yotsuya

NeverarGreat said:

yotsuya said:

rodneyfaile said:

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen from
the ashes of the Empire
and will not rest until
Skywalker, the last Jedi,
has been destroyed.

With the support of the
REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa
leads a brave RESISTANCE.
She is desperate to find her
brother Luke and gain his
help in restoring peace
and justice to the galaxy.

Leia has sent her most daring
pilot on a secret mission
to Jakku, where an old ally
has discovered a clue to
Luke’s whereabouts…

compared to…

It is a period of civil war.
Rebel spaceships, striking
from a hidden base, have won
their first victory against
the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel
spies managed to steal secret
plans to the Empire’s
ultimate weapon, the DEATH
STAR, an armored space
station with enough power to
destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire’s
sinister agents, Princess
Leia races home aboard her
starship, custodian of the
stolen plans that can save
her people and restore
freedom to the galaxy…

See how the stage is set by the original crawl. The players are easy to understand and clearly delineated. In TFA the setup is more complex, but rather than go into any part except the First Order, it is all about Luke. TLJ does a better job…

The FIRST ORDER reigns.
Having decimated the peaceful
Republic, Supreme Leader Snoke
now deploys the merciless
legions to seize military
control of the galaxy.

Only General Leia Organa’s
band of RESISTANCE fighters
stand against the rising
tyranny, certain that Jedi
Master Luke Skywalker will
return and restore a spark of
hope to the fight.

But the Resistance has been
exposed. As the First Order
speeds toward the rebel base,
the brave heroes mount a
desperate escape…

The original crawl is a masterclass in efficient exposition. In three paragraphs we know everything we need to know about the conflict. Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without the galactic situation being simple to begin with. The Empire, which controls the galaxy, has a weapon with clearly defined power. The Rebellion, clearly not a major threat due to their lack of victories thus far, has nevertheless gained an opportunity to destroy this weapon. Then establish the princess and the crawl is perfect.

In short:
The Empire
The Death Star
The Death Star as a formidable weapon
The Rebellion
The Princess
The attack
The plans
The Empire’s sinister agents

TFA on the other hand is a complicated situation. For my fanedit I’ve tried to rewrite the crawl over a hundred times, and I’ve come to the conclusion that minus a missing scene that further explains the galaxy, three paragraphs just can’t cut it.

TFA tries to establish:

Luke and his disappearance
The First Order
The origin of the First Order from the Empire
The First Order’s need to kill Luke
The Republic
The Resistance
Leia
The best pilot
Luke as the last Jedi
Jedi as protectors of the galaxy
Leia as Luke’s sister
Jakku
Leia’s old ally

And this is really not even enough exposition, because you still need:

How the First Order arose
Why Luke is gone
Why Luke is important
The Starkiller
How the Starkiller is possible
The relative power of the Republic vs the Resistance and the First Order
…among other things.

I disagree what the crawl has to explain. It has to cover:
The Republic
The First Order
The Resistance
the basic issue and goals of them
and setup the story

Luke and Starkiller aren’t all that important to get the story moving where the Death Star was because the plans were the driving force of the ANH.

I came up with this which covers why the Republic is weak, where the first order came from, what the resistance is doing and why the Republic isn’t. It only gets to Luke as part of the immediate goal of helping Leia. Let me know what you think. It is the same length as most of the crawls.

THE FORCE AWAKENS

For three decades the REPUBLIC has struggled to rebuild. Out on the rim a remnant of the Empire has been reforged as the FIRST ORDER, bent on galactic conquest.

General Leia Organa and her brave band of RESISTANCE have held back the First Order’s advance while the Republic leaders refuse to take the threat seriously.

Following the betrayal of his star pupil, Luke Skywalker vanished. Leia, desperate for his help, has sent a daring pilot to recover a clue to his whereabouts from an old ally…

rodneyfaile said:

Luke Skywalker has vanished.
In his absence, the sinister
FIRST ORDER has risen from
the ashes of the Empire
and will not rest until
Skywalker, the last Jedi,
has been destroyed.

With the support of the
REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa
leads a brave RESISTANCE.
She is desperate to find her
brother Luke and gain his
help in restoring peace
and justice to the galaxy.

Leia has sent her most daring
pilot on a secret mission
to Jakku, where an old ally
has discovered a clue to
Luke’s whereabouts…

compared to…

It is a period of civil war.
Rebel spaceships, striking
from a hidden base, have won
their first victory against
the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel
spies managed to steal secret
plans to the Empire’s
ultimate weapon, the DEATH
STAR, an armored space
station with enough power to
destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire’s
sinister agents, Princess
Leia races home aboard her
starship, custodian of the
stolen plans that can save
her people and restore
freedom to the galaxy…

See how the stage is set by the original crawl. The players are easy to understand and clearly delineated. In TFA the setup is more complex, but rather than go into any part except the First Order, it is all about Luke. TLJ does a better job…

The FIRST ORDER reigns.
Having decimated the peaceful
Republic, Supreme Leader Snoke
now deploys the merciless
legions to seize military
control of the galaxy.

