ST Do you think The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi should have had a bigger time gap in-between them?

The Last Jedi picks immediately off after The Force Awakens.

I actually don't like that since all of the other movies had much longer time gaps in-between, and the reason for that is it show how much the characters developed in-between the movies.

I think the Last Jedi should have took place like 1 to 3 months after The Force Awakens instead of right after it.

 

I think it started too late. The entire opening scene of TLJ should have been a replay of the entire final scene of TFA.

 

A time gap wouldn’t have fixed the problems with TLJ. It could have started a year later and you’d still have the majority of the things that are wrong with it.

 

That TLJ starts immediatley after TFA ends doesn't help proceedings, but as others have said, a time jump in and of itself wouldn't improve anything. TLJ being set 6 months after TFA could be used to better explain Rey's new abilities... as she could have had 6 months of training etc. but it still wouldn't resolve the underlying issues of Luke Skywalker's characterisation in TLJ... and of course we'd have to assume that there was no reticence on Luke's part to train Rey (which would further bring into question why he's become a hermit). The majority of the fundamental issues with the ST (IMHO) are structural, so re-jigging events slightly doesn't really help. The issue starts with TFA and then just dominoes into TLJ and TROS.

 

This is just one of many areas where the baton was dropped during the pass from one movie / director to the next movie / director (which happened again later when the baton was passed from TLJ to TROS and back to the first director, by the way).

TLJ was painted into a corner by the end of TFA, where they basically HAD to show what happened next between Luke and Rey on the island. And "next" had to mean "the very next minute", since she was literally holding his lightsaber out to him. So the official timeline followed that. However, other than that, nothing else about the beginning of TLJ feels like it's taking place right after the end of TFA. IMO, it feels like the same general "passage of some time" that exists between all the other movies (only the time between TPM and AOTC is clearly defined as being longer than the others).

In TLJ, there doesn't seem to be any real urgency at the beginning... it doesn't feel like there's any real "OMG we just blew up Starkiller Base!" atmosphere. Yes, the Resistance are evacuating, but it feels the same as in TESB where they're evacuating Hoth, because their hidden location has been discovered... which can happen at some vague point after the events of the previous movie. Also, as mentioned above, characters just don't seem like this is the very next day... there's some development there for a few of them that seems like it relates to a passage of time. And on that note, the First Order from the start of TLJ is suddenly shown to be much larger, with many more ships, etc., and also much more broadly distributed, than how they were shown in TFA.

 

The ball would not have been dropped if Johnson had taken the effort to watch TFA or read the final script when he had the chance. As for Abrams, I think most of his problems in TROS stemmed from kowtowing to Kennedy and the Disney suits.

 

I don't have a problem with TLJ picking up right after TFA. However, TLJ would have benefited greatly from an in movie time skip (or multiple skips). The only way to give Rey's actions a smidgen of believability (if nothing else, from at least a Stockholm Syndrome perspective) is to have Rey rejected and isolated by Luke for an extended period of time while being forced to repeatedly converse with Kylo. After all that he did to her, those around her, and the galaxy in TFA, I really don't know what RJ was thinking having Rey holding hands with Kylo after less than 5 minutes of conversation (well... I do know what he was thinking, which was all about how would Kylo or Luke respond to things, not Rey). Now I am not sure what an in movie time skip would do to the other plots, but those felt like such afterthoughts that I'm not sure it matters.

 

Lord willing, these are the ideas that God blessed me with, for the opening of this:

The movie would open with no title, no crawl, not yet. But the scene that we left the last movie off on.

Rey walks up to Luke, extends her hand with the lightsaber, her feeling an overwhelming emotion she doesn't understand, placing it into the robotic hand of his, him looking from it, to her. All silence.

Then he gives it back. He begins to turn away, but she reaches out, grabbing his real hand, and in that moment she registers it, their connection and vocalizes it, that he's her dad.

It catches Luke off guard, his eyes swelling with emotion and he sees it to be true himself, in her eyes. And with that he says her name, "Rey", and hugs her. And in that we fade out and into...

STAR WARS

EPISODE VIII

THE LAST JEDI

Everything is divided. The new republic has been destroyed. The First Order, in the midst of their defeat with the destruction of the Starkiller Base, has regrouped and, with the non violent planets being at their weakest lacking the new republic's protection, plunders their resources.

Leaving only the Resistance to defend them. Led by General Leia Organa, who grieves the loss of her former husband Han Solo at the hands of their own son, Kylo Ren. Their victory against the First Order a short lived and bittersweet one, the Resistance stretches itself thin trying to battle against their tyranny, Leia seeking her son in the chaos.

As the galaxy stands on the brink, the First Order begun an attack on the planet of Naboo, with resistance fighters being dispatched to their rescue...

Establish the conflict from here, where it's been a month or months since the events of TFA. The opening scene showing a battle between First Order and a fleet of resistance fighters, led by Poe, with Leia in command, the First Order's main ship managing to escape.

