Servii

Luke already had imperfections and depth. There’s been this narrative thrown around that OT Luke was a generic, one-dimensional character and that The Last Jedi “fixed” him by making him more “realistic.”

That’s just untrue. It didn’t make him more realistic. It just made him an asshole, and essentially just a completely different character. The only scene where TLJ Luke even acts like Luke is when he says goodbye to Leia. Outside of that scene, it just comes off as a different character who also happens to be played by Mark Hamill.

And we all already know that the writers will never drag Rey through the mud like they did to Luke. They would never give her the same treatment, because they want her to be a role model for girls, and role models for girls aren’t allowed to fail or have crippling flaws like that. Like I said before, they’re too caught up in optics to tell an interesting story.

If I’m somehow proven wrong, and they actually do give Rey the same treatment, I’ll eat my shoe.

The issue with Rey was that there was so much pressure and anticipation around her being “the first female Star Wars protagonist.” That made the writers skittish about giving her any significant flaws or failings, because they treated her as this monolithic representative of all women rather than just one individual with her own issues and nuances. I think the writers of Star Wars (Andor writers excluded) have never fully broken out of that mindset since then. They’ve been concerned more about optics and the meta surrounding the movies and shows than about crafting interesting characters.

I suppose, in a roundabout way, the Sequel Trilogy actually revived my interest in Star Wars. Before The Force Awakens came out, I had fallen into the camp of “ANH and ESB are the only good ones. George Lucas was a fool who got lucky.” I hated the prequels. I really wanted Episode VII to pull me back in, though. I wanted to get invested again, despite all that.

After I walked away disappointed with the movie, I looked online and saw almost entirely praise for it. So I assumed that I was the problem, that Star Wars just wasn’t for me anymore. Then The Last Jedi came out, and I admit, I felt a little vindicated at the time that people were finally pointing out the issues with the new trilogy and admitting that it wasn’t handling the characters as well as it should. It was that movie that made me appreciate OT Luke so much more as a character, and led me to reevaluate what exactly the appeal of Star Wars and its characters was for me.

Then Rise of Skywalker came out, and was such a fever dream of a movie that it made it easier for me to mentally divorce the Sequel Trilogy from the Star Wars that I liked. It was like a weight had been lifted, and I could carry on being a Star Wars nerd without having to dread what they would do with the OT characters next. It was right after that that I discovered the fan preservation projects, went back and rewatched the first six movies, and started getting into the old EU books. So, in a way, I guess I appreciate that Disney Star Wars exists.

“Disney Pulls 2026 ‘Star Wars’ Movie From Release Calendar”

https://www.thewrap.com/disney-2026-star-wars-movie-pulled-release/

Not unexpected.

rocknroll41 said:

Rumor has it that Lawrence Kasdan is gonna be the new writer of this.

Where did you hear this?

JadedSkywalker said:

Let’s not act like Rogue One wasn’t any less messy saved in editing and reshoots. So was Star Wars 1977 and Return of the Jedi.

Rogue One is especially tantalizing to me, because I can’t help wondering how great it might have turned out if Tony Gilroy had had more time to fix up the movie, or if he had had creative control from the start. The movie as-is is a little uneven, and the seams of the reshoots are visible, especially when you compare it to the trailers. Without Gilroy, it probably would have been a mediocre movie at best. With Gilroy in control, it could have been an Andor-tier masterpiece. It makes the movie kind of hard to rewatch now.

As long as he doesn’t say “Yippee!”, I’ll be okay.

G&G-Fan said:

I will never not be so impressed with Mark Hamill’s acting, especially in the third act. He is so convincing in portraying Luke’s zen determination, but always reminds us with subtle micro expressions that Luke is still afraid, deep down.

I think that’s important. Luke not emotionless, but he’s (almost) mastered the art of regulating his emotions. He uses his compassion for his father to attempt to reach him, but doesn’t lose control until Vader threatens his sister. When he falters, lashes out in rage, he then stops, reflects, and let’s go. Being a Jedi is about being in balance with your emotions, and Luke captures that so perfectly.

