Quote from: deadDMwalking;1118236It's a fiction that there is ANY version of this film that could have been worthwhile.  They wanted to reset the Star Wars Universe in Episode 7 so it's exactly like Episode 4, 5, 6 didn't happen.  Or worse, the triumphs we celebrated were ultimately meaningless and set the stage for bigger problems.  If that's the story they wanted to tell, they still didn't need to 'reset' everything.  

The sequel trilogy isn't grounded in the world established by the original trilogy.  People will enjoy a film that looks good (see Transformers) but a film that doesn't hold true to the world will never become part of our cultural collective unconscious.  Poe Dameron will never achieve a place in people's minds like Han Solo did; not even Chewbacca levels of resonance.  And I think that that's a shame because it was pretty clear that fans were willing to welcome a real sequel 4 decades after the original release of Star Wars.  

A bad Star Wars trilogy can rake in a few billion dollars - we learned that with the prequels.  But a good Star Wars Trilogy could have done so much more.

I agree. I mentally checked out of the sequels with Force Awakens, because I saw the trajectory the new films were taking.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1118236It's a fiction that there is ANY version of this film that could have been worthwhile.  They wanted to reset the Star Wars Universe in Episode 7 so it's exactly like Episode 4, 5, 6 didn't happen.  Or worse, the triumphs we celebrated were ultimately meaningless and set the stage for bigger problems.  If that's the story they wanted to tell, they still didn't need to 'reset' everything.  

I was completely up for seeing "what happens next in the Star Wars Universe," but I wanted to see the good that resulted from the victories at the end of the first trilogy.

I wanted to see a Jedi Academy that was grounded and wisely governed by Luke Skywalker. I don't think Luke needed to be the greatest Jedi warrior in the series, clearly Yoda and Obi-wan were more capable in battle. But I feel Luke should have been a better teacher than either of them, because Luke would be humbly dedicated to the job, and is fundamentally wiser and a better judge of character than either Yoda or Kenobi.

I wanted to see a great and prosperous New Republic, one that would leave the Empire in the dust. I do like the idea that the New Republic is kind of isolationist and resistant to military adventures, and that Princess Leia is out there running a unit like the Flying Tigers, fighting the good fight that the New Republic is reluctant to get involved with. But at some point I wanted to see the New Republic Navy coming in like the cavalry to save the day. Isn't that the payoff for the Resistance?

Well, it's doing something right if it's making the SJW media cry (T T)

https://www.engadget.com/2019/12/18/star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-review/

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1118236It's a fiction that there is ANY version of this film that could have been worthwhile.

"Worthwhile" is a subjective criterion.  Objectively it is a bad film, and objectively, it did not need to be that way, even given the foundation it was resting on.

QuoteThey wanted to reset the Star Wars Universe in Episode 7 so it's exactly like Episode 4, 5, 6 didn't happen.  Or worse, the triumphs we celebrated were ultimately meaningless and set the stage for bigger problems.  If that's the story they wanted to tell, they still didn't need to 'reset' everything.

This has been my objection to the idea that 'Star Wars is a dead property', a played out, exhausted story with no where to go.  Clearly the success of cartoon shows like Clone Wars, and the new Mandalorian show reveal the problem isn't Star Wars at all, its the bankrupt idiodicy of the people who think Star Wars is only a Skywalker Blowing Up a Death Star.   It isn't even limited to Disney... the LEgacies comic books were burnt shit on stale toast, and part and parcel of that was the entire concept of recycling 'everything people liked' endlessly. Jedi all but wiped out? Check. A Skywalker as savior? Check. An Empire with Red Hoods? Check. A crew of outlaws as our plucky heroes? Check. Force Ghosts of beloved characters from past entries? Check...

The Force Awakens is the literal embodiment of this philosophy of recycling, as you point out it denies any possibility of growth or change, it denies any sort of lasting victories... or defeats. Its a stagnant pond, full of dead, rotting ideas.

QuoteThe sequel trilogy isn't grounded in the world established by the original trilogy.  People will enjoy a film that looks good (see Transformers) but a film that doesn't hold true to the world will never become part of our cultural collective unconscious.  Poe Dameron will never achieve a place in people's minds like Han Solo did; not even Chewbacca levels of resonance.  And I think that that's a shame because it was pretty clear that fans were willing to welcome a real sequel 4 decades after the original release of Star Wars.  

