Pain... Terrible pain! (TFA spoilers)

[Gaith]

The Thrawn Trilogy takes place only five years after Endor, with Leia pregnant for much of it and on the run. The Empire is still a major threat and for much of the story it seems like the victory at Endor will be for nothing. At the story progresses things turn around,

Actually, no; you've got that entirely backwards. The Empire is a threat to our Big Three throughout the trilogy, yes, but only because they're both being specifically targeted for the twins and they also keep going off on adventures. But, the Empire itself is regarded as a fairly minor/containable threat until the end of Dark Force Rising, with its double reveal of Thrawn's clones and the fact that he's captured most of the Katana Fleet. Instead of lazily resetting the galactic scene to the OT status quo from the start, as TFA does both literally and metaphorically by nuking the New Republic's capital and by naming the good guys' troops "The Resistance" even though their government is dominant, Zahn actually took his time to gradually and inventively build up Thrawn's Empire as a threat to be reckoned with. But, as nu-Trek has shown in abundance, "gradually and inventively" is not how JJ rolls; his technique is "right away, and with a much huuuuger enemy base!"

Happily ever after is boring... not too much you can do with a "hey everybody's doing great" story outline.

Thanks for the strawman perspective! BTW, I already gave my own idea for an Episode VII in post #35, and everybody was not doing great there.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Yeah, I read it... no thanks. I like the TFA story, and seeing to it that a few cherished souls are never cast into the abyss is a tendency that caters too much to fandom at the sacrifice of a good story with a real impact.

 

[Gaith]

Yeah, I read it... no thanks. I like the TFA story, and seeing to it that a few cherished souls are never cast into the abyss is a tendency that caters too much to fandom at the sacrifice of a good story with a real impact.

That's fine, but from my perspective, TFA was not a good story, had very little impact, and catered too much to fandom. Expressing a different opinion is one thing; conjuring straw men is another.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Conjuring straw men implies creating an argument out of wholecloth just that I can show my incredible wit and/or wisdom to burn it down.
Getting to the heart of an argument (an objection to the pain/suffering/loss inflicted on beloved characters and a desire to see a story that avoids such pain/suffering/loss) and discussing it isn't conjuring strawmen. You do not object to the major characters dealing with adversity but you do object to them dealing with painful loss or us as an audience having to observe the painful loss of a major character. The only way to consistently avoid painful loss is to soften the edges of a story to the point that it ceases being what it has always been and turns into a cartoonish fan service.
First film of the OT - Ben dies - Third film - Yoda dies
First film of the prequels - Qui-Gon dies - baby Jedi die
First film of the new - ******* dies - and so on.

 

[JD]

Some of the posts keep talking about TFA undoing the end of ROTJ, but really the only thing from TFA that was undone was Han and Leia's relationship.
If I remember what I read correctly, the First Order is still fairly small and off in an out of the way part of the galaxy, so really the Empire's defeat more or less held. The majority of the galaxy is controlled by the New Republic.
The whole reason Leia went off the start The Resistance was because The NR didn't see it as a big enough threat to devote it's attention to.
So up until the TFA the Empire wasn't really in that different of a state as it was at the end of RotJ.
Luke did lose his Academy and students, but they didn't exist yet when RotJ ended, so that wasn't undoing anything.

 

[TRON JA307020]

This +1.

And "happily ever after" doesn't happen in real life. I like my Star Wars to be a little more nuanced than some "la-dee-dah" fantasy.

Kor

I don't go to a space fantasy movie to experience real life. I have to live that every day. I go see them to get a great sci fi action film with great effects and great dialogue not some depressing real life B.S.

 

[fireproof78]

Ahem:

(Post #20)

With due respect to you, it was a general comment, not aimed at you or any specific poster and one that I have made a couple of times now.

 

[Gaith]

You do not object to the major characters dealing with adversity but you do object to them dealing with painful loss or us as an audience having to observe the painful loss of a major character.

No, I don't necessarily mind that one of our Big Three is killed in the course of the movie. I do mind that Han and Leia's only child becomes a school shooter, prompting Luke to apparently give up on helping the galaxy, as a backstory means of resetting the ANH/ESB-era galactic/Jedi status quo as quickly as narratively possible, and providing the framework for an ANH rehash. It's just nasty and lazy at the same time.

If I remember what I read correctly, the First Order is still fairly small and off in an out of the way part of the galaxy, so really the Empire's defeat more or less held. The majority of the galaxy is controlled by the New Republic.
The whole reason Leia went off the start The Resistance was because The NR didn't see it as a big enough threat to devote it's attention to.

I get that that's the canon context, but none of that was in the movie, and a lot of viewers were confused as to why the supposedly dominant galactic government needed a "Resistance" movement to defend it. The movie deliberately gave the impression the Empire was still very much a force to be reckoned with before they blew up those planets, even if the new EU materials "clarified" the filmmaker's manipulation in that regard.

