Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

I clicked on the Star Wars tab then scrolled down a few lines to 'Movies' and they were all there. Not in timeline order but all there.

Did you search in the D+ app for them?

Edit: Just looked again and they are all there in the timeline order row too. If they don’t show up in a search maybe sign out and back in?

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

I always assumed they dumped the EU mainly because the books had killed Chewbacca and they wanted him in the new movies.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

That was a dumb stunt on the part of the EU -- Chewie is a fan-favorite character that was popular with kids. One of the reasons I'd cut off at the EU at Luke and Mara's wedding and ditch Anakin Solo if I was in charge of Lucasfilm and craft the new canon from that point on.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Checked again today (this time via my Roku). Under "movies" both RO and TRoS are still missing.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

That's really strange. And if you search the D+ app they do not show up either?

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Good thing owning discs makes this a non problem! :). Huge Rogue One fan, not so much for Rise of Skywalker but still.

Wait, meaning you and I? I feel like threepio in Jabbas palace: "He agrees!!!".

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Don't have a smart phone. So I only access D+ via my Roku Ultra or my Apple TV 4K. What's weird is both movies used to be there.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Yeah I use the Apple TV 4K. Search is there on the Disney+ app. Top of the list on the slide out menu from the left. I only have to put Ro in before it comes up.

If it still isn't there, I would contact support.

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If you go on the D+ site on your computer (not using an app), do they appear?

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There's a difference between cherry picking certain elements from the EU to craft into the new stories, which they've actually done, and having a 3-part story already crafted that would've been easy work to adapt into the new movie trilogy.

She didn't say it was impossible to come up with a new, interesting story to tell, she said it was challenging, more so than if there was an existing story they could quickly adapt into screenplays and film.

People blow up and read way more into her quote than is actually there. She wasn't saying the EU didn't exist, but there wasn't anything there to use for the new sequel trilogy as they wanted to present it (i.e. 30 years later, with old cast passing the baton to the new cast, who would be the focus). And she wasn't saying it to excuse the new sequel trilogy being bad, it hadn't even finished yet, but just that it's a different challenge to create an original screenplay vs an adaptation.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Looking back, the sequels could have come up with a solid three film story using EU material. Not everyone read the books or liked them but I always hear the Thrawn novels as being a good basis for a movie trilogy. I dabbled in some various EU content and while it was interesting at times, none of it jumped out as like "wow, they need to make a trilogy out of this" to me. Honestly at this point I still stand by my claim that the Skywalker story and saga end perfectly with ROTJ. That’s where I stop watching when I do my star wars marathon.

Kennedy takes a lot of heat for the sequels and some of it is fair but you are right in pointing out that they didn’t have some line by line set of content to pull from sans some of the novels. Even so, not all of the novels are even that great or worth making into a trilogy. But, it can’t be denied that the sequels felt disconnected and as if they were made as one-of films in some ways. I’m not sure of the exact process that happens with this but after watching or test screening TLJ, didn’t at least some viewers wonder if Rian Johnson actually even watched Force Awakens? Same thing with Rise. I dunno. Just a mess and the new characters couldn’t stick their landings at all. That’s the fault of the writing, not the actors and actresses to be fair.

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Both TLJ and TROS have this feeling like they’re both trying to be the next two episodes in the trilogy but both went in wildly different directions.

Like, if TLJ had been expanded over two movies, it could’ve been considered a mostly complete story.

Or in another timeline, if TROS were two movies, it could also fill out a trilogy. Like, Kylo Ren hunting down that navigation beacon would have made a great b-story for an entire movie, instead of just showing us the last day of his search.

I actually wouldn’t mind if the ST got the SE treatment: maybe put Admiral Holdo in the background in TFA, find any kind of footage that clarifies that Han, Luke and Leia knew exactly who Rey is, even some kind of foreshadowing of Palpatine’s return. But I feel like neither Abrams nor Johnson would be interested in returning to do the work.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Exactly. Like I said, I was hoping the ST would take place hundreds of years after ROTJ to give time for lots of stuff to happen and give us a fresh start with new characters and maybe have the OT crew appear in some old message from a time in between. The EU stuff didn't need to be canon, but if they wanted to drop some Easter eggs that left whether or not it happened up for debate amongst anyone who knew that would have worked fine. In all honesty, I , like many, was quite excited after seeing TFA. I thought it was a nice throwback to the OT and a return to the basics that made SW so special. However, it soon became apparent after a third viewing that it was merely re-hashing ANH, and played out as little more than a re-make. Of course the following Christmas Rogue One was released and I got even more excited for the next ST installment. It appeared they were taking SW in a new yet familiar direction. Then TLJ happened and....yeah... I wasn't against it initially, but I was unsure leaving the theater as to how I felt. Unlike TFA, which kind of held up on repeat viewing, this completely fell apart.

