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Deleted member 7051

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
14,254
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.

Absolutely. It's not that the idea is inherently bad, but it doesn't work as a twist in the middle of a trilogy that clearly intended for things to go in a different direction. I do look forward to seeing what Johnson can do with his own Star Wars movie(s) but I just really don't like what The Last Jedi does with what it's given. Luke dying isn't itself a bad thing, for example, but the way he died was really lame and they did him dirty for most of the movie already. Killing off Snoke simply meant Abrams had to either introduce a new bad guy or bring Palpatine back, someone to fill the role Abrams evidently intended for Snoke.

A lot of people use the "no trilogy is planned out" argument to defend what's going on with the sequel trilogy but what they often miss is that a singular vision still usually defines the direction a trilogy takes. They have a rough idea of where they want to go, even if they don't know how they'll get there, and even when things change and evolve that singular vision ensures the spirit of what they're doing stays intact. Having the second movie in a trilogy written and directed by someone different to who wrote and directed the first and third movies is kind of a recipe for disaster if they aren't on the same page and Abram's recent comments imply they definitely weren't.
 

PontyfaxJr

Member
Oct 28, 2017
533
Ireland
I am confident that regardless of how the trilogy feels overall, Abrams will make a movie that's fun to watch and feels like Star Wars.

They should let David Filoni make the next trilogy
 

Catsygreen

Member
Nov 1, 2017
1,362
A plan for what? It's too late now, it's the last episode of the trilogy. What do you expect as a revelation? Palpatine that will say "I have planned everything, Rey is my clone or I don't know what" (I haven't read the spoilers), will it fundamentally change your opinion on the 7 and 8? Not me personally. Anyway, I'll go and see it, but without much hope.
 

DSP

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,120
It boggles my mind that a multi billion company handling a multi billion franchise didnt have a solid roadmap and plans for just 4 5 years ahead. Oof
 

Landford

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,678
a plan?

dsUVTJaR_400x400.jpg
JUST ONE MORE MOVIE ARTHUR
 

FFNB

Associate Game Designer
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
6,089
Los Angeles, CA
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.

lol! Dodged a bullet! I'm glad you didn't have that moment spoiled for you, especially by me! XD

I think a part of it is that I do a lot of studying when it comes to writing, story structure, character arcs, and some stories adhere to that mold more than others. It's not like I'm always right when it comes to where I think a character arc is going, and I've been surprised plenty. But sometimes it seems fairly straightforward and clear.

Usually it doesn't hamper my enjoyment of a movie/show/book if I happen to figure out where it's going before it gets there. I mean, as long as the overall package is entertaining I'm good!
 

Vampirolol

Member
Dec 13, 2017
5,815
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.
Same here, I predicted it because I saw Kylo as simply an anti-Luke, so him actually killing the emperor made perfect sense. The way the movie pulled it off was perfect anyway.
 

FFNB

Associate Game Designer
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
6,089
Los Angeles, CA
Same here, I predicted it because I saw Kylo as simply an anti-Luke, so him actually killing the emperor made perfect sense. The way the movie pulled it off was perfect anyway.

Yeah, exactly. Kylo's Journey has been like a dark mirror to Luke's, so it made sense to me that he would kill Snoke. The part that I was wrong about was a theory I had that Snoke didn't actually have any Force ability, and was basically Wizard of Ozing Kylo and the First Order. Smoke and mirrors. But Kylo killing him to further his journey to the Dark Side was always my expectation, and that he'd do it in the middle film. It just made sense to me.

For all of the complaints about this sequel trilogy being a rehash if the original trilogy, people seem to get very pissed when the obvious Palpatine analogue was done away with. Snoke was always a discount emperor. Just one more element of the ST that reminded people of the OT. Getting rid of him wasn't as much of a curveball but an inevitability when taking into account that Rey and Kylo are the leads, and their growth has been center stage of both movies so far. Snoke was an obstacle to Kylo's growth. He had to go. XD
 
Oct 27, 2017
3,342
Johnson and Abrams could not be less compatible for making a trilogy.

Abrams seems like he'd shit himself if any script deviated from basic plot structure devices.

I'm just happy that I got to see what a Johnson SW film looks like.
 

