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

I've gone blank on whether the Emperor was meant to be introduced in the sequel trilogy or defeated at the end of it. Maybe both, but certainly the latter. In an outline suggested by Gary Kurtz, the Emperor was, indeed, only to appear in Episode IX:

www.theforce.net/latestnews/story/gary_kurtz_reveals_original_plans_for_episodes_19_80270.asp

However, in TESB, he is only seen briefly in one scene, as a mysterious hologram giving instructions to Vader. He (originally: before being replaced by Ian McDiarmid in full Darth Sidious appliance) wasn't even a "real" person, but a composite: male voice, old female face in makeup, overlaid with chimpanzee eyes.

Here is a picture of the chimpanzee having their eyes filmed for the scene: 

www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/24gvye/filming_chimpanzee_eyes_for_the_original_emperor/

And this was the actress used and put in makeup (there's a picture of her being filmed for the scene further down the page):

boards.theforce.net/threads/marjorie-eaton-the-original-emperor.50033425/

The voice, of course, was originally supplied by Clive Revill. At 89 years of age, Clive is still with us:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Revill

So the original concept for the Emperor was pretty weird, and obviously nothing concrete for the character had yet been settled on.

TESB was, however, the big game-changer of the pack, depending on whether you believe Lucas had always intended for Vader to be Luke's father, or whether he came up with it, or only decided for sure, once he got involved in the writing process for the first sequel (meaning TESB here, of course). This change, if it was a real change, would surely have altered his sequel trilogy goals, much more than vaguely featuring the Emperor in the second movie of the Original Trilogy. But it comes down to what your belief is on that issue. 


He may not have developed much of a story for it, but that doesn't mean he wasn't thinking of certain things. I still dispute the idea that an entirely different concept surfaced. For example, Richard Marquand claimed in a 1983, when asked whether Lucas had showed him the full outline:

"Yes, all nine parts . . . If you follow the direction and project into the final trilogy, you realise you're going to meet the supreme intellect, and you think, how is it possible to create a man who has such profound cunning that he can not only control Darth Vader, but the fate of Luke Skywalker? Control the destiny of the whole galaxy? You'll be amazed!"

(Source: Prevue Magazine, July 1983)

I've pulled that straight from Michael Kaminski's book, "The Secret History Of Star Wars" (in my digital copy, it's p. 500). To be fair, Kaminski himself goes on to say about this quote, backing you up:

"The character [Richard Marquand] describes is clearly the Emperor, revealing that he may simply be confused on the complicated issue . . . It is also worthy to note that whatever he is referring to is not the original plan but the post-1980 "cover version". In any case, by 1983 Lucas is speaking of following the aged cast of the original trilogy in a Sequel Trilogy. But they are mostly empty promises -- Lucas never had a strong desire to film these, perhaps explaining his [latter-day] comments that the Sequel Trilogy was never a serious consideration, and that it was more of a gimmicky reunion suggestion. It was merely left as an option for himself, one that was most likely going to be passed by. As infamous as it was, the Sequel Trilogy only existed in 1979 and early 1980, and possibly 1978."

Kaminski has an extensive appendix on the Sequel Trilogy (in my digital copy, it's Appendix D: The Legend of the Sequel Trilogy, p. 491 to p. 506). He has clearly done his best to collate as many quotes on the Sequel Trilogy as possible, and he tries to make sense of all the fragments. It is, however, somewhat disingenuous on Lucas' part for him to have claimed talk of the Sequel Trilogy was largely a "media invention", as he did when he made a variety of distancing comments toward the Sequel Trilogy in 1999. For one thing, Lucas was still talking about making a Sequel Trilogy after the conclusion of the Original Trilogy. If he had no real intention of making such a thing, he should have kept quiet about it from then on, or better yet: shot down any talk of such a thing ever happening.

Though, to be fair, the bulk of his public comments occurred during the making of the Original Trilogy, and there are only a handful after this period, before he began to disavow the sequels in 1999. So, in that sense, you also have a degree of backup. Lucas' relative (but not absolute) silence around this post-OT period, on the sequels, does lend support to the notion he was already beginning to back off from them. Yet this only makes it ironic he would complain to James Cameron in 2018 that he never got to finish the story. He himself postured a lot over the Sequel Trilogy in earlier years, only to stress there was no story left after he'd wrapped up the first six films.

