New Empire vs New rebellion in the sequels: Biggest mistake?

[ray245]

The Light side V Dark side thing is PLAYED THE FUCK OUT. Let it die.

Tell that to the narrow-minded fans who thinks all main SW movies might invovle lightsaber duels between light sider and dark sider.

[MKSheppard]

Read the Doctor Aphra comics, guys.

She was a minor one shot "assistant" introduced in the current DARTH VADER comic (I can't remember which one since it's been rebooted three times under Marvel).

She grew a life of her own and got her own comic.

Think of her as a morally-ambiguous female Indiana Jones/Lara Croft type.

In one of her comics, they locate a long lost Jedi temple thingy, and it's full of thousand-year old corpses of Jedi.

So what does Aphra do? She starts looting the lightsabers as that'll bring money on the archaeological black market

[MKSheppard]

Tell that to the narrow-minded fans who thinks all main SW movies might invovle lightsaber duels between light sider and dark sider.

Dark Forces was better when it was a DOOM clone with you against the Empire as Kyle Katarn, Rebel SpecOps guy, than as Kyle Katarn, FORCE APPRENTICE. (DF2: Jedi Knight)

[chimericoncogene]

I really think the conflict should have been about a schism within the Jedi Order in which neither group falls to the Dark Side. Instead, the conflict is about whether the Jedi can remain apolitical or whether they should remain beholden to the Republic. You could even still have a lightsaber duel or two, albeit one that requires an actual specific reason for them to fight other than simply Jedi vs Sith. It would also be interesting to see a fight like this in which both sides are clearly holding back because they don't want to kill each other.

As I said in the other thread on ROS:

Phantom Menace to Return of the Jedi was the epic culmination of the Jedi vs Sith / Light v Dark religious war.

Consulting the new canon:

5,000 BBY Sith v Jedi War ending with Coruscant falling and the Sith building a shrine on the planet.
4,000 BBY: Jedi temple constructed atop the ruins of the sith shrine.
1,019 BBY Jedi-Sith War ends with Sith thrown off Coruscant, Rule of Two Established

etc etc.

The Light side V Dark side thing is PLAYED THE FUCK OUT. Let it die.

Hence Adam's suggestion to have a non-space-magic-related political conflict within the New Jedi Order - which I agree is a very interesting direction to take the Jedi story arc. The New Order needs to figure out its new role in the galaxy, and friction - even shooting - is inevitable. Throw in a bigger galactic conflict behind it and boy, you've got a compelling story. If you want, throw some dark side into it (entirely optional in my book, I don't particularly care).

Don't get me wrong, I greatly prefer Star Destroyers, massive military-industrial bases, galactopolitical conflict and its economic underpinnings, and space western archtypes to space magic users and their silly religious wars.

However, the Jedi are part of the setting, and in a universe containing mind-reading supermen, an organization composed of them will have to be directed into profitable ventures somehow - someone's going to recruit mind-reading supermen for whatever purpose, regardless of the risks. Better that the Jedi do it than the Sith. Exactly what those profitable ventures should be is an open question now that the Order is starting from scratch - which is where we can have lovely lovely conflicts to watch.

Also, casual moviegoers expect Jedi (yes, too many people think Star Wars is all about the Jedi), and they wouldn't quite like the main-line Star Wars movies as much without them. Heck, even I think that, in the interests of tradition, the main-line Star Wars movies should indeed involve the Jedi in some capacity, with purely non-force-user adventures left for anthrology stories or separate trilogies (as we all know, the possibilities are literally endless - from war stories to rom-coms to simple adventure (the Aphra thing you noted) to political shows). The Clone Wars cartoon had some excellent arcs not dealing with the Jedi at all; they should do the same with movies. Not every story has to involve sanctimonious mind-reading supermen.

[ray245]

Also, casual moviegoers expect Jedi (yes, too many people think Star Wars is all about the Jedi), and they wouldn't quite like the main-line Star Wars movies as much without them. Heck, even I think that, in the interests of tradition, the main-line Star Wars movies should indeed involve the Jedi in some capacity, with purely non-force-user adventures left for anthrology stories or separate trilogies (as we all know, the possibilities are literally endless - from war stories to rom-coms to simple adventure (the Aphra thing you noted) to political shows). The Clone Wars cartoon had some excellent arcs not dealing with the Jedi at all; they should do the same with movies. Not every story has to involve sanctimonious mind-reading supermen.