Only General Leia Organa’s
band of RESISTANCE fighters
stand against the rising
tyranny, certain that Jedi
Master Luke Skywalker will
return and restore a spark of
hope to the fight.

But the Resistance has been
exposed. As the First Order
speeds toward the rebel base,
the brave heroes mount a
desperate escape…

Valheru_84 said:

It continually amazes me how often the OT is shit on in defence of TLJ and people attempt to normalise the criticism of TLJ by trying to draw parallels with audience reactions to TESB.

Star Wars and its fandom is where it’s at because of TLJ, the ST at large and the powers that be handling of the situation. Nothing that came before has anything to do with the current predicament.

Val

I disagree. The tone of the complains from 1980 about TESB and the ones now for TLJ are similar. They don’t like the direction - things could have been done different. Basically fan expectations were not met. Move forward form 1980 to 1995 and the trilogy had been out and complete for 12 years and the fans had a new appreciation of the middle chapter. I’m saying give TLJ 12 years and a chance to be seen as the middle of a complete ST and then let’s talk about it. Where we are right now is that most fans liked the film but a very vocal group did not. And using the reaction to Solo to say that TLJ has left fandom in a damage state doesn’t fit. Most of the reaction to Solo was because of the troubleed production, another actor in the iconic part, bad word of mouth, and the competition when it came out. Basically when faced with the choice of which movie to see that month, Solo lost out to the competition (Deadpool 2 and Infinity War). If TLJ had any impact, it was more likely the timing than the feelings toward TLJ. When you look at home video sales, TLJ topped the year and Solo was 11, behind the same films it lost to in the box office. So the home video of TLJ doesn’t reflect bad fan reaction but the fan reaction to Solo does reflect the same lower interest as the box office numbers. Also interesting was that if you look at the previous years, Rogue One was number one and so was The Force Awakens. https://www.the-numbers.com/home-market/bluray-sales/2018

So the reaction to Solo at the box office does not reflect the current standing of fandom to the Star Wars franchise. If TLJ was so controversial with fans, I would expect a couple of the other movies to have done better in the home video market instead of it taking the prize once again. There just wasn’t the interest in Solo. People have built it into the poster child for damaged fandom and I don’t see it. I see the numbers say that it only sparked about 1/3 the interest that the other Star Wars films have. What it comes down to is that they gambled on another Rogue One and lost. But reaction and box office sales for IX will be the real telling point. I doubt there will be much change unless it is pitted against something big when it is released.

NeverarGreat said:

yotsuya said:

Abrams really robbed us of [the wider galactic situation]. TLJ had no reason to expand on it. Any lazy writing lies with Abrams.

That’s quite a lot of blame to place on one guy. And sure, his was the cardinal sin of failing to properly establish the relationship between the First Order, the Republic, and the Resistance, but these were issues that could have been resolved in a single scene in TFA and which could have just as easily been resolved in TLJ. Instead we are given no explanation for the First Order’s power nor its resilience after their primary base and weapon was destroyed. We are given no explanation for what remains of the Republic, nor of why the Resistance consists of only a few ships at the start of TLJ. As you say, the Republic doesn’t exist in TLJ in any tangible sense, which means that the only real relationship which now exists for the audience is between the First Order and the Resistance.

The setup belongs at the start. ANH set up the civil war and the basic political structure. TPM setup the old republic and the trade federation conflict. ATOC setup the new separatist conflict. TFA setup the First Order and then dwelled on Luke for the rest of the film. Pretty much the focus was on Luke from the crawl to the end. A few lines would not have been out of place to help understand the galactic situation and how wiping out the senate would destroy the Republic. So yeah, I blame Abrams. An explanation doesn’t really belong in the middle chapter for something that happened in the first chapter.

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

Ah… I finally found something with meat to it. Rather than just recollections, this article did research and pulled up actual fan reactions from TESB in 1980. Sure, today it is the gold standard of Star Wars for many, but what did people think when it was the dark sequel to an insanely popular movie. Well, fan letters published in Starlog reveal a lot of that.

http://www.acriticalhit.com/fans-react-empire-strikes-back-1980/

Reading this I can imagagine if modern social media had existed back then. I still remember my reaction. For the longest time TESB was the movie to watch between the amazing Star Wars and the incredible ROTJ. It was the Star TRek III to II and IV - the middle of a great story. Eventually I came around. But I see that same genius in TLJ. The characters are put through the ringer and come out the other side wiser for the experience. They handed TLJ to a good character writer who took where they started in TFA and carried on the story. It was written before we ever saw TFA. Before fans built up expectations. Lucas always waited until after one film came out to write the next, but the have been on a faster schedule and so TLJ was written when TFA was still in production and a few things about TFA were changed. And the more I look at the presented issues, the more I realize that all the big issues are not with TLJ, but with the setup in TFA that TLJ delivers on what was promised. Han gave us the concise narrative of Luke in TFA and TLJ didn’t deviate at all. This trilogy is driven by the fall of Ben Solo and the rise of Kylo Ren. Luke in exile, Leia and Han at odds and back to their old roles, everything was setup by Abrams in TFA.

