bunkaroo

KK and RJ are going to have the distinction of being the two people who "ruined Star Wars" for quite some time.

Here we are nearly 20 years removed from the first prequel and Lucas is still catching shit for it. And that was for botching the story leading up to ANH, which not everyone was dying to see anyway.

Now we have two creative forces who were behind botching the continuing story of arguably the most beloved character in Star Wars. People wanted to see what happened to Luke next more than they wanted to see baby Anakin IMO. And they fucked it - hard. They're going to be known that way for the rest of their careers. Again...in my opinion.

dex14

I don’t care much for Trevorrow, but I’d be really curious to hear his thoughts on TLJ.

brayzie

Because he's old, and I'd argue most of us wanted to see the continuing adventures of young Luke Skywalker, not elderly Luke Skywalker.

Couldn't disagree more.
Luke Skywalker won. He saved the galaxy. Yeah, I guess it's obvious that you'd continue with a successful formula and get Ford, Hamill, and Fisher to do more Star Wars films, but I think it was a smarter decision to tell the story of Anakin Skywalker. It's just the execution of that was all bad.

I think the producers of this latest Star Wars was smart to give us some unexpected twists. That's what Star Wars was about to some degree. But at the same time, the twists by now are very conventional. Hamill's character is expendable at this point because the actor is old. So they can "ruin" his character, but you know that's not going to happen with Rey.

fumanstan

I wish a few things had been done differently in Last Jedi, and it's nice that Trevorrow might have felt similar, but I still don't think he's been that impressive of a director to know that his Episode IX would have somehow been amazing based on a couple character decisions.

Dr. DVD

I agree. You know, I didn't love TLJ. I thought it had a lot of flaws and some sloppy storytelling. That said, I didn't disagree at all with the choices RJ made in terms of what to do with Luke because the overall theme of the movie is about passing the torch to the new generation. The OT was Luke's story, this one is not about him. You can't make a whole new series and expect nostalgia to carry it all the way.

Abob Teff

There is one small line in that article that is the source of all the problems:

The problem is that NOBODY knows the whole story. Hell, nobody knows ANY of the story. The have stumbled into this whole thing blind with no fucking plan. Rather than having any kind of a starry arc mapped out, they have been turning over to any flavor of the month in the director’s chair. It has basically become The Walking Dead. And this is coming from somebody who “likes” the last few movies.

DthRdrX

Given the feedback to what they did with him, apparently not.

Why So Blu?

Abrahams X 2
Johnson
Howard


Not necessarily flavors of the month.

fumanstan

I don't know about flavors of the month, but Disney has certainly went for young directors coming off of popular or well received releases. Lord/Miller (from LEGO/Jump Street), Trevorrow (Jurassic World), and Trank (off Chronicle), all fired or moved on. Johnson's last feature would be Looper but off of an acclaimed Breaking Bad episode too and kind of fits that same mold to me.

Franchot

I don't think JJ can bring anything to the screen that will salvage the numerous missteps of The Last Jedi in a satisfying way for many fans. What shows up on the screen to end this trilogy will probably have me and many fans smacking our heads and saying, "What the fuck is this money grab?! Fuck Disney, fuck Kathleen Kennedy, and fuck Rian Johnson...again!"

Abob Teff

It is when it is a constantly rotating barrage of different people with no creative consistency. So far we have gotten three movies under Disney with four different directors. Two more movies are in the immediate future with a minimum of another four (five if you count the pair) having been attached - not just rumored - to those.

That’s five movies with a minimum of 8 directors having done actual work on them.

The Force Awakens - Abrams
Rogue One - Edwards / Gilroy
The Last Jedi - Johnson
Solo - Lord & Miller / Howard
Episode IX - Trevorrow / Abrams

I’m not referring to the quality, I’m referring the quantity and Disney’s whimsy.

gryffinmaster

Maybe JJ Abrams should just deliver yet another Death Star plot and call it a day. Seems to be passable for “fans”.

The Last Jedi > The Force Awakens and Return of the Jedi

melasnus

Now that Disney owns LF, we will be seeing the SW Universe on-screen until...well...the end of the actual universe.

Franchot

You may be on to something.

When I think about it, the Death Star has had more on-screen time in all the Star Wars movies than several of the major secondary characters.

mcnabb

While I agree with you on this, I think Disney wanted it both ways. Before Carrie Fisher died, the plan was to market each ST movie with one of the Big 3 OT characters. Ford in Episode 7, Hamill in Episode 8, and Fisher in Episode 9, and that was strictly done to get the 'nostalgia' crowd in the theaters.

They could have easily done a Star Trek Generations and had Ford, Fisher and Hamill appear as cameos in Episode 7 and pass the torch to Rey, Finn, and Poe. Then Episode 8 and 9 could be solely about those new characters, and I think the Trilogy would look a lot different then it does now.

