Servii

The Mustafar duel is overrated. About halfway through the fight, it stops focusing on what’s going on between the characters and becomes overly focused on the visual spectacle of the location itself. And of course, the whole part of them swinging from cables and riding on a river of lava is way too over-the-top.

I think George knew it was going to be his last Star Wars movie, so he probably wanted to go out with a bang by having the final battle be really grand and flashy, but he overdid it. The final duel in RotJ didn’t need to be flashy, because it was focused on the characters and their internal struggles rather than the environment they were fighting in.

As a kid, my family would regularly rent the VHS’s of the OT (always either the 1995 “Faces” set or the 1997 Special Editions), but the first Star Wars film I actually bought and owned was The Phantom Menace on DVD. Then after a couple years, I bought the AotC DVD as well as the 2004 OT set (I can’t remember which of the two I bought first). I didn’t notice the 2004 DVDs’ many problems, except for the music being drowned out during some of the battle scenes in ANH, and I didn’t mind the new changes at the time, so overall, I was pleased with the set.

A year or so later, I bought RotS on DVD.

Then I bought the GOUT DVDs as soon as those were in stores. I still liked the Special Editions at this point, so the unaltered versions were more of a curiosity than anything else (plus, I wanted to own the most recent releases of the films), and I surprisingly didn’t notice yet how low-quality the GOUT was.

When the 2011 Blu-rays finally came out, they came at a time when I’d lost interest in Star Wars. Plus, I was getting very annoyed that even more changes were being made to the films (Vader’s “Nooooo!” Was especially frustrating). And I’d also become aware at that point of how poorly handled the 2004 remasters were, and knew the Blu-rays would be more or less the same. So, I didn’t bother buying them at the time. On the rare occasions that I rewatched the OT, I just watched the GOUT instead.

I haven’t bought any of the Disney era movies. My brother bought Blu-ray copies of TFA and Rogue One, since he was much more on board at the time with Disney Star Wars than I was, but he lost interest with TLJ, which he still hasn’t bought, nor has he bought Solo or TRoS.

In 2020, I did finally buy the 2011 Blu-ray set of the OT so that I could legally watch the Despecialized Editions. I also recently bought the 2011 PT Blu-ray set, as well, since I found a good deal on it.

So, all in all, I’ve bought the OT three times and the PT twice.

Omni said:

It seems that Marcia Lucas has some strong feelings about the ST.

Based Marcia.

This says a lot when someone so closely involved with the development of the OT speaks out so frankly about the ST in such a critical way. This isn’t something that can be easily dismissed, and frankly, after all the attempts by the media to gaslight ST detractors and make it seem like their criticisms aren’t legitimate, this feels rather vindicating.

As for the discussion of whether TLJ lines up well with TFA, I just remembered this quote from Mary Jo Markey, one of the editors of TFA, that’s relevant to that topic.

“It’s very strange to have the second film so consciously undo the storytelling of the first one. I’m sorry that’s what it felt like. I don’t even feel that’s true about the third film. It took where the second film ended and just tried to tell a story. I didn’t feel like it was consciously trying to undo — it just didn’t feel that way to me.”

Rey was lucky in being able to do the mind trick to escape.

How is that luck?

Of course, the poor treatment of the OT heroes could be excused or at least tolerated if the new heroes designed to replace them were well written characters you could get equally invested in. That’s really the key thing the whole ST hinged on. The ST characters had to be good enough for the “passing of the torch” to feel earned and satisfying.

The best recent example I can think of that nailed this aspect was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. I loved Miles Morales as a character, and his relationship with the older Peter Parker, and it was really satisfying to watch him finally take up the mantle as a true Spider-Man at the end. The movie earned that payoff.

Rey, Finn, and Poe weren’t written well enough for me to get invested in them. I liked the concepts behind Finn and Rey as characters, but the execution of those concepts was severely lacking. By the end of TFA, I’d lost interest in the new characters, which made the very character-driven TLJ a slog to sit through, and made the treatment of the OT heroes that much harder to swallow because it was done for the sake of the new characters.

