ST The Cohesion/Direction/Structure Of The ST & It's Pros & Cons

Disney is screwing things up, but I don't think GL would do any better. I love GL for the OT, but the PT nearly ruined SW for me.

What's frustrating is that I'm willing to bet that the majority of people who post here on theforce.net could come up with a better ideas and stories than what we've seen. And what's even more frustrating is that there's a story group who SHOULD be working on our behalf, but isn't.

 

TPM was a terrible movie. HOWEVER, at least it told a story with plotlines that actually connected to future stories. It was horribly flawed, but at least I could see what the intent was. With one change (make Anakin older) and better direction, the story could have been salvaged.

As it stands TFA makes no sense. It created a bunch of mysteries for absolutely no reason, only to have TLJ just say "These aren't the mysteries you are looking for. Move along, move along". The combined story of TFA/TLJ is a total mess.

 

Neither of the other trilogies had much planning. AOTC resets the key character dynamics and renders TPM mostly unnecessary. Then ROTS drops several subplot mysteries brought up in AOTC. I really don't see any more cohesion in the PT, or in the OT for that matter, than in the ST.

I see many posters having a somewhat rose-tinted view of just how much the saga was changed with each movie, but especially the prequels. Star Wars was fundamentally changed with those films. Sure, it makes more sense now because we've had all 3 prequels released and a good chunk of time has passed, with many viewers having seen the entire saga as that 6 part story.

 

Just because the OT was done on the fly and the PT was less than great shouldn't be cause for the ST to be similarly cavalier in this respect.

 

As I think is well known I think TPM is rather awesome to say the least but that isn't my main point here but as you say: "I could see what the intent was"

As much as I like TFA and think TLJ on it's own is extremely good the two of them together are admittedly rather bizarre. Thematically I see the former celebrating the past and the latter letting the past go so that thread makes sense but in terms of the actual movies the arc of the ST is very odd indeed.

TFA sets up the ST in a certain way then TLJ goes about ripping that apart which in retrospect makes TFA look "useless" in a lot of ways. More likely then IX is going to ignore a lot of TLJ and outside of basic plots points is going to "ignore" VIII.

I suspect that probably was the point in the first place but I don't know how they can be that surprised at some of the more visceral fan reaction. I mean they MUST have known this was going to happen to some degree. Right?

Lucas knew that Anakin in TPM as a 9 year old was going to not go over hot with a lot of fans nor was the "whiny" Anakin of AOTC or the Anakin and Padme courtly romance that Lucas very specifically crafted.

So they specifically made TFA super-fan pleasing know they were going to pull the rug out in TLJ?

I hope they did know because if they didn't then they do have some problems.

Partly. Except they were all planed by the same film-maker. He had all kinds of plans. Then he changed them around. The "OT" was one thing after Star Wars then completely changed with TESB but then only slightly changed with ROTJ. The prequels were an actual trilogy from the start but only 10-20% of the story was in TPM and AOTC each while ROTS had 60-80% of the story.

This isn't the place for this so I'll just have to disagree on that point. TPM sets up AOTC to where it needs to be (and ROTS).

In-universe yes but as observers we knew that the Sith created the clone army. Like Lucas said it was tricky whether or not to give the game away to the viewers (who would probably figure it out anyway).

Good point but the thing is that until IX comes out and actually properly ties into I-VI then we can't know for sure.

It's the ST's mission to tie into the existing 6 movies not the other way around and so far the ST has been very much depending on I-VI to make it's story work. The PT works as it's own trilogy. The OT works as it's own trilogy. Together they tie together to make each better.

I can't say that the ST so far has worked as it's own trilogy near as well (and I like both movies TLJ even moreso). It's not done yet so there is still time but JJ has reportedly said what CT said before when he was doing IX and that it would tie together all 3 trilogies.

In many ways I feel like we've just seen VII Part 1 TFA and VII Part 2 TLJ and the next movie should be VIII.

Rey is in some respects where Anakin was at the end of TPM and Luke at the end of ANH.

Let's hope they can pull it off because I certainly don't want them to fall short.

