Before the dark times. Before the Disney Wars...

First off, nice thread, Alex! Yes -- the very topic people have been forbidden from discussing, on that other site, for more than two years, by fiat of a moderating force hiding behind the oppressive shield of social justice. In that regard, I hope an honest conversation can flow in this thread, and that no-one attempts to shame or shut anyone else down; no matter the opinions or sentiments they express.

The handling of the saga by two rival regimes, and the entire transition of power from Lucas to Disney, are no small topics. The deliberate stifling of discussion on these topics speaks, unfortunately, to an ideological agenda that seeks to control the conversation and stifle dissent; which we're currently seeing all over the Internet on a whole host of issues relevant to our social, economic, and political worlds. 

On another note, it's really distracting to type all this out when there's an ad with the words "erectile dysfunction" in big letters above the text box. What part of my search history is being targeted there? Bloody garbage ads. Reminds me of all those "enlargement" spam mails; which I think anyone who's had an e-mail account for more than five days has probably received. If there's any dysfunction, it's on another message board. That's probably why all those rules exist. People can't get their kicks any other way. Freudian overcompensation. Anyway...




Okay, it's a sequel movie -- the one that began all this madness -- but Threepio actually does use the "f-word" (!) with regard to Artoo at the end of TFA:

(After Artoo displays the map and BB-8 fills in the missing piece)

"Oh, my dear friend. How I missed you."

So, in a way, it's just Abrams repeating himself. Of course, I don't mean to give anyone the willies by saying that. Of course, that's what he does! So TROS will just be an empty rehash? Yeah, I wasn't quite implying that, but I'm smiling now. I guess this isn't a line of evidence I can sway you with... 

I don't want to accuse you of overreacting. I initially had a similar reaction myself. Like I say above, I do feel it's contrived. But it's obviously not completely out of left-field. 

BTW, I love how we have both inaugurated a discussion on this monumental topic with Threepio! As I said in my fuller responses on Naboo News, Threepio was my gateway drug into Star Wars. He is literally the first thing I recall seeing -- on some magazine cover, IIRC -- and recognising as implicitly embodying this strange thing I had yet to see called "Star Wars".



They don't have a great deal of interaction, but Threepio has a bit more presence in TLJ than in TFA. And TROS -- all the "t"-s (!) -- is set several years after the events of those films. Which obviously allows for a deepening of the bonds between the characters; not least because the Resistance is thinned down to almost nothing in TLJ. Presumably, these core characters become closer-knit following the immense losses incurred after only just escaping from the First Order after their "last stand" on Crait, courtesy of an astral-projected Luke Skywalker.



Yes -- sort of. But Maz is a fairly mysterious character. Han tells Rey and Finn that "she's run this watering hole for a thousand years." Which is evocative of Palpatine saying he won't let "this Republic, which has stood for a thousand years, be split in two." The Republic splits soon after, just as Maz's watering hole collapses when the First Order lays siege on Takodana. There's also the little matter of her having Anakin's lightsaber in her possession. All the flags she has collected and hangs in the courtyard also speak to a person with a keen interest in galactic history; and perhaps someone with a deeper understanding of the interconnected and cyclical nature of events as shaped by the Force. She knows a lot more than she lets on.



I'm conflicted here. This is where you come closer to hitting one of my shatterpoints. I agree that Lucas cohered things together in an extraordinary way; and that's kinda what makes him Lucas. However, it may be oversimplifying to protest there's no cohesion in the ST. There isn't the same flow, but I think there are themes that carry through, and it definitely feels (to me) that they're building to a big conclusion in Episode IX.
 


Well, again, you come close to hitting a shatterpoint here. I can't say I'm impressed that they trashed Lucas' treatments; even if it may be closer to the case to say they gutted and scavenged them. Maybe Kylo chasing Rey is an elaborate in-series metaphor. TLJ may have opened people's eyes, but it depends on your focus. At least something moderately interesting occurs in that film; at least there's a vision being expressed. I think the thing that "broke" the new trilogy for many is the way Rian Johnson depicted Luke. But I think that's just about the most compelling thing about it. 

It may be impolite to say it, but I think a lot of these fans -- the ones that claimed to enjoy TFA, at least -- are a little fickle and fairweather. Their issue has never been the sequels or Disney. It's their attachment to their idea of Luke; an attachment formed in their youths. So they now claim to see through the "lies" of Disney, and they are certainly entitled to their opinions (that needs to be emphasised: we're all entitled to our opinions), but it's really because they're peeved at what was done to Luke; to their image of Luke and how they expected to find him thirty years later. The rest is mostly cultural noise; a sort of embroidery to distract from hurt feelings.

I don't say that my reading here is entirely fair or accurate. Just putting it out there as an idea. As Arch Duke would keenly point out, I haven't been shy of bashing Disney myself. As far as I know, I'm the equivalent of Kylo Ren in this universe (same facial appearance, same year of birth as the actor, similar temperaments -- no direct murdering or mutilation as of yet, however!), so I probably brought on a lot of this hatred and suffering. Which is a disturbing thought. But the little imp in me attuned to the comical side of Star Wars just laughs it all off. Usually. There is really something to being mindful of our actions, however. The saga teaches this; and Lucas has spoken of it enough. I'm finding out, it's profoundly true!



