ST The Sanctuary - (Dissenters Unite! - Warning on page 232)

If you get the chance, i'd recommend watching the first Thor film: it's much more of a straight drama and less comedic than Ragnarok, and it does provide a fairly sympathetic story for Loki's fall into villainy. Much of his 'root-ability' certainly comes from the performance, but I do think it walks the tricky line of making Loki's feelings and trauma valid and - to some degree - understandable, without diminishing Thor and the weight of his own choices and growth as a hero.

Uhhh, maybe give Thor 2 a miss though. It's dreadful.

ETA: This scene is probably a good example of explaining your villain's reason for being, without excusing their reason for being:

 

Yeah, I don’t think Loki was intentionally presented as someone people should relate to in the first movie, but it sort of had that effect in an organic way because his story was actually compelling.

 

I admittedly haven't watched the Thor movies, only Avengers, but the bond between Thor and Loki makes sense because they're brothers right? Rey trying to redeem Kylo and understand him would make sense if there was a familial relation between the two. Now it's just Rey being hot for Kylo because he took his shirt off in front of her.

Remember when everyone said cousins wouldn't be dramatic enough, there had never been a story told about cousins battling each other? And then Black Panther came out.

 

He isn`t. There is also a much more compelling reason for the leeway that he does give Loki, namely they grew up together (for the longest time Loki had no idea that he was basically "adopted", or rather taken from the enemy) and while their relationship is complex, it also isn`t one-sided.

Rey crying over poor Ben after a day of skyping and Thor being conflicted about a brother he grew up and still loves, even though he sometimes hates him, are worlds apart for me. It is a very understandable weakness to reconcile with a family member you`ve known and loved your whole life even when they did some horrible things.

Thor has also shown that he knows Loki, just as the reverse is true. In the second movie after their mother is killed Loki boasts how he doesn`t care and Thor just says "stop it", Loki immediately drops the illusion and shows that in his anguish he trashed his prison cell. Stuff like that shows their bond.

Love that scene from Thor. Best in the movie. And later Loki proves that he loves his adoptive father too much to hurt him. If he had gotten a Han moment, he would have lept with joy, not skewered him.

 

Loki works IMO for 2 reasons.

1) Tom Hiddleston is awesome
2) He really is a character who was wronged. His "dad" lied to him for his entire childhood, leaving him a damaged and sympathetic character. Sure, his choices on what to do with that damage border on sociopathic, and it's a bit of a stretch that Thor will even talk to the dude, but the trauma he experienced is real, and his motivations for being evil are pretty compelling. He's basically been a POW for his entire life.

 

Kylo Ren is not Loki, no matter how much they try to make it seem that way.

 

Yeah, even T’Challa and Killmonger’s relationship is more emotional than Rey/Kylo, and they literally didn’t know each other before midway through the movie.

It’s weird how Marvel is succeeding better at the one thing Star Wars was famous for in terms of storytelling: family drama and the emotional bond between hero and villain.

Star Wars used to be the franchise that established the trends in blockbusters. Now it feels like SW is just desperately trying to follow the trends being set by Marvel (the humor, the woobies) and not being as successful.

 

Speaking of Kylo Ren, does anyone else think he resembles Dooku a lot more than Han or Leia? Now that I think about it that could've actually worked, making him a descendant of Dooku. He'd have a believable grudge against the Skywalkers because of the death of his grandfather(?), instead of the Vader-wannabe shtick. And he'd still feel entitled, that the dark side was in his blood, etc. (Also, goofy lightsaber hilts apparently run in the family...)

Plus it'd give a little something more to Dooku, who is probably the least popular SW villain in the films. Poor count.

 

Dooku is at least refined, classy, an expert duellist, and most importantly played by Christopher Lee. I honestly sympathise more with Dooku than I ever have with Kylo. The pained look he gives when he defeats Anakin and Obi-Wan in AOTC is more genuine emotion than anything Kylo has yet to accomplish. His death is actually rather tragic, but he goes out with dignity.

Kylo is whiny, bratty, selfish, and utterly devoid of tact and class. His style is messy and sloppy. He doesn't seduce with words, but with his literal body. Adam's Driver's acting barely seems to extend beyond cry moaning in every scene, or 10000% rage.

