The I've Seen The Last Jedi Thread (spoilers OBV)

[Mara Jade Skywalker]

Well, this is what we know of the timeline from supplemental material. Considering the movies hardly ever establish actual ages/dates, I think these are safe to go by:

 

- Ben Solo is born after the Battle of Jakku, so one year after Endor

- Bloodline takes place around 26 years after Endor. Ben has not yet become Kylo Ren, or if he has, it was recent and Leia does not know about it yet.

- TFA has not been pinned down, but I believe it's 32 years after Endor. Basically, the same amount of time passed in real life as did in universe in between RotJ and TFA.

- The TFA Visual Dictionary says Rey is 19 and Kylo is 30ish (which goes along with him being born after Jakku)

- Rian Johnson actually contributed some political background info to Bloodline, so I would imagine they asked him about the ages/timeline of Ben's turn. Therefore I'd think it was safe to say Ben was either around 24-25 when he turned, which would be about 5-6 years before TFA/TLJ.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

Well if Kylo is supposed to be 32 in TFA, then that would put him at Adam Driver's actual age, at least at that time.

 

If Kylo turned at about age 24-25, that still fits with turning at approximately the same age as Vader turned fully to the dark side at 23ish, and Luke ultimately becoming a full fledged jedi in ROTJ at 23ish, so I think that Kylo finding his destiny at about the same age works. There is symmetry to that, I think.

[Good God a Bear]

 

 

As for Leia, Han and Uncle Luke telling Ben about Anakin/Vader, I think you're ascribing too much rationality to characters that are more human than the fandom lets them be. I'm not a parent, but I know that in my family, as in many others, traumatic events aren't always shared with the children (no matter how old the children may be). I don't think it would be unrealistic to keep Ben in the dark (ha!) about his grandfather's life until he was ready. That's basically what Obi-wan did to Luke, and maybe Luke felt it was a good idea. Luke apparently molded much of his approach to Jedi life and training from Old Ben's teachings. Why wouldn't he pick up the "from a certain point of view" attitude, too?

 

That works if it's just some family member everyone tries to pretend doesn't exist. You have that one screwed up uncle who no one wants around and everyone cringes when he shows up at parties, yeah I can see why the parents would want to keep the kid in the dark about that relative. But we are talking about Vader here. It would be like if Hitler had kids and those kids tried to keep their kids in the dark about him. He's in all history books, news sources, documentaries, films...not exactly someone you can pretend you don't know about him.

 

There's a book that deals with this, actually. I know, I know, EU...but it's the Disney EU.

 

They actually keep Leia's parentage a secret. No one knows Vader is her Father. This book takes place when she's in her late 40s and it is only then it comes out (I won't divulge how.) Needless to say people treat her like he is Hitler. It seems I remember them talking about how to tell Ben (Kylo) as he was training with Luke. So if I am remembering correctly they kept it a secret as long as they could.

[Lord Darth Hunter]

- Rian Johnson actually contributed some political background info to Bloodline, so I would imagine they asked him about the ages/timeline of Ben's turn. Therefore I'd think it was safe to say Ben was either around 24-25 when he turned, which would be about 5-6 years before TFA/TLJ.

Wait, is this true? Doesn't this contradict Tank saying that at no time do the writers/directors of these films consider things that will be covered in outside sources for their films?

[pavonis]

If Johnson was asked about his ideas for the backstory he was imagining for TLJ, then Tank is still correct. No one would ever try to get a director to incorporate the details from a novel into a film plot. The information only flows one-way.

[Lord Darth Hunter]

I mean in the sense of not having to worry about certain details when making a film because you know it'll be covered somewhere else.

[Metropolis]

Disney is doing the new EU in the same way Lucasfilm handled it before the sell. Corroborated stories that link the "universe" together. So Johnson's story had to not only fall in line with what came before it, anything he added had to be incorporated into possible future stories. It's the reason that when TFA was planned, the whole of the "Legends" catalog had to be scrapped from cannon.

