Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Pre-release)
- Thread starter Bryancd
- Start date
Ish... The original premise, that got drifted away from more and more, was a serialized story a la those old Saturday morning Flash Gordon and Commando Cody adventures. The whole point of the crawl was to catch folks who missed the previous week's outing up on what they'd missed. Episodes tended to end on cliffhangers or open questions to bring people back the following week to see how it resolved. A lot of this is also in the James Bond and Indiana Jones structure. Each story starts with the hero completing the previous adventure -- even if the previous adventure is only implied.
The amount of time-jump needs to be calculated by how much you can cram into those few sentences and not leave any major character development or setting evolution left unseen. I think they should have filmed a whole bunch of stuff for the ST's setting in time, 'cause the actors weren't getting any younger, and then keep it handy while they figured out better how they wanted to carry the story forward from the end or ROTJ... and then show us that. Give us the Heroes "new normal" that they fought and sacrificed for before yanking it away again. If they'd just started about ten years earlier, with Leia still a senator, her and Han still together, Luke teaching a new batch of promising youths...
...And then a mysterious ship drops an unknown girl off on the planet where the Empire's last stand had been twenty years earlier. Show us the emergence of the First Order, show Leia trying to warn the Senate and have them dismiss her, have her form the Resistance, have some mysterious catastrophe befall Luke's training center, have him break the bad news about Ben to his sister and then disappear.
Back when it wasn't about the Skywalkers (up until 1995 or so), when most of the story was in George's notes rather than on the big screen, there was a ~15-year pause for breath between the Adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, at the end of which it organically transitioned to the new Heroes because Kenobi's story was largely done. Luke, Leia, and Han are still active in the ST because their story wasn't over yet.
The best analogy I can come up with for how clunky and not-thought-out it all is is this: George had a two part book in mind, but figured it was too dense to ever publish, so he picked a few highlights from the middle and end and released that as a novella. Suddenly people wanted to read the whole thing. So he continued from the midway point, with help from other writers and editors, decided Part One would really only be an extended prologue, got sick of their interfering with "his vision", and curtailed Part Two at about half the length it was plotted out to be and never bothered with the prologue. Then, a decade later, he started thinking about it again, another collaborator convinced him to go back and do that prologue/Part One, except it wasn't about the main character in his notes, but the villain from Part Two...
When the context and focus and page count keeps changing like that, it gets harder and harder to tell a consistent and cogent story.
1996. And a more unnecessary filler story I am hard-pressed to think up. Everyone points out that it's a year and a half between Empire and Jedi -- but that's between the start of each film. One thing Star Wars and Empire don't do terribly well is convey the passage of time covered in scene cuts. Empire is about two hours long, but covers months of time, possibly as much as a year. And at the end of the film, they knew exactly where Boba was taking Han. About the only thing that might have been interesting and germane to see was where Leia got her disguise. But it should be a couple weeks to a few months between the end of Empire and the beginning of Jedi -- I'd say six months at the most. They wanted to get Han out, without being too rash, themselves. The longer he was in carbon-freeze, the more chances for long-term damage, insanity, or death. All the crap with Black Sun, Xizor and his rivalry with Vader, Dash Rendar, and Our Heroes running around everywhere but "the rendezvous point on Tatooine" was, to me, then and now, the epitome of "the story no one asked for".
ghostryder
Legendary Member
Gee whiz hyperbolic reaction video guy...December will be here soon enough.
Hang in there buddy...hang in there.
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SixthScaleMan
Active Member
Who does best “Cryface”?
I wish I loved something that much.
I wish I loved something that much.
The result of the previous two trilogies was the end of Return of the Jedi, culminating in the defeat of the Emperor/ Empire and the redemption of Anakin Skywalker. Palpatine's return in this new movie undoes all that. Plus I really don't see how they could justify his return in a satisfying way. How do you explain his survival in a way that doesn't undermine the sacrifices the heroes made in the previous episodes?
This is the problem with trying to expand a story that had been concluded 40 something years ago. They would have been better off just making new films set in the same universe but with new characters and in a different time period. The fact that they are continuations of the Skywalker story presents problems because few (if any) could properly expand on the ideas presented in the first films without undoing everything. I certainly have yet to see anything that has added to the story we already know in some profound or meaningful way.
As it stands I just see a continuation for it's own sake, not because it's enriching the mythos.
Joek3rr
Master Member
Well that's what happens when George decided to add to the trilogy. After he said he was done.
Personally I like 3 part story structure with a beginning, middle, and end. So I don't mind that the saga would have something similar.
I like a 3 part story structure too, but feel that it was best as Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi.
Just expressing an opinion.
Hmmmm...I am not sure about this rumor. Has Freddie weighed-in on this?
I don’t ask for much; however, I do ask that Freddie Prinze, Jr. continue to serve as my oracle and single source of truth for all things “Star Wars”.
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Joek3rr
Master Member
Oh naturally. The originals did it best. No arguments there my friend.
I just think it's cool of that there's going to be beginning, middle, and end for the saga. Each trilogy has a beginning, middle, and end. And then each film has a beginning, middle, and end. 3 sets of 3.
Btw I ever say I like the number 3?
ObiWan_Knievil
Sr Member
Interesting take on the new trailer from some one in the industry. I don't k now if I agree with their assertion that this is the single most important Star Wars trailer of all time...
Episode 9 Trailer Reaction
-OWK
Episode 9 Trailer Reaction
-OWK
drcraig13
Sr Member
See I have no issue with the first order. The redo ending to Jedi messed this up with showing mass celebrations that the Empire was no more. You had a lot of people with a lot of power that just because the Emperor was dead would just all of a sudden give it up. I think you could have made these very impactful and interesting stories if you had focused on that aspect. The "resistance" is the old rebellion trying to form a government and return order to the galaxy and the First Order is the old Empire trying to regroup and come back into power. Also the Empire should still be in control of Corescant and still have 100 if not a 1000 star systems under control.
cboath
Master Member
That's precisely what i mean with that. No one asked for that story, but having it doesn't hurt anything.
Similarly, there's nothing wrong with the ancilliary novels for the ST - If they weren't basically required to understand what's going on. Their problem was that they filled in necessary information.
cboath
Master Member
Oh naturally. The originals did it best. No arguments there my friend.
I just think it's cool of that there's going to be beginning, middle, and end for the saga. Each trilogy has a beginning, middle, and end. And then each film has a beginning, middle, and end. 3 sets of 3.
Btw I ever say I like the number 3?
I would agree, to an extent.
The problem i see is the ST adds nothing whatsoever to the first two. TFA and TLJ have pretty much nothing to do with what came before. Except they've been billing this as the end of the 9 part saga since the get go without ever doing anything that relates to the previous set or builds upon it. There isn't a pure direct connection between 3 and 4, for example, but even though 4 came first, 4-6 still build upon what happened in 1-3 when you watch chronologically.
That doesn't happen between 6 and 7. There's nothing that happens in 7 - 8 (other than the use of the OT cast for whatever reason). Push it off 100 years so those characters can't be used and nothing changes at all.
Unless, they try and show this was all EP's doing which, as noted, undermines 1-6 and shows the failure to acknowledge it in 6 and 7.
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