Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

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That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
The more I think about this whole situation the more I think they were in an impossible situation. There's no reason for the movies to exist unless the story evolves and changes, and there was no way to do that without annoying a lot of people with a huge emotional investment (wisely or not) in the story. It could've been done better or worse, but I don't think it was ever going to be "clean." It was always either going to feel too bold and inventive (IE: too different to "feel" like Star Wars), or too predictable to be worthwhile, to a significant number of people.

Short version: just make some new stuff. Or, if you're gonna try some new stuff within this world (which I'm totally for), don't try to link it to the preceding films so much, and people might be more receptive to the new direction.
I didn't see this until just now.

Honestly, I think I would have enjoyed the direction whether they held tightly to the past or moved forward abandoning it. I get that feel from Kylo's constant "forget the past" nudging. I'm totally fine with that. I'd be fibbing if I said nostalgia doesn't sway me to one side here, but I enjoy the new. I get excited by what the imagination can create! I see the efforts to let go the past and move into the future in TLJ. I can respect that. I just feel the other bits that I criticize are much louder drowning out the potential of Kylo's push for change. That's a shame, to me, because I think that could have been very interesting and a way to transition to the next generation of moviegoers' investment here. Sadly for me, I can't not see what all else I have faults with in the flick. I wonder too, how many potential new viewers were turned off from digging deeper for the same faults? That's not for argument, just curiosity. Obviously people loved this movie. That's good.

Eh. Enough rambly-rambles. I'm getting farther off topic lol. What Sedai wrote above, dead horse whippings and such.

*EDIT*
I forgot to mention that I totally agree with you that it was an impossible situation. That path would have been a very narrow one and would have had to be damn near perfectly constructed with character and story arcs. I mean years just for the writing and troubleshooting it all against the past movies. Like a religious level of devotion to the source.
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I am fine with new ideas and directions. However, when we are nearing the end of the 9-part Skywalker Saga, for lack of a better term, it's kind of a weird move to get to part 8 and basically state, out loud, almost speaking directly to the audience, that nothing that came before mattered, the Jedi didn't matter, that people's family history didn't matter, and that it was time to move on.

Ok...how about we move on after this story is done? Plenty of time to do it, and plenty of kids to recruit using fresh story ideas that aren't subsumed in 30+ years directly related backstory.
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Yeah, every generation has their changing standards and expectations for anything, so it's a given that that is a variable we can't really measure. Probably. I don't think it's fair of me to fault another generation for not appreciating one older trilogy the way I did or for loving another when I did not. I was born in '76 so I only watched Empire in the theater, but even then I was too young to remember anything of it except for thinking the usher's cone flashlight was a light saber. And I wanted it. That trilogy inspired me creatively. Star Wars is the reason I love science fiction and fantasy. That story flipped a switch. I cannot expect the same from my nephew. It was a different world to grow up in.

That said, I still find more objective measures fair game to judge a movie on, over emotional impact. I think Sedai's link highlights one point very well: there isn't much of a hero to look up to anymore. Comparing Luke to Rey is not at all about gender (to me, and I feel to many others leveling criticism against Rey). Let's be clear, it's the character as written that I did not like and not who the character was. So with that out of the way, the video comments on the lack of any type of hero's growth. There is no risk. There is no failure. There is no self-reflection triggered by failure inducing character growth (though I suppose one could argue the scene with Rey confronting her reflection was that, but that would be a stretch). There is no development, no challenge that the character must face, fail, and eventually learn to overcome through some type of struggle. No, in this case all struggle has been external, through other characters while our hero is just ... made hero by existing. To me character development then is a very distant second to marketing and the potential profit in just using the Star Wars legacy as a medium, regardless of what is created.

Had Luke just "existed" with the abilities to do whatever was necessary to be the hero, without honest character growth, then I would not have liked that story either. That is boring and provides me nothing to look up to and think, "Wow! If [character] found a way to overcome [character]'s insurmountable obstacles through pain, realization, learning, and growth, then maybe I can learn to be better at [thing I suck at] and overcome MY challenges too!"

