Rogue Squadron Movie! (and I guess a bunch of other stuff)

[Dire_Flumph]

https://www.starwars.com/news/future-lucasfilm-projects-revealed

So Patty Jenkins is directing "Rogue Squadron", the next Star Wars movie coming out (Christmas 2023)

Also announced:

That Taika Waititi film we already knew about.

Not announced:

That Rian Johnson Trilogy (or any upcoming trilogies, which I'm okay with)

Six live action series announced:

Confirmation that the Obi-Wan series is a go
Confirmation of a live-action Ahsoka series (Assuming this is where the threads left from Rebels will be picked up)
Rangers of the New Republic (Same era as the Mandalorian, probably a tie-in)
Lando (no confirmation of Donald Glover returning)
The Cassian Andor series we knew about
The Acolyte (a mystery-thriller taking place in the High Republic era long before the movies)

Animated shows:

The Bad Batch (yay? Okay, following clones as the Republic transitions to the Empire does sound a bit interesting)
Star Wars: Visions (short anime films, sounds like the Animatrix, but Star Wars)
A Droid Story (?, sounds like it might be like one of those Netflix choose your own adventure specials)


Plus a new Indiana Jones movie is set for 2022 and confirmation of that Willow Disney+ series.

So a lot of stuff that I quite frankly don't care about because I'm still processing a Rogue Squadron movie.

[Peelee]

A Rogue Squadron movie, eh?

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ActualFeistyBettong-max-1mb.gif

[InvisibleBison]

I am not hugely enthusiastic about any of this. I'll probably watch the movies, unless they're only released on Disney+; I probably won't watch any of the shows, both because they're going to only be released on Disney+ and because a bunch of them seem to be inspired by and/or tied into the Mandalorian, which I found extremely boring.

[warty goblin]

If Ewan McGregor is doing Obi-Wan I'm interested. Otherwise I find I just don't really care that much. Disney managed to take a galaxy worth of pulpy possibilities, and make it boring. Like, the fact that any story they tell that isn't set after Rise of Skywalker is in some aspect leading up that galaxy-sized dumpster fire just kinda sucks my interest out like a turbo-powered mosquito. But I really, really like McGregor as Obi-Wan, so that's worth showing up for.

[Magic_Hat]

Wait, Star Wars is still an active franchise? Granted I've yet to see the film, but I thought Rise of Skywalker killed the series.

[The Glyphstone]

Wait, Star Wars is still an active franchise? Granted I've yet to see the film, but I thought Rise of Skywalker killed the series.

Whatever rock you've been living under all this time has apparently never heard of The Mandalorian. Did you know there's a pandemic going around?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph
The Acolyte (a mystery-thriller taking place in the High Republic era long before the movies)

This is the only one that really piques my interest, because it's in a completely different era when, hopefully, there will be a truly fresh look at the Star Wars galaxy.

As for the other items, I'll watch the Ahsoka series, but I dislike Ewan McGregor and not looking forward to Kenobi. As for the Bad Batch, I thought they were terrible in Clone Wars, and while they may be "fan favorites" by some obscure metric, I'll be avoiding them outright.

[Peelee]

This is the only one that really piques my interest, because it's in a completely different era when, hopefully, there will be a truly fresh look at the Star Wars galaxy.

As for the other items, I'll watch the Ahsoka series, but I dislike Ewan McGregor and not looking forward to Kenobi. As for the Bad Batch, I thought they were terrible in Clone Wars, and while they may be "fan favorites" by some obscure metric, I'll be avoiding them outright.

They're fan favorites? They were terrible.

[Devonix]

They're fan favorites? They were terrible.

Yeah I don't know anyone interested in Bad Batch. Rogue Squadron however is something I've been wanting for decades. It's what I originally thought Rogue One was gonna be.

[Velaryon]

Apparently not only is Ewan McGregor confirmed for the Obi-Wan series, but Hayden Christensen is back as well (https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/hayden-christensen-darth-vader-star-wars-obi-wan-1234851064/?fbclid=IwAR0I7NLyoIMqhEMvF8bLtLLEj_U2DWzEwWlEhr0f NDIDMYxMLavQt_GlIa0). Not sure how to feel about that.


Wait, Star Wars is still an active franchise? Granted I've yet to see the film, but I thought Rise of Skywalker killed the series.

Star Wars is way too big to be killed by one trilogy, let alone one movie.

[Peelee]

Apparently not only is Ewan McGregor confirmed for the Obi-Wan series, but Hayden Christensen is back as well (https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/hayden-christensen-darth-vader-star-wars-obi-wan-1234851064/?fbclid=IwAR0I7NLyoIMqhEMvF8bLtLLEj_U2DWzEwWlEhr0f NDIDMYxMLavQt_GlIa0). Not sure how to feel about that.

One hundred percent neutral. He didn't really bring anything to the character. Not through any fault of his own, mind you.

But yeah. Bad Batch I flat-out do not care about at all. Who thought that was a good idea?

[Magic_Hat]

Whatever rock you've been living under all this time has apparently never heard of The Mandalorian. Did you know there's a pandemic going around?

I don't subscribe to Disney+


Star Wars is way too big to be killed by one trilogy, let alone one movie.

Well I guess you have a point. Pixar made Cars 3 after the embarrassment that was Cars 2. Not to mention they are working on a fourth Matrix film.

[Dire_Flumph]

If Ewan McGregor is doing Obi-Wan I'm interested. Otherwise I find I just don't really care that much.

Yes, Ewan McGregor is coming back as Obi-Wan. Also confirmed, oddly enough, is Hayden Christensen returning as Darth Vader. Not to dump on him or anything, but why? Unless he's out of the suit, what's the point?

It's also listed as an "Event Series", so I'm guessing that means a set length of episodes rather than an open number of seasons.

[Velaryon]

Yes, Ewan McGregor is coming back as Obi-Wan. Also confirmed, oddly enough, is Hayden Christensen returning as Darth Vader. Not to dump on him or anything, but why? Unless he's out of the suit, what's the point?

It's also listed as an "Event Series", so I'm guessing that means a set length of episodes rather than an open number of seasons.

Maybe they want him for flashbacks? Seems unlikely given that it's been 15+ years, but you never know.

If they're going for suited Vader then the more important question is, do they have James Earl Jones on board?

[Rogar Demonblud]

The companion list of Marvel productions is...impressive. Kang is confirmed being in the next Ant-Man and Wasp movie (Quantumania). And Maslany is doing She-Hulk, there's a Ms Marvel movie coming, they confirmed movies for Blade and Moon Knight (no details) and there will be a new Fantastic Four movie directed by Jon Watts.

And Lucasfilm will also be doing a movie based on Children of Blood and Bone, a fantasy novel set in Africa as well as Indy 5.

FX will have a series based on Aliens, run by Noah Hawley (Legion, Fargo).

And we're getting a Buzz Lightyear movie. Starring Chris Evans.

[Kitten Champion]

And we're getting a Buzz Lightyear movie. Starring Chris Evans.

What?

Huh. Actually, looking at it, the idea isn't bad in a meta-fictional sort of way. I do wonder why not Tim Allen, but having thought about it it does make a certain amount of sense. Buzz Lightyear is the kind of character you'd cast a Chris Evans or... I don't know, someone like Chris Pine to play -- or in this case voice.

In the same sense that Tim Allen was ideal for Galaxy Quest as the Shatner stand-in back in the 90's, as had that show actually existed he'd have been the kind of person cast as the lead when he was years younger.

[Bohandas]

Wait, Star Wars is still an active franchise? Granted I've yet to see the film, but I thought Rise of Skywalker killed the series.

Don;t you mean The Last Jedi killed the series?

[Rodin]

Star Wars is way too big to be killed by one trilogy, let alone one movie.

If you ask the Internet, 8 out of the 11 Star Wars films have been mediocre to terrible. You can probably push that up to 9 as I think opinions on Rogue One are divided.

The only thing that can kill Star Wars is the heat death of the universe.

[Fyraltari]

So Patty Jenkins is directing "Rogue Squadron", the next Star Wars movie coming out (Christmas 2023)
Rogue Two joke here]



The Acolyte (a mystery-thriller taking place in the High Republic era long before the movies)
Interesting. I hope they make it visually distinct from the rest of Star Wars, no bad guys in triangular ships with stormtrooper-like armor please and thank you. I'd like it to feature Darth Bane too, I find his canon design really cool-looking.




Wait, Star Wars is still an active franchise? Granted I've yet to see the film, but I thought Rise of Skywalker killed the series.
It shall become more powerful than J. J. Abrams could possibly imagine.

They're fan favorites? They were terrible.
Oh. Something to look forward to, it seems.

Apparently not only is Ewan McGregor confirmed for the Obi-Wan series, but Hayden Christensen is back as well (https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/hayden-christensen-darth-vader-star-wars-obi-wan-1234851064/?fbclid=IwAR0I7NLyoIMqhEMvF8bLtLLEj_U2DWzEwWlEhr0f NDIDMYxMLavQt_GlIa0). Not sure how to feel about that.
Hayden Christensen is a good actor. If the directing isn't terrible, it should be fine.



Yes, Ewan McGregor is coming back as Obi-Wan. Also confirmed, oddly enough, is Hayden Christensen returning as Darth Vader. Not to dump on him or anything, but why? Unless he's out of the suit, what's the point?
Well, they're not going to cast David Prowse now, are they?



Maybe they want him for flashbacks? Seems unlikely given that it's been 15+ years, but you never know.

If they're going for suited Vader then the more important question is, do they have James Earl Jones on board?
I hope not. No disrespect to the man, but in Rogue One he sounded way too old for the role.

If you ask the Internet, 8 out of the 11 Star Wars films have been mediocre to terrible. You can probably push that up to 9 as I think opinions on Rogue One are divided.

The only thing that can kill Star Wars is the heat death of the universe.
Sic transit gloria mundi. (https://xkcd.com/1262/)

[Peelee]

I hope not. No disrespect to the man, but in Rogue One he sounded way too old for the role.

Plus, top notch voice actors can do a great job of sounding like others.

[Kitten Champion]

I don't know, it's hard to taking anyone yelling STARWARISDEAD seriously when I have multiple persons in my real actual human adult life where I do my taxes maybe stating that they yearn for a Baby Yoda this Christmas.

Also, for the record, I typed "Ba" into Google and Baby Yoda was the first autocomplete.

[Sapphire Guard]

No apparent post sequels content. That's odd. (maybe rogue squadron?)

High Republic, all they've got to do is keep away from War and the Sith, but 'Acolyte' is suggestive.

[Fyraltari]

No apparent post sequels content. That's odd. (maybe rogue squadron?)
My guesd is that someone at Disney decided that it was commercially unwise to focus on the ST era for the time being.


High Republic, all they've got to do is keep away from War and the Sith, but 'Acolyte' is suggestive.
What do you meab by "War and the Sith"?

[Ajustusdaniel]

What do you meab by "War and the Sith"?

Star Peace and the Jedi!

[Spacewolf]

I hope EA realises what a good tie in this could be and puts out a new campaign for squadrons to go with the film, then I really hope they put in a what if campaign as well for the imps rather than just have shifting view points. Let the design team have fun thinking up a different scenario.

[Fyraltari]

Star Peace and the Jedi!

Do you mean, Sun Peace, the normal day of Jack Groundflier, the well known book series with such entries as:
Volume IV: Ancient Fears
a Sun Peace work day standard episode
Volume V: A Federation attacks first
Volume VI: The departures of a Sith
Volume I: A living help
Volume II: The defense of the heterozygous twins
Volume III: The Forgiveness of the Bendu
Volume VII: The Weakness falls asleep
Loyal Two: some Sun Peace dialogue
Volume VIII: The First Sith
Together: some Sun Peace dialog
Volume IX: A fall of Groundflier

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Sapphire Guard
High Republic, all they've got to do is keep away from War and the Sith, but 'Acolyte' is suggestive.

Suggestive of what?

I’ve never played any of the games, so I don’t know if that’s a reference to game lore.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I hope EA realises what a good tie in this could be and puts out a new campaign for squadrons to go with the film, then I really hope they put in a what if campaign as well for the imps rather than just have shifting view points. Let the design team have fun thinking up a different scenario.

You mean like TIE Fighter: Titan Squadron?

Come to think of it, that'd be a good series/film too.

[Dire_Flumph]

Hayden Christensen is a good actor. If the directing isn't terrible, it should be fine.

Well, they're not going to cast David Prowse now, are they?

Hayden had some good moments in the prequels, and he did what he could with the dialogue. In particular I thought he had great chemistry with Ewan McGregor.
I've heard good things about his non-Star Wars work (ok, I heard Jumper was pretty awful), but I haven't seen anything else of his.

It just seems odd because casting him suggests he'll be out of suit. Flashbacks are one possibility, but internal monologue is another I suppose (literally haunted by the ghost of Anakin?).


No apparent post sequels content. That's odd. (maybe rogue squadron?)

No one wants to make sequel era content, not even the people who made them. They were bound to a time frame when they decided to cast the original actors in their old roles, but then bent over backwards to make sure the new era was pretty much the same as the old one.

But what little was in the teaser clearly focused on a T-65 (Rebellion Era) X-Wing.


Star Peace and the Jedi!

Is the taxation of Trade Routes to the outlying systems in dispute? He's your man!

[JadedDM]

Wait, Star Wars is still an active franchise? Granted I've yet to see the film, but I thought Rise of Skywalker killed the series.

Sure, sure, and Kathleen Kennedy is going to be fired annnnnnnnny minute now.

[The Glyphstone]

Do you mean, Sun Peace, the normal day of Jack Groundflier, the well known book series with such entries as:
Volume IV: Ancient Fears
a Sun Peace work day standard episode
Volume V: A Federation attacks first
Volume VI: The departures of a Sith
Volume I: A living help
Volume II: The defense of the heterozygous twins
Volume III: The Forgiveness of the Bendu
Volume VII: The Weakness falls asleep
Loyal Two: some Sun Peace dialogue
Volume VIII: The First Sith
Together: some Sun Peace dialog
Volume IX: A fall of Groundflier

Can we just buy the scripts for Darths and Droids and make that a live-action movie instead?

[Rogar Demonblud]

We might need to schedule death matches for the right to play the GM.:smallbiggrin:

[Magic_Hat]

The companion list of Marvel productions is...impressive. Kang is confirmed being in the next Ant-Man and Wasp movie (Quantumania). And Maslany is doing She-Hulk, there's a Ms Marvel movie coming, they confirmed movies for Blade and Moon Knight (no details) and there will be a new Fantastic Four movie directed by Jon Watts.

Really? The MCU is still a thing? Was really hope it was dead and beyond resuscitation.


And Lucasfilm will also be doing a movie based on Children of Blood and Bone, a fantasy novel set in Africa as well as Indy 5.

Really? A fifth Indiana Jones film?

[warty goblin]

Really? The MCU is still a thing? Was really hope it was dead and beyond resuscitation.

Why would somebody want that? I don't particularly enjoy the MCU, but its existance costs me nothing and clearly brings a lot of pleasure to a lot of people. So I take the radical and super laborious step of... not watching them.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Really? The MCU is still a thing? Was really hope it was dead and beyond resuscitation.

It's produced multiple billion dollar movies. Why would you think it's going anywhere?


Really? A fifth Indiana Jones film?

I guess they finally found a big enough dump truck to drive up to Harrison Ford's bank account.

[Xyril]

I guess they finally found a big enough dump truck to drive up to Harrison Ford's bank account.

It's a shame Sean Connery's gone. IIRC, he once stated in an interview that another Indy movie with Harrison Ford was literally the one thing that could bring him out of retirement.

[JadedDM]

Henry Jones Sr is already dead, canonically, in the fourth movie. So unless this one is a prequel, it wouldn't have been possible anyway, I suppose.

[Magic_Hat]

It's produced multiple billion dollar movies. Why would you think it's going anywhere?

I never said I THOUGHT it would leave. I just really hoped it would. Not unlike how you can hope you won't get a sun burn in summer, but there's a good chance at least once you'll go outside for an extended period of time without sunscreen.

[Xyril]

I have nothing against Patty Jenkins, and I think she did a good job with Rogue One.

However, if you had Taika Waititi as an option to direct a movie, then having any other director do Rogue Squadron is simply the wrong choice, period. Humor and the relationships between the quirky characters was a huge part of the appeal of the X-wing series.


Henry Jones Sr is already dead, canonically, in the fourth movie. So unless this one is a prequel, it wouldn't have been possible anyway, I suppose.

I wouldn't have minded a prequel... or at the very least, a sequel to the trilogy that was pre-Crystal Skull and Mutt.

Or, for that matter, a legitimate sequel that just called a mulligan on Crystal Skull.

This is pretty much the one time I wouldn't object to a new movie/season starting with, "Hey, wake up. You ate an ancient ghost pepper and were having some sort of fever dream. You kept mumbling something about your ex-girlfriend and refrigerators."

[Rogar Demonblud]

Patty had nothing to do with Rogue One, as she was busy with Wonder Woman.

[Xyril]

Patty had nothing to do with Rogue One, as she was busy with Wonder Woman.

Thanks for the correction, I don't know why I remembered her being involved in Star Wars before.

[Dire_Flumph]

It's a shame Sean Connery's gone. IIRC, he once stated in an interview that another Indy movie with Harrison Ford was literally the one thing that could bring him out of retirement.

He did seem interested in returning for four, he just didn't apparently like where the character went and felt that he wasn't necessary to the film (if it was just going to be Henry Sr in where Oxley was then I don't blame him). Connery claims he requested Spielberg kill off the character instead.

The big question on my mind is will Karen Allen be back?

[Xyril]

He did seem interested in returning for four, he just didn't apparently like where the character went and felt that he wasn't necessary to the film (if it was just going to be Henry Sr in where Oxley was then I don't blame him). Connery claims he requested Spielberg kill off the character instead.


He made the right choice. Harrison Ford should have done the same.

[Zevox]

https://www.starwars.com/news/future-lucasfilm-projects-revealed

So Patty Jenkins is directing "Rogue Squadron", the next Star Wars movie coming out (Christmas 2023)
Okay, that's the best-sounding piece of Star Wars news I've heard since before The Last Jedi. Though they don't mention characters at all in the little snippet about it, so who knows who exactly it'll be about - one would hope at a minimum Wedge Antilles will be one of the stars, though. Even if you ignore everyone else from the old novels, how can you call anything "Rogue Squadron" without him?

And apparently this Patty Jenkins was the director of Wonder Woman. Okay, I am on board so far. Remains to be seen how it shakes out, but I actually have something Star Wars related to maybe look forward to again, so that's nice, at least for now.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Given the movie isn't due for three years at this point they're probably deciding which scriptwriter they want to use.

[Rodin]

It's produced multiple billion dollar movies. Why would you think it's going anywhere?


Which is also why Star Wars continues to be a thing. Rise of Skywalker was the weakest of the sequel trilogy and still broke the billion dollar mark. $300 million in profit, so I'm sure Disney is crying all the way to the bank over the reviews. Sure, Hollywood accounting, yadda yadda yadda. This announcement shows how much profit Disney thinks they made and can still make out of the franchise.

And to give a serious response to my own facetious post, I've legitimately enjoyed all the movies other than Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. I was young enough (16 or 17) when Phantom Menace came out that the special effects and light saber fights were enough for me. TFA was enough better than the prequels to make it a very enjoyable watch, and I still maintain it's a good movie. Last Jedi was fun for how it subverted my expectations and I only came to dislike the movie after leaving the theatre and thinking about its flaws. Rise is the weakest of the three but it kept me entertained for the duration. Rogue One and Solo are both flawed but fun movies that explored different genres (commando mission and heist movie respectively).

Star Wars doesn't maintain the same standards as the MCU, but the movies have always been good enough to be a sure bet for spending my cinema dollars. The only movie I didn't see in cinemas was Revenge, and I'm glad of that. I watched it for completion purposes only and....yeesh. It's only good compared to Attack.

[Bohandas]

Really? The MCU is still a thing? Was really hope it was dead and beyond resuscitation

They've crossed over all the marvel superheroes but they still haven't crossed over all the Disney franchises. This isn't going to end until we get the Marvel/Star Wars/Princess Mononoke/Winnie the Pooh movie.

[JadedDM]

Still waiting on this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BBhNkywMJY

[Clertar]

Still waiting on this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BBhNkywMJY

We did get the Boba Fett part already!

[Mechalich]

Which is also why Star Wars continues to be a thing. Rise of Skywalker was the weakest of the sequel trilogy and still broke the billion dollar mark. $300 million in profit, so I'm sure Disney is crying all the way to the bank over the reviews.

More like $120-150 million in profit, actually, based on assumed marketing costs and theater splits. Disney will never tell the full story publicly, but Rise of Skywalker probably made them less money than the live-action Aladdin remake. Post-sequels Star Wars is a franchise with reduced profitability compared to the assumptions pre-sequels. That's not even necessarily primarily to do with the quality (or lack thereof) of those films. Compared to basically every other major blockbuster franchise, Star Wars is phenomenally weak in China. Since the Chinese theatrical market is the clear #2 market and potentially soon to be the #1 market (especially if streaming fallout kills US theater chains) this hurts the ceiling of Star Wars as a theatrical franchise.

The generalized pivot to TV - they announced 8 TV series counting animation and live action together - compared to two films in early pre-production stages, seems at least partly an acknowledgment of this. Star Wars remains very strong in many markets where Disney+ is already operating, so more series could really boost the streaming platform internationally.

[Devonix]

More like $120-150 million in profit, actually, based on assumed marketing costs and theater splits. Disney will never tell the full story publicly, but Rise of Skywalker probably made them less money than the live-action Aladdin remake. Post-sequels Star Wars is a franchise with reduced profitability compared to the assumptions pre-sequels. That's not even necessarily primarily to do with the quality (or lack thereof) of those films. Compared to basically every other major blockbuster franchise, Star Wars is phenomenally weak in China. Since the Chinese theatrical market is the clear #2 market and potentially soon to be the #1 market (especially if streaming fallout kills US theater chains) this hurts the ceiling of Star Wars as a theatrical franchise.

The generalized pivot to TV - they announced 8 TV series counting animation and live action together - compared to two films in early pre-production stages, seems at least partly an acknowledgment of this. Star Wars remains very strong in many markets where Disney+ is already operating, so more series could really boost the streaming platform internationally.

The thing is that how much the films make has always been an afterthought. Because at the end of the Day Disney isn't a film company. It's a Entertainment company focusing on Parks, Hotels and Cruise lines. Even looking at how much money the Marvel films make at the box office. It's only a fraction of what they make daily at their parks.

Starwars is important because the IP allows them to use stuff at their parks. That's where the money is.

[Mechalich]

The thing is that how much the films make has always been an afterthought. Because at the end of the Day Disney isn't a film company. It's a Entertainment company focusing on Parks, Hotels and Cruise lines. Even looking at how much money the Marvel films make at the box office. It's only a fraction of what they make daily at their parks.

Starwars is important because the IP allows them to use stuff at their parks. That's where the money is.

Actually that's not the case. The largest portion of Disney's income actually comes from it's media networks (https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/the-walt-disney-company-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-earnings-for-fiscal-2019/), meaning ABC, Espn, the Disney Channel, and various other subsidiaries (Disney+ will be a big part of this too, but the data basically isn't out yet and 2020 is an aberrant year). Parks is second, and studio releases (meaning movies) third, with physical merchandise last. Studio revenue has been consistently rising over time though while the growth in the Parks division has lagged (that's pre-coronavirus, the Parks division has rather obviously been absolutely crushed this year).

[Dienekes]

Why would somebody want that? I don't particularly enjoy the MCU, but its existance costs me nothing and clearly brings a lot of pleasure to a lot of people. So I take the radical and super laborious step of... not watching them.

Some people when they see others enjoying things that they don't find a great need to display their rejection of it. Like with Twilight books, or pop music, or the MCU or whatever else happens to be popular and draws their ire.

Not much to it really. Just people yelling at the void.

[Peelee]

Some people when they see others enjoying things that they don't find a great need to display their rejection of it. Like with Twilight books, or pop music, or the MCU or whatever else happens to be popular and draws their ire.

Not much to it really. Just people yelling at the void.

Yelling into the void is terrible, and I look down upon everyone who does it.

[Devonix]

Actually that's not the case. The largest portion of Disney's income actually comes from it's media networks (https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/the-walt-disney-company-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-earnings-for-fiscal-2019/), meaning ABC, Espn, the Disney Channel, and various other subsidiaries (Disney+ will be a big part of this too, but the data basically isn't out yet and 2020 is an aberrant year). Parks is second, and studio releases (meaning movies) third, with physical merchandise last. Studio revenue has been consistently rising over time though while the growth in the Parks division has lagged (that's pre-coronavirus, the Parks division has rather obviously been absolutely crushed this year).


