Star Wars Thread (a Galaxy Far Far Away) Obi-Wan Movie In The Works! (36)

Well, we obviously feel very diffently about what Disney has done with the franchise. Great thing is though, there was never going to be more SW movies before Disney took over, so you can still ignore what they’ve done and stick to 1-6 or 4-6 if you prefer, doesn’t ruin those movies at all if you pretend the new ones don’t count. I can do that with many franchises, Alien, Terminator, Die Hard to name a few.

As for Rey, I completely get what you’re saying. I think she did face adversity and she failed multiple times. She failed to get Luke to come with her or truly train her attempt after attempt. She thought she could turn Kylo and she failed in that moment, and it’s still one of my favorite scenes, it’s crushing to her. I felt much more emotional weight in that than I did when say Anakin turns on pregnant Padme even. Snoke also would have killed her had Kylo not done what he did, Snoke embarrassed her. And then the guards would have killed her if not for Kylo as well. I think it’s possible also they didn’t injure Rey in part because they didn’t want to be accused of being an Empire clone. Oh and in TFA, she didn’t exactly beat the big bad, she took him down after he pummeled away at her for a long time as she desperately fought him off while he was really injured from being shot, bleeding all over, he clearly wasn’t himself or he’d have destroyed her. In the end even as he’s on the ground their fight is separated by the planet splitting. I guess I just really like where they are taking this new force mythos, interesting concepts, snoke talking about Rey being the light that rose because of Kylo’s darkness, like the force self-balancing, which has always seemed to be theme, but not this direct one person on each side having crazy raw power. I think of it as call-back to the Clone Wars Mortis trilogy and I like that. The world of SW was broadened for me for so many reasons because of this movie and I love it. Friggin Yoda was amazing, still love his line, “we are what they grow beyond”.

 

Duuude. You know I have a lot more problems than one character. I have written novels in this thread.

 

That's not entirely accurate.

https://www.polygon.com/2015/1/13/7...-star-wars-trilogy-episode-7-lucasfilm-disney

Lucas was going to do Episode 7 and then sell Lucasfilm for a company to finish up his trilogy vision. So we would have had at least 3 more Star Wars movies produced by Lucas and somebody else (still likely Disney cause who else had the cash in 2012 to buy it).

I'll wait for Episode 9, but I'm expecting to consider everything after Disney's purchase to be "fan fiction" in my mind.

 

By the way, just a side note, I know that there's some animosity online with this movie and I want anyone that indeed does like it to know that I am happy you enjoyed it and my comments are just my opinion of the movie and are in no way personal. I've seen some debates go sideways in other places and I want everyone here to know I got nothing but love for you all.

 

I always got this sense from our conversations. I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the movie honestly, I want all SW fans to be happy with what we are getting. I completely get where you’re coming from, it’s just like you say, we don’t share opinions, that is all. I like how Harloff put it on The Schmoes a week or so ago, it’s fine if you like it, it’s fine if you hate it, but there’s no need to try and bring anyone to your side. There’s no need to tell someone they are wrong for not enjoying it, or that they are wrong for loving it, it’s all subjective. I don’t get why these things DO get so heated, they’re movies, it’s entertainment even if it does mean a lot to us and our childhoods and such.

If anything I imagine this is sort of what it was like discussing Empire as a big fan back in 80. “Vader is Luke’s father? Han and Leia? This litt green dude can lift ships? Luke and Leia can hear eachother through the force? What?!”. It’s fun again to be able to have discussion, because while it did exist with prequel predictions to an extent, we knew who lived and died, so the drama was minimal.

My hope is that you end up loving 9 and you’re able to get back to loving SW again, but if not, the world goes on. Maybe Solo will be great, maybe we’ll get a sweet Obi-Wan movie. There’s always a chance every coming year for a movie to please someone’s tastes.

 

And maybe the Lakers will win 10 in a row this season.

Sorry. Even before the Last Jedi debacle, heck, even before the director drama, this was not a movie people were asking for. Part of me wonders if this was just a favor to Lawrence Kasdan. There's reports coming that insiders at Lucasfilm are expecting this thing to bomb.

I do have hope for the Obi-wan movie, if for no other reason that they are kind of boxed in and can't do anything too crazy with him. And I LOVED McGregor as Obi-wan.

 

Well too bad for you, but Lucas's movies would have started with Luke where he was.

These new movies were worked off of George's original treatments. The names were changed and some of the roles were mixed around, but one constant was Luke being off on an island by himself in doldrums over past mistakes. The "rebirth" of an optimistic Luke was supposed to take place in the first movie. Finn was originally supposed to be Han/Leia's kid. There were some other moving parts, but JJ and Rian took some solid influence from Lucas's 3rd trilogy ideas.