You can argue that his heart was never in the sequels. Whatever he handed to Disney seems to have been written somewhat hastily, and even Lucas admitted, in an interview announcing the sale in 2012, that there were a "lot of blank spots" in his outlines/treatments:



Time Index: 00:28

Interviewer: And what do you see your role as [as] Creative Consultant? What does that mean?

Lucas: I just said that I would back her [Kathleen Kennedy] up, and I would be there if, ya know... And especially helping with the script, and making sure the script, sort of... There's a lot of blank spots in the story treatment that, hopefully, we can fill in. 

Michael Arndt, who was hired before the sale to Disney, like Kennedy, later admitted to struggling with writing a sufficiently dramatic and believable script. He had difficulty integrating Luke into the story without him taking over due to his legendary, iconic status:

www.wga.org/writers-room/features-columns/the-craft/2015/star-wars-the-force-awakens-kasdan-abrams-arndt

Arndt: I’ll just say very quickly that very early on I tried writing versions of the movie where the girl is at home, her home gets destroyed, she goes on the road, she meets Luke, and then she goes and she kicks the bad guy’s ass. It just never worked. I struggled with this. This was back in 2012. It just felt like every time Luke came in and entered the movie, he just took it over. Suddenly, you didn’t care about your main character anymore because like, “Oh fuck, Luke Skywalker’s here. I want to see what he’s going to do."

Notice that Arndt says that was back in 2012. Presumably, he wrote a few versions of the script that year, given he was hired before the sale, and Lucas says in that clip that the treatment(s) had a lot of blank spots. Pablo Hidalgo also said on his Twitter account (though these tweets may no longer be accessible) that Lucas' treatments were pretty slender, and not these developed, intricate tomes that some people might have imagined. On the other hand, if I recall correctly, Mark Hamill claims to have read them, or been told a digested version, and he says they were very different to the direction Disney went in.

It can be difficult to know what to believe. But the one consistent thread in this is Lucas' apathy toward the Sequel Trilogy for many long years, followed by his later insistence that there was no story beyond the first six films, and the fact he wrote outlines/treatments and then quickly bundled his film companies off to Disney. Did he really want to make them? Did he really have clever, obscure, and elaborate ideas planned for the Sequel Trilogy in the end, as he implied to James Cameron in 2018? We might never know. But his comment with Kathleen Kennedy present about there being many blank spots is quite telling. At the very least, he put the rest of his creative team in a bind, and made his beloved franchise a hostage to fortune. 


In many ways, I would rather Lucas have completed the saga himself, and then handed it over. At least the core of the franchise would then have been completely expressed and protected. As it happened in reality, we're left with a fusty, fudged, compromised conclusion/solution. I'm still not completely sure how I feel about it. 


I never really created those expectations for myself. My initial reaction to Lucas selling was (mostly) a negative one. But I tried to keep an open mind, and I only really got more firmly negative in 2015, after underwhelming trailers and the incredibly propagandistic "practical effects" campaign (with its implicit pro-OT/anti-prequel bias) started in earnest. That seriously undermined my ability to invest in the sequels and to see them as legitimate. Then there was an obvious social-justice campaign slathered on top. I was almost willing to walk away from the whole thing after TLJ came out. Which is to say: I actually liked certain aspects of TFA and TLJ from the get-go, but the whole thing seemed like a phony confidence trick. After trying to re-invest in TLJ last year, reading a multitude of comments on the movie from various sources, and finally sitting down and watching the behind-the-scenes documentary, I softened on my stance toward it. The trailers for TROS were more engaging than the ones for TFA. Suddenly, I was looking forward to a sequel movie, and I enjoyed the final film immediately. Perhaps I had finally let go of certain anxieties and animosities and taught myself to enjoy the wider process. I can't rightly say.  