I think the hallway scene was a mistake. It’s clear it was intended to be this gratuitous fan service that people would get excited watching, which is rather tone-deaf given the sad deaths of the main characters that occurred just a minute before. It reflects a lack of confidence in the new characters by Lucasfilm, who must have thought that audiences wouldn’t be sufficiently emotional about Jyn and Cassian’s deaths, so they felt the need to give the ending more “oomph” by adding the hallway scene and pumping up the audience right before the credits rolled.

The scene reduces Vader to a silent, hack-and-slash murder machine, which isn’t at all what Vader was in the OT. And I agree with that Reddit user that George never intended for villains like Vader or Palpatine to be “cool.” At his core, Vader is a pitiable character. We’re not supposed to think of him as a badass, or get excited at seeing him commit evil acts, but that’s clearly what Rogue One wanted.

And of course, the hallway scene, and Leia’s presence at the Battle, are the two main reasons why the ending doesn’t line up well with ANH.

This looks amazing. It looks exactly like what a modern release of the film should be. I just watched v1.6 of this project, and I was hugely impressed. Your work on the color grading is fantastic, and the level of polish is mindblowing.

my marketing instinct tells me the Postquel Trilogy is inevitable.

My family already calls the ST “the Postquels,” so I’ve gotten used to calling them that out loud. So I guess the next ones will be the Post-Postquels lol

But yeah, I think you’re right.

and shows that even our heroes are people that fail

I just want to say, the OT already did this whole “heroes are fallible people, too” theme, just with more subtlety. Luke is constantly vulnerable throughout the trilogy, fails constantly in ESB, and has to be rescued at the climax of all three movies. By RotJ, he’s presenting himself as this big hero, but he’s still struggling with doubt and fear over the course of the movie. His victory in the end is very much a personal, spiritual one (rather than a glorious, material victory), which required him to “surrender” himself and take a leap of faith. It’s an unconventional end to a hero’s journey.

Star Wars was always subversive in its depiction of heroes. The OT just did a better job at it. Despite all his earlier bravado with Jabba, Luke standing at the top of the Throne Room stairs, softly saying “I will not fight you, father” makes abundantly clear what kind of hero he is on the inside.

(And I still don’t get why TLJ Luke was written to be such a prick. I don’t see what that has to do with the movie’s theme of failure. Luke being depressed is fine. Luke being a jerk for no reason is too much of a stretch.)

The Rebellion didn’t treat Luke that way. They didn’t hinge all their hopes on whether or not he showed up to help. Despite his abilities, he was still just one man, and one small part of a larger faction. The fact that the Resistance is so hyper focused on recruiting someone who, as far as they know, abandoned their cause years ago, and is hopeful that he’ll return, is naive and reflects poorly on them.

He’s still just one man, regardless of his powers, and it takes a long time to train a new generation of Jedi, so that’s hardly an immediate concern for the First Order. The line in TLJ when Rey tells Luke he needs to “bring the Jedi back” to stop Kylo Ren is really odd, since it makes it seem like Luke can just flip a switch and restore the Jedi after years of sitting around.

It’s also odd that Snoke is more focused on finding Luke than he is on destroying the Republic. His priorities seem backwards. He and the First Order have much bigger fish to fry than an inactive Luke who might be a potential threat in the future, yet Snoke talks about finding Luke like it’s the most important step in winning the war. But if the Republic and Resistance were destroyed, Luke coming out of hiding would be a nuisance, at best.

I do agree, though, that TFA sets up certain plot points that TLJ had to work with, particularly involving Luke’s exile. And TLJ often wrongly gets blamed for creative choices already established in TFA.

jedi_bendu said:

Servii said:

JJ Abrams even wanted the movie to end with Luke surrounded by floating rocks, to wow the audience by showing off how powerful Luke was.

I’m sure this would have been a cool shot. But now I’m really doubting JJ Abrams. This sounds like Luke would still have been connected to the Force when Rey finds him (which, to be fair, is maybe why they scrapped it). So Luke would have been on that island, ready and waiting to join the fight for… what? We know from TESB he can sense when Han and Leia are in pain or danger, so I hate the idea of him being able to sense that but not doing anything about it. He needed to have cut himself off from the Force, so the Force couldn’t influence his resolve as much.

