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motherofpearl1 wrote:I think TLJ...in fact the entire ST....suffered from studio interference.
Jason Frye said that he was 'told' to make Rey's feelings for Ben ambiguous at the end of the novel. Rian had to put the annoying flirty scene between Rey and Poe at the end of the film because Trevorrow wanted DameRey in episode IX. Yet Terrio was allowed free reign with his Twins fanfic in TROS, probably because it was the last film so anything goes. Same with Abrams, who was unfettered by Kasdan's superior writing.

We of course don't know this for sure, but Abrams might have also indulged Daisy and John, who wanted to work together, as we know he allowed Poe to live as Oscar asked him to. Hence the Trio. And I suspect the silly TLJ retcon was down to studio reaction to the haters. I do know Patti Jenkins walked off the set of The Dark World because of studio interference, although this could have been Marvel's fault rather than Disney's. Whatever, someone somewhere scuppered the possibility of a Kylo/Rey romance. Either the 'woke' brigade, Abrams and/or Terrio, or Disney/LF execs, what could have been SW's greatest romance and a story of the power of love was thrown away.

Sadly they also lost the opportunity to end the Skywalker saga with a fresh new direction for SW - the Jedi and the Sith, both extremes of the Force, coming together as a 'grey' order and finally bringing about the true balance between light and dark as represented by Rey and Kylo. Thus finally an end to the eternal conflict. But they didn't. Rey is not 'the balance', she's a tired old fashioned White Jedi and one day a Dark sider will 'rise to meet her'. Thus the eternal conflict goes on and on.
I'm done with them, I'm sorry to say. I have zero interest in the adventures of Finn, Poe and Rey; TROS made me realise that as by the end of the film I was sick of the sight of them, unlike ROTJ, where I happily would have liked to see more of the original trio. I'm just sorry I feel madly in love with the Ben/Kylo character. The only good thing I take personally from the ST is that it introduced me to the terrific Adam Driver, whose future work I await with interest.
SW for me is over, I leave future projects to those on the forum I can't mention, who are very excited at the prospect of more Trio. And of course Finn fans, who according to Ian McDiarmid are in for a treat with new material coming out soon. For me the Skywalkers/Solos WERE SW. My love for the franchise has died with them, but it will survive and probably flourish without me.

@motherofpearl1

I saw anti-gray Jedi discourse on my tumblr dashboard, and I've never been more annoyed. One of my mutuals is big on pro-Jedi Order discourse, both regarding Anakin and the war. I don't know what triggered her recently because she doesn't usually talk about Star Wars much. Her favorite character is Obi-Wan Kenobi, and I don't think she likes Anakin or Ben all that much.

I guess everyone here probably already knows about this, but just in case someone doesn't, I'll post a link.  It's to a Girls With Sabers podcast from yesterday with Sariah Wilson.  She gives a lot of interesting details about the interviews she did with Daisy and Rian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEAQ91eX-28

Kyla Ren wrote:@motherofpearl1

That's pretty much how I feel as well.  I have very little interest in Star Wars anymore.  It is truly incredible how they absolutely ruined not just the Sequel Trilogy, but the entire saga as a whole with TROS.  Especially after having gotten off to such a strong start.  It really boggles my mind.  I would love to know what actually happened, but we'll probably never know the whole story, or if we do, it will probably be many years down the road.

And I have no interest in the Faux Trio, either.  The way they shoved them together, which to me was obviously done to try to appease the "real fans" and recapture the magic of Han, Luke, and Leia, was just so forced and artificial.  It was so obvious what they were trying to do and it just didn't work.  The only way I might have any interest in their future adventures is if they brought Ben back to join them.

TROS was just such an awful movie.

BTW, where did you hear that Ian McDiarmid said that Finn fans are in for a treat?  Was this a recent interview?  I don't remember hearing about it.  But then I'm kind of out of the loop when it comes to a lot of Star Wars stuff these days.

