Star Wars Griefing Thread (SPOILERS) - Safety off

[knightlautrec]

My knowledge of EU material set after the OT is sketchy but it's funny to compare both versions of that family. In old canon Leia Solo went on to be both a politician in the New Republic and a Jedi with Han eventually becoming a general after cleaning up his act, both staying together into old age and even becoming grandparents despite the issues parenthood/responsibilities dropped on them. Meanwhile new canon has General Organa in "The Resistance" that formed from the New Republic refusing to arm itself and who mostly squandered having the same aptitude in the Force as the other Skywalkers, Han having left at some point to return to being a smuggler.

It's your opinion which direction is better for stories but it is one of the most radical differences between both canons.

That is a good comparison and something they bugs me about NuSW Han and Leia. It acts as if Kylo is the big catalyst to the collapse of their marriage but that just seems like the lazy, easy way out to add conflict to their relationship and honestly feels like a bit of a kick to people who liked their love story. It didn't occur to the writers that maybe their son turning to the Dark Side would further unite them and bring them closer as they struggle to understand what happened?

Naw. They had to fall out of love and divorce because reasons. Have to destroy any semblance of normal loving relationships from the OT in this sexless space future of Nu Wars.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

That is a good comparison and something they bugs me about NuSW Han and Leia. It acts as if Kylo is the big catalyst to the collapse of their marriage but that just seems like the lazy, easy way out to add conflict to their relationship and honestly feels like a bit of a kick to people who liked their love story. It didn't occur to the writers that maybe their son turning to the Dark Side would further unite them and bring them closer as they struggle to understand what happened?

Naw. They had to fall out of love and divorce because reasons. Have to destroy any semblance of normal loving relationships from the OT in this sexless space future of Nu Wars.

This also deprived us of the chance of great Harrison Ford-ing.
Imagine TFA with Han Solo being caught up in the frustrating meanderings of republican politics.
Just show him awkwardly putting on a ceremonial dress while muttering something about how he hates dealing with politicians and how he'll never get used to it while Leia tries to reassure him that he's going to do fine.
Maybe have them exchange a little funny dialogue. "Leia, you know I'm a criminal at heart..." "Yeah I know, you'll fit right in..."
Or a scene where Han is about to get into a Shuttle, telling some person how happy he is that they saw eye to eye and could solve the little political squabble and just after the door closes, Han turns around and goes "Damnit, if only I was allowed to carry my Blaster."
It would also offer a chance for a little quip when Han joins in with Rey and the others, wearing his old Smuggler gear. Something along the lines of "Han, you promised me you threw that out decades ago!"

Cliched? Yes, but I would argue cliched in a good way. It would certainly be more entertaining than what TFA gave us instead. And seeing a happy, married couple would be so much more satisfying and I would argue it would make Han's death have a far bigger impact.

 

[Overcast]

This also deprived us of the chance of great Harrison Ford-ing.
Imagine TFA with Han Solo being caught up in the frustrating meanderings of republican politics.

But politics was something the prequels did! And everything about the prequels was BAD! Absolutely EVERYTHING! We can't have anything regarding the prequels in the new movies no sir!

But yeah, regardless of the quality of the prequels, at least those movies tried to expand a bit on how politics worked in the SW universe and how it affected the overall plot.

That's probably one of my biggest problems with the new Star Wars. The people behind them look at all the previous films and only took them at face value and did everything they could to make the newer films "like the original trilogy" without any of the substance or basically anything that makes for a cohesive world.

 

[knightlautrec]

This also deprived us of the chance of great Harrison Ford-ing.
Imagine TFA with Han Solo being caught up in the frustrating meanderings of republican politics.
Just show him awkwardly putting on a ceremonial dress while muttering something about how he hates dealing with politicians and how he'll never get used to it while Leia tries to reassure him that he's going to do fine.
Maybe have them exchange a little funny dialogue. "Leia, you know I'm a criminal at heart..." "Yeah I know, you'll fit right in..."
Or a scene where Han is about to get into a Shuttle, telling some person how happy he is that they saw eye to eye and could solve the little political squabble and just after the door closes, Han turns around and goes "Damnit, if only I was allowed to carry my Blaster."
It would also offer a chance for a little quip when Han joins in with Rey and the others, wearing his old Smuggler gear. Something along the lines of "Han, you promised me you threw that out decades ago!"

