#anti-sw sequels

[swsequelsalt]

I just saw someone on Twitter deadass claim that the moment up top is exactly the same as the moment below it,

"This is Luke acting out of fear," they say. "Both are completely in character," they tell me.

To which *I* say:

Are we really gonna do this?

Are we REALLY gonna compare:

Greenhorn Jedi Luke, after being tempted and manipulated by the Emperor for some time, learning that everyone he cares about was walking into a trap of the Emperor's design, and then hearing Vader — who has murdered thousands, if not MILLIONS of people — threaten him with making his sister turn to the darkness...

To Elder Jedi Master Luke, decades later, having trained numerous students for some time, sensing that this nephew is being turned to darkness, going to confront him privately at night — and then straight igniting his fuckin' weapon on him while he sleeps?

NO.

Fucking NO.

Get the FUCK outta here with that.

[short-wooloo]

People gripe about new SW shows contradicting/retconning lower canon material (not a new thing, this is how it's always been), but you gotta understand it'll be worth it

Because one day something will wipe away that stupid Rise of Kylo Ren comic and its idiotic "akshully Ben Solo didn't kill Luke's students like the last two movies said he did, it was a magic lightening strike that instantly killed them all" thing

[the-far-bright-center]

Trying to interact with Star Wars fandom these days is so frustrating because so many fans don’t seem to realise how much they are allowing Disney's reframing of the Lucas-era material to dictate their understanding of the story and its characters. Why should Disney’s ‘additions’ even be considered a valid frame of reference for material that predates it? Especially when not even made by the same creator? The Lucas saga has been around for decades prior to any of Disney's retcons and meddling, after all. So why people expect OG saga fans to take their Disney-influenced interpretations seriously, I’ll never know.

[arcats900]

Guys I thought the point of ROTJ was that Luke understood the problems with the jedi order and would go on to remake it into something that was less corrupt, understood repression is unhealthy, understood that the dark side is something people can come back from and allow attachments. But no, he somehow makes the same exact mistakes as the old order and then goes shocked Pikachu when the same outcome happens. He is so befuddled by this, that for some reason he forgoes his duties and fucks off to a jedi planet. You know, instead of trying to save his nephew WHO HE WAS CHARGED WITH CARING FOR. Then he is shocked when his flawless plan of hiding on a planet associated with the Jedi, leads to him being found by someone who wants to be a Jedi. And then he spouts some shit about how the Jedi are actually not based but instead are cringe. I could understand this coming from Dooku Ahsoka or Anakin, three Jedi who where fucked over by the order, but it is kinda weird that the fucking GRANDMASTER OF THE JEDI says this. My brother in Christ, YOU ARE THE LEADER OF THE JEDI. YOU CONTORL HOW THE NEW ORDER IS TRAINED AND STRUCTURED! Seriously, I am sick of the "Jedi are bad" narrative because it is being put in places it does not belong. It belongs in stories like the Prequels or the Acolyte because it is either about the fall of the Jedi or the Sith. Like it makes since in those stories. But in the sequel trilogy it makes no sense because 1. The New Jedi Order is new and thus will not have the problems of the Order, because it is lead by different people who where raised in different times.

2. It is a continuation of the OT. The end of the OT paints Luke's victory as not because of the Old Order's teachings but because of his belief in his father. Luke's compassion is what saves the day and HE is the grandmaster of the new order. 3. Motherfucker it is the RETURN OF THE JEDI! Not the The Short-Lived Comeback of the Jedi.

4. Telling the same story over and over again is boring. The ST is just a worse OT to me. It just feels like all the original stuff from the ST is either watered down (Poor Finn, you deserved more screentime) or mangled to resemble the sacred cow that is the OT (By the time of ROS they made Rey a worse version of Luke)

The Disney Canon had the chance to play with one of the most influential franchises out their and they went the safe route. But what can you expect from the company that churns out Live action remakes of their best hits instead of doing what they did with Enchanto.

