Saga What Do We, As Star Wars Fans, Actually Want Star Wars To Be About and Should the Saga Continue?

No it's based upon the film. When she says that he averts his eyes in contemplation, with it clearly having an affect on him.

 

Oh... well... I think our interpretations of the scene are different then. Luke was emotional, yes, and launched into his kind of diatribe about his silly legend status and how he failed with Kylo due to what I interpret as the same hubris Luke sees the Jedi to have had. I didn’t interpret that as Luke being swayed. Luke seemed like he had his position pretty well defined.

 

I suppose different interpretations then. By the end of the scene I got the impression Luke was definitely debating within himself.

 

Seeing as the movie ended with the preservation of what was left of the Jedi Order (the texts, the pieces of the lightsaber, the last known hopeful) and Luke, in effect, passing his responsibility to keep it alive now that he couldn't do that anymore, I don't think this idea that TLJ corrupted the idea of the Jedi Order really fits the movie. The mostly negative picture we get is from an exiled Luke, who's clearly in the wrong place; part of his story arc is recognizing his failures (both in what happened to his academy and how he handled it's fall). His Weltanschauung before Yoda's last lesson may have some grains of truth, but the broad picture doesn't really fit with reality.

(For what's it's worth, the idea that the prequel Jedi Order was down the wrong path and needed to be reformed from the bottom up has been an idea bounced around in the franchise long before Rian Johnson made TLJ, including a few canon sources.)

 

I don't know how you've interpreted it that way.

The argument against the Jedi is clearly put by Luke: the Jedi failed in their mission and the Sith were born from them. Therefore the Jedi should be removed from the board so that another light may rise that's better.

The counter argument is put by Rey and Yoda: the Jedi may have failed but they are a good foundation to build upon, and the best way to move forward isn't to hit the reset button, but to build upon the past.

The film does not suggest they should be a hitting of the reset button.

The film lands with Lucas in the end.

 

The Jedi and their ways as they have been established in the saga are indeed gone. There's no Jedi left, nobody trained in their ways, nothing. A lightsaber is the weapon of the Jedi. Having one doesn't make one a Jedi. Pieces of one are meaningless. Texts whose content are a complete mystery (and could be made to be anything) are also pointless, and nobody becomes a Jedi by reading some books.

We get said "negative picture" out of nowhere, without any valid reason. And we do not get the erroneous views from said "negative picture" being called out and deconstructed.

That it has grains of truth is debatable.

Yes, and I've criticized that recent bandwagon before. In any case, it was through TLJ that fallacious idea arrived on the big screen, leaving its previous niche range present in 'secondary' works.

Which is a flawed premiss and an even more flawed conclusion. The Sith were born not from Jedi but from dissident Jedi. That doesn't make the Jedi the creators of the Sith. The Sith came into being because some chose to ignore Jedi teachings and instead follow the dark side.

And the Jedi didn't fail because of their Jedi ways. But because the Sith actively deceived and worked against them (and the Republic) from the beginning.

No. The argument that was always present in the saga by Lucas, before this sequel trilogy, is that the Jedi should return, not randomly abandon or change what defines them and be reformed or turned into something else (what? why?).

As it stands, they've hit for all intents and purposes the reset button. Those in charge are now free to turn them into whatever they want. All of them are gone and their ways were not passed on.

No. That ship has sailed since 2013/14.

 

But ultimately the Jedi did fail to protect the Republic, and the Sith were fallen Jedi. It is an interesting philosophical argument - if you create something powerful, that is then used for ill, and you could stop it if you went back in time, would you?

This is not a rebuttal of my point.

Except for their holy texts and Luke being capable of helping Rey.

 

Dig it. Rey still believed in the Jedi as something the galaxy needs regardless of Luke's understandable disillusionment and regrets. She went in without the baggage of any false pretenses given to her by anyone else (like Luke did about his father). Whatever foibles and setbacks she will have to overcome she'll discover them for herself, authentically.

That is why Yoda declares that "we" must not lose the girl. She represents a new chance at redemption of the Jedi's ideals (if not their chosen orthodoxy prior t their virtual extinction), outwith the father-son redemption story of the middle trilogy.

 

To use a religious analogy, it'd be like saying that the Judeo-Christian religion would be extinct if all the specific denominations today vanished, leaving nothing but Bibles and other texts. Judaism and Christianity are bigger than than the constructs we've built around them and will outlast any given specific method of practicing them.