The casual moviegoers think they should expect Jedi, when they actually don't. That's why a good filmmaker do not cater to the taste and demands of fanboys, because it is inherently creatively limiting.

[chimericoncogene]

The casual moviegoers think they should expect Jedi, when they actually don't. That's why a good filmmaker do not cater to the taste and demands of fanboys, because it is inherently creatively limiting.

Certainly. But in this case, I think that depending on the storyline chosen, the Jedi probably can have a meaningful contribution to make to the story. This is especially the case for main-line movie arcs, which tend to deal with events of galactic significance. And if the topic matter (as I suggested) would be the establishment of a new political order in the SW galaxy, the Jedi order's involvement would be expected, given the close links between the political elite and the new Jedi Order.

The fact that it would also cater to Jedi fans is a simple bonus.

I generally expect main-line SW movie arcs (one arc per trilogy? I dunno) to have high stakes - that is, a major galactic-scale (or at least sector-scale) conflict should occur and be resolved. I suspect that the stakes should be the primary distinguishing factor for the main-line movies, Jedi or no (arguably, because they are so close to power centers, Jedi are always in the high-stakes game). Main-line SW movies should drive the wheel of fantasy history forward (and the weird rehashed Sequel Trilogy just did not do that very well).

A main-line movie about Lara Croft IN SPAAACE would be fun, but the fate of the galaxy would have to hang in the balance somehow, or as in AOTC, Lara Croft would have to pull on strings until she discovered she was caught up in events with implications for the (galacto-political) fate of the galaxy. An anthrology tale allows for non-galactic, but no less important, stakes (e.g. saving your own hide, a spice shipment, credits, etc, etc).

[The Romulan Republic]

I do feel that a mainline Star Wars story should have at its heart the conflict between good and evil, as represented by the Light and Dark Sides of the Force and their respective users. Doesn't have to be Jedi and Sith per say*, but that conflict is at the core of what the franchise is. If you don't want that, then its just "generic sci-fi action franchise", almost.

I also am inclined to agree that the stakes need to be galactic or at least regional/sector-wide in scope.

You can do other stories in side films, shows, books, etc. But I think that epic interstellar scope and a Light Side vs Dark Side conflict is pretty central to what Star Wars is, for the major projects at least.

I also think that lightsabers, like droids and hyperdrives, are an iconic part of the franchise's look and conventions, in the same way that black suits and pointy ears are for Batman or flight is for Superman. So its hard to dispense with them for long.

Pretty much everything else is up for grabs, though. And as long as they keep a few of the basic visual cues of Star Wars, and don't outright contradict the rest of the setting, stand-alone films and EU stuff can do pretty much whatever the hell they want, and as far as I'm concerned, the more variety the better.



*I would be interested to see more alternative takes on the Light and Dark Side, outside the Jedi/Sith conflict. Ahsoka as an independent Light Sider in The Clone Wars/Rebels is great. We've also seen Dark Siders who's ambitions were smaller than galactic dominance (revenge, bounty hunting, crime lords, etc.). But it would be nice to see a major Dark Side villain who was more interested in simple destruction and chaos, or genuinely saw themselves as a "necessary evil", at least to begin with, or something. Not just Sith and Sith in all but name.

I've always thought it would be interesting to see a Dark Sider who was kind of like a Force-powered Joker- a nihilist who just wants to see it all burn.

[chimericoncogene]

Pretty much everything else is up for grabs, though. And as long as they keep a few of the basic visual cues of Star Wars, and don't outright contradict the rest of the setting, stand-alone films and EU stuff can do pretty much whatever the hell they want, and as far as I'm concerned, the more variety the better.

*I would be interested to see more alternative takes on the Light and Dark Side, outside the Jedi/Sith conflict. Ahsoka as an independent Light Sider in The Clone Wars/Rebels is great. We've also seen Dark Siders who's ambitions were smaller than galactic dominance (revenge, bounty hunting, crime lords, etc.). But it would be nice to see a major Dark Side villain who was more interested in simple destruction and chaos, or genuinely saw themselves as a "necessary evil", at least to begin with, or something. Not just Sith and Sith in all but name.

The whole dark-sider whose ambitions were smaller than galactic domination plot and necessary-evil stuff has been done before - that was Anakin Skywalker's entire schtick!

