ST What does the ST add to the Saga? What is its story purpose?

In retrospect, I think the ST was gaslighting fans. They never had a real story. The whole goal was to imitate and profit off the big investment. They just kept leading the fans and actors along promising a story that finally was just an arbitrary decision.

It was a con. The ST was truly a product of the Trump era.

 

To be generous to the ST. It adds the inevitable failure of heroes and heroism. Like the end of Beowulf. The cycle just repeats itself over and over agin.

Of course it's purpose was to set up a retread of the OT. With a new Empire ruling the galaxy, no Jedi.

It blew up the achievements of the OT in the movie and no one reacted. The entire government was destroyed and no one cared.


But of course it's purpose was to make back the 4 Billion Disney (over)paid for Lucasfilm.

 

Couldn't've said it better. I pretty much agree with everything that WorldofGeekdom and his friends say in this podcast. One important thing he says is that he was in mourning because of Episodes VIII and IX, and I agree. I hadn't thought of it that way.



You should copyright that quote you said about it being a product of the Trump era because it really is. While a lot of the disdain the fanbase has is primarily directed toward TLJ and TROS, there are many complaints about TFA, as well. I think there are valid points, but it is telling that many YouTube critics I respect consistently rank Episode VII as better than the latter two. The box office performance reflects that, given how each successive film made less money than its predecessors. I haven't seen a trilogy experience that since the Hobbit films. For my part, I'm just glad that I liked Season Seven of TCW so much and that my partner introduced me to The Mandalorian last year, given how I had introduced her to Star Wars nine years ago. I watched Season Seven because I'm a fan of TCW and Ahsoka Tano, but TROS shocked and hurt me to the point that I was skeptical of The Mandalorian and had to be encouraged to watch it.

And just to end this post on a humorous note, I recall when I first joined this website in January 2015, I read a post in the TV section in which this guy said, "I am the entire Clone Wars just now," meaning that he finished watching seasons 1 through 6 of TCW at that point, and it was funny. We've all made typos at one time or another, so that was amusing. It's good to know that Star Wars is many different things to many different people.

 

Most of the time anyhow.

 

It's just not good to bash other members for having dissimilar opinions. If you want to get political and bash a historical figure, that's fine, as long it doesn't derail the discussion.

And on that note...the purpose of the Sequel Trilogy was to explore the themes of both the CT and the PT and draw a conclusion. It did not do that. However, I will be positive and say that JJ Abrams shoots beautiful movies. While I'm not happy about the small size of the galaxy (everything is easy to get to and everyone seems to know where everything is, people can see the First Order blow up the capital nearby, etc.), I will say that each environment in the ST looks great. Rian Johnson also did a great job visually in TLJ, but other than Luke's island, that movie feels a bit less realistic and more fanciful than Abrams' films. But not in a bad way. I'm of the opinion that TLJ and TROS are between F and C- on a traditional grade scale as far as story is concerned, but they look fantastic. Which is kind of ironic. X-Men: The Last Stand had a terrible story, but it looked awesome. X-Men: First Class had a good story, but it had some issues visually. But I'm talking about aesthetics here. The performances and the visuals make the ST look grand. Like it or not, the fixation on CGI advancement for the Prequel Trilogy helped pave the way for the Sequel Trilogy looking as great as it did. AOTC and, to a lesser extent, ROTS don't look good in various places. In contrast, everything looks real in the ST. Even Snoke and Maz look like they're literally on the set. They look more real than Davy Jones, and that's saying something. I would contend that Davy Jones is a much better character. But that leads into my opinion that two-thirds of the ST is not good. But this issue of Kathleen Kennedy and Disney not asking their story team to communicate with each other goes beyond the Sequel Trilogy. Timothy Zahn did not know that Ahsoka Tano was going to say that Thrawn was still alive in The Mandalorian. And that's a problem. Lol.

I mean, George Lucas was based for years over the PT. And now some people regret it, or they say, "Give the guy a break." Say what you want of the man. He had more good ideas than bad ones. And he definitely said that he had not read the Expanded Universe, but he tried to keep it consistent. I think he, or rather Lucasfilm/LucasArts, was mostly successful, although there are a few glaring contradictions I can think of. But the Sequel Trilogy has contradictions and retcons in spades.

