Saga Did TFA make the OT pointless?

No. Mr Johnson ruined Snoke by not giving him any further background for us to distinguish him from a gold wearing Palpatine copy, and then killed him off because he was a character that Mr Johnson didn't want to use in "his" film. Kylo Ren on the other hand steadily got more and more uninteresting as TLJ went on. Best thing for Star Wars would be for Snoke to return (TFA version) in epix and kill Ren, and for us to get some actual info on what he is, how he is linked to the OT. You know with some actual story.

 

Yes. Under certain conditions the whole new rebels vs empire plot line could work, but with no context and JJ only caring about nostalgia bait TFA doesn't feel like a natural progression of ROTJ. Seeing Han be a smuggler again and knowing that Luke's Jedi Order never came to be makes the OT ending and the challenges the trio overcame seem futile.

 

No. While many of the successes of the OT heroes and the Rebellion have become undone, this is nothing new. RotJ already stopped being a "Happily Ever After" with the release of the Thrawn trilogy in 1991.

Furthermore, it is simply a fact of existance that things come to an end - why should it be different in the world of Star Wars? And eventhough it might have ended, the New Republic existed for about 30 years - that is longer than the Empire. The existance of the ST does not make the OT pointless, just as the events of the OT make the PT pointless.

History marches on, things will change, evolve and most importantly to the Star Wars universe, recur: The Resistance and First Order are simply the latest itteration of a conflict which has lasted for millennia: The Rebellion against The Galactic Empire, the Republic and Jedi against the Sith Empire, the Light Side against the Dark Side. It is the Star WARS galaxy after all, and the times when the Dark Side was rising does not make the periods of light unimportant.

 

Uh yeah actually, the way World War I was waged and concluded is pretty famously lamented by historians for the manner in which it failed to actually resolve anything or establish a lasting peace.

 

That didn't make the peace pointless though. The rise of the Nazis did not mean that the Weimar Republic and its accomplishments were meaningless, nor did the Empire of the First Order make the Republics meaningless. Just because a development or movement isn't perfect and should be improved upon does not mean that it isn't an accomplishment

 

He made the situation bad in the first place though.

Ren is interesting as a side villain might be except his part is oversized. He's a pale imitation of Anakin and Darth Vader.

 

It's been said before, but it's that kind of the point? Ben is literally trying, and failing, to imitate the kind of arc Vader had.

 

This sums up what we needed from the entire sequels haha! Backstory backstory and story!

 

Obviously this is a bit debatable with the whole PT good or bad thing but I think for most people he certainly isn't a pale imitation of Anakin. For a lot of people Anakin didn't work in the Prequels and was probably the deal breaker in why the Prequels were poorly regarded by many. For me, Ren is a far better character. I'm differentiating Anakin from Vader as they are two very different characters.

Vader is different - not many characters in any film are going to compete with OT Vader. But they do fulfil different purposes in that Vader was an 'out of the box' super-baddie. Ren was a 'work-in-progress-wannabe-Vader'. Like previous poster said, he was intentionally set up to be a flawed copy of Vader.

The episodic Star Wars films have always followed the same formula for both Jedi and the bad guys of a wise guy in the background either mentoring (Jedi) or pulling the strings (bad guys) with the younger guys doing the running round with light sabres. The exception to this was when Yoda and Palps squared off which I loved at the time but has aged horrendously.The ST very much appeared to followed this - with Luke seemingly primed to take on the ObiWan/Yoda role and Snoke doing the Palps gig.

But its now set up very differently for Episode 9. Rey is on her own now and Kylo Ren is basically put in a fish-out-of-water situation as supreme bad guy. There's a lot of stuff that I would have changed with the ST but I think this is set up perfectly and far more interesting that copying the previous formula. They really need to take the whole 'not ready for this yet' thing on both sides and run with it in Episode 9.

 

A pale imitation of Anakin and Vader is what I said and what I meant. Meaning the entire journey over 6 movies.

The problem there is that so often I have found the answer as to why Anakin didn't work for them is because of some combination of he's not enough like Vader as Anakin and paradoxically at the same time he's too much like Vader and not enough like the Anakin they want him to be which is the heroic figure alluded to by Obi-Wan.

A version of Anakin like that is seen in TCW. Clearly though Anakin can't be that in TPM or AOTC as that doesn't work for the story that Lucas is telling. By ROTS of course the Clone Wars are ending so we only get glimpses of that "hero" Anakin before his fall. There really was no place to have a hero Anakin movie because it doesn't forward his overall story.

Except that they are in fact the same character. This for some is the problem. They make a distinction between the two like they are completely separate entities. That's why I think for many they would have been happier if Anakin was an outright heroic character in the PT and his fall to the Dark Side came much more out of nowhere rather than the specific internal struggle Lucas portrayed.

The same thing happened with Vader's internal struggle in ROTJ. It's all there in the movie but obviously we can't read the thoughts of the character nor is there any voice-over and there is only limited direct insight that can be shown through dialogue. It has to be gathered through the combination of the characters actions in the story and the subtleties and nuances of dialogue and motion propelled along from the imagery and music.

That's why the mirrored reflections, the internal rhyming across the six movies is so important. The inverse journey of the father and son is the underlying lynch pin.

