Star Wars: The Circle is Almost Complete

[red snow]

2 hours ago, felice said:

Marvel did a bunch of independent open-ended film serieses that take place in the same universe and allow for crossovers. That's a completely different situation from Star Wars producing a trilogy they know from the start is meant to complete a nine film cycle. Not having a solid plan for all three films would be more like Marvel making Infinity War without having any idea what's going to happen in Endgame, and I'm pretty sure that didn't happen.

I tend to agree with this sentiment. I guess the problem partly stems from Lucas himself taking this loose approach and not really having a 9 film plan.

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Disney set up the possibility of directors going their own way and taking chances with their side project movies like Rogue One and Solo. Those movies are where id expect some continuity issues and more creativity because you could disregard them if you choose.

With the continuation of the main plot line then I’d expect everything to be tighter and better planned

I think this is why it was ultimately a shame that the solo film failed as i strongly suspect we were going to get a marvel style approach to star wars with Han films, Obi wan films and potentially boba fett films doing their own thing but with Maul and his underworld as a connecting strand and possibly a "star wars assemble" film at the end (continuity tricky though). It looks like this might transfer to the obi wan tv show at least.

Maybe Feige besides doing a film for them is also helping them brainstorm an approach that could allow them to replicate marvel's ability to release 2-3 blockbusters a year with no sign of fatigue.

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, red snow said:

I think this is why it was ultimately a shame that the solo film failed as i strongly suspect we were going to get a marvel style approach to star wars with Han films, Obi wan films and potentially boba fett films doing their own thing but with Maul and his underworld as a connecting strand and possibly a "star wars assemble" film at the end (continuity tricky though). It looks like this might transfer to the obi wan tv show at least.

The Solo movie really highlights that there might have been a misunderstanding or conflict in how they wanted to approach these movies. Lord and Miller were under the assumption they were hired to turn Solo into a comedy movie in the same vein as their other movies. That could have been brilliant.

But turns out that Kazdan had written his script years before and didn't like any improvisation. Why they thought Lord and Miller would be the best directors for that movie I don't really know, but it demonstrates that while there might be a bit of freedom here and there certain people are still in charge. Of course then then hired the bland Ron Howard, and the result was a deeply functional movie. 

[Jace, Extat]

Ron Howard: Deeply Functional

[Raja]

57 minutes ago, mormont said:

 I certainly didn't go away from watching TFA - even the second or third time - pondering whether Rey was Luke's lost child as one of my major takeaways about the character. I just thought she was a very cool character.

Samesies. My takeaway from Rey, with regards to her parentage, was essentially what Maz says in the movie 'the belonging you seek is ahead of you, not behind' ( I'm paraphrasing). I know people thought that referenced Luke being her father, but to me it was always more the belonging/ family she sought wasn't her literal family but the sense of family she felt with luke/ leia/ han & finn/ poe

[DMC]

I don't know why the focus all of a sudden is on Rey being Luke's kid.  There are tons of alternative explanations to that, but the point is her past was emphasized as mysterious and presumably important in TFA.  I don't really see how that's arguable.  Neither, in my view, is how Johnson sent the message in TLJ that, nope, her background really doesn't matter.  Which is fine, on its own, but then don't make us think it is in the first one.

23 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Ron Howard: Deeply Functional

"Previously on Arrested Development."

[mormont]

Just now, DMC said:

I don't know why the focus all of a sudden is on Rey being Luke's kid.

Just an example. It was the most prominent theory. But I didn't come out of the cinema pondering any alternative theories either. 

Her past is portrayed as important to her character and as unknown, but nothing in TFA is in any way inconsistent with TLJ as regards Rey's parentage. And that in turn is not consistent with the idea that it was 'unarguable' that Rey's past is important in the sense that I think you mean - ie, that it has some grounding in existing Star Wars canon, that she's a clone or a child of some existing character, that this explains her Force powers, etc.