Cliched? Yes, but I would argue cliched in a good way. It would certainly be more entertaining than what TFA gave us instead. And seeing a happy, married couple would be so much more satisfying and I would argue it would make Han's death have a far bigger impact.

I really really like that idea because you have Han as a fish out of water in the senate and maybe finally stepping up to a leadership role after rejecting it or having to fill Leia's shoes for a moment, which gives him a better appreciation for what she does. It's a much better arc than what TFA gives him - a rehash of 'Han runs away from a difficult situation but returns out of obligation'. He's HAD that arc already. He didn't need it again. It resets him as a character and makes it seem like he had no progression.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

Ah looks like Kennedy ain't leaving. Looks like Star Wars is going to be continued getting raped by Disney then. Not sure where the rumor of Kevin Fiege taking over come from, but I'll take him over Kennedy.

https://movieweb.com/kathleen-kennedy-replaced-lucasfilm-kevin-feige/

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

I think that my personal outcry against these new movies just really has to do with the fact that it's a "final straw" for me as a Star Wars fan. Enough is enough. There have been 10 movies in this franchise and only 3 of them are any good, and the last good one was 35 years ago. And now with The Last Jedi easily being the worst Star Wars movie I've ever seen, I just feel dead inside when Star Wars is even mentioned to me. It's hard to even call myself a fan now.

This is similar to my own sentiments. When Dinsey first acquired LucasFilm Ltd, I had guarded optimism. Unfortunately, Disney decided to ignore the storytelling in previous movies and media and turn the franchise in to SJW propaganda with little regard towards the fans that have/had stayed with the franchise since the beginning.

I've been unimpressed with TFA & TLJ. The former seemed to be nothing more than a retread of the original, but I was willing to give the movie a pass in hopes the sequel would be better and build on it. Watching the latter felt as if it ignored everything made up to that point, and most of it seemed to be a combined retread of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I had zero interest in both Rogue One and Solo. If I were to actually watch Episode IX, it will be solely to see what kind of dumpster fire it turns out to be.

I agree it's hard to still consider one's self a SW fan; on the plus side, I now have more appreciation for what made the original trilogy good.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

I agree it's hard to still consider one's self a SW fan; on the plus side, I now have more appreciation for what made the original trilogy good.

I was always a SW fan that like both the originals and prequels and loved the shit out of the two good Battlefront games that Pandemic made in 2004 and 2005. I used to play lightsaber battles with my friends. Even as I grew up, Star Wars would always have a place in my heart.

But Disney's shareholders couldn't be satisfied enough with the profits being made from pumping out Marvel films and had to buy out Lucasfilm and turned it into a shitty cash cow. The Force Awakens was their big middle finger to me more than The Last Jedi did to the fans. With Force Awakens, everything in the originals meant nothing now to me and they planted the seeds for Rian Johnson to go full re-tard with The Last Jedi.

Long story short, it's really heartbreaking and frustrating for me to see Disney ruin something I love.

 

[That Chris Guy]

This is similar to my own sentiments. When Dinsey first acquired LucasFilm Ltd, I had guarded optimism. Unfortunately, Disney decided to ignore the storytelling in previous movies and media and turn the franchise in to SJW propaganda with little regard towards the fans that have/had stayed with the franchise since the beginning.

I've been unimpressed with TFA & TLJ. The former seemed to be nothing more than a retread of the original, but I was willing to give the movie a pass in hopes the sequel would be better and build on it. Watching the latter felt as if it ignored everything made up to that point, and most of it seemed to be a combined retread of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I had zero interest in both Rogue One and Solo. If I were to actually watch Episode IX, it will be solely to see what kind of dumpster fire it turns out to be.

I agree it's hard to still consider one's self a SW fan; on the plus side, I now have more appreciation for what made the original trilogy good.

My final act as a Star Wars fan will be to watch Episode IX and lay the whole series to rest if it's a travesty. The Last Jedi was so appalling storywise I have zero expectations for what comes next. TFA may have been a retread and Rey was OP nonsense, but I could accept it compared to TLJ.

