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How to fix Star Wars by Ben Shapiro

pel1300

Member
I disagree with him about Rian Johnson not deserving blame. Rian Johnson deserves as much blame as JJ Abrams, if not more. JJ had ideas of where he was gonna take the story in outlines and Rian Johnson just tossed them aside and took the story in a completely different direction.

 

Ulysses 31

Member
I disagree with him about Rian Johnson not deserving blame. Rian Johnson deserves as much blame as JJ Abrams, if not more. JJ had ideas of where he was gonna take the story in outlines and Rian Johnson just tossed them aside and took the story in a completely different direction.


But JJ just reshot a new hope which undid the victory of the rebels in RotJ and Han's character development.
 

pel1300

Member
But JJ just reshot a new hope which undid the victory of the rebels in RotJ and Han's character development.

Both Kasdan and JJ deserve blame for that. Though I hear production was so rushed that they wrote the script just a few weeks before filming. And that part is on Bob Iger, who admits he insisted on a 2015 release date (JJ kept begging for a May 2016 release date).

JJ and Kasdan made a movie that's legacy hinged on if its sequel delivered on what it set up. If TLJ turned out to be an awesome SW movie like many fans thought...and delivered on answering some of most of the mysteries set up in TFA, along with introducing a few hooks to be resolved in IX.....that would justify TFA's mystery box approach.

ANH didn't need Empire to be great. Empire just made ANH even greater.

Unfortunately TFA needed its sequel to be great and deliver on what TFA set up.

Another example. Captain America The First Avenger was super meh IMO, but because The Winter Soldier and Civil War turned out to be among my favorite MCU movies, they retroactively made me like Captain America The First Avenger a lot more - especially the Bucky and Peggy scenes. If The Winter Soldier sucked...Captain America 1 would still be a mediocre movie to me.
 
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JJ and Kasdan made a movie that's legacy hinged on if its sequel delivered on what it set up. If TLJ turned out to be an awesome SW movie like many fans thought...and delivered on answering some of most of the mysteries set up in TFA, along with introducing a few hooks to be resolved in IX.....that would justify TFA's mystery box approach.

Unfortunately TFA needed its sequel to be great and deliver on what TFA set up.

You hit the nail on its head...
TFA itself was okay, but needed the second movie to explore some of the stuff happening in it to make sense.

Unfortunately RJ decided to throw all of that away, thus rendering TFA as a stupid movie and then his own work was beyond stupid as well..

What a wasted chance that was.
 

pel1300

Member
its all shit 100% unfixable at this point. you would have to be able to bring people back from the dead IRL.
It boggles my mind that after Fisher's passing, they didn't just decide to go back in the editing room and simply omit the Luke disappearing part...such an easy plan B to fall back on. Guarantee that if the message we got at the end is "Luke is back, and he's here to fight another day!!" there would be 2X the buzz for Ep IX.

I don't get what their endgame plan was. The new actors aren't gonna be in the DB Weiss and David Benoiff trilogy.....soooo....why all this effort of disrespecting the legacy characters in order to make us embrace the new characters...if the new characters are done with SW this year? The way they handled it you would think they had like 6 future adventures of Rey movies planned after Episode IX.....but Daisy Ridley confirmed she is not going to be in any SW movies being planned as of now...

It just doesn't make sense.
 
I felt that TFA should have had a prosperous wonderful new republic and it followed that storyline. Probably would have been similar to the prequels though. Didn't they reject George Lucas's ideas because they were too similar to the prequels? Star Wars 9 will be more of the same, and probably have more prequel nostalgia than 7 and 8 did.
 
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Both Kasdan and JJ deserve blame for that. Though I hear production was so rushed that they wrote the script just a few weeks before filming. And that part is on Bob Iger, who admits he insisted on a 2015 release date (JJ kept begging for a May 2016 release date).

JJ and Kasdan made a movie that's legacy hinged on if its sequel delivered on what it set up. If TLJ turned out to be an awesome SW movie like many fans thought...and delivered on answering some of most of the mysteries set up in TFA, along with introducing a few hooks to be resolved in IX.....that would justify TFA's mystery box approach.

ANH didn't need Empire to be great. Empire just made ANH even greater.

Unfortunately TFA needed its sequel to be great and deliver on what TFA set up.