People talk about Luke wanting to remain on the island as a ‘subversion of expectations’. But I always wonder why that wasn’t the expectation. In TFA, Han said that when one Jedi student destroyed Luke’s new Jedi order, “Luke felt responsible”… he just walked away from everything." Luke is on the island for a reason and Rian Johnson just had the task of explaining that as best he could. It’s beginning to sound like JJ and maybe Lawrence Kasdan were ok with Luke’s exile just being a set up for the sake of an interesting story structure, without any explanation or logic.

From what I’ve heard, Rian asked JJ to scrap the rocks. But JJ still wanted to have Luke in Jedi robes in the final shot, so that’s why Luke changes clothes almost immediately in TLJ.

Han saying that about Luke definitely points the story in a certain direction that implies Luke is done with the world and has turned his back on everyone. Which makes it all the more confusing why the film chooses to focus so heavily on “We gotta find Luke.” Arguably, it could make sense for the new heroes to focus on that (though Han and Leia should both know better than to expect Luke to help them), but why would the First Order and Snoke care so specifically about a washed up old Jedi who’s cut himself off from the Force? TFA couldn’t really seem to make up its mind on the role Luke was going to play.

TFA’s whole central plot, the “map to Luke,” really makes more sense from a meta perspective than it does in-universe. One exiled old former Jedi isn’t that big of a deal in the ongoing conflict, but every character fixates on it and trying to figure out where Luke is, because that’s what the writers assumed the audience would be fixating on. So going into TLJ after two years of waiting, with the sudden tonal whiplash of Luke tossing the saber over his shoulder and walking off, it does come off as either differing visions or a deliberate bait-and-switch.

SparkySywer said:

This has been said probably a trillion times on here, but 7 and 8 link together just fine.

I still disagree, for a number of smaller reasons, but also for one fundamental reason: the treatment of Luke in TFA. TFA makes finding Luke the central object of the whole film. The heroes and villains are both obsessed with this end goal, and both speak of it as a massive game-changer that will determine the course of the war. Snoke is deeply concerned about stopping Luke’s return so that he can’t train a new generation of Jedi, despite Luke exiling himself to an island willingly and wanting to die. Leia, despite having led the war by herself thus far after Luke and Han both abandoned her, is convinced that finding Luke will turn the tide. There’s also a map pointing to Luke for some reason, despite Luke not wanting to be found. The opening crawl of TFA even implies that the First Order rose to power largely because of Luke’s absence.

So, the whole of TFA chooses to center itself around Luke, hyping up Luke to the audience and stressing his importance in shaping the course of the war. The movie tells its viewers that Luke leaving was a huge deal to the galaxy, and that Luke returning will also be a huge deal. Luke is just one person, but the movie makes him out to be a larger-than-life hero (which he never was in the OT. Luke was always much more human than that.) who could reshape the galaxy. Someone who is extremely important to both the good guys and bad guys for what he could potentially do.

JJ Abrams even wanted the movie to end with Luke surrounded by floating rocks, to wow the audience by showing off how powerful Luke was.

Then in TLJ, the movie “defies expectations” by pointing out that Luke isn’t actually the larger-than-life superhero TFA made him out to be (of course, TFA is what established that expectation in the first place), and goes in the extreme opposite direction to paint him as an impotent failure who wants nothing to do with the galaxy. Which raises the question: why did they bother hyping up Luke so much, then telling the audience they were wrong for getting excited about Luke? Perhaps it was all part of the plan from the start to “mess with audience expectations”, but that doesn’t explain JJ wanting to show off Luke’s power at the end of TFA. More likely, JJ and Rian just had conflicting visions for the role they wanted Luke to play in the trilogy’s story.

fmalover said:

SparkySywer said:

JadedSkywalker said:

some weird non commercial midichlorian movie.

That’s not the sequel trilogy that Lucas pitched. He’s had four entirely separate ideas for STs (that we know about, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were many more we don’t know about), and chronologically, it seems like that’s the second one of the four.

