Devin Faraci Calls TFA fan fiction and calls JJ Hollywood's greatest Mimic

Speculation: the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence.

What is the firm evidence?
Han says that there were stories and rumours about what happened to Luke.
You don't get much more firm that that, it's basically fact.

Okay, so the stuff about him training a new generation of Jedi, and Ben turning against him and destroying everything is confirmed throughout the movie.
And maybe Han somehow knows how Luke felt about it.... but really, this is Han Solo. Did you watch the same Original Trilogy I saw growing up?
You want firm evidence that Han doesn't really know the truth? Go watch the original trilogy.

Now, let's just assume for the moment that things are as simple as Han says they are (in spite of the criticism that TFA is a rehash of a movie in which the truth wasn't as simple as it seemed), that Luke felt responsible for Ben's fall, and decided to just walk away from everything.
Would a Luke Skywalker, 15-30 years after Return of the Jedi do that?
He certainly could.


Honestly, people complain that Han and Leia reverted to their original trilogy characters, yet when Luke shows signs of growing up, he's suddenly out of character?
People are ridiculous.

The first stage of grief is denial. Essentially, you don't feel it, because you are still in denial that it happened.

 

I don't really know who Faraci is. To me, what he wrote makes sense so maybe this is one of those times when a blind squirrel has finally found a nut.

Yes, that's what I had in mind! Those are excellent examples.

It's not only the death scene that bothers me. It's what Han was doing right up until that time. I agree with others that Han wouldn't have been the warm, cuddly change-the-diapers kind of dad, but I do think he'd be loyal, dedicated and tenacious. Loyalty has always been one of Han's key attributes.

Kylo was evidently turned to the Dark Side by Snoke. I believe Han would have died trying to get him back. And yes, he would have died. What I can't see is him abandoning the Resistance and Kylo both. Even if he and Leia couldn't be around each other due to the emotions over Kylo, Han could still be a part of the Resistance. He would still be helping a cause greater than himself, which was one of the primary evolutions of his character.

And it's inconsistent with the awe he showed for the Force, and the Jedi, etc. He believes all that stuff now, but still won't fight against the Dark Side? I don't get it.

In fact, it's his smuggler ways and borderline business ethics that makes him ideal for both hunting down Kylo and his captors, and for finding info about the First Order. Think of the contacts Han must have- he'd have made great spy. When I found out he and Leia were estranged, I thought he'd be doing one of those things. It would have been easy to write him that way. I don't know why they didn't.

Yes, me too. I thought it was maybe that I knew it was going to happen, but I knew a lot of things were going to happen and were still thrilled/awed/shocked by them. I know that I tend to get sad if I see someone on screen get sad- hence it was Leia's hidden tears that got to me, but that shot was very brief.

There was a scene near the end involving Rey and Leia that was cut, and that explains what appears to be their odd interactions there. Perhaps there would have been time for processing of everyone's collective grief in that scene.

 

I like it how in the case of TFA "fan fiction" is perceived as something negative. Yet all who worked on TFA are actual fans and they have finally made something specifically for fans and non-fans alike. If they call it 'fan fiction', I see it as badge of honour. These people, the new lucasfilm, had a peculiar audience in mind: us. For the prequels, Lucas was most and foremost making a movie for himself. Now that turned out pretty badly. Not only did he not understand his audience, he failed to comprehend what gave his previous work fans in the first place. It sounds strange, but Lucas view and appreciation of Star Wars from the late 1980s onwards cannot be more opposed to that of the actual fans of the franchise. For starters Lucas didn't really like the originals because he had so many limitations at that particular time. He perceives them as flawed, while at the same time he perceives a movie like 'Revenge of the Sith' as one of his greatest. Now there are some people of course who say that Revenge of the Sith is very good. But from a movie-making standpoint, the technique of making movies, Revenge of the Sith is in fact the most flawed of all the prequels. The story is enjoyable, but technically it fails.

