Saga Did TFA make the OT pointless?

He kind of was doing the same thing as in ANH. He was still smuggling dangerous/contraband cargo and had a price on his head from multiple sources.

 

BBM. That's what I interpreted as being presented to us at the end of the Bloodline novel. Carise Sindan's frame job of Ransolm Casterfo helped push along Leia's lingering idea of resigning as a Senator. (She was thinking of doing that before they nominated her for First Senator before the reveal of her parentage.) But before she ultimately resigned her position as Senator she called a meeting with New Republic military personnel and announced the formation of a new paramilitary organization called the Resistance. This is when she started going by "General" rather than "Princess" in the absence of "Senator".

 

True, but back then what he was smuggling wasn't as difficult to transport as the Rathars are. Even if he still had the Falcon, he could never transport one beast alone in his ship.

 

About the only thing we know is what Lucas said about there being grand-children. Anything else is speculation.

 

From an out-of-universe perspective, TFA was faced with the dilemma that it wanted to be a reboot, but knew it couldn't carry the franchise without inclusion of OT cast members. Hence a "soft" reboot was born.
This is not a new idea in the industry, and TFA in many ways followed the trend of the past 5 or so years of rebooting popular franchises.

Creatively, they could have separated TFA from the OT to a greater extent in the chronology. That would have meant that the events of the OT appeared more as a fragmented memory - I quite like that approach. It is peculiar, because TFA almost treats the OT like a piece of Legends continuity, only bringing in aspects of the saga that are absolutely necessary or appealing to TFA's own storytelling.

So I'd say less so irrelevance, more so discontinuity, the source being a new creative direction. If TLJ doesn't change everything, that is. At the moment, episodes I-VI do not mesh well with VII.

 

TLJ won't mesh either. One of the saddest and frustrating errors are taking 6 B-movie classics; then adding a 7th one that is completely modernized to fit every A-list block buster boot to date. The main simple yet awesome gimmick is dead. Lucas was old school but the new kids on the block shined it all up to "get with the times".

 

So we have the complainers either saying that TFA is too backwards-looking & retro...or too modern!

Calling one or two of those 6 "classics" is, interesting.

 

You have a point there DD...Its both.

 

The prequels were precisely that when they came out. You had 3 classics and then 3 modernized films that are completely different in almost every way. This is really no different.

I'd suggest that you read through the Development of the Force Awakens thread in the TFA subforum. While Lucas was still there, working with the story and design teams, the following concepts were developed:

• Luke in hiding, on an island or in a forest, dealing with emotional issues
• a tech-savvy scavenger girl, living in an AT-AT on a desert and/or junkyard planet, who finds a map to Luke and ends up fighting the "Jedi Killer" on a snow planet
• a "Neo-Empire" with a superweapon
• Han as an ageing smuggler and Leia in a position of power
• No new Jedi Order

And considering that the prequels and Clone Wars demonstrate how Lucas was willing to mine his own work and those of others for repetition, it really is a fantasy to think Lucas' ST would have been this completely different (and of course super amazing) set of films.

 

There's an ancient religious concept (the very kind of thing that Lucas is all over) that the sins of the parents are visited on their children (or more specifically, the father and the third/fourth generation, depending on the interpretation).

 

Yes.

The Rebels fought to restore the Republic, which is, in TFA, reduced to be a bunch of sitting ducks that wait to be destroyed. They made it so easy, the capital and it's whole fleet destroyed from across the galaxy in one swift move.
Luke, as a last Jedi, should've created the Order, but it's not there. That may be OK, but had they left at least one Jedi, inexperienced, whatever, with Leia and the Rebels... Sorry, Resistance, that would've made OT a bit meaningful. Now, we'll get another story of him and possibly Rey rebuilding the Jedi.
The characters regressed to their ANH positions (Luke isolated, Leia fighting a war, Han and Chewie traveling the galaxy), the visuals regressed back to ANH (TIEs, stardestroyers, villain in black armor, very simple planets - desert planet, forest planet, grassland planet, snow planet) and if that's not enough, the movie sticks it in your eyes: look, there's ANH Death Star and this is our Starkiller. Ours is bigger! ROTJ's DS, I guess, never happened, as well as it's visuals that evovled from ANH.

So while TLJ may introduce us some new themes, the main ones will still be rebuilding the Jedi and the Republic, the same as the OT.

It is to me. The PT was modernized in many ways - the way of filming, pioneering the digital era, the themes that explored, but it was made in '40s and '50s style and followed the pattern the OT made in much subtler way.

These are all solid starting ideas, but were executed badly. For example, the map to Luke part is very weak and unconvincing, superweapon part is horrid - at appears all of a sudden, Falcon enters it in a silly manner and it's way to easily destroyed (with Kylo's stardestroyer conveniently missing). OK, even if I buy the idea of Han and Leia being apart, I'd still expect a decent explanation and Leia working for the Republic she helped create.

