Star Wars Sequels: Disney's Anti-Trilogy

HardTimesFamilyPride · Mar 7, 2022

Having a call and response style can work when the call and response is building on top of what came before. Star Wars could have gone that way if they took TFA and TLJ as "thesis/antithesis" and then made the next movie the "synthesis". One of the only rules I had pushed down my throat when I was doing ad-lib/improv acting is to not deny what other people are saying or where things are heading. Do not ever turn your performance into a huge cirlce of "nuh-uh", "uh huh!", "NUH-UH!!" because you get stuck in it and that's what the performance ends up revolving around.

Of course the call and response for Star Wars was mostly just that. "Oops we have to change this, re-frame that, push x person into the background, because fans mad"

"this is because it wasn't planned out" is an ignorant take but that's been litigated enough to not have to be said.

....right?

PanzerKraken · Mar 7, 2022

Qikz said:
My personal thoughts is having two directors with vastly different directing styles try to do a trilogy was never going to work and they should've given it to one or the other and let them do the whole thing. Genuinely I don't understand how this was ever going to work out well.

If we had a fully Rian trilogy or a fully JJ trilogy who knows what would've happened? JJ is very cliche when it comes to star wars tropes but he started off with some decent ideas in Force Awakens. Rian comes in with TLJ and has some great ideas of his own but they don't fit well really with what TFA was setting up and then JJ comes back in the third film and tries to rush I assume everything he wanted to happen in the second film into the third film leaving it a convuluted terrible mess. It's possible his trilogy would've had the same shitty ending, but at least it wouldn't have had 3 films that don't really feel like they fit together. If Rian did all three we could say the same thing.

Well they were going with three different directors originally.

Qikz · Mar 7, 2022

PanzerKraken said:
Well they were going with three different directors originally.

TIL. I don't see how that would've been any better either though!

Crossing Eden · Mar 7, 2022

Qikz said:
TIL. I don't see how that would've been any better either though!

The original ep. 9, Duel of the Fates would've been a stellar conclusion as it followed TLJ's story and themes instead of soft resetting things.

Sordid Plebeian · Mar 7, 2022

I'll have to check it out when I bet the chance. This is the problem with not planning out a trilogy and relying too heavily on meta narratives.

Crossing Eden said:
The original ep. 9, Duel of the Fates would've been a stellar conclusion as it followed TLJ's story and themes instead of soft resetting things.

Have you read that script? It wasn't ROTS bad, but it was bad.

Ambient · Mar 7, 2022

They did John Boyega dirty. Great actor and a great premise for his character absolutely wasted.

ZeoVGM · Mar 7, 2022

Good, The Last Jedi is brilliant.

Eamon · Mar 7, 2022

I still think the biggest problem with the sequels, was the overall premise.

Empire vs Rebels 2.0 greatly limited their potential narratives and themes imo, not too mention grounds the universe in this really stale and stagnant imagery

LinkStrikesBack · Mar 7, 2022

Parthenios said:
I think an all-Abrams trilogy could have worked, or an all-Johnson trilogy as well. But putting Johnson in the middle was a disaster. Hell, The Last Jedi would have been an amazing third trilogy movie, but where the hell do you go from the end of TLJ without a significant time-jump?

Why would a significant time jump have been a bad thing?

Veelk · Mar 7, 2022

Uzumaki Goku said:
Yeah... just a classic case of "I want it to go this way!" "No, it's going this way!" "No, I'm pulling it back my way!"

I hate this argument and find it a very poor analysis of the trilogy. Does the author provide any supporting evidence besides that JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson are two different people with two different ideas for movies?

Altazor · Mar 7, 2022

Haven't even finished the video (at the TLJ section) but a lot of it is not even subtle prequel-stanning, so I fundamentally disagree with a lot of his points while agreeing with others.

Hell, if part of the critique to prop up the prequels is "look, Lucas crammed a child fantasy, a noir detective pastiche, a political drama, a greek tragedy and an old-style adventure in the prequels!" (circ the 8:30 mark) while ignoring that most of those weren't substantial or done 'right', then it's basically arguing "more is more is always good" which is a big no from me, dawg. And big LOL at trying to paint Dexter fucking Jettster as "an actual character"

Parthenios · Mar 7, 2022

LinkStrikesBack said:
Why would a significant time jump have been a bad thing?

