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

It's supposed to signify that Kylo has an urge to do the right thing but suppresses it because he wants to be like Vader. Why he wants to be like Vader, I have no idea, and the "pull to the light" is so insubstantial that it's essentially meaningless to his character, but I think it does make some sense.

To tie this more into the thread topic, I do agree that it comes off as a half-hearted attempt to mirror the PT, but I doubt that was the intention. When people say Ben "saves the person he loves", completing Anakin's arc, I have to disagree. Anakin's flaw was being too attached and unable to let go, not that he was unable to save Shmi/Padme. Plus, Rey and Kylo's "relationship" is not at all similar to Anakin/Padme, so the mirror doesn't work regardless.

 

The more I think about the ST as a whole, the more I think of it as a massive missed opportunity.

 

The mirror for me is more about possessiveness versus selflessness.

The idea being that it’s where the dividing line between the light side and the dark side is thinnest. It’s where things can truly go either way for a person as they navigate forces as powerful as the desire to possess and control versus truly selfless love. This is the essential difference.

Anakin no longer loves Padme in the purest sense of love as Mustafar progresses and he becomes consumed with selfish possessive thoughts. Right down to using his power to physically. control and choke her and make it all about himself.

Conversely, Ben Solo had primarily been selfish and possessive and didn’t truly discover selflessness until he was reminded of it on the ruins where his grandfather and her grandfather last made history and his parents own selflessness entered his mind in different ways alongside Rey’s own eventual selflessness. He discovered it.

Following his journey to Exogol he uses his power to give life even if takes his own vitality away to do so. It’s compassion and selflessness and unconditional love.



It adds additional weight and relevance to this quote from George while doing so in a non-familial way, just as this once began with Anakin and Padme. It shows this fundamental that was important to George in dividing light from dark again between man and woman who aren’t relatives. Just as these two weren’t.

 

There are zero parallels between the Padme - Anakin love story and whatever some people might perceive as a romance in the Kylo - Rey situation. Completely different interactions, background, characters, motives and everything really.

 

My argument as indicated above is not at all that the romances are comparable or even that the interactions are reversed significantly. Literally my argument is only what I said. That both dynamics explore the themes that Lucas wrote for Hayden in the above quote but in different ways.

 

I'm not sure the ST explores anything in a meaningful way, and (from what's presented on screen) Abrams/Johnson don't continue/progress what Lucas explored. Saying that, I do think Johnson tried to further the concept of anyone being a hero... but with Abrams and Johnson seemingly at odds with each other, these themes are dropped from one film to the next.

 

In spite of those disagreements I feel that the ST comes together better as a trilogy than it probably has any right to given those disagreements.

I also feel that it connects into the saga as a whole better than it seemed like it would after VIII in large part because of the work done in IX.

It’s all late. It all could have and should have began sooner. The criticisms regarding that are valid to me and I agree with many of them. Where I disagree is that I see it as a better late than never scenario. I agree the limited tie-ins that were ultimately shoe-horned in to better connect it to the saga. Not only for the ST and my viewings of it but also because it helps me enjoy the PT and OT tie-ins to the ST more now. When Luke speaks to Leia at the end of Jedi about her training I now envision the ST flashback scene of them later training together and I like that. I also feel that the ST explores a ton of thematic terrain that’s meaningful to me.

 

It does feel that way overall but there is some great stuff sprinkled in there that makes them at least decent. I think, anyways. What the sequels do is certainly wrap up our beloved characters stories and lives if not always how we had hoped. Even though return of the Jedi "ends" their stories it’s fine that we got see more of them afterwards. I was fine with Luke’s character being rather grumpy seeing as there was a lot of lies and failure surrounding his life. Han felt underused in the sequels. Leia did OK, I guess.

It’s clear to me that the rushed nature and lack of a plan hurt things for the sequels. They are what they are.

 

Paralels and mirroring abolutely yes. In both of these scenes, characters face forbidden feelings. Fire between them symbolises passion/love.





In this scene, he succumbs to the dark side, wants her to join him and she is disappointed and refuses. Burning embers in both scenes show love/passion that's crumbling. It isn't extinguished but it isn't compact like the fire above.





And now what Ben finished that Anakin started



Ben's unconditional love gave him power to save Rey.

I'll also throw in how Anakin/Padme and Rey/Kylo-Ben met. In both cases, the girls see status rather than person. Padme sees a little slave, Rey obviosly sees a creature in a mask (that's hunting her). Anakin and Kylo-Ben immediately correct that view by saying/showing they are persons.Like, you misjudged me, there's more to me. The context is the same even though the scenes play out differently (one is friendly, the other is hostile).

