GDT: Game 44: Sharks @ Utah 6:00pm NBCSCA

[Pavelski2112]

That doesn't bug me because we don't know for sure how many Jedi survived the initial Order 66 purge and whether or not Vader went and hunted down the remaining ones after. Not counting all the allegedly canon books published since the Disney takeover (because I haven't read any of them), I can only recall maybe a couple dozen Jedi deaths shown on screen across Revenge of the Sith, The Clone Wars and its various extant shows, and flashbacks in the various live action Disney+ series. The Star Wars wiki has well over 100 pages tagged with the descriptor "Jedi Purge Survivor" and while a bunch of them are/were sith or dark side users and some of them may be non-canon now because of the Disney purchase, it still paints the picture of there being a big, huge mess of Jedi out there for Vader to go after in the interim between Revenge of the Sith and the original movie.

In fact there was a comic made in the mid 2000s after the prequels that was just that. It was called Star Wars: Purge and the whole story was Vader hunting down Jedi while said Jedi tried (and spoilers: failed) to kill him in their final confrontation.

It's definitely not canon anymore beacuse Disney, but there's no reason not to figure some version of it didn't happen or that they can't go there eventually if they wanted to.

In fact with Hayden Christiansen now back in the fold I'd be up for a post-Obi-Wan (series), pre-original-movie series that's just Vader hunting Jedi. It'd be bleak and depressing as hell, but it might be interesting.

The prequels should all be non-canon and almost every piece of EU was better written

 

[karltonian]

The prequels should all be non-canon and almost every piece of EU was better written

You're not vong. I mean wrong...

 

[weastern bias]

The prequels should all be non-canon and almost every piece of EU was better written

That's the reason I'm so taken aback by Luke referring to The Emperor as "Darth Sidious" in The Last Jedi

We came SO close to the Disney trilogy avoiding any prequel references and that moment dropped the ball

It then also opened the floodgates for. . . whatever the HELL The Rise of Skywalker was, that f***ing mess

 

[The Nemesis]

The prequels should all be non-canon and almost every piece of EU was better written

The prequels were a good story badly told and that lies mostly at the feet of George Lucas being an all-sizzle, no-steak writer who has basically admitted that he sees dialogue as something more like an inconvenience necessary to get you to the next action sequence than something integral to the story. The story concept was good, but the execution was terrible because every scene is underpinned by people sounding like no human being (or humanoid alien) should ever sound like while delivering their lines. Harrison Ford was right when he snapped at Lucas during the first movie and said "you can write this shit, George, but you can't say it."

Even the Phantom Menace and the basic idea of them "randomly" discovering (arguably through the will of the force) Anakin on some remote backwater world and finding out that he is prodigeously talented with the force even if he doesn't know it and then having him somewhat involved in their escape from there since Palpatine is hunting them and the war has been brought to them on Naboo is totally fine in theory but ruined because everyone sounds like an idiot and every bit of dialogue-driven narrative progress is delivered with all the smoothness of riding a car with no suspension down an old gravel road. The Clone Wars show proved that capable writers can deliver a quality story in that setting when given the opportunity. Quite honestly it is the single best thing out of Star Wars fiction because it takes the good ideas inherent in the prequel trilogy and makes them work. Even the political stuff works because it actually gives Padme something to do that plays to her strengths instead of Episode II's super clumsy action hero gladiator pit stuff. She isn't a jedi. She's smart, cultured, savvy, and understands the political machine and how to use it. And that's where she shines while the Jedi would be reduced to just swinging their swords around.

As for "almost every piece of the EU was better written" I don't know. I haven't read everything and I am trying to start right now in and around the original trilogy before I work backwards and forwards from there. But from what I understand things get rough as we get into the books published in the early-mid 2000s and beyond (until the Disney buyout) things get a bit ropey and divisive.

