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JJ Abrams: “There was a plan”
- Thread starter Halbrand
- Start date
You can tell they had a plan cuz rian when through all the trouble to get kylo out of the helmet, only for jj to put him back in it.
Disney was like "hey JJ, masked Kylo toys sold better than unmasked Kylo toys so make sure you take care of that for us thanks"
Nah bro he had this vision in mind. 🙄
At the very least Canto Bight was the catalyst for the character arcs.
Nah bro he had a vision and was totally not winging it for the prequel trilogy. That's why there are so many things in the PT that directly contradict or don't make sense in the context of the OT right down to only twenty years passing contradicting the original plan where the Empire was around long enough for there to have been multiple emperors and thus we somehow get this bright eyed boy on a planet where you apparently age like this:
Tatooine winters be harsh, yo.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, nah.
I like that he's back in the helmet because the helmet is fucking cool. But, let's not kid ourselves. He's back in the helmet because JJ thinks it's cool not because there is some character reason. It really makes no sense after TLJ when he accepts what he is. The idea that after killing Snoke he rejects Snoke's admonishment of the mask and has it repaired is just some weak coverup. The mask is back because it's a dope ass mask, that's all.
To be fair, I do feel like a lot of misunderstanding of the Force as a concept happens. It does feel like many people perceive of the Force like a game system where if you spend 5 Force Points you unlock Force Lightning where it's more of a living Force, i.e. it's magic and it ain't got to explain shit. It's unfair, it defies logic and rules, and is far more emotion based than people want to admit.
You need to see TLJ as the much needed course correction after the hackery that was TFA. Who Snoke was should have been answered in TFA, JJ chose not to so we're left with a Palpatine rip-off from a film that was basically ANH 2.0. Snoke had to fucking die in TLJ otherwise the entire ST would just be on the path of complete rehash. Rian smartly chose to axe that wannabe rip off to force the franchise in a new direction.
Then JJ brought Palpatine back from the dead...
We shall see, JJ. We shall see...
It was always intended as a metaphor for believing in yourself and in the power of a force in nature that simply isn't explainable with science.
She's more like a generic escapist hero like Luke.
It's just that she's a female escapist hero that garners her praise and that's not a bad thing because media doesn't have enough escapist heroes that are female. But like...I doubt she'd be as loved if everything stayed the same but she was a guy instead.
The Snoke origin novel is gonna be great and y'all are gonna look like fools. Just wait it's gonna explain everything
Gary Stu is a pretty common term actually albeit not as common as Mary Sue.
i still remember plenty of people calling Jon Snow a Gary Stu until the ending hits.
i still remember plenty of people calling Jon Snow a Gary Stu until the ending hits.
Ready Player One is very definition of a Gary Stu. I hated that movie (and stopped reading the book) because of how shitty a character it was.
TFA wasn't even that bad, though. It wasn't the best movie ever, but at its worst I'd say it had enough juice to keep me invested throughout, and it ended with a resonant "Yes, I'd like to see Part 2 to see where some of these mixed reactions go and go from there..." Then TLJ happened and to say IT GOT WORSE understates just how godawful I found it. Giving your expected big bad an air of mystery and not clearing that up immediately isn't something that has to be answered in part one. TFA established the characters just enough to make me barely interested, but TLJ just took everything that made TFA "good" and flushed it down the toilet.
I almost wish the ST were a rehash. That would be an improvement. We've already got Rebellion vs Empire again, Jedi vs Sith again, and they easily could have gone around these and delievered something new, but instead, it's fucking nothing. "Forcing a franchise in a new direction" is not something you save for the end of Act 2. You start a trilogy off in a mildly interesting way with one director, have another director fuck that up ENTIRELY, and then have the same director forced to clean up the previous one's mess. I can't blame him for reviving Palpatine after killing Snoke. RJ left mostly nothing to make a third movie about aside from Rey vs Kylo, and she's already beaten him multiple times, which is a ten minute action sequence at best. Yawn.
