Disney Star Wars General Discussion

[Richard]

It should be telling that LucasFilm has absolutely nothing in the pipeline that set to come out over the next few years that builds off of anything established in the sequel trilogy. On the flip side of that, Clone Wars came out just 3 years after Revenge of the Sith was released and LucasFilm is still putting out new content that builds off of what was established in the prequel trilogy era.

That's because there was nothing new created out of that mess of a story and it literally detracts from the rest of Star Wars. If you make series off of it you'll just grind Star Wars into the ground. Hopefully it will be replaced as canon.

 

[wintersej]

The issues with Prequal Trilogy "PT" and the Sequel Trilogy "ST" are totally different and affect my enjoyment it two totally different ways.

Firstly, the PT failed in the actual execution, the "movie making" if you will, and was very interesting from a story perspective. Hell, look at all of the quality content we were able to extract from it. The PT's main failing had to do with George Lucas pushing new technology over story-telling, bad and clunky dialogue (which the original Star Wars had, as well), poor pacing and story plotting and, most importantly, bad acting. The actual storyline is good and set the stage for so many quality stories and motives. In fact, the PT storyline, I would argue, is much broader and opened up Star Wars, creatively, in a much larger way than even the OT.

Now, the ST is much better made (well The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi--- I could never bring myself to see The Rise of Skywalker) than ANY of the PT. The ST has a very, very, very large problem---- the story SUCKS. There is no motive, no real theme, characters change their motivations several times mid-film and then change back in the next film. The Villain is unoriginal and the story is redundant. In short, it absolutely fails the narrative test. There really isn't an overarching theme or story board. ABSOLUTELY the worst aspect of the ST is that, instead of building on the OT and the PT, it actively seeks to disparage its source material. It changes lore, it reduces characters that we have known since childhood to unrecognizable tropes (the same Luke who threw his lightsaber aside and declared he would rather die than join the dark side, has a nightmare and proceeds to try and murder his nephew....... ????? really?)

So to conclude, you can easily criticize both the ST and the PT --- but, in my opinion, for two completely different and distinct reasons. One, the PT, is an unrecognized hulk of content which was later mined successfully by others, including Dave Filoni. It contained some scenes of pure brilliance but was mostly marred by technical film making blips and bad acting. On the other hand, you have the ST, which is absolutely superbly made, and a piece of shit, story-wise. So you have an uncut gem and a polished turd. Therein lies the difference.
Give me the uncut gem everyday....

I agree to a degree. I think Filoni did an excellent job of building on the framework of the PT and not only expanded upon it, but filled in some pretty serious character development and plot holes. Anakin's turn, a huge part of those movies, was really a forced mess without seeing the gradual transition in the animate series. Dooku was a Snoke-like blank slate whatever bad guy. The Jedi council seemed like a ship of fools. Etc etc.

I suspect that the new Disney+ content will do much of the same "cleaning up" to the ST. What I can't argue is that the ST has a way more disjointed plot than the PT and that Disney made a big mistake in flipping back and forth between competing visions. But, I wouldn't put it past Filoni and company to make the disjointed plot start to make sense with some of the series work. I mean, the "surprise there is a palpatine clone!" nonsense is already becoming for more palatable from the Mandalorian and Bad Batch exploring early empire cloning efforts. I suspect that at some point we will get comfortable with the first order origins. And they obviously will have to deeper dive into the version of Luke in TLJ (a movie I think would be excellent if it was easier to buy into the Luke transition...which is obviously a huge huge if)

 

[wintersej]

It should be telling that LucasFilm has absolutely nothing in the pipeline that set to come out over the next few years that builds off of anything established in the sequel trilogy. On the flip side of that, Clone Wars came out just 3 years after Revenge of the Sith was released and LucasFilm is still putting out new content that builds off of what was established in the prequel trilogy era.

I view the end of episode 9 like the end of infinity war. There is no place to go without minimizing what happened. Them not just making a defacto episode 10 isn't a bug but a feature.

With Marvel they are looping back and picking up an entire new thread of the multiverse stuff from previous content.

I would put a lot of money on the last few episodes of Rebels being where the next set of movies gets its life from.

