JJ Abrams: Lack of plan in Star Wars’ latest trilogy was a “critical” flaw

Hindsight is 20/20: "There's nothing more important than knowing where you're going."

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[The Real Blastdoor]

Babylon 5 showed the right way to do this: a 5-year plan, revised as needed to deal with events like Michael O'Hare's mental illness. Foreshadowing that actually applies to future events because those future events are already known.

Unambiguously correct, you are. B5 was stellar.

One confession for me about ep 9, though -- I'm glad they brought Palpatine back. Yes, I understand it seemed absurd and desperate. But here's why I liked it:

1. Palpatine was an EXCELLENT villain. I remember watching Return of the Jedi as a 10 year old and being absolutely terrified by that character. And he's every bit as good in ep 9 (if you just focus on him)

2. It's not like they had any better ideas (apparently)

3. while it *seems* absurd, is it really? It *seems* absurd that Donald Trump would have ever been elected president. It *seems* absurd that he's lurking in the background, contemplating a return. It seems absurd that the return could happen. It seem absurd that a century and a half after the Civil War, we had some Reb carrying a confederate battle flag through the capitol. My point is --- life is absurd and evil doesn't go away no matter how many times you think you've defeated it. Palpatine is never dead, just reincarnated. It's stupid, but it's actually realistic.

 

[neil_w]

No shit Sherlock. I mean, really.

I enjoyed the trilogy but the whipsawing back and forth between the conflicting visions of the two directors was nuts, and really detracted. Oh, and the fact that Abrams' two installments lifted so many elements *directly* from the corresponding parts of the original trilogy.

 

[Geebs]

i am in the Filoni camp. despite the MCU being a success , I do not think putting them in charge would be a good fit

Just as an aside, I wasn't trying to claim that Feige should be in charge of Star Wars, but that Disney had a perfect example of *how* to run things sitting right there, and didn't bother to copy that plan.

Honestly, I'm starting to think Filoni should be the Feige of Star Wars. I think he could pull it off.

If by ‘it’ you mean all Ahsoka, all the time…..yes. I hear her next set of lightsabers are going to be even more incredibly super special than the last ones.

 

[Bongle]

Count me in as another TLJ fan. Could've done without the casino side-plot that added tons of runtime without much plot impact, but I liked that it wasn't just Ep4 again. Definitely my favourite of the three, but TFA was good too, in the "well-done remake of Ep4, which I liked the first time" sense.

 

[Defenestrar]

I always have a plan. A written one even. I keep it with me at all times as a folded up bit of post it note where "PLN" is written down. So, it's not a very good plan, but I've always got one.

PS - I think I probably got the idea from one of Pratchett's books. But I can't remember anymore.

 

[heartburnkid]

Babylon 5 showed the right way to do this: a 5-year plan, revised as needed to deal with events like Michael O'Hare's mental illness. Foreshadowing that actually applies to future events because those future events are already known.

Unambiguously correct, you are. B5 was stellar.

One confession for me about ep 9, though -- I'm glad they brought Palpatine back. Yes, I understand it seemed absurd and desperate. But here's why I liked it:

1. Palpatine was an EXCELLENT villain. I remember watching Return of the Jedi as a 10 year old and being absolutely terrified by that character. And he's every bit as good in ep 9 (if you just focus on him)

2. It's not like they had any better ideas (apparently)

3. while it *seems* absurd, is it really? It *seems* absurd that Donald Trump would have ever been elected president. It *seems* absurd that he's lurking in the background, contemplating a return. It seems absurd that the return could happen. It seem absurd that a century and a half after the Civil War, we had some Reb carrying a confederate battle flag through the capitol. My point is --- life is absurd and evil doesn't go away no matter how many times you think you've defeated it. Palpatine is never dead, just reincarnated. It's stupid, but it's actually realistic.

I'm not 100% against the idea of bringing Palpatine back. I think there are ways it could have been done well.

Doing it offscreen was *not* one of those ways.

 

[Eurynom0s]

Strongly agree re: Babylon 5. Creator Joe Straczynski knew that "life happens" and so had several kinds of plans available if an actor had to leave the production for some reason (which happened with two of them!) Plus his laying the story groundwork well in advance gave him a way to stay close to his original vision even through such disruptions.

