Star Wars sequels

[TheGlyphstone]

I liked TFA. It was almost scene-for-scene an updated remake of ANH, but it did it well enough to still be enjoyable. It mashed my nostalgia buttons solidly enough that it was fun for all of its play-it-safe lack of originality.

TLJ...didnt'. There was a good movie inside it, there were several good movies inside it. But as others have said, the pacing of the movie was incredibly inconsistent to me. You had three seemingly separate and unrelated plotlines moving at different paces but still resolving at the same time:
1) The tense chase scene - suddenly inventing 'space gas' as a tension-building plot device was silly, but tolerably slow. But it was a high-tension subplot with a very specific and limited time limit, like seventeen hours IIRC.
2) The utterly irrelevant casino planet. If there was anything I can think of there that actually mattered, it was Rey handing the slave kid her emblem so he could be holding it at the end of the movie before TK-ing his broom. But the entire rest of the scene was long, flashy, and didn't contribute anything to the narrative; at the end they were in exactly the same situation as if they had never even left. And it felt like it lasted for a long time, at least long enough for them to spend hours locked up in jail.
3) Rey trying to get Luke to train her. This was the worst of the pacing problems. If that scene didn't last for weeks, it should have been days at minimum. At the very minimum we know it lasted overnight because of Chewbacca snacking on a Porg, which forces a tremendous amount of characterization flip-flopping and actual activity into a handful of hours the next day.

Trying to weave those three subplots together with massively different tonal pacing strained my limits of credulity far more than hyperspace ramming nonsense, crude gravity bombers replacing B-Wings/Y-Wings, or Poe not being shot for mutiny in the face of the enemy. (But really, opening the movie with an extended Yo Momma joke was an awful, awful decision that destroyed the mood of that scene.)

I also got a distinct sense that Johnson was more concerned with burning down Abram's trademark mystery boxes than he was in really innovating anything of his own? Rey's unknown parentage? Doesn't matter they were literal nobodies who sold her for drug money. The origins of Snoke? Doesn't matter he gets murderchopped (admittedly a scene done well). There was clearly no communication between the two directors in the interests of forging a coherent story from Part 1 to Part 2, and it shows.

On Ren: I enjoyed him in TFA. Abrams knew that no matter how well he made his new evil force user, they would inevitably be considered against/compared to Darth Vader, an impossible level to match. So he went hole-hog, embraced the inevitability, and created a wannabe Darth Vader in-universe; someone mocked by everyone around him and strugging to achieve an impossible ideal. It was brilliantly meta, and presented a good picture of someone still sliding down the Dark Side slope against their instincts. Ren in TLJ completely failed to follow through on that - his point of no return was murdering his father, and in TFA he knew it. In TLJ Johnson wound back his character development and tried to do the same thing again with Leia, in addition to spending 2/3 of the movie teasing a romantic link between him and Rey only to unceremoniously dump it as Snoke's Big Plan. When Ren goes whole hog EEEEEEVIL, it strips away what was left of his interesting characterization and leaves him exactly what he feared he was in the beginning, a weak and inferior Darth Vader imitation.

[Deamonbane]

I liked TFA. It was almost scene-for-scene an updated remake of ANH, but it did it well enough to still be enjoyable. It mashed my nostalgia buttons solidly enough that it was fun for all of its play-it-safe lack of originality.

TLJ...didnt'. There was a good movie inside it, there were several good movies inside it. But as others have said, the pacing of the movie was incredibly inconsistent to me. You had three seemingly separate and unrelated plotlines moving at different paces but still resolving at the same time:
1) The tense chase scene - suddenly inventing 'space gas' as a tension-building plot device was silly, but tolerably slow. But it was a high-tension subplot with a very specific and limited time limit, like seventeen hours IIRC.
2) The utterly irrelevant casino planet. If there was anything I can think of there that actually mattered, it was Rey handing the slave kid her emblem so he could be holding it at the end of the movie before TK-ing his broom. But the entire rest of the scene was long, flashy, and didn't contribute anything to the narrative; at the end they were in exactly the same situation as if they had never even left. And it felt like it lasted for a long time, at least long enough for them to spend hours locked up in jail.
3) Rey trying to get Luke to train her. This was the worst of the pacing problems. If that scene didn't last for weeks, it should have been days at minimum. At the very minimum we know it lasted overnight because of Chewbacca snacking on a Porg, which forces a tremendous amount of characterization flip-flopping and actual activity into a handful of hours the next day.

