Star Wars: Movies and Shows on Disney+ and More (Page 3 of 6)

I still maintain that the last 3 minutes is the most entertaining scene/scenes in Star Wars history.  I think it's what I've always wanted Star Wars to be, especially in terms of Vader.  And I liked it better than I liked Force Awakens because I think both are flawed and I wasn't caught up in all the "original trilogy" nostalgia because I'm not the world's biggest Star Wars fan (and I didn't love Force Awakens).

My biggest complaint wasn't with the script - I think Felicity Jones was way too wooden.  I don't know if she can act or not, but it was a prequel-quality performance.

STILL SPOILERS

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I do worry about what JJ will do with the series where it is now.  I've read a lot of people criticizing The Last Jedi because it "wasted" a lot of the potential of The Force Awakens.  That it doesn't answer/address several critical questions that JJ set up. 

But, as someone who thinks TV-style questions in movies (even episodic movies) is insulting to the audience and ridiculous in today's Reddit culture, I think Rian Johnson took all the parts of the Force Awakens that he thought were interesting and moved forward with it.  I don't know how much freedom he had to answer anything he wanted, but some of it would've required some backbending.

For example, I've seen people upset that they don't answer how Maz got the lightsaber.  I don't think that was supposed to be some big mystery - she's a "person" who knows everyone and who deals with scavengers and smugglers on a daily basis.  Someone on Cloud City found it.  JJ Abrams didn't answer the question in his movie because a) he/the writers couldn't think of an answer or b) the answer doesn't matter.

Or there have been complaints that Rey's parents were a letdown.  Why did they use Ewan McGregor's voice if they weren't going to reveal that she's a Kenobi?  Why was it made to be such a big mystery if the answer was going to be so dumb?  But I think the answer is perfect - as someone on the Internet said, it completely fits the narrative.  Rey and Kylo are opposites.  Light and dark.  Male and female.  But, most importantly, Kylo is this princely character born of these insanely significant figures, and Rey is.....no one.  People wanted her to be significant, but her insignificance is crucial to her character.  The last shot of the slave (?) boy on the Casino World is exactly the point - anyone can be a hero in the galaxy.  You don't have to be a Skywalker or a Kenobi or a Solo.  Just embrace the Force and embrace the light and even you can blow up the Death Star.

And now that JJ is back for IX, I think he's going to take things in a more traditional direction.  But Rian Johnson didn't really set up anything for him.  The plot has been left in an interesting place, but there aren't mysteries for JJ to solve.  Which is the way I think it's supposed to be.

I really like that.  And I think it makes sense....I wish that was conveyed by the movies themselves, though.

A lot of my problems are simply a lack of context that the movie needs to provide.  You know my disdain for "here's the product....if you want to understand it, here's your extended universe homework" stuff.  And I think a lot of this stuff doesn't have to have grand, Episode-I like political discussions.  I think small snippets of dialogue can help.  The problem is that The Force Awakens didn't even give us much of any background.

The Republic was small and weak -

CHARACTER 1 - "They're going to attack the Republic's home system!"
CHARACTER 2 - "The Republic?  They're still around?"
CHARACTER 3 - "I thought they collapsed years ago."

Was it corruption?  A lack of resources?  How do you go from a galaxy *starving* for freedom (as the end of Return of the Jedi shows) to a Republic that is only really active in one star system?  I was expecting a failing government (think the League of Nations or the United States under the Articles of Confederation).  What we got was....the state of Petoria?

http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/Petoria

Was the First Order a new thing or a rebranding of the Empire?  How was that sold to people? 

CHARACTER 1 - "They sold the First Order as the New Republic.  Using the enemy's old weapons to bring peace and freedom to the galaxy."
CHARACTER 2 - "People needed to feel safe.  They chose to believe Snoke's lies."

What's the difference between the Resistance and the Rebellion?

CHARACTER 1 - "This is it?  This is the Rebellion that took down the Empire?"
LEIA - "The Resistance.  When the Empire fell and was replaced by the First Order, the Republic was too weak and too scared to start another Galactic War.  So they signed peace treaties.  We're the only ones fighting them, and we have to stay strictly off the books, or the First Order will crush what's left."
CHARACTER - "The Resistance?"
LEIA - "The Empire rebranded.  So did we."

