscopic, single-celled lifeform like amoeba, fungi, and bacteria. There’s something like 100.000 times more Whills than there are Midi-Chlorians, and there are about 10.000 times more Midi-Chlorians than there are human cells. The only microscopic entities that can go into the human cells are the Midi-Chlorians. They are born in the cells. The Midi-Chlorians provide the energy for human cells to split and create life. The Whills are single-celled animals that feed on the Force. The more of the Force there is, the better off they are. So they have a very intense symbiotic relationship with the Midi-Chlorians and the Midi-Chlorians effectively work for the Whills. It is estimated that we have 100 trillion microbes in our body and we are made up of about 90% bacteria and 10% human cells. So who is in service to whom?”

The reason we follow the Skywalker family isn’t because they’re more important than others who can also use the Force but because the saga was about Anakin and his family. Anakin and his family just had a greater destiny akin to God in a general sense. Some have greater destinies than others and it’s also your choice on if we want to act on it or ignore the call to something greater. Fate has a way a stopping in where it’s needed.

“Heroes come in all sizes, and you don’t have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It’s just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people - these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.” - George Lucas

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 (Edited)

ken-obi said:

Stardust1138 said:

ken-obi said:

Stardust1138 said:

ken-obi said:

George has had many visions, re-wrote history, lied, deceived, attempted to change the audience’s memories of the films for his many changing visions in the case of the OT.

He had the chance to make his Sequel Trilogy for many years, and chose not to, until his latest vision for the ST came to him circa 2012, with Leia now retconned to be made the Chosen One, not Anakin. No wonder the company he sold Star Wars to passed on it.
 

I won’t get into the first bit as I don’t want to have another argument.

However with the second part I find context matters again. He started working on it in circa 2011 before Disney came into the picture. He always said before selling that the Sequels weren’t ever as fleshed out. It makes sense they’d need some work with what he already had originally. He had the same approach with the Prequels but more to work with when doing them as he had already developed it a great deal. There’s no retcon with Leia being made the “Chosen One”. He didn’t necessarily mean it literally per say but merely it seems to be an extension of the Mortis story arc in The Clone Wars series. He was merely recontextualising the story and adding new meanings to things we knew partial information to. A story grows and evolves. This is natural.

Stardust1138 said:

Greetings all! It’s been awhile. Further details of George’s Sequels leaked from the upcoming book “The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005”.

Here George gives a greater context to the story of the trilogy he wanted to tell beyond what we’ve heard with regards to the Whills, Luke being in exile to find his spark again in Episode VII, and the son of Han and Leia falling to the Dark Side.

THE CHOSEN ONE

George Lucas: "Darth Maul trained a girl, Darth Talon, who was in the comic books as his apprentice. She was the new Darth Vader, and most of the action was with her. So these were the two main villains of the trilogy. Maul eventually becomes the godfather of crime in the universe because, as the Empire falls, he takes over.

The movies are about how Leia—I mean, who else is going to be the leader?—is trying to build the Republic. They still have the apparatus of the Republic but they have to get it under control from the gangsters. That was the main story.

It starts out a few years after Return of the Jedi and we establish pretty quickly that there’s this underworld, there are these offshoot stormtroopers who started their own planets, and that Luke is trying to restart the Jedi. He puts the word out, so out of 100,000 Jedi, maybe 50 or 100 are left. The Jedi have to grow again from scratch, so Luke has to find two- and three-year-olds, and train them. It’ll be 20 years before you have a new generation of Jedi.

By the end of the trilogy Luke would have rebuilt much of the Jedi, and we would have the renewal of the New Republic, with Leia, Senator Organa, becoming the Supreme Chancellor in charge of everything. So she ended up being the Chosen One."

Seem pretty literal, and from George’s own mouth.

I dont’t find it as literal as it may seem. I own the book the quote comes from. Different things mean different things just as it does within the book or a story. Context changes within different parts of the story being added to. Sometimes you have to dig deeper than only taking what is given to you at face value. The cake beneath the surface. He thought through his decisions and why he’d do them. He acted on intuition and knew what he felt was best for serving the stories he wanted to tell. He has a different approach to changing things than how fans take them to mean.

Again, the quotes above seems pretty literal, and are from George’s own mouth.

George is on record as retconning Leia to be the “Chosen One” in his 2012 ST treatments. That is just a simple fact.

I’ll take the facts at hand over someone’s highly personal interpretation of “context” on this.

If you want to believe otherwise that is up to you.
 

As someone on here once posted, and probably something to remember: “facts don’t cease to exist because they are ignored”.