The facts that Luke cites as proof are perfectly true, it's just that he took his conclusion to an extreme. Also bear in mind that his personal failures are coloring his judgement.

Wrong, that's the whole point of the Yoda scene.

That it has grains of truth is debatable.[/quote]

As I said before, he took the wrong lesson from the historical facts.

Interesting fact; Yoda was one of the previous spokespersons for the "Jedi were failures" theory, yet here is the one who shows Luke the error of that thinking.

 

Are you quoting the wrong person? I don’t think I said those things... I have a bad memory but usually not that bad. When I pushed the arrow to the original post, those quotes aren’t in it.

 

"...and I will not be the last Jedi."
Luke Skywalker To Kylo Ren

It seems to specify that they do not intend to do away with the Jedi but restart it from scratch. Not a reset, but a learning curve .

 

We have so much to work with. So many old stories that have been washed away that can be re-organized and recreated under the Disney banner. Disney has proven time and again that they're looking at these old properties and they're thinking.

The one thing that Disney has to prove is that Star Wars is not just about the Force, falling to the dark side, redemption, and rebellion. There has to be something more there and they have to make the universe feel expansive. The one thing that the Superhero genre has proven, to an extent, is that it's not really a *genre* so much as a style. It has characters with certain traits but they don't have to be action films alone. They can be Scifi/Fantasy like Thor or a Political Thriller like the Winter Soldier or a crime drama like the Dark Knight or an all-out family drama like Logan.

Star Wars has to start doing this in-universe and Disney cannot be afraid to do so. Solo works in my opinion because it's trying to do something different. Rogue One was not a personal favorite of mine but they finally tried to do the War movie thing and I think that kind of thinking will pay off. The problems we're having with these films thus far have to do with compromised visions due to the corporate power that is Disney - not a lack of potential depth inherent to the Star Wars universe itself.

To directly answer the question...
I think the main saga probably should end with IX or at least XII. Lucas did at one point say Star Wars was a 12-episode saga. At least this will be in-keeping with a vision he pretended to have in an interview one time.

Make an Obi-Wan movie. Connect it to the other anthology films. Those who have seen Solo know what I mean.
Make the Knights of the Old Republic series - somehow. Either make a TV series or just make films. It's a rich story that mirrors the main themes of the primary saga well while being fresh and original.

Disney would be wise to use the stories they already have to expand their universe more and more. If characters like Revan, Kyle Katarn, and others make a comeback, it won't just create buzz in fan circles but it will *actually make the films good* because those characters already have fleshed out stories for them to remake. Disney knows they're sitting on a gold mine. I want them to take full advantage of it while making sure that the stories they're making are well-written and interconnected.

Also I would like it if there were more than four black guys in the entire galaxy, too.

 

I love your post my friend and I was thinking the same thing about Marvel and how that can serve SW as well. There was a great wealth of EU stuff along with so much garbage. They can bring the best back reworked with new things and keep the style going but not the same story. I like this suggestion.

There may only be like 4 black guys in the whole galaxy, but each one is worth 2 of any of their co stars! Quality over quantity

 

Probably, sorry. I abuse the cut-and-paste shortcuts on these things and sometimes that doesn't work so well.

 

You are strong and wise. I concur with these points. The ship seems adrift, forgetting its mission and ethos.

 

No, that's a false dichotomy. The Jedi and their ways are not just a mere set of beliefs. One has to be trained in their ways to become one. You don't learn the Jedi arts in text books.

No, they aren't. And his conclusion is based on the false premises he states

I'm not arguing that. But how he was made to fail and the jump in logic of his wrong conclusions.

No, it isn't. Yoda didn't refute any of his previous claims.

Blaming the Jedi for the actions and crimes of others is not an historical fact.

Yes, he was made into one.

He didn't. He argued something else.

 

I find family bloodline stories fascinating and that's what Star Wars used to be about. It was the Saga of the Skywalkers. Personally, I want the saga to continue the story of the Skywalker family. A new trilogy that isn't about them or the characters we know does not interest me at all.

 

How about another family? Perhaps the Palpatines? Lucas said the saga was a story of family interwoven with tales of good versus evil, heroism and villainy. It takes many a family to populate a galaxy, and some families shape things more so than others. I can do a story with other lineages, but only if they are instrumental in shaping the galaxy. I get where others may prefer singular storylines that are not beholden to lineage. That works too. The main thing is to recognize and respect that SW is a soap opera set in space. It works best when framed that way and is majorly a hallmark of the series. To ignore or fail to understand it that way equals just a sci fi action adventure film with SW characters in it.