I like the disillusionment of the galaxy.  They won something big and then realized that the enemy was still as strong as ever.  So why keep fighting?  *Cue Sonic Youth song*  It isn't worth it.  I'm done fighting.  Done trying.  Who cares?

It would just be nice if the characters in the movie would fill in the gaps for me

Wouldn't it be more likely that the galactic government would collapse and local/planetary governments would take over? 

That's what's sorta weird about the Star Wars universe.  There's clearly a Republic at one point, but what role do they serve?  Naboo gets literally invaded in Episode 1, and there's no "Republic Army" to defend a Republic planet.  They send in two Jedi to act as peacekeepers and nothing else.  It was basically up to the people of Naboo to save themselves.

The Empire, after the Senate was dissolved, probably had Palpatine-picked regional or planetary governors that were in charge of....collecting taxes?  And standard leadership stuff?

I'd assume when the Empire fell that those governors would be given the boot, and each planet would then elect their own leadership.  Planets that already had trade (?) relations, would probably form small versions of the Republic.  Maybe, this time, with actual forces to defend themselves.  Maybe a captain of a Star Destroyer from Tatooine (which, we know, has an Imperial academy) would decide that, with the Emperor dead, he has more loyalty to the new Tatooinian government and enlist his ship to his new government's defense.

So instead of a Republic, you'd have a collection of different "states" that would operate independently until a more centralized government was established.  It'd take a long time to rebuild to the Republic, but it'd move in that direction.

My guess is that the Empire would move to the next in the chain of command, but the Empire lost so much of their chain of command (losing both Death Stars, Tarkin, Krennic, and their top two leaders).  So I'm guessing imperial leadership would be a street war of different captains of commanders at an identical rank (plus political leaders - like the different governors I'm talking about) fighting each other. 

Imperial soldiers, from grunt stormtroopers to commanders of smaller ships, would have to fight between loyalty to the now-scattered empire, their own home-planet governments, and people vying for control.  We're talking a civil war between several factions with giant weapons.  I don't think that gets sorted out very quickly.  And even when it does, it'd wipe out a ton of the Empire's weapons.  Even if someone (Snoke) rose to take command very quickly, I still think the Empire would be too weak to have complete control over the galaxy.

What seems to have happened, however, is.....nothing.  Snoke, who almost-certainly had to have been a key member of the Empire who already had power and respect, took command of the Empire's forces and renamed it the First Order for his own reasons.  Even though the war was over and their leader was dead, the millions/billions of stormtroopers remained loyal and nothing across the galaxy changed.  One star system declared themselves "the new republic" but didn't have connections (politically or militarily) to any part of the rest of the galaxy.  The remainder of the Rebellion simply renamed their forces to be the Resistance and kept doing what they were doing until they were whittled away to nothing.

In a universe as simplistic as Star Wars' seems to be, I guess it makes sense.  What might've been more interesting would've been for Snoke to have led some sort of "Outer Rim" military to take over while the Empire was in chaos and the Republic was fledgling.  It'd give the filmmakers the ability to redesign scary-looking new ships that could terrorize both the Republic and the remnants of the Empire.  Maybe the Resistance would be a combination of imperial forces and the rebels - working together to try and defend themselves.  Imagine the Resistance having a Star Destroyer that's easily destroyed by one of Snoke's new ships.

But what's clear to me is that Abrams just wanted to remake a New Hope and didn't care about drawing a line between the Force Awakens and Return of the Jedi.  Like ireactions said, he wanted the Empire and the Rebels.  And he got it....except he renamed it the First Order and the Resistance.  For some reason.

Really great analysis, but that seems to also apply to Star Wars fans as a whole.

What's funny to me is my idea of Luke as a fringe fan of Star Wars.  I've seen every movie, and I appreciate them all.  But they're not movies I've seen a ton of.  I've seen A New Hope a couple dozen times, but I'm not sure I've seen Empire or Jedi more than a couple times each all the way through (I've seen pieces of them a lot since they're always on TV).  In a recent discussion about the quality of the prequels, I realized that I think I've only seen episodes II and III once each (again, aside from scenes here and there on TV).

