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Extreme polarisation in modern film reception, aka TLJ didn't suck that badly


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Here's my opinion on the reaction/backlash to TLJ, in comparison to the reception of the previous two Disney Star Wars films:

 

TFA left people with the sense that anything could happen in the next film. Abrams, Kasdan and co. knew they had to deliver something everyone would love, so they cleverly sidestepped all of the speculation and fan theories for what Episode VII should be, by pushing it all onto Episode VIII. It effectively reset the Star Wars universe to the familiar "Empire vs. rebels" routine, which, while not an inherently bad decision, was something we definitely have seen before in this series.

 

R1 exists in its own little vacuum and is comfortably set between two existing "saga" films. All the main characters and any plot points are either disposed of or wrapped up neatly before the film ends. It also had the advantage of people not having any idea of what it should or shouldn't be. It was its own thing.

 

TLJ was the first film of any real consequence. I honestly feel it was doomed from the start to cause controversy among fans and moviegoers, regardless of who wrote and directed it.

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3 hours ago, The Illustrious Jerry said:

The thing that made TLJ bad for a lot of people were the people that said it was bad. 

Same for me and the prequels. First watch, I loved it all. I was a kid, yes, but I would still have that same love for them today had it not been for naysayers. It sucks. I still like them, but when I watch them I can only think of the things other people say about them.

 

How about we all just shut up? And when IX comes out, there should be a thread for people that liked the movie and a thread for those that didn't. It sounds like something @Bespinwould do to cover art people, but it's worth a shot.

 

#bringbackbespin

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14 hours ago, Score said:

 

15 hours ago, Tom said:

Again, it is not that the movie sucked per se, it is that it is was (fully avoidable) disappointing SW movie.  Keep in mind we are talk about making a movie with an interesting background mythos, virtually unlimited budget and surrounded by the best production units in the world.  I think it is okay to expect something better than average. 

 

Yes, this is the point: considered in the context of the SW universe, I did not find it disappointing. It could have been better, for sure, but there are other entries in the franchise that I consider much worse, also in the plot. It is ok to expect something better, but frankly, this movie was bashed in an excessive way almost everywhere on the internet. I found the aggressive reaction of many fans to be disproportionate to the flaws of the movie.

 

 

You consider other entries worse in the plot than TLJ? You can only mean the Ewok films or the holiday special because all the other starwars films have a miles better plot (except TFA which has a shit plot, but still better than TLJ).

Maybe if you switch off your brain completely during TLJ you could consider the plot ok.

 

TLJ was the greatest dissappointment i have ever experienced in terms of Starwars. It was a complete trainwreck of a movie, which completely disregarded the story- and worldbuilding of the SW Universe just to satisfy Rian Johnsons desire for stupid pseudo twists that make neither sense nor are in any ways exciting.

It was juts a huge huge letdown in all respects... almost a starwars parody!

 

 

14 hours ago, The Illustrious Jerry said:

The thing that made TLJ bad for a lot of people were the people that said it was bad. 

 

Sorry but that statement makes no sense at all! Face the facts, TLJ is a very bad starwars film and the worst of all saga films by far!

 

 

On 31.3.2018 at 10:58 PM, Nick1066 said:

 

And from what I've seen, the more people love Star Was in general the less they like TLJ.  Casual viewers really don't care about the characters and could enjoy TLJ on its own merits as a simple space fantasy.

 

 

 Exactly, i agree.

TLJ seems to only be good for casual viewers who switch off their brains, ignore the myriad of plot holes, the missing in universe logic and non-existing worldbuilding -> exactly the audience who loves all the marvel films where any logic long was thrown overboard for the cheap thrills

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23 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

 

You consider other entries worse in the plot than TLJ? You can only mean the Ewok films or the holiday special because all the other starwars films have a miles better plot (except TFA which has a shit plot, but still better than TLJ).

Maybe if you switch off your brain completely during TLJ you could consider the plot ok.

 

My brain is always switched on, thanks, no need to remind me of doing that. I just use it for more important things than listing and hating all the plot holes in a movie that is meant to be for entertainment (and aimed at a large audience which includes children). I have always cared much more for the music of the SW franchise, rather than for the movies themselves, except when I was a kid (more than 20 years ago).

