Star Wars Episode IX

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Star Wars died for me with The Last Jedi. I'll probably watch Solo and any other movies on a rainy Sunday, if they happen to be on telly. But the magic is gone.

[Professor Bear]

What the hell, I'll throw in my star wars votes, though I'll leave out the ewok films as I don't really count them.

1. Return of the Jedi
2. Empire strikes back
3. New hope
4. Revenge of the Sith
5. Clone wares cartoon (cgi)
5. Attack of the clones
6. Phantom Menace
7. Solo
8. The clone wars movie
9. Rogue One
10. Force awakens.....which would have been 1 higher, but last jedi robbed it of it of most of its good points.
11.  The last jedi.
12. The dreaded holiday special ....it's almost unbearable.

(theatrically chews cigar) WELL WELL WELL if Mr "Rogue One wasn't as good as The Force Awakens" hasn't changed his tune just like we said he would.

[SIP]

Ha, yeah, maybe I should have also stated, I really really hate everything AFTER Number 8.

Rogue one is a complete miserable mess of a film......but Last Jedi just took everything interesting in Force awakens and just ruined it. So all I'm left with now is a film that needlessly kills Han solo.  So, now that's ruined, Rogue One edges it for some of its half decent moments.

And I'm with Dr X, last jedi also killed my love. Genuinely didn't think I'd ever feel like that after my 40 years with star wars.

[JOE SOAP]

Not only is The Last Jedi killing the original cast, it's killing the fans!*

*only available on youtube.

[TordelBack]

So all I'm left with now is a film that needlessly kills Han solo.

How do you figure that?  It's a critical character moment for Han, and for Ben.  For Han, it's finally putting aside all of his scoundrel cynicism and cunning, and his later flight from of his responsibilities, and giving in to love for his son - and commitment to his wife.  However wrong it goes, it's the concrete endpoint of his character arc.  For Ben, it's the viewer-visible moment of complete submission to darkness that Anakin never really had (the younglings thing was such a ludicrous escalation from stopping bossy-boots Windu killing his substitute father, plus that kid's awful delivery...).  That it didn't stick, that even that terrible sacrifice wasn't enough to give him the clarity and focus he needs to realise his power, that's just the icing on the cake.   

I never wanted to see Han die, ever, and I wish we hadn't, but that scene, with the sun finally going out in the background, with Han slipping from the failing shaft of light into red shadow, touching Ben's cheek, Chewie losing it... goddamn, it was something.

Surely none of that is lost or undermined by TLJ, no matter what your problems with the treatment of Luke's character, or the sidestepping of Rey and Snoke's backgrounds.

[SIP]

No, it's as you say TB, I didnt want to see Han die. It wasnt necessary. I have no desire to watch han get old, have a broken marriage and then be killed by his own child. How well (or not) that it was done was completely irrelevant to me, I just do not get any enjoyment from watching it.

Mark Hamill's acting and portrayal of "Luke"  in Last Jedi was excellent. What he did, he did well. I just didn't enjoy a single second of it.

Not liking anything that they did with the legacy characters is exactly why I don't like new Star wars. They appear to be there to get this middle aged man to buy a ticket......but then they do this with them?  I'm incapable of moving beyond this approach I guess......but why would I want to?

The Force awakens was generic, but it introduced some genuinely likeable characters, provided some excitement, murdered someone for the drama of it, and then ultimately gave me 2 years of hope that something amazing was coming.

The last jedi gave me crushing disappointment, bad humour, far too many tiring rug pulling moments, multiple scenes lifted from prior star wars films, and somehow managed to steal all of the charm from the characters introduced in TFA. It retrospectively makes that film worse. The other things that I struggle with are, Luke skywalker completely aside, the Finn storyline and the Po storyline in TLJ are just awful (IMO).....so I'm left with nothing to like.


And yes, TLJ completely spoils TFA. Aside from another stomping on an OT character, it renders the whole driving search for luke in TFA fairly meaningless, as in I couldn't care that they find luke as I don't like the luke that they find. Snoke was intersting, he isn't now, rey was interesting, she isn't now, Po is no longer likeable,  Finn is no longer likeable, ugh. What is left in TFA that I could care less about? Maybe Kylo?

Anyway.......we are going over well trodden ground now. I'm never going to be convinced that it is any good, and it's events directly impact on most of the driving themes in TFA. So definitely file it all under "not for me".

[Professor Bear]

Surely none of that is lost or undermined by TLJ, no matter what your problems with the treatment of Luke's character, or the sidestepping of Rey and Snoke's backgrounds.

If you didn't buy into it in the first place, TB, you are correct in that nothing in TLJ takes away from it.  I have mentioned in the past that I like the Han Solo archetype, but I've never actually liked the Han Solo character, so his death did little for me except making me guffaw when the eclipse happened because of the "as long as there's light there's hope!" setup that's pure on-the-nose Save The Cat.

Not liking anything that they did with the legacy characters is exactly why I don't like new Star wars. They appear to be there to get this middle aged man to buy a ticket......but then they do this with them?  I'm incapable of moving beyond this approach I guess......but why would I want to?

This is actually a time-honored tradition in comic books and tv sci-fi called "bussing" or "put on the bus", where older characters or actors from the genre (or even from previous iterations of a show) turn up to be chucked under the bus to put new characters over with audiences, which is why I'm surprised to see it embraced by so many creators in this day and age considering all it does is get a quick boost or PR for the bussing, and then the creators have to contend with fans who hate them forever for "ruining" their favorite characters.  I don't know who or what a Boom Boom is, but there seems to be consensus on the incel American comic book forums that Warren Ellis is a terrible writer for his work on him/her/it on NextWave, a comic that came out over a decade ago and was a big deal at the time, but you will notice they don't make anymore.
Bussing is a short-term thing, but in the long term tends to do more damage to a property, hence bussings tend to be retconned within a year or two*, which may give some context to those asking for Last Jedi to be retconned - this is what popular culture has taught them is the process for such things.


