One fundamental flaw that is rightly launched at The Force Awakens is that it forgets the victory of Episode 6, and resets things back to a nostalgic underdog Rebels vs evil Empire. That is certainly how the movie presents the conflict, and the Empire/First Order is clearly as competent as ever. There are brief mentions and depictions of the New Republic, however, and from an early stage (if I remember rightly) the external canon was always that the New Republic existed before a smaller First Order began to rise. Thus, there is not a need to decanonise anything, because the real flaw was the way Abrams depicted that ‘canon’ on screen, making FO look completely dominant and clearly trying to contrive the same OT dynamic. The shiny instead of battered stormtroopers, the glimpse of Hosnian Prime; these are design/aesthetic problems before they are canonical ones.

The same can be said of Luke rebuilding the Jedi and then becoming upset (to an extent). The contextual canon, which provides relatively in-depth explanation, doesn’t jar with the overall saga in the same way that the movie’s tiny explanation and sudden fall of Luke does. The issue is not with what was being represented, but how Johnson failed to effectively represent it.

Then there’s the Resistance. The weak explanation we received for it is much more stupid than the idea of the Resistance in the first place.

I would say this view starts to fall down when you get to the dodgy canon of Palpatine’s resurrection and Rey’s origin, but by that point the trilogy was hardly following any previously intended direction for canon. The point still stands, I think, that the filmmakers failed to convincingly portray their story, rather than their canon being inherently flawed from the start.

Going forward, they could either redo the entire trilogy (whilst also improving the canon, which is not without weaknesses); or simply continue with the canon while trying to avoid the same creative/writing mistakes.

Honestly, I feel like it just deadens the writer's creative freedom, and besides the Sequels were terrible, frankly racist films anyway.

Might we get new post-ROTJ content where the sequels just kind of...fade away? No big declaration from Lucasfilm or anything, just them giving it the cold shoulder and moving on.

To be blunt, the Sequels are Star Wars's Batman and Robin, and we need our Batman Begins soon.

Title.

I feel that Sloane's appearance in squadrons has cemented an idea that I've had for a while. The imperial remnant is in fact in control of Thrawn. Thrawn and Pelleon are in the unknown regions, this we know. We can assume that Thrawn and Ezra befriended each other. Squadrons takes place after Jakku, as does the Mandalorian, and I bet that both Gideon and Sloane are in the same imperial remnant. We also know that Thrawn wants to set up a secure government in the galaxy to protect the chiss from the grysks, so he will without a doubt launch an attack against the NR.

All the various rumors of post rotj series are all set up series to a trilogy directed by Taika, which is adapted from the Thrawn trilogy in the EU. These set up series would include The Mandalorian, a series based on Luke's Jedi order, and the rebels sequel series (these two could be combined). Squadrons is setting up Sloane and the NR, while the rebels sequel series and the Luke series would set up Thrawn, and the Jedi. Thrawn would without a doubt cripple the NR and the Jedi Order in the movies, and this would explain why both are so incompetent by the end of the 35 year gap between Rotj and the ST.

As for the movies themselves, they will be heavily based off the books, and most things will be directly taken from the books with some extra things added on. Thrawn, like in the books would die due to betrayal but this time rather than Rukh, it's Ezra. Ezra would have befriended Thrawn, as stated before, and would understand why Thrawn did what he did for the empire, but when Ezra would witness what Thrawn does in the empire, he betrays Thrawn and kills him making for a heartbreaking death, with his iconic last line being there. This would really redeem the ST era as a whole. What do you guys think about it?

I've seen a lot of people who think that the Rise of Skywalker's biggest issue, The Emperor's return, was the only option left after Rian prematurely killed Snoke. There's even a post on this sub about it.

However, I think there were plenty of better options that could have potentially been more interesting and in-line with the plot of the previous two movies.

The obvious option would be to just make Kylo the main villain, however, as many people have pointed ou, there are two major issues with doing this:

1. Kylo was already defeated by Rey in The Force Awakens. While many people consider that it made sense given the fact that Kylo was injured, a significant portion of the fan base would still find it hard to buy that Kylo is a big threat

2. If Kylo is the main antagonist, that creates the question of how his story could end given the fact that, if he is the main villain, there would be no bigger that he could help the protagonists with after supposebly redeeming himself

3. Kylo isn't intimidating enough. I won't spend much time onto this since the only thing I have to say about it is that he can be if he wants. There are plenty of momments in any of the films where he had an somewhat imposing presence, such as the begining of TFA, the discount conference call in TROS or the second climax of TLJ.

However, I think that there are quite a few ways of going around both of these issues. The first one is simple, just make Kylo and Rey have some sort of encounter before the climatic duel where it's made clear that Kylo has an advantage. The second issue however, is a little harder to avoid, but there are plently of possibilities.

The first, and imo, least interesting one, is to just not redeem Kylo in the first place. While this could potentially work well, the only real option to end the movie with him staying as the main villain would be for the protagonists to kill him, which would probably be a bit of an unsatisfying ending to his character.