Honestly if we set aside prequel era books for people that don't want to be tied to the story sprawled out from those movies since they almost all come after the movies were released with the exception of the handful of books that happen immediately before the original movies, the only things I see get universal praise are everything written by Timothy Zahn (but especially the like 6 books he wrote pre-Disney that focus around Thrawn and that story), AC Crispin's Han Solo trilogy (separate from Brian Daley's Solo trilogy from the 80s), The X-Wing series, and the "Tales from..." anthology books. New Jedi Order is divisive, The final two series of books are divisive, and the like 7 books that take place after the Jedi Academy Trilogy and its pseudo-mate book "I, Jedi" all suck to varying degrees. I have had the hardcover of Children of the Jedi for like 25 years and have basically never touched it because I've only heard how terrible it was and that its writer is considered one of the weaker ones among the multiple-book EU authors.

I tried to look up any analysis of the whole Legends/EU run for some sort of consensus and the closest I can find is a series of really clumsily done blog posts about collated 5-star ratings from various websites that spends more time talking about the math functions used than really discussing what any of it means, and which in the end clumps basically everything between average ratings of like 4.3 and 3.4 with only one series (the infamous "Jedi Prince" kids' novels) falling below 3.0. So it's hard to say that there's any broad agreement on where things are good or bad because all you really learn is that given a wide enough audience most stuff is going to fall into the mushy range of "fine."

That's the reason I'm so taken aback by Luke referring to The Emperor as "Darth Sidious" in The Last Jedi

We came SO close to the Disney trilogy avoiding any prequel references and that moment dropped the ball

It then also opened the floodgates for. . . whatever the HELL The Rise of Skywalker was, that f***ing mess

I could almost excuse Luke for using the name if it was used in concert with calling him Emperor Palpatine to demonstrate that Luke has put all the pieces together. But instead it felt clumsy and like it was made under the mistaken impression that super-fans would prefer his "true sith name" rather than the one that was more heavily used throughout the previous two eras. I don't mind if they want to drop prequel references because there are going to be people that grew up on those movies and look past the flaws in them too just in the same way that all of us that grew up on the originals look past their flaws (spoilers: George Lucas' shit writing was still present in the first 3 movies. It was just a bit blunted by the fact that he had other writers and editors on board to sand off his rough edges)

The sequel trilogy's problem is entirely down to the fact that The Force Awakens was basically a re-do of the original movie in a way that didn't properly set up for a sprawling new era of Star Wars to explore, then all the behind-the-scenes drama meant that we basically got 3 competing visions across all 3 movies because you had Abrams' original setup, Rian Johnson trying desperately to throw most of that away in The Last Jedi and running out of space to tell a good story in Ep 8, and then Abrams coming back and desperately trying to frankenstein together a clumsy mess out of the remnants of his original ideas, whatever bits of Johnson's work he didn't feel like discarding, and a bunch of what felt like lazy decisions just because he clearly wasn't ever going to enjoy crafting a movie that wasn't what he planned to do to begin with. Nothing worked because every movie worked against the others.

I thought TFA was alright, but it needed its sequel to be its Empire Strikes Back in order to better solidify it and make it worthwhile. Instead we got a trash heap that made basically everyone unimportant except Rey and Kylo Ren and then went f***ing nowhere with anything they set up (Rey being literally nobody would've been a fun twist. Kylo Ren trying and failing to redeem himself and being the ultimate villain would've been cool and tragic. Luke being bitter because he failed is fine (although I think his actual failure was pretty dumb in and of itself), but the way he went out was stupid. etc)

I'm going to have to make my peace with the sequel movies eventually just like I did with the prequels. I'm at least at the point now where I can watch the prequels and enjoy the parts I like about them for what they are (though the Phantom Menace less so). But part of my drive to get back into the Star Wars books was to go through the alternate take of franchise history and the alternate after-story that doesn't just discard everyone and spin its wheels to tell a clunkier version of hte original trilogy for no good reason.