* unless the bussing is a gay retcon, which is irreversible and sacred.

[SIP]

I'm thinking that the retcon may actually begin with episode 9, when it turns out that Luke is NOT dead and we get a fight sequence with lightsabers....

Look out for the trailer next year.

[TordelBack]

Indeed, Bear.  As I've rambled many times, the sequels should have been set 100 years after RotJ, and only Force Ghost Luke, and maybe Chewie and the Droids should have been present.  But once they decided to only jump 30 years (because Disney wanted to use the characters they'd paid through the nose for), everyone had to be bussed (and all their good works undone) or the sequels would have to have been their stories - again.  Which would have been daft: where did they have to go, a problem 40 years of novels failed to solve?  Han and Luke's deaths were inevitable the moment Disney signed that big, big cheque.

[Professor Bear]

I'm not sure about that, as though it might seem that way to the over-40s, Western culture is not quite as youth-obsessed as it often appears, otherwise they wouldn't still be casting Ford or the likes of Bruce Willis - the only reason Qui-Gon isn't churning out Taken sequels is because he put his foot down and said he wasn't going to make any more action films.  People would have watched a theoretical Ford/Hamill/Fisher-centric Sequel Trilogy much as they would have gone on watching Shatner shuffle unconvincingly around the galaxy punching 8-titted catwomen if Paramount hadn't replaced him with the young and buff Patrick Stewart.

[SIP]

Why were their deaths inevitable? I don't understand that at all. Any writer worth their paycheck could easily work around this. There are a thousand different ways to include them or not include them as much as was needed in the films.

Han had apparently kept well out of the first order issue so far, I'm sure that he could have been used for a film in an entertaining way then sent back out into the galaxy. It only became inevitable that he would die when they wrote him into the corner that they did. Same with Luke. It's a sensationalist tactic cheaply employed,  not some dire narrative requirement.

They could have used all of these characters in a fun and satisfying manner, whilst pushing the new characters to the fore. They just chose not to. To the films detriment.

I'm consistently baffled by the choices lucasfilm have made......some days they just  appear intent on running their own property into the ground.

Again, with the caveat, " in my opinion".

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

I don't think they *had* to bus everyone at all, I would've very much liked to see Luke playing a bigger part in the new arc.

[JOE SOAP]

Indeed, Bear.  As I've rambled many times, the sequels should have been set 100 years after RotJ, and only Force Ghost Luke, and maybe Chewie and the Droids should have been present. 

It was always the ideal, TB, but I believe too many fervent fans would still complain Disney wasted the Sequels by not having show-up –the still living in real life– Han, Leia, Lando, and for them to be badasses like the EU promised.

where did they have to go, a problem 40 years of novels failed to solve?  Han and Luke's deaths were inevitable the moment Disney signed that big, big cheque.

The story idea of a difficult reclamation and putting the Skywalkers into the larger mythical context was the right one, and for me the inverting of it all doesn't lessen in anyway what came before, but it disappoints me they padded-out and avoided vital parts of the literal set-up by using props and tropes that are a little too familiar – compounded by not providing adequate context. The nostalgia decor is fun, but different designs and new situations would've served their cause, and the dynamic they put the original cast in, better.

Star Wars can still have space battles and hero quests without the old imperial technocracy – even though the ersatz Empire and the nod in the direction of a fascist youth, and the role/fate of kids in the legacy of the Rebellion's pyrrhic victory, is a very interesting one. It just could've done with some new clothes.

But for me the success in the Sequels comes down to the character writing and performances; apart from squeaky plotting, some dud lines and flat moments, the majority of the time it feels like they're selling it as best they can, and I hadn't seen the like of that in a Star Wars film for 30 years.

[TordelBack]

Any writer worth their paycheck could easily work around this. There are a thousand different ways to include them or not include them as much as was needed in the films.

I'm (obviously) not a writer, but as far as I can see the only other options that include the Big Three at all were a trilogy about three septuagenarian heroes that apparently aren't permitted doubt, failure or moral weakness, one of whom can destroy planets with a raised eyebrow (BADASS LUKE, YAY!); or a trilogy where those same guys lurk about in the background (unchanged from 1983, bar wrinkles) as new characters try to save the galaxy, and everyone wonders why they don't just come centre-stage and defeat the baddies, which they either eventually do (again) or don't (what?!?).

Maybe those could have been written up into something fun.  But I doubt it.  Or at least I doubt that the fan "outrage" would have been any less.

Instead what we got was the application of the basic structural model for the Star Wars saga: an older generation of heroes help/inform the next generation to meet the current conflict, before passing on.  It was the right call (other than not making the bloody things at all). 

[SIP]

That's two comments above that allude to making the OT cast members "bad asses". Who wants that?

Han solo pretty much bumbled around the first three films, Luke was not infallible. Nobody wants super bad ass versions of characters that were never super bad asses. If anyone was made a complete bad ass, that wouldn't feel like the original characters either.

I don't think the majority of people who disliked Last Jedi wanted luke to be a bad ass. That is NOT where it went wrong.

Take Force Awakens.......if Kylo had been no relation to Han, and 90% of the rest of the story had played out the same, with han helping the resistance, and at the end he successfully blew up the thingamy without facing Kylo (robbing po of the boring trench run rehash), rey fights Kylo, all escape in the falcon, everyone parts ways. We have had mostly the same film and Han isn't dead. Find the "emotional" connection elsewhere in one of the other characters. In that version, I've had the fun of the OT character and Disney get their nostalgia hit.....why did they need to kill him?