Dekker_Lentz said:

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It might get close to unforgivable, but I think there is a way to show that Luke knew he couldn't protect Rey because he knew he couldn't kill Ben, which is why she really couldn't stay with with him. He couldn't protect her from her real threat.

Also I would have Luke leave her with Unkar, but with moisture farmers on Jakku (think Owen and Bearu) who then sell her for reasons.

But this entire thread nightlights the problem, How in the world did they not write out the outlines for three movies at one time.

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that's what remains so damn frustrating. So many quick and easy ways to fix these problems.

Example. They established the character of Lor San Tekka for crying out loud. He's a few miles away from Rey. Why not leave Rey with him? Why not have Luke stash her there? It would absolutely make sense then why Lor has the map. Rey is out scavenging and comes home to find her village wiped out by stormtroopers. Comes across BB8. And off we go.

Great call. Would have been perfect.

TCTTS said:

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I still can't believe Abrams did that. I would have bet a thousand dollars he'd at least honor the "nobody" angle, of all things. And what's crazy is he could have told basically the same story without making her actually related to Palpatine. Palpatine could have simply recognized her as an immensely powerful Force user that the Force "chose" or whatever. But no, Abrams had to undo one of the truly great things about TLJ in such blatant, disrespectful fashion, serving as the cherry on top of this whole sh*t Sunday.

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While I understand the point you are making, I have to completely disagree about her being a nobody in TLJ "truly great". I do think there were much smoother ways JJ could have told the story.

Is it possible he is actually personally upset about how Rian changed the story lines? Johnson kind of did the same thing, just not as blatantly, and gave JJ's story lines the finger in the same manner. I don't care what quotes they have given in public, thats just business/PR.

Ulrich said:

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TCTTS said:

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Not a single character in TLJ save for Unkar Plutt knew who she was, and even he probably didn't have close to the whole story. Others were curious, but no one knew anything. Where are you getting this from?

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Han from his facial expressions at certain times. Kylo because he cared way too much about some random scavenger girl. The Falcon was also too much of a coincidence.

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JJ left it wide open to interpretation in TFA

She was familiar with the Falcon - Han and Leai's kid
Ben talking to her in her vision - Obi wan's kid
innately strong in the force - Luke's kid
lightsaber tactics were stabby like a palpatine - Palpatine's kid.

The fact that all this was alluded to and then...she comes from no one in TLJ. Letdown.

Ok she's a nobody, why is she so strong in the force without any training at all. Not even remotely. How does she know she can do mind control, pull objects without ever seeing it done before?

This is why JJ had to go and give her a royal bloodline. Otherwise the force is just going to randomly pop out insanely strong force users that are good and the Jedi and their training are pointless.

Of course, that's your prerogative. Personally, I care way less about this galaxy if the only people who can use the Force are those lucky enough to be born with the right blood. I think that's incredibly stupid and extremely limiting, story-wise. But if the bloodline angle is your thing, I'm sure you have your reasons as well.

As for Johnson doing kind of the same thing Abrams did in TROS, I agree to an extent, which I mentioned above. That said, Abrams should have been more committed and intentional in his storytelling in TFA regardless. Instead, he was WAY too vague, and simply punted far too many elements for the next guy to figure out. There's a different between punting for the next guy vs. establishing mystery with intention, where it's clear the storyteller knows the ultimate answer. Abrams did the former, IMO, and the whole trilogy suffered for it. That doesn't mean Johnson isn't to blame as well. but we wouldn't have been in this situation to begin with if Abrams had told a better story in the first place.

You're not wrong. But the whole point is that Abrams shouldn't have left all of that so incredibly open to interpretation in the first place. Again, there was a way to create mystery with intention, yet he didn't do that. It was just mystery for mystery's sake, without knowing the answers himself.

Well said.

TCTTS said:

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You're not wrong. But the whole point is that Abrams shouldn't have left all of that so incredibly up to interpretation in the first place. Again, there was a way to create mystery with intention, yet he didn't do that. It was just mystery for mystery's sake, without knowing the answers himself.

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Mystery Box!

Like Bob and TC said, instead of just giving RJ the finger, they could have embraced the "you're nobody" as a ploy to drive her to the dark side. If you want to still have her be related to someone (like you said, the Palpatine angle was not really set up in any way in a prior movie)

I firmly believe that instead of "trying to stop Ben" Luke should have just failed to guide him in his studies. Then you have Ben falling to the dark side , and Luke decides to stop teaching and go into exile so he can't fail again.

Maybe they could have even had a significant amount of flash backs, or perhaps even just started the 2nd move with a 15-20 minute flashback of Luke at the new jedi order training people, with Ben among the students along with others. I dont know if you have to cast someone new as Ben or not in this scene. Ben is clearly powerful and learning quickly, he goes on a mission and finally sees some of the horror present in the universe, perhaps he has to kill someone to save innocents. He starts searching for more power and answers to stop the evil out there, and is lured to the dark side. He has his own version of visions in a cave, maybe this is how you can introduce Palpatine, who would clearly change how his confrontation with Luke and Vader went, and this leads to Ben's worship of Vader.
Flashback ends with Ben slaughtering any students/people that wont follow his lead, and Luke has the chance to strike him down and lets him leave because he cant kill his nephew. Goes into exile, cut back to Rey awkwardly holding the lightsaber out like a weirdo.

I was actually fine with the anybody can be a jedi angle, I just didnt think it was some powerful message is all.

