Luke fading away still isn't as stupid as the ferry boat scene in The Dark Knight. It is however as equally as stupid as the entirety of The Dark Knight Rises.

Rey failed in confronting Snoke and subsequently in her attempt to turn Kylo Ren back to the light side.

Yeah, I was going to say that Snoke hand her her ass in that scene, and she was only saved by Kylo Ren, who in turn didn't go light as she thought he would.

She also failed to convince Luke to go back to join that fight and/or train her. In TFA she loses her initial fight with Kylo and is taken prisoner.

Just about anything would have been better than the way they handled it in this film. I hate how Luke’s death seems like such a non-event. Like he just fades away, Rey and Leia have a one line exchange and that’s that. Just the main hero of the Star Wars saga. No big deal or anything..

Those are two huge mystery boxes that were treated flippantly and like someone else said Rey as a nobody would have been fine if it wasn't teased that her lineage was significant to her character.

You can't apply causation and correlation to something subjective. Because in my opinion poor planning was a direct cause of TLJ being so terrible. Your opinion is the opposite. See how that doesn't work? And how is that faulty logic if my biggest issue with TLJ is it's inconsistency with both the story and the character development. Rey's lineage is a prime example of that. They should not have let JJ lead the audience to believe that her lineage was important both on screen and off, only to have RJ throw it totally out the window. Now coming out of the movie I was okay with it because I thought that they had a plan and it would all be revealed in eps IX. But it's different now that I know they are just making it up as they go along.

Now you're just splitting hairs with definitions. But I do agree that it seemed like she had a handle on things because of difficult decisions like firing directors. That's why I was so surprised to find out they never had a plan at all for this trilogy.

Um..no. Not even planning out what the story would be for a trilogy of movies of the most important franchise makes her a terrible producer. Hiring the wrong directors and expecting them to make movies different then their previous works is being a terrible producer. Having to have expensive extensive reshoots on Rogue One is being a terrible producer (I understand this sometimes has to happen but it's still more evidence). Having to reshoot almost an entire movie costing the studio tens of millions because you again hired the wrong directors and expected them to make a totally different movie then they made before and then releasing said movie in a busy summer season in competition with another huge movie from your same studio released just 3 weeks prior (possibly more a Disney exec decision) and having that movie bomb and only making 40% of Rogue One's BO because you didn't start advertising the movie until a month before. THAT makes her a terrible producer. I admit I'm being overly dramatic and realize her previous work speaks volumes but still. Lately, she hasn't been doing that great.

Exactly. Which is why I blame her more than RJ.

One person. Seriously?

The majority of people really? I hope you don't have to do anything with statistics for your job.

Yes thank you. He sounds like one of those crackpot antivaccine people who do their "research" by finding internet articles that happen to support their point of view.

This makes no sense to me. He literally sacrificed his life to give the remnants of the resistance a chance to escape. Just because he wasn’t physically there with them doesn’t make it any less noble. And he showed the student he had failed what it means to be a hero. I thought it was fantastic and the perfect end to Luke’s arc.

But he didn't hit the bad guy with his laser sword.

I just didn't like the idea of him not actually being there. Also the fact that using that power was never established prior to this film and using it one time kills him just was a bit anticlimactic. Also you kind of glossed over what I actually posted. I was more referring to the fact that when he dies it kind of seems to not even matter. There's that short exchange between Rey and Leia and then, well time to move on. I think that's another reason him not being there doesn't work for me. He just fades away with no one else present. He's the hero of the franchise and yeah sure he gets to save the Resistance but he does it in such a minimized way.

As far as the comment about not using his "laser sword" not that I feel like he needed to go out in a lightsaber battle necessarily but why is that a critique? I mean that is established in this universe and would have been more in line with what we'd expect. Personally though I don't feel like Luke needed to die at all. He could have been used heroically and then at the close of the trilogy just lived out his days in peace.

