Taking Argonis's suggestion, I decided to open up a forum where everyone can talk about their thoughts on Disney's Star Wars. And with the Mandalorian released and Rise of Skywalker coming out next month, I figured why not talk about it. What is it that you enjoy or didn't enjoy about the movies? After all, I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts from both sides and hope to start a discussion about it. And once Episode 9 is released, then maybe we can give overall thoughts on this trilogy as a whole.

Also, please be civil about it. No need to make rude comments.

To be entirely honest I like almost all of it. I understand a lot of the criticisms of 7, but I honestly really enjoyed 8. The casino scenes are actually not even 15 minutes of the movie, which is barely the pace ruiner people make it out to be, and the rest of the criticisms of the writing I think are kind of flawed.

Snoke wasn't explained any better than Palpatine was in the original trilogy: old evil force man in both. Before the prequels the emperor was the same thing, and palps also went out like a bitch. He just got tossed down a shaft. I think the bombers scene was also quite good. Are those bombers hilariously impractical? Absolutely. Are they more impractical than a tank with legs? Definitely not. AT-ATs are just as dumb. As for all the force stuff being "made up on the spot" I think that's fine, too. Force lighting was never explained until later, they casually drop the bomb in the prequels that the force can make you immortal and impregnate people, so the force projection being able to interact with stuff feels kinda fine to me.

I get the criticism of luke, too, but people change over time. I don't really want Luke to waltz in and be the new protagonist because then what's the point of Rey? If you want to see Luke pilot an x-wing and kick some ass that's what the OT is for; giving new people the spotlight isn't necessarily bad.

The hyperspace ram thing was also kind of fine with me. I'm aware it doesn't match up with the lore, but as much as it tries to be Star Wars isn't a hard magic type of story. Crazy shit can just kinda happen. I think in the OG lore hyperspace is like a parallel universe or an alternate dimension or something but honestly it seemed fine to me. This seems like exactly why Disney de-canonized legends, to give them creative freedom to do some wild shit. As for why nobody else has thought of this, why didn't anyone put a fucking shield on the Death Star's power whatever in 6 after they fucked up in 4? Why does General Grievous not have some bare minimum resistance to blaster shots for all that armor? Why does stormtrooper armor not work? Why doesn't Palpatine just keep making clones instead of recruiting a bunch of randos who can't aim to save their lives? It's not as if there aren't other holes in the lore that exist for the sake of cinematography or the plot.

Rogue One was fun and Solo was a bit less fun, the Mandalorian is a masterpiece, hopefully 9 is also pretty good but J.J. Abrams isn't my fav so ehh. We'll see.

Alright, so here's the thing...

Looking just at the "main" movies, (so not R1 and Solo) here's my thoughts...

Episode 7:
It's actually really good. I know a lot of people say the writing is bad but I just... don't see it? Most people who go "hey the writing is bad" point to scenes where the writing is actually *good* and they just weren't paying attention.
Examples: Rey knows how the Falcon works... because she salvages ships for a living... Like, if someone salvaged car parts I would assume they, ya know, know how cars work. Or Rey being decent with a lightsaber. We SEE her beat down some thugs in the first like 15 minutes with her Donatello Staff. It's not the same, but like, come on.
That said, I do find Rey to be somewhat bland as a character. BUT I had the same problem with Luke in the original trilogy. Rey and Luke in their stints as main character just kind of feel like they don't really have motivations until the end of their second movies. They just kinda feel like they're along for the ride and that's kind of it, then get "a reason to fight" way late in their series.

Episode 7: 7/10. Pretty good.

Episode 8:
So. I have a lot more to say about this one. Half is REALLY good, half is REALLY bad.

Let's cover the criticisms first.

