Use the Falchion Posted August 10, 2020 Posted August 10, 2020 1 hour ago, I Am A Fish said: While watching I kinda enjoyed it, afterwords I hated it. Palpatine being alive ruined Vader's sacrifice. 49 minutes ago, Jaywalk said: Yeah, I initially liked the movie, but my feelings about it have not aged well. Same. I liked it in the moment, but the more I thought about it afterwards, the less I enjoyed it. And now I'd rank it at the bottom of the Star Wars movies personally. I like that people like it, but I can't help but wish it was different. 42 minutes ago, I Am A Fish said: What really annoyed me, is that they used music to mess with your emotions Ex: The soundtrack of luke blowing up the deathstar playing when they're lightspeed skipping It's almost like they think that John Williams will make up for complete lack of plot. Maybe I'm taking it a step too far, but I found TROS the worst of the Williams Star Wars scores. But I honestly found the entire ST lacking for the most part. I can remember Rey's theme and the Jedi steps because of the emotions in the scenes. And Kylo's theme is good, but it isn't great. The three songs I can remember are Luke's moment in TLJ because it was so awesome, and then the Canto Bight songs (the casino theme and when Finn & Rose are escaping) because they were so different from anything else Star Wars had done. But none of those felt like a "Duel of the Fates" (Luke's moment is the closest) or "Love Across the Stars" to me.
Snorkel Posted August 10, 2020 Posted August 10, 2020 1 hour ago, I Am A Fish said: It's almost like they think that John Williams will make up for complete lack of plot. But it worked for Phantom Menace! 1
I Am A Fish he/him Posted August 10, 2020 Posted August 10, 2020 21 minutes ago, Use the Falchion said: Maybe I'm taking it a step too far, but I found TROS the worst of the Williams Star Wars scores. They didn't use the music he'd written for RoS, they used his past scores. More of Disney copying the originals 2 minutes ago, Snorkel said: But it worked for Phantom Menace! Only kinda', I still disliked it, but then again in comparison to most* of the Disney Star Wars it looks pretty good. *Rogue one not included
Going_North_cal Posted August 24, 2020 Posted August 24, 2020 It was good but it could have been better. Most of my friends are all like "ReY iS aN iDeNtItY tHiEf"
Use the Falchion Posted August 24, 2020 Posted August 24, 2020 19 minutes ago, Esane said: Most of my friends are all like "ReY iS aN iDeNtItY tHiEf" Ha!
Briar King Posted August 24, 2020 Author Posted August 24, 2020 I wasn’t bothered by it for 2 reasons.. Palps is the mystical father of Skywalker’s so they are connected anyway(mystic cousins, hell the Romans adopted all the time) and nothing says Disney wouldn’t give us a secret Luke love child in the future before the outcry. Id say afterwards that it’s pretty guaranteed now.
Spren of Kindness she/her Posted August 24, 2020 Posted August 24, 2020 I think I posted here before, but my opinions have changed. The visuals were great. But there was clearly no communication between directors. ROS fit with TFA, but not TLJ at all. My other big thing was there weren't any consequences! Chewie's fake-out death and C-3PO's memory loss should have been permanent. Give it consequences! 2
Use the Falchion Posted August 24, 2020 Posted August 24, 2020 9 minutes ago, Briar King said: nothing says Disney wouldn’t give us a secret Luke love child in the future before the outcry. Id say afterwards that it’s pretty guaranteed now. I'm not entirely sure they will. While to your credit, Lucasfilm has been incredibly cagey with what Luke was up to during the 30 years between the OT & ST, introducing a child for him outside of the movies feels like a giant missed opportunity. And now that time for said child has passed. Do you introduce them in a Disney+ show that won't have the mainstream viewership a movie might? Sure, you can, but it also won't have Mark Hamill, since he's officially retired from the role. Do you introduce them 15-30 years down the line, when they're old and have a family of their own, and the people who wanted that Skywalker child have all moved onto other franchises and series? Do you introduce them in a book, which may or may not be positively received, regardless of the introduction? Or a comic, which somehow feels even more niche these days? Or a game, where people will probably just watch the story on YouTube if they don't have the system or like the gameplay? Do you announce Episodes X-XII for 2028/2030, and promise the Skywalker child in those? Then people might be upset because it feels like it's too soon, and that none of their favorite characters will come back. Oscar, Daisy, John, and Adam have all more-or-less distanced themselves from Disney and Star Wars - and honestly, who can blame them? And outside of all of that, Lucasfilm has been known for making some pretty...curious decisions as of late. Why announce a Bad Batch show before a Rebels sequel? Why create a Resistance show instead of exploring what Luke was up to with his Jedi Order? Why go to the High Republic when you know the Old Republic is far more profitable and popular? (Well the last one is probably for creative freedom of the artists, writers, and novelists involved in constructing that time period.) Lucasfilm isn't in trouble, but I wouldn't call it a guarantee that they're going to announce that Luke had a secret family either. Maybe they'll retroactively make a character a family member...hmm... 1 minute ago, Spren of Kindness said: My other big thing was there weren't any consequences! Chewie's fake-out death and C-3PO's memory loss should have been permanent. Give it consequences! I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, I totally agree, there were no consequences and nothing at stake felt dire. On the other hand, I'm now falling into the camp of "the only time a character should die is when their death can do more for the story and other characters than their life can." I'm not sure that would be the case for Chewie or C-3PO...well, Goldenrod over Chewie. But the point still stands! They have more to offer alive than dead IMO. We just shouldn't have been faked out, or at least the consequences should have been different. 1
Use the Falchion Posted August 24, 2020 Posted August 24, 2020 32 minutes ago, Briar King said: No definitely a movie introduction. In that case, as much as I'd like it (and as much as I believe Finn is that child), I really doubt it. I'd love to be proven wrong though.
Koloss17 She/They Posted August 25, 2020 Posted August 25, 2020 (edited) I like that it was entertaining and there was nice scenes in it. It didn’t hold together within the universe at all, sadly. I really care about continuity and this broke the in-universe continuity, which made me sad. I mean, light speed skipping to escape tie fighters that can track you through lightspeed and somehow have warp drives? I see that they really wanted the movie to work emotion-wise and not following the legacy of Star Wars. I can accept that. Good directors can do both, but I’m okay if they don’t hold up to people like George Lucas or Stephen Moffat (doctor who nerd). I was a bit disappointed with the Maguffins ie. sith dagger and sith map to the sith planet (blanking on the name). what I can’t forgive is the butchering of the leitmotifs. They used leitmotifs to play with your emotions, not to fit a character or concept. They destroyed motifs and hurt that motif’s legacy and purpose. They just didn’t understand how that is supposed to work or just ignored it to get a cheap emotional reaction out of the audience. From 5 to 16, I’d give it a 9 probably. I can accept the film and let it exist, but I am disappointed in it. Edited August 25, 2020 by Koloss17
Orlion Blight he/him Posted August 25, 2020 Posted August 25, 2020 Upon finishing the Mandalorian (yeah, I know, I'm late to the party), I was struck by an insight. Upon regaining consciousness and finding my wallet stolen, I cancelled my credit cards and decided to share the insight here, which goes to explain why the sequel trilogy was the worst trilogy and also why the prequel trilogy kinda failed. Original Star Wars, the series that captured the imagination, has heavy western and samurai components. Yes, it's also pulpy sci-fi and Cambellian story structure, but it's the western and samurai elements that elevated it. Those are also the elements missing from the prequel and sequel trilogy. The prequel trilogy instead had Arthurian/Shakespearean tragedy elements and the sequel trilogy... well, the Abrams films were just pulpy sci-fi that would often times imitate story beats and the Last Jedi was pulpy sci-fi with post-modernism! The Mandalorian feels more like Star Wars because it had western and samurai elements. I don't know where to fit Clone Wars and Rebels in all of this... and my enjoyment of the Doctor Aphra comics also throws a wrench in things because those lack western and samurai elements as well.
Aspiring Writer Posted December 1, 2020 Posted December 1, 2020 I'm just going to throw my hat here, seeing as this movie was so bad I ended up making a Video on some of its issues. A lot of you are trying to figure out why TROS didn't work, and I see things like it wasn't Star Wars, lack of communication, and Disney meddling, and while those are also valid, there is a very simple reason it didn't work. The writing was crap. The pacing was very, very off at the beginning and honestly throughout, rushing the start and rarely giving moments for the audience to breathe or for characters to talk and interact meaningfully. The Plot was nonsensical and reminded me of a really bad video game with numerous contrivances. How does Kylo know where the first Wayfinder was? What are the chances that they fell into the sandpit that the knife would be in? Why in the world would the map to the Wayfinder, the map to Palpatine, be on one of his assassin's knife? Why give people a way to find him? Why risk it? if the Assassin knew where the Wayfinder was, why did he need to write it on his knife? Why did the snake not attack Rey when clearly upset? Why does Rey just walk off to face Kylo rather than just leave? How does Chewie get captured without anyone noticing until it's too late? Why is Kylo trying to ram his ship into Rey? If he wants her dead, just shoot her with your cannons, and if he wants to turn her, what if she went splat or successfully killed you? Why not just land and push her like he does after? Why is this the first we hear of a captains medallion when up to this point, all ships have required codes being sent or talking to the pilot, not some chip that should be deactivated the second the captain realizes it's missing or confirmed dead. How did they know the exact spot to stand on in the shore for the knife to work? Any other angle and it fails. Why does Rey constantly keep leaving without them? Can she not communicate to her friends and technically, Poe is her superior seeing as he was second in command to Leia. Also, this next issue needs its own paragraph. How the hell is the Death Star here? It was vaporized! We saw that in RotJ. And if there were pieces this big, this should've burned upon reentry. It should be burned beyond recognition and certainly wouldn't be glass still in the throne room window. How does the Death Star still have power? Why haven't Scavengers crowed to the death star for parts? They'll scavenge star destroyers on Jakku but not the Death Star on Endor/Endor's moon? And how lucky the throne room isn't underwater, That would've made that scene so difficult, now would it? Moving on, why does Leia stop Kylo in a middle of a fight to get stabbed? Did she not think of a better way to stop her son that wouldn't have him be impaled? Or did she just not care at that point and wanted him gone? Becuase he would be dead because of Leia if not for force heal (We will get to that) Why does Rey just decide to pull a TLJ and remain on the Island? How in the world did she from fighting Kylo and saving him to self-imposed banishment? ANd does she not tell her friends anything? Do they know why she left? Do they care? is this so normal that they don't even ask? Especially when they failed their mission, you'd think you'd want to tell them that. Imagine if they kept searching the throne room for it and confused on what happened. (I'm going to make a disclaimer that while I am sure that they didn't know what the hell they were doing when they made Luke catch the lightsaber, there are ways to explain it without causing problems, so while I do fault JJ for being stupid and not considering the ramifications, it at least can be fixed, so it gets a pass.) Why does Palpatine tell Kylo to kill Rey if he wants to possess her? What if he did kill her? Would you possess him? Which makes me wonder why not let Kylo kill you in the beginning and possess him and go to Rey and either kill her or have her kill you and possess her? Why does the Dyad let him come back to life? Why does he not strangle/crush/zap Rey and Kylo while their defenseless? Why did you not stop using lightning when it was clearly not working? Why does Rey not get possessed? And those aren't even all the issues. Worldbuilding wise, SW is screwed. Who were the FO? How much of the galaxy were they in control of, what resistance where they facing besides the resistance, were there worlds very against their presence? Is the fact they destroyed five planets with Star Killer just forgotten? Does nobody care that the FO is trying to take over? What was the strength of the First Order? They seem Galaxy spread with patrols on planets yet we don't see more than one FO ship. How is the rest of the galaxy faring? What are free worlds? Have the Free Worlds tried starting a collation against the FO? How has Palpatine made a fleet on exogul? Where are the shipyards, materials, manpower used to man the ships, fuel to power them, and speaking of power, how can all the DSD have enough energy to destroy a planet, previously seen in planet-sized constructs, constrained into something that can fit into a ship? It has been 30ish years sense RotJ, how has technology evolved that much that fast? And since I'm on the topic of those ships, let's talk about the battle. because of the sheer number and power of the ships, JJ had to somehow give his heroes a chance to win and said these three things. One, shooting the cannons, which are very vulnerable for some reason, will destroy the entire ship. Doesn't need to be charged up, just shoot it. Fine. Second is that there are no shields in the atmosphere. Battle of Hoth, the main goal of the Empire was to take down their shield generator. In this movie, during the desert chase scene, there are shields on the FO tredders. Love seeing that consistency, JJ. And three, and by joly, this is ridiculous, ships, without a towar, don't know which way is up. WHen has any ship needed a tower to know which way is up? WHen has then been a thing? They are space ships, they just need to go the opposite direction they came from to come from the ground earlier. Why do you not have your own navigation? Why si there only one tower if it is such vital target? We see that the towers can be installed on the ships, so put on on every ship! JJ basically said all the DSD are one-shot kill in atmosphere, and with the tower, they can't get out of atmosphere. Why? Why not just make the Final Order Fleet something else? Why not have something original that doesn't blow up planets? there are all sorts fo different techniques for ships in legends and even in your own canon, just use one of those, and make them in manageable number like, not 1000? or 10,000? I don't know which it is, but both are dumb and overkill. The Empire never had that many ships in one place for a reason, it was unnecessary, the fleet in RotJ was the largest ever in one battle at the time (For now). Why did you write yourself into this corner? And the force. So in this film we have teleportation, flight, and healing. Let's start with flight. Jedi have hovered but need to be meditating/concentrating. Rey appears to be able to do this like she's breathing. So why not use it when she is on the quicksand? Or when jumping in the deathstar? Or any other time in this film? And why did you add flight, Jedi have super jump and capable of falling at any height already, they didn't need flight. Teleportation. So what exactly can they do to each other? Can Kylo pull Rey's weapons through, her clothes, HER? Can Rey pull Kylo into the middle of an ambush? Can their body parts be severed mid-teleport? What are the mechanics to this? And healing. *Rubs forehead.