The link you shared actually put the media earnings below the park earnings. Park earnings were at 6,655 Media earnings were at 6,510 with Studio at 3,310

But point stands Film How much the films actually make isn't as important as the films putting the IPs in the public eye.

[warty goblin]

Yelling into the void is terrible, and I look down upon everyone who does it.

Yelling at the void is so rude, I mean what's it done to me? Nothing. Instead I send the void embossed invitations to tea and scones in the garden

[Mechalich]

The link you shared actually put the media earnings below the park earnings. Park earnings were at 6,655 Media earnings were at 6,510 with Studio at 3,310

That's revenues. The income numbers, which follow, are more important, media is 1783, parks 1381, and studio 1079.


But point stands Film How much the films actually make isn't as important as the films putting the IPs in the public eye.

This is debatable. Disney's conglomerated media arms, film+tv+streaming, is more important than it's physical products and experiences. The auxiliary physical aspects of IPs are declining even as combined media presence rises in importance. Toys are on the decline across pretty much all IPs (yes Star Wars hit a home run with Baby Yoda but that's an anomaly), and while the parks have held up strongly, Disney's park strength has always been backed by it's children-oriented productions and far less by the Marvel/Star Wars/other teen and adult IPs it owns. And of course right now it's extremely unclear when, if ever, the parks/cruises/etc will recover from their covid induced crushing, which makes media all the more important.

The major thrust of Star Wars based on this announcement is toward streaming. There will have been a 4 year gap between films by the time Rogue Squadron premiers in Dec 2023, but assuming the release dates are staggered for the various TV series it looks like that by sometime next year there could be essentially continual Star Wars releases on Disney+.

Ultimately Disney already won the studio consolidation wars. Following their acquisition of Fox, they became the largest movie producer in Hollywood by a huge margin. They're clearly trying to do the same thing in the ongoing 'streaming wars' and Star Wars is clearly a major push in that field. Marvel is too, of course, but it's clear that Disney intends to retain every last one of the subscribers they pulled in with Mandalorian. The focus on the public eye really isn't about parks anymore, it's about getting as many people as possible to pay you a set amount every month for the next decade.

[Peelee]

That's revenues. The income numbers, which follow, are more important, media is 1783, parks 1381, and studio 1079.

Frankly, I'm surprised the parks make that much. The costs must be nightmarish.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Have you seen what they charge for churros?

[Peelee]

Have you seen what they charge for churros?

Point taken.

[Rodin]

I kind of love the idea that Disney is just a front for Big Churro. The Scrooge McDuck vault isn't full of gold coins - it's full of cinnamon and sugar.

[Devonix]

Frankly, I'm surprised the parks make that much. The costs must be nightmarish.

A lot but not as much as you think. Disneyland costs about 2-3 million a day, and rakes in about 12 million in cash each day.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I kind of love the idea that Disney is just a front for Big Churro. The Scrooge McDuck vault isn't full of gold coins - it's full of cinnamon and sugar.

Both of which have been more valuable than gold in their time. Besides, there just hasn't been that much gold mined so the bin is ridiculous overkill even if you do assume ten meter thick walls of solid stone.

[druid91]

Wait, Star Wars is still an active franchise? Granted I've yet to see the film, but I thought Rise of Skywalker killed the series.

It killed the sequel trilogy, yes.

The franchise entirely no. Star wars is too big and has too much history to be killed so easily.

[Rodin]

It killed the sequel trilogy, yes.


This happens more frequently than you think. In fact, I don't think there's been a recorded case of the third work in a trilogy not being the final one.

[The Glyphstone]

This happens more frequently than you think. In fact, I don't think there's been a recorded case of the third work in a trilogy not being the final one.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

[Fyraltari]

This happens more frequently than you think. In fact, I don't think there's been a recorded case of the third work in a trilogy not being the final one.

Eragon? Most movie adaptations of a literary trilogy after Deathly Hallows: Part II came out?

[druid91]

This happens more frequently than you think. In fact, I don't think there's been a recorded case of the third work in a trilogy not being the final one.

It's an unusual thing lately. So many trilogy's becoming 'cycles'.

In any case I mean more in the sense that I very much doubt anything new will spring from the sequel trilogy.

[warty goblin]

In any case I mean more in the sense that I very much doubt anything new will spring from the sequel trilogy.

There's really only got two time periods they seem to be using at the moment: between the prequels and original trilogy, and between the original and sequel trilogies. At some point they're going to run out of backstories, answers to questions nobody's ever asked, and stuff that won't make any real difference because the metaplot is already set in stone, which can be plausibly jammed in there. As it is, most of the newly announced stuff carries the distinct scent of those old Force Unleashed games or the amazingly forgettable Jedi Fallen Order, where you get a lot of complicated plot that adds up to a nothingburger because everyone knows A New Hope happens and ain't no secret apprentice or rebuilt Jedi order in there.

In which case, brace for Sequel Trilogy 2 Episode X: Phantom Hope Awakens, Episode XI: Clone of the Last Empire Strikes Back, and of course, Episode XII: Rising Revenge of the Returning Skywalker.

Yes, the plot will involve a new Death Star, this one the size of a sun. Its gimmick is that it shoots Death Stars.

[Fyraltari]

It's an unusual thing lately. So many trilogy's becoming 'cycles'.

In any case I mean more in the sense that I very much doubt anything new will spring from the sequel trilogy.
Heh, give it a few years let the whole thing settle.

There's really only got two time periods they seem to be using at the moment: between the prequels and original trilogy, and between the original and sequel trilogies. At some point they're going to run out of backstories, answers to questions nobody's ever asked, and stuff that won't make any real difference because the metaplot is already set in stone, which can be plausibly jammed in there. As it is, most of the newly announced stuff carries the distinct scent of those old Force Unleashed games or the amazingly forgettable Jedi Fallen Order, where you get a lot of complicated plot that adds up to a nothingburger because everyone knows A New Hope happens and ain't no secret apprentice or rebuilt Jedi order in there.
If that High Republic thing they're cooking works out we can expect a lot of focus on that period just as there was a lot of focus on Revan's time after KOTOR's success.


In which case, brace for Sequel Trilogy 2 Episode X: Phantom Hope Awakens, Episode XI: Clone of the Last Empire Strikes Back, and of course, Episode XII: Rising Revenge of the Returning Skywalker.

Yes, the plot will involve a new Death Star, this one the size of a sun. Its gimmick is that it shoots Death Stars.
No, no, no, it can destroy a whole galaxy in one shot!

[Peelee]

Yes, the plot will involve a new Death Star, this one the size of a sun. Its gimmick is that it shoots Death Stars.

Only two people would try that - J. J. Abrams (done horribly badly) and David X. Cohen (done very well).

Cohen did pull off a fleet of solid gold, jewel-encrusted Death Stars already, after all.

[Dire_Flumph]

Only two people would try that - J. J. Abrams (done horribly badly)

Kevin J. Anderson: "Hold my absinthe"

[Ajustusdaniel]

This happens more frequently than you think. In fact, I don't think there's been a recorded case of the third work in a trilogy not being the final one.

I once had a copy of "So Long and Thanks for All The Fish," which billed itself as the 'fourth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy," or something to that effect.

[Fyraltari]

I once had a copy of "So Long and Thanks for All The Fish," which billed itself as the 'fourth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy," or something to that effect.

Wasn't that for the fifth book?

[Dire_Flumph]

Wasn't that for the fifth book?

Yes, my copy of SLaTfatF from the 80's just says "The Fourth Book in the Hitchhiker's Trilogy". I don't think it's a great example of pushing past a trilogy though. Adams never seemed to have an overarching plan for the story, the trilogy thing seemed to come from the publisher, which he ran with as a joke afterwards.

I think druid91's original point was just that Rise of Skywalker killed interest in the sequel era. I'm not sure there was much to begin with though, looking at EU material published during the sequel trilogy run, most of it leaned towards the Rebellion era. Compare that with EU material made during the prequel run which had a lot more material in that era.

[druid91]

Honestly what I mean is that the sequels had big shoes to fill when Disney announced they weren't going to keep the EU canon.

And I can even understand why they didn't want to keep the EU canon. But that doesn't change that 20 years of post OT storylines that a huge portion of the dedicated fanbase were invested in some part of.... Just got wiped. But they promised to give us something just as good if not better...

The sequel trilogy failed that promise while ripping off the EU they replaced at the same time.

[Peelee]

Honestly what I mean is that the sequels had big shoes to fill when Disney announced they weren't going to keep the EU canon.

Not really. Most of the old Canon was crap (Sturgeon really nailed it), and they could have picked and choosed stuff to make a solid sequel trilogy from, along with all new material. That they didn't, and went with "start with complete, 100% rehash, despite how little sense it makes" and just got progressively worse from there was just a boneheaded move. Which, to me, is explained by "Abrams did it."

[druid91]

Not really. Most of the old Canon was crap (Sturgeon really nailed it), and they could have picked and choosed stuff to make a solid sequel trilogy from, along with all new material. That they didn't, and went with "start with complete, 100% rehash, despite how little sense it makes" and just got progressively worse from there was just a boneheaded move. Which, to me, is explained by "Abrams did it."

We'll have to agree to disagree there. While the old canon had it's bad moments, it's overall pretty great.

In particular the stuff inhabiting the same stretch of time the sequels do, is 100% better than the sequels.

The sequels themselves do a lazier rehash of one of the weaker eu plots, the clone of palpatine.

[warty goblin]

And junking the old canon cost them what, some fan rage? These are Star Wars fans we're talking about, being pissed about Star Wars is what they do. That and spending money on Star Wars crap. The people hardcore enough to be invested in EU stuff are invested enough in Star Wars as a whole that the majority will show up for new Star Wars, old canon or no.

And any losses on the margins among the hardcore can be recovered several times over by appealing to the wider (and younger) public at large by actually targeting them.

Which I think they did a very good job of with Force Awakens, and as much nerd rage as it precipitated, Last Jedi went down really positively with a lot of people. Anecdotally, the people I know who liked TLJ skew younger and more female than the hated it set. If that's true at a population level, it is canny targeting. My perception is that fandom culture as a whole is very much driven by young women these days, while young men don't generally spend a lot of money on movies, and old men are a shrinking portion of the population. If you're playing the long game, younger,more female demographics are the ones you want on board so you can reap years of high fan expenditures.

They definitely seem to gave wet the bed with Rise of Skywalker though. I don't think that went down well just with anybody.

[Bohandas]

They definitely seem to gave wet the bed with Rise of Skywalker though. I don't think that went down well just with anybody.

How was Rise of Skywalker worse than The Last Jedi?


We'll have to agree to disagree there. While the old canon had it's bad moments, it's overall pretty great.

In particular the stuff inhabiting the same stretch of time the sequels do, is 100% better than the sequels.

The sequels themselves do a lazier rehash of one of the weaker eu plots, the clone of palpatine.

Yeah. They basically turned Star Wars into a bad knockoff of itself.

[Xyril]

And junking the old canon cost them what, some fan rage? These are Star Wars fans we're talking about, being pissed about Star Wars is what they do. That and spending money on Star Wars crap. The people hardcore enough to be invested in EU stuff are invested enough in Star Wars as a whole that the majority will show up for new Star Wars, old canon or no.

This seems needlessly condescending and dismissive towards the fans, but even if we accept that is true, then this



And any losses on the margins among the hardcore can be recovered several times over by appealing to the wider (and younger) public at large by actually targeting them.

still doesn't necessary follow. Remember the Avatar live action movie? Or Ghost in the Shell? In pandemic streaming times, plenty of folks have decided that they were perfectly serviceable movies, if nothing special. When they were trying to make box-office profits, however, all of the negative publicity stemming from "some fan rage" was enough to turn away even casual audiences to the point that they drastically underperformed movies that were (IMO) similar in terms of being entertaining, if unexceptional.

Star Wars sits in a weird place. It's sheer stature, bolstered by its association with Disney, means that it might be intrinsically too big to fail. On the other hand, a large part of the value added--both to the fans and to the owners of the IP--come precisely from that rabid fandom you look down upon. While the movies make a much bigger chunk of the revenue than any other individual works, Lucas's $4 billion price tag wouldn't have been palatable without downstream revenues from hundreds of books, comics, merch, and other adaptations/spinoff sales. Yes, these all appeal to a subset of the audience that watched the movies, and thus are individually less profitable, but the sheer volume of spinoff works and the willingness of fans to keep following them adds up to a lot of money. On the fan side, most casual fans see primarily the positive aspects of the super fans, and that community actually becomes part of the draw for the franchise itself. Yes, the younger fans are different, but for the most they're still Star Wars fans, and not random folks who wandered into TFA because nothing else was playing.

[druid91]

This seems needlessly condescending and dismissive towards the fans, but even if we accept that is true, then this



still doesn't necessary follow. Remember the Avatar live action movie? Or Ghost in the Shell? In pandemic streaming times, plenty of folks have decided that they were perfectly serviceable movies, if nothing special. When they were trying to make box-office profits, however, all of the negative publicity stemming from "some fan rage" was enough to turn away even casual audiences to the point that they drastically underperformed movies that were (IMO) similar in terms of being entertaining, if unexceptional.

Star Wars sits in a weird place. It's sheer stature, bolstered by its association with Disney, means that it might be intrinsically too big to fail. On the other hand, a large part of the value added--both to the fans and to the owners of the IP--come precisely from that rabid fandom you look down upon. While the movies make a much bigger chunk of the revenue than any other individual works, Lucas's $4 billion price tag wouldn't have been palatable without downstream revenues from hundreds of books, comics, merch, and other adaptations/spinoff sales. Yes, these all appeal to a subset of the audience that watched the movies, and thus are individually less profitable, but the sheer volume of spinoff works and the willingness of fans to keep following them adds up to a lot of money. On the fan side, most casual fans see primarily the positive aspects of the super fans, and that community actually becomes part of the draw for the franchise itself. Yes, the younger fans are different, but for the most they're still Star Wars fans, and not random folks who wandered into TFA because nothing else was playing.

Not to mention that Star Wars isn't some obscure comic, or 40k where it's some Niche thing that only a few people know about. The idea that Starwars could somehow get more mainstream is.... frankly laughable. It is the mainstream titan of sci-fi. Literally everyone, even people who have never seen star wars knows what Star Wars is. TV-Shows and movies have been referencing it for almost half a century at this point.

[Fyraltari]

I'm not sure there was much to begin with though, looking at EU material published during the sequel trilogy run, most of it leaned towards the Rebellion era. Compare that with EU material made during the prequel run which had a lot more material in that era.
I think this stems less from a lack of interest than from a desire to give the movie completely free reign continuity-wise. I think I remember one author stating he wasn't allowed to as much as imply the existence of the Jedi Order post-Endor in his book, for example.

Not that it stopped them from screwing up, mind.

The sequel trilogy failed that promise while ripping off the EU they replaced at the same time.
Hey, now they ripped off the original movies. If that ended up looking like the old EU, well...

How was Rise of Skywalker worse than The Last Jedi?
The Last Jedi tried to say something about Star Wars, to do something new. The Rise of Skywalker is just a cavalcade of action scenes barely held together by an excuse of a plot and ignores the previous film or goes out of its way to contradict it. Also it finishes The Force Awakens' job of erasing the results of the original heroes efforts by bringing back Sidious. Also its aping of of previous milestones of Star Wars (hero discovers dark parentage, evil man turns good, Palpatine wants to be struck down) ring hollow and soulless. It's a cash-grab that is content with being a cash-grab. Whatever your opinion of Last Jedi, at least it was a cash-grab that tried to be something more.

[druid91]

I think this stems less from a lack of interest than from a desire to give the movie completely free reign continuity-wise. I think I remember one author stating he wasn't allowed to as much as imply the existence of the Jedi Order post-Endor in his book, for example.

Not that it stopped them from screwing up, mind.

Hey, now they ripped off the original movies. If that ended up looking like the old EU, well...

The Last Jedi tried to say something about Star Wars, to do something new. The Rise of Skywalker is just a cavalcade of action scenes barely held together by an excuse of a plot and ignores the previous film or goes out of its way to contradict it. Also it finishes The Force Awakens' job of erasing the results of the original heroes efforts by bringing back Sidious. Also its aping of of previous milestones of Star Wars (hero discovers dark parentage, evil man turns good, Palpatine wants to be struck down) ring hollow and soulless. It's a cash-grab that is content with being a cash-grab. Whatever your opinion of Last Jedi, at least it was a cash-grab that tried to be something more.

I mean, they ripped off both.

[Fyraltari]

I mean, they ripped off both.

Well yeah, but the EU ripped ofot he movies too (how many Imperial superweapons were destroyed in a last-minute against-all-odds attack by the rebels, heh?) so it's hard to say when they stopped ripping one and started ripping the other.

[druid91]

Well yeah, but the EU ripped ofot he movies too (how many Imperial superweapons were destroyed in a last-minute against-all-odds attack by the rebels, heh?) so it's hard to say when they stopped ripping one and started ripping the other.

Eh.... I don't really see that as so much of a Ripoff compared to 'Emperor Palpatine actually survived thanks to clone bodies and comes back with a fleet of superlaser equipped star destroyers.'

Last-Minute Against all odds attack by the rebels is more of a trope than a plot, and it didn't happen constantly. Clone Palpatine and his doom fleet is a literal plot.

[Fyraltari]

Eh.... I don't really see that as so much of a Ripoff compared to 'Emperor Palpatine actually survived thanks to clone bodies and comes back with a fleet of superlaser equipped star destroyers.'

Last-Minute Against all odds attack by the rebels is more of a trope than a plot, and it didn't happen constantly. Clone Palpatine and his doom fleet is a literal plot.

That's fair.

EDIT: Though, was Palpatine a clone in TROS? He looked injured, so I thought they were implying he somehow healed from his injuries.

[Dire_Flumph]

Well yeah, but the EU ripped ofot he movies too (how many Imperial superweapons were destroyed in a last-minute against-all-odds attack by the rebels, heh?)

Honestly? Outside of Dark Empire and Kevin Anderson's novels, I really don't remember many of them. I had to roll to the Superweapons (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Superweapon/Legends) page on Wookiepedia, and the only other ones I recognized were the Malevolence from Clone Wars and Centerpoint Station, which in its favor was handled very differently from standard Superweapon plots.

[Zevox]

The Last Jedi tried to say something about Star Wars, to do something new. The Rise of Skywalker is just a cavalcade of action scenes barely held together by an excuse of a plot and ignores the previous film or goes out of its way to contradict it. Also it finishes The Force Awakens' job of erasing the results of the original heroes efforts by bringing back Sidious. Also its aping of of previous milestones of Star Wars (hero discovers dark parentage, evil man turns good, Palpatine wants to be struck down) ring hollow and soulless. It's a cash-grab that is content with being a cash-grab. Whatever your opinion of Last Jedi, at least it was a cash-grab that tried to be something more.
Frankly, a mere cash-grab would be far preferable to The Last Jedi. Hell, I still suspect that I would prefer Rise of Skywalker to it if I ever watched it, just because for all the stupid things I've heard about it, at least it sounds more entertaining and less depressing than The Last Jedi was.

[warty goblin]

How was Rise of Skywalker worse than The Last Jedi?


I didn't particularly like Last Jedi, but had a plot that mostly cohered and made something approximating sense-ish. As in, characters perceive a problem, and come up with an action that has at least some relationship to solving that problem. It had a theme running through it about the Force being more universal than the Jedi and the Sith, which it actually reinforced by making Rey's parents nobodies. The Kylo/Rey thing clearly turned a lot of screws for a lot of people - never made sense to me since Kylo always struck me as a whiny jerk with a sideline in fratricide and school shootings - but the amount of enthusiasm was, at least least judging by fan fic volume, extremely high. It also had a couple scenes with quite striking visual composition, the throne room fight and the battle on Crait come to mind.

Sure I damn with faint praise there, but as I said, I wasn't wild about the movie. I'm not sure I can honestly call the sequence of events in Rise of Skywalker a 'plot' in any meaningful sense. I certainly cannot begin to recall them with any degree of specificity, a trait it shares with fellow JJ Abrams unfortunate creation Star Trek: Into Darkness. Things happen, mostly in order to create another 3 minutes of drama, but there's no rhyme or reason to any of it. It fake kills characters twice, with absolutely no impact down the line. To the extent it has a theme, it's that the previous movie was badwrong, but this seems like less a coherent statement, and more the random flagellations of the sequence of events always needing to the dumbest, most dramatic thing possible. About the only good thing that can be said for it is that we got Ian McDairmid chewing his way through the scenery, but everything about that was so nonsensical it robbed it of 90% of its potential joy.


This seems needlessly condescending and dismissive towards the fans, but even if we accept that is true, then this

I've been reading Star Wars fans complain about Star Wars since basically as long as I've been on the internet. And yet they nearly always seem to have consumed the latest piece of Star Wars stuff, so apparently the complaining doesn't really stop them from spending money on Star Wars. Basically I'm saying that Star Wars (https://web.archive.org/web/20060110082840/http://jivemagazine.com/column.php?pid=3381) fans hating (https://www.indiewire.com/2012/04/no-one-hates-star-wars-quite-like-a-star-wars-fan-130016/) Star Wars (https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/12/23/21034508/star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-last-jedi-rian-johnson-debate) is a recurring meme for a reason.


still doesn't necessary follow. Remember the Avatar live action movie? Or Ghost in the Shell? In pandemic streaming times, plenty of folks have decided that they were perfectly serviceable movies, if nothing special. When they were trying to make box-office profits, however, all of the negative publicity stemming from "some fan rage" was enough to turn away even casual audiences to the point that they drastically underperformed movies that were (IMO) similar in terms of being entertaining, if unexceptional.
Both of which are, compared to Star Wars (and Star Wars marketing) small fry. Also by all accounts extremely badly made movies. I don't particularly like TFA or TLJ, but they aren't fundamentally incompetent films - I'd actually say that right up until Maz's palace and the sudden need for a third act causes Starkiller Base to be pulled directly from thin air, TFA is an interesting and moderately creative piece of Star Wars stuff. It certainly made a giant pile of cash, and seemed to generate a lot of excitement.


Star Wars sits in a weird place. It's sheer stature, bolstered by its association with Disney, means that it might be intrinsically too big to fail. On the other hand, a large part of the value added--both to the fans and to the owners of the IP--come precisely from that rabid fandom you look down upon. While the movies make a much bigger chunk of the revenue than any other individual works, Lucas's $4 billion price tag wouldn't have been palatable without downstream revenues from hundreds of books, comics, merch, and other adaptations/spinoff sales. Yes, these all appeal to a subset of the audience that watched the movies, and thus are individually less profitable, but the sheer volume of spinoff works and the willingness of fans to keep following them adds up to a lot of money. On the fan side, most casual fans see primarily the positive aspects of the super fans, and that community actually becomes part of the draw for the franchise itself. Yes, the younger fans are different, but for the most they're still Star Wars fans, and not random folks who wandered into TFA because nothing else was playing.

So my argument is basically this: by scrapping the EU, Disney gave itself the freedom of maneuver to appeal to a newer, younger fanbase. If it did a good job (and my sense is it generally did up until Rise), it gets a new batch of people who will spend on Star Wars for decades to come. Young fans are more valuable than old fans, since they're not as far through their total lifetime expenditures, and are much more influential in terms of defining the culture. If your flagship product is a movie, aiming for young and female is a strong bet, because young male people tend to spend on videogames instead.

Was this impossible to do by sticking to the EU? I obviously can't disprove a hypothetical, and I've never paid any real attention to the EU in the first place so I can't really speak with any expertise on the matter, but it seems at the very least a substantial handicap. For one thing a lot of the EU is (to my limited understanding) pretty focused on the original cast, which given their age by the time of the Disney acquisition would (probably?) render a lot of the stories simply not workable. Even if you skip ahead, it leaves all stuff between Return of the Jedi and whenever you pick up the story to explain, and multiple novels is a lot to cram into an opening crawl. It also seems unlikely that you could, for instance, get Harrison Ford to sign up for a huge pile of Star Wars stuff. For another, if you're aiming for a young audience, making your central characters are bunch of old farts is generally a bad move.

So that's at the very least adding undue complications to recouping the enormous outlay of cash. On the other hand, if you ignore the EU, you're only going to really piss off the very, very hardcore, at least to the meaningful point of not spending any money. I remember on these boards when the scrapping of the old canon was announced, a lot of people were happy, since they felt that on the whole the EU was just such an ingrown toenail of powercreep, plotholes, Mary Sues, dead Chewbaccas, super-weapons, and gods know what else that it was worth burning down even at the cost of the good bits. So I rather suspect the number of people who outright rejected any new movies and related stuff simply because Heir to the Empire was no longer canon is pretty small.

