The Ward's Guard

Arminio shuddered. Why him? Whatever this Concerto knows cannot be that important. Kuno shook his head. "If my informants are right once again, then Concerto has knowledge about the amal process, and more importantly, crystals. You know how much I desire information like that. Besides, I hear that this Concerto is a clever one, and no one has every managed to escape the Maestro before, so there was only one way to be sure." Arminio sighed. If it is your wish, then it is mine. "Excellent, now I must speak with Captain Nelision about his progress." Arminio nodded. He shouldn't be far, the Chosen were particularly mobile after all.

Kuno nodded once more. "You are welcome to carry on then Maestro, unless you have questions."

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.

Back away, I will deal with this Channelknight scum myself.

Gestures to Bodyguards. Crush him, make him suffer! Bodyguards approach.

General Fadran. Chuckles. You are a bold one.

Old man summoned. It's been a hot second since I've checked in on this Thread.

"Safe, that's not the most applicable term."

Pior nodded, looking satisfied. "Well, let's hope that we can make t work. After you hot eyes."

"Bet'cha we could get away with it if we offered Val to Tarne's care while we are there. Tarne has always had a sot spot for young and timid folk." @Vapor

"You lit it! Besides, we have these three with us."

"Maybe if we promise not to let any fire accidentally go rampant again. Still don't know why I was blamed for that with you, makes absolutely no sense."

"By Mother, what do you expect of them then?"

"There are two types of bad ideas, the ones that are so insane that they might work, and the ones that are just plain terrible. This is easily just plain terrible. Do you really think they'll let us back among them?"

"Oh you can't be serious." Pior pointed at Concerto. "With him?"

Pior rubbed his hands together. "That can mean one of two things, either I'm gonna love it, or I'll be put in danger."

Interesting thought. I have a hard time believing that the government could realistically restrict these supers if they wanted to, especially if it were ruled by the normal folk. On the other hand, if the government did have the power to stop these supers then i would imagine that there would be powerful normal folk trying to make that move. Adding political intrigue to this world could be a great decision. If the supers are more common, then I imagine their views on the political world would vary wildly as well. So even though there is a faction built up for the legal defense of supers, there are supers who oppose how they do that. This could also lead to there being three versions of successful supervillains. The first being the "underground" type, basically working in secrecy. The second being the "political" type, one that uses the legal system and the government to achieve their evil goals. Then the incredibly rare "Showboat" type, ones that are either insanely lucky or skilled enough that they haven't gotten caught by the super heroes. Let me know if you can follow this train of thought, o if I need to reconsider how I explained it. We should also eventually address how these supers got their powers.

"C'mon, we use him while he's willing, then kill him if he tries to kill us. Bonus note, he's important to the amal, supposedly."

Bungou Stray Dogs, can be found on Hulu. It's a rather dramatic and occasionally humorous show that keeps me wanting more. It focuses heavily on character development and plot, as well as asking serious questions about morality and the such. As a bit of a fun bonus, the characters in the show are based off of authors, typically classic ones. at first you'll see a lot of Japanese classical authors, as the show takes place in Japan, but eventually Americans make their way into the story. It's a good watch with a tie-in movie that is optional, but it has a well handled plot and applicable character development, not to mention that it's canon in the show's established "lore". I personally prefer the audio to be in Japanese with English Subtitles by the way, mostly for the Japanese voice actors and how they do their lines. It is my opinion that the American dub voice actors (no offense meant to their skill) can't quite get that character that the original voice actors put in.

"Those are the facts. although I don't know if now's the time to go over them. I say we keep the big shot amal, but I'm just the sidekick, it's not up to me."

Pior kept laughing to himself. 'If I'm you sidekick, then I guess you get to decide what to do with Concerto."