Tom Banjo

Shannon Nutt

It's not really JJ's fault The Last Jedi didn't go the way he wanted...apparently, he had some ideas but Rian went in a different direction and KK let him run with it.

I can see why he almost said "no" to IX though. You want to tell your story, but you have to figure out a way to tell it so it doesn't contradict the movie a lot of people hate and which you had very little to do with. He's almost in a no-win situation.

Rob V

It's been said a trillion times... Financial Success does not mean it was a good movie. The "vocal minority"?? Just read the posts under almost every single Youtube video regarding Ep 8. And yes, I get that there are boneheads and Russian trolls posting many negative things... but it's a generally divisive movie, not one that is undermined by a minority. Other message boards seem to have the exact same fallout as DVD Talk.

coli

I don't think anyone expected them to have this 'Lord of the Rings' timeline of all 3 movies mapped out, as SW has never been like that (even in the Lucas days). What makes fans like me mad is that obviously JJ had ideas for Rey, Snoke, and other plot points he setup in TFA and Rian Johnson just took them and did whatever he wanted with them. So it's not really about mapping out a clear outline for the Trilogy, it's just the fact that you have each director making these movies like they are standalone stories without really caring what jives with the previous narrative.

I'm not a big fan of TLJ, but I will be even more mad if JJ starts to retcon everything in Episode 9 as it will make Trilogy look even more uneven. At this point just go with Random Rey, Force Ghost Luke, RIP Snoke, and move the story along. The worst thing they could do at this point is reach for straws that Rey is somehow related to somebody from the OT just please those fans that were disappointed she wasn't. All of this stuff is bogging down the movies in this Trilogy as they are forced to spend time answering questions that were never fully developed instead of moving the plot along. The Rey/Kylo scenes in TLJ are great, and then you have this big anti-climatic reveal of her parents that would never had been needed to be addressed if that mystery box didn't exist from TFA.

FM

I'm a lifelong Star Wars guy. I'm 40 and can't remember life before finding the movies. I read a bunch of the Expanded Universe stuff. I fall just short of dressing up like my favorite characters and going to cons, but that may be a product of my lack of artistic ability.

I didn't see Solo (edit - in a theater) based on how disappointed I was in TLJ. Unless early word is exceptionally good, I can see skipping Episode IX as well.

lopper

You're nuts if you think people posting on message boards and YouTube are anything but a vocal minority. It's a remarkably small sample size in the grand scheme of people who saw TLJ.

It's devisive amongst SW fans, sure, but the vast majority of people who saw TLJ really don't give a shit, and probably didn't think about it after leaving the theater.

We may not see as much from people who liked the movie, but I'd guess it's because engaging in this ridiculous back and forth with the narrow minded segment of this particular fanbase is exhausting and pointless so why bother.

kefrank

Respectfully, I think this position is misguided for two reasons:
1. JJ Abrams' MO is that he sets up mystery boxes and doesn't actually have ideas for where they should go, so I think it's wrong to assume he had specific ideas for Rey, Snoke and other plot points he set up in TFA.
2. I'm not going to argue all the details again, because I've made my points in the TLJ thread which you can go read again if you care to, but what Rian Johnson chose to do with Luke, Rey, Snoke, etc in TFA was absolutely a logical progression of what Abrams set up in TFA. It may not have been what some vocal fans wanted or had built up in their mind, but the plot surrounding those characters across the two movies (and even in light of the OT) flows very well, with interesting and well-developed themes, if you simply take the movies as they are and don't muddle them with jackass fan theories and obsessive speculation.

clappj

Devisive?

lopper

Yeah, I went in and changed. The spell check and auto complete on the new mobile version of this site is atrocious.

Rob V

Perhaps... but it's something. It's not like message boards (which are pretty much the ONLY outlet for us fans to discuss this stuff) are loaded with people claiming it's a great movie. It's about 50/50 or so here... and probably much the same on rational message boards and probably much less on troll sites like Youtube. So the proclamation that not liking Ep 8 is a minority is misguided.

Jay G.

You're forgetting that they fired Colin Trevorrow from Ep 9 due to creative issues. I doubt it's about "tighter creative control," and more about the fact that Lucasfilm hired one established blockbuster director for the first movie, then for the next 4 hired relative newcomers to blockbuster movies, and 3 out of the 4 had issues. So the established blockbuster director who's worked in several pre-existing franchises didn't really have an issue delivering something the studio was happy with, and with the other 4, it was possibly just luck that RJ's vision meshed so well with Lucasfilm's expectations.

