RJ answered the only question that was being asked

Great post. Looking at it from the perspective of the narrative. As to what it informs its audience and which questions it presents to its audience. You can't blame an author for your own construction of subtext and the questions it raises. Yet many fans do exactly that. It is unfortunate that one of the powerful elements of Star Wars, subtext, is being transformed by some fans into 'plothole'. Yet the only plothole is that which exists in that person's mind, the one that he or she fabricated on the basis of her own questions.

Example. Tallie Lintra (my personal favourite . The story does not demand us to know anything about Tallie. Everyone in the resistance knows who Tallie is and what her function is. We the audience learn everything we need to know about Tallie to make her character functional for our understanding of the general plot. Tallie is an A-wing pilot who commands the bombers and its escorts. She guides the last bomber to its final target. Later she dies, with nearly all the rest of the pilots, when Kylo hits the Raddus. Her loss of life is purely functional in that it shows the audience how badly the resistance is hit.

Now I'm going in like a plothole guy/girl. Who is Tallie Lintra? Why didn't I see her in the strike on Starkiller? Why didn't I see her in the resistance base? If she is so important why didn't I see her? Where is Wrex and all the other commanding flight officers from The Force Awakens? Why did she join the resistance? Why does no one care about her death? Did she die? Why aren't we seeing her on Crait or any of the other scenes? Lazy writing. So many plotholes! Hire new writers now!

...Petition.

 

So, r u gonna b the FIRST fan 2 get those $60.00 movie companion books that explain everything?

The name of the person slips my mind but he once sed....."if u have 2 explain your movie in a book, IT SUCKED" (paraphrasing)

TLJ will not stand the test of time. The only people who will defend it the future wil b kids who saw it at a young age.

 

Agreed.

Besides we still have Episode 9. Hopefully everyone will find the answers they seek then.

 

The books offer insights about what clearly happened in the films. Knowing that the braided cord on Boba Fett's shoulder is wookie fur is an easter egg.

 

That's the point, there is nothing to be explained in books. The questions that are answered in the books are not necessary for the plot structure to function. Any of the questions that are asked really have nothing to do with what is presented on screen but with the way in which the person in the audience interpreted the movie.

They never explained who Palpatine was or how Vader turned to the darkside in the originals. People had to get the answers to these questions from books and new movies which cost millions of dollars to produce. Would you also say that ANH, ESB and ROTJ were bad movies. They were accompanied by novelizations as well you know. Did these movies suck?

Everyone wants something different from a movie. If I would ask "how did the AT-AT's get to the surface in ESB, they didn't show it" and I would have to get that information from a different book or medium, that doesn't mean that the information I demanded about the AT-AT's was relevant to the story or that the story is bad because the movie didn't explain it to me.

 

I don't know a single person who walked out of the Force Awakens and didnt go, "who was Snoke?" and it's not to hard to see why.

At the end of the return of the Jedi(and in the following books) we see the empire defeated, the Emperor dead, the Light side triumphing over the dark.

When the story pick up in the Force Awakens, their is a Guy who seems suspiciously like a rip of of the Emperor who has basically rebuilt the Empire which is basically steam rollering the galaxy, helped turn Han and Leia's son against them, looks extremely old and seems ridiculously strong in the force.

Then they just kill of the character, without explaining how he achieved all this, who he was where he had been during all the other films, books comics....... this isn't like missing out why Maz had the light sabre, this is missing out why the whole galaxy is like it is it not somthing you can just skip over and go ow we'll do it in the books maybe.

 

You don’t need to buy a book. If you think you need back story to understand character motivations, then might I suggest reading some canon wikis. Like this one for Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. You learn everything that has been written about the character.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kylo_Ren It takes all of the canon info from everything, including canon video games like Battlefront, and puts it in one easy place.

The beauty of this universe is the vastness of it all. It cannot all be explained in a film. Keep in mind, if the characters in the movie know all of this, it makes no sense to explain it all again just so the audience knows. That’s why Leia just says to Han, “no it was Snoke”. Han knew what she meant, he knew who Snoke was.

Otherwise Leia would have said...

“Han, there was this dark lord named Snoke that was seducing our son while you were off racing space ships. It started happening when he was a teen and I started to sense he was a bad influence so I sent Ben to be with Luke, so maybe Luke could keep the dark side away. But then while Ben was with Luke, it came out through my political enemies that Darth Vader was my birth father. Since we never told Ben, it seems he found out the wrong way, through the public. It was our mistake to keep that from him. Then Snoke used that to make Ben think his destiny was to be like Vader, making it harder for Luke to keep the dark side away. Luke knew he would turn, and then Ben killed Luke’s students and took off with Snoke. Now I need to find Luke since he’s been away for 6 years and I cannot sense him at all.”

If you look at all of the backstory, it’s really not feature film worthy. I think we can use our imagination to figure out that the First Order was built from the ashes of the Empire through political means. There had to be powerful people that did not benefit from the New Republic and wanted the Empire back. Add that to another powerful Dark side person who’s biggest force power seems to be mind control, and you have the recipe for a new Emporer figure.

Personally, I want to know what happens in the future. Let the past die.

 

People tend to enjoy talking points (Rey's parents, who is Snoke???, etc), rather than good storytelling.

