Why is backstory so important?

... a good question, Brother Lock.

Could it meybe be connected to a not Star Wars related thing ?
Like havin' instant access to information of/on practically Anything, nowadays ?
Meybe ... Meybe not ...
If it meybe, well ... that Ain't how Star Wars works.

 

2-hour movie doesn't have enough time to provide backstories for every character, so it should focus on those, that are relevant. Backstories of characters Snoke, Poe Dameron or DJ are irrelevant to the main stories, so it's fine to skip them in the movie and tell elsewhere.

The problem is, I believe, is that fans were trained by tons of books, comics and video games, that everything is connected, everybody has met everybody else and half of them is related. This is why Rey's parents and Snoke became so important.

 

I'll tell you y. 40 years ago it was just ANH. There was no Padme, no Rey, no Lando, no clone troopers but something about a clone war? There was talk of Jedi but they were gone now. No bounty hunters. No Thrawn. No Specter Cell. There was a Rebellion but they "seemed" to be just getting "started". No Kylo. No First Order.

And no Hugh Hef.....I mean Snoke.

SW was just getting started. Now we have 41 years of history and world building.

So where was this guy for the last 60 sum odd years of saga history & 41 of our time.

If Palpatine 2.0 was just waiting for so many years 4 the Jedi & Sith 2 kill each other off then he is a cowardly villain indeed.

 

I don't need back stories. I use my imagination.

 

Snoke is not the main villain in the trilogy, he is just an obstacle for the Kylo Ren. Ren's backstory is relevant to the movies, so it's explained on screen. We already have backstories for Hux, Phasma and DJ. Snoke's backstory is most likely to come out after Episode IX.

 

Episode IV dropped us off into the middle of a story. It did a brilliant job of telling us what we needed to know.

Episode VII was the next installment of a saga that is told sequentially as one continuous universe (even though the movies are not released sequentially, they do have a sequential order). It is bad storytelling not to tell us how we got from where we were at the end of Episode VI to where we were at the beginning of Episode VII.

There is a HUGE difference between the above 2 situations.

 

Because it gives depth to a story, it connects the dots, it makes it last through time and no force or Deus Ex Machina.

Why giving names to characters ? They're not real. Just say the blonde one or the big one ...

But as long as you don't have a story, asking for a backstory is quite much to ask.

 

I'd propose it's coming from a certain type of mind that needs a kind of "connectivity" for a form of closure. Kind of like how there are people who really don't like an open-ended story. They need that closure, they can't be left with any proverbial wires hanging loose in any way. But usually in an open-ended story, the wires are all connected in the purpose of the story, and the ending isn't really part of the story so no connection is necessary.

For instance maybe you have a Rockyesque story about a boxer who has given up the fight. He gets the opportunity to fight in the big fight, but he's too down to get his legs back. So the story is about him getting back to where he was via whatever means. Then at the end, the story ends right as the first round begins. For some people, they need that resolution of, "Who won the fight?" They need that connection. To their mind, there are still, loose wires that need plugged in.

But the story isn't the fight, it's about getting the boxer to that fight. That's the story, and the actual fight is just the, impetus that drives the story. Snoke's part in the ST is like that fight. He's not really a part of the story proper, but he's an impetus which drives the story proper. You know what I mean? His backstory is irrelevant to the story. But, to some people, it's leaving, wires hanging. They need that, connection to the things that came prior. Where did he come from? How did he get where he is? They need that connection even though the story itself doesn't.

Of course, that information isn't relevant to the story being told. So like in an open-ended (maybe we call this open-beginninged?) story, all it seems you can really do is say, "It doesn't matter because that's not important to the actual, real story being told; the story wires are all connected and there are no hanging wires, and whatever hanging wires you're thinking you're seeing are the illusory result of your misunderstanding of the real story being told" but then a person may simply need for every element in a story to connect to every other element. But that seems to create a kind-of, slippery-slope into having to run stories out into absurdity trying to connect every possible connection that could be made.

I don't know, I suppose in the end, stories with open-ended kinds of information just aren't for some people? But the point being that, I would propose that is the reason some people need "backstory" for Snoke. To provide a kind of catharsis of information, even though it's not really relevant. Like some kind of, illusory Chekhov's Gun. A Chekhov's Pseudo-Gun.

 

You know, discovering what happened between RotJ and TFA book by book was a very fulfilling experience for me, so why won't everybody do that, instead of finding yet another reason to keep hating the movies?

 

What? There were no prequels before "4" came out, hell there was no Star Wars. There were vague references: The Clone Wars, what Luke's father was like, Obi-Wan and Vader's relationship, The Emperor, The Senate, The Rebellion etc. They didn't get answered till some 30 odd years later. What George did to start the story there was a massive risk; while on top of that following two droids for a third of the movie.

 

That is correct, and it is brilliant storytelling. We don't need backstories beyond the introductions we got in Episode IV.

Episodes VII and VIII are a whole 'nother matter though. Given that those are a continuation of a 40-year saga, it should have told us how we got from point A to point B.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 5, 2018, Original Post Date: Jul 5, 2018 ---

Setting aside the fact that the books haven't even remotely addressed many issues, if a movie has to rely on a book to fulfill its storytelling duties then it is a shortfall of the movie.

Plus it is kind of silly to expect "everybody" to have to buy multiple media publications to understand what they are watching on the screen. I think you've lost track of how a casual fan would feel about that.

 

Why does 7 and 8 not get a pass? But its okay for George to do it? Marvel does it. Infinity War does not work unless you have seen a good chunk of the Marvel movies.

 

I already explained why but I guess I have to do so again:

Episode IV dropped us off into the middle of a story. It did a brilliant job of telling us what we needed to know.

Episode VII was the next installment of a saga that is told sequentially as one continuous universe (even though the movies are not released sequentially, they do have a sequential order). It is bad storytelling not to tell us how we got from where we were at the end of Episode VI to where we were at the beginning of Episode VII.

George didn't do it. That's the point.

Ding ding ding!!! If you have seen the movies, Infinity War works just fine. But for Star Wars, even if you have seen the movies, you still have no clue how we got from the state of affairs at the end of E6 to the state of affairs at the beginning of E7.

 

The movies provide enough relevant information to understand what is going on without having to look anywhere else.

The information as to how things got from E6 to E7 is not essential to understand E7's story. TFA works just fine if it's the first SW movie you see, but the IF doesn't if it's your first MCU film.

 

So if we don't need backstory, why do we have this Ben Solo and Luke action ( 3 times ... really ... ) in the past ?

 

That's cause there's 40 some odd years of storytelling to tell. There's no way you can tell that in a 2 hr film. Marvel works because they exist in a present day context that kind of storytelling doesn't work in Star Wars. They started were they did to work around the ages of Mark, Harrison and Carrie.

 

We need relevant backstory. 2-hour movie is not 20-hour period drama, there is not enough time to give a backstory to everybody and everything.

 

Cause it's actually important backstory and serves the plot for the ending between the two of 'em. It tells why Kylo turned and to why Luke ended up the way he did.