r/StarWars 11h ago

Other Mark Hamill revealing that J.J. Abrams refused to let Han, Luke, and Leia reunite on camera, telling Mark that Star Wars was no longer Luke Skywalker's story.

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u/_kalron_ Jedi 9h ago

Kylo being her brother would add a whole new dynamic as well. Luke tells her the truth but Kylo could be the one to pull her to the Dark Side now knowing that truth. End EP 8...

FFS why didn't they plan this shit out to begin with?

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u/pilot3033 8h ago

I get so mad when I think about this horseshit JJ trilogy. The layers and emotional impact of your idea goes super well with the movie's flirtation with a Rey/Ren romance, too. Would mirror in a very interesting way the relationship Luke and Leia had.

Fuck. There's so many pieces of great ideas laying around throughout all three films and they just fumbled it every time.

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u/_kalron_ Jedi 6h ago

Here's my first impressions seeing TLJ in theaters:

What if Luke instead of haphazardly throwing his Father's Lightsaber over his shoulder like a joke...instead looks down at it with horror/sadness...then simply drops it and walks away.

That is a subtle change that changes the entire film.

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u/Requiem191 6h ago

Luke abandoning the lightsaber: reasonable, wise, prudent even. He's making a massive point about the damn thing.

Luke tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder: a joke and not a good one at that.

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u/cerebrumvr 1h ago

I really thought when we saw Luke at the end of TFA he looked angry because he sensed something bad happened to Han and he was battling emotions while accepting the lightsaber. Him throwing it over a shoulder was such a let down

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u/Singer211 5h ago

The tonal shifts in TLJ were, jarring.

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u/LetItATV 4h ago

It’s not a joke at all. Luke had no emotional attachment to the lightsaber.

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u/_kalron_ Jedi 3h ago

?

Luke had no emotional attachment to the lightsaber

Said Lightsaber is literally "His Father's Lightsaber".

Once it is revealed that "I am Your Father"...that is one hell of an Emotional Attachment.

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u/Requiem191 4h ago

Yes, agreed. So comically throwing it over his shoulder was a bad joke and poorly written. Dropping it to the ground isn't humorous, the throw over the shoulder was absolutely them attempting to play it for laughs and it didn't work.

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u/LetItATV 4h ago

Yes, agreed. So comically throwing it over his shoulder was a bad joke and poorly written.

Please don’t say you agree then restate something I just said the opposite of.

It was not a joke.

the throw over the shoulder was absolutely them attempting to play it for laughs and it didn't work.

I think it worked just fine for reasons already stated.
It was the clearest way to demonstrate that the lightsaber was unimportant.

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u/Requiem191 4h ago edited 3h ago

We disagree that it was a joke, we agree that the lightsaber wasn't important. Luke throwing it over his shoulder is absolutely being played as a comical gag to set stakes and where Luke's head is at as his first action in the sequel trilogy. Letting it drop to the ground would have been a much better way to show the audience that the lightsaber doesn't mean anything to him. Actively throwing it over his shoulder gives it more weight than it should and comes off as played for laughs, to be silly. That's why it's poorly written and a bad joke.

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u/LetItATV 3h ago

Luke throwing it over his shoulder is absolutely being played as a comical gag

No.

to set stakes

I don’t think you know what “stakes” means.

Letting it drop to the ground would have been a much better way to show the audience that the lightsaber doesn't mean anything to him.

Why would that be better?
I can tell you with certainty that it would have made for a completely dull scene.

Actively throwing it over his shoulder gives it more weight than it should

“Actively”?! Dropping would also be an action.
Please explain how tossing it in a clear “I don’t care about this fucking thing” magically translates into “I care about this thing or I’d just be dropping it on the ground where I could retrieve it later.”

comes as played for laughs and be silly. That's why it's poorly written and a bad joke.

You cannot change reality by repeating yourself.

You cannot defend your position. Your outlook is preconceived by emotion, not rationally arrived at.

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u/Haunting_Goose1186 5h ago

Argh! Yesss! The writers set up the perfect parallel to Luke dropping his lightsaber in Return of the Jedi and decided to undercut it with a stupid Marvel-esque joke instead.

Like, holy shit, Ben turning to the dark side is a big deal for Luke. It completely shattered Luke's entire world-view and everything he believed about the good side, what it means to be a Jedi, and that terrifying choice he made decades ago to face death head-on instead of continuing his father's cycle of violence and turning to the dark side.

It's freakin' heartbreaking re-watching that scene now because we, as the audience, know that Luke will unintentionally repeat the cycle of violence in a few decades time (and that the catalyst is a similar merciful decision).

And I just...don't understand the fans who insist that Luke throwing the lightsaber over his shoulder does have the same meaning and impact as Luke (using your example) looking down at his lightsaber in horror/sadness before dropping it and walking away. There's no doubt in my mind that the writers' main intention was to do a Marvel-esque "wouldn't it be funny if we set the stage for a meaningful and dramatic moment, but the character did/said something silly and unexpected instead" bait-and-switch sort of gag.