[Peelee]

We'll have to agree to disagree there. While the old canon had it's bad moments, it's overall pretty great.
I'll take that bet. Here's a list of all old canon Star Wars novels I've read and my opinions about them (very simplified opinions, and I had to reign myself in from really trashing the worst of the worst). Not listed are ebook novellas, young adult books, and books I have not read - warning, it's still a bit long.
The Old Republic era

The Old Republic: Revan by Drew Karpyshyn bad

The Old Republic: Deceived by Paul S. Kemp bad

Red Harvest by Joe Schreiber bad

The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams bad

The Old Republic: Annihilation by Drew Karpyshyn bad

Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller forgettable

Darth Bane: Path of Destruction by Drew Karpyshyn good

Darth Bane: Rule of Two by Drew Karpyshyn good

Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil by Drew Karpyshyn good

Rise of the Empire era

Darth Plagueis by James Luceno forgettable

Darth Maul: Saboteur by James Luceno forgettable

Cloak of Deception by James Luceno bad

Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter by Michael Reaves bad

Rogue Planet by Greg Bear bad

Outbound Flight by Timothy Zahn good

The Approaching Storm by Alan Dean Foster forgettable

Jedi Trial by David Sherman and Dan Cragg bad

Republic Commando: Hard Contact by Karen Traviss forgettable

Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover bad

Republic Commando: Triple Zero by Karen Traviss forgettable

Republic Commando: True Colors by Karen Traviss forgettable

MedStar I: Battle Surgeons by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry bad

MedStar II: Jedi Healer by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry bad

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous by Sean Stewart bad

Labyrinth of Evil by James Luceno bad

Order 66: A Republic Commando Novel by Karen Traviss forgettable

Imperial Commando: 501st by Karen Traviss good

Coruscant Nights I: Jedi Twilight by Michael Reaves good

Coruscant Nights II: Street of Shadows by Michael Reaves good

Coruscant Nights III: Patterns of Force by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff good

The Last Jedi by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff good

The Paradise Snare by A. C. Crispin good

The Hutt Gambit by A.C. Crispin good

Tales from the Empire (anthology) good

Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu by L. Neil Smith forgettable

Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon by L. Neil Smith forgettable

Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka by L. Neil Smith forgettable

Death Star by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry bad

Han Solo at Stars' End by Brian Daley good

Han Solo's Revenge by Brian Daley good

Han Solo and the Lost Legacy by Brian Daley forgettable

Rebel Dawn by A. C. Crispin good

Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber bad

Rebellion era

Tales from the New Republic (anthology) good

Shadow Games by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff good

Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina (anthology) good

Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn good

Allegiance by Timothy Zahn good

Choices of One by Timothy Zahn good

Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster bad

Tales of the Bounty Hunters (anthology) good

Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry good

Tales from Jabba's Palace (anthology) good

The Mandalorian Armor by K. W. Jeter bad

Slave Ship by K. W. Jeter bad

Hard Merchandise by K. W. Jeter bad

The Truce at Bakura by Kathy Tyers bad

New Republic era

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor by Matthew Stover bad

X-Wing: Rogue Squadron by Michael A. Stackpole good

X-Wing: Wedge's Gamble by Michael A. Stackpole good

X-Wing: The Krytos Trap by Michael A. Stackpole good

X-Wing: The Bacta War by Michael A. Stackpole good

X-Wing: Wraith Squadron by Aaron Allston good

X-Wing: Iron Fist by Aaron Allston good

X-Wing: Solo Command by Aaron Allston good

The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton bad

Tatooine Ghost by Troy Denning good

Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn good

Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn good

The Last Command by Timothy Zahn good

X-Wing: Isard's Revenge by Michael A. Stackpole bad

Jedi Search by Kevin J. Anderson bad

Dark Apprentice by Kevin J. Anderson bad

Champions of the Force by Kevin J. Anderson bad

I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole good

Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambly bad

Darksaber by Kevin J. Anderson bad

X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar by Aaron Allston good*

Planet of Twilight by Barbara Hambly bad

The Crystal Star by Vonda N. McIntyre bad

The Black Fleet Crisis: Before the Storm by Michael P. Kube-McDowell bad

The Black Fleet Crisis: Shield of Lies by Michael P. Kube-McDowell bad

The Black Fleet Crisis: Tyrant's Test by Michael P. Kube-McDowell bad

The New Rebellion by Kristine Kathryn Rusch bad

Ambush at Corellia by Roger MacBride Allen bad

Assault at Selonia by Roger MacBride Allen bad

Showdown at Centerpoint by Roger MacBride Allen bad

Specter of the Past by Timothy Zahn good

Vision of the Future by Timothy Zahn good

Survivor's Quest by Timothy Zahn good

New Jedi Order era

The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime by R. A. Salvatore bad

The New Jedi Order: Dark Tide I: Onslaught by Michael A. Stackpole bad

The New Jedi Order: Dark Tide II: Ruin by Michael A. Stackpole bad

The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial by James Luceno bad

The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse by James Luceno bad

The New Jedi Order: Balance Point by Kathy Tyers bad

The New Jedi Order: Edge of Victory I: Conquest by Greg Keyes bad

The New Jedi Order: Edge of Victory II: Rebirth by Greg Keyes bad

The New Jedi Order: Star by Star by Troy Denning bad

The New Jedi Order: Dark Journey by Elaine Cunningham bad

The New Jedi Order: Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream by Aaron Allston bad

The New Jedi Order: Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand by Aaron Allston bad

The New Jedi Order: Traitor by Matthew Stover bad

The New Jedi Order: Destiny's Way by Walter Jon Williams bad

The New Jedi Order: Force Heretic I: Remnant by Sean Williams and Shane Dix bad

The New Jedi Order: Force Heretic II: Refugee by Sean Williams and Shane Dix bad

The New Jedi Order: Force Heretic III: Reunion by Sean Williams and Shane Dix bad

The New Jedi Order: The Final Prophecy by Greg Keyes bad

The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force by James Luceno AAAA Dark Nest I: The Joiner King by Troy Denning bad

Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen by Troy Denning AAAA Dark Nest III: The Swarm War by Troy Denning bad

Legacy era

Legacy of the Force: Betrayal by Aaron Allston bad

Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines by Karen Traviss bad

Legacy of the Force: Tempest by Troy Denning bad

Legacy of the Force: Exile by Aaron Allston bad

Legacy of the Force: Sacrifice by Karen Traviss bad

Legacy of the Force: Inferno by Troy Denning bad

Legacy of the Force: Fury by Aaron Allston bad

Legacy of the Force: Revelation by Karen Traviss bad

Legacy of the Force: Invincible by Troy Denning bad

Crosscurrent by Paul S. Kemp forgettable

Riptide by Paul S. Kemp forgettable

Millennium Falcon by James Luceno good

Fate of the Jedi: Outcast by Aaron Allston bad

Fate of the Jedi: Omen by Christie Golden bad

Fate of the Jedi: Abyss by Troy Denning bad

Fate of the Jedi: Backlash by Aaron Allston bad

Fate of the Jedi: Allies by Christie Golden bad

Fate of the Jedi: Vortex by Troy Denning bad

Fate of the Jedi: Conviction by Aaron Allston bad

Fate of the Jedi: Ascension by Christie Golden bad

Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse by Troy Denning bad

X-Wing: Mercy Kill by Aaron Allston forgettable

Crucible by Troy Denning forgettable



*probably my favorite, if only for its 100% nonstop sheer, unadulterated fun.


In particular the stuff inhabiting the same stretch of time the sequels do, is 100% better than the sequels.
As far as old canon in the same stretch of time... the bar was on the floor for that, so even if we claim it was better than the sequels (which I am not prepared to admit, if only because I would rather not compare two different flavors of bad), that's hardly saying anything.

The sequels themselves do a lazier rehash of one of the weaker eu plots, the clone of palpatine.
Now on that I will agree. Mostly, at least; it was entirely Episode IX which did that, effectively shanghai-ing the other two into its retcon. But still, yeah, you're absolutely on the money there.

ETA:
Hey, now they ripped off the original movies. If that ended up looking like the old EU, well...
That got a good chuckle out of me.

The Last Jedi tried to say something about Star Wars, to do something new. The Rise of Skywalker is just a cavalcade of action scenes barely held together by an excuse of a plot and ignores the previous film or goes out of its way to contradict it. Also it finishes The Force Awakens' job of erasing the results of the original heroes efforts by bringing back Sidious. Also its aping of of previous milestones of Star Wars (hero discovers dark parentage, evil man turns good, Palpatine wants to be struck down) ring hollow and soulless. It's a cash-grab that is content with being a cash-grab. Whatever your opinion of Last Jedi, at least it was a cash-grab that tried to be something more.
Agreed. Of the sequel trilogy, The Last Jedi is the only one I can even respect, because at least it tried to do something new and different. I wasn't a fan of what it tried, but I damn sure like that it tried. That exact same sentiment I also extend to the prequel trilogy as a whole.

Frankly, a mere cash-grab would be far preferable to The Last Jedi. Hell, I still suspect that I would prefer Rise of Skywalker to it if I ever watched it, just because for all the stupid things I've heard about it, at least it sounds more entertaining and less depressing than The Last Jedi was.
Oh, you would be surprised.

[dancrilis]

Frankly, a mere cash-grab would be far preferable to The Last Jedi. Hell, I still suspect that I would prefer Rise of Skywalker to it if I ever watched it, just because for all the stupid things I've heard about it, at least it sounds more entertaining and less depressing than The Last Jedi was.

I would actually encourage you to watch Rise of Skywalker.

To explain The Last Jedi was terrible in every way that it could be - I hated that movie and have largely blocked it from my mind (which to an extent I am starting to do with the entire trilogy). I very nearly didn't go to see Rise of Skywalker because of how awful The Last Jedi was.

However I am glad I did watch Rise of Skywalker it is the best of the sequel movies (a low bar to be sure, and do not go in with high expectations) - one of the improvements was Rise of Skywalker has actual villains with some weight or presence (for lack of a better term) which was sorely lacking in the other movies (and Ian McDiarmid is fun as Palpatine).

Now to be clear the movie is not good but if you hate The Last Jedi then Rise of Skywalker can do a lot to wash the terribleness out of your mind, or at least it did for me.

[137beth]

Wasn't that for the fifth book?

Nope, it was the fourth one. The fifth book the the trilogy was called Mostly Harmless.

In any event, The Empire Strikes Back also did not kill the trilogy it was a part of despite being the third film (after A New Hope and the Holiday Special.) The movie that killed the original trilogy was the fourth film in the trilogy: Return of the Jedi.

[Peelee]

Rise of Skywalker has actual villains with some weight or presence (for lack of a better term)

Were they hiding behind Palpatine and... I honestly can't even name another. Anyway, were those villains with weight and presence hiding behind Palpatine?

[Dire_Flumph]

one of the improvements was Rise of Skywalker has actual villains with some weight or presence (for lack of a better term) which was sorely lacking in the other movies (and Ian McDiarmid is fun as Palpatine).

Ooh, sorry, but one thing I will give Last Jedi is the presence of Captain Canady, grumpy Dreadnaught captain extraordinaire. If they had just given him full command of First Order Forces the Resistance wouldn't have had a chance.

Poe and Paige Tico likely won the war in the first five minutes of that film by depriving the First Order of its only competent officer.

[Peelee]

Ooh, sorry, but one thing I will give Last Jedi is the presence of Captain Canady, grumpy Dreadnaught captain extraordinaire. If they had just given him full command of First Order Forces the Resistance wouldn't have had a chance.

Poe and Paige Tico likely won the war in the first five minutes of that film by depriving the First Order of its only competent officer.

Not to mention the one ship that could have ended the chase after the first jump.

[Zevox]

I would actually encourage you to watch Rise of Skywalker.

To explain The Last Jedi was terrible in every way that it could be - I hated that movie and have largely blocked it from my mind (which to an extent I am starting to do with the entire trilogy). I very nearly didn't go to see Rise of Skywalker because of how awful The Last Jedi was.

However I am glad I did watch Rise of Skywalker it is the best of the sequel movies (a low bar to be sure, and do not go in with high expectations) - one of the improvements was Rise of Skywalker has actual villains with some weight or presence (for lack of a better term) which was sorely lacking in the other movies (and Ian McDiarmid is fun as Palpatine).

Now to be clear the movie is not good but if you hate The Last Jedi then Rise of Skywalker can do a lot to wash the terribleness out of your mind, or at least it did for me.
Hey, don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that Palpatine is a far better villain in his worst film than Kylo, Snoke, or Hux ever were - that's part of why I suspect I'd think more highly of Rise of Skywalker than TLJ. But the fact of the matter is, I just don't care enough to bother watching it. I mean, I've had access to Disney+ through a family member's account for most a year now, so I could watch it for free, but I haven't found myself even seriously contemplating it. TLJ killed my interest in any continuation of that story, and what I already know about Rise of Skywalker more than tells me that it's not good enough to reignite that interest. I take a small amount of happiness knowing that Kylo dies and I needn't worry about him becoming a recurring villain in future films, and that's all I really need from it at this point.

[Peelee]

Hey, don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that Palpatine is a far better villain in his worst film than Kylo, Snoke, or Hux ever were

Spoiler alert, he's really not.

[Zevox]

Spoiler alert, he's really not.
If so, that is extremely sad, because the high bar out of those three is Snoke, who is just a weak Palpatine rip-off.

[Peelee]

If so, that is extremely sad, because the high bar out of those three is Snoke, who is just a weak Palpatine rip-off.

Let me put it this way:

Palpatine is a super powerful guy who can manipulate anyone by being super good at controlling anything or anyone he wants controlled and he has his own planet where everyone loves him because hes just the best and they do whatever he wants and he also has a fleet ten thousand times the size of the First Order's made up of Star Destroyers and each one has its own Death Star superlaser and can destroy planets and also he has super lightning powers that can destroy the entirety of both his super awesome million-ship-large fleet Star Destroyers and also the even-more-somehow fleet of random civilian ships which can somehow overpower the million-ship-largefleet of Star Destoyers with planet-killing superlasers because he's all the Sith but then he gets destroyed by Rey because she's all the Jedi even though his entire plan was to get destroyed by Rey because that would make him invincible because he's super powerful.

I quite honestly expect at some point for someone to admit that J. J. Abrams let an 8-year-old write the outline for the movie.

[dancrilis]

Were they hiding behind Palpatine and... I honestly can't even name another. Anyway, were those villains with weight and presence hiding behind Palpatine?

I am meaning Palpatine and the guy who shot the incompetent guy from the earlier films.

Effectively Palpatine has presence from being in other movies - it was a cheat to have him in ROS and it was relying a lot on other films to carry him but Ian McDiarmid still did a decent job as him.
Could have done without the lightning show but after he got healthy I like to think he just threw up an illusion and walked away.

The other guy at least demonstrated that Imperial Officers will not tolerate obvious nonsense which gives him a bit of weight.

None of the characters in The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi had any weight as villains in my view.


Ooh, sorry, but one thing I will give Last Jedi is the presence of Captain Canady, grumpy Dreadnaught captain extraordinaire.

I will grant that that guy looked like he might have some gravitas to him alright but he wasn't around long enough to be sure.

Edit:

But the fact of the matter is, I just don't care enough to bother watching it.

I can fully understand this.



Palpatine is a super powerful guy who can manipulate anyone by being super good at controlling anything or anyone he wants controlled and he has his own planet where everyone loves him because hes just the best and they do whatever he wants and he also has a fleet ten thousand times the size of the First Order's made up of Star Destroyers and each one has its own Death Star superlaser and can destroy planets and also he has super lightning powers that can destroy the entirety of both his super awesome million-ship-large fleet Star Destroyers and also the even-more-somehow fleet of random civilian ships which can somehow overpower the million-ship-largefleet of Star Destoyers with planet-killing superlasers because he's all the Sith but then he gets destroyed by Rey because she's all the Jedi even though his entire plan was to get destroyed by Rey because that would make him invincible because he's super powerful.


I think the element that you are missing is that Palpatine is enjoyable to watch and listen to - sure everything was daft and bringing him back undermines RotJ (a much better movie I think we can all agree), but in comparison to the other two sequel movies at least Palpatine was his laughing, mocking, enjoyable self.

[Peelee]

I think the element that you are missing is that Palpatine is enjoyable to watch and listen to

The thing is, he wasn't. At least, not for me. He would have been if he had been written with anything even remotely resembling competence, but as it was, it had about the same effect on me as if a friend did their best Palpatine impression during a game of Ticket to Ride. Except that would at least be somewhat amusing.

[Zevox]

Let me put it this way:

Palpatine is a super powerful guy who can manipulate anyone by being super good at controlling anything or anyone he wants controlled and he has his own planet where everyone loves him because hes just the best and they do whatever he wants and he also has a fleet ten thousand times the size of the First Order's made up of Star Destroyers and each one has its own Death Star superlaser and can destroy planets and also he has super lightning powers that can destroy the entirety of both his super awesome million-ship-large fleet Star Destroyers and also the even-more-somehow fleet of random civilian ships which can somehow overpower the million-ship-largefleet of Star Destoyers with planet-killing superlasers because he's all the Sith but then he gets destroyed by Rey because she's all the Jedi even though his entire plan was to get destroyed by Rey because that would make him invincible because he's super powerful.

I quite honestly expect at some point for someone to admit that J. J. Abrams let an 8-year-old write the outline for the movie.
Oh, I completely agree about how dumb all of those plot elements are. I just mean, as dancrilis said, Palpatine himself as an individual. If only because I know him from better films where he earned it, he'd inherently be a more intimidating antagonist and a more credible threat to the heroes than Kylo and company ever were. Kind of like how I still cared about Luke at the end of TLJ despite how awful what its story did to his character was (and thus why I hated its ending so much...).

Plus, even if Palpatine just hammed it up for the whole movie, that'd still be more entertaining than any of the other sequel villains. Seriously, the villains are one of my two biggest complaints about the sequels, and the only one that holds true across both of the sequels that I did watch, so that bar is set extremely low.

[Peelee]

Oh, I completely agree about how dumb all of those plot elements are. I just mean, as dancrilis said, Palpatine himself as an individual. If only because I know him from better films where he earned it, he'd inherently be a more intimidating antagonist and a more credible threat to the heroes than Kylo and company ever were. Kind of like how I still cared about Luke at the end of TLJ despite how awful what its story did to his character was (and thus why I hated its ending so much...).

Plus, even if Palpatine just hammed it up for the whole movie, that'd still be more entertaining than any of the other sequel villains. Seriously, the villains are one of my two biggest complaints about the sequels, and the only one that holds true across both of the sequels that I did watch, so that bar is set extremely low.

If Palpatine hammed it up for the whole movie, that would indeed have been marginally entertaining. Instead, he just... was there. I disagree with the concept that Ian McDiarmid did a good job (mostly because Abrams wrote and directed Palpatine in this movie), because most of his "presence" is a strobe light attempting to manufacture atmosphere. Previously, you had the entire Imperial military be abjectly terrified of being within the Emperor's withering gaze. The remaining Jedi feared him and gave grave warnings to Luke about underestimating his power. Everything was a subtle build up to his power, which he wields so well that he does not need to exert any of it until the climax.

As opposed to Ride of Skywalker Palpatine, where he is basically Zoidberg saying "Who needs character development when you've got a gun! Who's scared now, big city?"

Yes, I know that first part was Farnsworth.

[Bohandas]

However I am glad I did watch Rise of Skywalker it is the best of the sequel movies (a low bar to be sure, and do not go in with high expectations) - one of the improvements was Rise of Skywalker has actual villains with some weight or presence (for lack of a better term) which was sorely lacking in the other movies (and Ian McDiarmid is fun as Palpatine).

Now to be clear the movie is not good but if you hate The Last Jedi then Rise of Skywalker can do a lot to wash the terribleness out of your mind, or at least it did for me.

Exactly. The main problem with Rise of Skywalker was that it had to clean up after Last Jedi and all of its inconsistencies and inane plot twists, most especially:
*Rey being "nobody",
*Luke's personality change,
*the changes to how hyperdrive works,
*Rose "heroically" saving the imperial superweapon,
*and most of all, the director's decision to kill off the main villain simply because he could. I admit that fight scene was cool, but it wrecked the plot.

If Rise of Skywalker was a bad movie it was only because The Last Jedi wrote it into a corner. Any problem with Rise of Skywalker is not actually a problem with the movie itself, but rather a problem with The Last Jedi which has carried over.

[Peelee]

*Rey being "nobody"
Not an inconsistency/inane plot twist.

*the changes to how hyperdrive works
Eh, TFA did that already.

[Bohandas]

Not an inconsistency/inane plot twist.

Well I mean, it's not both. I'm not sure if any of the things on the list are both, but it's definitely the latter. The Force Awakens definitely implied she was somebody.

[Peelee]

Well I mean, it's not both. I'm not sure if any of the things on the list are both, but it's definitely the latter. The Force Awakens definitely implied she was somebody.

The Force Awakens can imply that she was a Wookiee for all that it matters. Doesn't mean those implications have to be true, and it's not inconsistent if they're not.

[Bohandas]

I'd say that the plot of The Last Jedi theoretically works, but it does not work within the context of Star Wars. It shares this property with Rogue One. They're both a decent movie theoretically, but they're not Star Wars, not even bad Star Wars, and Star Wars is what most of the audience came to see. It honestly would have been less of a travesty if the plot had revolved around Life Day and midichlorians. That would be bad but at least it would be Star Wars


Frankly, I'm surprised the parks make that much. The costs must be nightmarish.

They are, that's how they make so much.


So my argument is basically this: by scrapping the EU, Disney gave itself the freedom of maneuver to appeal to a newer, younger fanbase. If it did a good job (and my sense is it generally did up until Rise), it gets a new batch of people who will spend on Star Wars for decades to come. Young fans are more valuable than old fans, since they're not as far through their total lifetime expenditures, and are much more influential in terms of defining the culture.

Or in other words, Disney operates much like a Disney villain

https://i.imgur.com/1iL8qwV.jpg (https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/1f0c185b-50c8-4b69-ba27-18c9889ffee5)

They dismantled the expanded universe in order to force people to but in to their new version

[lowfyr]

The thing is that how much the films make has always been an afterthought. Because at the end of the Day Disney isn't a film company. It's a Entertainment company focusing on Parks, Hotels and Cruise lines. Even looking at how much money the Marvel films make at the box office. It's only a fraction of what they make daily at their parks.

Starwars is important because the IP allows them to use stuff at their parks. That's where the money is.

And not to forget Star Wars always made the most money with the merchandise and putting the Logo on everything. Compared to that how much the movies make is secondary to that.

The MCU may not make quite so much in merchandise but it has how much movies that made more than a billion dollars? Six I think. So anyone "hoping" that they will stop doing it should not hold their breath.

[Bohandas]

And not to forget Star Wars always made the most money with the merchandise and putting the Logo on everything. Compared to that how much the movies make is secondary to that.

The MCU may not make quite so much in merchandise but it has how much movies that made more than a billion dollars? Six I think. So anyone "hoping" that they will stop doing it should not hold their breath.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fgRFQJCHcPw&t=00m38s

[lowfyr]

I'd say that the plot of The Last Jedi theoretically works, but it does not work within the context of Star Wars. It shares this property with Rogue One. They're both a decent movie theoretically, but they're not Star Wars, not even bad Star Wars, and Star Wars is what most of the audience came to see. It honestly would have been less of a travesty if the plot had revolved around Life Day and midichlorians. That would be bad but at least it would be Star Wars


Remembering the last movie I would think "not being Star Wars"(not that this statement made sense ever) should have been done more often. Solo blows that one out of the water easily. And regarding Palpatine him showing up again is just one more example , what they did wrong in that triology. Last Jedi is for me the best of the three.

[lowfyr]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fgRFQJCHcPw&t=00m38s

And? I did not need Spaceballs to know that. It was always something to joke about that Lucas got the most profitable part after "only" getting the merchandise part as payment.

[Fyraltari]

[snip]
Wow, you were really committed to reading The New Jedi Order, Legacy of the Force (I am guessing that Revelations was bad too) and Fate of the Jedi, weren't you?



ETA:
That got a good chuckle out of me.
Yay.


Agreed. Of the sequel trilogy, The Last Jedi is the only one I can even respect, because at least it tried to do something new and different. I wasn't a fan of what it tried, but I damn sure like that it tried. That exact same sentiment I also extend to the prequel trilogy as a whole.
Hmm, I hadn't made that parallel. I'll have to dwell on that.


Oh, you would be surprised.
Agreed, Sidious just felt so lifeless. It was like watching a sixty-five year old rockstar act as if they were just as spry and cool as when they were twenty-two. Like, Sidious was menacing because he always managed to maneuver the heroes into terrible situations where he can stand back and chuckle "goooood" to himself, not because he shat superweapons/powers by the brazillions. Also, how is he alive? "Somehow Palpatine has returned" and a Prequel meme. When TLJ didn't give Snoke a backstory that was part of saying that he wasn't actually important, that the main villain was Kylo Ren. When TROS didn't explain how its main villain came back from the dead, it was because it couldn't be arsed.