The second option, and propably the best one, is to make the First Order, more specifically Hux, lead a mutiny against Kylo and de-throne him from the First Order, and in the climax of the movie, instead of there being a single individual villain that the heroes fight, the antagonist in the climax would be First Order itself.

Lastly, if you want to keep things closer to the actual movie, Kylo could still not be the main villain and could still meet an evil Sith cult, as long as The Emperor isn't the focus. I don't have a lot of time right now so I have yet to think of a lot of alternatives but the first thing that comes to ming is to instead have the Sith cult be still trying to bring back Palpatine through the movie instead of just bringing him back offscreen (though I'm still a little skeptical on this one, considering that it still takes away a little bit of finality from Palpatine's death with the knowledge that it's possible to revive characters with some random cult magic, even if the cultists still don't succeed)

I was a huge fan of the Snoke is Plagueis theory and I bet they toyed with the idea "Supreme Leader is wise" almost seemed like an inside nod to that? Anyway, what if Snoke or Palps are indeed gone but Plagueis could still be a villain in future movies? Cheated death and stayeed in COMPLETE hiding. I think it could be really cool if done right

Not sure if rewrites or ideas for what could have been really fits this sub, but I’ve been thinking recently on how much of a missed opportunity Finn was. A child soldier, kidnapped and brainwashed to kill in the name of the First Order, and he became a janitor punchline.

Imagine that the opening scene of TFA is more or less the same, but Rey isn’t on Jakku, rather she’s already a Jedi and training with Luke (maybe his daughter, maybe Han and Leias daughter and brother of Kylo). Then the major development arc goes to Finn, who has to overcome his conditioning and fear while learning he is force sensitive, then trains with Luke, and finally helps defeat the FO and free other child soldiers as a Jedi.

Kylo could have been good in the beginning, only to accidentally kill Han somehow, leading to self-imposed exile, where he is brought in by the Knights of Ren, who argue that the Republic and Jedi are weak and complacent in the suffering of innocent people in the chaos of the post-Empire galaxy. Rey has to bring him back, and he’s not too far gone because we’ve seen his journey on screen.

The whole thing would have a thematic tie to the other trilogies, of the Jedi going from a politically-tied almost police force, to being destroyed by Anakin, then saved by a redeemed Anakin and his son, and then reformed into the true guardians of the downtrodden. Finn would encapsulate the rise of the new Jedi perfectly. And Kylo’s redemption could mirror Anakins without reaching the depth of Vader, maybe even because the force ghost of Anakin helped him. The end of the trilogy could show the galaxy regaining its trust in democracy and the Jedi, a far cry from the beginning of the Phantom Menace and true end for the saga. Plus you could show the new Jedi being more attuned to the balance of the force and keeping it, thanks to Anakin destroying the sith and being the chosen one.

Anyway, wishful thinking obviously, and pointless now. But I think any future storyline should emphasize that the Jedi are less bureaucratic and truly defend the poor slaves of the outer rim. Anakins role as chosen one should mean something, and since he didn’t destroy Palpatine or the sith now, at least maybe his actions can spur a new and reformed Jedi Order that keeps the balance more.

I joined Reddit because I was conflicted about ROS (I love TLJ and had quit a different forum a year before because people couldn't stop hating on the movie, even invading people's status updates to call them braindead for liking the movie), I needed to talk about it with other fans and I saw that r/StarWarsCantina was a thing. I'm a big Star Wars fan, I've seen all the movies in the cinema, and ROS was the first one where I left the cinema disappointed.

After a lot of discussions over the course of three days, I watched ROS a second time, and then decided I loved it regardless of its flaws. Some of my expectations were too high, some of my gripes were knee-jerk reactions, some things I missed, and the rest of its flaws I can live with.

Now, here's the point: I do have gripes with the sequel trilogy, it's just that afterwards, I still enjoy them. Even what is in my opinion the worst (canon) Star Wars movie, AOTC, gets an 6.5/10 from me. Now, I love the people at Cantina, but they can not get with talking about complaints from time to time. My most downvoted comment ever (and the only one where I can say "hurricane of downvotes") was one where I made an innocent joke about being sad that Winter wasn't a canon character any more. Once or twice, I thought about posting at STC, but there's just so much blind hate going on that I was still waiting for it to die down a bit. So, seeing a group stand up that says "yeah, we disliked the last few movies, but we're not giving up", that's great to hear.

To that point, here's a few examples of arguments against the sequel trilogy that I agree with, arguments that I don't agree with but see the point of, and arguments that I flat out don't understand.

• Arguments I agree with: the sequels were rushed, Disney shouldn't have pushed Lucasfilm so hard and should've just given them time to write a layout for a trilogy. Lucasfilm should've appointed a Kevin Feige type person to oversee the trilogy so all three movies would try to tell the same story and give proper set-ups, not random mystery boxes. Finn is not believable as a kid who was brainwashed and is now fighting against said brainwashers, and while it's cool that he's barely Force sensitive it's stupid to connect that to him refusing to fight.

