I hate the ST, but the best ST scenes or moments imo....if one were to add them to a long list of all-time best SW scenes....

---TFA....

Kylo's entrance onto Jakku, him freezing the blaster bolt mid air, him decapitating that old dude, him mind-raping Poe, chasing Rey thru the forest of Takodana, I guess the mind-probe with Rey was ok, how she fought it, Kylo killing Han whilst visibly so distraught, torn between dark and light.

Finn walking thru the Jakku desert alone after the crash landing.

Rey's introduction as a lonely scavenger thru that old derelict Star Destroyer, and her lonely existence...the actual exterior shot of that Destroyer too was pretty damn good as a snapshot of the post-Empire galaxy.

The end shot of Luke as Jedi Master in regal robes and demeanor.

The flashback scenes of the KoR as perpetrators of destroying Luke's academy, a distraught Luke with R2D2 with fires ablaze in the background.

That's not how the Force works...I guess that's a cool line.


---TLJ....

Just after Kylo and Rey killed all of Snoke's guards, there was a beautiful scene, ash and little debris falling all around them, a soft low key moment, with Kylo emotionally appealing to Rey to join him and rule the galaxy together (before she said no).

The silent destruction of Snoke's super ship.

The long shot of Ach-To with those native birds squawking in the distance.


---TROS....

The dream sequence where Rey sees a dark side version of herself.

You're being very optimistic that for the "plan' they wouldn't have just let JJ Abrams fully plot out his empty answers to his mystery boxes, and more fully rehash the OT.

Keep in mind George Lucas left Lucasfilm/Disney a full outline for the ST, that they didn't use. I hear very few people clamoring for them to have used that. Who doesn't want to explore the inner workings of Midi-chlorians more?

A consistent vision would've gotten rid of the inconsistent structure of the trilogy, with Abrams having to backtrack on/ignore developments in TLJ because he didn't know how to develop them more, but just removing the inconsistencies wouldn't necessarily have made a good trilogy. The "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" franchise has a consistent vision, but people aren't really clamoring for more of that series.

I think that the "it wasn't planned" argument is just an easy scapegoat. People don't like the trilogy, they wonder why, they note that there wasn't an upfront plan, and think "oh, that must be why." There were also people who, before the series was even completed, declaring that it was guaranteed to be a failure because of a lack of an upfront plan, which is ridiculous. It was always a gamble, and while for the OT it worked out, it didn't work out here, but just because it didn't work out here doesn't mean it can never work. You can't pin all the problems with the ST on just that one decision.

One thing I'll say as a plus for the PT is that it gave us a lot of awesome animated shows that are still going on today and one character (Asoka) that is getting a live action show.

If the Luke, Leia and Han missed reunion is the biggest failing of the ST, then the second for me is Rey being a Palpatine. 99.9% of the population had her pegged as either a Skywalker or a Kenobi. So the way it plays out feels like Abrams was sitting around thinking "how can I M. Night Shyamalan up this character?" It wasn't organic in any way, shape or form. It was a twist for the sake of having a twist. It kinda works with the whole "overcoming your genetics and family history" and "anyone can choose to be good/a Skywalker" but even that feels like an afterthought to the twist. So the granddaughter Palpatine idea came first and then it was "how do we explain this away?" It's just Abrams tripping over his own ideas.

Sometimes the simplest execution is the one that is expected. She should have been a Skywalker or a Kenobi.

I'm watching the Clone Wars for the first time(and coupling in the PT) and this is the "General Star Wars" thread so...

Yeah, I'm with you and for an even simpler reason. The Prequels were planned out and that clearly didn't make them any better. Planned, unplanned, it doesn't matter, execution falls on the shoulders of the director and the producer keeping said person on track. It's a scapegoat.

