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That’s why I say the sequel trilogy was pointless. In the end, none of the characters mattered. Other than Kylo and possibly Rey, in 10 years people will have forgotten the sequel characters.

And that’s the real tragedy.

That’s something that’s easy to lose sight of. I think we sometimes forget, because we’re often in a kind of fan culture “bubble,” but the casual audience of Star Wars is generally of a very different mindset.

Most casual viewers likely enjoyed the sequel trilogy, but that doesn’t say anything about a movie’s long-term staying power in the public consciousness. This may sound harsh, but the truth is, audiences will always remember Han Solo and Princess Leia and R2-D2. They’ll even remember smaller aspects of the OT like Jabba the Hutt and the Ewoks and Jawas. They’ll remember Hoth and Tatooine. Most of those people won’t remember D-0 or DJ or Maz Kanata or Ajjan Kloss. Hell, I know some people who couldn’t even distinguish Finn and Poe from each other by the time TRoS came out. Likely the only sequel character who will really stick out in public memory a long time from now will be Kylo Ren.

Of course, this definitely isn’t something exclusive to the sequels. A lot of prequel fans tend to overestimate how much the public remembers of those movies. When I mention the prequels to people, the most common recollection they have of the prequels is Jar Jar and Anakin being whiny. That’s the sort of thing that sticks out in most people’s minds years after.

I even know people who saw Rogue One and loved it, but they almost certainly wouldn’t be able to name any of the characters by now.

Emre1601 said:

It is not my idea, but one that I though could work. Maybe for a Disney+ short film:

Empire Academy

"The film would take us on the journey of becoming an Imperial Stormtrooper, from cadet to graduation. As close as we can get to a Disney version of Full Metal Jacket in space. For the most part, Stormtroopers are one of the best running jokes in Star Wars. Their infamous inaccuracy is the source of many jokes and memes on the internet. We think it’s about time for Stormtroopers to be respected for the highly trained soldiers that they are.

In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Disney gave us a Stormtrooper we could care about, they humanized the role, gave us a face, that had a story, and a person struggling with inner turmoil. We think it would be a great idea to continue this trend, and watch a soldier go from cadet to trooper and to give more legitimacy to the army of the most powerful military force in the galaxy."
 

A character study of what it like to be stormtrooper. The realization and uncomfortable facts of being one, the inner conflict, the scorn of friends and family, and doing things you do not actually want to do or agree with.

Or something different to that and more along the lines of a modern updated version of Troops!

I’m all for this idea. I read an EU short story recently, one that was part of the “Tales” anthology series, where the protagonist was the stormtrooper who yelled “Look, sir! Droids!” The story went through his whole military career and how he grew more and more disillusioned with the Empire over time before he finally snapped and went rogue. A story like that could definitely work as a template for an anthology movie.

Hyperspace travel becomes way too fast. How long does it take Palpatine to reach Mustafar from Coruscant? 10 minutes?

That’s been a worsening problem with Star Wars movies after the OT. Hyperspace travel is now often treated like almost teleportation.

RetributorsFury said:

I’m brand new to this forum, this is my first post. I’m a huge fan of the original trilogy, and I’m not a fan of much else 😃 I love games, toys, etc. that focus on the original trilogy.

My #1 pet peeve from the original trilogy (that I will change if I ever write my own interpretation): In ep 4, when the Rebels have launched their attack on the Death Star and Vader decides to scramble fighters to fight the Rebels, only about 15 TIEs are launched. Wow, seriously? If I were Vader and it was my Death Star, I’d be sure to outnumber the Rebel fighters at least 2 to 1. If, say, 80 fighters were launched instead of 15, and the Rebels still found a way to cut through and destroy the DS, it would have been all the more glorious and epic 😃

Welcome to the forum! Hope you like it here.

Yeah, I always chalked that up to budget and technical limitations, but I see what you mean. It would’ve made for a more daunting finale for the good guys. I remember Adywan’s Revisited edit did a good job of adding new shots that beefed up the TIE fighter presence during the battle.

I just finished reading the Thrawn Trilogy. Overall, I thought it was really good. Each of the characters’ POVs was handled very well, and I loved most of the new characters that it introduced, especially Mara Jade. I also really liked the Leia POV chapters and how you get to see her developing her connection to the Force.