I think they've kept more than 1%. Try 10%. 20%. I'll even raise you 30%. You're right, though, I think, that the structure of the sequel trilogy has been massively impacted by these alterations. Lucas' "true" sequel trilogy can never be seen, except through a prism, darkly. The Lucasfilm logo. All dark and metallic now. A vault door was closed; and we're stuck peering through a crack in the wall from the side. It's fun, however, when you occasionally catch a glimpse of those glittering jewels within. 

The spiritual and mythical aspects of it... 

I think they're there. But a bit strangulated. Especially in TFA. "The Last Jedi" is just way, way, waaaay more serious. Luke is given a compelling "Fisher King" arc. It's a huge upgrade over how all the characters are presented in TFA. If anything, TLJ may simply be too serious, too murky, too dour. These are meant to be children's films. But TLJ feels more like a laboured therapy session for adults with prequel PTSD. Mind you, they only emerged with even greater PTSD. Rian Johnson -- the ultimate cinematic trickster. Talk about pouring "salt" onto an open wound.



I wasn't ignoring, but possibly downplaying. Someone else's vision is someone else's vision. Not Lucas'. But as it happens, pieces of the sequels can be considered Lucas' vision. Just the sequel trilogy existing at all is his vision. It's better, perhaps, to see the sequel trilogy as his gift to the world; and to people keen to put their own stamp on what he started. "I see you have constructed a new lightsaber." But there's more to wisdom than that.



It's an evolution of some of the ideas at play in the earlier trilogies. The way Anakin is obviously torn and shredded up inside after killing the Tusken Raiders. That leads to Kylo -- like he left a deep gash in the Force. Rey is, on the other hand, like Padme reincarnating herself, to rescue this remaining fragment of Anakin that broke lose and was never redeemed. A stray piece that has become a new problem. You have to get all the pieces or Anakin reforms. Like a T-1000. Same with Palpatine. This new trilogy requires at least as much creative interpretation as the prequels.



Since you named it as one of the demons we're currently facing...

I'm not sure where I stand on this whole idea of so-called "Cultural Marxism". Part of the problem is that it uneasily echoes the notion of "Cultural Bolshevism" -- a dogwhistle scapegoat employed by the Nazis to dismiss Jewish culture and intellectualism and progressivism as a whole. Collectivism is bad, but fascism is still worse. Plus, if you look around, capitalism is creating fresh calamities every day. Our societies are imploding due to unchecked greed. People are naturally starting to look for solutions and to demand better. That said, leftist suppression, beneath the mask of social virtue, is a real thing. And many people on the political left, who claim to be tolerant, are the exact opposite of tolerant -- as we have both experienced and continue to see on that site that shall not be named.

My head is still very mixed where these new movies go. As you have just outlined, the philosophy behind them seems a bit crooked and malign. They make me feel a bit uneasy when I start to think of all the factors involved in their moulding. I don't want to feel "icky" when watching or contemplating Star Wars. Sadly, that has become unavoidable for me since Lucas sold to Disney. Even he called them white slavers. Sometimes, you have to suspect everyone's motives, including your own. Then the ground beneath one's feet becomes suddenly molten. It gets... uncomfortable.

Well, that was a surprisingly dolorous end! Look what you made me do. It's okay, though. This is an open, grown-up conversation, and I'm glad for it. And I'm obviously just kidding when I say "look what you made me do" -- because, if you think about it, that's something these same "tolerant" people use as a defence. "Oh, you left me no choice." In that regard, they eerily echo Anakin telling Padme he has no choice but to violate his Jedi mandate and go rescue his mother. These squalid ideologues are powerfully crippled in their understanding of Lucas' masterful sextet. A year from now, I probably won't be able to use that term without my words becoming censored. I'm barely joking. 



Indeed. It shouldn't be forbidden -- not in a million years. The fact it is is a violent absurdity and a tragic joke without a punchline. Right when it looked like lessons might be being learned and people were being respected enough to speak their minds, there suddenly appeared a fresh wave of bureaucratic tyranny. See? An Empire 2.0 makes perfect sense! I've now forgotten whether I'm kidding or not.  

Mike!!!  

Now it's starting to look a bit more like, well, more like... that other place.

Or how it once was. Before the dark times. Before the Disney Wars.

I don't know which browser you're using, but I'd recommend installing the uBlock Origin plugin (Chrome, Firefox, Edge). It's very lightweight and removes all advertising. Not just here but from every other site, YouTube included.



Oh, it's fine. Honestly, this incident is just a(nother) nail in the coffin. At this point, my criticism is more venting than anything else.



3PO is as much a Star Wars icon as Darth Vader. Its head, like Vader's mask, is synonymous with Star Wars. Nothing can take that away from him, not even if his character ends up butchered.



Ah, yes. The completely contrived and illogical survival of Anakin's lightsaber is another example of a nail. The lightsaber was meant to be lost (specially considering the place where it was lost). The fact that it was gone forever made Luke grow and complete his skills. I'm not one to get stuck up with minutae, but they were the ones unable to let go and brought it to the forefront, so it's their fault.



It all comes down to the way these movies are being made. There's no creative direction. There's no story. TFA began under the premiss of "what do the fans want?". TLJ was Rian's project, where he was let loose from Abrams' ideas and plans (if there were any). They gave him the chance to do whatever he wanted. And likewise, the same is happening with Abrams in TROS.

