Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Pre-release)

[cboath]

Clearly, this thing was not well thought out ahead of time or RJ wouldn't have tossed most of the stuff JJ started.

If they planned out anything, they clearly didn't do enough. Say, there is a ghost dark sider behind the scenes pulling the strings. Great. Should have been introduced well before 9. If this was about closing the skywalker saga (which it has not been), then you need to focus on that in the actual movies. You can't just say 'we planned it because we but in the art of book'. 99% of your audience won't see that book. If it's part of the plan it needs foreshadowed earlier on. Otherwise - even if planned - it comes off as just pulling it out of your @#$ as the last second.

These are things that are set in outlines if you have a set plan you're working from as both would be major points that have to be raised and resolved.
Don't go comparing it to the OT either. That was very different. ANH was made not knowing if they'd ever get to do another one so there wasn't really anything left in the air that need resolved. This is part of what makes 8 not that great as a middle piece. It hasn't left anything to resolve really. It's like ROTS, the bad guys won (ish in this case) and that's the end. There is nothing that has to be resolved from the ST in 9. The only hanging plot point, really, is what happens in a final fight between Rey/Kylo and she's already basically 2-0. She won in TFA and technically, if you knock each other out and one wakes up before the other one enough to steal a ship and escape, they could have offed the other beforehand as well.

If you structure a 3-film story, you want to raise issues in 1 that are resolved there but more that aren't. Issues that going into 2 and get resolved in 3. They've failed to do that. Rey hasn't lost to kylo yet, so there's no excitement for a 3rd round. The first order runs more like the keystone kops with the way they have Hux screaming way over the top seemingly all the time. Seeing as the knights are supposedly back, they should have been brought in in 8. Again, the vast majority of the audience doesn't obsess over this stuff. The Knights of Ren was a throwaway line in 7. Half the audience at least likely won't remember it for 9.

For all the defense, the next set of three (whether it's a trilogy is still unknown i think) is being done by the same people. The next one after that is supposedly all RJ. Putting three different people in charge of what's supposed to be a single set isn't the way to go. You want a coherent vision and a coherent story that follows all the way through. JJ has also said a number of things were tossed by RJ he wanted to build on so he has to go another way in 9. Planning fail. It all smacks of a lack of coherent plan. RJ clearly didn't like the direction JJ wanted to go. That, in and of itself, is fine. but he seemingly had unilateral power to flat out change the course which isn't a good thing. If you're going to do that, you better make a vastly superior product and he did not.

 

[Jaitea]

TFA was a swan song to the OT, although George gave a blueprint of where he thought it should go, Disney wanted to settle viewers & bring back the lost folks who dropped off because of the Prequels,...it's also why the Clone Wars cartoon was cancelled & an OT style Rebels was produced

TLJ's structure may have been written, but the film was effected by criticism that TFA was a rip off of SW (ANH), so RJ assured LFL?Disney that he would subvert expectations, ironically ripping off key scenes of ESB & ROTJ

It's the ST that I & everyone are talking about,....the 3 act story with no overall plan,....the 2 Star Wars spin offs are the only two movies so far that have any thought behind them....IMO

J

 

[Psab keel]

Regardless of bringing Lando or the Emperor back, or even Luke as a ghost, none of it matters to me. I may have been duped by TFA but TLJ certainly cemented my commitment to skip the rest.

 

[Joek3rr]

Clearly, this thing was not well thought out ahead of time or RJ wouldn't have tossed most of the stuff JJ started.

If they planned out anything, they clearly didn't do enough. Say, there is a ghost dark sider behind the scenes pulling the strings. Great. Should have been introduced well before 9. If this was about closing the skywalker saga (which it has not been), then you need to focus on that in the actual movies. You can't just say 'we planned it because we but in the art of book'. 99% of your audience won't see that book. If it's part of the plan it needs foreshadowed earlier on. Otherwise - even if planned - it comes off as just pulling it out of your @#$ as the last second.

