The Sequel trilogy is not on and will not be on "par" or "en style" with Episodes 1-6

Here's the thing. There is a fine line between doing something new and changing your IP to a degree where it becomes unrecognizeable. I think that Disney is on a dangerous path right. They end the Skywalker saga, they turn the force into something that everyone can have and master in next to no time, family and heritage is no longer an issue, characters no longer require a conenction with other characters or a fleshed out backstory. Sure you can always slap the label of Star Wars on your scifi movie but you risk losing the very identity of what makes a Star Wars movie feel like one. I don't think Disney are aware of their core audience at the moment. I am not talking about the ones watching the movies but the ones buying and collecting the SW merchandise. I do think that Disney is playing a risky game by further estranging this part of the fanbase and I would not recommend changing the SW formula to a degree when the logo is the only thing that allows you to distinguis a SW movie from all the other scifi franchises out there. Especially with Avatar arround the corner in the first half of the 2020s I would be very, very careful with experiments within the saga films. Dave Filoni seems to understand this. KK and Rian however not so much. If Rians new trilogy shares no connection with the skywalkers and even takes place ina different galaxy like some rumors suggested I think there will be backlash that even surpasses the strong emotions TLJ caused.

 

So far, I think the Sequel Trilogy is pure crap. Hopefully, the trilogy might feature one movie that I will eventually like . . . and I mean "Episode IX". But even if "Episode IX" prove to be enjoyable to me, I don't think it will overcome what I believe to be the crap fest of "The Force Awakens" and "The Last Jedi".

 

Have whatever opinion you want, but trying to say an absolute about what "will" happen is simply something that I cannot respect.

 

The sequel trilogy is clearly lacking any sort of storyline cohesion. It's like 2nd grade when someone would write a line or 2 of a story and hand it off to the next kid to continue it.

However, I am optimistic that Abrams will fix this. I expect E9 to be cohesive with E7 as well as the original trilogy (maybe not so much the prequels though). Abrams will take the conclusion in the direction he always intended it to go. It's E8 which will, mercifully, be the "odd man out" (so to speak).

 

I basically disagree with everything you have said in this thread, except for this. I think you are onto something with your epiphany here. Kylo could never turn to the light in his present state. An immature tantrum prone man will not become a redemption hero. He will need a decisive moment of maturity and lucidity to fulfil that role, a moment that, I feel, will come too late in the next film. He will be redeemed, I think, but he will live or die a broken man with a broken heart. At least until the next trilogy...

As for the quality of all SW trilogies, even though I’m very sentimentally attached to the story and experience of the first film (ep4) and it will always be special to me, these new trilogy is for me very much at the OT level. Obviously the whole of SW is and always will be GL’s baby and the product of his great creativity and story telling ability. The ST is endebted to him on that count. However, these movies, as direct descendants of those first ones (I’m talking about the OT as for me the PT was never that good) hold their own pretty well and, in some aspects, are even better (and I’m not talking about special effects here). In the first trilogy they had no young actor of Adam Driver’s calibre, not even Harrison Ford, who was incredible as Han. Having a serious theatre actor playing a complex character is one of the ST great strengths. Another one is the nuanced emotional tapestry offered by the old characters exiting the story and new ones finding their way in it. I admit this is in part due to the great attachment we all have to the OT, but the ST has perfectly known how to strike the right emotional chords mixing the old and the new.

 

It's not just that some of you have opinions, it's just that some of you refuse to accept facts, your own gut instinct and opinion is sacrosanct, you can't even accept any reality that dares to distort it.

It's okay not to like Episode VIII or even Episode VII. It's even okay to defend dreck that was punched out in less than 60 days like Revenge of the Sith and tear down the craft and detail in TFA. We're all entitled to our opinion, even the one I just expressed in that last sentence.

But once again, some of you need to confront this reality: Star Wars is booming. It's at its highest peak in history with more media, toys, revenue and expansion than ever before. We live in a world where we get one new Star Wars film a year, a high-budget cartoon, soon a brand new streaming TV series and 8 more films and now three entire theme parks dedicated to the brand.