And that's the problem. Now, even if I did not like the ST as a whole, and let's say that even if I was offended by the out-of-character portrayal of Luke Skywalker or a Rey-Kylo Ren connection (both or just one of them), I would have been able to feel more positively about this trilogy if it had a cohesive vision with more exciting things in it. As it is, the ST does not feel like it's in the same universe as the PT and CT. And I'm aware that the PT retconned a few things in the CT and some things in TESB retconned things in ANH. Obviously. But that all works because it is consistent and it's all George Lucas' vision. The ST feels like an alternate dimension with different versions of Luke, Leia, and Han...and the galaxy itself feels different mainly due to the aliens being different. Rogue One meshes well with ANH. TCW meshes well with the PT. So, I feel that the ST had a lot of potential to be great. Didn't have to be deep or anything. But the problem is that it's hollow in too many places. As offended as I am by how they handled Rey, Luke Skywalker, and Finn, I don't know what to feel about Poe. I sometimes feel like we got three different versions of Poe in the ST. So, yeah. More stuff like that...

 

I agree with that completely... but I would maybe add a 3rd question to that... 'How does it take the franchise forward?'... and I'd posit that the ST doesn't do that at all... and if not for The Mandalorian (which really is the templatefor how SW moves forward), I think the franchise would be in trouble.

 

I think for me the order would be:

1. Does the ST tell a cohesive story by itself? The ST needs to tell its own story first, and well, and that story - even though its part of a saga - needs to not wholly rely on the hard work done by the other trilogies. It has to do some of the work itself.
   
   
2. Does that ST fit within the SW Saga story? The ST story needs to fit within the larger saga narrative and make logical sense. I would say it does not, seeing as everything is just resets back to ANH, with little in world explanation or reasoning.
   
   
3. Does the ST take the SW Saga story forward? No. We're in the narrative spot as we were in EP 6.

 

The ST clarifies that the Skywalkers were not meant to be a dynastic bloodline because all the males can't stop messing up and only set things right just before they die.

I am on board with this.

 

Honestly, what these movies do/don't add to the existing saga is... kind of irrelevant to me. That goes for any Disney era Star Wars media. The Star Wars saga is George Lucas' story, and that story is complete and has been for a long time; everything post-Lucas is ancillary. Being 'ancillary' isn't a bad thing at all, mind you. I absolutely love some of the Disney era stuff. Rebels, Rogue One, The Last Jedi, and The Mandalorian are works that I find to be great, even though they don't technically "add" anything to George's already completed saga. They have other things to say, in their own right as their own stories, and that is interesting and worth exploring, too. And by taking each new Disney-era Star Wars installment as its own thing first and foremost, that allows me to enjoy (or not enjoy) each installment on its own terms, for its own merits.

 

I agree. I feel that I've answered most those questions to the best of my ability since 2018. But I don't want to bash the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. I'm an SW fan. I don't like the Kylo Ren-Rey relationship because it reminds me of two things: 1) the lost women who could never escape the manipulations and downgrading of her abuser, and 2) the woman who gradually becomes like her abuser. But I'm trying to keep it general. In real life, a Rey and Kylo Ren could be of any gender in any situation. Trans, non-binary, cis people, whatever. I can respect those who like the Reylo idea if they genuinely, innocently admire Rey and believe that she saved Kylo Ren. I wish I had that belief. So, the problem for me is that their toxic relationship ruins the trilogy. I'm not trying to gang up on anyone and say, "This is the majority opinion." It doesn't matter if it's the majority opinion or not. There's no way to truly quantify that. We can't interview everyone who saw these three movies. At the risk of sounding corny, the only way I can describe it in an emotional sense is that it hurts me. And I'm being genuine about this. I know a lot of people want to reject the Harry Potter series because of JK Rowling's transphobia, and that's fair. But Michael Gambon's Dumbledore has a heartfelt line in one of the final films: "Once, I knew a boy who made all the wrong choices. Please, let me help you." While he knew he was going to die, part of him genuinely wanted Malfoy to not be utterly corrupted like the Nameless One was. And that is the only movie line I can summon up in my mind as I say that the Rey-Kylo Ren problem reminds me of a lost cis girl with a terrible life, ignored by three parents, smooshed in the middle between her two sisters, who gave up and never escaped her Kylo Ren. It actually makes me cry even now, and I'm not joking. Godisawesome and Anakinfan are a couple of really helpful figures on here because they and some of you guys help me to know that more Star Wars get it. It's not written right, and it's effed up. I'm 34 and I hate to admit that it hurts me that much, given how I've seen many women between 17 and 42 all my life escape the bad one and find a good one or just become joyful about themselves without needing someone.