I don't think it would have been, but I don't think that's what Disney was going for.

I think a timeskip would have made something like this work:

PeskyToaster said:
I think the idea would be the resistance is destroyed but the people rise up. It's not really apparent because JJ can't escape the Rebels vs. Empire dynamic but the First Order isn't all powerful or ruling the galaxy but without the resistance or new republic, there's no one to stop them from ravaging a bunch of planets. I think the idea was that Luke's message/sacrifice inspires the people to band together and drive them away for good or something. Plus Finn leading some troopers to break away.

And the Resistance could be mostly ex-Storm Troopers in all sorts of wild custom trooper armor, which would have filled in the holes left by TLJ (the Resistance is a single ship's worth of people), boosted Finn's story, sold a ton of toys, been visually interesting, and would have thematically been satisfying, and also maybe help resolve the icky "Storm Troopers are a brand but also explicitly Nazis" issue.

ScoobsJoestar · Mar 7, 2022

I'll always feel so sad Finn didn't become a Jedi. I remember my friends I grew up with being so hyped because, seeing a protagonist Jedi that looked like them is a huge deal. They were so into it. They of course once last Jedi rolled around and it was clear that wasn't the "plan" for him anymore we all got sad.

I also remember how there was a time you couldn't even say you were upset about how Finn was handled on the internet without somehow getting called a white supremacist lol the unironic "if you disliked this movie you are a bigot because bigots also disliked this movie" was way too prevalent.

That said I try not to dunk on them too much because I know that growing up loving the prequels it sucked when adults would try to convince me I was wrong for liking them.

PhaZe 5 · Mar 7, 2022

Eamon said:
I still think the biggest problem with the sequels, was the overall premise.

Empire vs Rebels 2.0 greatly limited their potential narratives and themes imo, not too mention grounds the universe in this really stale and stagnant imagery

This is the reason why the ST is poor--it lacks an identity for its era. It's a bastardization of New Republic vs Imperial Remnant, with strange slices of the OT woven into its skeleton. Both JJ and RJ are responsible for this, with the former more so.

Eamon · Mar 7, 2022

PhaZe 5 said:
This is the reason why the ST is poor--it lacks an identity for its era. It's a bastardization of New Republic vs Imperial Remnant, with strange slices of the OT woven into its skeleton. Both JJ and RJ are responsible for this, with the former more so.

Absolutely.

I would have loved a setting dealing with a fractured New Republic struggling to corral the fractured galaxy post Galactic Rebellion - perhaps with a mysterious insurgent force acting from the shadows that kicks off the trilogy's events. I think there is so much more to grapple with that as the narrative base than what we got

NookSports · Mar 7, 2022

haziq said:
I maintain that TROS specifically was fucked up on purpose.

I agree with you, and I think the only reason the trilogy feels disjointed like it does is because ROTS was so malicious towards TLJ. TLJ definitely took the story in an unexpected place, but if JJA had followed through where TLJ left him, it could've been a pretty interesting conclusion.

Hell, you could've even had a coherent "theme" in each movie of the trilogy:

TFA: Rehash the Past
TLJ: Let go of the Past / Don't let the Past define you
ROTS: Learn from the Past to build something better

There was something to the meta-commentary of soft reboots that you could've done with this trilogy.

Sordid Plebeian said:
Have you read that script? It wasn't ROTS bad, but it was bad.

Yeah but the premise was good. They were right to fire the original creative team; but there was something to salvage there

Deleted member 3208 · Mar 7, 2022

PhaZe 5 said:
This is the reason why the ST is poor--it lacks an identity for its era. It's a bastardization of New Republic vs Imperial Remnant, with strange slices of the OT woven into its skeleton.

This so much. In one of the episodes of the Star Wars anime a Star Destroyer appeared with stormtroopers. And my question was: which era is this set in? OT or ST?

What a mess. Clones were easily distinguishable while not being completely Stormtroopers.

LossAversion · Mar 7, 2022

Yeah, this was a great video that summed up a lot of the problems with the ST perfectly. Especially in regard to The Last Jedi where the criticism is a lot more convincing than just "Luke not good. My childhood ruined!".

