ST Is TFA the real problem for TLJ?

Perfect example of headcanon.

There was no mystery in "Who's the girl". We already knew who she was, so JJ merely had Han tell Maz offscreen, because it would've been redundant information.

We know this is a fact because, minutes later, Maz confirms the offscreen conversation. Rey tells Maz that she needs to return to Jakku, and Maz says "Han told me".

But here you are, having created your own mystery, and made that TLJ didn't solve it.

 

No. Perfect example on RJ ignoring TFA

 

That is part of it.

Personally, I wanted Johnson to kind of turn things upside down and drive everybody nuts, I got what I wanted in a weird way, lol.

 

That head canon is thrown around as an accusation is hilarious. RJ said in an interview he knew people would expect Rey Skywalker when he wrote it. He wrote the script before TFA came out. I guess JJ tricked him into the head canon business enough for him to feel the need to subvert it.

More to the point, oh well if people have head canon and felt TFA lead them somewhere with no payoff. They have every right to feel however they want about that movie and what they want to see next. Disney isn’t entitled to anything in the minds of any audience member. I personally don’t see criticisms in this direction, but even if someone absolutely hates this movie because Rey isn’t Luke’s daughter and for no other reason, oh well. That’s how it works in fiction. This is actually the one area where we are all entitled to be as entitled as we want. We’re here by choice because we enjoy it. If nothing but a father/daughter story would do for someone because that’s what they felt was coming and they were excited for it, cool. That’s what happens with mystery boxes. Oh well.

 

There is literally no mystery in "Who's the girl". Pablo debunked that ages ago.

But you all didn't want to listen. Pablo was a lying troll, and the mystery you created was the new canon.

 

Oh no you don't - TFA came first! RJ had the responsibility of continuing the story JJ started. Lucasfilm approved everything he did and released the film - Just continue it... A thousand fans on this site alone could come up with more interesting answers to the questions JJ left open...but RJ decided to toss them aside - That's on him!

 

I think that is disingenuous, because the line of dialogue as delivered, and then not answered is quite prominent. Those sort of film making methods are absolutely going to fuel speculation. I don’t think it unreasonable that many fans did so, because the scene felt contrived so as to make the audience ask the same question.

 

The question was answered. It was confirmed that it was answered off screen literally minutes later.


TFA had enough mysteries without making them up. And yes, some fans absolutely made up a mystery that didn't actually exist in TFA. Someone actually employed at Lucasfilm debunked that nearly 2 years ago. Fans just want what they want, so every single time somebody on this film tried to clarify, or debunk, the response was MISDIRECTION.

And everything became "misdirection". Though, funny enough, there was very little actual misdirection regarding the lead up to TLJ.

 

Neither film was "the problem" the problem (whatever anyone thinks it is) is actually fan expectations versus the filmmakers reality

 

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Let me address something that I have seen a lot of, both on this very thread and all over social media: Some of you people who cannot stand to hear that people like me though this film was crap enjoy saying this:

You can't please some people; they said TFA was too safe, and now they are saying TLJ was too risky. You can't please them!

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Yet that is clearly what JJ wanted the audience to feel.

Unlike Lucas' movies where he was "documentary" style giving you the emotions but not insisting on them TFA was a movie that was very much about insisting upon the audience the emotions. Look at the end of TFA with Rey's face, Luke's face, the way the music was done.

Sure it left at a literal and fictional cliffhanger that could go different places but that doesn't mean the emotion of that moment wasn't there.

If that isn't emotional then I don't know what is. You don't hold a close-up shot on one character's face in the frame wordlessly for around 8 seconds to show to not get across emotion.

We had next to zero context but JJ didn't and he still let that ending go out in the movie regardless that he knew it didn't really fit with what RJ was going to do. As I said earlier Luke should not have been in his Jedi robes and looking like he's waiting for Rey.

He should have been in his Outlander gear with Rey coming upon him as being a surprise and rather stunned.