Another example. Captain America The First Avenger was super meh IMO, but because The Winter Soldier and Civil War turned out to be among my favorite MCU movies, they retroactively made me like Captain America The First Avenger a lot more - especially the Bucky and Peggy scenes. If The Winter Soldier sucked...Captain America 1 would still be a mediocre movie to me.

Excellent analysis.

TFA was just an introduction of characters, and while I really liked most of them (Finn especially) it was basically just setup with no great payoff at the end. Finn was already changed at the start, Poe got next to nothing, and Rey just started becoming the complete Mary Sue that she is in TLJ. In ANH Luke matures and shows the first signs of his Force potential, Han comes back and finds his fight, and Leia succeeds in getting the Death Star destroyed.

TLJ squandered all of that for nonsensical Tumblristic setpieces. Even the little interesting things it did it purposefully ruined, like the waffling towards (presumeably) Gray Jedi by Rey and Kylo.
 
Can't fix it because the original trilogy was shit as well....hot take central.

People have some nostalgia blockers that prevent them from realizing Star Wars was a happy accident by George Lucas, and he went back and fucked it all up.
 

Aurelian

my friends call me "Cunty"
Can't fix it because the original trilogy was shit as well....hot take central.

People have some nostalgia blockers that prevent them from realizing Star Wars was a happy accident by George Lucas, and he went back and fucked it all up.

Well, I love the original trilogy (I also like the current trilogy, but that's another story), but I will agree that many people have this rose-tinted view of the original trilogy that practically considers it sacred. Part of why so many people whine about Luke in TLJ is because they have this notion that Luke in the OG trilogy is both flawless and permanently fixed in time, that you're somehow attacking their childhood by suggesting Luke would be anything less than an ideal hero for the rest of his life. Part of Star Wars' appeal is the notion of good characters that can make mistakes, of a cyclical pattern where it's up to newer generations to stand up if and when the older generations falter.
 

gatti-man

Member
Honestly if you want to fix the current SW... Reboot that dam franchise. I don't see any hope on SW improving and especially having Kathleen Kennedy onboard.
You don’t have to reboot it just get rid of KK and ditch most of what sucks. Have Kylo go off on his own and introduce new characters. Star Wars is a huge world it would be easy to pivot away from the current mess.
 

Fbh

Member
What I'd do:

- Completely new character wakes up-
"well that was a shitty dream. Anyway, let's get out there and see what life has in store for me today":
""

I never played The Old Republic so maybe the story is shit. The cinematic trailer were dope though and way more exciting than anything Starwars related since Disney took over
 
I think they had to kill Han off because Harrison had little interest in doing a bunch of Star Wars films again. I do agree that the scenario they stuck Han in was lame. I know in some of the books, Leia is busy running the new republic and Han is basically dying of boredom at home in domestic life. That would have been a better jumping off point for Han, and it would have undone the largest snafu of the whole sequels that Ben completely overlooks: THERE IS NO PROGRESS FROM ROTJ!

That's what is more of a shit-down-the-throat of the original characters than their wank deaths. They did all that to bring down the Emperor and start things new, and then JJ just does a reshoot so he has to set up the world as though its the same as ANH. It shouldn't be the same. There should be progress on the rebellion side and dissaray on the empire side. People wanted to see what Han, Leia and Luke would build in the new post-emperor world and they never got it.
 

TrainedRage

Banned
Gladly I'm no longer invested in Star Wars. They already killed my childhood memories. I'm not about to pay to watch them dance on that grave.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
Can't fix it because the original trilogy was shit as well....hot take central.

People have some nostalgia blockers that prevent them from realizing Star Wars was a happy accident by George Lucas, and he went back and fucked it all up.
yeah it's too bad he went back and fucked up... a happy accident... that was already shit(???) /s

great opinion!
 
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NahaNago

Member
You can still use that universe. Explore the story more from starting off on the darkside. Setting the story so far in the future that everyone is dead and jedi and sith are legends or set it before so you can create it. Rebooting the whole thing is possible as well and just scrap everything that has happened.
 

cryptoadam

Banned
Lots of Star Wars talk lately. Sounds like propaganda being put out by Disney to keep the SW name out there. Rememebr the saying there is no such thing as bad publicity. Even though most of the news is negative its still Star Wars. And TBH SW fans wallow in negativity. It explains why RLM was so popular and ripped off.

Problem is 100% on KK and her SJW/Force is female agenda.