Well said, Ken-Obi.

henzINNIT said:

For the criticisms I have with Disney’s Star Wars, their movies have mostly looked great. Much better than the MCU films, which are somehow constantly drab despite the colourful things happening on screen.

They certainly are. Rogue One too, and apart from the brightness issues of Solo, it looked great as well.

The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.

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Stardust1138 said:

Exactly but unfortunately Star Wars is becoming the very “soulless boardroom committee” filmmaking we fear. It started with the soft reboot and has only got progressively worse from a critical standpoint. George had a vision. It’s fine if you don’t like it but he had a story he wanted to tell. It just might not be the story you would’ve told. Marvel films are the exact opposite. The directors are hired with almost all of the work already done for them. It’s low risk, high reward.

I’d personally disagree with that, too. Even though Lucas is gone, the new creators still have very clear visions and distinctive styles, much more unique than anything seen in the MCU.

In contrast to how the MCU is criticized for being generic and same-y, most criticisms of Disney Star Wars tend to be criticisms of directors’ individual styles: Abrams was criticized for his flashy style-over-substance approach and love of mysteries, Johnson was criticized for his bait-and-switch plot structure and cartoonish comedy, and Rodriguez was criticized for his janky looking B-movie aesthetic. Meanwhile, every Marvel movie and show has the exact same criticisms leveled against it: The characters are too snarky, the villain is too generic, the color grading is too bland, the final battle is too focused on over-the-top CGI, etc.

By far the most Marvel-ish thing to come out of Star Wars so far is Solo, although that’s mainly because the director was replaced halfway through production. But the generic feel of that movie has been an anomaly so far, and I sincerely hope it remains that way.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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StarkillerAG said:

Stardust1138 said:

Exactly but unfortunately Star Wars is becoming the very “soulless boardroom committee” filmmaking we fear. It started with the soft reboot and has only got progressively worse from a critical standpoint. George had a vision. It’s fine if you don’t like it but he had a story he wanted to tell. It just might not be the story you would’ve told. Marvel films are the exact opposite. The directors are hired with almost all of the work already done for them. It’s low risk, high reward.

I’d personally disagree with that, too. Even though Lucas is gone, the new creators still have very clear visions and distinctive styles, much more unique than anything seen in the MCU.

In contrast to how the MCU is criticized for being generic and same-y, most criticisms of Disney Star Wars tend to be criticisms of directors’ individual styles: Abrams was criticized for his flashy style-over-substance approach and love of mysteries, Johnson was criticized for his bait-and-switch plot structure and cartoonish comedy, and Rodriguez was criticized for his janky looking B-movie aesthetic. Meanwhile, every Marvel movie and show has the exact same criticisms leveled against it: The characters are too snarky, the villain is too generic, the color grading is too bland, the final battle is too focused on over-the-top CGI, etc.

By far the most Marvel-ish thing to come out of Star Wars so far is Solo, although that’s mainly because the director was replaced halfway through production. But the generic feel of that movie has been an anomaly so far, and I sincerely hope it remains that way.

I do agree actually in some ways that Star Wars isn’t there quite yet but it’s getting there I’m afraid as Bob Iger said before the release of The Rise of Skywalker that they have hope of appealing to a mass audience afterwards. Another unnamed suit in the same piece also felt J.J. was giving fans what they’d want to see with it. I can see the seeds of this influence already being sown further by having Mando and Baby Yoda reunite in The Book of Boba Fett without allowing them some time apart. It was also the group decision including Bob Iger and Alan Horn who wanted to go with the retro movie that is The Force Awakens. It was also Bob Iger who had to write off on them killing Han and Alan Horn only agreed to let the heroes die in Rogue One because he saw they weren’t in A New Hope. It was an agreed upon consensus in both cases but not without being filtered first through the suits. I think the reason Rogue One though is the exception is they had a vision and idea of what they wanted to tell before presenting things to the suits. It was John Knoll’s idea for a long time after all. He was toying with it since the development of Star Wars: Underworld. The Last Jedi was also well loved by Lucasfilm and Disney because it was finished on budget and ahead of schedule in September of 2017. It had the smoothest production. The current stories in general do have a little more to say than Marvel but they’re arguably getting worse with certain content because they have no clear direction in who they’re trying to tell the stories for. They throw in some nostalgia to get fans on board because it seems they know a newbie is more likely to just watch anything. This is a very similar approach to the Marvel formula but not an exact replica. I hate saying it. I truly do. I’m just afraid the days of epic narrative Star Wars stories are long gone that don’t rely on some sort of nostalgia. It could change one day but we’re in for a long journey until we get there. I don’t know how recognisable Star Wars will be at that point. There might be exceptions to the current stories but I’m not very hopeful that it will be often for the foreseeable future.