As for a 'reboot' king. Again it is meant to be negative. But then we have to wait for a moment. If we only would consider how much a person must understand a franchise, its moviemaking, its story and appeal to the audience in order to revitalize it for old and new audiences. It takes a considerable amount of intellectual effort. Abrams understands more than any one else and much better than Lucas who his audience is. What sort of people they are. What they want. What they dream about. And what they cherish about Star Wars. He knows better than anyone what the appeal was of the originals and why we long back to them. That is why his synthesis between old and new was so effective: he knows what we love and he knows where we think the story should be going.

Look at the way Rey is introduced: she represents us. She dreams of Star Wars (the puppet, the helmet, her at-at home, her profession, her gaze to the sky) and is then suddenly thrown into it. In fact she returns to Star Wars like we do to investigate WHO SHE IS and thus WHO WE ARE! Similarly Poe and Finn, they represent everything a Star Wars fan dreams about. All of them are fan archetypes: they are us.

 

Yes, that was a mistake I think. I agree with that completely. Han could have been under cover getting intelligence about the First Order from smugglers and black market traders. That would have been consistent to his character arc and still allow him to be separated from Leia.

I do think though that Han's death was consciously a decision about building Kylo Ren's character. It solidifies him as crazy/conflicted/trying to be evil yet I think Han's act of love will continue to haunt him. Hopefully Han's death will have echoes in Ep 8 and 9 that will "start to make things right" for the rest.

 

I have heard rumors to that effect, and I certainly hope you are right. I can live with it then- but I have a year and a half of sadness. Sadness for Leia and Chewie, too!

 

My childhood was filled with Star Wars. In my grade school years I absorbed The Chronicles of Narnia. Then in Junior High I discovered the Lord of the Rings books. Those three things probably formed the shape of who I am today. So I don't praise the LotR movies just to insult TFA. I loved TFA!

 

Mimic yes, fan fiction no. Faraci can't have it both ways. If its an OT ripoff then it can't be fan fiction. I think the film is a remix of the OT with new elements and setup and potential for much more original material in subsequent films (if its done right and they are bold enough to try). I got the movie at 50% ANH, 20%ESB, 5% ROTJ that's still 25% original material it may have been "safe" but it worked.

 

I loved how Han was portrayed in the movie for a number of reasons, in addition to Harrison Ford's wonderful performance. Yet if we can't give Han (or Luke) a pass for where he was as a character considering what we know and don't know yet regarding all that has happened in between ROTJ and TFA, can we give Obi-Wan and Yoda a pass for what they were doing in between ROTJ and ANH/ESB? We know that Obi-Wan was watching over Luke (though very little of what that entailed), and we know how critical that was. Yet we don't get any sense for how close Obi Wan was actually watching, or what could have happened to Luke at any given time. Yoda did not have responsibility over Luke or Leia. What exactly was he doing, communing with Qui-Gonn and getting some soup and jokes ready for Luke's eventual visit, if the Sandpeople didn't get him first, the stormtroopers didn't kill him with Owen and Beru at home, he didn't get captured surrounded by thousands of storm troopers in the Death Star, Vader and other fighters and guns didn't shoot him down in the trench run, that Wampa on Hoth didn't eat him first, or the AT-ATs didn't shoot him down or crush him?

I love the OT movies, but really, what else could Obi and Yoda have also been doing in those 20+ years to help the rebellion, to help Bail Ogana and restore the republic (which their allegiance was to, according to Obi Wan in ROTS), etc. That's right, twenty plus years. Wait a second, their presence in helping might tip the Emperor or Vader off and hurt the rebellion's chances, or endanger Luke or Leia's hiding, or their future training with Luke/Leia? We might say the same thing about what Luke is doing in TFA for Rey/Finn/Resistance/whoever, for all we know.

Hear me, I love the Star Wars movies, grew up with them for almost 40 years, appreciate the OT movies in new ways after the prequels even, but for every single thing that we or Faraci or anyone else criticizes TFA for, can we not do it for ANH and the others? I don't want to, but with these various TFA criticisms out there I have tried be fair and take off the nostalgia glasses a bit to give TFA an even playing field...