TLJ basically screwed everything up because of WOMANZ. Holdo had to be a big hero so lets make that cool guy Poe look like a total ass. Finn is kinda cool lets saddle him with Rose Tico and get rid of any sexual tension between him and Rey. Lets make Kyle Rey's BITCH again, and lets make him even more whiney as well because the only good man is a man who whines to his GF every night. And remember that guy Luke the kick ass Jedi who was at peace with himself after ROTJ? Lets turn him into an old asshole who drinks green milk.

KK and RJ shoe horned WOMANZ into TLJ and took a crap on all the male characters, because MANZ are not as good as WOMANZ.

This wouldn't be a problem if you know SW's main audience wasn't manbabies and young boys. But good luck on selling those Rose Tico action figures and the purple hair coloring accessories for Holdo.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
the agenda is part of it but im not so convinced it is KK. RJ wrote his movie, he wrote Rose's character, he came up with her. he wrote Holdo, he came up with that. he has this Male Feminist insecurity about him, he has to go out of his way to impress the WOMANZ. in doing so he sabotaged his own film. he is not a WOMANZ so his idea of feminism is hit you over the head dumb. the problem is the films are mistreating even it's women & minority characters. the marketing of "Racist hate your SW" is a way to counter that and divert attention away from the poor representation.

for the first time we have a SW movie focusing closely on female leadership, and they end up losing control and letting thousands of people die, fostering an atmosphere of secrecy and distrust, lowering staff moral, letting a ship mutiny happen for the first time in the franchise. TLJ utterly destroyed Leia's credibility as a general. letting loose canons like Poe run around and ignore orders and get people killed, all because they think he is cute! both Holdo and Leia are looking at him like a lovesick puppy sometime after he created a mutiny. are these steely space generals or stereotypical teenage girls RJ? it is hard to take such characters seriously. they are baffling and impulsive and wreckless. like the villains, they are cartoons of real characters.

JJ did a poor job with setting it all up, but i think he kept it vague so the next guy could put in the work. too bad he was uninterested in doing anything other than subverting the OT. "you know how ANH starts with the bad guys easily catching up to the good guys? what if they never caught up and the whole film was a chase?" ok, subverted, but into an uninteresting plot. "know how ANH starts with R2 & 3PO leaving on an escape pod? what if we had a character STOP people from escaping in an escape pod?" ok but then everyone hates that character from then on, cos they stopped the hero from doing his thing, via tasering him, like a fucking cop.

RJ consciously designed his movie to be dislikable in a number of ways like this. it was intended to cause message board flame wars thus driving promotion. the idea was, hey, instead of complaining about backlash, why not commodify it? unfortunately, the meta focus ruined the internal story. the characters are just moving around on a chessboard, aimlessly, doing things that look good in a trailer or animated gif. you see this in the dialog even, many of Luke's sayings were designed to be message board fodder, "Everything you said is wrong" etc. RJ actually kick started many of the trolling himself. now that that is wearing off, and people are feeling more free to say what was wrong, and how fucked up it is, they are fucked. they only have themselves to blame for ruining it.
 
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EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Star Wars still has a lot of universe to explore, I think the franchise will be fine.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
it is odd, how small the whole thing is. how small the universe is. the sets are tiny compared to the prequels. just the spaceships alone. think of how claustrophobic the ones in The Last Jedi are, compared to Phantom Menace with Obi Wan and Qui Gon running around spacious weirdly art deco interiors big enough for rolling combat droids. there is nothing near the scale of the Darth Maul battle set in terms of concept or design.

it's weird how uninteresting the sets are. Maz Kanata's castle looks cool for a minute or two, then they leave, and it is exploded, and we spend 20 minutes in a featureless forest. there isn't a cool fake sky with planets in it or anything. it looks exactly like someone shooting in the woods on a digital camera. they spent $300 million to make the Force Awakens. where did that money go? Lucas only spent around half of that (in 1999 money) to make the prequels. those movies look far more impressive in a pulp sci fi fantasy sense.
 
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Davey Cakes

Member
I liked TFA enough to see it twice in the theaters. I liked some of TLJ but eventually admitted my disappointment with it.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with these movies (other than RJ’s misdirection) is that they were rushed. The OT had three years between movies.
 
