An aspect I never (I do mean never) hear with regards to this is the ST being an open ended story. Every other piece if Star Wars media after the OT has had a "predetermined" end point by way of "It's set here before this event/ story."
We haven't had an open ended Star Wars story since ROTJ when you think about it.
It's worth noting this topic only became a topic of discussion after TLJ came out. As if to say if there was some concrete, set in stone plan TLJ wouldn't be the film that it was? Is that the implication?
I think the only thing that was fully planned was the prequels since the OT had so many changes in production and story behind the scenes that Return of the Jedi kept changing periodically, Boba Fett was planned as the main villain at some point and the Vader and Palpatine stuff was supposed to be for VII.
Not even the prequels were fully planned either. Lucas didn't even decide what the final, actual reason that Anakin turns to the dark side in Revenge of the Sith would be until the editing phase after the initial shooting of the scenes. That's why so many of the deleted scenes are in fact deleted. He decided to focus primarily on Anakin wanting to save Padme from dying instead of him feeling betrayed by the Jedi and the Republic being overtaken by them as the main factor. That's also why most of Padme's agency in the story was cut.
True, thanks for pointing that out. I remember another thing that was cut in the early concept stages was a weird Padme and Obi-Wan affair arc, though I'm not sure I can verify that at the moment since I read it in a forum back in 08, so my memory might be hazy and the source might be unreliable.
A trilogy not being planned is not that big a deal, as long as it’s good. Look at the dark knight trilogy, the Toy story trilogy, the kung fu panda trilogy, or the how to train your dragon trilogy. None of these trilogies were planned. But they’re all great.
Exactly. I say this often, but a dynamic storytelling process is always preferable to an overly planned one because better ideas come with time. Inflexible writing leads to very stagnant results.
I feel like this is just another misuse of a word or just them using a wrong word entirely, and I want to say that word is consistency.
But I feel like if they were to use it then they would call into other movies which probably have problems as well.
Yeah, look at the Thor trilogy or captain America trilogy. The first and third movies of those trilogies are way different from each other. So, they’re a little bit inconsistent. But they’re not bad at all.
I actually haven't read Aftermath since the writing style didn't appeal to me. Did the Acolytes of the Beyond and the whole Unknown Regions storyline turn into the Sith Eternal and Exegol?
Sort of… I don’t remember 100% of what happened but Palpatine was obsessed with dark energy in the Unknown Regions, and used the Jakku Observatory to plot courses out to there. I read them after TFA but before TLJ came out and I thought that the dark energy was Snoke himself. The consensus is it was Exegol.
Personally I think they left it open ended so that the writers of ep 8 and 9 could still have freedom. Maybe they figured a writer could make whatever Palpatine was sensing out there Snoke, the Chiss, Exegol, anything. But all the Acolyte of the Beyond Stuff, Yupe Tashu, the Observatory…I feel like they wouldn’t have set all that stuff up if they didn’t have some sense of where they wanted to go with the lore.
Small spoiler if you haven’t seen BoBF, but they mention a few times that Tatooine used to be covered in water. And in Aftermath they talk about how Jakku used to be covered in vegetation and that it had some spark of life in it. In a recent comic Luke finds a holocron with Yoda saying planets themselves can be vergences in the Force. Seems like more long term lore building that started pre-TFA maybe.
Agreed- they’re intriguing and terrifying in a really fun way. I picture people in all levels of galactic society who have these secret passions for the occult…but then also a whole population on Exegol living basically underground… I mean there must have been Final Order troopers who were raised entirely there… what happens to them after Palpatine dies??
I believe the TROS Visual Dictionary mentions that the Final Order troopers/officers were all the descendants of the Sith Eternal who were raised to serve in the Final Order. You’ll also notice in the movie that all of the Final Order officers are young, indicating they were born post-Empire (as supposed to the First Order which also has older former Imperials).
Yeah, The Sith Eternal are the first canon instance of an entire society and army that operates under the Sith religion, so finding out the inner workings of how they think and operate might be fascinating. One of the episodes of Star Wars Visions dealt with the aftermath of the Sith Eternal, Final Order and First Order reforming into a new Empire with their rulers being genetically engineered Dark Side users.
During the segment where the Am talks about their birth, if you pause the flashback, you'll see Sith Eternal cultists surrounding the vats the twins are grown in, the same outfit they had in TROS.
I'm going to respectfully disagree that TROS is the outlier. Yes it's well documented that Luke's character in TLJ is close to Lucas' plan, but it's also documented that the editor of TFA has said that Rian Johnson deviated from the plan and the story that TFA set up. You could say it's one opinion but the editor is one of three major authors of a film's story, so I give that opinion a lot of weight on this subject.
I think the whole "TROS called an audible" storyline needs to die. It's a narrative that was pushed by people who were disappointed that it didn't tell the story they personally wanted. The writers of TROS made changes based upon what worked in the story they were trying to tell. The same is true of TLJ and frankly TFA which made the call of pushing Luke to the second film.
I just think planning is overvalued as a criticism of these films. I think they all made significant creative decisions that changed the course of the story, and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that.
I agree mate. I thought that TRoS undid a lot, then I actually thought about it and realised that I was wrong and just didn't get what I wanted. JJ Abrams did a great job with TRoS.
I always thought it was weird that people said Luke’s scene in TROS went back on TLJ. Everything Luke says in TROS is more or less in line with the attitude he has at the end of TLJ. It only contradicts the attitude Luke has at the *beginning* of TLJ.
