As I said where you quoted me, I think the crawl could have given us some notion of how the OT mattered in a simple sentence or two that could have eliminated this criticism from my mind but it didn't.
I don't disagree. I think in the post-release thread I hacked up a version of the opening crawl to kind of deal with that. It was longer by maybe a sentence or two, but it basically helped to explain what the hell was going on with the First Order, the Resistance, the Republic, and the former Empire. The sort of "Wait, WHAT happened?!" reaction I had was something that I do think was a shortcoming of the film. It just didn't kill my enjoyment overall. It's just something I think they could've done better.
The fact that Finn, Po, and Rey really don't know much about what happened emphasizes that it didn't matter. Everything's basically the same as it was then. I, too, hope that we get more of an explanation in the future. Preferably through the films as I found Aftermath difficult to get through and not very engaging but this was a missed opportunity.
To be fair, Finn's knowledge is limited because he's been a conditioned Stormtrooper. Po...didn't really have a chance or reason to talk about what's been going on. And Rey's been on the ass-end of the galaxy just trying to survive, although she seems to have heard about Luke Skywalker, but otherwise didn't talk about much with respect to what happened between ROTJ and TFA. I think that, absent, like, a carbonite-frozen-for-30-years Lando showing up and saying "I don't understand. what happened?" nobody would have had much reason to explain to any of the characters what had happened and why, given what was going on on-screen and everyone's focus. Now, admittedly, that fact in and of itself is one of the other weaknesses of the film, in my opinion. There was so much action happening, that it didn't have time for events to "breathe" and let us figure out just what's going on and what came before. There was no one like Obi-Wan to give a quick "Previously on Star Wars..." description about the past, however cursory that description might have been.
On the other hand, there was a lot of action to cover. I think, maybe, if you'd cut the Rathtar sequence altogether and simply had Han show up and talk about what happened briefly, that might have helped. But I have a hard time coming up with any other sequence where the film might have taken a second to say "Ok, so, here's what you folks probably don't understand" and explain the history of the last 30 years in-universe.
[quuote]Clearly there are very different opinions and interpretations. For me, TFA diminished the OT. For me, the OT is diminished because the Empire is still there just with a different name. The ships, troopers, and major weapon are all clearly evolved from the Empire. There's another emperor type figure in place and he has a dark clad henchman with familial ties to our heroes. The Empire/First Order couldn't of been out of business for long so how did their being "defeated" matter? Luke is isolated as he was in ANH. Han and Chewie are smuggling, as they were in ANH. Leia is leading a resistance, as she was in ANH. They're all, figuratively, right back where they started. It didn't matter. And, as I said earlier, if they're back where they started just because "history repeats itself," then what's the point of any of it?[/quote]
Did you ever read Watchmen? I know, seems like a nonsequitor, but I'm going somewhere with this. There's a bit at the end of the story where Adrian says "In the end, I did it!" or something like that, and the not-quite-god Dr. Manhattan says "The end? Nothing ever ends, Adrian." And ultimately, that's kind of the point. You do your best to make the world (or galaxy, in this case) a better place, but...nothing ever "ends." The struggle doesn't end. The fight against darkness never ends, even if it's beaten back temporarily. Babylon 5 deals with this to a degree, as well.
I mean, yeah, the OT heroes are all kind of back "where they started," but there's clearly a lot more that happened in the interim before they got to that point, that we didn't see. We didn't see Han and Leia's marriage disintegrate. We didn't see Luke go into seclusion. We didn't see the Imperial remnant forces fight on after the death of the Emperor, nor whatever accord they signed with the Republic so that the war could finally, truly end. We didn't see the First Order rise, either.
People often compare the original Star Wars trilogy to the events surrounding World War II. But I think that, in a way, what we're seeing in TFA (and likely beyond) is that the OT is a lot closer to, say, World War I in terms of its ultimate results. You had a defeated aggressor who was ultimately forced to accept harsh terms for peace and disarm, but who later found a new leader to inspire them to rearm, and become an even greater threat. None of that means that the original fight wasn't worth fighting, or that the efforts people made weren't worth it, but it does mean that they didn't fully succeed.
In that sense, yeah, I agree that it "undermines" the "happily ever after" quality of the OT. That said, I at least always expected that they'd do these things to the characters (including killing Han -- my favorite character) if they were to reappear in the new films. It's very, very difficult to tell a new story that somehow maintains "happily ever after" for those characters, includes them in the new movie, and creates genuine dramatic stakes for them and for the new characters.
I don't think it's necessarily as blithely tossed off by simply saying "Well, history repeats itself." I do think that the film would've benefitted from some more exposition on the 30-year gap and whether the fight from the OT was all for naught. Something tells me it wasn't, but that we just won't
see that in the new films. Now that they're making films outside of the "trilogies," though, maybe we'll see some of that state of the galaxy in a future film to help fill in the blanks.
I absolutely understand why so many people love the movie but I don't agree with a lot of those thoughts. I hope the same can be said for those looking at people like me who were disappointed. I'm not looking to change anyone's mind, just to explain where I'm coming from. I like to think that I can keep an open mind but I don't anticipate anyone changing my mind either.
I wouldn't expect to change your mind to explain why "this is good." The only thing I'd try to do is provide a different perspective that might allow you to...hmm...if not necessarily "enjoy" the new film, at least "appreciate" it to some degree, or at least help you to maybe insulate your opinion of the OT from whatever negative reaction you have to TFA and beyond.
I
loathed the prequels. They had a similar "diminishing" effect for me on the OT, in a weird way, and I couldn't "unsee" them once I saw them at all. It ultimately took a lot of distance, time, and actually getting into the Clone Wars cartoon for me to begin to be able to approach them as "not entirely crap." I still think the movies themselves are pretty terrible, but the overarching story is...more tolerable for me now. Mostly because I look at the characters and the events from a slightly different perspective. I still don't choose to go back and rewatch the PT (I'd rather watch Clone Wars and imagine my own "head canon"), but it's definitely lessened the impact all of that had for me on the OT.