These are things that are set in outlines if you have a set plan you're working from as both would be major points that have to be raised and resolved.
Don't go comparing it to the OT either. That was very different. ANH was made not knowing if they'd ever get to do another one so there wasn't really anything left in the air that need resolved. This is part of what makes 8 not that great as a middle piece. It hasn't left anything to resolve really. It's like ROTS, the bad guys won (ish in this case) and that's the end. There is nothing that has to be resolved from the ST in 9. The only hanging plot point, really, is what happens in a final fight between Rey/Kylo and she's already basically 2-0. She won in TFA and technically, if you knock each other out and one wakes up before the other one enough to steal a ship and escape, they could have offed the other beforehand as well.

If you structure a 3-film story, you want to raise issues in 1 that are resolved there but more that aren't. Issues that going into 2 and get resolved in 3. They've failed to do that. Rey hasn't lost to kylo yet, so there's no excitement for a 3rd round. The first order runs more like the keystone kops with the way they have Hux screaming way over the top seemingly all the time. Seeing as the knights are supposedly back, they should have been brought in in 8. Again, the vast majority of the audience doesn't obsess over this stuff. The Knights of Ren was a throwaway line in 7. Half the audience at least likely won't remember it for 9.

For all the defense, the next set of three (whether it's a trilogy is still unknown i think) is being done by the same people. The next one after that is supposedly all RJ. Putting three different people in charge of what's supposed to be a single set isn't the way to go. You want a coherent vision and a coherent story that follows all the way through. JJ has also said a number of things were tossed by RJ he wanted to build on so he has to go another way in 9. Planning fail. It all smacks of a lack of coherent plan. RJ clearly didn't like the direction JJ wanted to go. That, in and of itself, is fine. but he seemingly had unilateral power to flat out change the course which isn't a good thing. If you're going to do that, you better make a vastly superior product and he did not.

TFA was a swan song to the OT, although George gave a blueprint of where he thought it should go, Disney wanted to settle viewers & bring back the lost folks who dropped off because of the Prequels,...it's also why the Clone Wars cartoon was cancelled & an OT style Rebels was produced

TLJ's structure may have been written, but the film was effected by criticism that TFA was a rip off of SW (ANH), so RJ assured LFL?Disney that he would subvert expectations, ironically ripping off key scenes of ESB & ROTJ

It's the ST that I & everyone are talking about,....the 3 act story with no overall plan,....the 2 Star Wars spin offs are the only two movies so far that have any thought behind them....IMO

J

“The script for VIII is written. I’m sure rewrites are going to be endless, like they always are. But what Larry and I did was set up certain key relationships, certain key questions, conflicts. And we knew where certain things were going. We had meetings with Rian and Ram Bergman, the producer of VIII. They were watching dailies when we were shooting our movie. We wanted them to be part of the process, to make the transition to their film as seamless as possible. Rian has asked for a couple of things here and there that he needs for his story. He is an incredibly accomplished filmmaker and an incredibly strong writer. So the story he told took what we were doing and went in the direction that he felt was best but that is very much in line with what we were thinking as well. But you’re right—that will be his movie; he’s going to do it in the way he sees fit. He’s neither asking for nor does he need me to oversee the process.” "[Rian] had things that he came up with where he asked if it was possible if we could make some adjustments with what we were doing at the end, most of which we did — there were just a couple that didn’t feel right, so he made adjustments — but it was just collaboration.” -JJ Abrams

“I knew little bits from my first meeting with J.J.,” Adam Driver says of where Kylo Ren finishes this story. “An overall arc was very, not vague, the opposite, it was very clear—[there was] an end in sight even from the very beginning. The details obviously hadn’t been worked out, but we had talked about the very thing that we’d been working towards with this last one.” -Adam Driver

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Two small points...

The Story Group decided to de-canonize nearly 30 of EU lore, that is a bold move.

Wellllllll, no. On the one hand, there were so many internal contradictions (and contradictions with the Prequels) with the whole body of work collectively called the "Expanded Universe" that it couldn't all be made canon when George retired from LFL. On top of that, George never bothered to keep up with what people were doing in his sandbox. A few things, like Tim Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, crossed his radar and sufficiently caught his attention that this or that element that he liked he incorporated into his work. That's how Coruscant became canon.

But because of all that, rather than play favorites and decide which elements of the EU would be canon and which would have to get thrown out -- knowing that whichever way they chose someone would be loudly pissed at them for it -- they just decided that all of it would be a grab bag future writers could draw from. And they have been.

