I just think this entire trilogy was a team loss. Everyone not an actor, failed. The New Trilogy was a failure and that's super super disappointing.

And it's people like Muckraker, who will literally consume whatever star wars product gets shoveled in his face that ensures this type of cycle continues.

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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Several characters were shown to be pretty in the know about Rey...

Snoke and Kylo. Han. Leia. None came out and said it, but most of them indicated it pretty strongly. I suggest going back and watching the movies again.

TCTTS said:

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I'm still with bobinator here. Any writer, creative or not, would have had to bend over backwards to successfully explain why Luke hadn't been seen in ages, in a way didn't involve him taking himself off the board, so to speak. Abrams left us with a perfectly healthy Luke alone on an island. Given that scenario, the only real, logical choice is that he put himself there on purpose. It would have been so incredibly convoluted to dream up any other scenario, given what Abrams showed us. Johnson did the best he could with a sh*tty scenario, at least in terms of Luke.

That said, just FYI, it's worth mentioning once more that it was LUCAS' idea to have Luke become a hermit/disenfranchised with Jedi. That was in his original outline. So to everyone who keeps saying, "Luke wouldn't have done that," the guy who created the character thought otherwise.

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Being disenfranchised is fine. Trying to kill his star pupil (also his nephew) isn't. That was VERY out of character. There are a million reasons to be disenfranchised. RJ chose the one that insulted Luke's character.

TCTTS said:

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I'm still with bobinator here. Any writer, creative or not, would have had to bend over backwards to successfully explain why Luke hadn't been seen in ages, in a way didn't involve him taking himself off the board, so to speak. Abrams left us with a perfectly healthy Luke alone on an island. Given that scenario, the only real, logical choice is that he put himself there on purpose. It would have been so incredibly convoluted to dream up any other scenario, given what Abrams showed us. Johnson did the best he could with a sh*tty scenario, at least in terms of Luke.

That said, just FYI, it's worth mentioning once more that it was LUCAS' idea to have Luke become a hermit/disenfranchised with Jedi. That was in his original outline. So to everyone who keeps saying, "Luke wouldn't have done that," the guy who created the character thought otherwise.

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No that's fine, I'm ok with the "self-exile" motivation. What I'm not ok with is blaming Abrams becasue Luke did a bunch of stupid/weird **** ON TOP of just piss poor narrative story telling choices, set pieces, and "none of what you saw matters" that Rian did.

My only point is, this wasn't more or less Abrams fault. It wasn't more or less Rian's fault. They equally ****ed up in spectacular ways is all i try to say.

M.C. Swag said:

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I just think this entire trilogy was a team loss. Everyone not an actor, failed. The New Trilogy was a failure and that's super super disappointing.

And it's people like Muckraker, who will literally consume whatever star wars product gets shoveled in his face that ensures this type of cycle continues.

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I agree with you that it was a team loss as a whole from the leadership perspective.

Keep the casting director on hire though. Most, if not all the main characters were good to great selections.

I'm probably opposite of everyone here, but I think Disney should kind of clean house on the upper management team within the next 6 months, hire some strong writers, and map out a new trilogy with entirely new story for production sooner than later. I like the actors for Rey, Finn, and Poe that I would rather them capitalize on the actors youth and try to bring out another movie within the next 5 years. I think the one thing TROS showed me is that those three characters have some pretty decent chemistry (in my opinion).

Forgive me if one of the last things I want to do in life is listen to Ben Shapiro's review of a Star Wars movie, lmfao

He didn't actually try to kill him, I think that's kind of an important distinction.

All around agree.

A lot of people were pretty frustrated about that. Good ol JJ MacGuffin.

I think JJ sidelined him because he hasn't aged well at all, seems like a pain to work with, and frankly he's just not that good of an actor.

TCTTS said:

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I thought Hamill's performance in TLJ was fantastic. And he looked perfectly grizzled for the part.

