Star Wars Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

[Moiraine]

Didn't wanna make a new topic. Star Wars was the first movie Alec Guinness decide to take a % of the cut on (2.25%). Guessing he had a nice last 23 years of his life.

 

 

Rare Star Wars 1977 Alec Guinness Interview on Parkinson Talk Show - YouTube

 

[knapplc]

Well, what do you know...

 

 

‘Star Wars’ Author Tells All About Removed Rey-Finn Romance and His ‘Last Jedi’ Retcon Story

One request that “bothered” Foster while writing “The Force Awakens” was to remove the romance he was setting up for Rey and Finn, played by Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in the film. The two characters are not romantically involved in “The Force Awakens” movie, but Foster said Abrams’ screenplay was “obviously the beginnings of a relationship” between Finn and Rey.

 

“I expected to see that developed further in [‘The Last Jedi’],” Foster said. “And zero happened with it. And we all know why zero happened with it — and there’s no need to go into it in-depth — but that’s, sadly, just the way things are.”

 

Foster was forced to remove any inclination of a romance between the characters in his “The Force Awakens” book, as the film’s would later develop a sort-of romance between Finn and Rose Tico (introduced in “The Last Jedi” but nonexistent in “The Rise of Skywalker”) and a will-they-won’t-they between Rey and Kylo Ren (introduced in “The Last Jedi” and sealed with a kiss in “The Rise of Skywalker,” but Abrams said it was more a “brother-sister thing”). Foster was also forced to cut a line of dialogue he added to a scene between Rey and Han Solo.

 

“There’s a scene in the film and in the book where Rey has come aboard the Millennium Falcon, and Han Solo can’t get things to work, and she fixes it,” Foster said. “Han says something to the effect of ‘good work’ or ‘good job,’ reluctantly, he says it. And then I had him say, ‘Don’t get cocky, kid.’ Which, of course, is a throwback to what he says to Luke in the first film. I thought that was a wonderful way of connecting the character to the first film and the first story. I thought fans would love that, and they made me take it out.”

 

Speaking of “The Last Jedi,” Foster also revealed the existence of a treatment he wrote for an “Episode IX” book that retconned the events of Rian Johnson’s second installment of the sequel trilogy. Foster called “The Last Jedi” both “a terrible film” and “a terrible ‘Star Wars’ film,” adding that his treatment “attempted to explain a lot of the really silly things that happened” in “The Last Jedi.” The treatment was written for fans and was not something Disney commissioned.

 

One plot point the treatment retconned was how Rey “suddenly had more Force powers than anybody.” Foster came up with a storyline where Rey had a disease that required replacing part of her brain with mechanics, thus making her part droid and more able to quickly acquire a new skillset.

 

“That gives her the ability to learn remarkably quickly and also enhances her existing Force powers, and that’s how she can throw boulders around at the end of Episode VIII,” Foster said. “Also, it allows her to be instantly simpatico with other droids. I thought this would be a really fun story element, as well as explaining why and how she’s able to do these remarkable things.”

 

Foster has no plans at this time to make public his “Episode IX” treatment. Head over to Midnight’s Edge’s video page to watch Foster’s full interview in its entirety.

[Moiraine]

On 12/29/2020 at 1:38 PM, knapplc said:

Well, what do you know...

 

 

‘Star Wars’ Author Tells All About Removed Rey-Finn Romance and His ‘Last Jedi’ Retcon Story

One request that “bothered” Foster while writing “The Force Awakens” was to remove the romance he was setting up for Rey and Finn, played by Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in the film. The two characters are not romantically involved in “The Force Awakens” movie, but Foster said Abrams’ screenplay was “obviously the beginnings of a relationship” between Finn and Rey.

 

“I expected to see that developed further in [‘The Last Jedi’],” Foster said. “And zero happened with it. And we all know why zero happened with it — and there’s no need to go into it in-depth — but that’s, sadly, just the way things are.”

 

Foster was forced to remove any inclination of a romance between the characters in his “The Force Awakens” book, as the film’s would later develop a sort-of romance between Finn and Rose Tico (introduced in “The Last Jedi” but nonexistent in “The Rise of Skywalker”) and a will-they-won’t-they between Rey and Kylo Ren (introduced in “The Last Jedi” and sealed with a kiss in “The Rise of Skywalker,” but Abrams said it was more a “brother-sister thing”). Foster was also forced to cut a line of dialogue he added to a scene between Rey and Han Solo.

 

“There’s a scene in the film and in the book where Rey has come aboard the Millennium Falcon, and Han Solo can’t get things to work, and she fixes it,” Foster said. “Han says something to the effect of ‘good work’ or ‘good job,’ reluctantly, he says it. And then I had him say, ‘Don’t get cocky, kid.’ Which, of course, is a throwback to what he says to Luke in the first film. I thought that was a wonderful way of connecting the character to the first film and the first story. I thought fans would love that, and they made me take it out.”