 

[fireproof78]

I don't go to a space fantasy movie to experience real life. I have to live that every day. I go see them to get a great sci fi action film with great effects and great dialogue not some depressing real life B.S.

I'm curious now-for those dissatisfied with TFA's story (Besides Gaith-thank you for sharing ) what would you have preferred in terms of new characters, old characters and conflict?

For me, I personally could have done with less of Han Solo. The whole finding the Millennium Falcon plot and that he was down on his luck (again) was a little bit too on the nose for me and felt like it contributed little to the plot. I would have preferred him still being a general, with Leia off trying to convince the New Republic that the First Order is a legitimate threat. Luke was negotiating but disappeared enroute to the meeting, leading the Resistance to try and find him. The First Order is also trying to find him, and a young Knight of Ren, trying to prove himself, is sent to retrieve Skywalker as well.

That's a basic sketch.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

The characters had flaws in the original trilogy but hey succeeded with them. Why give them all crappy endings just because they are older? I mean Han was killed by his emo son for petes sake and Luke is looking to go out on the same trajectory. These were the heroes that saved the galaxy and pretty much let it fall back into darkness before most of them even reached retirement age. That's not drama its just a crappy plot line to let the younger and not nearly as iconic characters take over.

Repeating the same argument won't lead to people suddenly agreeing with you. Like I and other's have said, happy endings are boring, and don't lead to good drama. Further, we aren't talking about real people who were actually harmed, but characters in a story. I can name quite a few scifi sequels where characters did not have a happy ending, and there wasn't a major fuss (that I noticed, anyway).

Tron Legacy - Flynn spent 20 years trapped by Clu, and, as far as we know, dies at the end.
Rocky Balboa - Rocky's wife is dead, and his son hates him.
The Matrix Sequels - Trinity dies horribly, while Neo has his eyes melted, and then dies.
Terminator 2-3 - Sarah Conner dies off screen, Judgment Day happens.
Lord of the Rings - Frodo, unhappily, leaves the Shire. In the book, the Shire is conquered by Sauramon.

I'm sure there are more. However, I've made my point.

 

[Set Harth]

I like how we're still using "emo" to mean "displays frustration" instead of "listens to terrible music". The unspoken corollary is that the accuser is emotionless in the face of adversity, unbelievably stoic to the point of caricature. Color me not convinced.

 

[Gaith]

I can name quite a few scifi sequels where characters did not have a happy ending, and there wasn't a major fuss (that I noticed, anyway).

Lots of fans complained about Sarah dying offscreen before T3, and tons complained about Judgment Day happening, along with the Terminator's ambiguous line that it was "inevitable". (As in inevitable in any timeline, or just by that point of that day, when the Skynet virus was already all over the place, and his mission was to keep them alive, not to stop it?) There was also lots of crap to be had about Superman abandoning Lois and the kid he didn't know they had for several years in Superman Returns, as well as Scott's abrupt and meaningless death in The Last Stand. And when James T. Kirk died being crushed by a bridge, while saving an entire inhabited world? To this day, Trekkers complain that he didn't at least go down on the bridge of a ship, the fact that he helped save a whole planet be damned. And then there's the classic example, where tons of people still reject Alien3 entirely because it iced Newt and Hicks as a starting point.

So, yeah, fans have definitely taken exception to unhappy sequel beginnings before.

 

[Set Harth]

In the book, the Shire is conquered by Sauramon.

But then liberated ( and Saruman gets killed by Wormtongue )... so that doesn't count toward a presumed unhappy ending.

There was also lots of crap to be had about Superman abandoning Lois and the kid he didn't know they had

Which is still stupid. To be a "deadbeat dad" you have to at least know the kid exists.

 

[Gaith]

^ True, though some would fairly argue that he presumably had unprotected sex and then skipped town on a five-year trip without responsibly hanging around long enough to see if there'd been a pregnancy.

 

[fireproof78]

Lots of fans complained about Sarah dying offscreen before T3, and tons complained about Judgment Day happening, along with the Terminator's ambiguous line that it was "inevitable". (As in inevitable in any timeline, or just by that point of that day, when the Skynet virus was already all over the place, and his mission was to keep them alive, not to stop it?) There was also lots of crap to be had about Superman abandoning Lois and the kid he didn't know they had for several years in Superman Returns, as well as Scott's abrupt and meaningless death in The Last Stand. And when James T. Kirk died being crushed by a bridge, while saving an entire inhabited world? To this day, Trekkers complain that he didn't at least go down on the bridge of a ship, the fact that he helped save a whole planet be damned. And then there's the classic example, where tons of people still reject Alien3 entirely because it iced Newt and Hicks as a starting point.

So, yeah, fans have definitely taken exception to unhappy sequel beginnings before.

To avoid getting in to an argument over semantics, could you clarify? Is your point that fans have been upset over non-happy endings before so objecting to TFA is no exception?

Also, as a side note, the argument that is has happened before doesn't always fly well. I mean, I make the argument that Abrams Trek does things that TOS did before and apparently now that it was 2009 filmmakers should know better. Just saying