That would have been interesting if executed properly. (narrator: "It wouldn't have been") It would have been a better sticking point between Obi-wan and Anakin's hatred of each other. One of the biggest failings of the PT is making the audience believe Padme could fall for Anakin. I get Anakin falling for Padme, he's a teen/early 20s and the only female he interacts with (in the films) is Natalie Portman. What dude wouldn't fall for her? I was hoping the Clone Wars series would be able to turn me into a believer, but I'm into season 6 and they've all but ignored the relationship. I just don't buy them as a couple at all. Maybe friends with benefits, but even that seems like a stretch. In fact, Anakin has far better chemistry with Ahsoka. So it would have been interesting seeing Padme having some solid chemistry with Obi-wan instead.

This is true and it will happen. I work with a guy in his early 20s and the PT is "his" Star Wars. A friend of mine has a daughter that's 7 and loves Rey. The ST is going to be "her" Star Wars. For the majority of us old farts on this forum, the OT is "our" SW.

From what I read, Abrams original plan was for Rey to be a descendant of Obi-Wan Kenobi. That's why you hear his voice saying "these are your first steps" when she first touches Luke's lightsaber in TFA. I dunno why Abrams changed that for TRoS.

Personally I feel like this is what happened.

JJ made TFA, which was basically a way to setup the sandbox for the next two directors to play in and with. A ridiculous way to go about things, but it was what it was. It was also very derivative, but specifically orchestrated to be so, because of the criticisms of the prequel trilogy... too much CGI, too much trade route blah, blah, no real scoundrel Han Solo character, "didn't feel like Star Wars" yada yada.

TFA was a success for what it was designed to do and there was excitement for Ep8.

Then comes TLJ. They let each director have their way with the script. Again, idiotic move. TLJ blew things apart, to the point where I believe Trevorrow bailed on Ep9 because he felt like he had nothing left to play with and subsequently alienated the fanbase. TLJ was also too small of a story. It didn't move the narrative along enough, especially if you're the middle movie in a Trilogy. You kill bad guys, Snoke, Phasma, that you set up in TFA, and leave no real convincing big bad for the final act.

So JJ and Disney freaked out and had to scramble with damage control. They now only had one movie, a mere 2.5 hours, to wrap up 40+ years of Skywalker shenanigans. AND they didn't have a real bad guy to hate. You had a legacy character die in real life. You had a director kill off the biggest legacy hero in the middle act, while making him an unlikeable curmudgeon. So they bring back the biggest baddy in Star Wars, awkwardly trying to tie the Emperor into one of the new characters you've introduced, despite it making zero sense. You bring back Lando, Hell, you even get Wedge with a hope that you season your bullshit stew with enough legacy stuff that audiences will eat it up.

TROS sucked because of the "story" in TFA got derailed mightily by TLJ.

What a fucking mess.

For all of the sins of the Sequel Trilogy, I'm actually okay with not having a three-way Luke-Leia-Han scene. It would have been okay to have all three in a scene if it worked with the story being told, but I don't think it was necessary.

The Sequel Trilogy needed to be about the next generation of characters, not the OT characters. It's fine to have them in background, but the sequel trilogy needed to be about the third generation of Skywalkers -- with Luke's daughter as the main protagonist -- and their allies and enemies. The whole idea of a multigenerational saga falls apart with anything else.

And that would be my #3 rounding out my top 3 faults with the ST. They could have course corrected making Kylo a big bad instead of a wishy-washy, sometimes good, sometimes bad emo whatever character.

From what I'd read, you're right about Abrams peppering TFA with potential sequel plot threads without any obligation for the next directors to pay anything off. Essentially, there was no overarching plot for the Sequel Trilogy. Riann Johnson has gone on record that he intentionally wrote TLJ as a definitive ending to TFA (burning the Viking ship, is what he said). Trevorrow did have a decent plot for Duel of the Fates (what eventually became TRoS), which actually built upon the ending of TLJ, but Kathleen Kennedy fired him just before the cameras rolled and tasked Abrams at the 11th hour to come up with a whole new plot.