When you think about May 1980, fans didn’t know what to expect. The had the novel and movie of Star Wars (with the published script to keep the movie fresh in lieu of home video). But in 1979, the got three new Star Wars novels as well as the Marvel comic that kept the story going. What came out in May 1980 was nothing like any of those. Irvin Kershner directed his typical people driven story with a script by the legendary Leigh Bracket with changes by Lawrence Kasdan and the original story by George Lucas. It took he wave of success that Star Wars ended with and dumped the characters into turmoil that didn’t end with the end credits. Many didn’t like the direction. Many didn’t believe that Vader was really Luke’s father. And who was this other Yoda spoke of? It was not the film people expected and they griped about it. There really wasn’t a platform for that voice to drown out the box office results. But it was there. And now we have the ST continuing the story and TLJ is the middle chapter and took a similar character based approach and also ended on a dark note. Though this time a beloved character wasn’t just in carbonite, he was dead. Well, as dead as a Jedi gets in Star Wars since he is expected to be back in the next film. And there were more characters to follow (TLJ has three stories instead of two). But the parallel in reaction is fascinating. And we have one of our own who never took to TESB, at least from what I hear. Mike Verta is a fan of Star Wars - as in the 1977 film only. I’m sure he isn’t alone. But most of us who watched the films when they came out have had our opinions change over time and I’m sure that will happen to TLJ as well. I personally love it and wouldn’t change anything. I don’t expect everyone to share that opinion, but saying TLJ ruined the saga, that is subverted expectations, that it threw out Abrams mystery boxes, etc. is just the initial reaction. Wait for IX to come out. Absorb it. Watch the ST in its complete form and see how TLJ fits and then give us a more reasoned opinion. I bet some will change their mind as many of us did about TESB in the years since it came out.

Why would a positive opinion in the absence of IX be any more reasoned than a negative one?

I also don’t really see how a few fan letters in Starlog can really be compared to the avalanche of reviews, analyses, rants, opinion pieces that followed in the wake of TLJ’s release. It’s apples and oranges as far as I’m concerned, and certainly should not be considered as some kind of proof that TLJ will be considered a masterpiece by posterity. Some films with mixed responses will be re-evaluated, or seen in a more postive light, while others won’t.

It isn’t apples and oranges. It is 1980 vs. 2017. A few letters in Starlog in 1980 is the modern equivalent of a lot of comments on Youtube or non-critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. These big places for people to leave their comments didn’t exist in 1980. So all we can use to draw comparisons is what was recorded back then. The important thing isn’t the volume, it is the ratio. A great many fans were not happy with TESB. How the percentage exactly compares to TLJ is impossible to know, but the similarities in tone are undeniable. And from my exploration of how many fans actually dislike TLJ, it is a relatively small percentage of the overall fanbase. It is a very loud portion of the fanbase which makes it seem like a lot, but appearances are usually deceiving. People with complaints are louder than those who are satisfied.

And I’m not offering proof that TLJ WILL be considered a masterpiece, only a comparison to the film that is most often cited as a masterpiece today. What the future feeling will be is an unknown. But at a guess, it will not be the most hated film in the saga.

Ah… I finally found something with meat to it. Rather than just recollections, this article did research and pulled up actual fan reactions from TESB in 1980. Sure, today it is the gold standard of Star Wars for many, but what did people think when it was the dark sequel to an insanely popular movie. Well, fan letters published in Starlog reveal a lot of that.

http://www.acriticalhit.com/fans-react-empire-strikes-back-1980/

Reading this I can imagagine if modern social media had existed back then. I still remember my reaction. For the longest time TESB was the movie to watch between the amazing Star Wars and the incredible ROTJ. It was the Star TRek III to II and IV - the middle of a great story. Eventually I came around. But I see that same genius in TLJ. The characters are put through the ringer and come out the other side wiser for the experience. They handed TLJ to a good character writer who took where they started in TFA and carried on the story. It was written before we ever saw TFA. Before fans built up expectations. Lucas always waited until after one film came out to write the next, but the have been on a faster schedule and so TLJ was written when TFA was still in production and a few things about TFA were changed. And the more I look at the presented issues, the more I realize that all the big issues are not with TLJ, but with the setup in TFA that TLJ delivers on what was promised. Han gave us the concise narrative of Luke in TFA and TLJ didn’t deviate at all. This trilogy is driven by the fall of Ben Solo and the rise of Kylo Ren. Luke in exile, Leia and Han at odds and back to their old roles, everything was setup by Abrams in TFA.

