4 hours ago, Vondy said:

I'm a Filoni fan and enjoyed The Clone Wars and Rebels. I've had some eye-rolling moments with his stuff occasionally, but I've never understood the level of personalized anger and hate a lot of fans get up to. I have leveled some pointed negative criticisms of both Abrams and Johnson's work on the sequels, but I don't hate them and I don't even hate their Star Wars films. They were fun and exciting, even if I consider them an unnecessary and messy postscript. I simply don't buy into the absolutist you must totally love or completely hate a director-movie-story tenor of these internecine fan debates. Its boorish, childish, and quite frankly, belligerently stupid. With Filoni I remind myself that he is very much Lucas' protoge and Lucas strongly maintains that stories are primarily intended for kids and young adults. As much as we grown ups may love them, The Clone Wars and Rebels are primarily targeting a younger demographic. Young people don't groan over copter-sabers the way adults do. They say "Wow!"

We're on the same page here. I think that some fans takes Star Wars too seriously. Like I said, I love Dave Filoni and what he brought to Star wars (and hopefully what he'll continue to bring).

But I think we're at a point where whatever what Disney/Lucasfilm will release, and from whom, there will always be some people that get outraged about it.

Me personally, I think we are in a wonderful time to be a Star Wars fan content wise and I can't wait to see what project Luminous will bring to the table!

On 1/8/2020 at 10:02 PM, unicornpuncher said:

I like Filoni and a lot of the things he has done, but he has on several occasions divided and even upset Star Wars fans. I remember the awful rage back when they changed Asajj Ventress's origin, specifically changing her species from Rattataki to some Night Sister/Zabrak hybrid thing. Speaking of the Night Sisters people flipped out about the way they used the force and how it made Star Wars "too fantasy", then in Rebel's you had the world between worlds stuff that turned a lot of people off.

I think Filoni and Abrams have opposite strengths and weaknesses. Filoni is good at telling a basic story without making it feel dumb or incoherent, but pretty bad at making his work feel like "real Star Wars." Abrams is great at evoking that Star Wars atmosphere, but not so great at telling a story. (For my part I much prefer Abrams.)

No, Abrams can only make it "feel like Star Wars" with very blatant and overt cloning.

3 hours ago, DaverWattra said:

I think Filoni and Abrams have opposite strengths and weaknesses. Filoni is good at telling a basic story without making it feel dumb or incoherent, but pretty bad at making his work feel like "real Star Wars." Abrams is great at evoking that Star Wars atmosphere, but not so great at telling a story. (For my part I much prefer Abrams.)

Filoni has more Star Wars under his belt than Lucas, Johnson and Abrams combined. So you are making a kind of silly "true Scotsman" argument.

6 hours ago, NanashiAnon said:

No, Abrams can only make it "feel like Star Wars" with very blatant and overt cloning.

Naw i think Abrams can do better if Kathleen Kenedy is not meddling. It seemed like he had a lose plan that Rian Johnson was allowed to ignore because Kathleen Kenedy had no plan at all.

10 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Naw i think Abrams can do better if Kathleen Kenedy is not meddling. It seemed like he had a lose plan that Rian Johnson was allowed to ignore because Kathleen Kenedy had no plan at all.

His plan was about as detailed as the Cylons' plan.

Considering his hands-on involvement was initially intended to be Episode VII only, any "plan" or "outline" was along the lines of saying, "Here's where I'd go if I were doing all three, but I'm not. Have fun." His co-writer Terrio has done interviews stating what (specifically) his thought processes were in some of the elements of IX (including Rey's heritage), so that would indicate those were choices made specifically for IX.

(PS: The Cylons didn't have a plan.)

3 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

His plan was about as detailed as the Cylons' plan.

Considering his hands-on involvement was initially intended to be Episode VII only, any "plan" or "outline" was along the lines of saying, "Here's where I'd go if I were doing all three, but I'm not. Have fun." His co-writer Terrio has done interviews stating what (specifically) his thought processes were in some of the elements of IX (including Rey's heritage), so that would indicate those were choices made specifically for IX.

