Solo: I've got a pretty good feeling about this!

[Mando Knight]

With the TLJ modus operandi they would probably put an empire suit on some random German guy, kill him off-screen,

"Random" Danish guy.

[Dienekes]

Thrawn has been re-introduced. In Rebels, and they did a great job with it. Right up until the very end.

You're just going to lie to the people like that? Thrawn has maybe 1 good scene, the rest is all talk with none of the actual interesting tactics that made Thrawn fun to read.

He literally has the entire hero team either captured or cornered with no way out along with the leaders of the rebellion on the planet. Then stops the assault to negotiate a hostage transfer with the people he has effectively caught!

Just blow them up! Damn it Thrawn. You have TIE Bombers. Use them.

[lt_murgen]

You're just going to lie to the people like that? Thrawn has maybe 1 good scene, the rest is all talk with none of the actual interesting tactics that made Thrawn fun to read.

He literally has the entire hero team either captured or cornered with no way out along with the leaders of the rebellion on the planet. Then stops the assault to negotiate a hostage transfer with the people he has effectively caught!

Just blow them up! Damn it Thrawn. You have TIE Bombers. Use them.

I thought he was quite well done throughout the previous season. His method to find Chopper base, and the assault on it, was very well done. Undone only by a plot-contrivance named the Bendu.

Then, in the finale, I read that as Thrawn having to bow to the will of the Emperor to keep Ezra alive at all costs. And really, he had know way of knowing about the Purrgill. Holding off on the bombing until the Emperor was satisfied made sense- as a threat to Ezra. Plot armor was the only thing that saved them.

[Jayngfet]

Plot armor was the only thing that saved them.

This can't be overstated. In that episode a squad of a dozen stormtroopers burst in and open fire on our heroic rebels caught unawares, only for those troopers to miss a dozen people standing still with no cover for several seconds while they figure out how to escape.

[Scowling Dragon]

This can't be overstated. In that episode a squad of a dozen stormtroopers burst in and open fire on our heroic rebels caught unawares, only for those troopers to miss a dozen people standing still with no cover for several seconds while they figure out how to escape.

No but you see Stormtroopers have ALWAYS been a Joke and implied to be terrible shots! The best kind of writing is the kind that applies out of universe gags and then applies them to reality IN universe!

[Lord Joeltion]

What I'd like to see is young Yoda. Or maybe young Palpatine under Darth Plagueis.

I also think it would be interesting to see, although I don't know if it would work very well, a pre-Solo young Chewbacca movie that's set on Kyshyyk and entirely in subtitles

"Young Yoda" would be closer to Old Republic verse than the canon one, methinks. Darth Plagueis could potentially expand the lore, not unlike Legends did, but given how "lore" is handled by Disney... I'd rather not.

Kysgyyk set movie, with main character of an alien race (EITHER ONE, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE) would certainly be dope. I'd buy that for a dollar any other day.

Liking Solo is a bit like liking Titanic: Yes, we all knew the ship was gonna sink, but we still enjoyed watching the movie because it was such a good movie.

That's funny, because I also deem Titanic utterly unengaging for my taste. But in my case, no, it has nothing to do with knowing how it will end. Basically, when the setting is more interesting than the characters, my attention span automatically sails for warmer shores.

This is where the failure of the ST to break genuinely new ground really hurts. You've got thirty years between ROTJ and TFA and the situation in the galaxy changes from Rebellion vs. Empire to descendants of the rebellion vs. descendants of the empire, which is to say not at all. Compared to the legends timeline where in 30 ABY everyone was sitting in the aftermath of a titanic extragalactic invasion it is pathetically lacking in creativity. And that's coming from someone who hates the NJO (seriously, everything about the NJO is terrible but it was still a better route to go down than the one TFA went).

There were also a couple of Dark Side possession/ghosts and some exploring of ancient lore. That also shows more creativity and (specially) taking higher risks with new concepts, lore-wise.

Spoiler

Show

Well some interesting news coming out of Disney.

Supposedly Kathleen Kennedy has been all but officially fired, but there's a catch - they can't find anybody else willing to take the job.

ALLEGEDLY JJ Abrams flatly refused to take the job.

I've read a couple people talking about it. So far people have said basically the same thing - at this point, who would WANT the job?

As a franchise Star Wars is in SERIOUS trouble. Last Jedi only gets less liked as time goes by, Solo has conclusively lost a couple hundred million dollars (plus or minus a couple hundred million depending on how much you accept Hollywood accounting at face value), and by all polls/focus groups they've done the fans as a whole are NOT excited for Episode 9 even after it was announced JJ Abrams was going to direct it.

But still there is an expectation that Star Wars is going to be a smash hit movie. Which leaves whoever takes the job in a bind. At absolute best you can MEET expectations and make a boatload of money, and that would take a lot of work and big turnaround in the direction of the franchise. And at worst you can lose another couple hundred million dollars like Solo, take the blame, and get publicly fired in 3 years.

Sure they'd obviously be paid a lot of money, but who would want to take a job under those conditions? Anybody that would get offered the job is already going to be making bank, so why would they give themselves a stress headache to at best meet expectations of management?

