Did Abrams and Disney Just Toss The Last Jedi And Rian Under The Bus?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The thing is, we saw what the "Han who shot first" was like earlier in the original trilogy. We didn't need a Han Solo movie because we already knew what he was like before Luke and Leia. By contrast, the Clone Wars and who Anakin was before he became Vader was something you didn't get a full explanation of in the OT. You could justify making a movie trilogy, not to mention a six-season t.v. series about the rise of the empire and Anakin's fall from grace. I'm not sure what more you needed to know about Han Solo that would have made for an interesting movie.

Agreed.

I was just making a "devil's advocate" case for Solo i.e. "it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time" I do agree that it was a bad call at the end.

[BeastieRunner]

Based on the Solo movie, I would say Lando deserved a film more. We already had 4 Han Solo movies.

I enjoyed Solo, too.

[David Walton]

Based on the Solo movie, I would say Lando deserved a film more. We already had 4 Han Solo movies.

I enjoyed Solo, too.

I was kind of crushed that SOLO's box office performance meant we'd never get a Donald Glover Lando film. Would have loved to see more Han films too, with them bumping into each other frequently in cameos.

Also, the whole thing with Lando's droid co-pilot should have changed the way fans look at droids forever. Surprised it doesn't get more attention. Probably because it indicates that even the most heroics characters from the OT essentially endorse the slavery of sentient beings...

[Iron_Legion87]

I was kind of crushed that SOLO's box office performance meant we'd never get a Donald Glover Lando film. Would have loved to see more Han films too, with them bumping into each other frequently in cameos.

Also, the whole thing with Lando's droid co-pilot should have changed the way fans look at droids forever. Surprised it doesn't get more attention. Probably because it indicates that even the most heroics characters from the OT essentially endorse the slavery of sentient beings...

Yea I agree. Also Lando's droid is apart of the Falcon so it really should have been addressed somewhere in a book or something.

[ChrisIII]

Funny thing is Lando having a droid co-pilot (although eventually it turned out to be some kind of biomechanical alien) was in the old 1980's Lando novels too. The anecdote Lando is recording in the Falcon on Kessel is a reworking of one of the books's plots, but with L3 substituted for "Vuffi Raa"

[Pinsir]

Look, I get loving the prequels if you grew up with them but I can't understand how anyone, with even a trace of objectivity, could claim that they are better-made films than the sequels. They just aren't.

I value good world building though. If you want to argue the newer films have better looking cinematography sure, but at the same time, Lucas didn't really want to ape the cinematography of the OT and its not like the PT is without good looking scenes either. For most other aspects, I think the PT is much better too.

>> The politics and themes are better, in fact, they're better then the OT too. Lucas wanted to show how a democracy transforms into a totalitarian empire and I don't think its a surprise that one of the most memorable quotes from the franchise pertains to this ("This is how democracy dies...").
>> The characters are probably equal, Finn and Rey are are great (in TFA), but in the PT we got Palpatine, Maul, Greivous, Dooku, and Obi-One.

[Mia]

Interesting quotes from a New York Times article, link below. Disney must have nerves off steel to stick by Rian after the beating he takes in this article.

Abrams praised “The Last Jedi” for being “full of surprises and subversion and all sorts of bold choices.”

“On the other hand,” he added, “it’s a bit of a meta approach to the story. I don’t think that people go to ‘Star Wars’ to be told, ‘This doesn’t matter.’”

Even so, Abrams said “The Last Jedi” laid the groundwork for “The Rise of Skywalker” and “a story that I think needed a pendulum swing in one direction in order to swing in the other.”

Yikes. what about Daisy Ridley?

"But when it was announced that Abrams was indeed returning, his actors breathed sighs of relief. “I cried,” Ridley said, explaining that the director brought a comforting sense of structure and security. "

Ouch.

What about Boyega?

Boyega said he was glad that Abrams would get to finish the tale he’d begun in Episode VII. “Even as a normal person in the audience, I wanted to see where that story was going,” Boyega said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/m...jj-abrams.html

I just saw the film and don't see it that way. For John and Daisy's reactions I think they just like working better with Abrams. I also think they like the fact that they will be working together again. Abrams took concepts that Johnson laid down and fleshed them out or added to them, or briefly explained it. To me throwing Johnson under the bus would just be to totally ignore what happened in the last film.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

So I went and saw the movie today. I had read all the spoilers and was wondering if I should go or not, but then a bunch of friends made the decision for me so we went.

