JJ ABRAMS Misled fans for NO reason

Which is apropos, as the characterization of the vision you described is exactly that - anti-climatic.

 

Exactly so lets wait and see what happens ..

 

Well, that's my view on it. Abrams could do anything with it in the next movie.

 

Good post. Even if nothing can come of it.

Anything can be post-rationalized. Bold part in particular is incorrect.

Nothing personal; just saying for the younger readers out there: the above bolded part cannot be more wrong. If I'm being harsh, I would go so far as to quote Billy Madison: "...what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

I cannot stress it enough. Completely, completely wrong.

Good storytelling, whether it's a novel or just a joke told to a friend, is about one thing and one thing only: taking coincidence/contrivance and making it seem like destiny. AKA taking seemingly random happenings and making the audience feel like it could not have happened any other way. That's when you get that ineffable 'hit me right in the feels/OhmyGod how did I not see that coming' feeling and subsequent universal praise a-la The Godfather, Casablanca, Sixth Sense, Empire, etc. Again, I'm not knocking the quoted poster personally: just that good storytelling is about taking contrivance and making it feel like destiny. Anything it has to do with "expectations" is a far far far distant background process and a by-product of the actual work.

Many ways to do it, but a good idea and the bolded part is the correct emotional angle to use if one chooses to implement that idea, AKA i'm a nobody, what possible influence can I have versus 'Skywalker Blood'.

There's a derogatory term for that specific type of exposition. You can find it if you study writing.

Bottom line: Never, ever have characters tell each other something they each already know solely for the sake of having the audience hearing it. TLJ does it in multiple places, another place being the Rose/Finn exchange on hyperspace tracking. It's cynical writing that actively mocks the audience's intelligence and was and for the most part still is hence frowned upon for decades in Hollywood writing. Literally it's talking down to your audience a-la you dumb peasant shits lap it up and pay for that ticket. That italicized part is not hyperbole: it is done for the sake of the 'dumber' audience and that's why it was traditionally frowned upon in writing circles. One place you'll find it these days is the Transformers movies. It's terrible, laughable writing that 'works' because the majority of the audience is 'too dumb to get it so we should say it out loud' and those same people are not able to understand they were being talked down to.

Kudos to you for picking up on it. Again, there's a term for it and it is highly, highly frowned upon in professional writing.

The vast majority of people have NO idea just how bad the writing is in these new SW movies compared to the OT. Disney, aiming for just above lowest common denominator, doesn't care.

Anyways, I've already touched on the problem with the 'favorable' response to this continued bad writing in the reaction thread with the poll. Let's wait a few weeks to go into further discussion if necessary.

 

This. But a lot of these kids don't want a great story. They want to be catered to. They want to sit back and see every little thing play out just like in their fanfictions.

Hey kids, how about going out and making your own movies? Those of us that like to be surprised and crave original, unpredictable stories, leave us to our fun

 

Yes, it's simply terrible, just remembered another example from TFA that always makes me crinch:

Hux talking to Snoke:

"We shall destroy the government that supports the Resistance(pause), the Republic."

Yeah Hux I'm pretty sure Snoke knows that....

 

I guess you have it all figured out. This is possibly the most arrogant, condescending post I’ve ever read in this forum. if that wasn’t your intention? I think your hubris needs a check in.

 

I don’t think Abrams mislead anyone. I just think that they are making these stories up as they go. Maybe if JJ was directing TLJ there would have been different answers to these questions.

The sequels are not organic to the Star Wars saga. They were tacked on by Disney and the original characters were used because their appearance would guarantee commercial success and Disney’s ROI for the $4 billion they paid to purchase the series...That is everything you need to know about these sequel films

 

On these forums Rey No One got the most votes, so in this case I cannot see how people here conclude that JJ mislead us.

 

Yeah that was before they attacked childhood and innocence itself!

/sarcasm

 

I honestly, NEVER SEE ANY PROBLEM in how bloodline is important or nobody is nobody. It's about what you do with the strength that gifted to you.

I do has problem that is how Mary Sue Rey is. She has her moment of weakness in the first half in TFA - She can't do jack blast against force expect like Kylo, she is clearly TERRIFIED. She is not on full Mary Sue mode the whole movie in TFA.

While in TLJ she is very much a Mary Sue whole movie, from cracking stone or slice stone in half. She only lost for Snoke (who supposedly is immensely strong). She hardly has problem with Luke or Kylo or the guards.

People start to having problem when a Mary Sue is presented in story and writer is just like :"eat it or leave it". That's why it's suck.

 

Because Rian Johnson wrote the script with his Johnson.

 

This is so hilariously non-sequitur that I almost don't know how to respond except maybe get your head checked if you think someone posting some technicalities of the writing process for the benefit of potentially curious posters is arrogant and condescending. Basically what you've done is try to call out someone for posting a recipe or instructions on fixing a specific part on a car which is what that post was.

Go to any writing class in literally the entire world and they'll confirm the above points. For the second part about that specific type of exposition it'll have to be a screenwriting class.

Also, the best part of writing is no one ever has it 'all figured out'. It's all about maximizing the effect of what's on the page.

Enjoy the day!

 

I think Disney and Kathleen Kennedy deserve more of the blame for the mystery box fiasco and allowing JJ and RJ to make their own movies without atleast having an outline that is consistent with some answers. I understand the story evolves and things change as a perfect example is Poe gets a bigger role because he was a cool character from TFA. But you can't throw out these mystery boxes who are developed by one writer and then have another writer continue the story who fundamentally looks at the story a whole different way as it is just going to come off disjointed.

I honestly question many of KK decisions at this point as I think she has been a horrible CEO of Lucasfilm and has lucked out by the success of TFA and has sort of rode that until fans like me were burned with TLJ. She fired the Episode 9 and Han Solo directors, and then let this Mystery Box sales job essentially consume everyone.

 

Everything else is your opinion, but she fired the directors for different reasons. Lord and Miller (apparently Lego movie fit/vision wasn't right for Solo film vision) and Colin Treverrow (after dumpster fire book of Henry showed he was a terrible director who couldn't direct his way out of a hat. KK rightly fired him.

 

Then you have to question her first instincts for hiring these guys in the first place? If this weren't SW, then she wouldn't have the luxury to hire and fire directors at will because many studios aren't going to shell out money for bad decisions not knowing if they will get it back on their return. Again, I don't blame JJ for the mystery boxes or RJ for making a movie where he essentially didn't like many characters or mystery boxes, I blame KK for letting them get to this point. There should have been some rough outline from the start as to who Rey's parents are, what is Snoke's overall arc, etc, so JJ and RJ had to atleast honor that, and then they can build their story around that.

 

Absolutely, mainly Disney were to blame at first. They were so desperate to get a Star Wars film for 2015.. they pushed out Michael Arndt (a good writer) and slapped together his characters in a rushed rewrite (which JJ was writing from scratch even while the sets were being built)

JJ deserves props for doing what he did.

 

I get a similar feeling from this ST. It's almost as if they are deliberately destroying everything Lucas built, like they're trashing his legacy deliberately. I know GL ruffled a lot of feathers in Hollywood back in the day.

 

Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what they’re doing.


I despair.