Star Wars: Episode 7, 8... and BEYOND!

[Super Mario]

As for the end of the movie as well as a reflection on shit:

Spoiler

So liek, most of the Rebellion is dead; we know Carrie Fisher is gone so fuck knows what they're going to do with the leader of it in the next movie. There was Talk of some cells in the Outer Rims, but I've no clue what the scale of those are.

I'm also not sure how big the First Order is, but let's just assume they own most of the galaxy; the force going after the remains of the Rebellion felt pretty small in this movie. (also couldn't they just warp in some faster ships? I've no sense of time and distance in Star Wars)

Anyway er. I wasn't really going anywhere with that. What I wanted to bring up is the fite between good and evil and shit. Sure, the last jedi (plus the books, so effectively the whole religion) has finally died - although tbf it had been effectively dead for 30 years, with Luke being the last one and having been in full recluse mode (spending his days fierljeppen and chugging milk).

I'm not really feeling that the First Order are like evil and shit, there's not been a lot of exposure in the movies beyond maybe the opening scenes of ep VII that they're dicks when they're looking for rebels. But again let's assume they are I guess.

er. Oh yeah, what my point was: it was pointed out multiple times in the movie(s) that there must be balance in the force and shit. I for one am fairly sure that that kinda happens automagically, because else the universe would implode. and shit. It would also be a mechanic to use in relative "power levels" as discussed earlier - like, if there's an imbalance in the force, some people become stronger to compensate. Not directly but still.

So like in this case: Snoke and Kylo are teh strong, so to compensate Rey becomes force sensitive and stronger than Luke was in the previous trilogy. Snoke dies, balance returns a bit. Luke dies, moar balance. I think you kinda see the most balance the less force users are around, so, best balance would be having no force users. You can also kinda see this in the prequels, where there seems to be a lot more conflict - also thanks to there being a lot more jedi and sith and shith.

But anyway all that is just speculation, and I'm fairly sure it's only a smol slice of the SW universe that we get to see in each installment.

Also I'm not confident about the build quality of a lot of droids in the Star Wars universe, they look wonky as fuck

Spoiler

I think that they're mostly gonna have to start a grassroots-type recruitment focused by helping out the folks who're oppressed an' shit like the Force Kid, so that they'll be able to make it harder for the First Order to keep hold of places. One of the as-of-yet unaddressed issues from the Prequel trilogy is that the Empire came about as a result of the Republic being utterly shit at being unable to respond to injustices taking place in the galaxy, and the New Republic is clearly not that great at it either before it's blasted into oblivion. If the First Order does actually bring ORDER, people are going to be less concerned about the fact that it's incredibly totalitarian and oppressive.

The balance thing does come into play with the Force, and it's sort of why Luke wants to end the Jedi, since he feels that they're inherently polarizing, whereas Rey sees them as a universally recognized symbol of hope, rather than the dogmatic failures that they actually had been. (This is actually low-key called out in the recent Mace Windu comic, too). It'll be interesting to see where things grow from there.

Spoiler

I saw them page turner books when Finn was attending to Rose. Can confirm the Jedi legacies can live on but the Sith are sure as hell fucked once Lord Vader literally body slammed Darth Sidious to oblivion

Spoiler

Yup. Both are also technically a line of succession, which means that if Ben went and found Sith texts, he'd be a NuSith or something, because when Vader & Palpatine died, the Sith ended. Same would've happened if Luke hadn't passed on the title to Rey.

X

Spoiler

if Star Wars Rebels is to be seen, isnt the Sith temple destroyed when Vader and Asohka went 1 v 1 and Kanaan and Ezra escaped? I dont remember Season 2 but if that temple is destroyed how can Ben resurrect Sith? Then again I am sure he doesnt need that since he wants the past dead so badly

 

[X-SOLDIER]

@Clement Rage: I'm on my phone, and I want to avoid a quote-storm on this one, so this is a more brief reply.

