23 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

All of this could have played so well and made the New Trilogy profoundly more interesting and more unique than it feels right now. Alas

You may wanna snag the TLJ novel if you see it cheap. They take the time to answer a lot of the question and complaints from both sequel movies. A good for instance is Rey's abilities. A lot of people just took it as bad writing, but there's a good reason why Rey could all the sudden use the force. I remember reading that bit and going "oh man that makes everything make so much sense" lol

38 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Like I said in my first reply to you, it's all about how much they could fit in the movie... there's just not enough time. There are SO MANY extra scenes like this in the novel it really flushes out TLJ.

This is the job of story-boarding and editing, though. It's all about prioritizing content for the story that is being told, which means leaving a lot of it on the cutting room floor. But I think the above sort of elaborations and world-building could have easily been accomplished with a few extra scenes or lines including Hux, Snoke, or First Order officers. All in total, probably the above ideas could be hinted at sufficiently with an extra 2-3 minutes of scenes scattered about the two films.

There is easily a lot of chaff that could have been dropped to fit this into the films. In TFA, for instance, the entire Rathtar scene could have been dropped. Save the special effects budget and the tension-less CGI monster scenes. If anything, swap them for a few extras in the background who are Solo's crew -- he's a captain, he's gained leadership experience from his time in the Rebellion, and he's charismatic. Give him a pirate crew, it's not like he and Chewie could run that monstrous ship of theirs all alone very well anyways. Then his loyal crew get into a (mostly offscreen) gunfight with the Taakaa-Biikii guys or whoever to allow their beloved captain to escape. In TLJ, a lot of the excessive humor that fell flat for most people could have been trimmed. For instance, pretty much everything BB8 did on Canto Blight could be dropped. For that matter, the space-horse escape could have been much shorter (or dropped entirely). The wobble-speeder battle at Crait was both boring and pointless... instead you could have just had the "battering ram cannon!" powering up, then it blows up and we see the Falcon zoom overhead as TIEs break off to pursue, then Luke comes outside. etc. etc. etc.

Having a rough infrastructure of world-building context and some interesting differetiations between Old Empire and New Empire would serve the story-telling of the films much much better than the goofy sort of superfluous chaff that could be cut. If anything, Rathtars and Horse-Escapes and Wobble-Speeder wrecks could be added to the novelization. Except, we know that's now how it works, because Disney wants to sell Wobble-Speeder toys and Rathtar Monsters (indeed their are LEGO and 3.5in playsets of these) and Porg plushies and remote control BB8s. They can't plasitify a philosophical difference between the Empire and First Order and put it on a store shelf. So they sacrifice telling a (better) story in the films to cram in more toy opportunities. Which is just how it is; it's a capitalistic enterprise anyways. But let's not pretend it would have been impossible for Disney to find anything at all to cut in the first two scripts.

13 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

You may wanna snag the TLJ novel if you see it cheap. They take the time to answer a lot of the question and complaints from both sequel movies. A good for instance is Rey's abilities. A lot of people just took it as bad writing, but there's a good reason why Rey could all the sudden use the force. I remember reading that bit and going "oh man that makes everything make so much sense" lol

This is fair advice. I've not read a Star Wars novel in years and years, but I need to find someway to get a bit of enthusiasm back.

Hello again!

I'm trying to stat a Upsilon-class Shuttle now...

What do you think:

Upsilon-class Shuttle

3 Speed, 6 Hull.

2 Red 1 Blue Anti-Squad, 1 Blue Anti-Ship

Strategic, Escort

16 point cost.