I mean, that's the heart of story telling, no?
I'd contend that Rey's arc in The Force Awakens is about her reconciling her initial inner conflict - stay on Jakku in the vain hope of reuniting with her family (which is enough of a character flaw that she needs to move past and ultimately does) versus wanting to explore the galaxy - and resulting in her finding renewed purpose in seeking out Luke and possibly becoming a Jedi (contrast this against A New Hope where the conflict between Luke's desire to leave Tattooine and his obligations to his family are resolved almost too neatly when his aunt and uncle are killed so he doesn't have that flaw hanging over him for much of the film's runtime).

The Last Jedi, on the other hand, is about her struggling with the nuances of characters she had already defined as simplistically good and evil (Luke and Kylo respectively), with the indecision over whose side to take (and whether or not Kylo could be brought back to the light despite Luke's insistence otherwise). If there's a moment of "self-reflection triggered by failure", it's in the aftermath of the throne room fight as she realises that her latest goal (turn Kylo good) is beyond her (or he really is too far gone for anyone at this point) and she ultimately has to escape with the rest of the Resistance (who would've been completely lost without her interference, both directly and by inspiring Luke back into action) rather than try to keep fighting an opponent that she (despite supposed flawless Mary Sue whatever) still cannot definitively defeat. As for "made hero by existing", is it really any worse than the guy who goes from farmboy hobbyist to supernaturally gifted pilot in the space of the weekend (and that's before you find out he inherited his power)?

I am fine with new ideas and directions. However, when we are nearing the end of the 9-part Skywalker Saga, for lack of a better term, it's kind of a weird move to get to part 8 and basically state, out loud, almost speaking directly to the audience, that nothing that came before mattered, the Jedi didn't matter, that people's family history didn't matter, and that it was time to move on.

Ok...how about we move on after this story is done? Plenty of time to do it, and plenty of kids to recruit using fresh story ideas that aren't subsumed in 30+ years directly related backstory.
I think it's more about reckoning with what the entire saga even meant and that means acknowledging how much of it was driven by various failures (as if Yoda doesn't flat-out state that failure is "the greatest teacher", telling it to a Luke who had at that point refused to learn from his greatest failure in favour of self-pity) and, if stuff doesn't matter, then is there a good reason why it doesn't matter (at least as it was, not how it could be)? For example, the Jedi being one of those things that were better in principle than in practice (to the point where they're effectively established as child soldiers by the prequels) and the Republic fell on their watch, etc etc. I mean I get not wanting to relitigate all this again and again, but I mean, isn't that kind of what Empire did? The reason its big reveal works as well as it does is because it so thoroughly flips an audience's understanding of the world that had been established, that even its good-guy mentors would lie to their chosen-one students, that everything our hero thought he knew about his life was a lie, etc. I'm just saying there's a similar logic at work in the new films, and while I'll concede it's not quite on the same level, I just don't think it's significantly inferior to warrant the criticism it's gotten either.
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i wonder if any of the big community in the US looks upon this tiny but great community forum for the stuff and critical response said about my beloved space saga, as i am very very disappointed to be in this era of Disney making this franchise a teenage fanboy mess, trying to convince us that this is what this trilogy should be.... it is a shame really...



We've gone on holiday by mistake
The more I think about this whole situation the more I think they were in an impossible situation. There's no reason for the movies to exist unless the story evolves and changes, and there was no way to do that without annoying a lot of people with a huge emotional investment (wisely or not) in the story. It could've been done better or worse, but I don't think it was ever going to be "clean." It was always either going to feel too bold and inventive (IE: too different to "feel" like Star Wars), or too predictable to be worthwhile, to a significant number of people.

Short version: just make some new stuff. Or, if you're gonna try some new stuff within this world (which I'm totally for), don't try to link it to the preceding films so much, and people might be more receptive to the new direction.
Think this is a bit overly forgiving, seems like out of a list of options, we've received the worse possible version, to throw away 30 years of writing and replace it with hastily thrown together trilogy heavily borrowing from the OT, and a bunch cash grab prequels about every semi interesting OT character.

It's a shame Star Wars didn't happen in the modern age (of course it wouldn't likely have been a phenomenon), with modern contracts (Harrison Ford didn't want to do any more after ROTJ), modern effects etc.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course but I think at this point everyone would have preferred a continuation after ROTJ with recast actors. Or as you say above, something new, clean slate, new era.

