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 Lance845 wrote:

3 minutes? Are you trying to say that is a lot? 3 minutes in a 2 hour movie means he is a major central player in the plot and deserves to be fleshed out with his backstory explained as something that is needed in the over all story ark? He got the screen time he needed to do what he had to do.

Relative to Palpatine? Yes, that is a lot. He isn't just "The Emperor", who had to exist because it's called "The Empire", he is a named character featured in TFA trailers to such an extent that conversation in the run up to TFA was dominated by "Who is Snoke?".

 Elemental wrote:
=

Overall, I had fun. (edit) And having flicked through a few pages of this thread, I should probably leave before that sense of fun starts to spoil.

In other words, you are in the intermediate state between denial and acceptance that you wasted the ticket money and you don't feel is the case to go any further.
I can accept that.

 Manchu wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Snokes background doesn't mean anything to the plot of 7 and 8.

Incorrect. Luke explains that he was tempted to kill Ben Solo because Ben was too far under the influence of Snoke. How? When? Why? Not explained.

I agree that new trilogy leaves too many things untold about First Order, Resistance and Snoke. Where the First Order came from, how is Snoke such a powerful Force user (he is apparently not a Jedi, and no mention is made if he's a Sith either), why there was need for 'Resistance' if there already was a Republic? As said, in the first trilogy, there was little need to explain this stuff. There was the Emperor, which is self-explanatory. In prequels, there was the Republic (again, self-explanatory) and the Trade Federation, which was never explained, one of the many weaknesses of the story.
Cynic in me says they have let purposedfully things vague so people would rush in to buy EU novels and stuff.

I don't mind the Snoke angle, I think it was actually quite good, but we needed to know more to care more. Well, I guess between Episodes X and XI there will be "Rise of Snoke" standalone prequel movie...

 Manchu wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
In an earlier draft, Poe and Finn go to the casino planet together. Johnson said he hated it because he thought it was boring and added Rose as someone who would challenge Finn.

IMO just further confirmation, in addition to the terrible jokes in TLJ, that RJ is tone deaf. Finn/Poe team up at the beginning of TFA was breathless fun. Them having an adventure together in TLJ was something I was really looking forward to. What was boring about the casino world stuff was the prequel-esque casino world stuff itself, plus Rose's inane political commentary.

Whole Casino angle felt rushed, like it was thrown together quickly and had 5 minutes cut off. That said, I disagree with those who said Finn/Rose mission was pointless, or that the characters were pointless. Whole subplot existed to show that heroes don't always succeed, that First Order is not totally incompetent and that shady people found from jails perhaps aren't the most trustworthy. It's stuff like that which adds realism and tension to the story.

Lets not forget that from plot point, Luke was totally useless at end of RotJ. All that fighting with Vader and Emperor did nothing for the Rebel fleet, who won the battle anyway. If anything, Luke jeopardized the mission for very selfish reasons. But from emotional viewpoint, it was very important as it brought closure for the Skywalker story.

Backfire wrote:
Cynic in me says they have let purposedfully things vague so people would rush in to buy EU novels and stuff.

Yeah this is certainly the case. There will be a novel out by mid-2018 called "SNOKE."

Also I think this is really going to dampen any sort of fan theory hype for episode 9. I really left feeling the story had very lift to discuss and they've made it very clear that they don't develop any of their characters or do any real world building. So why waste time analysing something when they are making it up. Why theorise about Kylo Ren when clearly there isn't a master plan and mysteries left. People left episode 7 feeling things left unsaid about the First Order or Snoke were questions. Episode 8 has revealed there are no answers worth knowing.

To be honest Iam more annoyed by the "screw you nerd" attitude of all the websites and Disney in reaction to the criticism. From attempts to dismiss any criticism outright. Insisting it's a conspiracy online. Belittling and making personal insinuations like people being too into the source material. As well as endless attempts to twist this into an attack on the women of the film. It's getting kind of offensive. Especially considering it has very little to do with any SJW argument or personal attacks on people. It's basically fans saying they didn't like stuff with Luke, Rey and Snoke. Are we not allowed to criticise Disney and it's creative decisions?

