He has stated this repeatedly in response to the criticisms he received for Episode 1, 2, and 3. As far as I know, he never once said that anywhere near the days when Episodes 4-6 were new. The outcry about the prequels was there, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it is now. As far as how these films will age I can predict that easily. They won't age well at all. The movies are structurally bad. From a narrative perspective, they do everything wrong. They aren't coherent or follow any internal consistency, much less maintain consistency with prior films. On top of that, the identity politics injected into them will seriously date them. In ten years, no one will care about this ****. They'll be outraged about something else. These films will not age well, nor be remembered in a positive light.
I don't even think they'll be able to bank on the nostalgia of children who are growing up with them. They might, but my guess is they'll age about as well as Thundercats did for me. (It wasn't good.)
I've got to stop you right there. This is simply untrue. They did not do a good job continuing the story. Here's why.................
Soft Remake of Episode IV
This one is obvious. It's way too close to Episode IV. Even if we can accept that some things are cyclical in nature, its a bit on the ridiculous side to make the two films so close. Episode I actually follows the formula of Return of the Jedi, but manages to mask the similarities far better.
Rey is a Mary Sue.
Rey is a Mary Sue This fact has become more obvious with each installment, but she's a badly written character. Here are some examples of what I mean:
- Rey beats up men twice her size with no mention of any training. Fin is a trained Stormtrooper, and First Order troopers are generally shown to be more effective and better equipped/trained than their Imperial counterparts. Yet, Fin is weak and ineffective in her presence. Even if he was the worst Stormtrooper the First Order had to offer, he shouldn't have needed rescue by her on Jaku.
- Rey has never flown a space craft of any kind before. Yet, she's able to fly the Millennium Falcon with as much or greater skill than we've ever seen from Han Solo. If she had been a trained pilot and Force user, I wouldn't have had a problem with this. However, like everything else she does in the film, this isn't earned. It breaks any sense of immersion and suspension of disbelief. It's a cool sequence, but it doesn't make sense for her to have done it.
- Once she meets Han, she's able to show him up on his own vessel and repair it better than he can. This is a ship that he's owned and lived on for decades, and neither he nor Chewbacca figured out what was wrong, but she did. This is also unbelievable because a scrapper is not a trained starship mechanic. I can pull a rear end out of a 4th generation Camaro at a Junk yard, but that's a far cry from being able to rebuild one. Even with some direction or guess work, I understand it enough to probably make a decent go of it, but there is no way I'd be able to do it better than someone who's been doing it for decades. Again, her character does something she shouldn't be able to do that isn't earned.
- Who could forget her besting Kylo Ren, a trained Jedi Knight and wielder of the Dark Side of the Force. Even with the injury he sustained, Rey should have gotten her *** kicked badly. The injury could have leveled the field a bit, but it should still have been a decisive victory for Kylo. It would have given Rey something to overcome and grow from in subsequent movies. But no, character arcs are for dudes apparently. Women don't need them because they don't need no man.
Miscellaneous
- Fin needs saving from regular dudes on Jaku. Again, he's a trained Stormtrooper. It's heavily implied that their training isn't traditional and that they are some how abducted and brainwashed. This would make them more effective. Again, even if he were a bad one, he'd still be able to fight against random *** scrappers.
- Phasma's hatred for Fin is never explored in any meaningful way.
- Luke, Han and Leia are never seen on screen together. After 30 years, this is a huge missed opportunity.
- Maz Kanada has Anakin's / Luke's old lightsaber. For those who don't remember, Bespin is a gas giant. While not the size of Jupiter as far as we can tell, a hand and lightsaber falling into it would likely make it unrecoverable. So, how did it get there? Who would have known to recover it? Why would they recover it? Vader is the only likely candidate, but even that's a stretch. I can't see him spending the time or resources to recover something that would remind him of his old self and all his failures. These objects would have fallen towards the planet's center, so they'd likely be crushed or damaged / destroyed by weather etc.
Too Much Fan Service without Substance
This is harder to quantify. We see Lightsaber battles, the Falcon and some of the classic characters. Unfortunately, none of these things are really used correctly. The visual elements are clearly put there by someone who doesn't understand their use.
Characters are Underutilized
Outside of Rey, who is the bestest at everything evar, the rest of the characters are actually decent, but do not get utilized properly. Po is barely in the movie. Fin's there, but he's more like a piece of furniture. His story with Captain Phasma could have been something. His story as an abducted and brainwashed trooper could have gone somewhere unique. It didn't.
Starkiller Base is Stupid.
This one is a bit on the complicated side, but hear me out. So, spoiler alert, this is the planet Ilum. Starkiller base is a massive engineering project that needed a lot of explanation to be taken seriously as a plot device. We've had to wait several years and play a tie in video game to understand this point. A film like this should stand on its own with enough plot filled in to keep the suspension of disbelief going. The base is a stupid idea in the first place and I'll get to. Surprise, Starkiller base is actually a product of strip mining Ilum for Kyber crystals. This started back in the Imperial days. For those who don't know, Ilum is a sacred world where Jedi acquired their lightsaber crystals is mined for weapons manufacturing by the Empire for projects like the Death Star. For some reason, the First Order decided to make a Death Star like weapon out of the planet. Which brings me to a whole other bag of problems.....
