ST Advice for newbie how to appreciate the sequels

Hello friends,

As someone who loves everything Star Wars, I have been trying my hardest to understand and appreciate and get to love the new trilogy.

I’ll be honest. I need your advice: be in the form of novels to read or blogs to read or these forums or what not but it’s hard for me to fall in love with a very unfocused trilogy in which the first film, TFA, is a copycat of The New Hope and the last film is a bunch of unfocused gibberish where young Jedi have powers that dwarf Master Yoda tenfold, no pun intended.

I was a teenager during the prequels and The Clone Wars greatly helped me appreciate the story and characters of the prequels.

Any advice what I can do with the sequels?

Not looking to start a love hate war, simply for input from people who were in the same shoes and later grew to love this trilogy.

Thanks !

 

you could just watch the first 6 lol. Idk. Maybe read the novels that can help. I enjoyed the new films except for the middle one. I had issues like the one you stated but generally liked them.

 

In my opinion, the best thing you can do is to embrace the parts of the Sequel Trilogy that you actually like and go from there; if this means exploring material outside of the movies then it might help you appreciate the overall story even more. I haven't been tempted to dive into the novels or comic books myself, but that is mostly because the positives of the Sequels have outweighed the negatives for me. I like to follow the discussions on these forums - especially regarding characters and themes that I enjoy - but I have actually found that repeated viewings of the movies themselves are what has helped me the most.

I also think it's important to remember that you aren't any less of a Star Wars-fan if you don't love every single part of the franchise. You can't force yourself to like something. What you can do is focus on the things you enjoy, even if this means spending time on a different part of the Sage for a while.

 

The way I see it, with the Prequels, it was clear to myself and majority of my friends that when it came to world creation and CGI, Lucas was the king and did a wonderful job. However, the shallow plot and lack of intrigue and strong writing made the movies seem weak. Dave Filoni clearly showed that one can create immensely powerful Star Wars stories with all the prequel characters and settings and themes even though the Prequels were structurally and setting wise nothing like the original trilogy.

The original setting and the story Lucas made sense - the writing of the prequels was just weak.

However, with the sequels, TFA was in my eyes such a drastic copy of TNH that I don’t know how to enjoy these movies. It’s not like the writing was necessarily bad - it wasn’t bad - it was just so unoriginal and old and recycled leaving a very bad taste in my mouth.

I remember back in 2012 when I read an article that JJ didn’t want to commit to Kathleen Kennedy to direct out of fear that he wasn’t sure where to take the story and what to do to make a good job and she said “Just Make Star Wars”. Back 7-8 years ago, I hopefully interpreted that to mean that the words “make Star Wars” inspired JJ creatively to make a movie in his beloved universe. However, I now understand that what she had meant was much more literal and disappointing: “Just follow the original script and remake it.”

And now (after watching all three movies of course) I Lost all new hope I had...sigh

 

Don’t do anything without first consulting myself or the council.

 

Lol thanks Master Effette

 

Let go of your feelings , the ST is good Star Wars - all Star Wars is good - don't get sucked in by the haters.......

 

Depends on how much you like/dislike ST. if you really dislike it and have nothing that interest you selectively, than just ignore its existence. I do that with the Hobbit Trilogy and Mockingjay movies. I love LOTR movies and books, Hobbit book and first two Hunger Games movies and books. But Hobbit trilogy dropped the ball so I have no desire to see even selected scenes (nothing and no one really held my interest since they butchered everyone plus added horrid characters) and Mockingjay movies and book were such a drop in quality from The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, that I don't rewatch or reread.

However, if you really like some parts but dislike the rest, selected scene viewing is helpful. I started that with TFA. I figured that I couldn't sit through unfunny Rey and Finn sitcom and Poe's boring heroics again, so I only watched scenes that I liked such as Rey alone on Jakku, Kylo and Vader's mask, Kylo and Mitaka, Rey's vision on Takodana, everything with Rey and Kylo after that. TLJ is even easier to watch selectively so everything that wasn't Rey/Kylo/Luke/Snoke is a big skip for me. TROS, however, is just hard to watch even as selected scenes only. Outside of jerky editing, I quite like the opening with Kylo cause it's very LOTR. The I skip everything up to the Death Star Fight. Han and Ben always make me cry. Then I skip to Ben Solo on Exegol and have to drop the whole Palaptine confrontation because excessive flashing in those scenes (blue lightening) gives me migraine. Then I watch the kiss and stop right after. I definitely do not waste time on anything else in between and after. So just an example how it looks in practice. It isn't for everyone. I prefer full watch but I really don't find ST movies rewatchable in full. Just too many crap characters and filler that I couldn't care less about. In short, I eliminate everyone who has no impact on Prequels and OT and only focus on characters that do.

 

I would probably just watch them in isolation and try not to think of what happens in the OT/PT. Or think of them as being alternate reality films.

