Joek3rr
Master Member
Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?
Here's the some of the rhyming going on.
TPM/ANH/TFA
A young hero character is found on a desert planet. The have unknowingly been chosen for greatness. The hero is discovered by a mentor. The mentor is killed by a bad guy. There's an attack by much smaller ships against a much larger target.
ATOC/ESB/TLJ.
A small rebel faction is hiding/on the run from a largerange faction. The young hero goes through up and downs of training and is left with emotional scars. The bad guy offers a hero to join the Dark Side. A revelation is revealed. The larger faction attacks the smaller rebel faction with walking tanks.
ROTS/ROTJ
(These don't rhyme as much) there's a fight in a throne room. The Emperor purposely offers himself as a target to a Jedi. And they feature the largest space battles of their respective trilogies.
So the rhyming in Star Wars isn't true rhyming, it's more of visual and action sequence call backs. Some of these are really cool and very subtle. . There's obvious ones like the asteroid sequences from ESB and ATOC. But some of the subtle ones like Ben's hood and cowel resembling his grandmother's. And his boots his grandfather's. Or the way Ben throws he cape from his shoulders, is similar to how Anakin does. And of course Luke and Anakin both wear a single black glove. The FO troopers marching into the old rebel base mirrors the Clones march on the Jedi temple.
I don't see TLJ as "aping" ESB. I see it as referencing it, but it does a lot that I think is different and in pretty significant ways. You could say it's "the same" in a very surface level way, but thre's a lot that I see going on below the surface of the film that is quite different. I don't have time right this second to write it all out, but I think that basically, the position of the characters relative to each other, and their relationships (especially Rey and Ben) are different from what we've seen. And, as I said, I have no idea where the story goes next, which, in and of itself is original. (I have to admit that I was too young to have seen ESB in theaters, and actually saw it for the first time after I watched ROTJ, so I never really knew what it was like to watch ESB and not know what comes next -- although as a kid, I'd have probably expected something like ROTJ where the good guys just win completely and live happily ever after.)
I think if the next film plays out like a redone version of ROTJ, it will be a colossal mistake. I don't see how you can position the characters to be able to defeat the First Order in a significant way unless you do a TON of stuff "off screen" both before and after the next film. I think that would be a huge waste of some awesome storytelling opportunities and would simply be an effort to fast-forward to the end, so that we can have the trilogy tie up with a bow the way the OT did just because that's how the OT did it.
I actually don't want them to "rhyme." Or at least, not "rhyme" in the sense of "We're basically redoing what we did before, just with new characters."
To be honest, I don't buy that "rhyming" crap anyway. The PT doesn't "rhyme" with the OT. It shares certain overarching plot points and structural similarities, but they don't "rhyme." They don't repeat themselves or "sound alike." I see the PT as standing in sharp contrast with the OT (even if we look past the storytelling mistakes and just look at the big picture). The PT shows the fall, the OT shows the rise. The ST...was set off on the wrong foot by skipping way past some important stuff because MYSTERIES ARE HOW YOU TELL MOVIES, GUYS!!!!!!!11!!
No, just kidding. Honestly, I think it makes some sense to skip ahead, but I think it was incredibly jarring and off-putting, and TLJ didn't do anything to really fix that, but rather just said "That stuff's not really important. Let's focus on the now."
Basically, I think Johnson took what JJ left him and did what he was supposed to do -- in his view -- which is to tell a story that primarily focuses on the new central characters and especially Rey and Ben as juxtaposed with each other. I think the film is mainly about them and their relationship, and almost everything else is secondary to that....which is part of why I think people don't like it. The film didn't do enough (for them) to really explore the other characters in ways they liked. I think the "subvert expectations" thing went a little too far with the story of the fleet and the last stand at Crait, but...I'm ok with that IF it pays off what I think it could pay off down the road.
We'll see. I honestly think that TLJ will ultimately be judged much more as a middle chapter of an overall story than as a standalone film, but I love it as a standalone film.
Here's the some of the rhyming going on.
TPM/ANH/TFA
A young hero character is found on a desert planet. The have unknowingly been chosen for greatness. The hero is discovered by a mentor. The mentor is killed by a bad guy. There's an attack by much smaller ships against a much larger target.
ATOC/ESB/TLJ.
A small rebel faction is hiding/on the run from a largerange faction. The young hero goes through up and downs of training and is left with emotional scars. The bad guy offers a hero to join the Dark Side. A revelation is revealed. The larger faction attacks the smaller rebel faction with walking tanks.
ROTS/ROTJ
(These don't rhyme as much) there's a fight in a throne room. The Emperor purposely offers himself as a target to a Jedi. And they feature the largest space battles of their respective trilogies.
So the rhyming in Star Wars isn't true rhyming, it's more of visual and action sequence call backs. Some of these are really cool and very subtle. . There's obvious ones like the asteroid sequences from ESB and ATOC. But some of the subtle ones like Ben's hood and cowel resembling his grandmother's. And his boots his grandfather's. Or the way Ben throws he cape from his shoulders, is similar to how Anakin does. And of course Luke and Anakin both wear a single black glove. The FO troopers marching into the old rebel base mirrors the Clones march on the Jedi temple.