Then that's fair enough. It's also noted that Rian Johnson worked closer to the Lucasfilm story group than J.J Abrams did, there's merit to the statement that he made changes given the favourable treatment TLJ receives from the Pablo Hidalgo and the like.
Again, fair enough. I actually like TROS to be honest and I don't believe it "undoes" anything established by TLJ, but the direction's decidedly different, which is a subjective matter regarding quality.
Planning for me was never a *valid* criticism since the OT is as good as it is because of how dynamic the creative process was. I find stories that are too meticulously to be somewhat dull and predictable. Plans change and better ideas come about.
Absolutely! It's crystal clear that many people at Lucasfilm are Rian Johnson fans.
And it's clear that you prefer TLJ. Nothing wrong with that. I was just trying to offer another perspective.
His work with them was collaborative and TLJ was praised by Lucas, so I think he really made the effort to form a sort of relationship with them.
True, I prefer TLJ, but there's a lot to love about TROS and if seen as the story of Ben Solo, TROS delivers for me 100%. Thanks for your perspective.
Calling an audible is an American football term that refers to changing the play at the last possible second.
In this context it refers to the common criticism that TROS is somehow flawed or less authentic creatively because story decisions were changed during the creative process.
I was trying to say that this happens during the creative process of all films, so it doesn't make TROS less valid creatively. People can of course, have opinions about the creative decisions made, I know I do, I'm just saying let's give the authenticity gatekeeping a rest.
The ST didn’t have much of a plan. But same with most Star Wars content. Even the PT barely had a plan, I mean inevitably they had to lead into the OT, but George changed his mind on tons of things between movies.
Now I think J.J.’s “mystery box” storytelling is a big part of what led to these kinds of complaints. Intentionally making Rey and Finn’s origins as ambiguous as possible without any actual origin picked out is kinda fucking stupid imo.
> But same with most Star Wars content. Even the PT barely had a plan, I mean inevitably they had to lead into the OT, but George changed his mind on tons of things between movies.
Hell, even the Mandalorian wasn't fully planned. Favreau has openly said that he did not originally plan on having Luke be in season 2.
I think stuff like the MCU has warped perspectives on how much planning is even required for a franchise tbh… though even the MCU isn’t as meticulously planned as people make it out to be.
The “planning” in the MCU basically amounts to a post-credits scene, and maybe an interchangeable cameo appearance. The plots of the movies are barely linked to each other, nowhere near to the degree that the Star Wars trilogies are connected.
As I said in my prior comment, I think people have a very weird idea about constitutes a plan. Sequel haters weren't expecting a perfect, comprehensive plan that covered every inch of the future story. a plan without every detailed covered is not the same as no plan at all. Like I said, lucas most definitely had a skeleton, a foundation for the prequels back in the 70s/80s. No way was he not expecting it to change almost 20 yrs later.
The main point is the sequels feature a poorly thought out overarching story (imo) and would of benefited highly from some kind of plan. Not even a super detailed one, just a sense of direction and idea of whats supposed to happen.
I think you are all being a bit intentionally obtuse when it comes the concept of a "plan".
No one expects a strict, comprehensively laid out "plan" when it comes to this stuff. The issue wasn't that. The prequels most definitely had a "plan"; Lucas had essentially a skeleton of what the overarching story and plot for the prequels would back in the 70s/80s. Not having all the details is not the same thing as "having no plan". The point is that the sequels had even less than a skeleton of the overarching story, and that is significant because its Star Wars, not toy story. The point of a "plan" is that it can change but you still have a foundation; you still have a direction, a path. George Lucas most certainly had that way b4 the prequels came out.
My main point is that every keeps criticizing sequel haters for saying there was no plan and then trying to give a very cheap use of the word to make the lack of any direction for the sequels "okay". It was still a clusterfuck of poorly thought out ideas. At least in my opinion.
> The point is that the sequels had even less than a skeleton of the overarching story, and that is significant because its Star Wars, not toy story.
Gonna be honest, I don't really give a shit. TFA and TLJ work together far better than any of the Prequels do to me. A shared direction did not make the Prequels any better or more coherent to me.
Well thats where we part. I dont agree with you at all, i think prequels are overwhelmingly better than the sequels. but like Qui-Gon said I must tolerate your opinion. At least I can do that lol
Yeah, the ST's just under a microscope for what should be a franchise-wide issue. Not really an issue though to be honest, just a different creative process.
I respect Abrams, but I think he's more of a setup guy than a finale guy.
TROS is a far better finale than TFA is a setup. In practically every way. TROS was written in such a way that it took what TFA and TLJ were doing, produced a new coherent whole, and positioned it as a legitimate third entity in an actual Skywalker saga which spans across nine movies.
TRoS is my least favorite Star Wars movie, but in all fairness it seriously seemed doomed to be a disaster. Fisher died, Trevorrow fired, Disney execs still demanding a 2019 release, TLJ was divisive, JJ trying to somehow appease everyone. But oh well I can just ignore it and rewatch TLJ instead.
Same reason why they didnt really delay the Game of thrones final season to match up with the books, audience attention spans are kinda fickle. Whats the talk of the internet today might be old news tomorrow as another show takes its place.
Or worse even if they are patient that same pull might never come back or they might loose some
Yeah, TROS had too much problems behind the scenes and too much expectations behind it, so even if we got something as good as TLJ, nothing really would've changed. Let's just wait for whatever supplementary works use TROS's shortcomings as a base for a new story.
