Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker

[Riggswolfe]

In case it came across as such, I don't see her as a Mary Sue.

Nah, Soln literally said the movie was Mary Sue + Hobbit Goats. It made my eyes roll super hard.

As for the trailer itself, I'm not super excited but I'm going to see it because I want to see how it all ends and if JJ can actually pull it off. I've seen some rumblings around that they've had a ton of reshoots and stuff which could be worrying. We'll see I guess. I think if anything Disney should learn that you have to plan this shit out. You don't just make it up as you go.

[HaemishM]

What I've heard is that they are still, IN OCTOBER, doing reshoots and that there are six endings already filmed that are being focus-grouped to see which one people like the most. Now that could just be bullshit but it also wouldn't surprise me one bit.

[Tale]

Apparently the space goathorses (which have tusks) are called Orbaks.

[Riggswolfe]

What I've heard is that they are still, IN OCTOBER, doing reshoots and that there are six endings already filmed that are being focus-grouped to see which one people like the most. Now that could just be bullshit but it also wouldn't surprise me one bit.

I'd heard the same. The best spin I can put on it is they may have shot six endings just to keep people guessing if there are leaks. But who the hell knows.

[Cyrrex]

Or maybe it is so you can later buy the special special special edition Choose Your Ending blu ray.

[Raguel]

I saw the latest trailer on you tube and one of the comments was that the SWTOR trailers were better. I have to agree.

I might have said this already but this new generation of SW characters are pretty dull. Kylo is only interesting if, as one youtuber put it, one thinks of him as a co protagonist of the story.

I don't know if I feel that way because they are really boring or if I'm just much older now and the magic is gone. Or maybe a combination of those things.

[HaemishM]

It's not just you. The characters really feel one-dimensional and it doesn't help that their stories have been pulled this way and that based more on plot points than character development. Rose's character is just oddly flimsy - sister sacrifices herself and she follows Fin because reasons until she loves him and then tries to sacrifice herself? All the incel twats who criticize the character because they are misogynistic dolts are unfortunately bolstered by the fact that she's a terrible character. Rey's mysterious origins that might be important until they aren't important but I'm sure will be important again by the end of Rise, and her continual ability to do shit with the Force that she shouldn't be able to do without training makes people think she's a Mary Sue. I'm guessing Rey will end up being Plot Device #1 because she will be a clone of the Emperor that was meant to make Force Babies with Kylo Ren. Kylo himself was a pretty convincing villain until they removed his helmet and made him emo Adam Driver.

The only magic missing is a coherent narrative, one that doesn't vacillate between unoriginal homage in one film to Edgelord "I WILL SUBVERT YOUR EXPECTATIONS SUCK IT STAR WARS FANS" in the next and is going back now to fan pandering and homage in the 3rd (at least it appears that way from the trailers).

[Riggswolfe]

Or maybe it is so you can later buy the special special special edition Choose Your Ending blu ray.

I could dig Star Wars Episode 9: Clue edition.

It's not just you. The characters really feel one-dimensional and it doesn't help that their stories have been pulled this way and that based more on plot points than character development. Rose's character is just oddly flimsy - sister sacrifices herself and she follows Fin because reasons until she loves him and then tries to sacrifice herself? All the incel twats who criticize the character because they are misogynistic dolts are unfortunately bolstered by the fact that she's a terrible character. Rey's mysterious origins that might be important until they aren't important but I'm sure will be important again by the end of Rise, and her continual ability to do shit with the Force that she shouldn't be able to do without training makes people think she's a Mary Sue. I'm guessing Rey will end up being Plot Device #1 because she will be a clone of the Emperor that was meant to make Force Babies with Kylo Ren. Kylo himself was a pretty convincing villain until they removed his helmet and made him emo Adam Driver.

The only magic missing is a coherent narrative, one that doesn't vacillate between unoriginal homage in one film to Edgelord "I WILL SUBVERT YOUR EXPECTATIONS SUCK IT STAR WARS FANS" in the next and is going back now to fan pandering and homage in the 3rd (at least it appears that way from the trailers).

The narrative is a big issue. I get tired of people bashing Kathleen Kennedy because it feels a lot like "Ewwww girl in charge ruining things!" but I do think she failed to guide this trilogy properly. From all accounts each episode was just going to be totally up to that director with very little guidance from above. That's why The Last Jedi was such a big departure and upset people.