 

However, I have never seen the Ewok films nor the holiday special, and I meant that I prefer TLJ to all the prequels, ROTJ (yes), and, plot-wise, TFA. The plot holes in those movies (prequels, ROTJ and TFA) strike me much more than anything I have seen in TLJ. Not that I have ever made a tragedy of these things, and I am not even going to list them here. I just take those movies for what they are. Moreover, TLJ has at least tried to do something new, something that I appreciated. 

 

Your post is a perfect example of the exaggerated reactions I was referring to. I suggest you, while you keep your brain switched on, to use it for more important things as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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As i said, you are exactly such casual viewers (see Quote).

I at least cant be such a superficial viewer that anything pretty and new will satisfy me. 

If TLJ at least had any Worldbuilding and would make sense in the SW universe, but sadly nope. It just exists in an isolated bubble with the first order fleet and no name planets, while the rest of the galaxy is reduced to the opening crawl and non answered signals by alleged and never be heard nor seen of allies in the Outer Rim! Talk about making sense here ...... what a cop out

 

2 hours ago, SF1_freeze said:

TLJ seems to only be good for casual viewers who switch off their brains, ignore the myriad of plot holes, the missing in universe logic and non-existing worldbuilding -> exactly the audience who loves all the marvel films where any logic long was thrown overboard for the cheap thrills

 

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26 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

As i said, you are exactly such casual viewers (see Quote).

 

I have watched, read, listened to and collected Star Wars related content since the year dot, including OSTs, expanded editions, VHS tapes, DVDs, blu-rays, radio dramas, posters, novels, cultural history books, display models, etc. This bizarre "you're just a casual viewer" mentality just encourages more "us vs them" tribalism.

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17 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

In fact, I would go as far as to say there shouldn't be any worldbuilding in films, as such. One of the things I most dislike about the prequels (and to be fair, it happens once or twice in Empire Strikes Back, too) is when characters make on-the-nose references to earlier adventures, naming certain places and people, which we don't ever see. The world should be explored through the narrative alone.

 

If you have a "franchise" of films and you operate in the same world, you have to follow the logic and rules of the world, which means worldbuilding.

If a filmmaker for the sake of the narrative and his/her own ego bends or diregards these rules and invalidates all other films of the franchise set in the same world, the whole thing is fucked up -> then this film stands on rotten ground, its only pretty on the surface (the casual viewers only see the surface and like it).

 

Thats what fans notice and criticise and this ultimately makes or breaks a franchise! -> its called in world logic

Thats also why George Lucas spend so much effort with his story group to keep everything tied to the same logic and universe. Disney then fucked all of that up (although the new story group tried to invent incredibly stupd explanations for the TFA and TLJ, just so any of the tie in story would be possible. Most fans just dont buy these half assed explanations)

 

Worldbuilding is the most important thing of a franchise! So i fundamentally disagree with you Chen. If everybody would disregard all the worldbuilding, people would lose interest in any franchises, film series... the real fandom would die!

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2 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

If a filmmaker for the sake of the narrative and his/her own ego bends or diregards these rules and invalidates all other films of the franchise set in the same world the whole thing is fucked up

 

I still don't know how it "invalidates" the other films.

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7 minutes ago, publicist said:

Geez people, find hobbys beyond this shit.

 

I did, the Starwars fandom just remained from my youth. So these emotions just break out when i see how Disney manages to destroy the Starwars Saga with TFA and to a much higher extent TLJ. Certainly made it much easier to say goodbye to this new Disney Parody Universe!

 

 

6 minutes ago, Margo Channing said:

 

I still don't know how it "invalidates" the other films.

 

Why do you even care? You said yourself its just a space opera for kids.

 

If you really are interested in these points (which i don't believe), i have listed these flaws in another thread in response to my viewing of the film, just search for my comments (i'm not online very much these days, so you don't need to scroll back very far)

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16 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

Worldbuilding is the most important thing of a franchise! So i fundamentally disagree with you Chen. If everybody would disregard all the worldbuilding, people would lose interest in any franchises, film series... the real fandom would die!

