Movies: Star Wars - Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

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NyQuil

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The ending to Revenge of the Sith was kind of weird. His whole reason for going to the Sith was to save Padme, who didn't survive anyway. So why would he keep Palpatine as a mentor. :laugh: At the end you see them working together on the Death Star.

I think the idea is that he was a shattered, devastated vessel at this point with nothing left but the Dark Side. His beloved was dead. His order was destroyed, many at his own hands. His old mentor had betrayed him.

Ultimately, that void was filled with ambition and the need for power, to rule the galaxy, as was his plan in Empire Strikes Back. There are some hints as to his belief that the strong should rule in his conversations with Padme. This belief is twisted into autocratic visions.

"If you only knew the PPPpppppooooowwwwaahhh of the Dark Side."
 
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I think the idea is that he was a shattered, devastated vessel at this point with nothing left but the Dark Side. His beloved was dead. His order was destroyed, many at his own hands. His old mentor had betrayed him.

Ultimately, that void was filled with ambition and the need for power, to rule the galaxy, as was his plan in Empire Strikes Back. There are some hints as to his belief that the strong should rule in his conversations with Padme. This belief is twisted into autocratic visions.

"If you only knew the PPPpppppooooowwwwaahhh of the Dark Side."

That's true. I remember in Episode 2 when they're in the grass and he tells Padme about it.
 

CaptainCrunch67

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The ending to Revenge of the Sith was kind of weird. His whole reason for going to the Sith was to save Padme, who didn't survive anyway. So why would he keep Palpatine as a mentor. :laugh: At the end you see them working together on the Death Star.

Anakin: "Where's Padme."

Palpatine: "You killed her"

Anakin. "Impossible. She didn't survive? Nooooo." Then he's still Sith

I think you're over simplifying the reason for Anakin's change.

Yes he wanted to save his wife from death, and Palpatine offered that. However Anakin's real reason for falling goes back as far as the Phantom menace, where he told Qui-Gon that he dreamed that he would come back and free the Slaves.

Then later when his mother was killed and he could do nothing about it.

Once Anakin came to the Jedi Order, Palpatine kept pushing in those tap roots.

Hey Ani, the Jedi are limiting your power, but I see you being the most powerful Jedi and they need you because of that.

Remember that the Jedi were basically limiting him and Palpatine was lying to him with the truth.

They don't trust you.

They are frightened of your power so they try to limit you

On top of that, he promised nothing more then power. That whole speech in the opera house wasn't about saving Padme, it was about Anakin gaining power that he couldn't get from the Jedi, that he was bound in chains by the Jedi.

So when it came down to his speech, it was mainly. Hey look Ani, the Jedi are conspiring against the Republic, they want to limit your power while increasing their own. You've always dreamed of doing great things and becoming a man of conscience, that can't happen if your with the Jedi, and by the way, they're lying to you and conspiring behind your back to kill the only one that's shown you respect and that's me. Oh and by the way, I'm that path to power and I might have the power to save your wife.

So Anakin who's already angry at the Jedi and feel they're pretty much corrupt and goes back, and Mace basically says, I don't trust you and I'm going to see Palpatine.

So in effect everything that Palpatine said is true from a certain point of view.

Anakin wanted power more then anything else he even said that to Padme who he was seeing as more of a possession at that point then anything else.

So why didn't Vader slaughter Palpatine after his fall, I mean he talked about it with Padme. But in the end, Palpatine was the only one who ever really understood him, accepted him and told him the truth. He also knew that he needed Palpatine for power. Also Anakin was born a slave, and ended up a slave and he was willing to accept that as penance
 
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ThePhoenixx

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I would be surprised if Kylo Ren was irredeemable at this point.

It's a movie for children, and he's wildly popular.

He's an emo kid. The sensitive definition kind. He is easily offended.

Kids today can relate.
 

CaptainCrunch67

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I think the idea is that he was a shattered, devastated vessel at this point with nothing left but the Dark Side. His beloved was dead. His order was destroyed, many at his own hands. His old mentor had betrayed him.

Ultimately, that void was filled with ambition and the need for power, to rule the galaxy, as was his plan in Empire Strikes Back. There are some hints as to his belief that the strong should rule in his conversations with Padme. This belief is twisted into autocratic visions.

"If you only knew the PPPpppppooooowwwwaahhh of the Dark Side."

