Post Skywalker Saga Star Wars Movies and Projects

[Mog]

For all my hate for the sequel trilogy, I actually thought The Force Awakens wasn’t all that bad.  A little derivative, but it wasn’t bad.

Now Last Jedi? 🤮 That made me decide to skip the rest of that trilogy.

[Seto Kaiba]

This feels like an appropriate response:

 

All things considered, I'm surprised that The Powers That Be at Disney want to do another Star Wars movie with Rey.  For a while there, I'd have sworn that she was competing with Jar-Jar Binks to be the single most hated character in Disney's Star Wars franchise.  The 51.86% plummet in the box office take across her trilogy doesn't augur well for yet another outing with a character who has (not entirely unreasonably) been accused of being a Mary Sue.

Disney can occasionally do a great job with Star Wars, but what I've seen has been far more miss than hit and far more dependent on fanservice than quality storytelling.  Rogue One and Andor stand head and shoulders above the rest.

Then again, I'm also a filthy casual and think the Jedi are far and away the most boring part of Star Wars.  To me, there are few characters less relatable than bland ascentic space monks and evil-for-evil's sake space cultists wheeled helplessly from set piece to set piece on their way to a destined encounter with a preordained outcome because The Force Says So.  A setup like that kind of denies that your protagonist or antagonist have free will or agency within the context of the story, and a boolean choice between objective good and objective evil leaves little to develop a character around.

I'd rather see them put more effort into telling stories about the normal people of the galaxy who aren't simply puppets of The Force.

[Duke Togo]

5 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

For a while there, I'd have sworn that she was competing with Jar-Jar Binks to be the single most hated character in Disney's Star Wars franchise.

I'm not sure where you'd get such an idea, outside of the depths of toxic Star Wars fandom.

[Mog]

Nah, most of the toxic a-holes were going after Rose.

Again, I don’t have an issue with criticizing characters and how they’re written.  But there’s zero need to go after the actors or actresses portraying them.

[Thom]

Well, I don't hate her. She's a good character, nicely portrayed by Ridley, who unfortunately was not served with the best script or director. I'd check her out in another outing.

51 minutes ago, Mog said:

For all my hate for the sequel trilogy, I actually thought The Force Awakens wasn’t all that bad.  A little derivative, but it wasn’t bad.

Now Last Jedi? 🤮 That made me decide to skip the rest of that trilogy.

Episode 7 was alright as the start of a new trilogy. As you say, a bit too derivative and being a redo of Ep 4, but it laid the groundwork for what could have been a good trilogy. They also should have ended it before they found Luke and the ending just petered out.

As for the middle movie, I look at it as just highlights and not a real story in and of itself. That's the problem you get when you don't have the whole trilogy mapped out and the directors/writers are not in agreement about what is going to happen and how they are going to get there. They just told Johnson to do whatever he wanted - and he pulled a 180. Which left the third movie needing a massive rewrite with the Emperor tagged-in just before the buzzer. Rather than having the middle movie set up the third act, they literally did that in the pre-crawl! And, of course it was all put back in JJ Binks' hands. Not the smartest move.

That all being said, the only part I really didn't like about TRoS was Rey choosing to go by Skywalker. Imagine if the title had been The Rise of Palpatine..? People would have been, 'what the heck does that mean!?' They already knew the Emperor was going to be in it, so that would not have been a surprise, and most everyone was assuming Rey was Luke's or Leia's daughter. It would have put a better emphasis on the twist with her being Palpy's granddaughter.

At the end, she should have owned the name rather than deciding to take on another. That would have been a lot more impactful.

 

 

Edited April 8, 2023 by Thom

[Mog]

So with all these new shows set to debut, can Hasbro get off their butts and start releasing more 3.75” figures and stuff?

That aren’t just a repaints of Mandalorians or Clones?

That’s where my hatred flows towards! 

[Seto Kaiba]

22 minutes ago, Duke Togo said:

I'm not sure where you'd get such an idea, outside of the depths of toxic Star Wars fandom.

Dunno what to tell you there, but almost all of the discussion of Rey that I saw when the movies were coming out was negative.

Filthy casual that I am, a lot of that was filtered through friends who are more avid consumers of Star Wars media so maybe?