I mean, when Solo had issues, what do they do? Hired a veteran Hollywood blockbuster director to finish it up. When Trevorrow shit the bed? Go back to Abrams. For Rogue One they brought in a veteran script fixer in Gilroy, and apparently trusted him to film his fixes more than the original director.

Lucasfilm ran into problems with the spin-offs and Ep 9 because they took risks on the directors, and when they ran into problems, went back to someone more established.

Maybe because for the bulk of those Marvel films, there's no real continuity between them aside from "Thanos is going to show up at some point." I just read an article about how the stinger at the end of The Incredible Hulk, from a continuity standpoint, makes no sense:
https://film.avclub.com/a-tony-stark...ive-1833595458
When the entire big-arc continuity for a movie is "we'll establish this MacGuffin as an Infinity Stone in the stinger," it's easier to shift things around. I mean, we see Thanos pull an Infinity Gauntlet out of a safe at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, we see a fake Gauntlet in Thor: Ragnarok, and then in Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos got another gauntlet made? Marvel's been making their arcs up on the fly as well, but since only really the Avengers films and maybe the later Captain America films have to tie the various standalones together, it's not as noticeable.

Marvel also has the benefit of mining decades of comic book material. The first time Thanos shows up at the end of Avengers, comic fans knew it would lead to Infinity War, because it was already told in the comics. For Lucasfilm, their original EU focused so much on the period immediately after original trilogy that they don't have material to mine for a 30-years-later movie revival. So it's all original, with no storyline already established that they can just steal and rejigger a bit to fit.

kefrank

Well if you want to go with statistics, in the TLJ reviews thread, 66% of DVD Talkers who rated it gave it 3.5 stars or above. If you add in the 3-star ratings, it jumps to 82%. Just going by the mathematical definition, it is in fact a minority here who disliked the movie enough to rate it less than 3 stars and it's not really very close to 50/50, FWIW.

Brooklyn

And the reverse is also true. You don't see as much from those on the boards who disliked it as they realized early on wasn't worth the time and effort to get into a ridiculous back and forth with those who are so condescendingly dismissive.

Rob V

You guys make it sound like it's 1/10 who dislike the movie... it's FAR from that. So if 51% like it, facts will be skewed to assure you're correct. Don't care... the movie sucked IMO and it didn't in yours and loppers and Jay G's... congrats.

dex14

This isn't TLJ thread. Please don't turn it into one.

kefrank

All I'm going to say is, this is an odd response. I simply stated the exact numbers from the poll on DVD Talk as a data point that refutes your 50/50 assertion (which had no data). If you would like to point out where I "skewed" anything in those numbers, feel free to shoot me a PM so that we don't muck up this thread anymore with TLJ discussion. I'm open to being corrected and I'll edit my post if I erred.

Artman

Completely agree, they've spent so much screen time on things that will probably not end up mattering. They have had 4.5hrs of screen time (not counting the credits)...and we feel like we've just been introduced to the main characters. The back-to-back time between films didn't work...what helped previous films was the passage of time and the sense that the characters have known each other for years. Here we have two of our main characters just meeting at the end of part 2.

Still hoping for the best from Ep9, and an awesome trailer tomorrow.

windom

Title rumored to be "Will of the Force".

lopper

Hmmm...No thank you.

dex14

Real or Fake? Time will tell...

Timber

I'm not a huge critic of these films but ugh, that would be a horrible name. It's not RoTJ or RoTS. I guess it's to be expected because these names have so far been completely underwhelming.

coli

I'm actually interested to see how I react to this trailer today. EVERY SW trailer has worked for me in some way (even the PT movies) as they were able to craft it in a way that made me nostalgic, yet looking forward to what is coming. I'm really bearish on Episode 9 and the ST right now, but the one thing that can 'Michael Corleone' me back to this franchise is a damn good trailer.

As he said in Godfather 3, "Just when I thought I was out.....they pull me back in!!!"

dex14

<iframe width="702" height="395" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1Xj9vF4aoCA" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
...

Jay G.

Not "Whills of the Force" ?

"Will of the Force" sounds like they're introducing some new character called Will.

JeremyM

Should be "Whill of the Force" to pay tribute to both the Journal of the Whills from the original film's novel and also the Whills from George's apparent original plans for the sequel trilogy...