One, the idea that shooting several planets in the same system would be enough to end the New Republic, is laughable at best. Even as a relatively new government with problems the Empire didn't have, it wouldn't be eliminated through a single system's destruction. Even if you took out Washington DC, you wouldn't eliminate the entire U.S. Government. Why would a galaxy wide government put all its eggs in one basket...er system? It makes zero sense. Starkiller base also destroys several planets which all appear to be within the same system. This makes little sense as planets tend to need to be in a certain zone to be habitable. These planets were in the same system, but its hard to believe that a single system has four or five planets that are all habitable and that close together. That's the most minor of issues, but I still thought about it. The Starkiller base beam also comes from a single large emitter, but breaks up like like it hit a prism? This makes no sense. If the prism were in the emitter, it would break up immediately. If it weren't, what exactly splits the beam and directs it to each target at the end of their journey?
More problems arise when you consider that Ilum is in the unknown regions of the galaxy. The New Republic system that gets destroyed would likely be in the core worlds. This would require any stationary weapon to be able to launch projectiles through Hyperspace. For a beam, this makes even less sense. Even more retarded is the fact that it supposedly requires a star to power it. That star is drained and disappears. Well, believe it or not, this is as retarded as the ships in Episode 8 suddenly drifting when they run out of fuel. Powering the weapon via a star isn't by itself stupid. It's actually sensible. What isn't is the base obviously pulling mass from the star. Once a certain amount has been pulled, the star would enter a red giant phase or simply go super nova. That would destroy the planet and wipe out the system. Yet, in the movie the First Order has assets on the planet in a big Nazi'esque speech scene. Star killer base is still perfectly intact after the firing. This makes no sense either. You wouldn't even need to worry about it as its fuel supply would be exhausted. It's a one shot weapon for two reasons. 1.) It consumes the star. 2.) It's stationary. We saw no evidence of FTL engines on the base, so WTF?
It's also stupid to pour so many resources into turning a planet into a Death Star when they could have just put a Death Star laser on Snoke's flagship. That would have made tons more sense and accomplished the same thing. Starkiller Base is really a flash over substance idea. When questioned, the concept falls apart. It's clear its just meant to be a new Death Star that's bigger and badder. In reality, it's dumb as hell.
The Political Climate Makes No Sense (New Republic is ineffective and stupid.)
This one is something that I could go on about for quite awhile. In the film, the New Republic is basically stated as being unwilling to enter into open war with the First Order. This means that the New Republic became aware of the First Order after it was too late. The First Order is conquering systems and marauding around the Galaxy and their plan involves supplying X-Wings and New Republic assets to a new Resistance movement. The First Order is a remnant or evolution of the very thing that the Rebel Alliance to Restore the Republic fought against. Yet, the New Republic isn't going to put its best foot forward on that? The whole thing is contrived nonsense. It's also stupid that the New Republic never found out about the First Order, it's build up or its Planet McGuffin. The failures are too numerous to be believed. Suspension of disbelief goes right out the window once again.
The First Order is Dumb
The First Order, in concept isn't bad by itself. It's just woefully mishandled in terms of its execution. In the beginning of the film, we don't get a sense that its larger than the Empire, or nearly as big. Until we see planet McGuffin, there is no reason to think its so large. That's how it should have stayed. A role reversal of a smaller, smarter Empire trying to regain its foothold on the Galaxy would have made for a better and more believable story. The fact that the First Order was allowed to get so big without anyone knowing it is beyond ridiculous. I get that the New Republic annihilating the Imperial Remnant wasn't high on its list of priorities. but in the early days the New Republic would have been fragile and it would have had to have kept tabs on things like the Empire to make sure that they were aware of any threats. Also, a big fleet, massive construction and the manpower involved would have been noticed. You couldn't have the kind of personnel traveling to that part of the galaxy without someone taking note of it.
The Assassination of Classic Characters
While this is a bigger problem for episode 8, we see problems showing here. Everyone's looking to Luke to save them, but he's checked out and run off to become a hermit. This doesn't make any sense and from the start it seems like bullshit. Luke never gave up even in the face of overwhelming adversity. This is a character that's lost nearly everyone he's ever cared about. Sometimes in front of him. Yet, he's always bucked up and gotten on with what needed to be done. He has a spirit of never quitting and improving himself. Becoming what he needed to be to overcome challenges. The bullshit with his character started in Episode 7. Even what we know of him here is totally out of alignment with what we know of him. Many of us fans grew up watching this character. Reading books and comics about him or interacting with or playing as him in games. You can't take a character that's so deeply imbeeded in popular culture and get it so wrong. R2 is more or less treated the same way. He's shut down for reasons.........The Resistance treats him like furniture. It makes no sense.
Episode 8 is a **** Sandwich
Episode 8 is an even bigger clusterfuck. I won't even go there right now. But the foundation it was built on was largely ****, and Rian
"Round Head" Johnson not only managed to make his film worse, but make it so bad that it makes Episode 7 and 9 worse than they would have otherwise been if properly followed up on or written. It's truly staggering how bad Episode 8 is. Anything connected to it is retroactively or henceforth going to be trash. This is what happens when identity politics and subverting expectations by making a film unpredictable are your primary goals. **** telling a cohesive and competently executed story.
You guys can watch this bullshit sequel if you want to. But I'm not giving them anymore money until they figure out how to do Star Wars the right way. So far, the Mandalorian and Rogue One are the only things Disney did right since acquiring Lucasfilm. Not that they are perfect, but these two things actually feel like Star Wars. Not some bullshit Fan Fiction. That last part is one of the biggest problems. While everything looks correct, it's not. There is no hero's journey. This should have been the Skywalker Saga, and it isn't. The only Skywalker's in the last trilogy are weak, ineffective, bumbling and dead.
So no, Episode 7 does NOT do a good job of continuing the story. Not by a long shot.