Plus I just feel Disney don't do any World
building. I mean we are two films in and they haven't explained where the First Order came from and why the Rebellion didn't destroy them and hang every Imperial as a war criminal. They just handwave it as Empire 2.0 along with Rebellion 2.0 with a cursory mention that "oh yeah there was a Republic but that's blown up so it's not relevant. 2nd Galactic Civil War guys!!!!"

 Manchu wrote:
Incorrect. Luke explains that he was tempted to kill Ben Solo because Ben was too far under the influence of Snoke. How? When? Why? Not explained.

This is an area where the First Order's depiction in Ep8 cleans up a lot of questions for me. The movie makes it easier to see them as a militant uprising and Snoke as someone feeding those dissatisfied with the Republic (or those capable of profiting from a need for increased military spending) with hatred and a cause. With an opening crawl that does more to make us understand that the Republic has been decapitated than Ep7's "who was that?" planet destruction scene pulled off; I get it and by extension, I get Snoke and by further extension, I get the references to Ben.

Ep7 makes it sound like Ben was wandering off for Sith tutoring on the side, but after seeing Ep8, I see it more along the lines of a disenchanted youth lured to the rhetoric of a charismatic madman. I'm sure there's a degree of mental contact and whispered promises, but the neat thing about what we learned in Ep8 is that it doesn't require Luke to have even been aware Snoke was anything more than a political loon at the time he failed Ben. They talk about it in hindsight like it was obviously Snoke's influence, but its not presented like Luke looked in Ben's mind and Snoke waved called dibs. It's more that Luke looked in and saw Ben daydreaming about slaughtering his classmates and freaked out about it. When he then ran away and joined the FO as their new Vader it likely became very obvious what they were really up against.

Of course, none of this is explicitly in the film, but that's the big win in my mind for Ep8. The character of the FO is so vastly improved that I don't need explicit answers the way I did after seeing Ep7. The villains plan and actions make sense in a way that informs us where they may have come from rather than have them be archetypes desperately in need of a backstory.


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 Totalwar1402 wrote:

Plus I just feel Disney don't do any World
building. I mean we are two films in and they haven't explained where the First Order came from and why the Rebellion didn't destroy them and hang every Imperial as a war criminal. They just handwave it as Empire 2.0 along with Rebellion 2.0 with a cursory mention that "oh yeah there was a Republic but that's blown up so it's not relevant. 2nd Galactic Civil War guys!!!!"

This film did way more world building than Ep7. It actually created a setting worth investing in for the first time since.... IDK probably the Vong.

Star Wars has always been about establishing a conflict exists more than explaining how that conflict came to exist. Then they made a series of movies about explaining the backstory of the villains from the first trilogy, and it basically snuffed out the franchise for a decade.

I yearn for the days of the Trade Federation - at least you got a explanation.

They also made sense - a group of planets unhappy about Republican taxes or trade routes etc etc

As I've said before, If anybody from Disney is reading this, give me 18 months, Nicholas Cage, and $200 million dollars, and I've give you a Star Wars film to remember.

On a serious note, I've always had an idea for a SW film: The First Jedi. It would go back to the dawn of history, and the early days of wandering philosophers and sages trying to make sense of the force. Paradise Lost would be the template for its foundations. The aesthetic would be obviously familiar SW tech, but a more primeval, iron age feel, rustic - if that makes sense?

There would be no lightsabers, no Jedi temples, no Jedi, no Sith - just an old fashioned adventure, but with a moral and philisophical core, with the natural emergence of things like Jedi and Sith, and even Grey.

That's my pitch to Disney.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Elemental wrote:
=

Overall, I had fun. (edit) And having flicked through a few pages of this thread, I should probably leave before that sense of fun starts to spoil.