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Carna

Banned
Sometimes, I'm glad I prefer Godzilla rather than Star Wars. Us Godzilla fans shrug off anything bad that happened to our franchise and continue discussing what we love about it.
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
TFA was entertaining enough for people to overlook the bad setup. but i think blaming JJ on RJ's failure is a cop out. people liked that movie well enough. sure there are people that think canon SW is only sourced from GL but you cannot help this. he was the original creator.

TLJ ripped off the OT just as much, only with airquotes around everything. if he wanted to really subvert expectations, he would have had Luke throw away the lightsaber and leave and not be featured again all film. then instead of devoting an hour to a poor copy of Empire's Dagoba section, that time could have been spent introducing new characters, or having all of our new characters spend more time together. the could have fit two 30 minute segments introducing new worlds and locations and lore. instead we waste time redoing 1/3rd of Empire.

Luke is ruined in a number of ways. first of all, this film establishes that using the force can kill you for the first time, through his precedent. Obi Wan or Qui Gon never warned "don't use too much force or you will die" but suddenly that shit is now canon. to me this sets an icky and weird precedent. essentially Jedi can now be spiritual suicide bombers. you can tap into the force, and use it to have great powers, but it may cost you your life. tbh i don't buy any of the "he was non-violent" bs, his last moments include cursing that "The war will never be over", and he died so that he could threaten his nephew with endless war. this is a person children should idolize?

Luke is ruined. Leia is incompetent. Chewie is a prop. Han got out early (not early enough to avoid JJ's lame cgi tentacle monsters). R2 is to be belittled and kept under a sheet. they done fucked it up.

i will see a Star Wars again if they finally hire Stephen Spielberg to direct. otherwise count me out. if RJ's new trilogy has writing similar to his first entry, I will gladly skip it.
 
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pel1300

Member
Sometimes, I'm glad I prefer Godzilla rather than Star Wars. Us Godzilla fans shrug off anything bad that happened to our franchise and continue discussing what we love about it.
Godzilla is more comparable to the 007 franchise IMO.

Godzilla is lucky in that wokeness hasn't ruined it. Shin Gojira was fantastic. KOTM had good action but I prefer to see a fan edit with the family drama cut out if I am to see it again.
 

MilkyJoe

Member
TFA was entertaining enough for people to overlook the bad setup. but i think blaming JJ on RJ's failure is a cop out. people liked that movie well enough. sure there are people that think canon SW is only sourced from GL but you cannot help this. he was the original creator.

TLJ ripped off the OT just as much, only with airquotes around everything. if he wanted to really subvert expectations, he would have had Luke throw away the lightsaber and leave and not be featured again all film. then instead of devoting an hour to a poor copy of Empire's Dagoba section, that time could have been spent introducing new characters, or having all of our new characters spend more time together. the could have fit two 30 minute segments introducing new worlds and locations and lore. instead we waste time redoing 1/3rd of Empire.

Luke is ruined in a number of ways. first of all, this film establishes that using the force can kill you for the first time, through his precedent. Obi Wan or Qui Gon never warned "don't use too much force or you will die" but suddenly that shit is now canon. to me this sets an icky and weird precedent. essentially Jedi can now be spiritual suicide bombers. you can tap into the force, and use it to have great powers, but it may cost you your life. tbh i don't buy any of the "he was non-violent" bs, his last moments include cursing that "The war will never be over", and he died so that he could threaten his nephew with endless war. this is a person children should idolize?

Luke is ruined. Leia is incompetent. Chewie is a prop. Han got out early (not early enough to avoid JJ's lame cgi tentacle monsters). R2 is to be belittled and kept under a sheet. they done fucked it up.

i will see a Star Wars again if they finally hire Stephen Spielberg to direct. otherwise count me out. if RJ's new trilogy has writing similar to his first entry, I will gladly skip it.

No matter what Rian says, he's never getting another Star Wars film. They're just saving face, there's not a board in the world that would re-hire a director that cost the company hundreds of millions by fucking the entire franchise into a tree.
 
The only way to save it is to use the "nuclear option" and simply ignore this trilogy and give us the "real" Episodes 7, 8 and 9.

It's cheating and wonky as hell, but sometimes it's a necessity to save a franchise, like Halloween.
 

MilkyJoe

Member
The only way to save it is to use the "nuclear option" and simply ignore this trilogy and give us the "real" Episodes 7, 8 and 9.

It's cheating and wonky as hell, but sometimes it's a necessity to save a franchise, like Halloween.