Commedieu

Banned
Nov 11, 2017
15,025
Since derailing SW threads IS as common as farting when pissing...Dare i Say that by the end of TLJ, Luke displays powers beyond whatever fuckfanfiction any maga fucker ever dreamed about?

More on topic...
A "plan" for the trilogy when, basically, JJ was given free reign at the last minute in exchange for an impossible deadline is a laughable Idea. Dude is juste corporate bullshitting until the movie comes out and he can jump ship to Warner/DC.
Force projection is on the wookipedia.. I think we'll before these dumpsterfires congealed. Iirc

Edit:

I think that's the nerdiest thing ive said on this forum. Bbl.
 
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Mulberry

Member
Oct 28, 2017
678
When Lucas ran the show, no one could tell him no. Kennedy should have learned to say no Johnson instead letting him take the trilogy for a left turn. The lack of a consistent narrative between the movies makes TLJ feel like a lesser movie. If there was a plan, someone should have made Rian Johnson stick to it.
 

Quiksaver

Member
Oct 26, 2017
1,022
no problem! I mean, it's just my process, but I think it works for me. Sometimes I'll write scenes that stick with me, then later realize that it doesn't fit with the overall flow of my story/themes, and have to scrap them. XD

I think every writer just does what works for them, and has their own ways of tackling a story. I just feel like the "no plan" hot takes show a lot of ignorance of the creative process. Especially when it comes to an IP as massive as Star Wars. At the bare minimum, I have no doubt the broad strokes of the trilogy were planned. Ie, "Where do we want Rey, Ben, Finn, and Poe to be by the end of the third film?" The "How do they get to that point," is the part that is being left to the individual filmmakers.

Then the realities of film production/management dictate the rest. The unpredictable circumstances. Like the firing/replacement of a director and his creative team, or the death of one of the primary cast members. "The best laid plans," and all that jazz.

I remember this one story I was writing, I had it completely plotted out. Each issue of the comic, I knew where it was going. Then, during scripting, a sequence happens, and it became clear to me while writing that a key character wouldn't possibly be able to survive this scenario. It just felt more natural in that moment for the character to die. I twisted myself in knots trying to come up with a solution to keep them alive, because I liked the character, but that felt forced and hollow, so they had to go. Lol. Obviously, that changed the plot I had meticulously thought out, so I had to adapt the story to the loss of that character. It ultimately worked in the story's favor, and I think it ended up better by letting the narrative organically evolve, despite the plot outline.

That happens a lot when writing sometimes. You want to go one way, but your characters/story decide to go another. I think it's fun, and makes the writing process more fun when it takes on a life of its own.
Your process shed the most valuable light on something I am creating at this moment.
I've written screenplays and stories before, but your process may have set the rhythm to what I'm doing next, just because I liked it. While worldbuilding can be fun, it's imperative to move on to the characters and then to the structure like you've described. I'll give it a try. It may take some time, but I'm confident it'll help me extract the most out of the fish I caught from the river of ideas.

I get what you mean with written characters' wills, as I've had my fair share of conflict with their actions myself. You deserve the greatest appreciation for being so transparent with your process here.
Shared experience is the best way that people with great stories in their minds can learn how to paper it.

And thank Lucas for providing us with the context to discuss such a valuable lesson.
 

FFNB

Associate Game Designer
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
6,089
Los Angeles, CA
Your process shed the most valuable light on something I am creating at this moment.
I've written screenplays and stories before, but your process may have set the rhythm to what I'm doing next, just because I liked it. While worldbuilding can be fun, it's imperative to move on to the characters and then to the structure like you've described. I'll give it a try. It may take some time, but I'm confident it'll help me extract the most out of the fish I caught from the river of ideas.

I get what you mean with written characters' wills, as I've had my fair share of conflict with their actions myself. You deserve the greatest appreciation for being so transparent with your process here.
Shared experience is the best way that people with great stories in their minds can learn how to paper it.

And thank Lucas for providing us with the context to discuss such a valuable lesson.

wow, thanks so much! I'm glad my process can add a little something to your own!

and yeah, it's very easy to get caught up in the worldbuilding, to the point where the characters can become overshadowed or shown a disservice to it. My goal with world building is to always serve the story that I'm telling at that particular moment. At the very least, I want the rules and history to be developed enough that the story has solid foundations to grow on. It doesn't need to be a 300 page bible (though that certainly doesn't hurt 😂😂), but something fairly solid.

