How do we put this delicately? Some of the decisions Rian Johnson made in Star Wars: The Last Jedi…rubbed people the wrong way. The handling of Luke Skywalker, Rey’s lineage, the fate of Snoke, all of these things instantly became lightning rods of debate and continue to be just that.
Some fans even hope the sequel changes those things. And if they do, Johnson is OK with it.
While speaking to Johnson at CinemaCon 2019, MTV asked the writer and director of The Last Jedi if he’d be bothered if Star Wars: Episode IX co-writer and director J.J. Abrams retconned the revelation that Rey’s parents were no one.
Johnson immediately shook his head and replied, “Like I said, man, I want to let go of all my expectations. I want to sit back. I want to be entertained. I want to be surprised. I want to be thrilled. I want him to do stuff I wasn’t expecting him to do and just go along for the ride.”
In other words, no, he won’t be bothered. He just wants to see something new and exciting, like he did himself by actually doing those things in the first place. (We love The Last Jedi, by the way, just to clear that up.)
The interview, which you can watch below, also touched on other topics that are important to fans of the franchise. So, no, as should be obvious from the previous quote, he does not know what’s going to happen in Episode IX. Outside of a few brief meetings, he’s out of the loop on the film.
Yes, he is still working on his Star Wars movies. There’s no timeline as he’s waiting on Lucasfilm to figure out their slate. And yes, he’s very excited to see what David Benioff and D.B. Weiss do with their movies – which, like he said about Abrams’ upcoming film, he hopes are surprising.
“I’m also psyched about the things they are going to explore beyond what we’ve seen already,” Johnson said. “To me, that’s kind of the most exciting stuff is pushing the limits of seeing stuff we haven’t seen before in Star Wars.”
You know, like he did with The Last Jedi. Here’s the full interview.
.@rianjohnson is just as excited for J.J. Abram’s #StarWars Episode IX as we are, and he tells us at #CinemaCon he hopes that the directors keep taking the universe to new heights: “I want him to do stuff that I wasn’t expecting him to do” pic.twitter.com/D7Jh5SqgeT
— MTV NEWS (@MTVNEWS) April 5, 2019
Johnson’s next film, Knives Out—which looks like a Guy Ritchie/Matthew Vaughn gangster movie crossed with Clue, and is set at a family gathering where everyone is a murder suspect, featuring the most insane cast ever—is out this Thanksgiving.
Star Wars: Episode IX is set for a December 20 release, and we’ll finally get to learn more about it at Star Wars Celebration next week.
Comments
101 responses to “Rian Johnson Is OK With The Possibility Of Star Wars: Episode IX Retconning The Last Jedi”
The best Star Wars movie to date.
Kill all the sacred cows and do something interesting.
TLJ didn’t do anything interesting though. It looked like it was but it was a faint and were back to the status quo that was set before the movie started.
feint, just for the future.
Thanks mate.
Not the best but certainly not the worst. It was a heavy lumbering beast that needed to shed weight before release, but I liked the direction it was going. I have faith that Abrams will kick the final act into shape and also look forward to a new trilogy from Johnson.
Not the best, could have gone on a small diet and lost about 20 mins, but I really liked it on the whole.
And as others have pointed out, it’s possible to write around some of the story if Abrams needs to take it in another direction.
Really don’t get the hate though, but then I didn’t get the hate for Ghostbusters or Captain Marvel either.
The hate for TLJ was that it progressed nothing killed off characters that it didn’t need to. The threads created from TFA were cut with no payoff. There are numerous issues with this movie. The bombing scene, the space chase, Ackbar dies off-screen, the unnecessary mutiny, Mary Poppins…the list goes on. (you should look up How It Should Have Ended: The Last Jedi on YT)
Ghostbusters copped flack because the movie was bad, yes there were some people who blamed the all female cast, but that factor was minor, if at all. The writing was bad, the acting was bad. The GB franchise was not strong enough to support a “sequel” so far from the last movie. Originally was listed as being “in the same universe” then it wasnt, it was a redux. It was trying to draw in a new audience without acknowledging its heritage.
Captain Marvel got heat because of something that Brie Larsen said about “white men”. Who cares? The movie should stand and fall on it’s own merits. CM is a better than average movie, but far from what I would consider good from the MCU. It feels hurriedly created so people understand the reveal from Inifinity War and know who she is Endgame.
