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

The problem with Rey becoming strong and being a Mary Sue was never that she was a nobody. Obi was a nobody. Qui-gon was a nobody. Mace Windu was a nobody. BUT...every Jedi/Sith in the lore up to that point had to train for years to accomplish the feats of strength she displayed. The reason some people were upset she wasn't a Skywalker (I wasn't one of those people) was because with the lore of all the movies and the Clone Wars, the ONLY explanation that would have made even an ounce of sense with her extreme power is she had some genetic predisposition to it. But if we're being honest, even if she was a Virgin Birth a la Anakin, it still was too fast.

Her powers are sort of a microcosm of Disney Star Wars as a whole. Disney wanted their own Star Wars fast. They wanted the trilogy fast. They wanted a super Jedi fast. They didn't want to take the time to plan out the trilogy to make sure it made sense in the same way they didn't want to slowly develop a character and put her on a proper hero's journey. If you are going to make Star Wars movies, make Star Wars movies. Rey got bit by a proverbial Force Spider and had all her powers instantly. That is a Marvel movie. Bruce Banner gets hit with the radiation. Peter Parker gets bit by a Spider. Tony Stark decides to build a suit. One moment they are a normal person, the next they are not.

It's insulting to be honest that Disney did it this way. It's insulting because they are telling all the fans that they don't think we can follow a person on a journey and watch them grow. We are too impatient and can't understand that hard work and years of effort are required to master a craft.

As it pertains to Luke, it wasn't that he was infallible. I wouldn't have had a problem with Luke failing at his attempt to set up a Jedi order, but for him to give up? That wasn't something that Luke would do. They used Luke as a prop to get Rey over. They have admitted that they had no idea how to use Luke because he was too big of a character and would upstage everyone on screen. He was originally supposed to have a large role in The Force Awakens, but they essentially realized that having him be on screen upstaged everyone else.

https://www.indiewire.com/2015/12/m...wakens-a-much-larger-role-for-redacted-95887/

So it seems like the avenue they took instead was to neuter him and make him "Not Luke" anymore.

 

That is correct.

 

If this is the lesson we're to take from Episode VI, the whole series is a failure.

I need to rewatch episode III! It's getting a lot of love.

 

Like I said earlier, I had no problem with Luke failing at setting up a Jedi Academy. The problem lies in him saying, "F--- it." and not trying to help his friends. In your explanation as to why he would conceivably fail (which I agree is fine) you hit on the main problem so many people had with this portrayal of Luke. He was always trying to save the ones he loved. He rushed off to face Vader to save his friends. He went into the Death Star unarmed to save his Father. Despite his stupidity, he always, ALWAYS would do anything and everything to save his friends. Yet when his own nephew, the son of his sister and best friend, fell to the dark side (a fall he helped expedite) we are to believe that Luke would just say, "F--- it. You guys deal with this." He didn't know MaRey Sue was going to show up and save the day, so to the best of his knowledge, he was leaving his friends and family to fight a fight against two ultra-powerful force users (Kylo and Snoke) that NO ONE could defeat but him. Luke fails and makes rash decisions. But he wouldn't create a problem and then let that problem systematically kill everyone he loved.

The other issue is it doesn't really fit with the "canon" Disney created with the books. The book Bloodline takes place 3-4 years before the Force Awakens. At that point, Kylo hadn't fallen yet. That means Luke had a great deal of success and hadn't really had several setbacks when Kylo turned. I could MAYBE understand his portrayal in the Last Jedi had this been like the 5th time his best student fell to the Dark Side, and he kept having to kill his best students over and over again. But this is made out to be the first setback he's had in almost 25 years since the end of Return of the Jedi.

 

3 is still rough, but far and above the best of the prequels. The story is there, the action is there, and in large part the acting is improved. The Anakin/Palme scenes are still bad though, bad dialogue, no chemistry, she can’t even pull off the lines and she’s great in everything else she in. But the story I love, the opening scene is great action and fun before the movie gets very dark, Anakin’s fall I buy, and it closes out that trilogy and ties to 4 really well. At the time of 3’s release I remember hearing Lucas brought in a dialogue writer (or whatever it was called) to help with the script, and that some top directors helped on the movie, like Spielberg directed a couple of scenes and others helped him out a lot to ensure this would be the best of the new movies after 2 was the worst. I think it shows, like I said, still rough, but a lot better, and just generally more fun. 3 just hits right with me, I know people don’t like Hayden, but I really do think he was playing Anakin as directed, and his weird speech is meant to mimic how Vader speaks later under the mask. I buy his physical performance though, and it’s a big reason I never had an issue with him being changed to the force ghost at the end of 6 in the Blu-ray special editions.

