Episode IX Speculation and Discussion
- Thread starter INACTIVESamusAranX
- Start date
That's right, and he's established as such right there in the opening crawl, no less.
Yup. He’s the McMuffin alright! (Damn you again, autocorrect!)
Seriously, yes. The entire point of the film for both the Resistance and the First Order is finding Luke. It is the driving point of the movie. The lightsaber is not something both sides are really looking for. How Kylo even knows it belongs to him is a little confusing. But again not something that is requiring a lot of attention in the film.
I feel we could very readily start our own trope here....
As for the lightsaber, I'm not sure it really stuck out for me as needing explanation or even that it called out to Rey in and of itself. I prefer to think that in some sense the force drew her to it as representing a significant step she should take. The difficulty comes in really knowing what the parameters of the force actually are and how much intentional agency it really has.
As mentioned there are, for me, more glaring omissions in the wider explanations given and I have a certain faith those gaps will be at least partially filled in IX as being tied into Palpatines' machinations.
As for the lightsaber, I'm not sure it really stuck out for me as needing explanation or even that it called out to Rey in and of itself. I prefer to think that in some sense the force drew her to it as representing a significant step she should take. The difficulty comes in really knowing what the parameters of the force actually are and how much intentional agency it really has.
As mentioned there are, for me, more glaring omissions in the wider explanations given and I have a certain faith those gaps will be at least partially filled in IX as being tied into Palpatines' machinations.
I don't use this term often as I'm not a fan, but if I'm not mistaken that's a strawman, no?
A significant item thought lost shows up again, and a character questions how it got there. Why is it unreasonable for an audience member to voice the same question?
Is there actually a good argument as to why there shouldn't be mention of how it got there? I'm not talking about "There doesn't need to be one" I mean a real reason why they shouldn't explain it.
Personally, I just don't think it's good storytelling to have a character basically say, "Can't tell you, I'm setting up a mystery box." If they answer it and pay it off in Ep9, cool. If it's a good answer, I'll be happy.
So, let’s consider the lightsaber issue from the perspective of the filmmakers. Remember that not only are they attempting to bring back older fans, they are welcoming new ones. You don’t want to overload the new fans with a bunch of information they’ll find meaningless. Most people who likely weren’t overly familiar with Star Wars know: Luke, Han, Leia, the droids, Chewie, Darth Vader, Vader is Luke’s father, Luke is a Jedi and had a lightsaber. Overloading the movie with a tremendous amount of backstory and exposition that would be required to get new viewers to not ask more questions would be tedious to older fans. And leaving some information about Bespin and Cloud City might be confusing to new ones. You HAVE to find a balance and no, the movie was not perfect in that regard but it did an admirable job.
Maz is actually the collector. She was just glad Rey only wandered off with the lightsaber and not one of the infinity stones.
Indeed, that level of worldbuilding is what the novels are about.
I'm honestly surprised we haven't seen that novel already. Give it time though.
It was a dark and dusty box, the saber had lost all sense of time, trapped in this void between movies.
A girl opened the box, she picked it up.
They all live eventfully ever after.
I don't think you know or understand the actual timeline of events surrounding Luke's exile based on this comment.
As of the events of The Rise of Skywalker, it will have been about 5 to 6 years since Ben fell to the Dark Side.
I never thought that the object that falls out below Cloud City when Luke is dumped out the bottom was the lightsaber, because myself I could never get a clear enough look at it to identify the spinning object quickly falling out of view. I was therefore surprised to learn that there had been behind-the-scenes intention that it was supposed to be the lightsaber and severed hand. I believe @Locutus of Bored has more information about this.
In any case, being unable to recognize the object, I'd always assumed that it was something else (a random utility or binoculars) that became unclipped from Luke's utility belt to illustrate the immediate danger he was in. I'd also expected that, if it had been intended to be the lightsaber, then we would have been given a clearer look at it.
So, when the lightsaber appeared in the treasure chest in TFA, I was not surprised. I assumed that it had wound up in a garbage collection trap* like the one Luke had wound up in, but not dumped out. As @Bill says, it's reasonable that it would have been something that Vader would have gone after, probably no later than shortly after the Falcon jumped away.
In any case, these days at least, apparently canon is that the object falling out of Cloud City below Luke was not the lightsaber.
Also, I don't think it's wrong to want to know more, or even to fault TFA for not letting us in on things, like the lightsaber, or other things that have happened in the interim like how, as others have mentioned, the First Order, New Republic, and Resistance came to be the way they are shown.
An issue I had is that we have practically no information about Max von Sydow's character, yet he is important enough to be Poe's contact. According to Wookieepedia, he was a member of the Church of the Force [https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lor_San_Tekka]. OK, what's that [/rhetorical question**]?
* - Assuming that's what it even was. Part of the charm of Cloud City is that we are shown some interesting places in its interior during the duel without any explanation as to what they are. Is that some kind of decontamination corridor that Luke moves through after the first round?
Who knows! 
** - But no really, I honestly don't have a clue what it is, because we are never told.***
*** - I'm pretty irked these days with films whose purpose seems to be to sell tie-in material, but that trend in SW seems to have started in the PT. ****
**** - Counting down to someone asking, "But didn't the OT do that, too?" My position is, not in the same way. Relatively speaking, there's quite a bit of exposition in the original film to help us understand the chessboard.