You're misunderstanding the focus of that statement about the Skywalkers. The Legends EU were all heavily shaped by the Skywalker lineage, so it very much was a thing. No one's saying other Force Users haven't/won't exist outside of that bloodline, or that the Skywalkers were never bested. However, the Skywalkers were always treated like the psuedo Royal Family of the Force users throughout the old EU, and were firmly placed at the top of who could do what with the Force post-RotJ. This seems to be specifically working to reshape that future for the new canon, and tell more stories about Force users outside of the Skywalker family so that not everything is constrained by that specific legacy.

Also, the Episodic series of Star Wars being called "The Skywalker Saga" by George Lucas is what makes the Episodic films need to be about the Skywalkers & their legacy. It COULD have opened with Leia in the Senate (as that was literally the original opening of TFA, before they altered the script so that her first on-screen reveal to be when she met Han), or Luke training Jedi, but they moved the story forward from then to a different conflict that took place after that.

Also, I'd love to hear your logical, thematic, & continuity issues about TLJ, especially if they're not something I mentioned in my big tl;dr, since that's definitely been my jam lately, and I'm always looking for more thoughts on it.




@Super Mario: That comment was really just a hypothetical to make the point that the Sith definitively died with Vader & Sidious.




X

 

[Kuja9001]

Saw the film last night and the following annoyed me.

Rose

Spoiler

Lack of backstory and anything of importance for Finn yet again.

Spoiler

Luke's character being destroyed

Rey being Rey.

 

[Lulcielid]

Spoiler

Lack of backstory and anything of importance for Finn yet again.

Spoiler: About Finn

While true that we don't get extra backstory for Finn he does get something of importance, an arc about committing to a cause (rebellion againts the First Order) beyond only caring of himself and Rey and ignoring the large picture in the galaxy

 

[Dark and Divine]

An interesting article:

The Last Jedi’ Is the Most Intellectual ‘Star Wars’ Movie

 

[Charles Xavier]

And it appears that Rian Johnson is planning to shoot another SW film this year.

https://geektyrant.com/news/rian-jo...ginal-star-wars-trilogy-this-year-in-scotland

Holy Christ. Talk about being proactive, but thoughts?

 

[Clement Rage]

You're misunderstanding the focus of that statement about the Skywalkers. The Legends EU were all heavily shaped by the Skywalker lineage, so it very much was a thing. No one's saying other Force Users haven't/won't exist outside of that bloodline, or that the Skywalkers were never bested. However, the Skywalkers were always treated like the psuedo Royal Family of the Force users throughout the old EU, and were firmly placed at the top of who could do what with the Force post-RotJ. This seems to be specifically working to reshape that future for the new canon, and tell more stories about Force users outside of the Skywalker family so that not everything is constrained by that specific legacy.

I don't think that's what most people are arguing. That Kojima article linked upthread talks about 'democratisation of the hero' without mentioning the EU at all. Neither does this article, which namedrops people with no special lineage as people that have special lineage. There's a lot of similar commentary, and the EU is rarely or not mentioned at all in most that I've seen (and I've been reading through a fair amount in the last couple of weeks.)

Also, the Episodic series of Star Wars being called "The Skywalker Saga" by George Lucas is what makes the Episodic films need to be about the Skywalkers & their legacy.

You know, I had no idea that the main instalments were meant to be 'the Skywalker Saga', to me they were just the Star Wars films. I'm still not seeing it as impossible to pass the torch without killing the old generation and destroying everything they worked for. (New Republic, Leia's life's work-poof, gone, New Jedi Order, Luke's life's work, poof, gone.) That was a choice, not a necessity. The newcanon has already thrown out plenty of stuff, why is that such an unbreakable rule?

This is not me dying in defence of the EU, by the way, as I never really paid attention to it.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Part of the necessity, if I had to guess, comes from the actors' aging. When it was just the EU and an artist could draw Luke and Leia looking however old, it was no big deal for fans to expect more Luke and Leia for as long as there was an EU.

When everyone -- hardcore fan or casual moviegoer -- is expecting the Skywalkers on the big screen, and when everyone is as resistant to recasting as we all tend to be, those characters become as much a liability as a selling point.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

An interesting article:

The Last Jedi’ Is the Most Intellectual ‘Star Wars’ Movie

I couldn't agree more with that.