The way I view Snoke is that he was a narrative tool to highlight Ben's further descent into the Dark Side, and was always going to be.
After the Force Awakens released, I remember posting on NeoGAF that Ben would kill Snoke in the next episode. That his arc was like the inverse of Luke's in the OT. Luke struggles against the Dark Side, Ben struggles against the Light Side. Luke refrains from murdering his father for the Emperor, Ben succeeds in murdering his father for Snoke. And since Ben's arc is one of fully embracing The Dark Side of the Force, his next step will be to murder his master to complete his training. It's like how Luke became a Jedi over the course of the trilogy, Ben is becoming a Sith of sorts, over the course of this trilogy. Little does Ben know, he is not the hero of this story, Rey is.
This wasn't met with much support back on NeoGAF, and since I don't go to that place, I can't dig up my old posts from 2015 (I was Figboy there too), but I admit I felt a little vindicated when Kylo killed Snoke in The Last Jedi. 😂😂
I never thought Snoke was anything more than an obstacle for Ben to overcome on his path to the Dark Side.
After the Force Awakens released, I remember posting on NeoGAF that Ben would kill Snoke in the next episode. That his arc was like the inverse of Luke's in the OT. Luke struggles against the Dark Side, Ben struggles against the Light Side. Luke refrains from murdering his father for the Emperor, Ben succeeds in murdering his father for Snoke. And since Ben's arc is one of fully embracing The Dark Side of the Force, his next step will be to murder his master to complete his training. It's like how Luke became a Jedi over the course of the trilogy, Ben is becoming a Sith of sorts, over the course of this trilogy. Little does Ben know, he is not the hero of this story, Rey is.
This wasn't met with much support back on NeoGAF, and since I don't go to that place, I can't dig up my old posts from 2015 (I was Figboy there too), but I admit I felt a little vindicated when Kylo killed Snoke in The Last Jedi. 😂😂
I never thought Snoke was anything more than an obstacle for Ben to overcome on his path to the Dark Side.
The one where he literally repeated Vader's TWO "rule the galaxy together" speeches verbatim and then spent the entire rest of the movie getting hella distracted by anything that even remotely reminded him of his past to the point where it cost him what should've been the easiest win in SW film history?
It's likely how a lot of things are when it comes to long-term development. You know your start, you know your end, but everything in the middle can be molded as seen fit. So long as they don't impact the end goal.
For Star Wars Universe.
Kyle Katarn was Pretty Much a Gary Stu.
Now I'm kind of glad I missed your post in the old place because that would have totally ruined my surprise of Snoke dying in TLJ.
Must be kind of a curse seeing things coming from a mile away lol.
Hell I don't even think planned endings should be rigidly adhered to.
Look at How I Met Your Mother.
They filmed the ending for that show during season 2 (somewhat by necessity as they wanted a scene with the child actors) and decided Ted would end up with Robin. Seven seasons later and that ending didn't make any sense because so much of the series focused on Ted getting over his crush on Robin, she had better chemistry with Barney and Ted's wife became a fan favorite character. They had to destroy everything the show had built up (divorcing Barney and Robin, killing off Ted's wife in a montage) to shoehorn in the Ted/Robin ending and everyone hated it.
Or Harry Potter.
J.K. Rowling decided very early on Harry would end up with Ginny, while Ron would end up with Hermione. She felt as the series progressed, Harry/Hermione would have been more organic, but she stuck with her original idea and came to regret it. And, so that my examples aren't all related to shipping, Mr. Weasley was supposed to die in the fifth book. She decided at the very last second to keep him alive, at the expense of killing off Lupin in the seventh book (who was originally meant to survive the series) because it made more sense for both Ron and Harry's character arcs. She broke away from THE PLAN(TM) and it resulted in a more compelling story.
(I know these are ancient ass spoilers but it's a SW thread, not for either of those things)
I guess the natural response would be "well they had a plan, they just should have broken away when it made sense" but also that kind of defeats the point of having a plan! We know that the sequel trilogy was developed concurrently as well, so suggesting there was absolutely no planning has always seemed hyperbolic.