Theories are one thing but the actual onscreen clearly emotional moment is now undermined

Again the outcome might be ambiguous but that is a plot thing. The actual emotional state at the end of TFA is the end point and then the start of TLJ. The emotion is now undermined, the set-up doesn't ring true to the start of TLJ.

If JJ had done both there he would not have done what TLJ did at the start and if RJ had done both he wouldn't have ended TFA that way.

No. TFA did not "invite" fans to speculate. It "demanded" that fans should speculate.

Now for many of us who paid very close attention over the last two years to everything we knew that as RJ said quite a while ago that he had virtual full freedom to do as he wanted. There was no huge overall plan as such. Basically he asked if he could do this, this and this and unless specifically told he couldn't then he was free to do as he chose.

That said I think there is clearly a bit more to it than that but essentially that is the case. Now if JJ wants to address and change the "who/where are Rey's parents?" are then he can, if he wants Snoke back then he can do that as well. It's really not a problem because those both have clear outs attached to them in TLJ.

Now for myself it really doesn't matter because for me the ST is ultimately good entertaining movies I enjoy and I don't really take them as true continuations of Lucas' story. Only he could do that and he decided he wasn't going to so this is the next best thing.

I liked TFA and I like TLJ even more but for those who are really invested in the ST (unlike myself) I can totally understand how after what TFA did why they would be upset at TLJ.

 

VII: The mistery around Rey's family and origin, which was basicly the main secret spread in sooo many scenes... also strenghtened by her amazing ability to use the Force...
> VIII: She's daughter of no-ones, no one whe could relate to, in any case... (unless Ben didn't eventually tell her a lie in order to make her join him...), and we do not know yet why she's so strong...
> VIII: Anakin was a slave, Luke was a moisture farmer, so why Rey should be daughter of someone? She is strong because she is strong in the Force, simple as that. Do you think all those Jedis in the prequels are sons of Obi Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu or Yoda? Of course not.

Luke was a moisture farmer, who was told his father was a navigator on a spice freighter

 

I would say RJ knew exactly what he was doing in his copying/rhyming and why it worked in the first place.

So many choices that Lucas made seemed odd at the time when we first saw them but in retrospect we saw why he did them.

As Lucas himself said:

When I said I was going to do the prequels, everybody said, "That's great, we get to see Darth Vader kill everybody." And I said, "That's not the story." When I announced that the first story was going to be about a nine-year-old boy, everybody here said, "That's insane, you're going to destroy the whole franchise, it's More American Graffiti all over again." And I said, "Yeah, but this is the story."

A lot of people got very upset, saying he should've been this little demon kid. But the story is not about a guy who was born a monster – it's about a good boy who was loving and had exceptional powers, but how that eventually corrupted him and how he confused possessive love with compassionate love. That happens in Episode II: Regardless of how his mother died, Jedis are not supposed to take vengeance.

The same thing happened with Padmé in Episode I, when she had this very stilted dialogue as the Queen. And also with Hayden in Episode II. He said, "I don't want to be this whiny kid." I said, "Well, you are. You gotta be a whiny teenager."

Personally I think it got Star Wars far better than TFA did. That being the Lucas ethic of storytelling that seems kind of bizarre at the time but in retrospect you get what he was going for. That of course does not mean that anyone has to like it of course.

 

TFA is not the real problem at all. TLJ just could not try to do an I am your father moment. It couldn’t have Snoke kill Kylo with force lightning. Luke could die exactly like Obi Wan did in a lightsaber duel. If you want blame anything it is the shadow of the OT. That is it. All of the new movies you have heard similar complaints, relies to heavily on nostalgia, to many rehash moments and plot points, so on an so on. Trust me when I say this JJ better not leave Episode 9 open ended this part of the saga should end at Episode 9. The best case scenario for Star Wars is after Episode 9 is to make movies not directly connected to the original story. I keep telling people but you just don’t get it. Sequels will always carry on and borrow from the original. Good sequels do that but add something new or extra to the original. With Star Wars the filmmakers are limited because these movies have to feel connected to the originals. So once Episode 9 is complete move in a completely NEW direction. Some people will hate those movies to but most likely more people will love it and it will keep Star Wars relevant and fresh.