Personally, I was actually happy with TLJ's reveal of her parents as "nobodies," since the Force belongs to everyone, not dynasties. The Skywalkers were basically a fluke; nearly every other Force user was the first in their family, and scouted out and recruited by the Jedi. Making everyone related to everyone else actually reduces the scope and make the universe smaller; something people complained about with the prequel trilogy. I also liked the idea of the new protagonists encountering living legends (the OT cast) and measuring themselves up against them.

The Viking ship quote seems to have been misinterpreted.

Here's the original quote:
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/...sequel/672558/

Quote:

Johnson: Look, in terms of the Star Wars movie I did, I tried to give it a hell of an ending. I love endings so much that even doing the middle chapter of the trilogy, I tried to give it an ending. A good ending that recontextualizes everything that came before it and makes it a beautiful object unto itself—that’s what makes a movie a movie. It feels like there’s less and less of that. This whole poisonous idea of creating [intellectual property] has completely seeped into the bedrock of storytelling. Everyone is just thinking, How do we keep milking it? I love an ending where you burn the Viking boat into the sea.

Note that while he says "I love an ending where you burn the Viking boat into the sea," he doesn't say that's what he actually did with TLJ.

From an earlier interview with him:
https://www.businessinsider.com/star...cklash-2017-12
In that same interview he talks about using TLJ to build towards Kylo Ren being the villain of the trilogy:
So it's clear he was thinking of where things would go to next after his film, not burning the story down and leaving nothing, but it was just not the direction a very vocal portion of the fandom expected, or wanted.

I understood what he meant (hell, he has Kylo Ren spell it out to Rey at the end of the movie). That's why I said that TLJ was written as an ending to TFA. Rian Johnson was wiping the slate clean, pushing the franchise to chart a new course. Hence why he made Rey a "nobody" (instead of picking up the Obi-Wan thread) and gave Finn and Poe separate adventures for them to grow independently, rather than simply be Luke/Han/Lei redux. Trevorrow's DotF was meant to be the next step in that new interation of Star Wars. But, as I said, Kennedy didn't like that and called for what was essentially a retcon in TRoS. However, the Obi-Wan thread was better than the Palpatine nonsense. Abrams should have kept his original idea.

I actually liked TLJ. My only issue was the baffling decision for Leia and Holdo to keep their immediate subordinates in the dark about their plan. The mutiny would never have happened otherwise. Now, if there was a mole (or they had a concrete reason to suspect as much) then the subterfuge would have been understandable.
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I am not down with the youth of today but do chicks really get turned on by guys who gutted their father in front of her?

Only if they're also school shooters who kidnap and torture them.

I'm kind of baffled that Johnson thinks he built Kylo Ren into some kind of credible villain when he's never been more than a prat who throws tantrums. More Elon Musk than Darth Vader.

Rian Johnson had Rey explicitly reject Kylo Ren after the "let the past die" speech, and Rey rescues the ancient Jedi texts. So it's very much not a "burn it all down" message. Rian Johnson did steer the franchise into a new direction, but that's the point of a 2nd act. It's not an "ending" to anything.

It's a little weird that you think there's widespread agreement on what did a didn't work in the sequel trilogy. Just one look at the threads for those movies on this forum shows a wide range of opinions on what was good, what was bad, and what the reasons may have been for any perceived "downfall". A few people stating one opinion over and over does not make for a wide consensus.

I've discussed my opinions on those movies ad nauseum at this point, so they're not worth rehashing here. But if you ask me, the biggest downfall of the sequel trilogy was that it failed miserably at finding the balance between honoring the past and forging a new path. Having a mapped out plan for the whole trilogy could have made that better or could have made that much much worse - it would have depended entirely on the people making that plan.

I'll always maintain they should have planned better, and not just a trilogy but a six movie saga. Three movies is not enough to pass the baton to the new generation; the first trilogy should have focused on the old cast with the new ones being the up-and-coming new stars on their respective sides. This would give us an opportunity for Luke to do the "face down the First Order with his lazer sword" scene that we deserved, but then something changes about the whole conflict and he realizes he has to change how he fights, so we get something like the Force projection trick from TLJ.. The new people then take over for the second trilogy and find a new way to fix things.