To add to that, the way this trilogy is written now we will never get the one thing the fans all wanted to see. Han, Luke and Leia reunited. Like several of us have discussed before I think it might have been best (in hind sight of course) to have had the three of them together in the first movie and then allow the new characters to shine on their own after that.

My pet theory remains that Rey is the reincarnation of Anakin. Can reincarnation really be any more outlandish than Shmi’s immaculate conception?
OTOH, in my current back-up head canon, she is the daughter of Thane and Ciena from the book Lost Stars. I know they’d never let a book have something so retroactively integral to movies, but I still like the thought of it.

Nitpick: Anakin was a virgin birth, not immaculate conception. Both terms are used in Christianity, but "virgin birth" is what Jesus was: a birth without a father. The term "immaculate conception" refers to Mary, not Jesus, and is a Catholic concept that Mary, with two human parents, was conceived without original sin, aka untarnished by sin, aka immaculate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception

My opinion isn't the opposite. I don't think TLJ was good because it wasn't planned from the beginning of the trilogy. I just think it was good. So it's not me trying to apply causation to something subjective.

When did JJ suggest off screen that her lineage was important?

It's not splitting hairs. RobV's original post tried to paint her as either totally directly responsible for every discussion, or totally irresponsible. The truth is in the middle.

Name another series of movies with an original storyline where more than one film was planned out in advance. I can only think of the Matrix sequels, and those didn't turn out great. And I can't think of any original trilogy that has done it. You're arguing that Lucasfilm should've done something that nobody in Hollywood has ever done.

Like hiring a horror filmmaker to make Lord of the Rings? Or a horror filmmaker to make Doctor Strange? Or a pair of comedy TV directors to make two Captain America films, and then two Avengers films?

Producers hire directors to make movies in different genres/tones all the time. It's a bit intellectually lazy to think that directors can't ever change gears.

So this is an example of what makes a bad producer... except when it doesn't. Do you think Rogue One is the only movie this ever happened to? Did you dislike the end result? If you liked the final movie, why would you think the reshoots that mad that end result was a bad move on her part?

This was a mistake. But producers are only human, they make mistakes. Find me a producer that has never made a mistake.

From what I've read, it was entirely a Disney decision. They didn't want to move the film at all, whether it be for reshoots or what have you, and they didn't want to promote it over Avengers 4. So you're blaming Kennedy for something out of her control.

"Lately," meaning the immediately previous movie. TLJ did fine commercially and critically.

This was in response to Mike86's claim that nobody would've thought Rey was a nobody prior to TLJ. I posted links showing that at least several people thought it, and at least one person preferred it. It's not a lot, but it's enough to prove Mike86's initial claim wrong, which is what that specific post was supposed to do.

Now, I admit that once Mike86 tried to make claims about the populous at large based on nothing but his own assumptions, I ended up countering with my own guesses instead of pointing out the absurdity of trying to assert anything about the "masses" without more objective measurements as evidence. mcnabb pointed this out, and I apologized and corrected myself before you made this post, suggesting you're replying without being fully caught up in the thread.

Blame TFA for that, since Han died in the film, preventing any sequel anyone could've possibly written from featuring a scene reuniting all three of them. TLJ did reunite the two that it could, Luke and Leia.

I can see how my response was misinterpreted. But you were applying correlation and causation to the very subjective notion that the movie was good or bad. You can't say in scientific terms and differentiate between correlation and causation on that something is as subjective as a movie being good or bad. That is a matter of opinion and something that cannot be defined and therefore cannot be proven good or bad let alone something responsible for a movie to be good or bad. Your logic is flawed here.

https://ew.com/article/2016/01/12/st...obi-skywalker/

https://ew.com/movies/2018/04/04/sta...s-rey-parents/

This just shows how disjointed production was. He kept teasing the fans about Rey and her lineage but it was clear he had no idea or at least no idea that was passed on to RJ.