I do believe Lucas' ST would've been better and not at all this OT-nostalgic. Things would've been explained better and perhaps we would've known what's happening.

 

Considering how poorly the prequels executed its solid starting ideas and how poorly they explained what was happening (aside from 'evil genius wizard did it'), I don't see how that can be true. The point of that list was to counter the notion that Lucas's ST would have been something entirely different. If you're honestly going to stick with the criticism that TFA rehashed the Empire with the First Order, you can't then ignore that Lucas was involved in creating the First Order.

Further, the prequels are just as OT-nostalgic as TFA was. It's really easy to forget this, when they've been with us so long and so many fans are now nostalgic for it. I mean, do I really need to go through those films and point out all the callbacks and rehashed moments? It's quite funny to see all the pushback against Finn pulling out a remote from the same people who don't remember that Lucas had a roomful of younglings training with them.

 

Didn't Lucas try his best to tell us that the old Republic (especially the Jedi) was, mostly, opposed to militarism? And that the formation of a grand army was generally opposed until Palpatine engineered a situation which tipped support for him to take unilateral action? This is what lead to the constitutional coup that Palpatine was able to pull of.

So how can it be so incongruous or a perversion of the OT that the new Republic would be eager to disarm and to appease, like most European powers did after the 1914-18 war?

Do people still choose to confuse the Alliance with the Republic and the Resistance with the Rebellion?

 

YODA Decide you must how to serve
them best. If you leave now,
help them you could. But you
would destroy all for which they
have fought and suffered.

(Disney's Special Edition would sound something like that)

LUKE: But Obi-Wan once told me I must do what I feel is right.

YODA: Hmm...To Obi-Wan you listen. Besides, all for which they have fought and suffered for only three decades will it last. When nine hundred years old you reach, look at things from a certain point of view you will.

 

Yoda : Wars not make one great.

Luke : No. They make one "gggggg-rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-eat!!".

Yoda : (?)

 

"The prequels were precisely that when they came out. You had 3 classics and then 3 modernized films that are completely different in almost every way. This is really no different."

I would very much like you to read what I said.

"One of the saddest and frustrating errors are taking 6 B-movie classics; then adding a 7th one that is completely modernized to fit every A-list block buster boot to date."

The prequels were still B movies. Even more so, they had the implementation of a Soap operatic kinda theme, lovely 1930's serialized dialogue/style and good ol documentary camera work. It's these elements that was translated into a modern era, not to be tossed aside as if it has no value in the formula. The newer films did toss this all out to fit out proud era.

 

But Lucas wasn't "there" because even before JJ came on they were not using Lucas' storylines. At the very best some very basic elements may be there in some form but even something as basic as 2 grandchildren was not used. All we can surmise is that Lucas wanted a young female and male protagonists as the grandchildren because Lucas said something like "It was like the novels."

At least in the basic set-up. Supposedly there was also a "Jedi-killer" character. One would think that Leia must have been a Jedi since that was right in ROTJ (though not a lock of course) and that there would be a Republic.

The actual timeline is still a mystery because Lucas still seemed to have involvement in 2013 and talking with JJ supposedly but what exactly was what and when is not known. Maybe the initial JJ work had some more basis from Lucas at first then was totally thrown out for a more straightforward reset.

At first it seems they did intend to use Luke in the movie but then ran up against it when he came in he took over and it put the new kids in the back so then they decided to take Luke out totally until the end so they could establish the new kids.

I'd say that sums it up quite well. TFA's fairly direct ANH reset status places much of it in the same space as ANH. It's up to TLJ to actually craft the context of TFA in relation to I-VI (which I expect it will).

It's such an on the mark reset though that I doubt it will ever fully get away from it. I don't know that in the movies themselves you can now really properly establish the state of the galaxy. TFA should have done that but neglected it.

 

A lot of this comes down to the interpretation of what makes Star Wars - TFA focuses on Star Wars as a setting, and a style.
With the original saga, Lucas took the idea of a unique setting and style and also integrated the thematic - namely the idea of legacy, parenthood, tragedy, and the story of Anakin Skywalker as an overall plot element.

It remains to be seen whether TLJ or indeed the ST as a whole will pick up on the themes of the OT and integrate them, or whether it will create an entirely new thematic basis.

People have suggested that Lucas was nostalgic - I don't think that's necessarily the case. The prequels aren't your typical box-office cash cow - they are still unique in their own way, and products of Lucas' own creative vision. It's merely that some people dislike that vision, or at least the way it was realized on screen. The repetition of OT elements in the PT was more about thematic linkage, and not about name dropping. Lucas was not into the big fan-service thing.