On a less insane note, at least the Force Awakens introduced me to star wars. And I can see why some enjoy TLJ, it has interesting ideas and I'm a prequel girlie so I can't judge. I have no such niceties about the Rise of Skywalker. The film itself, I am sure its fans are lovely people

edit: grammar

[dailydragon08]

I hate the “no attachments” rhetoric so much and I hate that both Ahsoka and Luke in Mando and TBOBF fell straight back into it. Cuz they especially should know more than anyone that the feelings of isolation, feeling like you’re not in a safe space to healthily process your emotions—which requires actually feeling them and being in an environment where you’re allowed to feel them—and feeling like you have a support system where you can speak your feelings without judgment to get guidance and support is REQUIRED for Jedi to stay on the light side. Cuz loneliness, feeling like a burden, feeling like if you have one bad emotion it makes you all bad because of rules around feelings that are unrealistic and too rigorous makes you way more susceptible to the dark side.

Trying to beat bad emotions out of people completely is unrealistic. Expecting literal children to not feel those feelings and just know what to do with them cuz you’ve created a space where those feelings are forbidden is unrealistic. Pushing feelings and emotions down and “burying” them (re: obi wan telling luke “bury your feelings deep down” in ROTJ) and expecting those people to be perfectly healthy is unrealistic. Wanting this level of control over people, their thoughts, and their emotions, and this black and white thinking is not only toxic and dangerous, but is akin to cult culture. The PT era Jedi were extremists in this way and just too blind and couldn’t accept any criticism enough to see it because for some reason, a bunch of old guys decided evolution was not allowed and they’d just keep running the system the same way they always had with no room for change and that would somehow be this foolproof path to survival—which is a complaint a lot of people have about our current irl political system and is causing a lot of damage, btw.

Like wasn’t that the whole point of showing the Jedi’s fall? And doesn’t clone wars especially show how this thinking created all these cracks in the system that Palpatine was easily able to exploit and manipulate and Anakin was just someone who wanted change in the order and he was ostracized for it, so Palpatine latched onto him and Anakin was like “oh finally someone values me,” just to be manipulated and abused and have his whole life blown up to the point that he thought the empire was his only option (obv not excusing the atrocities, just saying I can see how he got to where he did mentally by ROTS)? Like he literally tells Luke that they can team up to overthrow the emperor and in ROTJ, when Luke tries to get him to run with him pre-throne room battle, he says “it’s too late for me,” so he KNOWS this is bad and only going to get worse, but has resigned himself to it.

Like wasn’t the whole point of the OT and the “I can’t kill my own father/there’s still good in him/I can turn him back to the good side” meant to prove that Jedi DO NEED healthy connections in order to thrive and stay on the light side? If they wanna forbid anything, they should be forbidding possession and control, but the PT Jedi Council instead used that for their own benefit and lacked any self awareness to see they’d just become what they were preaching against.

Like give me a post-OT Jedi council who teaches healthy connection and letting things go that aren’t meant for you to control and that friendships and relationships can be powerful things that bring you back to the light in your darkest moments, and a more Legends-esque New Jedi Order that values emotional health and well-being and is a safe space for not only the galaxy, but Force sensitives, no matter how they’re built instead of trying to force everyone into the same box. This is the order I wanted to see Luke cultivate in canon and I will forever be salty that this isn’t what we got.

[bibxrbie]

Sometimes, I really want an animated show about the OT characters. Their adventures, serious and silly, as they become friends and family long before Luke and Leia discover that they're siblings. Stories about Leia struggling with going from princess to general. Luke struggling with being a Jedi and a commander. The Rogue Squadron and their adventures. Han and Chewie barely keeping up with the Space Twin shenanigans.

But, then I remember how each of these characters were treated in the Sequel Trilogy, and I realise that it doesn't matter. No amount of stories about them will change the fact that they all die alone away from each other, that they gave up their childhood, their homes, themselves to the safety of the galaxy and that none of it ever mattered. And I can't enjoy canon stories about them because it won't change their ending, and I can't forget that.