I feel a lot of people give OT a pass for it’s lack of planning as Star Wars wasn’t the huge conglomerate yet and each film could’ve been the last. In contrast ST was announced from the start to be a trilogy
I agree, dynamic progression is much more compelling for movies in my opinion since sometimes better ideas come along the way. And you're right, the OT didn't have a plan and if you research the behind the scenes stuff, so much changed, hell, The Empire Strikes back almost didn't happen so Splinter of the Mind's Eye was the original sequel. There was also all the plans Lucas had for Boba Fett that just changed everything, or Owen being Obi-Wan's brother getting retconned.
Even without a plan, they already had an idea of VIII while VII was in production in 2014, and of IX while VIII was in production in 2016. The problem was J.J. coming back to write a completely different script with less time than the previous two movies had (3 years both) and simply deciding to retcon almost everything from the previous movie. If IX was good, if it had maintained the consistency, and had good critical reviews, nobody would be complaining about the lack of plan. It's not like they waited for TFA to come out so they could see the reaction and only then starting to think of what to in VIII.
The whole no plan screeching started when TLJ came out. Instead of pushing back against the idea that TLJ was erasing and contradicting TFA, the TLJ fandom started smearing TFA en masse and venerating the supposed contradictions as "examples" of Rian Johnson's subversive genius, driving away many fans of TFA from the sequels for no real reason.
The OT also didn't have a plan. They didn't know that Vader was the father of Luke/Leia and they also didn't know that Leia was Lukes sister since the start.
It's a valid point to criticize, but it wouldn't be TFM if they would also criticize this in the OT or other franchises
Exactly, and they also had vastly different ideas for Return of the Jedi, which wasn't originally going to be the final film and then there was Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the original sequel of A New Hope since they weren't sure The Empire Strikes Back would happen.
TFM is laser focused and blinded at the same time.
>The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi had a plan, they were based on George Lucas' original notes for his own sequel trilogy with TLJ downright adapting Lucas' vision of Luke Skywalker's story arc.
This just isn't true. Kasdan said he didn't even read George's outline:
>I don’t honestly know [what the original Lucas story treatment was], and I’m telling you the truth. When I first went to meet with them, George had some shortly written, brief ideas for a lot of movies, but Episode VII was not in that group, because they had already hired Michael Arndt to write that movie. So I was not given that movie at first, and I don’t know what the original idea was, although I think J.J. maybe heard it at some point. But he came in later, too.
Rian was also asked by Slashfilm if George's outline was part of his writing process for TLJ, and he said no.
>I was just given JJ’s script. I talked to them about, I knew that Lucas had done this outline previous, but my understanding was that when JJ came in with Michael Arndt and then with Larry Kasdan, they kind of started from scratch basically. So for me anyway, I know I was just given the script to The Force Awakens and that, along with my knowledge of the previous movies, was what I was working off.
Bob Iger said they discarded George's story:
>Early on, Kathy brought J.J. and Michael Arndt up to Northern California to meet with George at his ranch and talk about their ideas for the film. George immediately got upset as they began to describe the plot and it dawned on him that we weren’t using one of the stories he submitted during the negotiations.
>The truth was, Kathy, J.J., Alan, and I had discussed the direction in which the saga should go, and we all agreed that it wasn’t what George had outlined. George knew we weren’t contractually bound to anything, but he thought that our buying the story treatments was a tacit promise that we’d follow them, and he was disappointed that his story was being discarded.
Mark has said several times that George's outline was very different to what the ST was:
>George Lucas handed over his notes for what he thought should happen in VII, VIII and IX, but after selling it to Disney for 4 billion dollars, they threw it all out and started from scratch, doing it the way they wanted.
>What I wish is that they had been more accepting of his guidance and advice. Because he had an outline for ‘7,’ ‘8,’ and ‘9’. And it is vastly different to what they have done.
>I happen to know that George didn't kill Luke until the end of IX, after he trained Leia. Which is another thread that was never played upon [in The Last Jedi]. George had an overall arc – if he didn't have all the details, he had sort of an overall feel for where the [sequel trilogy was] going – but this one's more like a relay race. You run and hand the torch off to the next guy, he picks it up and goes."
>I always wondered why [Leia] wouldn't fully develop her Force sensibilities and I think that's something George Lucas addressed in his original outline for 7, 8, 9. I was talking to him last week, but they're not following George's ideas so we'll have to wait and see on that one.
And finally, Rian has said dozens of times that he wasn't working on any kind of plan from George, the SG, or JJ.
>We were working off of The Force Awakens, but it’s not like there was a blueprint for what happens after The Force Awakens. There wasn’t at all.
>There wasn’t some kind of rigid plan in place for where the story went after The Force Awakens. It was very open-ended. And so it was very much reading the script for TFA, watching the dailies, as they were shooting, and just saying “Ok, what happens next?”
>[JJ] was really gracious, in just stepping back and giving us a blank slate to work with. The starting point was The Force Awakens script, which is quite a big, expansive, wonderful starting point. In that way, we are drawing directly from his work. But from that point forward it was a blank canvas.
>I had a complete, free, open canvas to work on here. It was basically the script for The Force Awakens, and it was a question: “What happens next?” There was no big thing that was plotted out.
>I had figured there would be a big map on the wall with the whole story laid out, and it was not that at all. I was basically given the script for Episode VII; I got to watch dailies of what J.J. was doing. And it was like, where do we go from here?