And it appears that Rian Johnson is planning to shoot another SW film this year.

https://geektyrant.com/news/rian-jo...ginal-star-wars-trilogy-this-year-in-scotland

Holy Christ. Talk about being proactive, but thoughts?

I'd always expected him to start on it soon, but I'll move this over to the appropriate thread.

You're misunderstanding the focus of that statement about the Skywalkers. The Legends EU were all heavily shaped by the Skywalker lineage, so it very much was a thing. No one's saying other Force Users haven't/won't exist outside of that bloodline, or that the Skywalkers were never bested. However, the Skywalkers were always treated like the psuedo Royal Family of the Force users throughout the old EU, and were firmly placed at the top of who could do what with the Force post-RotJ. This seems to be specifically working to reshape that future for the new canon, and tell more stories about Force users outside of the Skywalker family so that not everything is constrained by that specific legacy.

I don't think that's what most people are arguing. That Kojima article linked upthread talks about 'democratisation of the hero' without mentioning the EU at all. Neither does this article, which namedrops people with no special lineage as people that have special lineage. There's a lot of similar commentary, and the EU is rarely or not mentioned at all in most that I've seen (and I've been reading through a fair amount in the last couple of weeks.)

There's plenty to go from just with the fact that Luke & Leia were the only Force-users we know of at the end of RotJ, and the entire legacy of the Jedi lies with Luke. Then when the prequels gave us Anakin as literal (evil) Space Jesus who wiped out all of the other Force users in the galaxy alongside Sidious (and then eventually destroyed both of them as well), RotJ left us in a very Skywalker-centric setting that the latest trilogy is starting to unpack and hand back to the rest of the galaxy.

Also, the Episodic series of Star Wars being called "The Skywalker Saga" by George Lucas is what makes the Episodic films need to be about the Skywalkers & their legacy.

You know, I had no idea that the main instalments were meant to be 'the Skywalker Saga', to me they were just the Star Wars films. I'm still not seeing it as impossible to pass the torch without killing the old generation and destroying everything they worked for. (New Republic, Leia's life's work-poof, gone, New Jedi Order, Luke's life's work, poof, gone.) That was a choice, not a necessity. The newcanon has already thrown out plenty of stuff, why is that such an unbreakable rule?

This is not me dying in defence of the EU, by the way, as I never really paid attention to it.

I mean.. I don't really know what to say for that first part. It's just the way the Episodic Star Wars films are designed. It just is what it is given who the main players are, especially after RotJ. The Prequels are how we went from a shitton of Jedi to only the Skywalkers, Sidious, Yoda, & Obi-Wan. The OT is about how Luke saved his dad, and took the Skywalker Legacy to live on with himself & his sister. Then the new trilogy is about how that legacy slowly moves back to a larger group of people again. At the end of the day, it's still all about the Skywalkers and how they impacted the galaxy, especially inosfar as the Force users are concerned.

The EU being gone as a transition to Disney is the best thing to happen to Star Wars. EVER – And this is coming from someone who generally enjoyed a large amount of the stories told there, but it REALLY needed a new sandbox to play in if it was ever going to grow. Also, the EU grew during a time when the cast were all still relatively young (like Tres said), and where they & their offspring were still the central characters. The new trilogy is really breaking up that mold quite a bit before it starts moving farther into the future.

That all being said – this is exactly why they started immediately doing the Anthology films and letting Rian Johnson do his own Trilogy, and starting to break away from the core Star Wars universe that we're familiar with more and more.





X

 

[Clement Rage]

The EU being gone as a transition to Disney is the best thing to happen to Star Wars. EVER – And this is coming from someone who generally enjoyed a large amount of the stories told there, but it REALLY needed a new sandbox to play in if it was ever going to grow.

This much I agree on.

