What do you think of the Sequel Trilogy? - a general discussion thread — Page 13

Servii said:

The supposedly “new empowered crew” literally screws up and gets nearly everyone in the Resistance Killed whereas if Poe had listened to Leia and Holdo in the first place none of that would have happened but apparently them failing so hard that they almost singlehandedly destroy the entire resistance is them saving the day? The only reason the entire Resistance doesn’t die is because Leia wakes up from her coma and shoots Poe into unconsciousness

If Poe had listened to Leia, the Dreadnought would have followed the Resistance fleet through hyperspace and killed them all anyway with its super mega “fleet killer” cannon. Also, Leia stunning Poe was completely overkill. Her or Holdo could have literally said the phrase “They can’t track the smaller transports” at any point, and that whole plot wouldn’t have happened.

Or that could’ve happened and Poe then could’ve said “So we’re just gonna turn tail and run away? That’s our plan?” since the movie shows he cares more about being this action hero instead of a good leader.

As for Rey, she basically doesn’t get trained in this movie. She teaches Luke more than he teaches her. And she still kicks the Praetorian guards’ butts and lifts a mountain of boulders seemingly effortlessly. And Kylo refusing to turn to the Light is moreso just a reflection of Kylo being a PoS, not Rey failing at something. She’s utterly morally superior in every situation. It’s not like with Luke and Yoda where Yoda is the source of wisdom and power that Luke needs to emulate. Rey is simply better than Luke, already. She didn’t need him at all.

It’s a back and forth. Luke teaches her about the Force which grants her a much better understanding of it while she counters his various instances of cynicism. She set out to turn Kylo to the light and failed which yes is because of Kylo himself mostly but she still failed at a goal she set out to do. The Praetorians would’ve killed Kylo and Rey had they not fought together and as for the mountain of boulders? To put it very bluntly, that’s how the Force works. ESB made it clear that all that’s keeping a Jedi from lifting heavy objects with the Force is their own mind. As Yoda said, one must unlearn what they’ve learned which means coming to accept that when you use the Force, you don’t view objects in terms of how heavy or how light they can be or think about how difficult it would be to move them with your mind, you simply view them as objects that can be moved.

Then he trolls his nephew, and dies from the effort, having done the absolute bare minimum of keeping a handful of Resistance alive.

But he kept them alive, is now far more powerful than anyone could imagine and while there’s only a handful left? I mean it was once thought the Empire was impossible to take out but it wasn’t and the legend of Luke will spread and inspire many as shown by the end of the film.

daveybjones999 said:

AspiringCreator said:

daveybjones999 said:

AspiringCreator said:

James1027 said:

TLJ basically cemented the way these new stories would go. Luke and the old guard are broken, weak, and dumb while the new empowered crew has to save the day. TLJ supposedly has a theme about failure. Yes, everyone failed. Except Rey. She successfully resists the dark side, resists Kylo, lifts countless rocks to aide the rebels, escapes snokes damaged ship and steals his private craft, bests Luke in mock combat and is able to show she is truly greater then all the other miserable failures in the film.

Well Luke also succeeded in saving the Resistance and becoming more powerful than one could possibly imagine, Poe learned the lesson about being a smarter leader and Finn learned that how they win and fight is important along with just stopping the bad guy. Also Rey failed to turn Kylo to the light, failed to see Luke’s point that things weren’t just gonna play out like they did 30 years ago and still struggled with the Dark Side by going straight to it and if you’re gonna mention that?

Yeah, I completely agree with you on this 1 part. Rey is constantly failing at literally everything in the 8th movie and people come out of it thinking she’s a Mary Sue? Like what? Were people paying any attention during the course of the movie? She fails to convince Luke to train her, R2 does that, she fails Luke’s first lesson at first and immediately goes to the dark side, she messes up her lightsaber training by losing focus and destroying the rock, and she’s not able to do anything to Snoke and needs Kylo Ren to save her ass, she spends most of the fight with the pretorian guards fighting 1-2 of them whilst Kylo Ren kills the rest, only being able to help out at the last second, she fails to turn Kylo Ren back to the light side of the force. She also fails to convince Luke to help out the Resistance and come out of hiding, Yoda does that. The only thing Rey succeeds at in The Last Jedi is knocking down Luke who clearly wasn’t going all out or trying to hurt her, fighting off some of the tie fighters on Crait and lifting a bunch of rocks to save the Resistance. I definitely understand criticisms of her being a Mary Sue in episodes 7 and 9, but she’s the complete opposite of a Mary Sue in episode 8 in which she fails in literally everything that she sets out to do through the entire film. Also, the Old Guard are literally the only characters who are competent in episode 8, what film are people watching? The supposedly “new empowered crew” literally screws up and gets nearly everyone in the Resistance Killed whereas if Poe had listened to Leia and Holdo in the first place none of that would have happened but apparently them failing so hard that they almost singlehandedly destroy the entire resistance is them saving the day? The only reason the entire Resistance doesn’t die is because Leia wakes up from her coma and shoots Poe into unconsciousness, and the only reason Rey can lift the rocks to save the Resistance is because Luke Skywalker projects himself onto the planet to stall Kylo Ren. Come on now The Last Jedi isn’t a perfect movie and clearly didn’t do a good enough job at relating its themes and what it was trying to do to the audience, but I fail to see how the old guard is portrayed as incompetent

I’ve always felt whenever I hear complaints about Rey being a “Mary Sue”? I honestly wonder if we’re consuming the same franchise because if one does that? I feel then they should judge the rest of the series because by their logic? Plenty of characters fit the bill of being a Mary Sue. Luke fits it, Anakin fits it, Starkiller fits it. Honestly I feel like I’d be more understanding if it was just said that they didn’t like Rey as a character and left it as that.

