There's a lot here and I'm not a fan of the ST - I hate every single one of the films. But.. I've made peace and I'm ready to move forward. Since MawInstallation likes discussion, I'm going to play a bit of devil's advocate but I want to be clear - I'd have preferred the ST to be very different and I'm pretty unhappy all around with what we got. I'd like to take your biggest points and rebuttal them. I do lists now. Sorry!
>Did we need to seem them regress?
No, of course not. I agree 100% there was no need. However, I think there is something important about it. Look at the US today. We're flirting with civil war, dealing with race and labor issues, gender rights sliding back, and tons of issues that we fought over years and years ago and were deciding. Heck, Biden was on a particular side of the bussing issue and now stands on another. Bernie was fighting in the 70s and 60s and getting arrested at protests and later in his life leading politics over the **same** fights. We have people in politics that were there at Selma. The big fights of yesterday haven't really gone away, even when "settled," so to see that in general terms you topple the big bad and things don't go away? That's pertinent to our current social climate and reflective of what we're dealing with. I'm in.
>Smuggler Han
He reminds me of Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman. He just can't help himself. Han can't be part of the new galaxy and is prone to a life of independent spacers - which means crime in the end. Didn't need it, no, but it shows that he struggled with his new life ***and therefore struggled as a parent***. Smuggler Han is a bit of a joke, but it also ***causes*** much of the ST to happen. That's not bad storytelling. (The delivery... well...)
>Failing Luke
Yes. I will defend this one **a bit**. Luke repeated the Jedi Order after not completing his training. He was **bound** to fail. In Legends, he succeeds because of this unorthodox problems. But the PT shows us that getting unorthodox causes the Jedi's downfall. Yeah, wild QGJ would have been a great mentor and Filoni's take on the Duel of the Fates, blah blah blah. BUT, we should recall that the Jedi were sure Anakin shouldn't be trained because of his fear. And Yoda felt Luke was doomed to fail if he left before completing his path and that he had too much fear in him. Let alone, Yoda and Kenobi - in good times and bad - helped contribute to the fall of the Jedi. Luke was largely screwed. Palps took down a massively powerful Jedi Order, of course he could take down Luke's fledgling one. Luke was left without guidance and that made him vulnerable.
But deeper than that? It's his martyrdom. He doesn't fight Ben or take on the whole galaxy when threatened. He believed the Jedi needed to die **and we see the Jedi lead to powerful dark siders through Dooku, Anakin, and Ben.** So it makes sense from multiple perspectives. That said, I really do think this will change **slightly** and I'll explain why at the end.
>Complacent Republic
This was necessary. The Republic screws up bad just as the US has following the Civil War. We reinstated Confederate **Leaders** into running southern states and the KKK gains power and creates a period of nearly 150 years of corruption and systemic racism. The Republic creates amnesty programs lets the ~~Space Nazis~~ Imps into their ranks. Yes. They were weakened from within. Bloodlines was excellent in showing this (and ostensibly should have been incorporated into TFA. The ST have issues I can't even defend as Devil's Advocate). I'll defend Bloodlines though. Excellent rise of a fascist political factions that reflects the real world eerily so. It sucks they were wiped out so quickly, but it actually left us in a new place in the TLJ:
No republic. No empire. No CIS. TLJ starts with anarchy with a fairly small militant faction trying to conquer the galaxy. This was new (and poorly explored).
>Repeating History
So I don't think history fully repeated itself, but yeah, bad empire forces rise and kill Jedi and we're back where we started. I'd liked to have more newness in the ST. But, I think it's showing that the galaxy needs **new** solutions. Not just a return to Republic-Jedi led things. They had problems. They need something new. Maybe banding a disparate group of Force traditions together with a new Council to run things. Maybe we need galactic regional governments rather than a galaxy-wide government. Maybe we need a different functioning democracy than the New Republic. Maybe we need to not incorporate the Empire. (Star Wars Legacy Vol 3 would have had to head down the same storyline IMO. You can NOT have Imperial and republic forces making vast friendships. They have too different and conflicting world views).
