Disney Star Wars Is It Actually That Bad?

[delericho]

By contrast, Jar Jar Binks was a terrible character because he contributed nothing valuable to the party dynamics. He was useless. If he'd at least been competent, I don't think he'd have been hated so much.

Agreed. IMO, Binks is reasonably easy to redeem: instead of being exiled for being clumsy, establish him as a competent warrior and exceptionally able tactician who was exiled by his warrior people for being a pacifist - when called upon to fight he refused.

And thus later, when the stakes are high enough, he makes the sacrifice of stepping up and leading the Gungan army against the droids... only to get a taste for it, and accidentally kicking off the horror of the Clone Wars.

 

[MGibster]

Revenge of the Sith wasn't highly regarded when it came out by many, but today it is many people's favorite Prequel movie.

I remember RoS being touted as the best of the prequel movies when it was released. It's certainly my favorite prequel movie but that's damning with faint praise indeed.

The Sequel trilogy: There's too much to mention so I'll just say that my favourite part: Adam Driver as Kylo Ren was sublime. A screen presence unmatched in the franchise. Kylo and Rey as star crossed lovers connected through the force was compelling as the central dynamic.

I thought Kylo Ren was a fairly compelling villain in TFA. Usually we see a character struggle against his evil impluses, but Ren was struggling against his good impulses which was different. The star crossed lovers fell flat for me, but had it not been poorly written I might have been on board.

 

[Zardnaar]

Think RotS is regarded as best prequel since it came out.

 

[BrokenTwin]

I don't think Disney Star Wars is that bad at all. In fact I've really enjoyed it so far.

The Sequel trilogy: There's too much to mention so I'll just say that my favourite part: Adam Driver as Kylo Ren was sublime. A screen presence unmatched in the franchise. Kylo and Rey as star crossed lovers connected through the force was compelling as the central dynamic.

Adam Driver did a fantastic job as Kylo Ren. I even liked Daisy Ridley as Rey, despite my opinions on the character itself. Similar to the prequel trilogy, I think the actors did the best with what they were given. But what they were given was an unfocused directionless mess. Say what you will about the prequels, at least George Lucas had an overarching plot in mind when he made them.

 

[Argyle King]

Interesting take. But wouldn't she be more lucky than the villain in that case? Like the low-level gangster who ends up the sole survivor of a gang war (that they did not start)?

I feel that her role in it was more active than it seems at first glance.

Consider that she's drawn to Kylo. Why? I think it's because she's taking advantage of someone who has been emotionally scarred and manipulated. She knows he's struggling to find his place and feel valued, so she feeds into his emotions -much in the same way that Palpatine manipulated Anakin's emotions. This is somewhat foreshadowed by Kylo's obsession with the Vader helmet.

It also explains how she could seemingly be so strong and proficient with the force so quickly. She was part of a longterm agenda, planted to achieve a particular result.

 

[BrokenTwin]

I feel that her role in it was more active than it seems at first glance.

Consider that she's drawn to Kylo. Why? I think it's because she's taking advantage of someone who has been emotionally scarred and manipulated. She knows he's struggling to find his place and feel valued, so she feeds into his emotions -much in the same way that Palpatine manipulated Anakin's emotions. This is somewhat foreshadowed by Kylo's obsession with the Vader helmet.

It also explains how she could seemingly be so strong and proficient with the force so quickly. She was part of a longterm agenda, planted to achieve a particular result.

While I like this take for the same reason as I enjoy the Darth JarJar fanon, it's not supported in the presentation of the movies themselves. She's clearly intended to be a hero-protagonist deliberately designed as a Luke-alike.

 

[Celebrim]

Adam Driver did a fantastic job as Kylo Ren. I even liked Daisy Ridley as Rey, despite my opinions on the character itself. Similar to the prequel trilogy, I think the actors did the best with what they were given. But what they were given was an unfocused directionless mess. Say what you will about the prequels, at least George Lucas had an overarching plot in mind when he made them.

I agree with all of that.

The prequel trilogy was good (ideas for) movies made badly.
The sequel trilogy was bad (ideas for) movies made well.

The sequels prove that solid ideas with poor execution are still vastly better than bad (or no) ideas for movies executed well.

Fundamentally I think that the prequel movies came close to being classics but were let down by failures of writing, inability to make a convincing romance that is supposed to be at the heart of this epic tragedy, and George's own incoherence about the morality of Star Wars where George's evolving take on morality in between the making of the original trilogy and making the prequels isn't fully held out and studied in a self-reflective manner to create a single coherent story. As a result, when we get to the big payoff, which is when our flawed hero's tragic flaw is supposed to create the tragedy, the moment is weak and Anakin doesn't feel like he has a strong and relatable motive. But the elements and ideas are there in the story, it's just when George starts firing his Chekov Guns his aim isn't very good.

Where as the sequels are dreck that is almost devoid of ideas. There are a few hints of intriguing ideas in TLJ but they feel almost accidental because not only does the story do nothing with them at all, they don't seem to arise out of the setting or the character. They just get thrown out there and disappear just as fast. They strike me as self-inserted meta-commentary but they are all telling and not showing. They aren't deserved and they don't payoff. And I get how some viewers latched on to them and made them bigger and more elaborate than what they are if they perhaps share similar feelings, but that is also an "out of story experience" and not internal to the film. Like for example you could say the broomstick thing at the end of TLJ means, "Anyone can be a hero.", but the movie doesn't say or even imply that. Internally to the story it just means that the kid is force sensitive, which isn't revelatory in anyway. We already knew that there were force sensitive kids scattered about the galaxy waiting for the Jedi or the Sith or whomever to come and train them in the ways of the force. If you think it means something bigger than that, that narrative came from you and not the movie.

 

[Argyle King]

While I like this take for the same reason as I enjoy the Darth JarJar fanon, it's not supported in the presentation of the movies themselves. She's clearly intended to be a hero-protagonist deliberately designed as a Luke-alike.

It actually is shown in the movies though. She hits most of the same story beats as Palpatine.

Even in the fights where she's helping Kylo fight the Praetorian Guards, you can clearly see that the guards wouldn't have hit her with some of the attacks even if she didn't defend.

 

[Older Beholder]

Reading this thread is like:

 

[Deset Gled]

Rey was as bad of a character as Jar Jar, but in the other direction. She was so competent that she didn't need a party. She was built as a solo protagonist, but they tried to write her into a party dynamic movie "because that's how Star Wars works", and it was disastrous - more disastrous even than Jar Jar Binks because they couldn't write her out of the story. When we first meet Rey she's actually pretty cool. She is a well introduced character. She's a rogue. She's a scrounger. And we can accept easily that she's a good rogue and a good scrounger having had to survive on her own. Character established and all well and good. The trouble is, that she's made into a Luke analogue (beyond just the force sensitive orphan that comes from a desert planet and wears his clothes) in as much as the writers try to send her on a coming of age story, and the character they present is not suited to that. Rey then exhibits the talent of immediately mastering every skill she encounters.

FWIW, you could say the same thing about Kylo Ren. They made him a Darth Vader avatar, even when it made no sense to do so.

The most obvious example of this are the bizarre scenes of Kylo Ren being a fighter pilot. Flying a spaceship is an amazingly complex job that takes years to learn. It's a major part of identity and backstory for Luke and Annakin. Why does Kylo Ren even know how to fly? He a fighter pilot only because Luke and Annakin were. Having that skill makes no sense. His custom TIE fighter makes no sense. Tactically, it makes no sense for him to fly it. None of it makes any sense. At least they managed to have Poe Dameron take the fighter pilot scenes away from Rey.