I admittedly did not take it in context to a response from a previous post but arguing that freedom and carte blanche are two totally different things is just silly. But I do agree with you in that her responsibility is somewhere in the middle. However, it is totally her responsibility that she didn't at some point and time direct Lucasfilm and whoever was already brought on as writers at the time to sit down and figure out a basic plot structure for this trilogy. Not a hard thing to do. And as the boss that was definitely something she should have set up.


Can you think of a planned trilogy of original movies that actually came to fruition? The only one I can think of is the PT. The fact is the studios never know if a movie will make enough money for there to be a sequel. Just because no one has done it before doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. You really think it would have taken too much foresight to think and plan what they were going to do with these movies? It's not some revolutionary idea to actually have a plan for something so big like a new star wars trilogy. In my opinion it boggles my mind to think that it apparently never crossed their minds to actually plan the movies out. And yes I understand that it wouldn't have guaranteed it would have been a good movie. But IMHO a lot of my issues with TLJ stem from the two movies being so disjointed from each other. It doesn't feel like it even takes place in the same universe let alone a direct sequel.

My examples were in response to your oversimplification and gross assumption that I thought the movie was bad so she's a bad producer. Her previous work stands tall but her work with Star Wars has left a lot to be desired lately.

We're both speculating and going off of rumors and hearsay but to think that there was nothing she could have done is ridiculous. IMHO she should have pushed that Solo be released in the winter, again I don't know if she did and Disney didn't budge. There was nothing preventing them from releasing a trailer for Solo before TLJ or promoting it in the winter months before the hype machine really kicked into gear for Infinity War. She also let the production go way too far in Solo to later throw it all away and have to reshoot the whole thing. That is totally on her. And yes she is in charge of Lucasfilm so whether or not she had a say in one or two factors she gets blamed for the end result. And yes you might consider Solo her only failure with Star Wars but it is a monumental failure. Just talking about the BO domestically it only made 35% of what TLJ did. Fine, I understand it's not a fair comparison. It only made 40% of what Rogue One made which is a perfect comparison. Oh wait I mentioned domestic ok fine it only made 37% of what Rogue One made internationally. That's bad, that's Justice League bad. And just like JL this flop has much further reaching implications then just this movie as it seems it has had a ripple effect on other Star Wars projects with many or most of them either being put on hold or delayed.

Yeah you're right I did reply before catching up.

Oh I do. And I said in hindsight it would have been nice. I really did like the scene with Luke and Leia and I think it was worth not killing her off in hyperspace earlier in the film just for that scene. But it unfortunately rings a little hollow to me because it was just a force projection. It would have been nice to have seen them reunited. Maybe she could've planted an awkwardly passionate kiss on the lips for old times sake.

Where? How? Please quote the exact statements you think I was trying to do that, because I don't think I have.

So the first link is just JJ, in January 2016, saying he knows who her parents are, but he doesn't want to spoil anything RJ doesn't want revealed. Keep in mind this is after the TLJ script has been turned in, and after JJ had already red it and commented on the quality of that script. He doesn't say anything about how important the parents are.
https://www.cnet.com/news/j-j-abrams...ere-directing/

The second is a link to an article quoting Simon Pegg, from well after TLJ was released, in April 2018, saying there was some "talk of a more relevant lineage for Rey." So maybe that's a hint that JJ had some idea, or not, about her parentage, but it's not an example of JJ hyping up the parent mystery before TLJ was released.

So you think it was silly of me to make such a distinction, even though you agree with it?

This is a bit of a non-answer, but I'm going to assume based on your question that your answer is "there isn't any." Which is my point. You're criticizing Kennedy for not doing something that nobody has ever done. I don't think it's fair to call her a bad producer because she didn't happen to do what nobody else has ever done, especially with the practical considerations that I, and ever you, brought up about how movie studios behave and how film production works.

Well, your examples weren't effective counters to that "oversimplification," because they were poor examples. They don't provide clear evidence the Kennedy is a bad producer. Producers hire film directors to direct new genres they haven't covered before all the time. Producers sometimes have to order reshoots of films, which are really not all that uncommon and often planned for on bigger films now, sometimes extensive reshoots to fix a film. And there are often things outside of a producer's control. That these things happened to Kennedy doesn't mean she's a bad producer, it means she's a typical producer.

