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Star Wars |OT3| Somehow, this thread returned
- Thread starter WadiumArcadium
- Start date
- OT
The essence of "the artist must express" is fine, but JJ isn't David Lynch. He's not working creatively through his demons like von Trier or Refn. His creative track record is mostly built on re-creation. Re-expression of ideas others previously expressed.
Stop playing, JJ.
A very dumb man once said "Themes are for eighth grade book reports."
Mysteries are the guiding force of all writing and not having themes. Also if you want to look at the rest of article here you go.
I started reading the first book in the original Thrawn trilogy and honestly this feels like published fan fiction you'd see posted online. The sudden abrupt difference in canon are WILD. This clone Dark Jedi before Sith was an official term.
I have incredible nostalgia for Zahn's trilogy. I thought they were amazing when first released and I re-read them several times through the '90s and early '00s.
Revisited Heir to the Empire a couple of years ago and It didn't hold up for me for the most part. There was something artificial about how he wrote the characters from the OT. He was trying to mimic their mannerisms so much that it was almost uncanny valley in written form. They sounded so much like the movies while feeling wholly artificial.
I also don't care for quite a few of the new plot points- the way clones are conceptualized (the whole Luuke thing has earned its mockery tenfold), nogri, and even the dreadnoughts.
What still does hold up for me are his new characters- Thrawn, Palleon, and Mara Jade are fantastic- you can see why they were instant fan favorites. And Talon Karrde is great though didn't really have the same lasting legacy as the other three.
A dark side user isn't visited by force ghosts due to the dark side clouding and preventing them from being visited by Jedi ghosts.
Additionally, it would be way out of character of Luke to "haunt and torture" Ben, even if you take into account his position in TLJ. The line that sticks out more is the "Strike me down and I'll always be with you, just like your father." So if Luke is going to be with Ben "just like [his] father" then that means Ben will be tortured by his own memories of them, not by Luke actually showing up in front of him.
I think people are taking the "See you around kid" line way too literally. One, it's a nod to Han Solo. Two, people say this all the time but don't literally mean "I'll see you around". Its a goodbye.
I'm eating a box of kosher salt while reading this, but apart from big chunks of the ending and Kylo going full Vader, I like this.
As you say, very fan-fiction-y, but pretty interesting all the same. Kind of difficult to get a feel for how it'd all work together as a 2-ish hour movie, because I feel like it's almost as overstuffed as TROS is in terms of all the various competing subplots. Lots of planet/location-hopping, and Kylo's side of the story alone seems like it'd take up even more time than Rey's part in TLJ. It definitely feels like it'd be three hours, if not more.
But taking it all at face value, assuming it is real for the sake of argument, it's definitely a closer followup to TLJ than TROS was. Kylo is the villain and goes further into madness (no Rendemption), Rey seems to find her strength in being nobody, Ghost Luke is a major player in both Kylo and Rey's stories, Finn starting an uprising against the FO, and it sounds like Rose has a HUGE part with some great big hero moments. The stuff about Kylo getting metal smelted onto his face, finding an ancient evil dude and then fighting a Vader vision would have been mocked mercilessly as fan-service, but seeing what we got instead in TROS I kind of feel like it might have been the lesser of two evils :P
Having a young Kylo be the one to have killed Rey's parents at Snoke's behest is... bad, but if they absolutely had to dredge her parents up again it is at least more thematically consistent with the previous two movies than the Palpatine reveal was. It keeps the focus on Kylo and Rey, where it needs to be, rather than introducing some outside conflict in the form of a dude neither of them ever met before the day the movie takes place.
I can't say whether this would have been a great movie at the end of the day (again, taking for granted that it isn't just pure fan-fiction), but just in terms of the raw bullet points it's definitely closer to the ending I think logically follows after Episodes 7 and 8. A huge point in its favour right off the bat is that there's no attempt to "end the Skywalker saga" here; it's just written as an ending to the Sequel Trilogy and not the whole damn thing.