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At this point, the brand has been significantly damaged due to Kennedy's mismanagement and a lack of a defined plan and vision. What was once "Whoa, STAR WARS!" is now "oh, star wars..." for all the reasons we've debated above.

I do wonder though. We keep hearing how TROS was a last-ditch "course correction" from the "fan backlash" over TLJ. But was it really though? TLJ still made a ton of money. It got good reviews from critics. Even if fans were divided, Kennedy had such faith in Johnson she greenlit an all-new trilogy for him to write and direct. You'd think the powers that be would have had faith in the vision.

There was a full decade between Episode III and TFA. It's already been five years. Maybe hold off on Mandolorian for a few years and come back stronger. Let that be the Filoni swan song and bring in some new talent :shrug:

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Will agree to disagree. My point was pretty straightforward. I never said there wasn't character evolution or growth, just that there wasn't much interesting or compelling development in the likes of Rey, Finn, Poe, whomever. In my opinion they weren't particularly more developed from who they were before.

And for me, that was a missed opportunity for part 2 of a trilogy. As a movie on its own, TLJ is a perfectly fine Star Wars flick. I'd rate it a 7 out of 10, although I think I gave it an 8 at the time. It just felt like a Splinter of the Mind's Eye-styled one-off between movies.
I don't disagree with that. Even if I didn't care for some of TLJ's choices, they should have kept going down that trajectory instead of trying to shoehorn in their perceived "fan-service". When done well, it can improve a series (Lucas minimizing Jar-Jar after Ep. 1). When not, you get TROS.

I always thought it would have been interesting for Rey and Kylo to abandon both the Jedi and Sith (and the Resistance/First Order), leaving together to establish their own blend of Force study. The implication that maybe Rey has been seduced by the Dark Side and Kylo is just messing with her. Maybe she faces her own spiritual "mutilation" aka Luke losing his hand, on some level. Maybe Luke doesn't die and is forced to return to the Resistance after he loses another pupil, giving him a redemption arc in the following movie. Maybe Snoke isn't sliced in half and takes direct command of the First Order in Kylo's absence on a full genocidal bent, setting him up to be a more fearful villain than Palpatine.

My point being, something along those lines would have been more satisfying and more of a compelling "cliffhanger" to whet your appetite for the final trilogy film. At least to me, anyhow.

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Having read the original Thrawn trilogy, as well as a few other EU books, yes, it would've made a good movie trilogy.... in the late 80s or maybe early 90s featuring much younger versions of the original cast than the actual sequel trilogy had to work with.

Which is the point; the EU material isn't suited for the time the sequel is set in. Thrawn is a compelling character, and dealing with the remnants of the Empire is interesting... which is why the TV shows like the Mandalorian and Ahsoka are using that for material, even bringing in Thrawn.


Sure, but Disney wanted to make sequels, and Lucas knew that was the most compelling pitch to Disney for buying Lucasfilm from him. So given that context, that Disney wanted sequels set 30 years after the original trilogy with the original cast in supporting roles, there wasn't existing material that could just be straight adapted, or even adapted with only a little modification.

I don't understand this argument. Practically everything in TLJ derives directly from TFA. TFA is actually the source of a ton of complaints about TLJ, because it had to actually deal with and answer all the bullshit "mystery boxes" and loose threads TFA set up and left dangling.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

What "final" film trilogy? Lucas just made up numbers about how many Star Wars sequels there would be, and changed his mind constantly. And Disney wouldn't be interested in actually ending the numbered episodes, if they were still profitable.