Then I think about how my protagonista and antagonists would exist within that world, and what they think of it, and it spirals outward from there, and then how my plot effects them and so on and so forth. It's a lot of fun, but also kind of exhausting. My current project is having some growing pains, but I'm finally out of the world building stage, and am working towards fleshing out the cast.

I'd love to hear about other creators processes as well! I'm always eager to learn more about how they do what they do. It's also why I love director/writer commentaries XD
 
Oct 25, 2017
4,714
7 and 8 have always flowed together considering how 8 starts and 7 ends but the issue for me has always been that 7 and 8 just feel like the 7 and 7.5
 

FFNB

Associate Game Designer
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
6,089
Los Angeles, CA
Sometimes I feel like the rhetoric surrounding Johnson "throwing out" the plot developments of TFA come more from a disappointment that everyone's post TFA Head canon was incorrect.

Personally, I think TLJ flows and builds off of TFA fairly well. It literally picks up where the last one left off. The fact that the story doesn't match up with what you think should happen, doesn't mean the writer/director threw out what came before.

"Subvert expectations," has become the new "uncanny valley," when it comes to how exaggerated and incorrectly the phrase is used in modern film discourse. As if subverting expectations is inherently a negative. I also think that that criticism is seriously overblown with TLJ. I think it only has three, perhaps four major moments of expectations being subverted: 1, Luke's reaction to being handed his father's lightsaber, 2, Poe actually being in the wrong in his assessment of Holdo and her motivations, and 3, Snoke being not only betrayed by Kylo Ren in the second part of the trilogy, but actually killed by him!

Anything else that happens is more of a cascading effect from those major subversions. Ultimately, I feel like the technique was used smartly, and effectively. There's such an overly cynical view of entertainment these days. A kind of "us against them," mentality where any element of a piece of entertainment that isn't to your liking was clearly done intentionally by the creators of said entertainment, or was done for some other cynical purpose like money, spite, incompetence, etc etc. It makes discussing this stuff so much more of a headache than it should be. XD
 

Mass_Pincup

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
7,127
"Subvert expectations," has become the new "uncanny valley," when it comes to how exaggerated and incorrectly the phrase is used in modern film discourse. As if subverting expectations is inherently a negative. I also think that that criticism is seriously overblown with TLJ. I think it only has three, perhaps four major moments of expectations being subverted: 1, Luke's reaction to being handed his father's lightsaber, 2, Poe actually being in the wrong in his assessment of Holdo and her motivations, and 3, Snoke being not only betrayed by Kylo Ren in the second part of the trilogy, but actually killed by him!

There's also Leila not dying in space and IIRC Benecio Del Toro's character played around that concept a lot.
 

Effect

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,945
When Lucas ran the show, no one could tell him no. Kennedy should have learned to say no Johnson instead letting him take the trilogy for a left turn. The lack of a consistent narrative between the movies makes TLJ feel like a lesser movie. If there was a plan, someone should have made Rian Johnson stick to it.
It does ultimately fall back on her. She never should have let him jerk the car in a different direction the way he did. Not in the middle of a damn story. Do that BS at the very start and make it clear this is going to be different. Or you use the "A Star Wars Story" films to subvert expectations and experiment. If they had any hint of a plan they should have largely stuck to it. Lucas at the very least always had a plan for what he was doing or wanted to do. That plan would morph and change as expected over time but it was there regardless if one agreed with his ideas. Tossing that out and letting someone do what they want goes beyond not being able to say no I think.

My biggest concern is in the end it's going to feel like they completely wasted a film. That's not something they can openly say at the moment. There is no "do over" possible.

The biggest mistake I feel is them killing Luke the way they did. Killing him in general is fine. I think we all really expected it just not in the middle of the damn story.
 

BossAttack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
42,954
When Lucas ran the show, no one could tell him no. Kennedy should have learned to say no Johnson instead letting him take the trilogy for a left turn. The lack of a consistent narrative between the movies makes TLJ feel like a lesser movie. If there was a plan, someone should have made Rian Johnson stick to it.