Put it this way: if Rise Of Skywalker reveals that Ren was lying, which it still might, that will absolutely be a retcon. But the idea that Rey's parentage is insignificant is absolutely not a retcon. These are two entirely different propositions.

[Raja]

21 minutes ago, DMC said:

I don't know why the focus all of a sudden is on Rey being Luke's kid.  There are tons of alternative explanations to that, but the point is her past was emphasized as mysterious and presumably important in TFA.  I don't really see how that's arguable. 

See - that's the thing - I think some people, including me,  took it as being important in a different way - personally, for me it was important in a sense that her past was a device to ask the question 'How does you move on from something that has defined your entire life so far & *can* you actually move on from something like that?' as opposed to important in the way that many fans took it.

( And I think that is okay, we all take different things away from the same piece of art)

[DMC]

18 minutes ago, mormont said:

Put it this way: if Rise Of Skywalker reveals that Ren was lying, which it still might, that will absolutely be a retcon. But the idea that Rey's parentage is insignificant is absolutely not a retcon. These are two entirely different propositions.

I don't know if it necessarily has to be her parentage, but that's a pretty big Chekov's gun to leave hanging with the flashback scene and all.  There's something about her past the viewer is told to think is important in TFA.  And bottomline, in TLJ the viewer is essentially told "nah, fuck that."

[Kalbear]

I think that if the message you got from ren telling her her parents are nothing isn't combined with the continued message from ren about letting the past die and Rey emphatically telling him fuck that noise, that's on you. Rey did not take that advice - not from ren, not from luke - and both of them were about that. She decided to take the jedi books, to become another jedi, to reject leaving the past behind. And Luke changes his mind as a result as well.

I think it's possible that the very specific parentage isn't a direct issue, but TLJ sets up quite clearly that Rey still cares a lot about her past and what has happened before, will make sure it continues to matter, and she will surpass it while coming from it. Based on that, I would say that it will continue to be a think in tros, and TLJ didnt remotely throw it all away. 

[Toth]

Granted, I now refuse to go down into the trenches of the current argument, but I still ended up with a bit of a craving for Star Wars recently. And fortunately enough just at that moment I managed to grab "Outbound Flight" and the first two Heir to the Empire novels in a sale. I guess... I will be able to read those at some point.^^

In any case, that made me a bit curious about what novels would be necessary/enjoyable to read to get a full grasp of the true story after episode 6. I am quite aware of the general plot of the old EU and had incorporated a few ships and characters into my own fanfics that I had read about on wookiepedia. But I guess it is time to experience it by myself.

So... are there any suggestions? So far my idea to go about it would be this:

1. Outbound Flight

2. Heir to the Empire Trilogy

3. Hand of Thrawn Duology

4. The New Jedi Order (19 novels, god damn it... but the concept of the Vong seems too interesting and I'm thinking about maybe incorporating them in my Broken Alliances AU)

5. Legacy of the Force (for the sibling tragedy and seeing what Kylo is failing to rip off, even if I already know that Mara's death will piss me off majorly)

Not sure about some of the other stuff, given how the above would already make 34 books. I have seen glowing praise for the X-Wing series and it does interest me, but it doesn't seem to do much in terms of overall story. Fate of the Jedi seems interesting as the furthest the setting was pushed forward save for the Cade Skywalker stuff, but the story seems to be pretty generic with just another return of the Sith. Since I am also very interested in Jaina and Jacen, I wonder if I would have to read some of the Young Jedi Knights stuff for their proper introduction (though I have read that those are basically about nothing).

[Ran]

While my teenage self absoutely loved Zahn's Heir to the Empire trilogy, for some reason I never felt like I needed to really read more than that to feel like I'd gotten a kind of closure from the OT. I guess, in part, because of the birth of Leia's twins felt like a good way to mark the close of that chapter of the Skywalker Saga.