 

I'm starting to have some minor hope for the Solo movie, but where the f*** is a trailer?

 

Good question. TLJ has made its money, it’s 2018, a Solo trailer would be nice. Look, I could take or leave the movie, I don’t need it, but if it’s good it could be very fun. What gives me hope is it has a fantastic cast. Ehrenreich, Glover, Harrelson, Clarke, Newton, Bettany, that’s damn good. You have me with the cast, deliver a solid movie, I’ll have a good time.

 

Last Jedi has now dropped below 50% on audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

http://www.acriticalhit.com/fans-react-empire-strikes-back-1980/

Time will be kind to this film.

 

I read that entire article and not once do any of those complaints mirror the main ones that I am seeing. The article talks about pacing problems, love interests, and the Vader reveal and whether or not he's lying. People are debating whether or not Kylo is lying, but that's not why they hate the movie. Luke being Vader's Dad was probably shocking, but was not set up as a big reveal in A New Hope. Rey's parentage WAS set up as a huge reveal.

Episode 5 had far more room to work with as the universe was only 2 hours of a New Hope at that moment. Yoda lifting an X-wing, while probably crazy at the time, was just the beginning of our understanding of the Force. Episode 8 comes in with 8 films behind it, hours and hours of The Clone Wars and Rebels, as well as books, comics, etc. This galaxy is pretty well established. Luke, who was only in the middle portion of his Hero's Journey in Empire, had now completed that journey. No one is complaining about massive character inconsistencies like they are with this film. People aren't questioning the fact that despite everything the Star Wars universe has taught us about learning the Force and how long it takes to use it, Rey essentially is moving hundreds of large boulders with her mind at the same time a mere 2 weeks or so (at most) after finding out it even exists.

The issues with this film can't be fixed by time. The issues with this film will likely be compounded and make the original 6 movies less and less relevant to the Star Wars universe and overall story. In 25 years we'll probably have another 20 movies, hours of TV shows and countless books, and the Skywalker saga will feel like some weird, crappy pilot episode of a TV show where kids will wonder why anyone cares about those Skywalkers. They were weak and lame cause they took so long to learn the Force.

 

I know you have other complaints, but literally the only one you keep bringing up consistently is Rey being so competent in the Force. I just don't get it man. Every single one of our protagonists in the series have been hyper competent. Anakin was a podracing pilot at age 9 when Qui-Gon says at that point basically no other human regardless of age is capable of being a podracer. He then goes on to destroy the capital ship of the Trade Federation by himself presumably saving just about everyone on the planet. Again, all by himself at roughly half the age of Rey.

Then as a teenager roughly Rey's age he successfully holds his own against Count Dooku, who was renowned as the greatest lightsaber duelist of the age. He doesn't just fend off someone roughly his age taken by surprise, Anakin holds his own against the greatest duelist in the galaxy at age 19! He'd been training for 10 years, but in twice that time (or more for other Council members) other Jedi weren't on this level. Again an example of extreme competence.

Then comes Luke. He goes from a moisture farmer/part-time pilot to a war hero! At just 17 years old he sneaks onto the mother effing Death Star, fights off highly trained soldiers with ostensibly zero blaster training, and somehow escapes. He spends all of one hyperspace flight with Ben Kenobi and he can use the Force to see test blasters already. He goes from moisture farming to in the end, relying solely on the Force to guide his missiles home? How did he get so good with the Force in the span of one hyperspace journey? And all of a day tops hanging out with Ben Kenobi before Ben dies?

Then in Empire he goes to Dagobah and is there for maybe a few days, probably near the same amount of time as Rey on Ach-Too and he can also lift rocks, stack them on top of each other slowly at odd angles, while keeping his master on his feet, doing a one-handed handstand! That's an incredible amount of Force aptitude shown in the space of possibly a few days? He then can almost lift an entire X-Wing out of the swamp, but he doesn't have the self-confidence to make it work.

Then from 5-6 he shows tremendous growth in the Force at age 23 or so. He is Force choking people, somehow single-handedly kills a Ranchor, and is Force flipping around/deflecting lightsaber bolts on Jabba's lift. He's a full blown Jedi Knight basically... how? Who trained him? Then he takes on and this time defeats Darth Vader (by giving in to the Dark Side I might add). Darth Vader, the most notorious man in the galaxy, the most feared warrior maybe ever, and Luke takes him down at age 23 with maybe a collective 2 weeks worth of actual training (and that's being generous).