But, for some reason, Luke holds a place in my heart.  And as Episode VIII approached, I started to worry that Luke could die.  Or, possibly even worse, go to the dark side.  I felt that, in some way, my heart would break a little for him to not be alive.  After all, he'd been alive and young my whole life.

The movie actually handles Luke, for the most part, in a way where I was okay with him going.  After all, we know Luke will live on in the Force so he's not really gone.  And even as someone who's a fan of Luke, I wasn't really bothered by the Luke stuff in the moment.  I was surprised, but I wasn't offended.

I agree with everything you said.  Luke is, on paper, a cold-blooded killer.  I watched "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" the other night, and Robert Downey Jr. gives a great performance when his character shoots and kills a bad guy in the middle of the movie.  He breaks down at the idea of shooting someone....even as a career criminal who killed a truly bad guy in self defense.  As you said, Luke killed millions of innocent people but doesn't really seem bothered by it.

And yet....killing a child in his sleep?  At least Anakin did it to the younglings when they were awake and could, at least theoretically, defend themselves.

The only thing I can really think is that they wanted Kylo to have this tragic backstory.  And it really does make him a truly interesting character.  Kylo is this kid who romanticizes his grandfather (who had his own tragic backstory) and feels this pull to the Dark Side.  He has this mother who cares so much about her Rebellion and a father who's not really built for fatherhood.  Then his parents sent him away to live with his cooky uncle, while this other dude is pouring propaganda in his ear from across the galaxy.

Then, one night as he's as conflicted as ever, his uncle tries to kill him.  Whether or not Luke meant to do it or not, that's Kylo's backstory.  He truly believes his uncle tried to kill him.  And then he starts to wonder....wait, did my parents send me to die?  Is all the love I had as a child a lie?  Is the only one who has truly cared about me....Snoke?

It happens all the time.  Kid gets betrayed by his/her family and falls into the arms of an abusive relationship.

The problem with the Last Jedi is that it doesn't really excuse any of it.  Even with all the talking from Kylo and Luke, there's still not enough context to understand what really happened.  What did Kylo really do that scared Luke so much?  What did he do where Luke would even consider that Kylo couldn't be saved?

You say that Luke was working off instinct, but that's not really what Luke says.  If he'd explained it that way, I think there's a chance they could've sold it.  When I watched it, it seemed like Luke was saying that he *did* want to kill him, but it was just for a moment.  Because he definitely walks in, thinks about it, and then ignites the saber.  It didn't seem, at least to me, that he got caught up in the moment.

So to me, and to a lot of people in the audience....they turned Luke into a guy who'd consider murdering kids.  And, yes, I agree that he's probably killed kids in the past (you'd gotta think that some families were on the Death Star).  But this was so much different that that that, I think, it really bothers people.  Thus the hate.

And so I wondered, was there a way to give Kylo this cool backstory without harming Luke's legacy?  Some ideas:

1. I like the idea that he's working off instinct.  I also love the idea that Luke, flat out disagrees with the teachings of the Jedi.  So what if you combined those two things?  Luke goes to the Jedi Temple and learns an old Jedi technique for defeating evil - Force Meditation (name can be workshopped).  As a Jedi Master, Luke can meditate and enter a sort of trance where he becomes one with the light side of the Force and can seek out true evil.

Luke enters one of these trances in an attempt to find Snoke.  And in a sleepwalking state, he finds a strong Dark Side presence, and the Force Meditation draws him to it.  And draws him to destroy it.  Maybe it's Ben himself or maybe it's Snoke's Force projection.....but either way, Luke (still "sleepwalking") ignites his lightsaber.  Ben wakes up....and so does Luke.

So Luke isn't doing it...this flawed Jedi artifact did it.  The Jedi aren't interested in saving people - they're interested in killing bad people.  If the Jedi had been around to fight Vader and Palpatine in A New Hope, they'd have killed Vader and then lost to Palpatine.  It took seeing the good in Vader to save the galaxy, and that's why the Jedi are flawed.