Khanimus · Mar 7, 2022

LastNac said:
Duel of Fates would have been great.

It would've been written/directed by Colin Trevorrow. No it wouldn't.

It might've been better? It might've been a less cowardly waste of time and potential. But there is nothing to suggest it would have been great. Colin Trevorrow is not capable of great.

Ryan. · Mar 7, 2022

Sordid Plebeian said:
Have you read that script? It wasn't ROTS bad, but it was bad.

It was also a first draft

a916 · Mar 7, 2022

They should've had JJ do the entire thing (someone else writing the trilogy).

And let RJ do a stand alone trilogy far and away from these rules so he can go wherever he wants.

It was a failure from up top more than anything.

Inspector Detector · Mar 7, 2022

Wrexis said:
Same for the lightsaber. Thrown away in one movie, then "Well actually that's pretty important!" in the next one.

For all of Rise of Skywalker's numerous fuck-ups, this one actually felt right to me as a natural progression of Luke's arc in the sequel trilogy, since by the end of TLJ he understands the importance of a symbol of hope. Like, even if Johnson himself came back to write episode IX, he would've included something similar.

This will be the only nice thing I say about this awful, awful movie.

Cranster · Mar 7, 2022

Original Trilogy > Sequel Trilogy > Prequel Trilogy

Best of all, none are trash films. Star Wars fans really are insufferable!

Sordid Plebeian · Mar 7, 2022

Ryan. said:
It was also a first draft

Would have needed a lot more work. Some interesting ideas for sure that thankfully didn't retcon anything, but I also didn't feel the movie accomplished much. Still had that same question of why did they even make the sequels other than for money. The Rey/Po flirting stuff was also especially wretched

PanzerKraken · Mar 7, 2022

Khanimus said:
It would've been written/directed by Colin Trevorrow. No it wouldn't.

It might've been better? It might've been a less cowardly waste of time and potential. But there is nothing to suggest it would have been great. Colin Trevorrow is not capable of great.

Yea Duel sounded pretty bad, but it at least would have been better than TROS.

kowhite · Mar 7, 2022

a916 said:
They should've had JJ do the entire thing (someone else writing the trilogy).

I mean, he didn't want to. That wasn't really an option.

TCB · Mar 7, 2022

JJ Abrams wanted to do a nostalgia trilogy.
Rian Johnson wanted to do something new.

You either do one or the other.

That said, the directors get blamed for a lot of the trilogies problems, but sometimes I wonder how much involvement Disney had in changing the story. I have a feeling they listen to fans more than they think they do, because each of the sequels almost feels like a reaction to the last one.

- The Force Awakens comes out, audiences liked it initially but then started complaining about it ripping off A New Hope.
- During the period between the first and second movie it was said so many times that fans didn't want another remake of Empire Strikes Back. The Last Jedi tried to be different, but it definitely took a lot of cues from the original trilogy and played off those expectations. But it didn't matter because people hated it for being too different.
- Then the last movie felt like the writers created the script based on a checklist of every complaint from the last two. It almost felt like it was breaking the fourth wall at times, lol.

Ernest · Mar 7, 2022

JJ Abrams is such a fucking HACK, that I'm shocked he's had so much success and clout.

Altazor · Mar 7, 2022

Altazor said:
Haven't even finished the video (at the TLJ section) but a lot of it is not even subtle prequel-stanning, so I fundamentally disagree with a lot of his points while agreeing with others.

Hell, if part of the critique to prop up the prequels is "look, Lucas crammed a child fantasy, a noir detective pastiche, a political drama, a greek tragedy and an old-style adventure in the prequels!" (circ the 8:30 mark) while ignoring that most of those weren't substantial or done 'right', then it's basically arguing "more is more is always good" which is a big no from me, dawg. And big LOL at trying to paint Dexter fucking Jettster as "an actual character"

finally finished the video and... yeah, I basically stand by what I wrote here. I vehemently disagree with his TLJ take (especially what he regards the "message" of the movie) and while agreeing with him on TFA (and superficially on ROTS, but because those flaws are so evident in that movie it doesn't really take an analyst to point them out), the fact that I disagree with him on both his regard for the Prequels (not the Prequel era, which has spawned some excellent content, but the Prequels themselves) and what he thinks on TLJ it means I cannot really concur with his conclusion either - even if we share points. I basically can't defend the Prequels beyond liking them as "ideas" and "themes" but he's intent on proving their worth and, basically, make the point of "them going anti-Prequels is why the ST failed!", which is something I can't really agree.