In other words, you are in the intermediate state between denial and acceptance that you wasted the ticket money and you don't feel is the case to go any further.
I can accept that.

Or admitting that even Lucky Charms taste terrible if you poor them into a bowl of spoiled milk.

The crawl just says the Republic is gone. I don't see how that is better than showing the capital (and some other important planets?) getting blown up by a Death Star Analog. TLJ does even less than TFA in terms of explaining what the feth is going on in this setting.

Luke explicitly says he was tempted to kill his own nephew because Ben was too far gone under the influence of Snoke. This is TLJ's explanation of the most crucial element of the new trilogy. But TLJ gives no explanation for how or why this was the case.

One thing I really liked about TFA (and hated about R1) was that the FO was depicted as competent and threatening. TLJ was more like R1, where the Bad Guys are total rubes with like one exception. In R1, Krennic is like, "why is no one doing anything?" In TLJ, the captain of the dreadnought is like, "why didn't we scramble fighters five minutes ago?" In TFA, the FO was a fanatical movement described to us by a NSDAP-style rally speech. In TLJ, the FO is just a pack of mooks like the bad guys in Space Balls.

Voss wrote:

By the end of TLJ he isn't the emperor. He's just the only guy with a lightsaber on the bad guy's side...

He's not. Hopefully, they will expand that part of the plot, since Kylo alone is not scary enough antagonist for the finale.

In what sense? Episode 8 tells you very little about the First Order or State of the Galaxy. Yes it tells you a little more than nothing. But there's nothing comparable to when Tarkin talks about the Senate being dissolved or Obi Wan about the Dark Times. It's enough to work with.

All we learn is that they are taking over the "major systems". Very generic, doesn't tell you anything. We also hear about the Resistence "allies in the Outer Rim". Again, very generic. Who are they exactly. Iam not expecting "oh Sabine is Mandalore and she'll join us" but a bit more explanation. Why does nobody on the Core Worlds support them?

We are also not told how the First Order managed to build such a massive force simply by strip mining a few worlds. But the Galactic government can only afford a single planetary defence fleet. Surely the Republic would have such an enormous economy it could build a bigger military than a small mining operation. Not to mention that it would be impossible to keep the build up a secret if they've were strip mining worlds and killing entire planetary populations for target practice as Rose tells it.

But yeah that's not a lot to go on. I mean imagine if they rebooted 40k. If they killed the Emperor and then just made a new Imperium without any explanation beyond vague insinuations and just an expectation for you to roll with it. That's how I feel with the First Order. You have to explain how these guys fit with the ending of Return of the Jedi where the Empire is defeated.

Plus they drop some confusing lines. Why does Poe introduce himself as part of the Republic Fleet (I approve of this) when we are told by Holdo that the Republic is to be restored and yet everyone's still calling themselves the Resistence.

I mean personally, you don't stop calling yourself British if Parliament gets blown up and you definetly wouldn't acknowledge the First Order had won by saying the New Republic was gone.

 Manchu wrote:
The crawl just says the Republic is gone. I don't see how that is better than showing the capital (and some other important planets?) getting blown up by a Death Star Analog. TLJ does even less than TFA in terms of explaining what the feth is going on in this setting.

It's probably more than just the opening crawl I suppose. The dialog throughout the escape sequence has a great sense of desperation and the characters all do a good job explaining the situation and consequences in pretty appropriate ways (even Rey fits it in while trying to win over Luke).

I really like the Starkiller speech in Ep7, but what follows is pretty confusing. We're told that they're shooting at the Republic and we get some scenes of planets blowing up, but nobody really reacts to the consequences. The FO doesn't begin their conquest and without that, we don't get the sense that the Resistance is all there is to oppose their takeover. The movie actually pretty quickly shifts to celebrating the Resistance rescue and the reunions of important characters before becoming all about rescuing the Resistance base from the second Starkiller attack. Ultimately the issue is that it never really feels like the destruction of the Republic matters the way it does in Ep8. In a lot of ways it just feels like they fired a really genocidal warning shot.