2. Do the twin brothers.  I know in the (abandoned) expanded universe, the Solos had twins.  So maybe you bring that back.  Ben and Lando Solo are twins that are sent to train with Luke.  Ben is a quiet boy with a strong love for his family.  Lando is a wild and rebellious son with an obsession with his grandfather Anakin.  At the Jedi Temple, Lando keeps asking about the Dark Side.  He starts experimenting.  He builds a....red lightsaber.  Ben tries to talk to him, but he loves his brother.  He wants to save him from these dark thoughts.  Lando is drawn away from Ben to a new father figure - Snoke.  And through Lando, Snoke starts telling Ben that their family abandoned them.  Han and Leia don't love them.   And, one day, Luke will try and kill them.

At training, there's a tragic accident.  Lando is sparring with another student and accidentally maims/kills him.  Ben is horrified - Lando doesn't seem bothered by it.  Luke keeps an eye on him....and, yet, it happens again.  So Luke, in the middle of the night, goes to take Lando away from the Academy.  Lando defends himself with his lightsaber.  Ben wakes up, Luke loses his concentration, and Luke slices through Lando.

Luke has no time to explain.  Ben simply sees Luke kill his brother, and Snoke's prophecy is coming true.

Luke does kill a Solo twin - but it was one who was definitely a Dark Side user.  But it still drives him to exile, and it still drives Ben to become Kylo.

3. Just make it the Dark Side.  What if Snoke was influencing them both?  What if Luke starts seeing all the students turning evil....not just Ben?  Meanwhile, Ben is getting the same sort of influence?  Luke doesn't sense it, but Snoke starts feeding the lies to Luke.  "Your nephew is evil."  "Your uncle will try and kill you."

And Luke falls for it.  He lets his hate and his fear and his jealousy turn him to the Dark Side....and he tries to kill his nephew.

Mark Hamill wanted this as far back as Episode VI.  He thought it was where the saga was going and pitched it to George Lucas - so it would've been interesting to see that come true on the screen.  It wouldn't be a full Dark Luke - just enough Dark Luke to try and kill Ben.

Luke snaps out of it, but it's too late.  So he does go into isolation and close himself off from the Force - he can't trust it again, and it keeps him safe from Snoke's influence.

I think if you do something like that, you protect Hamill's vision of Luke.  Which, it seems, is a lot of Star Wars' fans visions of Luke.

Ha, well having just admitted to only seeing the OT movies a handful of times (and the prequels less) and admitting to not being a big fan, I'm not surprised that I don't understand how the Force works.

The problem with that scene is a lack of clarity and context.  I definitely don't remember exact details, but my memory tells me that Kylo was asleep.  Maybe they could've shown Kylo to be awake and having a discussion with Snoke (like he does when he catches Rey and Kylo talking).  Or maybe they could've shown flashbacks to show more of what other dark side stuff Kylo was dealing with.  I think I remember Luke saying that he had darkness inside him, but I don't remember him saying anything specific.  Maybe there's more flashbacks in the deleted scenes - it sounds like there were plenty.  And since the movie was already too long, I think it's probably a bad idea to recommend adding more.

Whether or not he intended on killing Kylo, it does seem that Luke thinks he did.  And I think people are feeding off that in their complaints.

What's funny, to me, is that Luke raising a new school is actually a very interesting premise.  And since the movie's plot amounts to "the Resistance goes a little distance and ends up escaping on the Falcon", I might've enjoyed an entire movie focusing on Luke/Rey and flashbacks of Luke/Kylo.  It would've been an even more unusual Star Wars movie, but I think it could've been great.

Seeing this again today.  Gonna focus on the Luke stuff and see how it comes across.

Something I've been thinking about since I saw the movie a second time?  Does Rian Johnson hate the Force Awakens?  I feel like he took a lot of stuff from that movie and either openly made fun of it or snuffed it out.  Is it pretty consistent that people that liked TFA didn't like TLJ and vice versa?

Things I've noticed:

The Rey/Luke scene:
TFA - Treated like a huge deal/cliffhanger.
TLJ - Treated like a joke.  Luke throws the lightsaber away and walks off.

Anakin's Lightsaber
TFA -This is the key.  Why is it back after so long?  How did it get here?  Now that Luke has it, what will happen?!?
TLJ - Luke doesn't care about it.  Ends up destroyed.

