Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

[Silver Nemesis]

As to SOTE itself, man, I've never been big on EU stuff but SOTE is a quality item. I speak mostly of the novelization as I never played the game (aside from the Hoth demo) and I've never been one for Star Wars comics. But the novel could easily have been adapted as an animated film (Episode 5.5?) and been a knock-out. Great book, great score.

I've still got my copy of the novelisation. I did play the N64 game a lot as a kid, but I never had any of the toys or the comic book. I also didn't hear the entire score until someone uploaded it on YouTube back around 2008. I've listened to it many times since then.

Here's a recently uploaded YouTube video exploring the different aspects of the SOTE project. I haven't had time to watch all of it yet, but it looks like a thorough retrospective on the whole thing.

;

My understanding of the behind the scenes baloney going on with SOTE is that merchandising partners had been expecting product and weren't going to get it.

Basically, Young Indy had given Lucasfilm a very misplaced level of confidence in their ability to deliver all three prequel films in consecutive years. What Lucasfilm had underestimated was the amount of pre-production needed for each film, the R&D required for the CGI Lucas envisioned, George's own ability to break the stories and finalize three entire scripts singlehanded and other technical stuff.

Bottom line, the original target release dates of 1997-1999 to release all three prequels was soon understood to be hopelessly unrealistic. Back to the drawing board.

Except all those merch partners had invested some scratch in Lucasfilm and they couldn't go six years without some kind of ROI.

So, Lucas (or somebody) devised a two-pronged solution.

Second, there was the Special Edition releases. There's a LOT of drama that went on with that. Pain in the nuts doesn't even begin to describe it.

But first, obviously, was SOTE. A toy line, novelization, video game, all the stuff that the partners had been promised for the prequels. Basically, SOTE was meant to pacify them while pre-production continued for TPM.

And in retrospect, it wasn't a bad 1-2-3 punch. SOTE in 1996, the SE's in 1997 and then TPM in 1999. At that time, anything Star Wars was basically like printing money so I have to imagine the partners probably didn't mind too much.

I never thought about SOTE as a means of tiding over the merchandising partners during the wait for the PT, but when viewed in that context it makes a lot of sense. SOTE demonstrated the ongoing commercial marketability of the brand, despite the fact it had been well over a decade since the last movie was released, and it helped build hype among fans hungry for new content. On the downside, it probably instilled unrealistic expectations in those same fans concerning what to expect from the PT. Where SOTE leaned towards more mature character-driven storytelling, The Phantom Menace favoured juvenile spectacle and action. Just compare Prince Xizor's interactions with Leia in SOTE to Darth Maul's lack of interaction with the heroes in Episode I.

We've talked a lot on this site recently about how adding to a story can damage it, and Star Wars continues to be the most powerful example of this. However with SOTE we find a rare example of a new story that in many ways actually enhances the OT. It doesn't undermine or contradict anything in Episodes V and VI, but instead effectively connects them by exploring what happened between those two films. We see Leia come to terms with her feelings towards Han, which were only just starting to emerge in Episode V. We see Luke construct his new lightsaber and continue his training, maturing from the impetuous novice of Episode V to the competent Jedi we see in Episode VI. We get to see Boba Fett in action without detracting from the permanence of his death in ROTJ. We also meet new characters in the form of Xizor and his fellow Black Sun operatives, and we get to see how the Empire deals with such criminal organisations.

Is any of this necessary? No. Is it good? Absolutely.

The closest we've had to something like this from Disney would be Rogue One. I don't have strong feelings about that film and I wouldn't say I was a fan of it, but I agree with Joker that it is the best of the Disney-era movies, if only because it doesn't contradict or damage anything from the other films, whereas all the other Disney Wars films do (e.g. Solo undoing Darth Maul's death in TPM or The Rise of Skywalker undoing the Emperor's death in ROTJ – both of which had previously occurred in the EU, but not in the films until now). Rogue One fits neatly into the gap between Episodes III and IV, and the characterisation of Tarkin and Vader is more or less on point with how they were portrayed in the OT. SOTE fits neatly into the gap between Episodes V and VI and explores the character growth that occurred during that span. Krennic was a rival to Tarkin as Xizor was a rival to Vader, and in both cases the new character ends up being eliminated in such a way that emphasises the ruthlessness of the classic villain. This is the correct way to insert side stories into the pre-established canon.

