TLJ actually re-captures the essence of the OT...Discuss

I grew up in the 1980s watching and re-watching the OT as a child, I had all the toys, I imagined being Han Solo and I dreamed of a galaxy far far away.

Over the last 20 years Star Wars fans have endured / enjoyed (delete as you personally see fit) the three Prequels, Clone Wars, Rebels, Computer Games and the Extended Universe. Much of which, IMHO, borders on amateur to passable fan fiction. A lot of the content that has been created over the last two decades has, in my opinion, been a bewildering mess of crazy characters, crazier stories and frustrating logic.

It wasn't and isn't "my" Star Wars. I grew up watching the OT in the cinema, and clearly remember a time in the early 90s when the pinnacle of being a Star Wars geek was pointing out a stormtrooper banging his head on a door, Ive personally found the last 20 years of star wars a baffling and geek driven mess. Star Wars to me was three films I owned multiple copies of on VHS, initially recorded from the TV broadcasts (!), films I could quote from, less at the time really was more.

But, I cant take away from people who have grown up with this new world and view it as "their" Star Wars. I can never construct a logical argument to say that they are wrong and should succumb to the ‘right way’ of thinking. However, a lot of the hate thrown at TLJ could easily be thrown back at the prequels and much of the extended universe.

TFA and TLJ thankfully overlook much of what Id consider the mess of the prequels and EU; midichlorians, Darth Vader building CP3P0, trade disputes, Gungans, "Roger, Roger", droid factories, R2 with jet packs, baby Boba Fett ...(the list goes on)...

TLJ IMHO re-grounds the whole concept of the force, it strips away the self reverential seriousness introduced in the Prequels and EU and adds genuine humor back into the Star Wars universe.

TLJ has nuance, the characters motivations aren't spelt out for you, it doesn't end with the over used trope of a CGI demi-god or giant robot fighting a group of CGI superheros in a climatic end battle, it subverts the whole concept quite brilliantly. That surely has to be a good in today's overly saturated and arguably dull super hero driven remake filled world (see Justice League, Transformers etc.), where its entirely predictable who will win and most of the time how. TLJ had actually me on the edge of my seat at points.

Maybe a proportion of the audience, who have been fed a fast food diet of 20 years worth of Star Wars content and CGI driven blockbusters, have just experienced their Phantom Menace moment with TLJ.

The feeling that "their" Star Wars isn't whats represented on screen. The "poor script", "the clunky dialogue", the "wrong" characters,"plot holes", "the flying Leia", "unfunny comedy" - all sounds similar to how I felt when I saw TPM, a one dimensional Obi Wan, a dull serious Yoda, a senate meeting, the cool villain getting chopped in half, a kid shouting yippee, a fart joke and a Jar Jar Binks comedy routine throughout the entirety of a Star Wars film loosely held together on the basis of a trade dispute. That really wasnt "my" Star Wars, it missed the core concepts of what I believe made Star Wars great for me, even if GL was the one who created it.

If you dont like TLJ thats ok...

TLJ in my view is fine, more than fine, it core message is about forgetting the past, it brings some humour back to a franchise which was bogged down in obsessive geek-dom, it just about stayed grounded in the sci-fi possible and re-used concepts from the OT in an interesting and more expansive way.

The message of TLJ is ironically "let the past die". Thats what needs to happen to expand Star Wars, TFA was starting on a journey of repeating the past and I dont think that would have ultimately been that interesting. The OT cast are in their 70s, they arent the focus anymore, they are not going to be swinging across bridges or fighting Rancors, things needed to move on. Repeating the whole Emperor/Vader story arch really wouldnt have been much fun....I dont want to see the OT again, but I do want the magic of the OT.

I'm now roughly the same age as Rian Johnson (and JJ Abrams), I get what they've done, I know why they've done it. The ESB Yoda scene and the end broom moment in TLJ are symptomatic of someone who grew up on the OT and who "gets it”, what I think Star Wars was about and why I think it grew to become so huge.

Star Wars at its heart is a Saturday morning serial, its Flash Gordon from the 1950s, its fun and its an adventure, it doesn’t even have to make much sense, it just needs to be entertaining and in my view that's what TLJ delivered, that's what the OT at its core was about. TLJ is more OT than Prequel, its shifted the story in a new direction, just as ESB did after SW and Im looking forward to IX.

You dont have to agree with me, but thanks for reading, interested on what other people think

 

LOL I assure you I'm not on Darth Mouses payroll, I'm a real person posting on an internet forum ;-)

No Disney shill, paranoia based fake news illuminati funded black ops industrial complex liberal conspiracy theory to see here.... move along, move along.