Babylon 5 showed the right way to do this: a 5-year plan, revised as needed to deal with events like Michael O'Hare's mental illness. Foreshadowing that actually applies to future events because those future events are already known.

Lost and other JJ-stuff showed the wrong way to do it: let's make it up as we go, and throw in random foreshadowing that we have no plan to follow up on later.

Stargate SG-1 was in between and still very good. They made up a lot as they went, but they had very strong continuity where past events, characters, and alien technology were not forgotten as soon as that episode was over.

He was a student of Harlan Ellison school of writing ... I remember reading about Harlan Ellison writing a story while he worked in some shop, and would paste a page from that story on shop's window for people to read as they pass by. This way if he has a change in mind he can't just go back to past pages and rewrite, instead he has to adapt to what was already written. JMS was a master at that, and frankly, not knowing of why Michael O'Hare left, I thought Sheridan arc was intentional.

For SW ... I thought 7th episode was really well done, had fantastic actors and characters, practical effects, great ship designs (loved their updated TIE fighters), but I just hated the rehashed, nonsensical plot. I was still hopeful that once they move forward, the followup movies would be great. Boy, was I wrong, the Last Jedi was a dumpster fire that I can't even put into coherent words. RoS was not much better. I think the issue there wasn't just lack of planning, but also lack of respect for source material, lack of respect for actors and their skills, and plain arrogance of the studio and the writers/directors. And while I thought episodes 1-3 were not very good, much of the fault was stilted dialogue, lack of chemistry between actors, and some plot elements, but overall the story felt at least cohesive within SW universe. 8 and 9 just feel like a bad fanfic.

What they wound up doing with Sinclair actually helps give an in-universe justification for O'Hare's rather wooden acting in the first season, you'd be pretty stiff too having to walk around keeping that gigantic secret and not being able to confide in ANYONE about it.

Also we're lucky insofar as he was already starting to deal with his schizophrenia during the season 1 filming but agreed to stay until the end of the season in order to not leave the production in the lurch. Must have been brutal for him to be on set with all those people in heavy alien makeup while that was starting and is probably the primary actual reason for the stiff acting, he wa probably super uncomfortable on set a lot of the time.

 

[Defenestrar]

Babylon 5 showed the right way to do this: a 5-year plan, revised as needed to deal with events like Michael O'Hare's mental illness. Foreshadowing that actually applies to future events because those future events are already known.

Unambiguously correct, you are. B5 was stellar.

One confession for me about ep 9, though -- I'm glad they brought Palpatine back. Yes, I understand it seemed absurd and desperate. But here's why I liked it:

1. Palpatine was an EXCELLENT villain. I remember watching Return of the Jedi as a 10 year old and being absolutely terrified by that character. And he's every bit as good in ep 9 (if you just focus on him)

2. It's not like they had any better ideas (apparently)

3. while it *seems* absurd, is it really? It *seems* absurd that Donald Trump would have ever been elected president. It *seems* absurd that he's lurking in the background, contemplating a return. It seems absurd that the return could happen. It seem absurd that a century and a half after the Civil War, we had some Reb carrying a confederate battle flag through the capitol. My point is --- life is absurd and evil doesn't go away no matter how many times you think you've defeated it. Palpatine is never dead, just reincarnated. It's stupid, but it's actually realistic.

I always figured it was a nod to the (now not cannon) books.

 

[pjcamp]

Putting J. J Abrams in charge is the critical flaw. He should have learned this lesson years ago from Lost.

 

[JohnCarter17]

Related question: am I the only person with Internet access that really liked Last Jedi? The first half was dull, but the battle on the salt plains was easily one of the best settings & action sequences they had, and after 7 just being a rehash of 4, I loved Kylo's "Your parents weren't anybody special from the original trilogy. Let's quit refighting these boomers' battles over and over again and do something different" speech. But I honestly don't know if I've ever read a kind word online about it.

No, a lot of people loved it. I love it because RJ took a huge steaming dump on Jar-Jar Abrams' plot points, gave us some of the best Luke scenes ever and Mark Hamill got a fitting end for his character.

 

[Pueo]

Abrams had a plan of sorts, and it was pretty evident from how TFA set it up that there was a direction the story was headed. Rian Johnson flushed it down the toilet when he was allowed to do whatever the hell he wanted with no real supervision. So don't dish on RoS for jettisoning TLJ's setups, because TLJ did the exact same thing to TFA.

