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ST How do you feel about how Anakin's grandchildren were handled in the Sequel Trilogy?

Discussion in 'Sequel Trilogy' started by DarthVist, Feb 22, 2020.

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How do you feel about how Anakin's grandchildren were handled in the Sequel Trilogy?

  1. Were you satisfied about it?

    12 vote(s)
    13.3%
  2. Were you disappointed about it?

    64 vote(s)
    71.1%
  3. Or do you have mixed feelings about it?

    14 vote(s)
    15.6%
  1. DrDre

    DrDre Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2015
    Well one of the issues for me in Lucas' writing for the PT, is that it's too much on the nose. Characters are made to say things, that should be made obvious with a closeup and a look. An example of Lucas' type dialogue is: "I'm so angry now!" It takes a special kind of actor to make it work in my view. Alec Guiness, Peter Cushing, Harrison Ford, and Ian McDiarmid are actors who can really elevate such dialogue either because of their raw talent like in the case of Ford, or a combination of talent and experience stage acting like the other three. Hayden Christensen has talent. My favourite film of his is Shattered Glass, but he just lacked the experience needed to really grow beyond the clunky dialogue he was given. I also thought his pairing with Natalie Portman didn't help. She has done some amazing work, but put her in a movie like Star Wars or Thor and she loses much of her acting prowess. It's obvious she has little interest in the material and I find her performances to be flat, lifeless and uninspired. For me Driver is the opposite in my view. He really is an actor in the spirit of people like Richard Burton, Robert Shaw, or Anthony Hopkins. In TFA there was just something bubbling below the surface, a raw intensity that never really got to shine in subsequent installments, because of the terrible writing and strange character choices.
     
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2023
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  2. DrDre

    DrDre Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2015
    It came out that way, but once I wrote it, I patted myself on the back anyway. ;)
     
  3. Lucas wanted Vader to have more than one Grandson there is a Video where Lucas asks JJ what happened to Vader Grandchildren im sure in Lucas Sequels Kira and Sam they would be Vader Grandchildren similar to Jacen and Jaina Solo from Legends
     
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  4. HevyDevy

    HevyDevy Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 13, 2011
    I’ve said this a lot before, but something to be noted about PT dialogue is very little of it happens without a purpose. When more thought is put into the narrative, and symbolic overarching themes, it then indeed can come across as stilted if you are expecting to watch real people just talking.
    The ST gave more natural acting performances and I mostly enjoyed the cast’s effort, particularly in TFA. Adam Driver gave an arguably better performance than Hayden (particularly in AOTC) but the character is just far less interesting and developed than watching over six films Vader rise, fall and be ultimately redeemed.

    A good example is to look at Ian McDiarmid’s PT dialogue in general, almost everything he says has some deeper purpose for the narrative and progress of his character and his machinations. So some of his dialogue at first seems a tad perfunctory, but on a deeper level it is written very specifically.
    He mentions at the start of AOTC to Padme “an old friend like master Kenobi” could be assigned to her as protection. Which unless Palaptine is daft, you have to assume he knows Anakin will be with them, and depending on the viewer you might think he is purposely setting up a temptation for Anakin regarding his obvious feelings for Padme.

    He also mentions in ROTS “Remember what you told me about your mother and the sandpeople” which is a huge hint by Lucas that Anakin only ever confided this event to Padme and Palpatine - which speaks volumes to Anakin’s character when you note these are the two people Anakin/Vader is most loyal to “post turn”. The scene also includes Palpatine trying to push Anakin to leave Obi-Wan unconscious on the ship, the main Jedi Anakin is most loyal to.

    While on the topic - another thing to note is Palpatine in RoTS, whenever there is a mention of Grievous; reveals a step in, and the current state of, Palpatine’s ongoing plan.
    There are several instances, but the first is his early scene with Mace telling Mace that the fighting will continue until Grievous is caught or killed - setting up the ultimate confrontation with Mace mid-movie, which only happens when Sidious is informed by Anakin that Kenobi had engaged Grievous, and then reveals his own Sith identity to Anakin on purpose.

    I usually laugh when Palpatine responds to Anakin’s report with “We can only hope master Kenobi is up to the challenge!” which works on several levels… despite his politeness he wants the Sith to appear ultimately more powerful (for Anakin) than the Jedi so he is putting Kenobi down a little here. He also is further driving a wedge between Anakin and the Jedi when he knows he earlier put Anakin on the Jedi Council knowing they won’t choose Anakin for the Utapau mission - and ironically he didn’t even want Anakin sent away, he wants him close by so he can influence him.
    Finally it reveals that Kenobi is actually doing Sidious a favour in tying up the loose end of Grievous - after Palpatine has had the Jedi fighting a fake war for three years that Sidious knew when would end. He actually wins out whether it is Obi-Wan or Grievous who wins and he has already planned for the Separatists to lose the war.