To be honest, I actually enjoyed the movie a great deal. Quite unexpectedly. I'd go so far as to say that this is a movie that works best if you go in knowing the spoilers, because then you can take it for what it is and you can appreciate what it does for the characters. Abrams announcing Palpatine's return way back was a genius stroke since the whole out-of-nowhere-ness of Palps is rubbed out because audiences knew well in advance and they can just accept it on face value when the movie starts.

spoilers:

- To begin with, I don't quite think TROS is a total negation/reversal of TLJ. It is up to a point but the movie does build off some stuff that Rian Johnson did, such as Ben Solo and Rey's force bond and connection, which JJ Abrams uses to a lot of creative ends in terms of translocation of objects and elements from one space to another, and also as a set up for the end-game lightsaber switcheroo. That kind of stuff is a lot of fun to see on a purely conceptual level and visually it's quite a surprise to see fruit and stuff go from a market in Kijima appear in Kylo Ren's personal closet, and Vader's mangled helmet then appear in the market and so on. Luke going to hide in Aach-To and him getting stuck there, and Rey trying to imitate him and so on, is acknowledged and given a pay-off. We even see the porgs. Force Ghosts having powers and so on, also shows up here. - The stuff with Carrie Fisher worked better than expected. I mean obviously some of the seams show. But it's better than otherwise, and thanks to what Abrams did, TROS really does become Leia's movie the way TLJ was Luke's and TFA was Han's. I didn't think it was possible, but that's how it happened. The scene with her funeral is really devastating since you know it's really about Carrie Fisher's death and funeral. - As for Rey Palpatine (which for Spanish speakers, translates as King Palpatine)...thematically this simply works better overall than simply Rey being nobody. It makes Rey into a Star Wars protagonist in the same way that Luke and Anakin were. It makes the story about her, rather than about Kylo. I mean until TRoS, there was an argument that Kylo was the protagonist of the ST...but this movie makes Rey the actual protagonist of her story. Making Rey into a nobody from nowhere was one of those good-ideas-in-theory that simply falls apart when you realize that this deprives Rey from having a real edge and drive in the story, it doesn't allow her to have the special grand context with Anakin and Luke. Rey-the-nobody leaves Kylo as the protagonist of the Skywalker Saga and it deprives the first female trilogy heroine her place at the center of her own goddamn story. - As for the new characters, I have to say Richard E. Grant looks astonishingly like Peter Cushing's Tarkin, far moreso than the CGI Cushing in Rogue One, and I don't know why Abrams simply didn't make him Tarkin's kid. This character is so compelling that it's a damn shame that he didn't show up in the earlier films. Grant oozes the same sinister sociopathic bureaucracy that Tarkin did, but combined here with a personal zealotry to Palpatine. While I don't know if it worked out well for Poe Dameron as a character, I did like Zorii Bliss by Keri Russell, not so much for the character but for her costume design. The costume is really Star Wars-y with a helmet with a Daft-Punk visor, a weird red-pink jacket that's almost Powers Ranges-esque but not quite, and a touch of Captain Cody B-Serials. - What can one say about Ian McDiarmid's Palpatine. This movie cements him as the greatest villain in the Star Wars, and him becoming a Sith God is great. That bit where he unleashes galactic-level Sith Lightning...yeah it's a little more anime and not quite Star Wars but on the other hand it's one of the few times the actual Force abilities affect the battle scenes which otherwise are separate. Palpatine being a total bastard who murders his own children and parasitically leeches off his own grandchild is just a perfect metaphor for patriarchy. Palpatine is truly bottomless as evil. The entire Exegol setting is quite evocative of the rejected plans that Lucas and Kasdan knocked over for Had Abbadon, which was the Fortress World of the Emperor that was going to be the final dungeon of ROTJ but Lucas felt it was too complex and not quite what he wanted. The entire Sith chamber and the scene where Rey almost succumbs to Palpatine to save her friends has a creepy Eyes Wide Shut like cult atmosphere and it's more Lovecraftian and/or Darkseid's Apokolips in atmospherics. - I will agree that Kelly Marie Tran's character was unfairly sidelined. I see no reason why she couldn't have taken Jannah's place in the story. It could well have been her on Endor on a secret mission by the Rebellion and so on. As it is she's fighting by Finn's side alongside Jannah at the end. Anyway, I am happy that JJ had the grace not to kill her at least. - I am glad that Billy Dee Williams' Lando Calrissian shows up as the character he was in ROTJ. He absolutely should have been earlier.

