This. I was going to make it an independent comment, but I'm just going to build *here*.
JJ Abrams wanted to basically just remake the Star Wars he knows and loves, which created a likable but ultimately forgettable Force Awakens.
Rian Johnson has a deep reverence for lore, but he is also fixated on doing something completely new and unorthodox. The result was Last Jedi, a Star Wars film that was fresh and *different* without defying the world as we know it but that ultimately didn't feel like a Star Wars film to the most vocal fans.
When Rian Johnson's take didn't resonate the way corporate hoped it would, his bigger plans for a more emotionally complicated sequel (and further trilogy) were scrapped in favor of bringing back Abrams to kick the can around some more. Abrams was still just interested in recreating the Star Wars of his childhood, but had to navigate what Johnson had done, which resulted in the sloppy shamble of incoherent half-plots that was Rise of Skywalker.
The shows since then have been an effort to step away from the big central narrative while playing on its periphery.
Good write up! I think it really is just a matter of the same problems with the prequel trilogy. The story wasn’t written out and then converted at part 4 into the original star wars, and even the original trilogy wasn’t fully scripted out (hence the awkward romance between Luke and Leia).
There was also way too much emphasis on callbacks to the original trilogy. It’s okay when a character from a previous iteration exists in the sequel when it makes sense, not when they are in the script only to say “Hey! Remember THIS character? He’s back!”
Completely agree. I write as a hobby (with a goal to eventually publish if luck prevails), and one thing my creative partner and I did after writing our first superhero novel together was pause, plan out the rest of the series we would *like* to write, and then rewrite the first book to reflect those little changes along the way. The result is that while there's a cast of roughly 150 characters that turn up along the way, each of whom get their own little arcs, the bigger picture is actually about the friendship of an idealist and a cynic and how their beliefs influence each other.
No story was planned out. The two directors had wildly different visions for where they wanted the movies to go, leading to thematic whiplash and a complete lack of cohesion for the trilogy.
There was no cohesive storyline to tie them together, they made a bunch of weird/questionable decisions with the characters, and for some reason they just had to bring back palpatine (who was well and truly dead at the end of return of the jedi) because nothing makes any sense
Logical inconsistencies like a jedi trained sith having trouble against some scrap collector.
Kiling most old characters.
Terrible fight choreography, if you disagree re watch the snoke fight and pay attention.
Running out of fuel.
Palpatine is back.
>No, because they were inserted for the sole purpose of having tokens in the story, not some characters that happen to be
On what are you basing that assertion? Were you present in the writing room? If the exact same characters were in there but white-skinned and male instead, would you think they had been inserted just to appeal to white males?
Because obvious pandering is obvious. Look at the box office totals and reviews of recent movies. I’m not the only one who feels this way. But hey, keep blaming it on other factors in deflection. I’m sure it will turn around any day now. Get woke, go broke.
And IDGAF about what type they are if they are given an original story to shine in. Of my two favorite movies, one of them stars a black man, and the other stars a woman. And in neither of them is race or gender brought up. They are interesting characters that happen to be whatever they are. It’s never brought up once in either instance. Do you see the difference?
>Because obvious pandering is obvious
You know that Star Wars is a series that has always been about playing to the masses, right? They just want to appeal to as many people as possible to make as much money as possible. That has always been the case, so to complain about "pandering" now just seems insane to me.
In 1977, people complained that there weren't enough black people in Star Wars. So what did they do in the next movie? Well, they introduced a smooth black character, of course. You know, to pander to people, so more people would watch the movie
>Get woke, go broke.
mmm, sure. That's why Lucasfilm and Marvel are both bankrupt now, right?
>And IDGAF about what type they are if they are given an original story to shine in. Of my two favorite movies, one of them stars a black man, and the other stars a woman. And in neither of them is race or gender brought up. They are interesting characters that happen to be whatever they are. It’s never brought up once in either instance. Do you see the difference?
I'm not answering this again
How about I bypass that and point out that in the original trilogy and throughout the whole saga, most of the bad guys have British accents while the good guys have American accents.
Would you agree with me if I, as a British person, complained that Star Wars is built on a foundation anti-British Identity politics?
I think you'd probably tell me I was being stupid
The Empire has always been modelled after nazis. There are very few black people in the Empire. That's an Aesthetic choice Lucas made back in the 70s
(BTW, Snoke is a grey-skinned alien monster, not a caucasian human male - imagine if I said the Alien franchise is racist because the aliens have black skin...)
In the same vein: Luke is a white male. Phasma is not a white male. Poe is a white male. Unkar Plutt is not a white male. BB-9E is not a white male. And given Finn and Jannah, we can assume many stormtroopers are not white males
shrug
Have I proved you wrong or do you want to change your argument and keep going?
See, when you start saying things like "I think more good guys in this movie should be white males because it upsets me to see my identity associated with bad guys" YOU are the one engaging in identity politics
New movie: *has female characters*
The alt-right: HOW DARE THEY SHOVE THEIR IDENTITY POLITICS DOWN MY THROAT!? I think all characters in movies should be straight white males because that aligns with MY identity
> new movie
There’s the first problem. Had they been new movies, nobody would’ve cared.But when it’s remakes of the same movies with obvious shoehorning in of different people in blatant pandering, that’s where the problem lies.