 

[Richard]

I agree to a degree. I think Filoni did an excellent job of building on the framework of the PT and not only expanded upon it, but filled in some pretty serious character development and plot holes. Anakin's turn, a huge part of those movies, was really a forced mess without seeing the gradual transition in the animate series. Dooku was a Snoke-like blank slate whatever bad guy. The Jedi council seemed like a ship of fools. Etc etc.

I suspect that the new Disney+ content will do much of the same "cleaning up" to the ST. What I can't argue is that the ST has a way more disjointed plot than the PT and that Disney made a big mistake in flipping back and forth between competing visions. But, I wouldn't put it past Filoni and company to make the disjointed plot start to make sense with some of the series work. I mean, the "surprise there is a palpatine clone!" nonsense is already becoming for more palatable from the Mandalorian and Bad Batch exploring early empire cloning efforts. I suspect that at some point we will get comfortable with the first order origins. And they obviously will have to deeper dive into the version of Luke in TLJ (a movie I think would be excellent if it was easier to buy into the Luke transition...which is obviously a huge huge if)

All it was silly though--- why do we have this new FIRST ORDER. Why is there a RESISTANCE when there is a REPUBLIC? It's all stupid.

They can't figure Luke. Having him go off and do nothing for 20 years or whatever is just silly. That is the line too far. You can't destroy your own myth. You can't fix it you just gotta try and skate around it and hope everyone forgets it.

 

[wintersej]

All it was silly though--- why do we have this new FIRST ORDER. Why is there a RESISTANCE when there is a REPUBLIC? It's all stupid.

They can't figure Luke. Having him go off and do nothing for 20 years or whatever is just silly. That is the line too far. You can't destroy your own myth. You can't fix it you just gotta try and skate around it and hope everyone forgets it.

The resistance/republic thing is on the editing room floor. The republic didn't believe the threat and was moving to a peaceful utopian vision and leia was out there arguing there were still threats. The New Order? Probably remnants of the old empire that ran away to the unknown regions. I agree that they are not explained in the movie! Luke clearly was out there doing stuff... and then stopped and ran away... for vague "there is no point" reasons. There is a story to tell there! Probably one that could be a great story if pulled off.

But you can play that with PT just as well all day. Did no one see the missing funds to pay for a clone whole clone army project?! How far up their own asses were the Jedi to not suspect Palpatine? Anakin's 5 minutes of transformation from "I think Palpatine is a Sith Lord" to "I am Darth Vadar and going to kill younglings" isn't just as bonkers as Luke transforming off screen?

Anyway, we all spend too much time trying to shit on these movies instead of enjoying them for what they are... kids movies that are so freaking good grown ass adults love them.

 

[Shockmaster]

All it was silly though--- why do we have this new FIRST ORDER. Why is there a RESISTANCE when there is a REPUBLIC? It's all stupid.

They can't figure Luke. Having him go off and do nothing for 20 years or whatever is just silly. That is the line too far. You can't destroy your own myth. You can't fix it you just gotta try and skate around it and hope everyone forgets it.

With how things ended in ROTJ, there was way too much of a quantum leap to how things were at the beginning of TFA. If there was going to be a new version of the empire rise up, and if Luke, Han, and Leia in some ways were all going to be failures in their older age, then we needed to see all that develop on-screen and not just take it for granted for the sake of plot convenience.

 

[Richard]

The resistance/republic thing is on the editing room floor. The republic didn't believe the threat and was moving to a peaceful utopian vision and leia was out there arguing there were still threats. The New Order? Probably remnants of the old empire that ran away to the unknown regions. I agree that they are not explained in the movie! Luke clearly was out there doing stuff... and then stopped and ran away... for vague "there is no point" reasons. There is a story to tell there! Probably one that could be a great story if pulled off.

But you can play that with PT just as well all day. Did no one see the missing funds to pay for a clone whole clone army project?! How far up their own asses were the Jedi to not suspect Palpatine? Anakin's 5 minutes of transformation from "I think Palpatine is a Sith Lord" to "I am Darth Vadar and going to kill younglings" isn't just as bonkers as Luke transforming off screen?

Anyway, we all spend too much time trying to shit on these movies instead of enjoying them for what they are... kids movies that are so freaking good grown ass adults love them.

You can't have a movie and NOT explain crucial plot points. Also, that would be like the United States, in 1970, deciding we don't need an Army no war crimes will happen again, no wars will start.... 25 years after WW2 when almost every veteran of that conflict is still alive.