[Metropolis]

Now I haven't read Cobalt Squadron, but you have to wonder if Rose was the chicken or the egg.

[Mara Jade Skywalker]

Cobalt Squadron definitely came after TLJ was in production.

 

The movies inform everything else - tv, books, comics, games. There are easter eggs in everything. I think anyone making Star Wars nowadays pretty much expects the tie-in fiction to tell stories that don't show up on film.

 

I'm not certain exactly what the process was for Bloodline. I know Rian Johnson had certain ideas for the worldbuilding that got put into the book. (Ironically, nothing related to these actually showed up in TLJ, so it really was a case of him wanting to sprinkle in ideas in other mediums.)

[Tank]

GUESS WHAT I THINK

[pavonis]

I mean in the sense of not having to worry about certain details when making a film because you know it'll be covered somewhere else.

It seems to me that if the detail is something the director has to "worry" about, it should be covered in the film, else it's not really worth any attention. I would think that directors have enough to do without coordinating story-telling with other media.

[The Choc]

It's funny I just read a tweet from Hidalgo, who is basically in charge of keeping all this together. Someone asked him about Poe and Rey meeting twice, as I guess they met in TFA novelization. Pablo is basically like "they had to meet for the millions who will see the movie, not the thousands who will read the book and we can't really worry about the even fewer who will care about the difference." I believe he goes on to say he hates the term canon.

 

This is the guy whose job is basically to make all this fit together and he is saying basically that there is no way it's going to all fit together and that the large audience of the movies trumps whatever is in the books.

 

To be fair he says had they met in a tie in novel he would have fought to have the first meeting "count" as its original story telling. He would have lost that fight though.

[Good God a Bear]

Well, this is what we know of the timeline from supplemental material. Considering the movies hardly ever establish actual ages/dates, I think these are safe to go by:

 

- Ben Solo is born after the Battle of Jakku, so one year after Endor

- Bloodline takes place around 26 years after Endor. Ben has not yet become Kylo Ren, or if he has, it was recent and Leia does not know about it yet.

- TFA has not been pinned down, but I believe it's 32 years after Endor. Basically, the same amount of time passed in real life as did in universe in between RotJ and TFA.

- The TFA Visual Dictionary says Rey is 19 and Kylo is 30ish (which goes along with him being born after Jakku)

- Rian Johnson actually contributed some political background info to Bloodline, so I would imagine they asked him about the ages/timeline of Ben's turn. Therefore I'd think it was safe to say Ben was either around 24-25 when he turned, which would be about 5-6 years before TFA/TLJ.

I wish I had seen your post before I posted my crap. Yours was much more detailed.

[Mara Jade Skywalker]

I try.

[Ms. Spam]

Just saw it finally this past Saturday with my family. Will try and resee it this weekend without my deaf dad asking questions or people asking for my order as I was at a theater that served food and drinks during the movie.

 

I loved some of the settings/images. The suns and world where Luke went to hide. But others were jarring like the red against the salt. visually it was a nice image but in the end it was too "dual" I guess which underpinned some of the things happening like the battle in the throne room once Kylo killed off Snoke with Rey there.

 

Something that sticks is maybe the history of Rey is not so cut and dry as it could be one more manipulation of the dark side. Part of Kylo Ren wanting his trainee since he knew Luke would have no interest at his hermit place and he'd basically killed off Snoke.

 

Some parts were slow like the gambling den.

 

Editing may have helped the story a bit more.

[Quetzalcoatl]

It sounds pretty common knowledge in the galaxy far far away what happened on the 2nd Death Star. Look at Luke and Rey's conversation. They go over what happened on the Death Star and Luke says it made him a legend.

Exactly. This is what confused me. I got the impression that those events from ROTJ were pretty much known throughout the galaxy, to the point where they had become legend, and Kylo's Vader worship seems weird in view of this. There's that one scene in TFA where Kylo is, for lack of a better term, "praying" to his grandfather, asking him for strength, to show him the way, etc. Vader's last act was to renounce the dark side. He had an attack of conscience that resulted in the fall of the sith and the empire. Given that, doesn't it ever cross Kylo's mind that maybe ghost Anakin doesn't approve of his actions?