If this is true, then it could imply some sort of rethinking on how to the Disneyverse is being constructed. For me, that's a good sign, because they are obviously going way faster than they can possibly manage. My fear is that the Wound in the Force probably is deeper than that, and that Disney would try and trump any new creative team ; and THAT could be the reason why nobody wants to take the burden as of now.

My line of thinking is kinda like this: We know for a fact that there were some fantastically written SW stories in several forms of media, who were produced basically by nobodies. Writing an "acceptable" SW story shouldn't be difficult. What is difficult (perhaps) is working against an ego (be it from Disney or from JJAbrahams certain "creative minds") instead of letting the artist show a finished product and then deem it acceptable or not. It's probably feasible to write any movie in a year or maybe even less; but making it fit on a greater scheme (let alone, a franchise that's been revered by some 30 yrs) takes time, and some amount of care. LOTR wasn't the perfect movie* it was just because Peter Jackson is the best director ever (he probably isn't). It took time. It took care. It took a real commitment. TFA, TLJ, Solo... heck, even Rogue One look like rushed products to reach a deadline. Even if you truly like this new management, I think that is an aspect everyone would agree they still need to improve. It's Disney, they can do so much more than what we are getting now.

*By what is realistically possible, obviously

Hey now If I had to suffer through Starwars being ruined by the Prequels and not getting a reboot of them. Well you can handle this.

I beg to differ. No matter how excruciatingly bad they were they were, the prequels basically rejuvenated the franchise, and created a whole bunch of good products that even to this day, a lot of people still love and defend. I still have to meet one real person who has the love for the current EU, as the love Legends from that time (somehow) spawned in some SW fans.

Meaning, the Prequels were part of a greater scheme (Legends), a project of Lucas that even with all the inconsistencies and nonsense, worked on some level. The Prequels ruined nothing. They didn't tell you what you should consider canon or Legends, they barely retconned anything*. The ST, on the other hand, did. THAT is "ruining" the fun, for the fans who loved any previous established canon. You could still chose to read a different version (novelization) or still get the general idea from different sources (Clone Wars); and the Prequels would fit in SW just fine. The ST? Not so much.

*The only retcons I can think of are mostly nitpicks that Lucas would have had retconned anyway because he is a son of a tauntaun.

[Scowling Dragon]

No Id say the prequels had plenty of bad ideas. But Id Say George was more receptive to toning them down then Disney.
Midichlorians? Never mentioned again.
Jar Jar? His role is downgraded in every film even if the Reverse Yoda Idea would be friggin brilliant if true.

What Id say the prequels had was GOOD ideas. Its a whole bunch of GOOD ideas marred by BAD ideas.
But the Sequels? Its just mediocre or repetitive ideas at best. So when bad ideas do stand out there isn't much to compensate.

[hamishspence]

No Id say the prequels had plenty of bad ideas. But Id Say George was more receptive to toning them down then Disney.
Midichlorians? Never mentioned again.

They're mentioned in Episode 3, and not just Episode 1.



"Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith so powerful and so wise he was able to influence the midi-chlorians to create ... life"

[Devonix]

Seriously gonna have to disagree on the prequels barely retconning anything. They changed fundamental stuff but had the luxury of claiming that they were "revealing the truth."

Stuff like the clone wars. The history of the republic and relationship of older characters.

Writers were scrambling for years to keep up with the changes. No one knee where anything stood.

[Scowling Dragon]

Stuff like the clone wars. The history of the republic and relationship of older characters.

Somewhat, but the format was still much more closely followed. Clone Wars Clones amd elements of the Republic Coup and the Palpatine Rise to power where followed pretty close even from writings DECADES before their release.

But where there plenty of retcons and updates? Yes.

They're mentioned in Episode 3, and not just Episode 1.

Fair enough. I still stand by what I said overall.

[Lord Joeltion]

Seriously gonna have to disagree on the prequels barely retconning anything. They changed fundamental stuff but had the luxury of claiming that they were "revealing the truth."

Stuff like the clone wars. The history of the republic and relationship of older characters.

Writers were scrambling for years to keep up with the changes. No one knee where anything stood.

And I seriously ask you: Did those retcons severed entire timelines, erased the behaviour/development of characters (central or not) or directly affected events that HAPPENED (ie: not simply mentioned) and were established in the chronologically posterior episodes?

It's easy to handwave away/play deaf to most of the changes/additions to the lore during the Prequels. Most of them aren't on the order of "Han Solo Shots Second Because Of His Uncanny Neck-flex"*. You could argue the Order could have been interpreted different going by the previous cannon, but that was a matter of solidifying the lore more than straight-out contradicting OT lore. Whatever gripes one can have to the Prequels, as far as retconning/lore expansion goes; the ST commits greater genocides than PT ever did; imo.

[Peelee]

And I seriously ask you: Did those retcons severed entire timelines, erased the behaviour/development of characters (central or not) or directly affected events that HAPPENED (ie: not simply mentioned) and were established in the chronologically posterior episodes?

Jaster Mereel.

[Devonix]

And I seriously ask you: Did those retcons severed entire timelines, erased the behaviour/development of characters (central or not) or directly affected events that HAPPENED (ie: not simply mentioned) and were established in the chronologically posterior episodes?