Yeah I must admit I loved when Holdo gave the speech about how we are all here to restore the Republic. It's stupid they don't consider themselves members of the Republic military. But still. It felt good and it made sense for these characters to care and feel that their nation was under assault by a criminal and fascist regime.

Which is why context matters because these things matter to our characters so it's important to know why they care about the New Republic being blown up. Episode 7 nobody cares and it goes without comment or a sense of loss. The significance of the event is lost on people and forgotten.

After the Battle of Endor, Mon Mothma negotiated peace with the Empire. This included demilitarizing the Empire, which still exists and is still headquartered on Coruscant. The Republic also demilitarized, with Mon Mothma arguing that Republic would not simply continue on where the Empire left off, holding systems together through military intimidation. So the Republic's capital was moved, on a revolving basis, among some number of member worlds and it maintained a single space fleet - the FO presumably blew up all of this in TFA.

Thing is, NONE OF THIS WAS EXPLAINED IN EITHER MOVIE. So we have to ask the question, is this information important to understand what happened in TFA?

The clear answer is YES. Without knowing this stuff, it's hard to say why Resistance and the FO even exist. Yes, I get that the FO wants to destroy the Republic (because Hux explained that in his speech) but I don't know why he targeted seven (or however many) planets. Are those all of the Republic planets? Or just the capital worlds? TLJ begins by telling us that the Republic is gone - and I guess this line in the fething crawl is supposed to retroactively explain why Starkiller Base blew up multiple planets. I was actually pretty shocked that TLJ opened with a line saying the Republic is decimated. It made me wonder what had happened between TFA and TLJ.

Just another thing that is brought up in the film solely for the sake of selling novels and comics books later on.

 Manchu wrote:
After the Battle of Endor, Mon Mothma negotiated peace with the Empire. This included demilitarizing the Empire, which still exists and is still headquartered on Coruscant. The Republic also demilitarized, with Mon Mothma arguing that Republic would not simply continue on where the Empire left off, holding systems together through military intimidation. So the Republic's capital was moved, on a revolving basis, among some number of member worlds and it maintained a single space fleet - the FO presumably blew up all of this in TFA.

Thing is, NONE OF THIS WAS EXPLAINED IN EITHER MOVIE. So we have to ask the question, is this information important to understand what happened in TFA?

The clear answer is YES. Without knowing this stuff, it's hard to say why Resistance and the FO even exist. Yes, I get that the FO wants to destroy the Republic (because Hux explained that in his speech) but I don't know why he targeted seven planets. Are those all of the Republic planets? Or just the capital worlds? TLJ begins by telling us that the Republic is gone - and I guess this line in the fething crawl is supposed to retroactively explain why Starkiller Base blew up multiple planets.

Just another thing that is brought up in the film solely for the sake of selling novels and comics books later on.

See I have read summaries of that and i honestly think that's just stupid. If the Rebels won a decisive victory that destroyed the Imperial Fleet they would not have allowed the Imperial Remnant to exist. It's like if Democratic Germany had a peace treaty with the Nazis and decided to disarm them. The Rebels would never legitimise the Empire and would dismantle that state, put all its elites on trial and politely hang as many of them as possible. They're Nazis. Why wouldn't the Rebels pursue unconditional surrender? In the EU it's because the Remant is reduced to three outer rim worlds and is led by a moderate Pelleon; the Empire is clearly gone. You wouldn't leave them with Coruscant and the Core Worlds. Not when you have won the war.

Yeah, that's the big gripe I have with Ep7. All that backstory is necessary to appreciate the conflict in Ep7.

On the other hand, Ep8 does a better job of expressing the backstory of the conflict. It really doesn't matter where the FO came from or how they destroyed the Republic; the film makes it pretty clear it happened and the heroes are desperately trying to hold the line as they conquer the galaxy. It doesn't even lean on Ep7 to make you aware of this, even though it probably could have. Sure, there's details left out, but those details aren't needed to define what's going on.