I had a discussion with some people who favoured The Last Jedi, and they liked it because they believed that the franchise is headed in a new direction, where Jedi and the Force are not bound to specific good vs. evil factions, and Luke's sacrifice was made to ensure this came about. To me it sounds like only naive optimism: do they really think that Star Wars is now going to be a bunch of middle-ground people using grey lightsabers where every man and his dog is a Force wielder? That would undo SW's identity, as its appeal has always stemmed from the strong contrast between the Jedi and Sith. Light vs. dark, two powerful groups of high-societal knights battling for galactic dominance using a mystical energy that can bend reality. It's stupid to think that Disney won't continue to ride on this notion to generate toy sales and undo whatever crazy ideas they may have about the future of the franchise in order to safely secure that revenue.

 

[SuperSheep]

:autism: rant ahead

Spoiler: Skip if you don't want nerdy non-movie Disney canon

What I don't get is this whole "balance" angle. The Dark Side of the Force isn't just negative emotions, it's not the part of you that flips someone off when they cut you off in traffic. It's the part of you that fantasizes about running that guy off the road, yanking them out of their now-totalled car, then tying them to your car and dragging them along until they're nothing but a smear, then repeating the process on the dude's family, then actually does it. Every Dark Force tradition we've seen has been willing to engage in all sorts of deplorable activities from sapient sacrifice (Nightsisters), to murdering families to kidnap children (Inquisitors), to large scale atrocities (The Sith) as standard operating procedure.

You might argue the Jedi kidnap and indoctrinate children but at least they (in the current canon) try to get parental consent and in a galaxy of trillions where they only number 10000, there are likely a lot of parents that say 'no'. The problems of the Jedi seem more due to orthodoxy and inflexibility, not their adherence to the Light Side, shit that accumulated over time because it worked at the time but now is outdated, the sort of thing that can be handled with major internal reforms. I'm tired of this whole 'Balance' issue when they've never given a convincing argument for why we need to balance "helping people and saving lives" with "human sacrifice and nuking planets". The Jedi might fail in what they set out to do and the Republic needs to start relying more on itself instead of putting everything on the Jedi, but at least 'become a mass-murdering psychopath' is a bug, not a feature.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

You guys think it’s a mistake for Bob Iger and Disney to not be shitcanning Kathleen Kennedy?

 

[Sable]

Now I'm saying this as someone who actually likes the Prequels, so take what I'm saying with a pile of salt, but people are a little more forgiving of them now that TLJ is around is because they're bad for different reasons.

Now, Lucas still likes money. IIRC he changed the name of Return of the Jedi to what it was because it would save him money by virtue of being shorter that Revenge of the Jedi.

But he had a set story he wanted to tell, and he cared enough to want to uh ''improve'' the films with rereleases. He's just autistically bad at things like dialogue and stuff, so the end product didn't really work.

TLJ whilst much more technically polished feels a little bit more uh, corporate so to speak.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

TLJ whilst much more technically polished feels a little bit more uh, corporate so to speak.

I would add that it’s run by incompetent corporatists that don’t understand the point of the assets they own.

 

[vertexwindi]

This also deprived us of the chance of great Harrison Ford-ing.
Imagine TFA with Han Solo being caught up in the frustrating meanderings of republican politics.
Just show him awkwardly putting on a ceremonial dress while muttering something about how he hates dealing with politicians and how he'll never get used to it while Leia tries to reassure him that he's going to do fine.
Maybe have them exchange a little funny dialogue. "Leia, you know I'm a criminal at heart..." "Yeah I know, you'll fit right in..."
Or a scene where Han is about to get into a Shuttle, telling some person how happy he is that they saw eye to eye and could solve the little political squabble and just after the door closes, Han turns around and goes "Damnit, if only I was allowed to carry my Blaster."
It would also offer a chance for a little quip when Han joins in with Rey and the others, wearing his old Smuggler gear. Something along the lines of "Han, you promised me you threw that out decades ago!"

Cliched? Yes, but I would argue cliched in a good way. It would certainly be more entertaining than what TFA gave us instead. And seeing a happy, married couple would be so much more satisfying and I would argue it would make Han's death have a far bigger impact.

That actually sounds really fun and charming and it makes me sad to remember that fun and charming are the last two words you can use to describe Disney's Star Wars movies.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

:autism: rant ahead

Spoiler: Skip if you don't want nerdy non-movie Disney canon

What I don't get is this whole "balance" angle. The Dark Side of the Force isn't just negative emotions, it's not the part of you that flips someone off when they cut you off in traffic. It's the part of you that fantasizes about running that guy off the road, yanking them out of their now-totalled car, then tying them to your car and dragging them along until they're nothing but a smear, then repeating the process on the dude's family, then actually does it. Every Dark Force tradition we've seen has been willing to engage in all sorts of deplorable activities from sapient sacrifice (Nightsisters), to murdering families to kidnap children (Inquisitors), to large scale atrocities (The Sith) as standard operating procedure.

