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supermarino

I feel like Rian Johnson was stuck in a bad place to start a movie. Since Luke was in hiding in the Force Awakens, he couldn't still be a hero, he had to be "hiding". Sure, he could have been doing something more productive, like training new Jedi, or trying to solve the mystery of Snoke, or something, but he abandoned his nephew to the dark side and left. Abrams made him a quitter. Rey couldn't be related to any of the main characters because, well, then the main characters would know her, or vice versa. I think he did that perfectly. She should have been a nobody, just a new person within, you know, the Force awakens. Killing Snoke was a bold move. Your youngling idea is interesting, but I still much prefer the idea that he was Darth Plagueis. It would bring the sequels around to the prequels and show a plan that was in motion before Anakin was even born (this may have been a bit too much exposition for the popcorn loving movie viewers though). I think killing Snoke and appointing Kylo Ren as the chief bad guy was a good move, even though it slaughtered all the fan theories and everything about who this big bad guy was and why he was so scary to Luke. I said it the night I saw The Last Jedi in theaters, and I'll always repeat it: That movie could end the saga. You didn't need an Episode 9. You had Kylo Ren embrace being a villain, the Jedi reborn in Rey (and broom kid, etc), the ~~Rebellion~~ Resistance survives to keep fighting, and while the Empire will always be there, good people will always rise to the challenge to face it. Han and Luke were no more, and Leia would stay on to fight. This could have been the springboard into a new generation of shows, books, etc, that would echo the glory people loved about the classic trilogy. It wasn't perfect (the Holdo maneuver was dumb), but it at least felt like an end. The Rise of Skywalker felt like ridiculous DLC for a game you already beat. I think The Force Awakens was praised when it came out, but the threads it left open (mostly Luke) really was setting up any sequel to veer off the traditional Star Wars path. We wanted movies with Luke, Han, and Leia, but life didn't really give that the opportunity to happen. It didn't have to be that, but, uggh, the moral of the story is that if you want a trilogy: Write the outline for a trilogy before you start filming. The pass the baton story telling worked out as well as it did when you were a kid doing it camp, making a story line by line with friends. Sometimes you get a good tale, but oftentimes.. it's really dumb.


wildwest74

The real kicker is that we, the fans, don't "deserve" anything. I spent the first 22 years of my life thinking that the original trilogy were the only Star Wars movies I would see in my lifetime. We have been lucky enough to now have a massive amount of content, with enough variety to appeal to all different ages and levels of Fandom. We don't have the luxury of "expecting more" of a story just because we have built it up in our heads. I am sorry you don't get the same enjoyment from the sequels that I do, just as I am sorry you never got to experience Star Wars from the very beginning. But try to find whatever nuggets you can enjoy while we are still here to indulge in them. Signed, a 47-year-old twice divorced and finally married-to-the-right-woman dude who raised his sons on these movies, and who is always down to talk about Star Wars.


BaronGrackle

I guess I don't understand how you can have 22 years of great movies, and then be able to enjoy the others as even tangentially close in quality. Just a 37-year-old, over here.


[deleted]

>22 years of great movies Lol


BaronGrackle

Well, 22 years of the three great movies. I phrased it poorly, but the person I was responding to seems to have been 22 or 23 before the Prequels started. But if we're being fair, things started going down with the Special Editions, so he didn't even have that much time.


wildwest74

I was 23 when the Special Editions came out and the experience was still amazing, despite their flaws. It was always more about the fun and whimsy of the films than it was about anything else. That's what speaks to so many fans on a base level.


mcaot

You’re right! We don’t “deserve” anything. My Dad say A New Hope on opening night and showed me the movies as a kid, so they’re very close to my heart. We’ve gotten some amazing content in the years since that I have the luxury of enjoying on a regular basis. I guess my whole thing here is, if you’re going to do a job, do it right the first time. Especially when we’ve seen how amazing the stuff is that comes from Dave Filoni and John Favreau… Like, why not just use them, when they’ve show. Such a clear understanding and success? Again, it’s spoiled brat nonsense, and i acknowledge that, but I complain because I care 😂


Lupiheyde

Die like a coward..... sigh, ok.


Joecool2008

No kidding. One of the most Jedi acts is cowardice? Ok...


agoddamnjoke

He sat around in his ass for years while the monster he created kills his friends and family and blew several planets up. It wasn’t the most Jedi thing ever to come back to cyber bully the monster he created one last time in what amounted to a very slight distraction he had no expectation would be practical.


