I left the theater after The Force Awakens cursing JJ Abrams name over the fact that he didn't have an original instinct in his entire body and feeling that this was the second of my favorite franchises that he had directed my least favorite movie in. That feeling lasted until The Rise of Skywalker, which then became my least favorite movie in the franchise.
I never actually answered the thread question, but my favorite Sequel Trilogy film - and favorite Star Wars film overall - is The Rise of Skywalker. It's miles better than the slop that Colin Treverow was originally planning to deliver prior to Carrie Fisher's death, put a spin on The Last Jedi's supposed revelations about Rey's history without actually contradicting said revelations, and finished off the entire overall narrative of the Skywalker Saga in a way that actually proved that JJ Abrams did in fact understand the deeper mythological themes of SW despite the impression that some of his public commentary might give to the contrary.
Well, this was news to me - Hamill recently told THR that he initally didn't want to reprise his role as Luke for the Sequel Trilogy, but felt compelled to sign on after Ford did. (And it's been previously reported, long ago, that Ford probably only signed on in order to get another Indiana Jones made.) Given the hurry with which Disney raced into production on the Sequel Trilogy, one can't help but wonder if, had Hamill had more time to review what the writers were planning, and less pressure to sign on, he might have demanded (or tried to demand) a more original and OT-honoring story than the rehash that TFA ended up as.
Due to the fact that Mark, Harrison, and Carrie all agreed to do the Sequel Trilogy at the same time before George sold Lucasfilm to Disney, I'm going to write this off as revisionist history.
"The reason I did Mandalorian was that Luke had a beginning and an end. There was no middle. It was like making a trilogy about James Bond as a young boy who first became aware of the Secret Service and wanted to be a part of it. Part two was him training to be an agent. Part three is earning his license to kill — The End. No From Russia With Love, Dr. No or Goldfinger. You never got to see Luke as a Master Jedi at the peak of his powers."
Good quote.
Good quote.
Citation needed, but even if that's true, it could be the three of them said a provisional yes to Lucas mainly to be nice, but Hamill didn't expect Ford to actually sign up with Disney once they bought the Lucasfilm. He could easily have figured Ford would consider his verbal agreement to be invalidated by said purchase.
In August 2012, George invited Mark and Carrie to lunch and asked them to return for the Sequel Trilogy, and they both immediately said 'Yes', with Harrison saying Yes not long after.
The sale of Lucasfilm to Disney was already in the works by that point, but because it wasn't officially finalized until October, Mark, Carrie, and Harrison had in fact agreed to reprise their roles for the ST prior simply due to timing.
On other topics, I just discovered (via Star Wars Explained) that current Canon has told us far more about Rey's parents than I'd been aware of, which now makes me really want to rewatch the Sequel Trilogy with said information in my mind and see how it impacts things.
I was pretty fired up on the walk home from the theater.
I agree.
After what we got, I would have much preferred Luke, Han and Leia story ending with ROTJ and letting the new characters carry the films foward with no legacy characters or connections.
The Rise of Skywalker. Yes, it was a mess, but I got to see Lando and Palpatine again, Luke depicted more like I wanted to see, Lando wasn't made a lout, the Knights of Ren were finally used, a decent secondary antagonist in Pryde, Rey and Leia as master and apprentice, Rey's best line about caring what Dameron's ex thought, and I got some answers to questions hanging over the other films. Were all the answers satisfying? Not really, but it was something.
Just not well. I guess I expected them to be higher-level Force users, but as it turns out they're below the Jedi/Sith level and are primarily good at tracking.
Which is infinity percent more than what Johnson gave us for those same questions.
Similar threads