Johnson is an amazing writer and director when he's unrestrained, but Star Wars is itself a form of restraint. He couldn't play within the rules, and the result was an unfixable disaster. There's only one true error involved here, and that's Kathleen Kennedy's failure to get one person (or one team) to write the whole trilogy start to finish.

Keep in mind, Abrams wasn't originally going to direct Episode 9, either; that was supposed to be Colin Trevorrow. JJ set up those hooks with no real plans to follow up on them, and what Rian did with them was as valid as anything else at the time.

Definitely agree that there should have been a clearer vision across the trilogy. Whether that meant a single director for all three movies, or a Feige-esque Executive Producer guiding the overarching story, somebody should have been making sure everything happened for a reason.

I'm coming to think that maybe the three director method could have worked, and that the big issue was the whiplash back to the JJ for the third movie. A lot of the problems with TROS came from the way it tried to bend back and twist the answers TLJ gave to some of the questions posed by TFA, and I think that's because JJ Abrams had at least some idea of what he wanted the answers to be when he posed the mystery. I'd imagine it would be really difficult to avoid that impulse after mentally plotting things out to begin with. I think if we had someone else direct the third movie we would have seen three self-coherent movies that used the previous movie as a jumping off point, even if they felt slightly disjointed because of their focus on different themes.

 

[Ushio]

The failure of the Star Wars trilogy to not have one overarching plan with one person in charge of everything is especially egregious when, right across the hallway of The Mouse, you have the door labeled "Kevin Feige, King of the MCU".

The irony is that while the Star Wars films have been bad, the TV shows have been absolutely solid. Even outside the Mandalorian, the Clone Wars/Rebels/Bad Batch have all been quite enjoyable while never losing sight of the overarching plot. Maybe they should put Filoni in charge, since he seems to have half a clue how to connect multiple narratives.

Does Resistance land in that "absolutely solid" category, too?

Resistance has some good stuff and a lot of rubbish but that's true of all TV shows where the story is made to fit a set number of episodes of a set length compared to streaming where all episodes can be different lengths.

Resistance does the lead well in the last seasons final battle where it shows sure he's not really a racer or a mechanic (at least in season 1 but he learns) but as a fighter pilot as part of a squadron he knows what he is doing and does so.

Besides Resistance is better than the sequel trilogy by a lot.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

I didn't hate the movies like some people. I have my issues, but they don't fill me with seething rage or anything.

But damn, whoever was involved with "let's make a trilogy but make up each film as we go along" were idiots. There's no sugar coating it, not pre-writing out AT LEAST the framework for the whole trilogy ahead of time is inexcusable.

And it explains so much that we already basically knew, but is nice to get closure on confirming at least.

No seething irrational rage either, but it remains: Ep 9 is the only one I’ve only seen once.

 

[jbode]

Would have also helped to have the same director across all the films

That really depends on the director. Empire is the pinnacle of the franchise, and I'll argue it's because Lucas did not direct or write the screenplay for it.

Yeah, the best way to have a consistent vision across multiple films is to have the same director and screenwriter(s), but ya kinda have to have the vision to begin with. Had there been a plan, any plan, that both Abrams and Johnson were working towards, then the third trilogy wouldn't have been so uneven. May not have been any better, but at least it wouldn't have felt so slapdash.

JJ and Lucas fall into the same bucket - they have great ideas, their visual sense is top-notch, but they should not be in charge of the final product.

 

[Pig Dog Bay]

Babylon 5 showed the right way to do this: a 5-year plan, revised as needed to deal with events like Michael O'Hare's mental illness. Foreshadowing that actually applies to future events because those future events are already known.

The Real Ghostbusters cartoon popped on my youtube feed recently, watching the Sandman episode I noticed that it was written my J. Michael Straczynski. A great cartoon, well written and even the kids loved it.

 

[Sonio]

Related question: am I the only person with Internet access that really liked Last Jedi? The first half was dull, but the battle on the salt plains was easily one of the best settings & action sequences they had, and after 7 just being a rehash of 4, I loved Kylo's "Your parents weren't anybody special from the original trilogy. Let's quit refighting these boomers' battles over and over again and do something different" speech. But I honestly don't know if I've ever read a kind word online about it.

