Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
But you also had emerging friendships and redemption arcs. You had happy characters that seemingly have bright futures ahead of them. You had cute bubbly little robots that make outstanding toys and weren't shot a dozen times before exploding and dying.
It wasn't as oppressively dour.
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The biggest problem with Episode VII was that it was a carbon copy of Episode IV. There was no originality, nothing new, just a direct copy with better actors, direction, cinematography and VFX.
But here's the truth: There will never, ever be another film like the original Star Wars film. No one had seen anything like it before on the big screen with space battles and planet destroying space stations and light sabers. The farm boy, princess, smuggler, walking carpet and Merlin the Magician all working together towards a common goal and once it was completed, everyone receives a medal. Every kid loved it, adults loved it was a generational movie unlike anything the world had seen at that point. But it all changed with
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.
George Lucas made
The Phantom Menace for kids. It featured an 8 year old actor, a dopey frog, a couple of droids and old school Jedi Knights. It featured swashbuckling action, the best lightsaber duel ever, a scary bad guy in Darth Maul and Princess Leia's mom kicking all the ass that we'd see Leia do 30 years later. Kids loved it!
Adults hated it. The internet hated it. People complained it "ruined their childhood". Lucas tried to course-correct with the next two films but they weren't much more appealing. Star Wars was essentially dead in the water.
The Clone Wars animated series, developed by George Lucas, was far closer to what people of certain age expected in a Star Wars property but it hasn't reached everyone.
Rebels is treading dangerously close to Rogue One, in terms of sacrifice, destruction, etc. (and they're going to have a difficult time resolving the characters because none of them appear in the OT).
But the bottom line is that
The Empire Strikes Back changed everything. Every director and writer hired by Lucasfilm is a huge fan, whether it's Abrams or Johnson or Trevorrow or Phil Lord & Chris Miller. They were HUGE fans of the OT but the film that stands out among all of them is
Empire. Empire is dark and menacing, Vader is far more evil than in ANH and he nearly destroys his own son. That's some heavy shit.
Now, we're seeing that Empire influence in Rogue One and Episode VII. Lots of death, lots of destruction, new and evil characters to match Vader and the Emperor. And from all reports, including Adam Driver and Larry Kasdan, Episode VIII is even
darker in tone than VII and
darker than Empire. And hell, that was
before the untimely death of Carrie Fisher.
I think the stand alone Han Solo movie has a chance to be lighter in tone and closer to the original film, because the character himself is lighter in tone. And Phil Lord & Chris Miller are absurdly funny (
Son of Zorn is the weirdest, most absurd TV show I've ever seen and I love it).
But as for the Episodes and other stand alone films, I'd expect the tone to be similar to Episode VII and Rogue One because that's what
adults want to see.
The children can just tag along.