@Kyla Ren

I've been trying to unsuccessfully find the link, it was a while ago, but Ian said that he agreed Finn was badly treated in TROS, and that future SW content would rectify that. What that means, as far as I can tell, is Finn will have a major role in comics and books. I suspect much of this is John whining that he didn't get to be the hero, or have a lightsabre, or 'lay the pipe' ( still gives me the creeps) with Rey. And of course he accused reylos of being 'racist' towards him, which I think is unfair; none of the reylos on tumblr I follow have been anything but respectful towards him (at least until he loosed all that bile on SM), and his character.
If anyone in TROS - or the whole ST - was a victim of racism it's Kelly, yet she's shown nothing but dignity and class, which makes me like and respect her very much. I'd love to see her and Adam work with Rian again.

@motherofpearl1

I wouldn't be surprised if both Kelly and Adam were in another one of Rian's movies.  In the Girls With Sabers podcast from yesterday, Sariah Wilson said that Rian keeps in touch with Adam and that they're friends.  I really think that they might work together again.  And Rian really seems to like Kelly, too.  Maybe they'll both show up in Knives Out 2.  The first Knives Out was really good.  I'm looking forward to the second one.

As this is last year, I dare say most of you are aware of it but...
https://screenrant.com/star-wars-finn-better-protagonist-rey-sequel-trilogy/

I wonder how that would have worked out?

Swapping Finn and Rey wouldn’t have fixed anything, you still have the fundamental problem of trying to warp the long-running family saga around an outsider who has nothing to do with the family. That article only addresses the superficial points.

Precisely.
Star Wars is and always has been, a family saga. I know there have been some good spin offs - Rogue One, KOTOR - but at the end of the day it's about Anakin Skywalker and his descendants. And Disney have cancelled them. Full stop.

Rey - and Finn - are NOT Skywalkers. Finn fans argue that he's the most interesting (sigh) character in the ST - but he isn't related to, or connected in any way, to the Skywalkers. Rey is NOT A SKYWALKER. She can call herself whatever she likes but she is Palpatine's granddaughter, not Anakin's. And ironically Terrio and Abrams can bleat all they want about 'making your own destiny' and 'rejecting your own ancestry' but TFA has Lor San Tekka telling Kylo outright that 'you cannot deny the truth that is your family.'

Looking back I suspect maybe Abrams all along wanted to replace the Skywalkers with a new character. I read - either on tumblr or here - that he wasn't happy with the scene in TFA where Han strokes Kylo's face. I think he chose to give the OT one descendent, and to make him an irredeemable bad guy, so we would 'cheer' when he got killed off and replaced with his shiny new virginal female Jedi. Unfortunately for JJ Kennedy cast Adam, a phenomenal actor who can invest even the most unlikeable character with heart, and Kasdan did a lot of the writing. Add to that the unexpected sexual chemistry between Adam and Daisy and things didn't quite go according to plan.

The 'eeeevil' Kylo Ren became a tragic abuse victim which had everyone apart from die hard Finn fans and 'woke' females rooting for him. Those who love the character - and according to Disney's own website most viewers - desperately wanted him to be redeemed, to survive and atone through his future actions - not Anakin 2. This could have been achieved through a romance with Rey. The Force would have been brought to balance with Ben/Kylo marrying Rey, but also Rey, and even Finn, would have become part of the Skywalker clan, Rey through marriage and Finn as he was her adoptive brother.

JJ did not want that. And he found a 'soulmate' in Terrio, who wasn't interested in the Solos, either Han or Ben, and wanted a Twins fanfic. Disney have completely erased the family that the SW saga was built around. At the moment they are confident that they will weather this and draw in a new fanbase. But only time will tell. And now Pedro Pascal has quit The Mandalorian they are treading on very thin ice, as the future of their most successful SW franchise is now under threat.

Some more bits from Sariah's interview. In case you need more Reylo validation.







On Rey no one. I kind of got that sense from the first two, or that the specifics of the thing didn't matter nearly as much as many were making it out to be. Though JJ had been "toying" with Rey Kenobi, it sounds like they never committed to that idea.

so....ultimately they changed their minds at the last minute.All I want to know is why.

I suspect it's some intersection of JJ caving to audience demand easily and writing what was know and familiar (villain parent reveal), Terrio was given mostly free reign to do as he would, and LF and/or Disney was also very sensitive to the discourse around TLJ, which will literally never end either way.

motherofpearl1 wrote:so....ultimately they changed their minds at the last minute.All I want to know is why.