 

Mace killing Boba Fett
Sifo-Dyas
Palpatine looks older in ATOC and in ROTS he looks younger again.
They were trying to age him into his Return of the Jedi form and gave up and did the reflected lighting trick instead.

The prequel movies did not get an easy ride for these problems and I for one was disappointed to find out the clones were the first stormtroopers how boring.

But trust me the new movies are worse not only do they not fit with the saga they don't even fit with each other.

As regards the Ray Mary Sue point people were not happy with a ten year old boy blowing up the droid control ship in episode 1.

Poe as a pilot is 20 times worse he is on a video game set to easy level.

 

I am curious on why you think that is so.

Because the key characters at the end of TPM are pretty much in the same spot they were at the start of AOTC. Padme is really the only one who starts out in a different place.

 

The no time jump really doesn’t help. I do feel like we need another movie before we get to the finale of the saga. I never said that before following the first time I’ve seen a movie.

It’s werid because there have been reshoots, changes of directors and writers but they really have RJ the keys to the throttle without caution.

 

Apologies for the off topic tangent but in brief, where we leave Obi Wan and Anakin at the end of TPM is completely different to how we are introduced to them in AOTC. They may as well be different characters. Similarly, the relationship between Anakin and Padme is very different. Meanwhile, a very friendly relationship has developed between Anakin and Palpatine off screen, spun off from a wink to the audience random quip the latter makes. I mean I totally get it, 10 years have passed and a lot has happened. But in terms of continuity going from one story to the next, it has always struck me as jarring.

But Jedi Ben was right above. Just because the previous trilogies had a more 'fluid' development and things changed around, it doesn't mean that this ST should follow suit. While I can understand why the current LucasFilm SG isn't tying themselves down to an outline, they should be exercising some kind of greater control over the entire narrative arc (or hell, just tell people they aren't making it up as they go along!)

 

Disagree, I don't see that as a reset. What happens to the key characters from TPM to AOTC seems more like character progression.

A reset IMO is what happened to Han from ROTJ to TFA, where the character reverts back to status quo after going through character development in prior films/books.

 

During the originals I was always a Han Solo fan more than Luke.
Han Solo in TFA was a silly comedy act.
The Rathtars and the whole gang scene was painful to watch.

 

Whose fault? Kathleen Kennedy. Rian Johnson directed and wrote, yes. But SHE approved the script and the footage.

 

I agree with OP. As I mentioned in another thread, a major problem with TLJ are the characters that are superfluous to the main plot but too major to ignore (e.g. Leia, Finn). If they'd written this as a trilogy, these characters would have been written out of the second film. But they weren't so it's burdened with scenes to keep these characters busy that are pointless to the overall plot (e.g. Poe's rebellion, hacker hunt).

 

I can't disagree with any of this...

So...

 

All of this was set up in the final shots of TPM, though I do agree that because there's such a time jump that we miss out on a LOT of things that I think were very important to have seen on-screen. I would've loved to see Palpatine's early friendship with Anakin in some way.

It is very jarring, though. I really wish they started Anakin off as an older kid and had him played by Hayden (or whoever) the whole way through.

 

Kathleen Kennedy is responsible. The mere idea she agreed with Rian that it was time to "move beyond" the Skywalkers for Episode EIGHT of a SAGA film shows she flubbed badly.

 

What did you think to TLJ Shane?

 

I would say Star Wars is mainly about the dogfights and humorous shenanigans following running away from the Empire/First Order now.


I don’t mean this as a dig -- I mean look at what we have:


It’s DEFINITELY moving away from being about the Skywalkers or any sort of tragic, heroic familial generational story, as evidenced by them cutting the lineage off so soon with a villainous character left as the sole member of the staple family, and having his foil be a random girl.


I know some people have harped on just how ridiculous it is that everyone in these films is related to one another and that the galaxy is huge, and they’re right -- but regardless, it’s this saga’s DNA.


I don’t see Spider-Man fans complaining about how the Green Goblin is always his best friend’s dad… it’s merely a part of the foundation of that character and his mythos. The intergenerational conflict is this franchise’s. I don’t think those fans who wanted a new Skywalker protagonist to lead this trilogy had their hearts and brains in the “wrong” place.