Nope, it was the fourth one. The fifth book the the trilogy was called Mostly Harmless.
Right, bur wasn't it that one who called the Hitchhiker's Trilogy "increasingly poorly named"?


In any event, The Empire Strikes Back also did not kill the trilogy it was a part of despite being the third film (after A New Hope and the Holiday Special.) The movie that killed the original trilogy was the fourth film in the trilogy: Return of the Jedi.
The Holiday Special was a special. It doesn't count.



Let me put it this way:

Palpatine is a super powerful guy who can manipulate anyone by being super good at controlling anything or anyone he wants controlled and he has his own planet where everyone loves him because hes just the best and they do whatever he wants and he also has a fleet ten thousand times the size of the First Order's made up of Star Destroyers and each one has its own Death Star superlaser and can destroy planets and also he has super lightning powers that can destroy the entirety of both his super awesome million-ship-large fleet Star Destroyers and also the even-more-somehow fleet of random civilian ships which can somehow overpower the million-ship-largefleet of Star Destoyers with planet-killing superlasers because he's all the Sith but then he gets destroyed by Rey because she's all the Jedi even though his entire plan was to get destroyed by Rey because that would make him invincible because he's super powerful.

I quite honestly expect at some point for someone to admit that J. J. Abrams let an 8-year-old write the outline for the movie.
You forget, he can also drain life from people to rejuvenate himself, but only if they are a "dyad in the Force", whatever that means.

Exactly. The main problem with Rise of Skywalker was that it had to clean up after Last Jedi and all of its inconsistencies and inane plot twists, most especially:
*Rey being "nobody",
Ain't no problem. In fact the idea that she just had to be a Skywalker, Kenobi or Palpatine was among the worst reactions to TFA.

*Luke's personality change,
Luke's personality was consistent. He spends the entire OT flirting with the Dark Side, so how is it surprising that in the ST he has a flirt with the Dark Side, resist it and then feels guilty?

*the changes to how hyperdrive works, Of you mean, hyperspace tracking, A) that doesn't change how hyperdrive works and B) that was TFA not TLJ.

*Rose "heroically" saving the imperial superweapon, what's this to do with TLJ?

and most of all, the director's decision to kill off the main villain simply because he could. I admit that fight scene was cool, but it wrecked the plot.
Rian Johnson didn't kill Snoke "just because he could." He killed him because Snoke was a generic Emperor clone (only figuratively at the time) while Kylo Ren was the one with a connection to the heroes. Like Kylo Ren was one of TFA's moment of brilliance. SW has tried time and time again to recreate the magic of the Vader character and it never quite takes. Then a new trilogy comes around and you know you can't top Vader, so what do you do? You make a character who wants to be Vader but fails at it, a man so focused on aping his idol he is blind to his own strengths and only superficially imitates him (the mask and all). Where do you go from there? Well, you make the guy stop trying to be Vader to become his own thing, so he destroys his mask (symbolising his attempt to be Vader) and you have him do what Vader never did: kill his master and take his place, reject redemption. Where do you go from there? Well, the obviously correct choice would be to have this guy lead the villains in the next film. Have him be the main threat and die unredeemed. Make a moral oit of it like "you can't fix people. You can only help them fix themselves. In the end if someone doesn't want to be saved it's not your responsability to destroy yourself trying to save them" or something. Or maybe you just give him Vader's redemption arc, what do I know, I don't work for Hollywood.


If Rise of Skywalker was a bad movie it was only because The Last Jedi wrote it into a corner. Any problem with Rise of Skywalker is not actually a problem with the movie itself, but rather a problem with The Last Jedi which has carried over.
Nah, TLJ left TROS plenty to work with. TROS just wasn't interested in doing anything with it.

I'd say that the plot of The Last Jedi theoretically works, but it does not work within the context of Star Wars. It shares this property with Rogue One. They're both a decent movie theoretically, but they're not Star Wars, not even bad Star Wars
Yes it is. It's called Knights of the Old Republic II: the Sith Lords and it is glorious in its uncompleteness.


Or in other words, Disney operates much like a Disney villain

https://i.imgur.com/1iL8qwV.jpg (https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/1f0c185b-50c8-4b69-ba27-18c9889ffee5)

They dismantled the expanded universe in order to force people to but in to their new version
Oh no, the multi-billions worth corporation acts soullessly without any care for creativity or art. I am shock.

[lowfyr]

Wow, you were really committed to reading The New Jedi Order, Legacy of the Force (I am guessing that Revelations was bad too) and Fate of the Jedi, weren't you?


Yay.


Hmm, I hadn't made that parallel. I'll have to dwell on that.


Agreed, Sidious just felt so lifeless. It was like watching a sixty-five year old rockstar act as if they were just as spry and cool as when they were twenty-two. Like, Sidious was menacing because he always managed to maneuver the heroes into terrible situations where he can stand back and chuckle "goooood" to himself, not because he shat superweapons/powers by the brazillions. Also, how is he alive? "Somehow Palpatine has returned" and a Prequel meme. When TLJ didn't give Snoke a backstory that was part of saying that he wasn't actually important, that the main villain was Kylo Ren. When TROS didn't explain how its main villain came back from the dead, it was because it couldn't be arsed.

Right, bur wasn't it that one who called the Hitchhiker's Trilogy "increasingly poorly named"?


The Holiday Special was a special. It doesn't count.



You forget, he can also drain life from people to rejuvenate himself, but only if they are a "dyad in the Force", whatever that means.

Ain't no problem. In fact the idea that she just had to be a Skywalker, Kenobi or Palpatine was among the worst reactions to TFA.

Luke's personality was consistent. He spends the entire OT flirting with the Dark Side, so how is it surprising that in the ST he has a flirt with the Dark Side, resist it and then feels guilty?
Of you mean, hyperspace tracking, A) that doesn't change how hyperdrive works and B) that was TFA not TLJ.
what's this to do with TLJ?

Rian Johnson didn't kill Snoke "just because he could." He killed him because Snoke was a generic Emperor clone (only figuratively at the time) while Kylo Ren was the one with a connection to the heroes. Like Kylo Ren was one of TFA's moment of brilliance. SW has tried time and time again to recreate the magic of the Vader character and it never quite takes. Then a new trilogy comes around and you know you can't top Vader, so what do you do? You make a character who wants to be Vader but fails at it, a man so focused on aping his idol he is blind to his own strengths and only superficially imitates him (the mask and all). Where do you go from there? Well, you make the guy stop trying to be Vader to become his own thing, so he destroys his mask (symbolising his attempt to be Vader) and you have him do what Vader never did: kill his master and take his place, reject redemption. Where do you go from there? Well, the obviously correct choice would be to have this guy lead the villains in the next film. Have him be the main threat and die unredeemed. Make a moral oit of it like "you can't fix people. You can only help them fix themselves. In the end if someone doesn't want to be saved it's not your responsability to destroy yourself trying to save them" or something. Or maybe you just give him Vader's redemption arc, what do I know, I don't work for Hollywood.


Nah, TLJ left TROS plenty to work with. TROS just wasn't interested in doing anything with it.

Yes it is. It's called Knights of the Old Republic II: the Sith Lords and it is glorious in its uncompleteness.


Oh no, the multi-billions worth corporation acts soullessly without any care for creativity or art. I am shock.

So much this. We really need a like button^^.

[Fyraltari]

So much this. We really need a like button^^.

https://s1.qwant.com/thumbr/0x380/8/d/b45a18ed60f8dbdbef451052adb3c057e707043f25672621c3 6e0b067ded59/4924097_700b.jpg?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimages-cdn.9gag.com%2Fphoto%2F4924097_700b.jpg&q=0&b=1&p=0&a=1

[LeSwordfish]

I'm also in agreement with Fyraltari. I think TLJ had some big wierd problems, but was fundamentally both trying and succeeding to be something better than the others in the sequel trilogy. I liked Nobody Rey, Grumpy Luke, and Kill Him Off Because He's Not Worth Keeping Snoke.

[Xyril]

I've been reading Star Wars fans complain about Star Wars since basically as long as I've been on the internet. And yet they nearly always seem to have consumed the latest piece of Star Wars stuff, so apparently the complaining doesn't really stop them from spending money on Star Wars. Basically I'm saying that Star Wars (https://web.archive.org/web/20060110082840/http://jivemagazine.com/column.php?pid=3381) fans hating (https://www.indiewire.com/2012/04/no-one-hates-star-wars-quite-like-a-star-wars-fan-130016/) Star Wars (https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/12/23/21034508/star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-last-jedi-rian-johnson-debate) is a recurring meme for a reason.


"Star Wars" isn't a single work. Stuff has varied in quality over the past few decades. Also, with such a massive and vocal fandom, even the better works will have detractors, and the nature of the internet means that everyone will see those criticisms. Heck, if anything, the fact that those guys are so vocally against a strong majority opinion probably gets them even more attention. I found The Phantom Menace incredibly disappointing, and a few books/plot arcs of New Jedi Order were probably high on Peelee's list of Sturgeon's law examples, that didn't stop me from continuing to read the books because most of them were written by folks who had nothing to do with TPM. The only thing TPM put at risk was the likelihood of me watching the rest off the prequel trilogy (since creatively and editorially it had more in common with that first movie.) A bad movie is a bigger deal than a bad book or comic, but in the end it's still a single bad work in a generally great franchise.

The unique problem with the final trilogy isn't that it was disappointing in itself, but rather the fact that it happened in conjunction with a massive continuity reset. You put out two, three, or even four absolutely terrible movies in a row, and it would arguably ruin the franchise for casual fans who only watch the movies, but for more hardcore fans, it doesn't necessarily impact the trajectory of the spinoff works they've been enjoying for years. However, if you put out any major flagship works, in conjunction with a general continuity wipe, then you're effectively signaling to the fans what the new shape of the universe will be. If



Both of which are, compared to Star Wars (and Star Wars marketing) small fry. Also by all accounts extremely badly made movies. I don't particularly like TFA or TLJ, but they aren't fundamentally incompetent films - I'd actually say that right up until Maz's palace and the sudden need for a third act causes Starkiller Base to be pulled directly from thin air, TFA is an interesting and moderately creative piece of Star Wars stuff. It certainly made a giant pile of cash, and seemed to generate a lot of excitement.


That's my point: If you were reading comments and reviews around the time they came out, they were "by all accounts" terrible movies. If you look at accounts much later, when it was rediscovered on streaming services, the reviews were more mixed--those movies were nothing special, but not something that needed to be killed with fire either. Despite being "small fry" by comparison, those other movies had passionate, if niche audiences, and both generated a ton of excitement until folks actually watched them. Even though the actual numbers of fans who even knew the original works were much smaller by comparison, their disappointment in those movies as adaptations of the source materials poisoned the well. Tons off folks who didn't know the original works--or weren't invested enough at the prospect off an orthodoxly faithful adaptation--gave those films a pass.



So my argument is basically this: by scrapping the EU, Disney gave itself the freedom of maneuver to appeal to a newer, younger fanbase. If it did a good job (and my sense is it generally did up until Rise), it gets a new batch of people who will spend on Star Wars for decades to come. Young fans are more valuable than old fans, since they're not as far through their total lifetime expenditures, and are much more influential in terms of defining the culture. If your flagship product is a movie, aiming for young and female is a strong bet, because young male people tend to spend on videogames instead.


Except there was zero reason to do this. The EU had already been making the shift, gradually and organically over the course of decades, in a way that didn't invite any pushback or criticisms about lazy tokenism. It had numerous complex, interesting, and well-written female characters, and perhaps more importantly, there was nothing about existing canon that was preventing them from putting in more. Mara Jade and Jaina Solo were bordering on memetic badass levels of hyper-competence, Leia's unique path as an eventual Jedi whose role wasn't primarily defined by being a Jedi was done far better than what they pulled off in the last three movies, and the countless moderately prominent characters like Daala and Isaard demonstrated that complex female characters could fill all sorts of roles.



Was this impossible to do by sticking to the EU? I obviously can't disprove a hypothetical, and I've never paid any real attention to the EU in the first place so I can't really speak with any expertise on the matter, but it seems at the very least a substantial handicap.


Well, at least you didn't say, "You should never listen to anyone who's not a medical expert. I'm not a medical expert. Now listen to me." A large body off continuity will always produce constraints, but it can also provide springboards.



For one thing a lot of the EU is (to my limited understanding) pretty focused on the original cast, which given their age by the time of the Disney acquisition would (probably?) render a lot of the stories simply not workable.


Wait, are you talking about making new movies and live action series? It sounds like you're arguing that we needed to scrap all of the EU books because if they exist, we're obligated to adapt them all to live action, and we can't do that if Carrie Fisher is gone and Harrison Ford is way too old. I'm not saying your conclusion is necessarily wrong, but it does seem to be based on numerous mistaken assumptions and incorrect facts.

First, you don't need to bring back the same actors to play the same characters. We already had a new actor play young Han Solo, and it wasn't jarring or weird or anything like that. We had a new actor playing original Spock just barely before he was portrayed by Leonard Nimoy, and he was one of the best parts of Discovery Season 2.

Second, we don't need to adapt everything to live action. Millions of fans were following Star Wars in print media for decades. While there was certainly a lot of "wouldn't it be cool if this were adapted to a TV series" talk, the fact that those works only existed in a form that required basic literacy didn't make those works less "real" to the fans who followed them--more importantly to Disney, it also didn't prevent them from spending money.

Third, Star Wars EU was actually much better about being more compartmentalized in terms of its massive body of continuity. Reading Timothy Zahn's original Thrawn works certainly helped you to better appreciate the complexities of the character (or his proteges) whenever they appeared. However, even if you never read those books at all, futures works generally stood on their own well enough that you wouldn't be confused. Heck, if you never watched a single Star Wars movie, most of the EU books and comics made perfect sense as their own stories.



Even if you skip ahead, it leaves all stuff between Return of the Jedi and whenever you pick up the story to explain, and multiple novels is a lot to cram into an opening crawl. It also seems unlikely that you could, for instance, get Harrison Ford to sign up for a huge pile of Star Wars stuff. For another, if you're aiming for a young audience, making your central characters are bunch of old farts is generally a bad move.


You seem to think that the EU is this massive body of required reading, without which future works make no sense. This is blatantly incorrect. Much like real-life history, past events are great for contextualizing and understanding current events, but if you zoom in at any arbitrary time period, and you can find a ton of worthwhile stories that make compelling, self-contained narratives. This becomes even easier when you can literally make up those current events. Many of my absolute favorite stories happened in the early New Republic era--works like the X-wing/Rogue Squadron series or the Sun Crusher trilogy were amazing at fleshing out the galaxy and putting the focus on the importance of various characters who weren't played by A-list actors. In terms of understanding context, however, they can all pretty much be summarized as "Winning the rebellion didn't mean immediately rebuilding the Old Republic and the Jedi Order in all its glory. For years, it was a struggle to defend the fledgling New Republic from both internal and external threats, and remnants of the Empire held on long after Palpatine's death, remaining a threat until there was finally an official peace. Also, Luke started training a bunch of new Jedi." That's literally all you need to know to understand works set after this period.

Which reminds me, your fourth major mistake is that the EU is primarily about the the main movie cast. It's not. They remain important, and certainly appear in more works than anyone else, but the EU isn't a series "about old people." The X-wing books were literally about all of the Rogue/Red Squadron pilots except Luke. The NJO books, and the works just preceding them, were about the next generation of heroes and leaders. Most of your movie favorites were still around--still fighting and taking the lead role in many books even--but it wasn't just about them anymore. More importantly, their perspective isn't necessary to the retelling of galactic history. The Jedi Academy books told the story of Luke struggling to train his first class of Jedi recruits while facing off against a long-dead Sith master. Years later, those same events were told again from the perspective of Corran Horn, a EU-only character that came out of the X-wing series, and then again from Mara Jade's perspective. In terms of understanding Star Wars "history," reading any one of those perspectives gives you all of the broad strokes you need, and even reading none of them you can still understand later works.

The EU basically did everything the last trilogy did, but more gradually, with much more nuance. Leia succeeded Mon Mothma as head of state, became a Jedi, retired, trained apprentices and political proteges who went on to have their own careers, and by the time I stopped keeping up she was basically a retired statesman and (I think) semi-active Jedi who nonetheless kept getting involved in galactic events. Han went from rogue, rebel, and General-mostly-as-a-reward-for-surviving-important-battles to a prominent and occasionally respectable figure and sometimes legitimate military leader. Their children became Jedi and soldiers, and one even became a head of state. Luke trained new Jedi, who eventually became masters who trained their own apprentices. Towards the end, he was basically Yoda--the eminent and respected leader of the council, who delegated most decisions and day-to-day-tasks. These guys keep appearing because we also care about the story of this family, but in terms of the story of the galaxy far, far away, the EU was already passing the torch on to many new, younger heroes.

All of this underscores the last major flaw in your reasoning: That the canon was holding anything back in terms of reaching a younger, more female audience. The EU had strong female characters, prominent romance subplots--all the stereotypically "girl-friendly" stuff you saw in the sequel trilogy--to the point that even before the prequel trilogy came out, I knew almost as many girls who followed the books and guys. More than that, the EU integrated this in such a way that the stereotypically older, more male fans all stayed on board. If you look at criticisms of the recent movies you see some aimed at diversity in general, and a ton aimed at the jarring "replacement" of the old heroes and the soulless aping of their character arcs for the apparent goal of recreating the magic of the original, but for a more diverse audience. In contrast, if you look at the most controversial works of the EU, the criticisms varied much more wildly. You pretty much never saw complaints about Luke Skywalker having romance subplots to appeal to the girls, or Jaina Solo being an unrealistic grrl power badass, because the EU was actually already doing a much better job of adapting to court the demographics that you argue it needs to be scrapped for.

This all goes back to my original point--if Disney had kept the EU and just put out a few bad movies, or if they had scrapped it all, but seeded it with decent movies that spurred anticipation for a rich and complex new extended canon, then I doubt it would have lost money or fans, even if there was controversy or criticism. As it stands though, pulling the EU during the trilogy means that--correctly or not--many fans see the trilogy as Disney's announced template of what the new EU will be, and that is generating zero enthusiasm. It's not even that people will stop paying for Star Wars as a protest, as you put it, for Heir to the Empire not being canon anymore. Rather, the fact that that universe, and all of the stories and characters folks have become in invested in over the years, has effectively come to the end of its story means that folks have reached a natural stopping point. The new EU is effectively a new and distinct story, and fans will have to decide whether that story is one they want to start following. Unfortunately, the last few trailers sucked.

[Rodin]

I'm also in agreement with Fyraltari. I think TLJ had some big wierd problems, but was fundamentally both trying and succeeding to be something better than the others in the sequel trilogy. I liked Nobody Rey, Grumpy Luke, and Kill Him Off Because He's Not Worth Keeping Snoke.

Add me into this group as well.

I've found myself in disagreement with a lot of the commonly accepted flaws with the sequel trilogy. When I read a disparaging description of Kylo Ren, I think "Yes, and...?" He's supposed to be a pale shadow of Vader. If they had followed up on that better in Rise (instead of randomly bringing back Palpatine) there would have been a really cool character arc. As is he's still the best thing in the sequels.

Grumpy Luke is the only form of the character that makes sense to me. He has Anakin's anger issues - that we see on multiple occasions in the OT. He learned to become a Jedi at an even later age than Anakin, and Anakin was too old. His training was hugely abbreviated from the training we see other Jedi get - from kindergarten to adulthood for standard Jedi. Luke got what...a few months? A year or two at the outside?

So, he's undertrained but gets through by being awesome. Cool. Then what? He tries to start his own school, with very little training. While he's doing this all his good works slowly fall apart as the Empire starts rising from the ashes. Then he thinks he's making things worse by training Ben Solo, then compounds his error by having an Anakin-style fit of impulsiveness.

All of that leads to Grumpy Luke. It fits his story arc. It's a good twist narratively - the hero of the former age isn't going to save you. Yoda helps those who help themselves and all that.

Rey finding out she's a nobody is similar. She thinks she's special because she's the scion of a great Jedi - Luke or Leia or somebody important. It's the dream of a girl who grew up powerless in poverty. Finding out her parents were nobody is a harsh reality check that leads to character conflict and development. It sets up Rey leaning towards the Dark Side. Finding out she's special because she herself is important is totally compatible with the Star Wars message.

-----

The problem the sequel trilogy has is that they never wrote any of this out beforehand. As a result, the execution is messy and Abrams abandons it wholesale in Rise. Add in a secondary cast with nothing to do and you wind up with a very flawed set of movies.

[lowfyr]

https://s1.qwant.com/thumbr/0x380/8/d/b45a18ed60f8dbdbef451052adb3c057e707043f25672621c3 6e0b067ded59/4924097_700b.jpg?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimages-cdn.9gag.com%2Fphoto%2F4924097_700b.jpg&q=0&b=1&p=0&a=1

:smallbiggrin:

[druid91]

I'll take that bet. Here's a list of all old canon Star Wars novels I've read and my opinions about them (very simplified opinions, and I had to reign myself in from really trashing the worst of the worst). Not listed are ebook novellas, young adult books, and books I have not read - warning, it's still a bit long.
The Old Republic era

The Old Republic: Revan by Drew Karpyshyn bad

The Old Republic: Deceived by Paul S. Kemp bad

Red Harvest by Joe Schreiber bad

The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams bad

The Old Republic: Annihilation by Drew Karpyshyn bad

Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller forgettable

Darth Bane: Path of Destruction by Drew Karpyshyn good

Darth Bane: Rule of Two by Drew Karpyshyn good

Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil by Drew Karpyshyn good

Rise of the Empire era

Darth Plagueis by James Luceno forgettable

Darth Maul: Saboteur by James Luceno forgettable

Cloak of Deception by James Luceno bad

Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter by Michael Reaves bad

Rogue Planet by Greg Bear bad

Outbound Flight by Timothy Zahn good

The Approaching Storm by Alan Dean Foster forgettable

Jedi Trial by David Sherman and Dan Cragg bad

Republic Commando: Hard Contact by Karen Traviss forgettable

Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover bad

Republic Commando: Triple Zero by Karen Traviss forgettable

Republic Commando: True Colors by Karen Traviss forgettable

MedStar I: Battle Surgeons by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry bad

MedStar II: Jedi Healer by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry bad

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous by Sean Stewart bad

Labyrinth of Evil by James Luceno bad

Order 66: A Republic Commando Novel by Karen Traviss forgettable

Imperial Commando: 501st by Karen Traviss good

Coruscant Nights I: Jedi Twilight by Michael Reaves good

Coruscant Nights II: Street of Shadows by Michael Reaves good

Coruscant Nights III: Patterns of Force by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff good

The Last Jedi by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff good

The Paradise Snare by A. C. Crispin good

The Hutt Gambit by A.C. Crispin good

Tales from the Empire (anthology) good

Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu by L. Neil Smith forgettable

Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon by L. Neil Smith forgettable

Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka by L. Neil Smith forgettable

Death Star by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry bad

Han Solo at Stars' End by Brian Daley good

Han Solo's Revenge by Brian Daley good

Han Solo and the Lost Legacy by Brian Daley forgettable

Rebel Dawn by A. C. Crispin good

Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber bad

Rebellion era

Tales from the New Republic (anthology) good

Shadow Games by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff good

Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina (anthology) good

Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn good

Allegiance by Timothy Zahn good

Choices of One by Timothy Zahn good

Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster bad

Tales of the Bounty Hunters (anthology) good

Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry good

Tales from Jabba's Palace (anthology) good

The Mandalorian Armor by K. W. Jeter bad

Slave Ship by K. W. Jeter bad

Hard Merchandise by K. W. Jeter bad

The Truce at Bakura by Kathy Tyers bad

New Republic era

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor by Matthew Stover bad

X-Wing: Rogue Squadron by Michael A. Stackpole good

X-Wing: Wedge's Gamble by Michael A. Stackpole good

X-Wing: The Krytos Trap by Michael A. Stackpole good

X-Wing: The Bacta War by Michael A. Stackpole good

X-Wing: Wraith Squadron by Aaron Allston good

X-Wing: Iron Fist by Aaron Allston good

X-Wing: Solo Command by Aaron Allston good

The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton bad

Tatooine Ghost by Troy Denning good

Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn good

Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn good

The Last Command by Timothy Zahn good

X-Wing: Isard's Revenge by Michael A. Stackpole bad

Jedi Search by Kevin J. Anderson bad

Dark Apprentice by Kevin J. Anderson bad

Champions of the Force by Kevin J. Anderson bad

I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole good

Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambly bad

Darksaber by Kevin J. Anderson bad

X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar by Aaron Allston good*

Planet of Twilight by Barbara Hambly bad

The Crystal Star by Vonda N. McIntyre bad

The Black Fleet Crisis: Before the Storm by Michael P. Kube-McDowell bad

The Black Fleet Crisis: Shield of Lies by Michael P. Kube-McDowell bad

The Black Fleet Crisis: Tyrant's Test by Michael P. Kube-McDowell bad

The New Rebellion by Kristine Kathryn Rusch bad

Ambush at Corellia by Roger MacBride Allen bad

Assault at Selonia by Roger MacBride Allen bad

Showdown at Centerpoint by Roger MacBride Allen bad

Specter of the Past by Timothy Zahn good

Vision of the Future by Timothy Zahn good

Survivor's Quest by Timothy Zahn good

New Jedi Order era

The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime by R. A. Salvatore bad

The New Jedi Order: Dark Tide I: Onslaught by Michael A. Stackpole bad

The New Jedi Order: Dark Tide II: Ruin by Michael A. Stackpole bad

The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial by James Luceno bad

The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse by James Luceno bad

The New Jedi Order: Balance Point by Kathy Tyers bad

The New Jedi Order: Edge of Victory I: Conquest by Greg Keyes bad

The New Jedi Order: Edge of Victory II: Rebirth by Greg Keyes bad

The New Jedi Order: Star by Star by Troy Denning bad

The New Jedi Order: Dark Journey by Elaine Cunningham bad

The New Jedi Order: Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream by Aaron Allston bad

The New Jedi Order: Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand by Aaron Allston bad

The New Jedi Order: Traitor by Matthew Stover bad

The New Jedi Order: Destiny's Way by Walter Jon Williams bad

The New Jedi Order: Force Heretic I: Remnant by Sean Williams and Shane Dix bad

The New Jedi Order: Force Heretic II: Refugee by Sean Williams and Shane Dix bad

The New Jedi Order: Force Heretic III: Reunion by Sean Williams and Shane Dix bad

The New Jedi Order: The Final Prophecy by Greg Keyes bad

The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force by James Luceno AAAA Dark Nest I: The Joiner King by Troy Denning bad

Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen by Troy Denning AAAA Dark Nest III: The Swarm War by Troy Denning bad

Legacy era

Legacy of the Force: Betrayal by Aaron Allston bad

Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines by Karen Traviss bad

Legacy of the Force: Tempest by Troy Denning bad

Legacy of the Force: Exile by Aaron Allston bad

Legacy of the Force: Sacrifice by Karen Traviss bad

Legacy of the Force: Inferno by Troy Denning bad

Legacy of the Force: Fury by Aaron Allston bad

Legacy of the Force: Revelation by Karen Traviss

Legacy of the Force: Invincible by Troy Denning bad

Crosscurrent by Paul S. Kemp forgettable

Riptide by Paul S. Kemp forgettable

Millennium Falcon by James Luceno good

Fate of the Jedi: Outcast by Aaron Allston bad

Fate of the Jedi: Omen by Christie Golden bad

Fate of the Jedi: Abyss by Troy Denning bad

Fate of the Jedi: Backlash by Aaron Allston bad

Fate of the Jedi: Allies by Christie Golden bad

Fate of the Jedi: Vortex by Troy Denning bad

Fate of the Jedi: Conviction by Aaron Allston bad

Fate of the Jedi: Ascension by Christie Golden bad

Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse by Troy Denning bad

X-Wing: Mercy Kill by Aaron Allston forgettable

Crucible by Troy Denning forgettable



*probably my favorite, if only for its 100% nonstop sheer, unadulterated fun.


