Originally Posted by
Volband
The biggest problem with TLJ as a middle episode is that it didn't set up IX with anything. I told you (well not necessarily you specifically) that I don't really care about IX because there is nothing to solve there, nothing interesting. Have you ever read a good book, or just watched a good story? Look at something we all know: Lord of the Rings. There's a ring, and the unlikely hero with his unlikely friends need to bring it to an unlikely place. Well, sounds impossible!!!! Let's see how our heroes fare in the journey!!!
Now imagine if halfway through the story Frodo says fuck this and throws away the ring. Yeah, epic, unexpected, revolutionary. Great. What do we do now? We have a bunch of people against an endless force, without having any indication of a possible solution to this problem, because Frodo was too cool for school. Give that story to anyone in the world, dead or alive, and they won't be able to make a good story without a "ring". They would have to pull things out of their ass.
At least JJ gave SOMETHING for Rian to play with. Let's just agree that everything Rian did was great and he solved JJ's riddles' in a very smart way. Fine, but you need to pass the torch. You can't be selfish. You have to place your own hooks, which you or the next director/writer can follow up. You can't just solve all the storylines and call it a day.
And once again, we can't blame neither JJ nor Rian for this mess. JJ did a very decent job to make a white canvas, where you have more than enough freedom to move these characters around - yes, you can even pull shit like killing Snoke, because JJ left so many hooks in TFA, that you didn't have to give a "proper" send-off to all of them. And Rian did what he was asked to do, to follow it up. If no executives told Rian that he needs to open up the story a bit for continuity's sake, then why the fuck should he had done it? If Kennedy smiles and nods to his script, why should he change it?
People should realize that it's pointless to dissect JJ for not making the best of a big pile of shit. The question should be why did we even have a big pile of shit to begin with? And once again, Kathleen Kennedy. We - rightfully so - bash Lucas for his shitty and destructive antics, there is really no reason Kathleen should get away with this mess. She approved all this mess: she hired JJ to paint an open-ended story, she hired Rian and let him go crazy with it, then she realized she doesn't like it AFTER THE FUCKING RELEASE, then rehired JJ who was never supposed to return in the first place... amateur hour.
This all being said, I am very much looking forward to tomorrow, because it seems like the climax of the biggest trainwrecks of AAA cinema in recent years.
How is this possibly true? Johnson answered every single question we had after TFA... the only option he left open was the possibility of a Jedi reinforcements... IF the next director is willing to time jump 20 years into the future.
I think you have a misconception about what an empty canvas means. TFA was an empty canvas, because it had many questions which could go many-many ways. TLJ was... done. They had to either leave it open-ended (ie. someone gets abducted, just to copy and paste Han's story from Empire), or they had to give episode IX to Rian as well.