They should have used the new trilogy to tell a new story, and used the spinoff movies to go back and flesh out the Skywalker saga. They could have made movies that catered to old Star Wars fans and new Star Wars fans. But it's Disney, so every movie has to be a world conquering juggernaut that is all things to all people.
Nah, that'd be terrible. Thankfully, RJ tried to save us from that.
TFA was a mediocre film that took zero risks. RJ forced the franchise away from that nonsense. And yes, explaining Snoke was JJ's job in TFA. It was called Episode 7, not Episode 1 of some new shit. It was a sequel to every film prior, yet couldn't spend two seconds to tell us what the hell happened after ROTJ and who this new asshole who seems exactly like Palpatine was. And ESB was a film that also "forced the franchise in a new direction." Lucas could have easily done what every sequel does, the same shit as the last film except bigger. He chose not to, to help make something far superior and challenging. It was divisive at the time and so we closed with ROTJ, a film that is the sequel people expected, the same shit, but bigger.
I can't wait for RJ's new trilogy, dude isn't afraid to actually take risks and not rehash or wallow in nostalgia. Now, just tone down that wonky humor and make the lead a black dude or gal.
The creative team really needed more time before starting preproduction of TFA. It's astonishing how quickly that movie came together after the sale, all things considered.
TLJ literally picks up immediately where TFA left off... how does that make it a standalone film?
This is probably an unpopular opinion, but after seeing Knives Out twice, I'd really like to see what Rian can cook up if he had control over his own series of films from beginning to end.
When a corporation gets big enough, they start to silo everything and then no silos know what the other silos are doing and it just lead to a general fuckery of each silo trying to pretend their not the one dropping the ball while having no idea what game their all supposed to play with said ball.
I'm 99% sure that's because Snoke was supposed to be his Big Bad and he didn't expect Johnson to unceremoniously kill him off in the second film as a stepping stone for Kylo Ren's character development.
The most reasonable "plan" is the emperor sent Snoke in to snuff out the republic before he returned. If they would have had some heavy hinting at him having a master/controller, then the emperor being back wouldn't have been so out of left field. But you have to be really clear with it, not just very subtle hints here or there that could be taken any which way. That's one of JJ's biggest problems, he tries to save everything for some big reveal yet it hurts the product. And in this case it is the mother of all big reveals. The story arc of Epi 1-6 was moot because Sheevy-doo some how lived, and yet for decades, the known canon was.... oh forget it.
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No, it's because Trevorrow's Episode 9 was completely different, and when JJ came on board they basically scrapped the whole thing. In fact the First Order ship at Galaxy's Edge is a design from the Trevorrow version of Episode 9 that was scrapped for use in the movie but was already finalized and under construction in the theme parks, so it only exists there now.
But there's a plan or something. Sure, JJ.
I really don't know how it happened. Everyone knows a Trilogy has to have an arc to it and it just fell apart. These movies were not fine-tuned at all. I still refuse to beleive that Disney didn't know/had a plan for the Emporer, but as I said up there, JJ gunna JJ. Hell, it might of even been in Lucas' treatments that they got. Still, not a very good narrative execution.
I swear to god if palpatine is in the process of killing kylo or Rey and the other saves then I'll eat my hat.
I thought nobody cared about Snoke? Like one of the only defences for how badly he was used in The Last Jedi that he was never meant to be anything or anyone important so who cares. If that's still the argument then literally the only thing The Last Jedi did of any importance was to pointlessly kill Luke Skywalker in the lamest way since Padmé died of a broken heart. Maybe it's for the best that it's pretty skippable. At least Rise of Skywalker can retcon Luke's death so it has a meaning or purpose.
You mean, like we can take peoples' criticism seriously who call Rian Jonson a hack, yet haven't seen a single fucking of his movies and then simply vanish from the thread when called out on it?
