The Last Jedi was the one good sequel and the trilogy would have been a lot better off if they had ignored the backlash. And not brought Jeffrey back. As soon as he replaced Trevorrow as director, I feared that he would make Rey part of the family again and find some way to make Kylo Ren a pawn again. He's so inflexible as a storyteller. He can't just change directions even if someone inserts a turn in the middle of his vaguely outlined story. He can only repeat what has been done before.
I found something I wrote after watching The Last Jedi for the second time. I think this was before Jeffrey was announced as the director of Episode IX. How naive I was. How depressing it is to look back at my optimism.
December 18, 2018
"I like that Ren unshackled himself from Snoke and finally took charge. People complain that Rian Johnson wasted what Abrams was building with Snoke, but that would have just ended too much like Return of the Jedi, the bad guy playing a pawn again, and Snoke still served as a useful plot device in connecting the two main characters, Ren and Rey, before he was satisfyingly killed. I didn’t want Rey to be related to anybody. I’m grateful that she’s a nobody. I would have been pissed if she was a Skywalker, like everyone in the galaxy has to be related. It would have been so predictable and lame. Rey being a nobody plays into her character better anyway. She wanted a family, a sense of belonging, as Maz put it. She found one in her new friends. Making her Rey Skywalker would have been pointless."
So, although she didn't turn out to be related to the Skywalkers, as I feared after The Force Awakens, her becoming a Palpatine was just as bad. The Star Wars universe seems so small. The highest levels of the force are apparently only accessible to the privileged families.
Ryan Johnson:
1. "If she were told that she’s related to this person, or Luke is her this, or whatever, that’d be the easiest thing she could hear. That’s everything she wanted, that would instantly define what her place is in this universe. So to me, the equivalent of 'I am your father' is 'No, you’ve got to stand on your own two feet. There are not going to be those easy answers here for you. You’re wondering who you are? Okay, well, you have to find out who you are for yourself.'"
2. "I went through all the possibilities of who her parents could be. I made a list, with the upsides and downsides. There were two things about this option that made it feel right to me. Firstly. I like the idea that we’re breaking out from the notion that the force is this genetic thing that you have to be tied to somebody to have. It’s the ‘anybody can be president’ idea."
3. "For me, if Rey had gotten the answer that she’s related to so-and-so, had learned her place in the story, that would be the easiest thing she can hear. The hardest thing to hear is, ‘nope, this not going to define you.’ And in fact, Kylo is going to use this to try and undercut your confidence so you’ll feel you have to lean on him for your identity. And you’re going to have to make the choice to find your own identity in this story."
Johnson was correct. Her learning that she came from nothing was fitting.
Jeffrey also put the lame helmet back on Kylo Ren, failing to recognize that Johnson had the character drop it on the floor to signify that he was letting go of the past and becoming more sure of himself. It was very obvious cinematic language.
Of course I don't know which of these decisions were Jeffrey's and which were Disney over-correcting. But looking at how Jeffrey kind of doomed the trilogy from the start by constructing such a flimsy Episode VII, he's a moron anyway.
Cutting Palpatine out of the story also would have given more time for a better resolution with General Hux. He had a legitimate claim against the usurper. There was an interesting power struggle there to tell.
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