[thesunwillshineonusagain757]

So I've been seeing again the Sequel trilogy because I'm a masochist, but what I increasingly realise when I watch these films is that Rian Johnson is the Madonna to J. J. Abrams' Lady Gaga. Rian Johnson really created something different with The Last Jedi, and J. J. Abrams, just copied A New Hope in Force Awakens and when he came back for The Rise of Skywalker, he threw away the work of a filmmaker who unlike him didn’t half copy other people by turning their stories into something reductive. Because while he screwed up the last film and ruined the narrative, he took story bits he liked from Johnson's and Luca's work, and gave us a reductive piece of work. And that along with all the films ( different franchises ) in which Abrahms promised a lot but delivered nothing I can now safely say I have beaf with J. J. Abrams and Disney for killing Star Wars for me. Thank god of AO3 and fanfic writers.

[oreolesbian]

still actively seething about how not only did disney ruin everything about luke skywalker and his legacy as a character in the sequels, but they are now taking one of his most beloved legends stories, heir to the empire, and doing it without him

[younglingslayer300]

one of the reasons i hate the sequels, regardless of quality, is the fact that they undermine the original trilogy. i don't think they're very well written, and frankly i like the prequels than the ot anyway, but the main issue is that this is a franchise, and the sequels have neatly undermined everything about that franchise.

some of the other newer content does this for me as well - again, it's not an issue of quality, i don't care how good the new tv shows and books or whatever actually are, but they take away from the basis of star wars! the point, tragic though it was, was that no one from the original jedi order survived, and luke's new jedi order was an entirely fresh start. the sequels are terrible because they make it look like luke failed badly (bad move to undermine the main character of the beginning of all of star wars?? but ok??), and actually someone else has to come along and do his own journey for him (again, moronic thing to do to your original protagonist).

and in terms of other new content - i love lots of new characters, like ahsoka, but at this point it's getting insane. yoda's baby frog cousin survived order 66. this random ginger survived order 66. another padawan survived it. actually whole hosts of padawans survived it. the villain in ahsoka's show was some random guy who survived it. the fucking LIBRARIAN survived order 66, even if she did die a year later. order 66 was the most pathetic failure of a mass murder in the history of fictional mass murders, and while that is kind of funny, it does also make the whole point of star wars stupid. it's a big tragedy that luke is the only jedi left, and while he can start a new order, there's no way to get back thousands of years of living history - except that actually darth vader, one of the most feared villains in fictional history, was pretty incompetent, as was palpatine, the master of the downfall of a thousand year old republic. everyone has survived. luke is whining about nothing. why did he face palpatine alone when he could have called on hordes of force sensitives with as much/more training than him. you're building your wall with material from the ground below it?? has anyone at disney actually watched star wars

and ok, the tv shows are sometimes kind of counter-productive, but not everyone's going to watch those, they're not such a big deal. but to undermine the original trilogy in another trilogy?? to make the original heroes look bad and incompetent in the main films? what's the point of adding to a franchise if you're going to make the basis of the franchise look bad

[fanfic-lover-girl]

[short-wooloo]

I have always been a person who likes the sequels (TFA saved SW for me, I had been losing interest before it came out), but 49%'s reelection and inauguration has given me a new appreciation for them

The sequels are imperfect, I will not disagree, but I believe that it's core messages still are solid:

That tyranny does not die, it can come back, fascists will bite and claw their way back to power, even as they are rotting pestilent corpses in front of us

that we who oppose it must remain vigilant, that we cannot lose hope in the face of defeat, that we must and can fight on, and most importantly, that we can win even in the face of defeat and despair, that the tyrants will fall-will die-once more

[caripr94]

Unpopular opinion: I know that a lot of Star Wars fans are peeved about the tragedy of the sequels negating much of the happy ending of the original trilogy, but honestly, that's actually one of my favorite parts of the sequels. Why? Because it means that well-intentioned hypocritical nutheads like Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Bail Organa don't get to get away with underhanded, morally unethical stunts like separating the twins from each other, kidnapping them from their biological families, lying to them about their heritage, grooming them against their own father, and using them to try to restore their own power and get everything back to the old status quo that got them into this mess in the first place. We all get to see the consequences of such tactics and nobody (who's paying attention) gets to say that "this and that" was okay because everything turned out fine in the end.

