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Originally Posted by GGG
I can’t believe they would actually make 3 movies like this. I don’t understand this belief that there was no over arching plots and character arcs for the 3 movies with the directors given freedom within those bounds to do what they wanted.
It would be just stupid to try to do that. They also continually fired directors so there is no way the higher ups just let Rian go rouge and change everything that JJ had planned. Especially when the same company also owns a studio that just planned a 30 movie 10 year interconnected universe.
I don’t know if Occam’s razor or Hanlon’s is more appropriate to apply.
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Originally Posted by devo22
I'll just quote Daisy Ridley. Express sucks but only the direct quotes matter.
"Here’s what I think I know. JJ (Abrams) wrote Episode VII, as well as drafts for VIII and IX. Then Rian Johnson arrived and wrote The Last Jedi entirely. I believe there was some sort of general consensus on the main lines of the trilogy, but apart from that, every director writes and realises his film in his own way. Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams met to discuss all of this, although Episode VIII is still his very own work. I believe Rian didn’t keep anything from the first draft of Episode VIII."
https://www.express.co.uk/entertainm...t-Daisy-Ridley
mind you, no idea how accurate this is and if this was taken out of context or whatever. But yeah, after watching the trilogy, I wouldn't be surprised. It very much felt like Johnson straying far from what Abrams wanted and then it was time to scramble in IX to somehow get out of it okay. |
My take was the character outcomes were always the same but directors had freedom on how to get there with the exception that each of the OT characters was supposed to have "their" movie.
So I think what was mapped out was (and this was talked about publicly):
TFA - Hans Movie
TLJ - Luke's Movie
TROS - Leia's Movie
And I think the character arcs/growth was largely going to be the same.
The new characters all seemed to have an arc directly tied to / or kind of proxying a character in the OT.
Rey = OT Luke: Character that is not 100% sure of their past or who they are. Strong force user that has a lot of confidence, but can also be impulsive and vengeful. Going to have to confront fear of "where they came from".
Finn = OT Hans: Initially a character that is just in it for themselves, then they are just trying to save the "girl" (Leia/Rey), and then as time passes they start to believe in the rebellion and the need to fight for something "bigger". There was always lots of debate of if Hans was force sensitive in the OT, and now with Finn they went that route.
Poe: Doesn't really have a proxy in the OT in terms of character arc but is meant to be a story to help give Leia a bigger role, and he's going to be the successor to her as the general. This goes back to TFA where it was Leia that hid the message in R2-D2 that got to Luke, and here it's Poe that hid the message in BB-8 that got to Rey.
Kylo = Anakin: Strong force user that was corrupted by the true villain(technically Palpatine in both now I guess) but then has a redemption story due to the constant conflict he had.
And the OT characters all had a bit of the "learning from the past" angle to them
Luke = It's a bit of a merge of Yoda & Obi-Wan's roles from ANH & ESB combined with his fathers redemption arc from the OT.
He like the previous Jedi masters is in hiding due to mistakes made with his apprentice (Anakin/Ben), and is reluctant to help train the young Jedi when they now appear (Yoda & Luke , Luke & Rey). But in the end he help's train the youngster and almost together Luke/Yoda realize they need to confront past mistakes and their fear to help win against the Sith.
Hans / Leia: In Star Wars "It's like poetry, they rhyme" and I think with the Hans / Leia / Kylo arc they did it in a really interesting way in this trilogy. In the OT it was the villian realizing he had two kids still alive (Luke/Leia) that drove him to his redemption.
They did the opposite angle in this movie. It was the death of both his parents (Leia/Hans) that was the spark for Kylo's return to the light side.
I think those character arcs are actually pretty consistent across TFA / TLJ / TROS.
What I think felt more jarring was not the actual character arcs but the director styles. Rian was more about character development, slower paced, and maybe less direct connection to the OT plot lines (But still connected).
JJ was more about the overall Star Wars plot than the characters, his movies were much faster paced, and he liked to be more obvious with how he tied things to the nostalgia of the past.
As for the Palpatine reveal this was Rian's take on it at the time:
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For me, in that moment, Kylo believes it’s the truth. I don’t think he’s purely playing chess. I think that’s what he saw when they touched fingers and that’s what he believes. And when he tells her that in that moment, she believes it.
The easiest thing for Rey and the audience to hear is, ‘Oh yeah, you’re so-and-so’s daughter.’ That would be wish fulfillment and instantly hand her a place in this story on a silver platter. The hardest thing for her is to hear she’s not going to get that easy answer.
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This was from January 2018 and the way he answered the question already made it seem like he was leaving the door open for her still to have a backstory of it being bigger than that.
"Kylo believes it's the truth"
"I don't think he's purely playing chess".
Those both feel like he's hinting that it's not fully the truth. I think he knew the expectation was that there was the potential she would have her parentage revealed in Episode 8 and not doing it then was a "bigger" twist.
(I made a previous post on this (
here) but I do think that the points that Rian was actually trying to make in TLJ were missed because he actually tried to be a bit too subvert about it.)
And one thing that aligns with Palpatine always being the plan for the third act is that historically in each of the three trilogies Palpatine's true form was never revealed until the third movie of the trilogy (Once again it Rhymes).
Original Trilogy: Briefly mentioned in ANH, Palpatine appears briefly as a hologram in ESB (~1 minute of screen time), actual in person Palpatine in ROTJ revealing his true form
Prequel Trilogy: TPM he appears as Senator Palpatine, AoTC he's still appearing as the Senator, ROTS is when it's finally revealed that Palpatine is actually Darth Sidious.
Sequel Trilogy: TFA Snoke appears as a halogram, TLJ - Snoke appears in person, TROS - it's revealed that Palpatine was pulling the strings from the shadows all along. (Leia even references the call back about how Palpatine is always in the shadows pulling the strings).