Kylo Ren's Costume:
TFA - "Here's your new Vader!"
TLJ - Treated like a joke.  Snoke specifically says that the helmet and the costume is dumb, and it seems like Kylo did it on his own because he thought it looked cool.  Kylo destroys the helmet and never wears it again.

Rey's Parents:
TFA - A huge mystery.  Maybe *the* mystery of the entire new trilogy.
TLJ - They were no one.  Doesn't matter.

Maz:
TFA - This character knows everything.  Knows everyone.  She holds all the secrets if you know how to ask.
TLJ - She doesn't have time for this movie.  Get your deus ex machina somewhere else.

Hux:
TFA - Here's your new Tarkin.
TLJ - Except he's a total idiot.

Phasma:
TFA - She's a badass.  You'll see.
TLJ - Not really.  Maybe dead?

Snoke:
TFA - This dude is the ultimate evil.  Very mysterious.  Fear him.
TLJ - Wears a dumb-looking gold robe.  Cut in half.  He doesn't matter.

Rey:
TFA - Everyone loves Rey, and she's great at everything.  Always rescues herself.
TLJ - Luke wants nothing to do with her.  Suspects she might be evil.  She struggles with her training.  Has to be rescued by Kylo in the Throne Room.

Finn and Poe:
TFA - Finn is an insider with so much knowledge of the First Order.  Can use that to take them down, and Poe is the only guy daring enough to help him do it.
TLJ - Finn's plan is ridiculous and doesn't work at all.  Nearly gets everyone killed.  Poe's plans are reckless and gets tons of people killed.

Nostalgia:
TFA - Star Wars is the best!  Here's a reference!  And another!  Look, a bigger Death Star!  The Millennium Falcon!  Anakin's Lightsaber!
TLJ - "Let the past die.  Kill it if you have to."

Star Wars has never been about mysteries, and I think the bigger sin is setting up the mysteries at all.  I think Rian Johnson agreed with that, and he's stated as much.  He said if Star Wars is going to survive, it has to become something more than what it was.

The Last Jedi is divisive because it's a hard reset to what JJ Abrams did.  Which is why it's going to be such a problem when JJ comes back.

I watched Solo: A Star Wars movie.

That sure was a movie that I watched.

(that's my entire review)

I have a complicated relationship with the sequels, but I'm pretty happy with the revelation that Rey is no one.  I hope that doesn't get retconned because I think it creates a great symmetry.  Kylo believes he's royalty.  That his control of the universe is deserved because of his bloodline.  For the Force to choose a random person to rise up to meet him is a great narrative work.  Kylo and Rey are true opposites.  If they end up as cousins...I don't know.

I think you're right - it's a designation of some sort.

I was more intrigued by the Emperor's cackle.  Is he back?  Cloned?  Was he Snoke?

Well, I think ireactions did a fantastic job of summarizing a lot of things about the movie.  So I'll just make a list of my thoughts since it will be hard to be a lot more eloquent and detailed than him.

- Overall, I had fun with it.  I think what they decided to go with worked, I thought the movie was fun, and I think the character pieces worked.  Leia was a bit distracting, but I thought their use of her was nice and effective.  I feel pretty good in thinking that they were almost able to do exactly what they wanted with her.

- I think it's a fine wrap-up.  I don't necessarily agree with Grizzlor that it's definitely a wrap-up of the Skywalker story.  Especially because of what I'm about to get into.

- Palpatine.  I was very uneasy with this plot direction for a lot of reasons, which I'll hopefully get to.  I'd be curious to know why this path was chosen.  Was this JJ's plan all along?  Or did he have to pivot when Rian Johnson killed Snoke?  Was this a matter of sticking to the plan, or did they have to frantically throw together a new plan when Rian Johnson left his movie the way he did?  I don't know.  I liked The Last Jedi, but I do think it's a movie that feels either complete or ends on such a low note that it's hard to imagine the good guys winning.

The problem with using Palpatine are two-fold.  The first is the bigger concern, and that it just comes so far out of left field.  Nick Mason on the Weekly Planet podcast had a good point - The Rise of Skywalker doesn't feel like a sequel to either Last Jedi or even the Force Awakens.  It feels like a sequel to an unproduced Episode VIII that exists only in JJ Abrams' head.  I'm sure they'll retcon stuff to make pieces fit, but it feels like so much is missing since there weren't really any indications that Palpatine was alive or pulling any strings.  There were no hints, no clues, and no mystery boxes even implying that.