That's not to say Ep8 is a better starting point. Ultimately this is Rey's story; and Ep7 is about Rey's journey and much of Ep8 is a continuation of that. In terms of world building though, Ep8 gives us the interesting world that Ep7 largely skipped over.

The back story (that does not appear in either film) makes sense to me.

At Endor, the Rebellion destroyed DS2, the Executor, and killed (or "killed") the Emperor and Darth Vader. What we didn't see is the rest of that huge Imperial fleet get destroyed. And we know that the Rebel fleet that appeared on screen is almost certainly the bulk of what they had given that, as the Emperor intended, they needed to throw everything they had at this chance to take him down.

So post-Endor, the Empire is still very powerful in material terms and the Rebellion still isn't. But the Rebellion/New Republic has the edge of in-tact leadership while the Empire starts to turn in on itself as various ambitious warlords grab for power. The New Republic probably cannot beat the Empire in an actual war, if the Empire manages to get organized, which would in any case be catastrophic for the people of the galaxy. And the Empire probably cannot beat the New Republic because of their internal issues (for example, trying to keep systems from defecting). So both sides sought a political solution.

The upshot is, factions on both sides are extremely dissatisfied for the reasons you outlined - hence the Resistance and FO.

TLJ didn't give us anything in terms of explaining the setting. It just strolled on from where TFA failed to do the same.

In the first movie the explanation for why there were only X-Wings in the resistance was that A-Wings, Y-Wings, and B-Wings were part of the Republic fleet and that it was decimated when Death Star Jr. Alpha Gold destroyed that sector including the Republic Fleet but at the beginning they now have A-Wings with the bombers and X-Wings. This seems to be a film where the more you think about the worse it gets. It was pretty but a lot of it is either unethically truncated just to sell outside media (books/comics) or is just a flat out contradiction with previous information.

Also, I think this is Kylo Ren's story as he is the real hero of this trilogy so far. I want more Matt the Radar Technician as well.

 Manchu wrote:
The back story (that does not appear in either film) makes sense to me.

At Endor, the Rebellion destroyed DS2, the Executor, and killed (or "killed") the Emperor and Darth Vader. What we didn't see is the rest of that huge Imperial fleet get destroyed. And we know that the Rebel fleet that appeared on screen is almost certainly the bulk of what they had given that, as the Emperor intended, they needed to throw everything they had at this chance to take him down.

So post-Endor, the Empire is still very powerful in material terms and the Rebellion still isn't. But the Rebellion/New Republic has the edge of in-tact leadership while the Empire starts to turn in on itself as various ambitious warlords grab for power. The New Republic probably cannot beat the Empire in an actual war, if the Empire manages to get organized, which would in any case be catastrophic for the people of the galaxy. And the Empire probably cannot beat the New Republic because of their internal issues (for example, trying to keep systems from defecting). So both sides sought a political solution.

The upshot is, factions on both sides are extremely dissatisfied for the reasons you outlined - hence the Resistance and FO.

TLJ didn't give us anything in terms of backstory. It just strolled on from where TFA failed to do the same.

You're downplaying the significance of the Battle of Jakku. It was such a total defeat it caused Hux and the remaining fanatics to flee
To the Unkniwn Regions.

It's also extremely unclear how current some of that is. I think it mentions several rival Galactic powers including a reborn Seperatist Alliance (somebody didn't get the Disney "we hate prequels" memo). Yet it's unclear if they or the Imperial Remnant centred on Coruscant are still in existence when the films begin. What I've read doesn't give a clear picture.

But I don't think it makes sense for the Imperials to have fled if they still had substantial military assets and territory including Coruscant.

 Ahtman wrote:
This seems to be a film where the more you think about the worse it gets.