When you think about May 1980, fans didn’t know what to expect. The had the novel and movie of Star Wars (with the published script to keep the movie fresh in lieu of home video). But in 1979, the got three new Star Wars novels as well as the Marvel comic that kept the story going. What came out in May 1980 was nothing like any of those. Irvin Kershner directed his typical people driven story with a script by the legendary Leigh Bracket with changes by Lawrence Kasdan and the original story by George Lucas. It took he wave of success that Star Wars ended with and dumped the characters into turmoil that didn’t end with the end credits. Many didn’t like the direction. Many didn’t believe that Vader was really Luke’s father. And who was this other Yoda spoke of? It was not the film people expected and they griped about it. There really wasn’t a platform for that voice to drown out the box office results. But it was there. And now we have the ST continuing the story and TLJ is the middle chapter and took a similar character based approach and also ended on a dark note. Though this time a beloved character wasn’t just in carbonite, he was dead. Well, as dead as a Jedi gets in Star Wars since he is expected to be back in the next film. And there were more characters to follow (TLJ has three stories instead of two). But the parallel in reaction is fascinating. And we have one of our own who never took to TESB, at least from what I hear. Mike Verta is a fan of Star Wars - as in the 1977 film only. I’m sure he isn’t alone. But most of us who watched the films when they came out have had our opinions change over time and I’m sure that will happen to TLJ as well. I personally love it and wouldn’t change anything. I don’t expect everyone to share that opinion, but saying TLJ ruined the saga, that is subverted expectations, that it threw out Abrams mystery boxes, etc. is just the initial reaction. Wait for IX to come out. Absorb it. Watch the ST in its complete form and see how TLJ fits and then give us a more reasoned opinion. I bet some will change their mind as many of us did about TESB in the years since it came out.

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

rodneyfaile said:

Haarspalter said:
So Star Wars is now a learning-lessons-about-life-meta-documentary which uses a fictional space fantasy fairy tale as a backdrop some old bearded guy invented in the 70s?

Meh.

Star Wars should be about escapism, not realism.

Sounds like you didn’t understand the other movies either.

I don’t understand why this is needed. I didn’t like TLJ for a whole host of reasons, but I’m not going to tell you you don’t understand Star Wars for liking what I consider to be a deeply flawed film, that puts a post-modern perspective on a modern myth, by turning the saga into a meta commentary on itself, and has the characters in the mythology question the merits of their own reality. You might just accept that Star Wars is different things to different people. It’s fine that you consider TLJ a great film, and you’ve stated the reasons why, but many others including myself feel the ST and particulary TLJ weakens the overall saga, and its mythology as a whole for the reasons stated above, and the fact that it resets the galaxy to an Empire vs rebels conflict without proper context, or explanation to give us an alternate reality version of the OT, where great effort is taken to push a number of new characters to the foreground at the expense of the old.

Forgive me if I only focus on this paragraph, but after reading it I felt a couple of things needed to be answered. First, this is a new trilogy and it is supposed to focus on new characters and push the old into supporting roles. That was the vision of it from the get go. That is what Lucas told Hamill 30 years ago. The role we see for Luke, Han, and Leia is exactly what it is supposed to be. This is not their time any longer. That is the entire point of setting it 30 years later. Each trilogy is a different era of a much larger story. The OT is the core story - the rebellion and redemption. It is the classic myth in origin. The PT is the back story, the history. It is stilted and old fashioned in tone and depicts the events before and during the fall. The ST is now the new generation. This is Rey, Poe, Finn, and Kylo’s story. Han, Luke, and Leia are old people passing on the torch and sharing their wisdom. It is not their trilogy so the new characters are supposed to be pushed to the foreground at their expense. This is not Heir to Empire where the old group were still in their prime.

This is where what I keep talking about with expectations comes in. Just from that one sentence that you ended that paragraph with I can see you expected a new trilogy with the old characters and that was never the plan. Lucas never intended the third trilogy to be about 3 old farts saving things again. They were supposed to be the familiar faces to introduce the new heroes, and that is exactly what we got. In all the old myths and legends, there are sequels for a new generation where the old heroes are the ones who have become the mentors to the new heroes. Coming into this trilogy with any expectations for the cast of the OT to have big roles was setting yourself up for disappointment. It was never going to happen. That was the books of the EU (now Legends). This is something new. Something to bind the other 6 films together and bring the saga to a conclusion. This is a new tale of good vs. evil with something else to say. I think the point will be clear when IX comes out. But it is obvious from the way you describe what you didn’t like about TLJ that you had expected something different and a lot of your dislike lies in that. You have made some other really good points, but every time I read your posts on TLJ, it comes back to what about Luke, Han, and Leia you didn’t like and how it didn’t meet your expectations. And what you don’t like about their part in the ST is that they were derailed from where we left them in ROTJ by what happened to Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. That was the core of TFA and TLJ and as I understand it, George Lucas’s treatment for the ST.

