Going by the laugh in the trailer I'm disappointed they didn't name it... I can't decide, literally anything else. Return of the Sith. Shadow of the Dark Side. Master of the Force. Unfinished War. Etc. Etc.
I mean if they named it shadows of the empire they'd end up giving away the plot Personally I see a couple clever ways they could redeem this name choice, but I doubt they're going to manage it. Either way I'll still watch it, I've enjoyed the movies even in spite of the flaws therein.
Egh... They lost me with Last Jedi. Gonna wait for this to be on Netflix. Having Billy Dee was a really smart move though. And it looks like we will see other old familiar faces as well. I will be happier with the movie if they bring Mark Hamill back as a force ghost to interact with the other characters a bit more. Really didn't like how they ended things with him in the last movie.
I warmed up to the ending of the last one after a couple of viewings. It finally brought up the point that the Jedi had been royally fucking up for generations prior to their fall. They had gotten so afraid of the dark side they didn't tech anything about it, so their strongest pupil had no defense against its temptations. Plus the council had become so sure of their own power they couldn't sense a literal Sith lord standing in the same room with them I actually ending up agreeing that it was time for the Jedi to end as a singular order. I was sorry to see Luke die, but having him come out and save the day single handedly wouldn't have been the right solution either. I don't really know what I would done to be honest. I actually think if the director hadn't been so insufferably smug about "subverting expectations" the film might have gone over better. It definitively had some problems (who the fuck is Holdo anyway?) but I thought the parts about Luke were handled pretty well. I still wanted to cave Rose's skull in though at the end.
I am not a die hard fan of Star Wars so I don't have a dog in this race, but from the outside looking in, Rian Johnson's direction of Luke just seemed like a huge slap in the face to Star Wars fans everywhere (there is plenty of evidence to suggest this is exactly what happened). I know that if I cared about Star Wars I would have been pissed. It's all a moot point now, but there was A LOT that I would have done to improve Luke's lines. There was too much focus on Luke being bitter. It just didn't make any sense. To summarize, I would have cut all that time wasted on the casino planet to explore more about "dark vs light force" and how it's a stupid argument. I'm fine with the argument that the Jedi fucked up for centuries, but that conversation should have come from Luke. I would have talked more about how there is only "one force" but the hearts of individuals are what change that force for good or ill. Basically, I would have used the second movie to explore more about what this guy was saying all along: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jolee_Bindo I've always hated the "dark vs light" argument in Star Wars. It is so fucking boring to me. I've heard the phrase "philosophy for babies" used before and I'm inclined to believe it after seeing Disney double down on that after the last movie. I expected something more interesting from Kylo Ren, but his aspirations to "rule the galaxy" BORE me. Also, let us not forget that Kennedy & Johnson pretty much threw the baby out with the bathwater in terms of Star Wars lore. I don't care for JJ Abrams style either, but at least he is faithful to the source material. If Star Wars fans have anything to look forward to at all, then at least they can be fairly confident that this next movie can't be any worse than Last Jedi. But hey.. everyone is entitled to their opinion on such matters.
Oh, it had problems, I was just glad Luke called the Jedi on their bullshit. I agree he should have spent more time on that though. Yoda admitting the Jedi texts were basically worthless was also a nice touch. I think what they were going for was Luke being bitter over his failure with Ben basically being a repeat of the old Order's failures i.e. "see dark side, MUST DESTROY". It was handled really awkwardly though. Rian seems to have wanted to put some ambiguity into things, but none of it really came together. I used to be a fan boy, but the drama around this movie killed the fun for me. The movie as a whole was meh, but the flame wars were so draining I can't really care about it any more.
The last Jedi was very polarizing. It does seem like they have a lot going for this one to pull it all back together though. I still haven't seen Solo though.
I saw something that said they may be making Skywalker into more of a title than a family since all of the Skywalkers are gone. Or they are going to resurrect Luke and have zombie Skywalker vs zombie Palpatine.
Bad title is bad. They picked it because its ambigious and could mean many things... Kylo, Luke, some new order of people naming themselves after Skywalkers. Dunno.
This conversation has got me wanting to go back and watch it again. I really don't feel like I've formed a complete opinion yet.
What and produced at the same place as the Palpatine force clones? Like he wanted to make a disciple of the bastard who killed him? Shit I accidentally wrote a better storyline, I'm sorry.
The palpatine clones were extended universe and thrown out in favor of Disney's new storyline post RotJ
I'm happier with Rei being nobody from nowhere, personally I think that fits better with the lore we know about the force than any other crap lineage thing. If they do try and pull some bloodline cloning garbage story to explain away Rei I'll probably have to wash my hands of the series for a while, until they can go through a cleansing fire. I enjoy the animated series they have been putting together, I did quite enjoy Solo in spite of it's rather single minded purpose to exist (give a bologna reason for why Han refers to performing a task in a number of parsecs to refer to how fast the ship is, and maybe to cast Lando as a pansexual because reasons... and to ensure nobody ever needs ask the question again, 'Did Han shoot first?') I guess we shall see how this goes *shrug*