(PS: The Cylons didn't have a plan.)

And yet his plan was still more detailed than KK's plan. An outline is a loose plan.

On 1/8/2020 at 11:27 PM, Jegergryte said:

After having watched episode 9 three times now, I must say I have no issues left. Perhaps it's the Disney brain-washing treatment of flashing lights, and JJ's lens flares, but I like to think that - due to the film's intense and hectic speed - watching it a few times helps you tie it more together, both the films own story, as well as its ties to the other 8 films. The film is less overwhelming to watch the third time.

Oh yeah. Totally. I just rewatched it and liked it (and caught a lot more, not just details but themes and whatnot) the second time. Not a bad addition to the SW movies at all (and I have liked all 5 of the new ones). I did quite like TLJ though, so a few minor quibbles with deconstructing the movie that was deconstructing another movie/s but overall, great film. I'd just echo, watching it a couple times helps... pacing is a bit frenetic and you can relax a bit more the 2nd (third) time around.

I'd definitely be interested in a directors cut, because, more Star Wars! Why not? I really think people have forgotten how bad the prequels were(well, RotS excluded, but even that is probably the 3rd worst SW movie). The acting in the prequels is really atrocious. Acting in the ST is SO much better (even if you have problems with the plot-- but come on, this is SW. You don't really go to it to see great plot). Anyway, let's remember how lucky we are that we didn't get 3 more on the level of the PT. I'll still watch them from time to time, but they are really bad movies. Both JJ and RJ did a much better job on almost every level.

2 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

And yet his plan was still more detailed than KK's plan.

Citation needed.

28 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

Citation needed.

It is clear they had no plan. That is how you end up with 3 movies that dont really tell a cohesive story.

7 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

It is clear they had no plan. That is how you end up with 3 movies that dont really tell a cohesive story.

It's "clear." Got it.

Citation still needed.

ETA: The only thing approaching a lack of cohesion that I see comes from the most recent installment. Y'know...the one with the return of the guy who supposedly "had a plan."

You know what else had “no plan”? The ot.

2 minutes ago, DanteRotterdam said:

You know what else had “no plan” the ot.

/shakes Magic 8 Ball

Lucas simply being involved will be cited as being enough of a "plan" to be acceptable. Despite the fact that he, Brackett, and Kasdan added changes, twists, and turns that he hadn't considered originally, not to mention some of those changes were inspired by such creative vision as (checks notes) eliminating sequel threads due to an impending divorce.

JJ wasn't expecting to be back to direct the second and third episodes so I doubt he had anything more than notes scribbled on the back of a napkin. What he did do was set up clear questions and expectations for the second episode to explore and deliver on. How Johnson chose to answer those questions and his effort to actively subvert those expectations is a big reason for why his film proved so divisive among the fan-base. I think if he'd focused on answering those questions in interesting ways without active subversion and deconstruction we wouldn't be having a lot of these conversations and Abram's, who is notoriously bad at endings, wouldn't have been brought back to direct the third installment. Rise of Skywalker is an amazing spectacle, and does several things right, but it also spends a lot of time reconstructing the two previous films and retcons all the way back to Return of the Jedi. I would bet hard money that no one had jotted down The Rise of Palpatine? on the back of their napkin. That said, neither Abram's or Johnson are at fault for this mess. It was Kennedy's job to to insist on a reasonably detailed structural plan for the trilogy and, in the absence of one, to ensure the overarching story had a coherent beginning, middle, and end. The biggest issues with the sequel trilogy aren't with any one film. Each, taken individually, all have their strong and weak points and all feel sufficiently Star Warsy. The problem is that their isn't a coherent or satisfying narrative through-line that actually makes them into a trilogy.

8 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Filoni has more Star Wars under his belt than Lucas, Johnson and Abrams combined. So you are making a kind of silly "true Scotsman" argument.

You seem to be assuming that quantity equals quality.

Mortis and the world between worlds simply do not fit with "life makes it grow" and "the Force surrounds us and binds us."