end of spoilers

So mostly I think JJ did bring things home with this. As a third part to a trilogy, it's maybe a better conclusion to its trilogy than ROTJ was to the OT (which is not to say it's better than ROTJ, just that relatively speaking it might be a better conclusion to a trilogy). It's better than The Dark Knight Rises.

As for where it ranks and so on in the Star Wars best-of list, I am not sure yet.

[Somecrazyaussie]

I value good world building though. If you want to argue the newer films have better looking cinematography sure, but at the same time, Lucas didn't really want to ape the cinematography of the OT and its not like the PT is without good looking scenes either. For most other aspects, I think the PT is much better too.

>> The politics and themes are better, in fact, they're better then the OT too. Lucas wanted to show how a democracy transforms into a totalitarian empire and I don't think its a surprise that one of the most memorable quotes from the franchise pertains to this ("This is how democracy dies...").
>> The characters are probably equal, Finn and Rey are are great (in TFA), but in the PT we got Palpatine, Maul, Greivous, Dooku, and Obi-One.

The politics is what most people hated about the prequels. I remember a review from back in the day where they said, "people want to see a Star Wars film with epic space battles. Not people talking trade embargoes."

But the prequels NEEDED to feature that stuff to show how Palpatine undermined the Republic and usurped power. You want to seize control of a country? You take it out by destabilising it both politically and financially.

In retrospect, that aspect is what I love most about the prequels.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The politics is what most people hated about the prequels. I remember a review from back in the day where they said, "people want to see a Star Wars film with epic space battles. Not people talking trade embargoes."

But the prequels NEEDED to feature that stuff to show how Palpatine undermined the Republic and usurped power. You want to seize control of a country? You take it out by destabilising it both politically and financially.

In retrospect, that aspect is what I love most about the prequels.

To be honest, I think people just floated that as an excuse to bash the prequels. Because if you read the criticism of the OT, many people pointed out that Lucas' movies were just laser shows with fairy-tale ideas of good and evil and no real politics aside from the Dark Side being Nazis. Whereas the prequels actually did put those politics across and the response to that is...people want the movies to be big dumb laser shows?

I mean the big thing about The Phantom Menace is that it shows that Tatooine was the same mess it was during the Republic as it was in the Empire in the OT. There's no difference. Lucas makes that explicit whereas the ST doesn't make the fact that the New Republic looks like the Empire after 20 years or so a plot point. While the galactic republic banned slavery, Tatooine breaks that law and the republic and the Jedi knew about it and let it happen. That line where Qui-Gonn says, "I am not here to free the slaves" is there in TPM and it's shocking. The stuff in TLJ that Johnson did with Canto Bight...Lucas did that with TPM, but Johnson got praise for that in TLJ as opposed to Lucas. I guess maybe if Lucas used props and paraded his use of practical effects maybe people would I guess actually see the movie rather than hate-watch it.

Many people say TPM is inessential, but it's actually crucial because it shows the Galaxy right before Palpatine makes his first big move. The whole idea of "The Jedi were the guardians of peace for thousands of years...before the dark times...before the empire". The Phantom Menace shows that before...and as far as Tatooine is concerned, it's a big lie. They let slavery and the Hutts and their gangsters run an entire planet, in a time when they had all the power and influence. The fact that the Tatooine sections are tangential and disconnected to Naboo is crucial, there's no excuse about Tatooine being under Sith influence, or any such thing. This was their own negligence. Qui-Gonn Jinn at least seems like someone who's ashamed and wants to reform the Jedi but he dies at the end, and his death deprives Anakin of his one good father figure, and it also means that the Jedi lose a major voice of reform. If Qui-Gonn had lived longer, maybe things would have been different. Maybe Anakin wouldn't break bad.