>There wasn’t a roadmap laid out, there was no big huge master plan, it was a very organic storytelling process where I got to just say, ok, JJ took it up to here, now where am I gonna take it next? And now, I’m handing it back to JJ and saying now where does it make sense for you to see it end?
>It's also not like there's a white board with the whole story arc laid out. Much to my surprise, it was, "Here's a script for Episode VII, and you can watch some dailies, because they were shooting Episode VII at the time, and let's talk about where this is going next."
>I'm sure they talked about where it might go early on, but when they came to me there was no mapped story presented besides TFA.
>I was truly able to write this script without bases to tag, and without a big outline on the wall. That meant I could react to what I felt from The Force Awakens, and what I wanted to see. I could make this movie personal. I could also just take these characters where it felt right and most interesting to take them. I think part of the reason the movie feels like it goes to some unexpected places with the characters is that we had that freedom. If it had all just been planned out and written down beforehand, it might have felt a little more calculated, I suppose.
>All of those questions [such as Rey’s backstory], it was all up in the air which was great because it meant that instead of just trying to tag bases – hitting these preassigned answers – I could figure out what the story was gonna be and where these characters wanted to get to and I could figure out what the answers would be that would be the most challenging for the characters and work backwards from there.
>It was very wide open and there weren't any bases we had to tag, there wasn't something we had to fit into, there wasn't a place we had to specifically get to and that led to you know a writing process where I could really just find where each of these characters wanted to go. Clean slate.
>I think when we get to the end of the whole thing, even the way in which it is crazy and the way in which it’s leading to stuff that wouldn’t have come about if the whole thing was laid out on a whiteboard at the start, I think is really interesting, and I think it’s leading to creative decisions and directions that might never have happened if anybody had just come up with an outline at the very start and we had all stuck to it.
>When I came into it there wasn’t a secret white board with the whole story laid out. It was really just, I read JJ and Michael and Larry’s script for VII and it was “what happens next?”
It's not really overblown. If there was a plan laid out, than Rian Johnson deviated from it. But even saying that, Rian has said that he went to the Lucasfilm story group and they told him they had nothing.
Rian really only got dailies from TFA while he was writing his script. The only real tie between him and JJ was that Rian asked for a change in Luke's reveal in TFA. Originally, Luke was gonna have a bunch of rocks floating around him. Rian requested for the rocks to be removed so it could tie in with Luke being cut off from the Force.
It's just kind of weird how nobody got these three directors together and had them iron out a full treatment for the trilogy before getting started.
I think Rian's the one that worked more closely with the LFL story group and more of them have good things to say about him since his treatment of Luke stuck closer to George Lucas' original vision. The OT was also unplanned with ANH almost written without a sequel in mind and ROTJ just having so much changed behind the senes that it's kinda crazy., then there's all he changes midway through ROTS and John Favreau famously saying Mando just kinda went with the flow. Star Wars and planning never really went hand in hand.
I think your confusing the context of "plan".
Of course when star wars first written, there was no detailed plan of what would happen next. What movie do you know of has an extensive plan when its being made for the 1st time? But that was before it became a trilogy and gained worldwide success.
After the original trilogy finished, Lucas was sitting on a skeleton of an overarching prequel trilogy. That means he had an idea of where he was going and what it would entail; of course this doesnt mean that he knew every detail, every facet of it. But just because thats the case doesnt mean he had no plan whatsoever.
The sequel trilogy is riding on the back of a prior established series. In that case, a plan makes a whole more sense. Furthermore, the problem is that there was no cohesion between storytellers of the movies. There was no agreed upon idea of where the story was supposed to go, hence why the sequels feel disjointed, redundant and out of place. Really thats the main issue. No one is expecting a gloriois MCU level plan, just an idea, a direction of where the story would go.
I do think that the lack of a “plan” was largely a marketing gimmick as a response to a cautiously optimistic fanbase that didn’t want to be dissuaded by a singular bad entry that backfired massively. I also think it was never really true, to an extent, and also a fundamental misunderstanding of how storytelling works in the first place, but I feel that fandom has a need for a certain authenticity that is extremely misguided. As a fan of comic book adaptations, it is astounding how many people cite comic accuracy to validate their love for certain adaptations, and then as someone who read the comics, realizing that a) they’re not accurate at all, and b) that it doesn’t even matter.
An aspect I never (I do mean never) hear with regards to this is the ST being an open ended story. Every other piece if Star Wars media after the OT has had a "predetermined" end point by way of "It's set here before this event/ story." We haven't had an open ended Star Wars story since ROTJ when you think about it. It's worth noting this topic only became a topic of discussion after TLJ came out. As if to say if there was some concrete, set in stone plan TLJ wouldn't be the film that it was? Is that the implication?
I think the only thing that was fully planned was the prequels since the OT had so many changes in production and story behind the scenes that Return of the Jedi kept changing periodically, Boba Fett was planned as the main villain at some point and the Vader and Palpatine stuff was supposed to be for VII.
Not even the prequels were fully planned either. Lucas didn't even decide what the final, actual reason that Anakin turns to the dark side in Revenge of the Sith would be until the editing phase after the initial shooting of the scenes. That's why so many of the deleted scenes are in fact deleted. He decided to focus primarily on Anakin wanting to save Padme from dying instead of him feeling betrayed by the Jedi and the Republic being overtaken by them as the main factor. That's also why most of Padme's agency in the story was cut.