It's easy to handwave away/play deaf to most of the changes/additions to the lore during the Prequels. Most of them aren't on the order of "Han Solo Shots Second Because Of His Uncanny Neck-flex"*. You could argue the Order could have been interpreted different going by the previous cannon, but that was a matter of solidifying the lore more than straight-out contradicting OT lore. Whatever gripes one can have to the Prequels, as far as retconning/lore expansion goes; the ST commits greater genocides than PT ever did; imo.

Bobs Fett just everything Boba fett.

[Scowling Dragon]

Bobs Fett just everything Boba fett.

Really? From what I understand is that everything of him was generally crowbarred back in, with liberal application of force (Both Kinds) and selective memory.

[Friv]

And I seriously ask you: Did those retcons severed entire timelines, erased the behaviour/development of characters (central or not) or directly affected events that HAPPENED (ie: not simply mentioned) and were established in the chronologically posterior episodes?

It's easy to handwave away/play deaf to most of the changes/additions to the lore during the Prequels. Most of them aren't on the order of "Han Solo Shots Second Because Of His Uncanny Neck-flex"*. You could argue the Order could have been interpreted different going by the previous cannon, but that was a matter of solidifying the lore more than straight-out contradicting OT lore. Whatever gripes one can have to the Prequels, as far as retconning/lore expansion goes; the ST commits greater genocides than PT ever did; imo.

I mean, the entire Thrawn Trilogy, which was the foundation upon which the EU was built, is largely based on technology and concepts that the Prequel Trilogy entirely subverts or outright tosses into the garbage. Not the least of these ideas was the fact that the clones in the the Thrawn Trilogy were the enemies of the Republic, which is why Thrawn is able to get access to cloning technology that the Republic doesn't have access to. Thrawn uses ysalmiri to deal with the fact that clones are highly unstable, which they are not. Mara Jade's backstory is based on being the Emperor's Hand, a position that was entirely replaced by the Inquisitors. Cloaking devices, key to Thrawn's plans, couldn't be easily used because you couldn't see out of them - aside from those cloaked ships in the Clone Wars TV show that was part of Lucas's Legends scope.

Almost everything about the design of the Death Star and its builders (which involved quite a few novels) had to get revised when the Geonosians were revealed to be the builders. Everything Mandalorian got put in a blender and set to frappe. Admiral Ackbar was part of the first Mon Calamari space exploration force, and was captured by the Empire and turned into a slave, using his observations as a slave to escape and become a Rebellion general - until the Prequels retconned the Mon Calamari to have been members of the Republic, rather than an Imperial first contact, at which point his entire background and motivations were changed. Owen Lars was Obi-Wan's brother until he was not.

They had to write an entire "Rusan Restoration" to cover the fact that the Republic was declared to only be a thousand years old, instead of a thousand generations.

And that's just some of the bigger ones.

[Some Android]

So I still haven't seen this film. I'll probably just end up catching it on Netflix in however many months from now or whatever.

I don't want to derail this thread or anything, but apparently Solo may have killed all future Star Wars films or something like that...or at least killed all future films that aren't episode IX. The series survived a holiday special, Jar Jar, three prequels, and this is what may signal the end?

[hamishspence]

Those were the rumours. I think it was clarified by Lucasfilm that they haven't actually cancelled any of them though - and that the rumours exaggerate.

[Scowling Dragon]

I mean, the entire Thrawn Trilogy, which was the foundation upon which the EU was built, is largely based on technology and concepts that the Prequel Trilogy entirely subverts or outright tosses into the garbage. Not the least of these ideas was the fact that the clones in the the Thrawn Trilogy were the enemies of the Republic, which is why Thrawn is able to get access to cloning technology that the Republic doesn't have access to. Thrawn uses ysalmiri to deal with the fact that clones are highly unstable, which they are not. Mara Jade's backstory is based on being the Emperor's Hand, a position that was entirely replaced by the Inquisitors. Cloaking devices, key to Thrawn's plans, couldn't be easily used because you couldn't see out of them - aside from those cloaked ships in the Clone Wars TV show that was part of Lucas's Legends scope.

Maybe I didn't read enough of the infinite Piles of Star Wars Cannon but I read the Thrawn Trilogy and found it stacked up still pretty well.
I don't ever remember a mention of Clones being the bad guys in the wars, they where just mentioned sort of offhandedly and not in much detail. Just that Clone Troopers existed, and made by clone masters.
Thrawn uses ysalmiri to deal with the fact that HYPER fast cloning is unstable, which it still was.
Allot of your other stuff is generally nitpicky because even the original cannon was contradictory and dense with stuff that retconned itself.
*******************************

Lets not pretend that the old EU was this hyper clean interconnected thing. Because it wasn't even at the best of times. Details where forgotten and elements repeated ad-nasuem.
But what made it charming is how much effort wen't into making this quilt of patchwork ideas.
And to that Id say the Prequels where just more Patches that where quilted into the patchwork. And new elements allowed for new patches.

[Mechalich]

So I still haven't seen this film. I'll probably just end up catching it on Netflix in however many months from now or whatever.

I don't want to derail this thread or anything, but apparently Solo may have killed all future Star Wars films or something like that...or at least killed all future films that aren't episode IX. The series survived a holiday special, Jar Jar, three prequels, and this is what may signal the end?