Agree with you on TLJ and GB, but CapMarvel, in view, absolutely failed due to two things.
1. The Skrull. Like, they took what was an empire in a war with another empire, and using earth as the battleground, and twisted it into some sort refugee thing. They tried to stick decades of comic book lore into a single movie, which is just dumb. And now, I really don’t know how they’re supposed to pull Secret War off, which is what everyone was hoping the next Phase would be.
2. This is to a far lesser extent than the Skrull, but when she just blasted the buy at the end and the throwaway line of ‘I don’t have anything to prove to you’. Sure, she did not. But the whole thing was so anticlimactic, and she could have bet his ass into the ground instead so we could have gotten a good fight at the end of it all.
All in all, it was just way to politically charged.
God no. Just no. Thats a movie, not a damn phase. Especially with whats coming to Marvel via fox.
It would have to be a phase to be done properly though. We are talking about this whole thing where the Skrull invaded Earth and took on the roles of there heroes and kidnapped the real ones. Mind you, this idea was floating around before the Fox buyout.
Personally I quite enjoyed Captain Marvel. As Feige said, they can still quite easily do the Secret Invasion, as one faction of Skrulls do not represent the entirety of the Skrull empire. Just as they’ve established through Shield and the movies that not all Kree are the same. They can bring in other Skrulls, a seperate faction, with an agenda to invade Earth 20 years later. It’s not hard to do, then you can potentially have a situation with ally and enemy Skrulls up against each other as well in the long run, a rather delicious scenario imho.
As for the ending with Law’s character, the fact is all movie he’s saying to her ‘you must prove yourself to ME’, as if he’s her ultimate goal, it doesn’t matter he’s male, he’s saying to her that the only thing in life that matters is his approval of her, that he’s basically the Kreese to her Johnny Lawrence. Once she breaks free of his shackles, she understands he’s nothing but a bully, a fool who has been subduing her true power out of his own fear. By using her own powers as she should have a right to, by not being brought down to someone elses level and limiting herself, she understands she doesn’t have to limit herself anymore for others.
That’s not gender specific, that’s a human thing, you don’t need to limit yourself for others, if you do, break yourself out of that pattern or you’ll forever be answering needlessly to them. Only ever answer to your own self and set your own limitations, don’t let others set them for you.
Those who saw absolute gender politics in this movie really had to dig deep for the ones they pulled out of their butts. Sure Brie said some silly stuff on tour, but ultimately Captain Marvel was a decent movie, not Disney/Marvels best, but not their worst. I’d say a comfortable 7/10?
Sometimes I wonder if people are watching the same films…
I think no two people watch the same film. It’s a collective experience, sitting in a darkened theatre, but it’s one we all have as individuals. And we bring our sensibilities and our politics and our aesthetics and what-all with us.
As long as we can be civilised with people we disagree with, that’s not a bad thing.
And if we disagree, it’s pies at dawn…
Great! I’ll bring the bubbly; I love a breakfast picnic!
Ghostbusters, ugh. It was the perfect demonstration of what happens when you get four improvisors who are all constantly competing to come up with a punchline and the director just lets them go.
Four individually funny people trying way too hard, while the writer/director did nothing. The actors aren’t the ones to blame – the people simply didn’t do their jobs were the ones at fault for that trainwreck.
For TLJ it’s the same. How the people in charge looked at the finished product and went “yep, that’s what we’re going with” is beyond me. You spent how many millions of dollars… and THAT was what you came up with?
On a technical or ‘objective’ level it was pretty spotty, but it was by far my favourite of the whole franchise.
Kylo Ren is in my eyes a better villain in every way than Vader ever was, Rey is so much more interesting to follow than the Skywalkers were and that one nearly black and white scene in almost complete silence was by far the best looking shot in any Star Wars film by a wide margin and Snoke + the fight scene afterwards was fantastic. I also liked grumpy old Luke Skywalker better than I ever did his younger self, and I loved the end to his story. Fight me.
Sure it had issues, I don’t think the whole animal cruelty gambling planet thing was a good idea, and the execution was worse, the del Toro character was sort of wasted as was Captain Phasma (again!) and I think it would have been a much better film if it were 30 minutes shorter, but as an overall package I found it far more entertaining than any other SW film.