Since we're on the subject of Star Wars fandom in the nineties, did anyone else collect the Topps Star Wars Galaxy trading card series that launched in 1993? They were designed by various artists and some depicted Prequel-era images before the PT even existed. I've still got a bunch of them somewhere, but I've lately found some pictures online that I never saw as a child. One is a painting by Brian Ashmore that depicts a pre-Prequel Anakin with Luke's unnamed mother.

Another by Hugh Fleming shows a pre-Prequel young Obi-Wan, clearly modelled on Sir Alec Guinness.

Seeing these has got me reminiscing about how my childhood self imagined the Prequel era prior to the PT. I don't know if anyone else has memories of such things, and how they felt when the actual PT didn't correspond with what they'd imagined, but here are some of the ways in which my own imagination differed from what we got.

My mental image of a young Obi-Wan was simply a young Alec Guinness.

I never thought the outfits Ben and Yoda wore in the OT were meant to be Jedi uniforms. I just figured they were civilian clothes favoured by older people living in remote parts of the Star Wars universe. Luke's outfit in Episode VI is closer to what I thought a Jedi uniform might be like, if indeed they even wore uniforms.

My mental image of Anakin was Oliver Reed as Athos is Richard Lester's Musketeer films. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but I saw those movies many times on TV at a young age and he was the character that sprung to mind when I tried to imagine what a young Vader might look like. It's probably because I thought Mark Hamill looked a bit like Reed, only Reed was taller and more heavily built like Anakin ought to be. Athos was dark and intimidating, but also one of the good guys and someone you'd want on your side. I also envisaged Anakin as having long hair and a beard.

I thought Anakin would've been older than he was depicted as being in the Prequel Trilogy. Lucas showed him getting immolated when he was only in his early twenties, which would mean he was in his early-to-mid forties during the OT. I expected him to be a tougher, more masculine character and at least in his thirties or forties during the PT, which would have put him in his fifties or sixties during the OT. That would have fit in better with how Sebastian Shaw looked in Return of the Jedi.

When I was little a friend told me that Obi-Wan had knocked Anakin into a volcano while they were fighting and that this was how he became Vader. My reference for visualising this was the fight between Captain Kirk and Commander Kruge in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Just imagine this scene, only instead of Shatner and Lloyd it's Guinness and Reed and they're using lightsabers instead of fists. That's how I envisaged the Obi-Wan versus Vader duel, rather than the bloated and over-choreographed fight we got in Revenge of the Sith (for the record, I still like ROTS and despite its many flaws I rate it as the best Star Wars film outside of the OT).

I never really thought about the Clone Wars. At least not until The Phantom Menace came out. Then I assumed it was a series of wars fought over the ethics of using clones as slave labour or something like that. There were no clones in the OT, so I figured they'd either been outlawed or exterminated by then. For some reason it never occurred to me that the Clones would be the soldiers fighting in the war.

I also never thought that Emperor Palpatine was a Dark Lord of the Sith. I just imagined he was some kind of weird evil sorcerer who was powerful in the Dark Side. I assumed his ability to throw lightning was a power unique to him, not something every Sith could do.

I think I remember hearing somewhere that Uncle Owen was meant to be Obi-Wan's brother, not Anakin's, but I might be wrong about that.

Can anyone else remember what they thought the Prequel era would be like before the PT was released? Or can you remember anything suggested in the pre-Prequel canon that didn't match up with what we eventually got?

[thecolorsblend]

I think I remember hearing somewhere that Uncle Owen was meant to be Obi-Wan's brother, not Anakin's, but I might be wrong about that.

I believe that came from the ROTJ novelization. At best, that was "soft canon".

Can anyone else remember what they thought the Prequel era would be like before the PT was released? Or can you remember anything suggested in the pre-Prequel canon that didn't match up with what we eventually got?

As a testimony to the fact that Lucas produced the prequels without much of a game plan, basically everything Obi-Wan said to Luke in the OT is either a very liberal stretching of the truth if not an outright lie.

Many fans inferred that Owen, Anakin and Obi-Wan had been childhood friends, and Anakin enlisted in the Clone Wars while Obi-Wan joined the Jedi, both doing those things out of a sense of ethics. Ethics, we can surmise, that Owen did not share.

Back in the nineties, I figured the backstory of Star Wars would begin with Anakin and Obi-Wan having a falling out with Owen in the first film. Perhaps the metaphor would've been the American Civil War turning families against each other, "brother fights brother" kind of stuff. The Clone Wars themselves, I thought, were probably more comparable to the Crusades. Wars that had been happening on and off for decades or even centuries.