As for the character critiques, Rose is...meh. Which saddens me. The actress has a ton of charisma and the idea of the character is neat. A main character who's not the best at anything is a nice change but The Last Jedi failed her. And Poe. And Finn.

The Rey critiques were solved ironically by the Last Jedi. Snoke more or less flat out says she exists to counter the rising darkness. Since that is more or less Anakin's origin too I can roll with it.

[Khaldun]

You know, the original trilogy Star Wars characters were also pretty flat: plucky princess, space scoundrel, farmboy hero, wise space wizard, loyal monster sidekick, comic relief robots, ultra-bad dark armor villain, bad guy stooges.

It's just that back then that felt like taking REALLY flat serial archetypes and giving them a new coat of polish--a kind of innocent move. Ford and Guinness succeeded in giving their characters a slight feeling of hidden interiority. Adding the I-am-your-father and princess-scoundrel romance plots gave a slight additional feeling of depth to the involved characters, but they didn't even really do what they could have to use the plot to really roil up and deepen Luke Skywalker's character--there's no way he should have just let Yoda-ghost and Kenobi-ghost off the hook for lying and manipulating him.

The problem at this point is that those archetypes are now too familiar as a result of Star Wars and a bunch of other genre work in SF and fantasy since 1977 using, reusing, satirizing, reversing etc. those archetypes. We felt like we knew the original SW characters because we did, but now we know them so much.

So if you look at the current trilogy characters, I see ways that they *could* feel like other archetypes, but JJ Abrams didn't do the work in the first film to really sharpen this and then Johnson was focused on subverting and rethinking the entire mythos and so couldn't really lock the potential characterizations into place.

Finn could be a much clearer manifestation of "the defector"--the former enemy, troubled by conscience, who joins the side of the angels. But archetypically, that kind of character has to have a much more brooding, introspective, psychological presentation--we have to feel his internal conflict, to see him worried about whether his disloyalty to his former allies is a sin. And his new allies have to always worry about him a bit--to wonder if it isn't a trick. Zuko in Avatar, or the first few episodes of the new She-Ra cartoon--there's a lot of examples of it out there. This kind of character is one where the possibility of redemption through sacrifice is always in play.

Poe wasn't anything in the first movie--he was originally written as a minor character and it shows. But Johnson did something archetypically interesting with him, making him a superficially dashing person who has to confront his own errors in judgment. It just comes too late to care--if that was his arc, he needed to do his fuck-up in Force Awakens and then struggle to become a deeper, better person in Last Jedi. Again,  there's some good models out there of this kind of character, but once again, it's a kind of character that has to have some psychological depth--there's some sort of transformation going on inside, some real conflict between impulse and thought, between old habits and new commitments.

Rey is, I have to admit, a pretty confused character. In FA, she's just a reprise of Luke Skywalker in many ways. Not quite as innocent as he was, or as eager to be a do-gooder, but basically good-hearted, brave, and preternaturally talented with the Force. In LJ, she's written into a rather appealing subversion of the usual wise mentor-innocent pupil relationship, where to some extent her job is to teach her bitter mentor to heal and resume being a responsible adult. That's good, but it doesn't help her develop a character arc or archetype of her own other than "saintly female savior figure". Which I suppose they could play up more consciously--a kind of female sage. I think Star Wars would do better if she was Joan of Arc: a prophet with a bit of a crazy edge, whose allies both follow her fervently but also are a bit scared of her. Anything more than just "the inevitable Jedi character".

Kylo Ren is really interesting, I think--but he's interesting in a way that doesn't entirely work in the kind of story that Star Wars is. He's a bit too much like a real person--contradictory, villainous because of base psychological imperfections and motivations. His patricidal anger in the first film doesn't feel like a deep mythic kind of father-son hatred, it feels like a modern nuclear family resentment that takes a sudden sour turn into murder because of drugs or greed or pettiness. He's like those two brothers who got mad at mommy and daddy because their allowance was cut so they killed mommy and daddy with a shotgun. Force Awakens doesn't really do anything to tell us why he hates Han Solo so much--there's a vague whiff of abandonment issues, but that's pretty weak. Either Han Solo actually was abusive--well, they're not going to do that!--or Kylo Ren is just the devil's seed. But that doesn't work either, precisely because we see enough of his psychological interior that he can't just be an unfathomably, inevitably evil monster from birth. So he's an interesting character, but everything that makes him interesting has a tendency to make other characters around him into weirdly flat cliches or to raise uncomfortable questions about characters who up to that point have been fun archetypes.

