Star Wars Rewatch

[The Firebird]

But I get that this movie might have played totally differently for a younger generation. One thought I have had, and I think a lot of younger people might not realize this, is from Return of the Jedi on, my generation had been hearing rumors of another sequel coming and that it might be about Anakin. So we had all this time to develop not just a head cannon about it, but our own mythology that began as conversations on the playground. So by the time the prequels came out, that was like 16 years of anticipation.

Yeah I believe this is a big part of it. It's hard to compete with expectations. And Lucas was deliberately targeting kids. A lot of franchises (think Harry Potter) age with the audience. If they made Deathly Hollows in the tone of Sorcerer's Stone, I think it would have been grating.

The same way, there's stuff that plays differently based on norms. People love to praise the romance in Empire, but frankly...I find it quite uncomfortable to watch, and it detracts from the movie for me.

 

[The Soloist]

I'll watch parts of the Prequels when cable stations do back-to-back showings during Long Weekends. My interest rises and wanes because the movies are uneven. Some scenes are excellent, others are cringey. Seems like no one in the team could (or wanted) to say 'No that's a bad idea' to Lucas.

I sometimes watch the original trilogy movies on Blu-ray. More so now that we have Rogue One (and Solo, which I like).

The Sequels don't work for me. The 'magic' is gone. We cancelled our Disney+ subscription at the end of 2024. Don't miss it.

 

[The Firebird]

The Sequels don't work for me. The 'magic' is gone. We cancelled our Disney+ subscription at the end of 2024. Don't miss it.

Only Rian Johnson had anything like the ambition needed for a successful Star Wars movie. And he had the cinematic literacy to pull it off. But about half of his choices fell really flat for me. He did great with Luke's character, great cinematography. But he's ultimately really interested in commenting on contemporary society (see Knives Out or The Glass Onion). Star Wars can do that (Lucas has been direct about references to Vietnam), but Lucas manages this without losing sight of the universal. I don't think Johnson achieves the same. And it loses that kind of epic, timeless feeling.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Whilst I definitely agree that it is a massive cop-out, it was a highly effective cop-out in terms of revising opinion, and as such, I think they should probably look at doing the same with the sequels. I note the upcoming Starfighter movie is set post-sequels (5 years after TRoS according to the official website), which is probably the way to do it - just set stuff after them.

I was just watching Camp Cretaceous Chaos Theory, and noticed it is trying to do the same thing for Jurassic World: Dominion. Retroactively make it suck less by filling in plot holes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

(Lucas has been direct about references to Vietnam)

And way beyond that - most of the stuff in Lucas' SW that seems like it's about something IRL/topical absolutely was (right down to commentary on Bush's government/Gulf War 2 in RotS), according to Lucas, kind of the inverse of Tolkien, where no matter how obvious the reference seemed, Tolkien denied it.

I don't think Johnson achieves the same. And it loses that kind of epic, timeless feeling.

I disagree, personally, I think if he'd done all three movies or even just both the second two, no-one would be saying anything like that. But the arms dealer/casino bit in TLJ is a bit orphaned from the rest of the movie, vibes-wise, even though I think it's kind of cool and shows a different side to the SW universe (that has been hinted at before).

As a minor aside, my wife worked at an anti-arms-dealing charity at the time TLJ came out, and their small/normal people donations spiked hugely after it did, and slowly fell from that spike over a couple of months afterwards, so he certainly got through to some people there!

(The BBC drama about arms dealing, the name of which escapes me, had a similar effect.)

I was just watching Camp Cretaceous Chaos Theory, and noticed it is trying to do the same thing for Jurassic World: Dominion. Retroactively make it suck less by filling in plot holes.

Yes that's absolutely right!

 

[Zardnaar]

And way beyond that - most of the stuff in Lucas' SW that seems like it's about something IRL/topical absolutely was (right down to commentary on Bush's government/Gulf War 2 in RotS), according to Lucas, kind of the inverse of Tolkien, where no matter how obvious the reference seemed, Tolkien denied it.


I disagree, personally, I think if he'd done all three movies or even just both the second two, no-one would be saying anything like that. But the arms dealer/casino bit in TLJ is a bit orphaned from the rest of the movie, vibes-wise, even though I think it's kind of cool and shows a different side to the SW universe (that has been hinted at before).

As a minor aside, my wife worked at an anti-arms-dealing charity at the time TLJ came out, and their small/normal people donations spiked hugely after it did, and slowly fell from that spike over a couple of months afterwards, so he certainly got through to some people there!

(The BBC drama about arms dealing, the name of which escapes me, had a similar effect.)


Yes that's absolutely right!

A Lord of War star wars movie could probably work. Add in fringe elements and it's all good.