 

It's complete, total, 100% head canon that Rey happened upon a Luke who was emotional because of her, waiting on the cliff side specifically for her.

TFA's ending was purposefully open and ambiguous.

TLJ didn't change the ending, because TFA literally didn't have an ending to change. The whole point of the cliffhanger is that we have no idea how Luke feels, why Luke's there, what Luke knows, what Luke's doing, nothing.

The close up was on Mark expressing emotion as Luke. We're free to read into what that emotion is. But TFA doesn't define it whatsoever.

Now if TLJ had picked up on that moment and Luke was smoking a joint, wearing a velvet jumper, and paying a Tatooine banjo than yes, TLJ would have totally screwed up the continuity.

Yet again, we have an issue with interpretation. Some interpreted Luke a certain way, and RJ merely contradicted you, not JJ.

 

As you wish. I see how this is going to be handled, so I’ll spare you the trouble. Adios.

 

Exactly, jaqen. Some fans had something else in their mind. The fact the story went in another direction from their scenario does NOT make it a contradiction of TFA at all.

 

I think this thread is the place for this.

I spent the last few weeks before TLJ came out asking myself a question: "what did TFA lie to us about?" After all, the big twist of ESB came as such a shock because ANH lied to us about Vader and Luke's father. It seemed to be a good bet that any big twists in TLJ would also be due to misinformation from TFA.

Amazingly, the answer turned out to be: not a thing. TFA told the truth, and TLJ didn't take a single swift left turn from where TFA was leading. Never have so many people been so surprised because there actually WASN'T a plot twist.

Why was Luke on that island? For exactly the reason Han said: he blamed himself for the destruction of his academy, took it really hard, and just walked away from everything and everyone. And yet, we still half expected Luke to be ready to jump right back in it as soon as some rando shows up with his Pop's old lightsaber.

Who were Rey's parents? Well, TFA gave us only one solid, unambiguous clue. It actually showed Rey, as a young child, screaming as she was left behind with Umkar Plutt. This gives us one very crucial piece of information: whoever left her made some sort of arrangement with Umkar. From this, there are two things that one should immediately conclude as being exceedingly likely: 1. They were the sort of people who would make an arrangement with Umkar Freaking Plutt, and 2. They obviously didn't give a damn about Rey. Of COURSE they were who they turned out to be. Any other answer wouldn't make a lick of sense.

Oh my gosh! Kylo killed his master! Which was somehow a surprise, despite the fact that Kylo straight up told us in TFA that he wanted to finish what Vader started. What was Vader's greatest unfulfilled ambition, again? Oh yeah, kill the Emperor and take his place as ruler of the galaxy.

TFA never lied to us. Instead, it did something far more cunning. It showed us things that were just familiar enough to make us assume this story was going down a familiar path ("it's just a rehash!"), and then our own assumptions about what were were seeing and being told colored our expectations for everything that was about to happen, and we didn't notice what was actually being set up out in the open, right under our nose. It's a fantastically clever way to trick someone ... so good that Kylo used basically the same method to kill Snoke. Turns out the method for fooling mind-readers is the same method you use to fool Reddit-readers. The Sith Lords of Lucasfilm surprised us by just telling us the truth and letting us outsmart ourselves. Kudos to them. Well done.

 

I think you give RJ too much credit regarding Rey. RJ was obviously more interested in his own story than anything TFA left behind, and her Random was the easiest way out of that storyline, because nothing else needed to be said.

 

It's probably an understatement to say that a large portion of Star Wars fandom is split by The Last Jedi, and this thread is meant for those who are displeased by it, and to be candid about it, I'll point out that I generally liked the film, and for the most part, I was pleased by the storyline of Luke/Rey/Kylo/Snoke. However, I can understand many of the complaints of other fans, so in a way, I'm writing this more for others than for myself.

