Saga Did TFA make the OT pointless?

Abrams did say in a past interview that he will unite all three trilogies in EP9. What we need to do is look at what all 3 trilogies have in common. I agree with many of you that right now the ST feels a bit detached. If I were to write EP9 I would make it about the Force. Come up with something new that we have never seen before. The Force is almost like a living thing. It may have some agenda or purpose that we haven't seen yet. Something to do with bringing balance to the Force or the Chosen One concept. Hopefully the movie ends with some major revelation that affects the entire universe. I think this is the only way to save this final trilogy. Hopefully we get something more satisfying than just a simple ending like the destruction of the First Order and the rise of the Jedi.

 

Did you mean TLJ? If so, firstly, I think we have already established that I don’t even remotely agree with this statement. If you really meant TFA, TLJ totally undercuts it in almost every way, so it’s irrelevant to me.

Rey was manipulated by Snoke and Kylo in this movie, not just Snoke. But yeah, I definitely think being so ridiculously easily manipulated makes her not a Jedi, but the movie imo failed to convey that the audience is supposed to view that as Rey’s screw up. Imo it comes across as wonderful Rey believing in Kylo because she’s Luke-like in her compassion, but she failed (as though it’s her job) to convert Kylo. Imo TLJ set it up for Rey’s big victory to be saving Kylo’s soul, not defeating him, which, vomit.

As far as how Luke inspired the galaxy, based on the movie logic (which I don’t remotely buy), he did that by facing down a giant army with a laser sword so a few survivors of a decimated and defeated army could escape with their lives. It had nothing to do with not being so childishly naive that he was able to not be manipulated by obvious and transparent manipulation.

 

Dunno how he is going to unite all trilogies with Episode IX unless he makes Kylo’s character and drama central to the narrative (and thus make Rey’s entire arc revolve around him), because the only thing that these trilogies have in common (in terms of story) is the Skywalker protagonist-centric soap opera drama. It's also why it's called the Skywalker Saga.

 

The problem with Luke inspiring the galaxy with his last act of heroism is that it was, you know, kind of lame and not all that inspiring. He uses Force Hologram, rips off a move from Keanu Reeves, and then a few Rebel cosplayers run out the back door. As the final capstone to the legendary icon that is the character of Luke Skywalker, it's a bit of a wet fart.

 

The only character I found vaguely interesting was DJ, both sides suck and are getting repetitive & old.

 

No we don't know. It's your opinion.

 

It's weird (like Twilight Zone weird) how so many people insist on defending TFA as an honest to goodness sequel, when it's so obviously an attempt to reboot the franchise ("softly"). What did I miss? I am open to suggestion here. Is TFA a decent little movie in its own right? Sure. But Disney repackaged the original movie for a new generation, folks. Period. (I love George Lucas but I suspect he sort of unintentionally enabled this trend in SW movies of not moving beyond ROTJ and the iconography of the originals by making prequels when most people were probably expecting new adventures at the time.) In that respect, TFA, which is a solid entertainment, works as it's own thing, sure. As a sequel? It's utterly pointless. It fails to actually function like a sequel and expand the saga in a new narrative direction. Again, what did I miss? I wouldn't say that it makes the OT pointless, though. More like it cauterizes it, essentially closing the main saga off from anything new, especially in narrative terms. You have to officially reboot the main saga (which will not happen quite yet, I don't think) or officially start from scratch for something new now. It's OVER. So, yes, in narrative terms, TFA is illogical and awkward, at best (Han Solo's son is already a dark sider??? The Empire is back??? Huh?? etc.) and despite it's slavish recreation of the original movie, it's pretty much a slap in the face to anyone truly invested in the narrative logic of the original movies. But more than make the OT pointless, I think TFA renders anything that follows it in the main saga pointless. Look at the hole it put poor rambunctious Rian Johnson in. All the guy could do was lash out at the creative constraints TFA and Disney placed him in. To these eyes, TFA and TLJ are exercises, alternate universes that provide philosophical commentaries on the SW saga, its characters, tropes, themes, etc. As far as the ST goes, it's all about philosophy now. As stories meant to be taken at face value? the ST is a huge train wreck. The OT, though, still works.

 

Exactly. No one in charge could figure out where to actually go from ROTJ, so we just ended up with two movies about the filmmakers' relationship with the Star Wars franchise. Not exactly the kind of timeless, world-universal stories we've come to expect from the series thus far.

To be fair, maybe Lucas wouldn't have been able to figure out a way to meaningfully continue the series either. Episodes I-VI formed a pretty complete story, after all, and maybe all that was left to do after that was endless navel-gazing backward. But the benefit of Disney rejecting his input is that now we'll never know, so we can freely blame them for everything while, for once, Lucas gets off scot-free.

 

Well whatever it was he figured out was clearly too radical for them because they would only pull some elements from it for their "continuation".

And Lucas wanted new designs and a distinct new era of course while they wanted as Lucas said s retro-movie for the fans.

https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/george-lucas-not-a-fan-of-retro-star-wars-approach-20151230

"They looked at the stories, and they said, 'We want to make something for the fans,'"

"They wanted to do a retro movie. I don't like that. Every movie, I worked very hard to make them different,"

"I made them completely different – different planets, different spaceships to make it new."

I'd call it the Requel Trilogy myself. A remake that also doubles as a sequel.

 

Perfect. And, yes, Lucas is off the hook for now. From what Pablo Hidalgo has divulged, though, maybe his ideas weren't as original as some of us would like to think. Although he did seem to have planned on certain things that would have differed greatly from what we got, like actually seeing the Solo child fall to the Dark Side. That would have made a huge difference in story terms. Hopefully we will get the full story one day.