The Prequels are fundamentally about the Jedi. It's about them as an institution, as a group, and as a political entity. It's about how they failed the Republic and each other, and how trillions in the galaxy paid the price for that. And everything about the Jedi in the prequels was set-up before. The Jedi being cold and callous to Anakin and unheroic. Go back to the OT, Obi-Wan lied to a kid who was basically his own nephew and was training him to assassinate his father without telling him so. Yoda likewise. In ESB, the first thing Yoda says when he meets Luke is telling Obi-Wan that "Luke is too old" which considering that Luke was basically around 19-20, implies that Yoda trained apprentices at a much younger age.

[Agent Z]

spoilers:

- As for Rey Palpatine (which for Spanish speakers, translates as King Palpatine)...thematically this simply works better overall than simply Rey being nobody. It makes Rey into a Star Wars protagonist in the same way that Luke and Anakin were. It makes the story about her, rather than about Kylo. I mean until TRoS, there was an argument that Kylo was the protagonist of the ST...but this movie makes Rey the actual protagonist of her story. Making Rey into a nobody from nowhere was one of those good-ideas-in-theory that simply falls apart when you realize that this deprives Rey from having a real edge and drive in the story, it doesn't allow her to have the special grand context with Anakin and Luke. Rey-the-nobody leaves Kylo as the protagonist of the Skywalker Saga and it deprives the first female trilogy heroine her place at the center of her own goddamn story.

end of spoilers

A counterargument. Not by me but I agree with it strongly. And warning for spoilers.


https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/...9-reys-parents

spoilers:

And frankly, I don't see why Rey has to be like Luke and Anakin. The latter betrayed the Jedi and helped facilitate the rise of the Empire and the former didn't even actually defeat the Emperor. Rey not being related to anyone special meant she was given the opportunity to be a hero on her own terms not because of who she was related to. The idea that Ren was the true protagonist is absurd and only makes sense if you think his blood relation to the Skywalkers makes him important. Something TLJ was deconstructing

end of spoilers

[Revolutionary_Jack]

A counterargument. Not by me but I agree with it strongly. And warning for spoilers.


https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/...9-reys-parents

A nice article. I just think that Star Wars isn't really the place to bring those ideas, make it work, and still be Star Wars, or at least a Star Wars story about the Sith, Jedi and the Skywalkers.

A story about "nobodies being heroes" is better suited to ROGUE ONE. Rogue One is the most democratic of the Star Wars movies. But the major trilogies can't really go there.

If they wanted to make a story about Rey being nobody and so on...they should have set the story about 200 years after ROTJ, feature practically none of the OT outside of holocron recordings and Force Ghosts, and have a conflict that doesn't deal with the Sith or Vader's legacy.

And frankly, I don't see why Rey has to be like Luke and Anakin.

So that she gets to be a major hero with baggage and a dramatic arc.

For a major trilogy dealing with legacy and issues, Rey being an orphan who has a fantasy about being someone important only for that to be something she made up, leaves the following holes:
-- Why does she want to become the Jedi?
-- Why does she want to fight the First Order?
-- Why would she be so insistent on saving Ben Solo, (outside of his awesome swole bod that is)?

Rey is just a cipher in TFA and TLJ. TROS ensures she's not a cipher.

spoilers:

Now Rey has a real reason for wanting to be the Jedi and opposing the First Order. Her reasons for saving Ben Solo also have a more personal dimension in that by saving him she's hoping she doesn't go dark and creates hope that she doesn't fall astray too. Rey becoming a Jedi and so on, is a way for her to cleanse Palpatine's legacy of evil and family shame. I mean this is Greek and Norse stuff. Go back to Oresteia or the Saga of the Volsungs. This is as mythological as it gets.

end of spoilers

The latter betrayed the Jedi and helped facilitate the rise of the Empire and the former didn't even actually defeat the Emperor.

Luke defeated the Emperor by resisting the dark side and refusing to corrupt himself into hatred, even at the risk and price of his own life.

