General Star Wars Discussion

SumoLego

^ At the speed of an aggressive Holdo Maneuver.

SumoLego

I don't think any of us would really have a problem with an Imperial Remnant/Clone Palpatine storyline, if it was thought out, made sense and better fit the prior movies.

Atleast, I have a visceral reaction to the haphazard disjointed garbagy-ness that is the ST.  I'd rather see 100 Solos and Rogue Ones where someone actually thought out the plot, than sit through the ST again.

There is nothing that makes sense about the Rey storyline.  Literally every attribute, action, plot point, etc., is a mind-boggling mess.

... back to rewatching The Mandalorian S2 in preparation for some sweet Boba gangsterism at the end of the month...

Fizyx

Brainslugged said:

Fizyx said:
But since I am NOT a lore expert, and there was so much anger I was thinking I had made that up, lol.

Whether or not there might have been some explanation for it is kinda neither here nor there. All we were told was "somehow Palpatine has returned". Now shut your pie-holes and watch two more hours of shite we just pulled out our asses.

I mean, that's definitely fair.  I just saw a lot of people that were super into SW extended lore that picked that part out specifically to be mad at, and it was like... why are you made at THAT?  There is so SO much more to be upset with in that movie than the fact that Palpatine came back, if you are aware that the clone story exists.  (If you're not aware of it, its definitely worse, to be clear.)

I think what makes the whole thing the most unforgivable is that, when Disney bought the franchise, they decided to throw out the expanded universe, except when they wanted to keep it... and then decided NOT to do any kind of official weeding out/explanation for what they were keeping.  So now they are clearly taking things from the expanded universe, but not acknowledging it or anything, so you get Palpatine clones, but what you end up with in the movie is 'somehow Palpatine came back.'  Just admit that some (arguably most, tbh) of the extended universe is actually pretty good, and there you go, you have a ton of ready made lore and explanations built out for you, and you can just take two minutes in the movie to lay out where its coming from, and bam, already you're miles ahead of 'what a twist, somehow this thing happened!'

EDIT for Sumo's post since it was on another page when I posted:  The Rise of Skywalker was such a terrible movie in part because it did so much to ruin the previous two movies.  Like, the ST could have been good after The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi if the Rise of Skywalker had pulled it all together well.  It probably wouldn't have been GREAT, but it could have been good.  But the Rise of Skywalker was SO BAD at what it needed to do that it retroactively made the other two movies worse.  There was so much they could have done with the Rey storyline that they just... threw away for no reason.  I have no idea why they gave it to Abrams.

Bumblepants

Yeah the biggest takeaway from the sequels: start with a $#;@+#! outline for the story. Life if your premise is the Force awakens, maybe more than 1 person (ok broom boy is 2) awakens? 

Astrobricks

I still enjoyed the sequels more than the prequels :)

SumoLego

Astrobricks said:

I still enjoyed the sequels more than the prequels :)

I've been converted to a PT apologist.  Which is a revelation of mammoth proportions given my distain for the PT.  But if the PT had been left to the ST braintrust, I have serious doubts Anakin would have actually turned to the Dark Side.

Frankly, it would have made infinitely more sense to have Palpatine revealed in that first scene when Snoke appears.  Whatever came after that would have been palatable (Palpatable?) than the pile of garbage we got.

But, I'm also in the small camp that found the Snyder cut of Justice League to be a much worse bloated mess than the Joss Whedon version.  (Which was its own independent terrible, unintelligible mess.)

SumoLego

Bumblepants said:

...Life if your premise is the Force awakens, maybe more than 1 person (ok broom boy is 2) awakens? 

Finn awakened.  So there!

560Heliport

SumoLego said:

... Which is a revelation of mammoth proportions given my distain for the PT...

Distain = disdain x distaste? :)

Bumblepants

SumoLego said:

Bumblepants said:

...Life if your premise is the Force awakens, maybe more than 1 person (ok broom boy is 2) awakens? 

Finn awakened.  So there!

And then they threw his character and story right into the trash. So much wasted potential.

playwell

The worst part is that this isn't all just hindsight, people were saying from the start it needed someone working across all 3 films to give consistency at least.

playwell

SumoLego said:

I've been converted to a PT apologist.

Me too, that has been the one great work of the sequels.

PJ76uk

I'm another one of the PT converts! After watching The Mandalorian I wanted to watch the Bad Batch but not being familiar with clones apart from those in PT I decided to rewatch the films and binge watch The Clone Wars series for the first time. Which has naturally lead to Rebels, Resistance and Visions! 

autolycus

Bumblepants said:

Yeah the biggest takeaway from the sequels: start with a $#;@+#! outline for the story. 