He started out pissed at the Jedi Order for various medium-sized things (including throwing out his Padawan, passing him over for a promotion, and generally being ineffectual monastic hypocrites who didn't really care about the people of the Republic - recall the general impression in S5 and 7 of TCW) and basically joined Palpatine out of a desire to save his wife from her impending doom. Secondary objectives (from lines like "make things the way we want them to be" and "my new Empire") probably included ending slavery and other injustices propagated under the rule of the Galactic Republic.

Can you really think of a reason to turn evil more noble and compelling than saving your loved ones and bringing a new era of order, peace, and justice to a grateful galaxy?

It all went sideways, of course, but that was the entire point of the story. The Dark Side is not to be trusted, the ends don't justify the means, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that...

Although one does wonder what would have happened if Obi-Wan had just stayed out of his frickkin' way and let him rule the galaxy in peace with his loving wife and two kids to think of, and arms and legs to threaten Palpatine into doing his bidding (well, that was the plan)...

[The Romulan Republic]

I suppose that was sort of Anakin, but I felt his motives were always fairly selfish from the beginning, and "bring peace to the galaxy" was more a rationalization, just as "protect my loved ones" was really more "I can't stand to lose these people because they're MINE". But maybe I'm just being cynical.

Although one does wonder what would have happened if Obi-Wan had just stayed out of his frickkin' way and let him rule the galaxy in peace with his loving wife and two kids to think of, and arms and legs to threaten Palpatine into doing his bidding (well, that was the plan)...

Padme wouldn't have been able to stomach what Anakin wanted to do, she'd have argued against it, Anakin would have taken it as betrayal and turned violent. In short, exactly what happened except there'd be no one to get Padme and the kids to safety.

Or Palpatine would have used them as leverage on Anakin, or killed them to make sure his fall to the Dark Side stuck.

[chimericoncogene]

Padme wouldn't have been able to stomach what Anakin wanted to do, she'd have argued against it, Anakin would have taken it as betrayal and turned violent. In short, exactly what happened except there'd be no one to get Padme and the kids to safety.

Or Palpatine would have used them as leverage on Anakin, or killed them to make sure his fall to the Dark Side stuck.

Yes, that was the probably the rest of Palp's to-do list before Obi-Wan solved the problem for him.

[The Romulan Republic]

Padme wouldn't have been able to stomach what Anakin wanted to do, she'd have argued against it, Anakin would have taken it as betrayal and turned violent. In short, exactly what happened except there'd be no one to get Padme and the kids to safety.

Or Palpatine would have used them as leverage on Anakin, or killed them to make sure his fall to the Dark Side stuck.

Yes, that was the probably the rest of Palp's to-do list before Obi-Wan solved the problem for him.

Right, because a man who chokes his pregnant wife would have been a model husband if Obi-wan hadn't shown up at that exact moment.

[chimericoncogene]

Right, because a man who chokes his pregnant wife would have been a model husband if Obi-wan hadn't shown up at that exact moment.

Shrug. Many people have problems translating intentions into thoughts, and thoughts into actions properly. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, mental health problems, psychiatric and personality disorders, etc, etc...

How to interpret Anakin's character is entirely up to the viewer, IMO. If you watch the Clone Wars cartoon, he seems like a reasonable enough person, but he acts somewhat creepily in AOTC. To what extent Anakin's actions were the result of underlying character and personality flaws, the limitations of his upbringing as a slave and then a monk, the influence of the Dark Side, and extenuating circumstances partially of his own making (desperate people are dangerous people) is also, IMO, entirely up to the viewer to decide.

How "Evil" the Dark Side actually is is also, IMO, open to interpretation. It's certainly corrosive, that's for sure, but is it possible for people to do good using dark magic? (The traditional answer is no, of course, since magic, unlike technology, is usually interpreted to actually have "good" and "evil" forms, dependent on the alignment of the user, but a revisionist/trope-subversionist approach is entirely reasonable).

I'm using a lot of IMOs here because this is veering into art appreciation, which is mostly opinion-based.

Anyway, back on topic - a better Sequel Trilogy Space Magic Sub-Plot.

Since the PT already covered how reasonable people can fall to the dark side, the limitations of the light side of the force (through the flaws of the Jedi) and the OT covered resistance to such a fall and redemption...