 

To my mind, the appeal of a multi-film narrative is that one can build character and drama film after film, to achieve greater results than are ever possible in a single, self-contained film. I don't watch it to appreciate the setting, per se. Because its just that: the setting, in which the narrative unfolds.

 

Of course, continuity is important so that we can suspend our disbelief as far as these films being parts of one larger story, which isn't always the case in the way they are made. But what did The Last Jedi do that was in such defiance of the continuity?

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4 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

To my mind, the appeal of a multi-film narrative is that one can build character and drama film after film, to achieve greater results than are ever possible in a single, self-contained film. I don't watch it to appreciate the setting, per se. Because its just that: the setting, in which the narrative unfolds.

Of course, continuity is important so that we can suspend our disbelief as far as these films being parts of one larger story, which isn't always the case in the way they are made. But what did The Last Jedi do that was in defiance of the continuity?

 

Have you forgotten our conversation? You replied to my review of the film with a comment how the mechanism of the world basically is not important. Now in your upper post you say continuity is important. You contradict yourself...

 

 

On 14.12.2017 at 12:58 PM, Chen G. said:

I wouldn't look too much into the mechanism of the world, but yeah, it is disheartening to see this trilogy rob the existing sextet of the achievements of its characters. Since Abrams is at the helm of the concluding chapter, I'm not hopeful in terms of getting a satistfying conclusion to the trilogy, much less the entire nonet.

 

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Just now, Bryant Burnette said:

Two words.  "Star" with "Wars" after it.  TWO words.

 

Thank you for your valuable contribution to this thread and to the discussion!

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21 minutes ago, Margo Channing said:

 

I have watched, read, listened to and collected Star Wars related content since the year dot, including OSTs, expanded editions, VHS tapes, DVDs, blu-rays, radio dramas, posters, novels, cultural history books, display models, etc. This bizarre "you're just a casual viewer" mentality just encourages more "us vs them" tribalism.

 

I suppose the question is what makes a Star Wars fanboy (to use Cosman's vernacular)?

 

I saw the film when it opened in '77, it blew my 5-year old mind.

 

I pestered my mother to get me the soundtrack, which she did (thanks Mom!)

 

I got the 1st wave of Kenner figurines.

 

I saw ESB and ROJ on opening day.

 

I got the soundtracks for those too.

 

I once had the ESB Marvel comic in a book format.

 

I devoured the Starlog issue #120 10th anniversary of SW.

 

I had the three Art of books.

 

I rebought the soundtracks (and most of the re-issues/expansions) on CD.

 

I own the various versions of the laserdiscs, DVDs and Blu-rays.

 

I read a lot of SW related content on the web.

 

 

Am I a Star Wars fanboy?

 

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10 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

Have you forgotten our conversation? You replied to my review of the film with a comment how the mechanism of the world basically is not important. Now in your upper post you say continuity is important.

 

I think you fail to differentiate narrative continuity and narrative structure: a narrative can be continuous and seamless, but not have a well-defined structure.

 

This trilogy, from the outset, was never going to be congruous with the existing sextet in terms of an overarching narrative structure, because the narrative had already arrived at its conclusion in Return of the Jedi. If it were just one more film and not a trilogy, you could say that the series has a "false third act' in Return of the Jedi. But the third act can't be three-films long.

 

Also, sometimes continuity issues are relatively minor and the energy of the film is such that your mind doesn't really dwell on them, unless you make an effort to. In those cases, I find such errors to be negligble, as is the case in here, I would say.

 

And yes, I hold that it is a bit disheartening to see the cast of the original films come to these ends. But that will all depend on the conclusion in IX. If it all leads into something impactful and profound, than taking such a grounded approach in terms of the treatment of the original cast will have been in line with the approach of the trilogy. If its going to end with something more lighthearted, than why spoil a good thing?

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12 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

As i said, you are exactly such casual viewers (see Quote).

I at least cant be such a superficial viewer that anything pretty and new will satisfy me. 