*Alright, mechanics first, then consistency. So healing is something that needs to be added in carefully, as to not make it extremely overpowered, and the limits and mechanics need to be made clear. The healing in the movie is shown to be able to heal wounds, even fatal wounds, extremely quickly, making it on the more powerful end of healing, so how does this affect Rey? It doesn't. they say it takes some force energy, but we see know signs of this cost on her, which would be easy to do with a bloody nose. And then we find out it can revive the dead, and then we see the cost of Kylo killing himself, a cost never before seen. And now we know people can revive the dead. I wonder who that could be used for... Wonder how many people would and should have known about that... (Also, for some reason Rey healed a snake but not Poe's broken hand. ) As for consistency, Rey supposedly learns this from the Jedi texts (That's the best theory for it because it's never actually explained in the movie, and let's give this movie a chance.) If the Jedi texts had this, then that means this was an ability the Jedi were well aware of from their inception, so why does the jedi not use this in any of the movies? How does Obi-wan not help Qui-gon, how does Anakin not save his mother, how does any jedi or any character die when there is a force user nearby to heal them? And if you want to say the Jedi forgot, then why can't that be said in the movie? It is the movies' job to explain this stuff, not for us to make assumptions out of nothing to fill in details they neglected. And that isn't the end. What was Snoke? He was a clone. Who was he? Was he a puppet, did have his own personality and motives, was he aware Palpatine created him, were they in contact, how did he become the leader of the FO? This doesn't explain anything, it just give us more questions. How did Palpatine survive? The darkside is a pathway- no. You can't literally say, 'the force', as an explanation in your movie to a guy coming back from being vaporized. Twice. C3PO gets his memories wiped? gets them back. Chewie dies? he's not dead. The girl on that planet that gets blown up? She's not dead. Rey dies, she's not dead! Why all the death fake outs? Either kill a character or don't, don't keep beating us multiple times over. At one point, we just don't care because characters clearly have plot armor than JJ's skull. Character's need a way to Palpatine? There's a map to him. Don't know where the map is? There a map to that on a knife. Need to get on a SD? Here's a token that can get you in. And there is more, but this is already really long and I'm really tired. I didn't even get to the hyperspace skipping and how it doesn't work like how we see it in the film. There are numerous problems with this film, and that's why it fails. The writing has so many cracks, you... I have no metaphor anymore. The writing is bad. Yeah, the spectacle is nice, the sound is nice, but what is it, without the substance that storytelling gives it, the reason we spend hours upon hours engaged in it? 3
Orlion Blight he/him Posted December 1, 2020 Posted December 1, 2020 @Aspiring Writer Leave something for me to complain about! Honestly, I feel the writing process of this movie consisted of smashing action figures together and saying "and then" after each explanation of what said smashing was supposed to represent. 2
Use the Falchion Posted December 1, 2020 Posted December 1, 2020 13 hours ago, Aspiring Writer said: I'm just going to throw my hat here, seeing as this movie was so bad I ended up making a Video on some of its issues. A lot of you are trying to figure out why TROS didn't work, and I see things like it wasn't Star Wars, lack of communication, and Disney meddling, and while those are also valid, there is a very simple reason it didn't work. The writing was crap. The pacing was very, very off at the beginning and honestly throughout, rushing the start and rarely giving moments for the audience to breathe or for characters to talk and interact meaningfully. The Plot was nonsensical and reminded me of a really bad video game with numerous contrivances. How does Kylo know where the first Wayfinder was? What are the chances that they fell into the sandpit that the knife would be in? Why in the world would the map to the Wayfinder, the map to Palpatine, be on one of his assassin's knife? Why give people a way to find him? Why risk it? if the Assassin knew where the Wayfinder was, why did he need to write it on his knife? Why did the snake not attack Rey when clearly upset? Why does Rey just walk off to face Kylo rather than just leave? How does Chewie get captured without anyone noticing until it's too late? Why is Kylo trying to ram his ship into Rey? If he wants her dead, just shoot her with your cannons, and if he wants to turn her, what if she went splat or successfully killed you? Why not just land and push her like he does after? Why is this the first we hear of a captains medallion when up to this point, all ships have required codes being sent or talking to the pilot, not some chip that should be deactivated the second the captain realizes it's missing or confirmed dead. How did they know the exact spot to stand on in the shore for the knife to work? Any other angle and it fails. Why does Rey constantly keep leaving without them? Can she not communicate to her friends and technically, Poe is her superior seeing as he was second in command to Leia. Also, this next issue needs its own paragraph. How the hell is the Death Star here? It was vaporized! We saw that in RotJ. And if there were pieces this big, this should've burned upon reentry. It should be burned beyond recognition and certainly wouldn't be glass still in the throne room window. How does the Death Star still have power? Why haven't Scavengers crowed to the death star for parts? They'll scavenge star destroyers on Jakku but not the Death Star on Endor/Endor's moon? And how lucky the throne room isn't underwater, That would've made that scene so difficult, now would it? Moving on, why does Leia stop Kylo in a middle of a fight to get stabbed? Did she not think of a better way to stop her son that wouldn't have him be impaled? Or did she just not care at that point and wanted him gone? Becuase he would be dead because of Leia if not for force heal (We will get to that) Why does Rey just decide to pull a TLJ and remain on the Island? How in the world did she from fighting Kylo and saving him to self-imposed banishment? ANd does she not tell her friends anything? Do they know why she left? Do they care? is this so normal that they don't even ask? Especially when they failed their mission, you'd think you'd want to tell them that. Imagine if they kept searching the throne room for it and confused on what happened. (I'm going to make a disclaimer that while I am sure that they didn't know what the hell they were doing when they made Luke catch the lightsaber, there are ways to explain it without causing problems, so while I do fault JJ for being stupid and not considering the ramifications, it at least can be fixed, so it gets a pass.) Why does Palpatine tell Kylo to kill Rey if he wants to possess her? What if he did kill her? Would you possess him? Which makes me wonder why not let Kylo kill you in the beginning and possess him and go to Rey and either kill her or have her kill you and possess her? Why does the Dyad let him come back to life? Why does he not strangle/crush/zap Rey and Kylo while their defenseless? Why did you not stop using lightning when it was clearly not working? Why does Rey not get possessed? And those aren't even all the issues. Worldbuilding wise, SW is screwed. Who were the FO? How much of the galaxy were they in control of, what resistance where they facing besides the resistance, were there worlds very against their presence? Is the fact they destroyed five planets with Star Killer just forgotten? Does nobody care that the FO is trying to take over? What was the strength of the First Order? They seem Galaxy spread with patrols on planets yet we don't see more than one FO ship. How is the rest of the galaxy faring? What are free worlds? Have the Free Worlds tried starting a collation against the FO? How has Palpatine made a fleet on exogul? Where are the shipyards, materials, manpower used to man the ships, fuel to power them, and speaking of power, how can all the DSD have enough energy to destroy a planet, previously seen in planet-sized constructs, constrained into something that can fit into a ship? It has been 30ish years sense RotJ, how has technology evolved that much that fast? And since I'm on the topic of those ships, let's talk about the battle. because of the sheer number and power of the ships, JJ had to somehow give his heroes a chance to win and said these three things. One, shooting the cannons, which are very vulnerable for some reason, will destroy the entire ship. Doesn't need to be charged up, just shoot it. Fine. Second is that there are no shields in the atmosphere. Battle of Hoth, the main goal of the Empire was to take down their shield generator. In this movie, during the desert chase scene, there are shields on the FO tredders. Love seeing that consistency, JJ. And three, and by joly, this is ridiculous, ships, without a towar, don't know which way is up. WHen has any ship needed a tower to know which way is up? WHen has then been a thing? They are space ships, they just need to go the opposite direction they came from to come from the ground earlier. Why do you not have your own navigation? Why si there only one tower if it is such vital target? We see that the towers can be installed on the ships, so put on on every ship! JJ basically said all the DSD are one-shot kill in atmosphere, and with the tower, they can't get out of atmosphere. Why? Why not just make the Final Order Fleet something else? Why not have something original that doesn't blow up planets? there are all sorts fo different techniques for ships in legends and even in your own canon, just use one of those, and make them in manageable number like, not 1000? or 10,000? I don't know which it is, but both are dumb and overkill. The Empire never had that many ships in one place for a reason, it was unnecessary, the fleet in RotJ was the largest ever in one battle at the time (For now). Why did you write yourself into this corner? And the force. So in this film we have teleportation, flight, and healing. Let's start with flight. Jedi have hovered but need to be meditating/concentrating. Rey appears to be able to do this like she's breathing. So why not use it when she is on the quicksand? Or when jumping in the deathstar? Or any other time in this film? And why did you add flight, Jedi have super jump and capable of falling at any height already, they didn't need flight. Teleportation. So what exactly can they do to each other? Can Kylo pull Rey's weapons through, her clothes, HER? Can Rey pull Kylo into the middle of an ambush? Can their body parts be severed mid-teleport? What are the mechanics to this? And healing. *Rubs forehead.*Alright, mechanics first, then consistency. So healing is something that needs to be added in carefully, as to not make it extremely overpowered, and the limits and mechanics need to be made clear. The healing in the movie is shown to be able to heal wounds, even fatal wounds, extremely quickly, making it on the more powerful end of healing, so how does this affect Rey? It doesn't. they say it takes some force energy, but we see know signs of this cost on her, which would be easy to do with a bloody nose. And then we find out it can revive the dead, and then we see the cost of Kylo killing himself, a cost never before seen. And now we know people can revive the dead. I wonder who that could be used for... Wonder how many people would and should have known about that... (Also, for some reason Rey healed a snake but not Poe's broken hand. ) As for consistency, Rey supposedly learns this from the Jedi texts (That's the best theory for it because it's never actually explained in the movie, and let's give this movie a chance.) If the Jedi texts had this, then that means this was an ability the Jedi were well aware of from their inception, so why does the jedi not use this in any of the movies? How does Obi-wan not help Qui-gon, how does Anakin not save his mother, how does any jedi or any character die when there is a force user nearby to heal them? And if you want to say the Jedi forgot, then why can't that be said in the movie? It is the movies' job to explain this stuff, not for us to make assumptions out of nothing to fill in details they neglected. And that isn't the end. What was Snoke? He was a clone. Who was he? Was he a puppet, did have his own personality and motives, was he aware Palpatine created him, were they in contact, how did he become the leader of the FO? This doesn't explain anything, it just give us more questions. How did Palpatine survive? The darkside is a pathway- no. You can't literally say, 'the force', as an explanation in your movie to a guy coming back from being vaporized. Twice. C3PO gets his memories wiped? gets them back. Chewie dies? he's not dead. The girl on that planet that gets blown up? She's not dead. Rey dies, she's not dead! Why all the death fake outs? Either kill a character or don't, don't keep beating us multiple times over. At one point, we just don't care because characters clearly have plot armor than JJ's skull. Character's need a way to Palpatine? There's a map to him. Don't know where the map is? There a map to that on a knife. Need to get on a SD? Here's a token that can get you in. And there is more, but this is already really long and I'm really tired. I didn't even get to the hyperspace skipping and how it doesn't work like how we see it in the film. There are numerous problems with this film, and that's why it fails. The writing has so many cracks, you... I have no metaphor anymore. The writing is bad. Yeah, the spectacle is nice, the sound is nice, but what is it, without the substance that storytelling gives it, the reason we spend hours upon hours engaged in it? While I agree with a lot of your points and also really don't like the movie, I don't think Luke's journal or the Sacred Jedi Texts (which is what they probably should have been) as a source of information is a bad thing, no more than [ROW SPOILERS] Spoiler Team Dalinar using the Heralds they have as a source of information is. But that's beside the point. I'm quoting you because I'm curious. How would you revise the sequel trilogy? What would you change? What would you keep? How much of how you interpret JJ & RJ's vision would influence your decisions, and how much would you let go? I'd like to see this from you. As an aspiring writer myself, I find that doing this to projects I dislike (or am dissatisfied with...or do like and am curious about how I'd interpret the future of) in worlds that I do like is a great source of catharsis as a fan and self-discovery as an aspiring writer. So yeah, what would your version of the sequel trilogy look like? (And note, I'm asking more for a revision than anything else, since saying "I'd throw it all out" doesn't really help the case. We all have ideas as to what our versions of Ep 7-9 would look like - I want to see what your revision of their version would be.)