If we're to avoid covering well-trodden ground, the suggestion that the ST should see the Jedi try to figure out the proper place for the New Jedi Order seems like a good one. It explores the good that the light side can do and the benefits of the light side as well as its limitations.

Can Jedi make good explorers? Medical staff? Force-studying Wizard-Scientists (that was where the Jedi Order began)? Hyperspace Scouts? Is going back to peacekeeping and being a branch of government really the best option? Can the Force be turned into tech? Should the Force be turned into more tech (like the old Sith pyramids, holocrons and Force-enabled hyperdrives) and commericalized for the good of galactic civilization? The possibilities for conflict/storytelling in answering this question are endless.

We've seen light vs dark, and dark vs dark happens all the time. Light vs Light is new, and thus interesting to watch.

Another compelling story might be one in which the Sith are reborn once more within the ranks of the Jedi, but unless it was executed very well (with an emphasis on "start from scratch") it would feel pretty rehashy.

[The Romulan Republic]

Anakin in The Clone Wars and Anakin in the Prequel films are somewhat different. I was thinking more in terms of the latter, I believe. But I think we can safely say that Anakin had issues with possessiveness and fear of losing the people close to him from childhood, due to the loss of his mother. And that he developed anger control issues at least as early as AotC.

Light vs Light is really hard to do. Either both sides play nice, and there's little real threat, or someone crosses a line, and becomes the bad guy, or they both cross lines, in which case its very easy to end up with all of your characters unlikeable. I'm not saying a Light vs Light story is impossible to do well, but its a tough balancing act, I think.

I'm not a big fan of more relativist/"grey" interpretations of the Force. I feel that they undercut the metaphysics and themes established in the OT, which I mostly like, to conform to a moral relativism and "ends justify the means" philosophy which is more in vogue with many critics and parts of the fandom now. That said, while I do see there being a Light and Dark side, good and evil, in the setting, its established from very early on that individuals are not all one or the other, any more than they are in the real world. If they were, then Vader could never have fallen or been redeemed, and Luke could never have been tempted.

As to the Sequels, I think that a Sequel fundamentally needed to do four things:

-It needed to meet the basic expectations for a Star Wars film. What those are is a matter of contention, and trying to meet every fan's expectations is a futile endeavor, but I'd say a mostly-family-friendly adventure in space, an epic interstellar or galactic scope with lots of spectacle, and the presence of certain recognizable devices (hyperdrives, droids, blasters, light sabers, the Force) are fairly obvious.

-It needed to meet the basic expectations for a Sequel trilogy. That is, it follows through on the stuff RotJ set up as the future, or else (more challengingly) subverts it in a way that is plausible and doesn't feel like a cop-out/ass pull. Ie Luke as a Jedi training students, preferably without that "no love or families" crap, the Rebellion having set up a new government which is less tyrannical and corrupt than the Empire, Leia and Han as a couple, the Empire/Dark Side gone or greatly weakened, Han/Luke/Leia reunited on-screen.

-It needed to introduce new characters who can continue the saga, and find a way to pass the torch without doing a disservice to the old icons. This being the 21st Century, greater diversity in casting is highly advisable on both pragmatic and moral grounds.

-It needed to give these heroes a threat to deal with which isn't just a rehash of the OT or PT, but is still compatible with them, flows logically from them, and is compatible with all of the above.

To me, the logical story to tell here is that of the struggle for an insurgency to turn into a functioning government and rebuild on the ruins Palpatine left behind, the people left behind by that struggle, the younger generation stepping up to go further than the old heroes could, and the old heroes realizing that they need to pass the torch to younger people with a bigger vision for change than merely restoring the Republic.

[Gunhead]