Anakin is Vader though. We see it in the movies. All the things that lead to Vader's evil come out of Anakin's selfishnes, greed and want for power to help others which is ultimately to help himself. In AOTC he truly is young Darth Vader but Vader at 19 not fully formed and without a mask. Everything is there but as a kid.

Except he's a poor copy. Ren was created out of the Jedi Killer character from Lucas' stories who was in essence the original version of Darth Vader (before he was merged with Anakin). The original Vader was just a bad guy because he was. In the original context of ANH Vader is Maul, Dooku and Grievous.

If anything that exactly what Ren is. He has more in common with all of those 4 characters than the new Anakin/Vader from TESB, ROTJ and the PT. Would you give those characters all the screen time that Ren has? No because there isn't enough there. They are strong side characters.

So now we have this overexposed side character with no real story over 2 movies now who is supposed to be the ultimate evil in the third movie despite already losing twice to the now undermined hero character?

Talk about pointless!

 

There's a reason WWI isn't as popular as WWII when it comes to feel-good victory narratives. When the peace that results is short-lived and eventually gives way to the exact same issues which were never actually resolved despite millions of people dying for them, yeah, that's actually kind of depressing. It doesn't lend itself very well to myth-making.

 

In my opinion it did. The Thrawn trilogy didn't make the OT feel pointless but The Force Awakens and the whole ST did.

The Rebellion's victory of creating a New Republic and Luke Skywalker's Jedi academy just quickly undone like Thanos snapping his fingers.

 

Did Empire Strikes Back render A New Hope pointless? Did the Return of the Jedi's 2nd Death Star negate the impact of the destruction/victory over the 1st Death Star?

No. As has been pointed out, the series is called Star Wars.

Either ROTJ is THE END as fairy tale "happily ever after" ending, or it's not. As soon as you continue the story, evil has to return in one form, or another. As we've seen in Mando and Ahsoka, the galaxy is still basically full of conflict, war, strife, and even the dark side almost immediately after ROTJ. As Maz said,....the conflict will always remain: Good vs. Evil just taking different names, shapes, figures, etc.

As far as the overarching Skywalker Saga conflict (Jedi/Sith/Skywalker/Palpatine) goes, Luke states that The Force was in balance for a long time after ROTJ. So, there was a victory that was achieved, both on a galactic level (New Republic) and personally (the death of Vader/return of Anakin).

I think what we are seeing now (which is exciting to me) are these new films/shows showing how the galaxy came to be where we find it in TFA. Much like the Prequels/TCW did, we are seeing the backstory/history that leads to the ST. I love it.

 

It's interesting to see where continuity is filling gaps vs. adding to the end or giving backstory. I think much of the success is measured by how much storytelling necessity and possibility there is to make those extra developments. The TFA didn't need to be told in order to fulfil the characters in the OT. With the PT, you had some big questions answered which were still left by RoTJ (even after dozens more books, comics and so on, which fleshed out the OT continuity).

I think the mistake is to tell a story because of the popularity of the character of event. Sometimes there is a sense in which characters only become truly interesting after many years of development.

 

Aside from maybe Vader / Anakin dying... were many of the major OT victories even needed in order for the ST to exist?

They could've failed to destroy the DS II, the Rebellion could've continued the struggle for another couple decades, the Empire could've kept ruling the galaxy, Luke could've failed to become a Jedi and create a new Order (thus even better explaining his failure to teach Ben Solo / Ben Solo's turning), Anakin could've failed to destroy the Sith and bring balance, Han and Leia could've been a miserable couple together, Palpatine could still be alive...

...and things would match up almost seamlessly with the ST. Just change a few little details, a few names which were already pretty pointless (the Resistance, the Knights of Ren), replace Snoke with Palpatine (which again was more or less the case), and... yeah, a lot is the same. If anything, a more unhappy ending for RotJ would've probably made the ST make more sense.

 

@Saga_Symphony you've picked up the necessity theme from the other side, and I think you're absolutely right.
Because of the attempt to reframe/duplicate elements from the OT, it has to stay detatched from the details of the former continuity. Say what you will of that.

 

No it feels realistic to our own history.

 

The ST made itself redundant by reiterating what the preceding trilogy had already said.
The outcome of the events in TROS is exactly the same as the outcome of the events in ROTJ, just with different characters. Not only that, but the journey to that point is virtually the same in this trilogy as in the other one. It's a new version of the same story with very little of its own to add.

 

I have to agree. Regardless of its own flaws, I personally don't think TFA made the OT pointless. I think TROS did -- or at least came pretty darn close.

 

The ST is great if you're not looking for happy endings for your childhood SW heroes.

 

Unless your childhood heroes are Rey and co

 

Dont know Lando, Luke, Leia and Chewie got happy endings

 

I suppose if you view dying alone on a cliff and walking into another room, laying down and dying happy endings. They weren't even that old. A lot of people had to die for knucklehead Kylo.

 

Luke lives in another realm same with Leia both smiles.

 

Bringing Sidious back made everything before TFA pointless. I was willing to entertain it if the justification was great because the payoff of seeing Ian again would have been so worth it.

Instead we got what we got