As for the familiar feel to the two sides, that is often the way of history. Abrams did the setup and yet the ire is aimed at Johnson. Abrams failed to give us the little details Lucas loved to throw in to paint the picture. But we are stuck with what Abrams left us with in TFA. But it also isn’t that unreasonable. There has to be some conflict (it is called Star Wars after all) and making a weak republic and eliminating its government and fleet were a simple way to start the story. Abrams could have done better setting things up, but in the end, both Abrams and Johnson are focusing on the things that really matter - the characters that take us to the end of the Saga. What that end will be we don’t know and can only guess at this point.

You misunderstand me. I did not expect the old guard to be the focus of this story, but I don’t like the idea of turning the old crew into a bunch of losers, such that the new guard can shine by comparison. The entire outcome of the OT and much of the character arcs therein were undone without much context or explanation to reset the story to a highly similar premise of Empire vs rebels/Jedi vs Sith. That to me is not natural story progression, but a soft reboot.

It was explained, multiple times in both movies or shown in various ways. The crux is the fall of Ben Solo, which happened off screen. Luke vanished, Han and Leia broke up and went back to what they were good at. With Kylo and the Knights of Ren, the First Order rose and took the old Empire tech and improved on it and developed a new super weapon. About the only thing missing is any clear details about the new Republic, but they are wiped out in TFA. If you need to have everyone in the same place as 30 years ago or super detailed reasons why they aren’t, then you expect them to be main characters still instead of supporting characters. I can understand being critical of the film, but many of your points are based of a false assumption that the old cast is still the focus. This trilogy belongs wholly to the younger cast.

I don’t expect everyone to be in the same place, but I did expect an original story, that builds on what previous films established. In stead much of what was built has been broken down to give us something very similar. This might make money sense, since it’s the perfect way to maintain brand recognition by keeping the galaxy locked into an Empire vs rebels state, but in my view it doesn’t make much story sense. Palpatine was unique in the sense, that he alone through cunning was able to destroy a Republic that had stood for at least a thousand years. Snoke is just some random guy, who somehow seduced Ben Solo and essentially rebuilt the Empire in the unknown regions, while the Republic was looking the other way for plot convenience, and used a superweapon to turn back the clock some 35 years. No more explanation required according to the current creators. The fact that such a scenerio is possible, and we can point to real world examples to fill in the blanks, doesn’t mean it makes dramatic or story sense. It just seems like lazy writing, and makes the ST feel tacked on.

It is not just real world examples. Where we were at the end of ROTJ was the death of the Emperor. No more, no less. We have nothing of the story from there to TFA. In TFA, the Hosnian system housing the Republic Senate and the only fleet the new Republic has is destroyed. The First Order has yet to be shown occupying a single planet. We have setup the conflict and there are three players, not two. There is the First Order - the agressive invader. There is the Resistance - in the spirit of the old rebellion who has been trying to keep the First Order out. And then there is the Republic. That has yet to play any role. We don’t know what is left, what the mindset is, who they might side with, or anything. Yes their government and their fleet are gone, but the planets that had joined can reform the government. Some planets might welcome the First Order with open arms, some might fight to the bitter end. We don’t know, but your argument ignores all of them. In the OT, all these planets were part of the Empire. They were occupied. Only a few resisted and helped the Rebellion. The game, while on the surface has some similarity, is different. You are equating the situations in the OT and ST and ignoring the differences. In the OT, the death of the Emperor was a big deal that sealed the fate of the Empire. In the ST, the death of Snoke means nothing to the worlds of the Republic. How those republic worlds react is what will set the Trilogies apart. How the conflict between Rey and Kylo plays out will as well. Your comparison of the two trilogies is over simplistic. Had Lucas been doing this trilogy, I bet the story would be largely the same, but I bet the movies would be shorter and they would have more clues as to the wider galactic situation. Abrams really robbed us of that. TLJ had no reason to expand on it. Any lazy writing lies with Abrams. And even though I have not read a single add on book that might expound on any of this, I can still see many possibilities and a variety of larger pictures from what we do know (both what was in the films and the few deleted clips). I don’t see it as simple as a reset to exactly what we had in the OT. I can see the similarities in the presented story, but the wider story is very different and the ramifications of that change everything.

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

rodneyfaile said:

Haarspalter said:
So Star Wars is now a learning-lessons-about-life-meta-documentary which uses a fictional space fantasy fairy tale as a backdrop some old bearded guy invented in the 70s?

Meh.

Star Wars should be about escapism, not realism.

Sounds like you didn’t understand the other movies either.

I don’t understand why this is needed. I didn’t like TLJ for a whole host of reasons, but I’m not going to tell you you don’t understand Star Wars for liking what I consider to be a deeply flawed film, that puts a post-modern perspective on a modern myth, by turning the saga into a meta commentary on itself, and has the characters in the mythology question the merits of their own reality. You might just accept that Star Wars is different things to different people. It’s fine that you consider TLJ a great film, and you’ve stated the reasons why, but many others including myself feel the ST and particulary TLJ weakens the overall saga, and its mythology as a whole for the reasons stated above, and the fact that it resets the galaxy to an Empire vs rebels conflict without proper context, or explanation to give us an alternate reality version of the OT, where great effort is taken to push a number of new characters to the foreground at the expense of the old.

