Did Sequel Trilogy kill Star Wars Saga?

I didn't say anything about your experience or what you believe. Just offering advise on reliable sources. MTFBW

 

Have to say, you know that merch isn't the end all, be all when it comes to how healthy a franchise is? How do you explain on why D+ has 11 series in active dev? Or Triple A video games?

 

Exactly.
As I've said before, SW means different things to different people. Some of us are here for all of it, some actually prefer the spin offs, such as Rebels, Clone Wars, Bad Batch, KOTOR etc. For those of us, SW will continue long into the future, and the brand and name will go on.
But for people like me, the Skywalkers were SW. They were the heart and soul of the saga....and Rey taking the name Skywalker doesn't make up for the fact that the characters and bloodline we loved has gone forever.
Now, please undertsand that what I have to say is PURELY personal...I am not demeaning your point of view and those who share it.....but it didn't help matters much that by the end of TROS I had come to really dislike Rey. If there is one thing I as a woman hate, it's women being used as the so called 'conscience', the 'voice of what.you.should.be.and.attain.to.be', when the female of the species is actually the deadliest and the nastiest. Rachel Dawes in the Nolan Batman films is a prime example. 'Women are always right, always good'. Rey went from being a flawed, complex, interesting person into the 'symbol of goodness and purity of the soul'. Disney wanted a female protagonist, which is fine, but unfortunately she ceased being a relatable human being in TROS and became some kind of lofty judgemental goddess.

Poe and Finn were reduced to being her groupies. Finn's burgeoning romance with Rose was cut short and a possible relationship with Jannah never happened, so he could spend most of the film running around screaming REY! Poe was shown droning on about how Rey was one of their 'best fighters' - he'd fought with plenty of skilled soldiers over the years so why would he be lavishing praise on someone he'd known one year. I actually thought that Rey and Poe would have made rather good antagonists as they seemed at the best when arguing with each other!
Both Finn and Poe were developed into their own person or persons in TLJ so it seemed as if their characters were regressed in TROS.

But what really bugs me is Rey is shown doing some pretty diabolical things....yet somehow is quickly forgiven. Luke went through hell to obtain his skills as a Jedi and I'm not talking about training. He had a number of life lessons to learn and it was harsh going but ultimately he came through at the end. Rey used Force lightning to blow up a transport ship then suddenly it;s revealed that Chewie wasn't on it after all. Cop out.
Rey stabs an unarmed man when he's grieving for his mother. But that's okay because she has magical Force healing skills - mysteriously never seen in either the PT and the ST - and can restore him. Without it killing her, like it did Ben Solo when he did the same for her. Cop out.

Rey is worried she is turning 'evil' but Luke says 'it's ok because you can pretend the Emperor isn't your grandfather'. Cop out.

And finally....Luke defeats his own darkness by refusing to kill his father - for me, this was the most moving part of ROTJ.

Rey defeats her own by....killing her grandfather. Major cop out.

I think a lot of my disappointment with TROS wasn't just the death of Ben Solo, who I will admit I loved, it was the way they 'idolised' Rey's character while at the same time quietly destroying the ultimate message at the end of the OT.
Luke lived because his father killed Palpatine - and he did it because the ties of blood were stronger.
In TROS, the ties of blood must be broken. Hence Rey killing Palps, but most of all....Luke and Leia completely forgetting their own flesh and blood because they had found someone better.
This is what really rankled with me. When Ben killed Han his last gesture was one of love and forgiveness. It made this fan, at least, think his son would come around and do something major to redeem himself, regain his own soul and that the Skywalkers would live on through their grandchildren. But what actually happened was that they replaced him with Rey. Yes, I know that Ben did 'something wonderful' reviving Rey....but no one ever found out. She never mentioned his sacrifice to her friends. She never mourned him. And worse still....neither did his uncle and mother. They were seen at the end smiling proudly upon Rey as if Ben had never existed at all.
This is completely unnatural. Luke gave his father a funeral and is shown seeing him reunited with his old friends in the Force,once again a Jedi. Ben Solo vanishes into the Force and is never mentioned or even seen as a Force ghost with his family. Luke's act of love is remembered. Rey mentions him saving his father in TLJ. No one will ever know what Ben did for Rey. Love or hate the character , he was the last of the line.

As a fan of Kylo/Ben and of the Skywalkers this rankled so horribly I comforted myself with thinking the novel might do something...different. But I read a few excerpts and later spoke to someone who'd read it, and if anything it made me feel worse and made me hate Rey all the more.

Not only does she never mention his 'gift of life' to her friends, she actually loftily tells herself that 'although she would have liked to know Ben Solo, she would never mourn Kylo Ren.' There is a brief couple of moments where she imagines him saying 'he'll always be with her', and a momentary pang when he dies - but that's all. Her feelings are summed up at the end of the book by 'I will never mourn Kylo Ren'.