Matt Stover really did a great job of the ROTS novel and explains why Anakin accepted Palpatine in the end. This was the final passage after Vader woke up in his suit

This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever:
The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain.
The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew at your flesh.
You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never stop it. You cannot even slow it down.
You don’t even have lungs anymore.
Mechanisms hardwired into your chest breathe for you. They will pump oxygen into your bloodstream forever.
Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me?
And you can’t, not in the way you once did. Sensors in the shell that prisons your head trickle meaning directly into your brain.
You open your scorched-pale eyes; optical sensors integrate light and shadow into a hideous simulacrum of the world around you.
Or perhaps the simulacrum is perfect, and it is the world that is hideous.
Padme? Are you here? Are you all right? you try to say, but another voice speaks for you, out from the vocabulator that serves you for burned-away lips and tongue and throat.
“Padme? Are you here? Are you all right?”
I’m very sorry, Lord Vader. I’m afraid she died. It seems in your anger, you killed her.
This burns hotter than the lava had.
“No…no, it is not possible!”
You love her. You have always loved her. You could never will her death.
Never.
But you remember…
You remember all of it.
You remember the dragon that you brought Vader forth from your heart to slay. You remember the cold venom in Vader’s blood. You remember the furnace of Vader’s fury, and the black hatred of seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth…
And there is one blazing moment in which you finally understand that there was no dragon. That there was no Vader. That there was only you. Only Anakin Skywalker.
That it was all you. Is you.
Only you.
You did it.
You killed her.
You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself…
It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith-
Because now your self is all you will ever have.
And you rage and scream and reach through the Force to crush the shadow who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were, you are more than half machine, you are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you can remember where the power was but the power you can touch is only a memory, and so with all your world-destroying fury it is only droids around you that implode, and equipment, and the table on which you were strapped shatters, and in the end, you cannot touch the shadow.
In the end, you do not even want to.
In the end, the shadow is all you have left.
Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself-
And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.
This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker.
Forever…
 
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I think you're over simplifying the reason for Anakin's change.

Yes he wanted to save his wife from death, and Palpatine offered that. However Anakin's real reason for falling goes back as far as the Phantom menace, where he told Qui-Gon that he dreamed that he would come back and free the Slaves.

Then later when his mother was killed and he could do nothing about it.

Once Anakin came to the Jedi Order, Palpatine kept pushing in those tap roots.

Hey Ani, the Jedi are limiting your power, but I see you being the most powerful Jedi and they need you because of that.

Remember that the Jedi were basically limiting him and Palpatine was lying to him with the truth.

They don't trust you.

They are frightened of your power so they try to limit you

On top of that, he promised nothing more then power. That whole speech in the opera house wasn't about saving Padme, it was about Anakin gaining power that he couldn't get from the Jedi, that he was bound in chains by the Jedi.

So when it came down to his speech, it was mainly. Hey look Ani, the Jedi are conspiring against the Republic, they want to limit your power while increasing their own. You've always dreamed of doing great things and becoming a man of conscience, that can't happen if your with the Jedi, and by the way, they're lying to you and conspiring behind your back to kill the only one that's shown you respect and that's me. Oh and by the way, I'm that path to power and I might have the power to save your wife.

So Anakin who's already angry at the Jedi and feel they're pretty much corrupt and goes back, and Mace basically says, I don't trust you and I'm going to see Palpatine.

So in effect everything that Palpatine said is true from a certain point of view.

Anakin wanted power more then anything else he even said that to Padme who he was seeing as more of a possession at that point then anything else.

So why didn't Vader slaughter Palpatine after his fall, I mean he talked about it with Padme. But in the end, Palpatine was the only one who ever really understood him, accepted him and told him the truth. He also knew that he needed Palpatine for power. Also Anakin was born a slave, and ended up a slave and he was willing to accept that as penance

Thanks, I only finished Ep 3 on Sunday so I was curious about that. Your comment definitely clears things up for sure.
 

CaptainCrunch67

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Thanks, I only finished Ep 3 on Sunday so I was curious about that. Your comment definitely clears things up for sure.

There are a couple of things with the Sith that are important and really laid out well in both the movie and Star Wars Lore.

Palpatine - "Evil is a point of view"

While Palpatine was certainly evil, nobody is evil for evil's sake. Palpatine wanted to reform the galaxy. He felt that left to their own devices the trillions of citizens would be screwed over by corruption, and infighting and greed. Under one all powerful ruler that corruption wouldn't take root. In the book Dark Lord, Palpatine rejoices with Anakin and himself that the whole fear and anger and hate that fuel the darkside are notions of motality that one must work past in pursuit of a higher goal, and that's to save and reform the Republic into an Empire that bought peace to the galaxy and removed a corrupt government.