Aspiring Writer Posted December 1, 2020 Posted December 1, 2020 (edited) 46 minutes ago, Use the Falchion said: While I agree with a lot of your points and also really don't like the movie, I don't think Luke's journal or the Sacred Jedi Texts (which is what they probably should have been) as a source of information is a bad thing, no more than [ROW SPOILERS] Reveal hidden contents Team Dalinar using the Heralds they have as a source of information is. But that's beside the point. I'm quoting you because I'm curious. How would you revise the sequel trilogy? What would you change? What would you keep? How much of how you interpret JJ & RJ's vision would influence your decisions, and how much would you let go? I'd like to see this from you. As an aspiring writer myself, I find that doing this to projects I dislike (or am dissatisfied with...or do like and am curious about how I'd interpret the future of) in worlds that I do like is a great source of catharsis as a fan and self-discovery as an aspiring writer. So yeah, what would your version of the sequel trilogy look like? (And note, I'm asking more for a revision than anything else, since saying "I'd throw it all out" doesn't really help the case. We all have ideas as to what our versions of Ep 7-9 would look like - I want to see what your revision of their version would be.) I'd keep a lot of TFA the same, though I'd try and fix the plot to be a little less contrived and make small changes and hints for what I plan to do next. TLJ, trash. The only thing I'd keep is the supremacy. The plot would go like this. The FO, after the destruction of Star Killer base, retreated into the unknown regions. In this version, Snoke is not the Supreme leader but instead an ambassador or leader of an alien faction in the unknown regions that agreed to assist them against the Republic, which would explain how they were able to make all their ships and equipment. The Republic is enraged, and all the planets are assembling fleets to help the Resistance pursue the FO. Leia is the one to go to Luke and convince him to join the fight, and the reason Luke banishes himself is that he trusted Kylo too much, put too much pressure on him, and Kylo broke and betrayed him, and Luke blames himself for not seeing it. Leia forgives him and we also get to see the man grieve for his brother-in-law. Meanwhile, Finn wakes up paralyzed and unable to fight, but helps by being a guide for the Resistance. The FO contacts for help from the alien government(s) and Rey is forced to fight enemies with Cortosis, making her lightsaber useless, and she's too inexperienced with the force to rely solely on it. She'd be wounded and the Resistance is outmatched, unable to fight an enemy with cortosis and with such different technology and tactics like cloaked ships, connecting the Sequel Triology the Thrawn Triology and giving more reason to read those books (their great). The Resistance would be helped out by another faction, probably the Chiss, and the FO are forced to retreat even further, and Luke would join the fight with Leia, having caught up. Also, yeah, never mind, get rid of the supremacy. And hyperspace tracking and ramming. I'd try and keep Poe and Finn together and make them the series couple, though I am not sure how'd I write that because Poe didn't really have a character in TFA for me to go off of. Movie would end with the Chiss and Resistance talking and agreeing to help each other. TROS, I'd have Rey use her tinkering knowledge to build herself a kypercrystal weapon that would actually help against the cortosis, introducing maybe a lightsaber blaster, Finn would be the relations guy between the Chiss and Leia due to his knowledge of the Unknown regions and knowing a bit about the chiss as they were potential threats to the FO, Luke would see Rey and think about taking her in for training when this is over, and now that I think of it, I'd probably remove Kylo from the series. The resistance would finally track down the FO, and with the help and knowledge of the Chiss, are able to beat them even with the Grysk reinforcements. The Grysks decide to retreat back to their base, leaving the FO to surrender and be taken back as prisoners. We'd get a scene of Snoke explaining to maybe Hux why they had to cut their losses, Rey would be taken in by Luke for training, Poe would introduce Finn to the republic, showing him around in his wheelchair/hoverchair, maybe another scene of the Grysks, and end. This all was thought in a few minutes. There are defiantly problems, as I realize a lot in TFA would not happen, which means TFA will definitely need some heavy rewriting, but that would be the direction I would go, using the resources that writers had available in other series, and giving us a new plot of rather two equal sides or a small rebellion versus all powerful empire, we would get to see the full power of the republic track down the FO to destroy them, and give us far more answers than we actually got. I'd probably need more time to think it all through and plan it out, but that would be that basic framework. I would have something planned and have answers prepared. Again, this was done in a few minutes so it's not very good, but it's something. Edited December 1, 2020 by Aspiring Writer
The Ward's Guard he/him Posted December 1, 2020 Posted December 1, 2020 9 hours ago, Aspiring Writer said: And healing. *Rubs forehead.*Alright, mechanics first, then consistency. So healing is something that needs to be added in carefully, as to not make it extremely overpowered, and the limits and mechanics need to be made clear. The healing in the movie is shown to be able to heal wounds, even fatal wounds, extremely quickly, making it on the more powerful end of healing, so how does this affect Rey? It doesn't. they say it takes some force energy, but we see know signs of this cost on her, which would be easy to do with a bloody nose. And then we find out it can revive the dead, and then we see the cost of Kylo killing himself, a cost never before seen. And now we know people can revive the dead. I wonder who that could be used for... Wonder how many people would and should have known about that... (Also, for some reason Rey healed a snake but not Poe's broken hand. ) I love this part specifically because you can tell how much they screwed up if you have to go into the novellized version of the movie to get the answer. Apparently Rey spent more than a day on Ahch-To recovering, which would have been nice to know in the film, but it would have further ruined the terrible pacing. Now, allow me to explain just how much I sincerely dislike this movie and the Sequels in general, because they are terrible (if you disagree with me, this is not a personal attack on you or your character, I am simply finding a place to vent. You are more than welcome to read through it and then explain why you like it if you wish.) Easily two of the biggest things that I love about Star Wars is the setting and the "big picture" character arcs; the sequels fail miserably in these categories from my point of view. On the subject of world building and the setting of Star Wars itself, the Sequels are incredibly disappointing when compared to literally any other era or movie trilogy. The planets that we see are either shallow copies of ones that we have seen previously, or just fancy backgrounds with little significance. I must say, the "best" planet that was added was Jakku when it comes to world building and importance. The reason why I say Jakku is because it has the Graveyard of the Giants, which must have been one of the few "original" ideas that Disney decided would be allowed in the movie. This is ironic because literally everyone in the film is telling us that Jakku is nowhere. For every other planet, we don't get the feel that it is a planet with a storied history, just a place that the heroes are at the time. If we compare this to the original trilogy, Tatoonie has proven to be an incredibly interesting place both in Canon and Legends because there is so much to work with. Yavin IV itself had the fascinating ruins that the Rebels were working out of that I wish we could get more about in Canon. Then the Death Star itself was an enormous Space Station the size of a small moon. We have memorable locations like Bespin, Endor's Moon, Hoth, and Dagobah, which all raised questions about the universe itself and led to interesting stories to pop up. Although it was really in the Prequels that the world building reached new heights. Planets like Naboo, Coruscant, Geonosis, and Kamino stretched what we knew about the visual Star Wars galaxy, bringing in new and interesting places. Then something that I have grown rather fond of saying is that the Order 66 scene in RotS had more creativity in it than all of the Sequel Trilogy; we get to see several interesting and visually intriguing planets for only a short time before moving on quickly. This brings me to another grievance I have against the Sequels, a distinct lack of new creative directions. I don't know for sure (but I have my suspicions), but it feels as if the creators were forced to "play it safe" when it came to major creative decisions. We went to another Desert Plant, we got another planet killer, we blew up another planet killer. To be honest, if I want to watch a movie like A New Hope, then I will go and watch A New Hope, not TFA. We branched out a little in TLJ, but it seemed to receive a smack on the wrist for some of its choices (for the wrong reasons). I myself liked the idea of the MeGA cLAsS Star Destroyer (it should have been named the Supremacy Class, it sounds much cooler) and the AT-M6 Walkers were an intimidating and natural evolution for the AT-AT, but there were so many other decisions that greatly overshadowed the good parts. Ahch-To was a fascinating addition that was handled horribly, it effectively served as Degobah in nearly every way, not to mention that it was said to be this all important thing, the first Jedi Temple, and then it was promptly dropped until our Hero needed a place to go into self-exile. it felt like they were saying they needed a place for Rey to go, and then they remembered that they had this in their back pocket. Then the factions, it was the Empire against the Rebellion, literally just that all over again. If I want to go and see the Empire against the Rebellion, then I will go and watch the Originals. We look back at the transition from the Prequels to the Originals and we can see that they flow with one another (this is something I will touch more on later), we see that the end of the Prequels places the