I don't really give a crap one way or the other about how Luke's character was handled in TLJ but to say it somehow went wildly of track from TFA, then you weren't paying attention. The end of TFA basically leaves two options open, one where Luke never started a new Jedi order, hence forth known as the more interesting option and the one they went with which shall be know as the "We are talentless hacks who can't be fucking bothered" option.
Which is again one of the bigger failing points of the sequels to keep this on topic, because I feel this is fast slipping into the pit hole of fanfic fantasy land of "If I wrote the sequels".
Back on the topic and failings, I think people who say Johnson "cleverly subverted expectations" are talking out of their asses. Thing is, the only expectations he may or may not have subverted were preconceived notions people had when they went to see TLJ. He didn't create any expectations in regards to Luke's character, this should have been done in TFA and Johnson didn't direct that nor did it really setup Luke's character in TLJ outside of ... he's missing. As to the rest of the movie.. ass pulling is not subverting expectations nor is wasting minutes to show Rey torment space hobbits.
That said, someone might think I'm blaming Rian Johnson alone, I'm not. I'm blaming shitty script writing combined with a director who was given the unenviable task of making the middle film and I think he was not up to the job.
Make what you will out of it, in general I'm far more forgiving for the failings of TFA because it had to do more in terms of setting up the new characters, worldbuilding and so on.. but hooo boy does it have it's failings too. Overall, the biggest sin the sequels are guilty of, to me at least, is that they were boring. This is the main reason I haven't been able to watch through them again, I've tried but just can't be assed to finish them.

-Gunhead

[ray245]

Make what you will out of it, in general I'm far more forgiving for the failings of TFA because it had to do more in terms of setting up the new characters, worldbuilding and so on.. but hooo boy does it have it's failings too. Overall, the biggest sin the sequels are guilty of, to me at least, is that they were boring. This is the main reason I haven't been able to watch through them again, I've tried but just can't be assed to finish them.

-Gunhead

What world-building? TFA was just a big reset button that brings everything back to square one as opposed to a movie that tries to tackle the actual consequences of a world after ROTJ.

[Gunhead]

Make what you will out of it, in general I'm far more forgiving for the failings of TFA because it had to do more in terms of setting up the new characters, worldbuilding and so on.. but hooo boy does it have it's failings too. Overall, the biggest sin the sequels are guilty of, to me at least, is that they were boring. This is the main reason I haven't been able to watch through them again, I've tried but just can't be assed to finish them.

-Gunhead

What world-building? TFA was just a big reset button that brings everything back to square one as opposed to a movie that tries to tackle the actual consequences of a world after ROTJ.

What little it did. Like I said, it's not like I'm excusing TFA, it has a multitude of problems but if there had been a singular creative vision at play, TFA had enough in it that you could have conceivably made a solid sequel. Well that's what the optimist in me is thinking. Back when TFA came out I even thought they could make Rey into an actual character, or any of the main cast for that matter. Turns out I was wrong but I waited till TLJ to give up totally.

-Gunhead

[ray245]

What little it did. Like I said, it's not like I'm excusing TFA, it has a multitude of problems but if there had been a singular creative vision at play, TFA had enough in it that you could have conceivably made a solid sequel. Well that's what the optimist in me is thinking. Back when TFA came out I even thought they could make Rey into an actual character, or any of the main cast for that matter. Turns out I was wrong but I waited till TLJ to give up totally.

-Gunhead

You were excusing TFA, and that's why we end up with what we got in the end. It's people excusing all of Abrams flaws again and again before he was hired for the job. TFA failed to give you proper worldd-building that is necessary for sequels to grow and develop. it is why TLJ was so awkward of a job, as it had to do massive amount of developing in terms of backstory development.

Mystery box story-telling is a horrible way to start a franchise if you have no idea what is inside the mystery box.

[chimericoncogene]

I feel this is fast slipping into the pit hole of fanfic fantasy land of "If I wrote the sequels".

That said, someone might think I'm blaming Rian Johnson alone, I'm not. I'm blaming shitty script writing combined with a director who was given the unenviable task of making the middle film and I think he was not up to the job.

Make what you will out of it, in general I'm far more forgiving for the failings of TFA because it had to do more in terms of setting up the new characters, worldbuilding and so on.. but hooo boy does it have it's failings too. Overall, the biggest sin the sequels are guilty of, to me at least, is that they were boring. This is the main reason I haven't been able to watch through them again, I've tried but just can't be assed to finish them.

I'm going to echo ray a bit here, but I was convinced the ST was in trouble the moment TFA came out and the worldbuilding and plot was... unimaginative to say the least.

TFA completely failed to set up an interesting conflict that was distinct from what had come before, and building a setting to fit that conflict. Which was kind of critical considering that it was leading into a trilogy in a shared universe setting highly reliant on worldbuilding for appeal. IMO, TFA has to take on much of the responsibility for how everything turned out.

