ST Why don’t these movies “FEEL” like Star Wars?

For me feel SW, in a certain point of view.

 

They feel like SW to me. In fact I would say TLJ is the perfect distillation of what SW is all about, told in a bold and fresh way (the kind of thing George might have done at the height of his powers).

 

To me, that's not the case at all. If anything, I felt TLJ had way too much humor and silliness. TFA was also loaded with humor and plenty of claptrap moments. Both were far from feeling grim or realistic. I mean, just think of the opening of TLJ when Hux and Poe are talking ("Okay, I'll hold...", etc.)

 

Because the music, the story and the characters are very generic

 

The OT was just as small in scope. The difference is that we are familiar with the galaxy now unlike when A New Hope was released. We were spoiled in the PT because Lucas went out of his way to create something epic in scope at the expense of the story.

 

To each their own. I think TLJ feels like Star Wars.

 

It feels like a Star Wars set in an alternative universe.

 

Both Ep 7 and 8 felt like Star Wars to me; just like the feeling I had age 4 in a 1977 cinema (well three 1977 cinemas....I became obsessed by this experience so still here now!). Ep 7 in particular was pitched soooo right as far as I was/am concerned.

 

He's a man of peace now ashamed of a brief moment where the Dark Side called, as it had to all men in his family line, and he listened in a daze. His connection with the Force seems to have developed more around balance and tranqulity and he feels he's found that on the island. That's what he's telling himself anyway. He's projecting the issues of his subconcious onto the entire Order because he's struggling to come to terms with his place, the burden of being called a hero when you don't feel like one inside, and issues of guilt and the non-stop repeating cycle of the rise of Jedi and Sith. It's a complex portrait that seems logical when you consider some of Luke's on-screen character weaknesses in the past and a 30 year time span that's likely had some highs (that they can explore in new EU content) and some lows (which we are aware of via the ST).

Many of Rian Johnson's choices seem carefully considered and researched over based on his assessment of character weaknesses. Same for Rey. Everything she's tried so far lately has been working out for her and she's been able to sway several people to her cause (Finn/Luke eventually) so Johnson takes that momentum and that over-confidence and that longing to find belonging and someone who understands her and wants her... and turned it into a weakness and a setback in the 2nd act of the story.

I don't expect everyone to agree with what he felt was best for the saga moving forward but I think the people who seem to be suggesting he doesn't love Star Wars, or doesn't know it, or anything like that.. haven't followed Rian Johnson an awful lot. He has many similarities with a young George Lucas IMO and Kennedy sees it. He's a film geek at his heart and he was tasked with pushing this saga in a new direction that makes it something other than a total retread of things we've already done and another father/son story at the core. He's done that and I think it's spectacular and it has me very excited about the any number of possibilities that can happen next.

 

Star Wars is at its best when it feels new and unexpected, and TLJ completely aligns with that for me.

 

I love the new characters in these films. I adore Rian Johnson as a filmmaker, and I like J.J. well enough. I think both movies are pretty good, despite some problems I have with them that I won't bother getting into in this thread.

Where they depart from the original six film Lucas saga, for me, mostly lies in the fact that Episodes I-VI tell a complete mythic story with a firm beginning, middle, and end. Star Wars is, to me, Anakin's rise, his failure, and the continued legacy of his children with his ultimate redemption at the hands of his son Luke, ending in the Force finally being brought into balance and the threat of the Dark Side vanquished once and for all. It is as fairy tale as and ending can get, but then, I always saw Star Wars as a fairy tale of sorts. Anything that comes after that, no matter how good they may be, is bound to feel tacked on after such a firm ending.

 

I agree, the galaxy of the ST (or, as I call it, the DT) literally feels like a different place than the Lucas galaxy.

 

Despite the rehashed plots, I think that ironically a lack of familiarity might be the thing that's stopping it from feeling like Star Wars. There's no aliens from I-VI and the new aliens that do exist, especially in TLJ, feel like scrapped ideas from Fantastic Beasts. The characters are so disconnected from the first six films that it sometimes doesn't even feel like it's part of the same saga. Snoke pops out of nowhere in VII, Rey is a nobody yet the main character of the Skywalker Saga's ST, and to some, Luke isn't even the same person. The humor, tone, and cinematography is also completely different from I-VI.

And as @{Quantum/MIDI} pointed out...

...there's not much substance to the ST. They're just telling a story with no real important messages.

This is all, of course, just my opinion.

 

I agree, the galaxy of the ST (or, as I call it, the DT) literally feels like a different place than the Lucas galaxy.

