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The weird thing about the sequels is the weird amount of people coping and saying they’re not that bad. It’s literally bad fanfiction written by people who couldn’t care less about the franchise.
I was a kid when the prequels came out and loved them despite how they were poorly recieved by old fans.
Maybe these people who like the sequels are kids/teens.
I actually really liked Last Jedi on its own and consider it in the top half of my ranking of the franchise. I think Luke’s characterization could’ve been handled better (and the whole Canto Bight subplot could’ve been cut wholesale) but looking at myself at 23 (how old Luke was in RotJ) and my experiences since, I found the lapse of judgement and faded optimism quite relatable. Adam Driver is one of my favorite actors and his portrayal of an abusive yet charismatic antagonist turned love interest was spot-on. There’s also the comparisons you could make between the First Order and the rise of fascism in America today. That one’s a bit of a stretch but it’s important to recognize World War II’s influence on the original trilogy and the Iraq War’s on the prequels.
That said, Rise of Skywalker is not only the worst Star Wars film- I consider it the worst film I’ve ever watched. It’s not a poorly-made film, the cinematography is great, but the plot is nonsensical. It redacts everything they set up in the Last Jedi, retroactively making that one worse than it is standalone. What seals it though is this will always be the ending of the saga- they can’t go back and fix it. I’ve probably seen worse movies, but the disappointment will never reach the level that this one gives me.
100% agreed with all of this. Well said.
They could make a 4th movie 😂 How would that plot go?
They are doing another Rey movie but it won’t be part of the “Skywalker Saga.” Can’t say I’m as excited as I would’ve been prior to IX but I will still definitely be there when it’s out.
Last Jedi was a good movie but it wasn’t a good Star Wars.
Technically it is very good, the director is great and made some brilliant stuff like knives out and tlj certainly isn’t a boring watch.7th was a mediocre ok movie and ok Star Wars. 9th was neither. Their stories don’t form cohesive whole.
To be honest nowadays I only like 4k77-83. Prequels are just cringe as an adult. At least we can all agree I think that the acolyte was some forgettable misunderstanding. I watched house of the dragon right after acolyte and I couldn’t believe how much much better the dragon show is. 180 milion dollars. I only remember I watched it but not a single scene made me feel anything
Love Rian Johnson, especially as a Breaking Bad fan.
I was 20 when TPM released and not a single person I knew liked it. It is still the most disappointing part of the franchise for me with ep2 being a close second. Ep3 was an improvement but still just ok.
Now I see people in their 20s and early 30s that live the prequels and it’s just strange to me. They’re no better than the sequels (and worse in some ways) so I really don’t understand people that enjoy them while crapping all over the newer films.
The prequels had a good story told incredibly poorly while the sequels have a bad story but at least it is told well (or at least better) and neither of those are recipes for a good film.
I liked TPM, except for the scenes with Anakin. I just hated how he was written, and the acting didn’t help. Huuuuuuge crush on Natalie Portman though
That kid did the absolute best he could with what he was given, and I feel very bad for him and the guy who played jarjar. They have both had some very serious issues because of the shitty starwars fans.
Man, I get so fucking bummed out every time I think of them. Can you imagine how excited and proud they were to be a part of goddamb STAR WARS?
Then all the shit gets dumped all over them and they’re endlessly ridiculed for something they likely loved and were happy to be a part of.
The total lack of empathy and compassion burns a hole in my stomach.
The prequels had a good story told incredibly poorly while the sequels have a bad story but at least it is told well (or at least better)
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I was also 20 when TPM was released. I hated everything about it at first. Then a couple years later when RLM made their review of the trilogy, it gave my thoughts new form, and I had to realize that what the prequels did well was establish a lot of lore and world building, which made TCW possible. Unlike most of the badly written EU books, it dared to deviate from X-Wings & TIEs, Han Solo and even the mysteries of the force. Even if we have forgotten gems like force speed, never to be used again.
And TCW is the bomb.
The prequels had a good story told incredibly poorly
This is redeemable, fun to read about extra info on wookiepedia, and fun to rewatch in whole context of that good story.
while the sequels have a bad story but at least it is told well (or at least better)
This is not redeemable, adds nonsense and contradictions to wookiepedia, and why bother rewatching a bad story at all? But hey, at least the acting is good and special effects are pretty!..?
Another thing is the prequels made the world of star wars feel big enough to fill a galaxy. The sequels made the world of star wars feel small (at the end of the day they introduced like 4ish new characters that matter and like 2 new worlds).
And to defend my point, characters:
- Rey
- Kylo
- Finn
- Poe
It’s hard to count Snoke, the Knights only show for a hot second, Storm trooper lady maybe, Admiral Holdo maybe, oh and Hux doesn’t deserve mention.
Planets:
- The planet with Maz
- Salt planet (Hoth 2.0)
- Exogol
- Casino Planet
I did look it up and there are a few more. Forgot Jakku isn’t just a part of tatooine. There is another desert planet apparently, there are also a couple planets the rebels set up at that are only pop up for a few minutes. Luke’s island is on a planet, but not sure that really counts. Starkiller base is listed as a planet, but that’s pretty much deaths tar 2.0.
To be fair, if you look at the original movies, most of the universe info is not contained therein.
There are books. You can, for example, pluck a trilogy on Han Solo’s backstory off the shelf at Barnes & Noble. You could do that 15-20 years ago. The books are all written by an array of different authors though they all take place within the Star Wars universe. What is that if not professionally written fan fiction?
FF isn’t my thing, I’m not endorsing it, just stating what I encountered when I tried to read a book or two engaging the Star Wars universe in the past.
They all had a stamp of approval from George Lucas though. Once Disney bought the franchise they said fuck all that and made it “not cannon”.