It's not the end, but it seems a leadership shakeup and some re-calibration is in order. For instance, it is likely that future Star Wars live action projects are going to face some fairly strict budget controls - a huge portion of the economic failure of Solo is that they spent about twice as much to make it as they should have (a 150 million dollar movie with a 375 million global gross is a 'meh' performance, a 300 million dollar movie with a 375 million global gross is a disaster).

There's a strong justification for putting things on hold outside of Episode IX and doing some serious soul-searching to try and reconnect with the fanbase and re-orient the storytelling accordingly. That has to happen in a fully integrated multi-media way. In addition to the movies there have been problems in the toy market (though they need to try and uncouple Star Wars problems from Toy R Us problems) and the video game market (because EA is awful).

More broadly, if Lucasfilm offers up the scalp of Kathleen Kennedy they can use delay to both clean house - the rumor mill suggests internal factions exist - and give the fans a chance to cool off. Episode IX is probably doomed, but if it at least tries to be a decent Star Wars film that will go a long way to earning some forgiveness. The Prequels were bad, but they were sincerely bad, as opposed to TLJ which was cynically bad. If they can just manage to do the former that will restore much needed equilibrium. A pause would also give them a chance to buyout EA's license and find a new studio to handle Star Wars gaming - an important move for a sector that grows more important every year and is likely key to the immense Chinese market.

[Fyraltari]

The ST didn't retcon Legends it rebooted it. A retcon pretends it's not change, a reboot acknowledge that there is a previous continuity but it is going away.

And I still thin that a reboot was the right call. The Old EU was, there is no better word, a mess that had to resort to different levels of canon to try (and fail) to make sense of itself and it definitely had no place for a Sequel Trilogy. You may not like wht they are doing with the franchise (and generally speaking neither do I) but they at the very least admit they didn't buy SW right after the movies were made and are bringing some fan-favourites back into canon. Also, so far, they have left the Prequel Era alone, mostly.

I remained amused by the number of people who took the (to me obvious) hyperbole of "a thousand generations" seriously. I mean, really a 25,000 year old Republic? W've had writing for about 5,000 years and you want me to believe a government of untold billions not only survived for five times that long but stayed mostly the same?

From Augustus to Constnatine the XIth, the Roman empire lasted 1480 years (fight me) and evolved so much that if you had switched in time a random civilian from both endpoints they wouldn't recognize a single thing.

Meanwhile, according to KOTOR, Dantooine and Tatooine were barely settled remote planets during the Jedi Civil War and stayed that way for 4 millenia.

Placing the Foundation of the Republic to just a 1000 years prior (ie around the time of the apparent end of the Sith) seemed like a perfect choice. If they didn't stick with that, well, that's too bad if you ask me.

[Devonix]

Maybe I didn't read enough of the infinite Piles of Star Wars Cannon but I read the Thrawn Trilogy and found it stacked up still pretty well.
I don't ever remember a mention of Clones being the bad guys in the wars, they where just mentioned sort of offhandedly and not in much detail. Just that Clone Troopers existed, and made by clone masters.
Thrawn uses ysalmiri to deal with the fact that HYPER fast cloning is unstable, which it still was.
Allot of your other stuff is generally nitpicky because even the original cannon was contradictory and dense with stuff that retconned itself.
*******************************

Lets not pretend that the old EU was this hyper clean interconnected thing. Because it wasn't even at the best of times. Details where forgotten and elements repeated ad-nasuem.
But what made it charming is how much effort wen't into making this quilt of patchwork ideas.
And to that Id say the Prequels where just more Patches that where quilted into the patchwork. And new elements allowed for new patches.

They were heavily shown as the antagonists of the clone wars. Lando originally was supposed to have been clone seeking refuge in the republic after the war.

Of course the EU wasn't perfect. Just saying that to all the people upset that new movies are messing up what was canon before. Welcome to Starwars nice to meet you.

[Mightymosy]

So I still haven't seen this film. I'll probably just end up catching it on Netflix in however many months from now or whatever.

I don't want to derail this thread or anything, but apparently Solo may have killed all future Star Wars films or something like that...or at least killed all future films that aren't episode IX. The series survived a holiday special, Jar Jar, three prequels, and this is what may signal the end?

Which is a shame.

I think they should cancel Episode IX instead.

The one beacon of hope I had for this franchise was the Obi Wan movie. Make that one instead, then work towards redoing VIII and then give us a good IX as a finale.

Solo was good, but not broadly appealing enough (especially: not spectacular enough) to overcome the toxin injected into us by TLJ.
I weep for this movie and everyone who worked so hard to make it a success.

I think when the dust is settled, a couple years later, people will more widely recognize Solo as the gem it was.
It wasn't the chandelier the OT was, more like a dirty gem which you had look closely at to notice its beauty. And a lot of people didn't even bother to look because they were scarred by TLJ.

It would be interesting to know if there were people who liked TLJ and also liked Solo.

So far, I have mostly heard about people either hating both, or hating TLJ and liking Solo (like me, but I think we are a minority).

Then again, the cinema was almost empty when we watched Solo - so I think there are quite many people who just didn't watch it, soured by TLJ. I mean, here on the hardcore forum where we discuss Star Wars all day - some people haven't watched it!



