Rian Johnsosn: Rey's parents question is still open

Yeah and you George Lucas! Plan your entire story out next time! You don't want to fail again like with the OT, do you?...oh wait....

 

Member when George Lucas directed the first & third movies of the OT but had someone else direct the 2nd? I don't member

 

They will always leave things open because you never know what can happen. Look at Carrie's death for example. Options must be left open even if you are committed to telling one story. None of us are in those story meetings and pitches. We don't know what is setup in advanced and what is being written around whatever was setup. Considering Rian wrote TLJ during the filming of TFA, I think people have the wrong idea.

And to the folks that think this film doesn't connect well with TFA, I say watch the movie a few more times. It's darker, yes. But isn't that what we were talking about 2 years ago? "I hope Episode 8 is darker and not a rehash of ESB like TFA was just a copy of ANH". That was what everyone said. This movie connects well and shifts the tone and was nothing like ESB.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 2, 2018, Original Post Date: Jan 2, 2018 ---

Wow. Somehow you think you made a point? lol.

 

Somehow you missed it. You can't compare the planning of the OT to what we're seeing with the ST for multiple reasons. Main ones being the OT didn't switch between directors, and the ST was planned as a trilogy from the start. Get it?

 

You're wrong. Lucas didn't plan beyond A New Hope. It wasn't until ANH was a huge success that they began writing Empire. Lucas was writing by the seat of his pants. He never planned Vader to be the father of Luke. It just worked once he figured out how to tell the story over three films. A New Hope had pretty complete arcs and could have been a standalone movie.

As for the director change from Colin to JJ. That happens all the time in Hollywood. Colin wasn't a great choice to begin with IMO. Rick Carter and Kathleen Kennedy know what they wanted to accomplish on screen. Not down to details. People in those positions are not creative people. But the broad strokes were hashed out. The writers and directors are the ones to flesh it out.

 

I remember that he wrote all three stories, directed the 1st and had the 2nd and 3rd directed by someone else.

You do realise that Lucas wrote the story for every OT film, right? RIGHT?

 

This short clip kind of sums it all up.

"The story itself takes over, the characters take over and they begin to tell a story apart from what you're doing...and you kind of go with it. You have to go with it, it sends you down some very funny paths and you have to figure out how to break that apart and put the puzzle back together."

 

Uhh guys...that's exactly my point. They went into the ST knowing it was going to be 3 movies. Lucas didn't know the OT was going to be a trilogy until after the success of ANH. So to say it's totally ok for the ST to be written on the fly because the OT was, ignores the fact that that wasn't the original plan. The OT was able to pull off being written on the fly because it had one storyteller putting together the story. The ST doesn't. This is why the comparison is silly. Similar to the argument that Snoke doesn't need a backstory because the Emperor didn't in the OT. Completely ignores that we later got 3 movies of Palpatine backstory. Comparing the making of the ST to the OT is apples to oranges. That's my point

 

A guy called Michael Kaminski (http://starwarsfans.wikia.com/wiki/The_Secret_History_of_Star_Wars), who used to post on some forums I frequented, wrote a good book on how Star Wars developed and changed over the years. It's good at showing how stories that aren't in fact planned from the beginning can evolve into something far greater than originally conceived. Star Wars is a perfect example of this. Vader was never the dad. Leia never the sister. But both these choices vastly improved the story - and were made because the trilogy wasn't planned but naturally led the writers to certain points. RJ has used the same technique with TLJ.

(I know I quoted you @techsteveo and telling you things you already know - but really this is for the folks who seem to think Lucas planned the entire Star Wars story in is head one day)

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 2, 2018, Original Post Date: Jan 2, 2018 ---

He didn't work out how to tell it over three stories. He wrote each story and made decisions on the fly. Vader became Luke's dad in the later drafts of TESB because the story wasn't working. Leia became Luke's brother because they needed a motivation for Luke to get angry. Had he stuck to a pre conceived plan for the OT then we'd have been left with something very different and I'd wager, far inferior.