TLJ is the second best Star Wars film behind ESB. I’ve heard all the criticism of it, but frankly none of it makes any ounce of sense to me.

As has been stated, the biggest problem the trilogy had, was no advanced planning. The second biggest problem, and no one seems to talk about this, is that by ending TFA on the Luke cliffhanger, Rian had to set his movie literally days after TFA, which already limits the available character development.

Consider that in each of the previous trilogies, years passed between the first two installments. When the first two thirds of your trilogy span days, you need to try to jam years’ worth of character development and story progression into your final movie — otherwise, the First Order comes across as nothing more than a short-lived nuisance, rather than a persistent threat, like the Sith or the Empire.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Related question: am I the only person with Internet access that really liked Last Jedi? The first half was dull, but the battle on the salt plains was easily one of the best settings & action sequences they had, and after 7 just being a rehash of 4, I loved Kylo's "Your parents weren't anybody special from the original trilogy. Let's quit refighting these boomers' battles over and over again and do something different" speech. But I honestly don't know if I've ever read a kind word online about it.

Not at all. It was...different. Even weird at some points.

But enjoyable.

 

[firsttimecaller]

JJ was a problem sure, but there was also a rush to hit a deadline from a marketing standpoint that should take some of the blame. with that it would have been a dice roll for anyone directing.

 

[Tridus]

It wasn't just Abrams in this case, though. Ep 8 took what 7 set up and totally abandoned it. 9 then took what 8 set up and totally abandoned it. The movies do not work together at all, and the whole thing feels like conflicting interests competing against each other rather than anything with a unified plan.

Him admitting there was no plan is kind of a "well duh" revelation since it was obvious all along there was no plan, especially compared to the MCU (which even if a movie comes out that is bad, it doesn't work to undermine the other movies).

In this sense the prequels actually are better: they have all kinds of issues with writing and plot, but all three of them form pieces of a coherent narrative. They all try to work towards the same goal. The sequels don't even try to do that.

 

[heartburnkid]

I didn't hate the movies like some people. I have my issues, but they don't fill me with seething rage or anything.

But damn, whoever was involved with "let's make a trilogy but make up each film as we go along" were idiots. There's no sugar coating it, not pre-writing out AT LEAST the framework for the whole trilogy ahead of time is inexcusable.

And it explains so much that we already basically knew, but is nice to get closure on confirming at least.

No seething irrational rage either, but it remains: Ep 9 is the only one I’ve only seen once.

I usually come out of a movie theater having enjoyed what I just watched. Usually, I'm just happy to go along with the ride while I'm viewing, and my critical brain doesn't kick in until afterwards, when I've had a chance to ponder the movie and possibly talk about it with other people.

Episode 9 was one of the very few times I came out of a theater hating the movie.

 

[Ushio]

Babylon 5 showed the right way to do this: a 5-year plan, revised as needed to deal with events like Michael O'Hare's mental illness. Foreshadowing that actually applies to future events because those future events are already known.

Unambiguously correct, you are. B5 was stellar.

One confession for me about ep 9, though -- I'm glad they brought Palpatine back. Yes, I understand it seemed absurd and desperate. But here's why I liked it:

1. Palpatine was an EXCELLENT villain. I remember watching Return of the Jedi as a 10 year old and being absolutely terrified by that character. And he's every bit as good in ep 9 (if you just focus on him)

2. It's not like they had any better ideas (apparently)

3. while it *seems* absurd, is it really? It *seems* absurd that Donald Trump would have ever been elected president. It *seems* absurd that he's lurking in the background, contemplating a return. It seems absurd that the return could happen. It seem absurd that a century and a half after the Civil War, we had some Reb carrying a confederate battle flag through the capitol. My point is --- life is absurd and evil doesn't go away no matter how many times you think you've defeated it. Palpatine is never dead, just reincarnated. It's stupid, but it's actually realistic.

If Trump does run in 2024 and wins we are all blaming you for it!

 

[dr_lha]

Related question: am I the only person with Internet access that really liked Last Jedi? The first half was dull, but the battle on the salt plains was easily one of the best settings & action sequences they had, and after 7 just being a rehash of 4, I loved Kylo's "Your parents weren't anybody special from the original trilogy. Let's quit refighting these boomers' battles over and over again and do something different" speech. But I honestly don't know if I've ever read a kind word online about it.

