Servii

StarkillerAG said:

I know what you mean, Channel72. Despite me white-knighting hard for the sequels earlier today, I do recognize that they were pretty much completely unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. The exact same things that happened in the OT happened again, just with different people. And as a consequence, the sacrifices of the OT characters seem pointless.

After thinking about it for a while, I’ve come to the realization that the sequel trilogy would be monumentally improved if you made just one change: have Luke be part of the Resistance in TFA. Rather than his entire new Jedi Order being obliterated and him being in exile, have most of Luke’s apprentices survive Kylo’s downfall, with Luke himself still dedicated to defeating the First Order and restoring the Jedi.

In this hypothetical scenario, TFA would be centered around Luke’s efforts to find the first Jedi temple, with pretty much the entire first half of the theatrical movie intact otherwise. Luke would be mentioned throughout, but would only appear in person once the Falcon lands on the Resistance base, with a big fanservicey introduction scene of him training the six-or-seven remaining Jedi. He would stay on the base for the final battle, but the very end of the movie would feature him, Rey, and the other students landing at the first Jedi temple, aiming to establish it as their new home.

TLJ would have the same character arc for Rey, with her being tempted by darkness via her connection with Kylo, but it would be completely reframed in the context of a non-grumpy Luke attempting to train her as the latest addition to his Jedi school. Several scenes on the island would be mostly intact, but others would be almost completely new. Since Luke is on the island for most of the movie, the Resistance plot would play out like it did originally. At the end, Luke still pulls his teleportation trick, but doesn’t die: Luke now does it with the hope that his bravery will inspire Force-sensitives across the galaxy to join his temple.

At the start of TROS, it would be revealed that Luke’s wish came true: dozens of new Jedi are now being trained at Luke’s temple. However, Luke’s health is failing, and he knows that his time is near. Around the end of the first act, he gathers all of his students around his deathbed to hear his final lesson. He tells them that Rey will be the new master of the Jedi academy, and that he’ll always be watching them in the next life. And so, with his mission to restore the Jedi finally complete, Luke dies with a smile on his face.

I know that was a bit wordy, but I was just feeling a little inspired today. If the sequels actually played out like that, I’m sure a lot of their most vocal haters would like them a lot more. Too bad that will never happen.

Yeah, I would’ve liked this. I would’ve still had some problems with the movies, but nothing that would make me object to them on a fundamental level.

Omni said:

Well, unless the Filoni-verse can pull off a miracle and make me care about the ST setup, this movie will be a hard pass, possibly an unpleasant pass. Still trying to ignore and forget about TROS completely, but we’ll see.

I will say it is indeed painful to see Rey take on this mantle of “first of the new” that was fully meant for Luke - regardless of what is text or isn’t, Luke wins in ROTJ by defying his elders, and they all look proudly back to him at the end, which symbolizes how right he was to go against their wishes. It’s been the major understanding of the franchise for decades - that Luke would be the first of the new, his masters the last of the old. It makes sense, the Empire that they were unable to stop was defeated by Luke, the status quo completely changed, everything changed. Luke has a clear path and a blank page to make a better Jedi Order than ever before. Even Timothy Zahn saw this way when writing Thrawn, and I don’t think anybody objected, because I’m pretty sure that’s how everyone interpreted Return of the Jedi.

Sadly for some inexplicable reason the sequels took that away from him, and while seeing Rey at the end of TROS explicitly on this same exact path felt really bad, actually getting, to her, what we should’ve gotten for post-ROTJ Luke is… hard to stomach. Ugh.

You took the words right out of my mouth. That’s the part that stings the most.

You lost me here. Anyone who seriously says to ignore the opinions of professional critics and trust obviously review-bombed audience scores instead is not worth paying attention to.

As for film critics, I have no trust in their opinions anymore. Anyone can become a professional critic. Granted, the audience score often isn’t a good metric, either, but I only think it counts as “review bombing” if it’s being done for reasons unrelated to the quality of the film itself. Maybe a lot of those people hated TLJ for the wrong reasons, but those were still the genuine opinions of people.