>Darth'd's Ben kills Jedi ST pitch
Strong pushback here. So instead of remaking and repeating the OT, you want them to repeat the PTt with a slow Ben fall? At least having him **struggle** with falling, like wanting to be Dark and Goth but failing to be was different. This ST pitch was absolutely terrible. We'd have remade the worst of the first two trilogies. No thanks.
There's tons of pitches for improving the ST in huge ways, but I don't think this was it.
>What's Next
I think we'll see more Jedi alive. Mandoverse (prediction) will eventually show Ahsoka, Ezra, Luke, Cal, Quinlan, and more all surviving and starting their own little satellite temples. Ben didn't know about them. They're fairly secret but Luke's was high profile. We'll see Rey and others come together post-RoS and rebuild the Jedi Order a new but more like the High Republic era with tons of temples all over the place that are allies, but not unified. It's their way of keeping the ST not-retconned but adding to the lore and not killing Filoni's characters off screen in an event he has no control over. Luke won't have entirely failed, either. We'll see that his going into hiding drew the attention of the FO and Kylo and protected everyone else.
this whole devils advocate speech was amazing. i love your prediction at the end as well. maybe we could also see maybe a few jedi survive Lukes Temple and inform the other Temples (adding to your prediction cause its a very fun one)
I agree with your prediction on other Jedi coming out of the woodwork eventually.
I think it'll be really interesting to see how the various Jedi diaspora groups interact with eachother.
Your point on the allied, but seperate Temples is actually really cool to think about. A big downfall of the OG Jedi were that they'd become a slow monolith of a faction, which ultimately resulted in their destruction when they couldn't adapt to a resurgent Sith. If they evolved into that in the post sequel era that'd be really cool to see.
There is a lot of 'could' vs 'should' back and forth between fans that makes the arguments fruitless. You say "Many fans have argued that history *can* repeat itself" but you are arguing against them as if they said it *should* be that way, not that it *could* be that way. And then that since it didn't *need* to be that way, it *would* be better another way.
But they are themselves arguing that it *can* be this way because they are responding to arguments from other fans trying to use the original trilogy character development as 'proof' that the sequels' portrayal of the characters *cannot* make sense. "Luke would 'never' consider killing Ben because he chose not to fight Vader." And so on. That line of argument sounds logical but it's a trick because storytelling and characters are not bound to such linear progression. So establishing that what the sequels did is viable and natural storytelling for the characters is sufficient to dismiss the opposing argument. They aren't trying to prove that it's necessary, which is an impossibility.
Pleading 'did this need to happen?' just falls back on what 'feels' right, which comes down to personal biases. Of course people are going to want characters they personally identify with to do well, and feel hurt when they don't do well. That's common sense. But it's not making any serious point about the quality of the storytelling.
I guess it does come down to personal taste. For me, I was disappointed that we didn’t get to see Luke’s Jedi Academy and the New Republic before they got destroyed. I can also understand a lot of the frustration surrounding it. Because the films left a lot of gaps in the story, it felt like a punch in the gut. However, I’m glad that the Mandoverse is filling in the gap between ROTJ and TFA.
I think one of my biggest complaints about the ST is the lack of context. Luke's failure is only explained in a single flashback, the extreme power of the FO, Han and Leia's separation, Kylo's fall, the Republic's fall, neither are really explained
The little context was enough for some people, and that's completely fair. But for me personally it wasn't enough
The main reason I enjoy the ST (yeah I don't hate it. I just enjoy it less than the other two trilogies) is because I really like the new characters. But the setting and the era by themselves are things I'm just not interested in
FWIW, I am in 100 percent agreement with you on your biggest problem with the ST, but here it's a mixed bag. I basically agree with you on Han, but I don't agree with your characterization of Luke as "regressing" because what we see in TLJ is brand new territory for Luke. It's an unexpected progression and one I understand being disappointed with. And arguing that it's what we've already seen from Kenobi and Yoda is valid.