If Rey turns out to be a secret Skywalker or similar in ep9 I’ll be pretty disappointed, while it is true it did return largely to the status quo at the end of the film small changes that were made were, from my perspective, much needed. The more tightly tied to the OT the Disney films are the less interesting they could be, so the Skywalker etc. lineage being very much reduced in importance is a great thing, there’s so much more freedom to tell a new story, as opposed to the Force Awakens which was really just a glorified remake.
This is pretty much what I was too lazy to write. I always thought Star Wars was a series of cool fantasy/sci-fi nonsense that was a really fun ride. The new movies are exactly that.
I like TFA and I was completely on board with the fact that the story paralleled the original.
Spot on.
I liked TLJ.
I liked TFA too…. however they really could have done something other than deathstar 3.0
As for TLJ, it certainly had some horrible bits… like Leia’s space flight and the realization that the rebellion can defeat any imperial super star destroyer by just running other ships into it at hyberspeed being the main ones.
I agree that the whole gambling planet bit could have been cut and also agree about Del Torro’s character.
I’m fine with Rey not having special parents, but if she did, they I hope it’s not tied to skywalkers.
Maybe she can be Ezra’s kid or Kanan’s (depending on how the ages work out there). Not that either of those characters have anything to do with Jakku as far as I know.
But as one of the few Jedi to survive order 66 it would make sense for Kanan to hide his kid.
I’m sorry you’re getting down-voted for expressing your opinion, but hey; that’s the way this stupid comment rating system goes.
Also, I agree with you; the worst thing the Star Wars franchise could do is constantly re-hash the Campbellian Hero-journey archetype it was based on, tinkering at the edges of worn-out tropes for film after film, until it becomes a pastiche of itself.
I was stunned, knocked sideways by SW:TLJ. I left the theatre not knowing how to parse it. I had to sit with it a while to realise just how subversive and utterly neat it was (for the most part; I thought the casino planet was pretty but didn’t add anything to the plot)–and for me, it was incredibly good. It really was–once i had accepted the film on the screen, as opposed to the film I didn’t even realise I’d been carrying around in my head all these years.
See, when I got home from the film I was totally stunned. And then heartbroken. It was a complete and utter disappointment for me. It didn’t feel like a Star Wars movie. It felt like an original film set in the Star Wars universe.
I can completely understand that reaction, and I hope for you that Ep IX (assuming you decide to risk it) is a better experience. A redemptive one, even.
But I also hope its redemption comes from JJ taking the ball and running with it, rather than noodling around with decisions that, for better or worse, are water under the bridge. (Let’s face it, if he retconned, say, the “Rey is Rey, not someone’s daughter/cousin/secret granddaughter” thing, there’d be blood in the water for WEEKS).
I never really believed that Rey’s parents were just bums. I figured that was Kylo being manipulative. We’ll see who was right!
I am very excited for IX after how much fun I had with Solo and how much I enjoyed JJ’s VII.
I don’t agree with you at all, but upvoting to try to even it out. A silly thing to try to downvote into oblivion…
Perfectly ok with them retconning TLJ. I didn’t mind some of it, other parts I thought were incredibly weak. If you listen to Mike Zero on Youtube and the leaks coming out about Ep9 (taking about a third of them as possibly likely?) it sounds like Abrams is really going whole hog for ep9.
Counterpoint: Retconning in a franchise that relies heavily on its world building causes more harm than an unpopular writing decision in the first place. Just look at the drama over all the changes Lucas made in the remastered editions of the original trilogy, all made on the basis of ‘improving’ what Lucas saw weaknesses. There’s no universal consensus on what was ‘bad’ in TLJ, so retconning will inevitably piss off the fans who had no problem with it the way it was.
I’d advocate the opposite: if weak writing ends up in the final version, commit to it. It’s done, it’s there now. If you want to improve it in subsequent material, write around it, but don’t just retcon it. That’s taking a sledgehammer to a problem that needs a chisel.
We don’t know how it’s going to be done though. Take for instance Rey’s parentage. Kylo Ren said ““filthy junk traders” who sold their daughter “for drinking money,”
What’s to say he’s being honest? Maybe they were. But likely they weren’t. There’s *easily* more to it than that. Apparently there is too. It leaves the door open for that to be explored. Like Obi Wan said, everythings true ‘from a certain point of view’. Maybe they did abandon Rey, and that’s true, but *why*.
