spectraljulian

Either

-How sloppy the trilogy is in structure, pacing, and character building
-How uncreative the trilogy is in bringing back planet destroying weapons twice, bringing back the emperor, and having another twist related to the main character’s family
-The weird lack of romance (despite plenty of sexual tension)
-How there’s never any restraint or subtlety.
-How the Force is basically just video game-ish magic instead of a Shinto style connection to a spiritual world
-How they lean on the OT for emotional resonance rather than getting it from their own plot lines and characters.
-The squandered opportunity of it all

I think so much of it is a reflection of how the majority of Hollywood has really forgotten how to make quality mass entertainment.

I liked it but rolled my eyes a lot. Luke catching the lightsaber and raising his X-wing from the water were the worst. Rey being Palpatine’s granddaughter were the worst. The overexplaining of everything was the worst. Chewie finally getting his medal was the worst.

I liked seeing Rey bury the two lightsabers at the Lars homestead in front of the setting suns. Anthony Daniels killed it as C-3PO. I liked the planet hopping with the gang together.

I think the ST as a whole did a great job of bringing in likable characters that you want to watch in an adventure. It does a good job at recapturing the humor of the OT. It does a good job visually making the worlds looked lived in.

They treat the force like it’s just magical superpowers with ghosts and kind of ignore its spiritual nature and they lean too much on the OT for ideas and characters, which makes all of the character and relationship building of the new heroes feel really rushed. I think JJ and Kathleen are to be blamed. From the track record of firing directors on three of the five Star Wars Disney movies, canceling plans for more spin-offs after the Solo failure, and obviously not having a plan for the narrative arc of the trilogy.

doubleofive said:

I heard that there are several upset people out there because Whitta dislikes the SE and PT and how can we expect him to bring respect to Star Wars if he doesn't respect Lucas.

I laughed and laughed.

 Yeah, I've been reading TFN forums & there's stupid shit like this all over the place.  

Ziggy Stardust said:

I haven't read the entire thread, so, I apologize if this concept was previously presented here, or in the countless EU fiction that's been written over the years.

I think it would be interesting to see something involving Alderaan. I don't mean to just show the planet in passing, but to make it a very important, prominently featured locale, in the same vain as Tatooine in SW. The main character could be a young Alderaanian (I don't know if that's the correct term), who grows up hearing about the powerful things the Empire can do, and, since the system is mostly out of their jurisdiction, he glorifies what is said about their staggering strength. Over time, we see him become a prominent Imperial figure, and truly strives to build a massive Empire. The film ends with Alderaan's destruction, as he watches those that share his ideologies obliterate his entire past. We could see the frantic panic of the citizens as this ominous space station draws nearer to their home.

If the movie ends here, it could lead to some uncertainty, or it could move onward to show him trying to create a fairer, modified, Empire, similar to the differing branches of Christianity. The Empire wouldn't take too kindly to this, and would brand him a traitor. This is NOT the Alliance that he's joined, but something totally different. Why does everything need to be the Rebels versus the Empire? Let's see the third parties.

Besides, it could really create a much more emotional reaction when the planet is demolished, which would leave a huge impact on the viewer, and, in a way, make the original film much more emotionally satisfying when you see it happen again, from Leia's perspective. 

That's a pretty good idea.

And it is something they should have done in the Prequels.  

RicOlie_2 said:

Yeah, it isn't perfect, but I'm pretty sure it would be possible to work around that.

Perhaps the Emperor could have several Dark Jedi, or something of the sort, under his command, all of them wearing masks that are somewhat like the OT Vader mask. Vader is just another one of them at first, but over time he surpasses them. The one remaining one (besides Vader) is told to kill Skywalker (since the Emperor either doesn't know that Vader and Skywalker are the same person, or he wants a way to eliminate Vader without people knowing that he did it). In the battle, Anakin falls over the edge of a cliff, into the lava pit (though he of course actually lands beside it, as we can deduce from his survival, which we learn about in Episode V).