I actually wasn’t the biggest fan of Thrawn himself. I thought his genius sometimes bordered on being implausible, and his ability to analyze his opponents through a species’ art was a bit cheesy. (Though it was refreshing to have such a competent villain.)

But I liked the other main villain, Joruus C’baoth, and thought he was surprisingly interesting. He seemed to represent a dark reflection of what the Jedi Order could become if it held onto resentment and chose a more authoritarian path after the Purge. A Dark-Side character like that would’ve been great in the sequel trilogy.

The ending and resolution felt a little sudden, but I get why it ended that way. I just wish we’d gotten some more time with the characters after the climax, so we could see them reflecting on what they’d gone through. We got a bit of that, but not as much as I would have liked. But the way I see it, if my biggest complaint about the characters is that I didn’t get enough of them, the book must be doing something right.

I’d definitely recommend these books to any Star Wars fan.

Aside from an unnecessary twirl here and there, the choreography for the fight holds up really well. My main issue with it is that it becomes too focused on the volatile environment they’re fighting in and not enough on what’s going on between the characters, which is what should have been center stage for a fight like this.

I remember a story I heard about how Richard Marquand wanted the duel in RotJ to be bigger and more elaborate than the one in Empire, but George told him that wasn’t necessary. Ultimately, the actual sword swinging should be secondary to the character interaction.

I can’t think of a single prequel that changed the original work in a positively-received way.

That’s something to keep in mind. Prequels are very difficult to pull off in a way that enhances original story rather than undermining it. They’re usually more likely to work if they’re not a “direct” prequel but are instead just a different story set further back in the timeline.

The prequels built themselves around the anticipation of Anakin becoming Vader (you can even hear Vader breathing at the end of TPM’s credits), but didn’t do enough of the character work to make that transformation feel gradual or earned. And the fact that Lucas chose to hinge the trilogy on Anakin’s arc means it really needed to work.

TPM is an especially fascinating movie to me because it’s a rare case of a movie that may have benefitted from less time in the oven. In earlier drafts, Qui-Gon didn’t exist yet, and Anakin was a teenager with an apparently more troubled personality. Lucas spent several years polishing the script into exactly what he wanted it to be. But some of his revisions may have actually made the movie worse.

I’ve gone back and forth on the prequels a lot over the years. I have very mixed feelings on them, but they’re fascinating movies to pick apart.

The OT works because it got general audiences invested in its characters. That’s why it caused reactions in the theater like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzRveOGMflo

Star Wars movies only really work when they’re character-driven, and when you have compelling heroes and villains that stick out in the audience’s minds. There isn’t really an exact formula for how to achieve this, and I think George tried his best to recapture that magic when he made TPM, but failed.

At the start of ANH, R2 and 3PO are our audience proxy characters that we follow, up until we meet Luke, who then becomes the primary POV character. R2 and 3PO have great chemistry as they play off each other, and adults and children both enjoy their back-and-forth, even after the main POV shifts to Luke. Meanwhile, the film’s plot centers around Leia, and the film does a good job of getting us to sympathize with her plight while also seeing how bold and resilient she is.

In TPM, our initial POV is Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, who are very stoic and flat, outside of an occasional snarky comment from Obi-Wan. The central character, the Queen, is also very stoic and flat. Then, the role of audience proxy is filled by Jar Jar, which, in theory, isn’t a bad idea, except for the fact that it’s…well, Jar Jar. Unlike the droids, his appeal as a character is to a much narrower demographic.

I think George realized the cast was too stuffy and stoic, so he tried to counterbalance that with Jar Jar and kid Anakin, but the result is that we get two extremes with little balance or chemistry between them. With the OT, the main hero characters had more of a balance between serious and lighthearted, which endeared the audience to them and allowed for people to latch onto those characters and their relationships.

I saw RotS in the theater as a kid. It was my first time being truly hyped on my way to a movie theater, and the whole experience was very memorable for me, and I’m glad I got to see the movie that way.