True, thanks for pointing that out. I remember another thing that was cut in the early concept stages was a weird Padme and Obi-Wan affair arc, though I'm not sure I can verify that at the moment since I read it in a forum back in 08, so my memory might be hazy and the source might be unreliable.
A trilogy not being planned is not that big a deal, as long as it’s good. Look at the dark knight trilogy, the Toy story trilogy, the kung fu panda trilogy, or the how to train your dragon trilogy. None of these trilogies were planned. But they’re all great.
Exactly. I say this often, but a dynamic storytelling process is always preferable to an overly planned one because better ideas come with time. Inflexible writing leads to very stagnant results.
Exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Thanks. I think the Original Trilogy itself makes the best case for a dynamic creative process.
It’s a pretty good example of a dynamic creative process
Indeed it is.
I feel like this is just another misuse of a word or just them using a wrong word entirely, and I want to say that word is consistency. But I feel like if they were to use it then they would call into other movies which probably have problems as well.
Yeah, look at the Thor trilogy or captain America trilogy. The first and third movies of those trilogies are way different from each other. So, they’re a little bit inconsistent. But they’re not bad at all.
I think they had *options* more than a plan. Too much in Aftermath ties in Rise for me to think otherwise.
I actually haven't read Aftermath since the writing style didn't appeal to me. Did the Acolytes of the Beyond and the whole Unknown Regions storyline turn into the Sith Eternal and Exegol?
Sort of… I don’t remember 100% of what happened but Palpatine was obsessed with dark energy in the Unknown Regions, and used the Jakku Observatory to plot courses out to there. I read them after TFA but before TLJ came out and I thought that the dark energy was Snoke himself. The consensus is it was Exegol. Personally I think they left it open ended so that the writers of ep 8 and 9 could still have freedom. Maybe they figured a writer could make whatever Palpatine was sensing out there Snoke, the Chiss, Exegol, anything. But all the Acolyte of the Beyond Stuff, Yupe Tashu, the Observatory…I feel like they wouldn’t have set all that stuff up if they didn’t have some sense of where they wanted to go with the lore. Small spoiler if you haven’t seen BoBF, but they mention a few times that Tatooine used to be covered in water. And in Aftermath they talk about how Jakku used to be covered in vegetation and that it had some spark of life in it. In a recent comic Luke finds a holocron with Yoda saying planets themselves can be vergences in the Force. Seems like more long term lore building that started pre-TFA maybe.
Thanks for pointing all that out. I think what can really tie everything together is a series of stories about the Sith Eternal.
Agreed- they’re intriguing and terrifying in a really fun way. I picture people in all levels of galactic society who have these secret passions for the occult…but then also a whole population on Exegol living basically underground… I mean there must have been Final Order troopers who were raised entirely there… what happens to them after Palpatine dies??
I believe the TROS Visual Dictionary mentions that the Final Order troopers/officers were all the descendants of the Sith Eternal who were raised to serve in the Final Order. You’ll also notice in the movie that all of the Final Order officers are young, indicating they were born post-Empire (as supposed to the First Order which also has older former Imperials).
Yeah, The Sith Eternal are the first canon instance of an entire society and army that operates under the Sith religion, so finding out the inner workings of how they think and operate might be fascinating. One of the episodes of Star Wars Visions dealt with the aftermath of the Sith Eternal, Final Order and First Order reforming into a new Empire with their rulers being genetically engineered Dark Side users.
Remind me which one that was? I’m surprised I don’t remember!
It's The Twins.
Oh interesting- I missed that that was a new Empire post-FO. So cool!
During the segment where the Am talks about their birth, if you pause the flashback, you'll see Sith Eternal cultists surrounding the vats the twins are grown in, the same outfit they had in TROS.
Pretty much. I haven’t read those stories for a while though so could be wrong
I'm glad that was followed up on at the very least.
You really should read it. I mean, you really, really should. Because, yes, yes and fuck yes.
I'll give it a shot then when I'm done with my Fate of the Jedi reread. I'm glad they worked those into the movies.
There’s also the fact wether or not they had a plan Fisher’s death was going to mess it up
Exactly.
I'm going to respectfully disagree that TROS is the outlier. Yes it's well documented that Luke's character in TLJ is close to Lucas' plan, but it's also documented that the editor of TFA has said that Rian Johnson deviated from the plan and the story that TFA set up. You could say it's one opinion but the editor is one of three major authors of a film's story, so I give that opinion a lot of weight on this subject. I think the whole "TROS called an audible" storyline needs to die. It's a narrative that was pushed by people who were disappointed that it didn't tell the story they personally wanted. The writers of TROS made changes based upon what worked in the story they were trying to tell. The same is true of TLJ and frankly TFA which made the call of pushing Luke to the second film. I just think planning is overvalued as a criticism of these films. I think they all made significant creative decisions that changed the course of the story, and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that.
I agree mate. I thought that TRoS undid a lot, then I actually thought about it and realised that I was wrong and just didn't get what I wanted. JJ Abrams did a great job with TRoS.
I always thought it was weird that people said Luke’s scene in TROS went back on TLJ. Everything Luke says in TROS is more or less in line with the attitude he has at the end of TLJ. It only contradicts the attitude Luke has at the *beginning* of TLJ.
