clseibold

WitchDR said:

This gender thing was never an issue before Disney took over. There were absolutely amazing female characters in the EU and the Lucas Saga. Disney and the people they hire to write and create these shows and movies just suck.

To be fair, it was also a different time period that we have backed away from to some extent. Having studied history, this “backing away” happens frequently.

SparkySywer said:

4-6 were made entirely separate from 1-3, 1-3 builds off of 4-6. But post-TRoS necessarily has to build off of TRoS, which really doesn’t lay any groundwork for anything worthwhile.

Eh, they could do what Star Trek did with The Next Generation: basically a “soft reboot” that doesn’t reboot the whole continuity, but focuses on new characters within the same universe. It’s not necessarily true that sequels have to depend fully on the movies that came before them, and I think Star Trek is one of the best examples of this. Other examples include book series of series’, like the Shadowhunters books by Cassandra Clair, which aren’t really soft reboots, but different series that occur in different time periods of the same universe and don’t always require you read one series to be able to read the other series. Comics also do this type of stuff, afaik.

Although, I do find it ironic that TFA was seen as an unwanted soft reboot, but a soft reboot of the sequel trilogy would probably be very much wanted, lol. Makes sense though.

Looking forward to see where the new movie goes. I didn’t hate everything about the sequels, and think The Last Jedi is perhaps the best of the trilogy, even if Luke Skywalker is shown to have human flaws like everyone else rather than being a perfect human being who can’t ever get depressed. Hopefully they can add this extra layer to Rey as well.

The most frustrating thing I see is the complaining that Luke Skywalker was ruined for having depth, and then in the same breath complaining that Rey has no depth. It just never made logical sense to me. I find it suspect when people want to ignore developments in the real world and how they relate to reactions against certain characters and not others in different time periods. But I guess me being gay just means I have a different view on what is happening in the world in general. The problems of the sequels go beyond specific characters being flat.

Even if the writing is bad, that never justified to me some of the awful things that I have seen said about the actors, women in general, and the writers and directors that go beyond critiques in mismanagement and writing. As for Daisy Ridley, I’m glad she got this role. She’s a great actor, and shouldn’t be held responsible for script or director problems.

My biggest hope for this new movie is that we don’t have the mess of multiple directors with different visions messing up the tone and continuity of the movie, and that they stray away from too much harkening back to old movies and more new content. I feel like with the success and failures of the new shows, they might have learned what works and what doesn’t. The Mandalorian, Andor, Ahsoka, and The Bad Batch all did great. Also, I hope they don’t introduce yet another evil regime that’s big enough to do real harm like the First Order. The First Order made sense in the sequels to some extent, as they were mirroring what happens in reality. What we need now is to move past that point.

One of the things though that is hard is they have to balance between fans that don’t want big changes and fans that do. I have seen The Acolyte criticized for changing what the purpose of the Jedi is… and yet it’s a prequel that occurs in a completely different time period than the prequel trilogy and OT. Obviously, the Jedi are going to be different in a very different time period, imo!

I’d rather they just stop trying to please everyone and write the stories that they want to write and that they love. I want authenticity in story-writing the most, for them to write what they believe is a great story, not trying to shoe-horn their ideas into what they think fans and non-fans want.

I’m young enough to have grown up on the prequels. I loved them as a kid more than the originals. Now, looking back, I can see a lot of their flaws, but the thing that always stood out to me was the very thing you mentioned @Anchorhead - the underlying story. The in-world political story of someone who manipulates a government and its people to gain power, manufactures a war, turns one of the Jedi to infiltrate and use him for his own purposes, and the failures of the Republic (and its people) in both combatting and failing to see all of this, putting trust in people that are untrustworthy, all leading to a Republic that turns into a Empire, and for some of the new shows, how that then impacts the people themselves.

It’s literally brilliant! It has a strong message, and the message for me was always very impactful. But then again, I’ve always loved stories about governmental power struggles, how authoritarian regimes rise, dystopian and utopians. But I love that Star Wars combines this very Sci-fi topic with Fantasy and the Jedi. The prequels do a great job of giving a larger history to the universe as a whole, expanding it outward.

That’s why I like some of these fan edits of the prequels - they take this great underlying story and match the execution to that great story, by cutting all the cringy moments. As for the CGI, I still think it holds up, but I also like the updated CGI, and will continue to like new updates if done right. The cool thing about CGI is you can always improve them, which is the very reason I love CGI stuff (when done well).

This led me to realizing something about George Lucas - he might be not so great at the detailed execution of certain things (too many jokes, etc.), but he is excellent at world-building and overall story. I watched THX 1138 recently, and loved that movie for the very same reasons.

So far this is really good, but I’m only 5 episodes in. A couple of things I would personally change:

• I absolutely hate the art style of the 2003 miniseries, and while introducing Ventress makes sense, I don’t consider it essential. Although, seeing Anakin get knighted was alright and is kinda essential-ish, but not really because barely anything actually happened (at least, in this fan edit - I haven’t seen the entire 2003 miniseries originals).
• However, I do consider the Tales of the Jedi episodes about Count Dooku essential/vital. They basically explain the origins of Dooku, why he changed, and the reason why he switched sides, and most importantly, the failings of the Republic and the Jedi prior to the Clone Wars, from the perspective of those outside of the center, which you don’t really see a lot of. It gives necessary background for the entire prequel series, including the Clone Wars. In fact, it also shows how the Clones were started in the first place, which gives it even more relevance to TCW, imo.
• For the above two reasons, I would switch the current prelude out for the TotJ Count Dooku episodes 😄
• Removing the Domino Squadron’s retaking of the test where they succeeded and graduated was a little confusing because it’s necessary to explain why they went to Rishi in the first place, but perhaps this was put in a different place, idk.
• I’m sad to see that a lot of Mortis was removed. I loved the entire storyline and think it’s essential for the universe as a whole. I find it hard to understand that people wouldn’t like the mysticism when all of Star Wars is about mysticism.

The three most memorable storylines from TCW when I first watched it were the Domino Squadron stuff, Mortis, and The Cosmic Force. I would consider them the best episodes of TCW in general.