The General Star Wars Thread

I mean, it was just his lightsaber - but then his descendents turned it into some symbol of power and that idea just lodged itself into Mandalorian culture forever.

They should have realised that made Tarre special were his deeds, not his weapon.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jan 18th 2022 at 5:33:27 PM

The problem with that is that Ben Solo was the final villain established by The Last Jedi and while you could definitely have made a third movie based on that film, it isn't necessarily building on what was established by The Force Awakens which established Snoke as a mysterious grandiose threat.

There's also the fact that two movies made a great deal about how the fact Ben Solo is an enormous loser.

That's part of the point, that evil is not grandiose, but I can't imagine a movie where Ben Solo carries it. He is kind of like Jacen Solo as Darth Caedus in that Troy Denning wanted to make him a grandiose threat but he was having a Armed with Canon fight with Traviss the entire time.

Oh yeah true, its just the reverence in-universe makes sense.

Meanwhile Rey is obsessed with a lightsaber that wasn't even Anakin's first saber and which Luke had already long replaced with his own.

Edited by slimcoder on Jan 18th 2022 at 8:34:42 AM

TBF, so was JJ.

The complete zig zag the movies have on the importance of symbols doesn't help things.

Luke: It's just a lightsaber Anakin and I used for awhile.

Rey: IT IS THE IMPORTANT SACRED RELIC OF SACREDNESS.

This is why in my notes for a potential ST rewrite, I had Rey being someone who grew up with the stories of the Skywalkers and makes it very explicit that she longs to be a Skywalker. So much as so that she imagines herself to be Luke Skywalker's daughter in her dreams and actually believes it's real. This would justify the sudden importance of the Skywalker lightsaber.

And I would have her suffer the fear of being a Skywalker imposter, which is compounded by Kylo Ren's speeches of her being a nobody and a thief stealing his family legacy.

It more or less misses the point of the saber.

It had relevance specifically because it was a memento of Luke's father representing his noble memory and he lost it after the Vader reveal symbolizing the complete shattering of the idea he had of his father.

The saber is akin to Luke's innocence and losing it represents the loss of his innocence.

Edited by slimcoder on Jan 18th 2022 at 8:43:43 AM

As I said before, Abrams seems to not actually understand concepts like nostalgia - apart from Anakin's lightsaber (which wasn't even his first one and which only Luke had some attachment to due to it belonging to his Disappeared Dad), he also put the Corellian corvette from ANH's beginning into Rise despite Vader ordering it to be destroyed in the same movie - as if anyone could tell the difference between "that ship Leia got captured on once" and literally any other Corellian corvette. It's not even a unique ship or anything - it's a run-of-the-mill Corellian corvette which the Rebellion had dozens of.

But Abrams puts this shit into movies because he apparently thinks fans attribute some meaning to it - instead people went "Why, though".

Arguably, Luke tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder was a pretty good scene for that reason - he's grown past that saber, why are you carrying this all the way to the planet he's living on now?

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jan 18th 2022 at 5:46:03 PM

Yeah for all of TLJ's faults, I actually like the Luke tossing the saber scene.

It's a good establishing moment.

Actually, I think its great foreshadowing if there WAS some sort of connection between Luke and Rey.

I've softened my opinion on The Last Jedi but I think the biggest issue was its Armed with Canon nature.

Someone needed to iron out the third movie before the second one was filmed.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 18th 2022 at 8:48:31 AM

Apropos lightsabers - I still think Rey got done dirty by having to carry somebody else's lightsaber for most of the trilogy instead of getting to construct her own until the very end (that she's not using a double-bladed one is kinda stupid for another reason, but I went over this before).

It also be noted that Abrams has a big problem with proper representation of all Star Wars.

I can't remember any PT reference he made in his film that wasn't screwed up by his blind love for OT. Couldn't call Palpatine Darth Sidious even though it's commonly accepted to be the true name of the Big Bad in retrospect. Couldn't show Mustafar without showing foliage that contradicts how the planet was depicted in the first place (an active, volcanic wasteland). Couldn't show any of the prequel planets in his rip off of the Special Edition Galactic Celebration (hey, at least Lucas added Naboo for 2004 DVD, complete with Jar Jar Binks). Couldn't even show Ghost Anakin helping Rey defeat Sidious.

