How deeply rooted is the division of TLJ?

It completely puzzles me how movie studios keep making the same mistakes over and over when making sequels to major franchises like Star Wars. Did the Disney execs not see and hear all the backlash after Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull? About the sucky writing, dumb humor and lack of continuity with the earlier Indiana Jones films. But then Disney make the same kind of mistakes with TLJ.

They should really just get a Star Wars fan to write the upcoming movies. They would do a much better job with continuity, character arc and not having plot holes. They certainly would have done a better job then TLJ.

 

Rian Johnson is a Star Wars fan. There is no guarantee that the next "fan" director would do something that you approve of either.

We disagree. I contend that you would have an argument if the critical reception and box-office wasn't in-line with the cinemascore, but when it is, your argument doesn't hold enough water.

 

Sorry but i disagree. The original cast and characters are what i think in large part have kept the SW mania going. But now that those characters are slowly not part of the movies anymore - Luke, Leia, Han, Anakin, Vader, etc. i can forsee a big potential downfall or loss of interest in Star Wars if the movies are not up to par.

All the Star Wars movies including Rogue One and the Solo spin off have had the common element of connecting themselves strongly to the original trilogy characters or storyline in some way.

Once its only Rey, Finn, Poe and the new characters left to carry on Star Wars. If they don't make good movies with those characters. i can see alot of people losing interest quickly. Right now alot of the public is watching just from sheer lack of curiosity to see what happens to Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie. But thats only going to last for one more movie. After that its a big unknown if Star Wars can hold people's attention with the new characters who imo aren't really that interesting. Certainly nothing like Luke, Obi Wan, Leia, Han or Vader,

 

If you let 20 Star Wars fans give their pitch for how TLJ would go how many do you think would have luke being emo and doing nothing the whole movie? I’d say an emphatic 0. Rian is not a Star Wars fan. Either that or Disney made him do it.

 

Where you saw 'emo' I saw a tragic hero, where you saw him doing nothing I saw him training Rey, I saw beautiful cinematography, great acting and one of the most heroic endings ever in an instant iconic scene.
To each his own I guess.

 

Your claim about Cinema Score is a bit farcial. Cinema Score and comScore are two very reliable measures of audience reaction. Studios spend a lot of money on those surveys and trust them to measure audience reaction. 89% of people like the film. Sure, some may change their minds, but most people who buy tickets for Star Wars films aren't going to see it over and over. Their reaction probably won't change much.

 

So, you want to ignore the actual polling of an audience, box office AND critical acclaim in lieu of easily-manipulated user scores like rotten tomatoes and loud internet voices.




We've got nothing left to discuss about that lol.

 

That’s fine that’s how you see it but that wasn’t my point. My point was no fan would come up with this story. You can see the good in it but fact is everyone wants to see luke in action. Any true fan would pick Luke fighting over luke doing whatever he did here.

 

It's simple. Quality isn't important. It's the hype, the trailers, the merch and then the film. Making big money quick. Quality is really going down the tubes. Mind you I still think Johnson is a good director, but I do not agree with the direction of the film. Sure, I wanted different, but something that still pays SOME reverence to 40 years of lore not completely do away with everything. I wanted the "broken" Luke and how that would build character and relationships. It didn't. I don't find Rey any stronger a character. I enjoyed some scenes and lines, but they were marred by a lot of scenes, humor that wasn't necessary or didn't come off as funny on screen. (e.g. bacta suit leak, milking space cow)
Despite the choices, I still think Luke IS a hero at the end and has some of the best lines in the movie.

Notice that there is also NO celebration this year. Why? Find that interesting. Anticipated the division? (sure they did!).

I"m sure they will make a lot when the SW park opens which is where I think they'll run another celebration. Unless those are numbered as well.

 

It's fine that you don't dig TLJ, but your opinion of it does not create any scenario where you get to dictate what a true fan is, or get to attempt to dictate what they will or should like to see.

 

The division will most likely fade with time. When people have finished bashing on Ep IX I think they'll look at TLJ as the best of the trilogy.

There is one thing I'm pretty sure about though. People who expect answers to these:

WIll 100% be dissapointed in the ST.

After TLJ it's more than apparrent that the new direction dosen't want to interrupt the film experience with backstories and/or expostition similarly to the OT (and the PT). Which worked well with OT as a new IP with a simplistic story, but dosen't really work with the ST.

 

This simply is just wishful thinking. comScore's methodology is very good and it's the best measure of audience reaction. We can agree to disagree, but it's simply unreasonable to dismiss it.

 

I don't know about 20 Star Wars fans, but if you would have asked me, I would have said that he needs to hate his legacy and denounce it because every mythical legend who is also a priest like sage who is ran to for help, completely spins the table around on the seeker and denounces the supposed order of things.

"Empty your cup so that it may be filled." - old koan.

I also find Luke far more interesting as broken and disillusioned than stoic and bright at this point because he's not that Luke and it would just be boring to me if he was still just a bright eyed stoic superman attitude Jedi sitting around on an island just waiting for the Jedi symbol to be activated so that he could leap to the rescue like Batman. That's obviously a hyperbole, and I don't mean to belittle, it's just a zip file way of summarizing how I would feel about the alternative route of a returning heroic Luke.