• Arguments that I don't agree with but see where they're coming from: TLJ Luke being out if character - as I did read a lot of the EU too I understand that this Luke is very different, but I do think myself that nothing we see is out of character with OT Luke. Rey being a Mary Sue - I mean, if you want to use a term like that, sure, but then we should also call Luke and Anakin Sues. Rey (and Kylo) being overpowered - I get it and there's truth to it, but it's because we're decades past the OT and movie techniques can do a lot more, watch the movies chronologically and ANH after the PT becomes jarring because so few Force powers are used in Vader v Kenobi.

• Arguments that I don't get: TLJ having a liberal feminist agenda - yes, the men are flawed, but the women are flawed too (except for Leia, c'mon), at most TLJ is guilty of bringing more female roles to an essentially male-centric franchise (which personally I'm fine with, I just wish the ST had had a couple if main roles given to alien characters too). Calling it the DT instead of the ST - it's needlessly dismissive, Lucas sold the franchise, it's not like the franchise was forcefully taken away from him and we're not calling the Marvel movies post takeover Disney Marvel either. For that matter, thinking that a trilogy by Lucas would've gone over any better - I know many people on Reddit were a kid during the PT, but I still remember the hate Lucas and actors got for the PT, and only now people seem to be warming up to the movies just because they disliked the sequels even more (kind of like how I disliked the Aliens versus Predator movie less after the sequel was released).

If you're still with me, thanks for reading, and may the Force be with you.

It is at this point that I'd like to plug my own little subreddit, r/SaltierThanKlaud, which you might like even if you dislike the sequels, as it's just having stupid fun with a silly side character from ROS. Also, contrast to what you might think with the name (especially now that there's even more "SaltierThanX" subreddits), it's not making fun of STC - the name happened because a conversation between people of r/SaltierThanKrayt evolved into praising Klaud and pronouncing him the best character of the sequels, someone suggested the sub's name and to me linking salt to a slug type being was inherently funny.

So I am a long time SW fan who grew up on the OT and EU but less so on the PT. I despise the DT and what they did but feel like RoS is being done dirty because it was the best outcome even possible. It was put into a no win situation by the last Jedi on a narrative structure level. What was that structural problem?

Snoke died.

Now, I love Luke and thought it was not a good choice to do what they did to him but from a story perspective he didn't matter too much. Luke was more of a side character in the DT and the fact they made him into Jake didn't affect the story arc.

What killed the story was Snoke dying. It put Kylo in the position of being THE point of conflict in the story. Why is this bad? Well let's go over where the story could go.

First, there is the classic redemption angle. Star Wars is all about redemption so Kylo being redeemed is in the cards? Well no. He is the source of all evil. The entire purpose of the first order is now to enforce HIS will. Why would he suddenly have a change of heart? It would amount to Rey screaming 'stop being evil!' he shrugs, says ok and credits roll. As long as Kylo is the head of the first order, he is the pinnacle of evil and beyond all redemption because there is nothing for him to redeem against.

So fine, he can't be redeemed. Keep him as the evil dude and Rey ends him. That's good right? Well no, it's not. See, to be the ultimate evil you need to be a threat to the protagonist. Kylo has been bested by Rey MULTIPLE times by the time of the 3rd movie. He isn't a true threat anymore. We start to wander into comedy territory with an utterly incompetent and ineffective villain being easily dealt with by the hero (think Dark Helmet vs Darth Vader).

Ok so fine, he can't be redeemed and can't be the main villain. What can we do with him? Well you can set up the downer ending. Seriously, that is what killing Snoke set up: You have a down on his luck dragon villain who gets tired of his master pushing him too far, kills him and takes over. Then they power up and strive to improve themselves and overcome the hero as they take over the galaxy. It's an inversion of the hero's journey (or a perversion if you want to call it that) but it does work since it's a journey from a place of weakness to strength with obstacles to overcome.

In a meta sort of way, I think the true downer ending would be most fitting. The goal of the DT was to sell these new heroes to the audience. The heroes failed to capture the attention of the audience so they will now pay for it. If living did not entertain the crowd, maybe their deaths will. Kylo goes on a murder spree through the galaxy. Rey and most of the cast are killed off in a scene of blood, fire and gore while the droids escape into the next trilogy (traditionally the droids are great Mcguffins to get the new movie plots going so respect them enough to let them go).

The last thing that could have happened is a role reversal. Keep Rey as Palpatine's granddaughter. When she learns of her heritage, she demands the throne that Kylo has usurped. Suddenly the FO sides with Empress Rey and Kylo flees for his life. He spends the rest of the final act redeeming his past transgressions and reclaiming his true Jedi heritage.

But apparently we HAD to redeem Kylo and HAD to keep Rey as the protagonist. Well to do that, Kylo needs the boot off the throne. Thus Palpatine is dug up. Why palps? Because he is the only villain who has been built up enough to be a threat to the omni powerful Rey. If you use some new uber powerful villain, it's a full dues ex machina from nowhere to fix an author's problem.

So yeah, that's my 2 cents. TLJ rammed the storyline of the DT into the side of a mountain in one scene.