If TLJ at least had any Worldbuilding and would make sense in the SW universe, but sadly nope. It just exists in an isolated bubble with the first order fleet and no name planets, while the rest of the galaxy is reduced to the opening crawl and non answered signals by alleged and never be heard nor seen of allies in the Outer Rim! Talk about making sense here ...... what a cop out

 

 

 

The fact is that "making sense" and "SW universe" are not exactly compatible in the most strict meaning, nor they are meant to be. If worldbuilding means defining rules, then it is easy to see that such rules are never defined anywhere in SW, or they are exposed in such a way that they can be violated (and they are), so they are not really rules. If you want these rules defined, then you should expect the filmmakers to explain in detail how the Death Star works, according to what rules spaceships fly into hyperspace, where do they find the fuel, and many other things (all of the things that are not explained in SW are probably listed somewhere). Did they do any worldbuilding, in this sense? Even assuming hyperspace, basically nothing of TFA makes sense according to any possible rule, and it is not what matters. That's why these movies are meant mostly for young people. What matters is the story in which the main characters are involved. In this respect, I didn't find TLJ bad.

 

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10 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

This trilogy, from the outset, was never going to be congruous with the existing sextet in terms of an overarching narrative structure, because the narrative had already arrived at its conclusion in Return of the Jedi. If it were just one more film and not a trilogy, you could say that the series has a "false third act' in Return of the Jedi. But the third act can't be three-films long.

 

The old canon proved that it was possible to develop the saga further without any rehashing -> with exciting not stupid introduction of completely "NEW" story elements They managed to keep it in the universe and in-world logic even though RotJ was a natural conclusion. -> See Thrawn Trilogy

The third act of the old canon was not three films long -> it was countless of book series long which would result in countless new films.

 

So i dont get your point Chen... again, the old canon proves its possible to continue after RotJ in an exciting new way while still keeping the in-world logic.

 

3 minutes ago, Score said:

The fact is that "making sense" and "SW universe" are not exactly compatible in the most strict meaning, nor they are meant to be. If worldbuilding means defining rules, then it is easy to see that such rules are never defined anywhere in SW, or they are exposed in such a way that they can be violated (and they are), so they are not really rules. If you want these rules defined, then you should expect the filmmakers to explain in detail how the Death Star works, according to what rules spaceships fly into hyperspace, where do they find the fuel, and many other things (all of the things that are not explained in SW are probably listed somewhere). Did they do any worldbuilding, in this sense? Even assuming hyperspace, basically nothing of TFA makes sense according to any possible rule, and it is not what matters. That's why these movies are meant mostly for young people. What matters is the story in which the main characters are involved. In this respect, I didn't find TLJ bad.

 

 

Such things are explained in countless of tie in books all released in the George Lucas days. GL had an own department who controlled all stories to make sense in the SW universe to comply with the in-world logic!

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13 minutes ago, JTWfan77 said:

Am I a Star Wars fanboy?

 

 

I tend to define a "fanboy" as an individual whose commitment transcends level-headed enthusiasm and insists on giving every franchise entry unquestioning praise. Simply going to see the movies and collecting some junk doesn't qualify under this definition.

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34 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

So i dont get your point Chen... again, the old canon proves its possible to continue after RotJ in an exciting new way while still keeping the in-world logic

 

Books don't count! This is a film series, its a completely different medium!

 

37 minutes ago, JTWfan77 said:

But couldn't the ST have at least it's own consistency of narrative continuity, apart from the six prior films?

 

You can certainly watch them on their own. But they do at least attempt to jump off of the narrative of the existing films: out of the three, so far one has been a remake of the original film, and the other had the main character of the first three films as its protagonist. The whole premise of making this trilogy was that "George Lucas always intended to make nine films."

 

35 minutes ago, Score said:

 If you want these rules defined, then you should expect the filmmakers to explain in detail how the Death Star works, according to what rules spaceships fly into hyperspace, where do they find the fuel, and many other things (all of the things that are not explained in SW are probably listed somewhere).

 

Star Wars is a fantasy series, not science fiction. That doesn't mean that it doesn't have its own internal story logic. We don't understand the science of it, but we have a good, intuitive understanding of whos who, of The Force, of the Dark Side, etcetra....

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4 minutes ago, Chen G. said:
9 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

So i dont get your point Chen... again, the old canon proves its possible to continue after RotJ in an exciting new way while still keeping the in-world logic

 

Books don't count! This is a film series, its a completely different medium!