Is the concept of Luke falling from grace completely shoehorned in? I see what you mean about it lacking explication. It's more of an implicit thing. We're obviously not shown the exact circumstances that lead to Luke failing with Ben/Kylo. Just the tipping point. But in a way, I always watch Star Wars a little obliquely. Do all fans actually do this; am I really that much of a special snowflake? I get seduced by small details and frame things my own way. For example, when Luke is telling Rey what happened for the first time with him and Ben, which is his "second lesson" in the film (or the overture toward the actual lesson that was cut -- things being cut out being a powerful thematic device in its own right), I go... Well, look... It's Luke Skywalker, finally having someone to talk to. How sweet. I'm slightly kidding on the "how sweet" part. But seeing it from that specific angle gives it poignancy to me. He's this lost fisherman hermit finally opening up. The power of conversation, of revelation, of (in some sense) letting go. Getting that thing out. Even if he covers over the truth. I see it as a core part of his regeneration. It has universal applicability. Isn't it better (usually) when we talk problems over? Disclosure. Companionship. Solace in the presence of another. And more specifically to this myth: Luke, the hero of the OT, was lost, but now he is beginning to be found. Also, the lighting there is very beautiful, and it's neat that Luke has his finger resting slightly in the pool of water, while Rey doesn't. Such a small detail, but powerful! That's how these films often work for me.

Hostility toward "The Last Jedi" is understandable, yet harsh. People should grok it a different way. It's the "art film" of the saga. Rian Johnson even went to USC, like Lucas, and has similar filmic inspirations (e.g., Akira Kurosawa). "The Last Jedi" is kind of a tribute to "Rashomon". Not that that makes it unique by itself or anything, but the flashback device is very assiduously used by Johnson in the picture. Three lessons, three flashbacks, three versions of the truth. There are cool concepts at work in the movie. Thank The Maker!  Seriously, thank him. Thank George. He made it happen. Without his "X", there couldn't be this "y". You need all of Star Wars to get the rest of Star Wars. Beyond the infinite. If you change up your focus, wonderful things can happen. Focus is the Force. The Focus Awakens. But for some people, I guess it's The Focus Group Awakens! Fair. And quite funny. 

But really, all goofing aside, TLJ is very consistent with the Hero's Journey motif you see in the former trilogies. Around the middle of the PT, Anakin has a vision and responds to it by setting off to rescue his mother. Around the middle of the OT, Luke has a vision and responds to it by setting off to rescue his friends. And around the middle of the ST, Rey has a vision of Ben's goodness, the future that could still be his, after they touch hands, and she leaves the island to effect her own "rescue" -- trying to do what she thinks Luke would do (the former Luke of the OT). I mean, it's interesting, at least. All these protagonists fail (visions are unreliable), but they win deeper victories later on. Connection, revelation, intervention. Then failure, disappointment, shock, destruction, and eventually: reconstruction. All three trilogies are remarkably coherent on this front. People talk about the Sequel Trilogy like it's a big hot mess (Kylo -- LOL), and totally antithetical to the values of the former trilogies, but I don't think that's doing justice to the underlying structure. 


Because there are big things put on-screen here and taken to conclusion:

- The journey of the Big Three and how the ST as a whole could be read as Leia's story, finishing what was left hanging in ROTJ.
- Seeing a female protagonist as the lead character for the first time undergoing the Hero's Journey.
- Seeing the board being cleared and a new type of Jedi (Rey) rising in place of the old, picking up where Luke left off.
- Seeing a new slant being put on the Dark Side and psychological entrapment with Kylo and his hyper-conflicted self.
- Seeing the Force bubbling up in people in new ways, leading to deeper possibilities down the road (e.g., Finn, Jannah).
- Seeing how the Sith were still influencing things and trying to complete their ultimate domination of the galaxy, and how they are finally defeated.
- Seeing how the Force can connect disparate persons (Rey and Kylo), or bring unlikely obscure folk together (Finn and Rose). 
- A very big redemption arc for Luke and Kylo.
- Learning to deal with the past instead of running away from it.
- Recognising that allies can be found virtually anywhere, given faith, time, and circumstance.
- Realising that the world is populated by all sort of people/creatures, with all sorts of flaws, strengths, quirks, strategies, and philosophies.
- A theme that nurture is stronger than nature, and by application of will, you can forge a new destiny for yourself and others. 

A lot of these points are about expansion rather than re-invention. They obviously weren't trying to re-do the wheel, but fabricate it using better materials, add better traction, make it harder-wearing, etc.

Also:

Rey contacting her Jedi ancestors. Has a strong "Force Of Others" vibe to it. This is something we haven't seen any other character attempting, much less achieving. A deeper victory for the Light Side -- at last.  

In a more poignant sense, the Sequel Trilogy is also about how we go on influencing each other, often without knowing. Rey and Luke's interactions on the island, while limited, are a very good illustration of this theme. 

