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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

ST The ST: What Would You Change/Revise?

Discussion in 'Sequel Trilogy' started by EzraSnoke, Dec 27, 2017.

  1. Kenneth Morgan

    Kenneth Morgan Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    May 27, 1999
    I was over at the Satellite News MST3K site looking at some old posts from its "Weekend Discussion" series. I found a thread with the topic "Monster Movies You'd Like to See" (based on one of the host segments from "Beast of Hollow Mountain"). I'd forgotten that I responded with the following idea:

    Or how about “The Last Kaiju”?


    It’s pretty much “The Last Jedi”, until the end. The last survivors of the unbearably inept escape attempt of the Resistance are trapped in the old Alliance base on Crait. A group of Imp-, sorry, First Order AT-ATs show up, flanking a massive cannon that will blow open the base’s door. The good guys are ready to send out antiquated ships in a suicidal attempt to destroy the cannon.


    Then, suddenly, Godzilla shows up! Thanks to Luke’s amazing Jedi powers, the G-Man has been magically transported to Crait. Kylo orders all of the Walkers and his control ship to open fire on Godzilla, crazily commanding more and more firepower. Godzilla, highly annoyed, responds by knocking one Walker into the air with one swipe of his tail, and it lands on the cannon, destroying it. Godzilla wipes out the other Walkers and the command ship with one blast of his radioactive firebreath. Kylo barely manages to escape the command ship, but Godzilla lets out a roar that’s translated as, “I will not be The Last Kaiju!”, before squashing the punk.


    Thanks to Rey, the good guys escape in the Millenium Falcon, when they see that the First Order ships have been wiped out by Gamera, whom Luke has also brought over. And Episode IX opens with the bad guys getting utterly pummeled by Mothra.

    I posted that back in 2019. And I'd still pay good money to see such a version of Episode VIII.
     
  2. Bor Mullet

    Bor Mullet Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Apr 6, 2018
    Depends on who that is. Choose the wrong person, and you get three films of consistent crap. Is that better than inconsistent crap? Not sure.
     
  3. ezekiel22x

    ezekiel22x Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 9, 2002
    In TFA I would have Rey find the jacket Luke wore during the medal ceremony in ANH. The jacket would speak to her through the Force and warn of Palpatine's return...somehow.
     
  4. DarkGingerJedi

    DarkGingerJedi Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2012
    Now you're talking! How about....Rey needs to bring together the Jacket, Han's Dice, and the lightsaber, and together, the objects will form a triad in the Force. Or a tri-force if you will. And they'll tell Rey about the OT.

    Yeah. It's solid.
     
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  5. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    They're used to resurrect Han Solo, first as a skeleton. Rey has to keep bringing him victims, so he can steal their skin and organs to become whole again.
     
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  6. Darth PJ

    Darth PJ Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2013
    Consistency of storytelling, continuity of characters/relationships and a commitment to a single vision will pretty much always improve the end result. If you have that, even a poor filmmaker like Abrams would have a better chance of producing a more coherent trilogy of films.
     
  7. Darth Smurf

    Darth Smurf Small, but Lethal star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 22, 2015
    Sounds like Hanraiser
     
  8. DarkGingerJedi

    DarkGingerJedi Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2012
    The Han Awakens
     
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  9. christophero30

    christophero30 Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 18, 2017
    Hanhead. Pinhan?
     
  10. A Chorus of Disapproval

    A Chorus of Disapproval Head Admin & TV Screaming Service star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Aug 19, 2003
    My Boy... I have such sights to show you!"

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
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  11. Bor Mullet

    Bor Mullet Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Apr 6, 2018
    Night of the Living Han
     
  12. FightoftheForgotten

    FightoftheForgotten Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 19, 2020
    I'd probably finish the saga in a way that didn't involve a space wizard coming up with the most convoluted way of dying from a game of stop-hitting-yourself.
     
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  13. Sarge

    Sarge Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Oct 4, 1998
    But it's tradition! It rhymes! That happened in the 3rd film of each trilogy.
     
  14. Seeker Of The Whills

    Seeker Of The Whills Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 20, 2015
    When JJ called Star Wars a "space western" during the promotion of TFA, I knew we were in trouble. His knowledge of Star Wars probably begins and ends with the cantina scene.
     
