The Last Jedi What would you have done differently?

[DerekLake]

I'd be interested in what Lucas had planned. While the prequels were bad in execution they were clearly more original than TFA and TLJ.

Again: half of the stuff conceptually in The Force Awakens was Lucas!

Stop ignoring that, seriously.

Yeah, Lucas wouldn’t have necessarily turned out a better trilogy. After all, this is the guy who for many years kept saying that ROTJ was the end.

I think TFA and TLJ are part reaction against the Prequels (especially the quick destruction of the Republic) and part surface level viewing of the OT.

 

[007]

The entire trilogy should of been set hundred of years in the future.

 

[matt47]

They should've made the trilogy about what happened in the lead up to this trilogy. Have Ben Solo be the main character. Show us his relationship with Han/Leia and Luke. Luke's setting up his Jedi academy, learning what is means to be a teacher etc.
I feel like that whole storyline they keep teasing in this trilogy is more compelling and interesting than said current trilogy.


Plus...it means we get a crap ton more of Han/Leia and Luke...

 

[CaptainWagner]

I'd be interested in what Lucas had planned. While the prequels were bad in execution they were clearly more original than TFA and TLJ.

Well, most of the stuff people complained about from TLJ was the stuff that WAS original, so...

 

[moviedoors]

I would have upped the number of Resistance survivors at the end.

 

[sycamore]

I would have had two storylines at the end:

1. Rey get seduced by Kylo into helping him defeat Snoke. Awesome, awesome lightsaber battle at the end featuring Snoke's Guards, and the Supreme Leader himself (who has a huge repetoire of Dark Side abilities, including possession which he uses on Rey at one point to pit her against Kylo). Kylo and Rey barely prevail. Kylo annoints himself Supreme Leader, and attempts to make Rey his apprentice, but she balks and flees.

2. First Order corners Leia's forces on Crait; Luke Skywalker (complete with X-Wing) to the rescue.

Other things:
- streamline the Finn and Rose subplot, big time. Omit the whole idea of Finn's kamikaze attack at the end with Rose saving him.
- exclude BB8 saving Finn and Rose from Phasma's forces. This is the lowest point of the movie, by far.
- omit Benicio Del Torro from SW altogther. This guy is a wildly overrated actor who has an awful tendency of mumbling his lines.

 

[sycamore]

Not hire Kathleen Kennedy

Yeah I'm beginning to wonder about this one.

 

[Aximili86]

Lucas hired Kennedy, before Disney bought Lucasfilm.

Food for thought.

 

[DerekLake]

After watching the film again, I think I’m still convinced that the Poe/Holdo and Rose/Finn plots should have been different and combined into a Finn/Poe arc. The Luke/Rey arc was enough to sell the idea that failure is a great teacher, and there was a much better way to sell the idea that victory comes from saving those who need saving. For example, I think Canto Bight should have been about liberating the city/freeing the oppressed from First Order/Centrist rule, and in doing so, lighting the spark of the new Rebellion.

At the same time, I actually think Leia should have been captured by Kylo Ren. It would have given her and Ben some quality time together, shifting much of the burden of Kylo Ren’s development off of Rey. It also would have meant that the film’s third act, including Luke’s conclusion, could have taken place entirely on the Supremacy. Luke and Leia’s last conversation could have even been a callback to their first interaction on the Death Star (fitting with all the other ANH callbacks here).

 

[Consona]

This "the sequel trilogy is Lucas' fault too" is a weird narration.

Concepts were taken from his art books, yeah. Does that mean he would have written the story this way? No.

Kennedy worked for Lucas (and Spielberg) before Disney bought SW. Does that mean Lucas has control over her mind? That he's able to see into the future to witness what Disney's doing with SW years from when he sold it? Of course not.

Nuff said:
https://youtu.be/YyqlTi7lkhY?t=2m42s

 

[Consona]

Anyway, I'm still thinking about how to change Luke's story to make it more interesting and in character while keeping him a lone hermit and Kylo's former teacher.

I think there's much more room for drama than that weird tent scene. Like we've never even seen knights of Ren guys, and Snoke's influence and nothing of that. I'd like to see all that stuff fleshed out and reimagined.
The same goes for his hermit life. Make it more interesting and thoughtful. Make his relationship with Rey more interesting.

I mean, this looks so awesome...

 

[Aximili86]

This "the sequel trilogy is Lucas' fault too" is a weird narration.

Concepts were taken from his art books, yeah. Does that mean he would have written the story this way? No.

