STAR WARS: WAITING FOR GODOT

... i really just wanted to say SW: TLJ written by Samuel Beckett, but the reference might have been too tenuous to get any blue stars.


I'm still not real hopeful but that's more because it might not be funny to anyone but me.

Yeah, but then you don't get to memorialize Carrie Fisher by giving her a beautiful death scene/ farewell that turns into a cringe-inducing "gotcha!" and eventually leaves her in a coma for much of the movie. It gets better though, now the next director inherits an expository time bomb because you either have to explain how she died offscreen or flat out ignore that she died.

Maybe if the main storyline was a little more dynamic than "stall for a few days", they wouldn't have felt the need to dress things up with a bunch of head fakes and pointless side quests.

Well put. I'll have to save your post.

TCTTS said:

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That's a great point. I never understood the Holdo/Leia switcheroo. Story-wise, why did Leia have to be knocked out/sidelined and replaced with a new general, when, earlier in the film, Leia already had the same issue with Poe (his brashness) that Holdo eventually had? Why couldn't Leia have then gone through roughly the same motions with Poe as Holdo did? I would have much preferred Leia's no-nonsense bluntness to Holdo's pretentiousness, and the "message" would have landed so much better coming from Leia, too. That, and then Leia could have been the one to kamikazi hyper-slice The First Order. Even before Fisher's death, I never understood the whole "Episode IX was meant to be Leia's movie" thing. With Han dead and Luke literally wanting to sit out the action of this installment, why couldn't THIS have been Leia's movie, and then have her go out with an amazing, sacrificial bang? Rightfully leaving Luke as the only original member for IX?

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First I just want to say, I always enjoy TCTTS comments and his post on TLJ was masterful. So thank you.

I think because whatever plan (if there was a plan) was for Leia to resolve Kylo Ren's story line.

The biggest issue with 8, is execution. But from a story viewpoint it makes sense that Kylo's first step was overcome his father. Then 8 is Kylo defeats both of his teachers, Luke/Snoke. Leaving Leia as his last obstacle.

How powerful would it have been if the last scene was Leia destroying Kylo Ren, then you would have had Episode 4-9 story arc being that Leia's war against the Empire (presuming the first order is remnants of the empire) cost her everything. Her home, her adoptive parents, her husband, her brother, and her son. I could see that working as a pretty powerful story arc.

Obviously not now. But on paper it makes sense.

Much appreciated. And yeah, I could see that making a lot of sense. That's an interesting point. But that would also imply that the movies were her story, which is fine, but I don't know if it would track.

Ulrich said:

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Yeah, but then you don't get to memorialize Carrie Fisher by giving her a beautiful death scene/ farewell that turns into a cringe-inducing "gotcha!" and eventually leaves her in a coma for much of the movie.

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But that's not at all what happened, at all. The movie was in the can before Carrie died. There was no gotcha. No beautiful death scene for Carrie.

I disliked Space Leia, though it is totally in line with what Luke told us Leia would learn in RotJ, but you don't need to invent things so that you can then use them as the reason to hate it.

Stormtrooper designs are always so great.

https://instagr.am/p/Bmg76vQFE__

TCTTS said:

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Much appreciated. And yeah, I could see that making a lot of sense. That's an interesting point. But that would also imply that the movies were her story, which is fine, but I don't know if it would track.

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Well if all nine movies are the skywalker arc, then we have overlapping stories. Kinda like 4-6 continues Vader story, 7-9 would be continuing Leia's Story. Not that 4-9 are just Leia's story.

The original sin was hiring a writer long before a director. In most cases, that's how it's done. But they should have realized from the start that's not how they should approach something this big/important. They needed more of a visionary from the the jump. Either a writer/director, or a director who had a writer in mind that he/she frequently worked with.

Michael Arndt had a draft and I'm sure a loose, overall plan. Then Abrams was hired, had his own ideas, and tried to work with Arndt, but they couldn't see eye to eye. So Arndt was dropped and Abrams + Kasdan did basically a page-one rewrite, but retained many of Arndt's original ideas/concepts. This was so late in the game, however, and Disney wouldn't budge on pushing back the release date because they'd promised stockholders a 2015 release, so there was never time, it seems, to properly map the whole thing out.

They never should have said "2015" in that initial 2012 announcement and they never should have hired a writer before hiring a director. I'm sure many other mistakes were made along the way, but IMO, those were the two biggest.

AliasMan02 said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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To have her accept that invitation would have been cool and interesting and would have made sense in the context of where they were setting things up to that point. But they chicken out.

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I agree on this point. I think a cool (and truly subversive) ending would've been to have her join him, and for the entire Crait sequence, you think she's really turned. But maybe at the very end, they make it clear that her intentions are to turn Kylo slowly towards the light.

Maybe she communes with Luke and he's the only person in the galaxy who knows her true intentions.

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So basically she's Brad from We've Never Been Licked?

That would give Poe the role of Cyanide, I guess.

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I DEMAND that someone recognize the genius of this joke.

Here is a Daisy Ridley quote I found:

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"Here's what I think I know. J. J. wrote Episode VII, as well as drafts for VIII & IX. Then Rian Johnson arrived and wrote The Last Jedi entirely. I believe there was some sort of general consensus on the main lines of the trilogy, but apart from that, every director writes and realizes his film in his own way. Rian Johnson and J. J. Abrams met to discuss all of this, although Episode VIII is still his very own work. I believe Rian didn't keep anything from the first draft of Episode VIII

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I'm really glad that Kasdan came in for TFA otherwise Abrams might have really gotten into the weeds.

I regret to inform you that I also have seen that movie. Possibly a dozen times.

I've read that before as well, but there's NO WAY Abrams wrote "drafts" of VIII and IX. That would take an insane amount of time he didn't have, additional deals would have had to be worked out, and it just doesn't make sense. Maybe she meant "outlines"? Abrams definitely could have done like loose, 3-5 page outlines for each movie, which isn't uncommon. But there's no way concrete drafts of VIII and IX written by Abrams ever existed at the time.

JJ did what he needed to do: prove Star Wars movies can be fun after the negative aura of the prequel era and introduce characters you wanted to see again and learn more about.
So I agree he set Johnson up for success.

What we should have got-
Luke to Rey: "I feared this day would come..."

What we got
"Lol dumb lightsaber I'll just throw it over my shoulder"

Meh

I mean, if it was for Kenobi it makes sense.

Urban Ag said:

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The two most iconic scenes in TFA were 'Chewie, we're home" and Rey handing Luke the lightsaber.

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Rey pulling the saber in the forest is my favorite part of TFA. I know many have issues with it, but I loved it. It was the thing I most wanted to see again after I walked out.