He could have been, and that, to me, is part of the tragedy of it all. The first ten or so minutes of TFA weren't mind bogglingly awesome, but you could see the potential for where the movie could have gone.  But to me, far more tragic than the wasting of Po was the wasting of Finn. I remain eternally convinced that the original script by Kasdan had Finn as the main character of the film, and JJ's rewrites were explicitly to boost Rey, the Perfect Woman, as the Hero, relegating the much more novel and interesting character to a mere appendix, a slightly comic, comic relief side-kick, much less relevant than C3PO ever way.

QuoteA bad Star Wars trilogy can rake in a few billion dollars - we learned that with the prequels.  But a good Star Wars Trilogy could have done so much more.

I am convinced that Disney must have had some sort of hold on Lucas to make him sell. Four billion dollars isn't chump change, but the rights to Star Wars were, ever since 1977, a license to print money... and Lucas clearly still loves his creation and still had ideas (no doubt bad ones, but that's neither here nor there...).  

Regarding the Prequels, someone online pointed out that Revenge of the Sith is one of the rarest of unicorns... a third film in a trilogy that made more money than the second film, something that is NOT true of Return of the Jedi, and won't be for Rise of Skywalker.   A part of that is that, for all his many flaws as a writer (which George himself would/did admit to) and as a director (The dialog scenes are legendarily basic bitch in the prequels... and i'm not talking about the words but the camera work), the Prequels actually had a story to tell, a very solid idea of who the players on the stage were supposed to be, and where they needed to end up, and it delivered that. On a fundamental level it is satisfying to see a project successfully completed, to see a meaningful, cogent picture emerge from the dabs of random color on the canvas.

The Mouse Trilogy could never even deliver that simple fundamental satisfaction because, as Roundhead Rian revealed when he was talking about his new exciting job, Disney had no plans for the movies. The paint on teh canvas were merely random dabs.   Rians fundamental mistake was not subversion and pissing on the fans (though he did that...) it was that he forgot (apparently?) that he was only telling the second act of a yet unwritten story.  For all its flaws, TLJ is a complete story, and some of the ideas Rian had were sound... in a bottle, a white room. Not in Star Wars, perhaps.   He had too many pieces in play (adding Holdo and Tico out of whole cloth strikes me more as Studio Meddling, gotta get that diversity quota higher... just like we have to Represent by having minor, no name cat ladies kissing in teh background. That, at least, has zero impact on the script....)

Anyway, this has gone too long for what it was.

Tl;Dr: I agree. With Caveats.

Quote from: Spike;1118290I am convinced that Disney must have had some sort of hold on Lucas to make him sell. Four billion dollars isn't chump change, but the rights to Star Wars were, ever since 1977, a license to print money... and Lucas clearly still loves his creation and still had ideas (no doubt bad ones, but that's neither here nor there...).  

I think the detractors of him as a person (Which at one point included me) where responsible. Remember: He gave most of that money away to charity. I feel bad now.

He had bad ideas, but also good ones and his bad and good ideas could be processed into great ideas by good editors. That's all he needed. It didn't need to be stripped from him to be made by boring people by committee.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1118300I think the detractors of him as a person (Which at one point included me) where responsible. Remember: He gave most of that money away to charity. I feel bad now.

He had bad ideas, but also good ones and his bad and good ideas could be processed into great ideas by good editors. That's all he needed. It didn't need to be stripped from him to be made by boring people by committee.

My pity for Lucas is tempered by how he seemed to turn on his own creation. You can see the seeds of it in Return of the Jedi, when he unceremoniously dumped Boba Fett into the Sarlacc as a burp joke.
in 1977, Lucas was a young, hungry filmmaker, who turned out stuff like THX-1138 and American Graffiti. He bucked the system and managed to get his crazy space adventure movie made, and it was a a mega-hit.
He then became the system he fought against, by creating Lucasfilm. Barfed on his own films with the Special Editions, and justified the prequels with "It's just a movie".
He was no longer a young, hungry filmmaker. He was George Lucas, the guy who made Star Wars, and he let it all go to his head.

Speculation:
I suspect he wanted to pass on his torch, and was grooming Kathleen Kenedy to be his replacement. And saw the sale to Disney as a chance to put the franchise in a place that could afford to protect it.
But then, in proper Star Wars fashion, the apprentice turned on the master, and the corrupt system betrayed him.