404LinkNotFound · Mar 7, 2022

ScoobsJoestar said:
I'll always feel so sad Finn didn't become a Jedi. I remember my friends I grew up with being so hyped because, seeing a protagonist Jedi that looked like them is a huge deal. They were so into it. They of course once last Jedi rolled around and it was clear that wasn't the "plan" for him anymore we all got sad.

I also remember how there was a time you couldn't even say you were upset about how Finn was handled on the internet without somehow getting called a white supremacist lol the unironic "if you disliked this movie you are a bigot because bigots also disliked this movie" was way too prevalent.

That said I try not to dunk on them too much because I know that growing up loving the prequels it sucked when adults would try to convince me I was wrong for liking them.

As a black person , me and my other fellow star wars loving friends were so so so excited for Finn being the first black Jedi.
Only for the Force awakens at the end to pull the rug and reveal that he wasnt gonna be one (and he was a janitor????) and then TLJ decided of all thing to not reverse from TFA, itd go even harder about Finn being irrelevant. I dont care what TLJ stans say about "oh he got equal important time in the sun cuz the movie is about failure". If you see the marketing and how the story unfolds, it REALLY feels as if the plot just cared about Rey and Kylo and span its wheels with Finn, not sure what to do with him and going on a much less interesting journey. No longer the exciting potential-jedi but as a meh character. You can even see how the film starts the treat him the moment he woke up and it had the water suit gag. Like it really felt like the movie gave him dang scraps. The messaging honestly means nothing to me if the story isnt very interesting/good to go along with it. Although at least he didnt end up with the same fate as Poor Rose who is barely there in Ep 9 sigh.

And i know TROS implies that Finn actually might have force sensitivity but cmon, you barely see it and its too little too late.
TFA basically conned us into thinking he'd be the main star and the trilogy stringed us along till the end hoping maybe he'd be still important ugh.
(Mind you, i dont mind Rey being a MC as well, wouldve been ok if she and finn were jedis together

a916 · Mar 7, 2022

kowhite said:
I mean, he didn't want to. That wasn't really an option.

He said he didn't have time to do the 2nd one. They were in pre-pro while JJ was still filming 7. If they spaced things out further who knows.

kowhite · Mar 7, 2022

a916 said:
He said he didn't have time to do the 2nd one. They were in pre-pro while JJ was still filming 7. If they spaced things out further who knows.

Well they should've spaced them out more just so people had more time, I can blame Bob Iger for that.

LastNac · Mar 7, 2022

Khanimus said:
It would've been written/directed by Colin Trevorrow. No it wouldn't.

It might've been better? It might've been a less cowardly waste of time and potential. But there is nothing to suggest it would have been great. Colin Trevorrow is not capable of great.

How many of his movies have you seen?

Jesse_and_the_rippers · Mar 7, 2022

Parthenios said:
I think an all-Abrams trilogy could have worked, or an all-Johnson trilogy as well. But putting Johnson in the middle was a disaster. Hell, The Last Jedi would have been an amazing third trilogy movie, but where the hell do you go from the end of TLJ without a significant time-jump?

Couldn't agree more. Force Awakens had me leaving the theater so excited and optimistic, but now I have zero interest in anything Star Wars is doing. I would love to have seen both directors get their own trilogy, versus this flip flopping mess we got.

Keywork · Mar 7, 2022

The lack of a unifying vision under one director for the sequels or a signposted story direction that allowed some artistic freedom to suit each director, but still had to hit hard story beats that all agreed on, is what hurt the Sequel trilogy the most. I remember during the height of prequel hate, droves of fans demanded that Lucas depart the franchise and any future films be given to individual directors who got into film because Star Wars was one of the films that inspired them to follow that career path. Fans said, "They love Star Wars more than Lucas," and, "they would bring the films back to what they used to be!" In a way we kind of got what we asked for. Which is the closing argument in the video about Abrams. He got Star Wars without George Lucas. I also feel like because TRoS was such a bungled mess that left a bad taste in so many fans mouths, Lucasfilm is now stuck trying to figure out where to go forward with whatever Episodes X, XI, and XII will be. Do they do a trilogy in the future, or do they do a trilogy in the blossoming "High Republic" era? Or, do they go full bore and dive into whatever the "Disney-version" of "Knights of the Old Republic" will be? It's why I think we are stuck with all the current productions we know about are focused around the timeframes of the Prequel and Original Trilogies.