Luke's Change of Character: It makes sense. He found a reason to fight in Episode 5/6 and became a sort of heroic symbol... only for it all to go to shit 20 years later. All his students died or bailed, the Government he supported got trampled and replaced, his sister and best friend basically just dashed themselves to the stars. I mean, I get being a grumpy old guy. HOWEVER I think the whole "I'm gonna kill Ben" thing was really poorly done. It didn't make a whole lot of sense. Like, "He felt evil" doesn't make sense for Luke, especially since the end of episode 6 he basically "turns" the evil, malevolent warlord into a good guy. I think it could have been done better. Maybe Ben finds some Sith tomes and feels angry that Luke kept this "side" hidden from him, then tries to kill Luke. Luke feels like he's a failure for turning his nephew into a monster.Something like that.

The Hyperspace Jump Scene: Okay. I really don't like Holdo as a character. So let's get that out of the way. She's an idiot, who tells nobody her plan for how she intends to keep them alive, randomly insults people, throws her weight around. Like, she FELT like a villain to me. That said... there's nothing wrong with the hyperspace scene. In A New Hope we are told that jumping to hyperspace is super dangerous regardless, and some of the books support this by basically saying that hyperspace jumps can essentially "meteor and dinosaurs" a planet. It's not absurd to think ramming a ship into other ships would destroy them, as opposed to somehow be like playing space bumper cars.

The Casino Planet: Okay. I agree here. This part was dumb, and the movie would have been FAR better if it were scrapped and the 30 minutes it wasted were just added onto already existing scenes to make them more fleshed out.

Rose: I mean... she's fine. Like, I don't get the hate for her. She doesn't really do much, but like, she isn't a bad character.

Now, MY criticisms

Luke and Ben: Covered above

The Death of Snoke: This felt really dumb. We know nothing about Snoke, a Sith who just appeared out of seemingly nowhere with a giant army, then took over the Galaxy. We constantly HEAR about how strong he is then... he just fucking dies. Like, he felt irrelevant by the end. I think it would have been better if we at least got answers to that before this happened. But he dies, then just kinda becomes an afterthought.

The Weird Speeder Scene: It felt pointless. Literally nothing happens. Finn goes off to try to kill himself, he ends up living, and he manages to do nothing to the enemy before going back to the bunker. It was just a waste of 5 minutes.

Episode 8: 5/10. A lot of good painted over by bad.

I have a friend who saw Mandalorian and liked it. He said i would like it cause i would get all the extra bits of lore characters stuff that exists in the star wars universe like IG droids and disruptor rifles.

when it comes to the movies i'm easy to please but i can tell just how bad these new line of movies have been in my opinion.

Four words sum up my thoughts on Disney Star Wars: I want George back.

See, what I don't get about the criticisms of the new trilogy is when people compare them to the prequels. Like, I don't think 7 or 8 are the greatest movies ever (although in my personal opinion, they rank among the better Star Wars films overall), yet I don't understand how people can justifiably say that Phantom Menace was a better movie. I like the Phantom Menace. It's a huge piece of nostalgia for me that entertained me a lot as a child. Is it a good film? Absolutely not. Terrible dialogue, unnecessarily convoluted, yet altogether uninteresting, plot, inconsistent pacing and a hugely boring Tatooine part (which, in my humble opinion, was waaaay worse than the "infamous" casino planet part in TLJ).

From what I've read of a lot of comments on the new trilogy, people a) either have a nostalgia boner over Lucas for some reason, who's never been a very competent film-maker, or b) despite what they keep pretending isn't the case (yet the following points are consistently brought up in their criticisms - weird, huh?), are genuinely infuriated that the "SJW"s have infiltrated Disney to make a "Mary Sue" character in Rey (by the way, people keep using that term and they don't know what it actually means - can't have a female Mary Sue if it's a male writer-director, really), or give undue importance to (cue blustering gasps) an Asian woman. C'mon man, where are the white males in this?

Fact remains, in terms of actual quality, 7 & 8, while not the best movies ever, are really solid Star Wars movies. More solid, I would say, than the majority of the series.