factions for the Originals into their starting places. We see a natural transition, whereas with the Sequels they decided to take what the prequels did for the originals in one movie. They tried to set up the FO as the heirs to the Empire, and they should be feared just as much as the Empire, which was not effective at all. They then set up the New Republic, then promptly had them destroyed so that we could go back to the rag-tag group of Rebels that we love and remember instead of reaching towards other directions. Just looking at this, I could come up with a distinctly more interesting and somewhat newer prospect than what they used in the end, which is not hard. A cold war between the New Republic (NR) and the FO would have been an interesting new take, but nope, that was thrown away. If you ask me, it would have been more interesting in nearly every way if we had the NR instead of the Resistance, which is in literally every way just the Rebellion. I could go one for several more paragraphs about the Villains, FO, Planets, aliens, and so much more when it comes to this lack of creativity. But I need to talk about the Trilogy itself. When I watch Star Wars, I love that it's grand picture story, one that's interconnected through various movies, TV shows, and even books. When I look at a Star Wars trilogy, I see one story that spans three films, it is told in a way that you benefit greatly by watching the other films in the Trilogy. In my opinion, the Original Trilogy found the best balance so far between keeping the movies separate and having them be interconnected. You can watch just A New Hope and be fine, you could watch ESB and on its own, you wouldn't understand absolutely everything, but you would know enough by what they tell you in the movie. TRJ is more reliant on watching the previous movies, as it picks up from a cliffhanger, but even still it is satisfying to watch on its own. The biggest thing is that the character arcs in these movies are greatly enhanced by watching the entire Trilogy, not to mention cohesive. The Prequels lean far more into the Trilogy aspect, while TPM could stand on its own, it works to world-build for the rest of the Trilogy. Attack of the Clones is pretty terrible even in the context of the Trilogy, but it fills much of the same job that TPM does in that it does world-building and establishing stakes. RTS is the payoff for those firs two, what they were building up to. So it's great on its own, but it generates an incredibly higher amount of emotion when you watch the first two. Even better, these two trilogies work well together to make a Saga that feels connected, one that tells a single story. The Sequels do the worst job at feeling like a part of an interconnected universe. They have very little "natural" growth from the Trilogy that came before it, and it seems to be trying to completely forget the Prequels by not mentioning anything from them at all. There's a strong disconnect between the Sequels and the rest of the Saga, and there's even a strong disconnect in the Sequel Trilogy itself. In TRoS, it seems that JJ is intent on retconning nearly all of the character development that happened in TLJ; in fact, TLJ is completely alienating to all of the rest of the movies, almost like it tried to take a turn towards a cliff that JJ had to serve and backtrack to avoid. How could this have been avoided? As we have seen with literally the rest of the Saga, there was one mind behind it, one story, and that was the Story of Anakin Skywalker by George Lucas; Lucas controlled everything and guided it all. Lucas himself has been quoted to have said "it's like poetry, it rhymes." There is intent behind every choice made in the story and the characters during the Lucas age, the story is connected and cohesive, as well as reflecting itself in many ways. After Lucas was no longer involved in the Saga, there was a dramatic turn from what the Saga was supposed to be about, that is to say, Anakin Skywalker. The Sequels don't fit into the Saga, and TRoS even tries to retcon an entire movie's worth of character development, forcing JJ to try to make two movies at once. There's a lack of a unified direction, and a lack of risks taken. The characters seem to be uninspired, the Villains are flat out boring and under-developed with major defining and character moments getting cut out (No really, there was a deleted scene that would have firmly established Phasma's character as a villain, Finn's character in overcoming her, and establishing the Stormtrooper to be more human, as the whole "Traitor" bit that Finn has introduced that was promptly forgotten until the last second, it's on YouTube under TLJ deleted scenes). It's sad to see that the role of Villain that was once universally loved has been reduced to this list of underdeveloped wannabe stereotypes. This is by no means everything that I have to complain about in the Sequel Trilogy, and I don't mean to be an overdramatic hater. If you want to hear more, then ask away. If you disagree with me, then type away this is only my opinion, not facts. If you like the sequels, them you are more than welcome to, I will respect you for that even if you don't respect me for not liking them. Thanks for your time. 1
Aspiring Writer Posted December 1, 2020 Posted December 1, 2020 19 minutes ago, The Ookla's Guard said: I don't know for sure (but I have my suspicions), but it feels as if the creators were forced to "play it safe" when it came to major creative decisions. Acctually, I don't think that's the case. With the first movie, I think that was all JJ, the guy has no original ideas and likes to please fans, so that would be all him, not Disney. The fact Rian got to screw so much up the second shows that they weren't paying attention at the time. TROS definitely has Disney meddling, there are way too many accountants at this point, though I still blame JJ because again, the guy can't think of something with substance to save his life. Stupid mystery boxes. 30 minutes ago, The Ookla's Guard said: but it seemed to receive a smack on the wrist for some of its choices (for the wrong reasons). Mind explaining more on that? What wrong reasons?
The Ward's Guard he/him Posted December 1, 2020 Posted December 1, 2020 1 minute ago, Aspiring Writer said: Mind explaining more on that? What wrong reasons? I feel that I might have worded that wrong, but I will try to explain. From my understanding, TLJ took an incredibly large number of risks, some of the more notable ones being the subversions of expectations when it came to characters. The two biggest examples are Luke Skywalker and Snoke. Johnson tried to give us something that we would realistically never expect, and that's a broken Luke Skywalker. I feel that there might have been a slap on the wrist for how these twists were take by the audience. I myself was very disappointed with Snoke's seemingly early death. However, after TLJ, there is a noticeable dip in creative choices when it came to designs such as ships and vehicles. We got the SD1 model from Rogue One with a new paint job and a big gun strapped to the bottom as our fleet of Mcguffins, not their most creative moment. They didn't even use a model for an SD2, probably because one hasn't been made yet. Whether it's because of a lack of creativity, a controlling hand from Disney, or the movie being rushed, there is a distinct lack of any real creative direction. We got to see a few examples of what we could have had in TLJ the the form of the Supremacy and the AT-M6 as I mentioned previously. It just feels like a rushed mess practically all of the time, even when it comes to creative choices. There is the scene where Sidious does his Force Storm, which is visually impressive. I'm not sure if I could come up with any other good notes.
Aspiring Writer Posted December 1, 2020 Posted December 1, 2020 6 minutes ago, The Ookla's Guard said: I feel that I might have worded that wrong, but I will try to explain. From my understanding, TLJ took an incredibly large number of risks, some of the more notable ones being the subversions of expectations when it came to characters. The two biggest examples are Luke Skywalker and Snoke. Johnson tried to give us something that we would realistically never expect, and that's a broken Luke Skywalker. I feel that there might have been a slap on the wrist for how these twists were take by the audience. I myself was very disappointed with Snoke's seemingly early death. However, after TLJ, there is a noticeable dip in creative choices when it came to designs such as ships and vehicles. We got the SD1 model from Rogue One with a new paint job and a big gun strapped to the bottom as our fleet of Mcguffins, not their most creative moment. They didn't even use a model for an SD2, probably because one hasn't been made yet. Whether it's because of a lack of creativity, a controlling hand from Disney, or the movie being rushed, there is a distinct lack of any real creative direction. We got to see a few examples of what we could have had in TLJ the the form of the Supremacy and the AT-M6 as I mentioned previously. It just feels like a rushed mess practically all of the time, even when it comes to creative choices. There is the scene where Sidious does his Force Storm, which is visually impressive. I'm not sure if I could come up with any other good notes. That is part becuase TLJ screwed over the next movie and they had no idea where to go. Long story short, the Hobo Luke is unrealistic with the character of luke we know, and how saved his father from the darkside but didn't try with his nephew, and Rian didn't do enough to explain how the Luke we last saw got to this point and that it just happened, and Snoke's death was just dumb, as he refused to build on the character before killing him. After those extremely 'creative' choices, i can see why Disney might have been concerned with doing anything more to piss of fans. However, Disney has the collective intelligence of a whiny baby and has no idea how to make a halfway decent story and brought on JJ, who eats creativity and shits it out as this horrifying abomination. And honestly, same goes with Disney seeing as their remaking their old successes and somehow making them worse and worse despite having a road map. But, yeah, I get why they may not have wanted TROS to have too much freedom after the last time, despite the fact it's not the creative choices that were bad, it was the execution of those ideas with zero intelligence or respect. Really wish they would decanonize the trilogy and just start over. I think most fans would like that.