I mean, we already have Darth Maul, thats as anybody as it gets! also I didnt realize there was another page of discussion about this already when I responded, my bad.

By the way, I just want to say that even though these threads sometimes turn contentious (and sometimes it's my fault), and we have lots of terrible ideas (and sometimes they are mine), and they are rife with Hot Takes (yes, me too)... they are a lot of fun and I've learned a lot about storytelling along the way. So thanks everyone, and here's hoping we never get bored with microanalyzing a laser-sword fantasy for children.

Y'all are going a hundred miles an hour, today

redline248 said:

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Y'all are going a hundred miles an hour, today

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I dont understand, can you please phrase that in lightyears per parsec?

The light speed skipping to me was a microcosm of the whole movie. I felt like I just wanted to pause the movie for a second and talk out what was happening because things that could have been important were just getting plowed under.

WAIT, WHAT WAS THAT?
NO WAIT, NOW WHAT WAS THAT?!

Ulrich said:

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George Lucas on the prequels: "it sort of rhymes"
JJ Abrams on TFA: "Yeah rhymes with yeah"
Rian Johnson on TLJ "e e cummings is my favorite poet"
JJ Abrams on TROS: "YEAH RHYMES WITH YEAH"

My phone keeps trying to autocorrect JJ Abrams to OK Abrams. That seems appropriate.

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It is kinda a funny that one of the old EU complaints was every character ended up being a Jedi.

This bloodline Jedi business hasn't been an issue. It wasn't an even an issue in the prequels either. Considering Jedi couldn't even marry and the entire conflict of the prequels was about making Jedi babies.

This only has become an issue as it relates to Rey's place in the story.

I mean it kind of was an issue in the prequels. "How did Anakin Skywalker become Darth Vader" is basically the central question of those movies and one of the key components of answering it is "Where did Anakin Skywalker come from?"

George Lucas kind of decided that he literally came from nowhere, a virgin birth by the force, and I'd argue that the lack of clarity of why or how exactly that happened is one of the biggest issues I have with Star Wars.

That might be Lucas's biggest mistake.

It's no slap in the face, it's just lazy.

I suppose Rian Johnson might feel slapped, but f him.

I think his biggest mistake was divorcing his wife after the original trilogy. Ive read that she did editing wonders to make the original trilogy what it was. Prior to her, the original Star Wars was a big mess. I think it's no wonder that the prequels sucked.

I don't get how you don't get it. Like the entire theme of the The Last Jedi was that anyone could become a Jedi. Again, the movie literally ends with a stable boy using the force to pull a broom to himself.

A lot of people really liked that idea for Rey, especially critics. It was both kind of cool to see that, and also a nice juxtaposition of her against Kylo Ren. They were opposites and equals. Her born a nobody trying to become someone, him basically born royalty trying to find his own way. Them finding this connection to each other and helping each other despite also being enemies...

There are issues with The Last Jedi but I thought the Rey and Kylo arc of it was absolutely phenomenal.

And then this movie was like "j/k, she's a Palpatine."

bobinator said:

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I don't get how you don't get it. Like the entire theme of the The Last Jedi was that anyone could become a Jedi. Again, the movie literally ends with a stable boy using the force to pull a broom to himself.

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but like, anyone can still be a jedi tho.

Quote:

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and also a nice juxtaposition of her against Kylo Ren. They were opposites and equals. Her born a nobody trying to become someone, him basically born royalty trying to find his own way. Them finding this connection to each other and helping each other despite also being enemies...

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Yes, thematically that's cooler...but it doesn't mean only "royalty" can have force powers.

I don't understand how you don't understand.

Yeah, but you don't see how the reveal that "oh actually Rey isn't a nobody, she was secretly Palpatine's grandkid" seems like undercutting that entire theme from the second movie?

M.C. Swag said:

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redline248 said:

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It's no slap in the face, it's just lazy.

I suppose Rian Johnson might feel slapped, but f him.

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Yes, 100% lazy. The whole movie was lazy and cowardly.

I'm just contending with the "i liked when anyone could be a jedi"....like dude, that's alwasy and still is the case. Nothing about that has changed. ANYONE can still be a jedi.

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I agree with you, but I guess because the main saga basically revolves around Anakin/Luke people focus more on the bloodlines. JJ had 2 options, imo. 1) Have Rey be unrelated and not spend a large portion of TFA focusing on who she is and why she is important, or 2) answering the question he kept having everyone ask at some point in TFA.

Or, you know, Disney could have had a real plan.

bobinator said:

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Yeah, but you don't see how the reveal that "oh actually Rey isn't a nobody, she was secretly Palpatine's grandkid" seems like undercutting that entire theme from the second movie?

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The 2nd movie undid everything from the first movie, so it's only fair.

No, not really at all!

For years the post TLJ thought was that maybe Kylo was just lying or it wasn't true and Kylo didn't know what he was talking about at all.

Agree and disagree.

Anakin's conception had to do with him being the chosen one as foretold in a prophesy. I agree there was all this about his birth, but that wasn't really about bloodlines. So much as how did he get here.

My point is the Jedi don't really have kids, so the force can't only pass through blood lines. The Force can pass through blood, but it isn't the only way.

I think that's what parts of the internet started to say and then Abrams kind of fueled that fire with his comments about it.

I personally, and I'm certainly not alone here, thought that was a really great way to take Rey's character and like I said I thought it created a cool yin and yang with Kylo's character. So for the Rise of Skywalker to just undo it was pretty annoying to me.