We go back to Rey and Luke, with Luke having given Rey lessons in the time between, but with Luke being very cagey about their shared history and curiously unwilling to teach Rey anything beyond essentially casual abilities. From here we establish that Luke has been cut off from the force and go from there.

 

I recall lamenting a wasted opportunity to execute the reveal on the island through a stepped series of flashbacks.

That hand off between Rey and Luke was squandered as it is, and encapsulates for posterity the sum take of this Shareholders Trilogy.

What should have happened was in media res sufficiently displaced forward in time so that all viewers would be salivating to hear the resolution of that cliffhanger.

The resolution of TFA's cliffhanger in specific could have been revealed as late as the climax of TLJ, where the viewer has been issued a few general clues during runtime, and Rey has to implement the thing learned to unlock the final achievement. All snaps together like a thunderclap.

 

Apart from Han's death, the Luke reveal in TFA is the single real emotional beat in TFA... and that's primarily because of the emotional investment we already have with the character of Luke Skywalker. In my opinion, Abrams traded in several opportunities to tell the story in a more coherent and compelling way, simply because he wanted that reveal at the end of the movie... which doesn't pay off in any meaningful way post TFA.

 

I agree, although my only real issues with TLJ are mainly centered around the horrificly awful Canto Bight garbage. Secondly, I hate that they got away from Finn/Rey being a thing and instead dumped Rose onto Finn which killed his character for me. So a time gap added desnt fix either of those two enormous problems.

 

I often wish it did as one of the things I liked about the structure of the other two trilogies was seeing the main characters develop over separated periods of time.

At the same time, I didn’t think of it as a flaw, either. Each trilogy is unique and has a different role to play in telling the overall saga story. As long as the basic form of the “a long time ago” title card, Star Wars logo with main theme, opening crawl and blue end credits is there, and John Williams has created an original score, I’m fine with deviations from the norm, especially in a middle episode.

 

And thats fine. The sequels have some good stuff. I just feel overall that they remain a missed opportunity.

 

I feel that way about TROS. I enjoyed the movie, but it fell back a little too much on the safe kind of ROTJ mirroring, rather than take a chance on a unique ending that jumps off the divisive TLJ. Just imagining all of the possibilities of Kylo actually being in charge of the galaxy gets me disappointed in TROS.

 

My opinion: Why would TROS do something unique when TLJ didn't?

I don't see much particularly new coming from another dark sider leading a stormtrooper army that's opposed by a jedi and, what's said to be, a rebellion.

 

Vader had never actually taken over the galaxy. He wanted to, but never did. It would have been interesting to me to see how Ren would have ruled and what would come of that, without his rule having actually been orchestrated by Palpatine.

 

What's the real difference? It's still a black clad dark sider, with a stormtrooper army, opposed by a jedi and, what's said to be, a rebellion.

 

Those seem to me the more superficial elements. The personal stakes are different because the antagonist would not have a more powerful villain to narratively justify his salvation.


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Yep - I so wanted Kylo to stay bad and basicaly have TROS end with him and Rey realizing that balance means a light and a dark component always existing. Then, for the time being they agree to stop the conflict. I like the idea of Rey maybe even lying about what happened with Kylo - perhaps telling the resistance that he's no longer a threat but not coming out claiming hes dead or alive. I dunno, lots of ideas there.

The daytime-soap ending we got caused intestinal issues for me.

 

I didn’t necessarily want him to stay bad, I just wanted his antagonism to resolve without recourse to a Bigger Bad character.


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It was a waste of an Episode by following immediately afterwards. The OT showed Luke's progress perfectly between ESB and ROTJ.

Physically drained and defeated at the end of one film but when you see him the next time he's this calm, serious and even a hint of menace to him.
This was all illustrated within a couple of minutes of film time and few words spoken.

No convoluted back story or flashbacks required, you immediately accepted he'd grown in power and experience between the movies.

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Aren't those the story of the movie? Isn't the minor change of there only being one villain now superficial? What does that really accomplish or mean? What's the real change in stakes?

 

No, I see it as the exact reverse. The story is the human challenges, not the setting elements. Having *no* Bigger Bad character is a significant change dramatically, because it means the writers have to find some other opportunity for Ben to make up for his crimes, if at all. Anakin's sacrifice saved Luke from dying at Palpatine's hands. Ben's sacrifice resurrected Rey from her death at Palpatine's hands. It would be nice if poor Palpatine wasn't such an easy villain and they found a more creative malady than just bringing him back again like Freddy Krueger. It isn't like Kylo Ren started the First Order in the first place. Maybe they could have had Rey and Ben find a way together to end the war, with Ben sacrificing his life in some final decisive battle against his former underlings or something, I don't know. Anything.

 

Why would they find a way for Kylo to do make up for his crimes and what would that change, if they do that? It still happens. What does it matter if there's a change in a couple details? Isn't that still repeating beats?