It finished at episode 6, they should accept they fucked it up, let them fester into the forgotten sands of time, like Caravan of Courage, and then make a new trilogy with Luke running his Jedi Academy that is a new story light years away from the OT, using beloved characters from the EU
 
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pel1300

Member
SW rankings according to IMDB:

1. Empire (8.7)
2. ANH (8.6)
3. ROTJ (8.3)
4. TFA (8.0)
5. Rogue One (7.8)
6. ROTS (7.5)
7. TLJ (7.1)
8. Solo (7.0)
9. AOTC (6.6)
10. TPM (6.5)

SW rankings by RT audience score:

1. Empire 97%
2. ANH 96%
3. ROTJ 94%
4. TFA 87%
5. Rogue One 86%
6. ROTS 66%
7. Solo 64%
8. TPM 59%
9. AOT 56%
10. TLJ 44%

My list:


1. Empire 5 stars
2. ANH 5 stars
3. ROTJ 4.5 stars
4. ROTS 3.5 stars
5. TFA 3.5 stars
6. Rogue One 3 stars
7. TPM 2 stars
8. Solo 2 stars
9. AOTC 1.5 stars
10. TLJ 1.5 stars (half star for beautiful cinematography, half star for pretty good acting, and a half star for beautiful set pieces and visual effects. The writing/script is awful. The plot holes so glaring. Pacing is awful. Sense of tension lacking. Sense of scale feels too small for a saga film. Music is underwhelming compared to other SW films. Failed attempts at humor. Tonal inconsistency. Not so subtle political commentary is insulting.)
 

CharlesMorgan

Neo Member
I think it's fair to say that Star Wars has never been good. I sought out some negative reviews of the original trilogy and I agree with all of the criticism if I suppress my childish memories. Star Wars shouldn't be saved, it should ve taken outside and shot in the head.
 
I think Star Wars should be some light hearted adventure romp with some fantasy characters doing shit young boys can relate to.
Get all this social commentary, gender debate and other stuff out of it along with any grittiness.

This is Star Wars, not Schindlers List, for fucks sake..
 

#Phonepunk#

Banned
Ben is right, only a complete re-do could save it at this point. ST should have struck out on it's own with the new characters. even then, we have seen what Rian Johnson's approach to new characters looks like, and it is Rose Tico. the writers were not good enough to handle the material.

the first two films were incredible, everything after that has been just a good genre flick. the prequels were fine, honestly not that different from ROTJ.

it was never a serious film series. that is the worst thing the ST did, convince a generation of people that TLJ is "an actual good film" that needs to be defended. its almost the opposite of the PT reaction, where instead of fuming that the movies are crap, you fume that other people don't get the "brilliance". no doubt we will be hearing from evangelists for the next decade same as we still hear people crap on the PT. tbh even outside of the context of a franchise film, it is a poor movie, with unlikable characters acting like jerks to one another, absurd plot holes and plot armor, and supposedly desperate military commanders acting like idiots.
 
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Ornlu

Banned
Decide to leave the "main story" alone for a decade, and do universe-expanding side stories with all new characters.

Run a Dark Forces trilogy!:

1. Kyle K wrecks Empire ass as space Rambo
2. Kyle K wrecks Empire ass as space Rambo/becomes newbie Jedi
3. Jedi Kyle K wrecks Empire ass/settles down, becomes less merc more Jedi master
 

cryptoadam

Banned
We are only a few years away from remakes anyways.

Reboot/Remake the OT, gender swapped of course.

Black female Lukina meets Female Hana Solo on a trip to save Prince Lars from the evil Darth Vader. Twist is of course Lukina I am your mother, by inveterofertilization of course since Darth V (for Vagina) had a Lesbian lover Padme.

Come on Disney I dare you I double dare you.
 

gatti-man

Member
I think it's fair to say that Star Wars has never been good. I sought out some negative reviews of the original trilogy and I agree with all of the criticism if I suppress my childish memories. Star Wars shouldn't be saved, it should ve taken outside and shot in the head.
No it’s not fair to say at all. Star Wars blew people away in theaters when it came out. Like jaws on the floor. ROTJ did as well. The most controversial was ESB. This revisionist history bullshit (that’s what it is bullshit) needs to stop. Star Wars is rightfully considered a classic and redefined the genre when it came out.

Just because the new lead is a woman and it rustles some jimmies doesn’t make the whole series retroactively not good.
 
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