The Star Wars Saga

You know what made Star Wars special?
It was a saga. That is, an ongoing story, where every couple of years you'd get a new chapter.
And after a couple of years, thousands of people in the world added their own parts to that saga, stuff that would eventually become an "extended universe".
No, it didn't all make sense, it wasn't all good, and eventually there were tons of contradictions.
But the makers of the main movies made one thing sure: All of this is one story. A story that advances and eventually will have a conclusion. Each part builds upon the others. Which made it so fascinating for so many people world-wide.

Consider other big franchises at the time:
Indiana Jones: it even has Harrison Ford in it. And it is awesome! But was there some overarching plot?
Not really. I'd argue you could watch the three old parts in any order you chose, and there wouldn't be many contradictions.

Because back then, there was no need for an overarching story.
As long as you had the same characters, and the same theme, you could just slap numbers on the titles and people were happy.

Consider James Bond: Every Bond movie is a movie in and of itself. No overarching plot. In 20+ movies you'll rarely if ever find one movie referencing the story that came in the movie before that.

Of course, neither of these franchises uses ongoing numbers.
Star Wars does. Episode, and then a number.

Can you name any other hollywood franchise that told an ongoing story and has reached more than 6 parts?

Star Wars wasn't the only movies that did that, but certainly one of the big ones, one that stood out.

And now people expect that.

It started with Star Wars and also in TV series. Back with X-Files, most episodes were singular episodes with just little continuity in between, but even those constructed a - loose - overarching plotline. And people were invested very much in the series as a result.
"Charmed" arguably made it even better.

Nowadays we have this Game of Thrones stuff, were appearanly "Plot & Continuity" are KING and QUEEN. Everyone who ever recommended this series to me was all over the moon with that series because the author paid soooooo much attention to detail in regard to characters and how storylines developed and intermingled. (Oh, and people seem to love that every character can die, but that's a different story).

In other words: people lick that kind of stuff from the shoes of the creators.

But also: people WANT THAT STUFF NOW!
Try re-watching a couple of shows or movies from the time before continuity became such a big thing. In my experience, you often feel kinda little hollow then. You thought it was great, but then you miss so many things that made so little sense, and ....how could you ever like that??



Anyway, what I find really sad is how the competitors so soundly beat Star Wars at its very own game, the "saga" game.

I'm primarily looking at Marvel here, truth be told.
Marvel and StarWars have one thing in common:
Their stories are generally not intellectually complicated. They're mostly rather simple stories about Good and Evil, and sh*t blows up in beautiful colors. One uses Spaceships and lightsabres, the other one all kind of superhuman powers.

They have another thing in common: A big, convoluted mess of an "extended universe": A lot of stuff, a lot of stories, a lot of characters with backstories that contradict each other, themselves, and the universe as a whole.

Honestly, I am not a superhero movie fan, but that is also because I have grown up with earlier superhero movies that were mostly one-ofs where nothing really ever mattered. How many times did Batman "originate"? Yawn.

That's why I am REALLY impressed with the current Marvel universe. They have cherrypicked from the entirety of the comics what they wanted in this movie "saga" of recent years. Yes, maybe someone disagrees with particular choices. But once they picked a choice: They stick to it!

If you liked Thor, good for you: Watch another couple of movies, and you likely won't be disappointed because he will be the same here.
Don't like Thor?
Then how about Ironman? Another couple of movies for you, and we keep our promise.
Also not?`Then how about Captain America? Another series where you can follow the story of one character.

It's just the very opposite of what DC does: They had this wonderful trilogy with Batman, and people loved it!
So what do they do next? Make Superman vs Batman! In other words, forget all that Nolan stuff, here comes another vision of the character.

Return to Marvel: Have you already picked your favourite superhero?
Great news! Because we also have a couple ensemble movies coming up where your hero or heroine meshes up with the favourites of your friends and engages in conflicts bigger than anyone alone can handle. Yay, teamwork!
But don't be afraid! We don't "reboot" your darling because another d*ck thinks he can enforce his vision behind the camera. We make sure you get the Thor you liked before, or the Ironman you liked before, or the Dr Strange you liked before.

Because to us, it is important to meet your expectations. Expectations we raised with our previous movies. Expectations we hope to get more of your money with in the future, for as long as we can.


Back to Star Wars:
Star Wars arguably has one of the biggest Legacies in movie histories: The trifecta of Luke, Leia and Han, and also the supporting cast of Lando, Yoda, Obi-Wan, R2-D2, C-3PO etc etc etc, and the villains of course, are deeply enshrined in the hearts of many of a Star Wars fan.

Disney is often criticised for being only interested in cash.

Good news, everybody! With the Star Wars legacy you have one of the cash cows on your hands.
Now, you only have to milk them.

In other words: People already love your characters. The only thing you have to do is take them out of the vitrine, dust them off and point a camera at them.

Oh, and don't break them.

But guess what: they did break them.
Han arguably got off the least awful way: at least he got the chance acting heroically one last time. Still, was robbed of his legacy and a shadow of his former self.
Leia hardly did anything and was replaced by purple hair "won't tell you the secret".
Luke was butchered.


It's rough understanding this stuff from a storytelling perspective. But if you consider Hollywood storytelling is also about business, it becomes even harder to understand.
Who greenlighted a director who was going to destroy the cash cows?