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  15. Darth PJ

    Darth PJ Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2013
    I agree. Certain filmmakers try and capitalise on existing fandom by proclaiming themselves as 'fans', when what they actually mean is that they saw the film originally and bought some of the figures etc.
     
  16. Shadao

    Shadao Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 31, 2017
    I do find it amusing that the Mandalorian is more space western than TFA. At least it feels like a western rather than a Hollywood backlot tour of nostalgia. The key difference is that the Mandalorian actually cites a specific inspirational film, Lone Wolf & Cub.
     
  17. Bor Mullet

    Bor Mullet Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Apr 6, 2018
    This is key. TFA is derivative of Star Wars itself (embarrassingly so), while the Mandalorian draws from the sources that inspired Star Wars.
     
  18. Darth PJ

    Darth PJ Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2013
    When films/TV become so self-aware and so self-referential, they end up eating themselves... which is where the ST found itself. I suspect the cinematic frame of reference of those involved in the ST, is actually not very extensive, and certainly doesn’t extended beyond mainstream Hollywood, which was always going to result in films that were inward looking. The net result being that the ST failed to both extend the cinematic language of Star Wars, and extend the fictional galaxy it existed within. Thankfully, The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, are helping to address that.
     
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  19. Ginkasa

    Ginkasa Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jun 13, 2002
    I've been thinking about what I might have liked to be different in the ST trilogy and wanted to get my thoughts down. I didn't really want to open a new thread (my thoughts aren't that important), so I'm glad this thread exists. I do want to say that my intent is not to say what would "fix" the ST. I don't think the ST is broken and in general the work is the work for better or worse. You can't "fix" a piece of art creatively; you can only change it and it then becomes a different work of art. I also generally like the ST although there are things I wish could have been done differently (same as with the OT and PT, although perhaps to different degrees with each). The elements that I'd like to see added or subtracted or changed:

    Episode VII
    - Jakku is Tatooine.
    - Rey has grown up hearing stories about The Skywalker; a quasi-mythical being that is a combination of the real Skywalkers and events surrounding them: the Skywalker was a slave on Tatooine and was the only human to win a podrace, the Skywalker destroyed an entire Tusken village single handedly, the Skywalker vowed revenge on the Empire for the murder of his parents, Skywalker killed Jabba the Hutt, defeated the Empire, etc. etc.
    - I dislike Starkiller Base aka Death Star 3.0, so my first thought is to chuck it, but what replaces it? This thought process led me to...
    - The initiating event of the film (perhaps covered in the opening crawl), is that the First Order was completely unknown until a surprise blitzkrieg attack on the galaxy with overwhelming military strength. The galaxy has been peaceful for 30 years so the Republic army was small and easily defeated. The Resistance is cast instead as the remnants that were able to escape and regroup (perhaps due to a forewarning from Leia; she may have received a premonition from the Force).
    - The primary McGuffin that drives Episode VII is still finding Luke Skywalker and I would say the events would stay mostly the same; just the context for some elements changed. The First Order wants to remove Luke as a threat and the Resistance wants Luke's help.
    - Ben Solo's history and the fate of Luke's academy all stays more or less the same. The change would be that his involvement with Snoke is unknown until the events of VII. The mystery of the Knights of Ren is removed; they are presumed to just be a gang led by naughty Ben Solo, but in this film it is realized he was secretly supporting the First Order.
    - The final battle would instead be about the Resistance obtaining the last piece of the puzzle to finding Luke (and removing it from First Order clutches) with the added benefit of saving Rey rather than Death Star Battle 3.0. This would remove the deus ex machina device of R2-D2 just waking up and having it.

    Episode VIII
    - I really like TLJ, so I don't know that I would change a ton except what would be needed to accommodate the above changes to TFA. Might have Rey more explicitly confront the idea she could be Luke's daughter (which, by necessity, would then have any potential romantic subtext removed from her and Ben and instead recast as he trying to save him due to perceived familial relation), although I would also keep the reveal that she's "nobody"
    - Might also add some kind of foreshadowing that Palpatine is behind the scenes. I like Snoke being a puppet leader and I like him being killed here, but there could be something here to just hint that there's more going on. I don't know what that would be.