There's no overall continuity, there's no plan. It's all fake, manufactured. Maybe the right word is insincere.

All of this contrasts in more ways than one with Lucas and his movies. Take the OT. Kershner and Marquand were bound to Lucas' story. They made it a point to honor and stick to Lucas' artistic style. The cinematography, the visual language, etc... And of course, Lucas was very much involved in all parts of the creative proccess. He had a say in everything and nothing went ahead without his approval. This continued with the PT, where Lucas, despite his complete freedom, still made it a point to adhere to the rules he established in the other movies. And more importantly, the story he had developed decades before.

None of that exists in this Disney era. It's fast food. Created to appeal to people's gluttony, edible in the moment, but not healthy and with no everlasting impression.



That actually proved a long held belief that I had. People like to say that they prefer Han Solo, that it was their favorite character, and usually downplay Luke. But I always said that these people (I'm generalizing, of course) may desire Han Solo, may have wanted to be like him, but it's all superficial appeal. In their hearts, Luke is the real favorite. Because Luke is the heart of the original trilogy. He's the representation of good. And when that good is directly attacked, twisted, insulted through misrepresentation, it made people wake up and react accordingly. And I'm glad this happened. Nobody batted an eye when Han died, or when they reverted his character and growth back to the selfish scroundel. But to do that with Luke does have deep repercussions, something that fans only knew subconsciously. Because it's attacking the moral message, people's aspirations and inspirations.



I disagree. I don't think there's any attachement to an idea of Luke. Because what Luke is was always pretty explicit, not bound to diverging ideas.



I truly hope that they eventually release Lucas' treatments. I don't care if I'm wrong about the 1% vs 30%. I would have the true sequel trilogy then.



Lucas doesn't seem too happy about this "gift". Heck, to call this his "vision" or "gift is an insult to him. He may have sent a gift to the world, but Disney unwrapped it, deformed the content and wrapped it back. That's not Lucas' gift.



I can hardly call it "revisiting" or an "exploration", let alone "evolution".



I didn't mean to make this political. My comment was that the IPs are being made political. And not in the sense of having political ideas, but in the sense of a very particular idea being propagandized through pop culture.

I see communism and fascism as two sides of the same coin: international and national sides. The outcome is the same: mysery. Current progressivism is more regressive and fascistic than anything I've ever seen. As far as politics go, I happen to be a classical liberal/libertarian, so this may be more apparent to me than to someone with other political leanings. But evident or not, the consequences are already here, and we can already see this with many IPs: Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, etc... The most recent victim: Watchmen. Where in the past, IPs were vehicles for stories. Now they are being used to lecture the audience on a certain way of thinking. If you happen to disagree, you're accused of wrongthink. These people brag about diversity and tolerance, but judge people by their immutable traits, while diversity of opinions is not tolerated. Orwellian to say the least.



I personally disagree. I don't see any calamities from capitalism. Capitalism is about property and the freedom do what you want with what's yours. Of course, nobody likes every outcome in a capitalist system. Take Disney, to bring it back on topic a bit. I don't like the monopoly they have on not just entertainment, but media, consumption, etc... Yet I think they should be free to have that power. Because the power they have was voluntarily given, not taken. And I'm free to not feed the monster. And even if they exert their influence and limit my options of content that I can consume, I'm still free of not giving them my time and money. They don't owe me anything, and I don't owe them. Capitalism, if left to its own devices, is great because if something grows too much, it will eventually collapse. And anything small has the change to grow to the top. It's self-corrective. Capitalism with State, however, that's a recipe for disaster. And sadly we have a lot of that worldwide.

But I guess this political discussion would demand a dedicated thread.



I didn't mean to make you hate the new movies (well, if you see the light, you will ). I only asked because I found it jarring that someone with your knowledge and appreciation of Lucas' works so enthralled with their content. But maybe my perspective was faulty.

My claim is that each audiovisual Sequel Trilogy element, when accurately described, can be easily traced to a previously-George Lucas-supervised motif.

Disney using the same tokens Lucas created means his ideas are not being discarded whatsoever. The point is that what we are seeing and hearing in the ST are practically all still his ideas.

And isn’t the ST actually partially about a character trying to not emulate his father’s legacy while trying to emulate his grandfather’s legacy?

Wrote this bit last night...