The parts of Rey that bug me most are not her competence, but her knowledge. She's 19 and has lived on Jakku her whole life, how does she understand what a Wookiee says? She's basically an engineer, pilot, and protocol droid at 19 living in the boonies. Her Force aptitude doesn't bother me in the slightest as she is an earnest learner and most of what she's capable of looks basically like beginner's luck. She's a capable fighter already, I get that. They show early on that her life is a tough one and that she has to be a competent fighter to scrape a living in that ****hole of a planet. Add in the Force and I can accept her being a good fighter. Everything involving Kylo and/or Luke though is pure beginner's luck; and that includes the rocks she lifts at the end of the movie. Kylo first of all isn't trying to kill her in TFA, he's trying to turn her. She accesses the Force and lets the Force take over, completely taking Kylo by surprise, but before that he had complete control of the situation. She blindsides Luke from behind, but after that Luke easily beats her with a metal antennae before she whips out a lightsaber. Then she is thoroughly outclassed and embarrassed by Snoke before being saved by Kylo (a rough equal to Luke being embarrassed by Vader before Leia saves him). In the end of the movie, she sees a pile of rocks and has enough belief in herself to make it work, something that Luke didn't have in Episode 5 which would be a rough equal to that moment. Rey is Luke from A New Hope: Nobody who has the chance and abilities to be somebody. I don't think that's a bad or lazy story to tell, but if you don't like the story, then that's fine too. It is what it is.

Is Rey hyper competent? Yes, but so is every other protagonist we've seen in this series. Just because she doesn't have Skywalker blood? So what? Yoda didn't have it. Sheev Palpatine didn't have it. Mace Windu didn't have it. You don't have to be a Skywalker to be strong in the Force, but they are a particularly strong family.

It also feels like a big problem you have is the exclusivity of Star Wars since they're owned by Disney now and are going to make 100 SW films. I can't really debate that. It's going to happen for sure, but as long as they're all high quality (like Rogue One, 7, and 8 ) then I'm not complaining. I'm also not complaining about the recent Battlefront game which was a massive improvement to the first. I'm not complaining about all the books and comics that help connect the universe in a truly amazing way. It's a good time to be a Star Wars fan, but the catch-22 is Star Wars fans are never happy. They'll be upset when 9 comes out. They'll be upset when Disney announces a 10 year gap until the next saga film. Then in 10 years they'll be upset about that film too. It's our nature as SW fans to be unsatisfied.

 

Hmm, so your problem isn’t so much the film itself, it’s these damn millennials. I feel you.

 

Actually, my main complaint is Luke's Character assassination. I've address the hyper competence of Rey in other spots in this thread.

The stuff in Episode IV...c'mon man. When was the last time you watched that movie? He didn't sneak onto the Death Star. He was dragged in by a freaking tractor beam. Han is the one who kept them from getting caught in the beginning by using the smuggler compartments, so Han "sneaks" them onto the Death Star. Han and Chewie are with Luke the entire time until they get to Leia. Then Leia takes over. "Somebody's gotta save us kids." Obi-wan goes off and disables the tractor beam and distracts Vader. Luke didn't have to deal with Vader at all. By the way, if you recall, Vader INTENTIONALLY letting them all get away so they could track them to Yavin. I mean, if Vader hadn't gotten greedy and tried to wipe out the entire Rebellion in one stroke, Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie are all dead the second they "escape" the Death Star. The X wing wasn't a guiding of the missile as much as it was he listened to the Force to tell him when to press a button. And even then he had to be saved to get the shot off since he was toast had Han not comeback to save him. The only point where he does something super force-y is the deflecting of the training dummy zaps with the shield down. I will give you that one. But through Episode IV, Luke had Obi-wan, Han Solo AND Chewie with Leia. Luke didn't single handedly infiltrate the Death Star and escape on his own. I've seen people use the "Luke saved Leia" argument before, and it seems like people are having a very selective memory with how many people were involved in that escape...not to mention it wasn't an escape in the first place.

3 years passed between Dagobah and A New Hope. Practice jump shooting every day for a week (Rey) and you might improve a bit. Practice everyday for 3 years and you'd improve a lot (Luke).

Anakin? The dude crashed landed into that main ship and just started firing off his weapon that accidentally hit the center of the thing that took down the droid army. It was all completely accidental and it was made to look that way. It was actually pretty cringe worthy. Then him taking on Dooku? 10 years of training at the Jedi temple with Yoda and Obi-wan...and he still lost mind you. Rey taking on a Skywalker who himself had years of training...after learning about the existence of the Force hours earlier? As for the pod racing, Qui-gon didn't say no human could do it. All he said was you must have Jedi reflexes. Anakin says he's the only human that can do it which is his experience on a tiny backwater (backsand?) planet as a 9 year old. Qui-Gon's explanation leads us to believe that you must be gifted in dem midichlorians to do it, not that Anakin was the only one who could. Even so...let's say he IS the only one who can do it. The dude was still conceived by the Force and had the highest you-know-what count ever.