For whatever we all think, the character of Luke will hover over Episode 8 for the rest of time as some loved it and some hated it. That is why it was a bad decision to give him that much screentime and decide to change his arc from ROTJ, because that is all that everyone is talking about. Him flipping the Lightsaber and drinking from Cow Tits just rubs people the wrong way and I don't think they will ever give the movie a fair shot after stuff like that.

Which leads to me to my earlier post about Episode 9 and I still want someone tell me who liked TLJ, what is there to look forward at this point? I honestly don't even know what the character arcs of Rey and Kylo Ren are at this point. Rey is Superwoman, so any trouble she gets in Episode 9 will sort of be anti-climatic since she has kicked ass for 2 movies. What is the plan for Kylo Ren? Redeem him like Darth Vader? Rey-Lo? Have him be the big bad villain and then die at the end?

Sorry, but none of that is remotely interesting and I believe a big reason is because they worried so much about the OT characters, and it took time from developing Rey and Kylo Ren (who I actually think were very well cast and could have been a lot more then they gave them in this Trilogy). Episode 3 was all about how Darth Vader came to be, and Episode 6 was all about was Vader being Luke's dad? What is the hook of Episode 9, and why should any fan care about this movie other then it's stamped Star Wars on it? Well, that will probably be enough for many fans. Including me.

csant

I would be happy with the follow;

No Kylo redemption, or death. Just give me a villain we can grow to love/hate.
Rey continuing to be a badass.
Everything else is just gravy at this point.

raven56706

i really dont buy rey being a badass. this last movie made me think of her as meh.

and dont get it twisted. I thought everything with luke was fine up until his death. His death was such a "what a stupid way to die"

Supermallet

So now people are saying the sequels are on par with the prequels? Makes me wonder why people even bother to see these movies, since nothing will ever satisfy them.

Rob V

That's a pretty general statement. The ST seems directionless... perhaps in retrospect, the PT is better paced and plotted but the acting and characters sucked. They both have their pro's and con's. I personally think they're like 10% better than the PT and there is this purely nostalgic place in my heart that wishes I loved Eps 7 and 8... but I don't.
As others have mentioned, I can't imagine this trilogy wraps up nicely and provides the kind of conclusion that makes us older fans feel better about the franchise as a whole. Maybe the whole intent was to rope in new fans - which they've certain done but not with the fervor that we all had as kids.
I'm more hopeful for the spin-off movies that give us hero back-stories. Those seem to capture my view of SW as a whole.

Mike86

Exactly. I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that there’s a certain segment fanbase that’s never going to be satisfied with anything beyond the Original Trilogy (or in some cases after The Empire Strikes Back).

Some people trying to prop up the Prequel Trilogy like those films are suddenly so much better after they’ve been pretty much universally hated since 1999 is ridiculous or saying things like the magic disappeared when George Lucas signed the dotted line. Give me a fucking break. After ridiculing him for years suddenly he’s this poor genius we lost to Disney.

I think a good chunk of fans (though not all) liked The Force Awakens and because The Last Jedi wasn’t up to their every last standard of what they thought should happen suddenly the Sequel Trilogy is the worst thing ever and Star Wars is doomed going forward. People are so dramatic about it and it’s just kind of silly.

mcnabb

Oh come on, pretty much every Fanbase is like this for Popular Franchises. I don't know if you remember those Matrix Sequels, as Reloaded and Revolutions were despised by the public in 2003. I don't know if you remember the Batman movies from 1989-97, or 2005-2012, as fans are all over the place with those movies. Some love the Burton movies, some hate them, some love Schumacher's Batman Forever, some hate it cause it's cheesy and not as dark, although everyone hated Batman and Robin. The same goes for Nolan's trilogy as The Dark Knight Rises was buried by the fans. If you want to go back to the 80's, Superman 3 and 4 were hated by most fans back then as the franchise didn't make a movie for another 20 years. Heck, even Robert Zemeckis admitted that he would never do another sequel after Back to the Future Trilogy, "I would never do another sequel because every fan has their own story in their head and you can never please everyone."

This is just a symptom of Franchise Sequels as many will love them and many will hate them, and Star Wars is no different. But for some reason, SW fans get called out on it for not liking a movie or movies. Go google what fans thought of those Matrix Sequels as that is the most hated I have ever seen towards a set of movies.

Mike86

I think the difference between most of the films you mentioned and The Last Jedi is that a lot of them were legitimately bad for numerous reasons (bad acting, effects, story, etc). I’d say that The Last Jedi is at least a well made film it just didn’t meet expectations of some of the fans and that’s the reason why it’s so horrible to them. I can get that to a degree but it’s not a terrible film because of that.

dex14

Mike86 and DC.

Mike86

legitimate comparison but those films have basically been universally considered to be not good so I’m not alone in thinking that way. Really only the DCEU films too not DC as a whole.

fumanstan

It was the dramatic line that made me think the same