So this is what I mean about plenty of good stuff, and plenty of reasons for the sequels to exist, even in this particular form. Again, Lucas was never going to make them, beyond flirting with the idea his saga could go beyond six movies. So hey... At least there's nine now. Three trilogies is a more beautiful structure. 


That's what I said. Anakin had his potential wasted after ROTS. He wasn't all he could have been. Palpatine suffered a setback. But one that he -- as ever -- found a way to use to his advantage. I am not arguing that the character has deep scruples. But he does seem to be working toward Anakin in the PT. Was he really going to stick with Dooku? He was quite obviously grooming Anakin to replace him. He sets up a test/initiation on the Invisible Hand. Don't go telling me he expected Anakin to lose that confrontation! Maybe he had a backup plan, in case Anakin failed, but he is obviously pleased when Anakin passes the test. He then spends the rest of the movie positioning things so that Anakin will commit to the Dark Side and permanently be his apprentice. Palpatine thrives on the Skywalker bloodline and in destroying the Jedi. These happily go together for him in Anakin and Luke. 


Palpatine is trying to prolong his existence in the ST. That much is made clear in TROS. He is hooked up to an appliance, his salamander-like eyes, decrepit hands, and can't walk. In addition, he's only in that kind of broken, incomplete state through vast layers of manipulation. He has created many clones; or had many clones created on his behalf. Many of them have failed. That is the best his acolytes could do. And he has a lot of acolytes. An enormous underground cult. If that isn't clinging to life through power, what is? The Sith were almost destroyed. But that was also the arrogance of the Jedi in the PT. They thought the Sith had long gone extinct and couldn't return. If you watch the saga in reverse, the Sith Eternal are essentially seeding the past, just as Luke is seeding the Jedi in being the lone "Skywalker" and protector of the flame on the island. History in reverse. Retrocausality. You must unlearn what you have learned. The themes remain, but they have had an upgrade.  


I haven't seen JJ mocking the midi-chlorians anywhere. Refusing to understand them? Maybe. He doesn't seem to particularly adore the concept. In the clip, Abrams sounds sincere to me. They sat down with Lucas at the start of the process for Episode IX. Lucas gave them his views on the Force and the wider themes of the saga. He wasn't involved in the actual story-making process. But since the Force is central to Star Wars, that can't have been an insignificant conversation. 


Why aren't they all at play? Well, if you go back to my Michael Arndt quotation, you'll see him admitting that reality took over. They wanted space to develop and show off their new characters. They wanted to structure the narrative a certain way. When you do that, you're inevitably compromising on your original ideas -- or, in this case, Lucas' ideas. Seeing them express an idea of Star Wars that makes sense to them, while still integrating some of Lucas' notes/ideas/suggestions, can still be compelling. It's an adaptation, not an entirely faithful reconstruction. I can't hold it against them entirely for doing it that way. And by matrix, I primarily meant the OT and PT. Those were already "in the can", and they had a lot of "Lucas" to draw on, even going their own way. 


Not necessarily. I didn't like TFA when it came out. I didn't like their marketing scheme. But in retrospect, things started to improve after that. What I'm still intrigued by is the real measure of the Sequel Trilogy: how much of it comes from Lucas' treatments, and how much of it is their own doing? Take Kylo. That's a crazy-good concept. In behind-the-scenes material, it seems that several people came up with Kylo. In essence, he was an emergent concept. I'd like to try and determine who was responsible for each "piece". That's interesting to me. They found things in the complex marble block that Lucas gave them. Or it's like a garden that they grew and curated a certain way. There are other ways of trying to understand what they did and connect with it that aren't necessarily antagonistic. It's fun with these films to play protagonist and antagonist! Rey and Kylo. Anyway, it's weird, but in a good way. It's possible, I think, to redeem their choices. 


Now, ya see??!!

That's a cool way of looking at it.

That's what I'm trying to do with the Sequel Trilogy -- times 1,000.   

Most of those points are "manufactured". Created for the new movies, not picked up from the previous ones. The rest didn't need conclusion because they were already concluded.