More importantly, they had someone dedicated to maintaining the canon and keeping the various authors from contradicting each other too much
good some of those books were worse than fanfiction
Thrawn came entirely from the books. The hype would not have existed for his appearance in the show had the books he was in been on the quality level of the sequels.
Hell, the sequels should have been based on the Thrawn trilogy
I still think Disney would make bank if they’d just declare Legends a separate canon, re-cast Han, Luke, and Leia with up and comers, and start adapting old EU novels.
They need to do the Republic Commando novels and they need to finally make the Starwars 1313 game. I will never not be salty about that.
thrawn was already in star wars rebels and pretty sure hes getting a movie or show
I am doubtful as to the number of those books George actually read.
I feel this about Futurama, and nobody else around me seems to care
I care. New Futurama seems different. I’ve seen all episodes and movies prior to 2023 at least 20 times a piece. At very least. The pre-2023 episodes are definitely all over the place in terms of quality too, don’t get me wrong. I really tried to keep an open mind but the new Hulu stuff seems different.
The original run of the show was the best, and it should have just stopped there. It’s all been very downhill from there. I watched the show so many times that I even had the DVD commentary memorized. This is one of the only hills I am willing to die on.
Every time it gets rebooted it’s worse
They’re just attached to the franchise and thus have a bias towards it. Some people go far beyond just the movies: books, comics, spinoffs. They’re far in too deep to objectively see the content they consume purely for its own value.
I mean, it’s not cope, I just like 7 and 8. I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, I’m not out to change anyone’s mind, I just liked the movies as a fun adventure with some good themes. I didn’t like 9 because my favorite part of 7 and 8 was the idea that you don’t have to be from some powerful family to be a hero (something that was better executed in Knives Out), but 9 really threw all that away.
I just wanted a fun star wars movie and every single one felt like it was star wars. Sure the plot sucked but I still enjoyed watching them.
Did they though?
In my opinion, yes. If you don’t agree, that’s okay too. Or not, the downvotes say that it’s not allowed
You might enjoy anything then
I’m going to be honest, I truly think there’s more value to be able to enjoy things freely in life. People who find delight easily aren’t as foolish as you’d think. When I’m salty, those are the people I find myself envying. I’m the one who feels like an idiot when I notice.
I would rather hang out with someone that allows themselves to feel joy in silly things rather than one who has no patience for mediocrity.
I criticize stuff just as often I assure you. Maybe my expectations were just lower than most people’s so it had a lower bar to clear
I’m sorry your life is that sad
Episode 7: Derivative but fun
Episode 8: Pure trash
Episode 9: Desperately trying to piece together the plot
Episode 7: derivative boredom
Episode 8: I like thi—WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING? WHY??
Episode 9: JJ desperately trying to piece together a plot
“Poe commits mutiny for the 12th time; learns nothing.”
9 was a reaction to the challenge of actually having to tell a story. The challenge was not accepted.
9 failed as a follow up to 8 so badly I can’t even tell if it’s worse than 8.
How anyone thinks 9 is better than 8 is beyond me.
I’ve always said that the worst thing that 9 did was completely destroy any excitement for Star Wars in an instant.
Prior to 9 releasing, people didn’t like 8 and were already souring on 7, but there was still discourse, people caught up on Star Wars news, people were excited for the new content.
After 9, the excitement dropped like a brick. It was the closure of a trilogy in one of the most profitable IPs in the world. There was still more content planned to come out soon iirc (the shows, and I think there was talk of more movies), so it’s not like people stopped caring due to the lack of content. Nobody I knew was interested in discussing fan theories or analyzing the movies (except to rag on them, I suppose). It was as if millions of voices cried out in terror… And were suddenly silenced.
9 is just generic. It’s mediocre. 8 is an active train wreck. God, I remember sitting in the theatre and being baffled by the opening ‘conversation’ between Hux and Poe. I legit thought it might have been another one of those fan vids that they show in the Alamo Theatre before the actual movie began, despite the opening crawl.
“Somehow”, lightspeed skipping, 3PO not being able to translate from sith, the ancient dagger that is also the shape of the crashed death star from a highly specific angle, Palpatine fucks, whatever a diad is, 10,000 star destroyers.
I’m not pretending that 8 is a masterpiece, it isn’t, and it’s worse than any of the OT, but at least Johnson tried to do something to keep star wars at a galactic scale.
The worst bit of 9 is how small it makes star wars. Everything comes down to a tale of two families - Palpatine and Skywalker - in a way that nullifies everyone else’s involvement. For a story that spans a literal galaxy, having it come down to those two families, twice, is terrible writing.
I mean, I agree with all of your criticisms of 9, I just don’t agree that they make it worse than 8.
I mean, hell, “Finn immediately wakes up, loses faith in the rebellion”? The slow-motion chase through space? “Union negotiations” ha ha so funny? Carrie Poppins surviving for no real reason except perhaps to ‘subvert expectations’? 3000 attempted coups of Poe and the uninspired leadership of Admiral Replacement? “I’m going to let you out of the brig, not because you’ve learned anything, but because committing mutiny is why I keep you around”? Hyperspace jumps can now be weaponized? Hoth 2 (this time it’s salt) after an emergency landing with one ship? Twelve people survive out of the entire fleet so let’s celebrate?
The ENTIRE Canto Blight nonsense, top to bottom? Especially the weird shoehorned animal rights bit? Benicio del Toro the arms dealer who exists for ten seconds (waste of a fantastic actor) and leaves on the stunning line “Maybe”? Grand Leader Whoever in a bathrobe talking about how much ‘spunk’ young Rey has and then dying in his first few minutes seen in person? Whatsherface falling in love with Finn over the space of a day or two and then managing to race her land speeder faster than Finn’s, so she can catch up to him as he’s going full throttle on a suicide mission and then save his life by… ramming him at full speed and wrecking both of their vehicles right on top of the enemy?