I will disagree with Luke being a Gary Stu. He trains and struggles a lot more than Rey ever does, even though I don’t think Rey is a Mary Sue I can understand that a little in episode 7. But your point about the other protagonists still stands.

Thing is, I said by their logic because fundamentally, the things they’re angry about with Rey can be applied to Luke. For instance, if they’re asking how Rey can just fly ships and write off her time as a scavenger and her line that she has flown before as a cop-out? Luke at best in ANH has been shown to drive a landspeeder and he states he flew a T-16 which we don’t know is an airspeeder and his only time in a ship is in the Falcon’s turret and as a passenger but he can pilot an X-Wing no problem. Rey uses the Force with little explanation, Luke is told basically the equivalent of “Just feel it out bro.” and he does it. Now I don’t personally think he’s a Mary Sue but it’s easy enough to see when you frame things a certain way how he could be seen as one and why the arguments against Rey, who arguably in many instances has more explanation for her abilities that are rooted in what has been in SW before, seem bogus because really, it’s clear it’s just a general dislike for the character showing through that leads to the Mary Sue comment.

Everybody always argues about Rey being too overpowered, or never failing, or definitely failing all the time, etc. Debating whether or not Rey’s “fail count” or “Mary Sue score” approximates Luke’s “fail count” or “Mary Sue score” overlooks the real underlying problem with TLJ’s themes and message.

In terms of Rey’s arc, TLJ presents three inter-related messages/themes:

1. Failure is a great teacher

2. Elders from the past can teach us what types of failure to avoid

3. Apart from learning what failures to avoid, there is little else of value we can learn from elders or knowledge passed down to us, so we must look inward to ourselves to move forward

In isolation, Message (1) and (2) are good messages. However, the way the movie connects Message (1) and (2) with Message (3) is very harmful to Star Wars (and harmful in general).

But since this is controversial, first I’ll provide evidence that TLJ actually conveys these messages. Message (1) is conveyed explicitly through dialogue by Yoda. Message (2) is presented in various ways, such as when Yoda says “Luke, we are what they grow beyond”, and when Yoda tells Luke that the most important thing he must pass on is his follies and failures, so younger generations can grow beyond them. Message (3) is an extension of Message 2, and is presented explicitly when Yoda mocks the “sacred Jedi texts” and says “that library contained nothing that the girl Rey does not already possess”, before literally burning down the library. Message (3) is also presented through Rey’s journey throughout the film, as Rey doesn’t actually learn much about being a Jedi from Luke. Luke mostly teaches Rey how the Jedi failed or were wrong, while Rey trains herself and then takes the ancient texts along with her so she can self-learn. The over-arching message here is that knowledge passed down by elders is only useful so we can learn how to avoid past failures, but in terms of going forward and learning/achieving new things, there is little our elders can teach us, so we must look inward to ourselves.

Now, while these themes are prominent throughout TLJ, the movie also muddles these messages a bit, which can easily be mistaken for intentional nuance. These messages are muddled in four primary ways:

• Message 3 is also conveyed by the famous line from Kylo Ren “Let the past die”. But since Kylo is a villain, this dialogue is presumably not meant to be taken as a teachable moment for the audience.

• Message 2 and 3 are conveyed by Yoda, but Yoda himself comes from the failed past, so why should we even listen to him?

• Yoda says the Jedi texts are mostly useless to Rey, yet Rey takes them with her anyway.

• Yoda also mentions two positive things (strength and mastery) as things that should be passed down by elders

I believe these muddled aspects and inconsistencies do not represent any intentional nuance in the overall message. They are mostly just inconsistencies/contradictions in the writing. In regard to Rey taking the Jedi texts with her, this was probably included so Rey had some way of learning more about the Force after Luke dies. With the Jedi texts, Rey can learn by herself - rather than learn from an elder. (The fact that the texts themselves were written by past elders is probably another oversight not to be taken as intentional nuance). And as for “strength and mastery”, despite this brief lip service to past knowledge, Rey does not actually learn any “strength and mastery” from Luke. She learns those things by looking inward to herself.

Regardless of the inconsistencies, the overall message is pretty clear: “knowledge/ideas passed down by elders is useful mostly so we can learn to avoid past failures, but there is little the past can teach us as we move forward, so we must look inward to ourselves.” In my opinion, this is a harmful, insidious message that, when taken to its logical endpoint, results in solipsism and narcissism.

Instead, Star Wars should portray the learning process as a give and take between elder and younger generation, with the elder conveying most of the knowledge, but the younger offering a unique perspective that forces elders to reconsider long-held beliefs. The OT did this perfectly, with Luke learning from Kenobi and Yoda, but also proving them wrong by redeeming Vader.

