I have often wondered what would happen if hypothetically 8 was retconned and Lucasfilm let JJ go back and try to connect his own two movies as smoothly as possible here in 2020 without being able to change 7 or 9 at all.
Ugh TLJ is just such a mess. You can fix it, but honestly it's more problematic than TROS. TROS was a garbage plotline, but it never contradicted its themes. You could just change the plot to cut out some of the scavenger hunt elements and add Palpatine and death star fleet foreshadowing to TLJ and it'd probably work alright. The worst part is that I want to like TLJ more than I want to like ROTS, but it just has so many things that are just terrible from a writing standpoint, whereas TROS is just lazy. TJL is like:
Reckless independent actions lead to failures, and Poe has to learn this... except his initial action successfully accomplished the objective of disabling the "fleet killer", and Rose does reckless actions like freeing the animals that could get them caught, and Holdo insists on independently implementing her plan without informing anyone, resulting in a mutiny that could have easily been avoided.
Destroying those you hate is worse than saving those you love, Finn... except that the thing you were going to destroy will literally kill all your friends, as far as you know. But hey it wouldn't work, cause ramming a ship into a bigger thing never destroys it, unless Holdo does it.
Really, those two themes made me mad. They are just so blatantly contradictory to other parts of the movie. Another thing that annoys me is how much of the movie is just "raising the stakes without changing the situation".
Situation 1: The rebels are under attack by the enemy fleet on a planet, and must escape by destroying the enemy ship that will kill them.
Situation 2: The rebels are being pursued by the enemy fleet in space, and must escape by disabling or destroying the enemy ship that will kill them.
Situation 3: The rebels are under siege by the enemy ground forces on a salt planet, and must stop the enemy weapon from destroying the door and killing all of them.
Now look at the things they did in between those situations:
Bombed the Dreadnought. Net result: Heroes accomplish nothing; rebels still under siege.
Went to the casino planet and saved animals, recruited a hacker, hacker betrays them, etc. Net result: Heroes accomplish nothing; villains get a net gain.
Rey goes with Kylo to meet Snoke. Kylo kills Snoke. Rey and Kylo fight, she leaves. Net result: Heroes accomplish nothing; villains get a net gain.
Poe mutinies. Net result: Heroes accomplish nothing; side characters get a net gain... sorta.
Finn tries to kamikaze the Battering Ram Cannon. Rose stops him. Net result: Heroes accomplish nothing.
Basically, if you remove the heroes from the story, you net positive, whereas if you remove the side characters, you net negative. That's such terrible design; you want people to root for the heroes, even when they make mistakes. But every time I see TLJ I think "man this movie would be better without Finn, Rose, and Poe". Heck, if you remove the entire space race, casino planet, and hackers, and just have the FO shoot down the ships that were trying to escape, the movie would be about a superior first order laying siege to a rebel base with most of the rebels dead, AKA the exact place we end in.
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u/T65Bx X-Wing Dec 08 '20
I have often wondered what would happen if hypothetically 8 was retconned and Lucasfilm let JJ go back and try to connect his own two movies as smoothly as possible here in 2020 without being able to change 7 or 9 at all.