Whatever I write down is for the horses. Not to make them run or play or drift asleep or try harder at what they do best – but for the horses to read with their eyes and hearts and minds and bodies. If that makes any sense, so be it. But to be honest, it doesn’t. That’s what Star Wars are for. Notice that the title is plural. It’s not a singular thing. It’s a plurality and a conjecture toward the salvation of cinema. But I digress too much, too often. What makes sense to me is that these movies have nothing to do with anything, and in that respect, they are free and able to do whatever they feel like. Of course, they touch on everything. But that’s not what I mean. Just look at Kamino. It’s a water world filled with creatures whose names sound like Tapioca. Oh, wait. That’s the name of the city – Tipoca or something. But how do we even know this? We don’t. It’s from an outside source. Just look at how nameless but potentially name-full everything is. When I watch a Star Wars movie, I see every little detail only one at a time. I tend to try to test the barriers of it, like a pen test, but with concepts. What can you bounce off this field of cinematic energy? Words, colors, shapes, symbols, meanings, sounds, FORCE. How else am I supposed to think about it? Let go, Luke. Launch your torpedoes into the rabbit hole that is your understanding of what that rabbit hole might possibly symbolize. Send your idea into the mainframe superstructure and see if it can climb back out as a fiery explosion comprising billions of fragmented truths that could, if time went backwards, coalesce into a completed jigsaw puzzle picture. Just imagine how many people have tried to crack this egg and failed! Twenty-nine, to be precise. Interpretation of movies is like a giant test where you’re under pressure for no reason other than your own. That means your reasoning faculty proper. Your weight – gravity – of understanding goes with you every time you take a peek. Just close your eyes and listen to the music. Love those silly creatures in Jabba’s palace. Take a look through the looking glass of your mind’s eye and imagine seeing around some of those corners. We aren’t looking at these characters and settings. We are looking at a point of view of those things. It is all already seen. It is a scope of vision that registers every passing moment as an eternally reusable, alterable memory. It occurs to me now that the context for this post is dubious. I am up late and have decided to just type away without thinking about what I am writing too much. Maybe it shows. But it’s a technique I feel I have just now rediscovered, and if I share what I have pounded out over the past several minutes, maybe someone will find it amusing, or even more daringly, INTERESTING. So, to actually mention the issue at hand, I think the Sequel Trilogy has its reasons for being the way it is. It’s logical, rational, maybe a little anxious, claustrophobic, pessimistic about its own status as an existing artifact. But that’s what I think. Just because this set of movies was not made by George Lucas alone doesn’t invalidate their canonicity. I think these new movies are technically true whether we like that fact or not. Not to be tautological, but when you look at the contexts of the plot points in words, don’t they actually ring a bell macrocosmically at the level of film structure? Take the Canto Bight sequence. I saw an article saying it did nothing to move the plot forward. Well, actually, it does by virtue of depicting space-time, but besides that, doesn’t the movie KNOW this? Isn’t the movie a huge technological bound or two ahead of some wisecracking news flash article clickbait “author” who wants to nitpick? The movie cost like $250 million or something. That’s ridiculous. To quote Jupiter Ascending, “These people don’t make those kinds of mistakes.” If you don’t believe me, at least consider the possibility that a team of technicians decided to craft the sequence the way it appears to the point where no lone human soul could ever even attempt an emulation, let alone a valid criticism. It’s hard to justify what I’m saying. I can feel it, though. Canto Bight is pointless. OK. Great. But look at how it makes its own sense. The quest was unsuccessful. I feel a sense of restraint about this, but I am tempted to make a thread called “Star Wars already said that.” The idea would be that someone says something, and then the rest of us find the part of Star Wars where that thing was previously mentioned. Like a game. Or exercise. I don’t know for sure if it needs its own space, but it could be something that we can come back to on this forum. Like an in-joke or meme, but hyper-useful and insightful. There are a lot of ways to go about it, but it’s like, yes. Star Wars contains the things we want to say about it, for sure. So, if you criticize the ST, take a look to see if your criticism appears IN the ST as a line, subtext, gesture, truth, concept, or thing. Just check to make sure. This post will probably look and sound ridiculous, but I’m a little tiny bit famous for that sort of thing, so it should be OK. I am even going to read this huge paragraph and say what part of Star Wars already said it. I’ll do it at the end. We’ll see how close I can come. It’ll be fun. I don’t like it when internet users get hostile, so have fun with this one, please. This was a test. This was not only a test. Three, two, one…



STAR WARS ALREADY SAID THAT



“So what I told you was true, from a certain point of view.”

No worries. I've also been dealing with some difficult circumstances -- namely, this selfish turd of a neighbour, who constantly plays music with his buddies through the night. It's sometimes impossible to concentrate or compose my thoughts. It's going on right now, in fact.



Thanks, Alex. That sounds like a reasonable course of action. I do find AdBlock functions well under most circumstances. It seems to catch most things. But I'm going to keep your recommendation in mind.



You could well be correct. I argued something similar on TFN before. It's written all into this quote of JJ's:

www.empireonline.com/movies/features/force-awakens-full-story/



As I wrote back at the time (in 2016):

What Abrams is propounding there seems to be an argument along the lines of "because we can". That is the simple answer as to why there are X-Wings, TIE Fighters, and stormtroopers in the movie. He's more or less conceding that they wanted to affirm to the world: "This is Star Wars".

Strangely, it's less an argument for those things in and of themselves, despite sops like "badass" and "undeniable", and more, I think, an articulation -- apologia -- for a show of force (pun intended). They have the copyright, so they'll flex their intellectual ownership muscles and prove who has the power to use those legacy designs. Ultimately, Abrams is not so much expressing a binding love of those design facets, but announcing a corporate mandate. Star Wars because Star Wars. Add in his strange assertion that other films couldn't use those designs, as if those designs were the zenith in design-work -- as if other films were "jealous" of Star Wars and desperately wanted to include them (a strange projection) -- and his argument for those designs is perfectly circuitous.