That makes no sense at all, sry! It is about the story!!!

Besides, you know that for every film a screenplay is written -> thats like a book.

 

Did you know that for Episode 4 the book (written by GL) was released before the film was released in 1977. So it started as a book series.

 

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2 minutes ago, Margo Channing said:

I tend to define a "fanboy" as an individual whose commitment transcends level-headed enthusiasm and insists on praising every franchise entry with unquestioning praise. Simply going to see the movies and collecting some junk doesn't qualify under this definition.

 

It's also completely unpragmatic, because it requires these movies to be of a old-testament kind of purity that was never in the cards for movies shot over 40 years by different crews etc., especially not with the complete inconsistency of fx, old and new (which makes the supposedly unforgivable wrong story beats almost an afterthought).

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3 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

Besides, you know that for every film a screenplay is written -> thats like a book.

 

Screenplays are very, very different to books. Yes, they are written works, but they are written for the medium of film. They're written to make for a visually interesting story, first, and they have a different flow and a different narrative format altogether.

 

I assure you, if these books were all adapted to the screen as further episodes, they'd probably feel just as "tacked on" as this trilogy does. Probably much more.

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4 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

Did you know that for Episode 4 the book (written by GL) was released before the film was released in 1977. So it started as a book series.

 

Again, SW started as a book series. So books do count.

And the film turned out very well. Which proves that also the Thrawn trilogy could have been adapted very well and not feel "tacked on".

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That doesn't change the fact that the main medium of Star Wars has been, and continues to be, film. The book you mentioned was developed out of the screenplay: not the other way around. Its not an adapted work. Even if it was, the books wouldn't matter because adapted screenplays need to work for people who have never - and never will - read the book.

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7 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

 

Again, SW started as a book series. So books do count.

And the film turned out very well. Which proves that also the Thrawn trilogy could have been adapted very well and not feel "tacked on".

 

Seriously? That's a novelisation based on George Lucas' screenplay, which was oddly released the year prior to the film. And it was ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster.

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@Chen G.

I agree with you that the film should make sense without needing any tie in books!

 

But i disagree with your statement that the proven great stories of old starwars canon couldn't be a satisfying film continuation/adaption just because they are books.

As i said book series like the Thrawn Trilogy have perfect worldbuilding, influenced the film series a great deal (Coruscant first appeared in the Thrawn trilogy) and made complete sense in terms of in-universe logic.

 

All in all this only proves how much Disney fucked up TFA and TLJ!

 

 

2 minutes ago, Margo Channing said:

 

Seriously? That's a novelisation based on George Lucas' screenplay, which was oddly released the year prior to the film. And it was ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster.

 

That was the first thing released! No one cares about the behind the scenes story there. In the eyes of the public this is how Starwars started (apart from trailers and other promotions).

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2 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

That was the first thing released! No one cares about the behind the scenes story there, in the eyes of the public this is how Starwars started (apart from trailer and other promotions).

 

And that's really all novelisations are, promotional tools. You're really stretching it in your claim that SW began as a book series. Despite the novelisation's 1976 release date, it didn't.

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1 hour ago, SF1_freeze said:

But i disagree with your statement that the proven great stories of old starwars canon couldn't be a satisfying film continuation/adaption just because they are books.

As i said book series like the Thrawn Trilogy have perfect worldbuilding, influenced the film series a great deal (Coruscant first appeared in the Thrawn trilogy) and made complete sense in terms of in-universe logic.

 

As I said, to me, the point of a multi-film franchise, is to tell one story that's too big for any one film. As such, you'd want this overarching story to have a sense of structure: it probably won't conform to the three-act structure per se, but at least it would have an ebb-and-flow, and a sense of a defined beginning, middle and end.

 

Well, Star Wars (either as a sextet or just the first trilogy) doesn't have the ebb-and-flow of one, unified story, but it has a beginning, middle and end, which would seem to eliminate the possibility of more films. But than, it is possible to have a story that has a "fake" ending, followed by the real ending: In narrative structure, this is called a false third act.