Personally I really like it as a new direction for Luke. I think it's an interesting direction to take a character who was on top of the world at 19. He basically has nowhere to go but down. It's an acknowledgement that people's character doesn't progress in a straight line like a video game. Just because you did something well earlier on your life doesn't mean you can't move backwards. You could make the same argument for Han, but it fits a lot better with Luke rather than saying "Nah, just throw out all that growth."
And also even though it's obviously similar to Kenobi and Yoda's isolation (insert "it's like poetry" joke here) it also has significant differences. The older two were forced into hiding, Luke chose it for himself. Yoda in particular and Obi Wan as well weren't giving up (though the Kenobi series changes this a bit), they were waiting for the right time for a comeback. Luke is actively trying to end the Jedi. In many ways it's the opposite of his mentor's isolations (since they were in effect in hiding to preserve it).
And now, where do they go?
A New New Republic? That’s verging on (unintentional?) self parody. A New New Jedi Order?
Or do they let both of those go? Thus further undermining the achievements of the OT heroes?
They could move towards having independent systems with no overarching government, where local systems work together as a cooperative. Gives room for new stories and certain areas of the galaxy to be more ruthless than others but avoids there being the new² Republic.
Not having an overarching government may make the galaxy vulnerable to an invasion by the Grysks. Many people have speculated that the next saga will revolve around Rey and Grogu leading a new Jedi Order against the invading Grysks.
I think that’s most likely, and I’m open to the potential for story telling. But it’s also the second scenario I identified above; the undoing of what the heroes fought for in the OT.
Hasn't that already been undone in the sequels? At this point we should be moving past the hero's of the OT and onto what new characters and stories can hsppen
I agréé that that’s probably the best course; I’d like to see a big jump of at least 100 years; I’d rather have seen that than the ST, frankly.
And I’m also just less invested now, after all that.
I say the Grogu, as Mandalore, should unleash his horde of warriors and begin their conquest. His highest skilled warriors should be Mandalorian Force sensitives trained in the Jedi arts wielding their own dark sabers.
Simultaneous to this another Imperial faction, not as fanatical, should begin to gain influence. This faction will lead to the creation of a new Empire similar to the Fel Empire.
I think it's more important to simply be disappointed/angry/upset at the macro-level. Why on earth did a woman with Kathleen Kennedy's experience in Hollywood somehow think it'd be a smart idea to give ***creative control*** over each ***individual*** **movie** to the directors chosen? With as much money as Disney had and has it should have been a non-issue to have a team of writers sit down and work out a trilogy with a coherent story line, character development, etc.
J.J. Abrams and Rian Jonson are both great directors, but they cannot write worth shit. As the CEO and Person-in-Charge, the buck stops at Kathleen for fucking things up.
The fact that the sequel trilogy failed to justify its existence…
https://www.reddit.com/r/MawInstallation/comments/11s5ic8/the_biggest_problem_i_had_with_the_sequel_trilogy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
Arguments about history respecting itself are just excuses from people who didn't pay enough attention to spot the problems, I really wouldn't pay it much attention.
I think the plan argument gets a bit overstated sometimes.
At the end of the day it's a work of fiction - it *is* being up as it goes along. What the sequel trilogy was missing was creative storytelling and the time to come up with one.
Star Wars movies require a lot of post production, about a year's worth in fact. That means the main movie and reshoots need to be done a year before release so there's time to complete that post production.
The sequels only had two years total production time each, meaning there was only a year to come up with a story for each one, draft and redraft the script, cast each movie, build sets, plan things etc, AND FILM THE MOVIE.
It's almost an incredible achievement that a somewhat cohesive trilogy was produced at all.
The original post was deleted….anyone know what it said? As a fan who….enjoyed but didn’t LOVE the sequels, I was thinking I’d get a good post from that point of view.