Abrams can flesh that out later on. There’s definitely a consensus that TLJ is possibly the most divisive SW film to date, I don’t need to justify why I’m not a fan, you don’t need to justify why you are, so we’ll leave that as it is, it’s an argument that’s way too old now, but I will say that retconning things won’t piss off as many as you think. Especially when they decided to change things up *eight movies in* out of 9.
As for weak writing, unfortunately it seems a staple of the sequel series, which isn’t that great at this point. Eps 7 and 8 have unfortunately suffered from some insipidly weak dialogue at times, neither of them being the artistic powerhouse some would argue they are (then again, are any of them, with rose coloured glasses off?) but as for retconning, when you’re telling a long form story, is it truly retconning, or is it revealing? It’s only actually retconning when you’ve firmly established something as factual, then gone back and said ‘Aaaaah but that absolute fact WASNT’, such as if you said ‘Obi Wan ACTUALLY was evil’ not ‘Reys parents WERENT actually drunks!’ as it was never established prior.
I wasn’t picking on Rey’s background in particular, just the notion of retconning in general. I agree with your general sentiment: Writing that Kylo Ren was being dishonest about Rey’s parents would be an example of the ‘writing around the problem’ I was talking about. Writing that Luke was never on Ahch-To would be a retcon. If he’s going to change things, Abrams should avoid the latter kind of change.
I think we’ll find that Abrams won’t retcon, I think Rian is using a badly word sentiment here to rile people up. For instance, as stated by Zero, which has been supported by heaps of other places, Johnson was meant to include the Knights of Ren in Episode 8 originally but ditched that idea. Now, Abrams has had to come up with an idea of where they’ve been, he’s essentially had to do that, and if it’s true what he’s come up with, it’s a pretty decent reason. Rey’s parents are just one of many things, but like I said, if he turned around and said “Yoda was actually a sith in league with Palpatine the whole time!” that would be a horrendous retcon that the fans would utterly lose their heads over.
WHAT?! THE KNIGHTS ACTUALLY WERE MEANT TO BE IN THE FILM?!
Fuck. Fuuuuuck.
If we were having this discussion in 1982, you realise there’d be a faction going “Obviously Vader was lying about that whole father thing; it’s going to be different in Jedi because there’s no way Luke could be that asshole’s son.” And when, no, ROTJ went with it, there’d be sturm and drang and butthurtness and general gnashing of teeth.
GWL had absolute narritive authority; no one was going to tell him he was telling his story wrong. But Abrams, as one of an ongoing series of writers adapting GWLs universe, has to ultimately make a choice between noodling about with the bits of the previous film he’d have done differently, or getting on with telling the rest of the story. For him, as for Rey, the important stuff is in the future, not the past.
“Eight movies in out of 9”
Thankyou!
Uhhh yes there is. There most certainly is.
It’s probably safe to say I don’t share your opinion on what was bad in the film, so no, there really isn’t a universal consensus on that.
Okay, fine, but there’s clear common ground in terms of generalised complaints, which is what I think Kato was getting at…
I don’t think that’s true, though. As tends to be the way with these things, you mostly only hear from the vocal minority, but I suspect there are a lot of people who had no problem with the film who just don’t participate in “TLJ was terrible because…” discussions. I know for me personally, I only had a handful of minor problems. I know a lot of people that feel that way too, they just don’t discuss the film because the conversation inevitably turns hostile.
I’ve seen pretty common complaints about it when people do complain though. If the ‘vocal minority’ (questionable) has a common theme in their complaints it’s still common amongst them. I don’t think any common complaints can be dismissed just because a regular movie goer doesn’t jump on Kotaku to say “Well I thought it was kinda shit/it was okay” given that most people just don’t comment on anything at all.
I’m not dismissing opinions, quite the opposite. The idea that there’s ‘universal consensus’ is dismissing the many people who enjoyed the film. And that’s what this thread is about: I said there’s no universal consensus, and if you change something there’s going to be fans pissed off by the change.
With respect to the ‘vocal minority’ comment, I’m genuinely surprised you find that questionable. The film grossed $1.3 billion worldwide to date, at best we’ve heard the opinions of less than 1% of the people who watched it. It’s also known that people who leave reviews are significantly more likely to leave a negative review than a positive one (45% more likely according to one study). This fits with the general psychology we already know, that negative experiences affect people more strongly than positive ones. The impetus to complain is stronger than the impetus to praise.