 

So more than 5 years ago I created this post. It basically was about what "things" make a Star Wars film feel like "Star Wars":
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-nuances-ingredients-that-make-a-star-wars-film.50005419/

I think the simplest answer is the absence of George Lucas. I mean this in a complete factual way, not in a Lucas fanboy way. From the beginning Lucas was completely unorthodox in making Star Wars. He didn't want a big paycheck, he just wanted the rights to his own film and complete creative control. Even down to opening credits. He would rather be fined for not having opening credits than to follow the rules because he thought it took away from the epic crawl. When Fox executives told him Chewbacca needed to wear pants, again, he pushed back. When the special effects didn't exist to put his ideas on screen, he invented them. Love Lucas or hate him, he was only trying to make the movies he had in his head, and his heart. Yes, that included Vader being Lukes father, along with Jar-Jar Binks. He didn't have an executive board to please. In the end it was one mans vision. Heck, he even over rode Lawrence Kasdan when Lawrence wanted to kill off Han in ESB. Sure public opinion influenced him to a point. He reduced Jar-Jars role in the next two films. He also added the 501st into ROTS because of what the 501st costuming group was doing. When you have one person, inevitably controlling everything, it will have a certain "feel". Sure he changed over years, so his visions may have changed, but essentially they will feel the same.

Enter the Disney era. This is not a knock at Disney, again just factual statements. We can say Bob Iger is the one calling the shots but he isn't. We can even say it is KK, but she isn't either. Disney in the end controls the financing, advertising, etc. Having different directors, writers, etc, isn't new, but having one "end all be all person" in charge is no longer the case. This is why TFA feels different from RO and they both feel different from TLJ. Disney as a profitable company knew licensing of Star Wars would be massive. Their success with Star Wars licensing only helped them down the road to acquire FOX. Again, not bashing them, this is a corporate model for success. There is no one center real "heart" behind these films. Sure, many of the people participating in making these films loved Star Wars, but even then, that is a mish-mash of 100s of different ideas, verses one cohesive idea.

Last bonus comment, DO believe the disparity of Rotten Tomatoes. And no, it isn't "internet trolls". Sure there may be a handful of people out there that create multiple accounts to flame the new movie, but that number isn't that high. I've read pages of reviews and these trolls have to be beyond creative to write vastly different reviews. It's highly more probable that Disney offered some incentive to the critics to write positive reviews. Or possibly a for of punishment for negative ones. Also keep in mind Disney now owns almost half the share of all media production when it comes to films now. You can count they are throwing that muscle around to critics. Also this isn't unheard of. Ever notice ever EA game that comes out, almost every "game magazine" ranks it 9 out of 10! "Best game in years!".??? That's because EA is a huge sponsor and pay heavily for advertisements in like IGN, etc. Look at Battlefront 2! Glowing reviews from critics (all paid by Disney), it wasn't until everyday users started speaking up on social media, reddit, etc that Disney and EA were outed for the whole pay for loot crate scenario. Believe the fans, not the faceless corporations.

 

There is truth to this but I don't see how that's necessarily a negative.

What worked in 1970 is not going to particularly work in 2017.

A lot has changed in the world and the atmosphere of Star Wars and what they draw for source material reflects that.

I can't see modern Star Wars using Edgar Rice Burroughs because how does it reflect on society today?


Most of those tropes are outdated or long passed overused.

 

There is truth to this but I don't see how that's necessarily a negative.

What worked in 1970 is not going to particularly work in 2017.

A lot has changed in the world and the atmosphere of Star Wars and what they draw for source material reflects that.

I can't see modern Star Wars using Edgar Rice Burroughs because how does it reflect on society today?


Most of those tropes are outdated or long passed overused.

 

While I like these new movies, I also feel like they don't "feel" like Star Wars. To me, they are missing the Lucas touch (for better or worse), and are instead being made by committee. RO comes closest in feel, but even that one didn't have a singular vision attached to it.

 

That's super weird, because Rogue One felt far more made by committee to me (I mean, a different director had to come in to do rewrites and reshoots) than The Force Awakens, which had a troubled pre-production but the story ultimately came down to Abrams and Kasdan, and The Last Jedi, which is a Rian Johnson film start-to-finish. Rogue One felt like John Knoll came up with a good idea, and a bunch of people came together to actualize it and fit it within the confines of what already existed. It felt committee-designed to seamlessly play before A New Hope, a film whose every scene is ingrained deeply into pop culture, while playing with the world building on display in the PT.

The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, on the other hand, feel like they very specifically reflect what Star Wars means to J. J. Abrams and Rian Johnson respectively. Abrams is a bit more conservative with his perspective, but the film has his distinctly modern and kinetic touch, and Johnson likes the startling feeling of discovery you get from one moment to the next, while pulling a very Lucas move by funneling various non-Star Wars influences into the flavor of the movie.