The Clone War of Obi-Wan and Anakin's time would've been when Anakin somehow learned the ways of the Force from Obi-Wan. But Obi-Wan was careless with Anakin's training, he never instilled proper self-discipline, Anakin eventually became drunk on his own power and after that... Vader.

At the time, I thought it might've been kind of dramatic if Anakin succumbed to the Dark Side because he believed doing so would allow him to win the war singlehanded. And in a way, that is kinda sorta what happened anyway (but not really). It stood to reason that "Mother Skywalker" (Anakin's wife) was a major part of his downfall. I thought it might be dramatic to introduce a love triangle between Obi-Wan, Anakin and Mother Skywalker. Mother Skywalker eventually chooses Anakin, creating bitterness between the two.

Based simply on the broad strokes provided in the OT, I figured there was plenty of dramatic potential for the prequels.

In the end, I was surprised by some creative choices George made. Where I would've zigged, he zagged. I never knew much about the Sith so that element of the prequels caught me off-guard. But overall, I guess I expected something like Rome In Space, where the Republic was full of politics, drama, intrigue, back-stabbing, etc. I thought it made sense that Anakin would want to crush all that and instill Order while Obi-Wan favored reforming the existing system instead of overthrowing it.

Again, more conflict between Obi-Wan and Anakin. See a pattern here?

Probably the biggest wildcard for me was Yoda. I just couldn't figure out a way to include a midget frog puppet into the epic, expansive Clone Wars. Lucas obviously solved for that better than I ever could've.

[Silver Nemesis]

Back in the nineties, I figured the backstory of Star Wars would begin with Anakin and Obi-Wan having a falling out with Owen in the first film. Perhaps the metaphor would've been the American Civil War turning families against each other, "brother fights brother" kind of stuff. The Clone Wars themselves, I thought, were probably more comparable to the Crusades. Wars that had been happening on and off for decades or even centuries.

This makes more sense since Luke clearly refers to them as the Clone Wars, plural. Ben also says "wars". Lucas never addressed the plurality of these references. The PT ultimately portrayed the Jedi as being more like Shaolin monks, but the dialogue in ANH does suggest something closer to the European Crusaders. It might have been more interesting to have depicted the Jedi Order as being like the Knights Templar.

TLJ Luke is a poor imitation of TDK Returns Batman because his arc doesn't have a satisfying payoff.

Luke does nothing. Once he arrives on the island he never leaves.

Batman retires due to Todd's death.
Luke runs away after the Temple arson.

The problem I have with the foundation of Luke's depression is the brazen dereliction of duty given the immediacy of what had just transpired. From what I know, he didn't pursue Ben or Snoke and their plans only escalated from there. At the time of Batman's retirement the city could have been under relative control.

Classic villains like the Joker did calm down with his absence, justifying a retirement brought upon by guilt. The new kids on the block revived Gotham's issues. But in Luke's case, the situation was still hot and he went cold. As a Jedi he is directly responsible due to his inaction. He dropped a live investigation.

Batman mentors Carrie and takes all the Mutant Leader's followers as his.
Luke knowingly attempted a very brief training of a Palpatine after the situation with Ben.
He snaps at Rey and she runs away, instead relying on old books for guidance.

We're meant to believe a hologram projection in which he fades away unceremoniously strengthens Luke's legend, whereas Batman attracts the attention of the US Government and defeats Superman in combat. I know what I find more worthy of legend status. TLJ doesn't build sympathy for Luke's situation and the plot leaves any redemption way too late.

Coming back to this point, I was thinking about the heroic death of Optimus Prime in Transformers: The Movie (1986) and how it was so much more satisfying than Luke's feeble demise in TLJ. Prime drives out to face the villainous army on his own, saves Autobot City, turns the tide of the battle, singlehandedly annihilates half the G1 Decepticons and faces off against his nemesis Megatron. He gives his life to protect Hot Rod, but not before dealing a mortal wound to his arch enemy. Prime might have been a robot, but he went out like a man, and I'll always love him for it. Seriously, this one scene of eighties animation is more emotionally satisfying than the entire Sequel Trilogy combined.