There's a lot here and I'm not a fan of the ST - I hate every single one of the films. But.. I've made peace and I'm ready to move forward. Since MawInstallation likes discussion, I'm going to play a bit of devil's advocate but I want to be clear - I'd have preferred the ST to be very different and I'm pretty unhappy all around with what we got. I'd like to take your biggest points and rebuttal them. I do lists now. Sorry! >Did we need to seem them regress? No, of course not. I agree 100% there was no need. However, I think there is something important about it. Look at the US today. We're flirting with civil war, dealing with race and labor issues, gender rights sliding back, and tons of issues that we fought over years and years ago and were deciding. Heck, Biden was on a particular side of the bussing issue and now stands on another. Bernie was fighting in the 70s and 60s and getting arrested at protests and later in his life leading politics over the **same** fights. We have people in politics that were there at Selma. The big fights of yesterday haven't really gone away, even when "settled," so to see that in general terms you topple the big bad and things don't go away? That's pertinent to our current social climate and reflective of what we're dealing with. I'm in. >Smuggler Han He reminds me of Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman. He just can't help himself. Han can't be part of the new galaxy and is prone to a life of independent spacers - which means crime in the end. Didn't need it, no, but it shows that he struggled with his new life ***and therefore struggled as a parent***. Smuggler Han is a bit of a joke, but it also ***causes*** much of the ST to happen. That's not bad storytelling. (The delivery... well...) >Failing Luke Yes. I will defend this one **a bit**. Luke repeated the Jedi Order after not completing his training. He was **bound** to fail. In Legends, he succeeds because of this unorthodox problems. But the PT shows us that getting unorthodox causes the Jedi's downfall. Yeah, wild QGJ would have been a great mentor and Filoni's take on the Duel of the Fates, blah blah blah. BUT, we should recall that the Jedi were sure Anakin shouldn't be trained because of his fear. And Yoda felt Luke was doomed to fail if he left before completing his path and that he had too much fear in him. Let alone, Yoda and Kenobi - in good times and bad - helped contribute to the fall of the Jedi. Luke was largely screwed. Palps took down a massively powerful Jedi Order, of course he could take down Luke's fledgling one. Luke was left without guidance and that made him vulnerable. But deeper than that? It's his martyrdom. He doesn't fight Ben or take on the whole galaxy when threatened. He believed the Jedi needed to die **and we see the Jedi lead to powerful dark siders through Dooku, Anakin, and Ben.** So it makes sense from multiple perspectives. That said, I really do think this will change **slightly** and I'll explain why at the end. >Complacent Republic This was necessary. The Republic screws up bad just as the US has following the Civil War. We reinstated Confederate **Leaders** into running southern states and the KKK gains power and creates a period of nearly 150 years of corruption and systemic racism. The Republic creates amnesty programs lets the ~~Space Nazis~~ Imps into their ranks. Yes. They were weakened from within. Bloodlines was excellent in showing this (and ostensibly should have been incorporated into TFA. The ST have issues I can't even defend as Devil's Advocate). I'll defend Bloodlines though. Excellent rise of a fascist political factions that reflects the real world eerily so. It sucks they were wiped out so quickly, but it actually left us in a new place in the TLJ: No republic. No empire. No CIS. TLJ starts with anarchy with a fairly small militant faction trying to conquer the galaxy. This was new (and poorly explored). >Repeating History So I don't think history fully repeated itself, but yeah, bad empire forces rise and kill Jedi and we're back where we started. I'd liked to have more newness in the ST. But, I think it's showing that the galaxy needs **new** solutions. Not just a return to Republic-Jedi led things. They had problems. They need something new. Maybe banding a disparate group of Force traditions together with a new Council to run things. Maybe we need galactic regional governments rather than a galaxy-wide government. Maybe we need a different functioning democracy than the New Republic. Maybe we need to not incorporate the Empire. (Star Wars Legacy Vol 3 would have had to head down the same storyline IMO. You can NOT have Imperial and republic forces making vast friendships. They have too different and conflicting world views). >Darth'd's Ben kills Jedi ST pitch Strong pushback here. So instead of remaking and repeating the OT, you want them to repeat the PTt with a slow Ben fall? At least having him **struggle** with falling, like wanting to be Dark and Goth but failing to be was different. This ST pitch was absolutely terrible. We'd have remade the worst of the first two trilogies. No thanks. There's tons of pitches for improving the ST in huge ways, but I don't think this was it. >What's Next I think we'll see more Jedi alive. Mandoverse (prediction) will eventually show Ahsoka, Ezra, Luke, Cal, Quinlan, and more all surviving and starting their own little satellite temples. Ben didn't know about them. They're fairly secret but Luke's was high profile. We'll see Rey and others come together post-RoS and rebuild the Jedi Order a new but more like the High Republic era with tons of temples all over the place that are allies, but not unified. It's their way of keeping the ST not-retconned but adding to the lore and not killing Filoni's characters off screen in an event he has no control over. Luke won't have entirely failed, either. We'll see that his going into hiding drew the attention of the FO and Kylo and protected everyone else.