As far as old canon in the same stretch of time... the bar was on the floor for that, so even if we claim it was better than the sequels (which I am not prepared to admit, if only because I would rather not compare two different flavors of bad), that's hardly saying anything.

Now on that I will agree. Mostly, at least; it was entirely Episode IX which did that, effectively shanghai-ing the other two into its retcon. But still, yeah, you're absolutely on the money there.

ETA:
That got a good chuckle out of me.

Agreed. Of the sequel trilogy, The Last Jedi is the only one I can even respect, because at least it tried to do something new and different. I wasn't a fan of what it tried, but I damn sure like that it tried. That exact same sentiment I also extend to the prequel trilogy as a whole.

Oh, you would be surprised.

I actually enjoyed some of the books you listed as bad. The Crystal Star in particular, even though it's admittedly weird as hell and more star trek than star wars.

Also, as... Questionable as she is, Karen Traviss did pioneer the lore for Mandalorians, even if their current form is significantly altered.

[Trafalgar]

I would like Disney to remaster the original, unaltered trilogy based on a new transfer from the 35mm negatives (not off the 4:3 ratio 1993 laserdisc). I would willingly pay lie $200 for a Blu-ray boxed set.

[Dire_Flumph]

(snipped for brevity)

Good read, I like a lot of the perspective there and I think you summed up in general how I felt about the old EU.


I'm also in agreement with Fyraltari. I think TLJ had some big wierd problems, but was fundamentally both trying and succeeding to be something better than the others in the sequel trilogy. I liked Nobody Rey, Grumpy Luke, and Kill Him Off Because He's Not Worth Keeping Snoke.

I don't hate the Last Jedi, and I've tried to see more of what its fans love about it, but I just don't see the new, daring direction the film gets hailed for.

It's hard for me to see Rey as "No One" when she was already made into a capital "C" Chosen One. At that point, it doesn't matter to me if her parents were junk traders or the lost Kenobi heir, that's just not No One to me, no matter what her background is. If the hero of the story had been Finn or Rose, that would have been a more daring change.

I also don't have a problem with Grumpy, failed Luke (and I think Hamill is an underrated actor, if there's anything that tries to sell the character it's him), I just think that the sequel movies in general do a bad job of moving the original cast forward. I get no sense from either Han, Leia or Luke of a life lived, or what they accomplished. I don't need them to be the focus, and I don't need chunks of the film devoted to exposition, but I'd like to have a little sense of what they did in the last few decades. Even small things like a lightsaber clipped to Leia's belt, a mention of Luke's departed wife, or the inference that Han made an attempt to be a public figure in the New Republic would have gone a long way. It's not a perfect comparison, but something like how "The Legend of Korra" handled it is how I'd point to doing it right. His sacrifice at the end also feels less like character arc stuff than an easy way out, especially since we know he'll just be a Force Ghost in the next movie.

And yeah, Snoke was an uninteresting mystery box in TFA. But he was also serving a narrative purpose, as our other antagonists were Hux, who was consistently portrayed as an idiot (yes, mad dogs have a purpose, but it's not being put in charge of your fleet), Ren, who showed little canniness or menace and was ruled almost wholly by his spiteful whims, and Phasma, who was a dirty coward. Snoke at least seemed like he could have been a serious threat if developed properly. If they were going to kill him, they needed someone to take his place as the overall threat. Ideally, that would have been Ren, but the film doesn't do that. They should have closed the door on a Redemption arc, had him fully take on the mantle of a Dark Lord, and show him as a menace to be taken seriously, not a teenager who yells at people and tosses them around with the Force when things don't go his way. We get the "Let the Past Die" quote, but Ren is repeatedly shown to be unable to do just that, and I feel that should have been his arc in Last Jedi.

I think there are some good pieces in place with the Last Jedi. A movie where Rey realizes that who she can become doesn't rely on where she came from, Poe growing from a hotshot pilot to a responsible leader, Finn finding a cause to fight for and Ren going from callous youth to Galactic Threat sounds like a good middle section of a trilogy to me. I just don't feel that any of that was done well here, and I envy people who feel that they got the movie I described.

Oh and I love Rose. I just wish the last two movies had found something more to do with her.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole good

My favorite, just for the description of an apocalyptic-level hangover.

"Actually, I didn't even feel that good."

[Sapphire Guard]

Is it worth making a pinned thread of some kind for our various Star Wars related disputes?

The weird part of Rey Nobody is, Finn is nobody too, but no one cares, in or out of universe.

[Bohandas]

Ain't no problem. In fact the idea that she just had to be a Skywalker, Kenobi or Palpatine was among the worst reactions to TFA.

She didn't have to be somebody we knew, just someone with an appropriately mystical background. The only way nobody would work is if it were literal like in the case of Darth Vader, and TLJ even screwed that possibility up.

[Peelee]

She didn't have to be somebody we knew, just someone with an appropriately mystical background. The only way nobody would work is if it were literal like in the case of Darth Vader, and TLJ even screwed that possibility up.

Ben Kenobi wasn't from a mystical background. Neither was Qui-Gon Jinn. Nor Yoda. Nor Kanan, nor Ezra, nor Palpatine, nor Maul, nor any other Force user we saw on-screen. Luke and Leia were literally the only ones who had their background as important on-screen.

So no, she most emphatically did not have to be someone with an appropriately mystical background. I categorically reject that claim. Her "background" was nothing more than blatant pandering.

[Hopeless]

I would have preferred they had revealed she was Phasma's niece from her novel.
Then reveal she's Schmi Skywalker's great grand daughter just not descended from Anakin.
She'd be a Skywalker and they wouldn't have to mess it up that badly...
Sadly.

I actually didn't mind her being nobody, just wish they planned the trilogy properly instead of whatever they were thinking about!

[Fyraltari]

She didn't have to be somebody we knew, just someone with an appropriately mystical background. The only way nobody would work is if it were literal like in the case of Darth Vader, and TLJ even screwed that possibility up.
Why? Why is a mystical background needed? Do people need to be royalty with a lineage chock-full of heroes to be heroes in turn?

[Dire_Flumph]

Is it worth making a pinned thread of some kind for our various Star Wars related disputes?

It's like a cancer, it would just spread. Only cure is to kill the host. :smallwink:


The weird part of Rey Nobody is, Finn is nobody too, but no one cares, in or out of universe.

Or Rose. Finn has a cool space hero backstory. Rose feels like they grabbed a background extra and said "Hey, wanna be in our movie?". I love that.

[Fyraltari]

The weird part of Rey Nobody is, Finn is nobody too, but no one cares, in or out of universe.

In TFA she has something of an arc of learning to accept that her family is never going to go back to get her. People latched on that and assumed that her family not being shown or named was to prepare a reveal rather than because they were irrelevant to the story.

[warty goblin]

In TFA she has something of an arc of learning to accept that her family is never going to go back to get her. People latched on that and assumed that her family not being shown or named was to prepare a reveal rather than because they were irrelevant to the story.

There was also, unless I'm misremembering, a bit where Kylo decides she's worth worrying about only after somebody says she's a girl from Jakku. Like that specific combination means something.

Since at that point there was no background really given for anybody, I thought it was some hint of a past connection between Rey and Kylo, more than about her family in particular.

[Fyraltari]

There was also, unless I'm misremembering, a bit where Kylo decides she's worth worrying about only after somebody says she's a girl from Jakku. Like that specific combination means something.

Do you mean this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO58BswAUEI

Because while you could read that as meaning he knows of a particular girl, you can just as easily read it as him still being angry.

[Bohandas]

Oh no, the multi-billions worth corporation acts soullessly without any care for creativity or art. I am shock.

There's enough people here talking about them like they're not jerks that I think it bears mentioning

[The Glyphstone]

Is it worth making a pinned thread of some kind for our various Star Wars related disputes?

The weird part of Rey Nobody is, Finn is nobody too, but no one cares, in or out of universe.

We don't appear to have fulfilled the requirements of Holdo's Law yet (as the length of a Star Wars thread increases, the probability of an argument about hyperspace ramming approaches unity). So there's still a bit of life left to bleed from its corpse.

[Xyril]

I actually enjoyed some of the books you listed as bad. The Crystal Star in particular, even though it's admittedly weird as hell and more star trek than star wars.


I did as well. I think part of why I disagreed with Peelee on some of NJO (though to be fair, I think the average quality of the works was lower than those from earlier eras) is that there was enough of a shift in tone/themes that it felt a bit "not Star Wars," but it wasn't enough to bother me. However, I can see how between that aspect and the lower quality other folks would judge them more harshly.



Also, as... Questionable as she is, Karen Traviss did pioneer the lore for Mandalorians, even if their current form is significantly altered.

I actually like how they handled the Mandalorians. Traviss's treatment felt a little fan-fictiony to me. Don't get me wrong, I think her works in general were of solid professional quality, but when it comes to her favored characters, she seemed to try a bit too hard to make them badass heroes. As a mercenary people with their own sense of honor, they were interesting characters who could be dropped in as formidable opponents to the Jedi where the story required, and you had some interesting individual characters that ran the spectrum of morality--they were definitely a net positive to the EU. However, in Traviss's works, I always felt like she was trying too hard to paint the Mandalorian characters as good guys, even when the particular Mandalorians in that particular story were at best amoral mercenaries doing bad things for bad people.

The Disney adaptation kept the good stuff, but actually seems to recognized that you can have an honorable warrior people who make good, compelling characters even if a lot of them are generally bad guys.



So no, she most emphatically did not have to be someone with an appropriately mystical background. I categorically reject that claim. Her "background" was nothing more than blatant pandering.

What annoyed me was how blatantly they were paralleling Luke's story on this. A lot off people seemed to think that they were retconning the earlier movies, but I think it was all planned and deliberate. They just wanted to replicate not only the special background thing, but even the part where someone directly lies to her about it, and then later explains how he wasn't really lying. Except this time, it didn't quite work as well. Darth Vadar giving the reveal to Luke came at a climactic moment, and Obi-Wan explaining how he told the truth from a certain perspective later had an emotional impact because nobody expected him to deceive Luke. The reveal to Rey seemed a bit... diluted, I guess? It didn't feel like it was timed for a moment when everything was coming together, and the fact that Kylo Ren misled her didn't feel like a surprise or a betrayal in anyway. My main reaction was that I wished I had split this up into two separate spaces on my OT bingo card.

[Vinyadan]

Why would somebody want that? I don't particularly enjoy the MCU, but its existance costs me nothing and clearly brings a lot of pleasure to a lot of people. So I take the radical and super laborious step of... not watching them.
https://i.postimg.cc/SRGVSZxW/download.jpg


I'm also in agreement with Fyraltari. I think TLJ had some big wierd problems, but was fundamentally both trying and succeeding to be something better than the others in the sequel trilogy. I liked Nobody Rey, Grumpy Luke, and Kill Him Off Because He's Not Worth Keeping Snoke.

I really liked the Rey - Kylo - Luke part. I didn't really like the rest. Nobody Rey was a good idea imho too. Snoke should probably never have existed; we already had the evil master monk thing with Vader and the Emperor, five films of it. I think that the series in general could have used a smaller cast and, if it wanted representation, simply go for [insert ethnicity] Rey and/or Kylo, although I think both Driver and Ridley were fantastic, and hope to see more of Daisy (Adam Driver already has a solid career).

[warty goblin]

https://i.postimg.cc/SRGVSZxW/download.jpg

I don't get it. Story of my life...

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by warty goblin
I don't get it. Story of my life...

Same here. I'm not sure what a vaguely sad-faced Thanos is meant to convey.

.

[Dire_Flumph]

Same here. I'm not sure what a vaguely sad-faced Thanos is meant to convey.

I think because he wanted to destroy the MCU? (Replying to the question "why would somebody want that?")

[Vinyadan]

It's a scene from one of the movies which turned into a meme (and, retrospectively, why did I expect that someone who hasn't watched the movie would get it? Highly illogical!)

The memefied scene in question: https://i.postimg.cc/8C9tCJBz/u-https-qph-fs-quoracdn.jpg

The joke was about a mix of the "what did it cost" part ("I don't particularly enjoy the MCU, but its existance costs me nothing") and Thanos being sad because Warty Goblin won't watch his movie.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Vinyadan
It's a scene from one of the movies which turned into a meme (and, retrospectively, why did I expect that someone who hasn't watched the movie would get it? Highly illogical!)

Well, I've watched those movies a disturbing number of times, but I didn't get it either.

But then, I didn't know it was a meme.


Originally Posted by Rodin
Add me into this group as well.

I'm pretty much on this vibe as well. I haven't read all of Xyril's dissertation, but generally agreed with what I skimmed over.

As for Peelee's extremely long list of books and reactions, I think we can agree that Labyrinth of Evil was dreck and Crystal Star was even worse. I'm much more positive about Karen Traviss' books, even though she's extremely anti-Force and anti-Jedi, but that works when you're writing Mandos and clone commandos. Traviss' experience as an embedded journalist really comes through, which gives her books a much greater depth of verisimilitude than the typical churned-out Star Wars novel.

For my part, I found the old Lando trilogy rather light and fluffy, but still enjoyable, and I'll always love the original Han Solo trilogy. Bollux and Blue Max were a great droid pair, and I wish we could've seen more like them instead of endlessly shoehorning R2 and 3PO into narratives where they don't really add anything. Fortunately the last couple movies have tried to give us different droids (with success varying by taste) and I hope we'll see more creative droids in the next round of films. Rogue Squadron itself will probably be heavy on the astromechs, but after that the galaxy's the limit.

.

[warty goblin]

It's a scene from one of the movies which turned into a meme (and, retrospectively, why did I expect that someone who hasn't watched the movie would get it? Highly illogical!)

The memefied scene in question: https://i.postimg.cc/8C9tCJBz/u-https-qph-fs-quoracdn.jpg

The joke was about a mix of the "what did it cost" part ("I don't particularly enjoy the MCU, but its existance costs me nothing") and Thanos being sad because Warty Goblin won't watch his movie.
I actually did watch Infinity War and Endgame. Infinitely War was fun because it was the heroes running around having all their usual emotional epiphanies, then Thanos just doesn't care and wrecks them. Since I kinda burned out on that arc about 3/4 through Iron Man 1, watching it subverted one face punch at a time was rather enjoyable.

Endgame was much less interesting. Partly because the whole nostalgia tour wasn't really very nostalgic for me, since I've only seen bits of Avengers 1, and none if Age if Ultron. Mostly though because I pretty quickly cottoned on the this wasn't part 2 of a weird and status quo breaking epic (not that I really expected that), it was part 2 of an extra long but very standard superhero movie, with an unusually dark middle act, and a couple people leaving the cast at the end. Fun, but didn't leave much more of an impression than any of the other Marvel movies I've seen.

[Xyril]

Since I kinda burned out on that arc about 3/4 through Iron Man 1, watching it subverted one face punch at a time was rather enjoyable.


Could you go more into what you mean by this? I've read a decent amount of MCU criticism, but it sounds like your reasons for disliking it are different from the main camps I've seen, and I think it would be interesting to hear a new take.

[Dienekes]

I really liked the Rey - Kylo - Luke part. I didn't really like the rest. Nobody Rey was a good idea imho too. Snoke should probably never have existed; we already had the evil master monk thing with Vader and the Emperor, five films of it. I think that the series in general could have used a smaller cast and, if it wanted representation, simply go for [insert ethnicity] Rey and/or Kylo, although I think both Driver and Ridley were fantastic, and hope to see more of Daisy (Adam Driver already has a solid career).

I'm a bit torn, because a lot of TLJ I like the concepts presented, but not always how they got there.

Take Grumpy Luke. I can totally get behind Grumpy Luke. Honestly, Grumpy Luke is the only reasonable response as to why he decided to just abandon the galaxy in the stupid star map thing back in the last movie.

I just don't think the fall of Luke into Grumpy Luke makes any sense. This is Luke Skywalker, the guy that when he found out the greatest villain in the galaxy was his father risked everything for a chance to redeem him. His first lines to the Emperor were basically: There's still good in my dad, and I came here willingly knowing we're all gonna die here.

And he succeeds. He is rewarded for his faith in his family. So, by the laws of narrative he should double down on this perception.

So with that in mind, he is now leading his new Jedi order and finds his relative may fall to the Dark Side. Wouldn't it make way more sense that he did not pull out a lightsaber when he felt evil within Ben? The Luke of the OT would try to redeem this kid first and bring him to the light. That's Luke's whole shtick.

If you wanted to make Grumpy Luke who abandons the galaxy, make it so he tries to bring Ben back to the Light. Have him absolutely fail. Which allows Ben to go on his child murdering rampage. Luke blames himself for the failure and leaves thinking he cannot make it right. That seems blatantly obvious to me.

Meanwhile we have Kylo killing Snoke. I am all for this. Showing our new Vader stepping out of the Emperor's shadow and taking his place as the true villain of the story. That's great. He even offers Rey the chance to join him, with the caveat it involves wiping away all her friends and rebuilding the galaxy in their image. Pure villainy here I'm all for it. But this presents Kylo as the true villain of the story. Which is great. The way he blames Rey for not seeing his vision and belittling her for not wanting to turn evil with him? That is pure abusive boyfriend material coming through. They've made a terrible guy and they've set up what I've jokingly called Emperor Joffrey for the next movie.

I'd be completely down for watching this power mad man-child grabbing all the power he can, wrecking everything in his way in the next movie.

But they don't do that. They redeem him for... some reason. I still am not certain why. And then they make Palpatine the true villain and it goes back to TFA's shtick of copying the OT with half the heart that made the originals good.

Ugh it's all just a mess.

[Peelee]

I'm a bit torn, because a lot of TLJ I like the concepts presented, but not always how they got there.

Take Grumpy Luke. I can totally get behind Grumpy Luke. Honestly, Grumpy Luke is the only reasonable response as to why he decided to just abandon the galaxy in the stupid star map thing back in the last movie.

I just don't think the fall of Luke into Grumpy Luke makes any sense. This is Luke Skywalker, the guy that when he found out the greatest villain in the galaxy was his father risked everything for a chance to redeem him. His first lines to the Emperor were basically: There's still good in my dad, and I came here willingly knowing we're all gonna die here.

And he succeeds. He is rewarded for his faith in his family. So, by the laws of narrative he should double down on this perception.

So with that in mind, he is now leading his new Jedi order and finds his relative may fall to the Dark Side. Wouldn't it make way more sense that he did not pull out a lightsaber when he felt evil within Ben? The Luke of the OT would try to redeem this kid first and bring him to the light. That's Luke's whole shtick.

If you wanted to make Grumpy Luke who abandons the galaxy, make it so he tries to bring Ben back to the Light. Have him absolutely fail. Which allows Ben to go on his child murdering rampage. Luke blames himself for the failure and leaves thinking he cannot make it right. That seems blatantly obvious to me.

Meanwhile we have Kylo killing Snoke. I am all for this. Showing our new Vader stepping out of the Emperor's shadow and taking his place as the true villain of the story. That's great. He even offers Rey the chance to join him, with the caveat it involves wiping away all her friends and rebuilding the galaxy in their image. Pure villainy here I'm all for it. But this presents Kylo as the true villain of the story. Which is great. The way he blames Rey for not seeing his vision and belittling her for not wanting to turn evil with him? That is pure abusive boyfriend material coming through. They've made a terrible guy and they've set up what I've jokingly called Emperor Joffrey for the next movie.

I'd be completely down for watching this power mad man-child grabbing all the power he can, wrecking everything in his way in the next movie.

But they don't do that. They redeem him for... some reason. I still am not certain why. And then they make Palpatine the true villain and it goes back to TFA's shtick of copying the OT with half the heart that made the originals good.

Ugh it's all just a mess.

I didn't realize this until I read your take, but I agree wholeheartedly with that.

[Fyraltari]

I'm a bit torn, because a lot of TLJ I like the concepts presented, but not always how they got there.

Take Grumpy Luke. I can totally get behind Grumpy Luke. Honestly, Grumpy Luke is the only reasonable response as to why he decided to just abandon the galaxy in the stupid star map thing back in the last movie.

I just don't think the fall of Luke into Grumpy Luke makes any sense. This is Luke Skywalker, the guy that when he found out the greatest villain in the galaxy was his father risked everything for a chance to redeem him. His first lines to the Emperor were basically: There's still good in my dad, and I came here willingly knowing we're all gonna die here.

And he succeeds. He is rewarded for his faith in his family. So, by the laws of narrative he should double down on this perception.

So with that in mind, he is now leading his new Jedi order and finds his relative may fall to the Dark Side. Wouldn't it make way more sense that he did not pull out a lightsaber when he felt evil within Ben? The Luke of the OT would try to redeem this kid first and bring him to the light. That's Luke's whole shtick.
Luke's reaction to the suggestion of Leia turning to the Dark Side was to clobber Vader halfway to death. Dude's as good as they get but he has a temper.
And 25 years of people singing your praises, can make anybody start believing their own hype and react aggressively when reality challenges that.


If you wanted to make Grumpy Luke who abandons the galaxy, make it so he tries to bring Ben back to the Light. Have him absolutely fail. Which allows Ben to go on his child murdering rampage. Luke blames himself for the failure and leaves thinking he cannot make it right. That seems blatantly obvious to me.
Isn't that what happened though? He tired to make Ben into a hero, he absolutely failed (peeked into Ben's mind, was tempted to kill him, caught himself but a moment to late). This allowed ben to go on his child murdering rampage and Luke blamed himself (and by extension the whole concept of the Jedi Order) and left thinking he couldn't make it right.


Meanwhile we have Kylo killing Snoke. I am all for this. Showing our new Vader stepping out of the Emperor's shadow and taking his place as the true villain of the story. That's great. He even offers Rey the chance to join him, with the caveat it involves wiping away all her friends and rebuilding the galaxy in their image. Pure villainy here I'm all for it. But this presents Kylo as the true villain of the story. Which is great. The way he blames Rey for not seeing his vision and belittling her for not wanting to turn evil with him? That is pure abusive boyfriend material coming through. They've made a terrible guy and they've set up what I've jokingly called Emperor Joffrey for the next movie.