Shopping Maul said:

I see Star Wars in general as being a ‘band effort’ rather than the sole vision of one man. Yes, SW is/was Lucas’ creation, but the input of folks like Kurtz, Dykstra, MacQuarrie, Johnston, Burt, Marcia Lucas, Kershner, Kasdan etc etc really helped shape this universe significantly. If anything I see the PT as the equivalent of Mick Jagger reforming the Stones with an all-new lineup. So I don’t buy into the ‘George as canon’ thing at all. A Lucas-ST probably would’ve sucked.

I 100% agree, and that’s probably the best explanation why I prefer the sequels to the prequels. The ST was made by fans, and while the fans have some pretty crazy ideas of what Star Wars is, they have a more holistic view. The prequels were just George Lucas putting in his own contribution, lacking everyone else’s vision which made Star Wars what it is.

In other words, the problem with the PT was that George Lucas had nobody to reign him in, whilst the ST had the opposite problem, which was that there wasn’t a single creative vision driving the trilogy.

Exactly. Bringing in multiple sources of creative input is good, and can enhance a story through the collaboration of different people who can run ideas off each other. But there still needs to be some guiding creative vision to ensure that different people’s ideas aren’t in conflict with one another. So in a way, both the PT and ST are different cautionary tales about the creative process.

Dear God, please don’t screw this up.

I don’t really know how this will work within the Disney canon’s more compressed timeline, nor how much of the story they’ll change, but I hope the vast majority of the changes are confined to gameplay and graphics. They’ve hired new writers, but I hope those writers tread lightly and keep the essence of the game intact. I don’t trust them to do that, but I hope they do.

My default primary emotion about upcoming Star Wars is dread. I hope my fears are misplaced and this turns out to be good.

“Anakin is the father, isn’t he? …I’m so sorry.”

Jedi Rocks plays over murdered Separatist corpses and Anakin crying

Mocata said:

It seems even stranger in hindsight that in ESB the Rebel base is so small. Vader had to scour the galaxy for them but they had all these Mon Calamari allies from such an early date? I always presumed the largest group they had was in ROTJ.

That’s a little detail I like a lot about the OT. The fact that the Rebellion grows noticably larger with each movie. It’s satisfying to watch the Rebels grow from the small group they’re shown as in ANH, to having a small fleet in ESB, to the impressive fleet we see in RotJ. There’s this sense of progression for the faction that’s shown without being stated outright. Rogue One messes with that. The fact that the Rebel Alliance is able to so quickly muster a large fleet like that so early in the war makes the fleet in RotJ less impactful.

fmalover said:

The way I see it, the Tantive IV and Leia were shoehorned into the movie as per Disney’s demands.

It would have made a lot more sense if the ship escaping from the Battle of Scarif wasn’t the Tantive IV.

It definitely seems like many of the continuity issues at the end of the film were a result of reshoots (the late addition of the Vader hallway scene comes to mind). I’d very much like to see a director’s cut and how the ending was meant to go originally.

I like Rogue One quite a bit. I think it’s a good movie, and I think Gareth Edwards is a great director. But after having rewatched the movie alongside the OT, I’ve realized that it doesn’t line up well with the starting events of ANH, nor does it match the events described that are meant to directly precede ANH.

Let’s look at what we know based on ANH alone:

The Rebellion has just won its first victory in the War, and during the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal the Death Star plans. These spies then transmitted the plans (either directly or indirectly) to the Tantive IV, and Leia hurried to deliver them to Alderaan.

Darth Vader traced these transmissions to the Tantive, and set off in pursuit of it until he caught the ship over Tatooine. Once the ship had been successfully boarded and Leia captured, this exchange occurs:

“Darth Vader, only you could be so bold. The Imperial Senate will not sit still for this. When they hear you’ve attacked a diplomatic…”

“Don’t act so surprised your highness. You weren’t on any mercy mission this time. Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by Rebel spies. I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan!”

Moments later, Vader speaks with an Imperial Officer:

“Holding her is dangerous. If word of this gets out, it could generate sympathy for the Rebellion in the Senate.”

“I have traced the Rebel spies to her. Now she is my only link to finding their secret base.”

Vader then also says:

“Send a distress signal, and then inform the Senate that all aboard were killed!”