The worst sins though have been,

-thinly veiled media and social media (Rian Johnson) attacks against those who've been critical.
- thinking they could tack "Star Wars" onto any unwanted prequel and we would flock to see it.
- Unwanted leftist politics thrown into a Space Opera whose core fan group is white 30-50 year old men, and trying to twist legitimate criticism into some kind of attack against minorities/women.
- Trying to make it a kids movie, just like Lucas/prequels when fan base aren't kids.
- Allowing those in charge to fail upwards (new contract for KK).

They may have done so much damage that it doesn't matter what they try next.
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I think people are bad at counterfactuals, and that whatever they did, people would compare it to an overly rosy hypothetical. The reality of these things can never match the "they should have just done X" theorizing, since that rubber-meets-the-road question of HOW to do each thing is always the hard part.

Obviously I can't prove this, it's just something I think is generally true about human nature. I do think there'd have been less backlash if they kept going with the "echo" trilogy. People would've been pretty meh on two more The Force Awakens style homages, I think, but they wouldn't have been furious. Whether that'd be better overall or not is for each person to decide.



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So let me get this straight - Star Wars is bad now because they suddenly got turned into kids' movies, yet the alleged core demographic for the film consists of men who just so happen to all be old enough to have seen the OT as kids (also when they were young enough to not know or care about politics at all, much less whether or not they "ruined" movies)? They've always been kids' movies - it's silly to act like the series about space wizards with laser swords is something that can only truly be appreciated by a very specific subset of adults.

Besides, trying to wrangle thirty years of expanded universe canon into a single trilogy sounds like a fool's errand anyway so I'm not surprised they didn't do that. The same goes for wishing that Star Wars had started in the modern age because like Yoda the user wrote there's no way of proving that kind of hypothetical right one way or the other so why bother to entertain it? Besides, would the film series that boasted three consecutive megahits really be more likely to get left alone if it got released in the midst of such a gargantuan blockbuster bubble?



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I think the OT is more of an adult saga that appeals greatly to kids, the prequels went overly kiddish before going a bit darker for the finale after severe criticism. Ep 7 was in the same feel as the OT, before 8 went overly kiddish again with ott buffoonery and terrible gags.



A system of cells interlinked
- Unwanted leftist politics thrown into a Space Opera whose core fan group is white 30-50 year old men, and trying to twist legitimate criticism into some kind of attack against minorities/women.
Say what?

I saw the originals when I was a kid, and at that time, pretty much everyone, young and old (white, black, brown, blue...whatever, loved the films. My parents loved them, my grandmother loved them...

As I said above, to someone like me, in today's day and age, their current, sort of focus-group approach to targeting the younger demographic was too obvious, and also clearly hindered their creativity. I presume they second-guessed themselves into a corner, in which they now still reside.

The fact that the films also seem to be failing to capture the imaginations of today's kids seem to confirm this.

I think the OT is more of an adult saga that appeals greatly to kids, the prequels went overly kiddish before going a bit darker for the finale after severe criticism. Ep 7 was in the same feel as the OT, before 8 went overly kiddish again with ott buffoonery and terrible gags.

They created an entirely new format for action figures and ships etc. before the first film hit theaters. Was the plan to sell them to these adults? They clearly had kids in mind from the start.



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I think the MASSIVE toy sales from the OT were a result of its success, I don't think Lucas was necessarily planning those toy sales in the formative years.

Massive toy sales don't mean kids movie.

I'm more putting the SW OT in that universal acclaim catagory, at least me personally. Like say LOTR, or Back to the Future, Marvel films, beloved of adults and kids but not strictly "kids movies".



We've gone on holiday by mistake
Say what?

I saw the originals when I was a kid, and at that time, pretty much everyone, young and old (white, black, brown, blue...whatever, loved the films. My parents loved them, my grandmother loved them...

As I said above, to someone like me, in today's day and age, their current, sort of focus-group approach to targeting the younger demographic was too obvious, and also clearly hindered their creativity. I presume they second-guessed themselves into a corner, in which they now still reside.

The fact that the films also seem to be failing to capture the imaginations of today's kids seem to confirm this.




They created an entirely new format for action figures and ships etc. before the first film hit theaters. Was the plan to sell them to these adults? They clearly had kids in mind from the start.
I'm not saying Star Wars isn't beloved of every demographic, but I'm saying going out of your way to annoy your largest block (White male 30-50) has been stupid.

Ive actually seen strong criticism of recent efforts at one point or another from just about every group you could list.