Use the Falchion Posted December 1, 2020 Posted December 1, 2020 39 minutes ago, Aspiring Writer said: I'd keep a lot of TFA the same, though I'd try and fix the plot to be a little less contrived and make small changes and hints for what I plan to do next. TLJ, trash. The only thing I'd keep is the supremacy. The plot would go like this. The FO, after the destruction of Star Killer base, retreated into the unknown regions. In this version, Snoke is not the Supreme leader but instead an ambassador or leader of an alien faction in the unknown regions that agreed to assist them against the Republic, which would explain how they were able to make all their ships and equipment. The Republic is enraged, and all the planets are assembling fleets to help the Resistance pursue the FO. Leia is the one to go to Luke and convince him to join the fight, and the reason Luke banishes himself is that he trusted Kylo too much, put too much pressure on him, and Kylo broke and betrayed him, and Luke blames himself for not seeing it. Leia forgives him and we also get to see the man grieve for his brother-in-law. Meanwhile, Finn wakes up paralyzed and unable to fight, but helps by being a guide for the Resistance. The FO contacts for help from the alien government(s) and Rey is forced to fight enemies with Cortosis, making her lightsaber useless, and she's too inexperienced with the force to rely solely on it. She'd be wounded and the Resistance is outmatched, unable to fight an enemy with cortosis and with such different technology and tactics like cloaked ships, connecting the Sequel Triology the Thrawn Triology and giving more reason to read those books (their great). The Resistance would be helped out by another faction, probably the Chiss, and the FO are forced to retreat even further, and Luke would join the fight with Leia, having caught up. Also, yeah, never mind, get rid of the supremacy. And hyperspace tracking and ramming. I'd try and keep Poe and Finn together and make them the series couple, though I am not sure how'd I write that because Poe didn't really have a character in TFA for me to go off of. Movie would end with the Chiss and Resistance talking and agreeing to help each other. TROS, I'd have Rey use her tinkering knowledge to build herself a kypercrystal weapon that would actually help against the cortosis, introducing maybe a lightsaber blaster, Finn would be the relations guy between the Chiss and Leia due to his knowledge of the Unknown regions and knowing a bit about the chiss as they were potential threats to the FO, Luke would see Rey and think about taking her in for training when this is over, and now that I think of it, I'd probably remove Kylo from the series. The resistance would finally track down the FO, and with the help and knowledge of the Chiss, are able to beat them even with the Grysk reinforcements. The Grysks decide to retreat back to their base, leaving the FO to surrender and be taken back as prisoners. We'd get a scene of Snoke explaining to maybe Hux why they had to cut their losses, Rey would be taken in by Luke for training, Poe would introduce Finn to the republic, showing him around in his wheelchair/hoverchair, maybe another scene of the Grysks, and end. This all was thought in a few minutes. There are defiantly problems, as I realize a lot in TFA would not happen, which means TFA will definitely need some heavy rewriting, but that would be the direction I would go, using the resources that writers had available in other series, and giving us a new plot of rather two equal sides or a small rebellion versus all powerful empire, we would get to see the full power of the republic track down the FO to destroy them, and give us far more answers than we actually got. I'd probably need more time to think it all through and plan it out, but that would be that basic framework. I would have something planned and have answers prepared. Again, this was done in a few minutes so it's not very good, but it's something. Okay, I've thought about it some more, so I can provide more feedback than just one word lol! This was very different from the revisions I've seen from others. Probably the most different, being honest. Overall I like your focus on more alien (heh) threats and the expansion of the galactic scene as a whole. It's clear that Thrawn is important to you, as are the EU material. (A good thing to have for a lore junky...which reminds me that I need to read Thrawn: Alliances.) I'm not sure if I agree with Finn being paralyzed, but I think I see what you're going for here. As a quick revision, maybe, in the revised version of TFA in your head, the movie starts with the New Republic saving a broken and fleeing First Order from the Grysk? That way you can deal with the ramifications of the New Republic taking them in as both a political dialogue while also dealing with the idea of taking back someone/thing that makes you a worse.* That way you can work the Finn x Poe dynamic into them being antagonistic towards each other to begrudging respect to finally love, not unlike Han and Leia. Kylo's a non-person in this story, but I'll just chalk it up to this being a quick toss out of ideas, which is fine! And most importantly, you've given me an excuse to share my version of a ST revision! Before I begin, I want to say that my original goal was to keep the director's visions in-tact as much as possible while also changing things to fit the story I wanted to see and tell. That means the first two movies don't change as much as you and others would probably like. (Teleportation and Healing stay in.) And I'm fine with that. TROS is a different story, as the small changes rippled down in a way that necessitated changes. This revision was also plotted out like a book in some ways, with room for subplots, sequels, and small Easter Eggs. This is both a weakness and a strength. The writing gets more descriptive and detailed as it goes on. That makes sense - when I first wrote this, it started as concept changes...but as I continued to write, the story fleshed itself out. Avengers: Endgame was also a big inspiration on this revision. I feel like where TROS went wrong in a lot of places, Endgame got right. Not perfect in all cases, but right enough. So without further ado...Use the Falcion's Sequel Trilogy Revision Draft 4.5 TFA Spoiler THE FORCE AWAKENS: TFA is left mostly as it is (minus Finn drinking from the animal water trough. I get it, he's thirsty; but at the same time, I'm offended by it as a black man). Instead, Finn runs into Rey, who begrudgingly gives him water, again showing off Rey’s personality. BB-8 then points out how Finn is wearing Poe’s jacket, and Finn runs, but not before thanking Rey for the water. I'm still working on how to rework this, as I think it's as perfect as it could have been for the franchise. The two differing choices I toy with are making the F.O. the now-ruling establishment of the New Republic. I always enjoyed George Lucas' themes of how empires are created in the PT. It felt almost natural for the Separtists to become the Rebellion. Here I kind of wanted to explore the opposite. The New Republic is now in a conservative phase, trying to recapture the "glory" of their empire days. First Order is a slogan of sorts, and a slang name for the government now. Leia, unable to stop it, saw the signs on the wall and bail(Organa)ed, creating the Resistance to stand up to the F.O. in case things go sideways. During this time away, Leia has heard of a potential superweapon created in secret. Other rumors state it’s a ghost fleet- the remnants of those who retreated into the Unknown Regions all those years ago. Leia needs to be prepared for both, but before that she needs to find her brother. This can all be explained in the opening crawl. This change doesn’t really alter the outcome of the story, but it does allow for there to be nuance within the world. This isn’t just a repeat of ANH, enemies and all; it echoes the PT in the political undertone also. It also sets up the idea that Leia HAS to fail at brining Luke into the conflict at this point. The problem with the Jedi in the PT was that they were tied too closely to the Republic and not to the republic. They were tied to politics and not to people. If Leia finds Luke before the F.O. finishes their move, the cycle is in danger of repeating. None of this needs to be said out-loud of course, but those looking should be able to spot the clues. Overall that is what I’m trying to achieve with this “revision,” a synthesis of both trilogies to make something new, yet familiar, that leads into exciting untold territory. The other change is the Knights of Ren. These guys are wasted in the movies, sadly, and aren't scary because of it. Here I'd like to see a small sub-plot with Kor Sella (the girl on Hosnian Prime when it was blown up), after failing to gather reinforcements for the New Republic, trying to save her family from the eminent destruction. The Knights of Ren are hunting her down, as they know she's close to Leia and may know the location of the Resistance base. This would play with horror tones, and end in tragedy with Kor's family being slaughtered, and Kor taken away, and her home planet of Hosnian Prime destroyed. If that’s too dark, her family can escape while she is captured. Kor Sella’s political antagonist would be the current queen of Naboo. This queen would be pro-centralizing the government. She believes they should unify and crush this “First Order,” believing them to be the first stop in the return of the Empire. Little does she know that the Order is already controlling her branch of the government. During the show that takes place right after TLJ, the queen will be deposed by a new puppet queen and a chancellor (Sith Alchemist in reality) – this new queen would have been born on Naboo and kidnapped from there as a child. She is now brought back to the land she was born in order to subjugate it. Her arc will be one to realize that she has a personality, a family, and a home. This will be explored more in depth in the animated show post-TROS. The now-former queen of Naboo will start a rebellion on her home planet against the new regime. At the end of the show, the new queen, comfortable in her role (as comfortable as she can be at least) and Kylo Ren will crush the rebellion. The former queen will be captured and, due to the “grace” of the First Order Queen, sent to a mining prison (on Bespin maybe?). TLJ Spoiler Poe's dreadnaught battle stays the same. The Resistance escapes and the Snoke's forces follow. Finn wakes up and asks about Rey. We cut to Rey, whose scenes are much like the original movie. We then cut to the First Order. Kylo is given a briefing by the Knights of Ren, who tell their leader they’ve found all the information he was looking for. Kylo is then called to a meeting with Snoke. The knights accompany him. Snoke demeans and abuses Kylo, Kylo gets angry and Snoke shocks Kylo with lightning. Snoke’s guards go into battle positions and the Knights of Ren do the same. Snoke himself is nonplussed. Kylo leaves, shattering his helmet in an elevator. As he leaves he tells his knights to meet him at the location and two lackeys to prepare his ship. Kylo then goes to attack the Resistance. Here, instead of a fake-out, there actually IS another space battle. Poe mentions that the Resistance needs pilots; a newly awakened Finn tells Poe to prep him a ship (echoing Kylo's line minutes earlier), only for the next cut of him to be in the gunner's position - this serves as a nice throwback to his experiences with Rey and Poe. In this battle Poe FINALLY gets a chance to fly against Kylo Ren; but once again is so focused on destroying the enemy in front of him that he misses Kylo's wingmen, who destroy the command center. During this battle, Finn also starts as a gunner, but his ship is hit and the pilot dies (echoing Luke in ESB). Finn takes over the pilot's position and survives the fight. There's a cut of Holdo listening to Finn's audio, watching ominously. Instead of retreating back to the base like Hux suggests (and like Poe will do when Finn radios him), Kylo puts a destination in his ship and leaves. After the battle, Holdo is left in charge of the fleet while Ackbar commands the Raddus itself. Finn meets Rose and they figure out hyperspace tracking. They share this information with Poe who decides it's "his responsibility" to save the fleet and goes on the mission with Rose. Finn's job is to stay aboard the Raddus and make sure everyone is able to escape when it's time. Finn has a headache, but brushes it off as his "reconditioning wearing off, I think." (Every time Finn has a headache, Rey's next scene involves a ForceTime with Kylo.) Finn also entrusts Rey's tracker to Poe - if the fleet goes down, at least Rey will be safe. Rey’s first ForceTime with Ben happens, and her lessons with Luke begin. Finn introduces himself to Holdo, and out of both worry and wonder asks about the shields of the ship. Holdo doesn't trust Finn, despite what he has done. She believes the F.O. may have sacrificed SKB in order to move their plan forward; so she doesn't tell Finn - and by proxy any other spies - her plan. Holdo calls Finn a monster (paralleling Rey doing the same to Kylo), stating that his kind can never change and never grow. Finn, with a headache growing again, rejects this and walks off. As Finn leaves, a soldier waves an arm and offers to keep an eye out for Finn, if Holdo would like that. Holdo muses over this idea and then agrees to it. The soldier introduces herself as Traya. Kylo appears during Rey's lightsaber training. Kylo mentions she's good but she needs more practice, and tells her to follow his steps. We see Kylo follow an intricate routine of battle moves, and Rey following along until the two are in sync. Luke watches, but as this goes on, his face goes from curious to horror. Yet he never steps in. The kata ends and Kylo compliments Rey's skills. Rey admits she’s a little surprised herself, until she sees the background of where Kylo is. He's on a planet, and all around him are corpses. Rey realizes that as she was in sync with Kylo she has helped massacre these people. She drops her saber and flees. Canto Bight goes about the same way, but Poe doesn't realize that Rose's sister was Paige Tico. Yet. On Canto Bight, instead of running into DJ in jail, they run into another character - Zorri Bliss. Zorri attacks Rose, but Poe steps in and the two fight. Zorri finds a way to sneak out, Poe and