Finally, it’s true that Rey herself also fails badly in TLJ. This is what the “Mary Sue” crowd doesn’t acknowledge. Rey gets her ass kicked by Snoke, she has to be saved by Kylo, and then she fails to bring Kylo back to the light. Now, Luke definitely fails more often (let’s get real here), but this is actually not even relevant. The important point is that Rey’s strength and power come almost exclusively from looking inward to herself and tapping into her inner strength, not by learning from an elder mentor who bestows knowledge from the past. This is an extension of what happens in TFA, where Rey’s Force powers spontaneously manifest with no prior training. It’s also why Rey sees an endless reflection of herself during her vision in the underground cave. TLJ ends triumphantly with Rey lifting tons of boulders - a feat that nobody taught her to do (apart from some meta-joke about lifting rocks). Rather, it was only her own inner strength that enabled her to do it.

And that’s the real difference between Rey and Luke. Both of them experienced failure. Both had some “Mary Sue” moments. But Luke learned from elder mentors. Rey learned that she only needed herself.

Channel72 said:

while these themes are prominent throughout TLJ, the movie also muddles these messages a bit, which can easily be mistaken for intentional nuance. These messages are muddled in four primary ways:

• Message 3 is also conveyed by the famous line from Kylo Ren “Let the past die”. But since Kylo is a villain, this dialogue is presumably not meant to be taken as a teachable moment for the audience.

• Message 2 and 3 are conveyed by Yoda, but Yoda himself comes from the failed past, so why should we even listen to him?

Simple, because it shows Yoda learned from those failures, it’s a reminder of something we see in ESB’s portrayal of Yoda compared to his portrayal in the prequels. If you don’t consume any expanded material, you could say Yoda was always thinking in this manner and that he only had a lightsaber in AOTC for the sake of self-defense and if you did engage in it? Those stories make it abundantly clear that Yoda eventually came to see all the flaws of the old order and thus went out of his way to not make the same mistakes, an idea you could infer even on your own since… well it’s been so long that surely Yoda had to have learned something.

• Yoda says the Jedi texts are mostly useless to Rey, yet Rey takes them with her anyway.

• Yoda also mentions two positive things (strength and mastery) as things that should be passed down by elders

the overall message is pretty clear: “knowledge/ideas passed down by elders is useful mostly so we can learn to avoid past failures, but there is little the past can teach us as we move forward, so we must look inward to ourselves.” In my opinion, this is a harmful, insidious message that, when taken to its logical endpoint, results in solipsism and narcissism.

Instead, Star Wars should portray the learning process as a give and take between elder and younger generation, with the elder conveying most of the knowledge, but the younger offering a unique perspective that forces elders to reconsider long-held beliefs. The OT did this perfectly, with Luke learning from Kenobi and Yoda, but also proving them wrong by redeeming Vader.

Finally, it’s true that Rey herself also fails badly in TLJ. This is what the “Mary Sue” crowd doesn’t acknowledge. Rey gets her ass kicked by Snoke, she has to be saved by Kylo, and then she fails to bring Kylo back to the light. Now, Luke definitely fails more often (let’s get real here), but this is actually not even relevant. The important point is that Rey’s strength and power come almost exclusively from looking inward to herself and tapping into her inner strength, not by learning from an elder mentor who bestows knowledge from the past. This is an extension of what happens in TFA, where Rey’s Force powers spontaneously manifest with no prior training. It’s also why Rey sees an endless reflection of herself during her vision in the underground cave. TLJ ends triumphantly with Rey lifting tons of boulders - a feat that nobody taught her to do (apart from some meta-joke about lifting rocks). Rather, it was only her own inner strength that enabled her to do it.

Thing is? That’s pretty in-line with the Force. When Yoda was telling Luke to lift up the X-Wing, he expressed doubt which led to Yoda explaining basically that the ability to use the Force comes down to patience and mostly accepting this new form of thinking. It’s about inner strength and accepting a whole new thought process. Strength and mastery in this is not about exercising some Force muscle or whatever, it’s about letting go and allowing this energy to guide you. Rey learned she needed to believe in herself but she also learned facts about how those stories she loved were about real people and that the wars clearly took tolls on them, that the Jedi aren’t 100% squeaky clean arbiters of peace and also learned some hard truths. Luke told her things aren’t just gonna go the way she thinks they will because they happened once before… and he’s proven right. Not to mention there is a back and forth, Luke’s cynicism is framed as being wrong but understandable with Rey taking every opportunity to counter it. The two do learn from one another and ultimately end up with the movie’s message that those who are too shackled to the past are often doomed to repeat it and that ultimately, failure is as much a part of the process of growth as any other element.

I really don’t see this supposed “anti learning from elders” message.

Luke has a story in between 6 and 7. Lucasfilm for some reason just hasn’t told it beyond a couple cameos, a comic book and a novel. The sequel trilogy isn’t at fault for that though nor is Rian Johnson. The sequel trilogy is Rey’s trilogy not about Luke. Its not about Anakin either. It really didn’t even need to have the OT actors at all and could even have been set in the far future. Because they do very little at all they were window dressing. They are touchstones of memory. Remember Luke, Remember Han, Remember Leia. Fan service for Gen X fans. Even down to largely following the same style and story beats of the originals. Rebels Vs Empire. Jedi Vs Sith.

The actual world building is shallow and poor. Bordering on imitation. We know nothing about the state of the New Republic, or how the resistance became to be. We no nothing of the origins of the first order or the state of the Empire. And we never see the Return of the Jedi. I hate to say it but the prequel did a better job at world building than actual flavor of the story or likeable characters which the sequel did better. And the OT did better than both. But it was a smaller story and more contained.