Forgive me if I only focus on this paragraph, but after reading it I felt a couple of things needed to be answered. First, this is a new trilogy and it is supposed to focus on new characters and push the old into supporting roles. That was the vision of it from the get go. That is what Lucas told Hamill 30 years ago. The role we see for Luke, Han, and Leia is exactly what it is supposed to be. This is not their time any longer. That is the entire point of setting it 30 years later. Each trilogy is a different era of a much larger story. The OT is the core story - the rebellion and redemption. It is the classic myth in origin. The PT is the back story, the history. It is stilted and old fashioned in tone and depicts the events before and during the fall. The ST is now the new generation. This is Rey, Poe, Finn, and Kylo’s story. Han, Luke, and Leia are old people passing on the torch and sharing their wisdom. It is not their trilogy so the new characters are supposed to be pushed to the foreground at their expense. This is not Heir to Empire where the old group were still in their prime.

This is where what I keep talking about with expectations comes in. Just from that one sentence that you ended that paragraph with I can see you expected a new trilogy with the old characters and that was never the plan. Lucas never intended the third trilogy to be about 3 old farts saving things again. They were supposed to be the familiar faces to introduce the new heroes, and that is exactly what we got. In all the old myths and legends, there are sequels for a new generation where the old heroes are the ones who have become the mentors to the new heroes. Coming into this trilogy with any expectations for the cast of the OT to have big roles was setting yourself up for disappointment. It was never going to happen. That was the books of the EU (now Legends). This is something new. Something to bind the other 6 films together and bring the saga to a conclusion. This is a new tale of good vs. evil with something else to say. I think the point will be clear when IX comes out. But it is obvious from the way you describe what you didn’t like about TLJ that you had expected something different and a lot of your dislike lies in that. You have made some other really good points, but every time I read your posts on TLJ, it comes back to what about Luke, Han, and Leia you didn’t like and how it didn’t meet your expectations. And what you don’t like about their part in the ST is that they were derailed from where we left them in ROTJ by what happened to Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. That was the core of TFA and TLJ and as I understand it, George Lucas’s treatment for the ST.

As for the familiar feel to the two sides, that is often the way of history. Abrams did the setup and yet the ire is aimed at Johnson. Abrams failed to give us the little details Lucas loved to throw in to paint the picture. But we are stuck with what Abrams left us with in TFA. But it also isn’t that unreasonable. There has to be some conflict (it is called Star Wars after all) and making a weak republic and eliminating its government and fleet were a simple way to start the story. Abrams could have done better setting things up, but in the end, both Abrams and Johnson are focusing on the things that really matter - the characters that take us to the end of the Saga. What that end will be we don’t know and can only guess at this point.

You misunderstand me. I did not expect the old guard to be the focus of this story, but I don’t like the idea of turning the old crew into a bunch of losers, such that the new guard can shine by comparison. The entire outcome of the OT and much of the character arcs therein were undone without much context or explanation to reset the story to a highly similar premise of Empire vs rebels/Jedi vs Sith. That to me is not natural story progression, but a soft reboot.

It was explained, multiple times in both movies or shown in various ways. The crux is the fall of Ben Solo, which happened off screen. Luke vanished, Han and Leia broke up and went back to what they were good at. With Kylo and the Knights of Ren, the First Order rose and took the old Empire tech and improved on it and developed a new super weapon. About the only thing missing is any clear details about the new Republic, but they are wiped out in TFA. If you need to have everyone in the same place as 30 years ago or super detailed reasons why they aren’t, then you expect them to be main characters still instead of supporting characters. I can understand being critical of the film, but many of your points are based of a false assumption that the old cast is still the focus. This trilogy belongs wholly to the younger cast.

DrDre said:

rodneyfaile said:

Haarspalter said:
So Star Wars is now a learning-lessons-about-life-meta-documentary which uses a fictional space fantasy fairy tale as a backdrop some old bearded guy invented in the 70s?

Meh.

Star Wars should be about escapism, not realism.

Sounds like you didn’t understand the other movies either.

I don’t understand why this is needed. I didn’t like TLJ for a whole host of reasons, but I’m not going to tell you you don’t understand Star Wars for liking what I consider to be a deeply flawed film, that puts a post-modern perspective on a modern myth, by turning the saga into a meta commentary on itself, and has the characters in the mythology question the merits of their own reality. You might just accept that Star Wars is different things to different people. It’s fine that you consider TLJ a great film, and you’ve stated the reasons why, but many others including myself feel the ST and particulary TLJ weakens the overall saga, and its mythology as a whole for the reasons stated above, and the fact that it resets the galaxy to an Empire vs rebels conflict without proper context, or explanation to give us an alternate reality version of the OT, where great effort is taken to push a number of new characters to the foreground at the expense of the old.