The backlash to some of the story choices in TLJ has been pretty intense, and some fans are directing this criticism right at Rian Johnson. I would argue that some of this anger is being misplaced.

Here's why I say this. Johnson did not have the luxury of beginning with a fresh slate. His script was built on the foundations created by JJ in TFA. In TFA, JJ used his mystery box technique in multiple ways to stoke interest, and the main problem with mystery box techniques is that the mystery itself is often more interesting than whatever ends up filling the box, especially when good answers aren't thought out beforehand.

Moreover, JJ left Johnson with a ton of questions to be answered, and I would argue that it's largely not Johnson's fault that he couldn't fill those boxes with solutions that would satisfy a lot of Star Wars fans.

Just one example, TFA's MacGuffin was Luke. This is made clear in the film's crawl, which states that Republic is desperate to find Luke and gain his help in restoring peace and justice to the galaxy.

This suggests that Luke is incredibly important and would serve an integral role in stopping the FO, but that still doesn't tell us what exactly he can do that is so super-duper special. Well, it turns out there is no good answer. There's no reason, apart from his own devotion to the Republic, that Luke can't remain in hiding. To make this point clear, Luke even asks Rey if she really thought he "could walk out with a laser sword and face down the whole First Order?" So, right there, the implied huge importance of Luke that was built up in TFA was deflated with Luke's pretty on the money analysis of what he can actually achieve. Furthermore, I would argue that Johnson did the best he could to help Luke come close to fulfilling that role.

At times in TLJ Johnson even seems to purposely smash JJ's mystery boxes that were clearly empty from the start. Why was Kylo wearing that mask? (No reason, Snoke told him it was childish and destroyed it.) He also mocked Kylo for losing to an untrained girl, which was a criticism many had of TFA. (BTW, we do get some explanation why he lost. It wasn't his injury. He was conflicted and not fully connected to the dark side, though I'm not sure this explanation would satisfy everyone)

Time and time again TFA presented the audience with scenarios that TLJ now has to explain.

Why did Luke leave the New Jedi order after Kylo massacred his students? Intriguing question, but it's tough to provide another answer apart from what TFA already suggests -- that Luke's failure left him despondent. JJ left Johnson in a hole to dig himself out of, and I think Johnson did his best to develop Luke's back story to make it work, but there was only so much he could when given a bad hand.

Some other intriguing questions left for Johnson that are still causing problems in TLJ:

Why does Rey gain Force powers (persuasion, levitation, combat skills) without any training and why does she have such unusually special raw potential? (Unless Kylo is lying -- and Rey seems to suspect he's right -- well, that's just the way it is. Even though the Force runs strong through bloodlines, Rey is just as powerful as Kylo is, even though she's the child of junkies and he's a Skywalker.)

Who the heck is the elderly Snoke who has been around since the time of the fall the Republic? Where was he all that time? Why is he so powerful? And how did he gain control of the First Order? (Again JJ left us with an empty mystery box.)

How did Kylo come under the influence of the dark side while under the tutelage of Luke? Why was Luke such a terrible teacher? (The best we get is Snoke did something...)

Other mystery box questions were completely forgotten about...

How did Maz come into possession of the light saber Luke lost on Cloud City? (I guess that still remains a story for another time.)

Why was there the original MacGuffin map which was divided into 2 parts and which showed the path to where Luke is hiding when united? (Clearly JJ opened a mystery box but had no idea what should be put in it.)

I certainly don't think all of TLJ's faults can be traced back to TFA. For instance, it was strange that the New Republic allowed a threat as dangerous as the FO to grow so large, but Johnson strangely doubled down on that idea. There was no need for the entire New Republic to fall, and this doesn't even make any sense. TLJ begins right where TFA left off, and the FO had only destroyed 5 Republic worlds, and the NR was presumably comprised off thousands of systems, so there simply wasn't time for the Republic to fall, yet from what opening crawl tells us, the New Republic is dead. Also, any dissatisfaction with the other subplots, such as Finn's/Rose's storyline, would fall at Johnson feet.