--------

So they ultimately wanted to stamp their copyright on those classic designs. Lucas already used them in an intensely recognisable and iconic way, but they needed to appropriate them so that everyone thinks they're every bit as much a "Disney" creation as a Lucas one. An aggressive way to bolt the vault door shut and convince everyone these designs were, in fact, Disney's all along; and their right to do as they please with them. It is naive to think that history can't be rewritten. It is constantly rewritten, in ways subtle and gross, each and every day. As the saying goes: "History is written by the victors." Including those powerful entities that consume and consolidate every imaginative idea and competitor in sight. Or to quote the internal Microsoft directive: embrace, extend, and extinguish.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

Of course, that's the cynical-realist in me talking. I'm trying, in some ways, to subvert and go beyond that side of my personality, since it seems like it could be a bit of a "trap" (may the Force go with Admiral Ackbar). I don't know if it's just some kind of unwieldy, antediluvian naivete I'm trying to foist on myself -- perhaps. I think it can be artistically justified -- maybe. But I remain, as it were, in a state of suspended animation, at present.

The droids are so classically Star Wars, it seems odd and desperately ironic that Abrams would ramble to the press (with obvious calculation) about wanting to give audiences the "quintessential" Star Wars experience, only for them to be largely excluded from the sequels. It's almost like making a film about The Beatles, but excluding George and Ringo. Perhaps, with TIE Fighters and stormtroopers, it was easy to phone in copies; but the droids have their own personalities that are distinctly "George Lucas" in so many ways, and it isn't so easy (or perhaps even desirable) for these people to do justice to them.



Quite a declension of adjectives there. I certainly hear you. They essentially put a boot on Star Wars' throat and kept it on the ground, stuck in the past, unable to move forward. That said, and this is part of my contending here, the sequel trilogy does move Star Wars forward in some ways, despite all those forms and phantasms from the past. It has a strange bearing. Almost like all those earlier totems are being worn like war medals or a coat of arms.



And I meant both there. Audiences emotionally/archetypally identify more with Artoo, and I think he is probably more easy to pick out, to many people, as signifying the series than Threepio. Though that may just be an unsubstantiated hunch on my part.



I guess you could look at it as history repeating (with subtle variation) due to some "unfinished business". Once these particular designs and avatars took hold, it became hard for the SW galaxy to shake them off. In this way, the loss of the Old Republic is even more of a crushing blow. Evil has now poured itself into a particular mould, and it is hard to heat it up and remove all the slag. The galaxy became very two-unit-oriented (Sidious and Dooku) and more overtly machine-dominated in Episode II. AOTC is the episode where "all hell breaks loose", metaphorically speaking, after a great sleep. I find it interesting that once the clones were unleashed on the galaxy, all changed. They have been in every episode -- clones/storms (what's the real difference?) -- since then. It may be edifying to consult the Wikipedia entry on Pandora's box:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora%27s_box 



So... a jar. As in: "Jar Jar's Big Adventure".

But there's more:



AOTC came out on the 25th Anniversary (though not to the exact day) of the original, its progenitor, or "host", which was subsequently re-titled "A New Hope". AOTC is also unique among the Star Wars movies for being released in a "cloned" year: 2002 (20-02). And while the word "hope" has become almost a degraded mantra under Disney, it is deliberately included in the crawl to "The Last Jedi", and spoken several times during key moments of tension inside the film's compacted narrative. There's even a fake-out moment, or dark antonym, when Snoke portentously addresses Kylo as "A New Vader" (punctuation mine), only to then perform a sort of meta bait-and-switch by suddenly chastising Kylo instead.

And I love the term "deceptive expectation". What are we to make of that term in light of "The Phantom Menace"; which, as Pyro has formerly noted, points to deception and can be transliterated as "The Illusive Threat"? Or, indeed: elusive? "The Last Jedi" can also be inverted as "The First Sith". It's fun playing with the titles like this. But the point here is that fans obviously had deceptive expectations where the sequels are concerned; rather as many of them did toward the prequels. I am not trying to draw a total equivalence; just adumbrating a basic pattern. And in-movie, it's clear that various characters harbour deceptive expectations of their own, only to have them dashed -- resulting in frustrated dreams, lost lives, morbid philosophising, soul-sapping hate, broken trust, and renewed optimism (these aren't mutually independent emotions, outlooks, and experiences). 

What I'm saying is, TLJ has given me permission to have some hope for the sequels; which could, of course, be another deceptive expectation. There is this underlying redemptive subtext. It's like the OT, but deeper. Fragmented, yet purposeful. Lean, yet dense. Clipped, but serious and slow-building. There is an unarticulated teleology and soteriology to the sequels that begins to literally crack the ground at the close of TFA, and again near the start of TLJ, and even make the ground "bleed" by the end of the second movie. Deep down, there is something to these sequels that it's hard to put your finger on. But it's there if you really go looking for it. Remember the words of a wise and wonderful Jedi Master: Your focus determines your reality.



It's a fair question. I think we're made to ponder. In that first scene between Kylo and Snoke in TFA, where we are introduced to Snoke as a Lincoln-esque hologram, Snoke seems to be tutoring Kylo, preparing him for the upcoming "test" of killing Han Solo. And in the fuller exchange, cut from the film, Snoke speaks of Vader saving Luke and falling back into the light out of "sentiment". Snoke identifies sentiment as a key weakness in the Skywalker family, cautioning Kylo not to fall into the same trap. This extends into Kylo's taunt of Han at the end when he derides his former persona, telling him: "Your son is gone. He was weak and foolish like his father, so I destroyed him." Han bats the taunt away, affirming back: "That's what Snoke wants you to believe, but it's not true. My son is alive." And Kylo stiffens up, firing back, almost trance-like: "No. The Supreme Leader is wise."