There's plenty to go from just with the fact that Luke & Leia were the only Force-users we know of at the end of RotJ, and the entire legacy of the Jedi lies with Luke. Then when the prequels gave us Anakin as literal (evil) Space Jesus who wiped out all of the other Force users in the galaxy alongside Sidious (and then eventually destroyed both of them as well), RotJ left us in a very Skywalker-centric setting that the latest trilogy is starting to unpack and hand back to the rest of the galaxy.

It was only Skywalker centric because newcanon chose it to be. They chose to have the first new generation fail to produce any new Force Users by the time TFA came around.

Return of The Jedi as a title implies that more Force Users are going to, y'know, return. That actively promotes the idea of non Skywalker Force Users, it doesn't limit it. TFA limited Force Users to the Skywalkers (and Rey), not any film before it.

And now TLJ is being presented as a break from the idea that lineage was the only thing that's important, when that was never part of the canon in the first place. Anakin is a subversion of the trope, that is now being presented as though it was played straight. Anakin's lineage was perfect, a literal child of the Force...and he failed, over and over and over again. He lost both his climactic fights. He ended the prequels as a ball of fire with no limbs. That is not and was not a story about how lineage was the only thing that was important, that only Skywalkers could shape the galaxy (which in itself requires ignoring the enormous role of Palpatine). There are a lot of thinkpieces celebrating how now thanks to TLJ the force isn't limited to a specific lineage, when that was never actually the case to begin with.

Part of the necessity, if I had to guess, comes from the actors' aging. When it was just the EU and an artist could draw Luke and Leia looking however old, it was no big deal for fans to expect more Luke and Leia for as long as there was an EU.

I feel like they're more of a liability now, because a significant amount of the base doesn't like the 'kill em all' approach. I think it might have been better received to move them out of the spotlight as necessary. Not many people actually dislike the new characters (Rey is somewhat controversial re power level, but nobody really hates her as a character) People are broadly okay with the focus being on new characters, but many didn't like the decision to kill so many of the old ones.

Thread be advised: "Shut the fuck up!" is acceptable to say to me at all times.

Random Aside: I watched 'Attack of the Clones' recently. It's actually pretty good. I'm sincere. Granted I never really understood prequel hate.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

It was only Skywalker centric because newcanon chose it to be. They chose to have the first new generation fail to produce any new Force Users by the time TFA came around.

Return of The Jedi as a title implies that more Force Users are going to, y'know, return. That actively promotes the idea of non Skywalker Force Users, it doesn't limit it. TFA limited Force Users to the Skywalkers (and Rey), not any film before it.

And now TLJ is being presented as a break from the idea that lineage was the only thing that's important, when that was never part of the canon in the first place. Anakin is a subversion of the trope, that is now being presented as though it was played straight. Anakin's lineage was perfect, a literal child of the Force...and he failed, over and over and over again. He lost both his climactic fights. He ended the prequels as a ball of fire with no limbs. That is not and was not a story about how lineage was the only thing that was important, that only Skywalkers could shape the galaxy (which in itself requires ignoring the enormous role of Palpatine). There are a lot of thinkpieces celebrating how now thanks to TLJ the force isn't limited to a specific lineage, when that was never actually the case to begin with.

It's not just because the new canon chose it to be that way. The Episodic Star Wars films have always told stories with different characters, but the central figures of the those Episodic Films have always been Skywalkers. Regardless of their level of success or failure at their tasks – they're the key players in the films, and the ones whose actions have the largest lasting impacts on the future of the Galaxy by the end of the third film.

• Episodes IV, V, & VI are the stories ultimately centered around Luke.
• Episodes I, II, & III are the stories ultimately centered around Anakin.

That's how they were even before the current Episode VII was even conceived. They're the stories about the Skywalkers. That's why the initial stories George Lucas came up with were called the Journal of the Whills – about some other being recording these specific tales and retelling them, and the Whills eventually became the concept for the Force. On that note, let's just restructure this with a comparative analogy to a film series that actually follows through with that storytelling mechanism.

Films about tales told in Middle Earth.

• Episodes IV, V, & VI are the stories ultimately centered around Frodo.
• Episodes I, II, & III are the stories ultimately centered around Bilbo.