 Ahtman wrote:
a lot of it is either unethically truncated just to sell outside media (books/comics)

 Ahtman wrote:
Also, I think this is Kylo Ren's story

Yep, all of this is correct.

I really like the character of Kylo Ren. I wish the movies telling his story were better or, at least, not quite so soulless.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
You're downplaying the significance of the Battle of Jakku.

That's true - except I'm not downplaying it, I just don't know much about it because the fething movies don't explain anything about it and I haven't read the novels and comics.

 Manchu wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
This seems to be a film where the more you think about the worse it gets.

 Ahtman wrote:
a lot of it is either unethically truncated just to sell outside media (books/comics)

 Ahtman wrote:
Also, I think this is Kylo Ren's story

Yep, all of this is correct.

I really like the character of Kylo Ren. I wish the movies telling his story were better or, at least, not quite so soulless.

Yeah I like Ren. But that's because he's like if Rimmer was a Sith.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
somebody didn't get the Disney "we hate prequels" memo

including Rian Johnson ...

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
But that's because he's like if Rimmer was a Sith.

Not a bad way to explain it, especially considering that Rimmer is a very likable character despite (because of?) being an unlikable person.

 Manchu wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
This seems to be a film where the more you think about the worse it gets.

 Ahtman wrote:
a lot of it is either unethically truncated just to sell outside media (books/comics)

 Ahtman wrote:
Also, I think this is Kylo Ren's story

Yep, all of this is correct.

I really like the character of Kylo Ren. I wish the movies telling his story were better or, at least, not quite so soulless.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
You're downplaying the significance of the Battle of Jakku.

That's true - except I'm not downplaying it, I just don't know much about it because the fething movies don't explain anything about it and I haven't read the novels and comics.

Most of the stuff about Jakku comes from the last Aftermath novel. I've only read a summary but it's clearly the Empires end. Also Battlefront 2 shows this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
somebody didn't get the Disney "we hate prequels" memo

including Rian Johnson ...

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
But that's because he's like if Rimmer was a Sith.

Not a bad way to explain it, especially considering that Rimmer is a very likable character despite (because of?) being an unlikable person.

There's very few mentions to the prequels. Aside from using Sideous name he doesn't refer to anything Obi Wan didn't tell Luke.

He continued JJ Abrams attempt to dismantle the notion that the Sith are this Order that opposes the Jedi and is as central to Star Wars as the Jedi. A fan of the prequels would not do that. To paraphrase JJ "they're that prequel thing" and they prefer to just not bother developing their own identity for whatever Snoke was. Which leads to Kylos confusing line about the Sith needing to end when we have repeatedly been told that the Sith died with Vader by the show runners. Why is Kylo asking to end something that has already ended? It's a disingenuous statement.

If he was a fan of the prequels I would have expected more references to them. I mean "major planets"? Coruscant? Kashykk? Naboo? Corellia? Duro? Mandalore? There's very little of that.

 Manchu wrote:

So post-Endor, the Empire is still very powerful in material terms and the Rebellion still isn't. But the Rebellion/New Republic has the edge of in-tact leadership while the Empire starts to turn in on itself as various ambitious warlords grab for power. The New Republic probably cannot beat the Empire in an actual war, if the Empire manages to get organized, which would in any case be catastrophic for the people of the galaxy. And the Empire probably cannot beat the New Republic because of their internal issues (for example, trying to keep systems from defecting). So both sides sought a political solution.

See this would make some sense, but sadly in the Video Game of Loot Boxes, they give the canonical story. And it's... even more stupid than you would expect. And dumb to have as the unspoken backstory of the film and shouldn't (in my view) impact the film, because a book or film should be able to hold its own coherent narrative, without a bunch of 'well, actually...'

But what happens between Return and Awakens is

I haven't caught up with this thread, so I'm sure there are many points hashed out on both sides I haven't considered yet, but I really enjoyed the film even while feeling like every criticism I've seen about the film is true and accurate.

