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Tommy Siegel | Bluesky
Transcript
A Helpful Guide To Star Wars vs Star Trek
Star Wars
[Image of Han Solo in Tommy’s style]
- Don’t start with the ‘first’ movie, let me tell you where to start
- Looks like ruined farm equipment in space
- In summary: the past was horrible
- JJ Abrams ruined it
Star Trek
[Image of Jean Luc Picard in Tommy’s style]
- Don’t start with the first season, let me tell you where to start
- Looks like a cruise ship in space
- In summary: the future is incredible
- JJ Abrams ruined it
Nah. VIII had a few missteps, but it was better then the rehashed plot of the first, and far better then the mess that followed.
8 is the best Star Wars movie
What the actual fuck? Episode VIII is quite literally the worst mainline Star Wars movie made. I consider even episode IX to be better, not by a big margin but still better for no other reason than to try and salvage the clusterfuck that was episode VIII. Here’s a short list of things episode VIII got wrong.
The whole movie is one massive misstep that derailed the entirely sequel trilogy. I get Episode VII wasn’t anything magnificent but the entire point of episode VII was to reaffirm to the fans (who were skeptical about the continuation of Star Wars considering Episode III didn’t really leave on a high note and Episode VI kinda tied up the loose ends) that the series is going somewhere and isn’t nosediving off a cliff. That’s why they effectively redid the Episode IV plotline, because it was a safe starting point that sets up characters for episodes VIII and IX. Abrams even left a rough draft for VIII and IX but then Johnson was given full creative control to throw the entire trilogy draft out the window and do whatever the fuck he wanted. We don’t know if episode IX could’ve ever been good because episode VIII fucked the entire trilogy so hard it became impossible to salvage.
The only context in which Episode VIII could be better than IX is if you view them as individual movies and not a part of a trilogy. And you know, Episode VIII probably could’ve been an okay standalone film. But it wasn’t. It had to respect what episode VII set up and it had to give episode IX something to follow up on. It didn’t neither and for that both Episode VII and IX are worse off simply because episode VIII exists. In fact the movie almost killed the entire franchise by taking all the characters and storylines and driving them off straight off the cliff.
You’re right with all your bullet points. Episode VIII has a fundamentally broken plot in many ways. The thing that it has going for it though is that it has a few actual themes that I found interesting. I like that Johnson questioned the whole light side dark side polarity and that Rey came from nobody in particular. I liked the rejection of the Skywalker family and assertion that heroes could come from anywhere. If it had followed a better movie, “let the past die” would have been a legitimate highlight for me. It didn’t work in the trilogy it’s a part of, but if the trilogy had been based around the VIII we got I think it could have worked as a sequel trilogy to Star Wars.
And the thing is that I think those are about the only things I particularly like in the entire sequel trilogy besides Babu Frik (I hate how much I love that little dude), and that makes episode VIII the best of a trilogy of bland to bad movies for me. Episode VII was the best constructed of them, and it had cool stuff, but it didn’t do anything that made me think “oh that’s interesting” (like VIII did) because so much of it was nostalgia based 'memberberries. You’re right about it being made to address fan concerns, but that was only relevant in 2015, and I’m looking back at in 2026. Episode IX was just a train wreck start to finish, and I don’t particularly blame it because it had the unenviable task of following up VIII, but it’s still just bad with nothing interesting to show for it.
I have to say I’m getting of directors both-sidesing every story. It was one of the reasons I didn’t like episode VIII. Star Wars was better when it was good guys vs bad guys.
7 put Luke on an island during a war, 8 was just doing the best it could with Abrams’ nonsense mystery boxes
Really? Episode 7 forced episode 8 into such a narrative corner the best they could do was turn Luke into a green titty milk loving weirdo?
You say that like cow milk doesn’t come from a titty. Like you’ve been alienated from the source of your food. Luke isn’t alienated from nature, he’s connected to all the nature around him. He knows exactly where all his food comes from. He uses the force and his knowledge to survive.
Connecting with nature is an important part of spiritual enlightenment. The old Jedi lived up in a tower above a city. They were alienated from nature. Luke is practicing the way of the light side of the force every day. Remember, it’s an energy field that binds all life together.
You’re just like Rey: alienated from the land, afraid of titties. And that is not the way of the new Jedi. Luke may be disillusioned with the Jedi as heroes and peacekeepers, but he’s perfected his monk game in a way most Jedi never did.