Trying to weave those three subplots together with massively different tonal pacing strained my limits of credulity far more than hyperspace ramming nonsense, crude gravity bombers replacing B-Wings/Y-Wings, or Poe not being shot for mutiny in the face of the enemy. (But really, opening the movie with an extended Yo Momma joke was an awful, awful decision that destroyed the mood of that scene.)

I also got a distinct sense that Johnson was more concerned with burning down Abram's trademark mystery boxes than he was in really innovating anything of his own? Rey's unknown parentage? Doesn't matter they were literal nobodies who sold her for drug money. The origins of Snoke? Doesn't matter he gets murderchopped (admittedly a scene done well). There was clearly no communication between the two directors in the interests of forging a coherent story from Part 1 to Part 2, and it shows.

On Ren: I enjoyed him in TFA. Abrams knew that no matter how well he made his new evil force user, they would inevitably be considered against/compared to Darth Vader, an impossible level to match. So he went hole-hog, embraced the inevitability, and created a wannabe Darth Vader in-universe; someone mocked by everyone around him and strugging to achieve an impossible ideal. It was brilliantly meta, and presented a good picture of someone still sliding down the Dark Side slope against their instincts. Ren in TLJ completely failed to follow through on that - his point of no return was murdering his father, and in TFA he knew it. In TLJ Johnson wound back his character development and tried to do the same thing again with Leia, in addition to spending 2/3 of the movie teasing a romantic link between him and Rey only to unceremoniously dump it as Snoke's Big Plan. When Ren goes whole hog EEEEEEVIL, it strips away what was left of his interesting characterization and leaves him exactly what he feared he was in the beginning, a weak and inferior Darth Vader imitation.

[TheGlyphstone]

Re-reading my own quote, that's 'tolerably so, not slow. Star Wars ships have always given the middle finger to Newton when they're not pretending to be atmospheric craft, so 'space gas' that runs out and immediately causes a ship to lose all its velocity is right in line with the universe's pseudo-physics.

[RedRose]

He probably can't kill his mother. It's good, keeps him human. I really really really hope they won't go the "Snoke brainwashed him poor him" road and blame Han's death on that. Even though yes, Snoke brainwashed him.

I've read a potential spoiler.

sucky spoiler

The First Order and the resistance need to ally against a more powerful and more deadly enemy. It could be interesting and yet… lame. Because it will make Kylo and/or Hux not "really" the enemy anymore, and hence easier to redeem/marry/whatever.

I'd pay to see Rey with Kylo despite his "issues" ;)

[Azuresun]

Kylo I can see them wanting him to repent and go back crying to mom/Rey/Chewie (lol). Hope not. I'm not against redemption at all. Darth Vader's one was good, because he was always into his family and the emperor betrayed him.

It's a tangent, but one thing I think the prequels did right is that they greatly deepen Vader's arc in the original trilogy. When Anakin believes he's responsible for the death of his wife and children, that's what breaks him. The atrocities he committed and people he betrayed to secure their safety turned out to be for nothing, and all he can do is cling to the role of Palpatine's enforcer to give his wretched existence some meaning. But then he finds out that his children survived--and pretty much from that moment, Palpatine's power over him is broken.

[TheGlyphstone]

He probably can't kill his mother. It's good, keeps him human. I really really really hope they won't go the "Snoke brainwashed him poor him" road and blame Han's death on that. Even though yes, Snoke brainwashed him.

I've read a potential spoiler.

sucky spoiler

The First Order and the resistance need to ally against a more powerful and more deadly enemy. It could be interesting and yet… lame. Because it will make Kylo and/or Hux not "really" the enemy anymore, and hence easier to redeem/marry/whatever.

I'd pay to see Rey with Kylo despite his "issues" ;)

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

If they try to adapt the Yuzan Vong arc into one movie, that will be my last gasp of support for SW.

[Deamonbane]

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Grysk

There is some reason for hope, anyways.

[Tolvo]

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

If they try to adapt the Yuzan Vong arc into one movie, that will be my last gasp of support for SW.