Point two; George rather prominently said "Sith can't become Force ghosts". So I wonder how they're going to address that.

 

[Joek3rr]

Regardless of bringing Lando or the Emperor back, or even Luke as a ghost, none of it matters to me. I may have been duped by TFA but TLJ certainly cemented my commitment to skip the rest.

My intention is not to be rude, I'm just genuinely curious. From what I've seen you say, you seem to only like the OT. So I'm wondering, did you ever think you'd like any other Star Wars films? Like before the new films came out.

 

[Joek3rr]

Two small points...


Wellllllll, no. On the one hand, there were so many internal contradictions (and contradictions with the Prequels) with the whole body of work collectively called the "Expanded Universe" that it couldn't all be made canon when George retired from LFL. On top of that, George never bothered to keep up with what people were doing in his sandbox. A few things, like Tim Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, crossed his radar and sufficiently caught his attention that this or that element that he liked he incorporated into his work. That's how Coruscant became canon.

But because of all that, rather than play favorites and decide which elements of the EU would be canon and which would have to get thrown out -- knowing that whichever way they chose someone would be loudly pissed at them for it -- they just decided that all of it would be a grab bag future writers could draw from. And they have been.

Point two; George rather prominently said "Sith can't become Force ghosts". So I wonder how they're going to address that.

I should have said something like "officially de-canonize". I often refer to the EU as "soft" canon, I mean there's a reason why the canon hierarchy existed George retconned a whole big chunk with The Clone Wars. I mean, when you think about it, the EU was really kinda doomed from day one.

Yeah, George said "no" to Dark Side ghosts. But they can still become, shall we say, a more "traditional" type of ghost. Basically, they do something to prevent their spirit from becoming a part of the cosmic Force. But then there's that cryptic line that Palpatine says in ROTS "To cheat death is a power only one has achieved..." One? Participially interesting when listening to Palpatine's story about Plagueis. A person who, according to him could create life, and prevent people from dying, and who taught his apprentice everything he knew. When Anakin asks about this powerPalpatines says that the Dark Side is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural and that the power to save people from death is not something he'd learn from the Jedi.

 

[Psab keel]

My intention is not to be rude, I'm just genuinely curious. From what I've seen you say, you seem to only like the OT. So I'm wondering, did you ever think you'd like any other Star Wars films? Like before the new films came out.

I only like the OT. I initially liked the prequels when they came out only because I wanted to like them so bad that I lived in denial for a number of years until I finally was honest with myself about it. When TFA came out I liked it, didn't love it, but I was cautiously optimistic but it would all hinge on what 8 delivered.

I'd read a lot of the EU (Legends) up until about 2000 or so and liked some of it. At the time I was all for more Star Wars stories and liked most of what I read, though to be honest I was a teenager and my tastes in writing was somewhat questionable looking back on some of the EU novels I enjoyed.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I myself am a writer and having written (and currently am writing) a new draft of said novel I am far more critical of Star Wars because it has potential to be good. Or at least I thought it did for a long time. The more perspective I have on it though the more I feel it truly is limited in it's scope and to venture too far off course would make it something other that what we all recognize.

I don't begrudge you or others for liking the new material but I personally just enjoy the simplicity of Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. I feel like it's a solid story with a beginning middle and end and anything added on to it is really not necessary.

On the upside of everything I'm trying my best to use Star Wars as a vehicle of inspiration. Not only to finish my personal Star Wars props and costumes that I've wanted since I was a kid, but to inspire me to work on my book and turn my frustration into a positive thing by using my creativity and all I've learned about the process of storytelling.

 

[modelcitizen]

"To cheat death is a power only one has achieved..." BUT, IF WE WORK TOGETHER, I KNOW WE CAN DISCOVER THE SECRET.
just to finish the actual line....

 

[Halliwax]

I don't think they have things planned out to the MCU level of detail. And that's a good thing. The first thing they ask the author, writer, or director, is 'what is Star Wars to you.' They are encouraging the creators, to be creative, to make Star Wars personal to them. Unlike Kevin, and his overbearing vision for the MCU.(there's a reason why Joss Whedon left Marvel)

This has to do with the books, but it probably is similar to how the movies are made.