First of all I grew up among cows, chickens and other farm animals. I’ve drank warm milk straight from a cows teat. I’ve collected chickens eggs from the nests. I’ve spend morning foraging mushrooms from the forest to make a mushroom stew. Unless you live in a land largely untainted by urbanism I’m probably far more connected to the land than you are.
And your little nature spiel is irrelevant to the movie because the movie doesn’t need to show cleaning out shit from a chicken coop to show how connected a character is with nature. The same way the movie didn’t need to show Luke drinking green titty milk to show he’s connected to nature. There was a million different ways to show that, just look at how Episode 5 introduced Yoda. Drinking milk was a deliberate decision to make him look weird because while I’m well aware where milk comes from other people aren’t and they’re going to think it’s weird.
And the milk thing is just a meme that everyone knows, there’s more wrong with the character. Such a throwing away his own lightsaber. Which would make sense if he considers lightsabers irrelevant to the new teachings of the Jedi, except he still uses that very lightsaber when going against Kylo. And perhaps the most damning fact about how the character was butchered came from Mark Hamill who’s been very public about disagreeing with how the character was written for episode 8.
And finally, nothing you said indicates the root problem with the character was that Episode 7 stuck Luke on an island.
Sorry, I need to come back to this one, I’m confused.
So you’re a titty milk drinker, and Luke is a titty milk drinker, and you don’t think there’s anything wrong with titty milk drinking. But you don’t like that Luke did it in the movie. Because… why?
Because it’s socially frowned upon? You don’t like that Luke defied social norms?
Nah, he views lightsabers as irrelevant, and he doesn’t use a lightsaber against Kylo. He uses an illusion of a lightsaber, and he doesn’t even attack with it. He just dodges and distracts. The lightsaber is nothing more than a symbol to distract Kylo. It’s serving the same function as a set of jangling keys.
And he had to have that pacifistic viewpoint, that anti-lightsaber viewpoint, because Abrams put him on an island during a war. The best answer RJ could come up with to that is that he’s become a pacifist.
Would a pacifist pick up a weapon to defend themselves and even hit back? Because that’s exactly what he did when Rey attacked him.
I don’t get your need to defend Rian Johnson. I have nothing against him. I loved Looper and I enjoyed Knives out movies. I’m simply calling out a stinker for what it is, a stinker. And the last Jedi is a godtier stinker.
Yes, a pacifist would.
I get that the movie has flaws, but it also has more vision and philosophy than any other Star Wars movie, and I prefer a movie with vision. The Canto Bight stuff was weak. They did a terrible job with Finn. Rose is unlikable. But the Rey and Luke stuff is peak Star Wars.
100% this it was Rian Johnson’s inability to work from someone else’s starting point.
To add to your list. Finn. Johnson butchered Finn’s story so much that the actor vocally said he would never take another Star Wars job.
He was supposed to be a Luke analog. He was supposed to be force sensitive. He was supposed to confront Phasma. The first movie projected so many hints at the path many of these characters were going to take in the trilogy. There was a parallel to Finn and Rey. Finn’s force awakening literally breaks his mind control and we see Kylo sense him!
Johnson came in and burned all of those threads.
I accepted a lot about Episode VIII, but the ruin of the Finn stuff is where it actually became unforgivable for me.
I put Finn (and Phasma) together with all the other threads Episode VII set up and Johnson wrote off. There were simply too many to mention each thread individually.
But yeah, it was a travesty what Johnson did to Finns story. Considering how shafted he got it would’ve been a mercy kill if Finn had sacrificed himself in Episode VIII but even then Johnson needed to subvert expectations and continue ruining characters.
wouldn’t you say the same for A New Hope?
I would, but A New Hope gets the excuse of actually being a standalone movie. A New Hope came into theaters as “Star Wars” and became Episode 4 later. Like I said, The last Jedi probably would’ve been an okay standalone movie. The problem is that The Last Jedi was never supposed to be a standalone movie.
I’ll accept that. In general, though, I feel like having the time jumps pull a lot of weight is core to the Star Wars movies’ identity, so if there’s any movie that should leave few threads loose at the end, it would be Star Wars. (Thus, I also feel there was no reason for IX to have been what it was.) I would also argue Kylo Ren being now in control of the New Order in the state of mind that he is (plus his arc with Rey) is a very loose thread with very promising potential. (Plus the ending shot seemed like foreshadowing the fate of the trilogy’s end would be decided by entirely new possibilities.)