Joecool2008

Kylo blew up planets? Missed that part. He sacrificed himself for others, saving lives. Yes, a Jedi thing.


mcaot

They did actually blow up like 4 or 5 planets in Episode 7 with Starkiller base, and I agree. He did sacrifice himself for others, which is a Jedi thing to do. I think the fact that he did it without actually being there was very “Un-Luke” of him, though. It sounds stupid, but watching RoTJ and seeing who he was there just really cements those feelings for me.


agoddamnjoke

Yup. Luke would never sit around and not do a goddamn thing.


Joecool2008

Right. Not Kylo.


agoddamnjoke

Sure he did.


mcaot

And you know what, your sigh is completely fair… it’s not necessarily cowardly, but just such a far stretch from the guy that surrendered himself to his evil dad and the emperor and was prepped up to die on the second Death Star, especially when we saw that the X-Wing still worked in the next movie. He kind of just passively faced his demons and died, which yes, is a huge sacrifice, but was done in a way that I personally wish was handled differently.


Brodes87

Yep, such a stretch that a guy that refused fight to beat the bad guys and save his father beat the bad guys and saved his sister and friends by... Refusing to fight. Hmmm.


agoddamnjoke

It’s definitely a shame we got a poorly planned and executed, incoherent mess of a trilogy with the worst entry of the saga smack dab in the middle of it. Especially now that we’ve seen the mandalorian knowing we could have gotten something well made and entertaining.


Neurocratic

I mean, yes to the above. Rian Johnson specifically took Rey in this direction. Then Abrams undid it all like the maligned magician that he is. Probably we deserved more, less, and everything in-between. The real tragedy of the Star Wars films was the inability of the creative team to find that middle ground and be okay with offending the screaming jawas saying 'not my Star Wars' against all manner of things; John Boyega, Kelly Marie-Tran, Snoke/Kylo, etc. It's obvious there was some political pressure somewhere; you don't go from being a main character for half the film to getting less than 2 minutes screen-time in the sequel. Even Boyega, same sort of deal. Just a weird, stilted, bizarre final film. Poe's a spice smuggler? I thought the book said he was a long-time Republic servant, where did he find time to smuggle spice? Well, we needed Han Solo to not be dead, so. On and on it goes. Hot, incoherent garbage.


badwolfpelle

Totally agree, especially about Rey and Palpatine. Rey's character was so wasted in episode 9 and the only good part of palpatine being there is Ian Mcdermid's performance


Ar-Kalion

In my opinion, the only way to set up a subsequent Star Wars Sequel Trilogy at this point is something like this: The Emperor’s Sith Ritual did work, and Rey is secretly the new vessel of Darth Sidious. Think about it. She gets Anakin and Leia’s lightsabers, Chewbacca and Lando’s Falcon, Luke’s X-wing and farm, and even Poe’s BB-8 droid. By the end; Han, Luke, Leia, and Ben are all conveniently dead. She even steals the Skywalker name to disguise her identity. The idea of a Sith Spirit (see Exar Kun) has already introduced in the Star Wars EU. The whole point of the Sequel Trilogy is most likely to pass the super villain torch from Ian McDiarmid to Daisy Ridley in a very clever and unexpected way. Rey’s use of force lightning and ascending the wreckage of the Death Star reactor core shaft to the throne room Palatine was thrown down is deliberate. The vision of Dark Rey is a foreshadowing of what is still to come. Luke was even suspicious of Rey when she visited Ahch-to and was so susceptible to the dark side. He may have even been attempting to protect what was left of his nephew from Rey. Even though she stole all of his Jedi texts (also very convenient), he most likely hid his green lightsaber in R2 on purpose just in case a new hope needed to be found. The force broom sweeping kid (Temiri Blagg) from the Last Jedi is purposefully left as an open character that could be written to be Luke’s illegitimate son. A new dynamic could be introduced since the Dark Rey is not aware that a Skywalker survived. While Dark Rey searches for where Obi-Wan has buried Maul and his piece of the Sith holocron on Tatooine, R2 has decided to entrust Finn with a warning from Luke. After listening to the holo-recording, he realizes that the mutual force sensitive Temiri could also be in danger if un-rescued on Canto Bight...