The only shining glory for me so far is what they did with Luke Skywalker, which feels so so right and yet so original and fresh. I understand why other people don't feel that way, and I'm sure JJ Abrams is about to walk some of that back somehow, but it sticks with me.

The rest just feels like a bunch of missed opportunities that show in part the *lack* of careful advance thinking about this trilogy in comparison to how Marvel Studios has unfolded the MCU films.

[Draegan]

Desert Planet.  Forest Planet with same helmets.  Death Star.  Lightsaber bullshit.  Big Space Fleet.  Cackling Palpatine.

Yeah, tell me again how JJ Abrams isn't an unoriginal hack.

Even harder pass than the last time I passed hard.

Not much room for originality in the 9th movie of a story.

[Ironwood]

That's bullshit and you know it.

[HaemishM]

Star Wars doesn't have to be original to be fucking interesting. Nothing in particular about the original movie was all that original (other than its very impressive technical achievements) - it was mostly other movies/stories placed into a different sci-fi context. It was a typical hero's journey fantasy story only with blasters and laser swords instead of Excalibur and dragons. Its fleet combat was just WWII fighter pilot movies in space. Darth Vader was the man in black against the hero in white from old westerns including the showdown in the middle of the street (Obi Won v Vader in the Death Star hallway).

I would posit that Last Jedi was so bad BECAUSE it tried to be original before it tried being a coherent story or a good representation of the Star Wars brand.

[Khaldun]

You mean good.

Anyway, not to re-litigate it. The point is that Star Wars is now effectively its own mythopoetic source, and that's a fucking hard thing to do without turning into the freakish insularity and self-referentiality of something like the original Expanded Universe. It's why I'm interested in The Mandalorian--they seem to understand that they've got to go back to ripping off other aesthetics/narrative structures/character archetypes and dragging them into Star Wars for it to have some vitality.

One reason Feige has been able to run the MCU franchise so well is that he has such a huge backlog of stories and characters to adapt for the medium where he can throw out all the crud that has accumulated through "continuity", he can decide which versions of long-running characters he likes best, etc., and they've shown a deft ability also to pivot and work towards what works best. So Thor as Shakespearean high fantasy? Kind of dull. Move towards Thor as action comedy. Etc.

The SW "main saga" films just doesn't have that--they're not adapting some other body of content, even if they started by ripping off/homaging old serials like Flash Gordon and so on. That's a challenge, not the least because none of that kind of source material helps you imagine what to do with a story that happens *after* the Big Bad is defeated. That called for a kind of creativity that JJ Abrams is 100% incapable of, really. When I think of other franchises of this kind, what almost always happens is that the Big Bad is resurrected and you retell the same story again. It's common enough in comics and pulp but it's pretty rare that this is the satisfying choice. If you're going to tell a story about how the Big Bad is dead, but as Gandalf puts it in LOTR, "other evils may arise", then you kind of need to at least have a different flavor of bad guy. Like, what if these three movies had been about a new galactic republic being strangled to death by pervasive criminal conspiracies and two-bit insurgencies, with a sinister mastermind behind it all? That would be different and yet also be recognizable pulp with good guys and bad guys, etc. If it's a much more complicated story about how overthrowing an Evil Empire is as nearly impossible in a galaxy far, far away as it is in our real world, well, that takes making a big step up in the storytelling and moving away from knights in shining armor and cartoon villains.

Basically I just don't think they had a real plan going into this, just Abrams doing his usual seat-of-the-pants hackery.

[Raguel]

The only shining glory for me so far is what they did with Luke Skywalker, which feels so so right and yet so original and fresh. I understand why other people don't feel that way, and I'm sure JJ Abrams is about to walk some of that back somehow, but it sticks with me.

I have to agree with you. I think LJ is Mark Hammil's best work ever.

His performance (and to some extent Ford's in TFA) really highlights just how bad the new crew are. I have a suspicion that on average the younger generation are better than their predecessors (not that I think any of them are better than Guinness or Ford, but Hammil and Fisher are so poor) acting wise but it's like they are being deliberately undermined.

