ST The ST: What Would You Change/Revise?

- I would allude to a greater power behind Snoke in TFA or TLJ. Just something like Vos' "You know who I work for and you know what he'll expect" in Solo. I wouldn't reveal that the power is Palpatine because I like the sort of Wizard of Oz/man behind the curtain reveal he gets in TROS. I would just set it up a little more. Something like this would have had us all speculating endlessly for years and made it feel a little more cohesive.

- World building is the ST's greatest weakness. I would have had more interesting settings and explain the state of the galaxy a little more.

- Han, Luke and Leia really should have been on screen together at some point. I get that this would have been hard to do given where Luke's story is (and I wouldn't change anything about that) but still... somehow this should have happened. It doesn't ruin the ST for me at all but it's a huge missed opportunity. Maybe have them together at the end even though it wouldn't really make sense with Han. I don't know but they should have made it work.

- More unique designs. I get the love of the OT but overall I would have liked to have seen some more uniqueness in the ST. There's a few things that I love like the ship Finn and DJ steal on Canto Bight but not nearly enough.

- MAKE FINN A GODDAMN JEDI! They didn't commit to Finn being Force sensitive early enough and thus it's left sort of hanging. I'm certainly glad that he's Force sensitive but I would've liked to see him actually become a Jedi like Rey. It would of given us a more unique journey for our heroes in the ST. Finn, Rey and Ben teaming up against Palpatine would have been awesome to see.

Overall I love the ST but like the PT I think with just a few tweaks it could have been even better. The OT remains the only pretty much perfect trilogy.

 

THREAD MERGE.

 

I've read the script. It's not good. We were lucky to dodge the Trevorrow bullet.

 

I don't know what other people were expecting but this wasn't it for me. The three heroes are split up again for the majority of the story with Poe and Rey looking to find Mortis and Finn and Rose trying to activate an ancient communication device in the Jedi Temple to rally forces against the First Order. Having them separated for the majority of TLJ and then again in this story is a big mark against it. Especially Finn and Rey who I think most people wanted to see together. It's obvious they were trying to recapture the Han and Leia dynamic with Rey and Poe on there own adventure but with no build up at all it just doesn't work.

It's also just a poorly written screenplay. The dialogue is pretty atrocious and there are just random things like Hux trying to use the Force that just make no sense and go nowhere. The references are really forced like Mandalorian Brutetroopers who work for the First Order for some reason that's never explained. A lot of it feels like it was just thrown in there because... hey that's cool! The worst wink wink reference of them all being Rey, Finn and Rose ending the story on a ranch which is clearly meant to be a stand-in for Skywalker Ranch with Force sensitive children on a planet called... Modesta. That's right Modesta. Get it? George was born in Modesto! They just changed one letter! Genius!

Kylo Ren's role is largely forgettable. He seeks out Mortis because he thinks it has some ultimate power that he can acquire. This leads him to the master of Palpatine's master (because that makes sense) who teaches him the ability to drain the Force energy out of beings. It's mostly a dark side version of Degobah complete with Kylo fighting Vader (expect without any of the symbolism of the ESB cave scene.) His redemption is so rushed and poorly executed it's laughable. He drains Rey of her Force energy then his mother calls out to him by saying his name and with that he just gives up and gives Rey back her Force energy and dies. Seriously, it's that bad.

Overall the script feels like it wasn't written by a professional screenwriter but a fan in his spare time. Maybe that's due to the fact that it was an early draft and maybe things would have been ironed out in latter rewrites but given Trevorrow's previous work I'm not convinced it would have made much of a difference. I'm glad they let him go and went a different direction.

That said I don't hate everything about the script. Finn's role mostly works really well (even if I disagree about splitting the trio up) and Rose has a much bigger part which is nice see. Mortis wasn't used well at all but it was interesting at least that the idea to use it was there. And of course having Coruscant be such an integral part was a cool idea.

 

I disagree. I don't think TROS is an apology to fans but beyond that there isn't a single big picture point in this entire script. It's just a fetch quest for some vague power that ultimately leads to nothing. Mortis is nothing more than a location to have the final duel. Again the only thing vaguely interesting about the story is Finn's part in it but it comes at the expense of having any meaningful interactions with Rey and Poe. And like I said given Trevorrow's track record I'm definitely not convinced the other things would have been ironed out.

 

That was my initial review. It is far, far more of an actual sequel to what TLJ was trying to set up. It happens to be a terrible sequel but its goals were at least to be a sequel.

 

In terms of its storytelling choices in a vacuum. Things that have no bearing on its quality as a more effective sequel to TLJ but simply are terrible writing mistakes, such as splitting up the leads... again. Filmmaking choices, rather than any specific 1:1 TLJ/Sequel issues.