I will say going back to the adventure style of the OT was enjoyable actually and i initially really enjoyed Force Awakens because it brought that style of good Star Wars back. It only took me awhile to realize well of course i liked it i love the 1977 film. I understand what George Lucas meant when he said Disney made a fan movie, that did nothing new.

I will always like Rey, Poe, Finn and Rose and i wish the movies were better.

AspiringCreator said:

Thing is? That’s pretty in-line with the Force. When Yoda was telling Luke to lift up the X-Wing, he expressed doubt which led to Yoda explaining basically that the ability to use the Force comes down to patience and mostly accepting this new form of thinking. It’s about inner strength and accepting a whole new thought process. Strength and mastery in this is not about exercising some Force muscle or whatever, it’s about letting go and allowing this energy to guide you.

Learning the Force has always been depicted as a master/apprentice relationship, requiring discipline and practice. The “new form of thinking” Yoda talks about is what requires this discipline and practice. The OT makes it clear this requires a mentor and teacher. If you include the Prequels, this means years of training. What happens with Rey is completely different. For her it’s like a light-switch. She just spontaneously develops near fully-formed Force capabilities (Jedi mind trick, lifting objects, lightsaber combat). Nobody teaches her and there’s no progression. I can’t imagine how anyone could possibly say this is anything like the earlier films.

I really don’t see this supposed “anti learning from elders” message.

Yoda says the ancient Jedi texts are useless to Rey and then literally burns down the library. What kind of twisted message is this?

Channel72 said:
Learning the Force has always been depicted as a master/apprentice relationship, requiring discipline and practice. The “new form of thinking” Yoda talks about is what requires this discipline and practice. The OT makes it clear this requires a mentor and teacher. If you include the Prequels, this means years of training. What happens with Rey is completely different. For her it’s like a light-switch. She just spontaneously develops near fully-formed Force capabilities (Jedi mind trick, lifting objects, lightsaber combat). Nobody teaches her and there’s no progression. I can’t imagine how anyone could possibly say this is anything like the earlier films.

Not quite, it’s more like how in the real world there are people who are naturally gifted with and tuned to certain talents but the only thing it allows them is a headstart. Discipline and practice plays a part in using the Force but it’s not the same as other skills. It’s about accepting a new form of thinking, letting go of your doubts and fully embracing this energy. In TFA and TLJ? Rey shows she’s good at combat because of all her time spent on Jakku. The Jedi mind trick is not that hard because it works on the weak-minded and since Rey is gradually learning about the Force abilities she has and has known the stories of the Jedi? It makes sense she’d think “Wait a second, the Jedi have the ability to use this mind trick thing right? Well maybe we can give this a shot.” and she fails two times before when she’s clearly scared and unsure of herself with the third time being when she clears her mind and focuses. The Force is not this RPG skill-tree where you unlock abilities based on aptitude nor is it a martial art. It’s a mystical energy source that connects every living being and technically can be tapped into at any time. The discipline aspect comes in learning when not to use it and how to focus better so that you can use it more efficiently.

Yoda says the ancient Jedi texts are useless to Rey and then literally burns down the library. What kind of twisted message is this?

Thing is, Yoda did that because Rey had the texts with them. Him burning down the tree was basically him showing his frustration with Luke being unable to do it and also him basically saying that like in ESB, Luke fails to focus on the now and instead keeps focusing on either the past or the future. As the movie’s ultimate message is, the past is not something we should ignore or seek to end but rather it’s something to learn from as we look forward since if we’re a slave to our past? We’ll never usually venture out outside our comfort zone or improve and we might end up inadvertently repeating the past and if we ignore it? Obviously we’ll risk repeating the past since we don’t know what to look out for and we see that message reflected here. Luke thinks the Jedi need to end because of his mistakes and he looks back on the history as a jaded man and sees failure. Yoda has looked back on the history and clearly sees just the spots they need to do better on. Rey thinks she can turn Kylo based on their connection and how in the past Luke turned Vader… and she fails because she doesn’t realize Vader and Kylo are different people and fails to see that Luke turning Vader came as a result of having a year to prepare for that decision and circumstances leading to it.

of_Kaiburr_and_Whills said:
I’ve come to view Rey’s training and quickly acquired skills in the Force as a representational thing, corresponding with her storyline of moving forward in life. Its more symbolic in a sense. The issue for me arises in reconciling that way of seeing the Force with the more discipline/training approach we’ve seen prior, where yes there is a symbolic aspect, but there is certainly a more proper generational tradition of knowledge and training. For Rey, its not so much learning to feel the Force and swordfight, rather its about how to control her powers and how to use them for good(?)

To me, there’s a clear difference in how both characters skills in the Force are presented and what they mean for their respective stories. The Force itself operates a little bit different between either trilogy, though certain principles may carry over. Honestly, I will always prefer Luke’s story here, but with more refinement I think this approach for Rey could have been equally interesting. And lets be honest, I may be looking too far into this lol.

I think the issue comes down to an aspect of Star Wars that’s just always going to affect future entries. For years before TFA… Star Wars was done. Yes there was the EU but in terms of the movie franchise and TV shows? It was over with most of the projects we’d get often taking place in periods in-between the movies with the games, comics and novels being left to explore outside of it. Generally speaking, if Lucas was involved? It was not gonna be placed timeline-wise after the films. But as a result, many fans have had more than enough time to dwell on the Force and how it was represented in those years to come which led to very skewed interpretations, especially after the prequels and what they showed with the Force.