Of course, why all that vitriol was directed toward TLJ specifically, while TFA mostly got off scot-free, I’ll never understand.

StarkillerAG said:

I saw the new poster for the rerelease on Reddit today. Right now, it’s one of the most active threads on the site, for a reason that I’m sure a lot of people here will be proud of: Pretty much all the comments are demanding a release of the theatrical OT.

As a member of the site that created the Despecialized versions, it was so satisfying to go through that thread and see all the people saying things like “Will this be the original version?”, or “I wish Disney would release the original versions”, or “This is why I only watch Despecialized”. There are even people spreading the news about the 4K77 project to people who think Despecialized is still the best option to see the original movies in HD.

I thought people had pretty much stopped caring about the theatrical OT, but I think this proves that there’s still a ton of demand. If Disney releases the original versions, people will watch them. It’s a shame that they probably won’t.

Yeah, it’s very telling of how many people care about seeing the original movies. It flies in the face of the claim that “Only a tiny vocal minority want those versions.” Many fans put up with the Special Editions, but if given the chance to buy remasters of the original cuts, they absolutely would.

WitchDR said:

Seeing that they’ve decided to move forward with the sequel timeline really has sunk all my excitement for the future post-OT. They really are gonna connect the Mandoverse to the sequels, aren’t they? Ughhhh… This company never learns any lessons and I don’t think they are capable of making a single good decision.

Couldn’t care any less for Rey, and honestly hoping this one gets the “cancelled” treatment. Sorry Disney, but rebuilding the New Jedi Order is and always will be Luke’s journey, and the fact you ripped that achievement from him to give it to your mediocre character, is an even bigger slap in the face and makes me hate the character even more.

At least there’s the James Mangold movie to look forward to. I love the Dawn of the Jedi comics, so hopefully they are using elements from that.

Yeah, pretty much. The Mangold film is the only one of these that I’m mildly interested in. And even then, I’m still concerned about it.

I am surprised that they’re doing movies set so far apart in the timeline, though. All this timeline jumping could be confusing for casual viewers.

I naively still had hope going into seeing ROTS, even after TPM and AOTC, but ROTS gutted me as a fan. Interesting the contrast for you with TROS after TFA, and maybe with TLJ too? Or it being directed by JJ again, or something else?

For a while after seeing TFA, I was unsure whether it was actually a bad movie or if it was just me. I wondered whether I might just not be able to enjoy Star Wars anymore. Rogue One proved that wrong, though.

Going into TLJ, I was very doubtful but still had a sliver of hope, and while TLJ was marginally better than TFA, it wasn’t better enough to make me care about the trilogy story. And it firmly cemented to me that the ST didn’t know where it was going and was damaging to the original films. (That’s a big part of why I got into the EU. I wanted some sort of alternative outcome for the OT characters. I didn’t want the ST to be the only possible future for those characters.)

Besides that, my main reason for having no hopes for TRoS was that I’d read the plot leaks and heard early word-of-mouth about the movie, so I knew what I was in for.

What placed as the lowest ranked film for you, and why? (Or pls point me to where you’ve previously explained this)

Of the 11 live action movies, if I’m ranking based on personal preference, then The Force Awakens is at the bottom. Rise of Skywalker is definitely the worse movie, but there’s something about TFA in particular that I just really dislike. It’s a more frustrating movie because I could see a lot of promise in it for the first half hour, but then the movie completely lost my interest by the end. The plot is shallow, the directing style is hyperactive, and it was trying to be a fan service movie while blatantly ignoring substantial things that fans would actually want to see.

Of course, this was all made worse by the fact that I had actual hopes for the movie going into it, while with TRoS, I had 0 expectations.

Juno Eclipse said:

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

I’ve only ever seen a couple people rank RotS at the bottom, and I’ve always wondered about that. I’m curious to hear your take on the movie.