I feel the same way. Last Jedi is my favorite Disney Star Wars after Rogue One. Rian was clearly trying to fix what JJ did wrong. For example, Snoke was clearly just a boring rehash of the emperor from the original trilogy, RJ's fix: kill him. It was brilliant, the lead characters don't need an extraneous overlord bad guy, they are the main characters.

ROS would have been so much more interesting if it were about the young people, but no, JJ needed his Emperor, so now Snoke is dead, he brought back the actual Emperor! Kind of ridiculous when you think of it. I'd have loved to see a proper sequel of TLJ. ROS was acted as if TLJ didn't even happen, barring having Rose Tico on screen for 10 seconds. It also just rehashed the end of Jedi, except with a gross kiss.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Related question: am I the only person with Internet access that really liked Last Jedi? The first half was dull, but the battle on the salt plains was easily one of the best settings & action sequences they had, and after 7 just being a rehash of 4, I loved Kylo's "Your parents weren't anybody special from the original trilogy. Let's quit refighting these boomers' battles over and over again and do something different" speech. But I honestly don't know if I've ever read a kind word online about it.

TLJ is the second best Star Wars film behind ESB. I’ve heard all the criticism of it, but frankly none of it makes any ounce of sense to me.

As has been stated, the biggest problem the trilogy had, was no advanced planning. The second biggest problem, and no one seems to talk about this, is that by ending TFA on the Luke cliffhanger, Rian had to set his movie literally days after TFA, which already limits the available character development.

Consider that in each of the previous trilogies, years passed between the first two installments. When the first two thirds of your trilogy span days, you need to try to jam years’ worth of character development and story progression into your final movie — otherwise, the First Order comes across as nothing more than a short-lived nuisance, rather than a persistent threat, like the Sith or the Empire.

I think Rian is just a stronger story-teller than JJ is. That’s no disrespect to JJ...he’s tale ted in his own ways.

But seriously, could you see JJ writing, casting and directing Knives Out? It’d be a completely different film.

 

[Deleted member 92645]

I wish I could learn valuable life lessons by experimenting with other's franchises and money, while getting paid to do it too.

Afterall, it seems that the plan was failing upward.

 

[Tridus]

Related question: am I the only person with Internet access that really liked Last Jedi? The first half was dull, but the battle on the salt plains was easily one of the best settings & action sequences they had, and after 7 just being a rehash of 4, I loved Kylo's "Your parents weren't anybody special from the original trilogy. Let's quit refighting these boomers' battles over and over again and do something different" speech. But I honestly don't know if I've ever read a kind word online about it.

TLJ is the second best Star Wars film behind ESB. I’ve heard all the criticism of it, but frankly none of it makes any ounce of sense to me.

It doesn't make sense to you that Finn's role in most of the movie was utterly pointless and in no way affected how the plot went? Or that he would do things as absurd as "lets go on a covert mission, and we'll start it by parking in a no parking zone so we get arrested"?

I mean, I find that so mind numbingly dumb that I can't believe Finn would do it, because Finn in 7 is not a totally incompetent buffoon. Most of the movies does Finn and Rose dirty with an abysmal plot, then tries to redeem them at the end.

Honestly the only parts of 8 I liked where when Rey and Kylo were on screen. Those two were gold together. The rest of it was awful.

 

[Nifty'sPapa]

Elephant and Piggie taught my daughter of the importance of having a plan and sticking to it.

Umbrellas, umbrellas, umbrelly, umbrellas...

 

[Deleted member 174040]

It doesn't make sense to you that Finn's role in most of the movie was utterly pointless and in no way affected how the plot went? Or that he would do things as absurd as "lets go on a covert mission, and we'll start it by parking in a no parking zone so we get arrested"?

These are Reddit derived talking points. There’s an entire “opposition research” canon they’ve developed over there.

Just don’t feed...

 

[Celery Man]

Thank you JJ for confirming what we all know - Hollywood is full of incompetent morons.

 

[neeksgeek]

Having a plan is why The Expanse can show Holden fiddling with his XO pin from the Canterbury *two seasons* past the day he received that pin. The characters have history. It’s a story, not a spectacle.