JJ only seemed to care about scenes and RJ only about themes. Both movies were just terribly constructed and poorly thought out, but TLJ managed to resonate for me where TFA left me cold.

I'm not sure where the franchise can go from here. Destroying the past tropes might clear the way for truly fresh stories, but the covenant with the audience has been broken. When the franchise becomes comfortable ignoring its own foundations for a momentary pay off, the fans won't be able to invest emotionally into the setting so deeply again.

If the prequels and TFA hadn't killed my investment in the series, I'd probably be furious. Instead, I enjoyed this elseworlds Star Wars and wonder where Disney will allow the franchise to go during its Marvel period. Fun, meaningless flings without the deep emotional attachment might be fun for a few years.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This film is as subjective as that old lady/young lady illusion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I don't believe a lot of this information was left out deliberately to force comic book sales. Even Disney must know that people will only so many incomplete stories before they lose interest.

I believe the difference is in the backgrounds of who made the films. Neither JJ nor RJ seem to care about technical details or the nitty gritty of the setting. They want their story to override such paltry concerns as where did the FO come from or whether or not kamikaze hyperspace jumps can destroy fleets. They get so caught up in the beats and workings of a film that they destroy the story like Lenny with a mouse. The OT was put together by a lot of talented people who understood science fiction. This new series feels like was assembled by a bunch of graphic designers showing off. There is no consistency in the setting because everyone is too caught up trying to make it look good or hit the right emotional notes, or set up the next mystery for them to sit down and think if anything makes sense.

My problem with the prequels was primarily I felt they spent too long in episode 1 to the detriment of the story in 2 and 3. Make ep 1 a flashback in ep 2 and spend more time with the destruction of the republic.

My problem with 7 and 8 is that not enough time is spent prior to the movies! All that I'm hearing about the time between 6 and 7 sounds fascinating!
They should have made episode 7 a Star Wars/Romance of the 3 Kingdoms dealing with the fracturing of the empire and the resistance response. The old adage of show don't tell fits perfectly here. Show me Hux leading his faction of imperial sympathizers, backstabbing the fledgling republic and working behind the scenes to grab power. Show me the rise of Snoke and the twisting of Ben Solo. Make them legitimate threats to the republic rather than just "well we need a bad guy".
Then have a time skip or whatever and jump into the force awakens. You could have the end of this 3Kingdoms episode 7 be with the flashback in Last Jedi of the destruction of Luke's Jedi temple/Ben's defection to Snoke and then Force awakens starts after a small time skip.

BobtheInquisitor wrote:Neither JJ nor RJ seem to care about technical details or the nitty gritty of the setting. They want their story to override such paltry concerns as where did the FO come from or whether or not kamikaze hyperspace jumps can destroy fleets.

More importantly, I don't think they care about the details or nitty gritty of storytelling. They want their spectacle to override any other concerns. Not the setting, the actors or even the characters. Just the explosions, CGI and other trappings.

The Last Jedi - HISHE Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vdl4pAtno4

Voss wrote:

BobtheInquisitor wrote:Neither JJ nor RJ seem to care about technical details or the nitty gritty of the setting. They want their story to override such paltry concerns as where did the FO come from or whether or not kamikaze hyperspace jumps can destroy fleets.

More importantly, I don't think they care about the details or nitty gritty of storytelling. They want their spectacle to override any other concerns. Not the setting, the actors or even the characters. Just the explosions, CGI and other trappings.

I disagree slightly. I think Rian Johnson felt it was very important to structure his characters' arcs around the ideas that 1) failure is the best teacher, 2) grand personal heroics may win battles but won't win wars, and 3) the last 20 years of Star Wars were wrong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, subvert the dominant SW paradigm.

Here's an interview with Johnson where he explains why he didn't give any backstory to Snoke. http://ew.com/movies/2017/12/17/star-wars-last-jedi-spoilers-snoke-killed-theories/2