Cellar Door

Nothing I have ever seen from JJ Abrams (including The Force Awakens) makes me think he'll make a great Star Wars movie.

As someone who's not really a fan of either movie so far in the ST, I really find it kind of strange how so many people are so down on The Last Jedi, when The Force Awakens is kind of garbage, too. If The Rise of Skywalker is any good, THAT will be the aberration in the ST, not TLJ.

GoldenJCJ

Brack

melasnus

Interesting sentence.

Brack

TGM

I agree, nothing interesting or factual about it.

Brack

Yeah, about that....you’re wrong.

Josh-da-man

For those who don't know, there is a conspiracy theory out there that posits Disney is required to pay royalties to George Lucas whenever things from his six Star Wars films are used by Disney.

I generally find myself skeptical of these things, but there does seem to be an agenda on the part of Disney to "file off the serial numbers" of a lot of things. If it isn't true, they certainly seem to be behaving in a way that makes it seem plausible.

Just look at the sequel trilogy... The Empire has become the First Order. The Rebellion has become the Resistance. Rey is a Skywalker in everything but name (She essentially has the same story as Anakin and Luke, she inherits the family lightsaber, she even looks like she could be related to Natalie Portman and Carrie Fisher.)

And even The Mandalorian, as awesome as the trailer is, looks like it's a Boba Fett series in everything but name. He's hanging out with IG-88 -- oh, wait that's IG-11!, he's wearing similar armor, and he's got a guy frozen in carbonite.

And, of course the Galaxy's Edge theme park is set in the sequel trilogy era and has few references to the the George Lucas eras. (They have the Millennium Falcon with the new dish... I think Chewie is one of the characters there...)

It does seem like there is an agenda on the part of Disney to erase and otherwise damage the PT and OT Star Wars, and softly reboot the franchise. Maybe it's no coincidence that they brought in the guy who rebooted Star Trek to make the first Disney era movie. Or it could just be creative bankruptcy on the part of Disney, who bought this giant franchise and have no clue how to manage it, so they're just repurposing everything and retelling the old stories with a veneer of novelty. And a lot of people seem to be satisfied with that.

This is, ultimately, where my disdain of the sequel trilogy comes from. It's not expanding the story that was told in I-XI. It's just retelling the same Rebellion vs Empire story we saw in IV-VI. Here's a new Empire that's called the First Order, a new Rebellion that's called The Resistance, a new Darth Vader named Kylo Ren, a new Lords of the Sith called the Knights of Ren, a new Emperor Palpatine named Supreme Leader Snoke, a new Death Star called Starkiller Base, another fallen Jedi Order that needs to be rebuilt. And in order to do this, they needed to have the old characters be presented as failures and hollow shells. It's just completely cynical and creatively bankrupt. They're basically saying "You like the OT so much, well, here it is again."

And I don't Disney has the will or motivation to put make the Sequel Trilogy into its own story. And even if they did, Abrams probably isn't the man for the job.

Artman

I've been asking myself... have I loved anything from Star Wars since 95? (the last VHS promotion of the OT) The answer is probably no....it's been steadily downhill for a long time. I did like TFA, but time has not been kind to it..and looking back it's pretty easy to see just how lazy a job they did with it. I don't hold Jedi up as an untouchable film...it's a clear step down from the first two...it's very possible this new film becomes my 3rd fav. Here's hoping it does.

Koby

I liked Episodes 1-6, but I did not like 7 or 8 and have little desire to even bother with 9. I know I'm going to eventually watch it cause it's Star Wars, but it'll probably just be a rental long after it's been released. I won't be watching it in theater.

melasnus

No, you're wrong.

Ditto that.
What is most frustrating is this sequel trilogy was a layup.
All Disney had to do was retire the characters in a non-stupid manner.
As it turned out, apparently it was too much to ask.