Yeah, this is veering hard into fan-fiction territory, and therefore rather embarrassing to us all, but I think that as long as we're having fun and some interesting ideas are boiling out of the woodwork... we might as well keep having fun.

I'm particularly fond of the idea of the Jedi returning to their roots as scientists studying the force and rebuilding those weird pyramid-machine-thingys again for fun and profit.

[ray245]

I'm going to echo ray a bit here, but I was convinced the ST was in trouble the moment TFA came out and the worldbuilding and plot was... unimaginative to say the least.

TFA completely failed to set up an interesting conflict that was distinct from what had come before, and building a setting to fit that conflict. Which was kind of critical considering that it was leading into a trilogy in a shared universe setting highly reliant on worldbuilding for appeal. IMO, TFA has to take on much of the responsibility for how everything turned out.

The fact that nearly all of Abrams' "franchises" crash and burn towards the end is not a coincidence.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, I don't think its entirely fair to blame Rian Johnson or say he "wasn't up to the job" of building the middle film when the preceding and following films were so deeply flawed. Likely his middle film would have worked better if it wasn't building on a weak foundation, or if its successor hadn't had undercutting it as its Prime Directive.

Imagine a trilogy where TLJ was the follow-up to a more original and less clunky TFA, and where RoS actually tried to follow up on the stuff that happened in TLJ instead of ignoring it or handwaving it away.

Of course TLJ doesn't work as the middle segment of this trilogy. Because there is no coherent story or theme in the ST, not even within or between Abrams' own films.

I think there are three likely possibilities:

1. Rian Johnson was lead to believe that his film was compatible with Disney and Abrams' ultimate plans, and acted accordingly. In which case, he's not at fault, or at least not mostly.

2. Rian Johnson was aware that there was no coherent plan, so basically said "Fuck it, I'm just going to make the movie I want to make". In which case, its hard to blame him. If Disney and Lucasfilm wanted an unoriginal hack who wouldn't do anything too creative, they should have hired one. Or just had Abrams do all three films. Same difference.

3. It started out as #1, then the internet fascist and fan bro backlash happened and Disney thew Johnson under the bus. In which case, he has exactly zero blame for his bosses being two-faced dip shits. I think this is likeliest.

[ray245]

Yeah, I don't think its entirely fair to blame Rian Johnson or say he "wasn't up to the job" of building the middle film when the preceding and following films were so deeply flawed. Likely his middle film would have worked better if it wasn't building on a weak foundation, or if its successor hadn't had undercutting it as its Prime Directive.

Imagine a trilogy where TLJ was the follow-up to a more original and less clunky TFA, and where RoS actually tried to follow up on the stuff that happened in TLJ instead of ignoring it or handwaving it away.

Of course TLJ doesn't work as the middle segment of this trilogy. Because there is no coherent story or theme in the ST, not even within or between Abrams' own films.

I think there are three likely possibilities:

1. Rian Johnson was lead to believe that his film was compatible with Disney and Abrams' ultimate plans, and acted accordingly. In which case, he's not at fault, or at least not mostly.

2. Rian Johnson was aware that there was no coherent plan, so basically said "Fuck it, I'm just going to make the movie I want to make". In which case, its hard to blame him. If Disney and Lucasfilm wanted an unoriginal hack who wouldn't do anything too creative, they should have hired one. Or just had Abrams do all three films. Same difference.

3. It started out as #1, then the internet fascist and fan bro backlash happened and Disney thew Johnson under the bus. In which case, he has exactly zero blame for his bosses being two-faced dip shits. I think this is likeliest.

I think he was dealt a very bad hand from the beginning. You can tell he is trying to do something different with Star Wars with the whole canto bright side-story about how war profiteers are profitiing from the Rebel vs Empire war MK2. That does not gel with the set up in TFA, with the resistance being an utterly tiny force compared to even the Rebel Alliance.

There was a very, very cynical approach by Lucasfilm under Kennedy to give in to the fanboys when they hired Abrams. There was a lot of attempt at sidelining and downplaying almost any prequel era stuff. Clone Wars was cancelled, EA's battlegrounds giving us no prequel era content at all and so forth.