@bishbashboshjt Do LFL tell novelists the plot or do they Vet it with you?
@pablohidalgo We don't tell them the plot. It's their stories. We just try to make sure it's the right story to tell at the right time.

We just learned the MCU wasn’t really planned out until half way through, watched a great video of them connecting the dots when they decided to really go for the whole “infinity war”

 

[Halliwax]

Yeah of gotta disagree. Let's look at the evidence here.

TFA
The only reacting to the criticism of the previous film going here, would be them putting emphasis of SFX over VFX.
And I'd say the two main criticisms of TFA are, Rey is believed to be a Mary Sue and it was to similar to ANH. So how does the next film respond to the criticism?

R1
They don't. The make a film that ends, what, a half an hour before ANH? There's no reacting to criticisms here. And mind you R1's pre-production would have mostly finished before TFA was released. So how about the next film?

TLJ
TLJ was famously(or infamously) written before TFA was released. Meaning there's no reacting to criticism going on here either. And just look at film, it doesn't do anything about the Mary Sue criticism. And the film follows some the same beats as ESB. So TFA's criticism was ignored.

Solo
Being a spin off film, it doesn't bother with the criticism of the saga films. But it does something else. The opinion on the Internet was pretty clear. Very few people wanted this film(most wanting a Obi-Wan, Boba, or Vader film). But they went ahead and made Solo anyways.
-------
And I also have to disagree with the assessment that there's nothing bold or confident in their direction.

The Story Group decided to de-canonize nearly 30 of EU lore, that is a bold move.

They freakin' killed off Han Solo!

Love him or hate him, what was done to Luke Skywalker takes some serious guts to do.

And zero brains.. what did they think was going to happen, delivering us a movie like that!?

Fan base is destroyed.. this has become worse then the prequels, the prequels are getting more positivity today then ep8, so what does that say

Total lack of leadership in lucasfilm...

No guts required to make an abortion of a film.. just zero brains

 

[Halliwax]

Flipping through my copy of 'The Art of The Last Jedi'(though it's from TFA's pre-production, not TLJ) I came across this peice done by Christian Alzmann. The caption reads. "We've seen dead Jedi come back as blue ghosts. Maybe Sith can come back. And maybe there's some all-powerful mastermind Sith that's controlling whatever the dark side is. We did talk a lot about how the final battle frontier for Jedi might be in the spirit realm. So you have to have a bad-guy-ghost." I wonder if this a hint about what the Emperor is going to be up to.
View attachment 1023997

I freak’n love this picture, wish I could get my hands on a blown up one and frame it!

 

[tcsmit29]

Fan base is destroyed.. this has become worse then the prequels, the prequels are getting more positivity today then ep8, so what does that say

I genuinely like the prequels better than the ST.

 

[Joek3rr]

And zero brains.. what did they think was going to happen, delivering us a movie like that!?

Fan base is destroyed.. this has become worse then the prequels, the prequels are getting more positivity today then ep8, so what does that say

Total lack of leadership in lucasfilm...

No guts required to make an abortion of a film.. just zero brains

Watching 'The Director and the Jedi' I got the sense that they thought fans would throughly enjoy ep 8. I mean imagine their odd elation to think, to hear that the main criticism of TFA was it being to similar to ANH. And having Rian's script at that point and thinking 'what luck, we already have the script for a decidedly different Star Wars film, exactly what the fans want'. I mean the marketing really pushed that line "this isn't going to go how you think". If I have to fault Lucasfilm for anything, its that they forgot the lesson they learned on the prequels: you can't make everyone happy. Your going to pour your heart and soul into your project, and in response your going to get " you ruined Star Wars" "you ruined my childhood" "I would be very happy if everyone who worked on this film died"

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Psab keel, that's what prompted my rewrite project back in the early 2000s. I wanted to see if there were a way it could have all worked, and retained the same "mental mouthfeel" of Star Wars and Empire (if you've been paying any attention at all, you know I don't regard ROTJ as a satisfactory end to Luke's arc because of the impact compressing four episodes into one had on the story beats and character development). That's how I came to feel it was flawed from the get-go, from the choice Lucas made to start in the middle, thinking he only had one shot. I approached it to see how it would look laid out from Episode I through whatever, and when you listen to the story and the characters, rather than adhering to bullet-points to tick off. I don't like to list my critiques, because it comes across as Lucas-bashing, when I'm just trying to point out the structural errors made in the writing process.

