Will The Disney Star War Sequel Trilogy Stand the Test of Time

[Yukaphile]

The big problem with the sequels is they're a cash-grab, and you can feel it in how they're written. I consider Rogue One just a massive ripoff of stuff like the Kyle Katarn books and the Death Star novel. That's how low the franchise has sunk, when it's ripping off far more successful works. It almost makes me glad Legends isn't canon anymore because imagine how badly they'd trash the Legends EU in comparison to how they're doing it now?

[name_here]

I'm personally of the opinion that in twenty years when the kids who saw this when they were preteens start in on nostalgia they're going to want more Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker and Darth Sideous. Disney's Star Wars is a factory-made Sci-fi action blockbuster just like any other except that it's aligned itself with the politics of the moment and become a fracture line. As Chuck has covered pretty thoroughly, George Lucas might be a bad scriptwriter and a questionable director, but he had a vision. JJ Abrams is good at the technical aspects of his job, but if he had a vision beyond dollar signs Disney didn't care about it. Rian Johnson had a vision of surprising people by subverting audience expectations and that was about it. I think the only "good" surprise he had was Luke being bitter and cynical, and I vastly prefer Legends Jedi Grand Master Luke so I'm still relatively unhappy with it.

The one that pisses me off the most is his surprise "resolution" to the Rey's Parents plotline. No, "people of no importance" is not an answer to "Who are Rey's Parents?" Tell us their names or don't pretend you've answered the question.

[Karha of Honor]

I'm personally of the opinion that in twenty years when the kids who saw this when they were preteens start in on nostalgia they're going to want more Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker and Darth Sideous. Disney's Star Wars is a factory-made Sci-fi action blockbuster just like any other except that it's aligned itself with the politics of the moment and become a fracture line. As Chuck has covered pretty thoroughly, George Lucas might be a bad scriptwriter and a questionable director, but he had a vision. JJ Abrams is good at the technical aspects of his job, but if he had a vision beyond dollar signs Disney didn't care about it. Rian Johnson had a vision of surprising people by subverting audience expectations and that was about it. I think the only "good" surprise he had was Luke being bitter and cynical, and I vastly prefer Legends Jedi Grand Master Luke so I'm still relatively unhappy with it.

The one that pisses me off the most is his surprise "resolution" to the Rey's Parents plotline. No, "people of no importance" is not an answer to "Who are Rey's Parents?" Tell us their names or don't pretend you've answered the question.

More like the politcs of a subset fo a subset.

Star Wars was Doomed anyways.

Katie Lucas:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lw2EglWPkU[/youtube]

Did Del Rey, Bantham adn Dark Horse have as grand a vision as Lucas? They sure did their job in the EU better than this sequel group.

[Worffan101]

I actually think that Rey's parents being nobodies was the best way to resolve that plot thread by far.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I actually think that Rey's parents being nobodies was the best way to resolve that plot thread by far.

At the moment it feels weird to see her going into a mystical cave for the force to oh so enchantingly say in particular, nothing. As an alley oop from Abrams to Johnson, I just don't get it.

[name_here]

I actually think that Rey's parents being nobodies was the best way to resolve that plot thread by far.

I would think that if we actually got to find out who Rey's parents are. Like they flew a garbage scow and they dumped Rey on Jakku because they couldn't support her on their earnings and then twelve years later they bought a part from the wrong shifty used starship parts salesalien and their environmental system shorted out and they died of carbon monoxide poisoning. That's a resolution. Having Kylo Ren give the speech he did is just a way of showing that Kylo Ren doesn't understand that even "nobodies" matter. Their daughter grew up to be the first of the new Jedi, after all.

[clearspira]

I actually think that Rey's parents being nobodies was the best way to resolve that plot thread by far.

The reason why everyone wanted her parents to be someone was to explain her ridiculous levels of power. Rey's parents being nothing MAY have worked if they wrote her better, but now it just does not work. Plus I think her being the daughter of Palpatine would have been interesting as hell. It would have added some serious weight to her joining Snoke and Kilo if she has Sith blood, it would aid the conflict between he and Luke, not to mention how the current Resistance and former Rebels would have looked at her if they found out.

Her parents being nothing is a nothing plot. It leads nowhere. They is no pay off that can lead to other story opportunities.

[name_here]

I actually think that Rey's parents being nobodies was the best way to resolve that plot thread by far.

The reason why everyone wanted her parents to be someone was to explain her ridiculous levels of power. Rey's parents being nothing MAY have worked if they wrote her better, but now it just does not work. Plus I think her being the daughter of Palpatine would have been interesting as hell. It would have added some serious weight to her joining Snoke and Kilo if she has Sith blood, it would aid the conflict between he and Luke, not to mention how the current Resistance and former Rebels would have looked at her if they found out.

Her parents being nothing is a nothing plot. It leads nowhere. They is no pay off that can lead to other story opportunities.

Her parents being nobodies, if actually followed through on all the way, is a resolution to the plot. It says that Rey isn't powerful because of her parents, and by extension that people whose parents were no one and who had nothing can change the galaxy. Which fits in with the theme they're going for with the very last shot of the film when random street orphan of no importance is telling the story of Rose and Finn and then as the street orphans disperse he holds out his hand and uses the force to pull his broomstick to him.