Because even though Luke managed to break the cycle of darkness and abuse on his end by the end of the original trilogy, we never really saw that happening with Leia on her end, nor did we see many of those family issues from that separation and manipulation or many of the problems with the Old Jedi Order or any of the problems with the Old Republic get even addressed. Many of the underlying issues of the prequels that came from people not learning from their mistakes just got swept under the rug. At least with the tragic events that happened in the sequel era (at least in TFA, before Lucasfilm messed everything up in the subsequent sequels, which I don't count as canon), we get to see many of the effects of such corrupt and dysfunctional methods that these "heroic" elders used, and in some way, there's some poetic justice in that, even at such a high price. And I know that many of you are saying that "Star Wars is supposed to be a fairy tale or myth; it's not supposed to be realistic", but let me remind you that not every fairy tale has gotten a happily ever after (at least in its early versions) and it was actually quite rare for mythological heroes to get a happily ever after either.

Disclaimer: This is mostly about TFA, which was much more consistent with the original lore. I acknowledge that the later two sequels didn't have as much consistency or respect for the original lore (or even with TFA), so I don't count them as canon.

[the-far-bright-center]

"Over a decade after its release, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) still stands out as George Lucas’s summative and most masterful artistic statement. I use the word “summative” deliberately, because Sith incorporates a broad cinematic heritage, and also draws from Lucas’s own interests in narrative/illustrative art, architecture, world religion and mythology, anthropology, philosophy, pedagogy, and even race-car driving. In finding a tonally and visually radical common ground for these fixations, the film also addresses and subverts the director’s own oeuvre; and, as has always been the case with Star Wars, Sith contends with the poles of past and future, searching for (and sometimes grappling with) the space between. Of course, the Star Wars saga has always been anachronistic, employing science fiction iconography while also pulling famously from Joseph Campbell’s theory of monomythic commonalities in world narratives; the original film, released in 1977, also acted as a gateway to a commercial future, opening the floodgates (along with Steven Spielberg’s Jaws [1975]) for a new kind of American blockbuster cinema. However, while Lucas and Spielberg offered auteurist statements on genre that were also fortunate enough to generate mass appeal, the majority of big-budget fare has since become studio-incubated and sanctioned by market control groups, resulting in films that are often devoid of passion for cinematic language. Ironically and sadly enough, this can certainly be said of J. J. Abrams’s insipid The Force Awakens (2015), a reactionary attempt to conserve a falsely utopic view of the saga’s origins."

—Mike Thorn, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: George Lucas' Greatest Artistic Statement?

[passionesolja]

Serious question and all answers is valid.

So, the Darth Plagueis novel keeps a lot of shit about Sidious’ training unknown (we get one snippet of what his early training was) but

like what do y’all think Plagueis did to Sidious to make him Sidious?

Bc yeah Sheev Palpatine is a selfish and bratty young man but you’d have to be super biased against Sheev Palpatine to not see the huge difference in personality and behavior between Sheev Palpatine pre-Plagueis and Darth Sidious.

Sheev is going against his dad and being really petty about it, but a lil self centered brat. Sidious is a psychopath and a puppeteer.

I mean that generally I am NOT pro-Cosinga Palpatine. I can’t stand him he literally was a terrible father and his treatment of sheev is what made Sidious form into existence. He the Dario Brando of Star Wars tbh

Basically what I’m tryna say is that Sheev Palpatine as we see him before Plagueis is nothing like Sidious, like yeah you can draw some vague connections but realistically, Sheev probably would’ve become a better person once he hit 21 and matured a lil bit. Maybe lived life more and learned empathy from it.

Sheev Palpatine was not on the course to being a Sidious type Mf before he became Plaguies’ apprentice.

Maybe I’m just biased here but Sheev not having tact and empathy during an vehicular homicide he committed when he was probably like 13-15 years old doesn’t damn him to being Sidious. It doesn’t say anything about his true nature as a human being other than him being a lil immature and selfish dumbass kid.

Anakin wiped out a whole village at 19 but mfs still paint him as an victim. Sheev was 17 when he became Plaguies’ apprentice so we can garner that he wasn’t that old when he accidentally smoked them two pedestrians.

I know that y’all like to paint Sidious as being evil but it’s obvious that whatever happened to Maul and Vader and nem likewise also happened to Sidious but Sidious just was boss bitch enough to take Plaguies out.