[HaemishM]

They are being undermined by having a story that gives them nothing to fucking do that isn't running around. People will bitch about the characters in Rogue One being one-dimensional but just on the strength of one movie, I'd rather see a trilogy about Diego Luna's rebel assassin character and his hateful droid or about the blind Force monk and his hulking sidekick than any of the characters in the new trilogy.

There was plenty of interesting possibilities for Star Wars after the Empire was defeated and none of those stories were pursued. It probably doesn't help that neither the Empire or the Rebellion (or the Republic from the prequels) ever had any real meat to its collective story to really give unoriginal guys like Abrams a place to start. Empire, Rebellion, Republic, First Order - they've all just been plot devices and window dressing, without any real serious thought to how they should work together in a universe, at least not by storytellers who were competent enough to create that universe-building content. And Kathleen Kennedy does not appear to be a creative enough producer to shepherd the creation of that sort of "Universe Bible for the Screenwriters" that Kevin Feige has done with the MCU. She seems more of the business side of production, which tracks completely with her directives on inclusion and diversity that has got the incels so worked up. She didn't do it for any particular political agenda - she just saw there was a larger market than just typical Star Wars nerds that included females and POC, and made sure those people didn't feel excluded.

[Khaldun]

Pretty much.

One of the bad raps the Phantom Menace gets is that it's dull because it's about trade federations, taxation, galactic politics.

No, it's bad because George fucking Lucas wrote it and directed it. If he'd just handed some notes over to people who could see the possible story better, it would have been great. The basic idea is fantastic: a cunning, sinister, thinking-ahead conspiracy masterminded by an extremely hidden Sith Lord aims to take natural problems and flaws of a massive galactic republic and a complacent Jedi Order and push them to the breaking point, whereupon he plans to step in as a demagogue. That's not dull, it's exciting--if it's done with someone who knows how to make that story structure really sing out. Basically, it's a small handful of noble Roman patricians and soldiers trying to work together to save a Republic that increasingly seems doomed by its own weaknesses--plots and counterplots, people whose nobility is sometimes a fatal weakness, people whose hubris or overconfidence cripples them.

Imagine a prequel trilogy where: Anakin is an impulsive but precociously talented Force-using 14-year old and Qui-Gon is enough of an iconoclast that he decides he should teach the boy despite that being against the Jedi's procedures, and then Obi-Wan feels obligated to carry on what his teacher started. Where the whole thing begins because Qui-Gon *thinks* there's some kind of conspiratorial hand behind the Trade Federation acting against Naboo but the rest of the Jedi think he's a nutter, and he acts squirrely enough that we think maybe they're right--but that he's on the right track actually and THAT's why Darth Maul gets sent after him. That Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan end up on Tatooine because they find a clue that the mysterious conspiracy has a connection there (it does: Palpatine is keeping his eye on Anakin) and that's how Anakin gets into the mix. Drop all the garbage about the Gungans, about Anakin's early childhood, about needing to raise money to get a part for a spaceship--they stay on Tatooine looking for more clues, they find something that leads back to Naboo, Maul attacks them, they barely escape and have to take Anakin with them to keep him safe, they rush back to Naboo to try and follow the lead only to find the palace under attack, get caught up in the fighting, etc. Qui-Gon gets killed, Maul gets killed, Yoda sort of believes Obi-Wan that there's something stanky going on, but isn't sure what and he thinks Qui-Gon was a nut and that training Anakin is a super-bad idea. Cue the next film.

I can really see it, it just would have taken a completely different script and director. Same for these movies: what happens after the Emperor dies and the Empire breaks up? There's tons of interesting thematic arcs in there, but you gotta actually *pick* one and then get the right people to execute it. They just kind of leapt into this without a plan and hoped that without the liability of George Lucas shitting everything up they'd come out ok. Well, they came out ok, meaning better than the prequels. But not good, really.

[HaemishM]

Qui-Gon as Fox Mulder played by Liam Neeson would have been pretty fun.

[Riggswolfe]

Qui-Gon as Fox Mulder played by Liam Neeson would have been pretty fun.

Does that make Obi Wan Scully? Because I can see it.

[HaemishM]

He did have the red hair, didn't he? 

[Cyrrex]

I have said before in one of the other dozens of SW threads that you could reshoot the prequels with a capable director and an edited screenplay, and it would have been just fine.  Lucas has certain talents, but writing and executing a screenplay are not among them.