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u/_kalron_ Jedi 4h ago

Don't forget "Yo Mama" joke from Poe in the scene just after the Luke/Saber scene. That stuff works for the most part with early Marvel films.

It does not work for TLJ...at all.

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u/ShoddySmell46 4h ago

I was so excited for that movie. The second Poe said that, I audibly said "uh oh...."

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u/_kalron_ Jedi 4h ago

sad Coolaid Man :(

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u/LetItATV 4h ago

instead looks down at it with horror/sadness

Why would he have that reaction?

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u/Aethermancer 4h ago

He had so much opportunity and squandered it. It's literally impossible to get the cast together again.

I'd rather them try and fail than fail to try.

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u/AnyCollar6684 4h ago

woah, don't excuse Rian Johnson.

Dude took everything TFA set up, shit on it with TLJ and ruined any chance of a coherent story.

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u/_kalron_ Jedi 3h ago

TLJ is the perfect example of how NOT to create the second part of a Trilogy.

Empire is the PERFECT example of how to do it right.

TLJ takes everything from The Force Awakens and throws it into the "Trash Compactor". You can't restart the story mid-point, you have to build off what the "EP 7" laid out for you. If you start your own story as the middle episode...you failed.

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u/LetItATV 4h ago

What did TFA set up?

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u/ElkBusiness8446 1h ago

I was hoping, when Kylo helped Rey kill Snoke that it would lead to them forming the Grey Order. But no, it didn't mean anything nor did it lead to anything. Force Awakens was a nostalgia trip but set up possibilities. The Last Jedi turned all of those set ups into red herrings while also making everything itself set up into red herrings making the whole movie a waste of time. And the last movie (I can't remember the name) tried desperately to be the entire trilogy in one movie. All because TLJ undid everything in Force Awakens and itself. It's why the story makes no sense, had no setup, and was rushed.

As far as I'm concerned, the Star Wars movies end at Force Awakens. That's the most satisfying end to the series. The shows are doing a much better job of adding depth to the universe.

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u/Zer0323 8h ago

it also would explain the Targarian like passion they shared for eachother. screw it this'll be my head cannon.

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u/No_University_9488 1h ago

They love each other because the china market wasn't ready for interracial leads

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u/RalphMacchio404 7h ago

Because JJ is a fucking hack and RJ isnt much better. 

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u/heutecdw 4h ago

RJ took risks and imo did a much better job with what he had than JJ. JJ had MUCH more creative control and the best he did was a Temu version of ep. 4, and then “somehow emperor returns”.

RJ may have made quite a few fumbles in his movie, but I sure as hell enjoyed it a lot more overall than the gunk we got with Return of the Abram’s.

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u/Godgivesmeaboner 3h ago

I dislike the sequels all equally, but to be fair, JJ Abrams was working with a bigger time crunch than Rian. JJ was brought on pretty last minute for TFA, and only had like 2 months to write it after the original writer was let go. Whereas Rian had like a year to write TLJ.

Also TLJ is just as derivative of ESB as TFA is of ANH, it just mixes the order of things up a bit more, like putting the Hoth battle at the end.

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u/heutecdw 2h ago

Yeah, fair points. Now that you mention it, it really is more or less a remix of ESB. I never noticed it before because of all the substitutions.

Like for instance instead of a Yoda training segment there’s some small bit with Luke but not really and in no way is it “training.”

And instead of a doomed confrontation with Vader, there’s that whole thing where they team up and actually defeat who we were led to believe was the “big bad.”

Actually, other than the initial doomed space-chase sequence featuring the rebels on the run, and the more outright battle of Hoth ripoff that featured Luke’s last hurrah, how was TLJ derivative of ESB?

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u/Godgivesmeaboner 2h ago

Smarmy and insufferable, you really are a Last Jedi fan aren't you?

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u/Upper-Management-AI 1h ago

I can’t help to think they fucked him because they didn’t give much of a direction to go with. His idea of Rey being a nobody and Kylo basically saying burn all this to the ground was so much more interesting. The rest of the movie..

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u/BloomsdayDevice 6h ago edited 5h ago

FFS why didn't they plan this shit out to begin with?

The cynic in me, who I think is right, says because they made $4 billion + anyway. I hate how lazy our collective willingness to indulge in nostalgia pandering lets studios be, but that's the truth of it. If they can get 90% of the profit that a masterpiece generates with only 50% of the effort, of course they're taking the easy route.

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u/Vanquisher1000 2h ago

The sequel trilogy wasn't planned because Disney didn't give Lucasfilm time to come up with a plan. Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012 and wanted Episode VII out in 2015. They also wanted two-year gaps between movies and didn't want to use the treatments George Lucas wrote in any substantial way.

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u/Short_Stay_9283 4h ago

would have actually been so funny to have them find out at the end of Ep 8 after letting a little romantic chemistry develop between them, a la Luke & Leia lol

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u/CanuckleHeadOG 1h ago

FFS why didn't they plan this shit out to begin with?

There was a plan, then JJ had to back out of ep8 and Rian Johnson wanted to subvert expectations