We can glean a few things from this. For one, the only accusation Vader is able to level against Leia is that he traced the spies’ transmissions (plural) to her ship. Leia acts indignant over the attack on a diplomatic vessel, implying that the Senate will side with her against Vader (who is acting very boldly, as she puts it), and behaves as though she has plausible deniability. The Imperial officer is noticeably nervous about attacking the ship and detaining Leia, concerned that it will damage the Empire’s image in the eyes of the Senate. In response to this, Vader feels the need to send out inaccurate information that shifts blame for the attack away from the Empire.

Judging from what we see in this scene, Vader’s proof against Leia hinges entirely on her interception of the transmitted plans. The supposed absence of the plans aboard the ship gives Leia plausibility deniability and paints her as an unfairly targeted civilian. This is something Vader is worried enough about that he orders false information be relayed to the Senate in order to save face.

The series of events that are laid out here are contradicted by the events shown at the end of Rogue One. In Rogue One, Leia and the Tantive IV are present at the Battle of Scarif. The Death Star plans, after being transmitted from the planet’s surface, are carried via physical datatape (singular, not plural) onto the Tantive. Vader personally witnesses this, and single-handedly pursues the soldiers carrying the plans. Narrowly failing to prevent their escape, Vader witnesses them boarding the Tantive IV, then sees the ship–with Leia on board–taking off and fleeing from the battle.

The Tantive then jumps into hyperspace, and after an unknown amount of time, the Devastator–with Vader on board–catches up to it and fires on it. The ship is disabled, and Vader sends a squad of Stormtroopers ahead of him to secure the ship, only setting foot on the ship himself after the dirty work is done.

Simply, the events shown in Rogue One don’t align with each characters’ behavior aboard the Tantive IV at the start of ANH. Going by what Rogue One shows us, Vader and the Empire have ample reason to regard Leia’s ship as a military target, and the Empire’s attack can’t be condemned as outrageous or unprovoked. There were no surreptitious transmissions (plural) of the plans to a seemingly diplomatic ship. There was instead a high-profile hand-off (singular) of the plans to a ship in the midst of a war zone, with said ship then conspicuously fleeing from that war zone in full view of the Empire. Vader has far stronger reason to believe in Leia’s guilt than some mere intercepted transmissions.

It’s because of this that I believe Rogue One doesn’t function well as a prequel to ANH, and that the events meant to connect the two films instead make them incompatible with each other when treating them as a continuous story. I’d like to hear people’s thoughts on this, and if you agree or disagree or are somewhere in the middle.

RogueLeader said:

Stardust1138 said:

It’s all ultimately subjective. No one answer is correct but I do think the original creator no matter who they are should be given the chance to complete their life’s work. Unfortunately life doesn’t always go the way we want it to and this is a case of that.

I mean, George sold his life’s work for $4 billion. He didn’t have to do that. Disney didn’t steal it from him. Sounds like Iger gave him the impression they would follow his treatments more closely than they did, but he just as well could’ve made the Sequel Trilogy on his own terms.

George is getting up there in years. He had a choice between devoting another ten or so years of his life to another trilogy, or to spending that time with his family. It’s understandable why he decided to hand the series off at his age. And he and Bob Iger spent quite a long time negotiating the sale, with George wanting a more firm promise that his treatments would be used. But George ultimately gave in and settled for a verbal assurance from Iger.

(Of course, he could have worked on the ST earlier, but back in 2005, he insisted that there never was going to be an ST, so I suppose he didn’t want to back then.)

You know what? It’s a beautiful day outside. You’re probably trolling. I’m not doing this with you and wasting my time. I’m gonna go for a hike, instead.

TestingOutTheTest said:

The ST is beholden to the preestablished lore, and should be logically consistent.

So you’re saying the FO could rise to the way they are?

Given the vigilance you would expect from the Galaxy against the Empire returning to full power and building another massive planet killer, no, they likely couldn’t.

The Empire was reduced to a small fringe faction. The fact they had the massive amount of resources needed to produce a galaxy-seizing military and Starkiller Base, all without the Republic noticing, stretches the viewer’s belief.

Also, my examples are incompatible. How did the Empire come into existence when they clearly didn’t exist during the “before”? How can a new faction somehow overthrow a thousand generations old Jedi Knights and Republic?