[Sky]

I have said before in one of the other dozens of SW threads that you could reshoot the prequels with a capable director and an edited screenplay, and it would have been just fine.  Lucas has certain talents, but writing and executing a screenplay are not among them.

I agree with this. Some edits to remove fluff like the race, the droid factory, etc. But yeah.

Though probably recasting Skywalker would still be required.

[eldaec]

I can really see it, it just would have taken a completely different script and director. Same for these movies: what happens after the Emperor dies and the Empire breaks up? There's tons of interesting thematic arcs in there, but you gotta actually *pick* one and then get the right people to execute it. They just kind of leapt into this without a plan and hoped that without the liability of George Lucas shitting everything up they'd come out ok. Well, they came out ok, meaning better than the prequels. But not good, really.

And I suspect this is what Lucas wanted. A backdrop of a republic trying to establish itself, Imperial holdouts trying to remain relevant, and pirates being piratical seems give you a lot of options whether you want to go big and epic or small and focussed.

But, given where star wars was, it is hard to argue that 'remake the damn OT' was such a bad strategy, or that being ambitious was in any way wise. The prequels were ambitious.

[Riggswolfe]

To be fair, rumor is Lucas wanted help writing and directing but no one would take the job. Which is odd since Disney hasn't had trouble finding people. My only guess is that Lucas was such a control freak no one wanted to touch his movies.

[Velorath]

Didn’t Lucas want to double-down on the midichlorian stuff and do the sequel trilogy in a microbiotic world? That would have been worse than anything Disney has done so far.

[Brolan]

Yes, some creatures that were directing the Force. It sounded like Lucas was saying the characters in the movies were like puppets being directed by these creatures.

George just needs to put down the pencil and back away.

[MahrinSkel]

To be fair, rumor is Lucas wanted help writing and directing but no one would take the job. Which is odd since Disney hasn't had trouble finding people. My only guess is that Lucas was such a control freak no one wanted to touch his movies.

Anecdotal hearsay: I once got to listen in as several designers that had worked with Lucas on games (different projects) shared stories. In essence, he was a "story board" type. He'd give a background including character names, a few scenes that absolutely had to happen exactly as he said, and the ending, and then absolutely nothing else until they met again months later to show him what they had. How to get between these set points didn't interest him.

More than one described how a character name they thought was just a placeholder turned out to be exactly what he wanted, with no variation. Also a major point of painful memories was multiple endings: Lucas absolutely hated them. The opening and closing scenes were completely mandatory and non-negotiable, no omissions or additions,

--Dave

[Khaldun]

Completely believable. You can essentially see it viscerally in the prequels. By the time he was making Phantom Menace no one dared tell him he had bad ideas--he was a kind of weird Howard Hughes dude.

[Sir T]

Going back to the original star wars, thats literally what happened. Lucas came in with a crazy script with really out there bullshit, but he was surrounded by people (including his own wife) who were able to rip apart his bullshit, salvage what was decent out of it and turn it into a decent movie that Lucas hated but had to film.

The problem is that by the time of the TPM he had filled up Lucasarts with Yesmen who were afraid to say boo to him

[eldaec]

The GoT hacks have left the star wars thing they were involved in. So that's good.

[Speedy Cerviche]

I can't believe Netflix paid those clowns $300 million

[Sir T]

Come on, GOT Season 7&8 had some deeply emotional and heartfelt writing.

[Cyrrex]

I don’t know what the limits of their responsibilities in GoT was, but I think it is a bit absurd to call them hacks and clowns.  The writing went off the rails, true...but it was a production spectacle with no equal.  They pulled off some amazing shit.  Or do I have my facts wrong and someone else was responsible for all that?

[Rendakor]

Come on, GOT Season 7&8 had some deeply emotional and heartfelt writing.

I was certainly emotional about it.

[Brolan]

D&D were certainly good at adapting GRRM’s work in seasons 1-6.  It’s when they had to bridge the gap and jump to the end that things went straight to hell.

But GRRM himself can’t seem to bridge that gap either, so maybe finishing GoT properly is not possible anymore.

[Riggswolfe]

D&D were certainly good at adapting GRRM’s work in seasons 1-6.  It’s when they had to bridge the gap and jump to the end that things went straight to hell.

But GRRM himself can’t seem to bridge that gap either, so maybe finishing GoT properly is not possible anymore.

GRRM will arguably have a harder time than they did because he's introduced 10,000 side characters who all need to be dealt with somehow.