 

But, the key to making this strucural choicework is: a) construct the "false" ending so it doesn't really resolve things; b) follow it immediately and concisely with the real ending. Both of these criteria don't really  hold water when it comes to Star Wars, because Return of the Jedi does conclude the story of the trilogy/sextet, and there's nothing in it to suggest that there's something else to look forward to. Still, you could have made another little "epilogue" film and frame Return of the Jedi as a false third act; but you can't do the same with a whole new trilogy!

 

That still doesn't mean that you can't enjoy them as individual pieces of filmmaking, though!

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19 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Star Wars is a fantasy series, not science fiction. That doesn't mean that it doesn't have its own internal story logic. We don't understand the science of it, but we have a good, intuitive understanding of whos who, of The Force, of the Dark Side, etcetra....

 

Precisely (and for the record, I agree with almost everything you have said in this thread). So, worldbuilding can go along three lines:

 

1) the science beyond it: this is absolutely inconsistent, even assuming hyperspace, so it's worthless to try to find a logic here, and this is what takes SW out of the science-fiction realm;

2) Force / Dark Side etc. stuff: this is like magic, so we can expect almost anything, and I did not find anything terrible in TLJ, or at least, not worse than in other entries; the struggle between Dark and Light is present and portrayed convincingly, and Snoke not sensing Kylo Ren's betrayal is not less convincing than the Emperor not sensing Vader's betrayal at the end of ROTJ; 

3) major plot points not being solved by nonsense: as far as I am concerned, there is much more nonsense-solving-major-plot-points in other entries (e.g. ROTJ). This is all I wanted to say about TLJ.  

 

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It probably would have been better for someone to oversee the whole ST as a three film narrative arc, rather than letting each director make up their own story and try to undo what the previous guy did (which is probably what's going to happen with EP IX as well).

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Preferably, sure.

 

But it was never going to be like that. None of the previous two Star Wars trilogies worked like that. George Lucas didn't even write Empire Strikes Back!

 

Really, the only way to do this is to have the whole thing written, previsualized, pre-produced, filmed and assembled simultaneously, with the same production crew throughout - PJ style - which was never on the table for this trilogy.

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But he didn't have the plot all figured out in advance.

 

Also, the storytelling is just as important than the story itself. Empire Strike Back, which Lucas didn't write nor direct, is decidedly not a George Lucas film, and as such stands outside of the style of the rest of the films, much like Rian Johnson's work does here.

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He did oversee it and as i said previously in this thread, there was his story group and an own department, which controlled and made sure all stories make sense in the SW universe and comply with the in-world logic!

 

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Yeah right...

 

When Ben tells Luke of Vader killing his father in the original Star Wars, he wasn't supposed to be lying; when Yoda says that "there is another", the identity of that person wasn't figured out, and it sure as hell wasn't envisioned to be Leia; when Ben tells Luke of first meeting Anakin, he wasn't supposed to be a ten-year old introduced to him by a third party (Qui Gon), etcetra...

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I'm sure some of the books that @SF1_freeze alludes to work arduously to explain all these discrepancies after-the-fact; but that's just what it is: retrofitting. Any discerning viewer will notice that.

 

Continuity shouldn't require added explanations. If you have to apply too much thought to settle continuity issues, you're out of the film. And you certainly don't need anchiliary material to do so!

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37 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

As I said, to me, the point of a multi-film franchise, is to tell one story that's too big for any one film. As such, you'd want this overarching story to have a sense of structure: it probably won't conform to the three-act structure per se, but at least it would have an ebb-and-flow, and a sense of a defined beginning, middle and end.

 

Well, Star Wars (either as a sextet or just the first trilogy) has a beginning, middle and end, which would seem to eliminate the possibility of more films. But than, it is possible to have a story that has a "fake" ending, followed by the real ending: In narrative structure, this is called a false third act.

 

But, the key to making this strucural choicework is: a) construct the "false" ending so it doesn't really resolve things; b) follow it immediately and concisely with the real ending. Both of these criteria don't really  hold water when it comes to Star Wars, because Return of the Jedi does conclude the story of the trilogy/sextet, and there's nothing in it to suggest that there's something else to look forward to. Still, you could have made another little "epilogue" film and frame Return of the Jedi as a false third act; but you can't do the same with a whole new trilogy!

