LogFAQs > #931986484

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I said at the time it would work well as a base to build on, and to redeem the bad taste the prequels left in people's mouths, if it led into the next two movies and helped set up an effective trilogy. So my ultimate opinion of VII was going to depend entirely on what they did with VIII and IX.

Considering how the following movies did absolutely nothing worthwhile with any of it, it sort of makes TFA much, much worse in retrospect. Because it wasn't nostalgia to set up a new beginning, it was hollow nostalgia with absolutely no substance, no direction, and no point. It wasn't world-building, it was masturbation.

And if we'll recall, this is exactly the thing I pointed out from the get-go with TFA, and how it's slavish adherence to safe mediocrity would virtually guarantee the whole trilogy being tainted and doomed to fail.

The problem being, of course, was that TFA *wasn't* just a movie trying to play it safe in order to get the audience on board with a Lucas-less, post PT Star Wars. I agree that on some levels, nostalgia or putting the audience into a comfort zone was likely necessary. But that's not what TFA did- it wholesale ripped off ANH, and thus guaranteed we would be stuck with Rebels vs. Empire 2.0, superweapons power creep, shady Sith masterminds trying to recruit a budding Jedi with a powerful bloodline, etc. The writers were too shallow or too afraid to trust the audience, thus locking the whole series into a form of retread. Which made TLJ's attempts to buck the trend all the more jarring, and TRoS's attempt to tie the spaghetti noodles together make the whole trilogy look every bit like the trial-by-committee it was. It was quite obvious this is would happen.

That said, not even I could predict they could get Luke and the Force so wrong, or fuck up the lore in general so badly. Or do something as shamelessly hacky as bring the Emperor back.

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PotD's resident Film Expert.