    This happens a lot in the writing of the PT, it is actually quite meticulously written at its high points.
     
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2023
  5. Darth PJ

    Darth PJ Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2013
    I agree with that. As you say (and allude to), Lucas is far more invested in the underlying narrative, and getting that laid out for the audience in the most pragmatic way... which often results in dialogue being a combination of stilted, stylised and/or perfunctory... but it does (usually) convey complex information that both adults and children can interpret. Lucas is far less interested in dialogue as poetic prose or as a mechanism for the actors to hang a performance off... and yet, actors (most of the time) come off well... and his dialogue is often quite quotable (in bite size quotes)...
     
  6. Seagoat

    Seagoat Former Manager star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jan 25, 2013
    This clip has always weirded me out

    Lucasfilm and those who've worked on the movies have always been very coy about the actual content of Lucas's VII-IX treatments. The scant few things we do know from them are mostly elements that were repurposed and/or repainted for the existing movies, but otherwise, the only real source of information regarding them that diverges (IE, Maul and his criminal empire) comes from Lucas himself

    So it's strange to me that a promotional Q&A from Vanity Fair (which was likely rehearsed, if not entirely scripted) would contain such an overt reference to unrealized material from them, even if it's through one word being plural instead of singular
     
  7. DarkGingerJedi

    DarkGingerJedi Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2012
    It's interesting. And weird.

    It's all set up as an ipad face time session. But Lucas is in the same white-void space as JJ is. The same background, lighting, green screen whatever, etc is used. So...is Lucas there? In Vanity Fair set? At his home? In France?

    The entire thing is artificially set up marketing blitz. Maybe they rehearsed a few times, felt comfy, and then Lucas threw out a curve ball. Not sure why they decided to release such an awkward off script moment, when that's Disney's MO.
     
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  8. godisawesome

    godisawesome Skywalker Saga Undersheriff star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2010
    The PT dialogue is a highly economical, narrative-defined thing - its a bit like Shakespeare in that you can tell it's containing all major character choices and perspectives that might be subtext or stage-instructions in modern writing (though no, it's not nearly as flowery or poetic, I'm not making that comparison.:p) Lucas is highly frugal in the dialogue, and maybe too willing to use it to establish important plot points all the damn time, instead of trying to make more causal, "real" dialogue.

    I think this is reflected in how the British actors in the PT tended to faire better than the American ones in line-delivery - British acting schools will always cover how to act out Shakespeare, and thus the actors learned how to handle that type of dialogue, while American acting schools tend to focus on organic acting so much that they kind of miss those lessons.

    ...Speaking of which, I think that's sort of the conundrum that comes with Driver - he's an excellent example of "American"-style acting, taught to try and portray as much stuff as possible in an internalized manner... which works well if the storyteller has specific and consistent vision of what his internalized personality is, but is dangerously disadvantaged if there's a disagreement there, since the character is not externalizing enough stuff to clarify what they're doing.

    Driver is excellent on SNL because he and the writers know what the goal is - being funny - and because sketch comedy tends to be very frugal with its dialogue as well.

    ...And I think it says something that SNL seemed to have a better idea of what Kylo was than Rian Johnson did...
     
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  9. Ancient Whills

    Ancient Whills Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2011
    Well, we ended up with one son who began the trilogy as a villain but through his bond with the main protagonist, his relationship with the heroes of the previous trilogy and his actions throughout the trilogy made the requirement for the ST to still be part of the "Skywalker saga" without him being the main protagonist.

    However, they decided to kill him by the end of the last movie thus ending the Skywalker bloodline meaning no future sequel in a a few decades but since they wanted to keep their options open, they circumvented this problem by making Rey, a Palpatine clone's daughter, adopt the Skywalker family name.

    Should Rey have been a Skywalker by blood from the start? would have that made her relationship with Kylo, Luke, Leia and Han better? Easier? Most definitively since a main character being a Skywalker in a saga called the Skywalker saga would be a no-brainer and would have saved them from a headache.