I mean, Ghostbusters Afterlife did it perfectly with Ghost Egon with the buildup and nostalgic strings.

Edited by Shadao on Jan 18th 2022 at 9:22:34 AM

Ghostbusters Afterlife was basically The Force Awakens, but done well.

Like, that's partially unfair to that film due to it also having its own qualities as well, but it's also very difficult not to think of it has "how to do what Abrams was trying to do, but do it correctly." It's angling for the same kind of story told in a very similar kind of way, but actually handles its characters and its establishment of the new, future era in a much stronger and more stable and endearing fashion.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 18th 2022 at 8:56:16 AM

I don't envy the person who has to write their way out of the hole they left Rey in

you'd Think

you'd honestly THINK

with all the experience behind them the ST wouldn't do something as amateurish as introduce new character and then shit on all the other characters people like

and then start handing her stuff

Han's dead, She gets the Falcon and Chewie

Luke's dead, She's the NEW return of the jedi

Leia's dead, well we can't make her a princess sooo She's the Chosen one!

like did anyone stop and think about this...

She's a scavenger after all.

Anakin could feel it in the Force how the sand takes away everything good to hand it over to vultures.

Hopefully Rey, Finn, and Poe get redeemed the same way that The Clone Wars redeemed Anakin in the eyes of a lot of people. I imagine stuff like that could work out well. Rey supposedly got handed everything, yeah, but now she has no mentor, nowhere to go, and no idea what to do. She's adrift in the galaxy and has to find her own path, even if she is how the Jedi will now continue.

It's easy to forget, but one reason Kylo was so well received initially is that he was analyzed as a satire of the common criticisms of Christensen's Anakin - the "Nazi-wannabe Space Wizard School Shooter" thing done intentionally rather than accidentally, and accurately portrayed as a pathetic douchebag rather than a Macbeth-like tragic victim of circumstance.

Then it turned out Kylo was the exact same.

Edited by HamburgerTime on Jan 19th 2022 at 10:03:38 AM

The same but worse!

Because he wants to be a school shooter but the Light just won’t let him not feel bad about it.

I mean that is an interesting angle for a Sith, someone who wants to do evil but is constantly hampered by their own consciousness.

Might actually go for that angle in SWTOR one of these days.

Actually I'd kinda love a series about that one crazy Darth that tried mixing up Light Side teaching with the Sith way and ended up going insane and deleting a bunch of Sith lore.

Yeah Darth Gravid.

Personally I'd love a more psychological look into how the Dark Side affects a person's brain.

Like all those insights into Anakin's head in the ROTS novelization are quite interesting.

Kylo is basically Vader 2.0 you're suppose to take him seriously

thats the issue Kylo in awakens beat for beat follows Vader

Kills a man for information

orders everyone killed and no trace of evidence to remain yada yada yada

The key differences is Kylo has to respect chain of command hence him and hux's dick measuring contest and those bits where he isn't being Vader

IE the prayer scene and when he wrecks computer

and since those are wholly Kylo people latched onto them and made his entire character revolve around them.

And because of how it’s handled, he comes off as a man child who wants to kill and murder all he wants, but his conscience makes him feel SAD so he can’t enjoy it.

Compared to Vader, who quickly slipped to save someone he cared about even if it was for selfish reasons, degraded rapidly as he betrayed his morals. and eventually just gave up when he realized he couldn’t surpass the Emperor.

It’s kinda baffling they tried to make him Vader 2.0 when his origins have nothing in common nor motivations.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jan 19th 2022 at 5:04:08 AM

Too whiny to be cool, too much of an entitled jackass to be sympathetic and too pathetic to be taken as a serious threat. It's an interesting failure.

Basically inviting the comparisons to a lightning in a bottle like Vader doesn't help much, really.

Edited by Blueace on Jan 19th 2022 at 10:13:46 AM