I'd be completely down for watching this power mad man-child grabbing all the power he can, wrecking everything in his way in the next movie.

But they don't do that. They redeem him for... some reason. I still am not certain why. And then they make Palpatine the true villain and it goes back to TFA's shtick of copying the OT with half the heart that made the originals good.

Ugh it's all just a mess.
Reluctant as I am to give too much credit (well, "credit") to internet nitpickers, it feels like Abrams decided that the fan complaints about Kylo Ren not being threatening enough were right and brought back SW main vilain to make up for it rather than continue to build him up as an antagonist. And, left with no idea what to do with him, defaulted to Vader's arc.

[Zevox]

I've found myself in disagreement with a lot of the commonly accepted flaws with the sequel trilogy. When I read a disparaging description of Kylo Ren, I think "Yes, and...?" He's supposed to be a pale shadow of Vader. If they had followed up on that better in Rise (instead of randomly bringing back Palpatine) there would have been a really cool character arc. As is he's still the best thing in the sequels.

Grumpy Luke is the only form of the character that makes sense to me.
Okay, I don't want to get drawn into another long argument about the film - been in entirely too many in the years since it came out - so I will just say this. We agree on the point about Rey being a nobody - that was the one good thing that I think TLJ did. Mostly because I thought it was overdone and boring for TFA to imply that her parents were somebody important that we'd probably know (Luke, I was assuming at the time), so seeing that tossed out pleased me.

We disagree on everything else, but especially those two parts. Kylo Ren and the handling of Luke are the two worst parts of the sequels by far for me. Kylo does not work as a villain and yet gets treated as the main one, while Luke's story is awful and does not fit his character. At the end of TLJ, the one hope I was holding onto was for a future film to provide some amount of redemption for him, to fix what TLJ had broken. And then it killed him, for absolutely no reason, despite having the perfect excuse not to with that illusion trick, so that could never happen. That's what ultimately killed the sequels for me.


I'm a bit torn, because a lot of TLJ I like the concepts presented, but not always how they got there.

Take Grumpy Luke. I can totally get behind Grumpy Luke. Honestly, Grumpy Luke is the only reasonable response as to why he decided to just abandon the galaxy in the stupid star map thing back in the last movie.

I just don't think the fall of Luke into Grumpy Luke makes any sense. This is Luke Skywalker, the guy that when he found out the greatest villain in the galaxy was his father risked everything for a chance to redeem him. His first lines to the Emperor were basically: There's still good in my dad, and I came here willingly knowing we're all gonna die here.

And he succeeds. He is rewarded for his faith in his family. So, by the laws of narrative he should double down on this perception.

So with that in mind, he is now leading his new Jedi order and finds his relative may fall to the Dark Side. Wouldn't it make way more sense that he did not pull out a lightsaber when he felt evil within Ben? The Luke of the OT would try to redeem this kid first and bring him to the light. That's Luke's whole shtick.

If you wanted to make Grumpy Luke who abandons the galaxy, make it so he tries to bring Ben back to the Light. Have him absolutely fail. Which allows Ben to go on his child murdering rampage. Luke blames himself for the failure and leaves thinking he cannot make it right. That seems blatantly obvious to me.

Meanwhile we have Kylo killing Snoke. I am all for this. Showing our new Vader stepping out of the Emperor's shadow and taking his place as the true villain of the story. That's great. He even offers Rey the chance to join him, with the caveat it involves wiping away all her friends and rebuilding the galaxy in their image. Pure villainy here I'm all for it. But this presents Kylo as the true villain of the story. Which is great. The way he blames Rey for not seeing his vision and belittling her for not wanting to turn evil with him? That is pure abusive boyfriend material coming through. They've made a terrible guy and they've set up what I've jokingly called Emperor Joffrey for the next movie.

I'd be completely down for watching this power mad man-child grabbing all the power he can, wrecking everything in his way in the next movie.

But they don't do that. They redeem him for... some reason. I still am not certain why. And then they make Palpatine the true villain and it goes back to TFA's shtick of copying the OT with half the heart that made the originals good.

Ugh it's all just a mess.
This is almost true for me too. I don't like the concept of "Grumpy Luke" and do think there were other ways you could have gone with the setup from TFA (though I will add that I also think that setup was bad to begin with and not easy to salvage whatever you did with it), but I could see the possibility that it could be done well - it just very much so was not. I don't buy that what we're shown as Luke's story would lead to that result, for the reasons Dienekes mentioned. Luke just giving up on his nephew like that after only one failure just does not jive with the character from the OT in the slightest.

Similarly, Kylo killing Snoke. In a better-written set of films where Kylo was actually becoming a villain who could be taken seriously, that might work. It doesn't because he wasn't, at any point, becoming a better villain. It's not like he was involved in some intense Sith training after the first film to get stronger or more focused or whatever, he's the same character at that point as he was when who lost a duel with Rey when she'd never held a lightsaber before. He clearly doesn't have any respect from the people he supposedly leads in the First Order (either before or after killing Snoke), and only barely has their fear - he's treated more like a child they simply aren't allowed to do anything to stop than someone they tremble in the mere presence of. He's successful only in that throne room, and it feels like that's only because narratively he has to be, or else Rey will suffer/be (re-)captured/die too, not because of who he is and what he can do at that point.

So instead, I also dislike Kylo killing Snoke, since Snoke is legitimately the better villain. Palpatine rip-off or not, he's the only one who accomplishes anything: tricking Rey into coming to him, then pulling Luke's location from her mind. That's legitimately more competence than any other sequel villain ever displays in the first two films. He's also an idiot who didn't hear Kylo moving that lightsaber on his chair's metal armrest to point at him and closed his eyes during that execution to imagine it rather than watch it for absolutely no reason, so he's certainly no Palpatine himself, but he still sets the bar higher than Kylo does.

Also, aside, agree that Kylo being redeemed in Rise is stupid. He had a scene in both TFA and TLJ to emphasize that he did not want redemption - during one of which he murdered his father in cold blood, who also happened to be one of the original series' most beloved heroes. If that's not supposed to be a point of no return emphasizing that this villain, however bad at it he may be, will not be redeemed, I don't know what is.

[Dienekes]

Luke's reaction to the suggestion of Leia turning to the Dark Side was to clobber Vader halfway to death. Dude's as good as they get but he has a temper.
And 25 years of people singing your praises, can make anybody start believing their own hype and react aggressively when reality challenges that.

Yes, he was willing to fight to protect a direct family member. And stopped because he was attacking a direct family member. Kylo is just asleep and "feels eeeeevil."

The issue here is, you have to think up your own reasons as to why Luke is acting as he does. He had 25 years of people singing his praises. He gets aggressive when reality doesn't conform to what he wants.

None of that is in the movie. None of that is implied by the movie. And (though I do not think these should be counted even if they were) none of that is in the background information given leading up and explaining the movie. Where apparently Luke's involvement was downplayed by the New Republic for some stupid reason.

You have to draw the steps to make the character make sense, and especially when those steps make the character act worse than the audience is used to them being, or even more egregiously stupider than we remember them acting then that is a very tough sell.


Isn't that what happened though? He tired to make Ben into a hero, he absolutely failed (peeked into Ben's mind, was tempted to kill him, caught himself but a moment to late). This allowed ben to go on his child murdering rampage and Luke blamed himself (and by extension the whole concept of the Jedi Order) and left thinking he couldn't make it right.

Again, Ben was asleep and just felt ominous. So Luke pulled out his lightsaber and wanted to kill his nephew. Now to his credit, he didn't go through with it. But that whole sentence is antithetical to the Luke of the OT. He was tempted to murder a teenager in his sleep. This is horrible.

Now, if he was witnessing Ben performing some dark side juju or torturing another of Luke's students. That is a little better. But he wasn't. He was asleep.

If we want to make Luke abandon everything and go off to twiddle his thumbs on some forgotten planet. We can't just make it a momentary lapse of judgment. It has to be Luke seeing that his whole being, his fundamental method of dealing with the galaxy has failed. Him getting angry at the dark side for a split second is not the fundamental part of Luke. On the contrary it's the part of himself that he had to let go in order for him to get the win against the Emperor at the end of RotJ.

In short his kindness and understanding needed to be the catalyst for his self-destruction, not his already beaten habit of getting angry.


Reluctant as I am to give too much credit (well, "credit") to internet nitpickers, it feels like Abrams decided that the fan complaints about Kylo Ren not being threatening enough were right and brought back SW main vilain to make up for it rather than continue to build him up as an antagonist. And, left with no idea what to do with him, defaulted to Vader's arc.

Honestly, I'm more pessimistic. I kinda think Abrams always wanted Ben to have a redemption arc because giving a visual spit shine to other better works is kinda what he does. But if you have some quote to prove me wrong I'd accept it.




This is almost true for me too. I don't like the concept of "Grumpy Luke" and do think there were other ways you could have gone with the setup from TFA (though I will add that I also think that setup was bad to begin with and not easy to salvage whatever you did with it), but I could see the possibility that it could be done well - it just very much so was not. I don't buy that what we're shown as Luke's story would lead to that result, for the reasons Dienekes mentioned. Luke just giving up on his nephew like that after only one failure just does not jive with the character from the OT in the slightest.

That's a different debate, whether TFA was a good starting point to the series. Personally, I think no. In my opinion *almost* everything that TLJ gets blamed for as problematic comes directly from TLJ.

The legacies of the heroes ruined? That came from TFA.
Han's arc was learning to fight for others before himself, emotionally mature and start a healthy relationship with Leia. He has reverted back to his smuggling days and apparently was a bad father.

Leia's arc was restarting the New Republic restoring good governance to the galaxy. Apparently the New Republic is already so bad that she has to abandon ties with them before the movie starts to act as her own weird pseudo-war. It is then destroyed mid-way through the movie.

Luke's arc was learning how important he could be in the galaxy, not just some moisture farmer so far away from everything. He masters himself, his emotions, redeems his father and is set to restart the New Jedi Order. He has abandoned all of his responsibilities, his new order has been slaughtered, he trained the new Vader, and is pulling a Yoda despite the fact his side hadn't lost yet like Yoda's had.

The Holdo maneuver breaks how Hyperspace is supposed to work?

Han hyperspaced out of a ship which is supposed to cause huge gravity issues and is why ships don't jump straight into hyperspace while on a planet. And then he uses hyperspace to go through Starkiller Base shield and pull out of it again. Hyperspace already got broke.

I did not then, and do not now understand why people thought that movie was good.


So instead, I also dislike Kylo killing Snoke, since Snoke is legitimately the better villain. Palpatine rip-off or not, he's the only one who accomplishes anything: tricking Rey into coming to him, then pulling Luke's location from her mind. That's legitimately more competence than any other sequel villain ever displays in the first two films.

I'll challenge that. Hux is the most accomplished villain in the two movies he appears in.

He is the one that lead the Starkiller Base program. He is the one that literally DESTROYED the New Republic and their fleet in one instant. He is apparently off-screen the one who saves Kylo's ass and gets him off the destroyed Starkiller Base. He's the one who developed a method to follow the Resistance Fleet through hyperspace assuring their victory.

He is frankly the most successful villain in Star Wars after only to Palpatine and Vitiate. Even better characters like Thrawn, Exar Kun, and Bane don't destroy the Republic.

It is very strange that he got used as a joke while also seeming to be the only one on Team Evil who accomplishes anything of note.

The difference between us is of course, that I actually welcome Space Joffrey as a villain. Maybe it's because our current world, but a psychopathic man child put in charge of something very important is terrifying to me. And it's very obvious how destructive that can be. Like Palpy wanted to rule the galaxy. If you want to make a new powerful villain, I would totally see how going the path of one who just enjoys watching it blow to pieces could be done very well. And I think Adam Driver is a good enough actor to pull it off.

[Xyril]

The issue here is, you have to think up your own reasons as to why Luke is acting as he does. He had 25 years of people singing his praises. He gets aggressive when reality doesn't conform to what he wants.


I don't think I realized before, but this might be what bothers me the most about the current state of things. Like I said before, EU stuff enhanced the flagship canon works, but it was never necessary to understand it. You could have skipped all the books and the The Clone Wars series, and the Prequel Trilogy would have still worked would have worked no worse than they did.

This trilogy is obviously incompatible with Legends canon, but even with that gone, it only really fits together with the prior trilogies if audiences are willing to go out of their way to make the right inferences in that empty space the EU used to occupy. And even that is a stretch, because even within the trilogy, it feels like each work was written by three different teams who coordinated in the big details, but didn't share notes at all in order to get on the same page for more subtle things (like character development.)



The difference between us is of course, that I actually welcome Space Joffrey as a villain. Maybe it's because our current world, but a psychopathic man child put in charge of something very important is terrifying to me. And it's very obvious how destructive that can be. Like Palpy wanted to rule the galaxy. If you want to make a new powerful villain, I would totally see how going the path of one who just enjoys watching it blow to pieces could be done very well. And I think Adam Driver is a good enough actor to pull it off.

I didn't dislike his performance (and after seeing more of him, blame the bad bits 100% of the script/directing.) Also, I didn't dislike the volatile, capricious sort of villain he was. My issue is how incongruous it was too see a villain that was so different from Vader being shoehorned in to fit so many of Vader's big story notes, right down to the death is redemption thing. Plus, it seemed like killing Han was meant to mirror killing Obi-Won, who was the closest thing to a father Anakin had, except nobody on the creative team realized that the differences in contexts would make audiences read those scenes entirely differently. A lesser not-Vader desperately trying to fill his grandfather's metal shoes could have been a great antagonist in his own right; watching him trying--with wildly varying levels of success--to follow Vader's path could have been an amazing new story. Watching him do so terribly, but then seeing the universe itself apparently railroading him into that path and validating his "successes" was just weird, and uncomfortable.

[Peelee]

Wow, you were really committed to reading The New Jedi Order, Legacy of the Force (I am guessing that Revelations was bad too) and Fate of the Jedi, weren't you?
Imean, I was committed to reading all the Star Wars novels in general. It's more like they were committed to their 19-book NJO, 9-book LotF, and 9-book FotJ series.

You forget, he can also drain life from people to rejuvenate himself, but only if they are a "dyad in the Force", whatever that means.
I had forgotten that. Now I remember. Life is suddenly worse. Why did you do this to me?

Luke's personality was consistent. He spends the entire OT flirting with the Dark Side, so how is it surprising that in the ST he has a flirt with the Dark Side, resist it and then feels guilty?
Luke's entire arc over the trilogy was overcoming that, though, so for him to be right back at square one... well, puts him right back at square one. Why did I watch his character arc in the OT for if it didn't matter?

Rian Johnson didn't kill Snoke "just because he could." He killed him because Snoke was a generic Emperor clone (only figuratively at the time) while Kylo Ren was the one with a connection to the heroes.
The Emperor had no connection to the heroes in the OT, and Vader just barely had connection to Luke alone in the original movie (and even that was what, two lines of dialogue?). Villains don't all need connection to the heroes.

Nah, TLJ left TROS plenty to work with. TROS just wasn't interested in doing anything with it.
Eh, TLJ did burn a lot of bridges, but I agree that RoS wasn't interested in keeping the few that remained.

My favorite, just for the description of an apocalyptic-level hangover.

"Actually, I didn't even feel that good."

I, Jedi was pretty fantastic. I was tempted to go with a "great" and "terrible" option as well, but decided it would be much easier (read: I could actually finish grading the list instead of waffling) to stick with the middle three. So some compromises had to be made. The truly great ones don't stand out, but neither do the truly terrible ones.

Also, for anyone who is even mildly interested, I wholly recommend Starfighters of Adumar. Despite being Book 9 of the X-Wing series, you need absolutely no knowledge of any other books (and frankly, barely even a passing knowledge of the original trilogy) to both understand and enjoy the story, which is amazing in it's disregard for a serious plot involving main movie characters and dedication instead to just being a stupidly fun read: the Empire and Rebellion compete in winning over a neutral, newly rediscovered planet which is inhabited entirely by fighter-pilot-worshipping slackjawed yokels whose favorite pasttime is gunsword-dueling over honor as they enjoy a lavish lifestyle in their entirely missile-based economy.

[Zevox]

That's a different debate, whether TFA was a good starting point to the series. Personally, I think no. In my opinion *almost* everything that TLJ gets blamed for as problematic comes directly from TLJ.

The legacies of the heroes ruined? That came from TFA.
Han's arc was learning to fight for others before himself, emotionally mature and start a healthy relationship with Leia. He has reverted back to his smuggling days and apparently was a bad father.

Leia's arc was restarting the New Republic restoring good governance to the galaxy. Apparently the New Republic is already so bad that she has to abandon ties with them before the movie starts to act as her own weird pseudo-war. It is then destroyed mid-way through the movie.

Luke's arc was learning how important he could be in the galaxy, not just some moisture farmer so far away from everything. He masters himself, his emotions, redeems his father and is set to restart the New Jedi Order. He has abandoned all of his responsibilities, his new order has been slaughtered, he trained the new Vader, and is pulling a Yoda despite the fact his side hadn't lost yet like Yoda's had.

The Holdo maneuver breaks how Hyperspace is supposed to work?

Han hyperspaced out of a ship which is supposed to cause huge gravity issues and is why ships don't jump straight into hyperspace while on a planet. And then he uses hyperspace to go through Starkiller Base shield and pull out of it again. Hyperspace already got broke.

I did not then, and do not now understand why people thought that movie was good.
While I agree with much of that*, I would argue that things were at least still salvageable after TFA, personally. Not easily, mind you, but it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility for a better writer than Abrams to work with what had been done - or at the very least to take the new characters (mostly Finn and Rey) and make something better around them, even if the old was never going to be 100% okay. TLJ summarily killed any hope of that, in my mind. It failed to do anything with Finn, to do anything better with Rey than TFA, and continued to tear down what was left of the older characters that we already cared about, then ended by doing something that prevented there from even being any hope of that changing in a future film. All while being a much worse individual, stand-alone film than TFA was.

*I do feel that Han's story is not as bad as you do, at least. And assuming it were either a one-off that never got mentioned again or they officially revised how hyperspace worked compared to the old continuity, I could give the hyperspace nonsense a pass.


I'll challenge that. Hux is the most accomplished villain in the two movies he appears in.

He is the one that lead the Starkiller Base program. He is the one that literally DESTROYED the New Republic and their fleet in one instant. He is apparently off-screen the one who saves Kylo's ass and gets him off the destroyed Starkiller Base. He's the one who developed a method to follow the Resistance Fleet through hyperspace assuring their victory.
Most of that is sweeping assumptions about things that happen offscreen which are not communicated in the films themselves to my recollection. And destroying the New Republic is not so much of a feat when you've been handed a superweapon by the plot that can do it in one shot. Sorry, I just have no respect for that particular element of the story, it's one of the laziest parts of the film.


The difference between us is of course, that I actually welcome Space Joffrey as a villain. Maybe it's because our current world, but a psychopathic man child put in charge of something very important is terrifying to me. And it's very obvious how destructive that can be. Like Palpy wanted to rule the galaxy. If you want to make a new powerful villain, I would totally see how going the path of one who just enjoys watching it blow to pieces could be done very well. And I think Adam Driver is a good enough actor to pull it off.
While my reaction to it is not entirely because of our current world, I'd say that plays into it as well, in that I think that does the exact opposite of making me find it a more enjoyable idea for a story. And in general, psychopathic manchild just will never be a character that I want to see in just about anything, I think, other than perhaps as a joke character who gets easily beaten in some kind of parody or comedy.

[Peelee]

That's a different debate, whether TFA was a good starting point to the series. Personally, I think no. In my opinion *almost* everything that TLJ gets blamed for as problematic comes directly from TLJ.

Assuming that second TLJ was supposed to be TFA, I fully agree.

Also, nobody's commented on it yet, but what the hell was up with that random lady who was all "Rey who?" in RoS? Lady, what does it matter? Why do you care? Why do you even assume she has a last name? And Rey, you just spent the entire movie learning that names and lineages don't matter, but rather who you are as a person and what you do matters, so why the hell did you just go all in on "Rey Skywalker"? You don't need to try to claim that, you can just be Rey.

God that movie is so bad.

[warty goblin]

Could you go more into what you mean by this? I've read a decent amount of MCU criticism, but it sounds like your reasons for disliking it are different from the main camps I've seen, and I think it would be interesting to hear a new take.

So here's my take. Keep in mind there's a bundle of the movies I just haven't watched*, so these are my overall impressions, and unless I say so explicitly, are not really criticisms of any particular movie, or things I think are true for all of the movies.

I don't think the movies are badly made by any means, mostly I find them sort of uninteresting. I suspect a lot of it is that I was never into superhero stuff as a kid. I've never had the fantasy of being Superman or Batman or Iron Man or any other ___ Man. Which isn't to say I didn't spend a lot of my childhood imagining myself in other worlds, it just wasn't those worlds. And I usually projected myself as a much more ordinary sort of person - I might have pretended to be a knight, but not the bestest best knight ever, and at the end of the adventure there was probably a 75% chance that I would die - Sturm Brightblade was a big deal to me. So that leaves me rather external to the films; I'm not seeing my childhood heroes on the big screen, I'm not even really seeing people like my childhood heroes.

I also don't find the world the MCU creates particularly interesting. My taste has always run much more towards full secondary world fantasy, or straight sci-fi. Which leaves the weird melting pot of stuff in the MCU just feeling like a big illogical mess. The only consequence of anything fantastic is like one hero gets a cool power, which probably creates exactly one similarly themed villain, but the world around them seems unaffected. There's not much of a core that pulls things together in terms of a consistent universe, or an overall tone or metaphor or let's game out the consequences of this thing existing. There are occasional exceptions, I really, really liked about the first 2/3 of Black Panther because it spent some time on world building; I enjoy just how completely unhinged GotG gets - and the fact that it isn't supposed to be happening in otherwise normal NYC really helps with that - but in general the worlds just feel kinda insubstantial.

To the bit of my post you pulled out, there's something kinda offputting to me about the typical emotional arc of an MCU movie. This is one of those very weird personal things that I have trouble articulating well; I don't want to make this out to be some sort of universal flaw that damns the movies and I'm super-smart and sophisticated for figuring it out or anything. It's just a personal bugbear that I'm unsure how to describe without worrying it sounds like that, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, the combination of the hero being by construction super-unique and the plot resolution usually coming down to the hero learning something about themselves so they can punch hard enough just leaves me feeling kinda... icky. Like the entire world is just a giant prop room for this one guy to work out his emotional hangups. And yet usually in the next movie we're right back to the same general emotional breakthrough -> punch the bad guy -> win plot in the next movie, generally with a pretty similar feeling emotional breakthrough. There's no progress, because the status quo is king, it's just the same breakthrough and punching again and again. This isn't even a thing I'd pull out from a single movie, but it sorta seems to keep happening and it starts to feel icky to me. I guess I just don't like the feeling of the rest of the world being props for one person's emotional development. And if the central fantasy of being Iron Man or whomever isn't your thing, it's kinda monotonous after a while.

To be clear, I'm not saying this is all the movies are, or that it perfectly describes all of them. But some of them definitely leave me feeling that way. To go all ranty for a couple of sentences, Civil War is by far the worst. It seemed to me that the other 99.999999% of the world had some pretty reasonable concern about a bunch of completely unaccountable people flying around and doing whatever they feel like. But that was much, much less important than two dudes punching each other over their various entirely personal traumas. Oh, and those concerns were only ever seriously discussed at all because Tony Stark felt bad for a hot minute about that time his global spy system went all omnicidal. It left me feeling like I was supposed to be cheering for what were, by any reasonable metric, deeply immature people who were violently incapable of accepting any responsibility or accountability for themselves. But boy we sure had some cathartic punching at the end, and everything's OK again because Steve sent Tony a nice letter. At the other end of the spectrum, Black Panther takes the radical - and very welcome - step of having the villain be basically right. The central character drama is T'Challa discovering what it is to be a good king, which is a lesson about the world, not the world being beaten to a fine paste so he can learn about himself. There's a fascinating bit in the middle of the movie where it feels like there's a chance that he's actually going to be a better king that T'Challa because he's going to use his power for more than the benefit of the people nearest him, which T'Challa has never done. GotG both 1 and 2 are pretty merciless in showing that Peter is an overgrown manbaby, and this isn't actually an admirable trait, even if he does drop a good one liner.