Because that’s how time works. “Before” and “After” will always be different because the only constant in reality is change.

And when Star Wars first came out, we didn’t know the details of this history. But, since Star Wars wasn’t a sequel to anything, we didn’t need to. What we saw in ANH was the universe as it was being introduced to us. So it could be whatever sort of universe the story required.

TestingOutTheTest said:

That’s like saying the FO rising or Palpatine returning is an off-screen history. And my example is still a contradiction. That’s my point.

Well, yes, it is an offscreen history. There’s nothing inherently bad about that. The problem is when it doesn’t make sense with preestablished story. The original Star Wars was its own story, starting from scratch, so it could establish whatever sort of history it wanted. The ST is beholden to the preestablished lore, and should be logically consistent.

Also, that’s not what a contradiction is. If we were told incompatible information about the Empire and Republic, then yes, that would be a contradiction. Historical change, however, is not a contradiction.

TestingOutTheTest said:

Okay, another plot hole in ANH. The Empire, clearly a new faction, somehow overthrew a thousand generations old Jedi Order and Republic.

Also, “Before the dark times, before the Empire” is also a plot hole, because the Empire existing now contradicts the fact that they didn’t exist before the dark times and Empire. How did we go from the Empire being nonexistent to even existing in the first place? ANH should’ve given us 46,853 years of exposition explaining how the Empire came into existence and overthrew a thousand generations old Republic and Jedi Order so none of those two plot holes would exist.

See? Those are contradictions.

Having an offscreen history is not a plot hole. Having a nonsensical offscreen history (i.e. the events leading up to the ST), however, is best avoided if you want a strong foundation for your story.

Star Wars was in complete limbo after ROTS.

Star Wars was fine after RotS. TCW was doing very well. New video games were in production. The franchise would have kept on going as it has, just without the added hype of new movies, which Star Wars doesn’t need to be relevant.

The prequels are offensively bad to me, while the sequels feel more comforting. Safe, sure. It doesn’t ruin the OT with spoilers, ugly visuals, and terrible direction. It’s disposable, rather than damaging. It’s just a disposable sequel that doesn’t inject stupid lore.

The ugly visuals and bad direction of the PT don’t affect the OT (unless you mean the Special Editions, but those are a whole different issue). The spoilers are a problem for newcomers who start with the prequels, I suppose, but I wouldn’t call that “ruining the OT.” You can argue that Anakin’s portrayal in the prequels damaged Vader and his redemption, and I’ll agree with you on that.

I would definitely say that the ST also injected stupid lore, though. They did their best to be safe and derivative, but in doing so, they forced the post-RotJ lore into a creative dead end where everything has to lead to the First Order and to Palpatine on Exegol. It’s very difficult to work around that and make sense of that with new extended material, which will be hopelessly constrained and contorted to fit with the ST from here onward. The ST is like a lore black hole that everything now has to accommodate, whether it makes sense or not. The OT and PT expanded the universe, while the ST contracted it.

Ideally, I would have preferred the Sequel Trilogy be made in the 90’s, before the prequel trilogy. But assuming that my hypothetical sequels had to come out in 2015, 2017, and 2019, here’s what I would probably do, off the top of my head:

At the start of VII, the galaxy is in a state of cold war, with the two largest galactic factions, the Republic and the Empire (still just called the Empire), having maintained a ceasefire for about a decade or so. Under the leadership of Gilad Pellaeon, and with the support of the mysterious Knights of Ren, the Empire has shifted away from its sinister past and become a less destructive, if still somewhat despotic faction. In the years since the ceasefire, the Knights of Ren have grown hugely in number, especially since they started recruiting within both Imperial and Republic space, with many former Jedi apprentices having left to join the secretive group.

Rey, Finn, and Poe will still be our main heroes. The protagonist of the trilogy will be Finn, a Stormtrooper who’s fiercely loyal to the Empire, while having a strong code of honor. He develops an unlikely friendship with Rey the scavenger and Poe the Republic pilot.