 

[ReedmanBassoon]

When Episode VII was given the green light, Disney should have offered Lawrence Kasdan any amount of money he wanted to work on all three final scripts.

 

[dr_lha]

Having a plan is why The Expanse can show Holden fiddling with his XO pin from the Canterbury *two seasons* past the day he received that pin. The characters have history. It’s a story, not a spectacle.

He remembered the Cant?

 

[Disconnected Gamer]

Related question: am I the only person with Internet access that really liked Last Jedi? The first half was dull, but the battle on the salt plains was easily one of the best settings & action sequences they had, and after 7 just being a rehash of 4, I loved Kylo's "Your parents weren't anybody special from the original trilogy. Let's quit refighting these boomers' battles over and over again and do something different" speech. But I honestly don't know if I've ever read a kind word online about it.

I liked it, a lot. Had some red herring moments (the whole casino thing) and some bits that were logically had to manage (taking out the enemy fleet with a hyper jump), but the salt plains was awesome as were many other points.

It was nice to see that the Good guys make massive mistakes driven by hubris and poor comminication, and paying the very high price for it.

 

[countrygolden]

It's incredibly clear by now that Abrams shouldn't be working on things that aren't stand alone stories. But I'm more amazed that Disney, which is pretty much an IP management company at this point, let such a obvious fuck up happen with those movies.

 

[jonah]

Related question: am I the only person with Internet access that really liked Last Jedi? The first half was dull, but the battle on the salt plains was easily one of the best settings & action sequences they had, and after 7 just being a rehash of 4, I loved Kylo's "Your parents weren't anybody special from the original trilogy. Let's quit refighting these boomers' battles over and over again and do something different" speech. But I honestly don't know if I've ever read a kind word online about it.

I feel the same way. Last Jedi is my favorite Disney Star Wars after Rogue One. Rian was clearly trying to fix what JJ did wrong. For example, Snoke was clearly just a boring rehash of the emperor from the original trilogy, RJ's fix: kill him. It was brilliant, the lead characters don't need an extraneous overlord bad guy, they are the main characters.

ROS would have been so much more interesting if it were about the young people, but no, JJ needed his Emperor, so now Snoke is dead, he brought back the actual Emperor! Kind of ridiculous when you think of it. I'd have loved to see a proper sequel of TLJ. ROS was acted as if TLJ didn't even happen, barring having Rose Tico on screen for 10 seconds. It also just rehashed the end of Jedi, except with a gross kiss.

The Snoke thing was basically the only good part of TLJ. I liked that part. It set Kylo up to be a great villain - the villain we all wanted for Ep 9. Instead we got some bullshit emperor clone thing and a whole lot of stupid fetch questing.

Every other element of TLJ sucked. Luke sucked. Finn sucked. Poe sucked. The space battles (aside from one good 2m sequence with Poe's fighter at the beginning) sucked. Holdo and Leia really sucked.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

I'm looking forward to all the new Star Wars TV. It's everything that the films were missing. And again, I didn't hate them, I like a lot about them, but putting people who are actual serious fans of Star Wars in charge with a plan and consistency of vision is clearly the superior approach.

So...are you optimistic about Rogue Squadron?

https://ew.com/movies/patty-jenkins-sta ... -squadron/

 

[Pueo]

Babylon 5 showed the right way to do this: a 5-year plan, revised as needed to deal with events like Michael O'Hare's mental illness. Foreshadowing that actually applies to future events because those future events are already known.

Unambiguously correct, you are. B5 was stellar.

One confession for me about ep 9, though -- I'm glad they brought Palpatine back. Yes, I understand it seemed absurd and desperate. But here's why I liked it:

1. Palpatine was an EXCELLENT villain. I remember watching Return of the Jedi as a 10 year old and being absolutely terrified by that character. And he's every bit as good in ep 9 (if you just focus on him)

2. It's not like they had any better ideas (apparently)

3. while it *seems* absurd, is it really? It *seems* absurd that Donald Trump would have ever been elected president. It *seems* absurd that he's lurking in the background, contemplating a return. It seems absurd that the return could happen. It seem absurd that a century and a half after the Civil War, we had some Reb carrying a confederate battle flag through the capitol. My point is --- life is absurd and evil doesn't go away no matter how many times you think you've defeated it. Palpatine is never dead, just reincarnated. It's stupid, but it's actually realistic.