The thing about the Force and the way the ST shows it is that it’s not exclusively about discipline and training at least in the same way as other skills are learned. The Force is a mystical energy that binds every living being together, it’s present within every living being with most likely not even knowing that it’s there though everyone has great potential to use it and like any skill? It’s possible to be naturally gifted in it, especially if the person in-question already knows about the Force beforehand. I always think to for instance how Luke’s training in ESB played out. The physical training aspect is him running and jumping around Dagobah which could be considered at least in terms of these movies basic exercise but for the majority of it? It’s about clearing his mind, focusing and learning to accept this new line of thinking. The famous “Judge me by my size do you?” exchange especially shows this because in that scene, Luke is doubting himself since to him, moving a ship is impossible because he knows he physically can’t move it himself so he thinks the same principle applies to moving it with the Force and as Yoda shows… it doesn’t work like that. If Luke believed in himself and let those doubts be brushed aside? He could’ve done what Yoda asked.

Rey has grown up in a world where Luke has saved the galaxy already and thus stories of the Jedi and Force are seemingly more widely spread. TFA shows us she has been on Jakku for years and that it’s a trading outpost meaning she has likely heard over the years many talks about the Jedi from people coming there. We also see from her home and how she plays around with the pilot helmet she’s surrounded by remnants of the old war and has an interest in it and so she’s more easily able to accept the Force’s concepts like being able to move objects and mentally influence the weak-minded. What she doesn’t get is that the Force is not only more than that but that it’s also not so cut-and-dry. She also lacks confidence in the sense that she sees herself as just a scavenger girl who’s not made for adventure while Luke desired something more which limited her on what she could do. To me, it’s why I think it’s understandable that Jedi with permission take children to the temple to train them not just because they recognize the potential on display but that also with them being children? They can take to certain concepts better though what they say requires rigid training and skill they might’ve gotten wrong since in life we always have to revise our understanding of certain concepts.

Like to me with the whole discussion about Rey, I ask one thing… is she Starkiller? Is she Kyle Katarn? Is she Revan? What I mean by that is that those three and others are examples of what I think when the topic of broken Star Wars characters come to mind because in the games they hail from, they can become absolute murderbosses and when they were taken out of the game and thrown into other media? What was done to nerf them was basically take away their ability to eat laser blasts and then heal with either regenerating health or health packs and lightsabers are not just baseball bats because there’s no lifebar so they can’t take a hit from those either. Otherwise? They’re still insanely powerful and highly skilled to the point where what they do borders on the ridiculous. Like people think Rey moving rocks is far-fetched? Starkiller moved a whole Star Destroyer and it doesn’t matter what version of the story you’re consuming, it’s made very clear he did that. People say Rey’s combat skills are absurd? Kyle Katarn is a master of every single lightsaber fighting style and is shown on many occasions to be John Wick-levels of competent. Rey defeating a weakened Kylo is too mu-did we see the same game where Starkiller full-on beats down Darth Vader and beats the Emperor. Granted the latter was likely holding back to a degree but still, that happened and Starkiller still did things to the Emperor that should’ve killed him with the only thing saving him is that ANH hasn’t happened yet so he has to be prevented from killing them since this is a canon story when from the looks of things? He could’ve solved the problem right then and there.

This article IMO perfectly encapsulates the problems with the Sequel Trilogy.

https://www.cracked.com/blog/why-new-star-wars-trilogy-was-doomed-from-start?utm_campaign=social-account&utm_content=&utm_medium=macro_fromlink&utm_partner=cracked&utm_source=facebookCKD

fmalover said:

This article IMO perfectly encapsulates the problems with the Sequel Trilogy.

https://www.cracked.com/blog/why-new-star-wars-trilogy-was-doomed-from-start?utm_campaign=social-account&utm_content=&utm_medium=macro_fromlink&utm_partner=cracked&utm_source=facebookCKD

I think a few things on this should be noted. First, the EU already invalidated ROTJ. I mean, kriff if you really want to be mean, you could point out every sequel technically undoes the accomplishments of the original by virtue of it continuing thus necessitating the need for new challenges. Next, it kind of has a point on the lack of set-up and development for this new world… but then busts the kneecaps of it when it gets a detail wrong by asking why would the First Order need to destroy the Republic’s system and equates what they did to throwing a hand grenade into the White House garden and suddenly ending sauerkraut when… they blew up five planets and one had the New Republic’s leadership and governing body. They then continue to get details wrong such as when they talk about the fleet in TROS which was not just Resistance (Which I should note it’s them a year after TLJ.) but also the wider galaxy answering the call to action.

Like I feel like with Sequel criticism comparing it to Prequel criticism, more often than not it feels we’ve seen different movies.