Rose are able to convince Zorri to join their side for one mission. Finn is next seen cleaning and checking weapons. Traya sneaks into the weapons locker and surprises the audience by stating the shield tech is new and experimental. How Leia got the shielding though, Traya doesn’t know. Traya then asks what Finn’s up to and he asks who she is. Traya introduces herself (“Traya, rhymes with Leia, but clearly isn’t! It’s not inspired by Leia either, although I do know of a princess with the same name…Traya I mean. Not Leia. Other than princess Leia…”). She states that she’s a spy. Finn slowly explains that he’s checking the weapons. It’s a First Order habit. Bored? Check weapons. Worried? Check weapons. Have free time? Check weapons. Traya asks which one he is now. Finn pauses and says he isn’t sure. Finn looks at the weapons, sighs, and leaves the room. Traya’s gaze follows him out. After the escape from Canto Bight, Zorri asks how Paige is doing. Poe asks how Zorri and Rose know each other. Zorri answers that the sisters and her were all in a spice running gang before Rose and Paige went to the Resistance, and that she and Rose were together back in those days. Zorri guesses by Rose’s silence that Paige is dead and with no results to show for her sacrifice. As the Resistance ships are sacrificed, Finn watches lovers and family and friends parted, all for some mysterious goal he knows nothing about. To him this isn’t companionship, its senseless sacrificing. Finn thinks Holdo's actions are a decidedly a First Order tactic (bleeding Resistance resources, using that excuse to gather allies, and then attempting to wipe them all out at once), and therefore she must be a spy. So, along with Ko Connix and Poe's other friends (maybe bring Black Squadron or Inferno Squad back for this?) they plan a coup. Holdo asks Traya if anything suspicious has happened with Finn, and Traya states that he’s acting normal. The next scene with Kylo involves flying. Instead of Swolo Ren, Rey recognizes that they're bonded as Kylo is flying a ship. Kylo doesn't tell her where, but he lets go of the controls and tells her to use the Force to guide him. Rey is reluctant, until Kylo mentions that he trusts her. As they fly, Kylo mentions that Han taught him how to fly. It's one of the things they enjoyed together, and one of the things he still enjoys. It reminds him of a time before his sister went missing. Rey mentions that she dreamt of flying away while on Jakku. Kylo asks if she still does; Rey doesn't respond. Kylo says "Let's fly home, Rey." The connection abruptly cuts, and Rey shouts "no!" The scene switches to Kylo. He lands his ship on the ground of a stormy planet. He approaches a monolith. An elevator descends as storms dance in the sky. The erratic lighting illuminates monuments to Sith past. As Kylo walks towards a certain point, we hear "At last, my boy, you have come." Kylo lightsaber blazing, turns towards the voice and the scene ends. Finn’s coup takes place with Traya and Poe’s friends on his side. Blasters fire from Finn’s side – stun only – but aren’t working for his enemies. Finn is confused at first, but Traya, grinning, soon mentions that she sabotaged the weapons and continues to fire at their enemies. Finn notes that sabotaged weapons don’t mean anything if their own side can’t hit the target. (Studious eyes should note that stun blasts look different than non-stun ones. Traya isn’t using stun.) Rey has her third and final lesson with Luke, whose cynical and taunting actions have finally driven her away from him. Guilty, Luke reconnects with the Force and feels his sister’s pain. Rey is pulled into the Dark Side tunnel. There she says three things: Who am I? There is only darkness. Who knows me? The wind picks up a storm, but Rey pushes through. In the eye of the storm lays a broken throne surrounded by sand. Suddenly she starts to sink into the sand. Right before she falls through, she states: Show me my parents – The vision like in the movie happens. Rey recounts these experiences. Cold and wet, Rey admits to not feeling seen by anyone and incredibly alone after Luke’s trick on her and the journey to the cave. It is revealed that she is talking to not to Luke or Chewie, but to Kylo Ren mentions how he used to have a sister. But his mother saw something when she was born and abandoned her. Kylo was afraid that if his parents could do that to her, they could do it to him, and they did. They left him with Luke, like they left her with Luke. But she's not alone. They hand-touch, and Luke interrupts. Luke and Rey shortly spar. It's a draw, and Luke exiles her off the island. Rey asks about him betraying Kylo, and Luke truthfully answers - it was a moment of reflex. He had fought evil for so long, in himself, in his father, in the galaxy, that when he saw the evil in Ben, on reflex he ignited his blade against his nephew. It was a moment of reflex, and after he was left with shame and consequences. Rey says she's going to join her brother. Luke scoffs at this, saying that family doesn't determine her role in the galaxy, and it's not on this island. So leave. And Rey does. Leia wakes up and ends the coup, and everybody on the Raddus ships out. Finn wakes up. Leia and Holdo are present. Leia hands Finn his blaster from TFA, stating that she recognizes it. Finn admits that Han let him keep it as a parting gift the first time he ran away. Finn starts to tinker with the weapon, checking to make sure it works. The Resistance approaches Crait, a place Finn didn’t know about because neither the First Order nor the Empire knew about it. Leia asks if Finn wants to run away now. Finn states that he was raised to do one thing, but now he has a true reason to fight. And so he will. Leia cryptically smiles and subtly chastises Holdo (stating that working with a reformed Stormtrooper isn’t new for her or her cause, and Finn is no different. All types are needed. And Leia never doubted a hero of the Resistance). (“I’ve worked with Stormtroopers before. But you’re not that are you? Finn, who are you, and what do YOU want to do?”) Rey goes off to meet Ben, who has since returned from his mysterious journey, his training seemingly complete. Ben betrays Rey. On the elevator, Rey tells Ben that she knows who he is, and that they will betray his master and he will redeem himself for his family. Ben tells her he now knows why she was abandoned. They go to Snoke's throne room and Snoke reveals that Rey is a Dyad, two force beings connected as one, as powerful as the Chosen One without the restrictions of prophecy. Snoke gloats about how he stole the fledgling bond from Rey's original pair to bridge the gap to Kylo, effectively tying the Dyad to his own will and command. But for now Snoke desires the location of Skywalker. Snoke forces the information out of a reluctant Rey. Poe and Rose are betrayed by Zorri - she wanted a clean slate from Rose's actions as a spice-runner, and is given a captain's signal. Zorri mournfully tells Rose that she shouldn't have joined. Resistance ships start to get shot down. Ben betrays Snoke, and the two fight the guards. As Ben and Rey's fight ends, Ben states that Palpatine wants to return to life. Ben needs to tear the systems down and consolidate power in order to stop him - to let the past die. Rey asks if her brother could really turn his back on their mother. Ben says that he would…and then Ben says that Rey isn't his sister. (“You wouldn’t turn your back on our mother, our family, would you?” “Yes, I would. But you know you’re not really my sister, right?” Or some dialogue such as that.) Ben knows EXACTLY where his blood sister is; he had suspicions after meeting Rey, but he found out where his real sister is soon after Starkiller Base. Ben then asks if Rey knows why she was abandoned. Rey quietly asks Ben not to do it. Ben states that it's because she's a Palpatine. Her parents were warlords, attempting to carry on Palpatine’s legacy after the Empire fell, and in-turn were killed by the New Republic. That Rey was abandoned simply because some soldier didn't want to kill a child. Rey starts to cry. Ben says that evil is in her blood, as it is in his. But they can stop Palpatine together, and then they can start a new regime together where EVERYONE knows who she is, on her home world of Exogul. Just them. Ben extends his hand, and says "Let's fly home, Rey." Rey, ever the hero, goes for the Skywalker Saber instead. Ackbar performs the Holdo Move (Hux calling the Raddus turning around a trap), earning a Glorious Death. Poe and Rose take down Phasma and escape. As the Resistance sets up on Crait, Ko notices that the weapons they brought aren’t working properly. Holdo wonders about this, and Traya mentions that Finn checked the equipment himself so it should be fine. but Finn mentions that he checked all of the weapons himself. Traya pulls out a weapon to have Holdo and Leia examine it; in a flash of instinct, Finn pulls out his gun and fires on the spy. Shocked, Holdo picks up Traya’s weapon to find that hers, indeed, did work. As Traya dies she proclaims “for the Sith. Empire.” Leia asks if Finn can get the weapons back online, and Finn sets out to work. Holdo asks about the Sith Empire, and Leia states that they can worry about it if they survive. Poe and Rose’s ship blazes through blast doors, and the two rejoin the Resistance proper (after being fired upon for a time due to the ship they arrived in). The Crait battle happens as is, but this time Poe goes for the sacrifice play. He claims that he's making up for his failures from earlier, and that if he can take down the cannon, then Paige's sacrifice would be worth it. Rose stops him, and does her "we win by saving what we love," speech and kisses Poe. Luke arrives, and as he says goodbye to Leia, he mentions to Finn that he left something for him, when the time is right. Poe FINALLY learns his lesson when Luke goes out to fight, and the Resistance retreats. Rey searches for the Resistance, but can't reach them directly, as her scanners are picking up too much interference from the salt foxes. She turns off her scanner and uses the Force. She connects with Finn, and they meet. As they hug, Luke smiles and disappears. Rey introduces herself to Poe on the ship, and Poe smiles, stating that he knows. The movie ends with everyone on the Falcon, and Leia consoling Rey and saying they have everything they need. TROS Prologue & Part 1 Spoiler Prologue The movie starts with Kylo flying through an asteroid field. We see him attack several planets, at first with the Knights breaking the siege on Castle Vader on Mustafar. Smoke and soot mix with rain; lightning dances. Kylo performs the same lightsaber moves we saw Rey do in the previous movie. The Knights of Ren wreak havoc on the enemies surround them. We switch to see Kylo fighting in a new location, alone yet unmatched. The Supreme Leader soon takes his prize, a type of Sith Holocron called a Royal Wayfinder. We see Kylo fly a ship, looking at Rey, but she suddenly disappears. Kylo soon reaches his destination – a barren planet, accompanied only by lighting in the sky. He marches towards a monolith, lightsaber on. He steps on a platform, lowering himself down into the ground below. Lightning flashes, illuminating statues of Sith long gone. Kylo reaches the bottom. He hears a creak and turns, lightsaber ready to attack. The perpetrator seems to be an old, red, Imperial Messenger Droid (the same type used in Operation Cinder). Kylo turns to ignore the droid, but then it starts to speak. “At last, my boy, you have come.” Palpatine’s face flickers to life on the droid. Kylo comments that Palpatine is dead. The droid acknowledges this, but the droid states there’s a way to reverse this. To bring Palpatine…to come back to life fully… Palpatine needs the power of a Dyad, two beings connected so much by the Force that they can truly be called one – two beings with the power of the Chosen One but with no prophetic limitations. Two beings like Kylo Ren, heir to darkness and light…and his other. The girl. The heir to the Empire. His granddaughter. Together they can open a door between time and space to bring Palpatine back. A World Between Worlds, if you will. Kylo states that he’ll kill the Emperor, just like he will Snoke. Palpatine states that he made Snoke, and has many more in waiting, so feel free to do so. Palpatine then promises Kylo not only the power of the Galactic Empire to go along with the First Order, but a new, secret army he has spent the past 30 years working on as well. Did Kylo really think the Galactic Empire was his only empire? We see star destroyers rise from the ground. Palpatine promises all of this and more will be at Kylo’s disposal, so long as he brings the heir to the Empire home. And as a parting gift, he gives Kylo command of one of the star destroyers. Act 1: Exposition THREE YEARS LATER We cut to two hooded figures, waiting for a door to open. As it slowly opens, the two people walk in. They are greeted by one Admiral Holdo, who welcomes the two hooded figures, who then reveal themselves to be Poe Dameron and Rey. They ask if Holdo’s mission was worth the risk, Holdo states it was, pointing out that they’ve rescued several high-asset prisoners, including Kor Sella, the former queen of Naboo, and a droid she managed to hide some information on. Poe asks if the information has been transferred yet at the same time Rey asks if Kor Sella is alright. Poe and Rey turn to look at each other. Rey flatly stares at Poe while Poe shrugs and gestures forward. Holdo states that some of the information has been decoded but not transferred from the droid yet, and Kor is sleeping in the medical station. Rey heads to the medical station and sees both Kor Sella and Ko Connix there. Ko is injured and was seemingly a part of the rescue team itself. Rey greets Ko politely and asks about Kor’s status. Ko states that Kor Sella’s bacta treatment went well, and now all they have to do is wait for her to wake up. Rey asks about Ko. Ko grimaces, stating that there wasn’t enough bacta left for her. Rey puts her hand on Ko’s wound, and using the Force, heals it. Ko is astonished, and quietly thanks Rey. We cut to Poe at mission control with Holdo. Holdo asks how long Poe is staying at the base but before Poe can answer, the two leaders are alerted to the incoming presence of TIE fighters. Poe quips apparently not for long. Poe asks about the droid. Holdo states that she’ll hold back the ground invasion until either the