What that means is people who review things online are a minority statistically skewed towards negativity. That doesn’t mean their opinions don’t matter, just that they can’t be projected as representative of the whole.
@zombiejesus – You’re basically arguing semantics or hyperbole over the ‘universal consensus’ point, you know very well what they were getting at with that comment.
As for ‘vocal minority’ – Fair point, however I’d still argue the film has a significant number of critics (who I’d also argue are more likely to be fans of the series) – and there’s a clear common theme with their complaints. You’re right that people are more likely to review bomb when displeased, but box office figures tell us financial success, not whether or not people thought it was great, or memorable, or had problems. I’ve paid for loads of movies at the cinema that I’ve never wanted to watch again – funnily enough, even though I didn’t dislike TLJ, I’ve also never watched it a second time because I just have no inclination to do so.
Nobody’s suggesting that reviews saying “IT SUxBCOZ SPECE BOMBARS” represents everyone’s view of the movie. But there are clear common arguments about what’s wrong with it, from those who didn’t think it was a good movie, which is what Kato was getting at.
I genuinely don’t know if they were joking or using hyperbole or contesting the point or missed the word ‘universal’ in haste. I figured clarifying my choice of words was the best option.
I’ll be honest, this feels like a lot of words spent on a tangent. We both took kato’s post differently, that’s fine. We have different opinions on whether there’s a common thread to the criticism of the film, that’s fine too. I didn’t really expect to be drawn into a lengthy diversion about one phrase I said in a much bigger comment.
There may be a galaxy of consensus… one that exists, far, far away…
Oh god, I’ll see myself out for that one 🙂
That wordplay is as hot as the inside of a tauntaun: Luke-warm.
Glad to see I wasn’t travelling…. Solo… on this one 😀
Of course, attempting to write around previous bad decisions can end up with things like the Kessel Run in Solo. George Lucas didn’t mistakenly believe that parsecs were a measure of time when writing the first movie: he knew it was a unit of distance, and the challenge was in navigation.
I think the Kessel Run issue was a great example, though. Taking the phrase and then figuring out a way for it to make sense ended up making a much more interesting story than the original.
I guess I would have been fine if they had featured the Kessel Run without highlighting the mistake from the original film. If they did feel the need to explain it, it would seem in character for Solo to try and bullshit a country hick who has never left his planet (as far as Han knows).
TLJ has its fair share of retconning. I mean Luke’s character, for one, didn’t fit with what Rian Johnson wanted to do so he made him into essentially a different person from the one established previously.
I figure they aren’t going to flat out change stuff that happened in TLJ, they’ll probably just ignore stuff that wasn’t really thought through properly. Most of my problem with TLJ were just that, it was obviously written with set pieces in mind and then had a story forced into it as an afterthought.
Is Luke’s appearance in TLJ really that out of character? If we only go by information in The Force Awakens, we know:
1. Luke started a Jedi academy after the defeat of the empire.
2. Luke taught Kylo Ren but it didn’t go so well, with him defecting to the Sith.
3. Luke took that hard, stopped teaching and became a hermit in a secret location.
TLJ seems fairly consistant with that.
Obi Luke.
Well I wasn’t going by Force Awakens I was going by the original trilogy. The person who arguably understood the character the most, Mark Hamill, had major issues with the direction they took Luke (I won’t regurgitate them here) which I agree with quite a lot and I’d consider them retcons but maybe I’m not using the term right.
I just realized I really don’t care what happens in the next movie. TLJ was just a weird mess, there was some good stuff (I like the dynamic established between Rey and Kylo) there was some really bad stuff (a major theme of the movie was OBEY AUTHORITY WITHOUT QUESTION) and there was some dumb stuff (bombs in space) but ultimately it left me with no interest in the next movie and I guess that’s fine. It’s not for me. I’m not sure who it is for though. I can’t imagine obeying authority is resonating with a younger generation but who knows.
Are you kidding? A quick skim of YouTube critics reveals the same issues throughout every review.
I’m not kidding, no. Less than 1% of consumers make reviews in the first place, and they’re 45% more likely to be negative than positive, so it skews somewhat from what the general populace thinks.