And I get where they're coming from.  If this series has an overarching villain, it's Palpatine.  He's there in Episode I and he's there in Episode VI.  The second that the sequel trilogy's Darth Vader was revealed to be Han and Leia's son, we knew he wasn't going to be the overall bad guy.  So when Snoke died...who else was there?  Hux?  Laughable.  They could've brought back Snoke in the same nebulous way they brought back Palpatine....but why?  Snoke is barely a character.  Even if you reveal him as Plageous - that's essentially a brand-new character.  So outside of just doing a brand-new character, why not bring in someone who was the villain for at least six of the movies.  Bringing him in at the last minute worked in Episode VI.  Why not here?

Well....we've been there.  We've seen that.  Not only does it undercut Episode VI's ending, I think it sorta undercuts this movie's ending.  Is the Emperor dead this time?  Was he actually dead the first time?  Does the movie even tell us what happened?  Is he a clone?  Or did he survive falling down that shaft?  The comics famously had a situation where Sidious simply transfers into a new clone whenever he dies.  So is that possible again?  Is there any reason to believe that Rey wouldn't end up fighting the Emperor again?  And if so, can this really count as a definitive ending?

- Dismissing Rian Johnson so hard.  I get it.  People didn't like the Last Jedi.  But it's one of the 9 episodes of this saga.  People don't like Episode I, but Darth Maul has been resurrected into canon because people like him.  There's a whole TV show about the events between Episodes II and III.  The prequels are hated, but there hasn't been any effort to erase them from existence. 

As ireactions showed, JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson essentially played tennis with this trilogy.  JJ Abrams did some stuff.  Rian Johnson turned that stuff on its ear and overrode some of it.  JJ Abrams did the same.

And that's fine.  Rian Johnson essentially tried to make Kylo Ren the main bad guy, but JJ (obviously) wanted him to be a character that can be redeemed.  Rian Johnson wanted to make a statement that the Force doesn't care what your last name is - it can pick anyone to stand up and face the darkness - that even an orphan scavenger girl can stand up against the Crown Prince from the most powerful family in the galaxy, but JJ wanted her to be someone important.  Rian Johnson thought the mask was stupid, but JJ knew they could sell toys and that they needed the mask for Galaxy's Edge.

But therein lies the problem.  You have created a trilogy that became a tug of war against itself.  I don't think TROS is disrespectful to the Last Jedi, but it obviously wants to do its own thing.  So it almost makes TLJ seem like an unrelated adventure, and like Nick Mason said, it makes TROS feel like a sequel to a movie we never got.  It feels disjointed because it's a three-episode TV show with no second episode.

In retrospect, they either needed to stick with the plan of 3 different directors or have JJ direct all three.  Because having Rian Johnson subvert JJ Abrams' ideas obviously hurt the flow of the movies.  And I think if Colin Trevorrow or anyone else had directed this, I think it would've one it it's own direction instead of (at times) awkwardly pivoting in a direction that it was no longer traveling.

Because I think Rian Johnson left breadcrumbs on how he wanted his version of the story to end.  The little boy with the mop at the end showed that anyone can have the force.  So maybe Trevorrow or Deborah Chow's version ends with a bunch of Reys stepping up to fight the evil of the galaxy.  Nobodies standing up against the Skywalker legacy that had so much good and bad.  I don't know - JJ didn't seem to care about that much.

- The Batman v Superman / Justice League connection.  Chris Terrio co-wrote this film.  He also co-wrote BvS and Justice League.  I bring this about because I think those movies are tied to these movies.  Batman v Superman was the Last Jedi for DC.  Zack Snyder, love him or hate him, did some things with characters that were unexpected.  Batman kills.  Superman's relationship with humanity is...complicated.  These characterizations were hated, and when Justice League came around, they were mostly ignored.  Batman doesn't kill.  And Superman is remembered as a guy who was revered by everyone.  They're the characters we love and remember.

Kinda feels like the Last Jedi.  People hated how the Last Jedi treated Luke Skywalker.  So the Rise of Skywalker goes out of his way to say that Luke was wrong to do and say the things he said.  He's the Luke we all loved and remembered.