I've gotten reamed a few times in discussions for suggesting Rey was a missed opportunity to defy the usual "Chosen Hero of Ultimate Destiny" malarkey and have her just be the "nobody from nowhere" that she claimed to be while still saving the day.  Y'know, saving the day because she's got principles and chose to stand against tyranny instead of being railroaded into it by Destiny.  

But yeah my key takeway from all that was definitely that fans hated her... and I'm seeing a LOT of that on social media right now, which is why I mentioned it.

 

14 minutes ago, Mog said:

Nah, most of the toxic a-holes were going after Rose.

Again, I don’t have an issue with criticizing characters and how they’re written.  But there’s zero need to go after the actors or actresses portraying them.

That was pretty ****ed up.

It's one thing for audiences to have a negative reaction to an actor because they played a villain so well that audiences can't help it (like the guys who played Draco Malfoy and Joffrey), it's quite another for a character to be in a subplot so obnoxious and unnecessary that audiences can't separate their dislike of it from their dislike of the actor.

[jvmacross]

[Dynaman]

10 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

It made what, $5 billion dollars combined? And then add in merchandise and the rest. Yeah, definitely not failed, whether you like the movies or not.

True but the take was going down from movie to movie - that is NOT what Disney wants to see.

10 hours ago, Bolt said:

The Sw license is a money printing machine. Obviously. Except for Solo  Regardless how awful the content. The sole basis for success is $$$ mentally is very self gratifying for these producers, directors and writers. It's also what's wrong with SW these days.. 

The next movie had better be very well received or Disney is going to be doing another double check on the franchise.  If things were going to plan there would have been 5+ theatrical Star Wars releases since the Rise of Skywalker and unlike other franchises it was not mainly Covid that put a halt to it.

If the writing and continuity is better I would be happy to see more of Rey and crew.

[pengbuzz]

48 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I've gotten reamed a few times in discussions for suggesting Rey was a missed opportunity to defy the usual "Chosen Hero of Ultimate Destiny" malarkey and have her just be the "nobody from nowhere" that she claimed to be while still saving the day.  Y'know, saving the day because she's got principles and chose to stand against tyranny instead of being railroaded into it by Destiny. 

That's why I've gotten to hate "the Chosen One" trope in movies and shows: for one thing, it takes away the agency of a character. It denies them the ability and motivation to want to do the right thing because it is the right thing. Instead, their fate is "preprogrammed" and they have no choice. I find heroes far more interesting if no one "ordained" them, and instead, they did it because it needed to be done and they were there.

BTW: the folks who "reamed you" need to learn that you don't need "fate choosing you" to become a hero. People have it within themselves to live up to their beliefs and moral stance without some ancient sect or omen "prophesying" that they would do so. If they aren't strong enough to do so without one, then getting one isn't going to do much for them either.

 

48 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That was pretty ****ed up.

It's one thing for audiences to have a negative reaction to an actor because they played a villain so well that audiences can't help it (like the guys who played Draco Malfoy and Joffrey), it's quite another for a character to be in a subplot so obnoxious and unnecessary that audiences can't separate their dislike of it from their dislike of the actor.

Right? Audiences nowadays seem to be having more and more trouble separating reality from fantasy, and it's causing a lot of harm. While I'm no fan of Patrick Stewart's interpretation of Picard in the current series of the same name, I'm not about to damn him to the bowels of Hades for it and seek to spite him for eternity.

What audiences need to learn: it's just a show/ movie. Deal with it.

[jenius]

The problem with Rey (which was blown way out of proportion because she became symbolic of Disney's clumsy attempt at diversity) was that her character skipped the training montage in the first film. She was inexplicable and JJ didn't even do a good job with her mystery box. Had the movie opened with her being a padwan to some outcast Jedi who gets offed by Snoke while trying to make it to Luke's temple, she would have gotten so much more of the benefit of the doubt. Having Snoke kill a Jedi would have been great for his character too... but no... we got a girl who magically could do EVERYTHING even though she spent her life abandoned in the desert. All the different writers not seeming to be on the same page after that only made things tougher. 

[sh9000]

I think a James Mangold Star Wars film will be excellent.

Edited April 8, 2023 by sh9000

[Chronocidal]

I never disliked Rey as a character concept.. but she got railroaded into a 30 plotline pileup and never actually got any space to develop as a character in her own right.  There was never any risk of any kind to her, because it was obvious from the start that they would never let her fail at anything.  For whatever anyone else thinks of all the "toxic" fans breaking down the sequels, I really do think she was written as such a blank slate to slip into the role of an audience self-insert for whoever was watching.  