I think that a lot of the criticisms about TFA reveal more about us and our long waiting expectations, childhood nostalgia bias, natural positive or negative disposition (glass half full/half empty), view of suspending disbelief, and rational/critical thinking skills than anything else.

 

Yoda and Obi Wan were laying low because Order 66 was still in place. Vader and Palpatine were still on the hunt for Jedi survivors and after barely escaping the beat down Palpatine gave him Yoda was wise to do so. He and Obi Wan would not have been able to go against the The Emperor and Darth Vader. They even mentioned why they chose to hide on Tatooine and Degabah. Obi Wan chose Tatooine because he knew it would be one place Vader would be reluctant to return to and Yoda chose Degabah because it was towards the outskirts of the galaxy. Obi Wan was always suppose to train Luke but as Fate would have it he was the only one who could keep Vader distracted while Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie and the droids made their escape. The dying Yoda was a back up sensei for Luke.

 

Of course I agree and understand all these things, seen the movies all my life, and most of us could and have rationalized our way to these answers over the years. It's just apologetics--studying and explaining and defending evidence against contrary claims. Although some of what you said was implied or subtly mentioned in ANH, which most of us naturally supposed (and some of it directly showed only 28 years later in ROTS, like Order 66, which we didn't have at the time, except that "Vader hunted down and killed the rest of the Jedi Knights"), I was simply wondering if certain critics or complainers would take that same energy to defend the characters and plot points in TFA. That's all. Some aren't and some are. I am just asking those who aren't doing so if they had done the same for the older movies, which in my opinion, have as many quirky conveniences and plot gaps as the new movie. Now the difference here is that we still don't have episodes 8 & 9 and the next set of expanded books and comics to help fill in the gaps for TFA like we eventually got for ANH (with sequels and prequels and expanded materials). Until we get those gaps filled in, I am choosing to give TFA the benefit of the doubt on a number of plot points and character motivations that have been set in motion.

EDIT: Of course I understand those answers you gave. Those are the same answers I always give. I was playing devils advocate for TFA critics. And if they still won't give Luke a pass yet on whatever he has been up to, we can still go back to ANH and ESB and ask if Yoda and Obi-Wan's plan was "good enough"? Once again, I love the movies to death and support them always, but simply playing devil's advocate here for TFA critics. Was it worth all the hundreds of thousands or millions of people (in the former republic, rebellion, and Alderaan) who may have died in the twenty years between ROTS and ANH/ESB by the hand of Palpatine, Vader, and Empire for Yoda and Obi-Wan to hide out and wait for the big picture for Luke or Leia (instead of at least trying to help Bail Ogana or Leia or the rebellion in some ways)? In hindsight? Perhaps. Obi-Wan and Yoda are calculating (with what they tell and don't tell Luke), and big picture guys. They told Luke in ESB that he should be willing to sacrifice Han AND LEIA (the other last hope) to honor what they fight for and for the greater good. But as we watched the original movies at the time, who knows?

Personally, I will defend the OT movies because I love them, and I can ration my way there pretty easily. However, I also love TFA and can do the same. And for those plot points or character motivations that simply haven't been revealed yet, I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until they are (just like with the OT movies).

 

The worst thing the movie could have done was killed off Han and make the movie about THAT. If they had, the movie would have stopped dead in its tracks and we wouldn't care about anything else the rest of the way. The movie is about the new generation, not Han. Han's death is symbolic and will reverberate in later films. Star Wars has a history of planting seeds and then the seeds sprout later.

Faraci simply thinks storytellers misunderstood and made mistakes with his characterization. I disagree. In then, who cares. It's Star Wars. This is the story they are telling. Not the one that Faraci made up in his head.

 

As Windu said, that may not be a problem if (1) that's the whole point of what the story group, producers, and director were going for--to bring back the classic story and structure of ANH and the OT that so many love and cherish (almost 40 years later) and introduce it to a whole new generation while still pushing the original story forward through new characters in different ways-- and (2) a high majority of the viewing audience got it and loves it. Otherwise, it could have been a problem.