 

Luke can falter - all over the place. And he can make missteps - he did it often. He just can't give up though. And not so easily. That's the kind of thing that can't happen offscreen.

 

Pretty much my exact thoughts on Episode 3. The story of the prequels would have been better served picking up in the last 1/3 of Attack of the Clones with Anakin meeting Padme at that point. End it in the middle of the Clone Wars. Part two could have been set entirely within the Clone Wars with Ventress maybe being the main villain. And then Part 3 being sort of what we got. The prequels as currently constructed could have easily been one 3 hour movie. Almost the entire meat of the story takes place in Episode III. Where seeing Luke fail at the end of Empire was good, and helped develop his character, I think maybe an opposite approach to Anakin would have worked where at the end of two he triumphs over Ventress. That would actually make his fall at the end of Episode III a bit more tragic and understandable as he hadn't really experienced failure.

But if we get those movies, we may not have gotten The Clone Wars cartoon; definitely not in the same form we got it. And that is some of the best Star Wars storytelling ever.

 

I re-watched 7 and 8 for the first time since the theater after seeing 9. 7 was better than I remembered it. I still have issues with Rey's insta-jedi development, but the movie was a good set up for what 8 and 9 should have been. 8 was still a head scratcher for me.

 

Except he did almost kill his father, he was beating the s*** out of him and chopped his hand off, as usual with his character his jumping into things and anger got the better of him...for a second. But then, he came back to his true self, and stopped, threw his saber away and refused violence. I still saw the exact same thing in 8, Luke saw all that Ben would do in the future, killing Han, murdering millions, and on instant for a split second, while from how I read his performance, not even really thinking, he ignited his saber. But, he stopped right away and felt ashamed and had tears, he’d have tried to make it right immediately, but it was too late, Ben saw him, and he knew Luke was on to him and his Snoke stuff. How is Luke the a-hole in this situation? And again, I’m thinking out loud here, because I know there will never be an agreement here, but this is still how I saw it. I still think even though Rian went places JJ wouldn’t have, he wasn’t painted into the crazy corner he’s being made out to have been in. There was no need for the Palpatine break glass in case of emergency strategy. Kylo and the first order could have remained the villain, it would have made for more of a character driven story, but that’s not what JJ does, he needs his big spectacle, style over substance.

I don’t dislike 7, it does have some good setup, but it’s still very bland and too much of a retread to me. I don’t like how they tried to force a new Luke, Leia and Han with the new 3, tried to make them have this instant “hey I like you, we’re friends now!” thing going on. My favorite stuff is Han and Chewie, Kylo, and the lightsaber fight in the snow. I still think the visuals of that are amazing. How the snow reacts hitting the blades, how the blades glow on their faces, all the trees being cut up and snow sizzling into steam in their wake, it’s great. I thought that fight was better than any in 9, where it feels like they’re just banging medieval swords against eachother over and over. I still much prefer 8 over 7 though, it feels so new and different, the movie for me is gorgeous to look at, and I really liked how they advanced the lore, as well as the answers we got as opposed to the million questions 7 raised because of JJ’s mystery box. Who did he intend for Rey’s parents to originally be? I’m not even sure he knows.

 

It was just a meme.

 

I know, I laughed. I’m tired of that narrative though, I blame JJ and Kennedy for the disaster that is the sequel trilogy, not Rian. I still think he made a mostly good film, where 9 is unwatchable garbage and 7 is safe and boring. (It’s also still his fault we never got Luke, Leia, and Han together again as HE stuck Luke on that island. Screw thar writer who said they couldn’t use Luke because he took over every scene he was in. SO?!?!)

 

I think when it comes to Luke and almost killing people, everyone has a line in the sand in their heads as to what is too far. The entire movie and whether someone dislikes it or not probably hinges a great deal on where that line is for them personally. Whether or not either is too much, or as long as they stop at any point it's then OK is a personal opinion. I personally think there is a big difference between almost killing his Father while in the middle of an intense lightsaber duel as his friends are being murdered outside the Deathstar's Penthouse Window...and almost killing a teen while he lays helpless and asleep.