- Leia's story was open, but not lacking conclusion. And what was Leia's story on the ST?
- The gender of the protagonist doesn't sound like a big idea. It's secondary to the story. I'm sure that it would be different had it played with what's particularly feminine, but that's not explored at all.
- Why would the board need to be cleared? What exactly is a new type of Jedi? Why would there even be a need for a new type of Jedi? How are they still Jedi? Luke didn't learn to be a new type of Jedi, he learned from Jedi how to be a Jedi, like his father once was. Not a new type.
- Sadly we didn't get why Kylo fell. We didn't get what he was after. What we are told is not only unreliable information, but as vague and superficial as it gets. A key difference from Lucas' story, where one of the Solo kids would have fallen in the movie.
- The Sith still existing is a major contradiction to what was established in the original saga. Not only that, from the standards established in these movies, we don't know for certain if they were really defeated.
- Didn't we get that in all the other movies?
- Redemption from what?
- This and the remaining points are already present in the other movies.



I never said otherwise. What I said is that he's after Anakin due to his power and potential, not due to him as an individual. The same his true for all of his apprentices. He doesn't want Anakin specifically, he wants the most powerful. Anakin simply stood out. But if he didn't prove himself, then he wouldn't hesitate to replace him, if that ever happened. That's my point.



Come on, Cryo. Don't ignore the context I've explained. Clinging to power is to prevent one from physically dying. And I say physically because to the Sith, there's nothing beyond that. Palpatine being alive directly contradicts what was established in the previous movies. If he's still alive, then Anakin didn't fulfill the prophecy and bring balance. But not only is he still alive, but he's able to survive spiritually. That's impossible for a Sith.



The Sith were destroyed in ROTJ. They were believed to have been destroyed by the time of TPM, yes, and only by Ki-Adi-Mundi. Mace believes that if the Sith were to return, the Jedi would be aware of it. Yoda, on the other hand, is open to the possibility that the Sith could return. The Jedi don't act on the arrogance of some, they act anyway (to the limited extent that they can).



Protector of the flame or extinguisher of the flame?



I didn't post the video to point out that he was being insincere. But to point out what really happened. That George talked to them about the Force not about the story. George talked to them before TFA too, and that ended up meaning nothing. And this was to answer to your previous point about George's involvement in the movie and them being true to his story. George had nothing to do with the story of the sequel trilogy.



Exactly. They wanted to do their own things their own way. And that was at the expense of Lucas' story. Both Lucas and Disney admitted as much. Which is why I don't understand why is there even an attempt to retroactively pretend this is all in the same board, or that they are honoring the stories Lucas left them with.

Another gorilla in the room: the original cast couldn't have played their roles the way we envisioned. Carrie looked like she had a stroke, she looked and sounded like someone who abused a lot of drugs. And Mark, even when he cleans up, doesn't look like a hero anymore. He looks like a villain. He looks crazy, and sort of mean. He looks worldly and cynical. And none of them were ever good enough actors to transform themselves into anything much different from themselves. So you couldn't just write a script for the OT characters. I think some of the character decisions that were made were done out of necessity because some of their initial ideas weren't going to work.

To me, that's easy: Lucas' story, Lucas' guidance, Lucas' supervision. What they told us would happen but didn't happen because they chose to take a different path. A path different enough that made the creator leave them, a path that doesn't have any cohesiveness. And not just with the existing movies, but with itself, since whoever came next could do (and did) whatever he wants.

It's not my intention to argue against the ability to appreciate what they ended up making, but more with the attempt to make it something that we know it's not (a consistent and cohesive narrative) since it wasn't made that way. It's one thing to choose to fill in the gaps. I respect that, it can be a fun exercise. Another thing entirely is to insinuate that it's how it was meant to be all along and credit them for something that's not there.

I take your wider point. But when was it ever set a few years after ANH? As far as I can recall, the nine films were always intended to have an epic scope, with significant time-jumps between the trilogies. 


You're right: it's off-topic. Nevertheless, I accosted Kaminski a fair bit on TFN when he published his book (initially online for free), after earlier expressing support. As I read through it, I could see he wasn't as objective as he tried to make out. He definitely mixes personal opinion with facts in a few places, and he offers a pretty superficial reading of the prequels. On top of that, he could be unbearably smug. The funny thing is, if you look back to his earliest thoughts on the prequels in his oldest posts on TFN, he's very positive, especially toward ROTS. Another person who revised their opinion, and then had the nerve to accuse Lucas of major revisionism. Still, the book is a useful corpus of quotes, and I try to give credit where I feel it's due. 


You're letting him off the hook a bit there. He used the media to carefully cultivate interest in Star Wars, then turned around at the completion of the PT and basically accused talk of the ST as being fake news. Perhaps some of his animosity toward the media after what happened with the prequels was slightly showing through. 