Just in case this heads towards a lengthy tangent as well, it’s totally cool if we disagree. I’m not holding anyone’s opinions against them because we might think differently.
well there’s also the fact Solo didn’t do so well. It did alright. the problem is it’s a star wars movie. Immediately after a big movie and it didn’t do well at all. Rogue One was recieved much better. I can’t speak for the quality of Solo because I like a lot of people I know had any excitement killed by TLJ.
Reviews aren’t the only indicators. follow up films are as well. Just to nip it in the bud I also have no reason believe there was franchise fatigue. I have loved star wars for as long as I can remember and have always been excited by the new stuff that came out. I can’t speak for everyone of course but, I can’t be the only one.
At the end of the day, the film was incredibly controversial and trying to downplay that doesn’t help anyone when people bring up legitimate criticisms. unless you think everything about the movie was perfect you’d have concede that in some cases we have a point.
I can’t speak for others, but I haven’t watched Solo. I liked TLJ, as did critics, but the critical reviews for Solo were much more mediocre, so I put it off. I still plan to watch it, but it’s not high on my priorities.
I don’t think TLJ was perfect, and I’m not downplaying or dismissing negative opinions on the film. I don’t see where you’re getting that from what I said so I’m not sure how I could have expressed myself better. I said that everyone has different opinions on what was good, bad and ugly about it, such that retconning parts of it will inevitably piss off the fans who liked that part.
My problem with Solo was that it was adequate. Workmanlike. Safe. That’s not what I want in a Star Wars movie–it felt like Generic Extruded Star Wars Product. And the checklist aspect (” …here’s how he got his name/gun/best mate/ship/frenemy/career …”) just wasn’t for me. That said, a lot of people really loved it, and the visuals were often top notch.
I suspect that with the sheer amount of content coming down the pipe at LFL/Disney, not all projects are going to be for every Star Wars fan. This of course means that the Fan Wars over what sucked/was awesome and who’s ruined/saved the Franchise this week are not going to get better, to say the least … ugh.
Mediocre and safe was the gist of the critical reviews I’ve seen, too. A common theme was that it came across as a paint-by-numbers story – I think one reviewer even described it as a movie that might as well have been made from a Wikipedia page, because it was formulaic and a bit clinical. I guess I’ll find out when I watch it eventually, but it’s not a good first impression when critical reviews go from 91% with TLJ to 70% with Solo.
Sorry It’s just I see so many people who either hate the film or think it’s perfect. Sometimes I end up reading into things a little much. You are right though. they can’t please everyone and will need to be very careful about making any changes.
You’re good mate, others have read the same thing into my comment so I’m a little perplexed as to where it’s coming from is all. It feels like I communicated poorly, but I can’t figure out how so it’s hard to try to improve for next time.
Problem being that TLJ retconned / modified so much shit in the Star Wars universe that it already turned it into a mess on par with the wildly varying quality of the old extended universe that Disney killed when they bought the franchise.
I really wish he’d been given VIII and just had the whole trilogy to himself to actually create a trilogy and not three movies with the same characters.
Yeah same, a single vision tbh would’ve been honestly better. I can see Rian creating an interesting trilogy of his own, with his own vision, but having a single, out of place vision smack bang between Abrams 2 movies is jarring.
As opposed to the original trilogy which as we all know was perfectly planned and didn’t have any secret sister incestuous love triangles.
To be honest, there’s forty years of preconceived notions and emotions behind 7, 8 and 9.
4, 5 and 6 didn’t have any of that so they just went for it.
While there were some parts I enjoyed in TLJ, the heavy reliance on trashy humour made it feel like “Fart Noise: The Movie”
It still astounds me to some degree that VIII was even allowed to be released.
Johnson really should have watched all the films over again and thought on what they all had in common and worked with that. Instead we got parts so different to all the other films that audiences genuinely thought the films sound had cut out.
Can we retcon the entire movie out of existence?
I doubt they would though.
You know your franchise is in dire straits when you’re retconning one third of a trilogy.
Focus on Kylo = Profit
Maybe Kylo can retcon everything by destroying all the characters with a new Jedi power and move to a new Galaxy even more far far away-er.
Ah, Matt Smith being in IX makes sense now. The Doctor is going to come in with his T.A.R.D.I.S and fix the timeline for everyone.