 

[weastern bias]

 

[DG93]

The prequels were a good story badly told and that lies mostly at the feet of George Lucas being an all-sizzle, no-steak writer who has basically admitted that he sees dialogue as something more like an inconvenience necessary to get you to the next action sequence than something integral to the story. The story concept was good, but the execution was terrible because every scene is underpinned by people sounding like no human being (or humanoid alien) should ever sound like while delivering their lines. Harrison Ford was right when he snapped at Lucas during the first movie and said "you can write this shit, George, but you can't say it."

Even the Phantom Menace and the basic idea of them "randomly" discovering (arguably through the will of the force) Anakin on some remote backwater world and finding out that he is prodigeously talented with the force even if he doesn't know it and then having him somewhat involved in their escape from there since Palpatine is hunting them and the war has been brought to them on Naboo is totally fine in theory but ruined because everyone sounds like an idiot and every bit of dialogue-driven narrative progress is delivered with all the smoothness of riding a car with no suspension down an old gravel road. The Clone Wars show proved that capable writers can deliver a quality story in that setting when given the opportunity. Quite honestly it is the single best thing out of Star Wars fiction because it takes the good ideas inherent in the prequel trilogy and makes them work. Even the political stuff works because it actually gives Padme something to do that plays to her strengths instead of Episode II's super clumsy action hero gladiator pit stuff. She isn't a jedi. She's smart, cultured, savvy, and understands the political machine and how to use it. And that's where she shines while the Jedi would be reduced to just swinging their swords around.

As for "almost every piece of the EU was better written" I don't know. I haven't read everything and I am trying to start right now in and around the original trilogy before I work backwards and forwards from there. But from what I understand things get rough as we get into the books published in the early-mid 2000s and beyond (until the Disney buyout) things get a bit ropey and divisive.

Honestly if we set aside prequel era books for people that don't want to be tied to the story sprawled out from those movies since they almost all come after the movies were released with the exception of the handful of books that happen immediately before the original movies, the only things I see get universal praise are everything written by Timothy Zahn (but especially the like 6 books he wrote pre-Disney that focus around Thrawn and that story), AC Crispin's Han Solo trilogy (separate from Brian Daley's Solo trilogy from the 80s), The X-Wing series, and the "Tales from..." anthology books. New Jedi Order is divisive, The final two series of books are divisive, and the like 7 books that take place after the Jedi Academy Trilogy and its pseudo-mate book "I, Jedi" all suck to varying degrees. I have had the hardcover of Children of the Jedi for like 25 years and have basically never touched it because I've only heard how terrible it was and that its writer is considered one of the weaker ones among the multiple-book EU authors.

I tried to look up any analysis of the whole Legends/EU run for some sort of consensus and the closest I can find is a series of really clumsily done blog posts about collated 5-star ratings from various websites that spends more time talking about the math functions used than really discussing what any of it means, and which in the end clumps basically everything between average ratings of like 4.3 and 3.4 with only one series (the infamous "Jedi Prince" kids' novels) falling below 3.0. So it's hard to say that there's any broad agreement on where things are good or bad because all you really learn is that given a wide enough audience most stuff is going to fall into the mushy range of "fine."



I could almost excuse Luke for using the name if it was used in concert with calling him Emperor Palpatine to demonstrate that Luke has put all the pieces together. But instead it felt clumsy and like it was made under the mistaken impression that super-fans would prefer his "true sith name" rather than the one that was more heavily used throughout the previous two eras. I don't mind if they want to drop prequel references because there are going to be people that grew up on those movies and look past the flaws in them too just in the same way that all of us that grew up on the originals look past their flaws (spoilers: George Lucas' shit writing was still present in the first 3 movies. It was just a bit blunted by the fact that he had other writers and editors on board to sand off his rough edges)

The sequel trilogy's problem is entirely down to the fact that The Force Awakens was basically a re-do of the original movie in a way that didn't properly set up for a sprawling new era of Star Wars to explore, then all the behind-the-scenes drama meant that we basically got 3 competing visions across all 3 movies because you had Abrams' original setup, Rian Johnson trying desperately to throw most of that away in The Last Jedi and running out of space to tell a good story in Ep 8, and then Abrams coming back and desperately trying to frankenstein together a clumsy mess out of the remnants of his original ideas, whatever bits of Johnson's work he didn't feel like discarding, and a bunch of what felt like lazy decisions just because he clearly wasn't ever going to enjoy crafting a movie that wasn't what he planned to do to begin with. Nothing worked because every movie worked against the others.