@motherofpearl1

That's really...frustrating. Yeah, I'll leave it at that.

I don’t necessarily think that JJ caved in to the audience demand, I think it’s more about the fact that, being a stunningly unimaginative writer, he couldn’t think of another conflict for Rey to deal with other than going back to her parents and giving her a dark heritage.

Before TRoS a lot of us assumed that Rey’s main conflict would be about her forbidden feelings for Ben and how it affects her relationship with her friends and the Resistance. It practically wrote itself! But of course they had zero intent of ever explicitly acknowledging Rey’s feelings for Ben while he was still on the bad side, or making him truly important in her life because Feminism, so what else is there?

karamelreylo wrote:

motherofpearl1 wrote:so....ultimately they changed their minds at the last minute.All I want to know is why.

@motherofpearl1

That's really...frustrating. Yeah, I'll leave it at that.

@karamelreylo

@motherofpearl1 You want to know why?

Why? My reflexive answer is: because they were idiots! Lol..

My non-reflexive answer to ‘Why?’ Is that I think it was a comedy of errors- which are absolutely not funny!

californiagirl wrote:I suspect it's some intersection of JJ caving to audience demand easily and writing what was know and familiar (villain parent reveal), Terrio was given mostly free reign to do as he would, and LF and/or Disney was also very sensitive to the discourse around TLJ, which will literally never end either way.

@californiagirl
I agree in hindsight, concerns about whether JJ and Terrio were up to the task were justified! As individuals, but also as a team. Neither helped reduce the other’s weaknesses..

Saracene wrote:I don’t necessarily think that JJ caved in to the audience demand, I think it’s more about the fact that, being a stunningly unimaginative writer, he couldn’t think of another conflict for Rey to deal with other than going back to her parents and giving her a dark heritage.

Before TRoS a lot of us assumed that Rey’s main conflict would be about her forbidden feelings for Ben and how it affects her relationship with her friends and the Resistance. It practically wrote itself! But of course they had zero intent of ever explicitly acknowledging Rey’s feelings for Ben while he was still on the bad side, or making him truly important in her life because Feminism, so what else is there?

@Saracene

I agree, they screwed up Rey’s story something bad... because of feminism maybe, but also because they seemed to lose sight of what Star Wars is about. Emotionally what they did with her story just felt plain off... Then again, these  days I think JJ/CT couldn’t write a compelling, satisfying character arc to save their lives.. not just Rey- for me in TROS no one had a satisfying arc. Except Maybe D-O!
Warning.. salty comments time!
Finn? Yawn... and wanted to tell Rey something but who knows what.. just yell ‘Rey!!!!’ A lot...
Poe? Umm jerk who we are supposed to like but hey he’s interesting a former Latino drug  runner? Ohhh boy...
Leia? I don’t know where to start.. confused... I’m soooo confused...
Luke? Worst wig ever. Yawn. Oh but he retconned that sin of throwing the precious saber that ahem killed younglings!
Oh and the twin gods Luke &Leia?! I can’t even form words here about how confusing and creepy them watching their baby Rey at the end was!
Rose? Umm’was Rose in this movie?
Palpatine the zombie snoke daddy whose motivations changed about three times lol. And every time I really wasn’t interested..
and Kylo/Ben? The baddie who had been victimised all his life because of his skywalker blood dies because the writers can only write redemption via death.
Even Hux got the short straw and was turned from ruthless mass murdering/planet destroying fascist into wimp focused only on bringing down Ren.
I know I was supposed to be shocked by hux being the spy, but it was more shock at how lame it was!
Not only did JJ&CT screw up the arcs of basically every character in TROS, they managed to reach back into the PT and OT and undo the prophecy of the one, and Anakin’s sacrifice!
They also screwed up the story arc of the force in general ( malevolent, cruel), the new jedi( just like the old ones and only care about the greater good), and lastly romantic love is left in tatters. If you live in Star Wars you don’t wanna fall in love that’s bad and leads  to suffering and death.
Just find yourself a friendship gang or some force ghost siblings to co-parent you so you can remain forever a little girl, innocent, uncorrupted....and worthy...
ummmm okay okay my rant is over!  

A rant I 100% agree with!