I'm not 100% against the idea of bringing Palpatine back. I think there are ways it could have been done well.

Doing it offscreen was *not* one of those ways.

I think Palpatine as a malevolent Sith ghost that either Rey, a dark side Kylo Ren, or Hux interact with partway through episode 9 could have been a cool mid-movie plot point for episode 9.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

I'm one of three people on Earth that both ironically and unironically liked The Last Jedi.

Ironically because it makes Star Wars fans mad, and unironically if for no other reason than it hinted at everyone having the Force, at least a little. And I always had a feeling that was the case.

Millions liked it.

A vocal minority disliked it.

 

[lamarcheb]

I'm looking forward to the possibility of extended editions which would broaden the material and address some of the apparent inconsistencies. Rumor of a four-hour cut of the Rise of Skywalker surface on YouTube. I mean, they have TONS of extra footage!

But being a Star Wars fan for most of my adult life, there was very little of what occurred in the Trilogy which hadn't already been presented in non-canon material in the 30 years prior:

* The new Jedi Order collapsing
* Luke becoming a hermit
* Lea training to become a Jedi then realizing it was not for her
* One of the Skywalker offsprings turning to the dark side
* The new Republic collapsing.
* Palpatine's return
* The Empire returning.

Anyways. I love the prequels, the remastered originals, the sequels, and I thought Han Solo was a great flick. But I am a die-hard fan so what do I know.

 

[nimelennar]

Isn't this the general Star Wars universe after the first 3 movies came out? Certainly seems that way.

Not really. As horrid as the prequels were, you could tell Lucas had a story that he wanted to tell with them. He had a plan going in, and he stuck to it. It just happened to be a terrible plan.

It wasn't a terrible plan. The films themselves were terribly executed from a writing and directing perspective. The plan was half decent.

Yeah, if you take a step back and summarize the prequels, the bones are there for a good story.

Anakin, the Chosen One is recruited as a slave by a new father figure, who is then killed off and he has to be raised into the Jedi Order by someone who isn't ready for that responsibility. A corrupt Chancellor then takes Anakin under his wing and shows him how ineffective both the Republic and the Jedi are at preventing such things as the slavery into which he was born; at the same time, he begins a doomed, forbidden love affair. The Jedi are drawn into a war that compromises their place in the galaxy as peacekeepers and mediators. Finally, Anakin is forced to choose between joining the Chancellor to save the life of his wife, and his loyalty to the Jedi and the ideals of the Republic. Having been manipulated into trusting the Chancellor and distrusting the Jedi and the Republic, Anakin makes the wrong choice and loses everything he chose to become a monster for. With nothing left to live for but the Chancellor (now the Emperor), he chooses to leave the last vestiges of the good man he once was behind, and become the monster totally.

That's a solid story structure, and one that fits with most of the backstory from the Original Trilogy. It was just so horribly executed.

 

[MMarsh]

I didn't hate the movies like some people. I have my issues, but they don't fill me with seething rage or anything.

But damn, whoever was involved with "let's make a trilogy but make up each film as we go along" were idiots. There's no sugar coating it, not pre-writing out AT LEAST the framework for the whole trilogy ahead of time is inexcusable.

And it explains so much that we already basically knew, but is nice to get closure on confirming at least.

Indeed, and while I do enjoy kicking back with some Star Wars now and then, the lack of planning and the logical inconsistencies of the newer ones are awfully hard to overlook.

Like, you'll have a drawn-out epic space battle scene, that sets a key plot point for several character's arcs through the rest of the story, and the whole thing hinges on having to do a 40 mph flyby of an orbiting enemy ship at point-blank range so that you can manually release 500-pound dumb bombs on it like a Lancaster over Berlin. Then, not long later, it's revealed that a collision during the jump to hyperspace will tear a Star Destroyer and everything within sight of it into fifty million shards of shrapnel. And you're overrun with disposable droids that can fly ships. And you have a bunch of shot-up ships lying in junkyards all over the place. Like, did the people who wrote scene 5 ever talk to the people who wrote scene 12?

They're fun, but if they can't even get the rules straight within one film, I'm not surprised they completely fumble the ball between each film of a trilogy.