Making Sense of The Rise of SkyWalker's Story

[TGLS]

I think there was a plan. It may have been a generalized plan, like what to do with the characters, maybe even proposed storyline for the two sequels after TFW.

I'll put money on JJ not having a plan. 1) He wasn't contracted for a trilogy, just the first film of the trilogy. 2) It doesn't fit his writing style form Lost onwards. He writes a story, and fills it with questions, which breakdown into smaller questions. This is moderately common, and helps breed engagement (just look at most prestige television these days, fans spend all their time guess where it's going).

That's why there was so much hype for TLJ. Then Disney brought in Johnson. Either he was too clever by half or nobody considered the hype. He decided that he would try something different; answer all the questions with "No", "Who Cares" or "That's a Stupid Question". Mystery box writing is basically improv; answer "Yes and," or "Yes but" not "No" or "What are you on about". Could a TLJ style "No" story work? Maybe if it was the last in the trilogy, when you stop adding more questions.

ROS comes next, and for whatever reason JJ doesn't want to write a story that goes "The Resistance gets back together and smashes the First Order under Kylo Ren." Maybe he liked the questions he rose in TFA too much, maybe fan reaction fed into it. Anyway, he goes and twists the answers from TLJ into pretzels and writes something that makes little sense.

Well crafted mystery boxes look like they're going somewhere, but it's only at the end. It's like Guess Who, except they other player is just answering questions at random. Eventually there's only one answer, and people can feel smart when rewatching.

[McAvoy]

I think there was a plan. It may have been a generalized plan, like what to do with the characters, maybe even proposed storyline for the two sequels after TFW.

I'll put money on JJ not having a plan. 1) He wasn't contracted for a trilogy, just the first film of the trilogy. 2) It doesn't fit his writing style form Lost onwards. He writes a story, and fills it with questions, which breakdown into smaller questions. This is moderately common, and helps breed engagement (just look at most prestige television these days, fans spend all their time guess where it's going).

That's why there was so much hype for TLJ. Then Disney brought in Johnson. Either he was too clever by half or nobody considered the hype. He decided that he would try something different; answer all the questions with "No", "Who Cares" or "That's a Stupid Question". Mystery box writing is basically improv; answer "Yes and," or "Yes but" not "No" or "What are you on about". Could a TLJ style "No" story work? Maybe if it was the last in the trilogy, when you stop adding more questions.

ROS comes next, and for whatever reason JJ doesn't want to write a story that goes "The Resistance gets back together and smashes the First Order under Kylo Ren." Maybe he liked the questions he rose in TFA too much, maybe fan reaction fed into it. Anyway, he goes and twists the answers from TLJ into pretzels and writes something that makes little sense.

Well crafted mystery boxes look like they're going somewhere, but it's only at the end. It's like Guess Who, except they other player is just answering questions at random. Eventually there's only one answer, and people can feel smart when rewatching.

Mind you like I said before I think Abrams is an overrated director and should be considered in the same league as Michael Bay.

But I do think there were notes or ideas left behind. There have been reports (as far as I remember) during and after The Last Jedi saying that there was something left behind by Abrams but Rian Johnson went his own way. I might be wrong about that though.

Abrams never answers questions or makes tight stories. Look at his two Trek movies. He doesn't make intelligent movies he makes movies for the 'mindless' masses. Just like Michael Bay.

[Captain Crimson]

You CAN'T make sense of it because it was never planned.

Sorry for the double post.

Last thought before signing off tonight. I will contend with you, clearspira. I think they did have a plan in mind. And I would like to have a cordial debate with you on this tomorrow. Been busy lately with RL stuff, but as it stands, I am inclined to believe them on this. It was just executed very badly.

Looking forward to an engaging conversation with you tomorrow!

I think there was a plan. It may have been a generalized plan, like what to do with the characters, maybe even proposed storyline for the two sequels after TFW. But I think that was thrown out the window Rian Johnson was given free reign to do what he wanted with TLJ. Criticism of that movie and criticism of TFW being a copy of ANH coupled with the failure of Solo made them change plans.