Another good example of a satisfying heroic movie death would be King Arthur in Excalibur (1981). Arthur is enfeebled for much of the film's final act, but then Percival brings him the Holy Grail and he's rejuvenated. Arthur's meant to be an old man by this point, but that doesn't stop him from riding out to battle, healing the land, squaring things with Guinevere, recovering Excalibur, summoning back Merlin to deal with Morgana, defeating her army, granting Lancelot forgiveness so he can die in peace, and finally slaying Mordred in one-on-one combat. Like Prime, old man Arthur puts things right and makes the world a safer place for the friends and loved ones he leaves behind.

This is how old heroes should die.

But Luke... Luke fails to build the new Jedi Order that was promised us in ROTJ, contemplates murdering his own nephew in his sleep because he senses he might one day become a bad person, unleashes Kylo Ren on the galaxy, then hides out on some backwater planet while the evil spawned from his poor judgement massacres his family and friends, refuses to help when the opportunity arises, and finally dies from exhaustion after astral projecting his image onto a battlefield he was either too cowardly or too lazy to step onto for real. He doesn't even win a single duel or slay a single bad guy. If the filmmakers' objective was to subvert our expectations by completely ruining the character of Luke, then mission accomplished.

[thecolorsblend]

This makes more sense since Luke clearly refers to them as the Clone Wars, plural. Ben also says "wars". Lucas never addressed the plurality of these references. The PT ultimately portrayed the Jedi as being more like Shaolin monks, but the dialogue in ANH does suggest something closer to the European Crusaders. It might have been more interesting to have depicted the Jedi Order as being like the Knights Templar.

Not sure how connected you were to Star Wars fandom in the late 90's but there was a vocal part of the fandom that was very let down by TPM and there was a bizarre trend toward fan fiction where disgruntled fans would outline (or even sometimes write) fanfics based upon their assumptions of the prequels inferred from the OT.

Some fics were rather imaginative while others were just plain weird. But one element I thought was strangely missing was the plural wars itself. I honestly don't remember a single fanfic ever addressing the implied multiple wars. The Crusades were the only irl conflict I could think of that were big enough to metaphorically do justice to something called Star Wars.

Basically, I assumed Lucas would mix his metaphors and devise a cocktail of influences including the Crusades (embodied by Obi-Wan), the American Civil War (embodied by Owen and Anakin), the French Revolution (embodied by the soon-to-be ex-leader of the Republic; OFF WITH HIS HEAD!) and the Bolshevik/October Revolution (embodied by Palpatine) with the Republic itself as a sort of Roman Empire In Space metaphor. Yoda as a Pope Urban II figure was sincerely the best idea I could think of as a 15 year old... and now, sadly.

I do like the idea of Obi-Wan perhaps starting off as a Happy Crusader before disillusionment ultimately turns him into a paranoid, isolated Shaolin hermit. That definitely gives him a tragic arc.

Basically, I expected the prequels to be character-driven politically-themed war films rather than the fun swashbuckling OT.

[The Dark Knight]

But Luke... Luke fails to build the new Jedi Order that was promised us in ROTJ, contemplates murdering his own nephew in his sleep because he senses he might one day become a bad person, unleashes Kylo Ren on the galaxy, then hides out on some backwater planet while the evil spawned from his poor judgement massacres his family and friends, refuses to help when the opportunity arises, and finally dies from exhaustion after astral projecting his image onto a battlefield he was either too cowardly or too lazy to step onto for real. He doesn't even win a single duel or slay a single bad guy. If the filmmakers' objective was to subvert our expectations by completely ruining the character of Luke, then mission accomplished.

Compare Luke to Zack Snyder's Superman who is lied about and abused, takes a very brief moment of solitude and endures. He sacrifices his life to save the world. The writers show that Superman did nothing wrong but he is made to suffer anyway. That's how you depict traditional heroes in crisis.

Starkiller base destroys a planet and we're meant to believe because 'Luke shut himself off from the Force' he didn't feel those lives being extinguished, as Obi-Wan did with Alderaan. I don't even know how a Jedi choosing to turn on and off their connection to the Force like wifi is a logical concept.

But that's the last I'm taking about Star Wars, because I'm sick of it.

[Kamdan]

Here's a recently uploaded YouTube video exploring the different aspects of the SOTE project. I haven't had time to watch all of it yet, but it looks like a thorough retrospective on the whole thing.

;

Highly recommend viewing! It is Batman related when it comes to the creation of Prince Xizor.

Can anyone else remember what they thought the Prequel era would be like before the PT was released? Or can you remember anything suggested in the pre-Prequel canon that didn't match up with what we eventually got?