I look back over the film, see it's shortcomings, and have JJ given a grilling in my mind by discontented SW fans, and I can visualise his answers.
"Why did you kill off Ben Solo? He was the last Skywalker."
JJ - "No, he's not. Rey is."
"But she's a Palpatine."
JJ - "No, she's an honorary Skywalker. That's why we gave her the lighsabres, the Falcon and Luke and Leia as surrogate parents."
"But Luke and Leia are siblings."
JJ - "Not now they are in the Force."
"You said we'd have a hopeful satisfying ending."
JJ - "We did."
"BUT BEN DIED!!! How can killing off the last of the heroes' bloodline be hopeful and satisfying."
JJ - "Ben died to save Rey. Who is now a Honorary Skywalker"
"But Anakin's sacrifice was for nothing."
JJ - "No, because the Skywalkers live on through Rey."
"Ben Solo was the best character."
JJ - "Rey and her Amazing Friends are."
"Not according to a SW poll they aren't. Ben was the most popular."
JJ - "Which is why I killed him off so everyone would fall in love with Rey and her friends - oops, did I say that out loud?"

You get the picture.

Ben's survival was up in the air going into TROS. I never got the impression Rian intended for him to die, so this tracks.

Thanks for posting that, Rian finally admits his always believed Ben was meant to live. And despite what various cast members and Abrams say, he wasn't slated to die from the beginning.

So...what happened?
I've gone over a lot of things since TROS, and at the end of the day the only conclusions I can draw are these:

DLF listened to the idiot wokes, who believe that Kylo 'abused' Rey in the interrogation scene. If this is the case, it's the beginning of the end for passionate romance in the movies.
JJ was influenced by his cast's wishes.
JJ did what he did as a spiteful slap in the face for Ben/Kylo fans because he was more popular than Rey.

Alan Dean Foster recently stated he wanted a romance between Finn and Rey, and wasn't happy with reylo. As someone who read the TFA novelisation, I didn't see anything of the sort in it, but ADF is a good but mechanical writer. There is very little emotion in his work.
In contrast Jason Frye's adaptation of TLJ was a refreshing surprise, as it's full of heart. The ending of TLJ, where Rey and Ben seem to 'regress' back to enemies, I am absolutely sure was DLF's influence but even then Rian hinted that their relationship was not yet done - we see Rey looking longingly at Rose and Finn, Ben looking like a man who's lost everything, paving the way for a reconciliation in the future.

I am angry with Terrio but there again he was a relative 'newbie', so I wonder if it was as far more Abrams' fault for Ben's miserable fate. The more I think on TROS's abject failings the more I feel contempt for Abrams. The film is practically a hatefest towards not only reylos but Ben fans in particular. Look behind the flashy special effects and what you see is a sneering contempt for those who loved his character. And frankly I blame JJ more than Terrio for that. Terrio is just the tool he used to beat us over the head with. He wanted Rey to be the most loved character. So he pushes her so much she becomes ridiculous while savagely cutting Kylo/Ben's scenes until in the final segment of the film it's as if his character never existed.
These aren't the actions of a professional, but a grown man acting like a petty little boy because people liked another character more than his favourite. I want to give Daisy the benefit of the doubt, as she's been nothing but professional on and off screen, but post his nasty little SM rants I wouldn't be a bit surprised if John was very happy about Ben Solo's ultimate fate, even if he was peeved over how his character was handled in TROS. Judging by a lot of what he's been saying after TROS, he obviously wanted to be Rey's love interest and the 'main hero' and wasn't happy when Rian went for reylo instead. What really irks me is that he and FinnRey fans are starting to play the 'race' card, but if anyone in this trilogy is a victim of racism it's poor Kelly, whose treatment in TROS was one of the worst things I've seen. In fact it angers me how badly Asian actors are treated in Western filmmaking in general.

At the end of the day, TROS for me is a bad film on many levels. It's both a poorly made film, but also an appalling example of a director's spite towards a public who did not react how he wanted them to react, and therefore set out to make them see he was calling the shots and they'd get what HE wanted rather than what they wanted. It leaves a nasty taste in my mouth just thinking about it. Now according to other forums FinnRey fans are hoping for an animated or live action series about their favourite characters. They are welcome to them. As for me, I genuinely loved Star Trek into Darkness but I will avoid anything Abrams does in the future. I don't intend to give my money to someone who despises me and as I'm a Ben stan, he does.

californiagirl wrote:Ben's survival was up in the air going into TROS. I never got the impression Rian intended for him to die, so this tracks.