Its such a stupid premise. There is no story there to tell.

We won a war which lasted for years (and looks with the Mandalorian to last longer) ..... lets not investigate or have a fleet.

Nope, sorry, just a lazy stupid trope to allow the writers to copy A New Hope. Hey we won the war handily BUT no one believes it! No one believes in keeping peace and order in the galaxy--- we will instead not have ANY military. But wait, some of us will break off... and for a RESISTANCE! A resistance to what you say? The First Order! Wait, you know about the First Order?>> Well why doesn't the Republic.

Its some of the stupidest logic games I've ever encountered.

Then how about we are on a big ship..... THEY CAN TRACK US IN HYPERSPACE.... but lets just drive straight ahead for 45 minutes. .... wait we have a ton of little ships on board....... no lets not use them some of us MIGHT escape! Wait why don't we jump to lightspeed a couple times? Why don't we scan for the tracking device?

I get it, lets drive till we are ALMOST out of fuel and then....... everyone get into those little ships and I'll crash the big ship into the other big ship... oh wait it will do nothing.

Those two movies I saw are just some of the worst shit ever written

 

[Richard]

With how things ended in ROTJ, there was way too much of a quantum leap to how things were at the beginning of TFA. If there was going to be a new version of the empire rise up, and if Luke, Han, and Leia in some ways were all going to be failures in their older age, then we needed to see all that develop on-screen and not just take it for granted for the sake of plot convenience.

The whole point of the Empire was that it was the Republic... no some foreign entity. There are thousands of star destroyers sitting in the core with thousands of people ... all by themselves. How do they eat? How do they get paid? How do they get supplied? I mean you own the galaxy so you ..... wait.... you just have a planet. AND THE STAR DESTROYERS ALL HAVE DEATH STAR LAZERS!!!! SO COOL!!! HOW DID THEY BUILD THEM ALL? Who paid for it? Who paid the workers? Who fed the workers?

 

[Garo]

That was always going to be hard considering the age of everyone though. You can't really make a follow up to ROTJ that is like five years later with Hamill Fisher Ford and recasting them was hardly ever an option.

Seems like they were banking on shows eventually getting there like Clone Wars did for the PT, and well, they are right now. Mandalorian is getting closer to that time and shows the remnants moving around, and it's just the first one to get there. It won't save the Sequels for a lot of people, what needed saving anyway, but it's understandable why it was the option taken.

Then how about we are on a big ship..... THEY CAN TRACK US IN HYPERSPACE.... but lets just drive straight ahead for 45 minutes. .... wait we have a ton of little ships on board....... no lets not use them some of us MIGHT escape! Wait why don't we jump to lightspeed a couple times? Why don't we scan for the tracking device?

I get it, lets drive till we are ALMOST out of fuel and then....... everyone get into those little ships and I'll crash the big ship into the other big ship... oh wait it will do nothing.

Ok seriously almost all of that is explained in the movie. There's a lot of criticism about TLJ's direction I can understand even if I don't really agree but almost every time someone gets nitpicky with it I just wonder if they even watched the film.

Internally, TLJ's logic is always backed up really well. Even if someone says that was not needed why someone does something is always backed up by the film and what it previously said. It's definitely not where the struggle is imo

 

[Richard]

That was always going to be hard considering the age of everyone though. You can't really make a follow up to ROTJ that is like five years later with Hamill Fisher Ford and recasting them was hardly ever an option.

Seems like they were banking on shows eventually getting there like Clone Wars did for the PT, and well, they are right now. Mandalorian is getting closer to that time and shows the remnants moving around, and it's just the first one to get there. It won't save the Sequels for a lot of people, what needed saving anyway, but it's understandable why it was the option taken.



Ok seriously almost all of that is explained in the movie. There's a lot of criticism about TLJ's direction I can understand even if I don't really agree but almost every time someone gets nitpicky with it I just wonder if they even watched the film.

Internally, TLJ's logic is always backed up really well. Even if someone says that was not needed why someone does something is always backed up by the film and what it previously said. It's definitely not where the struggle is imo

How was that backed up? Why didn't they all get in their xwings and bwings and chicken wings and all fly to separate parts of the galaxy? what explained that?

