ST JJ Abrams directing Episode IX Discussion

Would be kind of funny, though, if the ST was a series of films that each rejected the core tenets of the preceding film.

 

I for one, would've loved a Quantum Leap style trilogy where Rey gets teleported to an alternate universe in each proceeding film. And then the message at the end of Episode IX before the credits would read:

"Ray never returned home"

 

You writing “Ray” reminded me of how strange a name “Rey” seemed initially. Daisy Ridley just didn’t look like a Ray.

 

Rey is an odd choice of a name.

 

Hermine, they should have called her Hermine. (or Huixtocihuatl )

 

Iztlazihuatl would be better, but seriously.

Rey meaning King in Spanish or Rei in Portuguese. It's also a common name in Japanese. Ren is also a common name in Japanese. In some anime, Rei and Ren are twins.

 

She’s more of an Egon.

 

to be fair unkar plut does look a little like slimer

 

Was flippin excited to hear it

To be honest I've only seen maybe 2/3 of Jurassic World and sort of liked it I guess

so I'm not sure whether Colin Trevorrow was a really big world of loss

he did want to have Luke and Snoke make it past ep 8 and I would have liked that

But I also loved TFA to bits and considered it my nr 2 SW film after ROTS, yes I the plot was a little bit recycled, Rey a little too strong too fast, not enough political backbone and such
But I couldn't help but love the mystery behind Snoke, the evolution of Kylo as a villain, Rey's teasing backstory, just the general tone of the film.
I got fond of Finn and wanted to drink a pint with Poe, Rey I found adorable and at the very least likeable. I sort of shrugged the fast Mind Trick, the probing of Kylo's mind and lightsaber skills and focussed on her personality

And Kylo? I felt sort of pity for him, even after he killed Han
I felt he was manipulated by Snoke on a similar level like Anakin was.
Played from the very beginning, remember Anakin also sort of killed Padme and later Obi Wan, yet he was redeemable

But I dunno after TLJ I sort of lost investment in Rey, it felt less about her and more about everybody else and her
Finn felt.. I dunno, not useless but.. shoehorned somehow
like in one of those shows where you think hey he's great but why did he need to be here. It also felt like less about him and more about everybody else and him

Poe and Finn not going togheter on a mission togheter was a big waste of opportunity I think, they had a wonderdul bromance in TFA

Kylo just needs to be put to sleep, I know having your grumpy uncle standing over you at night with a knife is scary, somewhat traumatizing on the long run but that's no reason to run and outside and slaughter a dozen schoolmates, sicko

also going on to destroy your parents legacy is not cool, what the hell is your issue bro? are you only doing this because Hugh Hefner tells you so? or are you really saying space cowboy Han Solo and female icon Princess Leia were such terrible parents
I don't believe that, the guy's just delusional

But what I'm saying is I loved JJ handling of the characters, there's no more Luke, Snoke, Rey's origins, Kylo's redeeming past to look forward to
But I'm sure JJ can atleast give an appealing end to these characters

TFA gave me OT chills in how it looked and felt like, not necesarily the dialogue or writing
I love the Prequels but somehow that style alone felt nostalgic
TLJ felt unique in its own way and definiatly different

So I'm ready to atleast end this trillgy with zinger rather than place bets on Trevorrow

I loved JJ's Star Trek movies, I loved his Star Wars movie, I think he can make something out of it.

 

I feel like the sequel trilogy is in a bad place right now. We are two thirds of the way through and many plot threads still need to be tied up in order to make this trilogy a worthy successor to the OT in my opinion.

Why was the seat of government for the New Republic not on Coruscant?
Why did the New Republic allow the First Order to grow and thrive?
Why did Leia lead a resistance and not the New Republic military?
Why is Rey so powerful and where did she receive her pilot/lightsaber/combat/force training?
How and why did Maz have Luke’s lightsaber?
Who was Snoke and how did he lead/form the First Order?
When Luke disappeared what happened to his hand?
Etc...