 

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Toth said:

Granted, I now refuse to go down into the trenches of the current argument, but I still ended up with a bit of a craving for Star Wars recently. And fortunately enough just at that moment I managed to grab "Outbound Flight" and the first two Heir to the Empire novels in a sale. I guess... I will be able to read those at some point.^^

In any case, that made me a bit curious about what novels would be necessary/enjoyable to read to get a full grasp of the true story after episode 6. I am quite aware of the general plot of the old EU and had incorporated a few ships and characters into my own fanfics that I had read about on wookiepedia. But I guess it is time to experience it by myself.

So... are there any suggestions? So far my idea to go about it would be this:

1. Outbound Flight

2. Heir to the Empire Trilogy

3. Hand of Thrawn Duology

4. The New Jedi Order (19 novels, god damn it... but the concept of the Vong seems too interesting and I'm thinking about maybe incorporating them in my Broken Alliances AU)

5. Legacy of the Force (for the sibling tragedy and seeing what Kylo is failing to rip off, even if I already know that Mara's death will piss me off majorly)

Not sure about some of the other stuff, given how the above would already make 34 books. I have seen glowing praise for the X-Wing series and it does interest me, but it doesn't seem to do much in terms of overall story. Fate of the Jedi seems interesting as the furthest the setting was pushed forward save for the Cade Skywalker stuff, but the story seems to be pretty generic with just another return of the Sith. Since I am also very interested in Jaina and Jacen, I wonder if I would have to read some of the Young Jedi Knights stuff for their proper introduction (though I have read that those are basically about nothing).

Following order:

Heir to the Empire- Thrawn's first appearance.

Dark Force Rising- 2nd Thrawn

The Last Command- 3rd Thrawn 

 Specter of the Past- 4th Thrawn appearance 

Vision of the Future- 5th Thrawn

Outbound Flight- 6th Thrawn/prequel

 

New Jedi Order- Its messy as fuck. 19 books by like 6 different people. But there's a LOT to like in there and some of the best old EU material was buried in there.

Legacy of the Force- This series starts off extremely interesting, but Karen Travis holds it back with her fucking Boba Fett obsession (that the other two writers don't share) and then everything gets utterly awful by the time you reach book 5 or 6. If you're gonna read 19 books about the Vong, you can handle this series and might get moments you really like out of it.

Fate of the Jedi- Don't read this. Just... don't. If you get through all of the above and you still kinda like the old EU, let that be the way you remember it. There is no reason anyone should ever read the fecal droppings that is Fate of the Jedi.

[Toth]

15 hours ago, Ran said:

While my teenage self absoutely loved Zahn's Heir to the Empire trilogy, for some reason I never felt like I needed to really read more than that to feel like I'd gotten a kind of closure from the OT. I guess, in part, because of the birth of Leia's twins felt like a good way to mark the close of that chapter of the Skywalker Saga.

If the other stuff fails to grab my attention, I guess me only reading the Imperial Remnant stuff seems like a likely solution.

14 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Following order:

Heir to the Empire- Thrawn's first appearance.

Dark Force Rising- 2nd Thrawn

The Last Command- 3rd Thrawn 

 Specter of the Past- 4th Thrawn appearance 

Vision of the Future- 5th Thrawn

Outbound Flight- 6th Thrawn/prequel

 

New Jedi Order- Its messy as fuck. 19 books by like 6 different people. But there's a LOT to like in there and some of the best old EU material was buried in there.

Legacy of the Force- This series starts off extremely interesting, but Karen Travis holds it back with her fucking Boba Fett obsession (that the other two writers don't share) and then everything gets utterly awful by the time you reach book 5 or 6. If you're gonna read 19 books about the Vong, you can handle this series and might get moments you really like out of it.

Fate of the Jedi- Don't read this. Just... don't. If you get through all of the above and you still kinda like the old EU, let that be the way you remember it. There is no reason anyone should ever read the fecal droppings that is Fate of the Jedi.