I'm not comparing the movies any more than that because I don't think there's much more to it than that.  I just think it's kinda funny that BvS and TLJ are two of the most controversial genre movies we've ever seen, and Chris Terrio essentially Jedi Mind Tricked us both times into ignoring the things we didn't like about the previous movies.

- Wrap Up.  All in all, I liked it for what it chose to be.  I just don't really understand why it chose to be that.

I think I agree with that.  I think the primary issue is that I don't feel like either of them ever even worked together.  And I don't even necessarily mean they got in a room for days to plan things out.  I don't even feel like there was an email with a list of possible directions to go in that either of them used or referenced.  If I were JJ Abrams and I've just completed the Force Awakens, I would've made a list of directions that I was hoping to go. 

- Rey is a Palpatine
- Palpatine is still alive / is the embodiment of all Sith evil on a distant planet
- Leia is going to sacrifice herself to redeem Kylo who also sacrifices himself to save Rey

Even if its just a photo of rambling notes, I'd write something down so that the next person has a general idea of where things were meant to go.  Either Abrams did this and Johnson threw it in the trash, or Johnson made the theme of his movie about the idea that mystery boxes don't matter.  Either way, there's not really any connective tissue between Episodes VII and VIII.  And if episode IX was directed by someone else entirely, then maybe that would work.  It'd be an anthology of Star Wars movies that have a different visual or tonal style telling one mostly-coherent story.

But even if Abrams and Johnson weren't working against each other, they're not working with each other enough for the story to make the ride feel smooth.  Abrams decided he wanted to take the left path through the exciting forest, and he started down that path.  And Johnson decided he didn't like the forest and wanted to take the windier path that goes alongside the ocean so he could contemplate the vastness of the ocean without all the noises and distractions from the forest.  Neither seemed to notice or care that there was a middle path where you could still see the ocean and still hear the forest that was both safer and faster.

And again I don't think this is all that strange, even in Star Wars.  Star Wars is notorious for its wide and expansive Legends universe full of tons of stories from hundreds of different creative minds.  But if Lucas wanted the Clone Wars not to be touched upon, they weren't.  When the comics wanted to bring in a clone of Vader, Lucas insisted they make it a clone of Palpatine.

I don't think it would've been a stretch for Disney to have the same philosophy.  "Rian, you're the mastermind of Episode VIII, but JJ has some plot points that we would like you to either build on or at least don't directly contradict."  So it's still collaboration even if they're still working 100% independently.

I think that's fair.  Stuff like this is fascinating to me, though.  Star Wars is (and has been) a license to print money.  TROS is going to be a financial failure compared to the two previous Disney sequels, but it's still going to be an amazing financial success.  So I wonder how much, if any, the decision makers really care what movie comes out.  The movie could be arthouse, dumb popcorn flick, coherent, or nonsensical, and it's still going to make money.  Different groups of people seemed to hate each of these movies, and they still made ridiculous amounts of money.  So it might not actually matter whether JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson made a cohesive trilogy.

When I look at Marvel, it seems so simple.  Kevin Feige (and I assume a group of others) watches over a series of a couple dozen movies, doing (IMO) a great job of both building and interconnecting a universe while also making that universe feel diverse and unique.  Black Panther and Guardians of the Galaxy shouldn't work together, but while they have very different themes and visuals, they both "feel" Marvel.

TFA, TLJ, and TROS all have the same characters and two feature the same director, and they don't really feel like the same group of movies.  I'd think someone like Kathleen Kennedy would line these scripts and directors up and figure out a way to make everything make sense.  If there isn't a plan for all three movies, are there are at least mile markers we want to hit?  Places for these characters to go?  If Abrams truly threw out everything Trevorrow did, it implies there was never a plan.  On one hand, it means that these movies aren't written by robots like Marvel seems to be.  But on the other hand, I just can't imagine HOW THAT IS POSSIBLE.

But since Marvel seems to be the only one doing it their way and everyone else seems to be doing things their way....I guess maybe Kevin Feige is the crazy one.

