Unpopular opinions go here

[MGibster]

The Last Jedi.

I went into it with the understanding that I'd be watching a turd, so I wasn't angry.

 

[MGibster]

Yeah, but the "do we duplicate the core material or not?" question is one few game companies are going to be blase about given the strength of the reactions to it among game fanbases.

I've read this sentence a few times, but I have no idea what it means.

 

[Bedrockgames]

JJ went scorched earth on TLJ in the way that WotC went scorched earth on 4E. In JJ's case, it feels very much like he was mad at Johnson's choices, but if he had felt that strongly about it, he should have asked to do the second film to begin with.

I agree. I think Rise of Skywalker was awful. And I feel like the whole trilogy was like watching two directors fight with one another passive aggressively. And the problem with that is they both cut important threads the other had tried to establish for the story. While I think Johnson did it first in TLJ, I feel like Rise of Skywalker would have been better if he had continued with the trajectory established by Johnson because it would have at least been a coherent story. A good example is him sending Rose off to do nothing, rather than pair her up with Finn and allow their romance to give the movie weight (similar to how the romance between han and leia gave the original trilogy some emotional weight).

I don't know how these decisions were made, but someone at Disney should have nixed this problem in the bud in my opinion

 

[Bedrockgames]

The Empire Strike Back was really shocking when it came out and incredibly controversial and did the same sort of smashing up the (much more limited) canon that TLJ did. It's just that took place decades ago now, and I think people don't remember that Obi-Wan being a liar and Darth Vader being Luke's dad and the hint that there was another hope if Luke fell were all wild changes to what we thought we knew at the time.

There wasn't any canon, there was one movie. And all it did was with a brilliant master stroke tie characters together in an operatic reveal that heightened the emotions of the film (TLJ does the exact opposite of that). I think the other important thing Empire does is it makes you feel like you need to see the next movie (Luke just discovered Vader may be his father, he lost his hand, and Han is captured by Jabba the Hut). At the end of TLJ it felt like there wasn't really any place further to go

I think Johnson misjudged Disney, JJ and a large portion of the fandom in trying to pull of something similar in the middle of the sequel trilogy. "Rey is nobody," "we're killing Snoke halfway through the film" and "the entire Resistance can fit inside a single starship now" are all huge swings that I think could have really paid off if JJ hadn't gotten his nose out of joint and Disney hadn't screamed "for the love of God, just give them all the fan service," which didn't end up working either.

I don't think this was the master stroke critics feel it was. All it did was deflate something they had set up in the first trilogy (and it really is only meaningful I think if you have some other meta meaning invested in that particular plot twist)

 

[Aldarc]

The core creative problem of the SW sequels was not Rian Johnson, but, rather, JJ Abrams. (I also disliked JJ Abrams's take on Star Trek.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

I've read this sentence a few times, but I have no idea what it means.

Remember my initial comment was regarding whether recasting a game using the same mechanics as another, or just doing it as an add-on was a better way to go. My response was "Either way part of the fandom gets stroppy sometimes, and not in a way that you can control."

I don't entirely either agree or disagree about your point regarding one-size-fits-all systems, so I wasn't addressing it (though I'm of the opinion you'll get a better result trying for that if you don't it from the ground up (either deliberately or as a side effect of what it handles) than if you decide to try and force it after the fact.

 

[Guest 7042500]

I really liked The Last Jedi. It is very much in keeping with Lucas' original vision of Star Wars as an exploration of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. Yeah, Luke's not perfect and he fell on his face. It happens.

See also Wolfram von Eisenbach's "Parsival."

 

[Micah Sweet]

JJ went scorched earth on TLJ in the way that WotC went scorched earth on 4E. In JJ's case, it feels very much like he was mad at Johnson's choices, but if he had felt that strongly about it, he should have asked to do the second film to begin with.

That's a valid take, but I don't think it's the only take. Prior to people saying this post-TLJ, it never occured to me that Star Wars was about the Skywalkers, so much as one father and his children were a key part of the story. It's a big galaxy, and I think for many fans, everything not-Jedi is what they love. (Well, until The Book of Boba Fett came along to explain that, no, you really don't want to focus on all that other stuff, either.)

The way they handled Hux in all three movies was weird. Either Hux should have clearly been in charge post-Snoke or Kylo should have been. An interplanetary empire can't just run on inertia.

The Empire Strike Back was really shocking when it came out and incredibly controversial and did the same sort of smashing up the (much more limited) canon that TLJ did. It's just that took place decades ago now, and I think people don't remember that Obi-Wan being a liar and Darth Vader being Luke's dad and the hint that there was another hope if Luke fell were all wild changes to what we thought we knew at the time.

I think Johnson misjudged Disney, JJ and a large portion of the fandom in trying to pull of something similar in the middle of the sequel trilogy. "Rey is nobody," "we're killing Snoke halfway through the film" and "the entire Resistance can fit inside a single starship now" are all huge swings that I think could have really paid off if JJ hadn't gotten his nose out of joint and Disney hadn't screamed "for the love of God, just give them all the fan service," which didn't end up working either.

Those many fans should be catered to in other parts of the franchise. The core film saga is telling a story that has always heavily focused on the Jedi.

 

[Cadence]

There wasn't any canon, there was one movie.

Thirty-eight issues from Marvel. The third volume of reprints kicks off with ESB.

[Insert argument about canon. How much of what used to be considered canon was nuked by the mouse in the past few years?]

 

[Micah Sweet]

I really liked The Last Jedi. It is very much in keeping with Lucas' original vision of Star Wars as an exploration of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. Yeah, Luke's not perfect and he fell on his face. It happens.

See also Wolfram von Eisenbach's "Parsival."

It was (in some ways) a good movie, if you could look at it independently of its place as "episode 8". But you just can't.