Despite Batman 89's own Hugo Blick doing a write up in 1994 that told him not to do it, I would have loved to have seen Sir Kenneth Branagh play the part of a young Obi-Wan Kenobi. His performance in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein gave me that "reckless" impression Obi-Wan supposedly had in his youth. It seemed that Lucas was trying to mold Ewan McGregor into Branagh with Guinness' accent that seemed weird coming from a younger incarnation of the character. Branagh's more natural performance would have been at ease and give a distinction between the two eras of the character: the brash Jedi Knight and the mellow Jedi Master.

I always thought McGregor would have been a better fit for a young Anakin Skywalker. He has Mark Hamill's chin dimple and could have easily passed as his father. I would have trusted him more to handle the gravitas of Anakin's fall to the dark side. Hayden Christensen seemed to have been cast based on his look rather than his acting ability when you hear about all of the other actors that got turned down in favor of Christensen. I know Lucas didn't give him much to work with but his delivery didn't do him any favors. Everyone always compares him to James Dean like that's supposed to settle the argument but it doesn't. Dean is an actor remembered for looking good and dying tragically.

[Azrael]

The catalyst for me becoming interested in the films was the Star Wars video game for the NES. Nowadays everyone dumps on that game and says it's terrible, but as a kid I loved it.

It's not THAT bad, it's the slippery controls (spikes!) and the sometimes insane difficulty that makes it not very fun to play (without the convenience of save states). The Game Gear version was expanded, including an opening level playing as Leia and more Tatooine action.

For me my first real exposure to SW has to be Return of the Jedi for SNES. When I first heard the title music (which I later found was titled Approaching The Death Star), I was fan for life. Played that game to death, never beat the final level on a real console - only years later with save states. The console Star Wars games were hard. Real hard.

[Silver Nemesis]

Some fics were rather imaginative while others were just plain weird. But one element I thought was strangely missing was the plural wars itself. I honestly don't remember a single fanfic ever addressing the implied multiple wars. The Crusades were the only irl conflict I could think of that were big enough to metaphorically do justice to something called Star Wars.

Basically, I assumed Lucas would mix his metaphors and devise a cocktail of influences including the Crusades (embodied by Obi-Wan), the American Civil War (embodied by Owen and Anakin), the French Revolution (embodied by the soon-to-be ex-leader of the Republic; OFF WITH HIS HEAD!) and the Bolshevik/October Revolution (embodied by Palpatine) with the Republic itself as a sort of Roman Empire In Space metaphor. Yoda as a Pope Urban II figure was sincerely the best idea I could think of as a 15 year old... and now, sadly.

I do like the idea of Obi-Wan perhaps starting off as a Happy Crusader before disillusionment ultimately turns him into a paranoid, isolated Shaolin hermit. That definitely gives him a tragic arc.

Basically, I expected the prequels to be character-driven politically-themed war films rather than the fun swashbuckling OT.

More historical parallels like these would have benefitted the PT enormously. One aspect of the PT that I think does hold up is the storyline about Palpatine manipulating and taking control of the senate. A little more of that sort of I, Claudius political drama could have gone a long way towards improving the trilogy.

Highly recommend viewing! It is Batman related when it comes to the creation of Prince Xizor.

I just finished watching this, and I second your recommendation. There have been some excellent video essays appearing on YouTube over the past year, and this is one of them. It makes me want to dust off my N64 and play through the original game again.

Despite Batman 89's own Hugo Blick doing a write up in 1994 that told him not to do it, I would have loved to have seen Sir Kenneth Branagh play the part of a young Obi-Wan Kenobi. His performance in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein gave me that "reckless" impression Obi-Wan supposedly had in his youth. It seemed that Lucas was trying to mold Ewan McGregor into Branagh with Guinness' accent that seemed weird coming from a younger incarnation of the character. Branagh's more natural performance would have been at ease and give a distinction between the two eras of the character: the brash Jedi Knight and the mellow Jedi Master.

It's funny you should say this, because I remember thinking the exact same thing the last time I watched Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Branagh has a very similar look to Episode II Obi-Wan in that film.

It's no secret that McGregor struggled to perform with the lack of physical sets and props, as indeed most actors would. I think Branagh's background in theatre might have made him better equipped to handle that problem, as well as to direct himself in the absence of meaningful direction from Lucas. I also think he'd have been less inclined to simply impersonate Guinness, as some critics have accused McGregor of doing, and he would have been closer to the age myself and many other fans imagined Obi-Wan as being in the PT.