Overall I like em

Ep7 was a solid movie let down by being very predictable. It's a good Star Wars film but it more a retred of what came before

Couple of bits of contrived story aside I loved 8. Felt more like its own thing and actually managed to surprise me. And Luke defeating an army without a single blow is the most Jedi shit ever

Rogue One is the best Star Wars film. Hands down. I'd say it's the first one to make the empire seem properly threatening. Heck that one scene with Darth Vader in the corridor does more to make him terrifying then anything in the OG trilogy

Solo wasn't great. Felt like a TV series awkwardly squashed into a movie. There was good stuff but way too much so it rushed from plot to plot without much time to get invested in anything

I don't actually mind Disney's Star War's (that hyperspace ram is fucking cool, I don't care if it breaks the lore, fuck change the lore to accommodate it I don't care), but I really despise Disney's guidelines for the franchise. They're the reason that Jedi Fallen Order has you hacking away at stormtroopers but theres no visible damage on their body. No fucking violence in a universe where most everyone has a laser sword that can cut through anything? What the hell is wrong with you Disney?

TFA was loaded with nostalgic warmth and charm, Rogue One was a gorgeous slog that had an inconsistent tone, TLJ is the best of the bunch thanks to its boldness and reckless idiosyncrasy and Solo was pleasant straightforward viewing.

Bring on Rise of Skywalker and whenever Rian Johnson's trilogy is brought to fruition.

Also if any of you link some dipshit video of a misogynist rambling for 5 plus hours about how much da SJWs have ruined Star Wars, you deserve to be slapped hard with a wet noodle.

maybe it's because i watched the videos in their entirety, but i seriously have no idea what you mean when you say he's a misogynist. i mean that criticism of someone's personality coming from anyone on a website where the vast majority of pictures are of women with their free will forcibly stripped away is a bit silly to begin with, but unless you count just general criticisms of female characters then i really don't know what you're talking about. is saying that female characters should be written in a way that makes them complex and not solely defined by the organs they were born with misogynistic now? if so then fuck me, i guess i must hate women too then.

Don't have the time to read all of this thread right now, but wanted to comment on this.

Palpatine didn't need to be explained because that's where the entire original story started. Pretty much all that is needed is to say that he's the leader. Granted, you CAN add more details to a villain's origin, but it's not really necessary. The establishment isn't as important.

Snoke, on the other hand, didn't come in at the start of the story. The start of the sequel trilogy yes, but you have to factor in the story that came before it. We already believed that the empire was destroyed at the end of the OT. And then just suddenly this first order shows up... with no explanation. Snoke is just... there.

If the ST had been the first story told in the star wars universe, it wouldn't be such a huge issue for Snoke to be there with no explanation.

Also, if the leaked script is anything close to how Rise of Skywalker is going to end up... TLJ might not actually be the worst movie in the SW universe.

Would have wrote along with my original post, but I had to do a few things irl.

Now then, onto to my take of Episode 7 and 8 since I haven't seen R1 and Solo. Warning!!! It's a long text.

I was excited to Episode 7, although my excited was a bit diminished when I saw an image for the Force Awakens revealing Starkiller Base. I was like: Really? We're using another Death Star weapon, except it's much bigger!

After seeing the movie, I was indifferent. I didn't outright love nor did I hate it. But after rewatching the movie again, I've had criticisms with it. The obvious one being is that The Force Awakens is too similar like A New Hope with a droid having something that both sides want. Repeating the formula from the Original Trilogy under different names like the First Order and Resistance as well as wiping out the Republic making the Rebels' effort to restore it and peace to the galaxy pointless. Seriously, how big is the First Order if Snoke was able to send legions to take control of the galaxy in Episode 8 or where did they get resources to build Starkiller Base without the Republic knowing?