But I do still believe in that latent greatness. Even if it means laying out the groundwork and leaving it to a future generation to re-make the saga. Like all the different attempts and interpretations of Dune or Lord of the Rings -- that were released or died on the vine. I appreciate the actors and performances and technical achievements and don't want to dismiss or diminish any of that. Some things are the sort of lightning-in-a-bottle that may never be able to be captured again. But I have to hang onto my hope for my big three fandoms -- Star Wars, Transformers, and Star Trek -- that they'll retain that essential core of inspiration that was there at the beginning, and that can't be extinguished by any amount of mishandling along the way.

And, as frustrating as it can be sometimes to see something that just works better than what we got, it's still satisfyingly cathartic to see that it doesn't have to be that way. I think that's how I've gotten through the dark times of those properties -- even when I've had to walk away for a few years it got so bad.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Joek3rr, the thing about the EU is that it was really a minor shift, as far as its standing with the films was concerned. It went from tacitly canon until it wasn't to tacitly not canon until it is. Almost exactly the same weight it always had.

For those of us who grew up with the Marvel comics or the Han Solo adventures, who lived through the Star Wars Renaissance of the 1990s, before the Special Editions and the Prequels, who saw every dot connected and background character named by West End Games and Decipher (both of whom got a lot of technical details wrong, fallout from which we're still dealing with to this day)... Well, those stories felt as solidly canon as the films (give or take) because nothing contradicted them in the canon, and nothing was likely to because Star Wars, as a live-action filmic property, was dead. There wasn't going to be any more. So comics and novels and games were the only way forward we saw for the story.

But a lot of the early stuff lacked sufficient oversight. The newspaper strips by Archie Goodwin didn't feel beholden to match up to what Our Heroes were up to in the Marvel comics, for instance. Brian Daley did a great job with the Han Solo trilogy, but made some erroneous leaps in padding out the radio dramas, that future authors (Tim Zahn, Mike Stackpole...) perpetuated. Even by the time we got to the Renaissance, with Heir to the Empire and Dark Empire and the second edition of West End's RPG and the release of Decipher's card game, the lead-up to and release of Shadows of the Empire... Well, there were a lot of little problems we the fans had unspokenly agreed to just ignore of gloss past. The multiple and contradictory origins for Boba Fett. The multiple accounts of his escape(s) from the Sarlacc. The problematicness of Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

So by the time we got the the Prequels, and George's lack of caring about 99.9% of what was in all that content, he overruled his own internal timeline, that those works had been more or less going by. He overruled all of Boba's backstories -- twice (a lot of the disparate bits got ascribed to Jango and/or Jango's adoptive father Jaster Mereel in the post-AOTC EU, but then George nullified that in Clone Wars). He overruled the implicit lack of stigma in Jedi marrying and having families in the OT in order to give Anakin some remedial-writing-level pathos and angst. He even borked the big surprise reveals of Vader being Anakin, Yoda's appearance, and Luke and Leia's (revised in 1982) relationship. I mean, hell, George apparently didn't even pay attention to the dialogue in the OT when making the Prequels. Never mind all the "certain point of view" crap vis-à-vis Obi-Wan's account of Anakin, but he deliberately left out "Earthy" timekeeping referents, except where he couldn't avoid it. But between Star Wars and AOTC, the Republic shifted from having been around for over a thousand generations to a thousand years. Oops.

Credit to Dave Filoni, he has consistently and often subversively worked in EU elements in Clone Wars and Rebels, because he's a fan. So even though we didn't get Z-95 Headhunters in ROTS, we got them in Clone Wars. Even though neither Boba nor Jango were Mandalorian Protectors, at least the organization exists in some form. Concord Dawn, beskar, Glee Anslem, Savareen brandy, Darth Bane, Dathomir and its Nightsisters (far better in the books, IMO)... All originally from the EU, now in the aired/screened canon. The Hundred Year Darkness was referenced early in the new -- canon -- Marvel comics, and gave me hope that might mean they'd be doing something with the KOTOR era besides letting it languish in Heisenbergian semi-existence. Even Fenn Rau is a callback to Fenn Shysa, who Dave couldn't include due to the unfortunate fact that his family name, spoken aloud, is a vulgarity in another language. Can you imagine, say, a Jedi named "Bolly Maird"? Anyone who knows French would titter every time their name was spoken. And it might get bleeped in foreign releases.