It makes a little more sense if you think KK and RJ were of the school of movie making I initially mentioned:

Indiana Jones: it's an adventuring story with Indiana Jones as the protagonist. It revolves around hidden archaelogic treasures in the world. Go nuts.
James Bond: it's a secret agent action story where a guy named 007/James Bond scores with at least two hot chicks and blows bad guys up with expensive gadgets. Go nuts.
Star Wars: it's a Science Fiction/Fantasy story with rebels and an evil empire and people with lightsabres. Makre sure to blow up a couple spaceships, and don't forget that we need to include someone called Han Solo, lady named Leia, and a Jedi called Jake Skywalker.

It's almost like in these "Pitch Meeting Parodies".

Think of the Infinity War movie: intellectually not interesting at all, but huge blockbuster movie, and vastly superior to TLJ in almost every way except for the technical aspects of filming.
Imagine if in that movie, Ironman just turned around and shot Spiderman in the face.
Why??
Because Jarvis (Ironman's old artificial intelligence) calculated that there was a 20% risk that, if Spiderman got hold of an Infinity Stone, he would turn mad and kill lots of people.

What? You say Jarvis doesn't even exist anymore?
Sure does, watch the movie.
Poor Spidey hadn't yet done anything wrong, so Tony would never kill him, being his mentor and all?
Of course he would, you s2pid f*cknuts! Watch the movie, he just did!

People would go rampage - and rightly so.




And then the directors would tell you that you are whiney fanboy and not intellectual enough to understand the deep philosophical impact of this radical approach to moviemaking. WTF?

[Peelee]

The ST didn't retcon Legends it rebooted it. A retcon pretends it's not change, a reboot acknowledge that there is a previous continuity but it is going away.

And I still thin that a reboot was the right call. The Old EU was, there is no better word, a mess that had to resort to different levels of canon to try (and fail) to make sense of itself and it definitely had no place for a Sequel Trilogy. You may not like wht they are doing with the franchise (and generally speaking neither do I) but they at the very least admit they didn't buy SW right after the movies were made and are bringing some fan-favourites back into canon. Also, so far, they have left the Prequel Era alone, mostly.

I remained amused by the number of people who took the (to me obvious) hyperbole of "a thousand generations" seriously. I mean, really a 25,000 year old Republic? W've had writing for about 5,000 years and you want me to believe a government of untold billions not only survived for five times that long but stayed mostly the same?

From Augustus to Constnatine the XIth, the Roman empire lasted 1480 years (fight me) and evolved so much that if you had switched in time a random civilian from both endpoints they wouldn't recognize a single thing.

Meanwhile, according to KOTOR, Dantooine and Tatooine were barely settled remote planets during the Jedi Civil War and stayed that way for 4 millenia.

Placing the Foundation of the Republic to just a 1000 years prior (ie around the time of the apparent end of the Sith) seemed like a perfect choice. If they didn't stick with that, well, that's too bad if you ask me.

I agree that scrubbing the old EU was for the best, and have always maintained that stance. As for the thousand generations... they've hit a technological plateau. Sure, maybe it wasn't 25,000 years, but you can't have the wise old master character throw that line out without it being at least somewhere near accurate. Sure, maybe not 25,000 years, but a damn sight away from 1,000 years. And at the end of the day, it's space wizards in space ships with laser swords while jumping from planet to planet. A really old civilization standing for a long time hardly strains credulity, at least for me, so long as it makes for an awesome setting.

Then again, I also dress up in plastic armor and pretend to be one of those spacemen in my free time, so I may not have a typical mindset about it.

[Scowling Dragon]

Of course the EU wasn't perfect. Just saying that to all the people upset that new movies are messing up what was canon before. Welcome to Starwars nice to meet you.

Im not upset about that. I was in fact for a cleanup of the EU and trying something new for the new movies.

Im upset that the New Cannon is picking the worst bits and pieces of the old EU, and stitching them together into somekind of uholy abomination:

• The Empire Rises from whatever section wasn't fully genocided and start doing their thing again
• The Emperor returns or some lookalike
• The new Jedi keep collapsing into itself over and over
• Another goddam superweapon
• Escalation of ship sizes
• Ship Designs never advance
• Characters or Kids getting corrupted

Literally ALL the worst aspects of the old EU where done in the new Sequel Trilogies.

[Devonix]

Im not upset about that. I was in fact for a cleanup of the EU and trying something new for the new movies.

Im upset that the New Cannon is picking the worst bits and pieces of the old EU, and stitching them together into somekind of uholy abomination:

• The Empire Rises from whatever section wasn't fully genocided and start doing their thing again
• The Emperor returns or some lookalike
• The new Jedi keep collapsing into itself over and over
• Another goddam superweapon
• Escalation of ship sizes
• Ship Designs never advance
• Characters or Kids getting corrupted

Literally ALL the worst aspects of the old EU where done in the new Sequel Trilogies.

On that I agree 100 percent. There are a lot of things that they're doing that I don't like. But the way they're doing them has been high quality. Though most of it comes from Last Jedi. Force Awakens was a fun ride but didn't have any meat to it for me.