Luke casually throwing away the lightsaber like it was a piece of moldy bread? “The Jedi Scriptures”? Luke drinking blue milk fresh from the teat? Not even acknowledging (or barely acknowledging, I don’t remember) Chewie coming back to see him, one of his oldest friends? The Porgs? Fuck. “Reach out and feel the force”? Luke decides to murder his innocent nephew in the middle of the night despite being such an idealist that he thought Darth Vader could come back from his atrocities? Casually brushing off his shoulder after getting his force projection blasted by the not-AT-ATs?
I’m probably missing so goddamn much. I’m not revisiting it. I saw it once, and once was one time too many.
There are only two things that 8 gave us that were good - the force bond on screen (and even that was tormented by the sheer awkwardness of it, especially asking Ben Swolo to put on a towel) and the almost Nietzschean philosophy embraced by Kylo Ren as a more articulate envisioning of the Dark Side. I do wonder if that was connected to KOTOR 2 or just one of those parallel evolution things.
As said, I don’t think Last Jedi is a good film, so my defence is going to be pretty half arsed, but just a few points I’d like to challenge.
- Finn joined the resistance because he witnessed an atrocity as a trooper and didn’t want to be a bad guy. He got disillusioned and questioned whether the resistance were actually good because they had to do things that also killed lots of people. He ultimately decides it’s justified. I’d argue that characters overcoming struggles and having a bit of depth is a good thing.
- Carrie Poppins was a bad, bad, choice, agreed.
- Poe leading a mutiny because he didn’t know what was going on, because he’d been demoted, because he didn’t follow orders, demonstrates that while he may be a great pilot, he’s far too impulsive and his own actions are what holds him back. This shows where his character can, and needs to, grow if he’s ever going to be at the top table.
- Canto continues with the strong anti-imperialism of the original trilogy. The purpose of that entire piece is as a commentary on the military industrial complex, and how it has conflicted goals as it benefits more from continued war than peace.
- “The animal rights bit” - dude, the culmination of RotJ was the Empire being beaten by teddy bears, this again is a constant theme throughout the OT, that exploitation occurs everywhere within an imperialist system.
- it’s been 30 years since we last saw Luke, and even then his training was incomplete, because he’d run away impulsively to get back to Han and Leia. Luke is flawed - my biggest peeve with certain parts of the old EU was how some authors painted him as almost christ like and perfect, perfect is boring - and ultimately failed to rebuild the academy. He fucked up so badly that, yes, he misunderstood a vision, and thought Ben was going to go to the dark side. He then caused this, couldn’t forgive himself, and lived in self-imposed exile as penance. Of course he didn’t want the lightsabre that he’d already given up. Wouldn’t it be even weirder for him to be all “oh, thank you so much for giving me back the sabre I purposefully discarded after I tried to murder my nephew and turned him away from the light, it would look great on my wall!”
- don’t kink shame blue titty drinking! 😂
Again, was it a great film? No, far from it. But at least it tried to give depth to characters, had them tackle challenges, and overcome them and/or grow through failure.
With Palpatine coming back, somehow, in 9, it completely destroys Anakin’s redemption, because it turns out that he didn’t actually kill Palpatine after all, so no final great act, no meaningful sacrifice, Vader dies for nothing.
For all its faults, and there are many, nothing Last Jedi did destroyed the main character of the fanchise’s arc quite like that.
Of course he didn’t want the lightsabre that he’d already given up. Wouldn’t it be even weirder for him to be all “oh, thank you so much for giving me back the sabre I purposefully discarded after I tried to murder my nephew and turned him away from the light, it would look great on my wall!”
That was actually Anakin’s lightsaber, the one given to him by Ben that he lost in the duel on Bespin, that most people presumed was lost forever after having been shunted out of a trash chute into the atmosphere of a gas giant. He didn’t make a conscious decision to give that one up, though I understand his reluctance to accept any lightsaber in the first place what with everything that happened that we learn about throughout the movie, but the casual toss-over-the-shoulder for laughs was pretty inappropriate considering the tone of the same scene at the end of 7, explicitly framed in such a way implying that Luke had an emotional reaction to seeing either Rey or the Lightsaber again.
Fair point, but let’s not pretend that that scene in 7 was anything more than JJ’s usual mystery box, set up with no plan for execution, writing.
How on earth Disney allowed a trilogy of films in a franchise as massive as star wars to not even have a speculative outline for an overall arc blows my mind.
I see it the other way, 8 was an alright movie if it was standalone and not part of SW. The things most people disliked are fine if it was some generic sci-fi action movie. “Jake Skywalker” is a nonissue if you don’t think he’s supposed to be Luke, the quippy lines were common, the weird bits like the Mary Poppins scene or the Holdo maneuver are acceptable in some other sci-fi movie. Wouldn’t have been a masterpiece, but it’s still relatively put together.
9 struggled to be a film. Remove it from SW and it’s almost worse— 8 could feasibly be greenlit and released by lazy execs, but 9 would’ve been cancelled in production. Pacing was jarring to the point of feeling unfinished, plot was one of the least coherent in a mega blockbuster, and story conveniences were nauseatingly poor even if it wasn’t Star Wars. It feels like they just put something together real quick without the editors and it got leaked. None of it was serviceable. And god, not to repeat myself, but the pacing and story were horrid.
Add it back to SW, and the Sith life transfer/dyad nonsense is as much an affront to Lucas’s story as TLJ Luke. Possibly more: sure, doing that to Luke was shit, but TRoS butchered basic Force principles. It’s like a bad DM fucking up a pivotal NPC vs fucking up the entire game system.