 

That still doesn't mean that you can't enjoy them as individual pieces of filmmaking, though!

 

Say what you will but the Thrawn trilogy continued RotJ in the same tradition as the original sextett.

 

RotJ also was no definitive conclusion because the Empire was not defeated. They were still the controlling power in the universe. The big evil leader, his henchman a super weapon and a fleet were destroyed. All the other fleets, armies, planets, etc... still were in control by the Empire by Governeurs, Moffs and other military commanders.

On some planets the people started rebelling against the authorities but RotJ was only the beginning of the fall of the Empire.

So i don't get your point....

RotJ itself can therefore by your logic also be seen as the "Start" of the real fall of the Empire as the controlling power -> that means a beginning of a story and not the ending!

 

7 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Yeah right...

 

When Ben tells Luke of Vader killing his father in the original Star Wars, he wasn't supposed to be lying; when Yoda says that "there is another", the identity of that person wasn't figured out, and it sure as hell wasn't envisioned to be Leia; when Ben tells Luke of first meeting Anakin, he wasn't supposed to be a ten-year old introduced to him by a third party (Qui Gon), etcetra...

 

That says excatly nothing, nothing is absolute! He still had this story group and the department and in 95% of the cases they made sure it was complying with in-world logic...

 

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In terms of filmmaking, you're meant to accept the end of Return of the Jedi, even without the special edition changes, as a shorthand to the defeat of the Empire.

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5 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

In terms of filmmaking, you accept the end of Return of the Jedi, even without the special edition changes, as a shorthand to the defeat of the Empire. How else would you convey it visually?

 

8 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

RotJ itself can therefore by your logic also be seen as the "Start" of the real fall of the Empire as the controlling power -> that means a beginning of a story and not the ending!

 

No, it's really the beginning of the fall of the Empire. The first decisive victory that has any real consequence!

 

 

9 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

I'm sure some of the books that @SF1_freeze alludes to work arduously to explain all these discrepancies after-the-fact; but that's just what it is: retrofitting.

 

Continuity shouldn't require added explanations. If you have to apply too much thought to settle continuity issues, you're out of the film. And you certainly don't need anchiliary material to do so!

 

I agree, i only mentioned the books AS BETTER examples of a continuation AFTER RotJ than TFA and TLJ :)

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16 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

But he didn't have the plot all figured out in advance.

 

Also, the storytelling is just as important than the story itself. Empire Strike Back, which Lucas didn't write nor direct, is decidedly not a George Lucas film, and as such stands outside of the style of the rest of the films, much like Rian Johnson's work does here.

 

I'm pretty sure GL wrote the outline for ESB, leaving IK, LB, LK and others to colour in.

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12 minutes ago, JTWfan77 said:

GL wrote the outline for ESB

 

Outlines are overrated. The true strength of a screenplay is in the details. A lesser screenwriter and director (George Lucas?) could have taken the same basic story beats and make a completely different film out of them, and a profoundly undramatic one, at that.

 

Rethink your analogy: a story outline isn't a painting without the color; its just the subject of the painting.

 

14 minutes ago, SF1_freeze said:

No, it's really the beginning of the fall of the Empire. The first decisive victory that has any real consequence!

 

Not in the logic of the films!

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6 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Not in the logic of the films!

 

You are sadly wrong! The films established the senate (dissolved in Ep 4) and thousands of worlds under Imperial control. Just one victory against the big bad on Endor still leaves all the other fleets, systems, sectors intact under imperial control. All the sector moffs, governeurs and imperial commanders are still alive and still have their power. They just don't have that unified leader anymore, whichs starts the real fall of the empire!

Maybe you should rewatch the films.

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That's not even true within the logic of the sequel trilogy! otherwise we'd have the Empire, under that name, not "The First Order." The text crawl alone says that it has risen from "the ashes of the Empire." JJ Abrams made a parallel to Nazi officials fleeing to South America and earning a foothold therein.

 

If Abrams and Disney could tell this story as a more direct continuation of the conflict of the sextet, I assure you, they would have. But, like me, they understood the end of Return of the Jedi to be a shorthand for the defeat of the Empire, as indeed it should be.

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