The two couldn't have less in common.

 

The main thrust of TLJ was going as anti-Marvel as you can with the deconstruction of heroism. Even the more comical movies like Guardians don`t do it. Even the movies that deal with shades of grey like Winter Soldier or Civil War don`t do it. ANH didn`t do it. The prequels didn`t do it. Rogue One didn`t do it. Only and solely TLJ went and scorched the Earth. And then did a little "oh well, maybe not, haha" thing with Crait that played kinda on traditional ideas of heroism.

But after crushing them into smithereens for 2 hours and 15 minutes, 7 or 8 minutes of some lame ending is hardly a good counterweight to that. With Luke, why would, for anyone who felt the character was made into a coward, that little ending be enough to redeem him? Because of BroomBoy and the meta scene of boys playing with toys? I think RJ overestimated the value of that bit.

In the last Guardians of the Galaxy movie the characters saved the universe. You saw it happen. And one of the characters, Yondu, gave his life ultimately and had his redemptive moment for past wrongdoings. In that case, it is hard to argue that someone who helped save the universe hasn`t earned this.

Luke Skywalker threw himself a six year pity party, then showed up as a force projection to buy time - not even fully save, buy some time - for 20 people. And miraculously the GFFA people deem that act cool enough that it spawns legends and hope. Like, we all know the legend of Robin Hood who is known for robbing one merchant in some Sherwood Forest roadway and give half a coin to some peasant along the way. Because that alone would be the stuff of legends. Or the Ilias which we all know because it was a war that lasted two days.

If I am to buy that something is legendary for a galaxy then show me something a lot more impressive than that Crait scene. Toppling the first galactic Empire, okay, THAT I buy spawning myths and legends. But Crait?

 

As a sequel to its predecessor, TLJ has an unfortunate combination of problems. On one hand, it doesn't actually move on from aspects of TFA that should have actually been moved on from (eg. the First Order and Resistance). On the other, it has a number of changes in characterisation and circumstances that seem totally jarring given how soon it takes place after TFA (eg. Rey's sudden sympathy for Kylo despite only first meeting him two days earlier as an enemy). It doesn't even move on with plots and characters that TFA left it with, such as Finn. It instead goes on diversionary meta tangents.

It could be said that TLJ takes the worst aspects of TFA and amplifies them, and fails to follow through with the more meaningful parts of TFA.

The war is one example of the former. Continuing with and even amplifying the Empire-vs-Rebels 2.0 depiction from TFA was not obligatory, at least from a perspective of wanting a narrative that makes sense. I'm not sure if RJ was under any corporate pressure to do this.

I'm tempted to say that a larger time leap would have forced TLJ to be a better sequel to TFA. This certainly would have precluded the jawdroppingly badly plotted evacuation/chase/escape story.

 

I have a new wish for E9. Darth Krayt and the One Sith come out from Korriban, destroy the FO, the republic and the resistance. We are left with a galaxy more similar to legacy. Maybe not everyone’s favorite but certainly better than what’s left at the end of TLJ


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They should go the whole hog and bring back a cloned and modified ‘Super Vader’ with legions of loyal Sith, wipe out the First Order and Resistance and give a ridiculous (but much more fitting) end to the Skywalker saga. It couldn’t be any worse now.

 

I was talking more of a physical/superficial likeness between them, and the concept of what the character could've been.

Plus, while I like Dooku, if I had to choose whether it was his legacy or the legacy of the Skywalkers that gets Kylo Ren... I'd go with Dooku. (Again, sorry, count).

 

I got a question. It's been bugging the hell outta me.

What was the point of Phasma, or rather the build-up she got?

I mean, she was played by Gwendoline Christie! She has this shiny armor and cape! She had magazine covers! She had a Hot Toys 1/6 scale figure for 230 bucks!

And what did she do in the movies? NOTHING! She ordered Finn to check his blaster, then folded like a rube against Kenny Rogers' Gambler at Starkiller Base. And in TLJ she... almost defeated Finn before losing to BB-8. Or something. I don't know and I don't care enough to check.