[chimericoncogene]

Yeah, I don't think its entirely fair to blame Rian Johnson or say he "wasn't up to the job" of building the middle film when the preceding and following films were so deeply flawed. Likely his middle film would have worked better if it wasn't building on a weak foundation, or if its successor hadn't had undercutting it as its Prime Directive.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to disagree on that. Rian Johnson had an opportunity to rescue the franchise, and blew it badly. It's not the story he told - story is filmmaker's prerogative - but rather, his failure to build out a more interesting setting and, if I am to be frank, his blithe ignorance of the setting itself.

I mean, Incom (or its successor) sells X-wings, Sinear sells TIE Fighters. At least make it clear who is doing the profiteering! Set it in Kuat System or something! Don't have Holdo save the day with an irritating hyperdrive maneuver - use lost-sith-tek, her own pet superweapon project (we need girls in engineering, people!), something else! And Star Wars literally has slaves for you to free - enslaved wookiees, geonosians, droids, clones etc, etc. Why the weird Oliver Twist stable-boys? Why not trigger a slave revolt, a droid revolt, instead of meaninglessly freeing animals?

I think he was dealt a very bad hand from the beginning. You can tell he is trying to do something different with Star Wars with the whole canto bright side-story about how war profiteers are profitiing from the Rebel vs Empire war MK2. That does not gel with the set up in TFA, with the resistance being an utterly tiny force compared to even the Rebel Alliance.

There was a very, very cynical approach by Lucasfilm under Kennedy to give in to the fanboys when they hired Abrams. There was a lot of attempt at sidelining and downplaying almost any prequel era stuff. Clone Wars was cancelled, EA's battlegrounds giving us no prequel era content at all and so forth.

We all would have liked originality. War profiteering and robber barons make excellent sense in a fragmented post-Imperial Galaxy with lots of little petty wars, or a NR-Imperial Remnant conflict. But the spark of creativity was not executed well - partially because TFA didn't set up a good setting, partially because neither Rian Johnson or JJ Abrams grokked the setting. It's not impossible - look, Dave Filoni at Lucasfilm grokked it - his work on The Clone Wars and Rebels is pretty good, and makes good use of the standard RPG toolkit. R1 grokked it convincingly.

The failure to even consider the world the Prequels built was a massive failure of the ST. I loved them so so so much when I was a kid, and they still hold up exceedingly well on rewatch. Personally, I consider AOTC the best Star Wars movie of them all. AOTC told a magnificent story, unraveling a galactic war out of a simple investigation of an assassination attempt.

But apparently, only simple messages, stripped of nuance and boiled down to slogans, get through any large organization of humans...

[ray245]

Yeah, I don't think its entirely fair to blame Rian Johnson or say he "wasn't up to the job" of building the middle film when the preceding and following films were so deeply flawed. Likely his middle film would have worked better if it wasn't building on a weak foundation, or if its successor hadn't had undercutting it as its Prime Directive.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to disagree on that. Rian Johnson had an opportunity to rescue the franchise, and blew it badly. It's not the story he told - story is filmmaker's prerogative - but rather, his failure to build out a more interesting setting and, if I am to be frank, his blithe ignorance of the setting itself.

I mean, Incom (or its successor) sells X-wings, Sinear sells TIE Fighters. At least make it clear who is doing the profiteering! Set it in Kuat System or something! Don't have Holdo save the day with an irritating hyperdrive maneuver - use lost-sith-tek, her own pet superweapon project (we need girls in engineering, people!), something else! And Star Wars literally has slaves for you to free - enslaved wookiees, geonosians, droids, clones etc, etc. Why the weird Oliver Twist stable-boys? Why not trigger a slave revolt, a droid revolt, instead of meaninglessly freeing animals?

I think he was dealt a very bad hand from the beginning. You can tell he is trying to do something different with Star Wars with the whole canto bright side-story about how war profiteers are profitiing from the Rebel vs Empire war MK2. That does not gel with the set up in TFA, with the resistance being an utterly tiny force compared to even the Rebel Alliance.

There was a very, very cynical approach by Lucasfilm under Kennedy to give in to the fanboys when they hired Abrams. There was a lot of attempt at sidelining and downplaying almost any prequel era stuff. Clone Wars was cancelled, EA's battlegrounds giving us no prequel era content at all and so forth.