    Episode IX
    - TRoS is really where I started thinking about this stuff and most of the changes I thought about are things that would help better support where TRoS took the trilogy while removing things I really dislike and keeping the stuff I really like. Just some basic stuff I would want to change.
    - Rey is a nobody. She chooses to be a Skywalker at the end, as before.
    - Palpatine is around, but kept hidden for most of the movie. Its not that he's somehow returned with a new faction of bad guys, but that he's always been there, just hidden. This is kind of true of the film as-is, but I think presenting this as the characters discovering it (and being a little more upfront with how this has happened) would play better as a reveal rather than Papa Palpatine randomly screaming out to the galaxy.
    - Honestly, with just that (Rey being nobody and Palpatine being more gracefully re-introduced) I would feel a lot better about TRoS and with some of the changes to TFA I would feel like the trilogy as a whole would be more cohesive.
    - There's some legitimate concerns about what Finn is given to do and I have always liked the idea of him sparking a stormtrooper rebellion, so I'd like to see that though I haven't given much to thought what else might need to change to accommodate.

    Those are my thoughts. If you've read them thanks for reading and if you have any thoughts on it I'd like to discuss it further.
     
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  20. Bor Mullet

    Bor Mullet Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Apr 6, 2018
    To me it’s extraordinary that there’s absolutely nothing in the ST that is better than the latest episode of the Book of Boba Fett. Not one moment.
     
  21. DarkGingerJedi

    DarkGingerJedi Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2012
    The last episode BOBF, is quite simply, one of the best episodes of Star Wars anything, ever.

    It plays in the sandbox nicely, and expands on things you'd expect to see but we never did. It respects the old, and is nostalgic for what came before, but wants to go forward. It's really fun and entertaining. And feels passionate. Give BDH more episodes please.

    Yeah. The ST needed way more of that, before anyone even gets into the story and character issues.
     
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  22. Jo Lucas

    Jo Lucas Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 28, 2015
    I wonder where all the writers for Mando and BOBF were during the making of the ST? Gosh we could've used their talent
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2022
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  23. godisawesome

    godisawesome Skywalker Saga Undersheriff star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 14, 2010
    In some specificity, without going into spoilers, I’d also argue this last episode of TBOBF actually shows how many of those horribly conventional, non-subversive expectations, reads and priorities people had after TFA actually could work excellently, even though TLJ would have been frightened of them.

    - We now know that, yeah, the story, characters, and audience can make an “Excalibur” lightsaber work great for drama, especially if it has a tumultuous history connecting the main character directly to past heroes and villains in a way that brings challenges with it.

    - We now know that everyone’s fine and dandy, and more than that, with a training/education scene containing exposition, character evaluations/challenges, and a focus on the personality issues the main hero has with their new challenges.

    I’m just saying… I feel that this last episode shows there would have been nothing wrong and everything right with Luke actually training Rey, analyzing her weaknesses and flaws, and her discovering she grabbed a lightsaber that proves she’s tied directly to a family drama with great risks and dangers.
     
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  24. LesPaulPlayer91

    LesPaulPlayer91 Jedi Knight

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2014
    Personally, I think the ST's biggest flaw is that in TFA it feels like someone's just pressed a giant reset switch. I feel it should have shown how the galaxy has changed since ROTJ - show Leia in the senate and Luke training Jedi in the Jedi Temple. Different ship types as well. Whilst I know it's far from the most popular film in the franchise, I think it would have worked well if it was more a mirror of TPM than ANH. Have Kylo and Snoke like Maul and Sidious - largely in the shadows. Keep the Kylo = Ben Solo reveal as a surprise as well (Leia and Han think their son died or something). I think it would have been better if the First Order wasn't as powerful as the Empire was at its height. Have them be more like the Rebels in the OT - a serious threat but not all-powerful.

    Having the trilogy properly planned out would have helped as well - more Rey is a Palpatine and Snoke = Sheev foreshadowing. Proper interaction between the main cast of the OT as well.
     
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  25. Jo Lucas

    Jo Lucas Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 28, 2015
    Have Kylo turn good by the end of Episode VIII so we could have a antihero Vegeta-like Ben Solo in Episode IX. That's something I was sure we were getting in TLJ and I so disappointed we didn't.