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Ironically, that might have been his best acting in Star Wars. In an interview he talked about how he dissociated with the character in TLJ.

TCTTS said:

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I thought Hamill's performance in TLJ was fantastic. And he looked perfectly grizzled for the part.

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I'm genuinely glad you liked his performance. I thought it was ok.

Regardless, just seems like he was a punt for JJ, knowing he wasn't directing the next film. Stick him on an island as a hermit (as Lucas intended and as you pointed out). And to that end, I really didn't have any problem with where RJ took the character. Sure, I wanted to see Master Luke actually wreck shop. But Luke's role in TLJ doesn't even rank for me as a reason as to why I don't like the film.

TCTTS said:

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Granted, I completely agree that Luke trying kill Ben was ridiculous. I'm with you there.

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I disagree. I've always related it to if you were living in the early 1900s and could see into the future and know that your punk teenage nephew Adolf would go on to be responsible for the death of many millions of men, women, and children, destruction of countries, etc. I would argue that at minimum, killing him would briefly cross your mind, as it did for Luke.

Cross your mind, maybe. What if you had already thrown away your pistol rather than strike down full-grown Adolf Hitler in anger? Would you still get out of bed, grab your lightsaber, ans hold it to your nephew's throat while you think about it? Luke had passed that test 30 years before, it walked his character back.

Urban Ag said:

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TCTTS said:

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I thought Hamill's performance in TLJ was fantastic. And he looked perfectly grizzled for the part.

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I'm genuinely glad you liked his performance. I thought it was ok.

Regardless, just seems like he was a punt for JJ, knowing he wasn't directing the next film. Stick him on an island as a hermit (as Lucas intended and as you pointed out). And to that end, I really didn't have any problem with where RJ took the character. Sure, I wanted to see Master Luke actually wreck shop. But Luke's role in TLJ doesn't even rank for me as a reason as to why I don't like the film.

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Yeah, it definitely felt like a punt on Abrams' parts, and I'm with you that Luke's role doesn't even rank as a reason to dislike TLJ, with there being so many other issues.

Quote:

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leave out some all of the politically correct SJW crap.

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fify

On the trending conversation regarding Rey being from "no one" being reversed in TROS ... I think this quote may throw some light on the topic: "You're going to find that many of the truths that we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view" - Ben Kenobi talking to Luke in ROTJ

In TLJ, Kylo tells Rey that she is from no one after spending all of TFA talking about how her family would some day return. There was an expectation set in TFA, perhaps not intentionally, that she was the off-spring of someone we (the audience) would know. Whether that was Luke, Han & Leia, Obi-Wan, or someone else was all discussed at length. (I even said once to my kid that I thought she could be a Palpatine based solely on the way she fought with Luke's lightsaber in that forest in TFA). So along comes TROS, and we find out that she is in fact the granddaughter of Sheev Palpatine, but also that her parents were indeed "no one" because "they chose to be [no one]".

From the point of view of looking at who her parents were, it seems that they were in fact, no one, just as TLJ established.

I can be on board with that for sure. As Saul pointed out above, it wasn't *illogical*, I just thought it was just handled really clumsily. I've said this before, but Luke should have trained both Kylo AND Rey as kids (if they had kept Rey as a Force-strong nobody), and covered more of that whole plot line via flashbacks either in TFA or TLJ. Kylo goes nuts, then Luke and Rey have to scatter, Rey to Jakku and Luke eventually to Ahch-To. Then, when Rey, as a 19-year-old, is finally reunited with Luke, it's way more poignant and connected.

From any point of view it was a retcon. If JJ wanted to lay the groundwork to her being a palpatine, he should have made it a little more concrete.

But it's not even really that it was a retcon, it's that it seemingly went against the entire theme of the second movie. Basically the whole message of the second movie was that "anyone can rise to importance." It even hit you over the head with it with broom kid at the end staring up at the stars.