 

[Garo]

How was that backed up? Why didn't they all get in their xwings and bwings and chicken wings and all fly to separate parts of the galaxy? what explained that?

Kylo Ren blew up their hangar?

 

[Richard]

They had literally hours to do something--- secondary hanger? Escape pods. It's an extremely silly premise.

 

[Garo]

Well yeah, that's what they did lol.

 

[Shockmaster]

They had literally hours to do something--- secondary hanger? Escape pods. It's an extremely silly premise.

Not to mention the First Order ships couldn't catch up to the "lighter and faster" Resistance ships despite them being in zero gravity. I guess Rian Johnson never realized Darth Vader caught up to Princess Leia at the very beginning of Episode IV.

 

[Osprey]

If you grew up with the OT, you were probably disappointed and mad about the PT and like "here we go again" with the ST.

If you grew up with the PT, you probably like or don't mind it, but are disappointed and mad about the ST.

If you grew up with the ST, you probably like or don't mind it, but an even worse SW trilogy will eventually arrive and it'll be your turn to be disappointed and mad.

This is the way.

 

[MadDevil]

I do have nostalgic feelings about the prequels because I hadn't really gotten into Star Wars until the Special Editions came out just a few years before, so I didn't have 20+ years of being a fan with me when I saw them. Plus I just remember how much fun the run up to TPM was. I bought like every magazine that had a snippet of anything about it on it, and I had a subscription to Star Wars Insider at the time. I had all the drink cups from Taco Bell and all the Pepsi and Mountain Dew cans with Star Wars on the sides of it. I even went to the first Celebration, which was pretty much a mess (I seem to recall standing out in the rain under the wing of some plane where it was held, waiting to be let in).

That's probably also why I'm more forgiving of the prequels than I am the sequels. I at least have fond memories surrounding them, whereas with the sequels I really just don't, outside of the excitement of seeing the first couple trailers for TFA (Chewie we're home still chokes me up).

And I never really answered the question about the story in the prequels, so I would say that the "Chosen One who was supposed to be good turning to evil" story with Anakin (even if it wasn't executed all that well) was good, along with the fall of the Jedi, a once great order being manipulated and undermined by their ancient enemy that waited in the shadows for a millenia. To me those are better than anything the sequels did story wise.

 

[Shockmaster]

If you grew up with the OT, you were probably disappointed and mad about the PT and like "here we go again" with the ST.

If you grew up with the PT, you probably like or don't mind it, but are disappointed and mad about the ST.

If you grew up with the ST, you probably like or don't mind it, but an even worse SW trilogy will eventually arrive and it'll be your turn to be disappointed and mad.

This is the way.

 

[Bowski]

The ST clearly had very little planning and foresight going into it.

Reminds me of WCW's timeline:
TFA: Bischoff (JJ) hits it big by copying previous storylines and riding the nostalgia wave.
TLJ: Russo (RJ) pulls every swerve possible just for the sake of swerving the marks and nothing else.
ROS: Bischoff returns to clean up Russo's mess, only it's "Eric The Grey" now, a shell of a man devoid of any good ideas.

Luckily a lot of the non-feature film content has kept fans' interest and hopes high still.
Just need the next feature film not to be composed by a committee of Bischoffs/Russos/Prichards, but someone with actual talent and a vision.

 

[Osprey]

Mark Hamill heard that we were discussing this and decided to chime in...

STAR WARS Icon Mark Hamill Defends The Prequel Trilogy: "[They] Had Their Own Identity"

I was impressed the prequels had their own identity. They were criticized because they were exposition-heavy and more cerebral and probably, like he said back in 1976, they weren’t as commercial. It’s a darker story. But in the age of social media, people’s voices are amplified, and I’m shocked at how brutal they can be, not just in the case of Star Wars films, but across the board.

 

[Cas]

Mark Hamill heard that we were discussing this and decided to chime in...

STAR WARS Icon Mark Hamill Defends The Prequel Trilogy: "[They] Had Their Own Identity"

"Bad" is certainly an identity.

 

[x Tame Impala]

 

[RandV]

I'm long past interested in discussing the trilogies, but just an observation here that came to mind recently.

In the OT, ANH works as a stand alone film and leaves the future open. ESB ends with a hook that leads you to RotJ. The PT works in a similar manner, but a little clunkier. In the ST on the other hand, dropping the 'stand alone' part this is flipped. TFA ends with a big hook to the next movie, but TLJ ends on an ambiguous note without any clear future direction.