Probably not in a Skywalker Saga though tied to OT Skywalkers.

 

[Deset Gled]

I was just watching Camp Cretaceous Chaos Theory, and noticed it is trying to do the same thing for Jurassic World: Dominion. Retroactively make it suck less by filling in plot holes.

In general, this was the real strength of the Expanded Universe. There's a point where filling in plot holes becomes painfully revisionist, though.

Like, it's one thing to do the Maw revision to make the "12 parsecs" line make sense. It's a single line, and the new backstory doesn't change the meaning or the story. Creative stuff, good job. But saying Anakin's wanted to become a Master to access books and save Padme literally goes against what we see on screen and rewrites his character. Which, IMNSHO, crosses the line from fun to an Annie Wilkes rant.

Also, no amount of people trying to rewrite Leia's romance story will change the fact that she kissed her brother like that.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I disagree, personally, I think if he'd done all three movies or even just both the second two, no-one would be saying anything like that. But the arms dealer/casino bit in TLJ is a bit orphaned from the rest of the movie, vibes-wise, even though I think it's kind of cool and shows a different side to the SW universe (that has been hinted at before).

Yeah they should have had a game plan involving Johnson or Abrams helming all three. The first two films feel like two very interesting movies that aren't incredibly related to one another. And the third feels very rushed, like a patch to glue them together (now when I think back on it, it is more like a series of moments than a movie). Also Johnsons approach felt kind of off to me. Like there were parts i liked and parts I didn't, but some of it was just too odd for star wars (I think it would have been better to give him his own franchise, even if they need to rely on an existing Sci-fi property; I don't know why but I could see him doing a ring world movie for example)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Only Rian Johnson had anything like the ambition needed for a successful Star Wars movie. And he had the cinematic literacy to pull it off. But about half of his choices fell really flat for me. He did great with Luke's character, great cinematography. But he's ultimately really interested in commenting on contemporary society (see Knives Out or The Glass Onion). Star Wars can do that (Lucas has been direct about references to Vietnam), but Lucas manages this without losing sight of the universal. I don't think Johnson achieves the same. And it loses that kind of epic, timeless feeling.

I don;t know, I thought they got off to a very promising start with the Force Awakens. I am not an Abrams fan at all*, and the third movie is pretty unforgivable now that the dust has settled, but I was pretty on board with things coming out of Force Awakens. Last Jedi is where things felt like they started to really slip (like it wasn't a bad movie, but it did not fit at all in the trilogy, and didn't leave them anywhere to go). It also seemed a little antagonistic to fans and I don't think that was a great way to do things (especially since Force Awakens was clearly done to bring fans to the table). And I have a lot of quibbles about TFA. I just think that would have been the better path to go down


*His take on Star Trek drives me insane

 

[The Firebird]

And way beyond that - most of the stuff in Lucas' SW that seems like it's about something IRL/topical absolutely was (right down to commentary on Bush's government/Gulf War 2 in RotS), according to Lucas, kind of the inverse of Tolkien, where no matter how obvious the reference seemed, Tolkien denied it.

Agreed.

I disagree, personally, I think if he'd done all three movies or even just both the second two, no-one would be saying anything like that. But the arms dealer/casino bit in TLJ is a bit orphaned from the rest of the movie, vibes-wise, even though I think it's kind of cool and shows a different side to the SW universe (that has been hinted at before).

I don't know. When I'm watching a Rian Johnson movie, I feel like I know I'm watching a Rian Johnson movie, and I know exactly what Rian Johnson wants me to think about contemporary society. That's not true with Lucas. RotS references Bush, but its also referencing Caesar; a "Vote of No Confidence" isn't really a thing in US politics, but it is in other parliamentary systems. Palpatine suggests the Palatine Hill; the republic to empire transition is explicit in Roman history. So when Lucas references events they feel like part of a universal sequence. When Johnson does it feels like what I saw on the news last week.

Like, it's one thing to do the Maw revision to make the "12 parsecs" line make sense. It's a single line, and the new backstory doesn't change the meaning or the story.

I thought the 12 parsecs line worked better when Han was full of it.

I don;t know, I thought they got off to a very promising start with the Force Awakens. I am not an Abrams fan at all*, and the third movie is pretty unforgivable now that the dust has settled, but I was pretty on board with things coming out of Force Awakens. Last Jedi is where things felt like they started to really slip (like it wasn't a bad movie, but it did not fit at all in the trilogy, and didn't leave them anywhere to go). It also seemed a little antagonistic to fans and I don't think that was a great way to do things (especially since Force Awakens was clearly done to bring fans to the table). And I have a lot of quibbles about TFA. I just think that would have been the better path to go down

Agree on TLJ feeling a bit antagonistic to fans.