But they didn't actually tell us who Rey's parents are, they just had Kylo tell Rey they didn't matter. But they matter to Rey so that's not actually a resolution to the "who are Rey's Parents?" plot. It's not answering the question, it's insulting the audience for thinking the question was interesting.

Also, the mystery contributed to the plot because wanting to find out was part of why Rey left Jakku; the question matters whatever the answer is.

[Winter]

For me, the issue with Rey's parents being nobody is that the films had drawn that mystery out for far to long and it was built up, both in and out of universe, that her parents were important only for Last to come out and say that her parents were no one of any importance. If her parents were nobodies then that SHOULD have been addressed at the end of Awakens so the films could set the foundation for the rest of her character arc.

Once again, I'm forced to go back over to Mara Jade and why she is, IMO, the better of two characters. Like Rey, there is a mystery to Mara's past as Heir raises the question of who she is, why does she hate Luke and what is her connection to the Force? All of these questions are answered towards the end of Heir as Luke manages to push just the wrong button at the wrong time and she lets him know exactly who she is and why she hates him. She is one of Palpatine's personal assassin's, she was a Force user who could hear and carry out Palpatine's commands from anywhere in the galaxy and after Palpatine's death and the fall of the Empire she was forced to go on the run and come which pretty much ruined her life.

All this takes about 1 or 2 minutes to go over and it helps to set up her journey for the rest of the series as Heir got the questions out of the way and spent the rest of the Trilogy developing her character. Over with DST it took 2 movies just to get a basic answer of who Rey's parents were and it's less then a minute of dialogue that doesn't answer ANY of the questions we had about her.

How is she so strong in the Force, what's her connection to Luke, why do Han and Leia treat her like a daughter the moment they met her, why is Ren so obsessed with her, why does she fall for Ren's BS over Luke's when the two have barely known each other for a day and how does she know how the use a lightsaber so well?

Her parents being junkies who sold their kid for a fix doesn't answer ANY OF THIS!!! In fact the Only explanation we get for why she is so good with her powers is that because of her Force Bond with Ren but this is bad because A) I had to looking through subliminally material in order to find out about this which is something you should NEVER do. And B) It undercuts Rey's character and what little growth she has as none of the abilities she uses are her own but rather is something she stole from someone else who did all the hard work.

Mara's skills in Legends are ones she earned after Years of training, both before and After she became a Jedi. She was skilled as skilled as she was with a Lightsaber because she trained with one since she first learned how to walk and she's powerful in the Force because she was trained in it for her whole life.

Rey's powers are ones she stole and the writers are allowing her to take the short cut at every opportunity. In other words, Rey is taking the quick and easy way to power instead of dedicating her mind and body to learning the ways of the Jedi which is peace of mind and hard work. In other words, the filmmakers are taking the lessons of the Sith and applying it to the light side of the Force.

One argument I've heard in defense of Rey and why she is so powerful is because she is a Grey Jedi and thus is more powerful then a Sith or Jedi... Except that's not how it works. Speaking from my own personal experience Grey Jedi's often came off as less powerful then most Sith or Jedi because they could never fully commit to either side. A Grey Jedi may, for example, be able to use Force Lightning and Force Heal but both are usually weaker then what a Sith or Jedi can do with those respective powers. The reason for this is, as I remember, they could not fully embrace hate for the Force Lightning to really hurt anyone and they were filled with to much hate really heal anyone.

While one can become and remain grey your power would always be dwarfed by those who had fully embraced either the Dark or Light sides of the Force.

One explanation the films try to get in is that the Force Choose Rey to be Ren's equal because she was the one destined to stop him. While the Force is stated to be self aware it was, in both the films and the original EU, incapable of Giving Powers to anyone both sides would have to learn how to use these powers.

And this remained true in Star Wars Rebels where Ezra and Kadan required years of training to get to where they are. Even Sabine, someone who was trained how to fight with several different weapons, was clearly out matched by characters who WERE trained how to use a lightsaber and was shown to be out classed by Kadan who had the Force on his side and was trained for years.

This is why many fans, myself included, find Rebels to be the best of the Disney Era so far, as it has stuck the closest to the core themes of Star Wars. I still find it to be a bit weaker, especially when compared to both Clone Wars series but it's characters would have fit right alongside the characters from the Lucas Era. Which makes sense as most of the writers from that series worked on The Clone Wars which was clearly a huge part of the Lucas Era.

[Worffan101]

I actually think that Rey's parents being nobodies was the best way to resolve that plot thread by far.

At the moment it feels weird to see her going into a mystical cave for the force to oh so enchantingly say in particular, nothing. As an alley oop from Abrams to Johnson, I just don't get it.

That, yeah. We should've at least had a vision, something less rooted in obscure metaphor maybe. As-is the mirror thing lacks the impact of Luke seeing his own face in Vader's helmet.

The core problem is that, while saying "You don't need some mystical bloodline to be strong in the Force" is a good message and in keeping with the Buddhism-as-preached-to-Americans spiritualism of the Force in its original concept, TLJ is a movie with such an ass-backwards structure that the plotline doesn't have the time to fully develop and so it comes off as generic and boring and fails Rey and any fans she might have.