It’s hard to think of anyone else who would put themselves on the line to save an abusive father who tortured and killed people he cared about, all because he knows of the conflict that his father represses. That’s a hero.

RotJ is the movie that really elevated Luke from a good character to a great one. It’s why I don’t abide people claiming that Luke is generic or uninteresting. Luke is great because he doesn’t fit the stereotypical image of the knight or warrior. He’s reserved and soft spoken, and conquers the villain through compassion, not force. He is what a knight would be in an ideal world.

NFBisms said:

But the Sequels show us that Rey kind of just “downloads the Force” after her “mind-meld” with Kylo Ren.

There is absolutely no evidence in the movie itself that this is what happens.

I’m pretty sure that comes from the TFA novelization. Or at least it’s strongly implied that’s what happens.

There’s a difference between drawing visual and thematic inspiration from Vietnam, and doing a full-on allegory about the Vietnam war. And if Star Wars really was meant to be a Vietnam allegory, then it’s a really bad one for several reasons.

George has always been one to speak bluntly. He’s not gonna beat around the bush and say something like “I drew on the visuals and themes of Vietnam to enhance my story.” He’ll just say “It’s about Vietnam. Palpatine is Nixon.” Because he speaks bluntly. That doesn’t make it a full allegory, necessarily.

rocknroll41 said:

I’ve had a change of heart recently. At this point, I think the Disney deal was a huge mistake.

Why the change?

NFBisms said:

Yeah, I see that too, I just think it’s symptomatic of an unwieldy/messy script more than it is intentional malice or whatever for the series. That’s ridiculous to me, it’s at worst a guy who has different ideas [than you or someone else] about how this all works and who these characters are.

I agree. TLJ may be very flawed and misguided in a lot of ways, but it’s not malicious or nihilistic or anti-Star Wars. At most, you could call it existentialist, since the movie has the heroes question the basic aspects of Star Wars, only to choose to embrace them in the end, anyway.

My problem is mainly that I think the sequel trilogy era is too shallow and flimsy to stand up to that level of scrutiny or questioning, so I ended up disengaging, and felt no investment in what was going on.

Anyway, we were talking about dialogue.

I get the sense Finn was meant to be the Han analogue, or at least TLJ treats him like he is, but it doesn’t really work because he’s such a fundamentally different character, at least on paper. He’s not the scoundrel archetype, but Rose interacts with him like he is.

NFBisms said:

You make it sound so good!

Never change, man. Never change.

SparkySywer said:

Nope actually that line is awesome. So is the kill the past one from Kylo Ren.

I’m not a fan of anything Holdo says in this scene

Blazing hot take I know

For me, it’s not so much what she says, but the way she says it. The way she’s leaning in close to him, half-whispering the words, smiling with what I would best describe as saccharine condescension. I wondered at the time why this moment bugged me, and it’s because Holdo was giving off Dolores Umbridge vibes. I recall Rian Johnson saying once that he intended for Holdo to be a little flirtatious towards Poe, and I think her behavior in this scene is a holdover from that.

Also, once again, the movie doesn’t acknowledge Starkiller Base, or the fact that Poe just destroyed it the day before. It’s the same problem with how Finn’s role in the climax of TFA isn’t appreciated.

I don’t remember a lot of the exact dialogue, but Luke’s line of how “Do you think I came to the most unfindable place in the galaxy…” was kind of clunky. Plus Rey’s line that went like “Master Skywalker, we need you to bring back the Jedi because Kylo Ren is strong in the Dark Side of the Force,” or something like that.

My least favorite line, though, is Rose calling Finn “a selfish traitor,” just because of who she’s talking to. Finn was a child soldier who’d been raised his whole life in a soulless military machine. He had never had a chance to live a normal civilian life. Then he goes and breaks out of his conditioning, runs away, and despite his fear of the First Order helps destroy Starkiller Base and save the Resistance, and then he even stands up to Kylo Ren himself.

After all that, Finn didn’t owe the Resistance anything, and he wasn’t officially a member, anyway. It was entirely within his rights for him to leave so that he could start his life over as a civilian. Rose’s admonishment seems like Rian Johnson wrote it with a different character in mind, one who hadn’t experienced what Finn had.