The idea that Ren was the true protagonist is absurd and only makes sense if you think his blood relation to the Skywalkers makes him important.

If you see the ST as the continuation of the OT and the PT which it is...then Kylo would have been the protagonist at the end of TLJ since he was the one driving the story and plot, and it all revolved around the legacy of Darth Vader who George Lucas himself said was the overall series protagonist of the first 6 Star Wars movies.

IF the story was going to have any emotional payoff about that, then it would have had to be Kylo's story at the end of TLJ.

So Abrams pivoted around that and made it about Rey instead.

spoilers:

And the finale where Rey says she is all the Jedi with the voices of all the Jedi including not just Anakin, Obi-Wan and Yoda, but also Mace Windu, Alura, Ahsoka Tano and many others, actually does say that anyone can be a Jedi and that all Jedis are equal. And so on, So it confirms and double downs on the idea of Jedi coming from everywhere. It confirms Anakin's redemption since he doesn't appear as "Force Ghost" or any such thing, but as simply one voice of support among other Jedi

end of spoilers.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

I value good world building though. If you want to argue the newer films have better looking cinematography sure, but at the same time, Lucas didn't really want to ape the cinematography of the OT and its not like the PT is without good looking scenes either. For most other aspects, I think the PT is much better too.

>> The politics and themes are better, in fact, they're better then the OT too. Lucas wanted to show how a democracy transforms into a totalitarian empire and I don't think its a surprise that one of the most memorable quotes from the franchise pertains to this ("This is how democracy dies...").
>> The characters are probably equal, Finn and Rey are are great (in TFA), but in the PT we got Palpatine, Maul, Greivous, Dooku, and Obi-One.

Here's the thing: the cinematography in the prequels just wasn't very good. It just wasn't. I mean, perhaps it could have been if the film wasn't drowned in very bad CGI that rendered everything very artificial-looking and lacking in any real physicality. Plus, the general composition of specific scenes was often very dull and uninteresting. These didn't bother me much originally but they did on this rewatch. Attack of the Clones, in particular, mostly just looks hideous. There are some cool visuals throughout the prequels, no doubt, but for every great visual, there are fifteen cases of awful visuals Also, the fact that Lucas didn't bother to keep any sort of continuity in terms of design - especially of the space ships - between the OT and PT made the latter feel completely disconnected from Star Wars in a way that the sequels don't.

I love good world-building too but the world-building in the prequel trilogy just wasn't great. All the trade/ taxes/ whatever the hell that was was just unspeakably boring with the Trade Federation, in particular, being one of the worst additions to the Saga, by far. The dialogue in all these scenes were as stiff as the actors and the actual political machinations were banal beyond belief. The world-building in the prequels, in general, suffered from making the world worse than what was implied by the originals. Vader wasn't a great, heroic Jedi whose fall to the dark side was a genuine tragedy but a winy, short-tempered stalker whose major turn to the dark side was basically just going from being a total dick to a total monster. The Jedi were shown to be a bunch of boring bureaucrats who basically doomed the entire galaxy because they didn't allow for romantic relationships. The origin of Clone Wars was pretty lame and they only really got any good in the spin-off cartoons. Also, Midichlorians. Just, where do I even begin...

As for the characters, the two best characters in the prequels come from the original trilogy (Obi Wan and Palpatine) whereas most of the cool characters in the prequels were the likes of Mace Windu, Count Dooku and Darth Maul but none of these were actual characters so much as cyphers for great actors to just kind of do their thing (Dooku and Windu) or just massively cool designs with killer moves (Maul).

Rey and Kylo Ren, on the other hand, are well-rounded characters whose character arcs drive the entire trilogy, while Poe and Finn provide some great support, along with a number of classic characters from the OT.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Here's the thing: the cinematography in the prequels just wasn't very good. It just wasn't.

Your opinion is still yours, my dude. You have every right to talk about why you disliked the prequels, but if your saying that your limited knowledge of film-making on a technical level (which is obvious) amounts to insight into good or bad cinematography, you don't really have the...high ground...on that.

Also, the fact that Lucas didn't bother to keep any sort of continuity in terms of design - especially of the space ships - between the OT and PT made the latter feel completely disconnected from Star Wars in a way that the sequels don't.

