Random Star Wars Sequels Reflections

[labingi]

I was watching a YouTube video by So Uncivilized dissecting the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and I came across this comment by pacoramon9468, basically agreeing with the video (spoilers, I guess): in the SW Sequel trilogy...

-Palpatine wasn't killed
-The Empire wasn't destroyed
-Luke didn't bring back the jedi order
-Han Solo left Leia and return to be a criminal
-The New Republic was a failure that a group of neonazis ended in a week
-Anakin didn't bring balance to the force.
The sequel trilogy made pointless the original trilogy...

And I kind of agree. This video/comment made me reflect on my own experiences trying to square the sequel trilogy with the SW in my head. Short version: I still can't. I didn't hate the sequel trilogy. In the moment, in the theater, I quite liked most of TFA, loved much of TLJ, and was decently entertained by much of TROS. I didn't (and don't) like the rabid hating they all got, especially TLJ. But while I've never been emotionally furious about the illogical non-story these three together presented, they have hurt my SW experience. Light spoilers behind the cut and light references to my weird personal head canon.

I've been mentally ficcing SW since I was about nine and had a really complex head canon, including its own prequel story, by the time TFM was released in 1999. Throughout the prequels (and some of the Extended Universe novels), I had to choose what new stuff to ignore, what to integrate, and how to integrate it. This created some odd, incoherent story: ex. in my head canon Padmé is Anakin's girlfriend before Luke and Leia's mother. But I managed to navigate all that with my understanding of the core characters intact.

I was prepared to the do same with the sequels. For example, I like Kylo and knew I had to write him in, despite there being absolutely no logical way to do so. My bandaid on that is still really vague and hand wavy.

But honestly, trying to navigate all this new stuff kind of broke my Luke and Leia. It broke Leia less. In part--no one's fault--it replaced my image of her with an aging Carrie Fisher whose voice had really changed, and I'm still trying to get back a mental image of older Leia who is not quite aged Carrie (with profound love to Carrie). The other part is that the politics make no sense, which means I have no idea what older Leia is actually doing.

As for Luke, well, a lot has been said. My head canon took out 90% of the sequel Luke story and substituted in a totally different one where he ends up with Kylo hating him for totally different reasons (largely, Kylo's pissed that Luke and Leia never knew he existed--because he was really hard to head canon in). And even with only 10% or less of sequel Luke to worry about, I completely lost the thread of Luke. I left TLJ feeling like (my) Luke had been hit by a steamroller. And honestly, ever since, I've been trying to figure out how to get his legs back under him, and I don't know. He's still kind of steamrolled. He's just not the character he was before in my head, a character I knew really well. Now, I'm not sure what his problem is, and neither is he, and I don't know how to get him out his funk. So that's what the sequel trilogy did to my SW fan experience and, yeah, insofar as SW fandom matters in my life (not a huge amount), it was quite harmful. (I love Andor, though, so...)

BTW, Han and Chewie I had already killed off before the sequels (because sometimes I'm dark like that), so they both largely escaped being retconned by me, except I had to re-backstory Han to explain Kylo, but I don't have to deal with Han now, which is kind of a relief.

Comments

[vilakins]

I prefer to watch the original trilogy. It has hope, something we all need. One thing I liked in the sequel was the slave boy having the force, and I so wanted Rey to be a nobody who had it too, not yet another born-to-the-right-family which is a trope I really dislike (e.g. kitchen boy turns out to be a prince and therefore has Powers and/or Destiny).

I'm not invested enough to think up and write an AU sequel, but applaud anyone who does.

[labingi]

I'm definitely not writing any of this down (well, except here), but I can't really avoid doing something about it because these people are "real" in my mind. To stop thinking about it would be effectively kill them off. Anyway, I agree that Rey would have had a better backstory as a nobody, and, yes, I love the OT forever. :)

[Edit: I guess I could just pretend none of the sequel stuff happened. I'd lose Kylo (and Poe, whom I love), but all that's a bit moot as that ship has sailed for me.]

[vilakins]

I did like Poe and Finn a lot, and Rey until she became a speshul Chosen One.

I've never rewatched the prequel trilogy, nor will I rewatch the sequel one. Despite Poe. ;)

[labingi]

I actually haven't rewatched the sequels either. I don't have a vow not to; I just haven't felt a need. Expect I will in the future.

I wanted to like Finn but I can't make sense out of his psychology (ditto Rey to a lesser extent). Both were raised in horrifyingly traumatizing conditions and behave like middle-class kids next door. I couldn't follow it.

[vilakins]

I do agree. I had assumed in the OT that the stormtroopers were a standing army, enlisted or conscripted as adults. Not only did Finn's and Rey's backgrounds not seem to affect them much, they both had a strong morality despite what they must have had to do to survive. Finn would have made more sense had he been an adult conscript who objected to orders. He should have had a skewed narrow view of the world if all he'd ever known was the military. They could have done a lot more with him, or just not had the whole kidnapped children thing, which added nothing to the plot. But then, different writers just ignored what had gone before and did their own thing: a hot mess.

[labingi]

Finn as Crais. :-)