Saga Did TFA make the OT pointless?

The more and more I watch of TFA/TLJ now, the more I think they have made the OT pointless:

-Rey is Luke

-Kylo Ren is Vader

-Luke is Yoda/Obiwan

-Snoke is The Emperor

-Resistance is the Rebellion

-The First Order is The Empire

So we are starting Episode 9 with Rey vs Kylo Ren and the Resistance vs The First Order. THAT IS EXACTLY what the OT was!

 

I think possibly yes. It didn't quite explain the backstory as to how we got here from the end of ROTJ, nor connect as well with Episodes 1 to 6. So in that sense yes.

I feel that with more flashbacks of what happened, more backstory of the major characters (especially the villains), and not to mention crucial galactic exposition which the PT and OT do very well in order to establish what the state of the galaxy is, then TFA would have been better.

For instance, what is more important, Kanji club, or telling us the background of what happened in between Episode 6 and 7? Not to mention who the villain is. And the backstory. For instance a Batman Begins style entry point would have made the OT feel less pointless as you put it in the title of this thread.

I do think the direction taken in TFA was not that which was necessarily intended in Lucas' plans from what he has commented on and what Mark Hamil has also stated on many occasions about the direction taken since TFA (let alone TLJ). So yes I would agree with you that the issues of rendering actions of everyone (from heroes to villains) in the OT, and in terms of connecting the entire 9 episodes together as one, then TFA has that problem.

I had hoped to see the ending of ROTJ mean something. And certainly what you say about Han and Leia, absolutely. Even the state of the galaxy is unclear. Not to mention a new Jedi Order. And backstory backstory backstory!

 

I think that yes, the ST as a whole made the OT pointless. Coming out of TFA, I had hope that there was room for them to allow for lasting consequences for the victory of the OT in the sequel, but TLJ snuffed that possibility entirely.

For me, the most important thing that has been undercut by the OT, even more than resetting the galaxy to Empire vs. Rebels (which is still a reset that significantly undercuts Eps I - VI) was that there had to be meaning in Yoda asking Luke to teach what he learned. Luke was the last Jedi. He had to rescue the Jedi from the brink. He had to make Obi and Yoda's missions have meaning. Otherwise, on re-watch, the entire saga looks pointless. Based on the logic of TLJ, the force would have made Rey anyway if Yoda and Obi had shrugged and told Luke to get a job as a pod racer. They didn't need to teach anyone anything, and Luke didn't need to teach anyone anything. They wasted a lot of energy. That lore eliminates the stakes of the OT, eliminates the galactic consequences of Order 66. I always felt that it would be devastating for the galaxy if the jedi were lost forever, and Luke was the only hope to make sure that didn't happen, but based on the ST that could never have happened anyway.

Also, as a more recent criticism, it really renders R1 meaningless for me. All that sacrifice to win a war that would be 100% undercut by the exact same army in a few decades as the galaxy just rolls over and allows the returning Empire to take over after another genocide.

 

IOW, Rian Johnson singlehandedly rendered all Star Wars drama pointless while LFL stood by and cheered him on.

 

Not singlehandedly. Most of that had been already rendered pointless with TFA hitting the reset button on the OT.
And back then, the audience stood by and cheered on it.

 

The ST does make the OT pointless for all the same reasons that everyone has already said on this thread - I won't add to the soul-crushing repetition especially since soul-crushing repetition was a large part of why TFA managed to press almost every one of my buttons in the first place .

Well, slight correction. It only makes the OT pointless if I allow the ST in my personal canon, which I don't. I just think if LF wanted to do a reboot, it should have done so openly and officially.

 

I don't entirely agree with that, as there was a myriad of directions RJ could've taken the story following TFA (some of which would've extended GL's narrative in infinitely more satisfying ways), but it's definitely true that he probably felt encouraged by JJ's work to do what he did.

 

Some of the...changes of heart in this thread amuse and annoy me, at the same time, to no end.

 

I cannot see any argument that the ST makes the OT pointless except in the context of a basic and spurious assumption that ~"the point" of the OT was for there not to be any developments events like the ones we see in the ST.

