Kylo Episode IX opening monologue: “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a Sith Lord. To me, being a Sith Lord was better than being Chancellor of the New Republic. Even before I first wandered into the Cantina for an after-school job, I knew I wanted to be a part of them. It was there that I knew that I belonged. To me, it meant being somebody in a galaxy that was full of nobodies. They weren't like anybody else. I mean, they did whatever they wanted. They double-parked in front of a hydrant and nobody ever gave them a ticket. In the summer when they played sabacc all night, nobody ever called the stormtroopers.
I know how. Kinda like what Top Gun is about, you need to target what SW is about. At it's core, it's about spirituality and metaphysics rather than philosophical materialism. And it's about 'fighting tyranny' rather than 'resisting oppression'. Only by engaging in this journey to get there can you become fully mature. Anakin failed to be mature when he faced tyranny on his spiritual journey. Luke succeeded. Rey has no such background to work off of. Hence, her story is boring and she doesn't stand out as a great character. Right now, you have these new directors who only care about lightsabers, "badass" looking/sounding characters, and convoluted plot points that attempt to wow the audience or outdo a previous film. They don't care about heroes going through moral and philosophical trials. Instead, the characters already have powers and they're going to use them....just because. That's a major problem since your character doesn't grow over the course of the story. Instead, the merely only seek power in their quest. It's entitlement rather than growth. And that's not to say the films couldn't have started them off as powerful Jedi, either. It could have but it needed for them to face that spiritual trial as they go forth. The films need to ask the question: Are they spiritually fit to the wield that weapon/power and that responsibility? If not, how can they go about that - especially through the lense of a moral or even cautionary fairy tale? The new films offer no such thing. That's why they fail as spiritual mythologies. _________________________________________________________________ Otherwise, let's talk about the aesthetics and filmmaking. What Star Wars owes to French Comics? There's a certain look and way to frame SW shots that the new films cannot do. These new guys are TV directors. They film and think like TV directors - who are primarily filming 30-60 minute episodic narratives for a small screen. You cannot have that with SW. I posted the French comics because they influenced SW (and even designed some of the sets). From Moebius to Jean-Claude Mezieres to Druillet, we see that there is a kind of style where we see a shot of a city or outpost or wasteland with some surreal imagery to it. It's full of life even if it's a still image. This is an older style of filmmaking and even comics where they didn't rely so much on motion at every corner. You shoot a simple long shot to set up a location. Then, you can transition into it gradually and/or let the characters in it move around. Not only does this help show off the totality of the aesthetics, it also allows the universe you've constructed to feel that much bigger to the audience. Never mind that this was filmed on Earth, the audience can truly believe this took place in a galaxy far, far away. Furthermore, this allows it so the pace slows down. And when the pace slows down, John Williams gets to compose music. If you don't slow down the pacing so his classical style music can breathe, William's music becomes quite unmemorable. Simple as that. Part of the reason why SW feels so timeless is it combines all of these things. Lucas borrowed from so many elements: comics, religion/mythology/fairy tales, knights/samurai/cowboys, Kurosawa, Leone, Flash Gordon, etc. If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, Star Wars is infatuated with all those things. The truth is that today's filmmaker just doesn't care about those things. The talented ones scoff at much of it as for children while the not-so-talented ones try to replicate it without understanding where the source of it came from. So, you need to draw direct influence from them. SW is mythology. It's timeless. It has lineage that dates back thousands of years. Don't change that timeless aspect just because you took a few years of film school or made a few million bucks on your TV show. You're not above the notion of "God" and eternity. _________________________________________________________________ And so, I guess, my fix for the current story would be to either kill Rey and Kylo off to make way for a new generation. Or have Rey fall to the Dark Side. For the first option, Rey has only learned one thing in her journey: self sacrifice to save others. We see this with Luke, Holdo, Han, Rose, Rose's sister, and Finn on countless heroic attempts. Thus, she needs to sacrifice herself to cement her own identity and heroism. Becoming a martyr is what prevents her from joining the Dark Side and also, what stops Kylo from destroying the good guys. For the second option, Rey has only shown anger and a desire to learn power. She is impatient and gets what she wants. That's no hero. Finn is the hero, in that case, since he has shown countless attempts to risk his life against impossible odds. He saves Poe, fights the trooper who called him traitor head on, goes up against Phasma, goes up against Kylo Ren to save Rey, and was prepared to sacrifice himself by jamming his speeder into the cannon. Make him force sensitive. He doesn't have to be a knight. He can be some sort of caretaker of the Jedi Legacy. Otherwise, Luke's goal by sacrificing himself would be to turn Kylo Ren back because he knows Ren can return. And thus, this story becomes about Kylo's journey of repentance. Luke's last command to him is to save his sister: Rey.
I kind of like the the idea of Rey going to the dark side, since we really don't have a great connection to her.
Step 1: Obi wan movie with Ewan McGregor Step 2: Have Rey learn from Ahsoka Tano about being a grey jedi to bring balance to the force. Step 3: Make a new series about the old republic. New characters. New stories. The Sith Empire instead of just a few crappy Darths.
Blah blah blah. You can't fix it without Darth Vader and Yoda. Second tier is Han Solo and Chewbacca. Luke and the rest are main characters but they aren't cool. Example. The A Team. George Peppard was a pretty well known actor. Didn't matter. Without Mr. T that show wasn't awesome. Murdock and Face were integral but without B.A. it wouldn't be the same.
I honestly felt they were going that way during LJ, and I kind of thought it felt better. If she had an Anakin type turn, while he showed remorse for his fathers death and his mothers death...and Lukes force ghost keeps trying to show her the light...now that would be better than the steaming pile of crap that was LJ.