Depends how specific you want to get with "this way".

Once again, Rey as a 19 year old scavenger on a desert planet was Lucas. The First Order (though probably named something else at the time) as a leftover element of The Empire was Lucas. A "Jedi Killer" character sharing a lot of similarities to Ben (though we don't know whether he was a Solo in Lucas' version) was Lucas. Luke running off into exile and brooding for years was Lucas.

So...the specifics of the story? Sure, the details would very likely be different. Conceptually though, all of the big picture stuff at play here is straight from George's ideas. He was working with Ardnt on The Force Awakens for quite a while, before Kasdan and Abrams even came aboard.

And a lot of these ideas are in the finished film, and carry over to The Last Jedi.

Also, regarding your comment about Kathleen, he doesn't have to "read her mind". He was working with her on building this next phase of things for quite a while pre-Disney-sale, and even stuck around after the sale to help conceptualize TFA. They were pretty clearly collaborating on the broad stuff in the early days before Abrams came on board, and even then it doesn't seem that J.J. radically diverted from what preceded him in terms of the "big" stuff, just the details.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

I would have had Finn die when he was going all kamikaze on the cannon. It would have been a fitting end for the character given his repeated cowardice shown throughout the two films having him end up sacrificing himself in an attempt to preserve something bigger. It also would have been a true ballsy move that people wouldn't have expected. And quite frankly, through two films, his plots have consistently been one of the weakest aspects of the ST so the films wouldn't lose much (probably the opposite) by getting rid of him. That's three reasons to go through with it.

 

[Delwin]

I would have changed the origin of the Kylo/Luke backstory. I would have make Snoke the follow student of Luke (disguised as new student - it would perfectly fit the TFA text of Leia about his influence on Kylo) and make them both a rebels against Luke. Big battle (Luke openly confronting Ben and his followers) when Luke decides against killing Ben in the battle because he is family which results in murder of the other students (Luke is almost ovepowered by surprised attack from Snoke). Luke is broken because he showed mercy and in the end it led to even more killings (which would perfectly fit into Luke's character - no "killing for any case". This puts him more less in the place he is at the beginning of TLJ: Luke still looking for the answers, judging his decisions (his exile should be shorter to make it more consistent and logical, not five years but e.g. one year). The news about Han killed by his son makes him even more broken - again: his mercy made the things worse. Any decision he makes is wrong...

The end: Luke is coming back in X-Wing and fights almost alone against the army of FO (he enters the battle e.g. in similar way Han saved him in ANH). No need (since we had the saber battle from the past) for battle with Kylo. He does miracles but at the end gets "killed" after his last "trench run"(homage to ANH) against the walkers making the Resistance able to escape.

 

[sycamore]

I would have had Finn die when he was going all kamikaze on the cannon. It would have been a fitting end for the character given his repeated cowardice shown throughout the two films having him end up sacrificing himself in an attempt to preserve something bigger. It also would have been a true ballsy move that people wouldn't have expected. And quite frankly, through two films, his plots have consistently been one of the weakest aspects of the ST so the films wouldn't lose much (probably the opposite) by getting rid of him. That's three reasons to go through with it.

Finn has been a much more necessary character than Poe has (particularly in TFA). Poe's the one who should have been killed off. Both JJ and Johnson seemed at a loss as what to do with him.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Finn has been a much more necessary character than Poe has (particularly in TFA). Poe's the one who should have been killed off. Both JJ and Johnson seemed at a loss as what to do with him.

Poe was pretty insignificant to TFA, but I thought he was better in TLJ. Plus it wouldn't fit Poe's character arc in this film to kill him. He's a cowboy whose impulsiveness and rashness to act gets people killed. The film is about him learning how dangerous that attitude can be. For that to happen, and then turn around and have him killed anyways doesn't fit with his story. It does fit with Finn's story, especially since he also got his revenge on Phasma a few minutes earlier, closing that chapter.

 

[Consona]

Depends how specific you want to get with "this way".

Once again, Rey as a 19 year old scavenger on a desert planet was Lucas. The First Order (though probably named something else at the time) as a leftover element of The Empire was Lucas. A "Jedi Killer" character sharing a lot of similarities to Ben (though we don't know whether he was a Solo in Lucas' version) was Lucas. Luke running off into exile and brooding for years was Lucas.

So...the specifics of the story? Sure, the details would very likely be different. Conceptually though, all of the big picture stuff at play here is straight from George's ideas. He was working with Ardnt on The Force Awakens for quite a while, before Kasdan and Abrams even came aboard.

