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The I've Seen The Force Awakens Thread (spoilers OBV)


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Remember back when the prequels didn't exist and the Star Wars saga was Luke's story? And then it became Anakin's because they wanted to make more movies? And how the story couldn't possibly exist without Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader?

 

I prefer this post-TFA world.

That retroactive thinking doesn't work. Sure, Anakin was saved and his story ended in the OT, but I don't think that made it his over all story. If anything, the ST now makes it all much more clear-- every trilogy is about the next generation of Skywalker. Easy peasy.

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But I always thought the saga was about Anakin! Even when I first saw ANH and he was barely mentioned, I thought "this movie is about Luke's dad."

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There is one side who feels the story of the characters has been told (in Episodes 1-6), wrapped up in a nice bow and is done and over with. And another side who wants to see new stories told with the addition of new characters/places, etc. I see it as something like the argument regarding the coda to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2. One side felt that was cool to see, after all their struggles, triumphs and tragedies, to see all the characters grown up, married with kids of their own going to the wizarding school, seemingly living happily every after. The other side felt that was too cliche, too perfect, too Disneyesque (ironic isn't it?) an ending and the world doesn't work that way. I suspect what side you are on this will determine your enjoyment of this new Star Wars trilogy.

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Pretentious? You wanna point out for me specifically what I'm saying that's false?

 

I remember back before ROTS was released, there was a thread here where people were speculating on who would kill Dooku. That should have been a no-brainer. Anakin was the Luke of the prequels. He was the character undergoing the same trials as Luke in the OT, but fails. Both are urged on by Palp to kill. But whereas Luke refuses to kill Vader, Anakin kills Dooku. It was kinda obvious that this was how it was going to play out. But for some reason that I will never understand, a lot of people were arguing that Mace Windu or Yoda was going to kill Dooku. They apparently couldn't grasp how having anyone else but Anakin kill Dooku would cheapen the story. Likewise, TFA cheapens the story that's been told in many ways. Its a fact. Not getting it doesn't make it untrue.

"Not getting it" means you're not explaining your position well. I can follow you up to the conclusion that TFA "cheapens" the story. It's as if you expect history in the Star Wars universe to end with the Ewoks playing our heroes off into the the night. Did the Empire go "poof" and the noble Old Republic pop up immediately after Luke walked away from his mentors' ghosts?

 

The original trilogy story is legendary in-universe, now, with Luke nearly mythical in status, and Han Solo famous for being both a war hero and a smuggler. And somehow this continuation of the saga is cheapening the other films? Doesn't compute.

 

It cheapens the story from a mythological standpoint, just like having Anakin discover he had a father would have cheapened the story from a mythological standpoint. See my earlier post on the myth of the world-redeemer. The world-redeemer is supposed to usher in the next stage in the cosmogonic cycle. The only way to keep Joseph Campbell's monomyth intact is to keep eps. 1-6 in a vacuum. Showing what happens post-ROTJ downplays what Lucas was doing with Anakin. There's no way around it. Did other stuff happen after ROTJ? Sure, but showing it makes SW less "mythical".

 

Remember when people were pissed that the PT ruined the surprise in ESB? The "I am your father" surprise had to be sacrificed to make room for the PT. It couldn't be helped. In the same way, some mythological motifs in Eps. 1-6 have to be sacrificed for post-ROTJ films to exist. As more and more films get churned out, the more sacrifices of this type must be made, watering down the final product.

 

It is the "mythology" of SW that suffers. But I don't expect a lot of people to understand this for the same reason people couldn't understand why Anakin didn't have a father and why Mace Windu wasn't going to be the guy who kills Count Dooku.

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I think anyone who doesn't want more Star Wars and is a Star Wars fan is a confused individual.

 

If we were talking remakes, or sequels with the same actors for ever and ever, of course it would seem tired. But Star Wars was established from the start as an epic myth with a history and a future. Even before the PT existed, it was clear that there was a detailed rich back story.

 

For time, even Lucas considered the story post Jedi.

 

Now that they've established each trilogy focusing on a different generation, and we now have different writers in the mix with a brain trust over seeing it, it confusesme to think somebody wouldn't want more.

 

I MEAN UNLESS THEY HATED THE PT SO BAD THEY FEAR IT CAUSE I GET THAT.

 

But if you liked the PT and you don't want more sequels? You crazy.

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But I don't expect a lot of people to understand this for the same reason people couldn't understand why Anakin didn't have a father, and why Mace Windu wasn't going to be the guy who kills Count Dooku.

 

The pretentious comment? Proooooobably sparked from comments like this. Just because people don't agree with you, that doesn't mean they don't understand your thesis.

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Quetzalcoatl- I get your position, but can't agree with you. There's a middle ground between "mindless entertainment" and "mythic storytelling". Star Wars is an epic saga of the Skywalker era of the galaxy far, far away. Its much closer to myth than mindless even now.

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I really do love how he says people "dont get it" when the idea that Star Wars was the story of the rise, fall, redemption of Anakin and that the sequels would change that was basically the first thing talked about on here when the sequels were announced.

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So everyone who was disappointed with The Force Awakens score needs to listen to this episode of Star Wars Oxygen. I'm not a huge fan of that podcast network but Star Wars Oxygen and the host, David Collins, are great. He made a connection between Rey's Theme and Jawa Sandcrawler from ANH that blew my freaking mind. http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/1/1/2/11240cc25843442d/RFR_SWOxygen025.mp3?c_id=10592470&expiration=1452398087&hwt=f33cc428cc28306f3d5e2fe7a036d87e

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm going to get extremely nitpicky here, but aside from the fact that the soundtrack was underwhelming by Star Wars standards, I was disappointed in the way the end credits were handled. I'm one of those guys that likes to stay seated in the theater waiting for all the credits to roll. I've done this for as long as I can remember, before it became the trendy thing to do as studios started sticking post-credit scenes into films. In every Star Wars film before TFA, the music to the end credits went the same way. We'd get the main Star Wars theme, followed by 2-3 themes that dealt with something or someone from that particular episode, and then came back to the main Star Wars theme to finish off the credits.For example, the end credits for ESB started with the main Star Wars theme, then we'd get Yoda's theme, then the Imperial March, followed by Han and Leia's theme, and then it would come to an end with the main SW theme again. For ROTJ, it was the Ewok theme and Luke and Leia's theme sandwiched in between the main SW theme. TPM had Duel of the Fates, and so on. You get the picture. I loved the way this was handled because it gave us somewhat of a curtain call to the episode we had just scene. TFA did not do this. Like I said, very nitpicky, but I couldn't help being disappointed with it. (By the way, I believe the Indiana Jones films also roll the music with the end credits in similar fashion.)

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The TPM and AOTC end titles did not go back to the Main Theme at the end, for what it's worth.

That bugged me about those movies, too, but not as much as them putting the throne room march in the credits for ROTS. While I know it was to mark the end of the movies, it seems extra poor now with more movies.

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