And on a purely cinematic note, I don't usually find the action scenes very interesting. Everybody's so hyper-durable the heroes getting hit at best barely matters at barely matters, which means I don't care about the hit they're taking now, and I don't care about the next wall they'll get punched through either. And the villains are usually just as bad; they're going to absorb punishment until the hero yells and does whatever their gimmick is, except ultra hard this time. It's kinda the cinematic equivalent of somebody narrating a D&D fight by telling you each and every damage roll (... then I did 13 damage and the orc did 10 damage to me and I did 21 damage to the orc and...) except I'm not playing, and this interminable monologue will continue until such time as the invisible DM decides somebody runs out of HP. The rules are opaque, and nothing means anything. Except for the two duels in Black Panther, which were two normal men with iron age weapons, and therefore instantly legible and dangerous.

Anyway, hope that was interesting, and didn't come off as too horribly me-me-me, or unbearably pretentious.


*MCU movies I can remember having watched listed in no particular order: Iron Man 1, Iron Man 2, Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor (but only very recently), Thor: Ragnarok, various pieces of Avengers 1, I think I watched Winter Soldier, but it was on an airplane so I remember virtually nothing, Civil War, both Guardians of the Galaxy, Spiderman: Homecoming, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, Infinity War and Endgame.

[Bohandas]

When TLJ didn't give Snoke a backstory that was part of saying that he wasn't actually important, that the main villain was Kylo Ren. When TROS didn't explain how its main villain came back from the dead, it was because it couldn't be arsed.

Not quite. It's more like it assumed that you've alreacy seen all the other movies. There's a scene in Revenge of the Sith where Palpatine talks about Darth Plagueis' research into manipulation of life and death, it's a big part of his pitch to Anakin.


Nah, TLJ left TROS plenty to work with. TROS just wasn't interested in doing anything with it.
To be fair, Last Jedi wasn't interested in following up on any of the stuff set up in The Force Awakens. Rise of Skywalker ignored the TLJ plot points because TLJ had left so many points from TFA hanging, like where Rey came from and who Snoke is.

Like I said. The Last Jedi would have been great as a standalone movie that was not part of a larger series, but as part of Star Wars it's basically the equivalent of a guy on a sports team who doesn't know how to be a team player. It undermined the previous movie and sabotaged the next movie so that it could showboat and do its own thing.

[Hopeless]

Not quite. It's more like it assumed that you've alreacy seen all the other movies. There's a scene in Revenge of the Sith where Palpatine talks about Darth Plagueis' research into manipulation of life and death, it's a big part of his pitch to Anakin.


To be fair, Last Jedi wasn't interested in following up on any of the stuff set up in The Force Awakens. Rise of Skywalker ignored the TLJ plot points because TLJ had left so many points from TFA hanging, like where Rey came from and who Snoke is.

Like I said. The Last Jedi would have been great as a standalone movie that was not part of a larger series, but as part of Star Wars it's basically the equivalent of a guy on a sports team who doesn't know how to be a team player. It undermined the previous movie and sabotaged the next movie so that it could showboat and do its own thing.

I agree with the above it would have been a fine standalone movie, not one I would have been interested in but at least then it wouldn't have wrecked the franchise in the process.

[LeSwordfish]

To be fair, Last Jedi wasn't interested in following up on any of the stuff set up in The Force Awakens. Rise of Skywalker ignored the TLJ plot points because TLJ had left so many points from TFA hanging, like where Rey came from and who Snoke is.

I disagree with this a bit. It did answer who Rey was, wholeheartedly: "she's not anybody important" is an entirely reasonable answer to that. As for Snoke, I guess its left as an open question, but then (and this is a genuine question not a gotcha) - how much information on the Emperor was in ROTJ? Or Yoda? We don't need a biography of The Emperor, or Darth Maul, or Vader, for them to do what they do effectively.

Abrams storytelling style is the Mystery Box: ask a bunch of questions and enjoy discovering the answer. Sometimes the enjoyable way to resolve that is for the box to be empty, because actually the cool important thing isn't in the box - for a very literal example, see Pulp Fiction. (EDIT: Abrams does the same thing himself in Mission Impossible 3! What the Rabbit's Foot is, isn't important - what's important is that the hero wants it.) It's not bad storytelling to bait and switch, or to set up expectations and subvert them - Abrams wrote a very classic Star Wars story with a lot of Bait, and Johnson tried to do something different, including a couple of Switches.

Ultimately, this would have been resolved if they'd done a trilogy-wide plan from the start. I don't know if the films qualities would have gone up, but there would have been far fewer "nuh uh" moments.

[Peelee]

IlAbrams storytelling style is the Mystery Box: ask a bunch of questions and enjoy discovering the answer.

The Abrams Mystery Box, according to Abrams himself, has no answer. Not much to enjoy there.

Compare this to the Favreau style of storytelling, which is to tell us an actual story.

[Rodin]

And even that is a stretch, because even within the trilogy, it feels like each work was written by three different teams who coordinated in the big details, but didn't share notes at all in order to get on the same page for more subtle things (like character development.)


I think this is an incredibly generous take. Coordinating on the big details would imply that the major plot points were laid out ahead of time. Snoke was always meant to die in TLJ. Palpatine was always the main villain. Rey's identity was always known. Luke was always Grumpy.

There's no indication of any of that. Palpatine only became the villain because Kylo Ren wasn't suitable. Snoke only died because Rian Johnson thought it would be surprising.

It's pretty clear that the movies were written entirely separate from one another, with no "plot bible" at the foundation holding the trilogy together. They released a movie, waited for the critical (and fan) response, then wrote the next movie using only what was on screen (and ignored that when convenient).

They got Abrams in to give Star Wars the Star Trek treatment - put together a big summer blockbuster to recover fans turned off by the prequel trilogy.
They got Johnson in after people complained TFA was copying the original trilogy.
The second movie proved divisive so they brought Abrams back to do another big summer blockbuster and hoped people wouldn't notice all the hanging plot threads.

That's the full extent of the planning they did.

[druid91]

Honestly, out of the entire sequel trilogy, the only movie I consider passable is TFA. And it's a rehash of a new hope.

There are scenes in the others that work. Scenes that are fun. But the narratives are overall terrible.

Though, I still wish that while he was out there subverting expectations, Rian Johnson had had Hux shoot Kylo at the end of TLJ.

[InvisibleBison]

Not quite. It's more like it assumed that you've alreacy seen all the other movies. There's a scene in Revenge of the Sith where Palpatine talks about Darth Plagueis' research into manipulation of life and death, it's a big part of his pitch to Anakin.

Except that Plagueis doesn't come back from the dead, and Palpatine doesn't know Plagueis's life manipulation technique.

[warty goblin]

Except that Plagueis doesn't come back from the dead, and Palpatine doesn't know Plagueis's life manipulation technique.

He says he doesn't, but Palpatine is a wee bit dishonest. I wouldn't even say deciding he knew Plagieus' mystical life Force whatever is a retcon, its just deciding that Palpatine was lying to Anakin. Like he pretty much spent the entire PT doing to everybody.

[dancrilis]

...and continued to tear down what was left of the older characters that we already cared about, then ended by doing something that prevented there from even being any hope of that changing in a future film...

Rise of Skywalker did somewhat repair some of the damage to both Han and Luke.

Han and Leia are both involved in the redemption of Ben - it is done very poorly but Harrison's Fords element was fairly nice.
Luke as a ghost is also to memory a more hopeful and helpful character.



Also, nobody's commented on it yet, but what the hell was up with that random lady who was all "Rey who?" in RoS? Lady, what does it matter? Why do you care? Why do you even assume she has a last name? And Rey, you just spent the entire movie learning that names and lineages don't matter, but rather who you are as a person and what you do matters, so why the hell did you just go all in on "Rey Skywalker"? You don't need to try to claim that, you can just be Rey.

That old lady was probably waiting to lay claim to the Lars farm for decades and was not happy to have someone nosing around it and wanted to see if the intruder had any claim to it - now as everyone knows if you fight Palpatine you have to then isolate yourself from the galaxy and live as a hermit so Rey seeing that the woman was going to try to run her off the spot she had decided to use as her 'go crazy in isolation' place choose a name that would give her some claim to it (and maybe a little mind control to reinforce the idea).
Separately that entire scene seemed like she was embracing Luke and Leia as her real parents and they were looking on with their blessing ... which yea ... another reason not to like them making Luke and Leia siblings in RotJ (unless Obi-Wan and Yoda were doing a certain point of view on that also).

[Sapphire Guard]

TFA deferred a lot of potential criticisms by kicking the can down the road to TLJ. So it looks okay by itself, but sets its successor up for a fall. It plants a lot of seeds, but they're too close together and fighting each other for sunlight and water, so once the seeds are sown, they sprout into a tangled mess that's nearly impossible to untangle into something coherent.

TLJ has its own problems, but it hadn't much to work with, and also leaves little for its successor. TROS has too much to do to have much chance of being a satisfying conclusion.

So is anybody reading the High Republic books due in January?

[Dienekes]

I didn't dislike his performance (and after seeing more of him, blame the bad bits 100% of the script/directing.) Also, I didn't dislike the volatile, capricious sort of villain he was. My issue is how incongruous it was too see a villain that was so different from Vader being shoehorned in to fit so many of Vader's big story notes, right down to the death is redemption thing. Plus, it seemed like killing Han was meant to mirror killing Obi-Won, who was the closest thing to a father Anakin had, except nobody on the creative team realized that the differences in contexts would make audiences read those scenes entirely differently. A lesser not-Vader desperately trying to fill his grandfather's metal shoes could have been a great antagonist in his own right; watching him trying--with wildly varying levels of success--to follow Vader's path could have been an amazing new story. Watching him do so terribly, but then seeing the universe itself apparently railroading him into that path and validating his "successes" was just weird, and uncomfortable.

I have a theory about this. Now part of it involves Abrams is a hack who copies better work but doesn't understand them well enough to realize the beats that make those better works function.

But going back to RotJ, Vader's redemption was not really about Vader. I mean he was there, he was involved. But his role was a reactive one.

The character that did all the legwork to get that redemption going, the one who put his life on the line and worked toward it for the whole movie was Luke. And we care if Luke succeeds or fails. We've been watching him for 3 movies now and we like the guy. Vader does not deserve redemption, hell we watched him take part in the genocide of an entire planet. He has been the Emperor's lackey for three movies and the personification of evil for two.

But because we see Luke working toward his father's redemption and was willing to risk everything to save his absentee father we ate it up. Not because we were completely enraptured in Vader's redemption arc. He doesn't really have one. The best we get is the implication he doesn't really want to kill his son. He doesn't show repentance or realization of his evils, he is not working to better himself. He's a repugnant creature.

But Luke sees what's good in him and tries so damn hard to get through to him. That when we see Luke literally about to die and begging for his father to help him we look to Vader, not because we think there's some great guy in their struggling to free himself. But because he is Luke's only chance to not die. And it works and it's awesome and I love it.

Compare and contrast with Ben. Rey, Poe, and Finn are not working toward his redemption. The only characters who have any emotional reason to work toward it are Luke, Leia, and Han. Han and Luke are dead. And Leia's actress is not in a position to carry such a role forward. RIP Carrie Fisher. So we're left with Ben having to come to a realization that all he's done is evil on his own. But he doesn't really have that arc either. He's gung-ho about betraying the Emperor and using his new toys to take over the galaxy. And also that he wants to bang Rey.

So we're left with the characters just taking actions that don't really fit their arcs. Why does Rey save him? She thinks he's unrepentant evil, she's said so. Why does he turn good? He just has a one minute conversation with his father's ghost that doesn't reveal any new information or re-contextualize his villainy. It's pretty much the same conversation they had before. But now we're supposed to think he got it right this time with no real impetus from him.

It's the following of someone else's plot arc. Abrams doing the beats that worked before, stripped of all the nuance that made them work.



Most of that is sweeping assumptions about things that happen offscreen which are not communicated in the films themselves to my recollection. And destroying the New Republic is not so much of a feat when you've been handed a superweapon by the plot that can do it in one shot. Sorry, I just have no respect for that particular element of the story, it's one of the laziest parts of the film.


It's sadly not. Hux is the one that is in command of the Starkiller Base as it destroys the New Republic. He is the one that has to explain his plan to follow the Resistance through hyperspace to Snoke and Kylo because neither of those idiots knew what he was doing. And Snoke gave him the order to go save Kylo's dumb ass after he failed to defeat Rey at the end of TFA.

Neither of us may like the fact that he is the most successful villain of the new trilogy. I certainly found him annoying, and I agreed with you that the destruction of the Republic was lazy and stupid.

But it did happen. Whether or not the beats of the story are brilliant or stupid they occur. And Hux is surprisingly successful in his first two movies. The only time he really gets beaten is when a Force user throws him around as an example or when a force user messes up their part of whatever plan they've cooked up.

And the "Your Mom" joke thing. God that was annoying.


While my reaction to it is not entirely because of our current world, I'd say that plays into it as well, in that I think that does the exact opposite of making me find it a more enjoyable idea for a story. And in general, psychopathic manchild just will never be a character that I want to see in just about anything, I think, other than perhaps as a joke character who gets easily beaten in some kind of parody or comedy.

To each their own. I like my stories to reflect reality so we can learn lessons from them. And dismissing psychopathic man children as easily beaten and ultimately harmless is just sadly wrong. They can be extraordinarily persistent, destructive, and will have long lasting effects.


Assuming that second TLJ was supposed to be TFA, I fully agree.

Also, nobody's commented on it yet, but what the hell was up with that random lady who was all "Rey who?" in RoS? Lady, what does it matter? Why do you care? Why do you even assume she has a last name? And Rey, you just spent the entire movie learning that names and lineages don't matter, but rather who you are as a person and what you do matters, so why the hell did you just go all in on "Rey Skywalker"? You don't need to try to claim that, you can just be Rey.

God that movie is so bad.

Yeah I meant TFA.

Honestly, even with that terrible line from the random lady asking who Rey was. Rey's response would have been better and more accurate to her character with "Just Rey." Her arc -as much as she's had one- was about coming to terms with her own history and forging her own. Why would she take the Skywalker name? She supposed to have some sort of Force marriage with Ben? Is it an ode to Luke? But she didn't even really like Luke. Leia? Well Leia's an Organa first of all, and second they've had like 3 scenes together the entire series.

And yes that movie really is so bad.

[Sapphire Guard]

The thing about the psychopathic manchild is that they need to be able to threaten things the leads value.

But for Episode 9, the Republic is already destroyed, the Resistance is already destroyed, and the Jedi are already destroyed, and the FO doesn't have another Planet destroying superweapon (well, it turns out they do in TROS and DOTF, but that is kind of difficult to take seriously) So what can Kylo do in Episode 9 to be a threat?

[dancrilis]

But for Episode 9, the Republic is already destroyed, the Resistance is already destroyed, and the Jedi are already destroyed, and the FO doesn't have another Planet destroying superweapon (well, it turns out they do in TROS and DOTF, but that is kind of difficult to take seriously) So what can Kylo do in Episode 9 to be a threat?

Technically if they had a time skip they could have had him actually be competent at governance - i.e

The First Order has won, the resistance groups are shattered and the galaxy is under the control of The Supreme Leader.
His first act was the establishment of a galactic council to advice him on matters ranging to cultural to economic, his second was to allow for regional control over non-military matters to ensure that people felt that their regional laws were fair - an age of peace has began as people feel free to live their lives, planetary governments or sector governments know not to challenge the galactic government whose crack downs are vicious but rare.
Fear keeps the local governments in line, and stability keeps the galactic government away.
However some heroes of the resistance have not given up the fight ...

That way Kylo would threaten the heroes narrative.

[Bohandas]

The Abrams Mystery Box, according to Abrams himself, has no answer.

Neither did Lusas' originally, but he got it open eventually nonetheless

[Vinyadan]

I kinda think Abrams always wanted Ben to have a redemption arc because giving a visual spit shine to other better works is kinda what he does. But if you have some quote to prove me wrong I'd accept it.
Me too, simply because Kylo just wasn't sold as evil, in spite of killing his own father in cold blood. This is because Kylo's only important relationship in VII is with Rey (he looks into her mind, she looks into his, he tells her everything he should have been screaming to his therapist). Han already is a set matter; it's like burning a door you took off the hinges long ago and left rotting for years. But his interest is in Rey, and it's clear that he needs her, and the girl isn't evil, actually she's very starry eyed, so that's the direction he has to take, if he wants her.
Beside this, Han's death scene had zero impact. It's part of the ST's persistent lack of danger. Little children laughed. Compare this to Disney's frigging Mufasa, or Bambi's Mom! Or even Littlefoot's Mom in George Lucas's production, The Land Before Time! The heck has happened to Disney?!

In general, Kylo is more Beast from Beauty and the Beast than Vader, but the screenwriting didn't seem to notice.

Something VIII did well was giving more relationships to Kylo: to Luke and to Leia, whom he doesn't have the guts to kill (again, redemption in sight), and, superficially, to Snoke. It also worked on the one with Rey.


I don't think I realized before, but this might be what bothers me the most about the current state of things. Like I said before, EU stuff enhanced the flagship canon works, but it was never necessary to understand it. You could have skipped all the books and the The Clone Wars series, and the Prequel Trilogy would have still worked would have worked no worse than they did.

I think that the throne room in VI (OT) didn't work, if you didn't have some insider knowledge on the Dark Side. Each time Luke was about to let go of goodness, the Emperor went "yes! Be evil! Just like that!" warning him and making him recover.


I didn't dislike his performance (and after seeing more of him, blame the bad bits 100% of the script/directing.) Also, I didn't dislike the volatile, capricious sort of villain he was. My issue is how incongruous it was too see a villain that was so different from Vader being shoehorned in to fit so many of Vader's big story notes, right down to the death is redemption thing. Plus, it seemed like killing Han was meant to mirror killing Obi-Won, who was the closest thing to a father Anakin had, except nobody on the creative team realized that the differences in contexts would make audiences read those scenes entirely differently.

Han was meant to mirror killing Obi-Wan, because Obi-Wan was Luke's mentor, the way Han Solo was (supposed to be?) Rey's mentor. He also gives her the Falcon, instead of the sword. And, now that I think about it, Han even lets himself be killed, right in the face of screaming Rey & crewmate... But I wouldn't say that this had some intertextuality value about how to read the scene, just that it was part of VII being a reboot of IV.

EDIT: a big problem of the ST is that I couldn't understand anything about the political situation. IV was pretty awesome at this, with Leia telling the bad guys that clinching their fist would only squeeze more sectors out of their grasp, such grip being materialised by the Death Star, and then having Luke go against the Empire and destroy the Death Star because the Empire's obsession with violence cost him his old life and left him without any other option.

[Xyril]

But going back to RotJ, Vader's redemption was not really about Vader. I mean he was there, he was involved. But his role was a reactive one.


I never really articulated it in my head this way, but that's exactly why Vader's story felt different to me. Even before the prequels--although the prequels did reinforce this--it did seem to me like Anakin/Vader was more of a tool for everyone else. (Well, II and III did give a decent amount of focus to his own struggles and choices, but for the most part it seemed framed more as a struggle between Padme/the Jedi and Sidious over who could influence him more.) Obi-Won's death felt entirely different because it was more his choice than Vader's, but I think you're right--even if it had been all about Vader, it wouldn't have mattered since he crossed that moral event horizon ages ago (especially post-prequels), and it was never going to be about his choice to redeem himself anyway.

[Rogar Demonblud]

To summarize the last several pages, the Sequel Trilogy as a whole (and each of the movies in it) managed to do a few small things right and everything else badly.

[Vinyadan]

To summarize the last several pages, the Sequel Trilogy as a whole (and each of the movies in it) managed to do a few small things right and everything else badly.
It's also visually stunning.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I thought that was included in the 'small things right' section. Cinematography has generally not been one of the series' failings.

[druid91]

It's also visually stunning.

Eh. Not really.

[Rakaydos]

Hypothetical questionfor the anti-Grumpy Luke crowd.

Special Edition episode 8 comes out, and when we get to the part of "I saw darkness in his mind", we see a petulant Ben Solo standing over a bisected baby yoda (Grogu), lightsaber in dream-ben's hand. Perhaps with a few explanatory scenes from kylo's perspective of the academy, and Grogu previously making Ben feel like he's not living up to his heritage, and/or being the mischievous kid who's barely aged since we saw him with Mando.

Would that, in part, redeem the idea that Luke took measures that got out of hand?

[Rogar Demonblud]

Probably not. To make Luke look realistic, you'd probably have to have an actual scene of Ben slaughtering children in droves, with piles of appropriately sized skulls. Even then a significant chunk of the viewership will miss it.

[Rakaydos]

Probably not. To make Luke look realistic, you'd probably have to have an actual scene of Ben slaughtering children in droves, with piles of appropriately sized skulls. Even then a significant chunk of the viewership will miss it.

like grandfather, like grandson?

[warty goblin]

Probably not. To make Luke look realistic, you'd probably have to have an actual scene of Ben slaughtering children in droves, with piles of appropriately sized skulls. Even then a significant chunk of the viewership will miss it.

So, you know, what he actually did.

[Vinyadan]

The problem with that story, as it stands, isn't how evil Ben was or wasn't or looked or didn't look. It's how Snoke was presented. We are told that Snoke was seducing Ben. But how? From remote, as a dark power that, for some reason, Luke couldn't go after? We never see Snoke doing that (I think he binds the two kids from remote, but he can't convert Rey). Snoke seduced Ben's heart... somehow. And this means that Snoke was Luke's enemy, but this is never built upon. Kylo killing Snoke goes back to Luke, as it should be the perverted version of the disciple defeating the enemy his master couldn't (or wouldn't?), but that's not really that came to my mind while watching the movie.

Anyway, the root of Luke's grumpiness lies in Snoke's actions and victory, but we don't really get to see how that went. Just to push an idea, I would have liked a Snoke that had consciously aimed to crushing Luke's spirit by making him fall to temptation.

[Zevox]

It's sadly not. Hux is the one that is in command of the Starkiller Base as it destroys the New Republic. He is the one that has to explain his plan to follow the Resistance through hyperspace to Snoke and Kylo because neither of those idiots knew what he was doing. And Snoke gave him the order to go save Kylo's dumb ass after he failed to defeat Rey at the end of TFA.
That first one is true - the rest are not. Even if I'm just forgetting Hux explaining the hyperspace tracking, that doesn't mean he created it, just that it's something that Snoke and Kylo weren't aware of, which means little as neither of them is exactly portrayed as brilliant or cutting-edge tech types. And Snoke only appeared in TFA in the end to order Kylo to return to him.


Neither of us may like the fact that he is the most successful villain of the new trilogy. I certainly found him annoying, and I agreed with you that the destruction of the Republic was lazy and stupid.

But it did happen. Whether or not the beats of the story are brilliant or stupid they occur. And Hux is surprisingly successful in his first two movies. The only time he really gets beaten is when a Force user throws him around as an example or when a force user messes up their part of whatever plan they've cooked up.
I am not going to give an otherwise pathetic character credit for something that he did with an utterly ridiculous superweapon that already existed and was in his possession the first time we saw him. Starkiller Base and the destruction of the New Republic with it was just terrible writing to me, and will never be anything more.


And the "Your Mom" joke thing. God that was annoying.
I don't even remember that, and I think I'm thankful that I don't.


To each their own. I like my stories to reflect reality so we can learn lessons from them. And dismissing psychopathic man children as easily beaten and ultimately harmless is just sadly wrong. They can be extraordinarily persistent, destructive, and will have long lasting effects.
I can certainly like stories that reflect reality, but they first have to be entertaining and enjoyable in some regard, and a story about such a character being anything other than a joke simply isn't to me. Besides, I'd certainly argue that Kylo's portrayal hardly reflects reality - especially since they don't even appear to be going for him being dangerous due to damage caused by him being inept and yet having a position of great authority, he's intended to be personally threatening as an individual, and he fails at that.


Hypothetical questionfor the anti-Grumpy Luke crowd.

Special Edition episode 8 comes out, and when we get to the part of "I saw darkness in his mind", we see a petulant Ben Solo standing over a bisected baby yoda (Grogu), lightsaber in dream-ben's hand. Perhaps with a few explanatory scenes from kylo's perspective of the academy, and Grogu previously making Ben feel like he's not living up to his heritage, and/or being the mischievous kid who's barely aged since we saw him with Mando.

Would that, in part, redeem the idea that Luke took measures that got out of hand?
I don't see how it would, no. Though if you're counting on the use of Baby Yoda to elicit an emotional reaction, I'm not a good target for the hypothetical, having not watched The Mandalorian.

To make Luke's story in TLJ make more sense, you would need to sell me on him having suffered through a lot more to get him to the point of giving up like that. Explain how he spent years trying to get Kylo back, maybe even captured him a few times, but every time he rejected Luke's attempts at offering him redemption, then escaped while brutally killing more people on the way out. Show Luke breaking down over time, not just from a single goddamn incident. For the man who was willing to die to redeem a father he functionally didn't know who was widely known to be one of the most evil people in the galaxy, it makes no sense for him to give up on a family member he'd be much closer to so quickly. And give some kind of better explanation for why he got the point of straight-up questioning whether the Jedi should exist at all, though I don't know exactly what that would be - or just abandon that part and make him okay with training Rey to be a Jedi (or only reluctant to because of his past failures as a teacher), but unwilling to come help himself because he's lost faith in himself.

