Star Wars Episode 8

[CyberCubed]

I wonder what they could of done otherwise. The set-up was already done with Episode 7 with Luke already "missing" or "hiding" and Han was already killed at the end of Episode 7, so already we wouldn't have had the original cast reunited anyway.

Even if Luke was written differently, I imagine we'd only have him share a few scenes with Leia, and then most of it would be Luke training Rey (even if it might have gone a little differently) and I'm not sure what else. Honestly most of the damage was already done with the way Episode 7 was written.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I wonder what they could of done otherwise. The set-up was already done with Episode 7 with Luke already "missing" or "hiding" and Han was already killed at the end of Episode 7, so already we wouldn't have had the original cast reunited anyway.

Even if Luke was written differently, I imagine we'd only have him share a few scenes with Leia, and then most of it would be Luke training Rey (even if it might have gone a little differently) and I'm not sure what else. Honestly most of the damage was already done with the way Episode 7 was written.

Not really. Han aside, episode 7 threw a lot of possible directions for the next writer/directors to go with 8 and 9.

Things clearly set up by 7:

* Plagueis being revealed as Snoke. They even used the same music the Plagueis scene had in Episode 3. So the trilogy could end with all the good guys facing the master of Palpatine.

* The story of how Maz got Luke's lightsaber from Episode 5.

* Finn becoming a Jedi. A love story with Rey.

* Luke coming out of retirement and doing badass Jedi Master stuff. Reuniting with Leia, of course. Training Rey properly.

* Some kind of payoff to Max Von Sydow's character.

* Rey being revealed the daughter of Luke. Daisy has publicly said she was told that she was such during the filming of 7.

To name just a few things. But it turned out Rian Johnson just came along and decided, "OK, I'm going to do none of those things that JJ set up and do some kind of meta commentary on 'nothing matters.'" And the SJWs saw actual fans upset about this and Episode 8 and decided they loved this.

[Leo656]

At some point in the past 10-15 years, "subverting expectations" became more important than just telling a good story.

You see it with everything nowadays and there's a bunch of people who swear by it. Any criticism you come up with, they fire back with "At least it wasn't predictable and boring! It sUbVerTs eXpEctAtIons!1!"

I don't care if an arc or a plotline is "predictable" so long as it's told and executed well. But almost all of these attempts to "subvert expectations" fall flat on their ass, because they try SO hard to do That that everything else - including logical plot and character development - falls far into the background.

I always come back to the Pizza Delivery example. If you order a pizza, and the guy walks up to your door, rings the bell and slaps you with a frozen carp, are you realistically gonna be Happy or Sad? And are you gonna be MORE happy or sad when the guy insists you should actually love what he did because "Hey, you didn't expect THAT, did ya!"? Like "No, I wasn't expecting That, because no reasonable person would ever have." Just because you swerved someone doesn't mean you did a good job.

Maybe this Johnson clown was a wrestling fan. That's about the only time when you can constantly deliver the opposite of what you promised and forever delay any kind of real payoff to your storytelling, and even then it only happens because the fans are too dumb to ever complain or stop paying for a product that repeatedly insults their intelligence. So maybe that's where Johnson got the idea.