Well the Yuuzhan Vong are back as the Grysk, though they don't appear to be Force Immune anymore or have their biotechnology. Not totally surprising given Thrawn returned and the Vong are his motivation for everything in the Thrawn Trilogy and Outbound Flight. But this version doesn't seem to be an all powerful extra-galactic military force like they were. But it might still only be a small scouting party of them that we've seen, like how they were originally introduced. Though I feel they want to have an ending to the arc of Rey and Ren and not just start an entire new plot thread to handle in another trilogy so I doubt it, but also it's not impossible. The First Order did come from the Unknown Regions.

[Fierbali111]

It would have been really nice and new if Rey went to the dark side or was at least more ambivalent, it would definitely leave me wondering at every moment what would happen next but i think Disney is dead set on keeping her pure paragon. I think JJ abrams also has his work cut out for him to try and make the 3rd act interesting and new.

[TheGlyphstone]

It would have been really nice and new if Rey went to the dark side or was at least more ambivalent, it would definitely leave me wondering at every moment what would happen next but i think Disney is dead set on keeping her pure paragon. I think JJ abrams also has his work cut out for him to try and make the 3rd act interesting and new.

That's one of my biggest wish-it-would-have-beens for this trilogy. At the end of TFA it looked almost plausible - Kylo was shattered and broken by forcing himself to kill Han, and Rey visibly tapped into the Dark Side when confronting him during their final fight. A second-act movie that flipped expectations and turned what looked like Rey's Hero Journey into a Start of Darkness, simultaneous with Kylo's struggle back to the Light Side, would be an alternate universe TLJ I'd love to see.

[Tolvo]

It would have been really nice and new if Rey went to the dark side or was at least more ambivalent, it would definitely leave me wondering at every moment what would happen next but i think Disney is dead set on keeping her pure paragon. I think JJ abrams also has his work cut out for him to try and make the 3rd act interesting and new.

They might be hesitant to do that since Anakin already was the hero who went evil(Though it's arguable that he really was a good person in the first place), and due to fan backlash, because that'd piss a lot of people off and the stories like that in the EU(Jacen Solo, Luke's false serving the Empire) are generally reviled by a lot of fans who read them or know of them. And Luke already momentarily gave in to anger in Jedi. Star Wars also often likes to be pretty black and white regarding good and evil in the movies. And Rey has had her moments of temptation of the Dark Side, regarding her parents, the lightsaber, Ren.

[TheGlyphstone]

Well the Yuuzhan Vong are back as the Grysk, though they don't appear to be Force Immune anymore or have their biotechnology. Not totally surprising given Thrawn returned and the Vong are his motivation for everything in the Thrawn Trilogy and Outbound Flight. But this version doesn't seem to be an all powerful extra-galactic military force like they were. But it might still only be a small scouting party of them that we've seen, like how they were originally introduced. Though I feel they want to have an ending to the arc of Rey and Ren and not just start an entire new plot thread to handle in another trilogy so I doubt it, but also it's not impossible. The First Order did come from the Unknown Regions.

Missed this.

If you take away the force immunity and freaky biotech...what's left of the Yuuzhan Vong other than being Proud Warrior Race #132345?

[Deamonbane]

Having Rey be a real Grey Jedi would be an interesting twist. If she's the last Jedi, having her guide it beyond simple parameters as light and dark would be an interesting story-telling twist.

[Tolvo]

Missed this.

If you take away the force immunity and freaky biotech...what's left of the Yuuzhan Vong other than being Proud Warrior Race #132345?

Well we don't know if they still have their religion or aspects of it. But yeah they're not really the same anymore. They have some concepts still like their powerful armor, and new things and still look the same, but they are much more standard and less interesting now to me. I'd rather they just made them less powerful but kept the biotechnology and stuff. It was a really interesting culture far more alien than what we often see in Star Wars. Which I wish we had more of in Star Wars.

[TheGlyphstone]

Having Rey be a real Grey Jedi would be an interesting twist. If she's the last Jedi, having her guide it beyond simple parameters as light and dark would be an interesting story-telling twist.

That was the other alt-universe TLJ I was hoping for, especially with how the Trailers Lied - a story that was indeed about The Last Jedi, and The Last Sith - Kylo and Ray both/together abandoning the teachings of their respective traditions and trying to forge something new outside the parameters of Dark and Light.