You might argue the Jedi kidnap and indoctrinate children but at least they (in the current canon) try to get parental consent and in a galaxy of trillions where they only number 10000, there are likely a lot of parents that say 'no'. The problems of the Jedi seem more due to orthodoxy and inflexibility, not their adherence to the Light Side, shit that accumulated over time because it worked at the time but now is outdated, the sort of thing that can be handled with major internal reforms. I'm tired of this whole 'Balance' issue when they've never given a convincing argument for why we need to balance "helping people and saving lives" with "human sacrifice and nuking planets". The Jedi might fail in what they set out to do and the Republic needs to start relying more on itself instead of putting everything on the Jedi, but at least 'become a mass-murdering psychopath' is a bug, not a feature.

I see your point, but I've got some pet theories about this, so please allow me a bit of :autism: of my own:

Spoiler: We're playing with trains in here.

Just like Lucas derived the space opera elements of Star Wars from Flash Gordon serials, he got the whole concept of the Jedi and their whole warrior monk deal from samurai movies. Hell, a lot of Yoda's dialog could have been ripped straight from Laozi. Trouble is, Lucas isn't really into philosophy, so he understood "balance" in some kind of cosmological sense: you had the Good Guys and the Bad Guys and they fight in pretty much equal numbers. Another way to approach it, one more consistent with the source material, is that balance is something one strives to acquire within oneself. Temperance, not strict asceticism or MAIM KILL BURN. Lucas admittedly never saw it this way: to him, "balancing" the force meant destroying the Dark Side- but he never said as much in the movies, leaving room for a more philosophical take.

That's what made Kennedy's "the Force is female" thing so exceptional. I could see the light side of the force being female (after all, it seems to embody yin qualities like passivity and (emotional) coolness) but that would make the dark side of the force male (it has yang qualities, particularly ambition and (emotional) heat) but going down the road without acknowledging that yin and yang are a system that requires both halves to be complete is beyond exceptional. It would require Kylo and Rey to be equals and opposites who ultimately complete each other, not Mary Sue vs. the white cis hetero patriarch.

tl;dr Gray Jedi is something that could work, because the philosophical underpinnings exist and are already (albeit indirectly) implicit in the roots of Star Wars. But you'd need a more talented storyteller than Lucas- and leagues more talented than Kennedy's catlady cabal- to pull it off.

It's depressing how you could round up literally any half-dozen Wookiepedia editors and get something better than the material that a multi-trillion entertainment conglomerate shits out. At least they understand why they love the (good) parts of the product.

 

[SuperSheep]

I see your point, but I've got some pet theories about this, so please allow me a bit of :autism: of my own:

Spoiler: We're playing with trains in here.

Just like Lucas derived the space opera elements of Star Wars from Flash Gordon serials, he got the whole concept of the Jedi and their whole warrior monk deal from samurai movies. Hell, a lot of Yoda's dialog could have been ripped straight from Laozi. Trouble is, Lucas isn't really into philosophy, so he understood "balance" in some kind of cosmological sense: you had the Good Guys and the Bad Guys and they fight in pretty much equal numbers. Another way to approach it, one more consistent with the source material, is that balance is something one strives to acquire within oneself. Temperance, not strict asceticism or MAIM KILL BURN. Lucas admittedly never saw it this way: to him, "balancing" the force meant destroying the Dark Side- but he never said as much in the movies, leaving room for a more philosophical take.

That's what made Kennedy's "the Force is female" thing so exceptional. I could see the light side of the force being female (after all, it seems to embody yin qualities like passivity and (emotional) coolness) but that would make the dark side of the force male (it has yang qualities, particularly ambition and (emotional) heat) but going down the road without acknowledging that yin and yang are a system that requires both halves to be complete is beyond exceptional. It would require Kylo and Rey to be equals and opposites who ultimately complete each other, not Mary Sue vs. the white cis hetero patriarch.

tl;dr Gray Jedi is something that could work, because the philosophical underpinnings exist and are already (albeit indirectly) implicit in the roots of Star Wars. But you'd need a more talented storyteller than Lucas- and leagues more talented than Kennedy's catlady cabal- to pull it off.