    At least TFA and TLJ had some logic even though JJ was more interested to make a mystery box out of our main protagonist rather than reveal anything and then TROS came and derailed everything. They should have either made Rey Related or not and stick to that choice rather than coming back and correct it
     
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  10. UnlimitedSarcasm

    UnlimitedSarcasm Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Dec 31, 2021
    But then they couldn't have done the "romance" between Rey and Kylo. And RJ was committed to that, even though it was against what TFA had set up. And then presumably JJ had to run with it in TROS, because it was the only way to speed-run "Ben's" mandated redemption, and maybe because the higher ups thought by that time ReyLo was popular? And obviously they wanted as many people as possible to come to the film/give them money, and given how many fanbases were pissed off with TLJ, maybe they thought they should placate the one fanbase that was happy after the end of that film?

    Well and that JJ says the kiss between Rey and "Ben" is brother/sister thing, not romance. So why not make them at least cousins? It's just...messy. TROS is a perfect encapsulation of the ST...a giant mess.

    But yes, if they had gone as Lucas said with Anakin's grandchildren, a lot would have been better in the films. It would explain Rey's insane power levels, and control in the Force. Like Grogu in The Mandalorian and TBOBF, we find that he was trained. He had just been traumatized into forgetting them, or something, so that he's more remembering how to do things, along with having innate Force abilities. Not that he can do the things he did, just by dint of being a Yoda species. "Talent without training is nothing." So if Rey had been training as a young girl, and was say Luke's daughter, this would better explain her abilities, and potential connection to Ben that makes more sense then that she sees him shirtless, "their minds have been joined" (seriously what? how?!) or something something DYAD! something, so that she starts caring about Kylo in the TLJ, and beyond. And if Luke thought she had been killed, even if (gag) it had been a result of his attempting to murder Ben in his sleep for thought crimes, that would have made more (more, not actual) sense for him go off, and be depressed.

    Like many things, I remain baffled that they didn't just do the easy thing. It was a lay-up. Like it should have been a slam dunk to have the OT trio together, and just hand the torch off to the next generation of Anakin grandchildren. The ST just abounds with bafflingly stupid choices, and needless complicated ways to try and, badly, have them make sense.

    It's the story of the ST --they wrote bad solutions to problems they stupidly created.
     
  11. DarkGingerJedi

    DarkGingerJedi Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2012
    I think JJ intends for a lot of things that never quite transpires to execution. And many more things he doesn't intend, that do.

    Alas, the problem with vague storytelling
     
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  12. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    Johnson flat out said that he wanted a romance between Rey and Kylo, when he told Williams to change the music in the hut scene.

    I mostly agree. It was very disappointing that Abrams set up a ‘Who is Rey’ question, not to build suspense for what he knew would come in the next two movies, but just for the hell of it, without having any answer at all or caring what the answer is.

    Rey absolutely should have been a Skywalker from the start. That would take the central focus off Kylo (which is one reason they didn’t do it) as well as giving her a real reason to be invested in his redemption. An alternative could be that they were closer to the same age (which also would have simplified things by making Kylo an actual adolescent, not a 30-year-old who behaves like a toddler but whom we are supposed to believe is a ‘metaphor for adolescence’) and friends at the Academy before Ben turned. Rey wanting to reach her friend that she knew as a good man, or her cousin, would be far more emotionally resonant than Rey believing that the man who knocked her unconscious on their first meeting is actually a nice guy just because he took his helmet off.

    Rey being a Skywalker from the start would also not kill the bloodline off and make way for future generations of stories about the Skywalkers.
     
  13. clonegeek

    clonegeek Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2022
    The moment Kylo took off his mask, I stopped caring about him
     
  14. Darth PJ

    Darth PJ Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2013
    Kylo is certainly more interesting with the mask... and I believe he would have been a better villain if he didn't have any family connection to the Skywalker's.

    It was a fundamental mistake... and I'm still not sure what they thought the benefit was to the ST, and Star Wars post the ST, of making her a Palpatine and not a Skywalker. They clearly thought 'mystery' and 'surprise' was better than actual plot and legacy.
     
  15. DarkGingerJedi

    DarkGingerJedi Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2012
    Not having a Skywalker hero is original sin.

    Making Rey a Papatine at the last minute, and then also make her a Skywalker the second before the credits roll is just irredeemable.

    If Ben Solo was good, I wouldn't mind Rey being a Palpatine. If Rey was a Skywalker grandkid, I wouldn't mind Ben Solo being evil and dying off.

    The ST creators were not people who were thinking about the story, or the future of the story. They only thought about themselves in their own desperate moment.
     
  16. DrDre

    DrDre Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2015
    For me the only logical choice following TFA would be to have Rey and Ben be siblings. Both Rey and Ben were trained by Luke as kids. Rey had more innate Force potential leading ben down a path of jealousy and anger, causing him to reject his uncle's teachings, and attempting to find greater power through the dark side. This set him up for indoctrination by Snoke. Ben turned into Kylo Ren, destroyed Luke's Jedi school, and took a few students with him that became the Knights of Ren. Luke hid Rey for her own safety. Luke went to look for the first Jedi temple in order to find a way out of this predicament.