It's not THAT bad, it's the slippery controls (spikes!) and the sometimes insane difficulty that makes it not very fun to play (without the convenience of save states). The Game Gear version was expanded, including an opening level playing as Leia and more Tatooine action.

For me my first real exposure to SW has to be Return of the Jedi for SNES. When I first heard the title music (which I later found was titled Approaching The Death Star), I was fan for life. Played that game to death, never beat the final level on a real console - only years later with save states. The console Star Wars games were hard. Real hard.

Admittedly it was unfairly harsh in places. There's that one particular jump on the Death Star that can only be made by Leia, and if Leia dies, and you've exhausted Obi-Wan's limited ability to resurrect characters, then you can't progress. But the game doesn't tell you this. Nor does it warn you in advance of leaving Tatooine that you first need to stock up on shields for the Millennium Falcon. It took me a few years to figure all of these things out (no internet FAQs back then), but once I'd done so I was able to complete the game every time I played it. But looking back on it now, it was insanely hard.

The Super Star Wars games were bloody difficult too. I had all three of them, and I don't think I ever beat any of them without using cheats.

[Silver Nemesis]

The second season of The Mandalorian has just concluded, and a certain OT character makes an appearance in the final episode. A character who was treated very poorly in the ST. I still haven't watched any of The Mandalorian yet, though I'm planning to eventually, but this character's appearance was spoilt for me by the title of a video that appeared in my YouTube recommendations. Since I already knew he was in it, I went ahead and watched the scene in question. If you don't want to know who it is, then don't scroll down. But here's the clip.

SPOILERS and major fan service ahead.
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Would it have killed them to put just one scene like this in the ST? To have shown this character in a way that was consistent with his heroic characterisation at the end of the OT, instead of turning him into the unrecognisable bum we got in Episode VIII? This ^ is the version of the character I was waiting for throughout the ST. It might not subvert my expectations, but it comes a hell of a lot closer to satisfying them than Episodes VIII or IX did.

There's been a lot of online talk about Lucasfilm possibly making the ST apocryphal over the past year, but I've always chalked those rumours up to wishful thinking on the part of fans. However, after seeing this, and taking into account all the good things I've been hearing about The Mandalorian, I wish Favreau, Filoni and Lucas would go ahead and do it – erase the ST, or relegate it to an alternate timeline, and create a new ST based on George's original plan. Even if it has to be a computer animated production for Disney+ made in the style of The Clone Wars, with impressionists voicing Han and Leia, it'd still be better than the drivel Kennedy and her goons delivered.

[BatmanFurst]

The treatment of all 3 of the OT characters in the new films is so odd to me. When I look at their involvement in the recent trilogy I'm left asking "Why did you bring these characters back"? The films don't seem interested in continuing their stories at all. Han's (My favorite Star Wars character) arc is completely undone so that he can be reset to who he was in the original film, Leia is just there, and Luke is just turned into a coward and a failure. One of my big problems with Luke's portrayal is that it doesn't even line up with The Force Awakens. In TFA Snoke says "If Skywalker returns the new Jedi will rise" cut to The Last Jedi where Luke has no intention of bringing the Jedi back and at the end of the trilogy the fate of the Jedi is up in the air. How Kennedy could listen to the pitches for these scripts and be completely fine with how the OT characters are treated, or how certain plot points from TFA are left unresolved is a mystery.

I think a big problem here is that these films were clearly rushed. Both the OT and the Prequel trilogy had a two year gap between films. The new films only had a year between them, and it shows. Personally, I think these news films were dictated by release dates than stories to tell.

In the wake of other legacy sequels like Creed, Blade Runner 2049, and even Cobra Kai (To my surprise) the new trilogy is just a complete failure for me. The aforementioned films and tv show are true sequels to their respective franchises. They introduce new compelling characters and the original characters still have an important role to play. How Star Wars could fail where even the Karate Kid series succeeded hurts my soul. I just keep coming back to my excitement for The Force Awakens. I kept wondering what the new story was going to be, and what Han, Luke, and Leia had been up to for 30 years. And the answers to all those questions were so unsatisfying for me.

Also, the fact that they screwed up on simple things like Rey being all powerful with the force when she's never been trained just tells me that nobody working on those films really cared that much about Star Wars. I think Kennedy's primary concern was representation and that's it. As it stand the new trilogy is one of the biggest cinematic missed opportunities.