BTW, I just brought up the film to watch this segment again, and it's even more powerful after TLJ -- Han's fear of Kylo when he first approaches him, Kylo resisting, Han pushing on, Kylo still resisting, Han getting closer, Kylo seeming to crack, and then, well: the inevitable murder. TLJ has made TFA a better movie for me. After seeing all the pain Luke went through, full of self-blame, you can retroactively feel a deeper sense of foreboding and anguish between Han and Kylo on the bridge.

Snoke has obviously groomed Kylo for a number of years and "done" a number on his mind and his entire worldview. It's less about what he's told Kylo, however, and more about the after-effects. How Kylo presents himself to others; and how those others respond. How are they to deal with this new crisis? This new rift in the Force? It almost doesn't need an explanation. At least not a retread of Palpatine's elaborate machinations in the PT. Granted, this does make the sequels feel a bit phoned-in and inadequate at first, but there's a forbidding existential terror in Kylo's constitution that even Vader didn't have. The way the conflict is written on his face. How he craves to return to the light while feeling troubled by his sentimental impulses at every moment. The barely-under-control rage. The doubt. The sorrow. The sense of total isolation. In the villains, even more than the heroes, we should be able to detect pieces of ourselves; pieces of a larger psychological puzzle. 



Yes. I'm concerned with what happened. But it's hard to pin down all the pieces. I find clarity, only to then meet obscurity. I'm maybe less confident than you are that this is a dirty, regrettable scheme, through and through. I'm still working with it and trying to make sense of it all. The sequels force me to become a mixture of Luke and Kylo.



Well, like I said, it's lost in the Original Trilogy. What you're saying still applies -- but perhaps to a more limited set of aesthetic/intellectual frames. What the sequels are saying, in a basic yet profound way, is: the past needs to be dealt with and resolved. Crucial steps were taken in dealing with it in the OT, but that isn't the end of the story. Not anymore. And in the back of Lucas' mind, it evidently never was. There was always this missing chunk. The third act. The climax, the resolution. Regardless of whether he intended to re-include Anakin's former saber or not.

Another way of looking at it (this is clearly the case on some basic dramatic and symbolic level in TLJ) is: the saber represents Luke himself dealing with his father's legacy. In a deeper way than before. It was an aspect of his concealed heritage that he felt he had moved beyond in ROTJ. But one can go back and retrospectively read that notion into ROTJ as being another delusion. Luke was made to conveniently "forget" about troubling aspects of his father's servitude within the Jedi Order; being allowed instead, in the OT timeframe, due to that happenstance of losing the saber, to focus more on the trapped being that was his anguished and still-present father. The chaos and calamities of the past were cut away to give Luke a clearer path forward. Not unlike Yoda burning the tree (while the books remain safely with Rey). But in the sequels, Luke is forced to face them.

And then there is the fact that Cloud City is a very ethereal environment: a dream-like contradiction and confabulation of heaven and hell. The saber surviving and returning also rhymes with Han getting frozen and un-frozen. The saber didn't disappear; not fully. It just went into a state of hibernation. Much like those aspects of the Jedi that Luke was yet to deal with. This is where the sequels shine; or have the potential to. Three generations. Three meditations. I also love what Pyro said about Kylo trying to emulate his grandfather, while trying to deny his father. It really is the last piece of the story.



There are aspects of the sequels I find difficult and offputting. But the ginormous whole is something else. It's girthy. Like the birthing of a new world.



Sure. But depending on whether we're adhering to the Ancient Greek meaning of the term "passion" or not, one needs passion to live: to create, to produce, to cast one's soul upon the waves. That's not to say those statements of theirs don't sound incredibly insular and self-serving. But if each Star Wars film is also an experiment, of sorts, then TFA is its own beast, and the others aren't entirely bound to whatever impulses went into its making. And their setting out to do something that "delighted" them, which could be a misdirecting term, doesn't preclude the film from having its own coherent storytelling language and inner sensibility. The root of the word "delight" is "lacere", which means "to entice". So, taking their remarks literally, they were crafting an enticement engine. More was obviously being set up for the sequels.

Even if I go with you and ride all the way to the watering hole to shoot those no-good cowboys J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan stone-cold dead, that doesn't mean Rian Johnson didn't make a compelling sequel. Johnson could be thought of as the Marcel Duchamp of the genre movie world: an offbeat, outsider artist who can take raw pieces, even things people consider profoundly unartistic and unappealing, and turn them into something new, bizarre, and outrageous. Heresy almost goes with the territory. Funny, I was just looking at Duchamp's entry on Wikipedia, and I couldn't help thinking his oil painting "Sad Young Man on a Train" is a bit like the inside of the Jedi Tree -- as if the inside of the tree was also Luke's wearied and weathered face. Luke is the tree. The tree is Luke. But anyway, as my comments here underline, art is about what you notice, and what resonates.

That's also why -- I hope, I think, I feel, I know (with and without the commas) -- we're having an open conversation, and not trying to force something on the other. The very thing that other sites don't allow. 



There are all those things in the sequel trilogy if you want there to be. It's just a different expression. Technically, art has no boundaries. If only human vision were similarly unbounded. 