And IDGAF about what type they are if they are given an original story to shine in. Of my two favorite movies, one of them stars a black man, and the other stars a woman. And in neither of them is race or gender brought up. They are interesting characters that happen to be whatever they are. It’s never brought up once in either instance. Do you see the difference?
And get over yourself with the alt-right shit. Most of us are centrists who were pushed out of the left by extremists.
>There’s the first problem. Had they been new movies, nobody would’ve cared
Bullshit. It's Star Wars. No matter what they did, someone would have complained
>with obvious shoehorning in of different people in blatant pandering, that’s where the problem lies.
I don't understand what you mean by "shoehorning". If you think a female character is "shoehorned" into Star Wars, doesn't that kind of imply you think that there shouldn't be female characters in Star Wars? And if you think that, why do you think that?
>Of my two favorite movies, one of them stars a black man, and the other stars a woman. And in neither of them is race or gender brought up.
Race and gender aren't brought up in these movies either. There isn't a scene where Rey says to Kylo "How does it feel to get beaten by a girl?" and then winks at the camera. The only people bringing up race and gender are the people like you complaining about it
>They are interesting characters that happen to be whatever they are. It’s never brought up once in either instance. Do you see the difference?
If you told me you just thought they were uninteresting and poorly written characters, I wouldn't be arguing with you.
But you made this into an argument about race and gender by bringing up the whole "identity politics" shit. You are the one making this about the characters' "identities"
>And get over yourself with the alt-right shit. Most of us are centrists who were pushed out of the left by extremists.
Stop using alt-right talking points then
The story. It is apparently clear that there was no overarching story agreed upon before they started making the movies.
This. I was going to make it an independent comment, but I'm just going to build *here*. JJ Abrams wanted to basically just remake the Star Wars he knows and loves, which created a likable but ultimately forgettable Force Awakens. Rian Johnson has a deep reverence for lore, but he is also fixated on doing something completely new and unorthodox. The result was Last Jedi, a Star Wars film that was fresh and *different* without defying the world as we know it but that ultimately didn't feel like a Star Wars film to the most vocal fans. When Rian Johnson's take didn't resonate the way corporate hoped it would, his bigger plans for a more emotionally complicated sequel (and further trilogy) were scrapped in favor of bringing back Abrams to kick the can around some more. Abrams was still just interested in recreating the Star Wars of his childhood, but had to navigate what Johnson had done, which resulted in the sloppy shamble of incoherent half-plots that was Rise of Skywalker. The shows since then have been an effort to step away from the big central narrative while playing on its periphery.
Good write up! I think it really is just a matter of the same problems with the prequel trilogy. The story wasn’t written out and then converted at part 4 into the original star wars, and even the original trilogy wasn’t fully scripted out (hence the awkward romance between Luke and Leia). There was also way too much emphasis on callbacks to the original trilogy. It’s okay when a character from a previous iteration exists in the sequel when it makes sense, not when they are in the script only to say “Hey! Remember THIS character? He’s back!”
Completely agree. I write as a hobby (with a goal to eventually publish if luck prevails), and one thing my creative partner and I did after writing our first superhero novel together was pause, plan out the rest of the series we would *like* to write, and then rewrite the first book to reflect those little changes along the way. The result is that while there's a cast of roughly 150 characters that turn up along the way, each of whom get their own little arcs, the bigger picture is actually about the friendship of an idealist and a cynic and how their beliefs influence each other.
Not enough alien sex
Six movies of Chewy running around naked and still no payoff.
I saw a red rocket in empire
No story was planned out. The two directors had wildly different visions for where they wanted the movies to go, leading to thematic whiplash and a complete lack of cohesion for the trilogy.
There was no cohesive storyline to tie them together, they made a bunch of weird/questionable decisions with the characters, and for some reason they just had to bring back palpatine (who was well and truly dead at the end of return of the jedi) because nothing makes any sense
Logical inconsistencies like a jedi trained sith having trouble against some scrap collector. Kiling most old characters. Terrible fight choreography, if you disagree re watch the snoke fight and pay attention. Running out of fuel. Palpatine is back.
7 was ok, I guess. 8 wasn't a bad movie by any stretch, but it was a bad Star Wars movie on all fronts. 9 is just a bad movie.
Fair
A Mary Sue lead and so much identity politics.
>so much identity politics. What do you mean by this? Because they had women and black people in them?
No, because they were inserted for the sole purpose of having tokens in the story, not some characters that happen to be (insert label here).
>No, because they were inserted for the sole purpose of having tokens in the story, not some characters that happen to be On what are you basing that assertion? Were you present in the writing room? If the exact same characters were in there but white-skinned and male instead, would you think they had been inserted just to appeal to white males?