Worse still....when Ben dies his last feelings are that the only thing he did was worthwhile was 'giving Rey back to the galaxy'.

Yuk.
I know a lot of folks love Rey, and I'm glad for them, but I really loathed what they did with her in TROS. She was created as a 'better, more worthy heir to the Skywalker family.' And that actually disturbed me considering that Ben Solo was originally coded as a mentally ill abuse victim. I know real life abuse victims who were actually heartbroken by this, and also by the reveal that Leia had trained as a Jedi and could have trained her son herself - but did not, instead choosing to train Rey.


At the end of the day if JJ and co. had wanted to 'focus on new characters' then why on earth didn't they simply set the entire trilogy waaay into the future, long after the events of the OT. Then those of us who loved the Skywalkers could retain our happy ending and those of us who wanted something new would get it. Instead it just comes across as Disney telling everyone that they 'could do better'. And it was completely unnecessary.

Phew! Sorry for the long rant!

 

The whole toy thing is just silly anyway. It's a complex market that most people who talk about it don't even understand. Kids are purchasing video games over toys now anyway.

When I was five action figures were pretty much all we had. Now kids have apps/series/streaming/video games to consume. There's a good reason Toy R Us went out of business. Markets change.

Tough to discuss this really, because much of what you argue here exists outside of the narrative. How do you know who and what Rey mentioned? How do we know how much she mourned? How do you know no one ever found out what Ben did? It seems your using your disappointment over a story choice (which is fine) to jump to conclusions outside of the narrative.

My biggest takeaway from the saga is the Jedi were right about avoiding having children. The galaxy will be better off now that there's no more emo Skywalker DNA dabbling in genocide. Rey Skywalker will be a Jedi and that means she won't be having kids.

 

I've seen some toys on sale for half price but it could simply be that people are out of pocket because of the pandemic.

Regarding Rey's feelings, and no one knowing what Ben did, the tie in novel usually fills in a few gaps - the ones for TFA and TLJ did. As I said I read excerpts from the final part of the book plus spoke to someone who read it, and according to both Rey never mentioned Ben to her friends, and her feelings for him were summed up in a few brief thoughts, then dismissed. I still find it cold, and honestly I'm genuinely baffled by why they did this - he was a major character, and I don't think I've seen a major character treated like this in a movie franchise.

 

Yeah, the merch thing is just... I mean no offense, but it's kind of a litmus test for how out of touch the fandom can be with the rest of the world.

It's not because kids hate Star Wars now, necessarily. It's because kids just don't buy toys. And sure, there are certainly fans that are collectors, and I'm not saying all kids don't buy toys... but part of why merch was prolific in the past is because it was like a microcosm of the economy. Fans collected, some over-collected to sell at spiked values, kids were making them fly off the shelves. Scarcity (both controlled and demand-driven) caused almost a fervor, and even the local news sometimes caught on.

Now... what? If a superfan starts hoarding all the Zuvio figures, there simply isn't a demand for it. Again, not because Star Wars isn't popular... you might remember Zuvio's movie did exceptionally well, actually.


In my opinion, the merch can be criticized, but this ain't it. Instead, we should be frustrated that Star Wars isn't leaning into what does work. EA (probably inadvertently) sabotaged the sequel merch game by sitting on the AAA Star War License and squandering it. Essentially, we got two controversial Battlefronts, and Fallen Order right before the end. It just... didn't work. Star Wars can and has dominated the video game market in the past- we should've had a better showing between 2015 and 2019.

Credit where it's due- I don't want to sound too much like the 30 year old boomer that I am by saying "All kids these days do is vidya games", because that's not true. Streaming is huge right now, and D+ is getting into that in a big way. These series might be what saves Star Wars. I know it's not "merch" in the traditional sense, but it's what sells these days- and what measures a series' success if not the money that it makes?

 

and

 

I hate Kylo Ren even more, just saying, I don't give a stuff about him been the last Skywalker.

In fact I despise Ben Solo more because I Don't feel any connection to him. He ruined the whole sequel-trilogy.

 

*I'll admit, this is coming off of playing Ghost of Tsushima. With that out of the way, Jedi are very heavily influenced by Samurai, or hell all of Star Wars is. I literally just did quick Google search, and adoption was something that was very common among Samurai. Was that something that JJ and Co where thinking about? Hard to say. It's my headcanon though that it fits with what Star Wars influences are based on. I mean, hell

Spoiler: Ghost of Tsushima spoiler

the Uncle in the game wants to adopt his own Nephew to become his son.

 

The Sequels didn't kill Star Wars. Not making a sequel in 35 years just about killed it. Suppose you were going to school and your history teacher started with ww2, then backtracked to ww1, then jumped all the way to the fall of the soviet union in 89. You would be totally confused. The sequels were a jumping point for all the other content that is coming out. Pretty much now they're trying to fill the gap between rotj and tfa. With all the content coming out there's going to be things you love or hate.