I haven’t seen TFA in a while and last time around I felt like it runs out of steam by the third act. I just get kind of bored for some reason despite the dramatic highlights. Meanwhile TLJ I just randomly revisited and I still think it’s a notch above. It’s not well structured in the middle despite the action build ups (the saber breaking and the lightspeed crash) and I don’t like how often it stalls on Canto Bight. Rose and DJ still don’t work for me as fake morality paths for Finn. And the climax where she nearly kills herself and Finn is nonsense. It should have been edited to show Finn’s speeder crashing by itself out of luck. That being said I still like nearly all of the Luke stuff and Mark Hamill’s performance. I just find it interesting. Shame the Rey parent stuff/Kylo stuff is a dead end though thanks to part three… which I haven’t gone back to despite a mildly improved fan version.

I like Luke and Artoo, and Luke winking at Threepio and holding Leia’s hand. Especially the scene between Mark and Carrie that feels real to me. Mutual love and respect.

The Yoda scene isn’t the best but it did make me chuckle. Not the gleefully burning the tree scene, but him whacking Luke with his stick.

I also like the scene where Luke leaves the hanger even if it’s a phony fake out. The framing, how epic it is. He slowly strides out like a hero of the old westerns.

Would be the greatest scene in history if he was physically there. Not an astral projection.

I also like the Rey training sequence and Rey gets pulled to the dark. I had that on 70mm film frames which got lost.

JadedSkywalker said:

I like Luke and Artoo, and Luke winking at Threepio and holding Leia’s hand. Especially the scene between Mark and Carrie that feels real to me. Mutual love and respect.

These kind of real moments aren’t common in the series tbh.

Can I just say though that the title crawl music is still wrong. Like it’s the wrong mix. I can’t remember if they used this version in all three or just the first two.

Totally agree the title music lacks any sort of punch in TFA or TLJ, don’t know what happened there. Apparently it was re-recorded for TLJ but to my ears it just sounds like the TFA version. Maybe they didn’t master it well, it’s just so quiet. Can’t speak to TROS however as I haven’t seen that in quite a few years and hopefully it remains that way for many more.

Am I mistaken in that John Williams didn’t conduct the Force Awakens Star Wars title? Gustavo Dudamel. Its also not LSO.

All three sequel trilogy movies definitely use the same recording. This video has TFA’s audio playing in the left ear, TLJ and then TROS’s audio in the right ear, if you have headphones. I thought TROS might have used a different recording but this is definitely the same one.

I agree that it sounds kind of low energy, it sounds kind of like a midi to me.

SparkySywer said:

I agree that it sounds kind of low energy, it sounds kind of like a midi to me.

Right? It’s like a callback to the original Lucasarts games.

SparkySywer said:

All three sequel trilogy movies definitely use the same recording. This video has TFA’s audio playing in the left ear, TLJ and then TROS’s audio in the right ear, if you have headphones. I thought TROS might have used a different recording but this is definitely the same one.

Actually, I’m totally wrong and you can hear a drumroll right at the beginning of TRoS that isn’t in TFA/TLJ. Not that this is super important. Also, here is a video of Rian Johnson recording John Williams at work during the production of The Last Jedi… where you can hear a version they recorded but ultimately did not use for TLJ.

To answer the question in the OP, I think I still haven’t fully come to terms with how the ST turned out. I was so excited before TFA and it didn’t disappoint. It was the movie I never thought I would see and I couldn’t wait for more. But TLJ and Carrie Fisher’s death pretty much wrecked me and TROS may very well be the biggest film-going disappointment of my life. I’m not going to regurgitate points that have already been brought up a million times but the sequel trilogy kind of turns the whole saga into one giant tragedy. It all ends up feeling so nihilistic and pointless and that’s not what I want Star Wars to be but it is impossible to undo it now. Thinking about the ST mostly just makes me sad. I haven’t re-watched any of the ST since 2019. Maybe a fanny and sad comment coming from a 35-year-old-man but that’s how I feel about it.

I think these movies are pretty obnoxiously, surprisingly poor constructed. They’re not even just rip offs of the OT, they’re shoddy to dumb rip offs/remixes of the OT. Only difference is that they lack an overall story and character point to it all to me. TLJ in particular, to me, is removed from even it’s own trilogy in character weight where, boy, does it want to pretend it does things, when it’s more a poor man’s remix of TESB with a twist of ROTJ thrown in at the end. It pretends Kylo is important as a character and a villain, while not giving him anything that makes him either. At least Snoke had gravitas. Kylo has neither importance as a character to the story or importance to the main character in actual writing construction. Atrocious empty black hole of a character, the worst villain in live action Star Wars by a country mile to me. Rey is sidelined in her own movie, made into a stump on a log that mostly just sits there as Luke and Kylo whine about nothing, while she has no real questions or concerns and is only acts out of defense of poor wittle Kylo in a I think somehow worst romance in Star Wars movies mode, which is hilarious when Anakin and Padme exist, but even the PT cleared the bare minimum of romantic engagement between characters to me. reylo alone is worse writing, to me, than any of the PT relationships.