Not a rebuke. Just a wistful digression.



It kind of is an inexplicable set of impulses. I mean, it has to be. "Taxi Driver is about..."; "It was made because..."; "In this scene, this thing happens and means this..." You can see how ridiculously reductive and boring those container statements are. And to avoid confusion: by "impulses", I don't necessarily mean whims. More the deeper and crazier instincts. 

Obviously, an artist can have specific intentions in mind. Here, compared to the new people, Lucas is exceptionally plain-speaking; not to mention confident, competent, and inspiring. But even his words barely give you Star Wars in advance. If that was all that was required, a person could just explain their art to you, negating the need for that art in the first place.



Hamill was mainly referring to the story -- and so was I. I mean, at the end of the day, when we talk about how these films are structured, and what we like and dislike, we're mostly talking about story. That's what film is: visual storytelling.



But he was bound to certain things. Such as the basic premise of Luke having retreated to an island. And that seems to have come straight from Lucas' treatments. Johnson's movie, whatever you think of it, gives you the meat of that premise. In TFA, it is simply teased. Even then, however, TFA does enough to make it explicit; turning it into a brute story fact. So Rian couldn't outrun that. But he could put his own spin on it. And that's apparently what he did.

I think the main issue here is that this is a structural departure from the former trilogies. In the Lucas-made trilogies, Lucas went through and mapped the films out as best as he could. And since it's the same guy, you're getting a great deal of narrative coherence into the bargain. But in the sequels, one director is interpreting the work of another and trying to put their own stamp on the material. This also happened in the Original Trilogy, but on a smaller scale. Yet, by having Abrams back for Episode IX, you essentially have one trilogy with two heads, a bit like the podracer announcer in TPM. And since Johnson's movie is in the middle of two Abrams chapters either side, it's more like a complicated filter that the "ideals" of TFA must past through, in order to be sufficiently purified for the finale. This obviously happens in the other trilogies as well, but here, that departure is starker. It's not necessarily a demerit, however.  



I didn't know about that confirmation. Okay. In any case, I prefer Rey's hair in TFA to TLJ. It is implied in the teaser trailer that Rey has adapted the Jedi mantle to her own personality. So some reversion to how she looked in TFA is fine with me. A further visual detail is how she has the blaster that Han gave her (and that she took to the island) holstered on her belt, inches from the lightsaber she's holding on her right side. Silver totems for the "Western" (cowboy/Han) and "Eastern" (samurai/Luke) strands of Star Wars, now together in the same person. Well, it's the makings of an idea, anyway.



Kylo is the broodiest Star Wars character ever! That's the way I see him. He even has AOTC-Anakin beat. But that aside, I find it fascinating he is trying to live up to a false legacy (which he sees as legitimate), while being eaten up by the light at every moment. A contradiction, of sorts, against the former six. But then, if you ask me, I always got the impression that the ST was meant to be the strangest ("ST") of the lot. As Pyro pointed out, it's also the first letters of the series title. And Luke utters the subtitle of Episode VIII -- which none of the characters has done before. Rey? I'm still struggling with her. But she's clearly chasing some sense of identity and belonging. A very pure character. Almost too pure. The meaning of a Jedi? Luke has given us our most basic insight in the last trailer: "Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi."



Yah, well... I think she's meant to be a super-being, or a really good study, up there with the greatest Jedi that have ever lived. That's certainly convenient. Maybe a little too convenient. But I wouldn't necessarily shun those explanations. Episode VII is called "The Force Awakens". So something awakens in Rey (as she tells Luke in TLJ); or Kylo awakens it within her. It's kind of funny that Kylo's invasive interrogation of Rey sparked up something within her; as if she was absorbing his intrusions and gaining strength the more he probed into her. I was actually re-watching an episode of Star Trek: TNG the other day: "Hero Worship". The B-plot of that episode is resolved when the Enterprise crew discover at the last second that their own shields are dangerously amplifying a local gravitational distortion in space. Star Trek is great with motifs like that. Every blow and insult that Kylo inflicts on Rey, she just grows stronger. It's contrived, but not uninteresting.



That might be a hasty write-off. I don't have all the answers -- but I don't think we're intended to. The ancillary material offers abundant clues. However, I will say that nothing in TLJ outright contradicts or overwrites the pieces supplied by TFA. Luke may have left the map in Artoo, but it was incomplete. Artoo supposedly acquired the map from the Death Star in ANH when Obi-Wan told him to plug in and that he could interpret the entire Imperial network; echoed in TFA by Kylo telling Rey that the First Order also has the same map as recovered from the archives of the Empire. But they were both missing the last piece. Did Luke leave that as a backup plan in case he went native like Tom Hanks in "Cast Away"? It's a distinct possibility. You can argue he went looking for the Jedi Temple because he was looking for answers. Only later did he become gloomy enough to feel that the only solution was for the Jedi to end. Kind of like Bruce Wayne in "Batman Begins" leaving Gotham to travel the world, trying to understand the criminal mindset, only to lose his identity and disappear even from himself. Qui-Gon rescues him, of course! Luke has his Jedi clothes on in TLJ because, well, like everything involving Luke on that island, it's complicated. Here's one interpretation:

swshadowcouncil.com/2019/04/09/the-new-jedi-prime/

tl;dr: "Luke only wears this robe to undertake one final Jedi rite." That's a direct quote from the movie's "Visual Dictionary", as quoted in the article's tendered explanation.