Jurassic World is a ton of fun.  As someone who has more nostalgia for Jurassic Park than I've ever had for Star Wars, I can safely say that Jurassic World was a love letter to me as a fan.  I think it's a lot like the Force Awakens - it's a retelling of the original story with higher stakes (since the park is open and there are more potential casualties).  I think he might've made a similar movie to The Force Awakens, honestly.  So I assume his Episode IX wouldn't be much different than TFA.

But I don't think there's anything wrong with the Rise of Skywalker in a vacuum.  I think it's perfectly enjoyable on it's own.  I think where this series fails is simply as a cohesive unit.  Episodes VII and IX feel like two ends of the same story since they were made by the same person.  Episode VIII feels like a sidequel or a supplementary comic book adventure because what happens in it adds to the characters but not necessarily the story.

The sequel trilogy, to me, is a delicious gourmet hamburger meal.  Abrams films are two wonderfully toasted buttered buns, and Johnson's films are perfectly fried french fries coated in parmesan and truffle oil.

We're missing the meat.  The connective tissue between Abrams' movies so that the jump into IX isn't so abrupt.  We have a villain in TROS that we don't understand, even though he's a familiar face.  Is Palpatine the original guy we were introduced to in Episode I that survived the destruction of the Death Star?  Or is he, as he puts it, some sort of timeless embodiment of the Sith?  I've heard theories on all of it.  That TROS Palpatine is a clone of the original who was imperfect (or torn apart by the Dark Side energy) so he needs to jump into a new body.  Or that TROS Palpatine is the *true* Palpatine and that the Darth Sidious that was killed in Return of the Jedi was the clone/projection.

Honestly, I don't know, and the movie doesn't really care to answer.  I think maybe they just needed another edit.  Maybe merge the Pasaana and Kijimi scenes so that they can get to Exegol faster.  I don't know.  Even as someone who liked TLJ more than most (and it's my favorite of the sequel trilogy), I wonder if Rian Johnson just didn't do enough to set up Episode IX and Abrams had to cram in Episode VIII and IX into one.  And that's why it was both really long and really rushed.

When Game of Thrones finished, there were a number of videos that came out that showed that the cast sorta didn't like the ending.  They'd be asked a question about how things ended, and they'd either hesitate to come up with a diplomatic answer or they'd give some sort of sarcastic one.  The idea was that they knew the ending was bad and couldn't contain how they felt about it.  The internet did the same thing with questions Mark answered about Luke's portrayal in the Last Jedi, something he's somewhat-openly had issues with.

I've seen in multiple interviews with the younger Star Wars cast (Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac) where they all seem sorta done with Star Wars.  I've seen in multiple interviews that Daisy seemed sorta wooden and checked-out in her performance.  Boyega and Isaac both specifically said they had no interest in any sort of Disney+ supplementary material.

I wonder what to make of that.  I know Harrison Ford was done with Star Wars during the original trilogy.  The fans have all but ruined the experience for someone like Jake Lloyd.  I'm sure it's exhausting to do a Star Wars because you're asked about it all the time, and I'm sure the press junkets made them never want to suffer through something like that ever again.  All three of them have "made it" and I'm sure they don't need Star Wars like they probably did when the Force Awakens was casting.  Daniel Craig essentially said during the press tour for Spectre he'd rather die than do Bond again, and he came back and did another Bond.  So maybe it's nothing.

But with all the chaos at Star Wars, I wonder if there's just something off about the brand at the moment.  Trilogies are announced and cancelled.  Directors are brought on and then fired.  I'm not blaming anyone in particular, but I wonder if the Disney and Star Wars marriage isn't as functional as we all think.  And I wonder if the actors sorta see that.  I think an Oscar Issac-led Poe series would be really cool, and I think there's tons to do with him or Finn.  Especially in light of the success of the Mandalorian and how much Marvel is branching out with TV shows.  And for either actor to outright (and vehemently) dismiss it just came off as really odd to me.

Yeah.  I know they're doing Mandalorian season 2 and an Obi-Wan TV show.  I'd forgotten they're also doing a Cassian Andor show for Disney+ starring Diego Luna.

But Rian Johnson is still working on something for Star Wars.  So is, apparently, Kevin Feige.  So there will still be Star Wars movie, but Star Wars fatigue is definitely a thing.