We all would have liked originality. War profiteering and robber barons make excellent sense in a fragmented post-Imperial Galaxy with lots of little petty wars, or a NR-Imperial Remnant conflict. But the spark of creativity was not executed well - partially because TFA didn't set up a good setting, partially because neither Rian Johnson or JJ Abrams grokked the setting. It's not impossible - look, Dave Filoni at Lucasfilm grokked it - his work on The Clone Wars and Rebels is pretty good, and makes good use of the standard RPG toolkit. R1 grokked it convincingly.

The failure to even consider the world the Prequels built was a massive failure of the ST. I loved them so so so much when I was a kid, and they still hold up exceedingly well on rewatch. Personally, I consider AOTC the best Star Wars movie of them all. AOTC told a magnificent story, unraveling a galactic war out of a simple investigation of an assassination attempt.

But apparently, only simple messages, stripped of nuance and boiled down to slogans, get through any large organization of humans...

That's the problem at the heart of Lucasfilm. Kennedy as the head does not care much about world-building. She practically washed her hands off that responsibility as quickly as she could by creating a storygroup with absolutely no power or say over what directors can or cannot do.

It's not enough to be a good producer to manage a franchise like Star Wars. You need a producer or a boss that cares about making the world as a whole interesting and engaging for more stories to tell. Under her management, it is just resorting to OT nostalgia and almost nothing else.

It took a fan backlash for her to even get interested in funding a conclusion to the Clone Wars. It's why having a story-teller as a producer for Star Wars is so important. A story-teller can direct the directors and help them understand what kind of stories you want to tell, and what sort of world-building groundwork you want to do to make the world interesting.

[Gunhead]

You were excusing TFA, and that's why we end up with what we got in the end. It's people excusing all of Abrams flaws again and again before he was hired for the job. TFA failed to give you proper worldd-building that is necessary for sequels to grow and develop. it is why TLJ was so awkward of a job, as it had to do massive amount of developing in terms of backstory development.

Mystery box story-telling is a horrible way to start a franchise if you have no idea what is inside the mystery box.

I'm not any more forgiving towards TFA than I'm towards any first in a franchise movie and as I alluded before if I had to pick between JJ and Johnson, I'd give it to Johnson. I still maintain it probably wouldn't make much of a difference but we will never know for sure so that's just my personal opinion. To add, the reason I'd give it to Johnson is TROS which was awful.
I don't see how me thinking that you could've salvaged something out of the TFA somehow has bearing on what we got in the end. I have no control over what people churn out in Hollywood and while I had my suspicions I had no idea what the movies was like before I went to see it. Many things have less than stellar beginnings and while I did know Abrams directed the ST movies which I found to be meh, it wasn't enough for me to make any decisions regarding TFA as I don't really like Star Trek at all.
Overall, do I like the SW sequels? No, I don't. So whatever fanboy, if blaming me for "excusing" something makes you feel better go right ahead.

-Gunhead

[ray245]

Many things have less than stellar beginnings and while I did know Abrams directed the ST movies which I found to be meh, it wasn't enough for me to make any decisions regarding TFA as I don't really like Star Trek at all.

Overall, do I like the SW sequels? No, I don't. So whatever fanboy, if blaming me for "excusing" something makes you feel better go right ahead.
-Gunhead

I am not blaming you per say. I am saying the way fans and the media have allowed Abrams to get away with bad filmmaking is why we end up in the position we are today, with many fans outright hating the sequel era as a whole. It is the need to reconsider the way we allow filmmakers to get away with doing certain things

It's to recognise those alarm bells early that can actively shape who Disney hires or not hire for Star Wars ( Because Disney has shown to be a company that pays a disproportionate amount of attention to what fanboys say on the Internet)

I'm not any more forgiving towards TFA than I'm towards any first in a franchise movie and as I alluded before if I had to pick between JJ and Johnson, I'd give it to Johnson. I still maintain it probably wouldn't make much of a difference but we will never know for sure so that's just my personal opinion. To add, the reason I'd give it to Johnson is TROS which was awful.
I don't see how me thinking that you could've salvaged something out of the TFA somehow has bearing on what we got in the end. I have no control over what people churn out in Hollywood and while I had my suspicions I had no idea what the movies was like before I went to see it.

I think it will be a better choice to hire Johnson to do the first of the sequels, because he seems to be a director that pays a little bit more attention to world-building and set up than Abrams. But I do not think you could have salvaged anything out of TFA. The Empire vs Rebel set-up dooms a lot of storytelling opportunity because you are forced to repeat the same story threads as the OT.