Just saw this thread get pushed up again and I’ve had a lot of time to reminisce about the Sequel Trilogy and my thoughts on the movie have completely solidified since then. I like Force Awakens but most of the problems with the sequel trilogy stem from the construction of this film. By essentially telling mostly the same story as A New Hope, it makes a lot of mistakes that make the world building of the trilogy not work. Because we’re setting things back to having an evil empire and Darth Vader like character in Kylo Ren, the movie essentially has to explain why these things are coming back after seemingly being defeated in Return of the Jedi, yet the films world building fails at doing this. We know that the First Order are made up of Imperial Remnants and that they’ve risen to power, but we don’t know how because the movie isn’t really at all interested in setting that up, it just wants to bring things back to what people liked about the original trilogy by resetting it to the status quo at the beginning of the original trilogy and going on to retell a similar story. It was so unexplored or explained in the movie that the Disney post Original Trilogy era TV projects are still trying to this very day explain how this actually happened. The creatives in charge of Force Awakens clearly weren’t at all interested in the specifics of how this happened as it’s clear they just wanted to bring things back to how things were in the original trilogy, partially because of how disappointed they were in the prequels and wanted to bring things back to basic. This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if you were making an original film, but putting this at the end of an existing storyline without actually explaining how set the entire trilogy on a bad foot and it also kind of invalidates what the cast of the original trilogy went through. This reason and the wiping out of the old EU, is the biggest mistake that’s given Disney’s Star Wars its biggest problem because when your story is setup on a shaky foundation, there’s only so far you can go until the entire construction falls down.

The other problem, and the biggest issue that the trilogy suffers from, is JJ Abrams Mystery Box style of storytelling is actually really bad. I won’t go so far as other people and say that Abrams is a complete hack, but his storytelling style is pretty much a failure because most of his works are way more interested in setting up mysteries to engage the audience rather than actually answering them so the answers are never satisfying. This really poisons the entire trilogy, because now the other directors have to either resolve mysteries that were setup with no real answers in mind, at least no real answers that he was actually intending to resolve, or ignore them and piss off the people invested in those mysteries even though they were never going to have satisfying answers because JJ Abrams throughout his entire career has almost never been able to do that.

However that being said I actually don’t think those issues really negatively affect The Force Awakens all that much. I just think it’s a pretty good movie. It does a great job of introducing the main characters and giving them not only good personalities but setting up the character arcs for the film, the narrative, while too similar to New Hope does a successful job of having enough original elements that I can overlook that. The emotional beats work, the pacing is nice and breezy and it’s just a really fun time to watch.

I always hesitate when it comes to talking about The Last Jedi due to how toxic it still sometimes is to discuss the movie. It’s just amazing how divisive that movie was as people had the exact opposite reactions to the film. When I saw the movie I absolutely loved it, it instantly became one of my favorite Star Wars movies and I thought it was the second best one behind only Empire Strikes Back, so imagine my shock when I went to go online and see what people were saying about the movie, only to find out that a lot of people, not only didn’t like the movie, but thought it was one of the worst movies ever made that completely ruined the entire Star Wars franchise to them. I also imagine it must’ve also been incredibly jarring to the people who hated it that much, that others felt exactly the opposite of them and thought it was one of the best Star Wars movies ever. It’s still to this day one of the worst discourses I’ve ever seen over a movie.

I was lucky enough that I happened to follow one or two Youtube Reviewers who didn’t like the movie, and gave valid explanations as to why, because if not I 100% would’ve been in the camp that thought that everyone who hated it was just racist and sexist. A lot of hate was coming from racist and sexist idiots, who probably weren’t even fans of Star Wars to begin with, who essentially used it as an excuse to go and bully all of the non-white, non-male, actors off of twitter with Death Threats for daring to be in Star Wars. Almost all of the complaints I saw in the first week or two of the movies release were those types of complaints, which made lots of people wrongly believe that everyone who hated it were those people. They were by far the loudest and most visible complaints about the movie online, especially on twitter, and they essentially buried all of the valid complaints under a deluge of racism and sexism. And because those opinions were so extreme a lot of people who liked the movie only ever saw those opinions started to think that only sexists and racists hated the movie. Even when people weren’t being racist or sexist there was still a lot of bull with people who hated the movie doing nothing but accusing people who liked it to not be true Star Wars fans and of being Disney Shills paid to say the movie was good, and people who liked the movie that were completely overzealous in defending the movie accusing anyone who didn’t like it of being idiots who weren’t smart enough to understand the movie. So why this movie? It’s well acted, looks good for the most part, and is for the most part well directed. Well it’s all because of issues that started with The Force Awakens.

JJ Abrams mystery box style of storytelling focuses a lot on setting up mysteries to engage the audience, but very little in actually answering those questions. So a lot of the time the answers are incredibly unsatisfying because they writer was never really interested in what the answers were, but the audience got invested in those questions by design so when they have disappointing answers it ruins the story. A lot of people hate The Last Jedi because they see it as either ignoring, or abandoning what was setup in the previous movie I’m in two minds on this. While there are definitely mystery box setups that are ignored, a lot of them do get answers but people just disliked what the answers were, which is not the same as abandoning what the previous movie setup. Really the only setup that Last Jedi abandons is that Snoke wants to continue Kylo Ren’s training.

There are other issues in the film such as the film doing too good of a job making people hate Holdo so when we get the reveal she’s a good guy people refused to accept it, the Canto Bight storyline is rather poorly paced and feels like it sidelines Finn’s character, also the humor doesn’t work for a lot of people. However the biggest issue is what I described earlier with the mystery boxes, and fans understandably being upset by the reason for Luke being on the planet and how the story handles his character arc. When you’re going to bring back a legacy character, especially one so beloved, you need to be very careful with what you do with them lest the fanbase hate it, and you by extension, from ruining their favorite character which is exactly what happened. However this is still a problem that he inherited from Force Awakens.