[Olinser]

I mean, the entire Thrawn Trilogy, which was the foundation upon which the EU was built, is largely based on technology and concepts that the Prequel Trilogy entirely subverts or outright tosses into the garbage. Not the least of these ideas was the fact that the clones in the the Thrawn Trilogy were the enemies of the Republic, which is why Thrawn is able to get access to cloning technology that the Republic doesn't have access to. Thrawn uses ysalmiri to deal with the fact that clones are highly unstable, which they are not. Mara Jade's backstory is based on being the Emperor's Hand, a position that was entirely replaced by the Inquisitors. Cloaking devices, key to Thrawn's plans, couldn't be easily used because you couldn't see out of them - aside from those cloaked ships in the Clone Wars TV show that was part of Lucas's Legends scope.

Almost everything about the design of the Death Star and its builders (which involved quite a few novels) had to get revised when the Geonosians were revealed to be the builders. Everything Mandalorian got put in a blender and set to frappe. Admiral Ackbar was part of the first Mon Calamari space exploration force, and was captured by the Empire and turned into a slave, using his observations as a slave to escape and become a Rebellion general - until the Prequels retconned the Mon Calamari to have been members of the Republic, rather than an Imperial first contact, at which point his entire background and motivations were changed. Owen Lars was Obi-Wan's brother until he was not.

They had to write an entire "Rusan Restoration" to cover the fact that the Republic was declared to only be a thousand years old, instead of a thousand generations.

And that's just some of the bigger ones.

Uh... no. Did you even read the books?

The cloning cylinders Thrawn had were explicitly from a PALPATINE cloning facility that he had hidden but that Thrawn was one of the few people who knew about. Which jives just fine with the prequels - assume that Palpatine stole/relocated some cylinders off Kamino to his private facility off-books.

Clones in general were never unstable. Clones grown in an extremely accelerated pace are. In the prequels they had placed an order 10 years ago for clones and they were just getting ready. Thrawn was growing them in 20 DAYS. Which is why he needed ysalimiri.

Nothing about Mara being the Hand is contradicted by the existence of Inquisitors. There were just a lot less Hands (I believe only 2 were actually ever identified - Mara and 1 other whose name escapes me but was in a book) and were Palpatine's secret enforcers, while Inquisitors were relatively common and the public face of Palpatine's oppression.

Cloaks I can't comment on because I've never seen the series they appear in, but unless they're Imperial ships that wouldn't be hard to justify - assuming they were somebody else's technology that the Empire was simply never able to replicate.

[Daimbert]

And I still thin that a reboot was the right call. The Old EU was, there is no better word, a mess that had to resort to different levels of canon to try (and fail) to make sense of itself and it definitely had no place for a Sequel Trilogy. You may not like wht they are doing with the franchise (and generally speaking neither do I) but they at the very least admit they didn't buy SW right after the movies were made and are bringing some fan-favourites back into canon. Also, so far, they have left the Prequel Era alone, mostly.

I think you're overstating the mess of the Old EU. They could have continued on from Fate of the Jedi -- which, I'll point out, I strongly disliked -- without having to deal with too many issues, and could have brought people up to speed as easily as they did with the sequels (well, okay, easier than since the reboot didn't really bother). That being said, I can see why they'd want to free themselves from the constraints of what the old EU had done, so this wasn't a bad move. But it was risky, since there were a lot of dedicated fans who had read the EU and, at a minimum, would want to see the sequels come up with as good if not better ideas. And they really, really didn't. So wiping out the old EU for this will rub a number of fans the wrong way from the start. If they had started from the beginning and from the movies introducing characters from the EU -- why couldn't Poe Dameron be Syal Antilles, especially since Wedge didn't want to come back, for example -- then that could have bought them some good will from those fans. They didn't. And that they are introducing some characters back into Rebels -- which some people aren't going to or be able to watch -- is too little, too late.

If they were going to do a full reboot, they had to make it GOOD. They didn't. So they could at least have acknowledged and winked at the old EU that many really liked in case they didn't like the reboot as much as the old EU. They didn't even do that. Add in what seems like an attempt to even overturn the ACTUAL MOVIES and the reaction from fans HAS to be "Do you even KNOW or LIKE Star Wars AT ALL?"

[Dienekes]

What Id say the prequels had was GOOD ideas. Its a whole bunch of GOOD ideas marred by BAD ideas.
But the Sequels? Its just mediocre or repetitive ideas at best. So when bad ideas do stand out there isn't much to compensate.

Here's where I disagree.

The Sequel Trilogy had four of the best ideas in Star Wars. 1) The perspective of a Stormtrooper. 2) Separating Force from family lines. 3) The moral ambiguity of the supporters of the Dark and Light side struggle. 4) Questioning the Hollywood fetishization of the suicidal sacrifice.

All of those, I think are more interesting than anything presented in the prequels.

The problem is that the movies don't look at any of those things well. With arguably the exception of the separation Force from family lines. I truly like the reveal that Rey's parents were drug addicted losers, and the image of the child pretending to be a Jedi at the end of TLJ, still inspired by Luke was a beautiful image.

But the rest of it? The 4th was at best a terribly mixed message. The 3rd is little more than two sentences to bring up the idea. And the 1st. Well. I hate Finn. I think he's the worst thing in the series. The show does not expand on his ideas at all.

This is all sad, because I really really find those four points fascinating. If they were competently explored.