droid or the information can be retrieved; Poe needs to get the other assets out of the base. Poe runs to the Falcon, meeting Rey and Ko helping an unconscious Kor Sella that way as well. The four get to the ship and, along with a few stragglers (In my head this includes three aliens (one of which is a Twi’lek), if only to diversify the cast up to this point and beyond. They are part of Poe’s shock trooper team. One of them would be Admiral Ackbar’s son), head out. The Falcon makes its escape, much like in the real movie. Poe pilots the ship. During the space fight, the two Resistance heroes argue like siblings or friends (which of the two gets to fly, lightspeed-skipping, etc.). During the base attack, we see the ground force is led by the Knights of Ren. Holdo seemingly finishes recording a message, commands it to be sent to the Falcon, and the orders a full evacuation. These Resistance heroes scramble to escape as the First Order attacks. Holdo starts to destroy the command center. The enemies finally reach the control room; Holdo fires shot after shot at a trooper, but he is able to move in close and fire a killing salvo into the admiral. One of her shots does hit the trooper’s helmet, revealing his eyes. The trooper approaches the dying admiral. She leaves a bloody handprint on his cracked helmet; her last words are too silent for the audience to hear, but the trooper’s eyes go wide. He stands up, as if in shock, and starts looking at the chaos. A different stormtrooper asks the knights if they should fire on the remaining escape pods. The Knight states that it’s no use, there aren’t any life forms on them. The knight commands that all data possible to be taken back to the Supreme Leader; the Knights’ chase isn’t over yet. Among the Resistance’s latest base, the wreckage of the DEATH STAR II, we see Finn reading one of the sacred Jedi texts. Rose runs up to Finn and tells the former trooper that the Falcon is arriving. Finn gets up and the two run to the now on-fire ship. Finn asks about how the mission went. Poe is upset that the base was lost and that Finn wasn’t there, but there WAS information gained. Rose tries to calm the two friends down and Rey cuts in that they DO have information, but it will take time to decode. Finn states that they’ll probably have a meeting soon, and Rey mentions that she has some training to get done in the meantime. We follow Rey to a secluded place with BB-8. She closes her eyes and starts to chant “Be With Me.” Rocks start to float around Rey, and soon she herself is lifted into the air. This majestic scene lasts for a moment, until Rey sighs, stating how the Jedi aren’t with her. Rey muses to BB-8 if the Jedi aren’t with her because of her family. BB-8 has no response other than beeps. Rey sighs again, stating that she’s going to run the training course. As Rey continues the course she enters a vision: In the snow Rey is surrounded by dying people of all shapes and sizes. They grasp at her, screaming her name. Rey runs through the forest only to land in a storm facing down a hooded figure on a throne. Rey growls out “not again,” ignites the lightsaber, and attacks. The hooded figure counters every blow with a double-bladed lightsaber of its own. Rey, out of desperation, force lightnings the figure. Who catches it. The impact blows the hood off of the figure, who is revealed to be Rey. Cackling like Palpatine, Dark Rey throws the lightning back at herself, and Rey falls to the ground in reality. Freaked out and frustrated, Rey ends her training, returns to base, and hands Leia the Skywalker Lightsaber, saying she’s been out of it ever since the Resistance moved their base here, and she’s probably just tired. Poe, Rose, Snap, Shriv, and other Resistance leaders are going over information about the war effort – Bespin is on the fence, Mandalore has gone silent, and Inferno Squad/Danger Squad and Black Squadron are picking up the last of the survivors of the attack on Holdo’s base. Suddenly R2-D2 and C-3P0 come in, stating that the information sent from Holdo has been decoded. The decoding reveals a hologram of a worried Holdo. She states that the information the droid has wasn’t fully extracted, but they were able to gleam the fact that a sect calling themselves the Sith Empire do exist, and they have found a way to bring Palpatine back from the dead. The Sith are teaming up with the First Order to do so, and are meeting on a planet called Exogul. The rest of the information is still in the droid, which she sent to a safe location encoded in this message. Holdo says goodbye to her old friend, and at the end pleads “Please General Organa, you’re our last hope.” The name Exogul sparks something in Rey. She rushes off to find her bags, with Finn, Rose, and Poe following her. Rey mentions that Luke talked about Exogul in one of his journals. She states he named it a hidden world of the Sith, accessible to only a few. Finn chimes in that Luke also mentioned a map to get there, a Royal Wayfinder. Rey counters with the fact that Luke also mentioned that the Jedi destroyed any Wayfinder they seized in order to quarantine the planet. Poe chimes in saying that apparently it’s not the case, because if the droid knows about it – Rose interrupts stating that “the First Order must have one.” And she notes that the person most likely to have one – Rey finishes that sentence “is Kylo Ren.” Rey quietly says that she might be able to convince him to give it up, but it would be dangerous. Everyone assures Rey they can find another way, but Rey decides this is the best and most timely fashion. (We see the stormtrooper that killed Holdo retreat to a returned transport ship on a star destroyer. The stormtrooper, still breathing heavily, takes off their helmet. General Hux notices this, notes the ID fo the trooper, reprimands them...but allows for the punishment to slide, since the trooper DID kill Admiral Holdo. The trooper then puts their helmet back on.) Rey packs up the Falcon for her journey, and is surprised to find that Chewie, Finn, Poe, Rose, and the droids are all coming along with her. She protests, but they say they’re going together until the end. Rey smiles at this. Poe recounts the objectives: the first stop is to find where the droid was sent. After that, they’ll get the droid to the Resistance, gain the rest of the information, and convince Kylo to give up the Wayfinder. The information they have points to Tatooine, so the crew settles in. Act 1: Rising Action The next scene is Kylo talking to his generals. The mentions that the new star destroyer will be his new capital ship; he will leave his former ship to the command of Hux. Hux is puffed up at this. Kylo then mentions that he will mix the new crew with the old, sending half of his old ship’s soldiers – under the command of General Pryde and Captain Bane – to his new ship. Hux is aggravated, but tries to hide it. A new general asks about the Resistance. Kylo mentions that the Knights of Ren are searching for it as they speak. Kylo has a plan, one that will take care of all of his problems. During the flight, Rey asks Rose if she could have a hand fixing the Falcon. Rose agrees. They work in moderate silence until Rose brings up that it’s easier to work with mechanics than people sometimes. That despite their complexity, they’re so much easier than emotions, feelings, and other stuff. Rey agrees, stating that even in the Resistance she still feels like an outsider. People either look up to her or are afraid of her. They work in silence for a moment more before Rey asks if Rose has told Poe yet. Rose stops working for a moment, and then states that she’s been waiting for a good moment, but in war there aren’t any. But she also knows if Poe finds out, Rose will be sidelined, and she CANNOT let that happen. Too many people are counting on her. Too many friends – Finn, Chewie, Connix, and Rey. Rey smiles at this. Back at the Resistance Base, we see the Naboo Queen packing a back and a blaster, then heading towards the docking bay. Connix and Snap see this and stop her, asking what she’s doing. The queen mentions that Poe’s gambit may stop the fleet, but she needs to retake her homeworld in order to truly end the war. Connix and Snap are confused, what does she mean? In the main area of the Falcon we see Finn reading a book near the activated holo-chess table. Chewie sits on the opposite side, pondering the holo-board while Poe sits near his friend, the three in a comfortable silence. Poe then asks Finn why he keeps looking through those dusty old things. Finn puts the text down and admits that, at times, he can feel something in him, but he’s not sure what. So he thinks that if he studies the Jedi texts, he can make sense of it. Poe needles him, asking if that’s his only reason. Finn slowly admits that he also reads them for Rey. She’s the only Jedi around, but if Finn at least tries to learn about the Jedi, then maybe she won’t feel so alone in the world. Finn then asks what Poe’s going to do after the war. Poe comments that he sees himself following Leia wherever she goes. Working for her has been the best decision Poe’s ever made, so it can’t be wrong to keep going. Poe asks Finn if he’d follow too, after the war. Finn states that he’ll answer…if Chewie ever makes a move in the holo-chess game they’re playing. Chewie ponders a move and the two tease the Wookie about the move and cheating. (This scene is very much like the one at the beginning of the official movie). The game is never finished, and Poe’s question is never answered as they arrive to Tatooine. C-3P0 mentions that the Falcon has received a transmission. Poe states that they can review it later – the droid is the sole priority at the moment. The crew exits the ship. Poe tells everyone to be prepared for heavy occupation of Mos Espa. But as they walk up the crew finds a celebration instead of occupation. C-3P0 then comments that he forgot to mention that this is a festival that happens every 42 years. And so to the festival they go. Rose mentions to Poe that she likes this festival, and that he should take her to it sometime. Poe asks if she means after this mission or in another 42 years. Rose states both. Poe asks about a planet with nice lakes or something a little more intimate. Finn chuckles at this. Poe glares at Finn, who simply shrugs and states that he actually likes sand. Poe mutters that if that’s the he should just go back to Jakku. Rey is stopped by a little slave girl who gives her a necklace, asking if she’s a princess. Rey is flattered, but says no. The slave asks what Rey’s name is. Rey states that it’s simply Rey. No last name, no title. The girl stares, but is suddenly called back to work or risk being beaten or killed. Rey is saddened by this; and uses those feelings along with the connection to Tatooine to connect to Kylo. Kylo, neither shocked nor expectant, turns around. Rey asks how Palpatine plans on coming back. Kylo notices the sand in her hair and asks if she’s back on Jakku. Rey tells him that she’s asking the questions, and her question is “how is Palpatine coming back to life.” Kylo states that once he to brings Rey to Exogul, they work together as a Dyad to bring Palpatine back. Or that’s what Palpatine wants. Rey states that she needs the Wayfinder, so she can end the fight herself. Kylo says that he’ll give it to her once she’s joined him. Rey declares that she’d rather die than join the Dark Side. Kylo steps forward, declares “that is also an option,” and rips off her necklace. Rey snaps out of the ForceTime and runs to warn her friends. Stormtroopers identify that the planet is Tatooine to Kylo, and he sends the Knights of Ren and an extra battalion to the planet. Our heroes are identified by troopers, but are assisted by one Lando Calrissian. Lando mentions that he was able to save the droid that had the message before the F.O. found it. The droid, D-0, is noticeably shy around humans now. Lando entrusts the droid and the fate of the galaxy to the new heroes. He’s prepared speed barges not too far away from here, and they’re programmed with coordinates to an escape ship. Lando says he can’t assist Leia much these days, but to “send her my love.” Poe tells him to do that himself. Rey mentions that she once was attached to afraid because of a loss in the past, but someone wise told her that the treasure she sought was not behind, but ahead. Lando is subdued for a moment before he asks if she ever found her treasure. Rey says she thinks she did, and that maybe Lando can too. The escape on the barge happens pretty much as in the movie, with the groups being: Rey, Finn, D-O and BB-8; Chewie, Poe, Rose, and C-3P0. At the end of the chase, Poe’s barge is shot down, and the two are surrounded by KoR and stormtroopers. Poe and Chewie are able to fight the troopers off long enough for C-3P0 and Rose to escape the firefight. Rey and Finn leave their barge and try to fight through, but more troopers than they can handle at the moment appear. Finn is able to coax the girls away; but Rey, in a fit of rage, blasts the troopers with lightning. Unfortunately it’s too late, the Knights of Ren protect themselves and their prisoners from the attack, and are able to escape. Rey is frozen in shock at her own power and the death it caused. In the escape ship Lando provided, our heroes don’t know what to do. They sit around in silence for a moment. As Finn tries to comfort Rose, she runs off to a room and closes the door. Finn sighs, and asks Rey if she has any ideas. Rey, still stunned by her own power, quietly admits that she has dreams, sometimes, of a dark throne room. That she sees a dark figure sitting on it, and that everyone kneels towards that figure. Finn steps closer to Rey and asks if the figure is Kylo. Rey states that it’s herself. Finn asserts that he knows Rey, and that can never be her destiny. Rey says that everyone says they know about her or what she is, but no one does. Not really. She walks off, leaving Finn alone in the cockpit. Aboard Kylo’s starship, we see Chewie and Poe as prisoners. Kylo marks how familiar this is, having Poe as a prisoner. Poe notes that he escaped last time, he will this time too. Chewie growls in agreement. Kylo asks how Chewie can side with Rey – a stranger to the family – and Poe, the replacement son, than himself. Chewie roars something that shocks Kylo. And Kylo admits that he’s not. Poe then chimes in saying that even if he is a replacement son to Leia, at least he’s the son Leia can be proud of. Kylo