That's his own doing. If he really wanted to finish those concepts, he should have held onto his creation until it was done. I think he also expressed some of these ideas in TCW, based on what I've read, and also a little bit in TPM. It is what it is.

There's really only one thing for it:

We all need to get involved in Kabbalistic/esoteric philosophies and "complete" Star Wars ourselves. 

Lucas has left the most important part -- the participatory/deconstruction part -- up to us. We are all tasked with developing our own personal cosmic religion. 

Paint. Write poetry. Take LSD. Pump money into SETI. These might produce results similar to what Lucas was thinking about.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale



From a 1999 interview with Bill Moyers:

billmoyers.com/content/mythology-of-star-wars-george-lucas/

BILL MOYERS: And where does God fit in this concept of the universe? In this cosmos that you’ve created? Is the Force God?

GEORGE LUCAS: I put the Force into the movies in order to try to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people. More a belief in God than a belief in any particular, you know, religious system. I mean, the — the — the — the real question is to ask the question, because if you — if you — having enough interest in the mysteries of life to ask the questions, is — is there a God or is there not a God?, that’s — that’s, for me, the worst thing that can happen. You know, if you asked a young person, ‘Is there a God?’ and they say, ‘I don’t know. ‘ You know? I think you should have an opinion about that.

BILL MOYERS: Do you have an opinion, or are you looking?

GEORGE LUCAS: Well, I think there is a God. No question. What that God is, or what we know about that God I’m not sure. The one thing I know about life and about the — the nature of the human race is that it — the human race has always believed it’s known everything. Even the cavemen thought they had it all figured out and they knew everything there was to know about everything. Because that’s what — that’s where mythology came from. You know, it’s constructing some kind of — of — of context for the unknown. So we figured it all out and it was fine. I would say that, you know, cavemen had, you know, on a scale — and understood about one, you know? Now we’ve made it up to about five. The only thing that most people don’t realize is the scale goes to a million.

---------------------

Serious question to genuinely ponder:

Are the Whills out there?


Develop, sure. See to completion? He didn't do that, did he?

And while he was willing to oversee, he wanted to do this while still taking a major step back -- and supposedly, while working on his own projects. 


I wish they'd taken longer and approached things with more care. They may even wish that themselves in retrospect. However, I still appreciate some of the struggles that genuinely occurred (evidently) to make Lucas' ideas dramatically (and commercially) viable. You ignored my Arndt quote in your response on this point. He admitted he was struggling with how to work Luke in, or not work Luke in, and that this was in 2012. They did come up with a decent solution to this in the end. Maybe there was never a perfect one. Unfortunately, Disney are heavily in the business of making money. Lucas knows this is how corporations behave. It's a mystery he would tell himself something different. Don't tell me about promises made. The real Lucas knows those aren't worth spit. He was very anti-corporation for his entire life -- even when he turned into the head of one. Maybe he just grew soft.


It's part of the fun of it. Look past the "Kylo" and locate the "Ben". That's the ritual. That's the challenge. 

Also, since Lucas himself intended it to be nine films when handing Star Wars over, it's not obscene to see it that way. 


Where do you think they went wrong in honouring the lore? 

Luke does pass on what he's learned. That's exactly what he's attempting in his lessons with Rey. He's just doing it on his terms. Yoda later appears and essentially tells Luke he passed on the negatives, forgetting the positives. That still comprises a handing-down of wisdom. Luke in TLJ thinks the Jedi have brought pain and suffering and are more trouble than they're worth. He thinks the galaxy deserves better. He later admits he was wrong to be as down as he was.

It's not just about reading books. We see Rey training with the lightsaber in TLJ. And in TROS, Leia has taken her under her wing, and at that point, Rey has clearly been training and working hard to strengthen her abilities for several years. Much to the chagrin of Poe, who is keen to see her back in the field, as a capable fighter. Is this any worse than the OT, where Luke spends what seems like no more than a few days on Dagobah, and when he returns, Yoda tells him he requires no further training and already knows everything he needs to? Granted, Yoda is about to die, but Obi-Wan doesn't seem to offer Luke any additional training, either. A little convenient. Especially next to the extensiveness of the training that PT Jedi are implied to undergo. 

