- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
That reminds me of some defense of TLJ posted here some time back, which was in essence "Rian didn't have any leeway since he had to pick up right where JJ left off and JJ didn't give him anything to work with so that's why TLJ isn't as good as it should be, Rian is a good boy he dindu nuffin."With the ST films shot with no sort of in-universe time gap between films, it feels more like a 3-part made-for-TV series that airs over three days as opposed to a bona fide trilogy. Once again, this falls back on the lack of proper storytelling.
To which I reply, bullshit.
There was absolutely no reason that TLJ had to start literally seconds after TFA ends. The only reason it did was so Rian could do his "I'm so clever lol sUbvErTeD ExpECtatIOns" """joke""" where Luke tosses the lightsaber over his shoulder. If it had been set any farther forward in time, then he couldn't dazzle us with his..."humor."
Here's my #butwhatifitwasgood for the start of TLJ: fast forward about a year or two. The opening of the movie is Finn awakening in a medical bay, perhaps on the new home base. Obviously disoriented from being out of commission for so long, he gets brought up to speed on what he's missed (and thus, so does the audience): as the news of the destruction wrought by Starkiller Base, and later the destruction of said base, spread throughout the galaxy, it has inspired more of the galaxy to join up and fight against the First Order. The remnants of the New Republic throw their support wholeheartedly behind Leia and the rebellion (as they should have from the start), and have been working to get the scuttled Republic Navy back to fighting shape. The war is now between two roughly symmetrical forces: the New Republic versus the First Order (which I'd call something less stupid but whatever).
Rey, meanwhile, has been spending her time since the end of TFA training under Luke Skywalker, who acts as the mentor he should have been. Regretting that he couldn't stop Ben Solo from falling to the dark side (and no, he wasn't the cause of it, fuck you Rian), he had isolated himself to mourn his failure, but Rey's eagerness to learn reignites the spark that had been missing since then. Maybe he thinks that he tried to do too much too soon, and decides that training a single pupil rather than an entire class might work out better. Rey's skill in the Force grows as she's taught, and you can throw in a nice lightsaber duel too just for shits and gigs. Considering her staff-fighting skills in TFA, you could even have her build her own lightsaber later in the movie, but she builds a double-bladed saber for some good ol' prequel memberberries.
From here, you could honestly build pretty much any movie you want. It's a foundation that gives ample room for character development, removes restraints on what the next plotline should be, and gives a talented filmmaker the freedom to explore new directions in the story. It makes Rey's increased abilities make more sense by having her train and hone her powers for a couple of years, instead of having her be magically super awesome in less than a week. Most importantly, it gets rid of JJ's stupid rehash of "Rebels vs. Empire" and sets the stage for what the story should have been from the start if you were really going to go down the "Empire's back" route: a massive civil war between the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant (huh, kinda like the Thrawn Trilogy, who'da thunk?).
Instead, we got the slowest starship chase in Star Wars history, a dumbass B-plot on Casino Planet, Luke's legacy being shat on, the lunacy of the Holdo Maneuver (can't believe they actually named it), and Rey cementing her Mary Sue status. Absolute cinematic garbage.
Most of what I wrote up there I came up with on the spot. I'm not saying I'm an excellent writer, but what I am saying is that I can definitely come up with something far better for Star Wars than JJ Abrams or Rian Johnson ever could.