I dislike both of them nearly equally, but I could probably watch 8 again. 9 is like an indecisive amateur’s attempt at Lego Star Wars machinima, down to poor editing and an inability to order scenes. Didn’t see another movie so sloppy until Thor: Love and Thunder.
In short, it’s a JJ Abrams film.
I knew it was bad news the minute they did that whole “can you hear me bit” at the beginning between Hux and Poe. It was clearly them forcing marvel level humor into star wars and it felt sooo stupid.
It’s like the exact opposite of Han on the intercom in the first ( or fourth) movie. There Han knows he’s messed up and tries to play it up, but the bluff is immediately called. The humor is in the ridiculousness of the attempt. With Hux, it’s played the opposite and it just raises more questions about how Hux and the First Order ever became a serious threat.
As someone not interested in star wars I can’t wait for in ten 10 years time when suddenly liking the sequel trilogy is cool just like how the prequels were hated then became cool to like.
It’s like poetry, it rhymes
I think there’s a difference between how they were hated and what parts people liked.
The prequels people hate because Jar-Jar, and some other comic relief characters, were annoying, and also (especially episode 1) how slow they can be. Overall, the stories were liked I think.
The sequels people like for the action and entertainment, but you totally have to ignore the story for them to not fall apart. It constantly contradicts itself (and the existing lessons, like the OP) and only works to weaken the universe.
Basically, their opposites to each other. I think the difference is people can come to enjoy the world of the prequels and get past the bad bits (or skip them), but the analysis and growing recognition of the failures of the sequels will only get larger with time as we spend more time with them.
It’s not just Jar-Jar. The amount of CG and green screen was off-putting given how good Lucas was at practical effects, and those more modern techniques have aged much worse in a much shorter time frame. The movies may be slow, but the action sequences are actually quite long, drawn out, and pointless (the third act of Attack of the Clones is especially bad). The fight choreography was also extremely different, with the simple, grounded light saber fights being replaced with silly back-flips and summersaults.
There are also odd story elements that seem to contradict the OT; why did Obi-Wan say Yoda trained him? How did the Jedi go from being a powerful peace-keeping force known throughout the galaxy to a myth in 20 years? Why did Leah claim she could remember her mother? (I’m sure Lucas came up with explanations for these things, but they still stand out.) All in all, they are a huge tone-shift from their predecessors, in both storytelling and filmmaking.
In contrast, the sequel films are able to emulate the original trilogy much more faithfully in terms of practical effects and set design. The real problem was, where Lucas over-developed his prequel trilogy for 30 years, Disney under-developed their sequels, with no plan for where the story should go. Abrahams created a basic retread of the first film, Johnson threw everything out in the second, and the third film was just desperately trying to write itself out of a corner. Those movies had no idea where they wanted to go, so they went nowhere.
Episode 1 is slow?! It starts with jedis being betrayed by the trade federation, escaping the ship and going to naboo, rescuing jarjar and meeting the gungans, crossing the planet’s core to get to Theed, rescuing Padmé and escaping to tatooine, winning the podrace and going to coruscant, then finally returning to naboo to end the invasion of the trade federation, all in one film. How can it be more packed with action and events? Certainly more action and event packed than Luke spending 1h of the film in a swamp
Good point. I agree, but that opening trade negotiations scene is always brought up as being really slow. I’ve always thought it was dumb, but I’ve heard it said so I included it.
The sequels people like for the action and entertainment
I have the same feeling but for prequels.
I never took Star Wars very seriously and I always see the story and lore as being a fun adventure. But the problem with the sequels is that it doesn’t have the direction and vision. I don’t know about the others, but for me that made the sequels not click.
I’d be curious indeed what people in ten years will say about the sequel trilogy. But I have a strong feeling that it will still be disliked, because it did not have a vision and is a jigsaw mess unlike the prequels. The latter has a vision at least (thanks to Lucas still being at the helm), in spite of the cringey parts. The sequels did not have him and Disney just simply wants to milk the Star Wars IP which made sequels such a bore.
Just like the prequels
Universally hated but then kids who grew up with it became adults
George Lucas said he wanted the prequels to be more like a children’s story, which explains a lot. I am one of those kids who enjoyed the prequels, but even at the time I saw some flaws but didn’t mind it. I always viewed the Star Wars as an adventure story and should not be taken as seriously. A competent enough creative team should be able to suspend the audience’s disbelief.
The original trilogy is better of course, but the prequels still has a sense of direction and vision. The sequels never had that with too many “creative” visions hampering each other. The sequels suffered from the case of having too many cooks in the kitchen but none of them have any plans whatsoever.
Did the prequels actively try to undo one another? 8 tries to fix 7 and 9 tries to fix 8 which makes for a sloppy trilogy
1 is pretty standalone
2 has bad writing but Dooku and the clone wars were good
3 just throws Dooku away and the war doesn’t matter
Can’t really look at expanded media but the clone wars cartoon does try to fix a lot even if they do so through assassinating Dooku’s character
The prequels had a mountain of books/comics/shows backing them up and filling out the parts that were lacking. ( i.e. the huge gapping holes in tone and execution ).
The sequels… there’s not much to salvage. They’re more very pretty hole than substance. To the point there haven’t been more than a handful of attempts and they’ve basically been ignored/sidestepped.
they’ve basically been ignored/sidestepped.
I think if Disney held the rights when the prequels came out then the same thing would happen to them
The prequels are bad movies. But they tell an interesting story and have a unique setting. The sequels are also bad movies, but they’re a disjointed chaotic mess that just rehashes the original trilogy. There’s nothing to redeem.
Also, the prequels had fun and interesting world building. Look at games like battlefront and fallen order or all the new aliens we were introduced to.
The prequels made star wars feel larger than the original trilogy, the Sequels made the world feel smaller. No new alien race that plays a big role, no new worlds of interest (maybe the red salt planet, but it’s a barren wasteland), no new ships or technology.