Another recent example of this that comes to mind is Stranger Things 2. Most people loved it. What do they bring up when they talk about loving it? Steve's hair, Eleven's new look when she said "bi*****", demidogs, Samwise Gamgee being in it, and so on. Talking points. But what about the story?? Most fans can't even lay out a summary of the plot of season 2 when I ask. Just their talking points.

I was a huge fan of season 1 of Stranger Things. A very self-aware story, that was told in a charming, intelligent manner.

Season 2 came along, gave people their talking points, and gave much less thought to storytelling.

Same can be said for something like The Walking Dead. "Did you see who they killed off lastnight??? I wonder who will be next...." Okay. But what about the story? And I don't mean backstory/exposition. I mean an interesting unfolding of events for the viewer.

TLJ focussed on character dynamics, character growth, the struggle of good vs evil, and passing of the torch. And now it's being heavily criticized for not giving people their talking points.

In my comparison here, TFA is Stranger Things season 2, and TLJ is Stranger Things season 1.

I hate seeing good films suffer in reputation and review due to what I can't help thinking is people's self-centeredness.

 

The fact that you ask 'Who is Snoke?' is a natural question to ask. I would ask the same thing. I like to imagine who this Snoke person might be. In fact the mystery surrounding Snoke is an essential element of his character, just like we didn't know anything about the emperor in ESB and ROTJ. We even didn't know the Emperor's name. His name, Palpatine, adds nothing to the story in ROTJ and ESB, nor would an exposé on his rise to power and his functioning within the Imperial power structure. We might have questions, but those questions are functionless to plot. Like Palpatine, the question "Who is Snoke?" is not important for our main lead characters portrayed on screen or the general progression of the plot. Everything you need to know about Snoke always pertains to Kylo and Hux, and is always presented in relation to these two characters . If it is not information that is relevant for the development of Hux or Kylo's character or the motivation of their actions, any extra narrative information about Snoke will ultimately be redundant.

In reality, these questions are only produced by fans because Star Wars consists of a multi-staged narrative on the one hand, but is also supported by narratives and content outside the movies. The movies function perfectly without narrative stuff outside the movies. The fact is that, the overload of content outside the movies which until a few years ago had the habit of nihillistically explaining everything and everyone, had desensitized many hard core fans to how the story is operating and ought to operate on screen.

 

i find the it worked with the Emperor in the original trilogy argument flawed. You could geta away with not explaining the backstory of the emperor in the original trilogy, becuase we didn't no hardly anyones backstory, we where new to the galaxy, so not explaining the character beyond theirs and Empire it naturally has an Emporer.

You can't do the same thing now, we know the galaxy, we've had 40 years of storys in this world, we've seen the Empire defeated, we saw the light win. So now when you introduce a character, especially one who seems to have shaped the whole galaxy this story is taking place in you have to explain where they came from.

It just a natural difference between when a series of story's are new and when a world has existed for 40 years.

 

Well, that's deep. So Rian Johnson answered all the questions because there were no questions? Brilliant.

 

We also knew nothing about Chancellor Valorum, Count Dooku, Maul, General Grievous, all of the guild, unions, and other factions that went into the Separatist Board of directors.

 

Most of those were not being set up as being mysterious characters. They were very simple characters with well-defined purposes.

Ask yourself these three basic questions, and use the above characters in addition to Snoke to answer them according to what is being presented in the movies, and ONLY the movies:


What is their position? How did they they end up in that position? What do they want?


Valorum: He's the Chancellor. He got voted into that position in the past. He is a controlled muppet whose purpose is to be replaced.

Dooku: He's a leader of the Separatists and a former Jedi. He willingly left the Jedi Order because he doesn't like the way the Jedi and the Republic is being handled. He knows the identity of the Sith and wants to destroy him.

Maul: He's the apprentice of Darth Sidious. We don't know how he became his apprentice. He wants the Sith to have revenge on the Jedi.

Grievous: He's the general of the Separatists' droid army. We don't know how he ended up in this position. What he wants is unclear, but he might be a foreshadowing of what Anakin will become.

Snoke: He's the Supreme Leader of the First Order. We don't know how he ended up in this position. We don't know what he wants.


So out of all of those, Maul and Grievous are the only ones with no clear idea of how they got where they are. Even if Maul is somewhat mysterious, Maul was never supposed to be the big baddie anyway, we knew that he was the apprentice of Darth Sidious, and when the movie is over we still know that Sidious is alive - it reattributes the fact that Sidious is what's important, not Maul, Sidious is the one who's behind everything. Besides, I think the reason people think Maul is mysterious is because he doesn't say anything. And in defense of Grievous, he's just a droid general. He still answers to Darth Sidious and he's not a very complex or mysterious character in the first place. He's like a machine following orders, like a foreshadowing of Anakin's turn into Darth Vader.

 

I have never understood the tactic of "Only the kids are going to like this." as if it helps make your opinion more mature. The only reason to say something like that would be in an attempt to validate your opinion by attempting to make any contrary opinion as something only a child would take on.

 

You mean like you and the prequels?

 

Great post @Darth Chewie. Rian Johnson warned every one of us in the months leading up to TLJ that things like Snoke's history would only be entertained so long as it fit the narrative of the story that they are telling. He was VERY open about that.

 

Great post I agree but that begs the question. Does Lucasfilm have any responsibility to their fans in the storymaking process especially when they create certain expectations?