Khanimus · Mar 7, 2022

LastNac said:
How many of his movies have you seen?

Jurassic World, which sucked.

Safety Not Guaranteed which I remember being sorta fine, but certainly nothing particularly interesting about the direction. Certainly nothing that makes me go "THE NEXT SPIELBERG".

Fallen Kingdom, which he wrote, is so bafflingly fucking stupid.

And then there's Book of Henry. I watched Book of Henry. I heard it was bad. I did not expect one of the absolute worst pieces of shit that dares to still pretend it has something revealing and heartfelt at its center. It is incomprehensible in concept and execution. Like Naomi Watts trying to save The Room.

LastNac · Mar 7, 2022

Khanimus said:
Jurassic World, which sucked.

Safety Not Guaranteed which I remember being sorta fine, but certainly nothing particularly interesting about the direction. Certainly nothing that makes me go "THE NEXT SPIELBERG".

Fallen Kingdom, which he wrote, is so bafflingly fucking stupid.

And then there's Book of Henry. I watched Book of Henry. I heard it was bad. I did not expect one of the absolute worst pieces of shit that dares to still pretend it has something revealing and heartfelt at its center. It is incomprehensible in concept and execution. Like Naomi Watts trying to save The Room.

Would still say it's the best sequel. And SNG is really fun. I'd say for a Blockbuster it would be fine.

Khanimus · Mar 7, 2022

LastNac said:
Would still say it's the best sequel. And SNG is really fun. I'd say for a Blockbuster it would be fine.

Oh yeah, great stuff.

JURASSIC WORLD Deleted Scene - Dino Poop (2015) Jurassic Park 4

JURASSIC WORLD Deleted Scene - Dino Poop (2015) Chris Pratt, Steven Spielberg Jurassic Park 4 Action Sequel | JURASSIC WORLD Exclusive Deleted Scene from the...

youtu.be

LastNac · Mar 7, 2022

Khanimus said:
Oh yeah, great stuff.

JURASSIC WORLD Deleted Scene - Dino Poop (2015) Jurassic Park 4

JURASSIC WORLD Deleted Scene - Dino Poop (2015) Chris Pratt, Steven Spielberg Jurassic Park 4 Action Sequel | JURASSIC WORLD Exclusive Deleted Scene from the...

youtu.be

Thanks for referencing a deleted to scene prove your point.

StereoVSN · Mar 7, 2022

I still to this day don't understand why the trilogy wasn't at least fully outlined before shooting with major plot points lined up (if not outright written) and why they couldn't get a single director on board to do the whole thing. It's just bizarre and speaks of mismanagement at Disney, IMO.

For Mandolore and Bobba Fett, I found the first one alright and latter was meh (IMO of course).

PumpkinPieAddict · Mar 7, 2022

Will watch the video when I have time. But regarding the discourse here.

It's important to recognise Bob Iger pushed Star Wars to have a fixed schedule of every 2 years (with an annual release of a side story).

Basically trying the MCU formula but for Star Wars. TFA had to be delayed out of May and it sounded like even that was a tough ask. Likely led to JJ leaving. TLJ was the smoothest production.

Then you get to episode 9 that should have been delayed. Colin was taken off the project, JJ steps in to return with the ultra tight turnaround time mandated by Disney ... Then we got what we for.

Creative and corporate just not meshing. MCU alone covers the entire Star Wars purchase. I never saw a need to oversaturate the Star Wars brand - aside for immediate ROI which Iger himself regrets.

Fisty · Mar 7, 2022

Ernest said:
JJ Abrams is such a fucking HACK, that I'm shocked he's had so much success and clout.

I really liked Mission Impossible 3 and thought he had a really good eye for action setpieces and pacing. Super 8 made me think he could competently ape off the classics and make a slick looking movie at the same time. Star Trek was messy but moved fast and there was a ton of energy behind the camera.

