ST Did you like the way TROS retconed TLJ ?

There’s something in that... we should never underestimate the importance studios put on films coming in on time and under-budget... and sometimes that comes higher up the list than creative freedom and perceived ‘quality’.

 

Just watched it for the second time. Had my brain on this time. Really wild how much rehab there is, JJ really went to work. There's sooooo much rehabbing done early in the film before they leave Ajan Kloss. Rey's training, running through each number to make up for the lack of it before. Leia as Rey's Jedi Master. Luke looking for Exegol, Rey going to finish what he started, instead of Luke doing nothing.

"We go together". Making up for the split from Finn in TLJ, the OT3 being split throughout the ST, and the general lack of camaraderie. I could tell there was a huge focus on this throughout the movie. 3PO saying goodbye to R2 to make them characters again. Rey's hug with Leia. The shot of everyone together in the cockpit.

Kylo's helmet is back, which imo is for the better.

Later on, the threeway hand holding, which was just cringe, even though it was played with self-aware comedy. Of course the threeway hug at the end as well, trying to cement an ST3, though I'm certain it was too late for that and it just didn't take.

Rehabbing Rey's parents. "They chose to be nobody to protect you". "They sold you to protect you".

The ten millions hints that Finn is Force-sensitive. Way too late imo, and frankly unwanted at this point. I hated every moment of it.

Chewie reacting to Leia's death to make up for them walking right past each other after Han died in TFA.

Holdo maneuver = "one in a million". Another fix attempt, but I'm not buying it at all.


TROS was like professional, high budget fix fic. It's wild how much effort went into it, how it is present throughout the movie.

 

Yes, the person that makes two of the three movies in a trilogy, one the beginning and the other the ending, will tend to get more of the blame.


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TFA and TROS made me feel a lot better than snide TLJ did. JJ may be incompetent but RJ practically did it on purpose.

 

Exactly what it was. Which is a factor of why there hasn't been any ST content since. That was the best fix up job TPTB could do after TLJ and left them where it did.

 

What stood out was the idea that, hey, maybe you should have done the whole trilogy, JJ. If you had ideas for any of this, maybe you should have seen the whole thing through.

If you had an idea for Rey's parents, maybe you should have done VIII.
If you wanted Finn to be FS, maybe you should have done VIII.
If you had a stormtrooper plot for Finn, maybe you should have done VIII.
If you had a more respectful plan for Luke, maybe you should have done VIII.
If you had other plans for Kylo, maybe you should have done VIII.
If you wanted Kylo's helmet to maintain it's significance, maybe you should done VIII.
If you had a plan for Snoke, maybe you should have done VIII.
If you wanted to build camaraderie between the ST3, maybe you should have done VIII.

Well, we know he didn't have any ideas. If he didn't want to work with someone else's bad ideas, maybe he should have done VIII.

 

I don't believe TPTB wanted a JJ vision. I believe JJ and TFA was the throwaway fan service movie and the RJ film was designed to set the stage of what TPTB wanted out of SW. The fallout from TLJ, with the KK/RJ explanation tour not being enough, is what led to the TROS group project.

I get blaming the directors but when mistakes this big are made - heavy studio involvement is likely.

 

Oh, I'm sure. The whole movie came off as very heavily focus grouped.

 

He didn't though. JJ thought he would be on EP 7 and that's it. All that concerned him was setting up mystery boxes and leaving the rest to the viewers and future filmmakers. It was going to be some unlucky bastard who would have to figure it out.

As I said earlier today; cynical.

 

Yes to all of that...

 

I don't know. I still kinda like TFA. It's a flawed but competently made film in my view, that works as a soft reboot. I dislike TLJ for many reasons, which have been discussed at length in the various threads, but I can still find good bits in it. My favourite scene is when R2-D2 plays Leia's old message for Luke in the Falcon. TROS is just so dumb to me, that it is insulting, but even that film has its moments. TLJ and TROS are at about the same level for me, but for very different reasons. As a combined entity though they sort of cancel each other out resulting in a vapid nothingness.

 

I despise TFA because it’s a soft reboot. Episode 7 in a 9 part saga being a soft reboot completely wrecked the entire Star Wars narrative. It’s a huge reason the sequels don’t feel like part of the saga- they’re not trying to continue the story, they’re trying to re-tell the story of the originals because Disney was afraid it would face backlash if it were too “different” like the prequels. Even though being different than the originals was certainly not a problem. George always made each film different for a reason. They had parallels, yes, but at their core 1-6 are all very different films. TFA is a rehash of ANH, and why would I watch it again when I can just watch ANH?

