Does anyone else feel that the new films ruined the ending of ROTJ?

For the record, I didn't want Jar Jar Abrams back... I don't follow sheep I'm a lone wolf. I have a huge list of directors that would have been much better choices. But hey I'm not Kathleen Kennedy.

I like TLJ and RJ so I'm not one of those...

I'm really frightened at what he will do at Warner Bros. Will Jar Jar Abrams continue to ruin all my beloved myths?

As a huge comic book collector Jar Jar Abrams was tasked to write a Spiderman tale for Marvel comics with his son. I have to say that comic was sooo bland, comic book critics say its a pass, don't need to waste your time or money on that book. I bought it because he was reshaping the Spiderman myth with his son but yeah it sucked balls... I got issue one I will not purchase the rest of the series.

Cheers,
the Rogue

 

Never liked that term. Lone wolf.

Anywho....

The list of plausible directors to bring in when Trevorrow left was incredibly small. Throw in the passing of Carrie and the likely deadline to investors to turn over on the FOUR BILLION DOLLAR investment that was Star Wars....your list shrinks fast.
Rian Johnson, JJ Abrams and probably the few other frequent collaborators with LFL brass like Joe Johnston, Ron Howard or the like.

They weren't going to, at that point, run the risk on another upstart. They needed someone they felt could guide the ship home on time and somewhat in working order.

They went JJ because they had a working relationship established and could jump right in.

This isn't a defense of Abram or his decisions. It's an explanation on why he was chosen and why it wasn't really any one specific persons fault but rather a perfect storm.

 

It's really sad that art has to be marginalized to appease stockholders... films are ultimately made to make money, so yeah what are ya gonna do? hopefully, the IP will see a better future... I'm open to it we'll have to wait and see...

I'm a lone wolf in terms like my favorite Star Wars film is ANH while most love TESB...

 

Did you know most lone wolves are older females in search of a new pack after being forced out of their old one?

 

LOL if you put that way I'm a young male Lion looking for my pride, or rather the big bad wolf... LOL

For the record... Lone Wolf: Being the lone wolf is fine, it tells me you're strong, independent and brave. It is more important to be in a pack. You may quickly become successful when you work alone, but you may not remain at the top for long... LOL

 

lol
I think it's "lone wolf" to follow Abrams at this point - hell, for that matter, I think whoever made the last Star Wars is always a risk to say anything positive about. Everyone always loves to tear them to shreds.

Anyway, for me...pff.
I've been following Abrams for ages - long before all of this blockbuster fare.
I've been a fan of his approach for a long time. Heck, what thrilled me back when everything was announced was that they said a magic thing: Kasdan, Abrams, Disney.
OK, for me. It doesn't get much better. The only thing that would have been better would be that Lucas was hanging on for story writing, but I saw that as a real long shot with Kasdan being on there because as much as the two admire each other - dear lord - I knew once Lucas got into the story room with Kasdan again and started experiencing those old counter-position arguments they had way back when that resulted in some great results, Lucas - given where he's at in life at this point - was likely going to go..."You know what? I don't need to do this." And jump.
And sure enough. He did exactly that pretty early on. lol

But the point was, I was very thrilled that Abrams was doing it because Abrams was next to no one really knew him outside of "He ruined Star Trek!" (which I completely disagreed with).

I still love Super 8. Da** that's a good film, and I look forward to the day that Abrams can finally get back to doing his own stories once again (which...yeesh...maybe one day?).

So this whole "sheeple" crap, firstly means nothing to me in the first place (it doesn't get much more sheeple than following Star Wars as a kid), but even if it did, it really wouldn't matter to me here because it's more like I'm standing there looking at a cool painting by an artist and then the next thing I know a bunch of crowds are hanging around looking at their work too.
Oh! ...well. Cool!

Cheers,
Jayson

--- Double Post Merged, Sep 28, 2020, Original Post Date: Sep 28, 2020 ---

Yeah, if you want art house cinema, they have that.
It won't be major franchise motion pictures...ever. Never has been. It had a brief spotlight in the 70's when no one in the production management knew what they heck they were doing because the old guard all but entirely disappeared and now it was all on this new group who weren't from the industry and had no clue what was going on and really gave a lot of rope to people to hang themselves with (which plenty of them did - Dennis Hopper most notably), but really that didn't last long because eventually they figured out how to run their received business and got back in control.