They're doing the same with the ST. You can't KNOW how the first story will come across. The characters may offer ideas that you didn't expect. Clearly, it made narrative sense, going by TFA, for Rey in TLJ to be revealed as a no one. And for Luke to be in exile, the best way as RJ saw fit, was to have had him see himself and the Jedi as a failure. Again, you might not like it but it makes good narrative sense.

 

I just don't see how you can argue that the ST has told a cohesive story. Just look at all the things TFA set up that were completely ignored in TLJ. How did Maz get the lightsaber? "A good question, for another time". Who is Snoke/where has he been this whole time? Why did Luke have a map of how to find him if he didn't want to be found? Was the fact that the lightsaber called to Rey important or not? Because Luke just tossed it aside like it didn't matter. What event was the flashback of Kylo & the KoR in TFA depicting? I figured it was of them slaughtering Luke's students and burning the Academy, but in TLJ Ben is wearing light robes & has a blue lightsaber when he brings the hut down on Luke. The list goes on. There are so many things that just scream "these movies were written on the fly by 2 different people". The OT didn't have that problem

 

It's funny because if you watch the initial interviews with KK and GL after he sold to Disney, you see that George has story treatments for 7,8, and 9 as well as a "treasure trove" of other ideas and materials that KK and Disney could pick from and evolve. We know that TFA was considered a "retro movie for the fans" according to GL. We've also heard that TLJ was getting us closer to GL's vision for the ST. I wonder how much influence GL had on TLJ and if he would have received the same backlash if fans knew it was some of his ideas they didn't like.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 2, 2018 ---

These movies aren't written to tell you WHY. They aren't written to tell you a story of the past. Everything you speak about is backstory. You want a prequel to TFA, not a sequel.

 

It's the 7th movie in a 9 movie series. Isn't episode 6 the prequel to episode 7? The fact that we would need an episode 6.5 to fill in all the missing backstory kind of illustrates my point regarding the writing of the ST

 

BIG NEWS : There's still Episode IX.

Do you realize that the biggest surprises of a story may happen in the third act?

or that JJ Johnson and Trevorrow have had story meetings during the process? Of course now Trevorrow is not there, but Abrams is. Rian Johnson has explained this in the press campaign.
The fact that Rian did "the film he wanted to do" doesn't mean at all that he ignored JJ's story. Probably JJ was like "this rain scene I think it's something we might reveal in the climax of the trilogy" or "the lightsaber thing may tie in with this other event."

In TLJ Luke mentions the "bunch of apprentices" Kylo left with. Ergo for the second time they tease the Knights of Ren.

 

When there is a time jump of 30 years, you will have questions. They can't be answered in a film that has a story moving forward. None of your questions are essential to what the characters are going through now. It wasn't until the prequels that we got answers to the OT questions. My guess is there will be a TV series or Book Series that will answer the questions of WHY and HOW we got to the events of TFA. Plus, Episode IX may answer a few big ones surrounding Ben Solo's fall.
Remember again, we didn't know how Vader became Vader until Lucas ANSWERED the questions by going backwards in time...many years later.

 

I lot. But I will aceppet it. At first I was wishing that Rey was a Skywalker, after TLJ I realised that RJ was right.

 

Then the ST should have been it's own separate story instead of a continuation of episodes 1-6. Watching them in order, we go from the Rebels seemingly defeating the Empire to an Empire clone has taken over, led by an Emperor clone. Everything is pretty much the same with different names (Resistance vs First Order). Han & Leia's son has gone dark, and Luke & Han have run off. We deserve answers to these questions, and while you're right that there is still episode 9, I think there is too much for them to be able to tie up in one movie. Especially when we're 2 movies in & they still haven't really attempted to fill in the blanks. Maybe they will be filled in with books & comics, but I believe these questions deserve to be addressed on the big screen

 

The ST is a separate story though. It's with familiar characters, but it's not about them. The story is about Kylo and Rey. It's about their paths, their fights, their choices. The backdrop of war with an evil empire is familiar, and we can debate if it was the right choice, but the story isn't about them.

 

I hope not not. I think she is much more interesting as a “nobody” Also, wouldn't it be a little redundant at this point if she was a Solo, or a Skywalker?

 

I don't disagree with that. But why call them episodes 7, 8, & 9 if they are going to be so separate from 1-6?