What the Sequel Trilogy Did RIGHT

[Axaday]

I enjoyed Episode 7 and was very hopeful for how things would go. I am not intending to make a flamewar, so I'll just touch on how I didn't like how it went. But I'm sure everyone has things that they DO like about it. I certainly do.

The trinity design was nice. Rey is the Jedi and comes from a backwater desert, but she isn't a goodie-twoshoes. She's been scrabbling and scrapping her whole life and she makes the easiest bond with Han. And she's the girl. Poe is the Resistance insider, but he's a guy and with a dose of Han's charm and he's the ace pilot. Finn is that bad guy turned good, but with gee whiz naiveté. I like how they took the original apart and shook the pieces up.

Kylo Ren, too, was a followup to Vader. Obviously trying to be him and trying too hard and not really ready for prime time. Talking to the Vader helmet was eerie and difficult to explain initially. Is he just an emo kid who poured his teenage rebellion into Sith wannabe and pretends that Vader shows him the darkness while we know it is really doubtful? They pay it off well in 9 when they say enough to connect up that the helmet WAS talking to him or at least it seemed to be. Wily old Palpatine understands troubled teens better than you'd think to look at him.

I never see anyone talking about it, but it seems pretty clear to me that this rule of two business has been a trick from the start. Every apprentice thinks they will eventually surpass and defeat their master, but actually the master gets their younger body trained up and then takes possession of it. I would really like to see a story where we actually see this transfer and can get a positive sense that the apprentice starting out as the new master is very noticeably changed because it is still them, but it is also their master their master's master and so on.

 

[Covert Agent Rodimal]

I am ambivalent to the movies. There are good and bad. I cannot forgive their use of Luke Skywalker in episode 8, so that colors everything else.

 

[Donocropolis]

I really do think the characters from the sequel were all well done. I agree on all points about liking the main cast, and I'll throw in that there was a lot of potential in the supporting cast, too. Where the movies failed, (I think, I totally understand that some people really liked at least SOME of them), was in the plotting. I know that the original trilogy was just as much of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants affair, but it ended up working. The sequel trilogy seemed to be fighting itself the whole way through and ended up being a bit of letdown because of that.

Now, with that said, the prequel trilogy was a bit of a disappointment as well, but the IDEAS set up in that series have led to some fantastic new material that continues on in other media. I'm thinking the same thing will happen with the sequel trilogy. The movies weren't great, but other writers will keep the good core ideas and characters and continue to do interesting things with them.

 

[Dake]

Why is this a separate thread? It's been discussed ad nauseum in the regular SW thread.

 

[The Predaking]

Ehh, we will leave it a separate thread to keep it about the positive things, and not a flame war about how they ruined the franchise until Jon and Dave saved the day. Okay, okay, I will shut up about it.


Allright, there are a couple of good things I liked in this sequel trilogy. really it was just one thing per film:

ep 7: Han solo was great in it. Literally every scene, you get to see Harrison putting his all into it. If they would have shown him activating the lightsaber, I think it would have hit harder.

ep 8: Snoke's death and subsequent guard fight scene. Not as good as Obiwan vs Anakin, but the third best fight in the movies.

ep 9: Lando and the mass fleet save the day. Honestly, I love that it shows this, that there are enough just general people out there flying around in the star wars universe to put a stop to the Sith and the Empire's return. Like all the system defense fleets of thousands of worlds just sending a few ships each was enough to put down the final order fleet.