Forgive me if I only focus on this paragraph, but after reading it I felt a couple of things needed to be answered. First, this is a new trilogy and it is supposed to focus on new characters and push the old into supporting roles. That was the vision of it from the get go. That is what Lucas told Hamill 30 years ago. The role we see for Luke, Han, and Leia is exactly what it is supposed to be. This is not their time any longer. That is the entire point of setting it 30 years later. Each trilogy is a different era of a much larger story. The OT is the core story - the rebellion and redemption. It is the classic myth in origin. The PT is the back story, the history. It is stilted and old fashioned in tone and depicts the events before and during the fall. The ST is now the new generation. This is Rey, Poe, Finn, and Kylo’s story. Han, Luke, and Leia are old people passing on the torch and sharing their wisdom. It is not their trilogy so the new characters are supposed to be pushed to the foreground at their expense. This is not Heir to Empire where the old group were still in their prime.

This is where what I keep talking about with expectations comes in. Just from that one sentence that you ended that paragraph with I can see you expected a new trilogy with the old characters and that was never the plan. Lucas never intended the third trilogy to be about 3 old farts saving things again. They were supposed to be the familiar faces to introduce the new heroes, and that is exactly what we got. In all the old myths and legends, there are sequels for a new generation where the old heroes are the ones who have become the mentors to the new heroes. Coming into this trilogy with any expectations for the cast of the OT to have big roles was setting yourself up for disappointment. It was never going to happen. That was the books of the EU (now Legends). This is something new. Something to bind the other 6 films together and bring the saga to a conclusion. This is a new tale of good vs. evil with something else to say. I think the point will be clear when IX comes out. But it is obvious from the way you describe what you didn’t like about TLJ that you had expected something different and a lot of your dislike lies in that. You have made some other really good points, but every time I read your posts on TLJ, it comes back to what about Luke, Han, and Leia you didn’t like and how it didn’t meet your expectations. And what you don’t like about their part in the ST is that they were derailed from where we left them in ROTJ by what happened to Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. That was the core of TFA and TLJ and as I understand it, George Lucas’s treatment for the ST.

As for the familiar feel to the two sides, that is often the way of history. Abrams did the setup and yet the ire is aimed at Johnson. Abrams failed to give us the little details Lucas loved to throw in to paint the picture. But we are stuck with what Abrams left us with in TFA. But it also isn’t that unreasonable. There has to be some conflict (it is called Star Wars after all) and making a weak republic and eliminating its government and fleet were a simple way to start the story. Abrams could have done better setting things up, but in the end, both Abrams and Johnson are focusing on the things that really matter - the characters that take us to the end of the Saga. What that end will be we don’t know and can only guess at this point.

Well, some of us think this is the best Star Wars film since ROTJ.

I think the alternate to Luke tossing the saber is interesting and in some ways more powerful. But you need to cut Rey looking back at where Luke tossed the saber.

Anakin Starkiller said:

nevertheless I don’t think it’ll be an issue as Rian didn’t stray too far from TFA’s style to begin with.

Actually, I was very confused as to why people acted like the arguably out-of-place humor of TLJ was new. To me, it was just a continuation of the sometimes borderline parody tone of TFA. Totally seamless.

I thought Poe’s humor at the start of TLJ was in exactly the same vein as his “who talks first” bit in TFA. It was longer, but the same type of humor.

SilverWook said:

Maybe because the myth of Lucas’ master plan persists, when he too was making it up as he went along?

Ah, but he didn’t make everything up. His master plan for the first trilogy got reworked a lot and things got added along the way, but the end game was a huge planetary battle and a space battle at the Death Star. He stole the Death Star from his original and moved it up and then reworked the middle and expanded the ending ending up in the same place and adding the redemption of the father to his mythic tale.

The plan for the PT was obvious. What he planned for the ST is a mystery. We know a self-exiled Luke and training a new apprentice, but not much else. But while Lucas made up the individual stories as he went, he always had a larger plan. Making Vader Luke’s father made him create the basics that led to the PT which he pretty much followed, though as we all know he made some interesting changes along the way. I’m hoping they kept that larger arc from Lucas’s treatment. What Kathleen Kennedy said is they started with that (they didn’t just throw it out) and the worked from it to expand and develop the story like they do with every movie (not all movies start as a completed script) and they moved beyond a lot of Lucas’s ideas. So while Rian wasn’t working to much of a plan, there was a plan. As he said, training was for the middle. That is what we got. I just don’t really trust Abrams to formulate a satisfying ending so I’m hoping whatever endgame Lucas had in his treatment is the basis for what we get at the end of IX. If they mix Lucas’s mythic end game with Abrams story telling, I think they might have a good final chapter. If Abrams is creating the ending out of his head, I don’t think it will be what fans hope.

nl0428 said:

lpd said:

Just don’t know to be honest, its been shown since star wars 77 and especially over the last two movies that its really being changed and evolving on the move. ie:It really didn’t have an arc. Each movie is being written on the fly. I really think that’s why that scene was thrown on the end of Solo.
But what do I know?