George on the other hand had a story he wanted to tell. It might not always be perfect or smooth but he at least had a generally speaking clear idea of what fit in the stories he wanted to tell and what didn’t. Good or bad he worked off of intuition instead of what would please an audience. He did things his way for better or worse.

“Heroes come in all sizes, and you don’t have to be a giant hero. You can be a very small hero. It’s just as important to understand that accepting self-responsibility for the things you do, having good manners, caring about other people - these are heroic acts. Everybody has the choice of being a hero or not being a hero every day of their lives.” - George Lucas

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Servii said:

Something else I hadn’t mentioned yet was the issue of Luke’s ideology in TLJ. One of the things TLJ got praised for was tying itself back to the prequels by having Luke call out the failings of the prequel-era Jedi Order.

The thing is, there are plenty of legitimate issues to be raised about the prequel Jedi: the fact that they separated Force-sensitive babies from their parents and never let them know their own families; the fact they encouraged an unhealthy level of emotional repression and detachment from the outside world; and the fact that they remained servants of the Republic even as it grew more corrupt and self-serving, going so far as to lead a war against a faction trying to secede.

These are all legit grievances that could’ve been brought up. The problem is, TLJ doesn’t mention any of those. Luke says some stuff about how the Jedi allowed Sidious to destroy them, which means they apparently deserved to be destroyed, for some reason? He says the legacy of the Jedi is failure, despite the fact that the Jedi had been able to keep the Republic together and thriving (for the most part) for thousands of years. And he says that the Force doesn’t belong to the Jedi, which isn’t some groundbreaking statement. Everyone already knew that. The Jedi never claimed that the Force belonged to them.

I get that the point is that Luke is supposed to be wrong, so we can see him have a change of heart at the end. The problem is that Luke’s whole anti-Jedi stance in the first part of the movie is such a flimsy, poorly constructed strawman that there’s no way Luke would have believed it for 6 years. He would have seen through it before then, because of how little sense it makes.

There’s also the fact that Luke, given his unconventional path to knighthood, would definitely not have been the traditionalist, prequel-like Jedi the new canon portrays him as. He would have reformed the Order to correct its flaws, rather than just throwing the whole thing out without trying to change anything. But, I’ll save that for another post.

All fair points I’d say. If you don’t mind though, I’d like to provide my counterarguments and to begin? I’d argue that part of being cynical at times is that you rationalize it through these strawman arguments. Bear in mind, aside from Porgs, the caretakers and I’m assuming the ghosts of his masters, Luke never had anyone to truly test those points against. Moreover we also don’t know when he exactly came to this decision and for all we know this could’ve been something he decided after a long period of self-reflection on the island and after he learned all he could about the Jedi of old. Plus there is the fact that this is a two hour movie that doesn’t have the luxury of being able to spend all the time in the world on one argument so narrowing it down to him bringing up the Jedi’s legacy being failure and his example being that the Jedi allowed Darth Sidious to rise to power and the creation of Darth Vader makes sense for most filmgoers who have even a cursory awareness of the prequels and it sells to us how cynical he is. He’s not focusing on the finer details because that’s not what his state would allow, he’s so jaded he can’t help but look at things through that mindset and we see that he himself due to having really no one to challenge this point truthfully might not even believe it fully like when Rey mentions that he himself redeemed his father and he has that moment of pause before cynically talking about how he became a legend.

Looking back at the OT, there’s nothing there that implies he would’ve just reformed everything because of how he became a Jedi. Bear in mind, he wasn’t training in the ways of the Jedi to be the guy to bring back the entire Jedi Order in the movies, he was doing so to help the Rebellion to stop Vader and the Empire and then after his encounter in ESB, he kept training for a year for that inevitable second duel and decided in that time he would try to bring Vader back to the light. Restoring the Order became a goal he had later basically after he became a legend. Bear in mind because the EU post-OT was set up around the idea that we’d see the adventures of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Leia Organa continue well after the movies? It meant by default Luke would face more and more hardships and learn so much more about the Order to actually make it better. The post-OT new canon isn’t centered around that so they took a different path and portrayed Luke as a well-meaning guy who certainly has changed since the OT but he still makes mistakes and one of his mistakes here is that he bought into his own hype and when he made one critical error that due to timing he couldn’t reconcile and later learned about how the Jedi had consistently screwed up? The man’s whole belief system crumbles and thus he exiled himself, believing the galaxy is better off with no Jedi, no legends, nothing like that. For his father it led to him becoming Darth Vader and for Palpatine to take control of the galaxy and for him, it caused his instincts to take over reason and it resulted in his nephew, the son of his best friend and sister, completing his turn to the Dark Side and thus it set that potential future he saw into motion and unlike the last time where a look into the future led to him making a mistake? It was a much more critical error and he was left looking over much more death and destruction on his own.