In the third movie, we see Vader in the same mask that the masked warrior in ep. II, and the other masked Dark Jedi were wearing. He kills the man who had actually fought Skywalker--with an excuse besides revenge, perhaps. Maybe the two of them had not met for some time (or so they thought). The Dark Jedi taunts Vader about some new injuries he appears to have sustained, and mocks Vader's need to use a breathing apparatus like a dying old man. Vader says something about being injured on Mustafar (as I shall conveniently call the planet on which the volcano battle took place), then strikes the Dark Jedi down. He later dons a more customized mask that looks more like that of OT Vader. The rest proceeds as previously described.

I'm sure there are flaws in that too, but with minor tweaks, I think my proposed storyline would have worked without spoiling the OT for first-time viewers.

 
A prototype Darth Vader mask as an Imperial Sith uniform would have been a really cool concept.  That would have given additional depth to the cave scene as well as the line in ANH about Vader being the last of that old religion.  

How it should be written also depends on how much you want someone watching it 1-6 to feel when Obi-Wan recounts Anakin's death.  

"A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force."

 Do you want people to realize Obi-Wan's not telling the truth at that point & go "wait a minute, Obi-Wan never had a pupil named Darth Vader," or do you want people to be completely fooled up until the end of episode V?

If so, in the first scene of Episode I we see a young man named Darth Vader dueling a man in a proto-Vader mask and defeating him. Dialogue could reveal that both of them were former apprentices of Obi-Wan's.  We see the victorious dark Jedi ask a lesser villain to now call him Darth Vader, the name of the first Jedi he struck down (which would then establish that as a Sith tradition)

Obi-Wan could elect to tell Anakin about the history of his former pupil Darth Vader & 

You then presumably see Anakin killed by Vader at the end of Episode II & Obi-Wan sadly retrieves his lightsaber.  Unbeknownst to the viewer, Vader takes Anakin to the emperor where he is trained in the dark side & finishes his training by killing Darth Vader.  

At the end of Episode III, Obi-Wan defeats Vader & Obi-Wan pulls his mask off but the camera cuts so that the viewer can't see the face & then says something that regretfully acknowledges that the man he defeated in combat was is pupil.  In a gritty wheeze he asks Obi-Wan to destroy him and take his name as the new Dark Lord but Obi-Wan refuses & asks that he instead remember his old name & he replies that name has no meaning to him, at which point Obi-Wan leaves.    

Maybe that's a bit redundant with the three pupil thing, but it works insofar as it doesn't reveal to the audience who Vader is until he tells Luke he is his father.  

Someone should make a new prequel trilogy in a Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid/Kung Pow manner by editing old movies together into Star Wars stories.  Toshiro Mifune as young Obi-Wan.  

I kind of like that the Jedi kind of sucked.  Not that they were killed by blasters, but that they were sort of stoic & emotionless idiots that seemed out of touch with what was really going on.  

I think that is something Lucas could have and should have played up a bit more.  That there were a lot of flaws to the Jedi Order that would have given a young Jedi like Anakin motivation to leave.  

pablumatic said:

For being one with the Force Obi-Wan seemed more out of tune with it than Luke in Return of the Jedi.

Obi-Wan wants Luke to kill Vader. Luke doesn't want to and eventually doesn't have to. Being a spirit residing within the Force Obi-Wan appears unable to foresee any other alternatives to their fight than Luke using lethal force. Whatever happened to trusting your feelings or wars not making one great?

Obi-Wan's line after Luke tells him he can't kill his father: "Then the Empire has already won." should have been left out and something else put in like "The alternatives to fighting Vader won't be easy but I'm not against you seeking them out."

 From a certain point of view, Obi-Wan told Luke just what he needed to hear.  

The original trilogy's darkness was more spaghetti western.  They didn't show the sandcrawler massacre or the Owen and Beru firebombing & the emotional weight is focused on.  

Also- Labyrinth was an excellent movie.  It's super campy, but that's OK.  

Not just from an effects perspective, but from a writing perspective I wonder this as well.  