So even though the EU has been "de-canonized", it has a better chance now of being properly canon than it ever did before. At least, the bits that work. Which is why I felt the KOTOR thing was a no-brainer. It's the most well-plotted-out, internally-consistent period in pretty much the entire lore. Even moreso than the OT era.

 

[gedmac66]

I genuinely like the prequels better than the ST.

Same here ( loathed Ep VIII, & waiting to see how Ep IX goes ), though to be honest I really did enjoy TFA , even with all the similarities to ANH. It at least felt like a Star Wars film .

 

[Joek3rr]

Joek3rr, the thing about the EU is that it was really a minor shift, as far as its standing with the films was concerned. It went from tacitly canon until it wasn't to tacitly not canon until it is. Almost exactly the same weight it always had.

For those of us who grew up with the Marvel comics or the Han Solo adventures, who lived through the Star Wars Renaissance of the 1990s, before the Special Editions and the Prequels, who saw every dot connected and background character named by West End Games and Decipher (both of whom got a lot of technical details wrong, fallout from which we're still dealing with to this day)... Well, those stories felt as solidly canon as the films (give or take) because nothing contradicted them in the canon, and nothing was likely to because Star Wars, as a live-action filmic property, was dead. There wasn't going to be any more. So comics and novels and games were the only way forward we saw for the story.

But a lot of the early stuff lacked sufficient oversight. The newspaper strips by Archie Goodwin didn't feel beholden to match up to what Our Heroes were up to in the Marvel comics, for instance. Brian Daley did a great job with the Han Solo trilogy, but made some erroneous leaps in padding out the radio dramas, that future authors (Tim Zahn, Mike Stackpole...) perpetuated. Even by the time we got to the Renaissance, with Heir to the Empire and Dark Empire and the second edition of West End's RPG and the release of Decipher's card game, the lead-up to and release of Shadows of the Empire... Well, there were a lot of little problems we the fans had unspokenly agreed to just ignore of gloss past. The multiple and contradictory origins for Boba Fett. The multiple accounts of his escape(s) from the Sarlacc. The problematicness of Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

So by the time we got the the Prequels, and George's lack of caring about 99.9% of what was in all that content, he overruled his own internal timeline, that those works had been more or less going by. He overruled all of Boba's backstories -- twice (a lot of the disparate bits got ascribed to Jango and/or Jango's adoptive father Jaster Mereel in the post-AOTC EU, but then George nullified that in Clone Wars). He overruled the implicit lack of stigma in Jedi marrying and having families in the OT in order to give Anakin some remedial-writing-level pathos and angst. He even borked the big surprise reveals of Vader being Anakin, Yoda's appearance, and Luke and Leia's (revised in 1982) relationship. I mean, hell, George apparently didn't even pay attention to the dialogue in the OT when making the Prequels. Never mind all the "certain point of view" crap vis-à-vis Obi-Wan's account of Anakin, but he deliberately left out "Earthy" timekeeping referents, except where he couldn't avoid it. But between Star Wars and AOTC, the Republic shifted from having been around for over a thousand generations to a thousand years. Oops.

Credit to Dave Filoni, he has consistently and often subversively worked in EU elements in Clone Wars and Rebels, because he's a fan. So even though we didn't get Z-95 Headhunters in ROTS, we got them in Clone Wars. Even though neither Boba nor Jango were Mandalorian Protectors, at least the organization exists in some form. Concord Dawn, beskar, Glee Anslem, Savareen brandy, Darth Bane, Dathomir and its Nightsisters (far better in the books, IMO)... All originally from the EU, now in the aired/screened canon. The Hundred Year Darkness was referenced early in the new -- canon -- Marvel comics, and gave me hope that might mean they'd be doing something with the KOTOR era besides letting it languish in Heisenbergian semi-existence. Even Fenn Rau is a callback to Fenn Shysa, who Dave couldn't include due to the unfortunate fact that his family name, spoken aloud, is a vulgarity in another language. Can you imagine, say, a Jedi named "Bolly Maird"? Anyone who knows French would titter every time their name was spoken. And it might get bleeped in foreign releases.