I've written a lot already about Luke's arc in the first page of this thread. I think it's more consistent with how he's actually portrayed in the OT than some people seem to think. We can debate the other characters. I do think Luke gets a generous arc, but for the others, it's much more mixed. Luke, Kylo, and Rey. That's who the ST seems to depict the best, in my opinion. Though I do like the journeys of Finn, Rose, and Poe. And there is intelligence in the way Han and Leia are handled. Even Chewie and Threepio are shown in a rather poignant light at the end of the ST, in my view. 


What do you mean by "Leia's story was open, but not lacking conclusion"? She's not handled greatly in ROTJ -- sufficiently, but not greatly. She and Han are basically pushed to the side to make room for Luke and Vader. It matters less in Han's case, but a bit more in Leia's. She's meant to be the other Skywalker. Her telling Luke to run away doesn't reflect greatly on her character. It's a surprisingly limp and flaccid thing for Leia to say. She also protests she doesn't understand Luke's power. These remarks clearly indicate that she still has "much to learn". Fortunately, in the ST, we get to see her being a great leader again, graduating almost to the level of a Cosmic Mother figure with her extremely subtle mastery of the Force (I think a lot of people have missed this), and working towards the ultimate redemption of her son and the galaxy.

Rey's femininity plays into her attraction to Kylo. She also takes a gentle delight in aspects of the world that others take for granted -- like when she reacts with joy toward the rain on Ahch-To. We don't see Anakin or Luke doing this. It's hard to picture a taciturn Jedi Master like Mace wasting his time with such whimsical trivialities. But it forms something good and decent about Rey's character, and gives an indication of what's at stake in her anger toward Kylo (like on Pasaana in TROS). Her own abilities in the Force seem anchored by this simple delight she takes in the little things around her. She is starlight having fun. Even her saber colour reflects this in the last scene of the trilogy. She feels the Force in a new way. She is the Jedi spirit revitalised. 

We don't need to see Kylo's fall. We already sat through Anakin's. There's enough grounding there. It's more about mopping up the damage left over. Finn's a janitor -- geddit? Janitor, Janus. The Phantom Janus. These movies are deeper than people realise. 

My rule on the Sith is quite simple. If the Jedi exist, the Sith can also exist. Especially in the saga movies. How did they even come back in the first place, after the Jedi thought they'd gone extinct for a millennium? That's a pretty long time. If they'd brought some other threat in, it might have felt like a cop-out. Having the Sith in all three trilogies links them up better. There's a good through-line. Also, they aren't fully back in the ST, but are trying to work their way back through a secret organisation. There's a poetry to it. We see the First Jedi Temple in TLJ, and we essentially see an immense Sith Temple in TROS.

"Redemption from what?" That's just obtuse. Whether you agree with their choices or not, the narrative clearly shows Luke rising back up from his own ashes, and Ben Solo conquering the Dark Side and giving his life to restore Rey's.

I did say a lot of the points were already covered in the other movies, but that the ST makes them thicker, fuller, more intense. While others, like the role of the twins in the whole thing, are taken to a deeper conclusion. The PT may have widened the world of Star Wars considerably, but the ST certainly stretches out and makes the OT better.


Yeah, but... Anakin really stood out. Palpatine even implies in the opera scene (not that you need believe him) that he might have had something to do with Anakin's creation. He obviously considers Anakin special because of his power and potential. And then he goes after the son. So the OT makes it clear Palpatine places great faith in the abilities of these Skywalker men. He is especially enthused regarding Anakin's power as Darth Vader. That's what this discussion strand was about. My claim is that he was boasting to Yoda about Vader for a reason. He considered Anakin -- as Vader -- a worthy heir of his Sith legacy. Why else make that remark to Yoda? He looks forward to Darth Vader becoming the Supreme Sith Lord if Yoda defeats him. But is it just about crushing the Jedi? What *if* Yoda actually succeeded and potentially killed Palpatine? Why that strange comment of Palpatine's? Does he not value his own life? TROS says that he does, and that he was working on a grander scheme.


Maybe you're repeating a blindspot of the PT Jedi there. They didn't think the Sith could return without their knowing. Yes, Yoda thought differently, but Yoda's Yoda. Yoda is, in fact, the only one with his mind's eye open to a deeper reality. This is also carried through into the ST. The Force is a powerful energy field. It can will things as it likes. The Jedi don't know all there is to know about it. That's the lesson in the ST. Their knowledge was flawed and incomplete. The powers of the light and the dark ran deeper than they knew. Even if they hadn't brought Palpatine back in the ST, I think some fans would always have had a problem with the "larger view of the Force" we were sure to get in the sequels.