We've gone on holiday by mistake

Besides, trying to wrangle thirty years of expanded universe canon into a single trilogy sounds like a fool's errand anyway so I'm not surprised they didn't do that. The same goes for wishing that Star Wars had started in the modern age because like Yoda the user wrote there's no way of proving that kind of hypothetical right one way or the other so why bother to entertain it? Besides, would the film series that boasted three consecutive megahits really be more likely to get left alone if it got released in the midst of such a gargantuan blockbuster bubble?
I think you could easily explain a rough 30 year outline in the opening scrawl. Think Blade Runner 2049.

At the moment we still don't really know why there was a Resistance when they were supposed to be the Government, why said Government was so weak that it was reduced to 15 folk on the Milleium Falcon, or how the First Order got so powerful under said Government noses. I don't think we will ever get a coherent answer.

Of course there's no way of proving a hypothetical and like I said hindsight is a wonderful thing.

No if it was a huge modern success it would get loads more films, sadly actors in the current trilogy don't look like they'll get anymore SW work.



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I think you could easily explain a rough 30 year outline in the opening scrawl. Think Blade Runner 2049.

At the moment we still don't really know why there was a Resistance when they were supposed to be the Government, why said Government was so weak that it was reduced to 15 folk on the Milleium Falcon, or how the First Order got so powerful under said Government noses. I don't think we will ever get a coherent answer.

Of course there's no way of proving a hypothetical and like I said hindsight is a wonderful thing.

No if it was a huge modern success it would get loads more films, sadly actors in the current trilogy don't look like they'll get anymore SW work.
A difference would be that Blade Runner 2049 only needed to get two new developments across in its opening crawl - the creation of long-life replicants and the blackout. The average Star Wars crawl has to get across more than that just by recapping the most recent round of events leading up to the opening scene, much less entire decades' worth of history.

Anyway, I guess they figured that the opening crawl of The Force Awakens would suffice - specifically the part where it says that Leia forms the Resistance "with support from the Republic" so that would indicate that they are technically separate entities. The analogue I'm thinking is that the Republic is the actual body of government while the Resistance is a kind of military operation (presumably named because they were actively "resisting" attacks from the First Order that are already underway when Force Awakens begins). I also reckon the Republic was severely weakened (if not destroyed outright) as a result of Starkiller Base targeting the capital planet as part of the laser it fires off about halfway through the movie, which would go some way towards explaining why the Resistance is supposedly all that's left during the events of The Last Jedi. As for the First Order itself, all they really lost was the Emperor and a half-finished Death Star. I can readily see them taking about thirty years to regroup and rebuild after taking a devastating (but not fatal) blow. That's my take on the situation, at least - I think it is a good point that the actual politics of the new trilogy are left a little vague in favour of jumping into readily tangible good-versus-bad conflicts and actually have to be thought about more (presumably overcompensating for how politics-heavy the prequels were), but I don't think that necessarily makes them incoherent either.



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You wouldn't have to explain every separate, book/book series.

You could leave it as simple as,

"Many challenges have been met over the years, a new Jedi order has risen, the Republic rules most of the Galaxy, many fringe systems remain separate and others are still in the hands of the Empire".

Something along those lines including any pertinent development to the upcoming story.

Then they would have been free to include fan favourite book characters good or bad as they please,and would have had a rich source material to draw from. Instead they copy pasted the OT (an oversimplification) and lined up, Boba Fett, Obi Wan, Han Solo, Vader, Wedge and God knows what else.



We definitely need explanation about how the first order became so powerful suddenly



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It's gonna be "it was the Emperor all along"



First Order was a Distraction for the Heroes not to see The Empire Would Return .First Order was just a tool like he used the Sepertists. He promised Snoke likely a new way to get younger thus why there were so any knights of ren. Old Palpatine just didnt tell Snoke a Skywalker can betray you and likely to return he would need Kylo and Rey likely for his own return.



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We definitely need explanation about how the first order became so powerful suddenly
The Force Awakens crawl stating that it "rose from the ashes of the Empire" says it all, though. I figure the Empire as a body of government wouldn't survive without the Emperor, but its remaining forces would still survive and be reorganised into the First Order.



so do we expect in rise of skywalker, rey turning into dark side, and Kylo ren as the rising skywalker? im just speculating....but could be a great twist