I was just watching a video from YouTube critic Grace Randolph where she said she sympathizes with Lucasfilm/Disney because they don’t have a source material for these films like Marvel/DC/LOTR, yet they really do: Lucas, who was of course, the originator and a strong proponent of the intergenerational saga, up until 2015, where he asked Abrams on video what had happened to Vader’s grandchildren, as in plural. That ship’s sailed.


They also seem pretty disinterested in really delving into the whole Jedi/Sith/Insert_Force_Religion_Here dynamic(s) beyond having Luke ranting about the Jedi here and there in TLJ. They haven’t developed Snoke, the Knights of Ren, or anything of the sort because I assume they largely don’t care.


The political drama? LOL, I won’t even go there.


In hindsight, they really have thrown away GL’s SW under the sandcrawler, by refusing to truly interact with the pillars of the story he erected and tended to over the course of the films. I guess you can say it's being approached very much like a hard-line reboot... Danny Elfman was right when he said the reboot didn't stop Star Wars from using familiar musical cues


I still think these new films are well-made and highly enjoyable, however, and I honestly put a lot of the fallout from TLJ on our current reaction-obsessed culture. People weaponized poor Mark Hamill’s words about this not being Lucas’ SW and made it into something ugly -- deplorable. Disney has every right to twist Star Wars into however see they fit, no matter how unrecognizable from Lucas new playbook, new rules

 

No plan, no vision, and no ideas. Everyone at LFL is to blame.

 

Yeah.

TPM has grown on me over the years (the world-building makes it a worthwhile addition to the saga), but Lucas got way too cute with trying to start from the absolute beginning.

 

Have to agree with someone earlier - saying it almost feels like we need another filler film to turn this trilogy into 4 films. Because the story doesnt seem to be going anywhere or have a (final) destination in mind. It seems a little far fetched / strange that Episode 9 is meant to come in and neatly wrap up the two rather disjointed films that came before it.

And for those saying this is Kathleens fault (which I agree!) - why do you think she didnt use the Lucasfilm Story Group concept for the films? She helped create the initiative... so why didnt she sit down with a selected group of creative directors to map the films out better before? It it because, as someone mentioned earlier, the original idea was that 'hot up and coming directors' would get a chance to come in and simply 'do their own thing' with a star wars film? Because that sounds a lot like sticking your head in the sand and hoping for the best.

 

First of all, any argument that Lucas didn't have the original trilogy planned out is slightly flawed. Yes, of course, he didn't have everything, Vader wasn't Luke's father, but what really happened was he cut his big story into three when he made ANH. And so he did have a rough idea of what he wanted. Yes, a million things changed. And there may never have been an official story put to paper from day one. But he'd been milling the story around for a while, and it was a big haze in his head. Yet it was a complete vision. As the author of the piece, he obviously knew the themes and what he wanted to say in a general sense.

That's different that starting a trilogy with no idea where its headed, with no creative communication between authors of different episodes.

Obviously, they took two very different psychological approaches to these first two episodes. For TFA, they wanted to recreated the feeling of SW of the past, an homage to the original three. For TLJ, they wanted to smash that and create a new beginning no longer beholden to Lucas six films.

It's not that the plots don't feel cohesive, IMO. It's that these two approaches are in conflict, and that's sort of why TLJ makes a great second act to TFA. It actually works on two levels, both for the characters, and for SW fans themselves, who have been forced to let go of what they love most, so they can move forward.

It's quite poetic and beautiful, IMO. But I do understand that this way of looking at it is not for everyone.

 

This short video review is great and ties into this thread:

Hes basically saying that game you play with friends, where one person picks a word then the next person picks a word and the next etc - to form a crazy story that makes less and less sense as it goes on? And how someone will say/do something crazy to sent the story off on a tangent that makes no sense? (which is the fun of the game!)

Thats how the trilogy is being made - JJ said his 2 words, Rian said his 2 words - I think its a good analogy.

 

This bit of news is probably most relevant to this thread. Evidence of a plan coming together for all 3 films right around the Disney purchase.