 

Speaking of “The Last Jedi,” Foster also revealed the existence of a treatment he wrote for an “Episode IX” book that retconned the events of Rian Johnson’s second installment of the sequel trilogy. Foster called “The Last Jedi” both “a terrible film” and “a terrible ‘Star Wars’ film,” adding that his treatment “attempted to explain a lot of the really silly things that happened” in “The Last Jedi.” The treatment was written for fans and was not something Disney commissioned.

 

One plot point the treatment retconned was how Rey “suddenly had more Force powers than anybody.” Foster came up with a storyline where Rey had a disease that required replacing part of her brain with mechanics, thus making her part droid and more able to quickly acquire a new skillset.

 

“That gives her the ability to learn remarkably quickly and also enhances her existing Force powers, and that’s how she can throw boulders around at the end of Episode VIII,” Foster said. “Also, it allows her to be instantly simpatico with other droids. I thought this would be a really fun story element, as well as explaining why and how she’s able to do these remarkable things.”

 

Foster has no plans at this time to make public his “Episode IX” treatment. Head over to Midnight’s Edge’s video page to watch Foster’s full interview in its entirety.

 

 

 

Other than just seeing the mains again, Finn and Poe were my favorite things about the first movie. So where they went with them sucked. 

One plot point the treatment retconned was how Rey “suddenly had more Force powers than anybody.” Foster came up with a storyline where Rey had a disease that required replacing part of her brain with mechanics, thus making her part droid and more able to quickly acquire a new skillset.

 

^ This is actually worse than her just happening to be really powerful.

[knapplc]

Not an Onion headline.

 

 

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

 In Abrams final trilogy, you could see them blatantly pandering to the fandom, trying to go note for note with everything beloved and nostalgic about the original trilogy. But it did look like they were just plugging s#!t in, knowing they'd be making billions regardless. It's remarkable to hear Abrams admit this. I suppose you could put the final narrative on paper and it might have sounded okay, but who knew it would be such a joyless exercise? 

 

I honestly went into The Force Awakens with an open mind, but halfway through I couldn't wait for it to be over. The final episode made me wonder if the entire franchise had been over-rated the whole time 

 

 

[Enhance]

I'm anguished between laughing and just getting pissed off after reading that headline, but that's kind of the fine line where this whole recent trilogy existed anyways.

 

It's frankly unbelievable. I'll admit that I had fun watching the films, for the most part. They were entertaining. But from a plot and overall cohesion perspective, it's pretty obvious there was a lot left to be desired... particularly since the first film is a near carbon copy of A New Hope, but with different characters, settings and just some narrative adjustments. The underlying story structure is almost identical and they even replicated several scenes.

 

And I've got to be honest... that's one thing that I think JJ and the whole enterprise needs criticism for. I can get how a lack of a 'plan' got in the way of the overall trilogy, but I don't know how you excuse the plot and structure of that first film.

[whateveritis1224]

2 hours ago, Enhance said:

I'm anguished between laughing and just getting pissed off after reading that headline, but that's kind of the fine line where this whole recent trilogy existed anyways.

 

It's frankly unbelievable. I'll admit that I had fun watching the films, for the most part. They were entertaining. But from a plot and overall cohesion perspective, it's pretty obvious there was a lot left to be desired... particularly since the first film is a near carbon copy of A New Hope, but with different characters, settings and just some narrative adjustments. The underlying story structure is almost identical and they even replicated several scenes.

 

And I've got to be honest... that's one thing that I think JJ and the whole enterprise needs criticism for. I can get how a lack of a 'plan' got in the way of the overall trilogy, but I don't know how you excuse the plot and structure of that first film.

The Force Awakens story was similar, but the character's in the story weren't the same. The leads were a scavenger girl who was abandoned and wanted to stay on the same planet to make sure if her family does come back she doesn't miss them and a defecting stormtrooper who was taken from his home and wouldn't be apart of genocide so he left vs. farmboy who's looking for any chance to get away from home and into the galaxy, a scoundrel swept up into the story, and a princess who's been fighting to overthrow the fascistic government.

 

So while the beginning has the same story beats (droid with important information is found by a local and then is brought to the rebellion/resistance by the wisened old mentor who eventually faces the main face of the antagonist force and dies), the characters are different enough to be interesting, especially going forward. Which is probably where this is coming from. I truly believe that Abrahams had an idea of how he wanted to next 2 episodes to proceed, but due to the rush to get the movies out as quick as possible, they let Johnson do whatever he wanted with the middle movie of the trilogy.