 

I get the sentiment, but at the same time Lucas told the story he wanted to tell, and for years insisted it ends in ROTJ. While it would have been great to see how Lucas' version of the sequels would have turned out, I can understand why a studio would want to reboot a franchise. It's been done a million times, sometimes successfully and other times less successfully. The fact that a movie is a reboot is not a reason in of itself for me to hate it. A reboot often involves going back to the beginning, and retelling a story for a new generation. A soft reboot has the added bonus, that it can also be seen as a sequel. I think TFA fit the bill perfectly in that sense, and I don't think it was a coincidence it was so well recieved critically, by fans, and financially at the time of its release. It was not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination in my view once you accept what it wanted to be (it wasn't a great one either imo). The years of fan theorizing that followed are a testament to that fact. However, ultimately its long term standing would be determined by how its sequels would continue the story. In that the ST failed, because each film that followed worked harder to distance itself from its predecessor, than to create a narrative whole.

 

Good points by both @Darth Weavile and @DrDre.

As much as I dislike the ST overall for it lacking GL's vision among other things, I was willing to accept the reboot of Star Wars in TFA until I realized with TLJ it meant LFL clearly didn't have a plan narratively.

 

Is there any reason to retell ANH for a new generation? It’s one of my favorite films and I was born when TPM came out. It’s a timeless classic, and retelling it with an inferior version was a huge mistake since it made everything accomplished in the original trilogy (and by extension the prequels) pointless.

 

I understand, but not everyone is a Star Wars fan, and not everyone is going to watch an at that time nearly 40 year old film before going to the latest blockbuster hit. The majority of those that go to the cinema are between the ages of 18 and 40. It makes sense from a business perspective to reboot the story to bring in fresh blood. Add to this that TFA was released at a time where soft reboots were hugely popular and highly successful financially. I get the disappointment in not getting the kind of story you expect. I'm more than two decades older and for many of us the outcome was similar when the PT was released, despite the fact that the criticisms were different. I think it's never easy to reintroduce a story to a new generation, while also keeping established fans happy. Both Lucas and Disney struggled in this respect.

 

What % of the audience do you think hasn't seen SW, that is amped to be seeing an EP 7? Making a movie solely for this small audience isn't the guarantee you're making it out as. Especially as this young audience is only going to get to that theater with the financial help of their fandom loving parents. And especially as we see exactly there the fandom is left currently - where there are no movies scheduled and they have no idea where to move forward. The new generation doesn't seem to be yearning for Rey and Finn and Kylo all that much either, since they can get better stories with Luke, Leia, and Vader.

This was now the 7th movie in a 40 year franchise. It's not Total Recall or some one off cult favorite being updated for a new generation simply to make some quick cash that no one really cares about. Or was it? Other generations and other new audiences have picked up SW just fine over the years. The PT didn't need to reboot or copy. So why is it now sensible for the ST do so?

SW is so ingrained with the pop culture that I don't think there's very many people out there who have no clue what it is, and are suddenly thinking "I need to see this EP 7". They could have continued the story in a way that made sense, all while introducing the saga to a new generation who this might be they're seeing SW on a big screen.

 

I don't know. TFA was clearly catered towards OT fans and the next generation to whom Star Wars is something, that their parents loved. I also think Lucas wasn't really interested in what the fans wanted. The PT were criticized for many things, but one thing that stands out for this debate, is that the films were at the time considered too different visually both in design and in its presentation to co-exist in the OT universe. The ships looked too modern and not lived in enough was a commonly heard complaint. The CGI looked too much like a cartoon was another. These complaints were leveled at the films ad nauseum. His response was simple: these films were for kids, the new generation, not for aging OT fans, who cling to their x-wings, and puppet Yoda. He also made clear, that he wanted to push the bounds of the technology, and he didn't care much, if that pissed off some fans. He made the films he wanted to make, and if people loved them, that's great. If not, at least he didn't compromise his vision. That's how I percieved his attitude at the time.

 

Sometimes it is made to seem like everybody hated TFA upon release, and Disney's choice to reboot the franchise was percieved as complete lunacy from the get go. The problem is, that this is not what happened. TFA was a huge financial success, and the film was recieved much better critically than any Star Wars film since Empire. Audience ratings like those on imdb and RT were and are generally also well above average, and better than any Star Wars film since Jedi. Before that Star Wars rebels was very well recieved. RO was the same. For the first five years of its existence Disney Star Wars was generally well liked, and hugely succesful. It was only after TLJ was released that the perception of Disney Star Wars really started to shift, and the brand went into a decline, that it still has to recover from, if it ever will.

 

They are not great Retcons Kylo was probably lying to Rey about her parents in TLJ
Luke probably changed his mind when he told Rey that a Jedi Lightsaber deserves more respect

 

I think the difference is that there's not many reboots (soft or otherwise) that seem to have such a disdain (or lack of interest in) the ideas and underlying principles of the originator/creator. If DLF had fully embraced Lucas, his ideas, and his films... I think we would have had a ST which was much more popular (certainly with fans). That DLF wanted to avoid some of the perceived issues around the PT is understandable... but they really didn't do the necessary due diligence to understand what underpinned Star Wars cinematically. Of course, this doesn't mean they had to follow Lucas slavishly (Lucas is not beyond critique), but clearly their approach has been, at best, really problematic.