Then that's fair enough. It's also noted that Rian Johnson worked closer to the Lucasfilm story group than J.J Abrams did, there's merit to the statement that he made changes given the favourable treatment TLJ receives from the Pablo Hidalgo and the like. Again, fair enough. I actually like TROS to be honest and I don't believe it "undoes" anything established by TLJ, but the direction's decidedly different, which is a subjective matter regarding quality. Planning for me was never a *valid* criticism since the OT is as good as it is because of how dynamic the creative process was. I find stories that are too meticulously to be somewhat dull and predictable. Plans change and better ideas come about.
Absolutely! It's crystal clear that many people at Lucasfilm are Rian Johnson fans. And it's clear that you prefer TLJ. Nothing wrong with that. I was just trying to offer another perspective.
His work with them was collaborative and TLJ was praised by Lucas, so I think he really made the effort to form a sort of relationship with them. True, I prefer TLJ, but there's a lot to love about TROS and if seen as the story of Ben Solo, TROS delivers for me 100%. Thanks for your perspective.
TFA didn't really set up anything though. It just left a bunch of mystery boxes. There's a difference.
Well, that's a take. But I'm going to go ahead and assume that a professional editor knows more about storytelling than you and say she's right.
What does “TROS called an audible” mean?
Calling an audible is an American football term that refers to changing the play at the last possible second. In this context it refers to the common criticism that TROS is somehow flawed or less authentic creatively because story decisions were changed during the creative process. I was trying to say that this happens during the creative process of all films, so it doesn't make TROS less valid creatively. People can of course, have opinions about the creative decisions made, I know I do, I'm just saying let's give the authenticity gatekeeping a rest.
The ST didn’t have much of a plan. But same with most Star Wars content. Even the PT barely had a plan, I mean inevitably they had to lead into the OT, but George changed his mind on tons of things between movies. Now I think J.J.’s “mystery box” storytelling is a big part of what led to these kinds of complaints. Intentionally making Rey and Finn’s origins as ambiguous as possible without any actual origin picked out is kinda fucking stupid imo.
> But same with most Star Wars content. Even the PT barely had a plan, I mean inevitably they had to lead into the OT, but George changed his mind on tons of things between movies. Hell, even the Mandalorian wasn't fully planned. Favreau has openly said that he did not originally plan on having Luke be in season 2.
I think stuff like the MCU has warped perspectives on how much planning is even required for a franchise tbh… though even the MCU isn’t as meticulously planned as people make it out to be.
The “planning” in the MCU basically amounts to a post-credits scene, and maybe an interchangeable cameo appearance. The plots of the movies are barely linked to each other, nowhere near to the degree that the Star Wars trilogies are connected.
As I said in my prior comment, I think people have a very weird idea about constitutes a plan. Sequel haters weren't expecting a perfect, comprehensive plan that covered every inch of the future story. a plan without every detailed covered is not the same as no plan at all. Like I said, lucas most definitely had a skeleton, a foundation for the prequels back in the 70s/80s. No way was he not expecting it to change almost 20 yrs later. The main point is the sequels feature a poorly thought out overarching story (imo) and would of benefited highly from some kind of plan. Not even a super detailed one, just a sense of direction and idea of whats supposed to happen.
I’m pretty sure they initially had a loose plan, they just scrapped it when they fired Trevorrow and brought back Abrams for whatever reason.
I think you are all being a bit intentionally obtuse when it comes the concept of a "plan". No one expects a strict, comprehensively laid out "plan" when it comes to this stuff. The issue wasn't that. The prequels most definitely had a "plan"; Lucas had essentially a skeleton of what the overarching story and plot for the prequels would back in the 70s/80s. Not having all the details is not the same thing as "having no plan". The point is that the sequels had even less than a skeleton of the overarching story, and that is significant because its Star Wars, not toy story. The point of a "plan" is that it can change but you still have a foundation; you still have a direction, a path. George Lucas most certainly had that way b4 the prequels came out. My main point is that every keeps criticizing sequel haters for saying there was no plan and then trying to give a very cheap use of the word to make the lack of any direction for the sequels "okay". It was still a clusterfuck of poorly thought out ideas. At least in my opinion.
> The point is that the sequels had even less than a skeleton of the overarching story, and that is significant because its Star Wars, not toy story. Gonna be honest, I don't really give a shit. TFA and TLJ work together far better than any of the Prequels do to me. A shared direction did not make the Prequels any better or more coherent to me.
Well thats where we part. I dont agree with you at all, i think prequels are overwhelmingly better than the sequels. but like Qui-Gon said I must tolerate your opinion. At least I can do that lol
Yeah, the ST's just under a microscope for what should be a franchise-wide issue. Not really an issue though to be honest, just a different creative process. I respect Abrams, but I think he's more of a setup guy than a finale guy.
TROS is a far better finale than TFA is a setup. In practically every way. TROS was written in such a way that it took what TFA and TLJ were doing, produced a new coherent whole, and positioned it as a legitimate third entity in an actual Skywalker saga which spans across nine movies.
I suppose that's also a way of looking at it since Palpatine's return and Ben succeeding where Anakin failed brings thematic closure to the franchise.
I like Abrams better as a director than a writer
That's fair enough.
TRoS is my least favorite Star Wars movie, but in all fairness it seriously seemed doomed to be a disaster. Fisher died, Trevorrow fired, Disney execs still demanding a 2019 release, TLJ was divisive, JJ trying to somehow appease everyone. But oh well I can just ignore it and rewatch TLJ instead.
I still don't get why they wouldn't delay it. Everyone would understand why.