I'm pretty much checked out at this point, so I'm past the point of caring what they do, but if they want to have any hope of making something worthwhile out of the steaming pile the sequels left, the very least they need is a single coherent story to tell before anything else happens.  The JJ/Rian plot slapfight was worthy of an old-fashioned Celebrity Deathmatch.

[TangledThorns]

After ANDOR I'll try to keep an open mind on REY and the other SW announcements but... there seems to be more misses (a lot more) than hits when it comes to STAR WARS lately.

 

 

[Thom]

When it comes to Likes or Dislikes on 'social media,' I'd take it with a huge grain of salt.😉

[jvmacross]

I have no issues with Rey leading the immediate Post-Skywalker saga.....my biggest concern is what they come up with as the main threat......

I do not think bringing back the Sith, Palpatine, Sith Clones, etc will be a compelling enough "new" enemy threat for the post Skywalker era...

I am not an avid follower of the EU or even of the new EU that Disney is merchandising in the form of book, comics, etc....however, I am aware of the alien race that was created as the "new" threat to the Galaxy in some of the Legacy EU books.....not sure how that would go if brought into the live-action arena, but just from my limited knowledge of them, they have a very Star Trek vibe about them...like a Borg threat.....not sure if that would work....however, I do like the concepts about the "unknown regions"...to me that sounds mysterious and foreboding enough to be the origin of something more evil and powerful that has yet to be seen.....perhaps it can be revealed that Darth Sidious found "some source of power" in the unknown regions that he could not control and foreseeing his ultimate defeat implemented some plan to expose the known Galaxy to it upon his death as his final act of revenge against the Jedi.....

[Thom]

Yuuzhan Vong..

Though I wouldn't mind a resurgent Sith Order rising from the ash heap left over by Palpatine.

[sh9000]

https://www.starwars.com/news/swce-2023-return-of-the-jedi-40th-anniversary

[jvmacross]

I'll be there! 

[Roy Focker]

If it's the version with Jedi Rocks I'll just stay home.

[Mog]

It’ll have Hayden Force Ghost and Bib leaving the Barge while eating a slab of steak (foreshadowing his gluttonous look in BOBF). 🤪

Edited April 8, 2023 by Mog

[azrael]

So the premise of Rey's movie is Rey rebuilding the Jedi? Are we going to see the galaxy at large as well with the rebuilding of the Republic? Is the villain someone named "Darth Talon", who was a secret apprentice of Darth Sidious? Oh just for kicks, let's say her real name is, let's say, "Mara Jade". At the end they fall in love and she takes on the name "Mara Jade Skywalker".

See where I'm going with this? Just to remind us all, Lucas' original idea for his sequel was we would see Luke rebuilding the Jedi Order. At the same time, we would parallel Leia rebuilding the Republic. The main villains would be Darth Maul and his apprentice, Darth Talon. The main group of baddies would be the criminal underworld, under the Crimson Dawn Syndicate that Darth Maul created. We would see the syndicate battling the Hutts, the Pykes, and even Imperial-remnants; consolidating all their enterprises and territory under one syndicate. Little bits of Heir to the Empire-trilogy, Jedi Academy, and some other elements. It's like those stories, but sticking in Kathleen Kennedy's characters. (Frankly the criminal element and Imperial-remnant feel like better villains, post-Empire, than the First Order does because it's more organic. The First Order was JJ's attempt to make an Empire and it fell flat. 🤮)

This is part of why I'm not enthusiastic with this premise for Rey. Instead of doing that from the get-go, they're now revisiting those elements. But with new characters 🤦‍♂️. Just like they did with that sequel trilogy.

[Chronocidal]

Yeeeeaaahhh... Imagine they had actually just run with that story from the start.  It would have actually been a story.  

[levzloi]

15 hours ago, jenius said:

The problem with Rey (which was blown way out of proportion because she became symbolic of Disney's clumsy attempt at diversity) was that her character skipped the training montage in the first film. She was inexplicable and JJ didn't even do a good job with her mystery box. Had the movie opened with her being a padwan to some outcast Jedi who gets offed by Snoke while trying to make it to Luke's temple, she would have gotten so much more of the benefit of the doubt. Having Snoke kill a Jedi would have been great for his character too... but no... we got a girl who magically could do EVERYTHING even though she spent her life abandoned in the desert. All the different writers not seeming to be on the same page after that only made things tougher. 

