So much this. TFA may have been "just ok" on many levels, but to me it literally contained zero cringe moments, and TLJ had like...eleven. This by itself is gonna make TLJ 100% unwatchable for me, while I'm sure I'll continue to throw TFA on for a fun watch now and again over the years.

You can't just average out the good and bad parts and come up with a number to say that TLJ was better (and I pretty much disagree with jmakin on this point anyway), it doesn't work that way with movies.

counterpoint: they freed the llama camels in TLJ

It would be fine to reverse the order and doing the impossibly perfect satire AFTER the straight telling of a proto-fascist hero story, but doing it this way....


It already got ethered, man.

Cinema studies majors will debate for centuries whether Rose's line about that was a joke that didn't land or a sincere radical animal rights shift in the trilogy.

I disagree. They'd published a million books before selling to Disney and a lot of them had nothing to do with lightsabers or the Force. They can do just about anything they want. They literally have an entire galaxy to work with.

Yeah this is obviously a very nerd take but the Thrawn books built a believably galaxy-wide conflict between the young and struggling New Republic and the scattered Imperial loyalists. It's not impossible. There's a reason there's a whole EU for Star Wars but not other settings, and it's because it's such a blank slate.

I think there's definitely a ton that can be done with different stories and settings, but one problem is that they've hamstrung themselves with the technology/ships/etc. that just get trotted out as slightly different versions depending on the timeline. It's kind of been established that this is a galaxy full of developed civilizations that all know each other and share the same tech, and that hurts them creatively.

Compare that to Star Trek, for example, which has been very open about having crazy **** spring up anywhere that has developed independent of known civilizations, and is willing to throw in the kitchen sink scientifically (Telepathic creatures that live in the vacuum of space? Weird time loops? Sure why not), and you just have a ton more possibilities for the sci-fi part of your adventure. ST is also hit and miss, but you can get a ton more mileage out of that universe.

Apparently Star Wars is telling me to dye my hair purple and kill myself.

http://www.starwars.com/news/quiz-wh...racter-are-you

Lucas really ****ed things up with his 'canon' bull****.

So, all the novels material is out, now? No Thrawn movies, ever.

Thrawn only exists in books but he's a strong enough character that he's known to the fan base.

So he's dumped, and Disney makes a directionless flop the fans hate, full of pointless, boring characters.

This is a microcosm of what sucks about big-studio Hollywood.

Thrawn is canon in the Rebels animated show now. Set several years prior to the novels, but still canon.

I know very little about it but I think the guy they hired to write a script actually wrote something very good. It was then thrown out and Disneyfied.


loled

This show is better than all of the new movies imo. I think there's plenty of room for more stuff in this universe.

if that s true they really need to fire that woman who is destroying the franchise.
There s an obvious huge management problem when you see how they cannot deal with their directores/actors and yet still greenlight ****.

I should know not to make factual statements in this thread.

Anyway, Thrawn (and Mara Jade) proves that there is room for all kinds of creativity in the Lucasverse.

Will Disney allow it? Doubtful

Don't buy into the conspiracy theory at all here. If bolded were true, we wouldn't be seeing a Han Solo backstory movie. I think there's a general school of thought popular at the moment that subverting expectations for its own sake is clever storytelling. I think someone posted earlier that TLJ is essentially a series of "gotcha!" moments where expectations are confounded. Oh you thought Snoke/Rey's parents/Luke's lightsaber would be important? Gotcha! You thought Finn and Asian Woman's plan would work and they'd be the heroes? BOOM SUBVERTED! The moral ambiguity stuff is more of the same imo, did the Jedis REALLY bring peace and justice to the galaxy? QUESTION EVERYTHING!

I don't think Disney has a master plan, I think they're just throwing **** against the wall. I think they have a vague awareness that they need more creativity in the franchise, but little idea how to go about it.

I haven't read the Thrawn series but, um, isn't it essentially the original characters vs a new Dark Lord? More to it than that, I know, but that's the basic plot?

Genius without any force powers outwits the OT heroes at every turn. New pivotal EU characters are introduced (including Mara Jade), who mostly no longer exist since Disney now.

I actually prefer the 10+ book Vong series. Would have liked to have seen something in that direction.

Would've been much better to have some sort of Alien dark force from the far reaches of space coming into the galaxy to challenge the New Republic + Luke/New Jedi.

Instead we get Empire 2.0 with comedy leaders and angry brat supreme leader who still smashes up things when angry, he probably still pees the bed.

Which was exactly what the Vong storyline was.

Yeah I just read your post. I read all the books as a teenager and I'm aware of the Vong storyline but I haven't read them, don't think I've read a Star Wars book in 10+ years. Some of them are really great, some I could barely finish. I remember enjoying the Rogue Squadron books, they make things work well without the main characters.

IMO Disney are paying the price for abandoning the EU, they literally have no idea what to do so we end up with Waterfront Las Vegas and dull fleet chase.

That really seems like the logical progression of the story, it is still very vague as to why this First Order has been allowed to become so powerful and where the hell the Rebel/New Republic's fleets are.

I get that by the time Disney took over the EU had grown out of control and was very convoluted. The sheer size of the Vong storyline alone is a huge commitment from the reader, not to mention what came after it and then all the comics. Still wish they would have kept some aspects of it though...or at least more than just Han & Leia's son goes bad.

I think they could have explained it all easily, just keep it vague in the opening scroll of Ep 7

"Many challenges have come and gone since ROTJ" (better worded obv)

Then they would be free to pick and choose the best of the EU to serve as a creative base.

TLJ was an audition for Rian Johnson to be one of the new creators. He nailed it and has been rewarded with more work. He should replace Abrams.

It'd be really stupid to continue the EU in film/TV because those books are very heavily reliant on characters played by aging (and dead) actors.

The New Republic did not see the First Order as a threat. If it did, it wanted to pretend it wasn't. The New Republic chancellor being named Lanever Villecham is an obvious allusion. It had also undergone a massive demilitarization and disarmament effort so that it wouldn't have a large military that could be co-opted by another Palpatine. A significant part of the New Republic fleet was in the Hosnian system when the Starkiller base was used. Leia founded the Resistance because the Senate wouldn't do anything about the First Order..

It's not like they can't mine the EU for material. As pointed out, they used Thrawn in the cartoon. I think they've also used planets and species that first appeared in the EU.

Watched it a second time. Many things got better. A few worse.

Poe is just an insubordinate hotheaded dumbass who both Leia and Dern are trying to coach up but he’s too stupid to get the lessons and applies them incorrectly.

Hans dice Luke brought were an illusion also

Rey still needs so much more screen time.

The Kylo going evil at the end, which kinda still wastes some amazing work sowing doubt, is more believable hearing the dialogue another time.

The whole “the resistance and future force users will be commoners” thread is more clear and even heavy handed. The little kid at the end uses the force on his Broom.

Finn still is a waste to me. Rose was really well aged.

I simply don’t get the hate for Leia saving herself from death unless it’s just the slightly weird CGI.

The humor was really good and not even that much. Other than the over the top opener it’s gotta be less than other SW films.

Still needed an editor and less forced suspension of disbelief with the super slow 18-hour space chase.

Man all they had to do to make salt planet not look like Hoth was make it warm and change some damn clothes and stormtrooper outfits and maybe some non-AtAts