 

But see there is a difference between using the same three act story structure that most epics, fantasy and scifi stories do and using the same exact story. Also I think people are confusing plot wholes with plot twists. a plot whole is no one in the resistance manually making R2 project his part of the map like Luke did in a new Hope when he made him project Leia's message. A plot twist is Luke finding out that Vader did not kill his father like the false claims Obi Wan fed him but Vader in fact was his father. The Original trilogy did not rely on vagueness; It gave reasons and answers for the state of the Galaxy and the roles and abilities of the characters who who resided in in it. The only movie that ended on a cliff hanger with unanswered questions was ESB.

 

Hello my Star Wars friend. A few thoughts I had. I agree that TFA uses a similar plot structure and similar story to ANH, but it's definitely not the exact same story, not by any means. It's not a droid with plans to the death Star, it's a droid with a map to Luke--the hero and potential solution to the problem the Galaxy now faces. Jakku on the surface may look similar to Tatooine, and star killer base to Hoth, weather and environment wise, etc, but they are definitely not the same planet with the same culture, aliens, language, economy, and overall mood. The more times I see the new movie, the more aware of the differences that I see. The similarities are surface only, and the deeper we look and longer we spend with this new movie and books, etc, the differences become substantial. Besides, if we are going to have deeper discussions about the movie, then we need to go beyond simple, surface arguments.

The new trio of heroes and new bad guy are not exactly like Han, Luke, Leia, and Vader. They have distinct differences, backgrounds, themes, and character arcs than the original heroes, even if they are connected to them in many ways. We have a classic story here that is taking a new direction to new planets with new characters in all new ways. For every person that subjectively feels that the new movie is simply a copy or retread of ANH, there is another (or several others, judging by popular demand) who love what they are seeing--an homage, a refreshing of ANH to capture a new generation with the things that made classic Star Wars so great, while still continuing the classic storyline with new characters in new ways.

And yes, I agree that there's a difference between plot holes and plot twists. Now I have watched ANH four times in the last two months (getting ready for TFA and then comparing it back to TFA), and in it Luke appears to be cleaning R2 when R2 simply turns the portion of the message on. Luke was definitely trying to "un-jam" something that looked stuck (which we figure is the data that Leia put in R2), but it isn't clear that Luke did anything to actually activate the message.

R2 seems to be in control of himself and he's really the only character there that has all the answers and knows what's actually going on (since Luke knows nothing yet, Leia is captive, and Threepio had his mind wiped after the prequels and wasn't given the data by Leia). There it looks like R2 "chooses" to show just a portion of the message to Luke at that moment, so Luke will want to see the whole message. Then R2 convinces Luke (through Threepio) to agree to take the restraining bolt off to hear the rest of the message (which R2 then purposely doesn't show, claiming that the full message is only for his "owner", Obi-Wan Kenobi, so if Luke doesn't take R2 to Obi-Wan, then R2 can still at least escape to find Obi and give him the full message (and probably tell Obi about the fact that R2 "conveniently and miraculously" just fell into Luke's possession of all people on the entire planet). Explain that plot hole if you like. I know, the force did it. Right?

So that might help to understand why no one can necessarily "force" the message out of R2 later on in TFA at the resistance base (until he has been "awakened"--another force awakens play on words in the movie) by BB8's question, "Do you have the rest of the star charts to make sense of this portion of the star map I have?", and R2 then takes the time to reboot from low power mode and then search through all of his archives for the Imperial star charts that he downloaded long ago in ANH when plugged into the Death Star 1's data banks, only then "waking up" when he has finally found what he was searching for.

I feel like too many suggested plot holes in TFA come from either only seeing the movie 1-2 times and writing it off (compared to seeing the original movies tons of times) or failing to check out additional info in the novelization or visual dictionary or expanded books that better fill in the gaps.

For example, I have said on the forums here that for every complaint that someone throws at TFA, I can probably level the same argument against ANH and the original movies that so many of us dearly love. I believe that the original movies were also deliberately simple and vague on the state of the galaxy and the politics and characters involved. I believe so, and I believe with our nostalgia glasses on we ignore that idea.