The "Lord of the Rings" & "The Hobbit" are ultimately Frodo & Bilbo's stories being told through recorded journals. Yes, there are other stories and characters that take place in and around them, but the tales in the Red Book are ultimately those of the two members of the Baggins family and the legacy they had on all of Middle Earth. If there were ever a "Middle Earth: Episode VII" it would have a Baggins at the center (or a Gamgee since technically Frodo already handed off his family legacy to Sam when he passed into the West) – and if there weren't one there it wouldn't make sense for it to be "Episode VII" since it's not a continuation of their story.

You're more than welcome to make "A Middle Earth Story" films from "The Silmarillion", or "Children of Húrin", or "The White Council", or "Tom Bombadil & Goldberry" all you like. However, none of those is "Middle Earth: Episode VII" – even if they were chronologically able to be. An "Episode VII" carries an expectation of the preexisting legacy of the central thread that Episodes I-VI contained. In Middle Earth, it's the Baggins, and in Star Wars, it's the Skywalkers

Analogy over. Back to Star Wars.

That's why the Skywalkers are always the key characters in "Episode __" regardless of what's happening or who else is involved. It's always the Skywalkers who are the central pivotal figures in what's happening, as their legacy is the thread that all the stories are linked together by. Regardless of whether or not there are or were other Force Users of any varying power level, the Episodic Star Wars Saga films are theirs, and it's ALWAYS been that way.

As soon as they decided to make "Episode VII" they're back into the story that belongs to the Skywalkers, the "Skywalker Saga" and where that thread is going however many years later.


Now, their lineage has always been important since The Empire Strikes Back revealed that Luke was the child of Darth Vader, and then Return of the Jedi revealed that Leia was also his child. That gets further reinforced when we learn that in The Phantom Menace that Anakin is an off-the-charts-midi-chlorian-anomalous-space-Jesus, and that since it's discernible via a blood test that he's genetically passing down some of that now-OP heritage to his kids. Sure there would be other Force Users, but anyone else coming into this world is coming into a Jedi legacy that's controlled by the Skywalker family – and the EU was absolutely DOMINATED by that sort of storytelling. Anakin, Jacen, & Jaina were MASSIVE forces in the EU, and the Skywalkers were always the litmus test to push Force Users' capabilities – since no one was ever going to be stronger than a Force User who's dad was literally conceived by the Force itself. They were always the apparent royal family of Force Users, because it all boiled down to the fact that at the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke was the only living & most powerful Jedi anywhere – exacerbated when the Prequels made his father even MORE exceptionally powerful with the Force.

That's why The Last Jedi is getting as much attention as it is for taking big steps to break that mold, because

Spoiler

none of the other Episodic Films has moved the needle that far away from the Skywalkers within their own story. While Rey's Force powers make her a balance to Ben, he doesn't directly carry the Skywalker name (as Ben Solo OR as Kylo Ren), and Rey carries the power of their Force Legacy, but not their bloodline. They're a balance of those two elements that's definitively redistributing that legacy beyond just their family, and helping it to depart being trapped in a strict lineage.

I feel like they're more of a liability now, because a significant amount of the base doesn't like the 'kill em all' approach. I think it might have been better received to move them out of the spotlight as necessary. Not many people actually dislike the new characters (Rey is somewhat controversial re power level, but nobody really hates her as a character) People are broadly okay with the focus being on new characters, but many didn't like the decision to kill so many of the old ones.

Thread be advised: "Shut the fuck up!" is acceptable to say to me at all times.

Random Aside: I watched 'Attack of the Clones' recently. It's actually pretty good. I'm sincere. Granted I never really understood prequel hate.

Issue with that is that it's hard to exclude anyone, or move them out of the spotlight any other way (everyone's still constantly buzzing and asking where the hell Lando is as an example).