Also, a film trilogy has to be satisfying on its own, not just setting up the next trilogy. I guess the prequels sort of fail at this, but they fail at a lot of things. The thing is, when Lucas got tired of making Star Wars after the first 2, he at least wrapped things up in the 3rd film in a fairly satisfying way. TRoS has a lot of failures, but it at least leaves the series at a point where one can say "that's an ending."

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

You're in the minority with that opinion. Lucas knew how critical it was getting the old cast back, which is why he signed them up for new films before offering Lucasfilm up for sale to Disney.

I remember in theaters hearing the gasps when Han Solo appeared at the end of the first TFA trailer. There's a reason that film had a massive box office, and it wasn't because it ignored the previous films or minimized them.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

This was how it was positioned from day one. The final "Skywalker" trilogy. Not that there wouldn't be further movies, just that 7, 8, 9 was closing out the Skywalker horseshit. And of course they shit the bed with it.
Yeah no shit, which makes the sequel trilogy such a shithouse. The first movie was a blatant Ep. IV remake, the middle movie was a character study that didn't advance the overall storyline much, and the TRoS was a stupidly awful bit of wannabe fan-service that tried to "fix" TLJ's problems and just made things even worse.
The best thing we can say is that it ended. The PT was pretty terrible but at least it *had* a story. And a good one, just badly told. The sequel trilogy was kind of the opposite.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Did Lucas actually sign up the old cast before selling to Disney? Never heard that before.

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I believe the story goes he had dinner with them in 2011 or 12 and got 'handshake' agreements, the actual contracts were signed well after. Mark has told the story that Carrie immediately said yes and he was trying to tell her to not commit right away so they could have more negotiating leverage.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

I don't think that's true.

From the Disney press release at the time:
https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/dis...lucasfilm-ltd/
From Variety:
https://variety.com/2012/film/news/d...ed-1118061434/
USA Today:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...sfilm/1669739/
There's nothing in there about Episodes VII through IX being the "final" trilogy.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Pretty sure Lucas is also on record saying 12 movies back in the day as well. I don't think there was ever a set number of films. It was whatever Lucas was feeling at any given time.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Yeah, his plans were always in a state of flux...

Right after the success of Star Wars in 1977, he loosely envisioned a twelve film saga.

That would have looked like this:He was also talking about having a film about Droids and another about Wookies; not sure where those would have fit in, if at all.

By the time he got around the making The Empire Strikes Back, it had been whittled down to a nine-film saga that was later divulged by Gary Kurtz:But by the time Lucas got to work on Return of the Jedi, he ditched the Sequel Trilogy and wrapped everything up in that movie with the defeat of the Empire and the revelation that Leia was Luke's mystery sister. After that plan got scuttled, I think that Lucas was envisioning a nine-film saga, with Eps VII-IX focusing on Anakin's grandchildren, making it a generational saga. But in the years between ROTJ and TPM, Lucas got it in his head that it should be a six film saga about the corruption and redemption of Anakin Skywalker.

That's actually one thing about The Force Awakens that intrigued me -- how closely that movie mirrored those 1980 plans for Episode 6 and the Sequel Trilogy, where Han dies, the Empire isn't defeated, Luke goes away, and Leia is left isolated. And Rey is brought in not as a lost sister, but a lost daughter, which would blend the 1980 sister saga with the later generational saga.

Re: The General Star Wars Discussion Thread
 

Even that is revisionism on Lucas' part. Right after Star Wars, the plan for sequels was much more loose, with speculation about individual stories about droids and wookies, as you note, and even a potential Obi-Wan prequel. Keep in mind the movies didn't even have episode numbers yet, so they weren't all necessarily part of the same "saga." It wasn't until the second draft of Star Wars II that Lucas set upon the episode numbering, with specifically the episode numbering we know now, with Empire Episode V, and Star Wars retroactively episode IV.

Up until Return of the Jedi, Lucas was planning the initial run of films to go much longer, with the "there is another" to refer to a previously unseen character. But Lucas got burned out out from simultaneously producing Empire and starting up Lucasfilm and building Skywalker Ranch, not to mention his divorce, so cut the plans down to one more film to wrap up the series as a "trilogy." It worked, and it set up making the films as a set of trilogies, but it was more spur-of-the-moment than something heavily planned out from the beginning. Lucas likes to pretend he had everything planned out in advanced, but all the evidence shows they were making it up as they went far more than Lucas wants to admit.