It's too good to be true. There's no way Lucasfilm would've rejected a script like that.
I read through that supposed draft. If it's legit (which is certainly questionable) it certainly would have been a very different movie. I would have liked to have spent some quality time at a Prequel location. I see lots of "that's better than what we got" sentiment about but I don't see it.
Oh, but double staff saber for Rey? Yes please.
Oh, but double staff saber for Rey? Yes please.
Aside from Rose (!!) and Coruscant existing again, I'm not keen on almost any of this, honestly. There's far less Rey/Finn/Poe time; I prefer what TROS does with Kylo and concur with Lucasfilm that another villain was needed; I enjoy how Rey accepts her Jedi training more eagerly in TROS and then faces corruption. The list goes on, honestly.
But yeah, hard to get a feel for how this would play out in a full film.
But yeah, hard to get a feel for how this would play out in a full film.
Some of it sounds interesting and feels like a better continuation of the previous two films. But it's always tempting to think what we didn't get is better than what we did because it's comparing a finished movie to our imaginations based on broad plot strokes.
I imagine if that script is real, Lucasfilm would've probably rejected it mainly for the Kylo stuff.
I imagine if that script is real, Lucasfilm would've probably rejected it mainly for the Kylo stuff.
The script is a better continuation of TLJ for sure, but it's....flat. Real flat. There's no interesting direction really. Kylo is chasing McGuffins and is 100% committed to evil. Rey chasing mcguffins herself to "enlighten" her path, and it seems like busy work. Splitting up the heroes again.
We would have gotten complaints that its just kind of....ok, the conflict is over, nothing exciting but the ship was landed. The dynamic between Kylo and Rey seems kind of weak here. Colin stuck with the force connection being cut off and it weakens the Kylo/Rey dynamic considerably imo.
I'll say this, I wouldn't have fired him over the script if this was real. It's got some nice ideas, but clearly needed tweaking.
We would have gotten complaints that its just kind of....ok, the conflict is over, nothing exciting but the ship was landed. The dynamic between Kylo and Rey seems kind of weak here. Colin stuck with the force connection being cut off and it weakens the Kylo/Rey dynamic considerably imo.
I'll say this, I wouldn't have fired him over the script if this was real. It's got some nice ideas, but clearly needed tweaking.
Not to detract from the supposed leak information, but a question. I will disclaim this that I haven't read any of the current canon comics or books, but I have watched the entirety of Clone Wars and I'm on season 2 of Rebels. What I would like to know is if there is any current material out there worth reading that explores Vader in a way that captures what made Anakin in Clone Wars such a good character: daring, adventurous, brash. It seems like all Vader is now is an endless killing quip machine who just does whatever his boss tells him. But there was more to Anakin, and I am wondering if there is anything that captures and explores what is left on Anakin inside Vader.
I don't know if you're going to find exactly what you're looking for but the Vader comics have touched on his past and how it affects him post-RotS.
Yup. We have 3 Vader comic runs. One is set after RotS, one is after ANH and the newest one is after ESB.
All deal with Vader's mindset as he settles into the weird gap of killing machine and Emperor underling. The first Vader run also introduces Aphra who kind of pulls the old side of Anakin out at times.
I'm not sure you'll find exactly that right balance you're looking for because Murder Machine Vader has kind of been the goal post-Disney, but there's some fun stuff in those runs.
I never said torture.
Also you could easily make the argument that Kylo will always have some light in him which would allow a force ghost to show up. SW is obviously not strict with its force power rules lol
The Vader comics for sure.
Charles Soule's Vader run (2017) is post-ROTS
Kieron Gillen's Vader run (2015) is post-ANH
Both excellent.
The 2015 run shows some non-compliance to Palpatine that you should find interesting.
Assuming it's real, I imagine the main sticking point for Lucasfilm with this script would have been committing to Kylo Ren as a villain. Terrio seemed to suggest that Kennedy, et al. wanted him to be redeemed in the end. If both of those things are true though, I don't know why that wouldn't have come up way earlier in the process...