I couldn't care any less about the dysfunctional space family. When ANH came out that wasn't the intention anyway. If Rey wants to be a Skywalker cool whatever. What is she going to tell that old lady she's a Palpatine? Remember the guy that terrorized the entire galaxy for decades, yeah he's my grand pappy.

 

Adult adoption is still done in Japan. It's not uncommon to adopt an heir such as a nephew or an employee that will be a better head to the family business, if no suitable (usually male) heir is present. It's more common than children/baby adoptions anyways. George Lucas also is an adoptive father, if I'm not mistaken, so the themes of found family run bone-deep in Star Wars.

It's just...Rey and the Skywalkers never felt like found family. So few of their interactions were actually positive, that Rey carrying on their name feels more for us than it does for her. It's the same complaint people had when Obi-Wan was upset about having to fight Anakin in ROTS and his final words to the Sith on Mustafar. You had two movies of Obi-Wan and Anakin either not being close at best or downright antagonistic at worse (with the most common middle ground of them being sarcastic and disrespectful of each other), and then suddenly their like brothers. It was jarring.* But with a whole seven season show to flesh out that relationship, that scene works. That isn't to say Rey won't get her own show exploring that time between the TLJ and TROS, but until they do flesh that out, it will feel jarring.** And yes, I've read Resistance Reborn, and no, it didn't help. (It also helps that Anakin and Obi-Wan spent a lot of time together in the first two parts of ROTS. They were laughing, joking, grinning, and complementing each other. Had one not seen the previous two movies, the relationship would probably be believable. TROS didn't have that with Rey and Leia or Luke. Both of them had about four scenes together max.)

It's simply that I never felt the love of family. And say what you want about movies like Pacific Rim or Fast & Furious, but they nail the theme of found/adopted family a lot better than the ST did in the last movie. (F&F uses a sledgehammer the size of a continent to do so, but it gets the job done.)

The theme is also muddled due to other themes, such as "your family doesn't matter," and Rey's own muddled heritage throughout the trilogy.


Anyways, back to the main question at hand. I'll repeat what I essentially said last year - Nah, Star Wars will be fine. People's interest in it may wane, but it will survive just fine. But I don't think the movies will be back to the strength they were for TFA, TLJ, and R1 for a while longer. The ST burned a lot of goodwill, rightfully or not, and that will take time to recover. Lucasfilm has done a solid job at earning that goodwill back with TCW's final season, Mando, and the KOTOR remake, but they still have a ways to go. Regardless, despite my personal interest in many Star Wars things being pretty low, I have a high amount of faith in the survival of this franchise. (As if it's death was really a thing.)


*The operatic nature of the PT - ROTS specifically - and its operatic music certainly helped the scene though.
**Besides, a show during this timeframe featuring Rey would be a waste IMO. Rey's show should explore Post-ST stuff.

 

I agree except I see this as the Vader Saga. There are plenty of other great Star Wars stories to tell. This one should be about Vader and his family before and after.

 

You hate a fictional character?

 

A valid question, to be sure.



Does clearly-despising & utterly-loathing the MANY versions of ST-Palpatine equate to hating more than one fictional character?

Asking for my Therapist.

 

me in the padded room now, after reading ur post ------------------>

 

My friend - it's nothing compared to the hatred for Kylo Ren on the JCF.

It's boiled down to some sort of 'weird war' between Finn fans and Kylo fans, and before being kicked off I joked that they should rename Kylo's thread the 'I hate Kylo Ren' thread. They took this seriously.

As he's my favourite character, and before TROS I was a reylo fan, I've been accused of 'supporting the abuse of women', being 'sexist' (although I'm female myself and they know it), and - most priceless of all - 'supporting the removal of Finn as male lead - black male lead, as one stressed - and his replacement with the white character.'
So now liking Kylo Ren is tantamount to racism.

Joking aside, the JCF has become a genuinely toxic environment to anyone who likes the Kylo character, and woe betide anyone taking offense at some of the unsavoury things Mr Boyega said on twitter post TROS. Apparently he was 'only joking' and that's racist too.

Sigh...

 

That's why I'm here and not there.

 

Ditto.

--- Double Post Merged, Oct 7, 2021, Original Post Date: Oct 7, 2021 ---

100% in agreement here - I too thought he'd return as a FG; I had this headcanon of Kylo being forced out of the FO after his killing Snoke was discovered by Hux; Rey having to leave the Resistance when Poe discovered she'd paid a secret trip to see Kylo (and had a Force bond with him), and Hux 'being possessed' by Palps' ghost after snooping around in the Unknown Regions, and everything culminating in the dyad Duo fighting Palps together.

Absolutely ridiculous of course....but I never thought they'd come up with something worse than my wild imaginings..........