This is a common criticism, but it's completely hypocritical in the context of Star Wars. George Lucas never had outlines that he stuck to. He was constantly changing stuff. So were Kasdan and others involved in the OT and PT.

Hell, Lucas had sexual chemistry between Luke and Leia because he didn't decide they were brother and sister until after he'd finished ESB!

autolycus

But anyway, that AT-AT looks pretty sweet, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what Lego brings for 2022! Just as long as none of it is from the prequels. I'm tired of a certain Youtuber whining about no prequel stuff and complaining about no minifigures with a UCS ship that's no minifig scale and was NEVER GOING TO BE. So I hope he gets none of his wishlist for a long time. (I kid, sort of)

sipuss

You can always not watch said Youtuber ;) All the announced and/or leaked sets (outside of the not-even-battle-pack Clone pack) are so far from OT and Mando/Boba TV shows, so it looks like your sort-of-wish might get fulfilled to some extent.

pxchris

At least the PT had an actual cohesive story arch.

autolycus

pxchris said:

At least the PT had an actual cohesive story arch.

But it had MIDICHLORIANS!!!!

monkeyhanger

Fizyx said:

Brainslugged said:

Fizyx said:
But since I am NOT a lore expert, and there was so much anger I was thinking I had made that up, lol.

Whether or not there might have been some explanation for it is kinda neither here nor there. All we were told was "somehow Palpatine has returned". Now shut your pie-holes and watch two more hours of shite we just pulled out our asses.

I mean, that's definitely fair.  I just saw a lot of people that were super into SW extended lore that picked that part out specifically to be mad at, and it was like... why are you made at THAT?  There is so SO much more to be upset with in that movie than the fact that Palpatine came back, if you are aware that the clone story exists.  (If you're not aware of it, its definitely worse, to be clear.)

I think what makes the whole thing the most unforgivable is that, when Disney bought the franchise, they decided to throw out the expanded universe, except when they wanted to keep it... and then decided NOT to do any kind of official weeding out/explanation for what they were keeping.  So now they are clearly taking things from the expanded universe, but not acknowledging it or anything, so you get Palpatine clones, but what you end up with in the movie is 'somehow Palpatine came back.'  Just admit that some (arguably most, tbh) of the extended universe is actually pretty good, and there you go, you have a ton of ready made lore and explanations built out for you, and you can just take two minutes in the movie to lay out where its coming from, and bam, already you're miles ahead of 'what a twist, somehow this thing happened!'

EDIT for Sumo's post since it was on another page when I posted:  The Rise of Skywalker was such a terrible movie in part because it did so much to ruin the previous two movies.  Like, the ST could have been good after The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi if the Rise of Skywalker had pulled it all together well.  It probably wouldn't have been GREAT, but it could have been good.  But the Rise of Skywalker was SO BAD at what it needed to do that it retroactively made the other two movies worse.  There was so much they could have done with the Rey storyline that they just... threw away for no reason.  I have no idea why they gave it to Abrams.

Fizyx said:

Brainslugged said:

Fizyx said:
But since I am NOT a lore expert, and there was so much anger I was thinking I had made that up, lol.

Whether or not there might have been some explanation for it is kinda neither here nor there. All we were told was "somehow Palpatine has returned". Now shut your pie-holes and watch two more hours of shite we just pulled out our asses.

I mean, that's definitely fair.  I just saw a lot of people that were super into SW extended lore that picked that part out specifically to be mad at, and it was like... why are you made at THAT?  There is so SO much more to be upset with in that movie than the fact that Palpatine came back, if you are aware that the clone story exists.  (If you're not aware of it, its definitely worse, to be clear.)

I think what makes the whole thing the most unforgivable is that, when Disney bought the franchise, they decided to throw out the expanded universe, except when they wanted to keep it... and then decided NOT to do any kind of official weeding out/explanation for what they were keeping.  So now they are clearly taking things from the expanded universe, but not acknowledging it or anything, so you get Palpatine clones, but what you end up with in the movie is 'somehow Palpatine came back.'  Just admit that some (arguably most, tbh) of the extended universe is actually pretty good, and there you go, you have a ton of ready made lore and explanations built out for you, and you can just take two minutes in the movie to lay out where its coming from, and bam, already you're miles ahead of 'what a twist, somehow this thing happened!'