But isn't that the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker? That this charismatic, adventurous, passionate man is gone, replaced by a frustrated, servile toadie? I'm sure there was more to Anakin, but he abandoned all that to become Vader.
Absolutely.
Also, his injuries essentially weakened him considerably, otherwise as a Sith Lord he would have easily exceeded Palpatine.
Anakin is a hunk of meat locked in a suit. That's why I love that scene in Rogue One where he's floating in that tank, flanked by guards, a limbless, singed and broken man under the armor.
On the topic of that claimed Trevorrow draft, it does pretty much nothing for me. It doesn't seem to go anywhere. I appreciate it returning to Coruscant and more explicitly showing Mustafar but beyond that it's a whole lot of nothing. It's making almost the same mistakes as TRoS and hitting the same overall story beats but with even less interesting payoffs. It's still all mcguffins but with the team split up and replaces Sidious with yet another sheev stand-in. Just reads like someone's fanfiction after they saw TRoS and thought they could come up with their own answers to the same questions.
I don't think Luke could even appear to Kylo while he's engulfed in the dark and closed off from the light side, for the same reason Yoda couldn't appear to Luke while he was rejecting the force. And the presumed reason why Anakin never spoke to Ben to set the record straight on the advice he was getting from that mask. If you're closed off to the light side, a light force ghost can't appear to you.
Just about the only positive thing it does is that rose still exists. Between the two I'd rather stick with what we got, as flawed as it is. And I think people praising it are having a bout of grass-is-greener syndrome.
I don't think Luke could even appear to Kylo while he's engulfed in the dark and closed off from the light side, for the same reason Yoda couldn't appear to Luke while he was rejecting the force. And the presumed reason why Anakin never spoke to Ben to set the record straight on the advice he was getting from that mask. If you're closed off to the light side, a light force ghost can't appear to you.
Just about the only positive thing it does is that rose still exists. Between the two I'd rather stick with what we got, as flawed as it is. And I think people praising it are having a bout of grass-is-greener syndrome.
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M&A is pre-TPM btw. There's the Obi & Ani comic but point taken. That middle area is not really explored, mainly because the Clone Wars takes up so much oxygen of the prequel era.
Seems like that's the era Star Wars is heading into next - except it'll be set centuries before the Clone Wars rather than a few years.
I guess I'll get most of what I want with the High Republic stuff (if that's legit). I really like the idea of some stories from the Jedi Order at the height of their influence and hubris but not during the Clone Wars. I doubt we'll ever really get to explore that time much though.
I'm going through my prequel phase after almost a decade of leaving it behind. I am revisiting a lot of the media I goppled up back in 2005. Labyrinth of Evil, the ROTS novelization, the Republic Commando game & Karen Traviss' first 2 Republic Commando novels, the sublime Tartakovsky Clone Wars cartoons, hell, even the PS2/Xbox ROTS game was super fun with a supremely funny alternate ending.
There was something back around 2004/2005 that made that particular period pretty magical and captivating to me. All the media outside ROTS helped a lot to make up for the film's shortcomings. Labyrinth of Evil was really good, the ROTS novelization actually salvaged some of the plot threads, Republic Commando was great, and the Tartakovsky animations are better than any of the prequels (in their own way) with better visual storytelling of Anakin in the span of 30 seconds than what the prequels' 7-8 hours of characterization managed to do.
In ROTS, Anakin's turn is especially so frustrating that it's better to ignore how dumb it is. And then of course the horribly sexist reduction of Padme. It really leaves me conflicted about the worldbuilding that the AOTC->ROTS period left me with, because I did enjoy a lot of the stories and visuals outside of the film itself.
There was something back around 2004/2005 that made that particular period pretty magical and captivating to me. All the media outside ROTS helped a lot to make up for the film's shortcomings. Labyrinth of Evil was really good, the ROTS novelization actually salvaged some of the plot threads, Republic Commando was great, and the Tartakovsky animations are better than any of the prequels (in their own way) with better visual storytelling of Anakin in the span of 30 seconds than what the prequels' 7-8 hours of characterization managed to do.