Upon rewatching them again in December, I hold to that the Prequels are all films that are fundamentally just about as good as the original trilogy. The only issues are that they truly suffer from are George Lucas' total lack of editing skills (which include his need to inject slapstick and humor when the films don't need it). After watching a little thing about how the original Star Wars was saved in the edit, it makes it really apparent that the only issue is that George Lucas is an excellent world builder and story-creator, but lacks skills as an editor to be a good storyTELLER. (And why Fan Edits are always something that works to make the films better).





X

 

[Mage]

Relevant: comments have been made about how Rey uses the Force but she'll never be Obi-Wan-duking-it-out-with-Jango-Fett-in-heavy-rain awesome. IMO anyway.

Also this which I note X has already dumped on.
https://geektyrant.com/news/rian-jo...?utm_source=gametyrant.com&utm_medium=related

 

[Ite]

@X: Isn't this trilogy primarily about Kylo? I mean, Rey's great and all, but her whole arc this movie was about him.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

@X: Isn't this trilogy primarily about Kylo? I mean, Rey's great and all, but her whole arc this movie was about him.

So... kind of.

Spoiler

It's really about both of them, which is kind of a cop-out answer, but also not. Ben's the proper "Skywalker" here – he's Leia's son trained by Luke, and struggling with attempting to embrace the Dark Side, which is something we've never seen. It's his defection from the Jedi Academy that sparked off all of the events in the Trilogy – rise of the First Order and Luke abandoning the known regions of the Galaxy. By all measures, this SHOULD just be his story and his alone.

The title of "The Force Awakens" actually refers to Rey specifically. As we learn in The Last Jedi, while she was always Force Sensitive, the reason that the Force Awakened in her with the utterly incredible level raw power that she possesses was directly as a result of Ben growing in power in the Dark Side. She arose specifically as his balance in the Force, so the story BECAME hers as a result of circumstance. (As I think that the bigger focus is how the balance works post-RotJ, what the Dark Side becomes after the Sith were destroyed, and how the Jedi overcome their overly-rigid and dogmatic roots).

The dichotomy we have here is that Rey & Ben essentially two sides to the same coin of the legacy of the Force that's impacted by the Skywalkers. She got unexpectedly pulled into all of this from nowhere, whereas he was born into it and has been surrounded by it all the time. It's hard for the story to really belong to either of them per se, but the journey we're following is Rey's – which in turns follows Ben's.


What that all ultimately means is that Ben's & Rey's stories are intrinsically & inextricably intertwined. You don't really get development of one that doesn't in turn push or pull the other. With the Force needing to be in balance, and them genuinely wanting to help the other person but wanting different things, it's difficult to tell what IX is going to bring for that conflict, or how it's destined to resolve itself – but it is SUPER interesting

X

 

[Lulcielid]

The Star Wars franchise has now passed Harry Potter at the global box office.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Spoiler

The title of "The Force Awakens" actually refers to Rey specifically. As we learn in The Last Jedi, while she was always Force Sensitive, the reason that the Force Awakened in her with the utterly incredible level raw power that she possesses was directly as a result of Ben growing in power in the Dark Side. She arose specifically as his balance in the Force, so the story BECAME hers as a result of circumstance.

To make a "Kingdom Hearts" analogy,

Spoiler

it's somewhat like when the Kingdom Key chose Sora after originally intending to pick Riku. The Light Side needed to grow, so that became the journey we went on.

 

[Clement Rage]

Issue with that is that it's hard to exclude anyone, or move them out of the spotlight any other way (everyone's still constantly buzzing and asking where the hell Lando is as an example).

I still feel like the Korra approach would have received a better response than the one we have now. Leia's backing the resistance but not as actively involved as she used to be because she has political responsibilities, Luke is training force users at a secret location because he doesn't want to be dragged into the conflict (training Jedi, not child soldiers to be exploited by either side), Han is still Han. There's d still be complaining, but I think most likely less than there is now.