But it’s not a very good movie. The writing is sloppy, and the story is often rushed and overstuffed. I enjoy the hell out of it. But the sentiment shared by a lot of Gen Z’ers that RotS is some sort of magnificent work of fiction just isn’t backed up by reality. The film has become overrated, at least on places like Reddit and in the Star Wars fandom, in general.

The movie has the big emotional payoffs that everyone had been anticipating, and it’s a more straightforward story than the other two prequels, so for a lot of people, that puts it way above the other two. But I’m not so sure about that now. In fact, you could definitely argue that TPM is the better made film, overall.

I read the novelization of RotS, and it was fantastic. Much better than the movie it’s based on. It made me realize that RotS is like the embryo of a great film, but it simply didn’t get enough time in the revision stage. Time that it badly needed.

Realistically, Kenobi could be set exclusively on Tatooine, and I’d have no issues if that was what they did. The problem is that they chose to set so much of Mando and BoBF on Tatooine, also. That was the mistake. People are getting Tatooine fatigue now, right when we’re getting a show where it actually makes sense to have Tatooine.

And Tatooine is supposed to be a backwater, anyway. It’s meant to be the boondocks of the galaxy. It’s important on a meta level, but not in-universe.

Splice this scene into the Endor ground battle, as a conversation between a Rebel commando and his commanding officer, who’s high on Death Sticks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibLLLhhFywA

MalaStrana#2 said:

This famous danish orchestra chooses Yup Nub

https://youtu.be/0BvqGkcoY88

I love this. Suddenly, I want to see a Lion King-style Broadway musical, but with Ewoks.

But…wouldn’t a better idea for the ST been about following Luke’s attempts to rebuild the order? So, like a lot of others have said, the conception was flawed from the start.

Or was it? I remember reading that the original writer for TFA (Arndt) said he struggled to produce a script because Luke always dominated the scenes whenever he was in it. So there was a last minute script done by Abrams and Kasdan that essentially was a soft reboot.

I’ve said this before, but Luke in the sequels really should have been a wise, Dumbledore-like figure presiding over his Jedi academy. He could be mostly a minor character, only stepping into the action when the situation becomes especially serious.

And of course, the profit potential for Disney from having a New Jedi Academy was a massive missed opportunity. They could have made a whole kids’ theme park experience around that. Kids could have gotten to be Luke’s students at the Temple and have the whole padawan experience. From both a creative perspective, and from a self-serving, profit-seeking corporate perspective, giving Luke an at least semi-functional New Jedi Order just makes sense.

theprequelsrule said:

Every time I want out…this place pulls me back in.

Retroblasting’s take on the ST is all you need: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbB5jQFK2es

Welcome back! Good to see you again.

Great video. Retroblasting is spot-on. You can tell how fed up he is here.

I kind of liked Anakin and Padme not holding hands in the 35mm cut. It made it seem like he was still nervous and self conscious about his robotic hand. Though that might just be how I read into it.

With TFA, whether Kylo was injured beforehand or not, it makes little difference in the impression his defeat leaves on the audience. Watching Kylo Ren flop around in the snow is a fast way to undo any sense of menace or threat surrounding the character. The film goes out of its way to set him up to lose the fight. The question is, what purpose does that serve to the story? What difference would it have made if the fight had ended from the crevice opening without there being a clear winner?

As for TLJ, Kylo didn’t leave Rey to fend for herself. He was unconscious. Rey wasn’t. Another issue is the fact that Kylo was visibly struggling against the Praetorian guards and had to be bailed out by Rey, who had noticeably less trouble taking them out.

As for Palpatine, I remember as far back in 2012, when the EU was decanonized, that a lot of fans pointed to Dark Empire as an example of a particular low point of storytelling, and used it as proof that the old EU was junk. Then, when people criticized TFA and TLJ, defenders of the films again pointed to Dark Empire as evidence that the new Canon was better. Choosing to copy Dark Empire, and making basically a worse, watered down version of it, was really not a good decision.

Edit: And I almost forgot Rey turning Kylo’s mind interrogation back on him in TFA. There’s a pretty consistent sense in TFA and TLJ that Rey is simply a superior Force user to Kylo.

thebluefrog said:

A major problem with all 3 movies was Rey’s constant winning and Kylo’s constant losing.