Tobar said:

I love that they're going more practical with the creature effects. HOWEVER, that alien looks a little too Jim Henson-y.

 I'd tend to agree, but if he's got as much screen time as Wyoslea, Muftak, or Momaw Nadon, he'll be just fine.  And with proper color palette, lighting, etc, he'll probably look better.  

Happy that they're doing real location filming & using physical things instead of opting for CGI.  The less CGI, the better.  

Tatooine seems pretty much confirmed, I don't really see why we need to go back there again, but does anyone want to take a stab at why Tatooine is a location?  


Some guesses-  

• A Jedi or a dark Jedi goes to Obi-Wan's old abode to retrieve a jedi artifact
• Luke Skywalker has set up a Jedi Academy there
• Luke Skywalker has retired and become a moisture farmer
• Luke Skywalker has retired and become a hermit
• Luke Skywalker is now a senator representing Tatooine
• Luke Skywalker is making a regular visit to the Darklighter family, which he has done regularly since Biggs died.  This time however, something happens.  
• Camie & Fixer's kid is going to the Academy & Luke is invited to the sendoff party.  
• A Mandalorian attacks, & having last seen Boba Fett at the great pit of Carkoon, our heroes go there for answers
• The planet is subjugated by a new threat
• The planet has a stronghold controlled by a new threat
• Luke is in the market for a gonk droid & knows a Jawa swap meet is where he can get the best price
  
• Jabba's brother has set up shop & has put a price on the heads of the OT main characters.  They get captured and are taken to the great pit of Carkoon & Boba Fett shows up- having survived the Sarlacc & living off wamprats for the last 30 years.  
  
• The destroyed jawa sandcrawler contained a copy of R2's memory, and under the enslavement of a now unified tusken nation, use all the planet's scrap to turn Tatooine into a new Death Star

dan76 said:

I got a pirate VHS of it about a week before it came out. A group of us got together and watched it. I remember as clear as day my flat mate saying "turn it off, it going to be good, I don't want to watch it". He meant he wanted to wait for the cinema...

Anyhow, he said it at the beginning, just before they landed on the planet and met Jar Jar. From that point on it got worse and worse. We watched to the end and were all depressed. Even our girlfriends who weren't particularly into Star Wars thought it was crap.

We then thought that maybe the pirate was a rough cut as it seemed unfinished. Very stilted etc. so we went to the cinema one afternoon and paid our money. It was no better.

I still think they're three of the worst films ever made, but in a weird way it's the best of the PT.

 Yeah, TPM pissed me off a lot less than the other two.  

I saw it 3-4 times & then got it on VHS.  I was 13 & I tried my damnedest to like it.  Then I realized that I never once watched the VHS.  It just sat there.  I slowly realized how much I was lying to myself and thought maybe the next one would be better, until I heard the title.  

Then I saw Attack of the Clones for the first and last time.  The diner scene, Jango Fett, the Lars backstory, the love sequences, the Yoda lightsaber battle, & then the coup de grace of the twist of Dooku getting the Death Star plans to the separatists.  

Then I saw Revenge of the Sith.  It was out for a few weeks, but I figured I might as well go see it.  That first scene with that battle & then Anakin beheading Dooku was laughable.  Everything about Anakin was laughable.  Ewan McGregor turned in his best performance, although he lost it a couple times.  

Jar Jar's probably the best developed character in the whole trilogy, even though he's moronic and annoying as hell.  

I doubt it will happen anytime while George is still kicking, but rebooting the PT could be a huge moneymaker.  Rebooting the OT could be a huge moneymaker too.  

Didn't realize there were Mandalorians in TCW.  I thought all the junk about them was all EU and hence nixed.  That kind of ruins it then.  Pretty lame that they wielded lightsabers too.  Idea would be to have this ancient warrior race that we know nothing about come into the galaxy.  

And there's gonna be a dark Jedi in the new trilogy, or the equivalent thereof.  It does seem lame after the ends of Palpatine & Vader, but the fact remains that we're going to need some enemy for Luke's apprentice.  