Essentially after two movies we haven’t learned much of anything. It seems that rather than answer the questions of TFA, TLJ chose to squander a lot of screentime on Canto Bite and a rather underwhelming and drawn out escape sequence. This wouldn’t have bothered me so much if we still had another 2 or 3 episodes left to tie up the saga. That’s right, Episode 9 is in the unenviable position of having to tie three trilogies together.

Can JJ, can ANYONE accomplish such a epic feat of storytelling?
Should I resign myself to disappointment now or is there cause for hope?

 

Good thread. Looking forward to the discussion.

 

If you need answers to questions as trivial as the ones you listed in order to be satisfied, then yeah, get ready for disappointment.

You can easily fill those little blanks with your own head. If the movie focused on stuff like that instead on what’s more important (themes, character development, etc), then it’d be a pretty boring movie with lots of unwelcome exposition. Besides, the novels and supplement guide can provide a lot of those answers you’re looking for, and some already have (see Bloodline by Claudia Gray, for example).

Also, the OT didn’t answer every single thing either. We didn’t know who the Emperor was exactly, or how exactly the Empire came to be, until the PT rolled around many years later. That’s just one of several examples I can think of, honestly.

 

I don’t consider essential and basic exposition to be trivial nor do i expect to have to read suplimentary material in order to understand a movie.

The OT wasn’t following two previous trilogies. It gave us what we needed, the PT gave us more because it needed to because it was building upon a previous trilogy. The sequel trilogy is meant to build upon two previous trilogies. You can’t do that and not answer the basics such as where your bad guys came from and why your good guys did nothing to stop them.

 

Stuff like how did Maz get lukes saber probably won't be considered important information.

 

That’s fair, but I feel like the ST was always meant to stand more on its own than the PT was, and “replicate/emulate” the OT in terms of pacing, conflict, exposition, etc. Maybe they didn’t really pull that off well enough, but I feel like that was their intention, at the very least.

I don’t think they’re gonna back track to loose ends from two entire movies ago to answer questions like “why did Leia leave the Republic to form a Resistance?” Or “why was luke’s hand robotic?” Or “why did maz have his saber?” It’s too late to answer questions like that, I feel. The story of the ST has moved way beyond those things now.

At the very least, I can see them maybe providing little visual clues to some slightly bigger stuff, like maybe where Snoke came from.

 

Yes, the OT didn't answer many questions. They were the first three movies. Now we have the 9th movie of the franchise. Asking for the ABC of storytelling to understand what's going on doesn't seem too much to me. Also, I refuse this narrative that explaining stuff is boring. It is done regularly in the majority of movies. We don't need a detailed exposition about Snoke's past. We would be satisfied to know that they had in mind something slightly more complex than just Emperor 2.0. Same with Finn. They introduced him as a deserting Stormtrooper, but then they didn't know what to do with his background. Everything feels very superficial to me.

 

Yeah I'm not chomping at the bit for answers to most of those questions. I'm mostly hoping we'll learn:

1) Why was Ben Solo tempted by the dark side and how did Snoke initially start manipulating him?
2) Will Kylo Ren remain evil, be redeemed, live or die?
3) Is there any pertinent information about Rey's parentage and backstory?
4) Will the Knights of Ren have a meaningful backstory and role in Ep. IX or will they be the Praetorian Guard 2.0?

That's all I really need answered. Everything else would be gravy. I'd love to see Luke do more than give Rey a pep talk but I'm not expecting anything more than that. I'd love to learn more about what Luke was up to between ROTJ and TFA but I doubt we'll learn that in Ep. IX. I think it would be cool if Finn and Rey had a romantic relationship but I don't need it and neither does the story. I'd love it if the newly announced cast had substantial, meaningful rolls that go beyond glorified cameos but I'm not counting on it.

 

That's because superficial storytelling sells tickets to the general audience my friend.

And it comes in on time and under budget.