    As far as Snoke is concerned it just doesn't make sense to have another aging "dark side master" that somehow escaped everyone's attention. So, I would have gone with the following scenario. Introduce a superior for General Hux, have him be the younger brother of Tarkin played by Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister from GOT), who is Snoke's second in command. Then reveal in the third film that Snoke is literally smoke and mirrors, a Wizard of Oz type figure, who in reality is little more than a Sith acolyte who has enough knowledge of the Force to fool Kylo Ren into believing he's this all powerful dark side master, and the puppet of Tarkin Jr. Let Kylo Ren find out that he's literally been used, and there's nothing behind the curtain. Let him deal with that fact that he's murdered his father based on a lie.
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2023
  17. clonegeek

    clonegeek Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2022
    Wouldn't make more sense to bring back General Veers as Hux's superior?
     
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  18. DrDre

    DrDre Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2015
    Maybe, but I would go with an actor who can play a real *******.
     
  19. Jedi_Sith_Smuggler_Droid

    Jedi_Sith_Smuggler_Droid Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 13, 2014
    That was a dropped opportunity not bringing Veers back. Just saw him in the movie Tar.

    He could have been the Agilent General or he could have been on Exegol. I could see Kylo Ren wanting to work with the same General who served with Vader.
     
  20. CT-867-5309

    CT-867-5309 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jan 5, 2011
    Luke hiding his niece by abandoning her as a young child for like a decade on a desert planet in the care of the likes of Unkar Plutt, who denies her food and sends thugs out to take BB8 by force, doesn't work for me. It's not believable at all, it's not safe, and it's not a better option than just keeping her with him. Luke would never trust Unkar Plutt with anyone.
     
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  21. Kenneth Morgan

    Kenneth Morgan Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    May 27, 1999
    Rey as a Force-sensitive person from an ordinary (non-Palpatine!) family who's an adopted Skywalker could've worked. If it had been made clear that the family (what little remained of it) was making taking the initiative, welcoming her and giving her the name, it would've fit with Rey's search for a place to belong. Instead, TROS, it's more like she's taking the name because she wants it and there's nobody left to object. Hey, in the scene where Kylo/Ben is visited by Han's ghost (yes, it's Han's ghost, not some wishful-thinking hallucination), K/B is shown to have a closer connection with the father he murdered than Rey seems to have with the family she's made herself part of.
    Again, better pre-film planning could've set this up more effectively, if they'd just taken the time for it.
     
  22. DrDre

    DrDre Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2015
    That depends. What if Han and Chewie finding Rey and Finn was no coincidence. What if Han left Leia and the New Republic to watch over his daughter under the guise of going back to his smuggling ways. Being part of the New Republic higher echelon would put a lot of unwanted attention on him, whereas as a smuggler he can stay under the radar.
     
  23. Watcherwithin

    Watcherwithin Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 9, 2017
    Why write that story instead of one where we are introduced to Rey as his daughter
     
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  24. DarkGingerJedi

    DarkGingerJedi Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2012
    Might have been better if Rey was the first force sensitive in a generation.

    Like after EP 6, there's a pause. Luke is ready to rebuild but he finds no one other than Ben Solo. And when he turned evil there's a big "well, what now". There's no one else it seems. There's a genuine mystery as to why the Force is so ... silent. Especially after defeating the Sith and getting balance.

    That way the force awakening is more of a real force event, not just for a single person, but for the entire galaxy play.

    Maybe instead of searching for Luke, as a main plot line in TFA, Leia and the Kylo are separately searching for someone to find and train. (Or to send to Luke to get trained)

    And Rey, she's just found on some backwater planet. She's a literal nobody. Her parents died when she was young. She's been on her own for a while. Strange things may have happened during her life, but she's a jaded cynic. The tales of the Jedi, of Luke Skywalker...just children's stories her dead parents used to tell her.
     
  25. CT-867-5309

    CT-867-5309 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jan 5, 2011
    I don't care. They left Rey to a life of lonely privation among dangerous thugs. That would make them bad parents to two children instead of one. Rey would have a legitimate reason to hate them and deny her connection to them, the connection they willfully denied her for no good reason. It's frankly far worse than how Han, Leia, and Luke handled Ben.

    It's another instance of Not Luke, Not Leia, and Not Han. Another instance of making them bad people. They just wouldn't do it.
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2023
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