EDIT for Sumo's post since it was on another page when I posted:  The Rise of Skywalker was such a terrible movie in part because it did so much to ruin the previous two movies.  Like, the ST could have been good after The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi if the Rise of Skywalker had pulled it all together well.  It probably wouldn't have been GREAT, but it could have been good.  But the Rise of Skywalker was SO BAD at what it needed to do that it retroactively made the other two movies worse.  There was so much they could have done with the Rey storyline that they just... threw away for no reason.  I have no idea why they gave it to Abrams.

I found the LastJedi to be worst of the ST. it was so disconnected from Ep7 and Ep9's mission seemed to be to scrub out the damage Ep8 did and try to have a plot at the same time - it was trying to do 2 things and failed at them both. I also felt the ST had far too much American style "Whoop! Whoop!" going on. Reminded me of the surreal cinema experience of seeing Ep7 in the cinema on holiday in Vegas where the appearance of any OT rebel character on screen was met with half the cinema shouting "Yeah! USA! USA! USA!".  That really puzzled me. I know they put a flag on the moon, but I didn't know America had colonised half the SW planets and had an active interest in their liberation. 😀

The British accent rebel pilots retained far more reserve in the OT (Good shot Jansen, but let's try and refrain from the whoops and remember the 2 pilots that just died, with a bit of decorum)

One thing's for certain. Since the ST came out, people generally aren't so critical of the PT.

Leandro16

AT-AT 75313 is back in stock at lego.com

SumoLego

560Heliport said:

Distain = disdain x distaste? :)

Yes.  Apparently, my auto-correct is exercising some strategery in being effective.

The_Rancor

autolycus said:

But anyway, that AT-AT looks pretty sweet, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what Lego brings for 2022! Just as long as none of it is from the prequels. I'm tired of a certain Youtuber whining about no prequel stuff and complaining about no minifigures with a UCS ship that's no minifig scale and was NEVER GOING TO BE. So I hope he gets none of his wishlist for a long time. (I kid, sort of)

Hating the YouTuber is fine, but I want me some PT sets still so that shouldn’t be reason to cancel them! TLG must have noticed with the quantity of support for the UCS Gunship, even when the moaners are said and done after it came out as the final set (many of the moaners may also have supported the boring TIE Bomber instead but each to their own).

SumoLego

SMC said:

The worst part is that this isn't all just hindsight, people were saying from the start it needed someone working across all 3 films to give consistency at least.

There are literally a group of people at Marvel that review scripts for internal-universe inconsistencies.

(I think they all gave up when the Eternals script was drafted, but whatever.  And were definitely out to lunch on Loki.  But I give Loki some leeway because it appears to me they're in a different universe in the multiverse.  There is that one scene where we pan out from one black hole to another...)

Anyway, in watching the Mandaloran documentaries, it appears Disney/LucasFilms has those type of script supervisors moving forward.

SumoLego

autolycus said:

But it had MIDICHLORIANS!!!!

Which are stupid.  But have no real impact on the story.

The ST has a Snoke.  And a voluminous list of Force plot contrivances that simultaneously ruined and were incoherently necessary to push the 'story' along.

And hyperspace ramming.  Let's not forget that nonsense as well.

SumoLego

Final note on my familiar ST criticisms, Lucas did have a general story arc which had gaps for future revisions.  Changing the Luke-Leia-Han from a love triangle to help serve Luke's motivations at the end of the story (i.e. Vader threatening to turn her to the Dark Side if Luke didn't), isn't the same or hypocritical in any sense than slapping together two wholly different stories.

TFA and RoS were about legacy.  TLJ was about the rejection (setting fire) of legacy.  Those are irreconcilable within a trilogy.  Both could make for interesting independent trilogies, but not together.

Final, final side note, I never understood being angry about the Expanded Universe.  If you like the stories, great.  If you don't, you don't.  Much like Marvel or DC comics, it makes for interesting story elements and plot ideas to draw from.  Frankly, they'd be dumb for not picking and choosing interesting characters and ideas for other movies or series.

PJ76uk

SumoLego said:

Final note on my familiar ST criticisms, Lucas did have a general story arc which had gaps for future revisions.  Changing the Luke-Leia-Han from a love triangle to help serve Luke's motivations at the end of the story (i.e. Vader threatening to turn her to the Dark Side if Luke didn't), isn't the same or hypocritical in any sense than slapping together two wholly different stories.

TFA and RoS were about legacy.  TLJ was about the rejection (setting fire) of legacy.  Those are irreconcilable within a trilogy.  Both could make for interesting independent trilogies, but not together.