 

The difference being that the love between Padme and Anakin is forbidden because she's a Republic senator and he's a Jedi, while the love between Rey and Kylo is forbidden because Rey is a well-adjusted (?) person and Kylo is an unrepentant mass murdering nope who literally tortured her.

But yes, other than that, the parallels are there. Fascinating stuff.

 

Between a parallel related to the specifics of what keeps two people who are physically drawn to the other apart and a parallel focused instead on the transformative power on the soul of someone moving from selfish and possessive love to true compassion and selfless love and/or the reverse... I’ll take the latter parallel every day of the week.

The former parallel, if it had been the primary focus, would simply be a shallow comparison related primarily to visuals or similarities in role dynamics repeating over time. To be clear, there’s an audience for parallels of that type and some fans really enjoy that but it’s less interesting to me than a parallel centered on thematic exploration. The latter is more interesting to me because it’s an exploration of the transformative power of these two actions on the soul that Lucas sought to emphasize.

At first glance the line between controlling, obsessive, possessive “love” (which isn’t really love at all but can appear as such to some people) can appear to have some similarities to healthier, compassionate, selfless love but in truth there is a clear dividing line between the two and that line exemplifies some of the main differences between the light side and the dark side. Which to me really boils down toward selfishness and selflessness in various forms. The divide is as stark as being two opposing sides of the same coin. Moving from one side of that coin to the other has a tremendous impact on personality and identity as powerful as dark and light. That’s what I like about it and why I like how IX handled it.

 

One could literally do that with any film... but in truth you're pushing cubes into round holes. Point being, nothing in the ST is earned (IMHO)... everything from Rey and Ben's extremely contrived, and very odd, romance... to the none existent relationship Ben seems to have with his mother and father. I'm not even convinced Abrams (I'll give Johnson a pass) has even watched the prequels in full, let alone reference themes from them e.g. 'forbidden love' etc...

 

He literally belongs to an organization which is based on Nazis and uses blatant Nazi imagery. I don't understand this. I find this restriction offensive.

e:

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/star-wars-force-awakens-order-inspired-nazis/story?id=33338629

“That all came out of conversations about what would have happened if the Nazis all went to Argentina but then started working together again?’” Abrams added. “What could be born of that? Could The First Order exist as a group that actually admired The Empire? Could the work of The Empire be seen as unfulfilled? And could [Darth] Vader be a martyr?"

This is not a reasonable rule. If you want to ban me for this go ahead. I would love to discuss it in the Unban Request forum.

 

Whether something is earned or not, is irrelevant to existence of paralels. And they do exist. And you can't do that with any movie or characters that don't have those paralels. There are many characters in ST so please make the case that they paralel Anakin and Padme.

 

Which is why parallels centered primarily on the particulars of the dynamics of the participants aren’t as interesting to me (they don’t hold up and aren’t all that similar). Whereas discussions centered more so on the topic of selfish, controlling, possessive desire versus selfless, compassionate love, and the transformative power of each on the soul and on identity, are more interesting and valid to me as parallels. Both Anakin and Padme’s stories and Ben and Rey’s stories explore this notion. The particulars are different but the thematic terrain I’ve outlined can be found in each.

 

That's where some fans see reversal. I would say that Anakin's love for Padme started as selfless when he was a kid in TPM. But it gradually became more obsessive, controlling and selfish (during the 10 years of thining about her and after). When he exclaims "I can't live without her" it shows that he's saving Padme for himself not for Padme. At no point Padme said, Anakin, you must save me no matter the cost. So love went from pure and uncondisitonal to selfish, possessive, etc.

OTOH, Ben's love for Rey went from selfish, possessive, etc to selfless and unconditional and that gave him the (new) power to save Rey even though he wasn't going to live (with her) as a result.

 

Post TROS I've come to the conclusion that the ST had one purpose - erase Lucas's characters, including the original one that was the last of the line, and replace them with Disney's.

 

well, that apparently makes sense due to copyright or something. Lucas gets a big % of his characters sales. At least that's what speculated, can't claim it's true. If anyone has better idea or knowledge, I'd appreciate your input.

 

Thanks.

 

If there was any copyright issue, they wouldn't have had her call herself Rey Skywalker nor would they have made her a blood Palpatine. That's two bloodlines she's tied to. They clearly still want to market off Lucas' original characters.