[Tolvo]

Note: Kylo Ren and Snoke aren't Sith at all. They're Dark Side but not Sith. Vader and Sidious currently are considered the last Sith unless they introduce some new secret Sith. They mention they aren't Sith and Snoke thinks the Sith were limited in thinking. Though Kylo may try to claim he is Sith now that he's in charge he actually doesn't know any of their teachings and wasn't taught by a Sith but he does want to be the heir to Vader.

[TheGlyphstone]

Note: Kylo Ren and Snoke aren't Sith at all. They're Dark Side but not Sith. Vader and Sidious currently are considered the last Sith unless they introduce some new secret Sith. They mention they aren't Sith and Snoke thinks the Sith were limited in thinking. Though Kylo may try to claim he is Sith now that he's in charge he actually doesn't know any of their teachings and wasn't taught by a Sith but he does want to be the heir to Vader.

Technically, yeah. But the whole idea of Dark Side force users who aren't Sith is a relic of the Legends-verse that I'm not sure Disney bothered to carry through...are the Witches of Dathomir re-canonized yet?

[Deamonbane]

Witches of Dathomir appear in the Clone Wars animated series.

And... well, we really don't know if Snoke was a Sith Lord or not. Don't know much of anything about him, really.

Edit: Turns out they updated his wiki since I last saw it. Yep, not affiliated to the Sith. :)

[Tolvo]

Witches of Dathomir show up in Clone Wars, when Darth Maul returns and his brother Savage Opress is introduced, that was before Disney. Sidious and Grievous kill all that we know of(Though likely some escaped). And their ghost queen mother is killed. Darth Maul goes on to lead the black sun(Which is now canon) and then goes on to rule Mandalore(Until being deposed) and eventually shows up in Rebels, then of course had his recent appearance.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

He shows up in Solo as the evil leader of the organizations.

Technically Abeloth is loosely canon since she is mentioned in by the Celestials, gods of the Force, in the Clone Wars show which we know now is film canon. They reference her as "The Mother" as she was the mother in the family in the EU. But I hope Abeloth won't return under Disney and they'll forget Lucas let Abeloth get mentioned. Since Clone Wars had Lucas family working on it and writing for it and he approved a lot of it and got involved at times(Such as making the Mandalorian vibrosword a form of lightsaber instead since he didn't want to show a lightsaber hit something and not cut it. Despite him already showing that with the Magna Guard and Electrostaffs in Revenge of the Sith which block lightsabers), and Clone Wars did feature Darth Revan in the final episode though he was cut, but they do reference KOTOR in Rebels(Malachor shows up and an unnamed Sith Holocron voiced by a female Sith Lord found on Malachor that acts like Kreia).

Them not being Sith is again in the movies and books, canonically they aren't Sith. Though they don't use terms like Dark Jedi or Gray Jedi, which Snoke would fall under Dark Jedi and Ren Gray Jedi(They mention he has the light side and that Snoke feels it is important that Ren have both light and dark in him) but Ren mostly shows off dark side abilities and things, with personal moments with Rey and Leia that show more of his light side. Snoke though does know the teachings of the Sith in the books but rejects them, in the movies he just talks about how he thinks the Sith were failures.

[TheGlyphstone]

Apparently Sith got backstory in some random tie-in novel?

Either way, rephrase it then. The Last Jedi is Luke, and The Last Sith is Vader.  Their respective students/heirs rejecting the traditions, teachings, and baggage of both Orders and forging a new Grey tradition instead. Kylo has hints of Light in his Dark, and Rey taps the Dark at times to fuel her Light, it could have been real.

It'll never happen, but I can imagine it did somewhen.

[Tolvo]

Well The Last Jedi sets up what you are asking for, but I doubt the next movie will deliver on it. As The Last Jedi is about how the Jedi Order failed and that Rey should learn from them but forge and entire new philosophy and not just continue a tradition that led to the rise of the Sith and the Empire. Ren wants to set up his own tradition as well though whether it would be based on Snoke's teachings, the Sith, or his own new one is not explicit. Rey already has rejected a lot of the teachings of the Jedi, and a part of the Last Jedi is about how new generations need to forge themselves rather than just keeping up traditions and that bloodlines and nobility are less important than who you are as a person. With Ren putting too much focus on his bloodline and believing in genetic superiority(Similar to the Empire, as well with his mentions of desiring a clone army) and Rey learning who your parents are doesn't make who you are and taking a more anti-Eugenics anti-Nobility stance.