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Stardust1138 said:

JadedSkywalker said:

I liked the aspect of the force being more democratic and mysterious and its choosing a neophyte no one to restore the balance. I liked that Last Jedi basically made the whole mutant inherited bloodline thing, irrelevant. Only for Rise to make Rey a Palpatine and undo the idea of Star Wars going back to the style of a the original where Luke was a no one, who had the courage to leave Tatooine and confront the Empire. Originally Luke was a brave kid who went on an adventure he wasn’t the son of a super-villain/mutant with the most mitochondrial DNA or midichlorians whatsits in existence to some prophecy. Its undermines the force and free will. Its junk.

The thing is George never said the Force was exclusive to bloodlines. I think what he says about is just the opposite from how both J.J. and Rian took it to mean.

He said:

"A lot of people get confused about the Force. They see it as some special thing that you can find and pick up and put it on your head and suddenly you have the Force. Whereas it’s always been designed so that every [living] being has the Force.

The amount of Force, which is like talent or intelligence, is different in every person. Some of it is inherited, but it’s no more than a talent. It’s not something you can acquire – it’s something you can learn to use. I have the power to lift that cup off the table using the Force, but I can’t do it unless I have been trained to do it."

And with the Whills. They tie into the idea of free will and destiny:

“The Whills are a microscopic, single-celled lifeform like amoeba, fungi, and bacteria. There’s something like 100.000 times more Whills than there are Midi-Chlorians, and there are about 10.000 times more Midi-Chlorians than there are human cells. The only microscopic entities that can go into the human cells are the Midi-Chlorians. They are born in the cells. The Midi-Chlorians provide the energy for human cells to split and create life. The Whills are single-celled animals that feed on the Force. The more of the Force there is, the better off they are. So they have a very intense symbiotic relationship with the Midi-Chlorians and the Midi-Chlorians effectively work for the Whills. It is estimated that we have 100 trillion microbes in our body and we are made up of about 90% bacteria and 10% human cells. So who is in service to whom?”

The reason we follow the Skywalker family isn’t because they’re more important than others who can also use the Force but because the saga was about Anakin and his family. Anakin and his family just had a greater destiny akin to God in a general sense. Some have greater destinies than others and it’s also your choice on if we want to act on it or ignore the call to something greater. Fate has a way a stopping in where it’s needed.

The argument I’d have here is that while George’s sentiment is nice as it’s a way of showing the inclusion of Midichlorians doesn’t mess with the Force and that it’s still ultimately about how everyone has the Force and the potential to use it? That doesn’t really matter here. While your reading is still absolutely valid, the prequels as they change the context of the OT and arguably what one sees maybe from the old EU makes this into a matter where it really feels like being strong in the Force requires you to be a part of a bloodline. Looking back at the OT, part of the appeal to me of the Force is that while in this moment we see Luke is the hero and that he’s learning the ways of the Force? He’s also an everyman and we hear it flows through every living being so you get the idea that you don’t have to be a Skywalker or a Kenobi or whoever to be a hero, the Force flows through everyone therefore everyone has the potential, some might have a bigger headstart on it than others but anyone can learn to use it.

The PT then made Anakin the Chosen One, a child born from a virgin birth that apparently was caused by manipulating Midichlorians and because of the framing of the movies, it’s more based on being born into that bloodline and the Skywalkers suddenly become the only family that really matters to this massive galaxy for almost every single issue revolves around them. Sure one can say it doesn’t matter and that it’s just this is the family the movies follow but the movies still have that kind of framing and later stories keep up with this. For being a galaxy from a long time ago, this universe feels tiny and the Force becomes more like inherited superpowers. Now of course that’s just how I personally read it from spending time with the universe and if you like that aspect then more power to you. But I’ve just got to say that I don’t really care what George says in this instance. Word of God can only go so far and considering how the movies portray it? It’s why I’m more grateful for movies like TLJ bucking that trend and bringing things to being more like the OT while still attempting to show respect to the PT because with how the movies and other portions of the saga framed things? It really felt like it was more about the bloodlines and not about someone in a sea of nobodies rising up and choosing to become someone.