 

I like to watch PT and select parts of ST. It just shows that ST's biggest downfall was creating too many characters that didn't add up. Without them, there would be a very focused story that could have given OT characters, especially Luke, enough to do without taking the spotlight away from Rey since that was their biggest worry. You could've had Rey Palp and Ben (Sky)Solo like ST but with actual focus rather than just one thing in the sea of unnecessary things.

 

Exactly. If I could unlearn The Hobbit trilogy existence and POTC 4 and 5 existence, it should easier to unlearn ST existence. if you want to unlearn it.

 

I unlearned Escape from LA

Snake only escaped from New York

 

Time cures a lot of things. Recently re-watched TPM and appreciated how well it was plotted. More recently re-watched AOTC and appreciated how much fun the arena battle is. Those movies, IMHO, have tons of flaws (especially AOTC), but time helps me isolate those things I do like. I'm currently rather down on the ST, mainly because of TROS, but I'm pretty sure time will enable me to find more things to appreciate about them. It's still Star Wars, after all.

 

Yeah, I just watch the bits I like. With TLJ, for example, that’s basically just Luke walking around in the hills of southwestern Ireland, but that’s OK.

 

Thanks everyone! It's so tough. I've waited and dreamed about this trilogy my entire life...and now this. Why couldn't they just make the movies about Yuuzhan Vong and have Luke, Han and Leah be together in a functional New Republic? Isn't it set like 30 years after Yavin anyway or something? Missed opportunity at perfection - new story, new enemies, new themes, beloved characters together.

Even the Emperor could have been mentioned with meaning or shown in flashbacks: He had foreseen the invasion and part of his plan of building the military machine of the Empire was actually to repel Yuuzhan Vong.

 

That would have been way too risky and out-there for Disney IMO. They figured that the OT was popular so the safest narrative choice was to remake it.

 

Don’t watch the prequels.

Watch Rogue One, then A New Hope, then Empire Strike Back, then Caravan of Courage, then Battle of Endor, then Return of the Jedi, then Force Awakens, then Last Jedi, then Rise of Skywalker.

And if you decide you want backstory on the crazy evil guys in Rise of Skywalker, then watch Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

 

Thanks! I should have clarified that I'm not a total SW newbie - rather a newbie to the forums. I obviously watched the prequels and (in part thanks to The Clone Wars) very much like them and the world(s) that were created and expanded by them. (Unless your advice was to generally re-watch movies in that order)

 

What you say is on the money. 100% accurate IMO. It's just so depressing how the money-making machine of Disney destroyed a generation of hope for many. Ironic that Lucas who made the stupid decision of selling the franchise to them called them out on it later by calling them "slavers". Why did you sell then? Dark side clouded judgment much? Anyway, I don't mean to rant or detract from the point of the OP.

 

Re-watch them in that order.

It also keeps the Jedi more mysterious.

 

I would watch first ROGUE ONE + A NEW HOPE + EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.
Then I would go back to PHANTOM MENACE, SOLO and REVENGE OF THE SITHS.
Finally, RETURN OF THE JEDI.
Then you would be ready to see THE FORCE AWAKENS and most of all THE LAST JEDI.
(Forget Episode II and Episode IX, they're just awful.)

 

I find that ignoring toxic fans and toxic critics of Star Wars has greatly increased my enjoyment. Ignore the sequel haters and have some fun watching great movies. There are still people complaining about the prequels, ignore them and just love them. That’s what I do.

 

Yep, this!
I love the sequels. I said it somewhere else, but I went to see TFA without anything other than "yay a new star wars movie" in my mind. A lot of people have gotten this tendency to fault people for liking movies where a real bad guy is either 1. liked in some way, 2.has an arc, 3. is relatable somehow, 4. is redeemed, etc. And while I can understand that it upsets people, just ignore it. Look at older movies that are loved, and had bad guys do insanely messed up things. There are tons of movies where people still love the bad guys. But it's only recently that people are getting flack for enjoying them. "How can you like them, they did X and Y". Because it's a movie. It's not real.

Spoiler: sorry i went off on a tangent again haha

I had this discussion with some friends a few months ago (we were talking about a tv show we loved) and how strange it was that some of us absolutely thirsted for some of the bad guys, who's actions we'd never tolerate IRL. Who'd be despicable IRL. And they're stilld despicable in the series of course, but there's a sort of barrier because it's a TV show. The bad actions are translated differently.

Imagine if everyone who saw the original ST movies reacted to Alderaan being blowed up the same way they'd do it if was real life. You see it in a movie and you think "oh my god that's so sad, that's awful. That's so evil. Those poor people." And you move on and you think oh man Vader is cool. You wouldn't do that in real life, because ..... that was a movie.

My point is, - just watch the movies, don't listen to negative people. There will always be people out there to hate on any movie ever made. You can't change their opinions, so don't let them change yours or break your spirit. In fact, my stubbornness makes me appreciate the movies even more everytime someone hates on it. Their hate fuels my love for it, hehehe.

All the 3 sequels are great imo. They're well paced, they have a fantastic cast, there's humour, superb fighting choreography, amazing scenery. Just very well made movies!