Then... Into Darkness made me realize that JJ is all style and no substance and he stopped referencing the classics and just started re-making them, just faster and worse. Also, he needs to pick better writers

Crossing Eden · Mar 7, 2022

404LinkNotFound said:
As a black person , me and my other fellow star wars loving friends were so so so excited for Finn being the first black Jedi.
Only for the Force awakens at the end to pull the rug and reveal that he wasnt gonna be one (and he was a janitor????) and then TLJ decided of all thing to not reverse from TFA, itd go even harder about Finn being irrelevant. I dont care what TLJ stans say about "oh he got equal important time in the sun cuz the movie is about failure". If you see the marketing and how the story unfolds, it REALLY feels as if the plot just cared about Rey and Kylo and span its wheels with Finn, not sure what to do with him and going on a much less interesting journey

Finn's storyline in TLJ literally has a more direct effect on the events of that movie than Rey's and....Finn wouldn't have been the first black jedi even if he did become a jedi like what?

a916 · Mar 7, 2022

kowhite said:
Well they should've spaced them out more just so people had more time, I can blame Bob Iger for that.

Yeah, like I said in my OP, the failure came moreso from the top up than anything.

Khanimus · Mar 7, 2022

LastNac said:
Thanks for referencing a deleted to scene prove your point.

Should i post the scene where the assistant gets the most violent death in the movie for no reason beyond... "she's on the phone alot?"

What about Chris Pratt being fucking boring with his dumb little raptor squad?

What about the two kids who have nothing interesting going on (also remember the older brother being a weird creep staring at girls in the park? Does that go anywhere? We gonna examine that? No? Okay...). But hey, atleast they go through the old INGEN facility! Remember Jurassic Park?! I'm sure glad the movie halted this trip in Jurassic Park with the music and dinosaurs to show me the night vision goggles...

What about the central relationship dynamic being "this business lady is just too businessy! She needs to be about family!"

Fuck that movie

But hey, let's focus on Jurassic World and not The Book of Henry, the movie that was so fucking bad it cost him the Star Wars job

Squid Bunny · Mar 7, 2022

Soapbox Killer said:
This is an interesting video. It's almost Pro-prequal

The prequels are a very interesting comparison. Phantom Menace had a very clear plan laid out, but was so bad that GL clearly pivoted away from what he wanted in the next films. The sequels simply never had a plan and basically became full of jagged edges/hard u-turns.

(I'm a TLJ truther though)

LastNac · Mar 7, 2022

Khanimus said:
Should i post the scene where the assistant gets the most violent death in the movie for no reason beyond... "she's on the phone alot?"

What about Chris Pratt being fucking boring with his dumb little raptor squad?

What about the two kids who have nothing interesting going on (also remember the older brother being a weird creep staring at girls in the park? Does that go anywhere? We gonna examine that? No? Okay...). But hey, atleast they go through the old INGEN facility! Remember Jurassic Park?! I'm sure glad the movie halted this trip in Jurassic Park with the music and dinosaurs to show me the night vision goggles...

What about the central relationship dynamic being "this business lady is just too businessy! She needs to be about family!"

Fuck that movie

You realize that's far from the most violent and mean spirited death scene in any Jurassic Park movie, right? I never got the critique for it at all.

You realize Raptor squad was a Spielberg concept from the beginning, and even before has foundations in the novel The Lost World?

Teens are awkward, that's not a legitimate critique at all.

As for Bryce's characters, it's not about her being business focus, it's about her having compassion. Even in Fallen Kingdom(which is my least favorite of the 5) you can already see her showing compassion and considering them animals as opposed to assets. That's like...the whole point.

Crossing Eden · Mar 7, 2022

there are a metric fuckton of bad takes in this video. Like so many of these dime a dozen "critiques" about the sequels the dude fundamentally misunderstood the films.

Dr Shasta · Mar 7, 2022

They made their bed with making episode 7 a remake of episode 4.

KoopaTheCasual · Mar 7, 2022

Laughing in people's faces, years ago, when they said that the sequels "totally" had a plan.

Laughing even harder in people's faces, now that the dust has settled.

Whole trilogy was wack.

Star Wars Sequels: Disney's Anti-Trilogy

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