 

It all depends on one's point of view, of course.

I must correct myself. RJ didn't make all Star Wars drama pointless; he just made the ST pointless.
From my point of view.

 

He made the ST pointless now? How?

 

Not "now". Since day one.
He did so by driving it further into the narrow tunnel of ANH/TESB derivation and missing all opportunities to continue the narrative of the first two trilogies.
He treated the trilogy as the afterthought that it is and so, it's just turned into a full-blown sequel as opposed to an integrated continuation of the same plot.

Don't get me wrong. I still think TFA and TLJ are really good movies and the story works pretty well as its own thing.
Looking at it from the greater Saga perspective, though, I just don't see the point. It doesn't add much substance, if any, to the whole.

But surely, you've heard this argument before.

 

No disrespect but that makes not linear sense to me. I fail to see how the possibility of the ST being a genuine, intended continuation from the OT proscribes what the ST has done or what Johnson did. Or that TFA proscribed where RJ headed off to from it.

It's not really an argument, as far as I can see. It's a reaction. And I've never seen or read a compelling argument for what is supposedly prescribed by TFA if the ST was going to be a continued success. All I've read or seen so far is along the lines of - the so many things they could/should have done = just about anything except what TLJ is. And like I said, no argument that authentically proscribes what took place in TLJ has been forthcoming. Just disappointment that it wasn't another thing or things that, in most cases, were determined by individual audience members before TLJ was released. The same thing we went through when TFA supposedly made the trailer for TFA "pointless".

The "pointless" accusations, in my opinion, add up to nothing more than failing to see the wood for the trees.

 

No, this assumes that Luke was correct in ending the Jedi, and that something better would replace them. Yes, something else would rise, but it wouldn't be the Jedi, and that's the problem. For all their faults, the Jedi are needed to be built upon. It's their mistakes that are slowly making them better, and setting the reset button would be a massive set back. if anything TLJ reaffirms the importance of Yoda and Obi-Wan's efforts.

 

@Martoto77 : I'm just describing what I see, which is a trilogy that forms a new narrative that's mostly a reiteration of the second half of GL's narrative.
As such, it is, from my POV, comparatively pointless. Again, it's good, but it doesn't have much to say beyond what's already been said.

 

The story matters significantly less than how said story is told. And I like how the ST story is told, even if it reiterates in places. Hell, the original Star Wars built on arthurian legends and widely used archetypes that we've seen dozens if not hundreds of times. But it was told in such a unique and imaginative way that the story feels fresh just through its delivers.

 

A valid point. Points of view matter.
My point of view is somewhat different from yours
I mean, how a story is told is definitely important to me as well, but I'd say the story itself is of equal, if not greater, importance.

 

I always use this analogy:

A good joke told poorly won't get any laughter. But a bad joke told well will.

If I told you the story of Star Wars in cliffnotes, you probably wouldn't like it nearly as much as you would if you watched the actual movie. That's why I always advocate watching movies as opposed to just reading the synopsis.

 

That's true, but it doesn't make the ST relevant to the first two trilogies.

 

Compared to what though?

 

How about this:

We always knew what happened between Episode 2 and Episode 3. The Clone Wars raged for years with Jedi fighting alongside droids against the Separatists. Does that make all the hard work and passion that went into The Clone Wars irrelevant because they were telling a story with an ending we already knew?

 

Is that equivalent to how the ST relates to the rest of the Saga?

Compared to the first two trilogies.

 

They're both stories that tread familiar territory using stories we thought we already knew. I mean, if someone just saw episode two and episode three, would they ever suspect Anakin had a padawan?

 

Probably not, but I just don't see how the two are comparable. TCW details events inbetween two Saga episodes, while the ST is a sequel to the I-VI narrative.

 

The two actually share a lot of similarities:

- They're both new stories featuring largely new characters. Ahsoka, Lux, Cody, The Bad Batch, Barriss, etc.
- They're both stories that maintain some separation from the media around them and do their own thing.
- They're both projects that take their own interpretations from the main six movies.
- They're both projects that defy audience expectations given what's expected, such as Anakin having a Padawan.