One of my main criticisms so far with the Star Wars sequel trilogy is the lack of what seems to be a unifying story that follows through all three movies. I know other’s may disagree with this, but in a ‘proper’ trilogy like Star Wars should be, I am looking for one story split into three acts. For me, this sequel trilogy feels like one movie and than two sequels, in the same way The Dark Knight trilogy played out, or John Wick will play out when we see the third installment, and yet I feel it should work more like The Lord of the Rings and be one story split into three. Hey, that’s just my preference and up till now many fans had suggested there must have been an overall story arc they were working from even though it was made by different directors.
But now, I think we can safely say that the sequel trilogy for Star Wars was indeed a relay where the baton was passed from one filmmaker to another. Speaking with Fast Company, Star Wars: Episode 7 and now Episode 9 director JJ Abrams discussed some of the difficulties he faced with this approach coming in to make Episode 9.
“But it was a completely unknown scenario. I had some gut instincts about where the story would have gone. But without getting in the weeds on episode eight, that was a story that Rian wrote and was telling based on seven before we met. So he was taking the thing in another direction. So we also had to respond to Episode VIII. So our movie was not just following what we had started, it was following what we had started and then had been advanced by someone else. So there was that, and, finally, it was resolving nine movies. While there are some threads of larger ideas and some big picture things that had been conceived decades ago and a lot of ideas that Lawrence Kasdan and I had when we were doing Episode VII, the lack of absolute inevitability, the lack of a complete structure for this thing, given the way it was being run was an enormous challenge.”
Unfortunately, for me, this shows exactly where the problem was with this trilogy and why Rian Johnson’s Episode 8 was so controversial. Johnson just made his own movie without seeming to give much thought at all to what would happen in Episode 9 or what came before with Episode 7. My own issues with The Last Jedi are well documented on here, my biggest criticisms of that movie are that it doesn’t advance the story enough, it doesn’t give enough change of character arcs and does not ‘set-up’ the finale in the way a trilogy should (for me).
RELATED: Star Wars: Rian Johnson Wouldn’t Mind J.J. Abrams Retconning The Last Jedi In Episode IX
It remains to be seen whether Abrams will be able to make this movie feel like a conclusion to the story he began in The Force Awakens and also feel like the closing chapter of a nine-episode saga.
What do you think of Abrams comments, do you feel the trilogy was missing an overall story plan from the start? Share your thoughts on this sequel trilogy in the usual spot below.
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SOURCE: Fast Company
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