Personally, some of these plot issues bothered me. Others did not. Regardless, I'm hesitant to direct too much criticism at Johnson. I think he was dealt a bad hand by having to develop TLJ from what he was give in TFA.

 

Yeah, many of the problems with TLJ can be traced back to JJ and Kasdan. (Kennedy deserves some blame as well for letting JJ, Kasdan, Rian etc. have such free reign in the first place).

JJ and Kasdan were trying to structure the movie like ANH. Where everything is fast-paced and you don't have to have much exposition. The problem is ANH was not building off of six prior films, so George could get away with dropping the audience right into the middle of the action. This method will help in the short-term, but you are going to run into problems, especially when you create plot-points that you have no idea where they lead to.

It is ironic, but the film they should have used as an example in terms of structure isn't ANH, but TPM.

 

Thank you for taking the unexplained out. So as I said they are bigger than the Empire! And Rey is the strongest Jedi and Kylo is real bad etc etc etc.

 

As far as I can tell, Rian never wanted to do that in the first place, he wanted to subvert expectations. And I can understand that, but you can't do that at every single turn because eventually there won't be any room for payoffs.

 

A properly articulated post that should be considered. Much appreciated with a difference in perspective Nerdling.

As I sit and ponder through my thoughts of TLJ, having sympathy for Rian going into this film should be applied. The Sequel Trilogy kicked off in the worse way possible by leaving the mess of "laid out dirt" to another poor sap of a director to clean up. The prediction for all of this somewhat failing, was somewhat true. Many, including myself, have speculated that the next director was going to be pushed into a corner unfairly. Rian Johnson was the pick, and didn't have a whole lot to work with. You'd be right on the spot with that one. However, there comes to a point where we can only look at Rian and give so much grace to the film. The editing, the pacing, the additions of new characters etc are other aspects I can't give very much reason to look over(especially when it not only does worse than TFA but follows the typical modern era style of blockbuster film-making). Rian in a sense, shot himself in the right foot when the left foot was already deteriorated. Mistakes will always be prevalent within humanity's core structure("It's in our character") although there is a saying that goes;

"Observe your surroundings"

Perhaps I should also apply the possibility of other "hands" touching TLJ. We don't have enough credibility in our own judgement to see if it was all him because of the "Lucasfilm Story Group" and Disney imo has to be an important in the equation too.

Dunno how you can be pleased if Rey only trained for a day and got a giant ass powerboost in the making.

There needs to be a list on what and wasn't Rians fault going into TLJ. I'd sayyyyy...Less than falf in terms of threads JJ put forth, couldn't be avoided. The rest? Sigh...

"It's Ok. I feel it too."

I'd like to know who the *%$! was the editor of this movie. Remember folks, this isn't like Lucas where he was also heavily into editing this movie while being the director and writer. It's not like the entire film is like this but there are so many moments where it consistently cuts back and forth so fast without giving the viewer ANY time to digest it. Rogue 1139 had similar issues except it wasn't as sloppy.

The movie was far too fast, faster than TFA despite that too being a bit quick on the run.

Each Star Wars film in the Lucas Saga gave many moments for the audiences to consume at a moderate pace what was happening. Granted, not always but it didn't rush itself so much.

I liked that he referenced this...But it all reminds me of how over-powered Rey is. Out of context, it's okay.

What Rian did was crush all mystery boxes, most of of them at least.

To be honest we're just right back at square one. A good thing? Maybe. JJ Abrams now can start over due to a now convenient time skip. Another soft reboot to the ST to re-established what it's all about.

Said this before, TFA should have started slow and steady.

"We have to recapture what made the original Star Wars great by copying everything from it!"


Blabbering aside, I more or less agree.