 

I think the beauty Of It all Is now there are 9 Star Wars Films with way more on the way, They are all slightly different weather It Is the OT, PT, ST, or Spinoffs now It Is a matter of making a list of our favorites and I consider It all to feel like Star Wars and Love them all to varying degrees! This Notion that Lucas had the OT all mapped out I believe Is false, As Indiana Jones Said,

 

I think that TLJ felt like Star Wars most of the time. Some jokes were bit off though but most of the emotional scenes created strong connection to previous movies. I always thought that all Star Wars movies have a bit different feel or atmosphere in them and at the same time they have something in common that is the real "Star Wars feel" I think that some moments like Millennium Falcon flying through a Crait cave with that iconic music from Rotj in the background were some of the most "star warsy" moments in the entire saga. Scenes in Snoke's throne room strongly reminded of Palpatine scenes in Rotj and Rots and Luke's discussion with Yoda created strong connection to their scenes in OT (even though I'm not completely happy with how Yoda was portrayed).

If this movie didn't feel like Star Wars to you it is probably because you have defined Star Wars movie very strongly based on what exactly you were shown before. I think that Star Wars is an excellent idea and the universe that is so versatile and comprehensive that a lot of different movies and another stories can be made out of it. I think that TLJ went to right direction by not trying to be too similar to OT. TFA tried too much to be like OT so it didn't feel like a new episode of Star Wars really, because it had too little own feel, even with all those new characters in it.

One thing I didn't think was good in TLJ was overuse of comedy and at times it went to full parody mode- something that canonical SW movie shouldn't do IMO. Some of the jokes were really good and Star Wars sure has some excellent potential for a good parody. But that is something that a new film of Star Wars- saga shouldn't do itself- it is better if done by the fans or some third party- parody is hard genre to do anyways and they should have resisted temptation to add parody of the movie in the movie itself. Sure it made film very enjoyable for casual viewer who is not a fan but as a fan it ruined part of the experience for me and took me out of the serious SW for a while. Still there was also serious scenes and some of them felt very Star Wars to me.

 

There’s something intangible about Star Wars. That feeling. Aside from what you see on screen aside from the debates and discussions and the music and merchandise. There’s that feeling. How you felt when watching the movies as a kid. As a child of the Original Trilogy, I didn’t have that feeling very much during the prequels. I felt it in certain moments during The Force Awakens: when Rey slides down the giant sand hill, when Han Solo and Chewie first enter the Falcon, when Rey pulls the lightsaber out of the snow and ignites it, when we finally see Luke Skywalker atop the steps on Ahch-To. There was an awakening, and I felt it, but for only a few moments. After The Force Awakens, the feeling I had was of relief. That the movie didn’t suck. That J.J. Abrams had brought Star Wars back into positive territory. But the Last Jedi gave me that other feeling, and I felt it throughout. The Last Jedi is great (with some issues) because it made me feel like a kid again.

 

Because they are fan films with no direction. Each director can do whatever they want. The visual language of Star Wars was completely ignored in TLJ

 

Because the ST is high budget crappy fanfic.

 

The answer to the question is simple.....This is star wars, a star wars, but not a George Lucas Star Wars. That's it, we all knew this when the sale occurred that this would happen. In fact, from looking at TFA one should have seen and known that star wars was going to be different forever. TLJ just added more to it like RO did before it. Is it safe and fair to say that these are Disney movies? Yes, they are, and are created by people that love star wars but, added a pinch of flavor over here and then some over there. Flavor that GL didn't care for.

GL taught us one thing, you have to learn to let go. For him, he felt that 6 movies what was what he needed and then, because his company wasn't doing more movies and generating the revenue it needed, he decided to revisit the idea of three more movies and selling it to Disney. Disney bought the company and the movies, but decided to partially if not entirely discard what GL wrote. The thing here is that GL is star wars. Love the prequels, hate it, its what he envisioned star wars to be. That was the magic. Now, like he one said in the passage of the Splinter of the Mind's Eye book: It's not accurate, but he said that there were many star wars that kind be told in the universe, but those stories weren't going to be his to tell. It would be told by others. So the expanded universe along with the new canon are stories told by others, and you want to know another big secret? I believe that the expanded universe has been used extensively in crafting the new movies.

 

Yeah as far as Aliens go i dont know why there always has to be ALL new aliens. Why not have a mix of some old and some new. I remember thinking in The Force Awakens in that scene where Han is talking to those two gangs that want to kill him in that long hallway...that would of been a great time to show Aliens...especially some familiar aliens but instead we got all humans.

 

Thermal detonators, twileks, bounty hunters, new ships, worlds, emotion

None exist in tfa or tlj