I’m guessing we’ll get a Thrawn Trilogy Redux in Ahsoka with her and the Rebels crew (and probably Luke too?) so maybe best of both worlds?

I doubt they’ll involve Luke in the Mandoverse Thrawn story beyond just a cameo, at most.

G&G-Fan said:

Bro really just hated on Buddhism, that’s kinda racist

Also if you actually took the time to learn the Buddhist principle of non-attachment you’d learn it’s basic common sense.

“The Buddhist concept of non-attachment is a constructive way to approach relationships. Here, attachment refers to an attempt to control things that you can’t control. When you try to grasp or control something outside of yourself, this causes suffering for yourself and the other person.”

The problem is that the prequels conflate attachment with any kind of close relationship. Anakin falling in love with Padme is treated as inherently wrong.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but the whole idea of Jedi compassion where they “love everybody in a non-attached way” isn’t that great. It goes against human nature. If you try to love everybody in the world equally, you end up with a very shallow form of love.

I’d probably just drop the whole “Rey parentage” mystery altogether and make her explicitly a Solo. And I’ve give Luke a son named Ben. And in general, I’d try to keep the Solo/Skywalker family close to one another and show a strong sense of camaraderie between them. That’s something that’s been sorely missing from the canon. By the end of RotJ, those characters are really close to each other, and that should be carried on to the next generation. Kylo Ren (or whatever I’d call him) would be the one exception to this. It would make his going astray feel more impactful if the rest of the family is together and functional.

I’ll only really be interested in the next movie if it’s a significant departure or shift in direction from what they’d been doing. Basically, a “far past” or “far future” movie, like WitchDR said. If it turns out to be basically “Episode X,” though, then I’ll probably pass.

I just found out that Shadows of the Empire got its own soundtrack. Listening to it now. I love it.

G&G-Fan said:

Just a random comment, but I don’t really get it when people say Obi-Wan should’ve been the protagonist of the prequels instead of Anakin. Obi-Wan’s a great character, but if executed well, Anakin’s arc is easily way more interesting.

It feels like making Hank Schrader the protagonist of Breaking Bad instead of Walt.

I probably would’ve had Obi-Wan be the protagonist of Episode I, but for II and III, I’d definitely shift to Anakin. I like Obi-Wan, but Anakin is obviously a more dynamic character. It’s interesting how, in early interviews, George implies that Obi-Wan would be the main character of I-III, but once the saga shifted to being about the Skywalkers, that seems to have changed.

We don’t know for certain, but yes, I get the impression that things aren’t running smoothly behind-the-scenes. We’ll see what happens, though.

Spartacus01 said:

StarkillerAG said:

Well, no matter how old you are, I really hope you’re lying, because basing your entire personality on a fictional child murderer is… questionable.

I’m sorry, but who said I base my personality on Anakin’s? I simply said that my way of talking in real life is similar to the way people talk in the Prequel Trilogy, and so it doesn’t bother me. That’s all. It seems to me that you’re all teaming up against me just because I’m not shitting on the Prequels.

Don’t worry, man. We’re not trying to gang up on you or anything. I get what you’re saying.

My favorite line in the movie is “I wish that I could just wish away my feelings. But I can’t.”

Max Rebo has arms. I will never accept otherwise.

Yeah, it’s still Jedi to me. The OT films are the only ones I abbreviate out loud like that. The other films I usually just call by their episode numbers.

Skybatman said:

does Lightsabers have a smell ?

I don’t think a lightsaber on its own would, but I think a lightsaber coming into contact with a solid object or a blaster bolt would produce some sort of burning smell for a moment.

Channel72 said:

G&G-Fan said:

The first half should be the beginning of the second movie, the second half should be the last half of the third movie, and there should be a whole movie in-between exploring Anakin’s turn, having him gradually be seduced by the dark side via the usage of Sith holocrons or something. Have him lose himself more and more in the war. Then have him turn.