Luke as a returning hero would just get in the way of the new characters and I'm not interested in Luke's heroism. I'm interested in Kylo's path and how Rey is going to balance it with Kylo because that's the main thread of this trilogy.
If Luke stepped up and started heroically swinging his saber around, I would have have felt like everything else just took a huge back seat in the films.

I don't know RJ, but I have heard him express his ideas regarding Star Wars and he sounds like a fan, and claims to be one.

On the other hand, I also don't care if anyone is a fan of something when making it.
Irvin Kershner wasn't exactly what you would call a fan of Star Wars when he directed ESB, and he hardly watched even ESB over the years (he didn't actually recall the details of ESB and had issues recalling what was in it and how he felt about it..."It has been so long since I saw the film, I can’t really comment on what I didn’t like about it".
It's not a requirement that's ever been used to determining if someone can work creatively on a title asset in the film industry, or in the literary industry for that matter.

But back to the point - if you would have asked this fan, I would have proposed a hermit Luke who's a crab, grouchy, and startling and unsettling to the hero.
It's either that, or I would have proposed some reason that he's Force crippled in some way - beaten down and dried up from whatever strain he went through.
Basically, either way you cut it, I would have suggested pushing him to the side as a mentor who can't pick up the hero torch again.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

All of my friends who either really love SW, casually like it, or just find it entertaining..dislike TLJ. To me the story isnt interesting yet and it's very hard to invest in the new characters. I don't feel like I get or know Rey, Finn or Poe. I don't understand Leia or Han in TFA. I certainly don't understand Luke in TLJ.
Yes, some stuff is explained..but it constantly feels like 'just wait till the next film, then it will make sense'..well we are allmost at the end of the ride.
So what needs to happen is that retroactively TFA and especially TLJ should make perfect sense and tha tEp 9 ties the ST, OT and PT together for it's existence to have a reason to be. There is a lot of stuff Ep 9 has to get right, for me to like the ST as a whole. Compare it with the PT, people hated the execution but the story itself made perfect sense. We understood the journey of Anakin. The journey of Rey is vague..her story is that she is a nobody, she is lost and want's to belong, while being simultaneously (relatively speaking) the most powerful in the force ever. We dont know why she is so powerfull, we don't know where she came from, who she is. Just ask this question; Why do we generally like Harry Potter? (who has the same quest) and not Rey? Just think of all the awesome mysteries Harry Potter tries to unravel, the obstacles he has to overcome on his way to be a hero. We understood his motivation and knew where he was headed. We dont even know who Rey has to confront to reach her end goal. The guy (Snoke) who had the answers is dead and the other baddie of the movie Kylo Renn seems just as lost as she is. I will see Ep 9. But not with the feeling of 'I'm dying to know how things play out' but with the feeling 'Please let this be good and make my time already invested in the ST feel worthwhile'.

--- Double Post Merged, May 1, 2019, Original Post Date: May 1, 2019 ---

To me it's unclear what the focus is of this trilogy.
Is it Rey and finding out about her past and powers? Doesnt really seem like the focus or else there would be more scenes digging deeper.
The same goes with Kylo. It's there but it doenst feel like the focus.
In the PT Anakin and his strugles were the clear focus. In the OT it was Luke. The ST, Im not really sure.

 

I wasn't saying what this trilogy was about (though I do have opinions on that).
I was saying what I was interested in. Also, what I'm interested in is the relationship between Rey and Kylo in terms of the Force.
I don't care what Rey's lineage is in and of itself, and I don't care about Kylo in and of himself.

I'm interested in their relationship in terms of the Force as a mythical tug-o-war.

Will they balance out, or will it swing to one side or the other? No idea. We'll see. That's what this is about, to me.
It's about having the first trilogy out of the three where the protagonist and antagonist Force Rivalry is between characters of the same generation, and not an older generation versus a younger generation (previous two trilogies - first one is the older generation is evil [Vader], younger one good [Luke] and second one is the older generation is good [Obi-Wan] and the younger generation is evil [Anakin]).

The first trilogy was the rise of good among differing generations, the second trilogy was the rise of evil among differing generations, and so what's interesting here is that we have the rise of both evil and good in the same generation.

That makes finding out the resolution pretty interesting to me. It's not clear where that's heading. They could kill each other, both saddle up together and save the day, both saddle up together and die, one could die and the other live, evil wins, good wins, neither wins...it's really wide open because it's the first trilogy to do this pattern of really giving us direct equals to each other. Neither is above the other, really. They have both had about the same amount of life experiences, and are both at about the same level of rising to their relative potentials.

9 will undoubtedly have these two clash in some way, but the how of that is the big unknown.

The point I was making previously was that suddenly focusing on Luke would be highly distracting because that's just not the protagonist, nor the antagonist, of this trilogy. Rey and Kylo are the protagonist and antagonist, and who's going to best the other is a constant bell rung in each film. In each film they have met, and in each film they have left that question unresolved by either interrupting the answer, or causing a momentary stale mate.

Luke is important. Just not as the focus. Not with what's been set up between Rey and Kylo for tension.

Cheers,
Jayson