Gunde

Grown men still upset about the space movies. What else is new?

tanman

This is it exactly. It's almost impossible to judge interest now. Of course interest is high and of course there will always be Star Wars fans so it's hard to gauge how loud of a splash it's making when there is always background noise. For me personally, if it doesn't surpass the domestic BO of TLJ to a large degree, I would consider it a failure. As far as fan satisfaction I'm with you there too. Interested to see how Palpatine returns but also don't see how it could be satisfying without ruining RotJ. KK and JJ claim this was the plan all along but I don't believe a word that comes from Lucasfilm anymore.

tanman

I've never understood the argument for a property like Star Wars to dismiss an idea because it's fan service. Well hello of course there are a lot of fans. Why would you not want to make a movie that will please the fans? Of course you don't want to do something at the cost of the narrative but they could have easily had the three of them together FOR AT LEAST ONE DAMN SHOT!! How was that such a difficult thing to pull off? It could have even been in the form of a flash back. No matter if IX wraps up this saga in a satisfying manner or not this will be one giant failure of this whole ST.

tanman

I don't really think so. For one I don't think Lucas is really that hard up for money. If he was interested why didn't he sell it for more? Also why would he want to damage his creation. I think he really sold it to Disney because at the time he thought they would do the best job of continuing his creation.

I think this is primarily because of two reasons; lack of creativity and the prequel effect. I just don't think they were creative enough come up with something brand new so they basically aped the OT and skinned them in something new. To compound that they also didn't want to remind people of the prequels at all so they went full on nostalgia. Like balls to the wall nostalgia. And if they did have to pay him why would they use (practically) the same exact ships? Tie fighter, X-wings, Star Destroyers; those are all things that could easily have been changed if they were trying to avoid some kind of payment.

I think this makes perfect sense from a creative stand point because if they called it the Boba Fett hour they would have had to stay within the confines of that established character, which is pretty limited. This way they can have their cake and eat it to in that they can use the design of the mandalorian while also having the creative freedom to take the show where they want to. It's also been established preDisney that mandalorians were a thing just not heavily explored. I'm not sure about IG-88, likely again for creative freedom.

This is a different reason. Theme Parks have shifted from a place where you can ride the movie (i.e. Star Tours) to a place where you can live inside the world of the movies. Starting with Harry Potter, theme park designers have made these places so realistic that they have to fit within the confines of the story. That's why you can't "meet" Hermione or Harry or Rey or Chewie in their respective lands because thematically they wouldn't be hanging out waiting around to greet random people. So instead they build a realistic world that exists within the confines of the established universe. Therefore they can't really focus on the OT but instead Galaxies Edge exists on a new planet (again for creative freedom) and in the ST timeline since that is the current timeline. Whether or not it's successful is a different discussion. I think it's brilliant and taking theme parks to a whole new level. I also hope they keep the Star Wars launch bay so you can meet and greet characters and Star Tours so you can relive different eras of Star Wars without worrying too much about breaking the story. Either way I don't think it's to avoid some kind of Lucas tax.[/quote]

And I think that is where you answer your own question and that's the real reason why they did what they did. I don't know I think if they planned better it could have been so easy to please the fans and gain new ones at the same time. Have the first movie focus on the original three and pass the baton on for the new characters for the last two movies.

Brack

joe_b

Saw this on Reddit:

brayzie

Yeah. It reminds of the Prometheus thread.


Because Disney is trying to please the general public, not just the hard core Star Wars fans. I don't mind that the original cast wasn't together in the same scene. But I didn't like how Chewie and Leia seemed to ignore each other after Han's death, or that the only interaction between Luke and C-3PO is a wink which wasn't even in the script.

candyrocket786

A lot of artists seem to be doing this. Saw one being called out for stealing his Keaton-Batman art straight from some Sideshow production photos of the premium format statue.

Shannon Nutt

That's been completely and unequivocally debunked by a number of people.

dex14

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...

candyrocket786

That last scene with Rey almost looks like a deepfake.

dex14

K&AJones

I just like the whole trailer for the Down Memory Lane...a lot of great stuff especially the original Trilogy....but that last few seconds....that has an unreal amount of speculation. I get the feeling Rye is the Jedi's version of X-Men's Dark Phoenix.... unlimited power with both Good & Dark Side fighting for control within that scares the heck out of everyone....

clappj

What in the Palpareymaul is that at the end?