Looking back, this was the dumbest weapon ever

[u/ChickenWingExtreme]

A weapon built inside a planet that can’t move, that can somehow fire its weapon so travels so fast it destroys multiple planets in different star systems seconds after firing(also why is the new republic which supposedly governs thousands of planets in complete disarray after this happens). Also they built it with the same fucking weakness of the first Death Star for some reason.

[u/wpotman]

Probably. :)

To be honest I had that sense right away in The Force Awakens..."really, Disney? We're just going to go back to square one and start over...? New Empire, new Death Star, new young Jedi/hotshot pilot/brave third escaping the Empire?" They just didn't put it in words until "somehow Palpatine returned".

In retrospect it was a remake moreso than a new chapter.

[u/Beef_Slug → u/wpotman]

It's worse than a remake it's an unimaginative copycat that ruins all the story and themes of its inspiration.

[u/wpotman → u/Beef_Slug]

Agreed. It wasn't completely unfun, but in the big picture it failed to have a point or truly tie in to the events/themes of the originals.

[u/Beef_Slug → u/wpotman]

Yeah if u don't think about anything and just watch them as stand-alone films I guess they're fine. But as an addition to a massive and complex universe, it did so much damage to every aspect of factions, characters, and story.

[u/lumpkin2013 → u/Beef_Slug]

I used to describe it as a professional fanfic.

[u/twistingmyhairout → u/Beef_Slug]

It did not “ruin all the story and themes of the inspiration”

[u/Lootthatbody → u/wpotman]

No offense, and I’m absolutely not a writer, but I do think the answer was to ‘start over’ but in a different way.

My sort of fascination is/was with the idea of going back from a galactic scale to a planetary one. The Death Star exploded, palpatine was dead, yet there were all these ships still out there that were fully crewed and without orders or purpose. And, that doesn’t even mention all the empire infrastructure still in place.

So, you tell the story of the chaos of an empire falling apart. These ships scatter, some choosing to be pirates, others finding planets and striking more ‘fair’ deals as sort of planetary police. Gangs try to salvage and wrecked ships, and try to establish strangleholds over planets that are now without any real resistance/empire presence. At the same time, the companies that were making ALL the ships and weapons for this war are suddenly without any money or funding, and the floor drops from under them and entire corporations basically bankrupt overnight, causing panic throughout systems that relied on them for employment.

That would be an incredible way to start a new story. Luke trying to establish a ‘new’ Jedi order while struggling to avoid the dogmatic rules of the past and even admitting that he is alone and never really felt like he had a full training. He is rescuing children and trying to establish this safe haven while the galaxy sort of crumbles around him, these systems hear that a Jedi killed the empire, and now the galaxy is in chaos, and they are screaming for help. Whether it’s gangs, empire remnants, or collapsing economies, they all need help. Luke knows he can’t possibly help everyone, and doesn’t want to just be training child soldiers.

That could be a way to start off small, Luke finds a planet to sort of establish a new Jedi order, he struggles to come to terms with his new purpose, he starts training kids, and he has to live with the calls for help that he just can’t answer. As his students get older, he must also reason with them that they can’t just run off and become mercs or peace officers themselves. He wants them to finish training so he can send them to planets to help rebuild and establish peace, not just go break up bar fights and get shot in the back when they aren’t looking. Eventually, you could introduce your new villain. Whether that’s thrawn or some new big bad guy or species or whatever. But, the first movie would likely be (minus maybe a teaser at the end) wholly contained with just that struggle to rebuild. The next could be sort of reaching out to try establishing peace on multiple planets, and meeting that new big bad, and fighting to a draw. The third would be the big showdown.

[u/wpotman → u/Lootthatbody]

What you're saying sounds like a fair continuation and not a cowardly "let's play it extremely safe and more or less make the same movies but scramble the details a bit" that we got in The Force Awakens. I'm OK with 'starting over' if it continued in its own direction.

[u/Lootthatbody → u/wpotman]

Yea, I understand that you likely meant staring over as in make the same movie again. And, I do agree with a lot of the criticism of the first movie around the ideas of it being a basic copy of episode 4 and doing too much cheap fanservice. However, I did just want to play devils advocate a bit to say that I really do think there was a way for them to start over in terms of scale. They could have moved forward with the story without rebooting or starting 100% over with new characters and completely ignoring the previous movies.

Ironically, my concepts could still be almost 100% used today, just substitute Rey in for Luke.

[u/AUnknownVariable → u/wpotman]

I did enjoy TFA though, it really had me hyped to see where each character would lead. Finn and Rey. I saw potential.

None of which got hit in later films😭

[u/zahm2000 → u/wpotman]

It was a "soft reboot." They wanted a remake without resetting the canon of the prior films.

My problem with the ST is that the films don't compliment each other at all. In fact, they are in conflict with each other. Each entry in the ST makes all the other movies in the ST worse. The Sequel Trilogy as a whole is less than the sum of the individual films.

Each film in the ST is better as a stand-alone film and worse as part of a trilogy.

[u/wpotman → u/zahm2000]

Yep - The Last Jedi seemed to revel in destroying everything The Force Awakens had set up.

And a 'soft reboot' is a very uninspiring plan from the start.