[Enhance]

25 minutes ago, whateveritis1224 said:

The Force Awakens story was similar, but the character's in the story weren't the same. The leads were a scavenger girl who was abandoned and wanted to stay on the same planet to make sure if her family does come back she doesn't miss them and a defecting stormtrooper who was taken from his home and wouldn't be apart of genocide so he left vs. farmboy who's looking for any chance to get away from home and into the galaxy, a scoundrel swept up into the story, and a princess who's been fighting to overthrow the fascistic government.

 

So while the beginning has the same story beats (droid with important information is found by a local and then is brought to the rebellion/resistance by the wisened old mentor who eventually faces the main face of the antagonist force and dies). So while the story structure is similar, the characters are different enough to be interesting, especially going forward. Which is probably where this is coming from. I truly believe that Abrahams had an idea of how he wanted to next 2 episodes to proceed, but due to the rush to get the movies out as quick as possible, they let Johnson do whatever he wanted with the middle movie of the trilogy.

Here's my problem with the plot, broken down a bit more directly. It starts with a question: which Star Wars film am I talking about, A New Hope or The Force Awakens?

 

A prominent member of a rebellion, carrying critical information to the rebellion's survival, is captured by a powerful military force. In order to prevent this information from falling into the wrong hands, this rebellion leader puts it into a droid who is then marooned on a sparsely populated desert planet. The droid is discovered by a young inhabitant protagonist, desperate for something more out there in the universe.

 

Inevitably, this protagonist and droid must escape the planet in order to avoid the powerful military force. Along the way, they meet a wizened but aged fighter... who fills a fatherly and mentor-like role for our protagonist. While trying to return the droid, our protagonist is captured and stranded on a space weapon capable of destroying planets. They now must escape the clutches of the aforementioned military force, but not before seeing their fatherly mentor killed. Our protagonist's escape leads to an all out space assault on the military force's strongest weapon. The space fighters must navigate a deadly trench in order to cause an explosive chain reaction to destroy the weapon, all the while our young protagonist takes their first steps into a larger understanding of a mythical 'Force' that their body is capable of influencing.

I won't deny that there are set pieces and twists to the plot that make it interesting, entertaining and different, but the foundations of the films are nearly 100% identical. It's lazy, and for a franchise with the resources and potential of Star Wars, there really isn't an excuse for it.

[Mavric]

7 hours ago, whateveritis1224 said:

The Force Awakens story was similar, but the character's in the story weren't the same. The leads were a scavenger girl who was abandoned and wanted to stay on the same planet to make sure if her family does come back she doesn't miss them and a defecting stormtrooper who was taken from his home and wouldn't be apart of genocide so he left vs. farmboy who's looking for any chance to get away from home and into the galaxy, a scoundrel swept up into the story, and a princess who's been fighting to overthrow the fascistic government.

 

So while the beginning has the same story beats (droid with important information is found by a local and then is brought to the rebellion/resistance by the wisened old mentor who eventually faces the main face of the antagonist force and dies), the characters are different enough to be interesting, especially going forward. Which is probably where this is coming from. I truly believe that Abrahams had an idea of how he wanted to next 2 episodes to proceed, but due to the rush to get the movies out as quick as possible, they let Johnson do whatever he wanted with the middle movie of the trilogy.

 

I'm not sure why people find it so hard to believe that Abrams likes to retell the same story with his own spin on it.  It's exactly what he did with Star Trek.

[knapplc]

15 hours ago, Enhance said:

Here's my problem with the plot, broken down a bit more directly. It starts with a question: which Star Wars film am I talking about, A New Hope or The Force Awakens?

 

A prominent member of a rebellion, carrying critical information to the rebellion's survival, is captured by a powerful military force. In order to prevent this information from falling into the wrong hands, this rebellion leader puts it into a droid who is then marooned on a sparsely populated desert planet. The droid is discovered by a young inhabitant protagonist, desperate for something more out there in the universe.

 

Inevitably, this protagonist and droid must escape the planet in order to avoid the powerful military force. Along the way, they meet a wizened but aged fighter... who fills a fatherly and mentor-like role for our protagonist. While trying to return the droid, our protagonist is captured and stranded on a space weapon capable of destroying planets. They now must escape the clutches of the aforementioned military force, but not before seeing their fatherly mentor killed. Our protagonist's escape leads to an all out space assault on the military force's strongest weapon. The space fighters must navigate a deadly trench in order to cause an explosive chain reaction to destroy the weapon, all the while our young protagonist takes their first steps into a larger understanding of a mythical 'Force' that their body is capable of influencing.

I won't deny that there are set pieces and twists to the plot that make it interesting, entertaining and different, but the foundations of the films are nearly 100% identical. It's lazy, and for a franchise with the resources and potential of Star Wars, there really isn't an excuse for it.

 

It's the same Christmas tree. They just put the ornaments on in a different order this time.

[knapplc]

 

[Cdog923]

...I'd go for a Matt Smith-as-Palpatine series on Disney+.