Yoda Is Your Father said:
Have you seen the early TFA storyboards in the ‘art of’ book which show an intro shot that was going to mimic the famous star destroyer shot from ANH?
I haven’t see that. But there are a lot of scenes like that, such as when Finn removes his storm trooper mask to deliver an ‘I’m here to save you’ line to Po.
Another case is the supreme leader figure, who appears via projection, being a ghoulish looking character, pale and wrinkled skin, talking cryptically, being master over millennial Vader and the other officer… is all an attempted remanifestation of the original trilogy’s emperor.
In other cases, TFA recycles the same collection of scene ingredients from the past: a desert planet, scavenger child, collector foremen who ruthlessly take advantage of scavengers (who get comeuppance, of a kind), all in the same pot, comprising the sensory elements for that part of the story, and basis for that scavenger character.
All these things meant to evoke the senses from the original trilogy. But the thing is, those experiences already have their true forms in the original trilogy, and when they’re replicated, their greatest value is that they trigger the senses of the originals, but are a bit less authentic, for it.
TFA, to be equal to the original trilogy, would be as good in quality, matching the design tones, while being novel with the details and ideas. Abrahms noticed a lot of the things that make Star Wars great, but he clearly didn’t have the understanding within himself to develop truly new and universe-progressive content using all those same qualities. So he did the same things with them that the original movies did, copying them.
But Abrahms is clearly close to understanding how these things all work, but I wonder if he even notices himself that what he’s doing, copying these setups, is a different behaviour than actively considering creations, having these qualities existing within himself.
The basis for all the trouble of TFA is that Han and Leia were bad parents… and somehow that one thing resulted in a reset of everything to Episode IV’s state, so that all the same motions could be gone through again - yet the main characters in TFA don’t notice that they’re just doing all the same things all over again.
I didn’t take ‘bad parenting’ from the film, but the fact that history is repeating itself… surely that’s an intentional message. History repeats itself in reality too. I think “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” is a pretty cool theme for a sequel trilogy.
Whether the film mentions it or not, Han and Leia having a kid is what is behind TFA’s tragedies and greatest challenges and threat towards the galaxy.
The presented outcome of that child in TFA is the mechanism for all the resets within the movie: Han and Chewie being daring rogue smugglers (because that’s what people like to think of them as), Leia as princess general (again, because that’s what people like to think of her as… but doesn’t she ever experience job fatigue, and a sense of futility at her lot?), Luke in hiding while the Jedi are back in the role of being hunted to exterminate (because ANH and the original Star Wars is cool, obviously…), Light vs Dark force-weilders, and there’s more.
It all hinges on Han and Leia having that child, and that child going astray, which implies that Han and Leia didn’t foster the understanding and loving relationship that would keep a kid from going full villain for the sake of being full villain.
And I can’t accept TFA as a real entry in the SW saga because it devalues the events in the original trilogy, and renders all those trials, lessons, and victories as nullified, by the very people who achieved them.
Han’s semen and Leia’s ovaries are more powerful than anything any force-weilder, the rebel alliance, or the empire did in the films. It’s like ‘Oh, we’ve saved the galaxy, this is the greatest thing ever!’ And then, one kid later, ‘Oops, back to the beginning’, and even in the lifetimes of those who saved the galaxy before.
And what did these great head-strong galactic-threat conquerors do, in response? They ran away. And they ran, conveniently for the purposes of TFA’s intentions, right back to their original character roles, unchanged in any way, despite both being seniors. And why does Han have no money? He’s royalty and hero. TFA turns too many blind eyes for its story to be taken as being alongside the original trilogy.
TFA is not a progression, but a reset, and so renders the original trilogy futile and meaningless. And so, as I see it, either the original trilogy is real, or TFA is real. But both are incompatible in the same manifested reality.
Because TFA negates the value and meaning of the original trilogy’s sacrifices and victories, and because TFA’s value is its replication of those original trilogy experiences, its existence depends on the original trilogy evaluating as True.
TFA is dependent upon the original trilogy in all ways. But because TFA negates the victories and outcomes of the original trilogy, if the original trilogy evaluates as False, then TFA also evaluates as False. If TFA evaluates as True, then the original trilogy evaluates as False, and therefore TFA also evaluates as False. If the original trilogy evaluates evaluates as True, then TFA evaluates as False.
TFA evaluates as False against the original trilogy. So where the original trilogy is True, TFA not a part of its saga.
Also. before watching TFA, I started to watch Episode 2 of the prequel trilogy, thinking I would enjoy it while passing some time. I ended up shutting it off because it was just crap. I hadn’t seen any of it in years, and before putting it on, I thought it couldn’t be as bad as my memory was suggesting to me. Man, my memory knew what it was talking about. For the short time I watched it, Episode 2 was abysmal, like a half-assed clumsy children’s cartoon, made by people who didn’t know that making something nonsensical and flamboyant doesn’t amount to quality children’s programming.
I’ve only seen AOTC once, in the cinema when it first came out, but I’m glad to learn that my memory also knows what it’s talking about 😃
I wish I could say there was some degree of joking in my given impression, but I can’t. I was going to watch Ep 2, and then 3, but I’m not going to start with 3 now. Notice I didn’t even think to try starting with Ep 1.
To me, Star Wars is a trilogy, and it works as one. And again, to me, TFA is an amusing fanfiction, that is clearly fanfiction.
But I think that using quantum mechanics or something, and beyond time as we know it, that somewhere there exists a good SW prequel trilogy, and an authentic sequel trilogy. We just need to bring ourselves up from where we are, to that reality.