Originally Posted by Mike86 (Post 13661136)

I actually thought we might see, and not just hear some of the Force ghosts in The Rise of Skywalker. One of the earlier drafts of the ending to Return of the Jedi had the ghosts of Obi-Wan and Yoda there, and I had thought since there was rumors of Hayden being on set that Anakin be there along with maybe Luke. Would have been cool, but also not exactly sure how it would have played out.

Originally Posted by kefrank (Post 13660875)

On the whole, I think what the first two sequel movies established worked really well - at least for Rey, Kylo, Luke, Leia and Han. I enjoyed the Rise of Skywalker as well, but if it were up to me, I would have done a few things slightly differently to wrap up the trilogy...

I would have made the villain in the Rise of Skywalker a clone of the ancient Jedi that went rogue and founded the Sith, having been cloned/resurrected by the Emperor in secret on Exegol around the time of Return of the Jedi, in order to solidify the dark power of the Empire for all time. With the death of the Emperor and the victory of the rebellion, this ancient Sith clone began pulling strings behind the scenes in secret to establish the First Order and regain power over the galaxy.

I would not have made Rey Palpatine's granddaughter, but instead I would have made her an orphan, discovered to be Force-sensitive by Lor San Tekka or other members of the Church of the Force and believed by them to possibly be descended from one of the original founders of the Jedi, in a bloodline long considered to have ended. Based on this belief, they hid her on Jakku, watching over her from close by to see if she would prove to be what they believed her to be (which she eventually does). It would have validated that her parents were "no one" but her ancestors were someone indeed.

Those two things would have made the "I am all the Sith...and I am all the Jedi" moment make more sense and carry more weight. It also would have given more expanse to the mythology of the Star Wars universe in this sequel trilogy.

Lastly, given the opportunity that Abrams ultimately didn't have, I would have made Leia's role in turning Kylo/Ben back to the Light a bit more fleshed out and given Ben a slightly more direct role in defeating the Sith in the end, finally fulfilling the prophecy of a Skywalker bringing balance to the Force (and in a little more interesting way, fulfilling Ben/Kylo's desire to be as "powerful" as his grandfather).

Finn and Poe mostly ended up being "plot mover" characters in the sequel trilogy, rather than more interesting characters with meaningful arcs. Maybe there was a bit of a missed opportunity there, especially for Finn, but I think that's mostly fine.

Originally Posted by IBJoel (Post 13661219)

I actually think this is pretty good! Although I personally feel that Finn does have an arc, but he's my favorite sequel character, so I'd welcome more of him.

Originally Posted by Josh-da-man (Post 13660208)

As soon as Lucas decided that the original 1977 Star Wars was actually Episode IV: A New Hope, he was always going to do the prequel trilogy after he did Episode VI. Early on, I think there was supposed to be a movie every three years, so we would have gotten the prequel trilogy in 1986, 1989, and 1992, and then the sequel trilogy in 1995, 1998, and 2001. He didn't end up making "Episode I" until 1999, though. One of the reasons cited was that special effects technology wasn't where Lucas needed it to be, so he sat on the PT for a decade.

Originally Posted by Jason (Post 13661586)

The first reference to Return of the Jedi on usenet from the 1980's ponders this very issue.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!ms...Y/9TIQH0a19xwJ




If they only knew...


BTW, the whole collection is really interesting.

80s Usenet (newsgroups) - first cultural references

Originally Posted by brayzie (Post 13661709)

There was Internet forums in the early 80s?? How common was this?

Originally Posted by Draven (Post 13661788)

The Thrawn trilogy was the way to do it with the existing characters still in their prime.

Since that time passed, there was no way to do that. So I'm fine with what we got instead.

Originally Posted by Michael Corvin (Post 13662606)

Pretty much this. Thrawn Trilogy if this was made 20 years ago. We were never going to get Luke kicking ass in his prime. He's 68 (holy shit, I had to look that up). Carrie Fisher was 60, Harrison, 77 and Billy Dee is 82. We were never going to get a sequel trilogy starring these actors as the leads in 2015-2019.

Originally Posted by stingermck (Post 13660345)

I really just wanted a bad ass Jedi Master Luke. When he showed up at Crait I was hoping for the scene from Dark Empire. Crushing AT AT with the force. In fact a lot of stuff from Dark Empire would have been great.

Originally Posted by Michael Corvin (Post 13662606)

Pretty much this. Thrawn Trilogy if this was made 20 years ago. We were never going to get Luke kicking ass in his prime. He's 68 (holy shit, I had to look that up). Carrie Fisher was 60, Harrison, 77 and Billy Dee is 82. We were never going to get a sequel trilogy starring these actors as the leads in 2015-2019.

Originally Posted by Josh-da-man (Post 13662818)

Luke wouldn't need to be "kicking ass" to do something interesting and satisfying, though.

Just looking at the end of TFA, there are any number of things that Luke could be doing on Ach-To that didn't involve being an asshole loser. He's protecting something there. He was on a quest to find something and got stranded there.