Unlike the prequels (spanning decades, wars, and planets) the Sequels don’t have anything to build off of to save them.
It’s so frustrating too because the atmosphere, casting, acting, even the characters are really compelling. But they just absolutely refused to take any risks. It’s like they just didn’t get the whole point. Rey needed to become a gray character, and kylo needed to be redeemed. And they both had to live with it and shoulders the burdens of their past. Luke needed to accept that ultimately people are people and you can’t expect to entirely subvert either your baser or more noble emotions and instincts.
So much clumsy and lazy storytelling, taking shortcuts on one side, astronomically improbable coincidences to abruptly thrust the plot forward, baffling detours into shenanigans filler material that leads nowhere special, just to justify a visual sequence or to sell toys.
There’s some great ideas in there, as well as the unpopped kernels of other great ideas. So much unfulfilled potential, with tantalizing, infuriating glimpses of what could have been.
It’s like Lucas cracked the code with Empire Strikes Back, with a team of equals all working together and ready to push back on questionable ideas and impulses… then Lucas never tried that workflow again.
Then Disney fumbled the ball by allowing the goddamned “mystery box” approach, by requesting a misguided thing, summed up in the following sentence - “That thing you did with Star Trek… do it with Star Wars!”
The prequels are pretty solid outside of maybe the middle of Attack of the clones. The lightsaver battles and special effects are way better
Naw, prequels had big fans back in the day. No one likes the sequels
I like the sequels despite their issues (which the prequels also had a lot), save for Ep. 9, which seems to be a reaction to all the bad faith critiques made towards the sequels.
I liked the sequels. I don’t like any star wars now, but I liked the sequels when they were released.
Aye, I’d compare it to pineapple pizza, in the sense that many very vocal people love to hate on it, but its inclusion in every god damn restaurant speaks volumes of its actual popularity.
Once on a trip with my classmates I ordered it and they all gave me shit of it. Well too bad I knew that everyone who happened to be present actually liked it, so I threw that right back at em! Nobody was saying shit after. People just learn that shitting on something is the social norm.
There’s actually pretty split reception regarding prequel, and at the current year it’s liked because the amount of meme it generate.
I like the meme, i fell asleep watching the first ep, while i cringe hard when i watch 7 and 8.
Nah, man. The scene people whine about is the equivalent of Luke wailing on Vader, getting that sweet, sweet hand vengeance, and then stopping to think about what it all means. In TLJ it’s just compressed into like 3 seconds. In-universe, it’s bad luck. In narrative terms, Ben was in a different point on his character arc.
I love The Last Jedi. It twisted ESB just enough not to be a carbon copy, it eliminated a very boring villain in a surprising way, it made the seductive power of the dark side seem almost plausible (one of a smallish number of things The Acolyte actually did pretty well), actually engaged with the prequels in a substantive and respectful way, and left things open ended enough that Episode 9 could have been really interesting. Yoda’s appearance and interaction with Luke was amazing. That opening scene with Rose’s sister in the bomber was extremely moving for how little we knew, a “tone poem” if you will.
On the negative side, Finn’s arc was too subtly different from his Ep7 arc to make much difference. The logistics of the slow speed chase were a bit strained. We as the audience could have been clued into Holdo earlier than Poe was. The “your mom” joke didn’t land. The pacing (and I maintain pretty much only the pacing) of Canto Bight was weak. Then, it could have used a line or two of handwavium at various points to keep the Ackshully’s at bay: “The Raddus’ navicomputer locked onto the hyperdrive tracker.” Boom! Two birds with one stone.
It was still by far the best of the sequels and I’ll live and die on the hill that they’re all (yes, even THAT one) easier to watch than the acting and directing shitshow that was the prequels.
Nah, man. The scene people whine about is the equivalent of Luke wailing on Vader, getting that sweet, sweet hand vengeance, and then stopping to think about what it all means. In TLJ it’s just compressed into like 3 seconds. In-universe, it’s bad luck. In narrative terms, Ben was in a different point on his character arc.
If it worked for you, more power to you, I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind on this. But I can’t help myself when I see the apologetics for the “Luke ignited his light saber over a bad premonition scene”.
It’s not just “bad luck”, it’s bad writing. Luke didn’t just “wail on Vader” to get that “sweet hand vengeance”. He initially turned himself in believing he could convert his father back to the light. He only attacked after extreme emotional manipulation from one of the most powerful Sith Lords ever, during an active battle to determine the fate of all his friends, all they fought for, and the literal freedom of the Galaxy. That is a far reach from a moment of pure safety where he had a bad premonition and the “threat” was sleeping.
The whole explanation of this scene (and by extension the plot point that the core of the ST hinges on) assumes Luke not only learned nothing from successfully turning Vader back to the light, but actively learned the opposite lesson.
I get that people can change over time, and not always for the better, but this is just hands down terrible character writing. Making such drastic changes in such an iconic character, without spending any time developing those changes, having those changes be directly counter to the lessons the character supposedly learned during his primary arc, and then using this unexplained change as the catalyst to the entire ST is awful writing.
And we are not even touching on his new found love of “THE SACRED TEXTS!”, or how he completely gives up and goes hermit mode.
I’ll give Rian credit for actually trying to innovate when it was his turn at bat, but his handling of Luke was honestly some of the most egregious examples of not understanding the characters you are writing, and having them pick up the idiot stick just to move the plot forward.
The whole explanation of this scene (and by extension the plot point that the core of the ST hinges on) assumes Luke not only learned nothing from successfully turning Vader back to the light, but actively learned the opposite lesson.
This really pisses me off and Disney have to carry that shit.