It's depressing how you could round up literally any half-dozen Wookiepedia editors and get something better than the material that a multi-trillion entertainment conglomerate shits out. At least they understand why they love the (good) parts of the product.

More :autism::

Spoiler

The reason why Lucas had "destroy the Dark Side" as balance was because there was no Light Side (at first in his version), the Dark Side was metaphysical cancer that was causing the imbalance. I preferred it that way. That way, we don't get into asinine discussions as to why the Jedi trying to stop the Space Warlocks who inevitably try to conquer everyone with an army of Space Nazis is a bad thing.

 

[Gordon Cole]

As bad as the Sequel Trilogy is to most of us here, it could always be a million times worse.

 

[RockVolnutt]

More :autism::

Spoiler

The reason why Lucas had "destroy the Dark Side" as balance was because there was no Light Side (at first in his version), the Dark Side was metaphysical cancer that was causing the imbalance. I preferred it that way. That way, we don't get into asinine discussions as to why the Jedi trying to stop the Space Warlocks who inevitably try to conquer everyone with an army of Space Nazis is a bad thing.

I like thinking of the Mortis trilogy whenever the topic of "Balance" comes up as it's the closest we're going to get it from the horse's mouth outside something being made with Celestials (no relation to the Marvel ones) or Whills.

Spoiler: But if we're posting autism about what it means, here's my take.

I think the issue is "balance" gets taken as "50/50 middle of the road" and not as much thought is put into how these interpretations could work together. Just like the Brother and the Sister, one embodies selfishness and the other selflessness. The Dark isn't necessarily evil and often lures in good meaning people but it can become addictive/cancerous as one uses their will to twist the universe into something of their liking. The Light sees oneself as a conduit of a cosmic force and casts aside the self, this easily can break people and they'll go down a dark path.

The Force is basically a being in itself. To be "balanced" is harmony between the needs of the self and the needs of the world. This is why the peak of a Force users power in the old EU was "Oneness" as it's a state where the two are indistinguishable. This is different from "middle of the road" type "Greys" who always seem to get pulled to one direction in the end.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

More :autism::

Spoiler

The reason why Lucas had "destroy the Dark Side" as balance was because there was no Light Side (at first in his version), the Dark Side was metaphysical cancer that was causing the imbalance. I preferred it that way. That way, we don't get into asinine discussions as to why the Jedi trying to stop the Space Warlocks who inevitably try to conquer everyone with an army of Space Nazis is a bad thing.

Need to follow up on this with a bit more :autism::

Spoiler: All of these pencils must be the EXACT same length

But the Dark Side as a cancer wasn't in the movies. I realize I'm over-fond of devil's advocacy, but the Jedi in the prequels were stagnant and pathetic, especially when they just went along with the Republic ordering up a mamluk clone army. Inaction has it's own vices, though I do have to note that this is confined to the prequels: exploring the Force philosophically tends to lead off into the weeds. When it's just Ming the Merciless's power source, you don't have to devote any real thought to it. If you DO, however...

As bad as the Sequel Trilogy is to most of us here, it could always be a million times worse.
View attachment 472204

That would have been engagingly bad. Lucas's writing, for all of it's faults, lacks the Human Centipede qualities of Disney's.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

It's depressing how you could round up literally any half-dozen Wookiepedia editors and get something better than the material that a multi-trillion entertainment conglomerate shits out.

All the Disney-SW shillers despise Wookiepedia since it had much of the Legends Canon content and not the SJW shit Kennedy queefs out.

That would have been engagingly bad. Lucas's writing, for all of it's faults, lacks the Human Centipede qualities of Disney's.

I don't know how it would've been worse than Carrie Poppins.

 

[XYZpdq]

It's depressing how you could round up literally any half-dozen Wookiepedia editors and get something better than the material that a multi-trillion entertainment conglomerate shits out. At least they understand why they love the (good) parts of the product.

I think that's the most frustrating part about Disney Star Wars. Just about any idea anybody comes up with seems less awful.

See I had been thinking that maybe it's just because it's vague ideas rather than whole movies, and anything could look better as a theoretical idea than the Disney content. Then there's clear proof that isn't the case. Thank you, George.

I can just imagine the John Williams crescendo as they zoom a microscope in.