I think the best that we can hope is that it's a new dark Jedi that has a really different personality from what we've seen.  Maybe one that's freaking nuts or one that's hyper intelligent, or both.  

DuracellEnergizer said:

This makes me wonder if the Ferengi ever get criticized for being Jewish stereotypes ...

 They do

Well we as the viewers know a lot more about Luke's character than Palpatine did.  Palpatine was evil & had an evil worldview.  He was overconfident & thought that everyone was corruptible.  If Luke was a different person he could have turned him, but ultimately Luke was good at heart & embraced Yoda's teachings.  

Anyways, to the subject at hand.  I think the bad guys should be Mandalorians.  Not to demystify Boba Fett's character even more, but I think it would be a cool way to bring something new that's connected to the other trilogies without rehashing old plotlines or bringing back old enemies. 

They show up en masse from out of nowhere with a powerful ruthless leader (Sydow) & a couple of young brutal self-tough dark Jedi.  They want to rule the universe and they think that establishing a new order dark Jedi that would be submissive to their Mandalorian masters & thus more stable would them rule the galaxy, thus they target the next generation of Skywalkers for purposes of breeding them with with their dark Jedi to create this new order, thus providing reason for the original cast to be involved in the new saga.  

Boom.  No long lost sith or imperial remnant, but new enemies and new dark jedi that seem old and familiar.  

Even if you're really forgiving and assume good intent in the creation of characters like watto and nute gunray. . . it's just poor writing to make your aliens obviously similar to real world ethnicities unless you're writing satire (ala Futurama)

Avoid poorly written villains.  

In the OT: 

Vader's a great villain because when we're first introduced to him, he waltzes into a room with a boarding party of stormtroopers unarmed & then proceeds to choke a guy interrogating him.  Then later we see him choke out one of his own men with the force & use an interrogation droid on Leia.  We're also told of how evil he is by Obi-Wan. 

Tarkin's a great villain because he's calm, cool, and collected & Vader listens to him, and then he blows up Alderaan just to demonstrate the power of the Death Star.  

Boba Fett's a great villain because the manner in which the bounty hunters are introduced as scum, & then Vader making a point to tell him that there would be no disintegrations.  

Jabba we see loves to laugh at the thought of executing people.  Classic criminally insane crime boss.  

Palpatine's a great villain because of the way that admirals gulp at the thought of him personally overseeing them, the way Vader bows to him, & the way he just laughs at Luke & his optimism.  

Compare to the Prequel Trilogy:

Maul is just a devil looking dude with a two sided lightsaber that kills a Jedi and promptly gets killed.  He basically shows up for the sole purpose of having lightsaber battles.  

Dooku just has a cool voice and cuts off Haydn Christensen's hand.  

Grievous is a multi lightsaber wielding robot 

The other minor villains are just really bad racial stereotypes

Sidious is OK, but we see him too much.  The sequel trilogy needs to not show things until it's necessary to do so.  

Give us villains from the start that are varied and unique.  Fascistic military/government leaders, irreverent gangsters, and dark jedi.  

I liked how unintentionally funny ROTS was.  

I'd like the link if you'd like to toss me a PM!  

I think I'd try to look at the ingredients that made the originals good movies, and focus on using those ingredients to create a new set of good movies that happen to take place in the same universe but about 19 years earlier with a couple of the same characters.  

So to boil it down to its most basic:

I'd seek to create a series of space adventures in which Anakin is trained by Kenobi, falls in love and gets someone pregnant unbeknownst to him, falls to the Dark Side, and helps hunt down and exterminate the Jedi.  

This would all be in the climate of the beginning of the Empire and the fall of the Republic.  But I'd remember that the politics should be the environment rather than the story itself.  It could provide macguffins to drive plots, but shouldn't bog the series down.  

I'd look to Kurosawa's Samurai films and a variety of other martial arts films, Westerns, and the legends of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table for inspiration.  

I'd consider perhaps that there is too much subject material for three films, and choose to omit things, or to change the number of films and drop the episode numbers.