In ROTS, Anakin's turn is especially so frustrating that it's better to ignore how dumb it is. And then of course the horribly sexist reduction of Padme. It really leaves me conflicted about the worldbuilding that the AOTC->ROTS period left me with, because I did enjoy a lot of the stories and visuals outside of the film itself.
I don't know how this aligns with the way current Old Republic canon is set up, but an interesting thing to potentially come out of the High Republic stuff would be watching the Jedi's transition into that hubris mindset. At some point complacency crept in and made these guys oblivious to what was happening under their feet, and it would be cool to integrate that into some future movie's (or some other thing's) story. By the time the PT began that hubris was already a fait accompli but the Jedi couldn't have always been shit.
Obi-Wan would be next year. It doesn't film until this summer iirc.
Kenobi starts shooting this year so my guess is that it's next year unless it's been confirmed otherwise (I don't think they've officially stated a release time yet).
Rebels 2 is likely going to air in October, with a confirmation within the next couple months
Mandalorian season 2 is (probably) November
Cassian and Obi-Wan will air in 2021, filming begins this year
I'm trying to keep expectations tempered for Aphra, but whatever it is, it's rumored to drop this year.
I've only had the chance to read the Reddit summary of the supposed Trevorrow/Connolly draft so far and have not yet watched the summary from Robert Meyer Burnett directly. From that it seems...fine. There's too little for me to really form a strong opinion on. It's too difficult to see how the character arcs work or how the plot unfolds.
On a related note, Alan Dean Foster, who worked with George Lucas to write the first EU book Splinter of the Mind's Eye and ghostwrite the novelization of A New Hope, wrote a treatment for his version of Episode IX in May of last year. It is ludicrous. If that sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend watching Jenny Nicholson's delightful video about it.
On a related note, Alan Dean Foster, who worked with George Lucas to write the first EU book Splinter of the Mind's Eye and ghostwrite the novelization of A New Hope, wrote a treatment for his version of Episode IX in May of last year. It is ludicrous. If that sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend watching Jenny Nicholson's delightful video about it.
I forgot about that one. I'm more interested in Jedi hijinks overall but I did enjoy her Ahsoka book so I should maybe check that out too.
Approaching Storm also takes place between TPM and AOTC. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35149.Star_Wars
I loved Labyrinth of Evil. Luceno is so good as prequels. Cloak of Deception was a great prequel to TPM. I haven't read Catalyst (prequel to Rogue One) but I've heard a lot of praise for that one as well.
Random Star Wars thought of the day: Kylo's Council of Evil should have had some of the asshole rich people from Canto Bight on it. That story thread from TLJ was kinda dropped.
This was actually the working title for the movie before they changed it to "The Rise of Skywalker" at the last minute.
Labyrinth of Evil and the ROTS novel are both excellent and work really well together.
Oh I get that, but I was wondering if anyone had hinted at those lost sides of him...like flipped the dark/light after Vader came into being. Like as Anakin, he had hints (if you count slaughtering an entire village a hint) of his dark side throughout the prequels and animated series, so I thought maybe in some of the writing someone worked in brief hints of his previous nature. It sounds like the Vader comics are worth checking out at any rate.
The co-writer speaks! The fandom has heard a mysterious broadcast, a threat of MEDIOCRITY in the timid voice of BvS scribe CHRIS TERRIO.
Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader was a good follow-up as well.
The Clone War should have begun in Episode I with Grievous leading the Separatists from the get go, and something like a combination of Labyrinth of Evil and Clone Wars Vol 2 should have formed Episode II with a massive battle of Coruscant leading directly into Episode III.
And change Dooku into an actually rogue Jedi rather than a Sith so that Anakin and the Republic can be set against the Jedi.
And change Dooku into an actually rogue Jedi rather than a Sith so that Anakin and the Republic can be set against the Jedi.