This is probably a subtle thing that people don't think of but has a big impact on mood when the movie ends. And looking at these as stories being contained in a trilogy, it doesn't have to follow the pattern of the OT and PT and technically you can make anything work if you do it well but the ST execution looks extremely clumsy here.

 

[Osprey]

I'm long past interested in discussing the trilogies, but just an observation here that came to mind recently.

In the OT, ANH works as a stand alone film and leaves the future open. ESB ends with a hook that leads you to RotJ. The PT works in a similar manner, but a little clunkier. In the ST on the other hand, dropping the 'stand alone' part this is flipped. TFA ends with a big hook to the next movie, but TLJ ends on an ambiguous note without any clear future direction.

This is probably a subtle thing that people don't think of but has a big impact on mood when the movie ends. And looking at these as stories being contained in a trilogy, it doesn't have to follow the pattern of the OT and PT and technically you can make anything work if you do it well but the ST execution looks extremely clumsy here.

I agree. With the OT and PT, Lucas had full control of the story. Even though he let other directors finish the OT, he still wrote the story. Abrams was supposed to be the Lucas of the ST, but he dropped the ball and gave Johnson freedom to write the Ep8 story that he wanted. Johnson is even the only credited writer on TLJ.

I think that Johnson is the type of personality who wants to do his own thing and put his own stamp on projects. In other words, he's more of creative loner than a team player, IMO, and not the kind of person that you should delegate just a part of something to, certainly not the middle part. He took what Abrams left him, threw some of it out, went in his own direction and then left things in a state that would be hard for the next writer/director to pick up from (ex. with no super villain and the Resistance seemingly down to one ship and a dozen people).

In fact, Trevorrow tried multiple times to write a suitable script that continued the story from what Johnson left him and couldn't do it, leading to him leaving as writer and director. At that point, filming was supposed to start in only 4 months and they didn't have a script, so Abrams stepped in to whip something up, and we know how that turned out.

In other words, Abrams not guiding the trilogy from start to finish and Kennedy hiring a creative independent to write and direct the crucial middle act really doomed the ST, IMO. It probably wouldn't have turned out good, anyways, but that's how it stands out (in a bad way) from the OT and PT.

 

[Shockmaster]

I agree. With the OT and PT, Lucas had full control of the story. Even though he let other directors finish the OT, he still wrote the story. Abrams was supposed to be the Lucas of the ST, but he dropped the ball and gave Johnson freedom to write the Ep8 story that he wanted. Johnson is even the only credited writer on TLJ.

I think that Johnson is the type of personality who wants to do his own thing and put his own stamp on projects. In other words, he's more of creative loner than a team player, IMO, and not the kind of person that you should delegate just a part of something to, certainly not the middle part. He took what Abrams left him, threw some of it out, went in his own direction and then left things in a state that would be hard for the next writer/director to pick up from (ex. with no super villain and the Resistance seemingly down to one ship and a dozen people).

In fact, Trevorrow tried multiple times to write a suitable script that continued the story from what Johnson left him and couldn't do it, leading to him leaving as writer and director. At that point, filming was supposed to start in only 4 months and they didn't have a script, so Abrams stepped in to whip something up, and we know how that turned out.

In other words, Abrams not guiding the trilogy from start to finish and Kennedy hiring a creative independent to write and direct the crucial middle act really doomed the ST, IMO. It probably wouldn't have turned out good, anyways, but that's how it stands out (in a bad way) from the OT and PT.

For the original ending of Episode VII, Luke was supposed to be levitating boulders with the force when Rey finds him. Had that part been kept in the original cut, that would have completely blown up the plot of Episode VIII as Luke had cut himself off from the force.

 

[Osprey]

For the original ending of Episode VII, Luke was supposed to be levitating boulders with the force when Rey finds him. Had that part been kept in the original cut, that would have completely blown up the plot of Episode VIII as Luke had cut himself off from the force.

So, the original ending, which was to make all of us OT fans giddy with excitement for Ep8, was the impressive sight of Luke levitating boulders, demonstrating what an old Jedi Master is capable of... and Johnson decided to use that in his own movie and give the ability to the character who had her first training only a couple of days earlier?