"It's impossible to say, but I'm right."

.. except for the fact that filming hadn't finished until the middle of October, and it takes a long time for post production and effects.

It's not a simple thing to fire a director, especially after production has started. There's all sorts of union rules and contracts to consider. It's typically better to try and work things out, which is why the firing was so surprising.

In hindsight, Solo was a mistake. But that's the benefit of hindsight. You're Monday Morning Quarterbacking this thing like the Solo situation was something that was clearly avoidable, but there were a ton of factors that went into that situation, and none of them on their own may have thrown any obvious red flags until production was already well underway.

Justice League is an interesting comparison. I agree that there are a lot of similarities, from a replacement director coming in and reshooting a lot of footage to the really poor box office. However, there's some notable distinctions. For one, DC had problems well before Justice League, it wasn't just the one outlier but a culmination of a string of films that weren't well received critically. Also, from what I can tell, there hasn't been the same call to fire the producers, like Geoff Johns, or to call them bad producers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Films

Why is it hollow? They could see each other. They physically touched. It wasn't "just" a force projection, like a force projection is just a hologram. He was there.

Do you feel the moment at the end of ROTJ where Luke sees Obi-Wan, Yoda, and his father is hollow because it's "just" their force ghosts?

"The logic seems to be "this movie was bad, they didn't plan this trilogy ahead of time, so therefore the reason it's bad is because it wasn't planned out in advance, and thus if they had planned out in advance it would've been good." I think that's faulty logic. It's asserting causation where there's only correlation."

Those are just a small sampling of articles relating to JJ teasing Rey's parents and hyping it up. You asked for evidence I presented it and you dismiss it. You're only seeing what you want to. You cannot deny that JJ hyped the hell out of Rey's parent's being important

I'm saying it's ridiculous that you were arguing based on the definition. You dismissed someone saying that you didn't say that she gave them carte blanche but certain freedoms. I agree with you that the actual truth likely falls somewhere in the middle. But arguing based on the terms carte blanche and certain freedoms is ridiculous.

Just because something hasn't been done before doesn't mean you can't anticipate certain challenges. I want to know your honest opinion do you really think it is such a radically different idea to actually lay out a basic plot map for this trilogy before writing and filming it and keep the story consistent so that it flows as a cohesive overall narrative? This is my biggest beef with KK and Lucasfilm. This would have required little foresight, cost or time and yet they didn't do it with arguably the biggest movie franchise of all time.

Fine, take all the other examples away. Do you know any other major movie production that had to reshoot almost an entire film and then subsequently bomb at the box office?

There you go again putting words in people's mouths again.

Yeah and just why do you think that is? Maybe because its production was a hot mess? Who's responsibility is that?

The production was plagued with issues before the firing.

At least there was a good reason for those reshoots. I think the comparisons run deeper. By the time JL had rolled around the DC movies had already eroded a lot of trust and interest with BvS and Suicide Squad. Those movies had good box office return even though most would agree they were worse than JL. JL suffered because of those movies. Even Wonder Woman coming out before JL couldn't save it. My speculation is that a similar (but less severe) thing is happening with Star Wars but we won't really know for sure until Eps IX comes out.

It was a force projection and he wasn't really there.

And again you bring up a ridiculous comparison. They were already dead. There wasn't any other choice.

I don't think you're understanding the quote there. I'm not asserting causation, I'm saying others are asserting causation. My argument is actually against causation in that quote.

Well, provide some better ones then, because the two you provided don't hold up to scrutiny.

I didn't dismiss it, I countered it. If you can provide an argument for why a quote from after TLJ was released counts as "hyping up her parents," then go ahead and provide it.

That's because the person I was originally replying to used the term "carte blanche," and that's what my reply was crafted toward. Please try and follow the thread, because you're not taking my replies in the proper context.