And no. I don't care about books/comics/deleted scenes. None of them count.

So, yeah. As I've said before in this thread, we owe Boba Fett an apology. At least he's got a capital W-win in his column. Phasma... my god!

 

Me I hope they reveal episode 8 as an awful force vision Finn experiences in his coma then have him wake up revealing Leia had already evacuated D'Qar with the Raddus being a New Republic warship intended to help coordinate the remaining NR Fleet and Leia's Resistance except it's all an elaborate trap to capture Finn so Snoke the Vader fanboy can draw Rey out before Luke finishes her training.

Rey is revealed as having been trained by a Jedi Survivor on Jakku and Snoke is actually a former Inquisitor whose fascination with Vader is why they recruited Ben whilst unknown to the Heroes he is just one of a new Dark Council of trained Inquisitors seeking to restore an Empire under their control.

The First Order's true hierarchy is revealed even with Snoke dead (again)and Luke saved it's far from over but whilst Luke gets to rebuild his order in secret to avoid the new Inquisition it's up to the new Rebel Alliance to help rebuild the shattered Republic...

 

This is actually another thing that Marvel did better than the ST (and in a movie I didn’t find to be very good): the story really establishes the emotion between a confused son and a father who loves him regardless despite not being perfect. It doesn’t diminish each character and it manages to make them both feel understandable in their motives and equally sympathetic.

This scene in Thor was enough to establish Loki's motivations as well as his believable bond with his (adopted) father, and did it ten times better than the entire ST is trying to do with Kylo Ren, his father/mother issues and whatever his reasons are to be angry:



Compared to this, Kylo Ren hardly feels like he has a genuine bond with Han/Leia, yet I'm supposed to relate to his angst. His story is so poorly told that it really is no wonder that fans and media are trying to fish for the most insignificant details in books for his non-existent reasons to feel unloved and turn to the darkside.

 

Watching this clip of Mark Hammil circa his 30s it really is uncanny how similar he looks to Sebastian Stan.

Just go balls out and wipe this utterly terrible Sequel trilogy by having a time traveling Grand Master Luke show up in a wormhole claiming to be the "real" Luke Skywalker and the guy who dies in TLJ was Jake

 

It'll all be explained in the sequel's prequel-sequels: The Tragedy of Ben Solo - Parents Just Don't Understand.

 

Alden just said he's signed on for two more movies after Solo. I wouldn't be surprised if they are planning OT era movies with Alden and a recast Luke and Leia. Or Solo is the first of a trilogy going all the way up to ANH.

You know, killing the past while you cash out on the nostalgia of the OT.

 

Can you imagine how cool it would have been to see THIS Luke on the big screen?



Forget the ST, alternate timelines are the only way to save the OT from being a major downer at this point. SWEU had some forms of time-travel for a while, and Rebels brought that to Nu-Canon as well. Go full "Abrams Star Trek" route and double down on the whole "always in motion is the future" part. I woule forgive any character, even Rey, if they went back in time and told the Big 3 how not to eff things up, leading up to a recast or digitally de-aged adaptation of the Thrawn epic.

 

All of that doesn't count, you still should have gone into watching TLJ as a total blank slate.

No expectations, remember?

 

I've never been a Solo fan,but I think pre-ANH Solo is least interesting era for his character.

As for Luke, my favorite character they don't get to trash him and take my money for it.
I've given up on the Disney Star Wars comics, they do a horrible job with Luke and with the ST the end result is still the same.

Sad, there was a time where I would have liked a Luke Skywalker movie, especially one
focusing on him and Vader between ESB and ROTJ.

Unfortunately Disney is in charge and they haven't released one Star Wars movie I like.
And I probably never will given their history.

I don't trust Disney at all.

Also if they want to kill the past, why not stop making Star Wars and make an original Sci-Fi movie?
Oh that's right, the Star Wars label is a marketing tool.
It's not about good storytelling.

I wish they wouldn't release a Star Wars movie every year.
I'd rather wait years for one good one, instead of a boring one each year.

 

Im not so sure how I would feel with a recast of Luke, though I would enjoy an animated film starting Luke with Mark being the voice actor.