In December 2012, co-production designer Rick Carter (Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, Avatar) and Lucasfilm VP/executive creative director Doug Chiang (The Polar Express, War of the Worlds [2005], Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) assembled a small but world-class team of "Visual-ists," concept artists and veteran Lucasfilm creatives who, alongside screenwriter Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3), director J.J. Abrams (Mission Impossible III, Star Trek [2009], Super 8), and Lucasfilm development executive Kiri Hart and her Story Group, were tasked with dreaming the continuation of the Skywalker saga into being. But on January 9, 2013, one week prior to the very first meeting of the Visualists, Chiang, inspired by a few informal brain-storming sessions with Carter, painted portraits of an aged Luke Skywalker. Speaking in May 2013, Chiang recalled, "I did these four paintings of Luke. I just pulled some current-day images of Mark Hamill and repainted them. That became the jumping-off point for discussions on how we could bring back the old cast and what we could do with them."

Recounting the current version of The Force Awakens's back-story, Chiang continued, "After Return of the Jedi, when the Empire fell, Luke went through a period of turmoil. He decides to reform the Jedi, Luke being the last. So he creates his own Jedi academy and recruits people." One of Luke's pupils was the character then known as the "Jedi Killer." "Ultimately he turns against Luke. There's a big fight, and the Jedi Killer is wounded and cast aside. There's this big through-line of the Jedi Killer wanting revenge on Luke. And that's partly why he takes on this persona of Darth Vader: to haunt Luke."

Soon the remaining Visualist designers, including Erik Tiemens, Kurt Kaufman, Christian Alzmann, Yanick Dusseault, Iain McCaig, and, working remotely from Los Angeles, James Clyne, followed in Chiang's footsteps in preparation for a January 16 meeting with Star Wars creator George Lucas (THX-1138, American Graffiti) at Skywalker Ranch. Among the pieces presented at the ranch's Main House were additional portraits of Luke, the temple where he dwelled in exile, and the training of a young disciple Kira, later renamed Rey.

"At this point in the story, thirty years after the fall of the Empire, Luke has gone to a dark place," Chiang said. "He always had this potential dark side within him, being that his father was Darth Vader. So he is really struggling with that. He ended up secluding himself in this Jedi temple on a new planet, and he's just there meditating, reassessing his whole life. Gradually, over the arc of the movie, he rediscovers his vitality and comes back to himself." But as the film evolved, Arndt realized that Luke Skywalker would better serve the needs of the story as the person that everyone seeks but does not find until The Force Awakens's final scene. The plot points of an ancient temple and Rey's training there would be temporarily shelved. Additionally, Han Solo, now reintroduced at the start of the second act of the film, would have more time to shine. For the first time in a Star Wars story, Han would fill the mythological archetype of the mentor for Rey, as Obi-Wan Kenobi did for Luke in A New Hope. The Force Awakens would also be a victory lap, of sorts, for both the character and for Harrison Ford, the actor who first portrayed him thirty-eight years prior.

In late summer 2013, the Visualists were let in on two secrets that would not be revealed to the rest of the world for another year and a half: that the beloved Han Solo would meet his end in The Force Awakens, dispatched by the malevolent Jedi Killer---and that the Jedi Killer would be Han and Leia Organa's son. "This was big," Christian Alzmann said in September of 2013. "We found out that, at essentially the same running time in A New Hope when Obi-Wan gets killed, Han will get killed by the Jedi Killer---by his son! That's super-Biblical stuff, heavy stuff! I had a feeling that Harrison would love it; he's wanted Han to die for a while.

 

And yet we heard that RJ nearly had complete freedom of where he wants to take the story. And many aspects of Lucas' original ideas were changed.

The Jedi Killer/Kylo Ren was not a Skywalker. And he used Vader's imagery to haunt Luke Skywalker specifically, not worship Vader like Kylo Ren.

Luke Skywalker was actually training Rey as a Jedi.

The story was clearly about the Skywalkers and not Resistance vs First Order.

By this point in the development in 2013, Lucas left the pre-production and it was claimed that Disney threw out his treatments. Mark Hamill said this:

If it was vastly different as Mark Hamill said, then it's clear that ST was only inspired by George Lucas and everything else they started from scratch. Which fits to the press statements that Lucasfilm and JJ Abrams was making up the story as they go along... through the director-baton method rather than one guiding figure like Kevin Feige.