I think the most interesting thing Lucas could have done would have been to release Star Wars into the public domain when he retired. That would have been an unprecedented event in the sphere of corporate hollywood.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1118307I think the most interesting thing Lucas could have done would have been to release Star Wars into the public domain when he retired. That would have been an unprecedented event in the sphere of corporate hollywood.

Public domain is the IP killer which makes me happy. I really hope LOTR falls into public domain and dies before any pansexual dwarves start showing up.

Edit: But yeah lucas isn't blameless.

I cut George Lucas a fair amount of slack. Yes, the prequels were deeply flawed, but it is clear that Lucas cared about them, and did some solid world-building in the background. I think he just wrote himself into a corner where he had to make the kind of story he wasn't good at telling.

He also literally reinvented moviemaking with Star Wars, and then did it again with the prequels, and Lucasfilm is still reinventing moviemaking today.

I think he was right to sell the franchise off when he did. He's retired, happily I hope. Selling the franchise off when he did, he at least had some control over who it went to, and where the proceeds went. Otherwise it would have sold at auction after he was gone, to a random entity.

We can bitch about Disney, but would you rather have the people handling the Alien franchise in charge?

Quote from: Lurkndog;1118385He's retired, happily I hope.

Take it with a grain of salt, but some of the rumors hint that he's not happy with how the franchise has been handled, and there were handshake deals for him to have some input into the franchise after the sale.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1118398Take it with a grain of salt, but some of the rumors hint that he's not happy with how the franchise has been handled, and there were handshake deals for him to have some input into the franchise after the sale.

That was the rumor I'd heard, that early on KK had assured him of some creative input; then that they unceremoniously uninvited him from all the meetings after the purchase was finalized and the project was firmly underway. No way I know of to verify that of course, outside implications from some of the early interviews with each party in contrast with later ones (they do seem to get their stories continuously tangled about the original development plans for the newest trilogy...).

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1118398Take it with a grain of salt, but some of the rumors hint that he's not happy with how the franchise has been handled, and there were handshake deals for him to have some input into the franchise after the sale.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1118402That was the rumor I'd heard, that early on KK had assured him of some creative input; then that they unceremoniously uninvited him from all the meetings after the purchase was finalized and the project was firmly underway. No way I know of to verify that of course, outside implications from some of the early interviews with each party in contrast with later ones (they do seem to get their stories continuously tangled about the original development plans for the newest trilogy...).

Its called Karma. In this case self inflicted. And considering all the wretched things George has done to enforce his stranglehold on every dame word he didnt invent but claims are His His His! He hasnt been kicked enough.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1118402That was the rumor I'd heard, that early on KK had assured him of some creative input; then that they unceremoniously uninvited him from all the meetings after the purchase was finalized and the project was firmly underway. No way I know of to verify that of course, outside implications from some of the early interviews with each party in contrast with later ones (they do seem to get their stories continuously tangled about the original development plans for the newest trilogy...).

I know that Disney received an outline of what Lucas had planned for a third trilogy, but decided not to use it.

https://collider.com/george-lucas-star-wars-plans/

Quote from: Omega;1118563Its called Karma. In this case self inflicted. And considering all the wretched things George has done to enforce his stranglehold on every dame word he didnt invent but claims are His His His! He hasnt been kicked enough.

Oh I totally agree. I have exactly zero sympathy for George "Copyright Claim" Lucas, always punching down as soon as he stopped being the little man.

Quote from: Lurkndog;1118589I know that Disney received an outline of what Lucas had planned for a third trilogy, but decided not to use it.

https://collider.com/george-lucas-star-wars-plans/

Well you know what they say. Where there's a Whill, there's a way.

Quote from: Lurkndog;1118589I know that Disney received an outline of what Lucas had planned for a third trilogy, but decided not to use it.

https://collider.com/george-lucas-star-wars-plans/

The one thing Disney did right was to ditch Lucas' ideas. I don't even hate the guy, I just think he's long lost touch with good storytelling and good moviemaking.

So now that the movie is out. Whats everyone elses thoughts after a bit of time?

Looked pretty. But some of the most pointless and crack-headed writing so far. Oh and you need to buy the totally-not-DLC to learn things the damn movie should have taken a minute to explain.