@californiagirl

Hi thanks for sharing. It may be just me, but I don’t take this as confirmation Ben’s survival was up in the air.
It’s only confirmation that RJ didn’t know Ben was going to die. They are not the same thing to me.
And.. RJ didn’t need to know if Ben would survive to do TLJ, because as we now know, the planning across the ST movies was crap.
So far I’m thinking Ben’s death was the one thing LFL knew for sure, but that doesn’t mean RJ knew about it.
I think if Adam were to disclose (as Daisy did recently about her parentage) that he had been told before TFA the arc was he is redeemed and lives... and then it turned out he was redeemed and died, that would be solid evidence.
I keep thinking back to the Charles Soule interview with what the force and how adamant he was that Ben had to die & there was really no other way. Ugh.. It was terrible, but what he said rings true... he is LFL royalty these days isn’t he?
I think I hold LFL decision making for the ST in such low esteem that it fits to have them think Ben dying as he did was satisfying...

Maybe. But TROS has all the hallmarks of a film made in a rush, just like the last season of GoT. Almost everything it does contradicts its predecessors and not just TLJ, which was a deliberate retcon.

Look at what they said post TFA:
"Rey is NOT as Skywalker. Kylo is the Skywalker in this film." So why did they backtrack and make her an 'honorary' Skywalker. If everything is set out for her to be a Skywalker why not make her a real one?
"The belonging you seek lies ahead" - Maz to Rey. Then we see Kylo's shuttle. In short, her past isn't relevant, and her future is linked with his. And yet they make them a dyad, kill him off and leave her on her own.
"You cannot deny the truth that is your family." Lor San to Kylo. Then they end the film with someone openly denying 'the truth that is her family' by taking another name and pretending that she isn't a Palpatine.

I personally am not interested in what DLF and even Daisy say post TROS. Daisy isn't the big star Adam is now, she has to tread carefully in this industry at the moment. As for DLF, either they are whopping big liars or their aim all along was to get rid of George's legacy characters - including the one they created - to move forward with their own. And if it's the latter, then I will lose what little respect I have for them. How petty and spiteful to buy up a franchise whose original owner created with genuine affection then throw out the family that were the heart and soul of it. For all their success with The Mandalorian they just had to include a Skywalker in it, even if at the last minute.

Worst of all.....they have ruined the fairytale. For that is what SW is at the end, a fairytale. None of the Skywalkers had a happy ending. Han died for Ben, Luke died for Ben, Leia died for Ben ....for what? So his life force, all that 'mighty Skywalker blood', the blood of Han Solo, a brave heroic man.... could be sacrificed on the last Palpatine. Who couldn't even be a**** to mourn him afterwards but went waltzing off into the sunset with her tiresome male groupies and a psychopathic smirk on her face.
It's so bad it's almost laughable, but I'm not laughing.

Thing is Disney lucasfilm will just say everything depends on a certain point of view - how it’s perceived . That’s why you get conflict in the Star Wars community because fans take away from it and see it differently from other fans . Disney lucasfilm really need either to come out and do a couple of talks as to what their intentions were or maybe their plan is to unravel this in the next few years . It’s just a shame they didn’t come out and say it before before leading everyone on but perhaps that’s part of the mystery box until the last film( the one Loki creators and Kevin feige are working on - maybe we are getting Loki skywalker after all lol)where we get the answers. The fairy tale they were probably intending was a dark , gothic one with all the Hades/Loki references- maybe that was a reminder we weren’t in just any realm but an underworld of sorts . I still think there will be a bigger picture when they tie everything together but maybe am
deluding myself with hopeful thinking .

I rather suspect that if Rian was asked whether he knew that Ben was going to be redeemed in the last movie, he'd likewise say that no he didn't. In the end, he was only employed to write and direct the second movie and he wasn't going to finish the trilogy.