[Peelee]

Hypothetical questionfor the anti-Grumpy Luke crowd.

Special Edition episode 8 comes out, and when we get to the part of "I saw darkness in his mind", we see a petulant Ben Solo standing over a bisected baby yoda (Grogu), lightsaber in dream-ben's hand. Perhaps with a few explanatory scenes from kylo's perspective of the academy, and Grogu previously making Ben feel like he's not living up to his heritage, and/or being the mischievous kid who's barely aged since we saw him with Mando.

Would that, in part, redeem the idea that Luke took measures that got out of hand?

No, and offhand I can't think of a thing that would redeem, even in part, what Luke did. It was ridiculous no matter how you slice it.

[Sapphire Guard]

Honestly, that would be worse. "He killed all my apprentices...but the death of the cute one was unforgiveable."

[dancrilis]

To make Luke's story in TLJ make more sense...

I think the problem was not the make more sense element and more that this isn't want anyone wanted element.
I don't know if anyone ever after watching the original trilogy was rooting for the story be 'lets have Luke Skywalker be an old bitter angry man who has given up on the universe after failing at everything'.

That could be a fine story and done well in a number of ways, but it isn't a story that I imagine anyone ever wanted regardless of how well it was done.
Sure doing it badly makes in worse but the basic premise was an issue no matter how well it was done.

If they actually wanted a subversion they could have went with Evil Luke (in a battle with the spirit of the emperor for decades or somesuch) - play on Mark Hamill's talents for villainy and have him return to help only for his divided focus let Palpatine/The Dark Side take over have that be Episode 8 and then Episode 9 could be the quest to save his soul.
Few people would have rooted for that but I suspect more then for depressed Luke.

[Peelee]

So is anybody reading the High Republic books due in January?

Me.:smallwink:

[Zevox]

I think the problem was not the make more sense element and more that this isn't want anyone wanted element.
I don't know if anyone ever after watching the original trilogy was rooting for the story be 'lets have Luke Skywalker be an old bitter angry man who has given up on the universe after failing at everything'.

That could be a fine story and done well in a number of ways, but it isn't a story that I imagine anyone ever wanted regardless of how well it was done.
Sure doing it badly makes in worse but the basic premise was an issue no matter how well it was done.
Oh, personally, I certainly agree with that. Even if you made the story better, it still wouldn't likely be one I'd want to see. But then I could at least respect it more and hate it less - could honestly say that my dislike of it is strictly a matter of personal taste, not of the film's failings as a story.

Though it is worth saying, clearly "no one" wanting it is an exaggeration, given that some people did like that part of TLJ, even in its current state. You or I may never understand that point of view, but is one that some people have.

[dancrilis]

Oh, personally, I certainly agree with that. Even if you made the story better, it still wouldn't likely be one I'd want to see. But then I could at least respect it more and hate it less - could honestly say that my dislike of it is strictly a matter of personal taste, not of the film's failings as a story.
That is fair.



Though it is worth saying, clearly "no one" wanting it is an exaggeration, given that some people did like that part of TLJ, even in its current state. You or I may never understand that point of view, but is one that some people have.
I am not so sure - yes after the movie (The Last Jedi) was out some people seemed to like it (I am half convinced those people effectively started as an anti-Hatedom) but before the movie came out if you had explained the premise to anyone I am dubious about how many people would have went 'yes that is what we want' at best I could imagine people going 'ok, might be interesting'.
But that might be a failure of imagination on my part.

[Trafalgar]

Hypothetical questionfor the anti-Grumpy Luke crowd.

Special Edition episode 8 comes out, and when we get to the part of "I saw darkness in his mind", we see a petulant Ben Solo standing over a bisected baby yoda (Grogu), lightsaber in dream-ben's hand. Perhaps with a few explanatory scenes from kylo's perspective of the academy, and Grogu previously making Ben feel like he's not living up to his heritage, and/or being the mischievous kid who's barely aged since we saw him with Mando.

Would that, in part, redeem the idea that Luke took measures that got out of hand?

SCENE: A young Ben Solo stands facing a small rock. Luke Skywalker stands next to him. Ben raises his hand toward the rock.

Luke: "Concentrate"

Ben grimaces.

Luke: "Concentrate!"

Ben grunts and starts to sweat profusely.

Luke: "CONCENTRATE!!!!"

The rock lifts one inch off the ground. With a gasp, Ben loses concentration and the rock falls to the ground.

Luke:" Good! You actually made it move today!"

The camera pans over to a laughing Grogu, who is using the force juggle three one ton rocks in the air.




Something like this old episode of In Living Color (https://youtu.be/noShh1qL1tQ).

[Hopeless]

Ben has problems with his force training.
Meanwhile Grogu is running around scaring the local wildlife before returning to Ben then sits next to him and falls alseep.
Ben sighs and rests but then something catches his eye.
Behind them all of the crates with supplies has been assembled into a pyramid shape identical to the pile he was trying to assemble with some small rocks.
The stricken looks on the other students and staff who are now staring wondering how they're going to reaasemble the crates so they can access their contents and its almost enough to make Ben laugh.
Luke sighs.
He knows whose actually responsible, but doesn't know why the others don't understand Ben had nothing to do with that!:smallamused:

My assumption is that Ben didn't kill Grogu.
Of course I also think the ST is complete crap and they should have revealed Snoke infiltrated the New Republic via the cabal mentioned in the Bloodline novel and it was the New Republic that attacked Luke's Temple and Ben went dark in response to this attack.
Luke was incapacitated when he released Ben from being possessed by the Emperor's spirit that possessed the remains of Dath Vader's Sith armor namely his helmet.
But all I can hope now their use of the Thrawn trilogy is used to reveal the Luke in the ST wasn't the OT Luke but a clone made from the hand he lost in ESB and thus explains the complete change in character and also means the OT Luke is still alive and out there somewhere

Anyway best wishes.

[Sapphire Guard]

Grogu won't be killed by Kylo, he's too popular or profitable (plus, Rise of Kylo Ren establishes that the temple randomly blew up with lightning, Kylo only killed one person.)

But it will pull the teeth out of the massacre of Luke's school if he survives that massacre too (and if he's elsewhere at the time, then we just have another not-Jedi on a technicality running around, which upsets the balance of power in the ST.

[Peelee]

if he's elsewhere at the time, then we just have another not-Jedi on a technicality running around, which upsets the balance of power in the ST.
And nothing of value was lost.

Jay Sherman is eternally quotable.

[Sapphire Guard]

Doesn't matter if that's true or not, it's the principle. If the stakes are lies, then the next time they present us with stakes, why believe these ones are more honest?

[Fyraltari]

Rise of Kylo Ren establishes that the temple randomly blew up with lightning, Kylo only killed one person.

Oh for ****'s sake!

[Peelee]

Doesn't matter if that's true or not, it's the principle. If the stakes are lies, then the next time they present us with stakes, why believe these ones are more honest?

Imean, cheap jokes aside, does it lower the stakes? We saw more Jedi survive the purge than just Kenobi and Yoda, but that didn't lower the stakes any; none of them could have taken on Vader and the Emperor. Even if Grogu survives, he would not have been able to take on Kylo Ren, Snoke, or the Emperor (again). Did the extra Jedi turning out to have survived from the original purge make you disbelieve the stakes in the ST? I can sure say it didn't for me.

[Sapphire Guard]

We saw more Jedi survive the purge than just Kenobi and Yoda, but that didn't lower the stakes any; none of them could have taken on Vader and the Emperor. Even if Grogu survives, he would not have been able to take on Kylo Ren, Snoke, or the Emperor (again). Did the extra Jedi turning out to have survived from the original purge make you disbelieve the stakes in the ST? I can sure say it didn't for me.!

Not so much, I'd expect survivors, broken and isolated. But law of diminishing returns, how much smaller Luke's academy is, plus the emphasis on being the Last Jedi, survivors would matter more.

It did bother me in Rebels when Yoda was Force Skyping Ahsoka a bit. It doesn't matter that she's out there, but if he knows she's out there, then that does change the stakes.

[Trafalgar]

From Empire Strikes Back

Obi Wan's Ghost: That boy is our last hope.
Yoda: No, there is another.

In Return of the Jedi we of course find out that he means Luke's twin sister Leia. But if there are other, powerful Jedi somewhere else in the Galaxy, why would Luke be the last hope? Why would Yoda mention Leia who has received no training at this point when he can force call Ahsoka Tano?

That's the problem with no one staying dead in the Star Wars universe. I can't wait until Han Solo and Snoke return!

[Peelee]

From Empire Strikes Back

Obi Wan's Ghost: That boy is our last hope.
Yoda: No, there is another.

In Return of the Jedi we of course find out that he means Luke's twin sister Leia. But if there are other, powerful Jedi somewhere else in the Galaxy, why would Luke be the last hope? Why would Yoda mention Leia who has received no training at this point when he can force call Ahsoka Tano?

Because Ahsoka already rejected them.

[Mechalich]

Because Ahsoka already rejected them.

Also, Ahsoka had already failed.

Ahsoka confronts Vader on Malachor. He kills her there despite her best efforts. She's only alive later because Ezra pulled her out of time in the World Between Worlds (exactly how this worked remains unclear). Ahsoka simply doesn't have the capability to redeem Anakin. Her bond with Anakin isn't strong enough.

Yoda (and Obi-Wan, though perhaps to a lesser extent) believed that the only path to success involved redeeming Vader, or at least turning him against the Emperor. They didn't think they could just kill the Emperor outright, at least not after Yoda tried this once and failed (this makes sense, since Yoda doesn't believe that trying something again will produce different results). Only Anakin's children had the potential to do this. It was Anakin's attachments that caused his fall and it was only through his attachments that her could be redeemed. No other Jedi, no matter how awesome, was going to bring down the Empire.

The acceptability of this sort of thinking varies. Personally I happen to think Yoda was rather full of it and many of the failures of the PT Era Jedi Order can be laid right at his tiny feet, but those were his beliefs and he was certainly sincere in them.

[Sapphire Guard]

Can Ahsoka defeat the Emperor? No. Could she train Luke, though? Sure.

Ahsoka is technically not a Jedi, but doesn't do anything differently. Canon keeps trying to sell us that she has philosophical differences, but really the difference is a grudge.

I figured the plan was to get someone close enough to Palps to defeat him, he had to be tempted with the prospect of a potential new apprentice. If Kenobi or Yoda for instance tried that, Palpy wouldn't waste time trying to turn him and would just have him killed.

So they needed someone Palps thinks he can turn, just to get into the same room.

[Mechalich]

Can Ahsoka defeat the Emperor? No. Could she train Luke, though? Sure.

Well sure she could have, but Yoda took up that particular task himself.

Ultimately, we don't know (yet) what Ahsoka was doing between 2 BBY when she gets pulled out of the World Between Worlds and when she reappears. We don't even know how long it took her to get off Malachor, though since Malachor's not exactly a trendy vacation destination one imagines that might have taken a while.


I figured the plan was to get someone close enough to Palps to defeat him, he had to be tempted with the prospect of a potential new apprentice. If Kenobi or Yoda for instance tried that, Palpy wouldn't waste time trying to turn him and would just have him killed.

So they needed someone Palps thinks he can turn, just to get into the same room.

That's plausible. Also, it needed to be someone powerful enough to tempt Palpatine into bothering. Ahsoka's no slouch, certainly, but she probably tops out as a fairly average Jedi Master. She's not part of the Chosen One lineage. If turned she'd be just powerful enough to threaten Palpatine while at the same time not powerful enough to serve as his apprentice and ultimately host (the idea of Palpatine wanting to achieve immortality by transferring his essence being a feature of both continuities at this point).

Recent revelations suggest that Grogu, based on his 'high M-count' might also have had the potential to serve in this role, given a century or so.

[Clertar]

That is fair.


I am not so sure - yes after the movie (The Last Jedi) was out some people seemed to like it (I am half convinced those people effectively started as an anti-Hatedom) but before the movie came out if you had explained the premise to anyone I am dubious about how many people would have went 'yes that is what we want' at best I could imagine people going 'ok, might be interesting'.
But that might be a failure of imagination on my part.

I would counter that general audiences have a strong sense of what they feel that they want, but that does not mean that this is actually what they would like in a restricted reading. Two complementary examples: (i) Marvel movies fans didn't want a humourous movie about the Guardians of the Galaxy before it came out, but they largely adored it. (ii) The anti-TLJ Star Wars fans adamantly wanted a course correction of the themes and plot lines, and they ended up largely disliking it even more.

[Vinyadan]

To be honest, I'm not sure that TLJ corrected plot and themes. It's as much of a palette swap of The Empire Strikes Back as VII is a palette swap of A New Hope. The differences from Empire are to make it work with VII.

Both Empire and TLJ start with an evacuation, followed by the hero going to some backwater planet to get trained. As it turns out, the master is trying very hard not to look like a master. The rest of the main cast has to look for help in a place where people are oddly well-dressed, where they find an ally that reveals himself as a traitor and has them imprisoned. The young Jedi has to leave training to save the prisoners, but not before having dealt with a cave and vision of his/her enemy that attest to them being closer than could be assumed. The Jedi gets to where the allies are, doesn't help them, and instead meets the bad guy.

This is where V and TLJ diverge, so that TLJ can be harmonised with VII: since Kylo needs Rey, he chooses her over Snoke. Also, Fin has stuff going on from VII, so he kills Phasma instead of being encased in carbonite. And we need Leia to be the mentor for IX, so Luke has to die.

But then we are back to V, because the ending has to show the Rebellion in a very precarious position.

About the themes... well, what were the themes? To me, it looked like the movie pretended to be saying something to then also say the opposite (Kamikaze Holdo vs no-kamikaze Rose, for example, both plot-concluding moments) without offering a synthesis.

[Rodin]

To be honest, I'm not sure that TLJ corrected plot and themes. It's as much of a palette swap of The Empire Strikes Back as VII is a palette swap of A New Hope. The differences from Empire are to make it work with VII.

Both Empire and TLJ start with an evacuation, followed by the hero going to some backwater planet to get trained. As it turns out, the master is trying very hard not to look like a master. The rest of the main cast has to look for help in a place where people are oddly well-dressed, where they find an ally that reveals himself as a traitor and has them imprisoned. The young Jedi has to leave training to save the prisoners, but not before having dealt with a cave and vision of his/her enemy that attest to them being closer than could be assumed. The Jedi gets to where the allies are, doesn't help them, and instead meets the bad guy.

This is where V and TLJ diverge, so that TLJ can be harmonised with VII: since Kylo needs Rey, he chooses her over Snoke. Also, Fin has stuff going on from VII, so he kills Phasma instead of being encased in carbonite. And we need Leia to be the mentor for IX, so Luke has to die.

But then we are back to V, because the ending has to show the Rebellion in a very precarious position.

About the themes... well, what were the themes? To me, it looked like the movie pretended to be saying something to then also say the opposite (Kamikaze Holdo vs no-kamikaze Rose, for example, both plot-concluding moments) without offering a synthesis.

It's more that Rian Johnson was trying to shock the audience by mirroring Empire and then diverging wildly. The master trying not to look like a master isn't some test of character - Luke genuinely doesn't want to train Rey. Instead of Rey being headstrong and abandoning training in order to help, Luke kicks her out first. Luke doesn't want her to face her own evil - when she does, he's horrified she didn't back away from it (or try to fight it like he did when he killed the Vader vision). The protagonist has an important revelation about their family...which is that Ren is NOT her brother or cousin, they're unrelated and her family is unimportant. The protagonist is menaced by the bad guy...who is summarily executed. The traitor doesn't turn around and help them, he's just a jackass.

Johnson was so interested in swerving the plot all over the place that he forgot to make the whole thing hang together as a cohesive story. There are good bits in there, but you could throw out half the movie and lose nothing.

[Clertar]

To be honest, I'm not sure that TLJ corrected plot and themes.



I didn't make myself clear, sorry. What I meant is that RoS massively corrected plot and themes after TLJ.

After extremely vehement claims for a course correction in the franchise after TLJ, the result of Disney course-correcting because of popular uproar ended up being even more poorly received than the alternative of following what TLJ had established---the leak of the original script from Colin Trevorrow's Duel of the Fates was almost unanimously deemed better than the result of course-correcting to RoS. I see that partly as an example of fans not liking what they had asked for, and at the end of the day probably preferring the alternative.

[Rogar Demonblud]

And partly that people generally don't really know what they want, and suck at articulating what they do want.

[Lurkmoar]

“It’s not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need.”

-Alan Moore.

That said, there's gonna be friction with executives who want that massive bank, the people who make the movies and the public that views it.

(hm. Don't know if that's the an accurate version of the quote, just the first one I copied after a search) :smallsigh:

[Peelee]

“It’s not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need.”

-Alan Moore.

That said, there's gonna be friction with executives who want that massive bank, the people who make the movies and the public that views it.

(hm. Don't know if that's the an accurate version of the quote, just the first one I copied after a search) :smallsigh:

I sincerely hope that's not an accurate version, because I disagree 100% with it and think it speaks of Supreme arrogance on Moore's part.

[Dienekes]

I sincerely hope that's not an accurate version, because I disagree 100% with it and think it speaks of Supreme arrogance on Moore's part.

Well Moore is a ridiculously arrogant man. Brilliant writer, but definitely arrogant.

I kinda also think he's right in some way. To not use a Star Wars example, if after reading Two Towers for the first time you asked a new fan of Lord of the Rings what they want the answer would probably be something like:


Frodo to destroy the ring and surpass his temptation and go back to live happily in the Shire ever after, and Sméagol to redeem himself.*

This is not what happens and the story is stronger for it.

But on the other hand, if you just gleefully take everything the fan wants and expects without a coherent theme or message behind it you get the Game of Thrones ending.

*actually the book ends with Shelob. So that’s after fans would want Sméagol redeemed. I guess if you ask them a few chapters before the end then.

[Peelee]

Well Moore is a ridiculously arrogant man. Brilliant writer, but definitely arrogant.

I kinda also think he's right in some way. To not use a Star Wars example, if after reading Two Towers for the first time you asked a new fan of Lord of the Rings what they want the answer would probably be something like:


Frodo to destroy the ring and surpass his temptation and go back to live happily in the Shire ever after, and Smeagol to redeem himself.

This is not what happens and the story is stronger for it.

But on the other hand, if you just gleefully take everything the fan wants and expects without a coherent theme or message behind it you get the Game of Thrones ending.

Ahh, the actual arrogance explains it then.

What I meant, though, was that knowing and doing are two very, very different things. You could give Alan Moore complete, detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to perform heart surgery or land a 747, and he would not be able to do those things - at least, not without a lot of time spent practicing and getting to know the details about why some parts matter, why certain actions are important, etc. etc. Artists can absolutely tap into what people didn't even know they wanted, but to claim that if a person knows what they want, they are no longer the audience but the artist... He effectively says "only artists have any idea what they are doing. Also I am an artist, you peasants."

[Fyraltari]

I mean, Moore believes himself to be an actual wizard*, so...

Edit: *and that art and magic are somehow linked because something something creation something I think?

[Bohandas]

I didn't make myself clear, sorry. What I meant is that RoS massively corrected plot and themes after TLJ.

After extremely vehement claims for a course correction in the franchise after TLJ, the result of Disney course-correcting because of popular uproar ended up being even more poorly received than the alternative of following what TLJ had established---the leak of the original script from Colin Trevorrow's Duel of the Fates was almost unanimously deemed better than the result of course-correcting to RoS. I see that partly as an example of fans not liking what they had asked for, and at the end of the day probably preferring the alternative.

It was ill received because they had to spend half movie doing damage control, because the fans had already abandoned them, and perhaps most importantly because a true return to theme, form, and tone was no longer possible - to do that they would have had to scrap the previous two movies entirely.

[Peelee]

It was ill received because they had to spend half movie doing damage control

I didn't see any damage control. Maybe it was in Fortnite?

[Hopeless]

Trevorrow's version wasn't panned by the fans the ones in charge refused to change the ending of episode 8 to accomodate his efforts to keep the trilogy intact.

So blaming the fans for that is frankly ridiculous.

As for course correcting why not just have Finn wake up from his coma revealing all of 8 was a really bad force vision then you'd have Snoke and Luke albeit no Leia but at least the means to end the trilogy properly.

I'd guess that would be shot down too especially if that script supposedly of JJ's is true.

[Sapphire Guard]

I wouldn't get too excited about DOTF. We haven't seen the final script, just an early version which wouldn't have worked at all without Carrie... and had plenty of problems of its own.

[Rodin]

Ahh, the actual arrogance explains it then.

What I meant, though, was that knowing and doing are two very, very different things. You could give Alan Moore complete, detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to perform heart surgery or land a 747, and he would not be able to do those things - at least, not without a lot of time spent practicing and getting to know the details about why some parts matter, why certain actions are important, etc. etc. Artists can absolutely tap into what people didn't even know they wanted, but to claim that if a person knows what they want, they are no longer the audience but the artist... He effectively says "only artists have any idea what they are doing. Also I am an artist, you peasants."

The reality is of course somewhere in between. I go to watch MCU movies because I know exactly what I want. I like the quipping and banter and all the other things that make up a MCU movie. On the flip side, if you had offered me "Anime Among Us" I would have probably turned you down on the basis of my previous experience with Death Note. I nonetheless watched Talentless Nana based on the reviews and it's one of my favorite anime shows of the year.


As for course correcting why not just have Finn wake up from his coma revealing all of 8 was a really bad force vision then you'd have Snoke and Luke albeit no Leia but at least the means to end the trilogy properly.


I want them to do this.

Not because it's a good idea.

I want them to do this because adding the single most hated retcon device into Star Wars would be GLORIOUS. It would cause a Charybdis of hate. The planet would condense into a black hole.

Best of all, the rewrites would probably have pushed RoS into being a 2020 movie.

[Vinyadan]

I didn't make myself clear, sorry. What I meant is that RoS massively corrected plot and themes after TLJ.

After extremely vehement claims for a course correction in the franchise after TLJ, the result of Disney course-correcting because of popular uproar ended up being even more poorly received than the alternative of following what TLJ had established---the leak of the original script from Colin Trevorrow's Duel of the Fates was almost unanimously deemed better than the result of course-correcting to RoS. I see that partly as an example of fans not liking what they had asked for, and at the end of the day probably preferring the alternative.

Oh, OK. I more or less agree. For me, the main problem with IX is carried over from the other movies, especially TFA, and it's not strictly in the plot, as much as the lack of a feeling of danger (or maybe I should say, how arbitrary consequences feel). In TFA, we have blunt lightsabers and the hero getting away just because. In IX, Kylo gets beaten up with blunt blades. Overall, the treasure hunt, the inconsistent danger and the goofy expedients that undo death twice in a movie have the feeling of a children tv show from the 90s.
Snoke gets killed in TLJ, but we cannot have Kylo as a pure villain, because we have seen too much of him in TFA (to me at least he gave a "need help" rather than "need killing" vibe), so we get the Emperor reborn. This in spite of TLJ ending with a fully unfettered, raging evil Kylo.
And the villain needs a connection to the hero, so they get related, in spite of TLJ.

[Antediluvian]

I just hope that Disney doesn't over saturate the market with Star Wars stuff and get every fed up with it. It'll end up ruining the good ones by making the franchise intellectually bankrupt when they're pumping out like 4 shows and a movie every other year.

[Mechalich]

I just hope that Disney doesn't over saturate the market with Star Wars stuff and get every fed up with it. It'll end up ruining the good ones by making the franchise intellectually bankrupt when they're pumping out like 4 shows and a movie every other year.

The overwhelming majority of this content is headed for Disney+. It's pretty hard to oversaturate the market for a streaming service. People will just watch whatever amount they're comfortable with. The only real danger is producing a show that only makes sense if you've already seen another show. That might require a bit of careful plotting, but it looks good so far. Boba Fett and Fennec Shand where in The Mandalorian a bunch, but it was nothing a 30-sec recap bumper couldn't handle.

And a lot of this stuff is waaay down the road. The Rogue Squadron movie is tentatively set for Christmas 2023, which means it's the better part of two years before filming. I'd bet some of the series, like The Acolyte, are projected equally far out. By the end of 2023, The Mandalorian will be wrapping Season 5, which could very easily be it for the show, which would setup a cycle from that point onward.

Many of the projects are probably going to be small too. The Mandalorian, for all the hype it (IMO deservedly) gets, is actually fairly short. With only eight episodes per season it manages to occupy only 1-quarter's worth of hype before it fades into waiting for the next season mode. If other shows are of similar setup you could easily run 2-3 shows plus a miniseries (the Obi-Wan show is going to be a miniseries, I suspect The Acolyte will be as well, and probably the Lando show too) each year without any overlap.