It’s ironic-sadly-that both Shatner and Hamill have regrets about their final performances. (As living, breathing characters; because I’m sure Luke’s Force ghost will be back in Episode IX. With the recent spat between Shatner and Jason Isaacs it looks unlikely that they will ever come up with an angle to bring Kirk back.)
All that being said, I think Generations handled Kirk with more respect than TLJ did for Luke. In Generations Kirk got two heroic deaths and he spent less time arguing with Picard about the stakes. Once he got that he could still make a difference, that he couldn’t live in fantasyland anymore, he came back and kicked ass. It wasn’t the Nexus remnant Kirk, but the real, physical guy. In general Trek (including the Kelvinverse) has treated past shows and older characters with more respect, tweaking and updating if necessary without burning the house down. Because if you burn the house down completely, then why call it Star Wars anymore? If you remove the Jedi/Sith aspects, then what is Star Wars, but essentially Battlestar Galactica or Firefly? It removes the distinctiveness of Star Wars. Certainly, there is more to the Star Wars universe than the Jedi and Sith, but when you hear those words you automatically know people are talking about Star Wars. Arguably you could also say the same applies to ‘rebel’s or ‘empire’, though we’ve seen various series (film or television) that describe those things. I will give you “Deathstar” though as automatically informing the audience this is Star Wars.
It seems like Johnson felt he had to destroy and deconstruct many of the tropes of Star Wars, perhaps in his mind to ‘save’ it, to make it fresh or new. But I see it as creating a vacuum and what’s going to fill it? The new sequel characters are mostly watered-down versions of previous Star Wars characters, so there’s not much fresh or new there outside of the optics. Let me be clear, I have no problem with diverse characters. (In many of my posts over the years on this website I have advocated for greater diversity and even in my fan fiction on this website I put that into practice).
Some of the new sequel criticism I suspect is just concealing racial or gender biases, but I also hold that not all criticism derives from those negative corners.
If Star Wars is going to diversify then make the new characters as interesting, well-written, distinct, and unique as some of the previous Star Wars characters were. Even Lucas had trouble doing so for his prequel (new or old) characters, even though he had the template from the original trilogy, to work back from. It’s not an easy job to create interesting and somewhat ‘fresh’ characters, but I wish Disney had looked more to the EU and saw which characters resonated the most with fans and just cherry-picked traits and ideas from there. Even without that, look at the canon Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons for some clues as well.
Back to Johnson…it’s not enough to tear down if you don’t have a plan to build it back up or really take it into interesting places. And I’m not sensing an overarching vision for this sequel trilogy, which made it easier for Johnson to just upset the apple cart. For all of Disney’s caution, I am surprised they allowed Johnson to take TLJ and Star Wars in this route, to toss out so many things and to leave the franchise in such an uncertain place. Now that can be exciting and thrilling but so far I haven’t seen much from either TFA or TLJ that makes me fill confident that Episode IX will tie a satisfying bow on this trilogy. It doesn’t so far seem to be about nothing but supplanting the old characters (and doing it too often dismissively, and the side effect is also dismissing some older fans), introducing new characters, and that’s about it.
I don’t get what Disney is trying to tell us with this new trilogy. Is it about scrapping the past, that anyone can be a hero or the hero, that heredity isn’t destiny, to assume the unexpected, that Star Wars as we know and enjoy it must die in order to live? If any of that’s the case it ignores that some of these themes have already been explored in Star Wars (in the films or other media). While also challenging the foundations laid by Lucas. To me, Lucas did respect the idea of lineage and history. The past mattered, restoring what was broken or taken away mattered. But it wasn’t just about restoration to return to the old way of doing things, but more so creating a firm foundation on which to move forward.
Yet at the same time Lucas also attempted to show how anyone, including slaves, farm boys, screw ups, and smugglers can become heroes, can save the day. That a diverse group of people can come together to make great change.
Disney seems to be wanting to rip apart that foundation-which is fine since they own Star Wars-but I don’t see what new foundation they will replace it with (if any at all) that isn’t similar to what Lucas did, which makes this deck shuffling a bit pointless and needlessly riles old fans who have kept the flame of Star Wars burning for a long time. I get that change is necessary, that sometimes old fans are too stubborn and set in their ways, but at the same time I don’ think that many old fans just want Star Wars stuck in amber. They want good stories and characters that keep the spirit (as however they see it, and that is varied) of Star Wars without necessarily replicating what has come before. TFA got criticized for being too similar to ANH, and Star Trek Into Darkness got criticized, among other things, for lifting too much from TWOK. Another thing that old fans bring to this is likely a knowledge of Star Wars that extends beyond the films and into novels, comics, video games, etc., and so many are aware of some of the twists (tricks) Johnson pulled in TLJ and have seen them done better in other stories. Heck, for all its faults, The Legacy of the Force novel series, in many ways was better than the sequel films thus far. I wish they had adapted that.
Driver would’ve been great as Jacen and Ridley as Jaina. You could still have Han and Leia fretting over their son’s dark turn. You could have the Imperial Remnant, instead of the First Order (which is essentially the same thing). You could toss in Snoke as a replacement for Darth Krayt or Abeloth. Laura Dern could’ve been Mara Jade (though I’ve always thought Julianne Moore would be awesome as Mara Jade).
). Both of those possibilities could be solved with a line or two of dialogue, as could Holdo explaining her plan so Poe wasn't confused about the strategy.