And there lies the real problem with the ST. Unlike the OT and PT, Lucas was the single driving force and he knew exactly where the story was going even with the directors changing during the OT. It wasn't just that Disney changed directors, they changed writers.As a result we get three films that tell a different story. Rian alone chose to continue where Abrams left off. They can argue all they like that he 'wrote them into a corner', because what he actually did was give them the foundations of what could have been a truly epic and most of all, different film which would have rounded out the trilogy nicely and brought the story of the Skywalkers to a satisfying conclusion. Rey and Ben, still on opposite sides of a war, yet linked by both the dyad and their own conflicting feelings; ultimately realising that like Beauty and the Beast they BOTH needed to admit they had made mistakes and needed to rectify them. Finn leading a stormtrooper revolt; we could have learned more about his backstory. Poe becoming leader of the rebellion from the start rather than not until the end of the film, showing us what kind of leader he would be. Hux finally becoming a full out bad guy. You don't have to be a Darksider to be a menacing villain. Peter Cushing was a truly terrific bad guy in ANH; Hux could have been the same.

You know what really irks me - Rian did NOT 'retcon' TFA. He didn't c*** all over JJ's film, which JJ did with his. One critic actually called it 'vengeful' and he's right. Look at what JJ left and where Rian took it:

Rey was told to 'look to the future' rather than constantly searching for her parents. So Rian settled the business of who she was once and for all, so she could finally become the person she was meant to be. JJ and Pablo repeatedly played down who she was, Rian finished it off.

Despite JB's bellyaching Rian developed his character far more than JJ did. Yes, he started off as a 'man who wanted to run' but ended up a fully committed rebel. JJ showed Finn only being a hero to save his friend. Rian showed him as a man willing to die for everyone. His character changed from comic relief into someone interesting, with plenty of potential.

Poe had the potential to be a great but flawed leader. Rian developed him from a secondary character into his own person. Oscar actually loved what he did with the character.

TFA mentioned Kylo was 'devastated' by killing Han. So Rian showed us just how devastated he was. He allowed Adam to fully develop the character, but Kylo was not meant to be a one note villain from the start - he was the last Skywalker for crying out loud.

We were never told why Luke disappeared. Just that 'he felt responsible for what happened and walked away from it.' If anyone disrespected Luke's character it was JJ. He made him out to be an uncaring coward. Rian gave him a very plausible reason, and also coaxed the performance of his career out of Mark Hamill.

Rian treated the previous material with respect. If only his successor had.

I still don't think the cast had influence over major decisions in the movie. The amount and specifics and ad-libbing of the trio stuff might have shifted, but it's clear the story always had way more of that angle than the previous ones. Rey didn't end up alone and Ben dead because a cast member wanted it. If they really got what they wanted, John/Finn wouldn't have been treated so poorly and John this upset. And I really doubt Adam influenced the fact Kylo became a one dimensional cartoonishly evil exposition machine for two thirds of the film.

californiagirl wrote:I still don't think the cast had influence over major decisions in the movie. The amount and specifics and ad-libbing of the trio stuff might have shifted, but it's clear the story always had way more of that angle than the previous ones. Rey didn't end up alone and Ben dead because a cast member wanted it. If they really got what they wanted, John/Finn wouldn't have been treated so poorly and John this upset. And I really doubt Adam influenced the fact Kylo became a one dimensional cartoonishly evil exposition machine for two thirds of the film.

@californiagirl

I actually felt sorry for Adam, having to regress his character when he'd invested so much into him in the first two films. But I bet he was very glad of the helmet so he didn't have to school his expression into anything other than a grimace when he had to spout some of that dialogue...

There's a whole thread about Joonas' new memoir going around. Lots of interesting bits, but these stuck out.

On TLJ:





This was shocking. I remember hearing about the concept for a torture scene in the art book, apparently they actually filmed it. I agree with Joonas, I think that would have too much for a mild PG-13 film, especially SW, it sounds more intense than the TFA scene with Poe. On top of making no sense at all. But then, most of TROS doesn't make sense.

They want us to hate him.

Sorry guys....but you've failed. I will never hate Kylo. He was abused, rejected and abandoned. And anyone who went through that has every right to be a little unhinged.
JJ has developed a poisonous hatred for Kylo purely because he was more popular than his favourite character. And if the only way to make your chosen hero likeable is to demonise everyone else then your favourite is badly written in the first place.