Yep, he gave up trying to fix the Terminator series…
Maybe the Avengers can join in with those darn infinity stones.
Wouldnt it be a good idea to have the storyline planned out before starting a new trilogy with one of the biggest IPs of all time?
Nahhh.
They didn’t with the original trilogy so why would they do differently now?
Because, at the time, the OT was not one of the biggest IPs of all time?
They (JJ) did. Rian Johnson chose to ignore it.
Pretty sure I read that JJ had nothing other than what he set up in TFA. No plans for Snoke or where he came from, no ideas about Rey, etc etc.
I read that JJ had drafted scripts for 7 and 8, but not for 9. im sure it was on ScreenRant.
Ah true. Guess we’ll see how 9 ends up then! Hope its good.
And as anybody who saw Lost can assest, JJ definitely maps stuff out and doesn’t just pull it out of his arse last-minute.
JJ was only involved in the pilot episode of lost
Isn’t it fucking insane that they didn’t? Like, I find it genuinely mind blowing that a series worth literally billions of dollars wasn’t treated with as much care and attention as a random reality TV series.
While I like J.J Abrams I’ve found the new SW Trilogy to be very bland. The cinematography is amazing but the story is very bland. I’ve heard the Game of Thrones guy’s are going to or are working on a new trilogy, I’m excited for that. All of this is just my opinion after all.
Rogue One has been the best star wars film since the originals in my opinion
Yeah and that went through some major revisions and reshoots. Not sure why they put so much effort into getting Rogue One right but not the core trilogy.
You mean Star Wars Caricature Stereotypes: The Movie?
It’s basically the equivalent of Transformers if it were a Star Wars movie. I seriously don’t understand how people think that film is anything more than fan masturbation bait.
Well all the new movies have been that except maybe TLJ which was just “subvert expectation regardless of if it is good” the movie. So “Rogue One has been the best star wars film since the originals in my opinion” still tracks.
Ergh, tough competition. Ep 7 was a rehashed and uninspired Ep4. Ep8 was unmitigated trash. Solo was bleh. So maybe Rogue One is the best in that it was at least a spectacle designed for a particular audience?
Personally, I found it dull and didn’t care about any of the characters.
I wouldn’t call any of the movies since the original trilogy “good”. It’s baffling to me how people are so passionate about the series considering the “good” to “trash” ratio is so far in the wrong direction for the movies that the franchise should have been well dead by now.
Yeah man I’m feeling about the same on the whole series. Hell I’m still holding out for a blu-ray of the original original trilogy (probably in vain).
We’re 2/3rds of the way through a trilogy that still doesn’t appear to have a plot. The Last Jedi is, in my opinion, the worst Star Wars movie by far because of how wasteful it is. Every other movie, even the woeful Phantom Menace, added something to the lore. TLJ was worse than the most average fanfic.
I dont get how anyone is supposed to make a good sequel to TFA? It’s so bad.
Rey is a Mary Sue. I mean during the whole original trilogy Luke was never strong enough to beat Vader yet Rey can beat her protagonist in the first film with no training?
Finn has no purpose or skills giving him a reason to be in a sequel (hence why his plot was pointless in TLJ).
The other guy is so bland i cant even remember his name.
Also the First Order feels like such lazy writing. Somehow a random sith lord unites all the remnants of the empire into some order with enough industrial might to turn a whole planet into a giant death star (way to raise the stakes) and the only force to combat them is Leia’s dinky resistance.
There was so much potential to have multiple factions form out of the empire with different motivations. But i guess its easier to understand bad guys with bigger death star.
You know what would have been great in TLJ, if Rose, after her sister died in the opening screw up became anti-resistance. Considering Finn’s past it could have created an intriguing dynamic with him being in a unique position to understand her point of view (TRAITOR). It also would have given more gravity to their romance and would give both characters so much more to work with. Instead we got giant dogs running through walls.
Holy cow that would’ve been an AMAZING arc for Rose? I never liked her that much, didn’t hate her either, but the whole spy arc would’ve paid off in spades had the ‘spy’ they alluded to turned out to be her??? How good would that have been? Benicio looks like he’s about to step forward on the Star Destroyer, then suddenly she does.
I’m not even being sarcastic here, that’s a legitimately fantastic idea :O
Thanks! Yeah I figure there are all sorts of ways they could have made her more interesting but she comes across as an afterthought and less a character and more like a reason for Finn to be in the movie.
