One quick note to @Seyllian about the badness of the First Order, recall that the only reason they went from 'Remnant of the Empire opposing the New Republic' to 'First Order which is in control trying to stamp out Rebel scum again' is because they pointed a big gun and destroyed a number of core planets that were the Republic's center-- plural.

I know our minds can't wrap themselves around such scales, but let's just say that was a little bit worse than slavery of a few animals and child labor.

 

@Xiph0

Re: Rose, the chubby Asian mechanic. I just now decided to google her sister, the one who died in the bomber at the beginning. Of course the Tubmlrina brigade behind Disney Star Wars killed off the super hot Asian chick and left the chubby one alive. Otherwise all the (white) men in the resistance might have abandoned their girlfriends to try and get with the hot Asian. Admiral OhSoFabHair would have been devastated.

Now, I'm not saying that's what happened, but with how pervasive SJW culture has become, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Kathleen Kennedy admitted that they're replacing the old gang with a mix of POC, chubby, gender-fluid weirdos for the sake of "diversity".

 

Save this post for episode IX. If either kylo ren or Mary Sue have any kind of romantic subplot with each other/someone else, I guarantee 1000000% that one of them will be gay. I can see it now, happy ending, heros save the day, kylo turns back to the light and makes a move on Mary - but she stops him and says "sorry I prefer girls" or something. The whole thing is a feminist superiority wank, and they've shoehorned in fat acceptance, interracial love (did Rose even get consent to kiss him though? What happened to sexual assault tumblr?) and all the other buzz topics.

 

While I doubt Disney worries that much about fans' divided opinions about the film, they definitely worry about its box office performance and it's most likely below their expectations. Now, when I say below, I mean it's going to make tons of money anyway, more than $600m in the US alone, but after taking into consideration usual drop between SW sequels, everyone expected it to break at least $700m and recent earnings suggest it's not going to happen. That underperformance is not a big problem now, but BvS and JL are example of how it can get out of control quickly enough.

Will there be a course correction? Hard to say since JJ Abrams was chosen as the director of the next one before anything suggested there is anything to fix and he's the safest choice Disney could go with after this misstep.

I wouldn't be surprised if Rian Johnson's future SW trilogy just got a lot less certain than it was a month ago.

What I'm curious is how this film will be judged ten years from now. For all complaining about the Prequels, nobody questioned that they were SW films at their core as they do with TLJ. I read some articles that the changes to SW mythos were necessary, but I'm not sure why. SW did rather well for past 40 years by simply being SW as the fans recognized it.

 

Except the fact that they never fleshed out who lived on those planets and why we should care makes it less powerful.
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Holy shit she's hot. Disney, I'm pissed!

 

I mean ... kinda but they're still planets. Core planets, too, fully inhabited. Billions and billions (if not trillions, assuming at least a few of these were city-planets) of people, the center of the New Republic, its governance and powerbase. Core worlds tend to be population hubs; which we saw during the destruction sequence afaik.

Either way, the fact that it was rushed and the core worlds unexplored doesn't change the fact that the First Order committed genocide on an unprecedented scale (literally never seen before), and that we didn't have to wait until animal cruelty to know they're "evil".

I mean, if suffering animals is what moves you rather than humans, there must have presumably been some animals in the core worlds, too. Get mad over that.

 

That possibly depends on how much value Disney place on critical response. I know fans have been divided, but on the professional side of things, it's overwhelmingly positive. Plus, we've all seen recently that Disney have no qualms about firing directors who have different visions to the board; they had to know that elements of TLJ would be controversial even before release, which suggests that they're happy with the broader changes made which would be the ones most likely to cause concern over the next trilogy.

 

Honestly, I think that even not knowing Carrie Fisher was going to die, they should have still killed Leia in this one, to allow the younger characters to have episode 9 to themselves.

 

Yes because passing of the torch is exactly what was missing from the movie. If only we had a bit more of that, yes?

 

I don’t mind the passing the torch. It’s something they clearly have to do and that the EU never managed. However the way they’ve done it hasn’t sat well with me. I don’t like what Johnson did, but the reset Abrams put in place forced his hand to some degree. However the constant deconstruction wore on me, and I think that was on him.

 

Actually, I was thinking with less characters the story for episode 9 could be more focused and coherent. Especially since this one already had two people filling the same role in the story (Purple-hair and Leia). The only thing of value that would have been lost if they'd just let Leia die when the bridge was destroyed was the short reunion with Luke (a substantial loss though, since that was the best scene in the movie).

 

They said whats going to happen with Carrie Fisher in the next movie? CGI or something?

 

Couldn't imagine they'd do that. Fisher in Rogue One looked fake af.

 

Leia essentially passes Rebellion leadership over to Poe at the end of 8. I don't think we'll be seeing much of her from here on.

 

Personally, I‘m still inclined to put my hopes into the timeskip theory. A few years after TLJ, either offscreen – perhaps mentioned in the opening crawl – or in the opening scenes of Episode IX, Leia would either die a natural or (possibly, but less likely) heroic death after discovering critical information that could lead to the destruction of the First Order.

This model would also grant the writers a way around the nasty and entirely self-inflicted issue that is the current state of the Rebellion. Three or four years is a lot of time to rebuild old and forge new alliances while the First Order struggles with the transition from Unknown Regions exiles to semi-legitimate rulers of the galaxy and all the cumbersome bureaucracy that comes with it. I would imagine that destroying New Republic core planets, infrastructure and data could come back to haunt the First Order in this quest, driving more planets, or even systems, into the waiting arms of the Rebellion. Meanwhile, the remaining and fresh Rebellion troops could be trained to work more effectively together in a guerilla style of warfare, playing the role of constant thorns in the side of a First Order struggling for legitimacy until the time has come to stsrt an all-out assault on Ren & Co.

Lastly, this progression of events would also be a chance to finally introduce the Knights of Ren (provided they are still a thing, I admit to not having kept up with them). If they are force-sensitive and -trained, they could be deployed as a way for our new beloved Supreme Leader to exert control while not having to be present in physical form everywhere at once.

All of the above could be introdiced in a ten-minute montage or spread out over several expositional info-dumps (a tautology, as I now realize), thereby offering a relatively cost-effective way to fix the worldbuilding mess that was TLJ.

 

Pretty sure they've said they won't be CGI-ing or otherwise replacing Fisher, so most likely she'll die offscreen between movies.

 

Why must Leia necessarily die the woman is like a billion years old and she's no longer leader of the Rebellion she could be pensioning it up somewhere on a resort planet or something. She's basically retired.

 

I don't quite think that fits with Leia's character.

We'll probably get a small funeral scene in IX, no need to CGI it up. Or a time-skip and her death is mentioned in the sprawl.

 

Just in case you are in need of a laugh… enjoy.

https://www.thewrap.com/star-wars-last-jedi-silent-scene-not-glitch-amc-warn/

This would probably make a good opening case study for a debate on the state of the general moviegoing public in late 2017…