Even Padme helped Anakin's fall with one clarifying statement.

"What if the democracy we thought we were serving no longer exists, and the Republic has become the very evil we have been fighting to destroy? "

Palpatine was actually very brilliant. He pointed out that the Sith were virtually identical to the Jedi, both cults were in pursuit of greater power, and both were afraid to lose their power, however he also pointed out that the Jedi were hypocrites propping up a corrupt government.

Also in Star Wars Lore when you look at the Sith Code, it would be incredibly seductive to a former child slave being held down and lied to by the Jedi.


Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
 

Osprey

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Feb 18, 2005
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What makes Kylo sympathetic enough to necessitate a redemption arc?

His parents divorced and his father was no longer around. He was then sent off as a boy for training, during which his Jedi Master tried to kill him in his sleep. In other words, his parents didn't want him and the Republic didn't want him, or at least that's no doubt how he felt. It sort of can't be held against him that he joined the one faction (albeit an evil one) that did want him. He's very conflicted, looking to Vader as a father figure while rejecting his actual father. He also cries or chokes up a few times.

Everything about Kylo is designed to make him a sympathetic, relatable villain. A redemption arc has been telegraphed since the first movie. That doesn't mean that he'll join the light side or that Rey will "redeem" him, but we can be sure that, when he dies, he'll do or say something that implies regret and makes his death feel tragic, rather than celebration-inducing. That's the kind of completion of a redemption arc that we're talking about. You don't need Rey to try again to redeem him and, this time, be successful for it to be a redemption arc.
 

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This is what the EU books were initially built off of, but to make the new movies with the the old guard included we need the same passage of time so all those plot points were resolved off screen.

No.

I am not required to read outside source material to be up to do date on MAJOR storylines. That’s completely ridiculous and it leads to a total lack of investment as well as confusion for a large amount of people in the audience.
 

RandV

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Define creative direction, because I would say the creative direction between the three original movies shifted. Honestly I would say for a trilogy to work you almost have to shift the creative direction in some capacity.

Maybe creative vision would be a better term? Either way like I said you had one guy who's main focus was to undo the prequels and recreate the original magic, passed on by the studio exec to a guy who wanted to subvert our expectations - and personally I liked what Abrams did, Johnson not so much.

What I'm getting at here is it was George Lucas' Star Wars, Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, the Wachowksi's Matrix trilogy, soon to be James Cameron Avatar, and while they have different directors the MCU is creatively held together from day 1 by Producer Kevin Feige. On the other hand Star Wars right now is being treated more like the DC Universe, and while they're may not be anything as bad as Justice League going from Zach Snyder to Joss Whedon mid-production this is where I see the problem is with the current Star Wars trilogy.
 
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RandV

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No.

I am not required to read outside source material to be up to do date on MAJOR storylines. That’s completely ridiculous and it leads to a total lack of investment as well as confusion for a large amount of people in the audience.

Haha I'm not suggesting anyone should do that. I'm not that big on the 'EU' myself, apart from reading the next two trilogies as a teen and loving some of the 90's video games. I was just saying , and this is only my opinion, that story-wise we'd probably get a better trilogy if we could skip maybe 10-15 years after RotJ where you have Luke heading a new Jedi Academy and the New Repbulic jockeying with the Imperial remnants for position in the galaxy.

So in the context of what we got I'm looking at the Ben Solo->Kylo Ren transition time period would have been a better starting place than the blank state period we got.
 

S E P H

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That would make Rey subservient to a man and then have to be saved by a man.

Rey is going to have to save Kylo instead.

But no one can live with the guilt of killing their own father so he'll have to sacrifice himself in some way - which is odd because there's no other antagonist in the series at this point.
And what's wrong about that? Don't get me wrong it is a total cliche about "strong man coming to save the day", but Finn would save her on an emotional side which I don't think has been done too many times. In worst possible case, Finn saves Rey who then saves Kylo. A missed opportunity is a missed opportunity.

Rey is already a total Mary Sue going toe-to-toe in a lightsabre fight with Kylo Ren, not sure her getting saved by a dude diminishes an already overpowered diminished character.
 

NyQuil

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And what's wrong about that? Don't get me wrong it is a total cliche about "strong man coming to save the day", but Finn would save her on an emotional side which I don't think has been done too many times. In worst possible case, Finn saves Rey who then saves Kylo. A missed opportunity is a missed opportunity.

Rey is already a total Mary Sue going toe-to-toe in a lightsabre fight with Kylo Ren, not sure her getting saved by a dude diminishes an already overpowered diminished character.

I was just making a bit of a joke.