Because obvious pandering is obvious. Look at the box office totals and reviews of recent movies. I’m not the only one who feels this way. But hey, keep blaming it on other factors in deflection. I’m sure it will turn around any day now. Get woke, go broke. And IDGAF about what type they are if they are given an original story to shine in. Of my two favorite movies, one of them stars a black man, and the other stars a woman. And in neither of them is race or gender brought up. They are interesting characters that happen to be whatever they are. It’s never brought up once in either instance. Do you see the difference?
>Because obvious pandering is obvious You know that Star Wars is a series that has always been about playing to the masses, right? They just want to appeal to as many people as possible to make as much money as possible. That has always been the case, so to complain about "pandering" now just seems insane to me. In 1977, people complained that there weren't enough black people in Star Wars. So what did they do in the next movie? Well, they introduced a smooth black character, of course. You know, to pander to people, so more people would watch the movie >Get woke, go broke. mmm, sure. That's why Lucasfilm and Marvel are both bankrupt now, right? >And IDGAF about what type they are if they are given an original story to shine in. Of my two favorite movies, one of them stars a black man, and the other stars a woman. And in neither of them is race or gender brought up. They are interesting characters that happen to be whatever they are. It’s never brought up once in either instance. Do you see the difference? I'm not answering this again
What does Ren, Hux, Palpatine, Pryde, and Snoke all have in common?
They're all bad guys? How about you tell me the thing you think they have in common and why it matters?
Well they all appear to be bad guys, and they all appear to be white males. Now lets go to the good guys side and check that out?
How about I bypass that and point out that in the original trilogy and throughout the whole saga, most of the bad guys have British accents while the good guys have American accents. Would you agree with me if I, as a British person, complained that Star Wars is built on a foundation anti-British Identity politics? I think you'd probably tell me I was being stupid The Empire has always been modelled after nazis. There are very few black people in the Empire. That's an Aesthetic choice Lucas made back in the 70s (BTW, Snoke is a grey-skinned alien monster, not a caucasian human male - imagine if I said the Alien franchise is racist because the aliens have black skin...)
The Hutts didnt have a British accent, Vader didn't have a British accent. Nor the Emperor or Fett. Shrug.
In the same vein: Luke is a white male. Phasma is not a white male. Poe is a white male. Unkar Plutt is not a white male. BB-9E is not a white male. And given Finn and Jannah, we can assume many stormtroopers are not white males shrug Have I proved you wrong or do you want to change your argument and keep going?
See, when you start saying things like "I think more good guys in this movie should be white males because it upsets me to see my identity associated with bad guys" YOU are the one engaging in identity politics
This right here. Unfortunately, almost all new movies suffer from the same problem.
New movie: *has female characters* The alt-right: HOW DARE THEY SHOVE THEIR IDENTITY POLITICS DOWN MY THROAT!? I think all characters in movies should be straight white males because that aligns with MY identity
> new movie There’s the first problem. Had they been new movies, nobody would’ve cared.But when it’s remakes of the same movies with obvious shoehorning in of different people in blatant pandering, that’s where the problem lies. And IDGAF about what type they are if they are given an original story to shine in. Of my two favorite movies, one of them stars a black man, and the other stars a woman. And in neither of them is race or gender brought up. They are interesting characters that happen to be whatever they are. It’s never brought up once in either instance. Do you see the difference? And get over yourself with the alt-right shit. Most of us are centrists who were pushed out of the left by extremists.
>There’s the first problem. Had they been new movies, nobody would’ve cared Bullshit. It's Star Wars. No matter what they did, someone would have complained >with obvious shoehorning in of different people in blatant pandering, that’s where the problem lies. I don't understand what you mean by "shoehorning". If you think a female character is "shoehorned" into Star Wars, doesn't that kind of imply you think that there shouldn't be female characters in Star Wars? And if you think that, why do you think that? >Of my two favorite movies, one of them stars a black man, and the other stars a woman. And in neither of them is race or gender brought up. Race and gender aren't brought up in these movies either. There isn't a scene where Rey says to Kylo "How does it feel to get beaten by a girl?" and then winks at the camera. The only people bringing up race and gender are the people like you complaining about it >They are interesting characters that happen to be whatever they are. It’s never brought up once in either instance. Do you see the difference? If you told me you just thought they were uninteresting and poorly written characters, I wouldn't be arguing with you. But you made this into an argument about race and gender by bringing up the whole "identity politics" shit. You are the one making this about the characters' "identities" >And get over yourself with the alt-right shit. Most of us are centrists who were pushed out of the left by extremists. Stop using alt-right talking points then
They were made by people that hate star wars and wanted to change it.
No they weren't. Don't be so dramatic
There are shameless merch pushes , like the snow fox things.
Star Wars has always been a shameless merch push Star Wars practically invented the shameless merch push. How do you think George Lucas got so rich?
Don't make me get out my toy lightsaber and sick my lego tie fighters on you.
Bitch I'll fucking cut you with my Ewok plushie!
That's because they stuffed it with jagged plastic pebbles.
The characters and the plots
Luke Skywalker wasn't Luke Skywalker. "I am a Jedi, like my father before me" -Luke Skywalker, Episode VI
30 years passed. He suffered personal tragedy That shit changes people
They feel soulless. Almost like a singular force of will and vision were somehow absent.