Why didn't the sequel trilogy focus on Luke?

[superpunch]

Han was already like 40 in the original movies and hes everyones favorite character.

He was 33 when they filmed the original.

 

[Eusung]

Because they had no imagination and didn't know how to have Luke co-exist with new characters.

They should have followed the Cobra Kai model.

Focus on the legacy characters in the first movie. Then have the 2nd movie focus on both new and old. The in the 3rd and final film have the movie focus mostly on the new characters but still include the legacy characters in smaller roles.

Then in the future they could have done episodes X XI and XII focusing solely on the new characters.

Instead they botched it in the worst way possible.

My theory is they planned to have Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in future movies, another trilogy. That's why they were so desperate to kill off Han and Luke.

But it backfired and now they got nothing.

Had they just thought more short term and had Luke Han and Leia all in TFA things would have worked out much better long term. Fans would have been more apt to embrace Rey and Finn.

I cannot believe how badly they messed this up.

Even if they wanted to they could still have Luke return from the dead. The actor is still only in his 50s FFS. Stop pretending he is gonnna die of old age any second. Carrie Fisher was the one with a history of drug addiction and they gambled on her for Ep 9. Out of touch Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams.

 

[moreorless87]

It was because Kathleen Kennedy is a feminist cunt, and dictated her Star Wars movies would be filled with social agenda narratives and characters - Effectively making all new movies in the greatest SciFi series ever to be propaganda.

Oh, you wanted Luke, Han, and Leia to be up-front and center? Fuck you.

You wanted meaningful and epic Star Wars movies? Fuck you.

You will pay for a ticket to sit in a theater and have Mickey Mouse's dick shoved down your throat.

Nah, theres very little real substance to these films politically just cheap pandering, what Kennedy cares about is the bottom line.

Leia in the original films was I think a much greater feminist statement at the time.

 

[RDUBYA]

Not really relevant but The Ice Pirates is better than all the Star Wars films put together.

 

[blaseblah]

The writers messed up by introducing Luke, having him refuse to teach Rey, then killing him off in the same movie. He should've played a mentor role to her through the whole trilogy. And she shouldn't have started off so powerful. She should've been gradually built up through the series then become a badass in the final movie. It's pretty obvious they didn't have an overall plan and made up the story for each movie as they went.

Also they wasted Finn's story. There could've been so much character development with a trooper turned rebel. But he starts off as 100% good while all of his former associates are evil. There shouldve been some conflict there.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

Nah, theres very little real substance to these films politically just cheap pandering,

Sounds like you're agreeing with me.

what Kennedy cares about is the bottom line.

Apparently not.

And Solo lost an estimated $80 million.

Leia in the original films was I think a much greater feminist statement at the time.

No, the 70s had many 'strong female characters' in movies because the stereotype 'damsel in distress in need of rescue from the villain by the male heroes' had become stale.

Leia wasn't the first by a long shot, and I've never heard any sexist backlash by men after the movie came out in 1977.

 

[Iroh]

Mark Hamill is not only a white straight male, he is also the Joker!! Just look at the irrational BS they flung at the Joker movie !

 

[Buddy Revell]

In my view the sequel trilogy was always supposed to continue Luke's arc. Whether or not we see him succumb to the dark side and then redeem himself or what have you, it was supposed to be about Luke. I think that's why from the beginning I had a bad taste in my mouth about these new movies - they just focus on the wrong things.

Was it because Mark Hamill didn't want to be involved that much or because Disney and the story runners didn't want to go that route?

For the same reason that Disney decanonized the Expanded Universe... they didn't want to pay George Lucas any more residual money than they had to and thought they could just create any old new characters and the fans would love them.

What's funny is, they weren't totally wrong because the new characters were well cast and likable enough so the fans were on-board until they realized that the stories were absolute shit. And that's what Disney forgot to take into account: Story is king. Everything else is secondary.

 

[Fedorgasm]

Mark Hamill was simply too old. Star wars has always been geared towards children, even though adults love it too.

But it's hard for young people to relate to a 70 year old hero. So no matter what else happened, luke had to be in the wise old teacher role.

The other problem is that because of the books and some video games, everyone expected Luke to have become the strongest Jedi ever. But if that were the case then there would be no credible threat to him and you'd have no story to tell. So they had to effectively make it a power loss story for him.

So they settled on "luke failed as a teacher and an uncle, and created a monster that's responsible for the death of millions, and every single Jedi here's ever trained is either dead or turned evil, so he cuts himself off from the force"

I don't think it was the worst direction to go in. Personally, I would have written it like this:

Luke does become the most powerful force weilder in the universe, and over the years he's had to fight stronger and stronger dark side users. So in his travels and studies of the force be finally learns the secret--the force balances itself.

Which means when the light side becomes more powerful, the force increases the dark side power to balance itself. So for instance, when the Jedi were running shit, the force was imbalanced. So the Darkside became stronger and not only lured a guy like Palatine, but allowed him to gain much more power than he would have if the force was already balanced.

So what this means for Luke is that all this time he was trying to get stronger, he was just creating more evil in the universe.

So Luke finally concludes that this dynamic will make people fight these wars forever. And that the only way to truly restore balance is to kill all sith AND Jedi.

So his goal is to Kill snoke and kylo, then himself. But he knows he's not strong enough to beat them both, so he's faced with a moral dilemma... He can train Rey because she can help him win, but he will have to kill her right after they win.

I think that would be a much more interesting setup.

 

[dc007]

I remember reading an interview with Abrams where he said the original script for TFA started with Luke and he felt it was rushing into it so he rewrote it to introduce him at the end. I believe his intent was to do a bit more with him in the next 2 but Johnson killed him unceremoniously.

 

[Bob Gray]

They're too old to focus a new franchise on.

They should have left started with Luke being an aged teacher having rebuilt the order. You can fill in the gaps of Canon between RoTJ and the new trilogy quite easily with extended material and even opens the door for "young Luke" tv show or something showing his story.

But the new trilogy effectively destroyed his character and the Skywalker legacy in an attempt to make way for new characters that aren't nearly as popular.

 

[Oeshon]

they should have just created new characters and story arcs that are loosely tied to previous movies with small easter eggs and cameos.

the Mandalorian is 1000000x better than the trash movies.