[The Choc]

Kylo believes that Vader had one moment of weakness that led to his downfall and he was determined to not let the same thing happen to him, thus his killing of his father.

[Lord Darth Hunter]

But that one moment of weakness is what makes it possible for Kylo to be around in the first place. Doubtful he would've been born had Vader not turned on Palpatine. That's why I agree with Quetzalcoatl that Kylo's Vader worship is odd.

[The Choc]

Yeah, I agree. Someone idolizing a person who terrorized the galaxy and was complicit in the murder of so many people is odd. In fact I'd go further and say it's crazy and that anyone who would idolize someone like that needs help and is probably a danger to himself and others.

[Quetzalcoatl]

I guess what I was getting at is how does Ben rationalize away Vader’s final act given his hero worship and adulation for what Vader stood for? Does he think it was just a moment of temporary weakness and nothing more? Does he think ghost Anakin is cheering him on?

[Lord Darth Hunter]

That's why I don't want to see a redemption story with him. His Vader worship defies logic. He's a psycho.

[Filthy Jawa]

Did you ever consider that Kylo was speaking of his OTHER grandfather???

Grampa Solo, who coincidentally also wore a mask that looks like that and whose name was also Darth Vader?

You didnt, did you? Wait for Episode IX.

[Tank]

It's funny I just read a tweet from Hidalgo, who is basically in charge of keeping all this together. Someone asked him about Poe and Rey meeting twice, as I guess they met in TFA novelization. Pablo is basically like "they had to meet for the millions who will see the movie, not the thousands who will read the book and we can't really worry about the even fewer who will care about the difference." I believe he goes on to say he hates the term canon.

 

This is the guy whose job is basically to make all this fit together and he is saying basically that there is no way it's going to all fit together and that the large audience of the movies trumps whatever is in the books.

 

To be fair he says had they met in a tie in novel he would have fought to have the first meeting "count" as its original story telling. He would have lost that fight though.

So.... I'm right.

 

This is a perfect example. If people want the books to fill in gaps that's great-- I tease, but I'm not out to ruin anyones enjoyment of their thing. (Unless their thing is the PT). When I say the books don't matter, I'm referring to this above. My quibble has always been that filmmakers cannot rely on tertiary material to make plot points, or assume people have read them to be informed.

 

To be fair to Mara, she gets this.

 

I mostly get annoyed with people who would insist TLJ is wrong because they met in the TFA book.

[Mara Jade Skywalker]

The movies always trump anything else. Including tv shows.

 

I'm still going to use other material to fill in the blanks and answer questions in the meantime. Kylo Ren isn't going to monologue about why he turned to the dark side. So, I'm waiting for the book that depicts it. *shrug*

 

 

Re: why does Kylo idolize Vader - because he is CRAY.

 

Seriously, though, other than the confrontation in the hut, we have no idea what happened that led to Ben Solo's fall. We don't know if Ben ever got the letter from Leia. We don't know if Luke got to explain what happened. We don't know if Ben began to think he should live up to Vader and that him saving Luke was a moment of weakness. Considering his actions with killing Han and Snoke, I would say that's a good option.

[Poe Dameron]

 

 

This is a perfect example. If people wasn't the books to fill in gaps that's great-- I tease, but I'm not out to ruin anyone;s enjoyment of their thing. (Unless their thing is the PT). When I say the books don't matter, I'm referring to this above. My quibble has always been that filmmakers cannot rely on tertiary material to make plot points, or assume people have read them to be informed.

 

For what it's worth, I thought the Poe and Rey meeting was a bit out of place in the movie itself. It wasn't really necessary as the two were at the same place once before and only emphasized how separated their stories were through two movies. Not sure what's gained by calling attention to that.

 

I've never read the novelization and this is the first time I've heard of the inconsistency so that only makes it more weird.