The jedi of the prequel/originals are wrong about emotions/feelings and Lukes prove then wrong when he saves Anakin. But because of this fuck up writing now Lukes is a dumb removed who got luck in the originals and is doomed to failed like the others jedis. We already saw that in the Boba Fett series when he gives up on Grogu because “too much attachment” come on dude.
It’s not just “bad luck”, it’s bad writing. Luke didn’t just “wail on Vader” to get that “sweet hand vengeance”. He initially turned himself in believing he could convert his father back to the light. He only attacked after extreme emotional manipulation from one of the most powerful Sith Lords ever, during an active battle to determine the fate of all his friends, all they fought for, and the literal freedom of the Galaxy. That is a far reach from a moment of pure safety where he had a bad premonition and the “threat” was sleeping.
In both cases, Luke was doing his calm thing, acting how he thought a Jedi should, and trying to do everything the right way. In both cases, the forces of darkness were pushing at him, and in both cases he comes close to giving in to save lives but stops himself. With Ben, or really with Palpatine/Snoke (still hate that this was the direction JJ went in TROS) the fear part only lasts for a moment, but with terrible consequences. Luke had mostly learned. He wasn’t the same person, but when confronted with the same pressures he’d struggled in the OT, he had a moment where it came close. I didn’t find it out of character at all, just a case of not becoming a magical, perfect person after your period of most intense growth.
I think there’s an argument that we simply shouldn’t bring back iconic, archetypal heroes like that, but once the choice is made, it’s deeply uninteresting to have to be saints. As a commentary on teaching and aging and how trying to live up to the legacy of the Jedi as he knew them, I thought TLJ Luke was solid.
The “sacred texts” showed us that he was never truly as disillusioned as he wanted to make out, and that there was still a kid somewhere inside that understood the power of legend and legacy, and it informed his decision to help how he did.
Different aspects of these movies hit people in different ways, and I’m not really thinking I’ll convince many people either, but I’ll push back on the notion that it was “just” bad writing. TLJ had a point of view and an agenda, and I came out of it refreshed and optimistic and was genuinely taken aback at the backlash.
Far be it from me to denounce some joy you found in the movie. We both obviosuly like StarWars (fellow geeks!), and if you liked TLJ’s take, you do you.
I agree whole heartedly that it would be uninteresting to make Luke “saint-like”. My issue isn’t with him having flaws and room for growth.
But I stand by the fact that his “mistake” in the ST runs directly contrary to the central theme of and lesson learned in his original arc. It may have been “in character” for ESB Luke, but by the end of RotJ, he had been shown that the goodness in a person can overcome the darkness, even in Vader.
And TLJ didn’t spend any time developing his actions, it just kinda said “well, his central arc wasn’t as impactful as it seemed”. Which I do believe is lazy/bad writing.
To blatantly plagerize Wikipedia.
A character arc is the transformation or inner journey of a character over the course of a story. If a story has a character arc, the character begins as one sort of person and gradually transforms into a different sort of person in response to changing developments in the story. Since the change is often substantive and leading from one personality trait to a diametrically opposite trait (for example, from greed to benevolence), the geometric term arc is often used to describe the sweeping change.
Luke’s arc saw him learn to see and believe in the godness inside people, even when no one else could. Better writing would have pushed into his transformation, or found a previously unexplored flaw to examine. Having characters need to learn the same lessons over and over again is not only frustrating, it’s lazy writing and poor character development.
To that point, I once heard a youtuber recommend an alternative reason for Luke’s fall that would have leaned into this defining characteristic. They suggested that Luke still get the premonition regarding Ben, but believe the goodness in Ben could overcome the darkness. When Ben inevitably falls to the darkside, this could cause Luke to have a crisis of faith, fundamentally putting the plot in the same spot as the beginning of TLJ, but in a way that played off of Luke’s defining moment, as opposed to grinding against it.
Now you would have had to explain Ben’s turn to the darkside, but I think “my uncle attacked me” is also kind of a weak reason to betray his parents anyway (and kill his father, and attempt to kill his mother). And also fails to address his weird obsession with Vader, like that was just kind of glossed over.
Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I think the main issue is that Rian had to cover for the hermit Luke set up in the previous movie, which he did not write.
Nah the hermit Luke in the episode 7 uses white clothes like a hopeful figure. In the 8 he uses it for 1s, throws the lightsaber and promptly walks to a tree and changes into a grey miserable figure. Rian chooses it.
Sure, it could’ve gone a number of ways. Rian had to invent a compelling reason (ie. a conflict) why Luke would sequester himself leaving the galaxy to decay. Obviously since it’s fiction there were multiple solutions to that.
Definitely could have gone a lot of different ways, and many of them would have been much better imho. That being said, no doubt JJ handed him a writing hard mode plot thread.
Make an interesting, compelling, convincing reason why a classic hero’s journey arch type would call it quits. Not an easy thing to do. And it definitely contributed to the problems.
(though when Mark Hamil was telling Rian he fundamentally disagrees with Rian’s interpretation of the character, it’s hard to say he didn’t have fair warning)
I’m with you 100% on everything you wrote here and I’ve had this argument with my brother countless times. He blames Rian Johnson for everything bad about the sequels and it’s bs.
Personally I think the biggest thing TLJ suffered from was the split focus between Poe and Finn. It made both stories rushed or weak in various places.
And for that I blame Disney. Did you know that Poe wasn’t even supposed to be a big character? He was supposed to be in the first scene of Ep7 and that’s it. But execs saw his performance and insisted they needed his character to play a bigger role. As such, we get attention split between Poe and Finn and both suffer for it.
I feel awful for John Boyega who was such a massive Star Wars fan, got the role of his dreams, and then effectively got sidelined for a pretty-boy.