And a lot of these ideas are in the finished film, and carry over to The Last Jedi.

Also, regarding your comment about Kathleen, he doesn't have to "read her mind". He was working with her on building this next phase of things for quite a while pre-Disney-sale, and even stuck around after the sale to help conceptualize TFA. They were pretty clearly collaborating on the broad stuff in the early days before Abrams came on board, and even then it doesn't seem that J.J. radically diverted from what preceded him in terms of the "big" stuff, just the details.

"was Lucas" does not mean the story would have been the same. All those things are just elements. A scavenger girl, exile Luke, etc. Take a hundred writers and you'll get a hundred different stories with all those same ingredients.

More so when Lucas said he had envisioned the whole new trilogy, while we've seen that the transition from TFA to TLJ was one huge mess tone-wise and content-wise.

So to me, it seems like they took Lucas' concepts, arts, designs, but that's actually that.

Big battle (Luke openly confronting Ben and his followers) when Luke decides against killing Ben in the battle because he is family which results in murder of the other students (...). Luke is broken because he showed mercy and in the end it led to even more killings (which would perfectly fit into Luke's character - no "killing for any case". This puts him more less in the place he is at the beginning of TLJ: Luke still looking for the answers, judging his decisions (his exile should be shorter to make it more consistent and logical, not five years but e.g. one year). The news about Han killed by his son makes him even more broken - again: his mercy made the things worse. Any decision he makes is wrong...

This first draft sounds much better than the final TLJ version we've got! t:

 

[Delwin]

This first draft sounds much better than the final TLJ version we've got!

Happy to correct E9 screenplay ;-). Or to draft a new story for E8 remake...

Poe was pretty insignificant to TFA,

As far as I can recall Poe was supposed to be killed off in the crash on Jakku...

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Another thing I would have done differently is fix up the First Order officer ranks. They are too cartoonish to me in both TFA and TLJ, compared to the entertaining officers of the OT. I'm also not clear on what their actual roles are. Hux commands the First Order fleet in battle, but then he also leads the ground assault in walkers? And his rank is General, but he spends most of the time doing the job of an Admiral. It is really confusing. Compare that to TESB where Ozzel, Piett, Needa, and Veers all had defined jobs and ranks and it made a lot more sense.

 

[CocaCola]

Everything has to be redone. This movie is unfixable. When I watched Passengers 2016 yeah the movie has its many issues but it still could be fixed. Last Jedi is a goner in that regard

 

[MaceB]

Everything has to be redone. This movie is unfixable. When I watched Passengers 2016 yeah the movie has its many issues but it still could be fixed. Last Jedi is a goner in that regard

The series withstood midichlorians. It withstood the worst romance dialogue in modern cinema. It withstood Anakin turning into a homicidal killer immediately as if by a spell. AotC is literally one of the worst large box office movies that I can think of in recent times. If this movie is unrecoverable.... then we've been in bad shape for a long while. You're over reacting.

 

[random_havoc]

Well, most of the stuff people complained about from TLJ was the stuff that WAS original, so...

No offence but I've heard that same bullcrap response to criticisms of TLJ repeatedly. There's good original ideas and bad original ideas. People aren't complaining because the ideas were original they're complaining because the original ideas Johnson came up with suck

 

[random_havoc]

The series withstood midichlorians. It withstood the worst romance dialogue in modern cinema. It withstood Anakin turning into a homicidal killer immediately as if by a spell. AotC is literally one of the worst large box office movies that I can think of in recent times. If this movie is unrecoverable.... then we've been in bad shape for a long while. You're over reacting.

But the prequels never recovered from that garbage, and this trilogy won't recover from this garbage either. Not possible.

 

[gerrym51]

Star Wars issues is that it's tied into the same stuff over and over.

What it needs is a 'threat to everybody' and a new villian.

at the start of the next movie i would show that Luke is not dead-what we saw was him experimenting with New Jedi powers.

Then I would have him and the alliance totally win.

Then at the end we see a new threat to the galaxy-'Galactus".

Now it doesn't have to be Galactus himself but some new threat like him that forces eveyone to unite

 

[MaceB]

But the prequels never recovered from that garbage, and this trilogy won't recover from this garbage either. Not possible.

Hmm okay. Many other films have come back from far worse. You may not like TLJ, I get it, but it's not the worst movie by far... not even the worst movie of 2017. You're over reacting. At worst, it's an ambitious movie that didn't measure up to it's predecessors. At worst.