TCTTS said:

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I'm still with bobinator here. Any writer, creative or not, would have had to bend over backwards to successfully explain why Luke hadn't been seen in ages, in a way didn't involve him taking himself off the board, so to speak. Abrams left us with a perfectly healthy Luke alone on an island. Given that scenario, the only real, logical choice is that he put himself there on purpose. It would have been so incredibly convoluted to dream up any other scenario other than the route Johnson took, given what Abrams left him with. Johnson did the best he could with a sh*tty scenario, at least in terms of Luke.

That said, just FYI, it's worth mentioning once again that it was LUCAS' idea to have Luke become a hermit/disenfranchised with Jedi. That was in his original sequel trilogy outline that he handed over to Disney. So to everyone who keeps saying, "Luke wouldn't have done that," the guy who created the character clearly thought otherwise.

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I agree. I think Luke's story was completely effed up by having him run away on his own without telling anyone where he was going. You had this kid out on Tatooine who wanted to make a difference, who was a hero in destroying Death Star 1, who was trained by a renowned Jedi Master, who realized his flaws in Empire, who faced his fear and overcame it to confront the Emperor in ROTJ, who then apparently said "eff it" and ran away to hide on an island for...reasons? But there are better ways to deal with it, IMO.

bobinator said:

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From any point of view it was a retcon. If JJ wanted to lay the groundwork to her being a palpatine, he should have made it a little more concrete.

But it's not even really that it was a retcon, it's that it seemingly went against the entire theme of the second movie. Basically the whole message of the second movie was that "anyone can rise to importance." It even hit you over the head with it with broom kid at the end staring up at the stars.

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Bingo.

Or even better, show Kylo hunting down force sensitives like Vader did and Luke stops him before he can kill little Girl Rey.
Kylo Has some lines about how Luke has failed to stop the slaughter of the Jedi and is blah blah.


Luke realizes he can't/won't train Rey leaves her Jakku and leaves the utterly defeated realizing he failed to be the next Jedi master.

I imagine if workshopped it we can incorporate Han into it, which results in him leaving the Falcon on Jakku as well. Intending to come back for Rey, but gets side tracked.

They made a big oopsie in TFA by not honoring ANY of the concepts of training / discipline established in the first six films. Anakin could podrace better than any human but that was about it. Luke could bullseye womp rats. Neither could use a lightsaber, pull/push, mind trick, etc. They had to train.

That's why they had to make her a "somebody" even though I agree that thematically it was much better the other way. Her abilities had to fit in the continuity of the franchise or be explained away in some other way, such as memory loss.

A couple months ago we had a whole scenario worked out, I think in the main SW thread, that was this basic scenario and it would have been so perfect. The only difference was that Luke doesn't leave Rey on Jakku. Him doing so would have been close to unforgivable, IMO. I think in our scenario they get separated somehow during Ben's/Kylo's slaughter at the Jedi Temple, or Luke assumes she's dead when she was really just hiding, and then Rey somehow finds passage on her own to Jakku, and grows up an orphan there, basically same as she did in TLJ. Something along those lines.

TCTTS said:

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bobinator said:

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From any point of view it was a retcon. If JJ wanted to lay the groundwork to her being a palpatine, he should have made it a little more concrete.

But it's not even really that it was a retcon, it's that it seemingly went against the entire theme of the second movie. Basically the whole message of the second movie was that "anyone can rise to importance." It even hit you over the head with it with broom kid at the end staring up at the stars.

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Bingo.

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There is no question that TROS went completely against the themes established by RJ in TLJ. But at the same time, RJ jettisoned pretty much everything JJ established in TFA.

It's like the biggest tit for tat in cinema history. Was this not KK's job to ensure some continuity?

Let's just take a small, basic, plot device. Luke's saber lost at Bespin. That was a BFD is the TFA. At some point, shouldn't KK has said to either RJ or JJ "you know, I really think you need to explain how Maz ended up with Luke's lightsaber, people want to know that. Was that not the whole point of the Maz character?". Is that so hard?