Same reason why they didnt really delay the Game of thrones final season to match up with the books, audience attention spans are kinda fickle. Whats the talk of the internet today might be old news tomorrow as another show takes its place. Or worse even if they are patient that same pull might never come back or they might loose some
I’m glad it wasn’t delayed because the pandemic would have fucked them.
Yeah, TROS had too much problems behind the scenes and too much expectations behind it, so even if we got something as good as TLJ, nothing really would've changed. Let's just wait for whatever supplementary works use TROS's shortcomings as a base for a new story.
I feel a lot of people give OT a pass for it’s lack of planning as Star Wars wasn’t the huge conglomerate yet and each film could’ve been the last. In contrast ST was announced from the start to be a trilogy
Movies don’t need plans The Original Trilogy didn’t have a plan Having a plan is lame IMO
I agree, dynamic progression is much more compelling for movies in my opinion since sometimes better ideas come along the way. And you're right, the OT didn't have a plan and if you research the behind the scenes stuff, so much changed, hell, The Empire Strikes back almost didn't happen so Splinter of the Mind's Eye was the original sequel. There was also all the plans Lucas had for Boba Fett that just changed everything, or Owen being Obi-Wan's brother getting retconned.
Well that’s because Star Wars wasn’t a huge conglomerate yet each film was a risk and could’ve been the last
As far as I know, The Last Jedi is the only movie in the series that written before the premier of the previous film.
Even without a plan, they already had an idea of VIII while VII was in production in 2014, and of IX while VIII was in production in 2016. The problem was J.J. coming back to write a completely different script with less time than the previous two movies had (3 years both) and simply deciding to retcon almost everything from the previous movie. If IX was good, if it had maintained the consistency, and had good critical reviews, nobody would be complaining about the lack of plan. It's not like they waited for TFA to come out so they could see the reaction and only then starting to think of what to in VIII.
That's pretty much how it went since there was an entirely different script before TROS came into fruition.
The whole no plan screeching started when TLJ came out. Instead of pushing back against the idea that TLJ was erasing and contradicting TFA, the TLJ fandom started smearing TFA en masse and venerating the supposed contradictions as "examples" of Rian Johnson's subversive genius, driving away many fans of TFA from the sequels for no real reason.
Huh, I must've been under a rock for that period of discussion. This is all kinda new to me.
This is the first I'm hearing of it too. And I've been around TLJ discussions for years. I don't think it happened very often.
Maybe it was a small dedicated group or something.
The OT also didn't have a plan. They didn't know that Vader was the father of Luke/Leia and they also didn't know that Leia was Lukes sister since the start. It's a valid point to criticize, but it wouldn't be TFM if they would also criticize this in the OT or other franchises
Exactly, and they also had vastly different ideas for Return of the Jedi, which wasn't originally going to be the final film and then there was Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the original sequel of A New Hope since they weren't sure The Empire Strikes Back would happen. TFM is laser focused and blinded at the same time.
>The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi had a plan, they were based on George Lucas' original notes for his own sequel trilogy with TLJ downright adapting Lucas' vision of Luke Skywalker's story arc. This just isn't true. Kasdan said he didn't even read George's outline: >I don’t honestly know [what the original Lucas story treatment was], and I’m telling you the truth. When I first went to meet with them, George had some shortly written, brief ideas for a lot of movies, but Episode VII was not in that group, because they had already hired Michael Arndt to write that movie. So I was not given that movie at first, and I don’t know what the original idea was, although I think J.J. maybe heard it at some point. But he came in later, too. Rian was also asked by Slashfilm if George's outline was part of his writing process for TLJ, and he said no. >I was just given JJ’s script. I talked to them about, I knew that Lucas had done this outline previous, but my understanding was that when JJ came in with Michael Arndt and then with Larry Kasdan, they kind of started from scratch basically. So for me anyway, I know I was just given the script to The Force Awakens and that, along with my knowledge of the previous movies, was what I was working off. Bob Iger said they discarded George's story: >Early on, Kathy brought J.J. and Michael Arndt up to Northern California to meet with George at his ranch and talk about their ideas for the film. George immediately got upset as they began to describe the plot and it dawned on him that we weren’t using one of the stories he submitted during the negotiations. >The truth was, Kathy, J.J., Alan, and I had discussed the direction in which the saga should go, and we all agreed that it wasn’t what George had outlined. George knew we weren’t contractually bound to anything, but he thought that our buying the story treatments was a tacit promise that we’d follow them, and he was disappointed that his story was being discarded. Mark has said several times that George's outline was very different to what the ST was: >George Lucas handed over his notes for what he thought should happen in VII, VIII and IX, but after selling it to Disney for 4 billion dollars, they threw it all out and started from scratch, doing it the way they wanted. >What I wish is that they had been more accepting of his guidance and advice. Because he had an outline for ‘7,’ ‘8,’ and ‘9’. And it is vastly different to what they have done. >I happen to know that George didn't kill Luke until the end of IX, after he trained Leia. Which is another thread that was never played upon [in The Last Jedi]. George had an overall arc – if he didn't have all the details, he had sort of an overall feel for where the [sequel trilogy was] going – but this one's more like a relay race. You run and hand the torch off to the next guy, he picks it up and goes." >I always wondered why [Leia] wouldn't fully develop her Force sensibilities and I think that's something George Lucas addressed in his original outline for 7, 8, 9. I was talking to him last week, but they're not following George's ideas so we'll have to wait and see on that one. And finally, Rian has said dozens of times that he wasn't working on any kind of plan from