I wouldn’t necessarily say that the sequel trilogy is being changed in between films. I believe that J.J. set up that Rey’s parents were nobody, and that is something that Rian Johnson carried over into The Last Jedi. I also think that J.J. intentionally also set up the romantic relationship being developed between Rey and Kylo Ren.

I can see this. Abrams originally was handling the first film more like a series pilot - he was not expecting to come back and expected others to continue the story. So I can see where he and Kennedy would have plotted the arc of the trilogy. And we know some things were held over from George’s version. I think the course of IX was set during the production of TFA, though the details of the story were up to whoever did it. I hope at some point we get to find out what plot points were set at what time. It would amuse me to find out that some of the plot points in TLJ that people are so pissed about came from Lucas or Abrams.

And I’d like to chime in and thank the entire team for their hard and incredible work. I don’t play with files the size they do and it is a pain in the ass for me to capture, save, upload, and post screen shots. And when you move the files off your system for the next project, especially files of this size, it is a pain to bring them back up to do anything with them. What is truly lazy is not downloading them and comparing them yourself. Big thanks to ChainsawAsh for doing it.

DrDre said:

I’m color grading about 15-20 shots of ROTJ as a sort of teaser for a future shot by shot regrade of 4k83, and to display what a good source of reference Return of the Pug can be for those that are interested in having a go at it sooner. Here are the first eight. More will follow…

Awesome!

At this point the only value I see in the GOUT is as a guide to missing frames and as a color guide. But to get all the frames you have to combine the US and UK GOUT versions as their are frames missing at reel changes.

DrDre said:

Here’s what the opening shots on Tatooine look like for Return of the Pug, which has an appealing warm color pallette:

Here’s how that would translate to a color grading for 4k83:

Beautiful, DrDre!

Tobar said:

I would literally have to write off the entire ST if Hayden makes an appearance. And knowing JJ, there’s a very good chance that’s happening.

Well, I’d rather see PT actors play Anakin and Obi-wan than cast new people.

DrDre said:

DrDre said:

Williarob said:

E.g.:

16mm Reel 3 Preview:

With a little correction to dial back the blue (Courtesy of Memorex from forums.thestarwarstrilogy.com)

Here’s a quick correction that is in no way perfect, and is just based off the low res preview frames:

A little update:

Now those are looking great!

canofhumdingers said:

Oh, I think the contrast and brightness of ESB was totally ruined in many shots on the official Blu-rays… just look at how moody and atmospheric (and awesome) the lighting is in echo base in any film-based preservation and compare it to the blu rays. There’s a HUGE difference and the incredible lighting is almost destroyed in many shots.

I don’t think it was the blu-rays, it think it was the SE. I think the blu-ray is a pretty faithful archive of the SE colors, just leaning to too much red/magenta.

OmegaMattman said:

Located and currently reseeding on someone’s spleen. Not sure why anyone is still interested in this. But, for those who are . . . there it is 😉

Well, if you are after the GOUT version on DVD, this is a great presentation of it.

NeverarGreat said:

A random observation, but when C-3PO falls off of the Sail Barge in this version you can see part of the camera housing or something on the left which doesn’t appear in the Blu-ray. Is this in the VHS versions?

It is not in the GOUT, but then the cropping for the GOUT, Blu-ray, and 4k83 are each different so it might be something that was cropped out of the others.

timemeddler said:

I was just reading over the release notes for the first time, and the part about this being made from a special release print struck directly from the original negative, so we’re essentially working with an inter-positive?! YaY.

Same generation from the o-neg, but NOT an interpositive (which has lower contrast and a distinctly orange color). This is a print in the intended color timing made directly from the negative for special showings. Interpostives are made to master hundreds of prints (directly making internegatives from which the final prints are made).

These are the steps for release prints. This is supposed to be a print that skipped the middle two steps. Very commonly done in low numbers.

GZK8000 said:

Was Star Wars conceived as a “space opera” at all? I always thought it was a pastiche of pulp fiction and B series like Flash Gordon.

Technically, Flash Gordon is space opera. That is a genre that in some form has existed since the beginnings of the science fiction genre. Originally it was called planetary fiction, but it contains all the same elements, just based on a single alien world. That expanded in the 1930’s to multiple planets in one star system and expanded later to multiple star systems (Azimov’s Foundation stories were the first to take it galaxy wide). But the story type has varied very little. All the main elements of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series appear in Star Wars. Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon were hugely popular and planted the spark in GL’s mind. Reportedly he originally wanted to do Flash Gordon, but couldn’t get the rights so he invented his own. The galaxy he created is very much inspired by the greats of the 30’s to 60’s Space Operas like Flash Gordon, Foundation, Dune and many others. It seems he wanted to differentiate Star Wars from 2001 and THX-1138 (more reality based science fiction) and used space opera and then jumped to calling it space fantasy (which, when I’ve found it used as a genre, contains all the great space operas).

I know this exists somewhere, but I haven’t seen anything recently. I’m looking for a copy of the UK broadcast of Star Wars that the mono-mix was sourced from. Does anyone have a copy?