If only Rian Johnson hasn’t sidelined Finn, yet another way he fucked up TLJ
To my knowledge it wasn’t his decision. It was Kathleen Kennedy. Poe was a favorite among kids and helped sell a boatload of X-Wing toys. He was seen as the “Han Solo of the sequels” and Disney execs all but forced Rian to give him screen time. They couldn’t really reduce Rey’s role so Finn got screwed
Nah, man. The scene people whine about is the equivalent of Luke wailing on Vader, getting that sweet, sweet hand vengeance, and then stopping to think about what it all means. In TLJ it’s just compressed into like 3 seconds. In-universe, it’s bad luck. In narrative terms, Ben was in a different point on his character arc.
If they had chosen to show the dreams, Luke struggling with it for ages and that scene as a last resort failure I could agree with you. Like he wake up everyday and each day he go closer to Kylo’s bed, the scene could be awesome. In the movie looks like the little shit Luke became a weak mind Jedi.
Agreed on TLJ, it was the only part of the new trilogy that dared do something different. It was quite flawed, but hey, it’s Star Wars.
People don’t remember how much backlash there was at even Empire Strikes Back! They said the story was incoherent. They even criticized the quintessential “I am your father” plot twist as being ridiculous (rightfully so). But that’s kind of what makes Star Wars what it is.
While it was not such a good movie, TLJ was an ok-ish Star Wars movie, and by far the best of the sequels.
I would have rather the first order take the place of the rebellion and committed terrorist attacks in Luke’s paradise
I wish they had kidnapped Kylo and disillusioned him
The rest of 7 could have played out the same
For 8 get rid of Holdo, it’s stupid to bring in a character that out ranks everyone and serves only to delay the plot
You can have silly casino planet in First Order occupied space to show they grew since the last movie. Make Rose more relevant, have them looking for a Jedi temple for Finn. Have her so she previously worked as a librarian in Jedi archives before the first order destroyed it. Now she knows all these locations and things about the force even though she can’t use them. Luke is hiding because he blames himself for the people the First Order killed and he doesn’t want to put anyone else in harm’s way, trains Rey but she still has dark visions and connects to Kylo. Have Rey turn evil, her and Kylo defeat Snoke (can be the same way) then take the first order to fight Luke because she knows where he is, the two of them together are enough to kill Luke
The last movie if you want Palpatine to return do it through Rey’s body and have her be the final boss. You can parallel 6 with the Skywalker turning good and saving Finn, this time have them team up against full Sith Lord Rey in the fight. Or have Finn take them on one by one while Rose stops their doomsday plans and Po deals with a space battle
On top of this, get rid of Snoke and have Thrawn lead the First Order. He forces Imperial holdouts to join him or be destroyed. He’s smart enough to use Empire loyalists in the New Republic to dismiss his threat until he’s strong enough to go on the attack.
I know they’re building to this in Ashoka, but it should have been this way from the start.
On top of this, get rid of Snoke and have Thrawn lead the First Order.
One of the things that made the Thrawn trilogy work was the way it played out the inevitable decay of the old Empire, even with a brilliant strategist at its helm. The rot went too deep and the ideology that drove the Imperial movement couldn’t hold it together. Militarism wasn’t enough to keep the imperial regions united, while the New Republic offered allure that couldn’t be easily rebutted.
The movies couldn’t conceptualize this imperial decay or recognize the New Republic as a powerful political force drawing the fractured galactic planets together again. They had to reset the state of the setting to “Bad Guys Strong, because Big Lasers and Ships” while the Republicans were once again weak, scattered, and on the run.
I might say you could salvage Snoke (as a reskin of Joruus C’baoth) and Sloane and Hux and Kylo Ren, cast within this desperate grasping to Retvrn To Tradition. Then rename “The First Order” as “The Last Command”, implying they follow the last words of the now-dead Emperor Palpatine. And you can even lean in to the ghost of Palpatine and the echoes of fascism that do provide some lingering cohesiveness to the dying Imperial movement.
But these climactic space battles that are decided by One Brave Starfighter Defeating The Big Imperial Machine aren’t able to resonate in the final series, because they don’t answer the question of what comes next. At some point, the New Republic needs to be a thing we care about and the conflict needs to move away from “How do we beat the Empire?” and into a “How do we make the New Republic do better than the Old One?”
Dude, the new shows and everything are actually making me root for the bad guys. The new New Republic is such dogshit at literally everything.
I really liked Andor because of the way it humanized the Empire. Demystifying the bad guys and rendering them as an enormous social network fallible human agents didn’t leave me rooting for them. But it did give me an idea of why someone would want to be an imperial agent.
Andor is probably the only truly “balanced” or nuanced piece of media to come from Disney Star Wars. The rest of it (especially Ahsoka) makes it so the New Republic are actual jackasses with their heads buried in the sand.
Well, the whole Ashoka arc is about a woman who quits being a Jedi because she realizes why the Jedi suck, then kinda comes back around again much later on in life.
I have some love for the first two seasons of Mandalorian, given the way it treats Empire/Rebellion. But I agree, modern SW just turned the Republic into the New Mooks.
I’m actually so mad this didn’t happen, this sounds great.
As mine was a light rewrite I don’t find Snoke significant enough/having enough screentime to warrant replacing with Thrawn
He would have to be the overarching villain whose defeat is the climax of events
I actually liked TLJ as well. Like others said, I liked these Force Connection scenes with Rey and Kylo, I liked how it dispatched Snoke, dismissing the idea of yet another Star Wars conflict being controlled by an evil old wizard and instead gives sets the way for a new story by giving Kylo Ren the reigns of the new empire (which was thrown in the trash by JJ in ep 9, which is the gravest sin for me of that film), and gives a plausible take on the seduction to the dark side and to the light side. I know these ideas were poorly implemented e.g. the proposition Kylo makes to Rey “Hey, look, I’ve killed the evil emperor! Join me and we can take this whole thing over. Let’s start by killing all your friends!”. What a great offer, Kylo. But still I liked that this was something new and more than just a rehash.