So even though the EU has been "de-canonized", it has a better chance now of being properly canon than it ever did before. At least, the bits that work. Which is why I felt the KOTOR thing was a no-brainer. It's the most well-plotted-out, internally-consistent period in pretty much the entire lore. Even moreso than the OT era.

I really appreciate the insight into the EU. I only got into it in the early 2000s, and I was limited by the lack of money as kid to getting my "fix" at the library. So my EU knowledge is limited to the Bane trilogy, Republic Commando series, various reference books, PC games, and Wookieepedia. Not to mention when I first was introduced to the EU, I hated it. I remember telling my mother that "the films are my only Star Wars." Of course I came to enjoy the EU, even love portions of it, namely KOTOR. I'm very curious to see how that will be handled, as the Old Republic timeline was altered slightly in The Clone Wars, if I recall.

 

[cboath]

The EU was never canon in the first place. When it began, it was said that George/LFL wasn't beholden to any of it should they decide to make more films. The caveat was there from the get-go. The fact that people still get bent out of shape over it amazes me to no end.

As far as the prequels, i like 1 and 2 to be honest. 3 was OK until anakin's fall which i found very unbelievable. From 'these guy really piss me off' to 'sure, i'll murder a bunch of children' is 30 seconds. I don't care what your motivation is. You don't murder a bunch of kids to save one person. You flat out don't.

As far as the ST, i like 7. I have no problems other than i wish they hadn't opted to ruin the lives of han, luke, and leia. It was not necessary for the plot at all. Seems like it was just done to elevate the newbies. With 8, i could maybe take it if they hadn't decided to character assassinate luke. The crank call went on too long, but that wouldn't make me hate it or even dislike it. That's the only thing that makes me hate it quite frankly. That and it didn't seem to leave anything left for 9. A part 2 of 3 has to bridge the gap and set up the finale'. It didn't do that.

As for the RJ was involved with dailies of TFA. Big whoop. He can stuff inserted for him to use, but he just dumped a lot of what was there as well. None of that implies there was a good overall plan. If there was, RJ was given permission to tear it up. There's absolutely no way the plan was we're going to set up this new evil, not tell much about it, then give it a tiny bit of action in part 2 and then kill him off and leave 9 completely wide open with no clear objective for the audience to see for 9.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

I really appreciate the insight into the EU. I only got into it in the early 2000s, and I was limited by the lack of money as kid to getting my "fix" at the library. So my EU knowledge is limited to the Bane trilogy, Republic Commando series, various reference books, PC games, and Wookieepedia. Not to mention when I first was introduced to the EU, I hated it. I remember telling my mother that "the films are my only Star Wars." Of course I came to enjoy the EU, even love portions of it, namely KOTOR. I'm very curious to see how that will be handled, as the Old Republic timeline was altered slightly in The Clone Wars, if I recall.

Well, like I said in my post above -- George had a Senior Moment when writing Palpatine's dialogue in AOTC and unthinkingly changed "generations" to "years", leaving it to others to clean up that mess. So, between 2002 and 2014, we got and had developed (and referenced a couple times in Clone Wars) a period of strife about a thousand years prior to the films that resulted in the Galactic Republic being "reformed", with the earlier entity being called retroactively the Old Republic. Some of that strife involved the clinically-named "Mandalorian Excision" -- i.e., the Republic carpet-bombing Mandalore into a desert -- which led eventually to the appearance of the New Mandalorian movement by those who hoped a pacifist philosophy might prevent the same thing from happening again.

That Reformation also saw the eliminiation of a standing Republic military, with internal enforement very limited and in the hands of the Republic Judiciary. That comprised all the blue uniforms we saw in the Prequels adn Clone Wars -- the Senate Guards and Senate Commandos, the Judicial Fleet pilots on the Radiant VII... And, when the Kaminoans took the contract to create a new army for the Republic, they based the look of that army's matériel on that of the last Republic troops that we saw later in the TOR MMO game.

So there's a lot of stuff that came after AOTC that owes its existence and context to that one little blunder from George.