Covert attacks begin to take place against both the Republic and Empire, with each faction being framed for the attacks on the other. Agents within both governments carry out subversion to weaken the ceasefire and push the factions back towards open war. Finn is perhaps betrayed by one of these corrupt governors and left for dead on a desolate planet, where he meets Rey. After doing some investigating later on, the heroes might mistakingly suspect that the Knights of Ren are behind the attacks.

Leia is the chief executive of the Republic. Han is a Republic general. Lando has settled down as baron of another wealthy city. Luke leads a small, reclusive Jedi Order on a wilderness planet in the Mid Rim, still struggling with what the new Order’s role should be in the larger galaxy, especially with the ongoing cold war and the increasingly prominent Knights of Ren. Our heroes find Luke near the end of VII’s second act, and Finn, discovering his Force sensitivity, begins to train with him.

Eventually, near the end of VII, it’s discovered that these corrupt agents within both factions have been working together to destabilize the galaxy in preparation for a massive invasion. Luke perhaps sensed this imminent attack beforehand, and had investigated evidence of a prior invasion by the same species in the ancient past. Finn, Rey, and Poe discover a scout ship belonging to this species, and the climax of VII will be the start of the invasion of this species in full force. VII ends with the Empire being devastated first, and the Republic bracing itself for the oncoming storm. Gilad Pellaeon is killed. Luke and his apprentices come out of seclusion to defend the Republic, while the Knights of Ren begin to wage fierce guerilla warfare against the invaders that are now occupying Imperial worlds.

The climax of VIII will be the fall of Coruscant. Han or Leia is killed in this attack. By the end, both the Republic and Empire are scattered and in shambles. With the war seeming unwinnable, the Knights of Ren will become increasingly ruthless and desperate in their tactics, veering closer towards the Dark Side.

IX will be about 3 hours long. It will feature the Republic and Empire joining their forces for the first time in their history to repel the invaders.

Finn will now be a full Jedi Knight, leading a group of fellow Knights and padawans to different contested planets in need of being defended or reclaimed. Along the way, they encounter Kylo Ren and some of his Knights (I haven’t decided yet whether Kylo will be related to anyone. I’d also like to work him into the plots of VII and VIII, but I haven’t decided on what his role will be yet.), and the two groups join forces for a while. But it becomes clear through Kylo’s scorched-earth tactics that he is growing increasingly unhinged and aggressive to the point of bloodlust, and that he considers civilian lives entirely expendable as long as the Empire wins in the end.

Kylo becomes more and more obsessed with obtaining hidden knowledge to not just repel the invaders, but to destroy them utterly. This search eventually leads him to Korriban, where he and his Knights recover Sith holocrons and artifacts, and are at last fully consumed by the Dark Side.

The climax of IX will the joint Republic-Empire reclamation of Coruscant. The attack will be a major victory that cripples the invaders, forcing what’s left of their military to flee into the Unknown Regions. In the midst of the battle, the Knights of Ren arrive, using their new knowledge of the Dark Side to devastate the fleeing enemy. As the battle is winding down, the Republic and Empire discover that the invaders had already begun to transport their own civilians to settle on Coruscant and other newly conquered worlds. With the enemy forces in retreat, these civilians are left stranded on the planet, at the mercy of the victorious Republic and Empire. Kylo, being the highest ranking Imperial still alive, orders that they be put to death. Finn, Luke, and the other Jedi object to this, while the Republic overall is split on the issue.

In spite of this, Kylo and his troops (as well as some Republic troops, of their own accord) begin to carry out a purge of the planet, with the Jedi and some of the other Republic troops fighting against them. The situation devolves into planetwide chaos, and taking advantage of this as well as the Republic’s momentary indecision, Kylo assumes absolute control of Coruscant, declaring himself Emperor and Sith Lord. Kylo then kills Luke.

Finn, Rey, and Poe lead a final desperate mission to stop Kylo. Finn battles Kylo in a duel, defeats him, but spares his life, instead handing him over to be tried for his crimes.

In the aftermath of the War, the shattered Republic and Empire are at last dissolved, reformed into a galaxy-wide defensive coalition, prepared in the event that any such invasion or upheaval should happen again. Finn carries on Luke’s legacy as the new leader of the Jedi Order.