Star Wars is winning, your internet rage does NOTHING to change that equation and fact. That's the reality I wish some of you could look in the mirror and accept.

Nobody is listening to your theory that Star Wars is dying because the cash register is ringing too loudly.

 

This thread is probably the best thread in this forum because for me it's a make or break for the ST. I know we all look at the movies differently and nobody is wrong for watching them in their 'own' context. Everyone has their canon, everyone has their favorites, but the key question here is whether the ST will fit in with the 1-6 story?

After TFA, I was on board as I loved that movie. There were ALOT of unanswered questions that worried me, but I naively thought they would be hammered out and wasn't expecting them to stick the landing on everyone. As everyone knows I did not like TLJ (I'm waiting to see it on BluRay so I can give a better assessment), but the quality of the movie is not my worry at this point. What worries me about the ST isn't the characters (I love Rey and Kylo Ren), what worries me is there is no main theme for the Trilogy, nor a main theme that tie to the 1-6 story.

I keep racking my brain as to what JJ can do to interlock 7,8,9 to 1-6 and make it a 1-9 narrative, and I just don't see it? I could be wrong and you have to atleast give them the opportunity to tell the story with the final piece in Episode 9, but I have sort of lost faith in the ST. That's why I say that the quality of the movies at this point is secondary to me, and I think this is where they miss George Lucas. I have a lot of problems with the execution of the PT and I don't love any of the movies. But they do fit with the OT and tell a story/narrative that is very interesting: The rise, fall and redemption of Darth Vader during the backdrop of the rise fall and redemption of the Republic. There is a lot going on in those 6 movies that I find very interesting, despite the fact that the PT could have been better.

So lets throw away our opinions of TFA and TLJ, and just look big picture of what story they are trying to tell? I honestly don't know what story they are trying to tell at this point that won't look tacked on to the 1-6 story? I would love anyone who is on board with the ST to let me know what themes they think ties with the 1-6 story, because I have an open mind because I want this to work. It took me years to appreciate the PT (because I was so caught up the quality of the movies), but they really did tell a good story that married with the OT. I've gone with a different approach with the ST as I'm always looking big picture, looking for themes, and I just don't know if JJ can stick the landing with Episode 9?

 

See, I get that IX might have quite a task ahead of itself, but to say that this trilogy lacks any sort of cohesion is to say that 2/3 of a way through a movie like Pulp Fiction. Maybe it deserves to be finished before any sort of absolute claim like that is made.

 

As far as the overall story they're trying to tell, there's no shame in not knowing yet. We aren't supposed to know and anyone who claims that we should know or should be able to tell where this is going despite the fact that we're only two films in is quite frankly, to put it into Cantina terms... "bullblasting".

As far as feeling disjointed from the rest of the saga, I mean no disrespect to you (or anyone) when I say this and I'm not even necessarily putting you in this box but I feel like it's more of a personal issue as opposed to an actual one. You said it yourself, for so long it had been established that Star Wars was about the rise, fall and eventual redemption of Anakin Skywalker... and now we're in a time where there's no Anakin Skywalker. But, while he may no longer be there in the physical form, the galaxy is still very much dealing with him. When he died the galaxy didn't just get swallowed up by a black hole, everything kept on going. His son and daughter kept on going and his daughter eventually gave birth to Ben Solo who is now wreaking the same havoc that his grandfather was some 30-40 years ago. I don't really see a disconnect there, to me it seems like a pretty natural progression.

 

I would agree with you if they weren't literally writing this Trilogy on the fly with 2 directors different visions.

 

Ever heard of storyboarding or outlining?

 

Now if the ST was about the fallout from Darth Vader, and they actually addressed it throughout the Trilogy, then that is something I would be on board with to kind of sum up the OT/PT. The problem is there are missed opportunities to address the legacy of Vader as Luke or Leia does not address it once in TFA and TLJ. The only time Kylo Ren addresses Vader's legacy is to his helmet, "I will finish....." I was intrigued by that line, because what did he want to finish? What was he told by Snoke that Vader wanted to finish? Obviously, it was something with Ruling the Galaxy.