Channel72 said:

I recall back in the day the most controversial claims from Plinkett were related to how a lot of the whole Naboo invasion plot doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. I agree with RLM on this one, but that point always received lots of backlash by Prequel fans eager to explain Palpatine’s amazingly nebulous and malleable master-plan that could really be whatever you want it to be.

There’s this Youtuber, Sheev Talks, who in his TPM video did a response to a lot of Plinkett’s points. He accused Plinkett of not paying attention, and claimed that the opening crawl made the conflict perfectly clear.

I don’t agree. The crawl does not explain the situation well. It was never clear to me whether the Trade Federation was for or against the trade route taxes, and the movie never specifies. It tells us the taxation is in dispute. That’s all.

And the guy then goes on to explain the specifics of Palpatine’s plans and contingencies, a lot of which feels more like conjecture than anything else, then acts like it’s all perfectly obvious.

The bummer about all this, besides all the people losing work, is that Disney and Lucasfilm will probably take away the lesson that “people don’t want Dark Side-themed stories” and just never attempt a story like that again. This will probably be it for the foreseeable future.

Anakin Starkiller said:

Vladius said:

I agree with this but it won’t happen. The pre-1999 people like me are a vanishingly small minority. Maybe until some zoomers put out some 3 hour video essays about it, but that seems unlikely.

Wouldn’t it include the entire Prequel-hating side of the fandom?

That side of the fandom has shrunken a lot over the past ten years.

theprequelsrule said:

Servii said:

I second the oohteedee edits. They’re the best-looking versions of the movies.

What are these edits? How do they differ from standard d77?

Nice to see you posting again!

Glad to be back!

I actually just meant D+77/80/83.

I second the oohteedee edits. They’re the best-looking versions of the movies.

NeverarGreat said:

Or we could just accept that fundamental continuity and character differences exist between each trilogy. That is why the easiest solution is to treat each trilogy as its own entity, existing in a separate continuity from the others. I cannot imagine the universe of the Prequel Trilogy naturally giving rise to the universe of the Original Trilogy, nor of the Original Trilogy giving rise to the Sequel Trilogy.

This is basically how I see it. I think the prequels don’t really work as buildup to the OT, but I still like them when I watch them as their own thing.

Of course, that doesn’t align with what George says he wants, since he wants people to watch I-VI like it’s “one long movie.” But with the prequels we have, that just doesn’t click for me.

Rogue One and Solo are in-universe holothrillers produced under the New Republic as celebrations of Rebel heroes. While the broadstrokes events are true, creative license was taken with the details for dramatic effect.

Leia is sassy and has a bit of an attitude, but it’s not like she’s complaining all the time. She snaps at Han over how bungled the whole rescue mission is, but you’ll notice she never snaps at Luke like that. She’s nice to him, and comforts him after Obi-Wan’s death. She’s not just being difficult for the sake of it. She’s fighting a rebellion against an empire, and she doesn’t have time for cocky, blundering mercenaries.

I just want to pop in say hi and express my support for Spartacus standing up to this. I want you all to know that I’d love to come back and post here regularly, but I also can’t bring myself to play along with the whole sock account charade, which has become harder and harder to ignore as more people have left the site, many of them probably for the same reason I did.

As for EU unpopular opinions, I don’t mind the idea of Palpatine preparing for the Vong invasion, in theory. Of course, if he really did know it was coming, he definitely wouldn’t have kept it a secret. He’d have used the Vong as a convenient external threat to justify more executive powers and military buildup. But I don’t agree with the idea that it paints Palpatine as a good guy. It just makes him a rival of another villain, but no less a villain himself.

I do, however, dislike how much Thrawn was made out to actually be a good guy. As the EU went on, Timothy Zahn seemed to whitewash his actions more and more, like making it so that he destroyed Outbound Flight in self defense rather than just destroying it on Palpatine’s orders. I don’t mind the idea that he was really playing some sort of galactic long game the whole time, but at the end of the day, he’s still a ruthless dictator. I don’t know. It’s a tricky balance to strike. I like the Empire of the Hand as a concept, but they almost seem too moral.