A lot of people don’t really like that The Last Jedi is a subversion of Star Wars, but here’s the thing, it’s not. It is a subversion, but it’s actually not a subversion of Star Wars, but a subversion of subversion movies. It’s pretty much doing what his later film Knives Out does, but not as well. Spoilers for Knives Out by the way. Knives Out is a whodunnit murder mystery, but early on in the runtime it completely subverts expectations, by seemingly revealing the culprit is the main protagonist, early on and the rest of the movie is her trying to get away with it. However at the end of the film we get the twist that, actually she didn’t kill him and that there is a real killer and was being set up by them to take the fall. Obviously there’s way more to the story than that but this is about Star Wars. Last Jedi does the same thing in making you think it’s going to subvert Star Wars by Kelo saying they need to let the past die and have Rey join Kylo Ren, but they don’t do that and she rejects him, and therefore the idea that you need to let the past die, before bringing it back in line with the main thematic heart of the franchise. At the end of the day the film still concludes with Luke facing down the entire First Order giving time for the resistance to escape and bringing hope back into the galaxy.

However a lot of people don’t see this because they dislike the Holdo storyline, the Canto Bight stuff and what they did with Luke that they don’t notice and fall into the trap of thinking that Kylo Ren is right, when he’s not. The film is thematically rich and has a good message, but does any of that matter when the narrative plotting and character work and pacing doesn’t work? I personally like all 3 of those storylines that others hate, the Luke stuff works for me, I really like the Holdo storyline, and despite Canto Bight being a bit to slowly paced I like most of the stuff there as well, but if you don’t like those things, you’re not really going to by paying attention to what the film is trying to actually say. Which is why I can sympathize with people disliking the movie while still being annoyed that so many people completely miss the point of what the movie is actually saying. I’ve slowly over the years started to realize and understand why people hated the movie so much, where I’ve finally come to the conclusion that The Last Jedi has legitimate problems with portraying what it wanted to say, that to this day so many people still think it’s saying the exact opposite of what it really is. It’s still my second favorite Star Wars movie though.

I really don’t want to talk about Rise of Skywalker, but this is what actually ruins the trilogy. Rise of Skywalker does to The Last Jedi, what many fans thought The Last Jedi did to Force Awakens, and pretty much ignores everything the previous movie setup. Now this isn’t 100% true there are some things that Last Jedi setup that Rise attempts to conclude, but even if you agree that Last Jedi did abandon what was setup by Force Awakens, at least most of the runtime of the 8th movie isn’t devoted to undoing what the previous movie did. There’s also a lot of things that aren’t properly setup that just happened hear, the film feels more like a series of video game fetch quests instead of a cohesive narrative, and it lazily brings back Palpatine. I actually used to like the movie but the more I rewatched it the more I grew to hate the movie.

While it would be easy to lie all of the blame on Abrams and crap on him for ruining the final movie of the trilogy, but honestly I don’t completely blame JJ Abrams for this, although don’t get me wrong a lot of the problems are his fault. Most of the problems are more because of Disney because clearly Abrams wasn’t really given enough time to make a story for the film. He wasn’t even originally going to direct the movie it was going to be Colin Trevorrow, but because of creative differences he left the project. I’m not going to speculate too much as to why, but after that decision was made they pretty much and threw out his script, and despite delaying the movie 7 months, they now had to write a conclusion to the trilogy. I think that Abrams probably just defaulted to some of the ideas he had when setting up Force Awakens, because he didn’t have enough time, or creativity, to wrap up what was setup by Last Jedi. If Rise of Skywalker had been a good movie or we had gotten Duel of the Fates, don’t get I have huge problems with that script and it would’ve needed to be rewritten anyway after Carrie Fisher’s tragic death, I think the sequel trilogy would be thought of much more fondly by the fandom. Still I think some fan edits have managed to salvage Rise of Skywalker so I can say that I like the entire sequel trilogy, even if I only like one of them due to a fan edit.

daveybjones999 said:

but even if you agree that Last Jedi did abandon what was setup by Force Awakens, at least most of the runtime of the 8th movie isn’t devoted to undoing what the previous movie did. There’s also a lot of things that aren’t properly setup that just happened hear, the film feels more like a series of video game fetch quests instead of a cohesive narrative, and it lazily brings back Palpatine. I actually used to like the movie but the more I rewatched it the more I grew to hate the movie.

I’d disagree, as I think reylo being a romance existing in TLJ alone undoes TFA, which I think set up a straightforward antagonistic relationship and I think TLJ undoes that and undoes the potential relationship dynamic between Finn and Rey in pursuit of it, which was a lot of TFA. I think reylo is a solid amount of that movie. That, plus, just shrugging and going the first order rules the galaxy now. While TFA was open ended on the galaxy, I find it out of nowhere that the first order rule the galaxy.

As far as bringing back Palpatine, well, I think that’s poor writing construction, but also Kylo is a complete black hole of a character and a villain (anything you could do is basically soft rebooting him, which I think both DOTF, if it’s legit, and TROS both do, in different ways), so I don’t care enough. I think Kylo has basically nothing to offer. At least Palpatine is entertaining to me. I’ve had a stance for some time that I’d have preferred if Kylo had just been killed by Snoke. They’re already wrecking the whole family of Skywalkers/Solos, so who cares if that garbage pail of a character Kylo survives. That’d have been actually surprising to me. At least Snoke has gravitas to me.