Thanks a lot! I guess that confirms much of my own thoughts that I can skip Fate of the Jedi. I skimmed some Wikipedia articles and the force powers there seem to be absolutely bonkers. And in regards to Karen Traviss... Yeah, iI guess she seems to have tried to be to the Mandalorians and Clones what Diane Duane was to the Romulans in Star Trek, but I'm a bit freaked out that she apparently felt the need to write a sex scene for every second clone and became her Mandalorians' biggest fangirl. Also stupidly killing off Mara, though that's not quite on her.

The only thing... You recommend Outbound Flight after the main Thrawn novels? I know it's a prequel, but that's why I thought it would be neat to start with the chronologically first novel. Does it spoil some of the later stuff?

[Jace, Extat]

Removes some of the mystery that makes Thrawn so compelling in his own trilogy.

[Vaughn]

On 11/6/2019 at 3:13 AM, felice said:

That's a completely different situation from Star Wars producing a trilogy they know from the start is meant to complete a nine film cycle. 

This isn't an achievable goal anyways so I don't really care if they miss the target.

 

The first three were full of random stuff, the second three retconned everything to death at the expense of any character development - I'm supposed to get mad that the SW powers that be can't stick the landing in the last three? I've enjoyed the new movies and am very happy for Hamill, Fisher, (Daniels I guess), that they got to be in more SW movies BUT it really would have been so much better to set this new trilogy 50+ years into the future, after the OG characters were dead. Outside of Ren/Han bit, everything else could have remained the same pretty much with Luke replaced by Ezra, hiding out with the porgs. 

 

Speaking of character arcs, Star Wars was never good at that anyways. Example #1 - Darth Vader is child murderer who's the right hand man to an emperor who kills and subjugates millions, wiping out entire planets. He throws one guy down an airshaft and he's the peer of Yoda and Obiwan now and gets to hang out as a force ghost?  

 

 

[Heartofice]

I also really wish they'd set this trilogy hundreds of years in the future. Everything would make much more sense at that point. You could have shown the falling apart of the rebellion and slow growth of a new empire. It would work so much better rather than trying to cram it all into such a small space of time.

Honestly I don't care and never did care, about seeing what happened to Luke, Leia or Han. It's all just fan service ahead of telling a good story. Those stories were done, they didn't need to be continued. You could talk about Luke in past tense if you wanted to and it would have been far more interesting. Every scene with sombre music where I look at the haggered Hamill face or the airbrushed Fisher browline feels like nails down a chalk board. Just tell me a story!

There's just this horrible fear by the movie industry that nobody would ever watch anything that they aren't least 75% familiar with. They might be right, but that doesn't make for great movies. 

[Ran]

@Heartofice

There, I have to disagree with you. Lucas had settled on there being a trilogy more featuring the characters before he felt the Skywalker Saga was done.  Can't blame Disney for going that same route, even if they made a hash of things otherwise with regards to his story plans.

[Heartofice]

Well Lucas has made a number of very poor decisions so I’m not sure that is any sort of justification. Turns out a prequel trilogy focusing on Darth Vader was something we didn’t need to see

I get why they did it, doesn’t make it a good idea though.

[red snow]

9 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Well Lucas has made a number of very poor decisions so I’m not sure that is any sort of justification. Turns out a prequel trilogy focusing on Darth Vader was something we didn’t need to see

I get why they did it, doesn’t make it a good idea though.

For me it's more a case of poor execution of an idea although i am generally against prequels as a concept in movies anyhow. 

[Heartofice]

5 minutes ago, red snow said:

For me it's more a case of poor execution of an idea although i am generally against prequels as a concept in movies anyhow. 

There is a world where a prequel showing how Darth Vader was born is a good thing, but I’m pretty convinced it’s a very difficult thing to make work, whilst still keeping us in awe of his character.

Showing him as a child, and as a moany teenager just broke him.

Sometimes it’s best to keep things a mystery and in the imagination