Final, final side note, I never understood being angry about the Expanded Universe.  If you like the stories, great.  If you don't, you don't.  Much like Marvel or DC comics, it makes for interesting story elements and plot ideas to draw from.  Frankly, they'd be dumb for not picking and choosing interesting characters and ideas for other movies or series.

Well they did lift Thrash up from the expanded universe for Rebels didn't they? I remember reading Heir to the Empire back in the day, long before Rebels came out!

Diamondback_Six

SumoLego said:

(I think they all gave up when the Eternals script was drafted, but whatever.  And were definitely out to lunch on Loki.  But I give Loki some leeway because it appears to me they're in a different universe in the multiverse.  There is that one scene where we pan out from one black hole to another...)

There's also possibly the Unreliable Narrator factor... if it's being told from Loki's POV, well, he IS the Trickster God and that means by definition being a liar so you can just dismiss anything that clashes with canon as more of his lies.

KungFuKenny

SumoLego said:

Astrobricks said:

I still enjoyed the sequels more than the prequels :)

I've been converted to a PT apologist.  Which is a revelation of mammoth proportions given my distain for the PT.  But if the PT had been left to the ST braintrust, I have serious doubts Anakin would have actually turned to the Dark Side.

At the time I was pretty disdainful of the prequel trilogy as well. In retrospect there are quite a few parts that I liked though. Instead of listing them all I thought I would just make a picture to show some of the cool things I appreciate about the PT…
I still rank the original trilogy best, followed by Rogue One. But the PT has grown on me over the years (especially when I mute the dialogue whenever Anakin is on the screen)…

pvp3020

autolycus said:

Bumblepants said:

Yeah the biggest takeaway from the sequels: start with a $#;@+#! outline for the story. 

This is a common criticism, but it's completely hypocritical in the context of Star Wars. George Lucas never had outlines that he stuck to. He was constantly changing stuff. So were Kasdan and others involved in the OT and PT.

Hell, Lucas had sexual chemistry between Luke and Leia because he didn't decide they were brother and sister until after he'd finished ESB!

This is true of practically any movie or TV series. It's part of the organic nature of filmmaking. The point is, at least Lucas *had* a story outline for the OT (and even part of the PT way back in the 70s). It seems to me that if the ST ever had an outline, it was screwed up, stamped on and thrown on the fire when they made Episode 8.

pxchris

^^ The Geonosis arena battle scene gave me chills the first time I saw it and I still love it to this day!

playwell

KungFuKenny said:

SumoLego said:

Astrobricks said:

I still enjoyed the sequels more than the prequels :)

I've been converted to a PT apologist.  Which is a revelation of mammoth proportions given my distain for the PT.  But if the PT had been left to the ST braintrust, I have serious doubts Anakin would have actually turned to the Dark Side.

At the time I was pretty disdainful of the prequel trilogy as well. In retrospect there are quite a few parts that I liked though. Instead of listing them all I thought I would just make a picture to show some of the cool things I appreciate about the PT…
I still rank the original trilogy best, followed by Rogue One. But the PT has grown on me over the years (especially when I mute the dialogue whenever Anakin is on the screen)…

I think this is something that makes the PT grow on us lego fans, unlike the ST there was nice new designs for ships and alien species. ST seems to give us an unreasonable number of human looking characters and the same ships we had seen before. Even when we might get an interesting design there wasn't any story to go along with it to recreate.

CapnRex101

Echoing the above, my least favourite aspect of the Sequel Trilogy are the diabolical vehicle designs. I genuinely think the Xyston-class Star Destroyer might be my least favourite vehicle in all of Star Wars. Re-using the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer model from Rogue One was the height of laziness. They could not even be bothered to adjust the size of the windows!

With that in mind, my list of favourite to least favourite vehicles is:

• 1 - TIE Fighter / Imperial Star Destroyer / AT-AT / Nebulon-B Frigate / ARC-170 Starfighter / Droid Tri-Fighter (I am indecisive about my favourites)
• ...
• 3726 - The farting Eopie from The Phantom Menace
  
• 3727 - Xyston-class Star Destroyer

lowlead

The only way I can get through Ep II is to watch it in a foreign language.

If I'm in the mood for a SW binge, I'll watch Rogue One followed by the OT.  Aside from Felicity Jones' rather stoic Jyn Erso, I quite like that film.