I mean...the whole reason Lucas never expected to go mainstream to begin with is exactly what you're talking about. He bashed his brains out fighting it his entire career, and ended up just recreating the experience for everyone who wasn't him - it's not like everyone has a nice rosy relationship with LFL like you would think - you would think that Lucas would have started up a company to protect the artiste, but nope. Not what ended up happening.

Anyway...yeah...sorry, you know it - that's not how this all works. It's a business of art.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

You lost me at Super 8. I was so excited for that film went on opening day...

As a life-long Star Trek fan Jar Jar Abrams' take was fresh, new exciting but Robert Meyer Burnett has changed my views on Star Trek Discovery and all that mess I won't get into. Hey, I loved LOST... LOL

I just wanna walk out of a Star Wars film and say I can't wait to see that again!!! don't wanna walk out of film wondering, I don't know... I think I need to see that again...

 

And that's the difference.
I walked out of each ST feeling excited to see it again.
I still do (as much as I'm capable of rewatching any film...which isn't much).
Had it with Solo as well.
Had nothing of that with R1.

Walked out of that more thinking, "Well...that happened."

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I was kinda hoping JarJar making a SOLO cameo onto to be shot by Solo, "boring conversation anyways".

 

Am going to ask you 2 questions. Simple YES or NO will do.

1- Between 1976 and 2015 has George Lucas ever contradicted himself? ie- Gone on record saying one thing then saying something different another time..

2- Do you recall GL, on record, stating the SW Saga was the Rise, Fall and Redemption of Anakin Skywalker and it ends at EP6?

Cheers, KH

 

1) As frequently as god appears to.
2) No. That must be that Mandalorian effect everyone keeps talking about. Yes, of course.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

First off am not sure how someone can hit "DISAGREE' with I asking 2 questions.... tough audience….c'est la vie I guess.

1 ad n2 Agreed: GL stated many times the "Skywalker Saga" was the rise, fall and redemption of Anakin.
After ROTS, when asked if there would be a ST trilogy, Lucas stated (at that time) he didnt have anything beyond EPVI
and the story ended w/ Anakin. 'But there’s no story past “Episode VI”, there’s just no story. It’s a certain story about Anakin Skywalker and once Anakin Skywalker dies, that’s kind of the end of the story. There is no story about Luke Skywalker, I mean apart from the books" Lucas 2008.

And now we have the Sequel Trilogy. Just because EPVI was the end of the the 'Anakin saga' didnt mean the TGFFA ended there.
You can have the same characters appear in a "spin off" trilogy.

My point was, if the ST was just marketed as its own standalone trilogy set 30 years after the destruction of the end Death Star then it would have avoided certain plot holes and fans wouldn't be as divided. When there is 6 movies and 7,8 and 9 are expected to continue the story any director is bound to run into contradictory plot points.

In my point of view, had ST just been its own trilogy and a certain emperor left out it the ST would have been better and less bittersweet.

Cheers, KH

On a side note GL has the right to change his mind but the constant flip flopping did the fans a disservice by creating expectations, crushing them and rising them further.

 

I wasn't saying you can't have Star Wars without it being the Skywalker Saga.
I was saying that the ST is liked by me because of its connections to the OT and PT.

My appreciation of Star Wars isn't because I like Star Wars.
I like Star Wars because I like film, and Star Wars did something very unique in cinematic story telling. That's what I'm "here" for.
The ST continued that tangent, and what made it fascinating to watch was seeing the result of a new generation of filmmakers attempting to carry on their understanding of the Lucasian legend and storytelling method, which includes a heavy reliance upon parallelism and thematic reprisals in an allegorical juxtaposition sandwiched into a superficial cheeseball romp (to put it incredibly mildly).

It didn't go far enough in my opinion of adopting and trying to interpret the Lucasian method, but it went pretty far. Rian Johnson actually gets my pick for going the farthest to actually adopt the Lucasian method as much as possible and as a result has a film that is much closer than TFA and TROS (even though TFA and TROS are more likely to be watched by me on any given day than TLJ - but that's for an entirely different reason...I'm a first act baby. Third acts are my second favorite, and my least favorite is the second).

But you can't tell the ST that I enjoy without Han, Luke, and Leia. Without Yoda, without Rey and/or Kylo having lineages linked back, without reviving the Empire in another version, and without the Emperor being involved in some way. You can't do it without making it a linked legacy of ontological crises regarding the same melodramatic soap opera family.