Not just the first movie, the first TWO movies.  The elapsed time from Rey leaving with Finn in 7 and rescuing everybody in 8 was about a week.  In that time a nobody scavenger, flew and repaired the Millennium Falcon better than Han Solo, spontaneously learned the Jedi mind trick, defeated an accomplished dark Jedi twice, slaughtered the Imperial guards who's sole purpose was apparently to kill Jedi, and lifted a field of boulders with the force.  She did all this with only a few angry lectures from Luke about why the Jedi suck as training.  It's just absurd.  In comparison, Luke doesn't even use his lightsaber in the first movie, practices with the force for two years and can still barely pull his lightsaber out of the snow, spends a month with Yoda on Degobah in intense training (yes it was a month, it takes a while to get anywhere with a broken hyperdrive), then gets his butt handed to him by Darth Vader, practices on his own for another year, and only defeats Vader by giving into his Anger. 

[renegadeleader1]

4 hours ago, jvmacross said:

am aware of the alien race that was created as the "new" threat to the Galaxy in some of the Legacy EU books.....not sure how that would go if brought into the live-action arena, but just from my limited knowledge of them, they have a very Star Trek vibe about them

 

3 hours ago, Thom said:

Yuuzhan Vong

Yeah...no.

The last thing I think  I or anyone else wants to see is that species of BDSM kinksters with a fetish for body mods, armed with Cobra-La's bioweapons from the animated GI Joe movie, with a jihad extremists' outlook toward technology, and a certain Austrian Corporal's view on "living space" in the galaxy to grace live action.

[Bolt]

3 hours ago, jvmacross said:

I'll be there! 

It's worth seeing on the big screen again. I watched ESB on the big screen a few years ago. It was awesome.

 

2 hours ago, azrael said:

So the premise of Rey's movie is Rey rebuilding the Jedi? Are we going to see the galaxy at large as well with the rebuilding of the Republic? Is the villain someone named "Darth Talon", who was a secret apprentice of Darth Sidious? Oh just for kicks, let's say her real name is, let's say, "Mara Jade". At the end they fall in love and she takes on the name "Mara Jade Skywalker".

See where I'm going with this? Just to remind us all, Lucas' original idea for his sequel was we would see Luke rebuilding the Jedi Order. At the same time, we would parallel Leia rebuilding the Republic. The main villains would be Darth Maul and his apprentice, Darth Talon. The main group of baddies would be the criminal underworld, under the Crimson Dawn Syndicate that Darth Maul created. We would see the syndicate battling the Hutts, the Pykes, and even Imperial-remnants; consolidating all their enterprises and territory under one syndicate. Little bits of Heir to the Empire-trilogy, Jedi Academy, and some other elements. It's like those stories, but sticking in Kathleen Kennedy's characters. (Frankly the criminal element and Imperial-remnant feel like better villains, post-Empire, than the First Order does because it's more organic. The First Order was JJ's attempt to make an Empire and it fell flat. 🤮)

This is part of why I'm not enthusiastic with this premise for Rey. Instead of doing that from the get-go, they're now revisiting those elements. But with new characters 🤦‍♂️.

Yup. They blew their chance to follow George's thread. He had a pretty good vision IMO. I was enjoying the concept of Darth Talon in the comics, originally. 
I think it would pretty much negate the last sequel trilogy, to follow that too closely with new characters. But, yes , Rey is going to rebuild the Jedi order (apparently) , so i do imagine some similar elements may be present.

1 hour ago, levzloi said:

Not just the first movie, the first TWO movies.  The elapsed time from Rey leaving with Finn in 7 and rescuing everybody in 8 was about a week.  In that time a nobody scavenger, flew and repaired the Millennium Falcon better than Han Solo, spontaneously learned the Jedi mind trick, defeated an accomplished dark Jedi twice, slaughtered the Imperial guards who's sole purpose was apparently to kill Jedi, and lifted a field of boulders with the force.  She did all this with only a few angry lectures from Luke about why the Jedi suck as training.  It's just absurd.  In comparison, Luke doesn't even use his lightsaber in the first movie, practices with the force for two years and can still barely pull his lightsaber out of the snow, spends a month with Yoda on Degobah in intense training (yes it was a month, it takes a while to get anywhere with a broken hyperdrive), then gets his butt handed to him by Darth Vader, practices on his own for another year, and only defeats Vader by giving into his Anger. 

presumably because she was a Palaptine. And not a Skywalker? Really it doesn't make sense. The implication is that Evil Sith dude's blood line is actually way more powerful than the Skywalkers. 
Also , I agree, she should have owned her real name. But we're here now, so. Hoping for some quality SW content.