KungFuKenny

lowlead said:

If I'm in the mood for a SW binge, I'll watch Rogue One followed by the OT.  Aside from Felicity Jones' rather stoic Jyn Erso, I quite like that film.

I would be totally ok if Disney decided to ret-con a trilogy of movies based on the characters from Rogue One (after miraculously escaping the destruction of Scarif and saving K-2SO’s memory banks). However, I realize that part of my affection for that movie is the emotional tug and pathos of those end scenes…I don’t recall tearing up for any movies in the original trilogy, but Rogue One’s ending did make me a bit emotional!

SumoLego

CapnRex101 said:

...the Xyston-class Star Destroyer might be my least favourite vehicle in all of Star Wars...

Those are the Star Destroyers that can't take off independently without a magic navigational dish?

-AAAAACKKKK-

I will attack them with a horse charge.  With horses.  In space.

autolycus

SumoLego said:

CapnRex101 said:

...the Xyston-class Star Destroyer might be my least favourite vehicle in all of Star Wars...

Those are the Star Destroyers that can't take off independently without a magic navigational dish?

-AAAAACKKKK-

I will attack them with a horse charge.  With horses.  In space.

The navigational dish thing was pretty stupid.

The horse charge isn't in space though. They're still well within the atmosphere of Exegol.

MaffyD

^ I thought the destroyers needed the navi-thing because of the messed up magnetics or something? I may be miss remembering.

And they were in atmosphere when the horses charged. Doesn't make it any more realistic, but slightly more believable. I mean, if Ewoks can take down Storm Troopers then anything can happen.

Finally, I had no idea there were that many different types of Star Destroyer - to me most of them look identical (runs away before @CapnRex101 deletes my account). Not counting the Venator because that's obviously different coz of the proportions, notches, silly looking command thingy and red colour scheme. Or the SSD, obviously.

Ok, so I've had a look, and there are some that are a bit different if you look closely. First off, who calls them Impstars? Anyway, I suppose the one with massive balls does stand out a little. And the Victory class looks like it's had its nose squashed. And there's the Mega-class Star Dreadnought which I forgot. All the rest look like either ISDs or VSDs with minor cosmetic changes. The Xystons look like ISDs with a paint job - I quite like them.

The_Rancor

I’m also with Maffy on the navigational dish. I never found it to be a massive issue because they made it clear that Exegol was so difficult to navigate to/around and had so much interference. But if this was the case why have one ISD escape to blow up Kijimi? I’ll give you that.

monkeyhanger

autolycus said:

SumoLego said:

CapnRex101 said:

...the Xyston-class Star Destroyer might be my least favourite vehicle in all of Star Wars...

Those are the Star Destroyers that can't take off independently without a magic navigational dish?

-AAAAACKKKK-

I will attack them with a horse charge.  With horses.  In space.

The navigational dish thing was pretty stupid.

The horse charge isn't in space though. They're still well within the atmosphere of Exegol.

If George Lucy's gadget sold out to Disney, if he'd made IX, we'd be seeing those space horses tweaked into space unicorns with a dpecial edition in a few years time.

iwybs

Translation from autocorrected and uncorrected:

If George Lucas hadn't sold out to Disney, if he'd made IX, we'd be seeing those space horses tweaked into space unicorns with a special edition in a few years' time.

??

MugenPower

I heard that George Lucy's gadget is a Lepin exclusive.

monkeyhanger

Damn auto correct! 

SumoLego

autolycus said:

The horse charge isn't in space though. They're still well within the atmosphere of Exegol.

The fact this is a sentence defending an actual thing in a $250M+ Star Wars movie is beyond ridiculous.

(Good point on hobbit-sized bears pummeling Stormtroopers, though.)

SumoLego

The_Rancor said:

I never found it to be a massive issue because they made it clear that Exegol was so difficult to navigate to/around and had so much interference.

Except that... a bazillion ships showed up simultaneously.  Like, all the ships.  In the whole Galaxy.  At the same time.  Including Wedge.

Redbullgivesuwind

My biggest issue with the sequels is that the Jedi keep getting taken out like punks every 3 films. For ages we were told that they are these amazing beings and coming back will restore the galaxy. Then they keep getting taken out by a moody teenager with a red sword.

If they wanted to put Luke in hiding then I would have had him train up a new generation of Jedi with things going well. Luke gets cocky and we see him try and train Ben who is trying to live up to his parents massive legacy. Then Ben falls to the dark side Luke takes it hard and goes into hiding. Rey, one of his early pupils then has to try and step up and lead them while everything is falling apart. 