I agree that Finn has been oddly sidetracked for some reason.
 

ArGarBarGar

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Maybe creative vision would be a better term? Either way like I said you had one guy who's main focus was to undo the prequels and recreate the original magic, passed on by the studio exec to a guy who wanted to subvert our expectations - and personally I liked what Abrams did, Johnson not so much.

What I'm getting at here is it was George Lucas' Star Wars, Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, the Wachowksi's Matrix trilogy, soon to be James Cameron Avatar, and while they have different directors the MCU is creatively held together from day 1 by Producer Kevin Feige. On the other hand Star Wars right now is being treated more like the DC Universe, and while they're may not be anything as bad as Justice League going from Zach Snyder to Joss Whedon mid-production this is where I see the problem is with the current Star Wars trilogy.
The thing is I don't think there is any kind of "problem" with the movies, so I don't have an issue with the different directors running things. However you do need to take into account Abrams was a part of the process for TLJ and despite his initial draft not being utilized was very positive about Johnson's vision for the middle chapter.

TLJ definitely had a "darker" tone to it, but I don't see this divorce in feel or creative vision between the two movies that others are seeing.
 
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There’s also a group of Star Wars “fans” that hate everything about the new movies. They’re not the originals so they can’t find a single thing they enjoy about them. I don’t think the new movies have been perfect but the amount of hate they’re getting is nuts.

To add onto this as someone who binged II and III last weekend (so I've now seen every one) the new movies aren't as bad as everyone says they're are. It's a whole new world. They pepper in the classic characters, but the Galactic Empire and Palpatine are long gone.

I won't say that TLJ was "the best" but it's also not "the WOAT". It's just there. It was good entertainment.

Would be curious where people rank all the movies so far.
 

BigBadBruins7708

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To add onto this as someone who binged II and III last weekend (so I've now seen every one) the new movies aren't as bad as everyone says they're are. It's a whole new world. They pepper in the classic characters, but the Galactic Empire and Palpatine are long gone.

I won't say that TLJ was "the best" but it's also not "the WOAT". It's just there. It was good entertainment.

Would be curious where people rank all the movies so far.

I have TLJ right in the middle.

Its better than:

Episodes 1-3
Return of the Jedi

Its clearly worse than

New Hope
Empire
Force Awakens

I'd also argue that New Hope benefits greatly from being the 1st and the power of nostalgia. If it were released today with the same level of scrutiny as other modern Star Wars movies get, it'd be hated like TLJ and Luke would be called a Mary Sue
 

Pilky01

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To add onto this as someone who binged II and III last weekend (so I've now seen every one) the new movies aren't as bad as everyone says they're are. It's a whole new world. They pepper in the classic characters, but the Galactic Empire and Palpatine are long gone.

I won't say that TLJ was "the best" but it's also not "the WOAT". It's just there. It was good entertainment.

Would be curious where people rank all the movies so far.

Are they? As a casual Star Wars fan my impression was The First Order are the empire and the guy who got cut in half was Palpatine.

I kept waiting through the last two movies for them to establish this new cinematic world but it just feels like a weird version of the old one but nothing has a story anymore.
 
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CaptainCrunch67

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To add onto this as someone who binged II and III last weekend (so I've now seen every one) the new movies aren't as bad as everyone says they're are. It's a whole new world. They pepper in the classic characters, but the Galactic Empire and Palpatine are long gone.

I won't say that TLJ was "the best" but it's also not "the WOAT". It's just there. It was good entertainment.

Would be curious where people rank all the movies so far.

Empire Strikes Back - probably the best movie of all, Lucas didn't write dialogue or direct so its pacing and script and character work was top notch

A new Hope - You had me at huge Star Destroyer flying overhead. At times when you go back and watch it, its slower then I remembered and the characters a bit more wooden. But an amazing story and Star Destroyer
Return of the Jedi - Still a great adventure story, great effects, Palpatine. Some of the dialogue was poor.
TFA - It was ok, but realistically its plot points were a New Hope with a bigger deathstar that could shoot death stars out of its cannon. The acting was solid and the effects were good.
Revenge of the Sith - Except for the NOOOOOO, this was a pretty solid movie, I loved Palpatine in it, the effects were great.
Phantom Menace - They soft shoed on the slavery thing, the effects were too animated, and the dialogue was forced. This movie destroyed Jake Lloyds whole life
TLJ - I thought this movie was pretty dreadful. The acting was poor, the Rose/Finn stuff was awkward and stupid and did I say awkward. Poe was unlikable, they made Hux a pratfalling comedy character. I couldn't care about Ren the angry teenager.
Clone Wars- Just poor execution throughout, there was no chemistry between Anakin and Padme. Not enough Palpatine. The sand dialogue was cringe worthy.
 