The ST, by contrast, is a deliberate attempt to reinvigorate the franchise commercially. There's no getting around it. The story from Ep. I through Ep. VI is complete. The EU provided extra material for those who wanted it. There was no gap to fill, no desperate need for SW. This is starkly in contrast to the origination of the Prequels, which were always envisaged by Lucas as forming part of an incomplete story.

That's not to say I don't look forward to TLJ and indeed all new efforts.

 

More strikingly the remembrance of a setting and style as opposed to the reason why that setting and style was being used.

The point was that Lucas knew that he couldn't really do that much. He would have liked to go all sorts of places and see all sorts of things but it simply wasn't possible so he worked within boundaries that were forced upon him. TFA worked within boundaries that they chose because that wanted to set artificial limitations that they were not actually bound by. They allowed themselves to expand within those limitations.

Not at all but we know for them that ultimately story is secondary to commercial requirements. Which is fine but that is the way it is. If they really wanted to do even attempt something that was story first then they'd have used Lucas' outlines as the basis from which to build the ST as opposed to whatever it was if anything they took from them.

Lucas' ST was the third trilogy as seen by him and would integrate the thematic threads set-up previously. It was not going to be about having to have such an on the mark reset.

 

I quite agree. I place an importance on Lucas' vision and his creative contribution, not because I believe him to be infallible, but because I recognize Star Wars as being very much a cohesive story based upon overarching themes and a story of his own design. Star Wars, in other words, is more than the style and settings alone, without an understanding of their wider thematic significance. This isn't just the case with SW, of course. You could apply this to any creatively driven franchise.

What I find perplexing is when Star Wars is likened to a series like Indiana Jones, which by design opposes string continuity. Indiana doesn't really carry character development with him across the films - the films are just action and adventure of a particular style and brand. With the exception of The Last Crusade which had some philosophical implications, there isn't any deep thematic resonance to those films. This is not the case with SW, and Lucas proved it by creating the Ep. I-VI thematic saga.

This is partly why I am surprised they have attempted to keep such a close chronological link between the OT and the ST. If they had separated it out more, say, set TFA 100 years into the future, they could have created a great stand-alone series which wouldn't have affected Lucas' original vision. But this was deemed nonviable for reasons I've explained above.

We've limited evidence on Lucas' own intentions regarding a ST because his public line was that ROTJ was the end, for quite some time. His own ideas, as we know, were rejected in the end, though some fragments may or may not remain in some respect or another.

 

That is a really terrific comparison I don't think I have come across before.

TFA really is much more Star Wars as an Indiana Jones movie.

It's one of those things that you don't think of but when you mention it then it totally clicks and makes perfect sense.

 

All the Indy movies are standalone movies. TFA is Episode VII of a larger continuity. The fact that it has that Episode number attached to it gives the viewer every right to expect that it will follow suit with I-VI. Personally, I think the next ones will illuminate how/if it fits in with the larger continuity, and I'm reserving judgement until I see them. But excusing discontinuity by comparing it to standalone movies is wishful thinking. It is Episode VII. There's no reason to give it an episode number if we're supposed to treat it as it's own thing.

 

Storylines are not the same as story concepts. One can throw out a storyline about the Neo-Empire coming back and Leia leading the fight against them without touching either idea in terms of story function or origins. Your assumption continues to be that Lucas wasn't going to do a reset of any kind, but the evidence does not support this. You cannot deny that there's a possibility that TFA would have 'reset' things just the same with Lucas at the helm.

 

Since it's ANH that TFA is accused of copying and falling short, and not the OT as a whole, TFA categorically takes far more than ANH did with the theme of legacy, parenthood and tragedy.

In ANH it amounted to one exchange in one solitary scene - Luke Skywalker being informed "No your father wasn't a navigator. He was a knight. And the bad guy of this story betrayed and murdered him years ago. You should be a knight too. Now, lets go."

In TFA, the villain is immediately taunted with the enduring legacy of his family which causes him to execute the old man both in spite and to affirm his own attitude to that legacy, as he sees it.. The objective that this villain is seeking is the brother of the General of the good guys. Then we learn that an erstwhile General who reluctantly allies with the new heroes is the father of the villain and, therefore, the General of the good guys is the bad guy's mother. Not only that, the villain has circumvented the usual parental role models and has revered the evil legacy of his grandfather Darth Vader. Who is the father of the objective of the plot of the movie. The bad guy's uncle, Luke Skywalker.

Then we have the new heroes. One who has turned his back on the system that replaced the family he was taken from and has never known. And one whose origins and family background are pointedly enigmatic and obscure, like Anakin Skywalker's (and Palpatine's). Over the course of the film, the search for Skywalker and a greater destiny becomes surrogate for the belonging with family for which Rey was compelled to subsist miserably on a planet whose nature is a graveyard, where things are dumped to decompose or be torn apart.