I thought TFA was alright, but it needed its sequel to be its Empire Strikes Back in order to better solidify it and make it worthwhile. Instead we got a trash heap that made basically everyone unimportant except Rey and Kylo Ren and then went f***ing nowhere with anything they set up (Rey being literally nobody would've been a fun twist. Kylo Ren trying and failing to redeem himself and being the ultimate villain would've been cool and tragic. Luke being bitter because he failed is fine (although I think his actual failure was pretty dumb in and of itself), but the way he went out was stupid. etc)

I'm going to have to make my peace with the sequel movies eventually just like I did with the prequels. I'm at least at the point now where I can watch the prequels and enjoy the parts I like about them for what they are (though the Phantom Menace less so). But part of my drive to get back into the Star Wars books was to go through the alternate take of franchise history and the alternate after-story that doesn't just discard everyone and spin its wheels to tell a clunkier version of hte original trilogy for no good reason.

TL;dr

 

[Star Platinum]

Actually the one thing I would say about The Last Jedi is that anyone pissed off about The Last Jedi that isn't equally pissed off about The Force Awakens is someone I will never see eye to eye with.

 

[The Nemesis]

Actually the one thing I would say about The Last Jedi is that anyone pissed off about The Last Jedi that isn't equally pissed off about The Force Awakens is someone I will never see eye to eye with.

The thing that makes The Last Jedi worse than Force Awakens for me is that it's obvious there are parts of TLJ that are going out of their way to throw away stuff that TFA set up. I don't love everything TFA did, but it would've been OK if it was the springboard for its sequel to do something better. But instead it really feels like they brought in a new director who said "nah, I don't like most of that" and then used his sequel movie to half make a point of burying or casting off the parts of TFA he wasn't keen on and then half struggle to tell the story of a sequel that doesn't have its proper predecessor in place.

The solution here was blatantly, obviously clear from the get go: get the people you plan to handle the trilogy, even if it's 3 different directors as it was originally supposed to be, together to hash out a mutually agreeable story to tell so that everyone's on the same page. Or get a writers' room set up to tell the story independent of the directors, who then come in to make that movie with only minimal changes and if they don't like having to tell a story that was already put in place then they can GTFO. Instead they let Abrams lay the groundwork, let Rian Johnson go wildly off track, then tossed away Colin Trevorrow before they even got there because... I don't even know why honestly before going back to Abrams so he could ham-fistedly try and pretend that his own episode VIII happened in the middle of everything even though it didn't.

TFA is an acceptable movie that isn't trying very hard because it feels like it expects the later movies to pay it off. TLJ is a less acceptable movie because it feels like it didn't want to be there and didn't care if you noticed how clumsy some of its arc welding was. Also the downfall of Luke could've been interesting but instead kinda felt like a big middle finger to the fans of the previous movies.


sorry if this is tl;dr for some people...

 

[weastern bias]

 

[karltonian]

Getout.gif

 

[Pavelski2112]

The Last Jedi is very flawed. That said, the best stuff in it is some of the best in the entire series. Johnson had a lot of fantastic ideas and, to me, the biggest sin Abrams did was basically retconning the entire movie, instead of working off those ideas.

The Force Awakens, imo, is fantastic. Yea it's basically A New Hope Redux, but it does it fairly well and isn't a terrible formula to introduce new characters and plotlines. The only real mistake it makes is making Death Star 3 instead of something new to create the ticking clock.