If the behind the scenes rumors are 100% true then TRS was a huge mess with too many cooks. I doubt Palpatine was part of the original plans from the start.

Let's be honest, the Original Trilogy was constantly changing as we all know. But they took their time in wiriting those movies and took the time to iron out the storyline issues as well.

I have a negative bias against Abrams, but I do think he was part of the problem as well.

I hate to keep going back to the EU, but I am an old EU loyalist. And I think the general management of the ST smacks of Mr. Filoni's style on TCW but of a much larger scale. Ms. Kennedy even confirms she goes to him for SW lore advice. I can grab the article if anyone is interested in it. Ms. Kennedy is a savvy businesswoman, and I think the hate against her is overblown and indeed sexist. I think she saved the EU from more lore-breaking retcons, since of the original elements Mr. Filoni makes, they are very bizarre and he has no emphasis on continuity. He's about on par with Mr. Lucas as a writer, except Mr. Lucas aspires to grandness and Mr. Filoni doesn't. You have issues with the lore from the ST, it's all on Mr. Filoni's head, IMO.

I say there was a plan since I think the decanonizing of the EU was coming long before 2014. And with his experience from getting criticism on TCW, I think Mr. Filoni would have known it was coming and told Ms. Kennedy and possibly even Mr. Iger. Who can say. We do know he was deeply involved with the planning sessions thanks to the new sourcebooks for the ST. And my impression is that they felt "recanonizing" not just certain characters, but wholesale entire plotlines would help calm that down, with a fast-track to easy success by putting in the least amount of effort.

It really does fit the management style for how TCW was managed with Mr. Filoni as producer and director. The DC seems custom-built around TCW as the basis, TBH. In this instance, they grafted the plotlines from Jedi Prince, Dark Empire, and era of LOTF/FOTJ. You know, with the whole relative of Palpatine thing (from Jedi Prince, as that was thought to be Trioculus, who was quickly thrown to the side so they could say, "Nyehahehah, nah, it's Triclops, suckers!" in an almost identical fate to Snoke), and with Palpatine's return (from Dark Empire), and where the ST picks up could mirror where the EU left off almost exactly. Rey is just Jaina Solo, Kylo Ren/Ben Solo is a weird fusion of Jacen Solo, but also Ben Skywalker, Revan, and Kybo Ren from the Marvel comics, except it is also fused on to the OT. Bleeding H! I mean, even the much-polarizing characterization of Luke in TLJ was just a severely overblown exaggeration of that one moment from Crystal Star, which makes one wonder how much creative control Mr. Johnson truly was in possession of.

Nothing this calculated or this overall structured could come about by random chance. And we know that Disney canned a sourcebook for TFA. So we have no clue what went on behind-the-scenes past a small glimpse. Except casuals will never know the extent to the grafting job done here, since my view is that Mr. Filoni had wanted to keep the names for iconic characters, and just "recanonize" them into the Disney canon, like he aspired to for the EU while working on TCW, but Disney doesn't wanna shill out royalties for products that high on the totem pole (big-budget movies), which would include the original EU authors and Mr. Lucas, thus, they changed it. Again, Jacen Solo or Ben Skywalker being a prime example, since Disney could rename him Kylo Ren (similar to Kybo Ren to put butts into seats), and it is not the first time Mr. Filoni has had experience with writing characters he can't use because they were dead, such as Eeth Koth.

In summary, the ST and indeed, DC in general is just a poor man's version of the EU, and honestly half-retelling/reboot/rehash, half-eccentric ideas and PC themes. That's how I see it. The plan was always to just look to the EU for what to steal rather than adapting those stories. For all the trouble they went to, it would be far easier to bring back the old guard and give them a separate production line making more SWL stories. Mr. Karpyshyn, for example, is still willing to write, but they won't let him. So what do I know?