The other criticisms is Rey. Why is she good using the Force? Using the Jedi mind on the stormtrooper just like that? Come on! Even Luke couldn't use the Jedi mind trick in A New Hope and it wasn't until Return of the Jedi where we see Luke attempt to use on Jabba.
Beating Kylo Ren in a lightsaber dual when she never had training or experience using a sword, and no, a staff is much different than a sword. Also, the thugs that Rey beat up are not in the skill level as Kylo Ren, who was trained by Jedi Master Luke Skywalker and Snoke. And yes, you could argue that Rey beat Kylo because he was injured from Chewie's bowcaster. However, Kylo Ren is a Sith, or a Dark Side Force User since they don't call Kylo and Snoke Sith. Regardless, he should channel in the anger, hate, pain to make himself stronger especially after killing his father. Remember in Episode 5 that Yoda implied that the dark side is the quick and easy path to power.
Like most people I was curious about Rey's background and who her parents were since I hope it would be explain on why she's good with the force in Episode 8, but nope. They're nobodies. Which for some reason, people like it that she's a nobody which, to me, doesn't help her character, specifically on why is she good with the force.
We're two movies in and we don't know anything about her.

But the bright side, I did enjoy the bond that Finn and Poe had during the beginning of the film, even if I found his turned to happen so sudden. And Han and Chewie's interaction was great and I enjoyed every bit of it.

And this is a nitpick, but I F***ing hate the design of BB-8. I know why they made it, because they want to sell toys of it, but it looks stupid that I want to kick the ball whenever I see it.

Now onto to Episode 8. Oh boy.... let's start with biggest one. Luke Skywalker. The problem with Luke's change is that we didn't see any of that progress during the 30 years gap. We were told on what happen to Luke and shown little flashback of it, seeing his Jedi temple destroyed and several flashbacks on the Luke and Ben Solo scene where the former ignited his lightsaber. Okay, the fact that Luke even had the thought of activating the blade was a red flag for me because this is the same person that saw good in the second most evil man in the galaxy and turned him back to the side of good. Compare to him and Ben, sense some dark side in the boy, well better pull out the lightsaber on him instead of talking about it. Also, I didn't like how Luke said that the legacy of the Jedi is failure. Excuse me? Luke did you forget what Obi-Wan to said to you about the Jedi in Episode 4.
For over a thousand generations, the Jedi knights were the guardians of peace and justice of the old republic.
Plus, he's essentially throwing Obi-wan under the bus when he said that it was a Jedi Master responsible for the creation of Darth Vader, when in reality it was Darth Sidious that led Anakin to the dark side, rose to power creating the Empire and wiping out the Jedi. And why did it have to be Rey to tell Luke that it was a Jedi responsible for redeeming Vader, he should have known that and realize that the Jedi are not at fault for that.

Canto Bight was boring and pointless, nothing more to say on that. Also, it's funny to think about that they free the animals instead of the slave children and left them behind.

Holdo was a terrible leader that didn't let Poe know anything about the plan. She could have told him that she has a plan, but won't tell him because of... reasons, providing their are good ones, and I might have accepted it. As of the hyperspace scene, disregard hating it because of lore, why didn't they use tactic in the first place? Sure it looked pretty when it happened, but I didn't feel any attachment to Holdo because I didn't like her character. If it was an established character like Ackbar then yeah, I could liked the scene more as well as giving Ackbar more screen time to develop him just to make his sacrifice all the more emotional.

And Snoke. The man responsible for the whole conflict in the sequel trilogy, within context of the universe, and we don't know jack about him. Who is he? Where did he come from? How did he turned Ben Solo to the dark side? That doesn't mean anything because he's dead and irrelevant, as most people would argue. Plus, I can't take Kylo Ren seriously as a villain since he's a whiny kid trying to mimic Darth Vader and has been beaten by a girl who has never held a lightsaber.

And finally... why was Phasma even in the movies. She barely did anything, hell she did less than Boba Fett!

So yeah. I don't like the new movies. Still, you guys can like these movies and no one can take that away from you. However, you cannot say that these movies are well written because they are not. Hell, I got into Star Wars because of the Prequel Trilogy since I was a kid when those came out and I remember enjoying them because of the actions. But as I grew up, I started to focus more on the story as I rewatch them and notice the flaws that they have, and I've come to accept that those movies aren't well made, but I still enjoy them regardless.

This. I didn't want the same old story again which is what 7 felt like



I don't think it does break the lore. Except for the part where you wonder why it hasn't been done before. Then just add some throwaway line about it being a one in million chance to work or something and done

I just miss the EU