RandV

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The thing is I don't think there is any kind of "problem" with the movies, so I don't have an issue with the different directors running things. However you do need to take into account Abrams was a part of the process for TLJ and despite his initial draft not being utilized was very positive about Johnson's vision for the middle chapter.

TLJ definitely had a "darker" tone to it, but I don't see this divorce in feel or creative vision between the two movies that others are seeing.

For the new trilogy Abrams used the 1st movie to set a clean slate for a new 'rebellion vs empire', with a new Emperor, Vader, and Luke, leaving a lot of open questions. Where as ESB picked up some indeterminate time after ANH, and AotC maybe 10 years after TPM, Johnson picks the story up immediately where TFA left off, and quickly kills off the new Emperor, brushes aside all the questions left over, reduces the 'rebellion' to a handful of characters that can all fit into the Millennium Falcon, and he specifically tells us this all happens within 30 hour time frame.

We actually have a perfect iconic illustration of this effect or what I'm saying with Abrams ending TFA with Rey handing Luke his old lightsaber, and Johnson opening TLJ with Luke tossing it over the cliff. Abrams may have been positive about the script, but right there Johnson takes what Abrams was building and blatantly says 'nah we're not doing that'.

I'm a fan of lengthy epics and there's a way you need to go about planning and pacing these if you want it to work till the end. A movie trilogy should be considered in this category, and both prior trilogies follow the basic idea, but Johnson's fundamentally breaks this. Taking as a whole a Star Wars trilogy should be a grand space opera, but two thirds of the way through this trilogy's screen team and with the time frames Johnson specifically set (there's a reason why it's best to be vague about these things) we've covered what, maybe 3-4 days?
 
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If you take out any Anakin scene when hes not with Obi-Wan in AotC its actually a decent movie

The visit to Kamino is definitely interesting for sure. People really don't like the Anakin - Padme love story though. But also Anakin goes to Tatoonie which is also a good plot line too. Hey look, it's Luke's uncle and aunt :laugh:
 

ArGarBarGar

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For the new trilogy Abrams used the 1st movie to set a clean slate for a new 'rebellion vs empire', with a new Emperor, Vader, and Luke, leaving a lot of open questions. Where as ESB picked up some indeterminate time after ANH, and AotC maybe 10 years after TPM, Johnson picks the story up immediately where TFA left off, and quickly kills off the new Emperor, brushes aside all the questions left over, reduces the 'rebellion' to a handful of characters that can all fit into the Millennium Falcon, and he specifically tells us this all happens within 30 hour time frame.

We actually have a perfect iconic illustration of this effect or what I'm saying with Abrams ending TFA with Rey handing Luke his old lightsaber, and Johnson opening TLJ with Luke tossing it over the cliff. Abrams may have been positive about the script, but right there Johnson takes what Abrams was building and blatantly says 'nah we're not doing that'.

I'm a fan of lengthy epics and there's a way you need to go about planning and pacing these if you want it to work till the end. A movie trilogy should be considered in this category, and both prior trilogies follow the basic idea, but Johnson's fundamentally breaks this. Taking as a whole a Star Wars trilogy should be a grand space opera, but two thirds of the way through this trilogy's screen team and with the time frames Johnson specifically set (there's a reason why it's best to be vague about these things) we've covered what, maybe 3-4 days?
The problem is Luke in TFA is on a distant planet without any means for people to find him except for some map, either unaware or not caring while this new FO commits genocide and his former pupil murders his best friend in Han Solo. You HAVE to address that in some way, and with the way Abrams set that up it was likely for the movie to pick up right there. The trilogy doesn't have to occur during a long period of time or a short period of time. It has to occur in a long enough time to tell a good story and tell it well. This is an arbitrary rule you are assigning to Star Wars films.
 

ThePhoenixx

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The problem is Luke in TFA is on a distant planet without any means for people to find him except for some map, either unaware or not caring while this new FO commits genocide and his former pupil murders his best friend in Han Solo. You HAVE to address that in some way, and with the way Abrams set that up it was likely for the movie to pick up right there. The trilogy doesn't have to occur during a long period of time or a short period of time. It has to occur in a long enough time to tell a good story and tell it well. This is an arbitrary rule you are assigning to Star Wars films.
If RJ doesn't pay you, he should.

Keep fighting the good fight. Really respect your determination and loyalty.
 
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