walks out. Rose emerges from her room; Finn is still in the cockpit, piloting the ship somewhere close, but not too close to Tatooine. Finn reminisces about how this is similar to when he and Poe first met – Poe leaving Finn with a droid full of important information. It happened on a desert planet too. Rose quietly jokes that deserts might be bad luck for the both of them. Finn chuckles, but then is silent. He asks Rose what they should do. Go back to the base with the droid, or go after Poe? Rose slides into the copilot seat. After a moment of thought, she says that they need to continue their mission. Finn looks at her, surprised. Rose looks forward into space. She quietly says there are a lot of things she wants to tell Poe, but Poe would rather have them finish the mission and save the galaxy than risk it all for him. Finn too looks into space. Before he can press a button, however, C-3P0 – who has been listening this entire time – asks if he may suggest an idea. The droid notes that the ship isn’t strong enough to decode all the information stored in D-0, but R2-D2 is. Rose and Finn look at each other weirdly. C-3P0 then suggests that they D-0 transfer the stored into the droid while Finn, Rose, and Rey all rescue Poe and Chewbacca. This way the information is available by the time they all head back to the base. Finn praises the droid and runs to tell Rey. Meanwhile Rey is fixing D-0, who calls her nice. Rey thanks the droid, and asks what his name is. He says D-0. She then asks if he could figure out what to do next. D-0 states to go home. Rey mentions she’s not sure where home is for her. She asks if that’s what D-0 wants to do. He stutters no, but mentions that’s where the other ship is going. Rey freezes, and asks how he knows that. D-0 states he saw the other ship, at his home. They are “going home,” to him. Rey runs out to meet Finn and the two nearly collide into one another. Speaking over each other they are able to convey what the other needs – D-0 knows where the First Order are taking Poe, and R2-D2 can decode the information D-0 has while they travel. They ask D-0 to plug in where the other ship is, and they find out it’s headed to Kamino. The crew settles in, and they head to warp speed. Just now, Aspiring Writer said: That is part becuase TLJ screwed over the next movie and they had no idea where to go. Long story short, the Hobo Luke is unrealistic with the character of luke we know, and how saved his father from the darkside but didn't try with his nephew, and Rian didn't do enough to explain how the Luke we last saw got to this point and that it just happened, and Snoke's death was just dumb, as he refused to build on the character before killing him. After those extremely 'creative' choices, i can see why Disney might have been concerned with doing anything more to piss of fans. However, Disney has the collective intelligence of a whiny baby and has no idea how to make a halfway decent story and brought on JJ, who eats creativity and shits it out as this horrifying abomination. And honestly, same goes with Disney seeing as their remaking their old successes and somehow making them worse and worse despite having a road map. But, yeah, I get why they may not have wanted TROS to have too much freedom after the last time, despite the fact it's not the creative choices that were bad, it was the execution of those ideas with zero intelligence or respect. Really wish they would decanonize the trilogy and just start over. I think most fans would like that. 2 minutes ago, The Ookla's Guard said: From my understanding, TLJ took an incredibly large number of risks, some of the more notable ones being the subversions of expectations when it came to characters. The two biggest examples are Luke Skywalker and Snoke. Johnson tried to give us something that we would realistically never expect, and that's a broken Luke Skywalker. I feel that there might have been a slap on the wrist for how these twists were take by the audience. I myself was very disappointed with Snoke's seemingly early death. Johnson's philosophy for the arcs was to make the characters hear the hardest thing. This worked with Rey to a degree, since the hardest thing she had to hear is that she has no place in the story.** This worked for Kylo, as the hardest thing he had to hear was that his family will stay with him the more he tries to push them away. This...didn't work so well for Finn and Poe IMO, but that's an old complaint. Luke's arc was due to how JJ set things up in TFA and George Lucas' own notes. George's concepts had a grumpy Luke brought out of seclusion by an aspiring young woman, and he was supposed to die in Episode XIII in that version. Granted, Lucas' concepts of the ST change a LOT, I believe we have evidence of this one. Add to that the fact that it was JJ who sequestered Luke to the island and came up with a backstory (he felt like Luke would overshadow the new characters, which he was 100% correct about). Rian had to come up with a reason for Luke to feel like he failed and to stay away. And in a way, do see Luke's point of view. He failed, and in his failing saw how the previous generations failed. Luke saw systematic failure and decided that the system would end with him. So he did what he thought was the noble thing to do, and took himself out of the equation. It's not that he thought the Light Side wouldn't exist or fight back, he simply didn't believe that it had to be a JEDI who was the fighter, due to their flaws and hubris. (See his comments about how the Jedi "owning" the Light was vanity.) Now, we all know he was wrong, but it was still noble in his mind. From a meta-perspective, Luke represents the old guard of fans, their "Sacred Jedi Texts" being the old canon stories. He's dogmatic about his teaching, mocking those who want to learn and warping their perception of what they think they wanted. He's a gate-keeper, believing his way is the ONLY right way. Rey in this struggle represents a new generation of fans who want to love Star Wars, but are met with resistance within the fandom at every turn. Kylo represents someone who felt like Rey did, but now gave up, deriding everything Star Wars, and now wants to burn it all down. Or at least that's how I saw it. In terms of Snoke, I think RJ did the right thing. Could Snoke have been awesome? Absolutely! He could have been Plagueis or a dozen other cool ideas. But RJ took the tough approach IMO. The harder approach. He turned someone we're supposed to feel conflicted about and made them the Big Bad. In many ways, Kylo fully became the antithesis of Vader. Where Vader failed (overthrowing his master and ruling the Empire), Kylo succeeded. Where Vader was conflicted, Kylo was finally sure. Where Vader gained what truly mattered, Kylo lost it all. I liked it. No more "let me turn to the Dark Side and then back to the Light." For the first time in Star Wars we had someone who fell to the Dark and stayed that way....until TROS. *This may be misconstrued - I mean this as a talk about how the Republic would deal with those who praise and idolize its darkest time and iteration coming back into the fold. NOTHING MORE THAN THAT. **This doesn't fully work, as Rey is never really worried about it, but w/e.
Aspiring Writer Posted December 2, 2020 Posted December 2, 2020 6 minutes ago, Use the Falchion said: In terms of Snoke, I think RJ did the right thing. Could Snoke have been awesome? Absolutely! He could have been Plagueis or a dozen other cool ideas. But RJ took the tough approach IMO. The harder approach. He turned someone we're supposed to feel conflicted about and made them the Big Bad. In many ways, Kylo fully became the antithesis of Vader. Where Vader failed (overthrowing his master and ruling the Empire), Kylo succeeded. Where Vader was conflicted, Kylo was finally sure. Where Vader gained what truly mattered, Kylo lost it all. I liked it. No more "let me turn to the Dark Side and then back to the Light." For the first time in Star Wars we had someone who fell to the Dark and stayed that way....until TROS. Luke coming to that conclusion about the jedi isn't the bad part, it's how he got there, which was attempting to kill Kylo and getting his entire school burned down. They needed a moment where Luke wasn't luke to facilitate this. His perspective isn't that bad part, it's how he got there, and how much we don't know that lead him there. As for Snoke, killing him isn't hard route and should not be celebrated. Just because you took a different approach doesn't mean anything if you don't execute it well, and RJ did not put much effort into the story. It is confirmed from crew and cast members that he didn't do much past his first draft. You don't take a harder to write route and then don't put in the leg work. That's lazy. If he did it well, then maybe we would give him some respect, but that didn't happen.
Use the Falchion Posted December 2, 2020 Posted December 2, 2020 (edited) 18 minutes ago, Aspiring Writer said: Luke coming to that conclusion about the jedi isn't the bad part, it's how he got there, which was attempting to kill Kylo and getting his entire school burned down. They needed a moment where Luke wasn't luke to facilitate this. His perspective isn't that bad part, it's how he got there, and how much we don't know that lead him there. ...except they explicitly say how Luke got there in the movie. He saw the darkness in Ben (something he'd seen in pieces but never the full extent), reflexively lit his lightsaber, and Ben woke up at the exact wrong moment. And that's perfectly in line with Luke. Because Luke always goes rushing off to fight the darkness. He did so in ESB, rushing into a situation he wasn't prepared for. He did so in ROTJ, giving in to his anger when Vader threatened his sister. He's been fighting darkness in the galaxy for decades. How is it out of character to have a reflex that leads to bad results? When I was a kid and had nightmares, I'd go to my parents room to sleep with them. However, my dad, being a martial artist, always had a reflex to attack when he was woken up. It scared me as a kid, but it wasn't good or bad, it just was. Like with Luke, it was simply an instinct. Do I wish we saw how Kylo got to that slippery slope? A little, but that was the price of focusing of Rey and Luke, and the idea of alternative perspectives. 18 minutes ago, Aspiring Writer said: As for Snoke, killing him isn't hard route and should not be celebrated. Just because you took a different approach doesn't mean anything if you don't execute it well, and RJ did not put much effort into the story. It is confirmed from crew and cast members that he didn't do much past his first draft. You don't take a harder to write route and then don't put in the leg work. That's lazy. If he did it well, then maybe we would give him some respect, but that didn't happen. Just because he hasn't a different writing approach doesn't mean you should condemn it. He didn't need to work past is first draft because he felt like it was fine for the story, and I think it mostly was. But I think it was the right approach. We already had the Emperor as the Big Bad in two trilogies. We didn't need a third trilogy with an "evil mastermind." Something fresh was desired, and RJ took that path, creating a more interesting character arc for Kylo (potentially) in the long run. Kylo was to be a fresh, new type of Big Bad. He truly finished what Vader started in his journey to become Emperor. It's JJ who set things back to the status quo so things could end at the status quo. And ask yourself, which is the harder route - killing someone everyone is curious about and forcing your main antagonist to step up, or letting the status quo stay the same with some mysterious grandiose villain, a Skywalker Dragon who can't escape, and a turn to good that's clearly going to happen? Sometimes in writing you have to kill your darlings. Snoke was a darling that had to die so the story could move forward. EDIT: I want to ask, what does Snoke do for you in the story, and what does he mean to the characters in-world? Where did you see him going in an Episode IX that wasn't directed by JJ had he lived? What was his role, and had we seen it before? Was there anything new about it? What did he bring to the table? Next, what does Kylo's killing of Snoke doe to the story in a world where Episode IX wasn't directed by JJ in your mind? What would happen had he not killed Snoke in your mind? If Snoke's history doesn't matter to the characters in-world (either because they know or they don't care), then why should it be announced? If Rey's family identity doesn't matter to her, then why should we focus our attention on it outside of some fun (and responsibly managed) speculation? Is Snoke weak or strong in this story? Edited December 2, 2020 by Use the Falchion
Aspiring Writer Posted December 2, 2020 Posted December 2, 2020 2 minutes ago, Use the Falchion said: ...except they explicitly say how Luke got there in the movie. He saw the darkness in Ben (something he'd seen in pieces but never the full extent), reflexively lit his lightsaber, and Ben woke up at the exact wrong moment. And that's perfectly in line with Luke. Because Luke always goes rushing off to fight the darkness. He did so in ESB, rushing into a situation he wasn't prepared for. He did so in ROTJ, giving in to his anger when Vader threatened his sister. He's been fighting darkness in the galaxy for decades. How is it out of character to have a reflex that leads to bad results? Okay, so, Luke found out he was the son of Darth Vader, one of the most evil people in the galaxy. We see him, despite everything he did to him and everyone in the galaxy, try and turn Darth Vader, to make him come back to the Light. He held out hope even as he was dying by the emperor's hand. he felt it was better to try and die, hoping he could rescue Vader than to kill him. Fast forward to TLJ, we see him see the darkness and Kylo, and rather than try and talk with hi, to hold out hope and try and keep him in the light like he had with someone guilty of killing millions, he ignites his lightsaber. Did he strike, no, but If I constantly thought about killing myself and then grabbed a knife and put it against my arm, that is more than just consideration. It's out of character from what we know and the fact he thought eh could change Luke's character with less than two minutes of flashbacks of the same scene is ridiculous.
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