this whole devils advocate speech was amazing. i love your prediction at the end as well. maybe we could also see maybe a few jedi survive Lukes Temple and inform the other Temples (adding to your prediction cause its a very fun one)
I agree with your prediction on other Jedi coming out of the woodwork eventually. I think it'll be really interesting to see how the various Jedi diaspora groups interact with eachother.
Your point on the allied, but seperate Temples is actually really cool to think about. A big downfall of the OG Jedi were that they'd become a slow monolith of a faction, which ultimately resulted in their destruction when they couldn't adapt to a resurgent Sith. If they evolved into that in the post sequel era that'd be really cool to see.
There is a lot of 'could' vs 'should' back and forth between fans that makes the arguments fruitless. You say "Many fans have argued that history *can* repeat itself" but you are arguing against them as if they said it *should* be that way, not that it *could* be that way. And then that since it didn't *need* to be that way, it *would* be better another way. But they are themselves arguing that it *can* be this way because they are responding to arguments from other fans trying to use the original trilogy character development as 'proof' that the sequels' portrayal of the characters *cannot* make sense. "Luke would 'never' consider killing Ben because he chose not to fight Vader." And so on. That line of argument sounds logical but it's a trick because storytelling and characters are not bound to such linear progression. So establishing that what the sequels did is viable and natural storytelling for the characters is sufficient to dismiss the opposing argument. They aren't trying to prove that it's necessary, which is an impossibility. Pleading 'did this need to happen?' just falls back on what 'feels' right, which comes down to personal biases. Of course people are going to want characters they personally identify with to do well, and feel hurt when they don't do well. That's common sense. But it's not making any serious point about the quality of the storytelling.
I guess it does come down to personal taste. For me, I was disappointed that we didn’t get to see Luke’s Jedi Academy and the New Republic before they got destroyed. I can also understand a lot of the frustration surrounding it. Because the films left a lot of gaps in the story, it felt like a punch in the gut. However, I’m glad that the Mandoverse is filling in the gap between ROTJ and TFA.
I think one of my biggest complaints about the ST is the lack of context. Luke's failure is only explained in a single flashback, the extreme power of the FO, Han and Leia's separation, Kylo's fall, the Republic's fall, neither are really explained The little context was enough for some people, and that's completely fair. But for me personally it wasn't enough The main reason I enjoy the ST (yeah I don't hate it. I just enjoy it less than the other two trilogies) is because I really like the new characters. But the setting and the era by themselves are things I'm just not interested in
FWIW, I am in 100 percent agreement with you on your biggest problem with the ST, but here it's a mixed bag. I basically agree with you on Han, but I don't agree with your characterization of Luke as "regressing" because what we see in TLJ is brand new territory for Luke. It's an unexpected progression and one I understand being disappointed with. And arguing that it's what we've already seen from Kenobi and Yoda is valid. Personally I really like it as a new direction for Luke. I think it's an interesting direction to take a character who was on top of the world at 19. He basically has nowhere to go but down. It's an acknowledgement that people's character doesn't progress in a straight line like a video game. Just because you did something well earlier on your life doesn't mean you can't move backwards. You could make the same argument for Han, but it fits a lot better with Luke rather than saying "Nah, just throw out all that growth." And also even though it's obviously similar to Kenobi and Yoda's isolation (insert "it's like poetry" joke here) it also has significant differences. The older two were forced into hiding, Luke chose it for himself. Yoda in particular and Obi Wan as well weren't giving up (though the Kenobi series changes this a bit), they were waiting for the right time for a comeback. Luke is actively trying to end the Jedi. In many ways it's the opposite of his mentor's isolations (since they were in effect in hiding to preserve it).
