https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzBohG4mR60
Chances are you were somewhere between a little and EXTREMELY disappointed in the last film of the new Star Wars trilogy. And we think we know exactly why. We'll explain in this Wisecrack Edition on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: What Went Wrong?share
Nothing. This movie was pretty much the best you could ask for after Rian Johnson killed the big bad in the previous movie and was hell-bent on making his replacement "redeemed". 2nd best of the trilogy and superior to all prequels.
shareI think my main issue is that they dialed back the things they committed to in The Last Jedi. It could have moved in a whole new direction, but it seemed like JJ just wanted to write away any complexity that TLJ had introduced, and move back to a sequel to his first film while basically ignoring TLJ. That being said, it's still a fun watch.
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“Any complexity that TLJ had introduced“
LOL what 😂
Please elaborate.
Pretty much this. 'Dialed back' is putting it mildly though. This whole movie is a huge middle finger to Johnson. Ironically TLJ remains superior to TROS.
shareThey feel like rehashes of the original trilogy. George Lucas tried to show something new with every Star Wars movie he was involved with, but much of the imagery and plot points of the sequels look like they were just taken from the original trilogy for the sake of nostalgia-baiting. As a result, the new movies don't feel very innovative.
Major plot points are unexplained. The end of Return of the Jedi leaves the viewer with the impression that the Empire will be on the back foot and the Rebels will set up a New Republic, but The Force Awakens opens with a powerful Empire 2.0 that somehow has substantial resources and influence, and the Republic isn't doing anything about it, leaving the fighting to a Rebellion 2.0. With the Empire in the not too distant past, why is the First Order flourishing, and why isn't the Republic doing anything about it? Snoke, implied to be a major player and responsible for the events of the trilogy, never got any exposition or backstory before being killed off.
The character and story arcs from Return of the Jedi have been discarded or ignored, seemingly for the sake of Empire vs. Rebels 2.0. Classic characters aren't done justice. Han seemingly abandons his character arc to revert to smuggling once he breaks up with Leia. Luke, who believed that Darth Vader could be brought back to the light, seriously considers killing his nephew out of fear because he saw darkness in his mind. For all the nostalgia-baiting the sequels did, we never got an on-screen reunion of Han, Luke, and Leia.
Continued:
The movies feel disjointed. This is a result of Lucasfilm's 'creative relay race' approach, where a creative team is responsible for one movie before handing over to the next. There was no overarching plan (or if there was, it was ignored) or common writer for the screen stories and scripts. The fast release schedule - one movie every two years instead of every three years as per the original and prequel trilogies - also contributed.share
Rey is considered a Mary Sue. She's unreasonably skilled with the Force despite a lack of training where previous movies emphasized that using the Force required time, training, and discipline, and doesn't suffer substantial defeat. She gets incredibly high scores on the Mary Sue Litmus Test:
https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/fr8ihx/i_decided_to_put_rey_through_a_mary_sue_litmus/
https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/g4185v/i_put_rey_through_a_mary_sue_litmus_test_website/
Well, Carrie Fisher died, for one thing, robbing Leia of proper character closure. It's pretty obvious that there was no real plan on how the sequel trilogy would progress...The Last Jedi sets up that Kylo Ren is going to be the Big Bad in the next one, but I don't think J.J Abrams thought that Kylo was a strong villain. So...Palpatine is revived without much in-film explanation past a repeat line from Revenge of the Sith. And Rey, Kylo/Ben and Palpatine are also far more all-powerful than ANY Jedi or Sith from the previous two trilogies.
shareThe Original Trilogy had a lot of planning, with contingencies for any eventualities.
The Prequel Trilogy had a LOT of planning, with contingencies for any eventualities.
The Sequel Trilogy had NO planning, and they made up shit as they went along.
Contingencies are all-important, they allow the general overall plot to flow whilst allowing for certain things like actors leaving, or dying, or budget cuts and other things. Babylon 5 managed very well with what happened to that show (a main actor having to leave for mental health reasons, and a very real risk of cancellation forcing abridgment of storylines). But faith managed well.
This is probably the best meta explanation of what went wrong. It was very, very poorly managed trilogy that didn't really plan anything in the story out and basically went along on each movie with a different plan and no overall vision. and as you point out there was no contingency planning. Once pre production for rise of skywalkers started and Carrie Fisher was dead; they made no effort to correct the story and instead 'forced' her into the film in the role she was supposed to play but in a very choppy and inorganic way.
Most of these problems started in TFA (or even before TFA script was finalized). They set up so many open ended unanswerable mystery boxes and plot holes in place of world building (just to be able to rehash the story of ANH while replacing it with new (modern sensitive) characters), and no one had a vision for how it would all tie together. this caused it to not only undermine the themes, lore, accomplishments and characters of the originals but also be a disjointed mess with no real consistency from one film to the next.
God, what an absolute mess it was.