If the theme of the ST was the after-effects of Darth Vader on Han, Luke, Leia and their eventual offspring, then that is a really interesting way of looking at it. But again, it is just not addressed enough to justify it so far. And now that the OT characters are dead (Luke can come back as a Force Ghost), I think the moment is lost. I know the EU novels talked about Leia being outed as Vader's daughter and essentially ruining her political career, why not bring that up as that is a fascinating aspect of this Saga. I think the after-effects of Vader are there in Trilogy as you say, I just don't think that JJ or RJ really focused THAT theme as the story they wanted to tell, so far. You are right that we don't know how it will end, only time will tell.

I'm talking big picture stuff and how RJ and JJ are just doing things they want for their specific movie, and not for the Trilogy. There is no way that JJ created Snoke to kill him in Episode 8 as that was Rian Johnson's vision, and that is sort the fundamental problem I have with the Trilogy. If RJ or JJ wrote the whole Trilogy in THEIR vision, then I actually think it would flow better.

 

Both JJ and Rian wrote an outline for the whole trilogy and they both follow the same main plot points. Snoke isn't/wasn't such an important plot point from the get go. The visions can differ as long as the goal is the same. There are many different ways to achieve the same goal. And this is what's going on with the ST.

 

Death of Snoke was best thing to happen in TLJ. Dumb character, totally boring and his death puts Ben Solo fully in charge.

What a clever coup Ben engineered by the way, one of the things Snoke-fans never seem to point out was how brilliantly Ben destroys him and assumed full command of the most powerful organization in the entire galaxy.

Part of the problem with these threads, is it rewrites history. It suggests the OT and PT were developed with a large "strategic" plan. Not true, the tone of AOC was changed after TPM received such poor reviews. Jar-Jar was meant to be a prominent comedic character in all three films, until his merchandise wouldn't move and Hasbro got stuck with literally tons of Jar-Jar shaped plastic toys.

Revenge of the Sith was slammed through production in 60-days, with many scenes taking just 1 or 2 takes. The actors were appalled, many have complained publicly about the sloppy production of that film. So the idea that there was "more craft" in the prequels or originals, is also a lie.

It's a weird fact that some Star Wars fans are often obsessed with a brand that they continually claim is mismanaged and ruining their childhood. And it's almost as if every Star Wars fan out there it seems thinks they can write something better than the professionals.

And then there's the big lie that Star Wars has a "political agenda" just because Rey is a "powerful" character. Star Wars only agenda is to make filthy lucre and on that front, the success is undeniable fact.

Kathleen Kennedy saved Star Wars. A fact that seems to drive some fans crazy and irate. So much so, they just deny the fact and keep falsely claiming she will soon be fired due to "massive fan outrage".

There is no massive fan outrage. There's a lot of sock puppet comments on Mike Zeroh's Youtube channel, but since such nonsense doesn't have any effect on the profit/success of the brand, nobody actually involved in the brand cares much. The opposite of love is not hate anyway, it's indifference, if Star Wars was really in trouble, threads like this wouldn't even exist. The fact they do exist, mean you care, means you're still invested and it means you're still helping Star Wars win.

Star Wars is bigger and better than ever. Truth. Fact. Undeniable. It's making more money than ever, truth, fact, undeniable. Star Wars is expanding at a pace unprecedented in its history. So why change? It's working. America loves Star Wars again and the few angry, disaffected rants on the internet are just noise, like farting in the wind.

 

I mean, isn't outlining directly linked with "big picture stuff"?

I guess it's up in the air whether or not Snoke's death or Rey's parentage were items that would qualify, and I'm sure there are elements that are constantly being adjusted (much like how even the original trilogy was constantly going through significant rewrites and saga-altering changes) but I think it's fair to say that to some degree there is definitely a plan.

If anything, "The Director and the Jedi" made that pretty clear.

 

Well said, @Trevor! Well said.

 

See the OT had multiple directors: George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Richard Marquand. So, what's the difference?