Yellowcastle

I thought we had finished dissecting the ST.  I thought we were done and the healing could begin.  I’ve been taking OTC Solo and Rogue One to help salve the wound but then I pick at it again.

TFA is really professionally well done and creates some intriguing arcs and threads.
TLJ then takes those threads, puts them in a bag, covers them in poo and lights them on fire.
ROS was given a flaming bag of poo and asked to turn it into a lukewarm bowl of wet burnt pooey paper.

There should really be no debate about where it all went wrong.  I still refuse to see Knives Out, purely out of spite.

#slowspeedOJspacechase
#whinybeesuicidalluke
#jediblingcall
#finnsquirtingtubes
#sneakawaycasinoandback
#resistancemarveljokes
#neverendingstorydogracehorses
#fakesaberfight
#awesomecraitcombatjustkidding
#hellosnokegoodbyesnoke
#lukenursingwalrus

autolycus

So... How 'bout that AT-AT controversy, huh? A UCS set that can't be fully taken apart without jiggling, knives, and/or intervention by the hand of god? Must be Disney's fault!

Bumblepants

Yellowcastle said:

I thought we had finished dissecting the ST.  I thought we were done and the healing could begin.  I’ve been taking OTC Solo and Rogue One to help salve the wound but then I pick at it again.

TFA is really professionally well done and creates some intriguing arcs and threads.
TLJ then takes those threads, puts them in a bag, covers them in poo and lights them on fire.
ROS was given a flaming bag of poo and asked to turn it into a lukewarm bowl of wet burnt pooey paper.

There should really be no debate about where it all went wrong.  I still refuse to see Knives Out, purely out of spite.

#slowspeedOJspacechase
#whinybeesuicidalluke
#jediblingcall
#finnsquirtingtubes
#sneakawaycasinoandback
#resistancemarveljokes
#neverendingstorydogracehorses
#fakesaberfight
#awesomecraitcombatjustkidding
#hellosnokegoodbyesnoke
#lukenursingwalrus

I think we let Force Awakens get off the hook a bit too easily. If FA had done more to create a new story rather than revisit all the beats of the original TLJ wouldn't have tried so hard to go new places.

lowlead

...but at least the ST sounds great.  What worries me is that John Williams might not be around for the next pervers...er...um...installment of Star Wars.

The_Rancor

Bumblepants said:

Yellowcastle said:

I thought we had finished dissecting the ST.  I thought we were done and the healing could begin.  I’ve been taking OTC Solo and Rogue One to help salve the wound but then I pick at it again.

TFA is really professionally well done and creates some intriguing arcs and threads.
TLJ then takes those threads, puts them in a bag, covers them in poo and lights them on fire.
ROS was given a flaming bag of poo and asked to turn it into a lukewarm bowl of wet burnt pooey paper.

There should really be no debate about where it all went wrong.  I still refuse to see Knives Out, purely out of spite.

#slowspeedOJspacechase
#whinybeesuicidalluke
#jediblingcall
#finnsquirtingtubes
#sneakawaycasinoandback
#resistancemarveljokes
#neverendingstorydogracehorses
#fakesaberfight
#awesomecraitcombatjustkidding
#hellosnokegoodbyesnoke
#lukenursingwalrus

I think we let Force Awakens get off the hook a bit too easily. If FA had done more to create a new story rather than revisit all the beats of the original TLJ wouldn't have tried so hard to go new places.

I always thought the same. Force Awakens felt like A New Hope Remastered. Some of the key things that were different about it (Finn as a rogue Stormtrooper, tormented Dark Side villain as Han/Leia’s offspring, fractious New Republic, hotshot pilot is the opposite of a reluctant hero) - were all taken and developed in The Last Jedi - except the NR because it was already destroyed. 

If they didn’t try and do something different we would’ve got Empire Strikes Back Remastered (yes I’ll admit there’s Rey’s training). And we pretty much still got a level of Return of the Jedi Remastered in Episode IX. By that point they couldn’t win though - and i think it stems from Force Awakens being too much of a rehash originally. 

Just want to point out I still quite enjoy the Sequel Trilogy - they’re just not as good as the OT or PT, or indeed Solo or Rogue One.

Yellowcastle

I don’t disagree that TFA regurgitates ANH.  And sure, I would have preferred a more novel approach.  But JJ executed quite professionally and I and my family greatly enjoyed the experience.  And then TLJ destroyed each and every one of those threads while enmeshing the characters in awful, stupid events.  ROS had no chance but IMHO did what it could.