 

Maybe I’m misunderstanding your point? The Jedi didn’t create something powerful. The force is a fact of the gffa that simply exists, with or without the Jedi. The Jedi harnessed the force. They became experts in the force. That some would use the force for evil is both inevitable and not the fault of the people that don’t use it for evil.

Palpatine was not a fallen Jedi. The first Sith may have started as a Jedi, but they broke off and developed their own philosophy. It’s so ass backwards to blame the Jedi for that. Is Judaism to blame for the Crusades because Christianity wouldn’t exist without it? No. What is, is.

Regardless, the Sith are gone. In this timeline, Snoke and Kylo prove what I said - it’s inevitable that someone will use the dark side for evil. It’s irrelevant if they call themselves Sith to do it, and it’s pointless to tie ourselves into knots to blame the not evil people for the actions of the good people. We don’t blame good cops for dirty cops and say we should dissolve the police. That would be stupid.

If Luke returns in a meaningful way, maybe, although we haven’t seen training with a force ghost before. More likely, unless they’re scared and did a massive course correct, all indications to me are they wanted to move on to the new characters and force ghost Luke might get a cameo. If they wanted Luke to train Rey in IX, it would have been really simple to just not kill him.

 

I don't buy into blaming the Jedi for the fall of the Republic. They laid down their lives protecting it. The dark side led them into a trap and most were gunned down by their own troops. It is folly to blame the ones who tried to restore peace for the evil of those who disrupted it. By the time the extent of the Sith Lords treachery was known it was already too late.

 

Funny, but Thrawn 5 books and Jedi New Order despite having some of the meh novels, led SW into the right direction.
Mythos was preserved, Jedi kept their beliefs, while being fixed, the cycle of Jedi and Sith continued to live and wasn't treated as something that should be stopped. The interesting stories about people in GFFA continued to spawn, the world continued to grow. Relics of the past came, the enemies from other galaxies came.

I want SW to be just like that. Keep the laws and rules, don't bend them. Create well written stories about well written characters. Keep the world wide and lore deep.



p.s. When it comes to the Jedi Order from prequels i see the way they were treated by TLJ and some fans a failure. Jedi weren't bad, or wrong, their teaching in essence were right and helpful, and their books contained the very useful knowledges that shouldn't be burned.
They failed in a politics and Anakin's education, not in basic concepts of the Force, its sides and ways to preserve the peace and law. They failed as a group of people, not as the concept of the Order.
Jedi are the good guys, who got many things absolutely right, taught the peace and humanity. They deserved to be treated with the respect and have all rights to continue their doing with fixed rules and better politics and educational management.
I don't know why Lucasfilm decided to treat the Jedi concept itself, and Jedi Order concept as something originally wrong and failed. They are not.

 

I agree with many of your points. The Marvel superhero movies definitely would not have survived as long as they have if they were merely superhero stories and didn't mashup several genres. Especially Guardians of The Galaxy. But I'd offer that Star Wars has been doing this--ie, genre mashing, from the very start. A New Hope played like a space western/samurai in space opera/WWII airplane movie all in one. I mean, Star Wars can absorb both Bladerunner and Lord of The Rings whereas neither of these properties can absorb each other. This is why I think the SW franchise will survive the Solo "flop". It's too resilient. There is so much you can do with this material. Star Wars is almost like an aesthetic prism where anything that goes into it comes out looking cooler on the other end. One point where I would probably disagree with you is the Force. I do think SW is much more than Imperials v Rebels and maybe "Jedi", but it's the Force that distinguishes SW from other similar fantasy adventure properties. I loved Solo, but the movie would have resonated more if the Force played more of a role. No, you didn't need Vader or Maul running around slicing people up, but the idea that there is a greater, other worldly power at play impinging on the activities of this otherwise Everyman (Solo) would have added depth and grandeur to the proceedings. Look at Empire--Han's story resonates more because he's going up against Vader--a Force user, and winning to boot. I've seen and read reviews and articles suggesting Star Wars needs to move beyond Jedi and whatnot. Maybe. But stripping SW of the Force would be like stripping super heroes of their super powers.

 

Oh well...

 

I want each successive Star Wars film to be original, while still referring to past films. And I want the same level of complexity that Lucas had infused into the franchise.