In any case, being unable to recognize the object, I'd always assumed that it was something else (a random utility or binoculars) that became unclipped from Luke's utility belt to illustrate the immediate danger he was in. I'd also expected that, if it had been intended to be the lightsaber, then we would have been given a clearer look at it.
So, when the lightsaber appeared in the treasure chest in TFA, I was not surprised. I assumed that it had wound up in a garbage collection trap* like the one Luke had wound up in, but not dumped out. As @Bill says, it's reasonable that it would have been something that Vader would have gone after, probably no later than shortly after the Falcon jumped away.
In any case, these days at least, apparently canon is that the object falling out of Cloud City below Luke was not the lightsaber.
Also, I don't think it's wrong to want to know more, or even to fault TFA for not letting us in on things, like the lightsaber, or other things that have happened in the interim like how, as others have mentioned, the First Order, New Republic, and Resistance came to be the way they are shown.
An issue I had is that we have practically no information about Max von Sydow's character, yet he is important enough to be Poe's contact. According to Wookieepedia, he was a member of the Church of the Force [https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lor_San_Tekka]. OK, what's that [/rhetorical question**]?
* - Assuming that's what it even was. Part of the charm of Cloud City is that we are shown some interesting places in its interior during the duel without any explanation as to what they are. Is that some kind of decontamination corridor that Luke moves through after the first round?
Who knows! ** - But no really, I honestly don't have a clue what it is, because we are never told.***
*** - I'm pretty irked these days with films whose purpose seems to be to sell tie-in material, but that trend in SW seems to have started in the PT. ****
**** - Counting down to someone asking, "But didn't the OT do that, too?" My position is, not in the same way. Relatively speaking, there's quite a bit of exposition in the original film to help us understand the chessboard.
I don't think its unfair to suggest an audience member can't ask the question. Of course they can. My perspective though is that its not the filmmaker's job to answer all questions that the audience might have. It is the filmmaker's job to answer all questions relevant to the story. And yeah, in the overarcing story, I think that the questions you suggest are important. BUT, when you're building a franchise film, one that honestly, we're following up on the previous one (ROTJ) from thirty years prior, fans are going to have a lot of questions. If you spend your entire movie answering questions, that might not be the most entertaining movie out there. TFA's job was to:
Fans obviously want to know about Snoke, but as Rian Johnson suggested:
So questions such as who Snoke is, how did the saber get there, what's with the political dealings in the galaxy? I understand they're something that some fans want to but they're not that important to the story at large.
- Continue the Star Wars saga post Return of the Jedi
- Reignite the passion in old fans
- Bring new fans into the fold
- Tell an entertaining story
Fans obviously want to know about Snoke, but as Rian Johnson suggested:
So questions such as who Snoke is, how did the saber get there, what's with the political dealings in the galaxy? I understand they're something that some fans want to but they're not that important to the story at large.
The original film had scenes whose very purpose was exposition dumps, e.g. the attack briefing, Obi-Wan's abode where we hear backstory and hear the full message from Leia, the cantina when we meat Han, etc. So stopping scenes in their tracks wasn't an issue. We get fewer of those these days, and I'm sure many people are happier for it.
Fair, however, the original film also was building an entirely new universe. And it was a different time in film. We (generally speaking) have a much shorter attention span these days.
If people would get rid of their preconceived misconceptions about things, it would be a lot easier to understand the story of the Sequel Trilogy thus far and how it relates to the ending of Return of the Jedi.
I never thought that the object that falls out below Cloud City when Luke is dumped out the bottom was the lightsaber, because myself I could never get a clear enough look at it to identify the spinning object quickly falling out of view. I was therefore surprised to learn that there had been behind-the-scenes intention that it was supposed to be the lightsaber and severed hand. I believe @Locutus of Bored has more information about this.
In any case, being unable to recognize the object, I'd always assumed that it was something else (a random utility or binoculars) that became unclipped from Luke's utility belt to illustrate the immediate danger he was in. I'd also expected that, if it had been intended to be the lightsaber, then we would have been given a clearer look at it.
So, when the lightsaber appeared in the treasure chest in TFA, I was not surprised. I assumed that it had wound up in a garbage collection trap* like the one Luke had wound up in, but not dumped out. As @Bill says, it's reasonable that it would have been something that Vader would have gone after, probably no later than shortly after the Falcon jumped away.
In any case, these days at least, apparently canon is that the object falling out of Cloud City below Luke was not the lightsaber.
Also, I don't think it's wrong to want to know more, or even to fault TFA for not letting us in on things, like the lightsaber, or other things that have happened in the interim like how, as others have mentioned, the First Order, New Republic, and Resistance came to be the way they are shown.
An issue I had is that we have practically no information about Max von Sydow's character, yet he is important enough to be Poe's contact. According to Wookieepedia, he was a member of the Church of the Force [https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Lor_San_Tekka]. OK, what's that [/rhetorical question**]?
* - Assuming that's what it even was. Part of the charm of Cloud City is that we are shown some interesting places in its interior during the duel without any explanation as to what they are. Is that some kind of decontamination corridor that Luke moves through after the first round?
** - But no really, I honestly don't have a clue what it is, because we are never told.***
*** - I'm pretty irked these days with films whose purpose seems to be to sell tie-in material, but that trend in SW seems to have started in the PT. ****
**** - Counting down to someone asking, "But didn't the OT do that, too?" My position is, not in the same way. Relatively speaking, there's quite a bit of exposition in the original film to help us understand the chessboard.
Funny how some folks are able to make fair criticisms of these films without tearing down the people involved.