I still feel like the commonly pushed narrative that TLJ somehow 'gives the Force back to the people' or 'shows that you don't have to be from a specific genetic lineage to be a powerful force user' is operating under a false premise. And it's a very common viewpoint in the reactions to the film. None of the Skywalkers ever actually were the most powerful Force User around in the setting, except Luke when all the others were dead. The idea that you need to be of this bloodline to change the galaxy was never true. Nothing was ever 'trapped'. The lineage was important to Luke, but no one else cared. This film chose to 'unlock' the Force, but newcanon is the one that closed that door in the first place.

The prequels might as well have been a giant sign saying 'bloodline alone is not enough'.

The EU doesn't matter anymore. Newcanon isn't bound by it, and none of the stuff I'm reading is mentioning it at all. Palpatine was the character with the most lasting effect on the Galaxy in the prequels.

Tolkien's incomplete sequel to LOTR was set in Gondor and starred Men. Granted, he didn't get very far in it.

Anyway, I'll shut up. I'll PM you my thoughts on themes if you like.

 

[Lulcielid]

I think @Clement's point about "The force/powerful force users comes from lineage" being a false premise is that looking at the movies alone (without considering behind the scenes ideas or word of god comments on the subject) and what they show on-screen alone, that narrative was never there, it was retroactively added by fandom after word of god said so.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Issue with that is that it's hard to exclude anyone, or move them out of the spotlight any other way (everyone's still constantly buzzing and asking where the hell Lando is as an example).

I still feel like the Korra approach would have received a better response than the one we have now. Leia's backing the resistance but not as actively involved as she used to be because she has political responsibilities, Luke is training force users at a secret location because he doesn't want to be dragged into the conflict (training Jedi, not child soldiers to be exploited by either side), Han is still Han. There's d still be complaining, but I think most likely less than there is now.

I think that's just a matter of opinion, and it really comes down to the age of the cast like Tres said. They wanted to give the big three their heroic ends to their journey, so that's the route that they took. I, for one, couldn't be happier about it.

I still feel like the commonly pushed narrative that TLJ somehow 'gives the Force back to the people' or 'shows that you don't have to be from a specific genetic lineage to be a powerful force user' is operating under a false premise. And it's a very common viewpoint in the reactions to the film. None of the Skywalkers ever actually were the most powerful Force User around in the setting, except Luke when all the others were dead. The idea that you need to be of this bloodline to change the galaxy was never true. Nothing was ever 'trapped'. The lineage was important to Luke, but no one else cared. This film chose to 'unlock' the Force, but newcanon is the one that closed that door in the first place.

The prequels might as well have been a giant sign saying 'bloodline alone is not enough'.

I think @Clement's point about "The force/powerful force users comes from lineage" being a false premise is that looking at the movies alone (without considering behind the scenes ideas or word of god comments on the subject) and what they show on-screen alone, that narrative was never there, it was retroactively added by fandom after word of god said so.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Gladly.

You can boil the entire thing down to two scenes: one in Episode I and the other in Episode VI that bookend the entire theme of the Skywalkers essentially being THE Royal Family of the Force as something that was definitively established within the films:

The concept is first introduced in Return of the Jedi with Luke's speech to Leia about,

Spoiler: The Force is strong in my family.

As the two of them are the only living children of Darth Vader, and Luke is the last Jedi – the legacy of the Jedi lies specifically with them for anything from that point on. They were pivotal in not ONLY being exceptional Force Users who held a prominent role in the shaping of the Galaxy, but were also put into the role of being the figureheads of everything that the Jedi legacy would ever be moving forward from that point. Additionally, they were the most powerful, and most trained users of the Force, since everything that had come before then was properly destroyed with the deaths of Obi-Wan, Yoda, Vader, & Sidious. The Skywalkers had officially inherited the Jedi. Full stop.

Then, when the prequels came out, Anakin was revealed to have been conceived by the Force itself – making him the most powerful Force user of any Jedi EVER in The Phantom Menace.

Spoiler: The reading is off the chart. Over 20,000. Even Master Yoda doesn't have a midi-chlorian count that high. – No Jedi has.