You need to get your blind hatred in check.
Maybe RJ is an absolute genious and JJA eats children, if you want. I'm not a fan of RJ nor JJA, even if i think they are both talented with a very different vision. I'm a fan of Star Wars. And all I see is the new trilogy was turned into a dick contest between those two, which is ridiculous.
I don't care about why TLJ was bad, I'm just sad it was. And Maybe TFA was lazy, less ambitious, selfish or whatever, but it was in my opinion -maybe for bad reasons, - not that bad.
I still think we should have had both Episode IX and Episode X, as the conclusion feels rushed since it's so disconnected from the previous trilogy episodes and there has been little build up. TLJ taking place merely minutes after TFA made the conflict feel small, and as others have already repeated, there were no hints of Palpatine being alive.
In my opinion, Episode IX would have served as this trilogy's wrap up. Set years after, we see the First Order have an internal confrontation since Hux wants to overthrow Kylo. The films deals with Leia's death, Kylo tapping into full dark foce powers, his confrontation with Rey and other side characters like Finn, Poe and Rose get meaningful development. Movie ends with Kylo/Rey dying at the hands of the other and when the conflict seems resolved, the force brings them back alive as a cliffhanger.
Episode X then reveals that the force brought back Palpatine too as a balance sort of thing, and this film features a conclusion to the entire saga, being a celebration from prequel, original and sequel trilogies. Stuff like droids, the emperor and the Death Star coming back would have served as a good thematic conclusion for everything. Since they wanted to bring back Palpatine no matter what, at least make it seem like he was really dead and everything that happened from 1 to 6 was not for nothing.
In my opinion, Episode IX would have served as this trilogy's wrap up. Set years after, we see the First Order have an internal confrontation since Hux wants to overthrow Kylo. The films deals with Leia's death, Kylo tapping into full dark foce powers, his confrontation with Rey and other side characters like Finn, Poe and Rose get meaningful development. Movie ends with Kylo/Rey dying at the hands of the other and when the conflict seems resolved, the force brings them back alive as a cliffhanger.
Episode X then reveals that the force brought back Palpatine too as a balance sort of thing, and this film features a conclusion to the entire saga, being a celebration from prequel, original and sequel trilogies. Stuff like droids, the emperor and the Death Star coming back would have served as a good thematic conclusion for everything. Since they wanted to bring back Palpatine no matter what, at least make it seem like he was really dead and everything that happened from 1 to 6 was not for nothing.
What plan? Feige and the Marvel crew have been making shit up along the way too.
I like this explanation but it still boggles my mind that they did not even attempt to tell us who the hell he was.
This will all be interesting to look back to when the movie is out. Right now I don't really get the impression that there was a plan when the previous movies didn't even have as much as a hint that there might be a bigger threat looming in the form of Palpatine. Like if that was the plan why not make it a cliffhanger to last Jedi?
It feels like rise of the Skywalker will have to do a surprising amount of introduction for what is meant to be a conclusion
It feels like rise of the Skywalker will have to do a surprising amount of introduction for what is meant to be a conclusion
I really doubt Palpatine was ever on the cards until after they killed Snoke. Whatever narrative purpose Palpatine has could have probably been filled just as easily by Snoke if he were still alive. Indeed, if the trailers are to be believed and the First Order has a massive fleet hidden in the Unknown Regions, it would have legitimised Snoke further and presumably the big finale would have been Rey and Ben fighting Snoke.
I mean, the cliffhanger in The Force Awakens was Snoke. He was little more than a holographic projection but he was clearly in charge of the First Order and was recalling Ben to complete his training. The setup was all there for Snoke to be the main antagonist of the trilogy, but then he goes out like a chump in The Last Jedi because they were more interested in surprising us than telling us a good story.
I actually think RJ's idea of doing it without an almighty big bad in the background is interesting but then that should have been set from the start of the trilogy. Now it feels like we're jumping back and forth between two visions with neither fully fleshed out.