Lady who fired Lord and Miller, D&D, and tore apart Gareth Edwards original ending and brought in Tony Gilroy to have it completely reshot is afraid of saying "no?" Maybe, just maybe she actually liked what Johnson was doing.
 

MagicHobo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,600
When Lucas ran the show, no one could tell him no. Kennedy should have learned to say no Johnson instead letting him take the trilogy for a left turn. The lack of a consistent narrative between the movies makes TLJ feel like a lesser movie. If there was a plan, someone should have made Rian Johnson stick to it.
This is such a weird take, particularly in light of Kennedy firing as many directors as actually got to make films (most with more Hollywood clout than Johnson!), some smack dab in the middle of filming, because they weren't delivering what she wanted. She of all people couldn't learn to tell the relatively small time director Rian Johnson no? I get feelings clouding judgement and all, but you don't need to invent narratives to justify said feelings.
 

Aaron

I’m seeing double here!
Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,077
Minneapolis
It does ultimately fall back on her. She never should have let him jerk the car in a different direction the way he did. Not in the middle of a damn story. Do that BS at the very start and make it clear this is going to be different. Or you use the "A Star Wars Story" films to subvert expectations and experiment. If they had any hint of a plan they should have largely stuck to it. Lucas at the very least always had a plan for what he was doing or wanted to do. That plan would morph and change as expected over time but it was there regardless if one agreed with his ideas. Tossing that out and letting someone do what they want goes beyond not being able to say no I think.

My biggest concern is in the end it's going to feel like they completely wasted a film. That's not something they can openly say at the moment. There is no "do over" possible.

The biggest mistake I feel is them killing Luke the way they did. Killing him in general is fine. I think we all really expected it just not in the middle of the damn story.
See I read a post like this and it just comes off as "why didn't they tell this story in the blandest, most cookie-cutter way possible."

Because you know, they could have done that and made billions all the same. "Save the experimentation for the spin-offs" just strikes me as such an odd thing to say, especially considering the biggest complaint people had for The Force Awakens was that its story was a carbon copy of A New Hope.

People keep bringing up the "plan" Lucas had for the prequels, but it was such a lay-up. They were prequels, we already knew where the story was going. Anakin would betray Obi-Wan, fall to the dark side and become Darth Vader. Mark Hamill said in an interview like a billion years ago that Anakin and Vader fell into a pit of lava together, and only Vader emerged. Leia also mentions in Jedi that her mother died early on in her life (the way the PT portrays this is sort of contradictory, but all the same), and there's some talk of an event called the Clone Wars. There's your story, and Lucas didn't really have any room to maneuver with it. Where he did, he failed spectacularly.

Someone was talking earlier about how The Last Jedi feels inconsequential. Setting aside that we don't really know that until Rise of Skywalker is out, I don't see how that's any more the case than it is for The Phantom Menace (which is literally cut down to a single scene in Topher Grace's edit of the film, and considered skippable in the Machete Order) or Attack of the Clones. I actually think Revenge of the Sith is a worse movie than TPM, but in terms of its relevance to the over-arching story, it's the only one of the prequels you really need.

By comparison, nothing in the first six films laid out an obvious route for the sequel trilogy, which is fine. Again, it's hard to fully judge until Rise of Skywalker is out and we can view the trilogy as a whole rather than just its first two pieces (remember how Empire was poorly received when it first came out, while Jedi was considered a return to form, and the two only switched places in hindsight?), but I'm actually encouraged by Abrams bringing Palpatine back if it ultimately gives even the prequels a significant place in the overall storyline. Many of the complaints people have had about the new movies not gelling with the first six are similar to the ones I've always held about the PT compared to the OT (seriously, Vader's backstory could have been a flashback in Jedi and I don't think you would have missed anything), so if Abrams can stick the landing (not totally convinced, but I'm sure the movie itself will be enjoyable) it'll be a triumph.

He didn't jerk the car anywhere because TFA didn't lead the story in any particular direction to begin with.
Yeah folks need to remember Abrams' role in the series was initially TFA and that was it. I thought I read at some point he was asked to direct the entire trilogy and he declined? He set up his mystery boxes in TFA and passed it off to Johnson to open them in TLJ. If Abrams didn't have the answers, Johnson coming up with his own doesn't contradict anything set up by TFA.

I think people infer a lot about Johnson and Abrams' relationship in bad faith to Johnson.