Cryo: "The Sith were almost destroyed."
Alex: "The Sith were destroyed."

Palpatine: "He's a traitor!"
Mace: "He is the traitor -- aagh!"

I don't think we can go anywhere further on this. We obviously have different views on how the Jedi/Sith conflict should be handled. I say it's allowed to go on in the ST, but you disagree. I think this is one of those fundamental differences between ST fans and ST objectors. 


That's the beautiful paradox of the movie. He's both.

From an esoteric meditation on Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar":

www.ianmack.com/interstellar-time/

"It’s a little hard to tell if the seed is the youngest part of the plant or the oldest, or mysteriously both at once."

-- Stephen Jenkinson


How did you know Lucas sitting down with them before TFA meant nothing? You don't know what was said. The fact they had sit-downs and involved the creator of the franchise is significant. If he was still willing to speak about the Force with them prior to Episode IX, that shows that a) he thought there was still something to teach them, and b) they were still willing to hear him speak and take notes.


"Board"? Or did you mean "ballpark"? Typo? I hope so. Because I have already supported the idea that these boards be divided up, for people that can't hack prequel fans discussing the sequels like they're a valid part of the saga, but no action has been taken on that front (as of this writing). We don't know the degree to which they went their own way: the degree of bend. Some fans like to think they have this all figured out in advance. But I suspect the picture is quite complicated.

The complete saga is not the sequel trilogy. That the sequel trilogy is a follow up doesn't mean it has Lucas' story, guidance and supervision. It objectively does not, as both Lucas and Disney have confirmed time and time again. Not only that, but the little we know of Lucas' story already presents a vastly different scenario.


Feel free to appreciate what they ended up making. Like I said, I don't have a problem with that.

Nobody is asking for a master plan, but a plan. A story. And they didn't have a plan. Whoever got to direct each movie had free reign to do whatever he wanted. And they did do whatever they wanted. That lack of plan lead to obvious inconsistencies and a disjointed trilogy of movies (which people are still free to like and appreciate). It's not my assumption either. The few questions I asked on the other thread remain expectedly unanswered, because the movies don't answer. They don't bother with consistency with the universe they inherited and are meant to be a sequel of.


A consultant can be limited to a couple of sessions of broad advice, yes. Or he can do much more than that. Like what we were promised.


No, I do understand where you're coming from. Unfortunately, you don't seem to understand where I'm coming from. If an original trilogy skin is what you consider consistency, then I don't know what to tell you. Not only do I obviously disagree, but you're missing the point entirely.

I'm not criticizing the ST for what it was destined to be. I'm criticizing it for not being what it was destined to be and criticizing for what it ended up being. One led to the other, but these are two different issues.

You sound a lot like Bob Iger in his book when Lucas started to criticize the direction they took. A direction that's opposed to what Star Wars is all about at many levels.

To paraphrase Lucas, there's more to it than spaceships.

You do realize that the OT and PT have the same story elements, right? The ST's outer appearance is has much in common with the PT as it does with the OT. That's what makes it visually cohesive. Not sure what you were expecting here. For star destroyers and troopers to revert to the way they looked in the clone wars? It's a sequel to the OT, so while the themes of the PT and OT continue, the ST had to move into an increasingly "used" universe. Star Wars by its nature is cyclical. Whatever George would have made would have been just as derivative. That's his speci-ality.

It really disappoints me that people are acting as if Lucas didn't know what he was doing when he sold to Disney and personally selected Kathleen Kennedy. The insult extends to many of the same people who made the original 6 films. Lucas's touch with the prequels was a bonus, but even if he hadn't been directly involved with the prequels, we would have had a story that mirrors the original trilogy. Let's suppose that the films are a mess and are more incoherent and scattered and unplanned than the original six. Which is hard to argue, considering the way George went about making up the story, keeping his options open and adjusting things as he went along. That in itself doesn't make them bad.

The thing that I don't get is, when these films have so much in common with the original 6, how fans of the 6 film saga can hate the new ones so much. I chalk it up to rigidity and a fake sense of loyalty to George Lucas by people who don't even watch his other films.

nuh uh.

They did. A single movie (TFA) is quite enough to make "the tragedy of Darth Vader" (Anakin) meaningless.