Yes. Plus you need two full movies to develop a really close bond with Obi Wan, otherwise what’s the point of wading through all that lava in Episode 3. I really wanted ROTS to break my heart. But instead it just sort of made me mildly sad for a few seconds.

Right, exactly. The prequels tried to do a bunch of things at once, and somehow, the Obi-Ani friendship got pushed to the backburner at some point, which is a huge missed opportunity. A lot of this problem would be fixed if Obi-Wan and Anakin had time together in TPM, or if AotC didn’t split them apart for most of its runtime.

And I agree, G&G-Fan, it would have been cool to see Vader truly become a Sith in a more complete way. Maybe the Outer Rim Sieges lead him to Korriban, and he sees all the evidence of the Sith’s power for himself. It really ought to be a full seduction, not just Palpatine tricking him.

I do enjoy RotS a lot. But it definitely suffers from the problem that every third Star Wars movie suffers from: stuffing too much into one movie. Something that was clearly avoidable, in this case.

(I forgot a lot of these details - but I remember also there was something about Palpatine being insane and having this automatic protocol that purposely sabotages the Empire in the event of his death.)

Yeah, there was that whole “Operation Cinder” protocol that was basically an order for the Empire to self destruct upon the Emperor’s death. Basically him saying “If I can’t have it, no one can.” That’s the canon explanation for why the GCW ended so quickly after Endor.

Of course, it makes less sense when you know that Palpatine was still alive.

And yeah, the demilitarization would be fine in theory if there weren’t still factions of Imperials at large that are actively hostile to the New Republic. And the proto-First Order must already be kidnapping kids at this point in the timeline. Basically, don’t throw away your military yet until you’re absolutely certain that the Empire is gone and every Imperial remnant is accounted for.

Maybe it’s realistic to real-life politics that the Republic made that mistake, but I’ve never bought the idea that Star Wars was a realistic political allegory. Besides Andor.

Telion said:

There have been a few tangents on this thread where discussions have gotten a little off topic, but 18 post dedicated to a novel about events that have nothing to do with the fan edit, other than they a both Star Wars, has got to be a record. If you want to talk about books, go join a book club and kindly remove yourself from this forum.

We do also have threads discussing books on this forum, but point taken. The book doesn’t matter to this.

Fullmetaled said:

Servii said:

Jedi122 said:

Servii said:

Jedi122 said:

Servii said:

Fullmetaled said:

Well people who hate young anakin ghost are going to hate this. In a new book they’re going to explain why he’s young as a force ghost.

Which book is this?

“From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi”

Those Certain Point of View books aren’t really canon, I think.

They are.

Ugh.

Since you said ugh I have to ask what’s bad in them?

I haven’t looked through them myself, but the PoV book for ANH included stories about how the Dianoga in the trash compactor was really a highly intelligent Force-sensitive being that was “baptizing” Luke when he pulled him under the trash water. And also that TK-421 was Tarkin’s secret lover whom he shared his chambers with. Lots of silly stuff like that that would be fine as little “what-if” stories, but not as actual canon.

I don’t know much about the upcoming RotJ book, but apparently, two of the authors they’ve brought on to write stories for it are mainly known for writing risque Reylo fanfiction. Which just…makes me wonder what the hell happened to Lucasfilm.

Anyway, we should get back on topic.

Jedi122 said:

Servii said:

Jedi122 said:

Servii said:

Fullmetaled said:

Well people who hate young anakin ghost are going to hate this. In a new book they’re going to explain why he’s young as a force ghost.

Which book is this?

“From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi”

Those Certain Point of View books aren’t really canon, I think.

They are.

Ugh.

Jedi122 said:

Servii said:

Fullmetaled said:

Well people who hate young anakin ghost are going to hate this. In a new book they’re going to explain why he’s young as a force ghost.

Which book is this?

“From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi”

Those Certain Point of View books aren’t really canon, I think.