I'd say that the conclusion that Johnson wasn't focused on answering Abrams' "questions"* in interesting ways is a bit presumptuous. One can make a strong case that taking unexpected paths with those answers is, indeed, interesting. (Myself, while I walked out of TFA saying, "Oh yeah, Rey's definitely a Skywalker," but after seeing TLJ I found the notion of a so-called nobody stepping into the role of BDH on her own strengths and the theme that anyone can step up and be a hero to be far more interesting.) But, the success or failure of that is largely a matter of personal taste.

There's a sort of twisted path to Abrams' return. Scuttlebutt is that Trevorrow was let go because, following the success of Jurassic World, he became demanding/difficult. (No telling how true or false those stories are.) I seem to recall reading, though, that Johnson was offered IX when that happened, but declined to take a bit of a breather after such a massive undertaking as VIII. (Joss Whedon did much the same after the first Avengers movie, making his wonderful adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing rather than diving straight into work on what would become Age of Ultron.) And so they called on Abrams. While I'm fine with the IX that we got, I can Monday morning quarterback with the best of 'em and say that probably wasn't the best choice. If they preferred a known quantity rather than having to start from scratch with someone new to the franchise (like Trevorrow), I'd have preferred Edwards or Howard.

Since we've got a few years before the next movie, I'm thinking we'll see the various Disney+ series used as a sort of proving ground to see who gets the call to direct big screen installments. That in mind, I'm pretty sure we'll still see the planned Johnson movie(s), although it/they may not be a formal trilogy any longer, and maybe some big screen entries by Taika Waititi, Deborah Chow, and Jon Favreau.

*After 5 years, I'm still not sure what all these "questions" are that Abrams supposedly set up. The only one, really, was "What's Rey's deal?" The rest - Where's Luke been? Where'd the First Order come from? What's Snoke's story? etc - were either addressed on screen or weren't the kind of thing that the OT template bothered with, either. They're more the kind of questions that we more...intense ...fans ask, and have become accustomed to having answered in ancillary media. The prequels sort of threw that template out of whack, though. Most of their story is the kind of thing we'd have normally seen in novels, comics, or games, and I honestly think we'd have been better served if, rather than The Origin of Darth Vader, the prequels had more simply focused on the Clone Wars, with Anakin's fall being a subplot.

8 minutes ago, DaverWattra said:

Mortis and the world between worlds simply do not fit with "life makes it grow" and "the Force surrounds us and binds us."

How about the force planet?

31 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

How about the force planet?

That is Mortis, right?

I don’t think those episodes fit in with the larger Star Wars narrative at all.
I am pretty sure, no, I am actually 100% positive, that if we had not see that storyline on the Clone Wars and it had shown up in the movies the same people who now claim they love it would have hated it with a burning passion.

12 minutes ago, DanteRotterdam said:

That is Mortis, right?

Nah, Mortis is just the force wielders. Known in legends as celestials, the guys who build Centerpoint station, etc
The force planet is the point of origin of all life in the star wars galaxy. The one with the priestess of the force which Yoda visits to learn how to preserve his concisus after becoming one with the force.

https://www.starwars.com/databank/force-planet

I have zero recollection of that arch.... 😳

Rewatching it tonight!

edit: Oh wait, that is season 6 and there has never been a (legal) way to watch this season in the Netherlands so I guess I am Disney plussing my Saturday night away!

But, from what I read on wookieepedia, I am not super enthusiastic about it.

19 minutes ago, DanteRotterdam said:

Oh wait, that is season 6 and there has never been a (legal) way to watch this season in the Netherlands so I guess I am Disney plussing my Saturday night away!

Well, I guess not having TCW on Netflix is a fair trade for having now Disney plus earlier than the rest of us.

4 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Well, I guess not having TCW on Netflix is a fair trade for having now Disney plus earlier than the rest of us.

Yes it is!

1 hour ago, SEApocalypse said:

How about the force planet?

Also not good IMO. The Force should not be something that has a source aside from "all life." It's a bit similar to the way Star Trek messed up the whole concept of the Borg by giving them a queen.