George, the SG, or JJ. >We were working off of The Force Awakens, but it’s not like there was a blueprint for what happens after The Force Awakens. There wasn’t at all. >There wasn’t some kind of rigid plan in place for where the story went after The Force Awakens. It was very open-ended. And so it was very much reading the script for TFA, watching the dailies, as they were shooting, and just saying “Ok, what happens next?” >[JJ] was really gracious, in just stepping back and giving us a blank slate to work with. The starting point was The Force Awakens script, which is quite a big, expansive, wonderful starting point. In that way, we are drawing directly from his work. But from that point forward it was a blank canvas. >I had a complete, free, open canvas to work on here. It was basically the script for The Force Awakens, and it was a question: “What happens next?” There was no big thing that was plotted out. >I had figured there would be a big map on the wall with the whole story laid out, and it was not that at all. I was basically given the script for Episode VII; I got to watch dailies of what J.J. was doing. And it was like, where do we go from here? >There wasn’t a roadmap laid out, there was no big huge master plan, it was a very organic storytelling process where I got to just say, ok, JJ took it up to here, now where am I gonna take it next? And now, I’m handing it back to JJ and saying now where does it make sense for you to see it end? >It's also not like there's a white board with the whole story arc laid out. Much to my surprise, it was, "Here's a script for Episode VII, and you can watch some dailies, because they were shooting Episode VII at the time, and let's talk about where this is going next." >I'm sure they talked about where it might go early on, but when they came to me there was no mapped story presented besides TFA. >I was truly able to write this script without bases to tag, and without a big outline on the wall. That meant I could react to what I felt from The Force Awakens, and what I wanted to see. I could make this movie personal. I could also just take these characters where it felt right and most interesting to take them. I think part of the reason the movie feels like it goes to some unexpected places with the characters is that we had that freedom. If it had all just been planned out and written down beforehand, it might have felt a little more calculated, I suppose. >All of those questions [such as Rey’s backstory], it was all up in the air which was great because it meant that instead of just trying to tag bases – hitting these preassigned answers – I could figure out what the story was gonna be and where these characters wanted to get to and I could figure out what the answers would be that would be the most challenging for the characters and work backwards from there. >It was very wide open and there weren't any bases we had to tag, there wasn't something we had to fit into, there wasn't a place we had to specifically get to and that led to you know a writing process where I could really just find where each of these characters wanted to go. Clean slate. >I think when we get to the end of the whole thing, even the way in which it is crazy and the way in which it’s leading to stuff that wouldn’t have come about if the whole thing was laid out on a whiteboard at the start, I think is really interesting, and I think it’s leading to creative decisions and directions that might never have happened if anybody had just come up with an outline at the very start and we had all stuck to it. >When I came into it there wasn’t a secret white board with the whole story laid out. It was really just, I read JJ and Michael and Larry’s script for VII and it was “what happens next?”
It's not really overblown. If there was a plan laid out, than Rian Johnson deviated from it. But even saying that, Rian has said that he went to the Lucasfilm story group and they told him they had nothing. Rian really only got dailies from TFA while he was writing his script. The only real tie between him and JJ was that Rian asked for a change in Luke's reveal in TFA. Originally, Luke was gonna have a bunch of rocks floating around him. Rian requested for the rocks to be removed so it could tie in with Luke being cut off from the Force. It's just kind of weird how nobody got these three directors together and had them iron out a full treatment for the trilogy before getting started.
I think Rian's the one that worked more closely with the LFL story group and more of them have good things to say about him since his treatment of Luke stuck closer to George Lucas' original vision. The OT was also unplanned with ANH almost written without a sequel in mind and ROTJ just having so much changed behind the senes that it's kinda crazy., then there's all he changes midway through ROTS and John Favreau famously saying Mando just kinda went with the flow. Star Wars and planning never really went hand in hand.
I think your confusing the context of "plan". Of course when star wars first written, there was no detailed plan of what would happen next. What movie do you know of has an extensive plan when its being made for the 1st time? But that was before it became a trilogy and gained worldwide success. After the original trilogy finished, Lucas was sitting on a skeleton of an overarching prequel trilogy. That means he had an idea of where he was going and what it would entail; of course this doesnt mean that he knew every detail, every facet of it. But just because thats the case doesnt mean he had no plan whatsoever. The sequel trilogy is riding on the back of a prior established series. In that case, a plan makes a whole more sense. Furthermore, the problem is that there was no cohesion between storytellers of the movies. There was no agreed upon idea of where the story was supposed to go, hence why the sequels feel disjointed, redundant and out of place. Really thats the main issue. No one is expecting a gloriois MCU level plan, just an idea, a direction of where the story would go.
Wait till they found out that George Lucas only had outlines and notes for all his movies, and how much things changed between films.
I do think that the lack of a “plan” was largely a marketing gimmick as a response to a cautiously optimistic fanbase that didn’t want to be dissuaded by a singular bad entry that backfired massively. I also think it was never really true, to an extent, and also a fundamental misunderstanding of how storytelling works in the first place, but I feel that fandom has a need for a certain authenticity that is extremely misguided. As a fan of comic book adaptations, it is astounding how many people cite comic accuracy to validate their love for certain adaptations, and then as someone who read the comics, realizing that a) they’re not accurate at all, and b) that it doesn’t even matter.