The prequels are set in the time of the Old Republic, where each planet had some amount of cultural and social freedom to develop their own unique aesthetic and style as opposed to the totalitarian era of the Empire. As such the space-ships and general look will be entirely different because the systems, cultures and laws are different.

The Rebellion in the OT are likewise not as well funded as the Old Republic were, nor do they have the same resources. In the OT the rebellions are meant to be underdogs, whereas in the prequels the Republic is not an underdog, it is at the height of its power.


And in any case, historically speaking it's a fair bit accurate to show that the past is more advanced and developed than a later period. Classical Rome and Greece were far in advance of Medieval Europe in a lot of respects. In the century of 100-O BCE, Rome and Alexandria had populations a million each, whereas it would take medieval Europe until the 19th Century for London and Paris to get there.

What better way to convey how evil and bad the empire was, and how dangerous Palpatine was, then to show how in 20 years his government ran stuff to the ground and kind of plunged the galaxy into a space dark ages?

And again go back to the OT...which is the one setting that most resembles the prequels there? The answer is Cloud City. A neutral hub that isn't under the command of the Empire. So all this was set up right from the start.

[Agent Z]

A story about "nobodies being heroes" is better suited to ROGUE ONE. Rogue One is the most democratic of the Star Wars movies. But the major trilogies can't really go there.

Why not?

If they wanted to make a story about Rey being nobody and so on...they should have set the story about 200 years after ROTJ, feature practically none of the OT outside of holocron recordings and Force Ghosts, and have a conflict that doesn't deal with the Sith or Vader's legacy.

Why is this incompatible with Rey spoilers:

not being a Palpatine?

end of spoilers

So that she gets to be a major hero with baggage and a dramatic arc.

You mean like in TLJ where her arc revolved around the drama of her wanting her parents to be somebody important?

-- Why does she want to become the Jedi?

You said so yourself, she wants to be important.
[QUOTE]

-- Why does she want to fight the First Order?

A combination of self-preservation and Finn being her friend.

-- Why would she be so insistent on saving Ben Solo, (outside of his awesome swole bod that is)?

Rey grew up with stories about Luke’s defeat of the Emperor and his redemption of Darth Vader. There is also the artificial Force bond between them that Snoke created. And the movie treated her trying to save him as a lost cause anyway.

I mean this is Greek and Norse stuff. Go back to Oresteia or the Saga of the Volsungs. This is as mythological as it gets.

Doesn’t make Abrams’ decisions any better.

Luke defeated the Emperor by resisting the dark side and refusing to corrupt himself into hatred, even at the risk and price of his own life.

And would have been killed if not for Vader’s intervention. There’s a reason TLJ brought up that point about the dangers of Luke buying into his own legend.

If you see the ST as the continuation of the OT and the PT which it is...then Kylo would have been the protagonist at the end of TLJ since he was the one driving the story and plot, and it all revolved around the legacy of Darth Vader who George Lucas himself said was the overall series protagonist of the first 6 Star Wars movies.

For good or for ill, Lucas is not in charge of Star Wars anymore.
Red drives the plot as much as any villain in a story does. By this logic, Palpatine was the true protagonist of the earlier six films spoilers:

and likely the recent one as well.

end of spoilers

So Abrams pivoted around that and made it about Rey instead.

spoilers:

Made it about Palpatine is more like it.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

And the finale where Rey says she is all the Jedi with the voices of all the Jedi including not just Anakin, Obi-Wan and Yoda, but also Mace Windu, Alura, Ahsoka Tano and many others, actually does say that anyone can be a Jedi and that all Jedis are equal. And so on, So it confirms and double downs on the idea of Jedi coming from everywhere.

end of spoilers

Again, this was done better in TLJ where Rey spoilers:

wasn’t part of some plot by Palpatine.

end of spoilers
Rey went from having the most agency of the Jedi SW film protagonists to being another pawn.

spoilers:

It confirms Anakin's redemption since he doesn't appear as "Force Ghost" or any such thing, but as simply one voice of support among other Jedi

end of spoilers.

spoilers:

If this quote is to be believed, even Lucas didn’t see Anakin as redeemed either.

end of spoilers