But Luke/Leia/Han's OT generation were just three movies. You're suggesting the passing of the baton is just as long as the baton itself.

You know, almost every time I see a Star Wars thread get bumped or posted either on this forum or others, it seems to be about how much people DISLIKE things. It just all seems to break down into that kind of talk. Interesting how long we've all stuck around with something we tend to go on about how much we'd like (or have liked) it to be different.

But they had literal decades in comics, novels, video games, action figures, etc to be in peoples' consciousness. Their presence in culture is bigger than those three movies. I wonder if that's something Kathleen Kennedy simply didn't consider.

I do like a lot of Star Wars, there are even parts of TLJ that I thought were good ideas - it's honestly full of interesting concepts and themes, they just never came together into something cohesive.

That's why I enjoy TROS so much more. It is definitely a bit shaky storywise, from being rushed into production, but it feels more like a regular Star Wars story in tone and rhythm.

Nobody hates Star Wars as much as Star Wars fans.

You see, this is what has been so GREAT about the sandbox George Lucas created. Granted, we've spent the most time in one particular part of it when there's a lot of other areas we could explore.

To elaborate, you see, I wasn't as big a fan of Rise of Skywalker because of how it philandered to complaints about The Last Jedi (which I loved, saw in theaters 4 times and is my favourite flick after Empire and Rogue One). Things like Luke saying that's no way to treat a lightsaber, Ray becoming a "somebody", hell, even Chewie getting the medal was groanworthy fan service IMO where TLJ made some bold strides to subvert expectations that I loved (ie: Snoke's abrupt death / Ray being a nobody).

But Star Wars is a vast world in a galaxy far far away that I'll always return to because, just like I was when I was a kid playing with my Kenner figures, it allows me to imagine, escape and get lost in what Lucas laid the groundwork down back in 77.

There's a reason why we're still talking about this today whereas, say, like another poster mentioned, Avatar (despite Box Office) really hasn't entered the pop culture.

Perhaps not the films or shows individually but the world they are set in.

Not many of us growing up with the OT are sitting back now arguing about how silly Ewoks overthrowing the Empire was (at least not as much as we do the PT/ST). I watch my little nephew playing with his BB8 and Kylo figures...he doesn't care about any of that stuff. But, you know, I wonder if he'll grow up to bash the SST in 10 years.

100% agree. A friend and I were talking about this recently and he said he doesn't know of another fanbase that has so much loathing in it for what they are a fan of then Star Wars. I thought about it and said, yeah, I don't. You know, unless you count Bruce Springsteen fans for anything he's done without the E Street Band.

TLJ definitely serves as a Ninety-five Theses to the Prequel Trilogy's Catholic Church and brings back much of the counterculture influence from Empire and Jedi.




That probably wasn't practical. Harrison Ford likely only agreed to come back if they killed him off in the first movie, since he really, really, didn't want to continue with the franchise. And while Carrie Fisher's death was tragic, it's something that studios have to consider when producing movies, especially franchises, and the original cast is getting pretty old. Hell, Chewbacca's actor got replaced because he was old and no longer up to the rigors of filming.

Additionally, the new sequel trilogy was likely thought of as an opportunity to bring in new audiences, who maybe didn't see the previous 6 films. The existing fans wanted to see more of the OT cast, but it's not really clear that's want the general audience wanted. TFA is a good entry point to the series as a whole, and that may have been undercut relying on the older cast for too long.

Finally, no studio ever has committed to 6 movies upfront. Greenlighting a 3 movie series is the most movies at once a major studio has done. And it's a big ask for the actors, to commit to that many films upfront. That would be 12 years of their life they commit to, given 2 years between each film. Daisy Ridley was 22 when she signed up, and you're suggesting asking her to sign up for a project that would commit her for over half the length she'd been alive for at that time, being over a third of her life after she'd finish it. It's a big ask.