I don't mean to make it too personal, but the cis girl who died in 2014 was dishonored by many people who refused to resign from or close down the restaurant that killed her. And it was saddening to know that this one girl who was genuinely nice but neglected all her life just was afraid to say no and leave her friends and mangers who had been partially responsible for that terrible accident. The man who hurts her is just as vile as those other people, and she just can't stand up for herself or take care of herself. To me, that's analogous to Rey being attracted to Kylo Ren after he was complicit in the destruction of a village, Han Solo, countless civilians, etc. Obviously, the real life situation is about a bunch of classless Texans who don't give a damn about an alcohol-related death. So, yeah. I think that's a sad but good comparison, you know. Definitely not the same and not at the equivalent scale. But joining with a war criminal, to me, is as bad as being with someone who doesn't give a crap that someone died and it could have been prevented.

 

Well that's on Disney, the execs and their overall strategy... as the entire ST was based on the premise of nostalgia for the originals and re-using the iconography, plot points and characters from earlier SW films... to the point that the ST literally kills Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Leia on screen. If the ST had been it's own thing... I don't think we'd be having this conversation now and I don't believe the ST would have been half as contentious. But it was all about bums on seats...

 

While I agree with many of the great posts here, I have a different take on the ST and why it failed for me. I always looked at SW as character driven movies, and the 'Wars' part is the backround music. That's why I wasn't as mad as many about TFA being lifted right from ANH in terms of the backround music: First Order looking for a droid, while fighing the resistance, while having a new Death Star, run by an Emperor-like figure.

I was intrigued by the new characters and where Disney would take them in Episode 8 & 9? What made Rey so special? Where would Finn's story go after he literally left the Stormtroopers? Where would Kylo Ren go as he seemed more conflicted than Vader? Who was this Snoke character, and what made him rise to power after the collapse of the Empire and The Emperor? And why was Luke hiding out alone on Ach-tu?

So I was fine if they repeated the same 'macro' story of the Resistance vs First Order for 7,8,9, but they HAD to give us something different in terms of characters arcs for the ST characters. That's where I ended up being disappointed is that they essentially gave us the OT character arcs 2.0: Kylo Ren (Darth Vader) saves Rey (Luke Skywalker) by help killing The Emperor (The Emperor), and is redeemed to Ben Solo. Now there were some moving parts with Kylo killing Snoke in the 2nd movie, but TROS essentially plays out like ROTJ with the character arcs.

So I really enjoy the first hour of TROS cause it is different and something new, and than the last 45 minutes (when Rey goes to Exegol) feels like exactly like when Luke confronts the Emperor on Death Star 2. That's why I still stand by TFA as a good movie because the macro plot is no different than ANH, but the characters were setup to go in a much different way than the OT.

 

One could argue that Ben’s sacrifice was more pure than Anakin’s as the only life he had to give up was his own (and Plapy’s insistence on continuing to attempt firing lightning on Rey despite it being reflected onto himself renders his 2nd death more self-inflicted than otherwise). So from that perspective, the ST facilitated a more polar opposite ending from the PT than the OT did. In general, I think the ST story wound up being a more blatant inversion of the PT story than the OT story, which is ironic considering the apparent distance some of it’s makers seemed to want to get from the PT.

 

Whilst I agree with the broad strokes of your post re. the characters being pivotal in SW, I disagree about TFA... IMO, it shares the same character issues. Apart from Finn (which I would see as the only positive in terms of ‘character’ in the ST), the characters are pretty much proxy version of the previous films. We get the Luke orphan figure, the hot shot pithy pilot, the Anakin/Vader figure, the Tarkin/Vader dynamic, the ‘emperor’ etc. And whilst I acknowledge that most films fall back on ‘archetypes’, I believe TFA didn’t try nearly hard enough to establish ‘new’ characters.... other than Finn (who gets downgraded quite quickly) and as a consequence we’re left with very vanilla characters/characterisation (IMO), that kind of just go round in circles. If Finn had been the main protagonist, if his motives had been used to shape the various intra-character dynamics, I believe the ST could have been a whole other (better) proposition.