You don't need any answers anyway...a couple cool visuals, and we're good to go.

 

Maybe for few movies, but if you want to keep selling tickets after n movies, sooner or later you'll need a good story to stimulate the curiosity of the audience. You're not going to survive very long by sticking with the formula "whatever, we'll just offer more lightsabers and spaceships".

 

Agreed...that's why I feel they are champing at the bit to end the Skywalker Saga come hell or high water so they can move past "fan expectation".

When you don't have to be grounded any longer, the sky's the limit right?

We'll see...

 

Almost none of those are trivial.

Listen, I like TFA and TLJ, but this trilogy has a serious exposition problem. Going just off the films, I would have no clue who the Resistance or First Order are outside of "Resistance is the good guys and the First Order is the bad guys, and they liked the Empire, I guess". The ST desperately wants to be as simplistic as the OT, but that simply isn't going to work with the setup, because the setup is inherently different and more complex. In the OT it's a tyrannical Empire versus a group of freedom fighters, the Rebellion. That's a fairly simple set up that doesn't require much explanation. But in the ST, it's a group of radicals comprised both of relics from the Empire and fresh blood that idealizes the Empire and wants to return the galaxy to that state, brought together by a mysterious figure named Snoke, versus a branch of the military of the ineffectual New Republic, a government that refuses to take the threat of the First Order seriously and thus barely funds the Resistance.

But none of that explanation is in the films and that's a serious issue. It's difficult to get as invested in the world of the ST as one can in the world of the previous two eras because we barely understand it. And in a film series taking place in a far off, fantastical world, it's important that the audience understands the world. And it wouldn't have been hard to explain this in TFA, I just did it in 66 words that probably took you no longer than 15 seconds to read. And that's just one issue. There's many other things that are just glossed over, because for whatever reason JJ Abrams was afraid of exposition, and Rian Johnson felt he had more important things to do than clean up JJ's mistakes.

So, yes, it is concerning that we are two films in and there are so many elements of the trilogy unexplained. And I really don't think JJ, Terrio, or any of the involved parties could possibly fix this in IX without it seeming forced at this point, but I certainly hope that they try, and that more importantly they succeed.

 

I’m not sure if this a popular solution, but it might not be such a bad idea for Episode IX to be cut in two parts.

 

I think simplistic is the wrong way of looking at it. They aren’t going for a simplistic story, instead they are pushing for a more character driven story as opposed to a world driven one.

All of those things are the definition of trivial that do not impact on what is happening to our main characters plight. The characters are the focus the setting is just that - background dressing.

Does learning how the FO came to be funded change how Ren interacts with Rey in his quest for domination?

Does the fact that the NGR dismiss the FO as a significant threat change how Rey will go about currently resolving the conflict?

Does the mechanism of how Maz gained the lightsaber impact on the story in any way given that it’s now with Rey? What impact on the story does it have whether a junk trader found it or Maz herself marauding through Bespins gas filled skies?

The answer to all of these questions is no. Exposition is important if it serves the current narrative trajectory otherwise and can definitely boost world building but not at the expense of just having a character vomit exposition.

You’re 66 word explanation fails because the TFA opening words states the exact same thing with less fluff - “the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed. With the support of the REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa leads a brave RESISTANCE.”.

If you want the nitty gritty details then yes you might need to read supplement material but you do not need that to understand the setting and motivations of each side in the films.

I’m obviously interested in those details of the FO and Resistance and so I’ll gladly soak up any Information from shows like The Resistance or books like the Aftermath trilogy. I do not give a bantha about how 3PO got his red arm and so I skipped that comic.

 

Hoping that Episode IX covers for missing exposition from TFA will only lead to disappointment. It was the primary job of TFA to help fill in the gap between trilogies, and it did a mostly mediocre job. Conversely, it's the job of Episode IX to close out the arcs of many of the main characters who have developed significantly past where they were introduced in TFA.