Oh noi, just when I think we’re done with TLJ, someone speaks its name and we’re back on.
TLJ passed the fridge test in my books. But further watches and discussions show problems with it. My personal stance on the films and I’m sure there’s someone out there who agrees with one or more of my stances.
– Rey’s background, if she was a Skywalker we’d call BS, we called her no-one…BS was called. You can’t really win on this one, but story-wise for expanding it’s more interesting for her not to be related to anyone. We’re not tied to expectations of who her parents are and how she should act. A fresh blank slate. I even think it was handled well with Kylo being straight with her saying “Nah brah, you got traded for booze”
THAT CASINO PLANET – Cut it…burn it…that entire sequence did nothing for me. Wasn’t an interesting planet, the “action” was boring and came to a waste of time.
Luke – I’m conflicted, granted still confused to this point on there being a map to his location, but then again, no map, means no reason for Rey to get there…nvm.
BUT, hermit, grumpy Luke…I digged. Yes, I get it, he’s been there and dealt with the Empire and now a new threat has come up, he tried starting up the Jedi and…yeah he messed up hard. I get why he’d be grumpy old man about it.
I even think the way R2 got him to come around was great using the old message and the choice of words he used when appearing before Kylo. With lines like “See you around, kid” a very Han Solo line to get under his skin.
BUT, you couldn’t put Luke on the planet to fight face/face. Come on, WE HAVE BEEN WAITING NEARLY 25 YEARS FOR MARK TO GET ONE MORE ROUND IN WITH A LIGHTSABRE. I’m fine with him losing, but we all knew this might be the last time Mark/Luke gets to be Luke. We were owed one last lightsabre duel.
Which I remind you, TLJ and Force Awakens had some amazing sabre fights…and that awesome gritty sabre vs…stick fight with TR8R.
We were robbed there.
Kylo – Adam has been nailing it, with Kylo. Kylo has been an amazing character to watch. Him killing Snoke off, while annoying that we don’t get to know any more about the big bad, was welcome on how it was done. It actually caught me off guard. Which lead to the awesome throne room battle and the ethics debate between Rey and Kylo. Only raising an issue of…why the hell is Rey invested in a Republic?
You killed the Admiral off screen – No further comment, you’re a dick for this. TBH, he should have been the one doing the wrap kill. But no, bring in ANOTHER character that we have nothing to do with and immediately cast them aside NEVER TO BE MENTIONED AGAIN.
Knights of Ren – Are we EVER going to hear/see these guys?
Captain Phasma – Cool character…wasted again. Flash back to Awakens, why did we gave that awesome fight to a no-name (TR-8R) and not have Phasma throw down with Finn?
Yes, it still bothers me.
A+ round up.
I’d like to add that the hyperspace ram was frustrating because everything we’ve been taught about Star Wars space travel was thrown out the window. And also because the scene, whilst beautiful, was totally at odds with literally everything else cinematography wise in the Star Wars universe.
The whole film was set over…..3 days? If that? So it was just a very long TV episode? And it’s just a big chase scene? And we have to get to a planet light years away and back in like an hour and a half?
Yes. Hyperbole. But I found it all very frustrating.
I didn’t mind the movie all that much, but damn it has some issues. I don’t really mind Rey as a character, and I like Kylo Ren, and I think overall it’s not an awful story arc. But TLJ had an absurd subplot with the casino planet and basically everything Dameron and Holdo did – it’s entirely ridiculous, it hinges on a stupid misunderstanding, a deliberate obfuscation of plans/plot to give Holdo a hyperspace suicide that means very little. Other than that, it was fun.
Still pointless to retcon it though, what’s done is done, I doubt they can salvage anything from it. I didn’t mind the first in the new trilogy, but the second didn’t instil me with confidence.
I really hope they don’t. The fact that she isn’t from some great family with a fated destiny plotted out for her and everything is vastly better than having her be a Secret Skywalker or some shit. They have to break away from that mindset where everyone is connected to the “important” people somehow, or they will eventually write into a corner.
Eh – the only real problem I had with the story was
“Okay, we’ve got a plan to escape the First Order warships in our smaller vessels – this will require split-second timing and coordination… so let’s not tell the pilots anything. In no way could this possibly result in forced tension for the sake of drama.”