When they brought in Snoke, quite honestly I was a little bummed. I was alright with it, but I was a little bummed because it meant that it was possible I wouldn't see a reprisal of Palpsy, and for the narrative poetics that I find fascinating in this saga, he's kind of a critical refrain - like trying to do another final stanza of The Raven without the phonetic sound of "-ore".
Yes, you could do it, and it would probably still be good, but it would always be a bit of a missed component.

So I was quite delighted when they brought him back. The only thing I thought was kind of blah was the way they brought him back.
I would have rather them not tell everyone before the film released, and not told everyone right when the film turned on in the crawl.
But, meh. Oh well. Marketing does as marketing does.

So nothing about what I was saying has anything to do with there being an idea that you can't do Star Wars films without it being linked to the Skywalker saga.
Instead it was a statement that I enjoyed the ST being linked to the Skywalker saga and if it hadn't been, I would have enjoyed it less.

Again, I don't like "Star Wars". I care almost none at all for the "universe" of Star Wars. That almost means nothing to me.
What I like is the art of the film that is Star Wars in the form it has been constructed in films 1 through 9.

It's the difference of saying that you don't need to make a "Back to the Future" film link to the first film. There's absolutely no requirement for it to do so.
It can go off and do any number of things, but it chose to explore the poetry of retelling the same story within a different presentation and convey the concept of history repeating itself in so doing.

It's similar to that.

Cheers,
Jayson

p.s.
As to the disagree. *shrug* I've gotten things like that before as well. It's a hard audience. lol

 

That line got me thinking...

Back in the 70s , and assuming ep1 to 9 was always the plan (cough cough), Lucas had no choice to start w/ EP4 as the sets designs were more simple and achievable given the limited technology at the time.

Had the first episode been filmed and released today, would you start w/ EP4 or from EP1 given today's technology?

Starting w/ EP1 would be more emotional IMO. Fans would love Anakin and be disturbed when he turned and then defeated by Kenobi (the other favorite). I'd leave Anakin's final scene on Mustafar... fast forward to EPV it would now be a double whammy during the Vader reveal...ie- Anakin is alive and he's Vader.

Going 1 to 9 would also make Yoda's passing and Anakin's ROTJ sacrifice more emotional as well.

Cheers, KH

 

If it were me?
I would always start at 4.

It's part of the characterization of the art itself. The entire point of starting at "4" (even before it was named that) was because it was supposed to feel like you walked into a theater in the 30's through 50's and sat down to an old Republic Serial, which meant you likely did just walk into the middle of a story unless you were one of the lucky kids who got to go almost every day.

If you kick this off at 1, then you just ignore the entire point of the art form and what it intended to communicate regarding the experience of the old serials.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

IMO the novelty of tv/movie serials from the "golden ages" has worn out and the only ones familiar w/ it are either historians, cinephiles or our grand parents (lets not confuse the youth of today..)

Starting off the saga at EP 1 with a few tweaks, and insert Rogue 1, would change the way we experienced many scenes.
Example, Anakin's "death" by Kenobi, Alderan/Bail destruction, Kenobi's death, Death Star destruction etc...

 

If Lucas had been able to, he would've started Star Wars with Episode 1.

He's all but said so.

 

No.

 

@Rogues1138 Do you feel the bro love coming your way??? I too shatter the mold. I have ANH at the top and like ROTS more than TESB.....and agree so much with your comment about art vs the almighty box office $$

 

It still works. It doesn't matter if they think, "Oh! This is like those old serials!" No one likely ever thought that watching the films even in 1977 or 1980!

There might have been one friggen dude somewhere who thought that while watching the movie.

That doesn't matter.
All that matters is that they experience jumping into the middle of a story which requires a prologue to catch them up to speed and they constantly feel like the story refers to things in some show they haven't seen.

Cognizance isn't required.
And hell yes. Let's confuse the crap out of everyone. Screw the idea of not!
I don't write music or stories that lay it all out in paint by colors for you. Screw that.
I'm going to assume you have a working brain and will engage it to read between the lines and fill in referred to blanks.

If you can't...well, piss off you vegetable.

Indiana Jones works pretty much the same way.
We don't get the back story until the third film in.
The first film just dives right in and has our main character dealing with crap from some show which has never even been made where all these characters come from.

Tough s***. Pull up your britches sugercup, it's going to go like that.

Cheers,
Jayson