We get very, very little information on the state of the Galaxy in ANH, how the Empire came to power, who the emperor is, what the Old Republic was or how it fell or what it was like, what the clone wars was (next to nothing on that), who the Jedi were and how they came to be and what their specific role in the republic was. Vader's backstory, no emperor presence, no yoda (yet), anakin's lack of backstory, Obi-wan's. We got vague, minimal information, fascinating as it was, but we had to speculate and fill in the gaps with our own mind and repeated viewings and debates and discussions with others and then through novelizations and the comics and visual dictionaries and sequels and then prequels (which only came 20 years later). We tend to gloss over that and take much of that for granted.

We don't get time to really know old Obi-Wan and his relationship to Vader and don't get to mourn his death enough and don't get to see Bail Organa and Alderaan at all and get to appreciate them or mourn their destruction much. We have to wonder why Obi-Wan abandoned his goal to serve the republic and hide out on a desert planet and not help the rebellion for 20 years when they needed it. Sure, we got the answers eventually in sequels and prequels and expanded books, etc, but we just ran with it in ANH and gave the movie the benefit of the doubt.

And were we sad when our "happy" ending in ANH gets ruined by the start of ESB when things get worse for the rebellion, like people are sad that the start of TFA ruins their "happy" ending in ROTJ? Do we feel like ANH had good closure as a self-contained story even though nothing is closed out really--Luke hasn't even started training as a Jedi, his only possible mentor is dead (though can at least speak to Luke), Vader is still out there, the emperor is still out there, and the empire and fleet is still out there--any more than the ending in TFA, which are both part of bigger trilogies and series?

I mean, make a criticism of TFA if anyone likes, but then let's look back to ANH and the OT and PT movies, and I am sure that we can find the same nitpicks if we take the nostalgia glasses off and look for things. But I love the SW movies and the new movie dearly, and I think the positives so outweigh the negatives (which are mostly subjective to the individual person's expectations and are often uninformed by lack of multiple viewings and additional research). I just would prefer to give TFA the same chance and benefit of the doubt on things that we gave ANH back in the day.

 

That first part is hilariously true, I watched ANH for the first time since seeing TFA just the other day. All we got politic wise was talks about the strength of the Alliance and how they are gaining sympathy from the Republic then Tarkin says that the Emperor has dissolved the senate to get rid of the Republic. Guess what people, Hux's speech gives away just as much context, the Resistance is secretly being helped by the New Republic so the First Order destroys them...
The second part is irritating because NO MATTER WHO was directing/writing etcetera, that happy ending was always going to be ruined in any sequel.

 

It all began in 1977 with episode IV "EPISODE IV" not "Episode I" but EPISODE IV and for a story that was purposely told out of sequence it gave us enough info that when the Prequel trilogy began fans who grew up with star wars from the start (Like you and my dad) were correctly predicting how things were going to go down and what had to happen before the end of the trilogy that set up the OT. The Original Trilogy alluded to all the right things for the prequels to naturally flow in to them. TFA is the FIRST episode in the long awaited sequel trilogy for the OT. It does not have the luxury to be vague and withhold information because unlike ANH it is the FIRST episode in it's trilogy and it's Prequels ,the OT, did a perfect job in telling a complete story. IMHO TFA plot is very weak and the most coherent parts of the plot are the ones rehashed from the original trilogy. This is kind of backed up by the fact that disney is already making a semi prequel film to TFA. Rogue One is suppose to help fill in the plot wholes of TFA which proves that even the creators of the movie know that it left much to be desired in terms of plot. Also sure certain characters have been gender flipped and race lifted but the story is so similar that it does not seem like a sequel to the previous six films but a poor attempt at a reboot. TFA had the Luxury to do something groundbreaking and new but for whatever reasons it rehashed old story arcs, regressed and derailed established characters and their development and became very inconsistent in the third act with the new characters.

 

No where has this been said. Rogue One is about the plans to the Death Star, nothing to do with TFA.