Whether or not anyone bested him in lightsaber combat when they had more training than he did (since the Jedi held him back intentionally out of fear) isn't really the point here. Anakin was bested by others, but (to use a term from The Last Jedi) his, "raw, untamed power" in the Force was absolutely unmatched by anyone who had ever lived in the recorded history of the Jedi. Everyone who ever bested him – Dooku, Obi-Wan, Palpatine – he eventually overcame and killed... with the SOLE exception of his son. On top of that, because of the introduction of the concept of midi-chlorians, we were given more of a basis to Luke's dialogue about, "the Force running strong in [the Skywalker] family" which essentially gifted the status of this unmatched Force potential to the Skywalker family – who came to inherit the Jedi order.

With a monopoly on both Force potential AND extant Force training, the Skywalkers were the royal family of the Force, that no one else could ever hold a candle to by the end of VI. That's where the movies placed them, without ANY EU or supplemental material at all. The legacy of the Force being funneled into a single bloodline despite everything else was what I-VI did, which is why VIII breaking away from it within that story is a big deal, because there was absolutely nothing that could've dethroned the Skywalker legacy on its own. They had EVERYTHING, and the biggest events in the Galaxy were all shaped around them.


That's why people keep talking about this, because those themes ARE there in the films.





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[Lulcielid]

The Last Jedi makes The Force Awakens more interesting.
Spoilers of course.

It doesn't necesarily improve Episode VII individual qualities but it does make the overall picture of the sequel trillogy have more depth.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I've found this endlessly entertaining: TLJ Haters Strike Back (applying criticisms of TLJ to The Empire Strikes Back).





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[Ryushikaze]

This is going to be an odd statement, but I think The new SW being a trilogy severely hampered Last Jedi, because Rian Johnson basically wrote two films worth of content and had to compress them to fit in, leaving the film overall feeling a bit smushed together.

Like, all the content was good (Holdo being a complete dumbass and not telling the known hothead who really gives a damn about the Resistance about her plan to save the resistance aside), the movie really does feel like it has two climaxes and two resolutions, and goes from one to the other very quickly. I really feel like Finn and Rose's story especially could have used more time to unfold as they looked for the master slicer.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

This is going to be an odd statement, but I think The new SW being a trilogy severely hampered Last Jedi, because Rian Johnson basically wrote two films worth of content and had to compress them to fit in, leaving the film overall feeling a bit smushed together.

Like, all the content was good (Holdo being a complete dumbass and not telling the known hothead who really gives a damn about the Resistance about her plan to save the resistance aside), the movie really does feel like it has two climaxes and two resolutions, and goes from one to the other very quickly. I really feel like Finn and Rose's story especially could have used more time to unfold as they looked for the master slicer.

That's another reason that I'm even more excited about seeing what his trilogy is gonna be, since he has space to do bigger storytelling that's not confined to a middle piece.

Also, on Holdo:

Spoiler

She wasn't under any obligation to share information with him, whereas when he learned about the possible mechanics of the Hyperspace tracking system, Poe WAS obligated to share that information with her as his commanding officer.

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[ForceStealer]

I'm very much on board with, and recognized in the moment,

Spoiler

that she had absolutely no obligation to tell him of her plans. But...given that she already had him read, it might have made sense to at least tell him you had a plan. Or, failing that, confine him to quarters under guard.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I'm very much on board with, and recognized in the moment,

Spoiler

that she had absolutely no obligation to tell him of her plans. But...given that she already had him read, it might have made sense to at least tell him you had a plan. Or, failing that, confine him to quarters under guard.

I think that given that

Spoiler

his main issue of being an insubordinate and recently-demoted pilot was dealt with when Ben annihilated all their remaining fighters in the hangar just before Leia was incapacitated. As the main issue of him flying out to attack the enemy was completely removed, he was given the same treatment as all of the other ne'er do wells (who eventually joined him) as being left at their post awaiting command. Had the fighters still been functional, I believe he'd've been placed under guard.

Anyone else who was more insubordinate (like the people Rose stunned trying to abandon ship) were sent to the brig, but he's still functionally his demotion and defiance leave him just outside of that until he starts his mutiny, but still within the realm to've been just banned from the Bridge without any other disciplinary action.

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