[Devonix]

I'd say that perhaps the biggest change added to Starwars because of the Prequels is turning the Stormtroopers into Clones. And good god am I glad that that was one thing Disney removed.

The Stormtroopers being Clones and not Imperial citizens simply made the Original Trilogy worse. Because now instead of fighting another side that actually believed in what they were doing. It was programmed people. Another thing I dislike about the New Trilogy in that even though they're real people they're still programmed and not choosing their own lives.

At least They saved the OT by removing them. So that now all of the Stormtroopers we see in the trilogy are people again. The whole idea of Clones was for Lucas to make disposable soldiers so that you didn't have to worry about them dying in scenes. Fake Soldiers vs toy soldiers. We're lucky that we had stuff like the animated series to actually make them worthwhile.

[Fyraltari]

It would be interesting to know if there were people who liked TLJ and also liked Solo.

Well, there's me.

Can you name any other hollywood franchise that told an ongoing story and has reached more than 6 parts?

Star Trek?

Nowadays we have this Game of Thrones stuff, were appearanly "Plot & Continuity" are KING and QUEEN. Everyone who ever recommended this series to me was all over the moon with that series because the author paid soooooo much attention to detail in regard to characters and how storylines developed and intermingled. (Oh, and people seem to love that every character can die, but that's a different story).

Reasons to love ASOIF (cna't tell about the TV show):
-excellent worldbuilding,
-Character development that doesn't feel forced,
-A critical look at fantasy tropes,
-Moral lessons that don't feel like they are being force-fed to you,
-A wide variety of characters than you can root for despite being on opposite sides,
-A solid plot with a tremendous attention to detail,
-Actual suspense. As in no (or very little) plot armor (isn't plot armor supposed to be a bad thing?)
and others

In other words: people lick that kind of stuff from the shoes of the creators.

It's always nice to talk with someone that respects people who don't share their taste.

Try re-watching a couple of shows or movies from the time before continuity became such a big thing. In my experience, you often feel kinda little hollow then. You thought it was great, but then you miss so many things that made so little sense, and ....how could you ever like that??

Out of curiosity when is that point in time when continuity bacme a big deal, according to you?
Would you consider that Tolkien's Legendarium didn't care about continuity?
Or Return to the Future?
Or Harry Potter?

Good news, everybody! With the Star Wars legacy you have one of the cash cows on your hands.
Now, you only have to milk them.

In other words: People already love your characters. The only thing you have to do is take them out of the vitrine, dust them off and point a camera at them.

Someone complaining that they didn't milk the Star Wars universe enough? Well that's a first.
So basically, don't even try to do anything new? Don't take any risk? Don't be creative?
I am not saying their choices where the best, but TLJ tried to do something rather than being a soulless cash-grab.

Think of the Infinity War movie: intellectually not interesting at all, but huge blockbuster movie, and vastly superior to TLJ in almost every way except for the technical aspects of filming.
Imagine if in that movie, Ironman just turned around and shot Spiderman in the face.
Why??
Because Jarvis (Ironman's old artificial intelligence) calculated that there was a 20% risk that, if Spiderman got hold of an Infinity Stone, he would turn mad and kill lots of people.

What? You say Jarvis doesn't even exist anymore?
Sure does, watch the movie.
Poor Spidey hadn't yet done anything wrong, so Tony would never kill him, being his mentor and all?
Of course he would, you s2pid f*cknuts! Watch the movie, he just did!

People would go rampage - and rightly so.

You mean like people rampged after

Spoiler

Show

Dr Strange handed over the Time Stone to Thanos because that is somehow the only way to defeat him, thus breaking his oath and indirectly killing countless people, both of those are completely out of character for him?

Also Luke didn't do that, that's the entire point.

I agree that scrubbing the old EU was for the best, and have always maintained that stance. As for the thousand generations... they've hit a technological plateau. Sure, maybe it wasn't 25,000 years, but you can't have the wise old master character throw that line out without it being at least somewhere near accurate. Sure, maybe not 25,000 years, but a damn sight away from 1,000 years. And at the end of the day, it's space wizards in space ships with laser swords while jumping from planet to planet. A really old civilization standing for a long time hardly strains credulity, at least for me, so long as it makes for an awesome setting.

Then again, I also dress up in plastic armor and pretend to be one of those spacemen in my free time, so I may not have a typical mindset about it.

I mean yeah you shouldn't overthink the space-fantasy movie but it amuses me just how much people takes every word out of the characters mouth as absolute hard facts.
This just like the "parsec" thing, only less dumb. 25,000 years of history are completely unnecessary since it doesn't matter how much you write most of it will be "and then nothing happened for 300 years".
It's perfectly okay for people to use hyperbole here and there, don't sweat it.


But really a 25,000 year Republic wouldn't bother me if it changed a bit.
For example if they do make a Darth Bane movie, I'd like to see Coruscant as a "normal" looking planet
with reasonnably sized buildings. People would go "oh yeah being a capital for a millenium is why it has such a urban crisis" or something.

Show us the Jedi Order of the beginning and how it evolved into what we see in the prequels, show us Alderaan as a militaristic culture, show us a galaxy divided into dozens or hundreds of Star Empires with the Jedi uniting them to found the Republic.

Just do something different instead of having everybody stuck in some kind of time-loop.