 

[The Nemesis]

This is just wrong when Rise of Skywalker exists. Sure we know where Rogue One is going before we ever get there, but it gets there reasonably well. ROS is like watching 3 different people scream the plot at you at the same time so you have no idea what's going on or what connects to where.

The Last Jedi is very flawed. That said, the best stuff in it is some of the best in the entire series. Johnson had a lot of fantastic ideas and, to me, the biggest sin Abrams did was basically retconning the entire movie, instead of working off those ideas.

The Force Awakens, imo, is fantastic. Yea it's basically A New Hope Redux, but it does it fairly well and isn't a terrible formula to introduce new characters and plotlines. The only real mistake it makes is making Death Star 3 instead of something new to create the ticking clock.

Most of TFA's problems stem from it being "the thing from before, but less interesting.", at least when they're not "the thing that seems cool but isn't going to mean anything" (like basically everything about Finn. Or the shameless attempt to make Captain Phasma into a new Boba Fett) The problem is that where the original trilogy got a pass on its issue because it was new and interesting, the sequel trilogy doesn't have that leeway. Instead of "you've never done this before so of course you didn't know what you were doing" like with the making of those movies it's "you've had 30+ years to figure out how this works, so why haven't you?".

Honestly, The First Order would've been cool if it was set up to be like a new rebellion and now we see the story from the other side where our heroes are the big galactic government and the villains are the scrappy little resistance terrorists. But instead we just presume that somehow in spite of there having been the throes of a new republic or something else to rise out of the end of Return of the Jedi, we just go right back to where we were at the start of that trilogy and pretend like nobody's learned anything because it's easy to try and tell the same story over again.

At some point here I'm going to try and read what is purported to be Trevorrow's unused Ep9 script (Duel of the Fates) but I've heard that it doesn't really stick the landing any better than RoS, so I'm not expecting a lot from it.

 

[Pavelski2112]

Honestly, The First Order would've been cool if it was set up to be like a new rebellion and now we see the story from the other side where our heroes are the big galactic government and the villains are the scrappy little resistance terrorists. But instead we just presume that somehow in spite of there having been the throes of a new republic or something else to rise out of the end of Return of the Jedi, we just go right back to where we were at the start of that trilogy and pretend like nobody's learned anything because it's easy to try and tell the same story over again.

I can agree with this for the most part, and I think this is why something like Starkiller Base doesn't particularly work, aside from (like I said before) just being Death Star 3. That said, I could get into the mindset that an entire galaxy-sized Empire's leftovers would still be a fairly large and powerful group, and that it hasn't been quite long enough to fully rebuild the Republic. It's somewhat lazy in the larger story beats, but I like the characters and it feels like a solid springboard.

 

[coooldude]

Tl;Dr JJ Abrams is a hack who has zero original thoughts and therefore TFA was just ANH in a blender with 1-2 new ideas and RoS wasn't worth the data I used to illegally download it and watch it angrily to avoid giving Disney any money. TLJ tries to be unique and has some very good ideas but doesn't fit into the story because the story was engineered in focus groups and dysfunction to maximize profits rather than tell an original story or add anything to the legacy of Star wars and because of that I refuse to watch a single second of any more star wars content ever including the universally praised Andor.

f*** JJ Abrams.

 

[Star Platinum]

The Force Awakens, imo, is fantastic

 

[weastern bias]

This is just wrong when Rise of Skywalker exists. Sure we know where Rogue One is going before we ever get there, but it gets there reasonably well. ROS is like watching 3 different people scream the plot at you at the same time so you have no idea what's going on or what connects to where.

Rogue One commits the greatest possible sin for a Star Wars movie: It isn't any fun

That alone makes it worse than anything else from that era, I honestly hate that movie, it's so dour and self-serious, it doesn't belong in the franchise

 

[hohosaregood]

Rogue One has the concept of a story. Looked pretty though.

 

[Cas]

Star Wars is just another Davy Crockett/Tarzan media property that was huge at one point and then collapsed under its own weight because no one had any idea how to simultaneously tell good stories will retaining a core of the familiar.