For Hollywood, yes it's a radically different idea. Again, the argument I'm making isn't that it wouldn't have been nice if they had sat back, halted production on TFA, and figured out the plot of all three films ahead of time. Hell, it would've been great if they had hammered out three full scripts before filming TFA. However, that's not reasonable from a practical level, from anyone who understands how Hollywood actually works. By your own admission, it's never been done. Thus, it's unfair to call Kennedy a bad producer because she didn't do something no producer in Hollywood has ever done, and which likely would've had sever repercussions on the release date of TFA, which had already been pushed back to December instead of May.

How do you know it would've required little cost or time? Especially the time thing. Do you know how long it takes to plot out a film trilogy?

Also, how beneficial would it have been, in the long run? Would they have had to stick to that plotting like gospel, even if they came up with better ideas during production? How would they deal with sudden changes like Carrie Fisher's death? That certainly wouldn't have been planned for. What if they had plotted the full thing in advance, and still came up with the same results? For example, Lucasfilm obviously thought having Rey's parents revealed to be nobodies mad sense for the story told in TLJ, so why would it have been different when planned in advance?

Besides Justice League? What do you define as "major"? Does "Exorcist: The Beginning" count?

I was paraphrasing to help illustrate how ridiculous your statement sounds. If you feel I mischaracterized it, explain why.

So you're agreeing that they didn't have time to put out a trailer in front of TLJ due to the extended production.

This isn't just speculation about Star Wars, but speculation about the DCU. You've pretty much swallowed as gospel the fan speculations about the relative critical and commercial performance of the DCU films, with very little to back that up.

How was he not "really there"? Was his mind not present? his spirit? Could he not see, hear, or touch them? Could they not see, hear, or touch him? What's so important, considering his mind and spirit was present, about a mound of flesh not being there?

So it's not so much that a usage of The Force to see others can't be meaningful, but that if given the choice, a physical encounter is more meaningful.

The special Force connection was a decent idea. Reminded me of the special twin Force bond Jaina and Jacen had in the EU books.

In Episode IX, I can see Kylo alone in his new throne room calling out "I need you, Rey" and Rey hears/sees him but blocks his Force call.

Back to the Future 2 and 3

Are those considered good movies? 2 is... odd, and pretty dark in themes, while 3 was basically a rehash of 1 set in the old west. They're not a great argument for consistent plotting or feel.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3 were shot back to back, but I recall the writers saying that they didn't even have the script for 2 done before they started shooting, and were basically making the story up as they went.

Two and 3 were developed as a single script called Paradox that was split in two during preproduction. I think they are great films that complement each other fully. Neither film stands on its own. Like a true serialized narrative they set up and pay off each other.

Sequels shot back-to-back never work out well. I don't count LOTR as that was a single movie project spread out over three films.

Back to the Future? Fail
Matrix? Fail
Pirates of the Caribbean? Fail

(All IMO of course. BTTF2 has a few moments and BTTF3 is gentle fun but both are very pale imitations of the original. Matrix 2 is at least an ambitious failure, but 3... well... and all the Pirates movies are junk.)

I think Avengers might be the first to snap that streak.

To me, it totally makes sense why they were split into two films: the wild west plot of 3 would've really tonally off if in the same film as 2. It seems more like they were trying to cram as much into the sequel as they could when they thought there were only doing one film, rather than making a singular coherent, consistent story.

And really, their stories don't really affect each other that much. If 2 had ended with Doc and Marty going back to 1985 instead of the cliffhanger, it would've worked fine on its own as a sequel.

But I feel this is getting off on a tangent. Even when making just 2 sequels back-to-back, it doesn't happen that often, especially when considering just original stories and not an adaptation that splits a book in two. For a trilogy, it's never been done.

I didn't count LOTR because it's an adaptation; they had a clear storyline to follow with a clear endpoint while creating the films, even though they ended up making some changes both preproduction and throughout the production.

Likewise, Infinity War is an adaptation as well, so while they've changed it up, it's not a wholly original story.