 

41 minutes ago, renegadeleader1 said:

 

Yeah...no.

The last thing I think  I or anyone else wants to see is that species of BDSM kinksters with a fetish for body mods, armed with Cobra-La's bioweapons from the animated GI Joe movie, with a jihad extremists' outlook toward technology, and a certain Austrian Corporal's view on "living space" in the galaxy to grace live action.

Lol. Agreed. The Vong were fun in the novel's, for a bit.  But i don't see them translating well to screen. Maybe if they were revised, at best. 

[Duke Togo]

11 minutes ago, Bolt said:

They blew their chance to follow George's thread. He had a pretty good vision IMO.

I'm sorry, no. That's some serious revisionist history that doesn't match up with reality. The man was chalk full of bad ideas and poor instincts.

[Thom]

3 hours ago, azrael said:

So the premise of Rey's movie is Rey rebuilding the Jedi? Are we going to see the galaxy at large as well with the rebuilding of the Republic? Is the villain someone named "Darth Talon", who was a secret apprentice of Darth Sidious? Oh just for kicks, let's say her real name is, let's say, "Mara Jade". At the end they fall in love and she takes on the name "Mara Jade Skywalker".

See where I'm going with this? Just to remind us all, Lucas' original idea for his sequel was we would see Luke rebuilding the Jedi Order. At the same time, we would parallel Leia rebuilding the Republic. The main villains would be Darth Maul and his apprentice, Darth Talon. The main group of baddies would be the criminal underworld, under the Crimson Dawn Syndicate that Darth Maul created. We would see the syndicate battling the Hutts, the Pykes, and even Imperial-remnants; consolidating all their enterprises and territory under one syndicate. Little bits of Heir to the Empire-trilogy, Jedi Academy, and some other elements. It's like those stories, but sticking in Kathleen Kennedy's characters. (Frankly the criminal element and Imperial-remnant feel like better villains, post-Empire, than the First Order does because it's more organic. The First Order was JJ's attempt to make an Empire and it fell flat. 🤮)

This is part of why I'm not enthusiastic with this premise for Rey. Instead of doing that from the get-go, they're now revisiting those elements. But with new characters 🤦‍♂️. Just like they did with that sequel trilogy.

All of that sounds great! And I am being only slightly sarcastic.

[Black Valkyrie]

 

If its the digital enhanced version, no need. 

 

[Chronocidal]

6 hours ago, Duke Togo said:

I'm sorry, no. That's some serious revisionist history that doesn't match up with reality. The man was chalk full of bad ideas and poor instincts.

Whether it was a good vision or not, it was a single vision, which I still think would have come out better than what we got, especially if they had found people willing to tell him "no" when he needed to hear it.

I'm really just stocking up on popcorn though, because I'm incredibly curious just where they plan on going.  Taking this route now feels like taking a submarine to torpedo the wreckage of the Titanic, just out of spite.

[sh9000]

I'd be ok if they included the entire deleted scene or part of it.

[Duke Togo]

7 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Whether it was a good vision or not, it was a single vision, which I still think would have come out better than what we got

Highly unlikely, given Lucas's track record. And whatever you think of the stories, the sequels were well casted, acted, and shot, and made very effective use of practical, in-camera effects. We would have gotten none of that with Lucas. They would have been a green-screen, CGI-fest mess.

[Scyla]

3 hours ago, sh9000 said:

I'd be ok if they included the entire deleted scene or part of it.

I would love to see Disney removing stuff instead of adding more. I just want to see the movie I watched as a kid. 
 

I wonder how the wording in the Disney, Lucasfim contract is regarding releasing a "despecialized" version of the OT, which is what I ultimately want.

[TangledThorns]

REY's director leaves me with a lot of concerns.

[Duke Togo]

9 minutes ago, TangledThorns said:

REY's director leaves me with a lot of concerns.

How much of Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy'a work have you seen?