A hero and their journey is only as good as the villain and their antagonism.

Imagine if Obi-Wan had WON the very first lightsaber duel back in 1977.

That would’ve killed Vader’s character from the start.

Kylo’s loss at the end of TFA was the first crack. Then losing against Rey again in Snoke’s room. And then being humiliated by Luke. And then losing again to Rey again 1/2 of the way through Rise. Also, her ability to beat Luke while training didn’t help any character progression either.

Rey had no consistent hero’s journey. Yes, yes, you can make all sorts of arguments about scene x or development y, they’ve been done before–the point is that the growth of the heroic character overcoming obstacles isn’t coherent. Since Kylo was neutered as a threat midway through TLJ, they had to use Palpatine to give her a new challenge, which didn’t thematically fit at all from her starting point.

I agree completely. People often forget that Palpatine was brought back mainly out of desperation. TLJ ended with Kylo standing alone as the main villain (Hux having been made a joke), but the films hadn’t done nearly enough to prepare the character to fill that role. So, they had a villain void going into Episode IX, and tried to fix that by transplanting an OT villain into the story.

And of course, having your protagonist consistently outmatch your antagonist is generally a bad idea. There are exceptions, and ways to make an overpowered hero work in a plot, but the sequel trilogy didn’t handle that well. And a Star Wars story really needs a strong villain in order to work.

The sequels treat Rey’s journey as being very similar to Luke’s, when it really shouldn’t be. While Luke’s journey was more about him growing his power, Rey’s journey should have been about her learning to control her innate power. That’s one way you can make a powerful protagonist work. TLJ had some faint hints of this idea, but failed to commit to it.

darklordoftech said:

Don’t forget “Star Wars fans are mean and deserve to be denied the unaltered versions as punishment.”

Ah yes, I’ve heard that one, too.

jedi_bendu said:

Updated ranking:

Films:

1. Star Wars
2. The Empire Strikes Back
3. Return of the Jedi
4. Rogue One
5. Revenge of the Sith
6. Solo
7. The Force Awakens
8. The Phantom Menace
9. The Last Jedi
10. Attack of the Clones
11. The Rise of Skywalker

Wow, this was my exact ranking for a long time.

Having rewatched some of the movies, and given them some more thought, my ranking is now:

1. Star Wars (ANH)
2. ESB
3. RotJ
4. RotS
5. Rogue One
6. TPM
7. Solo
8. TLJ
9. AotC
10. TRoS
11. TFA
12. TCW 08

I’ve bumped up Solo from second-to-last place. On second viewing, my opinion of the movie improved.

Add a subtitle for Greedo when he says “Maclunkey”:

“I miss my wife, Han. I miss her a lot. I’ll be back.”

This is great to hear. I’m looking forward to checking it out.

Add a gigantic, flashing neon sign on the front of Jabba’s palace that says “Jabba’s Secret Palace” on it and has a giant arrow pointing to the entrance.

I’ve been reading the Thrawn trilogy. I’m about halfway through Heir to the Empire now, and I’m enjoying it a lot so far. It really does read like a long lost Star Wars movie, and I think Timothy Zahn nails the voices of the characters in his writing. In particular, I love the depiction of Luke. He’s full of doubt and uncertainty, he’s struggling under the weight of the burden on his shoulders, and having bouts of depression and melancholy. But he’s still very much Luke. He still has that indomitable spirit he always had.

On a side note, I really miss the old handdrawn cover art of the old EU books. The newer book covers look a lot more digital and minimalistic, and I’m not really a fan of that.

Rey already had the training she needed watching Luke fail according to Last Jedi, but all of a sudden we need Leia to train her. Leia suddenly a Jedi Master who never was even a Jedi Knight.

Having Leia train Rey was one of the most reasonable decisions JJ Abrams made, given what he had to work with. Rey watching Luke be a failure doesn’t count as training, or prepare her to be the grandmaster of a new Jedi Order. Her being trained by Leia, as out of left field as it is, is at least an attempt to make Rey’s power and Jedi status plausible.

R2 would just look like he’s in one of the ghost costumes from Charlie Brown Halloween. He’d just need a single eye hole near the top.