But I doubt the next movie will follow through on what the Last Jedi set up. Abrams doesn't tend to do stuff like that he usually likes to play it pretty safe.

[Deamonbane]

No, Disney doesn't have the balls to go with a morally ambiguous tone in their films.

Good guys win and are happy. Bad guys lose and are angry and emo about it. Leave openings for potential sequels.

Though in my somewhen, there is Mara Jade and Thrawn in a live action film of their own.

[Tolvo]

Apparently Sith got backstory in some random tie-in novel?

Either way, rephrase it then. The Last Jedi is Luke, and The Last Sith is Vader.  Their respective students/heirs rejecting the traditions, teachings, and baggage of both Orders and forging a new Grey tradition instead. Kylo has hints of Light in his Dark, and Rey taps the Dark at times to fuel her Light, it could have been real.

It'll never happen, but I can imagine it did somewhen.

Oh I just realized did you mean Snoke got a backstory?

If so, I'm unsure if there is still much known. For a while we knew he was around during the Clone Wars and that he stayed out of the spotlight. And that he does know Sith teachings but disagrees with them. But there may be more recently(I haven't read all the movie novelizations or the YA novels since YA isn't really my thing). There is the Aftermath trilogy with a character who may secretly be him.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Gallius_Rax#Last_stand_on_Jakku

Gallius Rax the Fleet Admiral was the secret figure leading the Empire after Endor, being the puppet master controlling Grand Admiral Rae Sloane. He in the books was a follower of the Dark Side, force sensitive(Palpatine senses his power and remarks on his force potential), was taught Sith teachings by Palpatine and was considered a sort of secret apprentice of Palpatine but wasn't given training and power like Vader. He was tasked with protecting the secret Dark Side Temple on Jakku. Later he was killed, but wasn't shot in the head or heart and we don't see his body blow up, so he could survive and if he did would be heavily disfigured, like Snoke. And there are similarities between them, and he gave Sloane the order to found the First Order(Which she did, also using the data and guides from Thrawn). Snoke also we know when he rose to power showed an extreme hatred of Sloane(Who "killed" Gallius Rax) and killed all of the people that also hated Gallius Rax leaving only Hux alive. And Gallius Rax tried to destroy the Empire and the New Republic as Palpatine had planned in the event of his death but at the last moment also shared his plan to rebuild the Empire as the First Order. As well he liked to keep a personal guard and child assassins who if they grew up, would be similar to Snoke's guards and Gallius Rax revered Palpatine so Snoke copying Palpatine's guards could be a mirror to that. So he is the best candidate, and his life parallels the known backstory of Snoke. But it might just be unintentionally similar or a fake out, and he could have been planned to be Snoke then they could just choose not to make him Snoke(Like how the Noghri and the Vong were originally the Sith species until that was changed). And Gallius may just actually be dead.

[RedRose]

Disney will NEVER go grey/ambiguous. That's what RP or FF is for lol. But still they could just not "spoil" interesting villains with comedy or cheapo arcs. It is obvious to me that Rey has some deep seated anger from her parents and Kylo and her life and would fit nicely as grey+

[Tolvo]

Well keep in mind, Lucas explicitly stated the Light side will always win, is always right, and that he wanted Star Wars incredibly black and white. So going against that is going against the setup of Star Wars and original creator, which would piss off a lot of fans. And since they often want to do a war between morally good rebels and an evil empire throughout Star Wars, it's kind of hard to make any aspect of the Empire morally ambiguous and any aspect of the people trying to bring freedom to be bad. They did it a bit in Rogue One with the rebel faction on Jedha being termed extremists, but otherwise mostly that's just in books where they show people within the Empire who were tricked by the Empire into serving evil. And Clone Wars had the Force Gods show up, tell Anakin his future, they died, and the goddess of the Light Side, the Daughter, became one with the Force and was set to make sure the Light Side always wins in the end, while the Gray Side, the Father, didn't come back nor did the Son, the Dark Side, and Anakin and Obi Wan and Ashoka were teleported from the Force realm back to the physical galaxy and had their memories erased. And that was George Lucas approved, Mortis was very weird.

Hux though from the inception was not really set up to be tough or very serious, he was set up to be the "Butt monkey" from the start of the First Order. If anyone is getting redeemed out of the First Order I'd guess him, if he gets pissed at his treatment and turns sides probably not for ideological reasons but because if he doesn't he'll just be abused and probably killed.