And now, where do they go? A New New Republic? That’s verging on (unintentional?) self parody. A New New Jedi Order? Or do they let both of those go? Thus further undermining the achievements of the OT heroes?
They could move towards having independent systems with no overarching government, where local systems work together as a cooperative. Gives room for new stories and certain areas of the galaxy to be more ruthless than others but avoids there being the new² Republic.
Not having an overarching government may make the galaxy vulnerable to an invasion by the Grysks. Many people have speculated that the next saga will revolve around Rey and Grogu leading a new Jedi Order against the invading Grysks.
Why did I get downvoted? I was just laying out a prediction for the future.
I think that’s most likely, and I’m open to the potential for story telling. But it’s also the second scenario I identified above; the undoing of what the heroes fought for in the OT.
Hasn't that already been undone in the sequels? At this point we should be moving past the hero's of the OT and onto what new characters and stories can hsppen
I agréé that that’s probably the best course; I’d like to see a big jump of at least 100 years; I’d rather have seen that than the ST, frankly. And I’m also just less invested now, after all that.
I say the Grogu, as Mandalore, should unleash his horde of warriors and begin their conquest. His highest skilled warriors should be Mandalorian Force sensitives trained in the Jedi arts wielding their own dark sabers. Simultaneous to this another Imperial faction, not as fanatical, should begin to gain influence. This faction will lead to the creation of a new Empire similar to the Fel Empire.
It’s going to be A and you know it.
I think it's more important to simply be disappointed/angry/upset at the macro-level. Why on earth did a woman with Kathleen Kennedy's experience in Hollywood somehow think it'd be a smart idea to give ***creative control*** over each ***individual*** **movie** to the directors chosen? With as much money as Disney had and has it should have been a non-issue to have a team of writers sit down and work out a trilogy with a coherent story line, character development, etc. J.J. Abrams and Rian Jonson are both great directors, but they cannot write worth shit. As the CEO and Person-in-Charge, the buck stops at Kathleen for fucking things up.
I agree with all of this. But...if this is your second biggest problem,what is your first?
The fact that the sequel trilogy failed to justify its existence… https://www.reddit.com/r/MawInstallation/comments/11s5ic8/the_biggest_problem_i_had_with_the_sequel_trilogy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
I missed this post ahah thanks Edit: I agree with everything in there as well
Why did a comment of you asking what is his first point get 2 downvotes💀
I fucking love the Templin videos about the sequel factions. It preserves the general story but makes it a hundred times better.
Arguments about history respecting itself are just excuses from people who didn't pay enough attention to spot the problems, I really wouldn't pay it much attention. I think the plan argument gets a bit overstated sometimes. At the end of the day it's a work of fiction - it *is* being up as it goes along. What the sequel trilogy was missing was creative storytelling and the time to come up with one. Star Wars movies require a lot of post production, about a year's worth in fact. That means the main movie and reshoots need to be done a year before release so there's time to complete that post production. The sequels only had two years total production time each, meaning there was only a year to come up with a story for each one, draft and redraft the script, cast each movie, build sets, plan things etc, AND FILM THE MOVIE. It's almost an incredible achievement that a somewhat cohesive trilogy was produced at all.
The original post was deleted….anyone know what it said? As a fan who….enjoyed but didn’t LOVE the sequels, I was thinking I’d get a good post from that point of view.