 

No doubt that TFA main story and characters resembled ANH, but I still believe Episode 8 & 9 had an opportunity to take them wherever it wanted:

-Rey was powerful in TFA, so that was intriguing to me as to why? They could have explored an angle (which they touched the surface on in TROS) that she was scared of those abilities and couldn't control them (when she thought she killed Chewbacca). They could have played a sub-plot where she was becoming a detriment to the Resistance because she couldn't control her abilities, and her arc would be more about finding her inner strenght. Instead, they focused on her parents for 3 movies, and in the end it hurt her character development.

-Finn was a former stormtrooper, and that was something different than the PT/OT (as you stated). We can all pretty much agree that a Stormtrooper revolt (led by him) would have been an interesting angle for the ST, and could have contributed to the downfall of the First Order. The irony is they built their army with these kids who eventually turned on them years later.

-Snoke was the wildcard since we didn't know much about him after TFA. I always disagreed with the fans as I didn't want him to be Darth Plaguis. I would have never made him a full blown dark side user like Palpatine, and more of a Bin Laden type of figurehead. What I mean is that his followers love him instead of people fearing him like they did with Vader.

-That's where the true conflict could have came in the ST was between Snoke, Kylo and Hux, and that would eventually be the downfall. Kylo Ren didn't need to redeemed like a carbon copy of the OT but maybe he switches after he bonds with Rey, but the Resistance doesn't trust him (even though he is a Skywalker). Maybe Poe and Finn don't trust him if he defects and you have a split in the Resistance.

-Episode 9 could have been essentially each side Kylo/Rey, The Resistance, Snoke/Hux First Order, Finn/Stormtroopers all plotting for this grand war that will take place, and nobody knows how it will shake out.

Again, I'm just thinking about this right off the top of my head and could develop this story better if I had time to plot it out. But my point is just because TFA was a carbon copy of ANH, didn't mean the end point was Episode 9 had to be a carbon copy of ROTJ. That's where I feel let down.

 

Oh I agree that TLJ didn’t improve or evolve anything...

 

Nothing it is just a reboot of the original trilogy which makes it a huge disappointment.

 

It’s a FAR INFERIOR reboot of the original trilogy, using inferior characters and far inferior “ story writing”, which makes it profoundly disappointing. Instead of Continuing the story; they arrogantly seemed to think that they could redo it better than Lucas. They were very definitely completely wrong.

 

People talk about that movie like it's radical or sophisticated when it's not. It's baffling.

The overall purpose of this trilogy was to show how to not handle a trilogy. The right hand didn't know what the left was doing.

Another thing that should be said is that the villains of this trilogy are not iconic, which is strange, considering how Star Wars is known for iconic villains.

 

I think Kylo Ren, visually, had something about him in TFA (even though a bit derivative of Revan), and I like the visual of the crackling cross guard lightsabre. But the problem is that they tried to lift the lid on Kylo halfway through TFA, and unfortunately, what was underneath the mask was a bland and vanilla character, who was infinitely less compelling/complex than Anakin and not even as ‘villainous’ as Dooku. Johnson kind of goes weirder by removing Kylo’s helmet completely (both figuratively and literally) putting him in generic ‘bad man’ cape and boots... and then trying to depict him as some ‘sexy’ stalker.

 

I wouldn't mind his blandness if he were only inoffensive. My partner and I were watching Underworld 1 and 2 the other day. The first one features a good villain, Viktor, who's really interesting. Markus is a little bland in the second one, but at least he has some interesting traits, such as respecting his brother and hating his father. So, there are ways to make a less interesting villain have some good character traits. A stalker is not one of them. I actually feature a character in my own novel who is a stalker, and she is anything but a good person. Stalking is just not something that needs to be glorified under any circumstance. It's something that traumatizes people. It actually makes me concerned for the people who would posters of Kylo Ren up in their rooms.

At any rate, the Sequel Trilogy did enough damage. Yet Lucasfilm hasn't completely learned its lesson. It really made Star Wars look bad. I talked with people I met during the last several years about it, and they said they were disgusted by Reylo and they felt that the ST was an example of filmmakers running out of ideas.

 

Oh I wish Snoke were HALF as interesting as Viktor.

Actually do you know which character from underworld the leaders of the FO remind me of, Amelia.