It's not totally out of character for Luke to taste the Dark Side around Kylo. I mean, have you seen how murderous Luke was toward Vader? I also like how Luke tells Rey he gathered Kylo and twelve other students and began a training facility. Unlucky thirteen! But the key aspect of Luke's exposition, before even the first flashback occurs, is when he expresses his sorrow that Han and Leia entrusted him with their son. He even uses the term "mighty Skywalker blood" (TLJ's blood theme) like he saw a prize, but was also weary from the start -- perhaps without realising it, or without wanting to admit it, at the time -- that he could easily screw up here, with so much riding on the potential flowering of another Chosen One. Okay, the latter is my term and a bit controversial, but it's implicit in what Luke says. What really gets Luke is very much that familial connection. When he probes Kylo's mind (itself a dark act obviously made in desperation), it's his own Dark Side he's sensing. For a moment, however, Kylo becomes a scapegoat. Luke does what he always did in the OT: he acts on instinct. Fortunately, he is able to sufficiently curtail his instincts to stop himself from responding to the siren call of the Dark Side. But as he says, he is still left with shame, and with consequence. He violated Ben's trust and that was enough to doom everything. It is almost like the Force created a lure with Ben, a bit like what is implied with Anakin in the PT. And the "good guys" can't resist that lure any more than the bad. But the good guys have a conscience, so pay a high price when the shame kicks in.

Honestly, TLJ is a film that requires interpretation. It's very subtextual. To quote an interesting video on the movie:

(You'll at least enjoy the extended Lucas intro)

 

2:31 "It's not a simple space adventure situated in the familiar. Instead we're given a strange arthouse film where the subtext is far richer than the actual surface reading of the events."

16:19 "This is the awkward thing about Last Jedi. A lot of ideas happen while not a lot of events happen."

I think some of your other questions are covered by the subtext defence and by what I said in my first paragraph. You need to reach into the film, dive into the hidden grotto, in order to get answers -- or receive clues that can lead to answers. Luke blames the Jedi as an ego-defence for his own failings and the pain of being able to accept them head-on. He guards the tree and the books because he feels it's his duty as "the last of the Jedi religion" -- a tradition, an ethos, and a higher form of his own self that he's still holding onto. In the words of the blurb for Leon Wieseltier's acclaimed and deeply personal work "Kaddish":

www.amazon.co.uk/Kaddish-Leon-Wieseltier/dp/0375703624



"Diligent but doubting son" is a beautiful way to describe Luke and his relationship with the Jedi -- which is really his relationship with his father -- in TLJ. The difference between Wieseltier and Luke may only be that Luke was shouldering the burden of fighting his conscience on whether the Jedi should continue or not: whether he had really chosen the right path; whether the Jedi really deserved to end; and whether he could really go through with ending them. It turns out, obviously, but poignantly, he could not. That's why he stops short of burning the tree and Yoda intervenes. Yoda burning the tree may be a violent and sacrilegious act, but it's also intended as a cleansing moment. It is done for the good of Luke's soul. Yoda relieves Luke of the burden of indecision. Luke doesn't need to keep fighting his impulses and running from himself any longer. And Yoda only appears then because Luke had cut himself off from the Force in all that time. He reconnects after Rey arrives and Artoo plays the classic message of Leia beseeching Obi-Wan to intervene. Like it was all fated to happen.

Yoda has the power to summon lightning because he's Yoda! But the island is also implied to be playing a role in these precious, character-defining events. It's also consistent with the underlying idea that the powers of the Jedi are growing across the movies. In the PT, no-one fully retained their consciousness. But Qui-Gon beat back the dark and was able to forge a critical connection with Yoda. In the OT, Obi-Wan and Yoda become ghosts that speak with Luke, even telling him where to go. In ANH, Obi-Wan returns as a disembodied voice. In TESB, he is relatively static, but can appear to Luke as he was. In ROTJ, he even sits down and disturbs leaves to chat with him about Anakin. I don't think it's too far-fetched that Yoda could go to the next level in the middle sequel movie. And at such a special place, at such a critical moment, in Luke's journey.  

Luke's dark (k)night of the soul is a long one, and an upsetting one for fans. But it isn't necessarily invalid. As I said before, Luke was always the Jedi upstart with a big heart. We see that even at the end of TFA, when he turns to Rey and begins to get emotional. At the (proper) start of TLJ, when we go back to the island and partake of the conclusion to that encounter, a moment almost frozen in time, we see Luke suppressing those emotions, hurling the saber in dramatic anger. But deep down, we know they're still there. TFA established that and TLJ keeps teasing that the sentimental Luke -- the thing Snoke so greatly disparaged about the Skywalkers to Kylo -- is still there. Ready to burn down a sacred tree? Maybe. But really wanting to find a way back home. A way to return to the highest ideal of the person he was; or all that he still could be. There's nothing sweeter than a person becoming lost only to be found once again. Maybe it's the only story really worth telling.

That was probably a sentimental end of my own. Forgive me. I guess I have a bit of that old moody (mighty yet sentimental) Skywalker blood in me. But who, being honest, as a dedicated Star Wars fan, cannot say the same? 

To be fair, there was almost nothing from the OT in that video either.