Ha! I think Hollywood should definitely avail itself of this term right about now.

 

That doesn't go over well with marketing:

"These movies req!"

 

R2D2 and C3PO were in all of the movies. Perhaps JJ wants to go Droidekas on the whole thing.

 

You think after ROTJ they'd have movies about the New Republic maintaining the peace that was achieved after the Battle of Endor but instead they reset things to square one, the First Order- Resistance conflict is so similar to the Galactic Civil War, the ST might as well be a remake. They still could've made something new and unique after TFA but given how TLJ handled things, making a Sequel Trilogy wasn't worth it.

 

I concur!

Great point and quote. It actually makes me sad. I think Mark Hamil has said similar things about how GL had a story.

At this point, I feel like the story was meant to continue and conclude, but your requel (great term btw) is fairly spot on. And we shouldn't have had to wait till Episode 9 to tie the saga together. That should have happened from Episode 7 itself.

I wish we had something more akin to:

Episode 7 - Shadow of the Force
Episode 8 - A New Alliance
Episode 9 - Rise of the Jedi

And tie the whole saga together by say having The Tragedy of Darth Plageuis to make that the ultimate villain who still had to be defeated. Make this saga about reestablishing a united galaxy and a new Jedi Order establishing its role in galactic affairs. Versus reset.

It would be nice to see the ST era being different aesthetically too. I would like to make both the PT and OT events meaningful, versus either undoing, or not relating to them. One saga, one dream!

Droidekas wouldn't be a bad idea. I'd love to see them again versus seeing Kanji club.

Indeed

 

I don't want droidekas any more than I wanted stormtroopers and TIE fighters. It's a completely new era. It's not the prequel trilogy or the original trilogy. Do something new. New droids, new planets, new spaceships. I can't say anything in the new trilogy so far has really scratched that itch. Even the "new" stuff mostly feels samey.

 

I think this is something that's been blown out of proportion. As far as I know, he just - reportedly - told a fan that he'd like to see it happen. That doesn't mean that they've pulled it off, or even gone to any great lengths to do so.
He may have just politely responded to the question "Will Episode IX tie all the trilogies together?".

Personally, I'd prefer it if they'd just leave the narrative arc of GL's double trilogy alone and not consider episodes I-IX "The Complete Saga".

 

I concur. I merely meant relatively speaking, I prefer Droidekas and having seen them in Episodes 1 to 3, than I liked seeing Kanji club in 7.

I would also like to see something new.

 

We need a new Ralph McQuarrie to redesign ships, planets, etc, etc..

 

We have one: Doug Chiang. His talent and experience from working with George is still being utilized, but he's hampered by the limited vision of the filmmakers.
It's a shame, because Doug, I feel, really gets McQuarrie's Star Wars like no other.

 

I feel like sadly TFA did do what the title of this thread states. Simply because it didn't really tell a story. As was pointed out by Lucas, Hamil and various others, GL had a story that he wanted to tell. To CONTINUE from Episode 6. But they opted to just do their own thing without a flowing story that continues. So in a way it makes the saga pointless yes, because it doesn't' continue. And it to a certain extent yes, renders the entire progression of all factions, characters and plot points meaningless, because with zero backstory, it undoes everything. Whether you be a Palpatine supporter, a fan of the Jedi, the Empire, the Republic, the Naboo, the Wookies, the droids, the farmers on Tatooine, nothing really mattered in the end. I would even venture to suggest that some would crave for the return of the Empire since the Jedi don't appear to have returned. Instead there is an unexplained situation of anarchy. Although the galaxy also feels a whole lot smaller.

I think seeing a Jonathan Nolan written story mixed with Lucas' would have been interesting. But ultimately to CONTINUE and conclude the saga. Not render it (as the title of the thread says) pointless in a way. I think even if there is supposed backstory to tie everything together in Episode IX, well, it still feels like TFA undid the saga. Instead of build on it. Not least in the storyline (or lack of) and the characters (random new characters) and the concept of the Skywalker saga.

 

Personally I think the problem is that we aren’t seeing the best new stuff on screen. New ships, new enemies, the New Republic keeping the peace in general, all of that stuff is kept in supplementary material like books and games. The movies are filled with things that act as callbacks at best and redressed classics at worst. The newest and most exciting things I can think of from these movies in terms of technology are the MC-85 and the Starfortress bombers. Although the MC-85 seems like a reference to the MC-90 and a cross between the MC-90 and the Viscount prototype.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

And the bombers just seem like a cross between a B-wing and the front half of a Nebulon-B frigate. Which is fine, except IMO the fusion doesn't end up resulting in a design with its own unique personality. It just feels like what you'd get if you asked for a generic Rebel ship design. The only new design that had at least a little bit of that "unique personality" factor was the gorilla walker. But even that could have stood to be more differentiated from a standard AT-AT.

 

I'd say it's makes the actual saga all the more special and these new movies pointless. They really don't add a thing. What they do is take away from the meaningful movies if you give them any importance but I don't so they are what they are which is simply branded products done solely for financial gain.

 

I wouldn't say Lucas escapes the blame entirely, he IS the one that sold Star Wars to Disney. He could have just as easily produced his own movies and hired his own writers and own directors to help bring his vision to the screen if he were that concerned about the direction of the franchise.

As for where they could have gone next I think the possibilities were really endless, per usual it just would have required some thought and creativity.