We're still comparing years (Luke and Anakin) to weeks, maybe even days (Rey). In Episode 9 we will find out Rey got bit by a Radioactive Force Spider. They run rampant all over Maz Kanata's castle. Orkin needs to visit before another one gets off world. One bit Broom Boy already. Rey is a Marvel Superhero.

 

See but you're twisting things as well. My point was that Luke went above and beyond his competency level by a wide margin in every movie, and that's absolutely true. He went from literally farming moisture, to blowing up the biggest satellite in the galaxy with the power to destroy planets! How? He had zero training and he suddenly is a star pilot for the Rebellion who was able to stage a giant space battle and win the day! The whole point of Luke in A New Hope is that he's a nobody who made it big and saved the galaxy. It's not until Episode 5 that he's a "somebody" and Rey is essentially the same character.

But who taught him in that time frame? We see Luke (admittedly banged up) struggle to Force draw his own lightsaber from the snow, but later on he jumps in leaps and bounds. It seems to me that older kids/adults tend to pick up certain things much faster than kids do as Force users. In fact, as I recall they used that against training older kids in the EU. They talk about how Anakin isn't welcome because he's too old and thus has too many habits that need to be broken and he'll struggle to learn control like other Jedis do. Off topic. Back to topic!

Cringeworthy or not (it was), Anakin saving the day is 100% canon and 100% true of a 9 year old who had never before fired a laser, let alone flown a space ship, let alone blown up a space station and escaping unscathed while ostensibly dozens (maybe 100s) of trained fighters died left and right! That's 100% hyper competency and something that should bother you as much, if not more, than Rey who is at least nearly an adult in Force Awakens. Yes he lost to Dooku, but he took him the distance as a boy roughly Rey's age. Rey "beats" Kylo (who wasn't trying to beat her and was seriously injured), but Anakin takes Dooku the distance and that's okay? I don't get that at all. You're right about podracing, Anakin says he's the only human who can do it, but we have no proof that he's wrong. And again he's a f***ing kid! He's a kid with Jedi reflexes (ostensibly great reflexes even for a Jedi) and he somehow beats some of the best racers in the galaxy? C'mon. That's ridiculously hyper competent. It's purposely hyper competent. And I never really believed he was conceived by the Force. I always figured Shmi lied.

We're not comparing years. I gave you the timelines. Luke goes from zero to blowing up the Death Star in less time than Rey does anything. Luke then grows in leaps and bounds at roughly the same speed that Rey does (a week or so). We'll see where she ends up in 9 (or me and @Weezy will anyway ). My honest question is: how can you like Luke from Episode 4, but not Rey from Episode 7/8? They're essentially the same character in a vacuum and have a fun, compelling story: a nobody that becomes somebody. It's not until much later we find out that Luke is somebody in some ways it ruins that "nobody can be somebody" story and instead makes her Anakin (who still is nobody who made it from nowhere just... did a lot of bad stuff).

As for Luke: I don't see character assassination. I still don't. This is my favorite Luke Skywalker since Episode 4 actually and one that I can relate to. He's a dip**** in 5 and 6 and really bumbles his way through those movies looking like a dope pretending to be a Jedi. Honestly want to talk about stuff magically working out for a guy, he f***ed up the rescue of Han in about 5 minutes and somehow beat a Rancor and escaped the Sarlacc because Han Solo blindly murders Boba Fett.

 

I think this is Mark Hamill’s best acting performance ever as well. He’s fanatic in this movie. I understand your objections and don’t want to argue them, but I also do not see character assassination here, I think that’s way too strong a word even if you don’t like where they went.

 

I think it boils down to both of us willing to accept different things. If it does indeed turn out that Rey is some sort of Skywalker (like she's a clone from Luke's hand which was a rumor due to the original Force Awaken script starting with Luke's hand floating in space) then I can drop that a little bit because at least there's SOME sort of explanation other than the Force meeting light with dark...despite letting the galaxy go for thousands of years with thousands of Jedi and two Sith. There's no way anyone can convince me Luke didn't get destroyed. I have heard all the arguments and they are unconvincing for me to say the least. We'll see I guess. I do find Kathleen Kennedy's silence on this matter interesting, as well as Rian Johnson saying that JJ can change what he did in Episode 9. Good discussion though.