What I also really loved is that not every character has to be related to the Skywalkers or another character of the other trilogies, again something JJ threw in the trash by ep 9. Why does Rey have to of some ancient magical lineage? I liked the idea that the force was running through people everywhere, even through slave kids on the casino planet. Everybody can be a hero, even if your parents or ancestors weren’t. Wait, what’s that, JJ? Everything was Palpatine all along? Never mind then.
To be fair to John Jonah, he had to work around the director of TLJ’s narcissistic take on the 2nd episode of a trilogy, i.e. not giving a shit how the next director (whoever it was going to be at that time) could possibly come up with a good conclusion to two extremely disjointed prior movies. I mean it’s neither director’s fault, to be honest, it’s Lucasfilm’s, marketing this as “The next SW trilogy!!”, not just “three more movies from that universe you guys seem to enjoy so much”. Also he was too busy running a newspaper at the same time.
“Maybe we should have planned the trilogy” - JJ after RoS
Disney allocated a billion dollars to a trilogy of movies and didn’t even ask for outlines of scripts first. I know JJ is “mystery box guy” and all but the amount of hubris to think they could just wing it on the strength of the IP is staggering.
Hey, that’s not fair. They weren’t winging it.
They were doing the original trilogy again, but worse.
Get me pictures of spiderman.
I also hate the whole “force users only come from certain bloodlines” thing. It makes it too comic-book-y or superhero-y. To be fair, some of that shit was present in the EU before Disney went and threw it all in the trash, but there was also a lot of “everyone can use the Force, you just need to open your mind”
Funny thing is that with Vader it’s not even in an indirect sense.
Mans absolutely could have canonically killed millions with his own two hands,
He got surrounded after crash landing on a dessert planet and the dude looks around and tells the commander calling for his surrender is “All I am surrounded by is fear, and dead men.”
IDK how they’d fare against each other in a fight, but Vader is definitely putting in the work to compete on Kharne the Betrayer’s million+ kill count, which we can only guess from that being how many people he’s killed that he was in control of himself enough to retrieve their skulls to offer to Khorne.
dessert planet
Mmmm… dessert planet… 🤤
“I hate powdered sugar… it’s poofy and hard to clean and it gets everywhere!”
Mister Simpson . . .
Mister Simpson!
Sweet, sweet, dessert planet…
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(credit: pixelatedboat from old Twitter)
The one on the right is Jake Skywalker.
Idk, I’m nostalgic for the prequels because I grew up with them, but if they were released now and I had only seen the original trilogy I would’ve made the these comments about them too. Wat frustrates me the most about the sequels is that there’s just no coherent plot. It’s so obvious that everyone was just writing whatever without looking at the bigger picture. They could’ve went with this and actually gone somewhere. But 8 was just an exercise in doing everything the viewer didn’t expect or want until it got way too frustrating without actually going anywhere and 9 was just a clusterfuck because it tried desperately to get an epic conclusion on a completely incoherent trilogy.
7 was already flawed, but if 8 and 9 had further established how the First Order got so large, who Snoke was, etc it could’ve been acceptable. I totally see the “Luke gets disillusioned and isolates himself” spin even if I’d prefer a “Luke slaps the shit out of everyone” story. It gave the new characters some space. But that space wasn’t used.
Its almost like the movies didn’t have a sole. That happens when you are a Disney executive
1-6 exist
Nothing else
4-6 exist.
Others exist too, but they are for the most part inferior.
1-6 includes 4-6
Andor belongs on this list.
Some of the Disney TV shows have been at least not too bad? Ashoka had some really neat ideas, Mandalorian has fun action scenes, Clone Wars fixed the prequels, Rebels has Thrawn, Acolyte is a new take on the Jedi, and Boba Fett does some neat world building.
The only one that really missed IMHO was Obi Wan, which is a god damned tragedy. They should have just left it as a movie.
No, that’s Disney talking
Wasn’t it Luke who had the bad dream? 🤔
He had a bad dream about Kylo’s bad dream
Inception?
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Maybe Midichlorians correlate highly with Dementia?
Midichlorians are the powerhouse of the force.
Luke has gone full Jedi.
Fires randomly into the ceiling
Okay, let’s review: There was ONE Star Wars movie. One. And it was the greatest movie in the history of the universe.
Everything else is just fan fiction tacked on by LucasDisneyCorpMagicProductionsRanch because the original movie was too perfect for this world, and had to be destroyed by all means necessary.
You can take all that crap and GTFO. G’wan! Get!
Oh - ah, leave the original Kenner action figures, though. Those are cool.
ESB is better than SW.
Irvin Kershner, Lawrence Kasdan, and John Williams did a fantastic job.
ESB is Star Wars. Every second of that movie is soaked in adventure, friendship and cool space shit. Return of the Jedi is noticeably worse and honestly if not for brilliant Vader Luke action it would be just ok. Of course if rotj is just ok then the prequels are b cinema which honestly they kinda are
And hair mousse. Plus torture.
It’s tacked-on. It’s weird. It’s not cool except that all the originals are in it and they’re still using actual movie magic and not CGI.
If you have to have more, it’s fine. But let’s not kid ourselves - it was an afterthought. Anyone who buys Lucas’ story that he had it in mind as a trilogy all along is kidding themselves.
Lies! Blasphemer!
If you think that ESB was fan fiction that’s wild
Lucas wrote and barely got finished one SW movie.
Then - later - much later, after everything blew up bigger than anyone imagined and the entire zeitgeist changed as a result, started telling people that “all along” it was this bigger story arc and he had such-and-so in mind the whole time.
Bullshit.