You can have time jumps between movies but if the movie is a part of a trilogy it needs to serve the trilogy. Imagine if at the end of two towers Frodo throws the ring into the fire. What would return of the king be about? You couldn’t have the return of the king because the story is resolved, the ring is gone. It would have to be a completely new u story and it wouldn’t make any sense in the context of the trilogy.
That’s basically what Johnson did. He took the whole story and instead of setting up the final movie to resolve the story he resolved the story on his own and left nothing for the last movie.
All the New Order lost was the equivalent of two aircraft carriers. (Using the ancient art of calculus, 1+ \int_{TR-8R}^{some other named squadron} fighter dust = 2.) The story absolutely was not resolved. Ren in control of the Order while going insane, whatever’s up with Finn and Rose surviving, how exactly was the rebellion going to continue (they clearly were but what do they do now?), and final scene may as well had marked with big giant circles who shall be the next heroes.
Did we watch the same movie? The Order won and the rebels lost.
The movie setting up “next heroes” is literally my point. It sets up something new with new characters instead of setting up the conclusion to the trilogy with existing characters. It doesn’t set up the next movie with existing characters because their archs got concluded.
Except that it ignored everything set up in the previous movie, thus causing the next movie to be an absolute mess.
The force awakens basically had that same problem though, effectively undoing everything concluded in return of the Jedi. Granted there’s a time gap but there’s no explanation as to why the former rebels (whatever they were called at that time I forgot) were still such a small force compared to the new big bad (something order?), not to mention why this order exists in the first place, what their motivations were, how they got their numbers and resources, etc. They’re just a galaxy-level threat sprung from thin air. It seems pretty clear to me that JJ just wanted to remake a new hope with as little consideration of the conclusion of return of the Jedi as he could get away with, plot holes be damned. RJ tried to address some of these plot holes but even he doesn’t really attempt to justify the something-order’s existence. If the force awakens was the first star wars movie as a new hope was then it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but coming just a few decades after the return of the Jedi, there ought to be some explanation for how they lost so much progress in that time, preferably in the first act. But nah, it’s just “somehow the empire returned (with cool new branding)” because JJ can’t write a plot to save his life.
This is why I really don’t care for the new through. Episode VII is a funny movie in isolation but as a follow-up to VI it makes zero sense. Says a lot about audiences that they just blindly accept its premise with no questions asked. The rebels are magically the underdogs again guys, nothing that happened in original trilogy matters!
Yeah, there was so much material they could have pulled from the Expanded Universe. The New Republic era, reclaiming territory from the imperial remnants and rebuilding the Jedi Order; the New Jedi Order era, fighting off the Yuuzhan Vong and the Killiks; the Fate of the Jedi era, when the Sith make a comeback; and then there’s the Legacy era after that.
That’s at least 3 or 4 trilogies right there.
Not to mention going back in time to the Old Republic era with its wars against the Sith empires, and the Dawn of the Jedi in the Origins era prior to that.
If they really wanted to milk the franchise, they had plenty of material to work with instead of just saying “nah” and declaring it all non-canonical, only to replace it with slop…
They weren’t. A good portion of them became the New Republic, which was destroyed by Starkiller Base.
They were what remained of the Empire plus new recruits/conscripts taken in the period after the Battle of Endor.
Gotta be honest, though, “the Empire was building a Death Star that can destroy planets in other solar systems and nobody ever talked about it despite the two small ones being big fucking deals” is a really damn weak premise. They could’ve found some other way of making the remnant of the Empire a threat but then they couldn’t have recycled A New Hope as easily.
I mean, the notion that destroying a planet was somehow a massive outlandish threat in a universe where basically everyone has the technology to propel thousands of tons of mass at many times the speed of light always felt pretty fucking stupid in the first place. Every single hyper-drive capable ship in the universe could turn an entire planet to dust in seconds.
Before the 8th movie, it was pretty heavily implied that things in hyperspace didn’t really interact with things in real space. Hence the reason jumping into hyperspace was a way to escape from a fight you weren’t going to win.
Of course, 8th movie showed us that wasn’t the case, and not only can ships in hyperspace ram things in real space, but the results are devastating. Which actually makes the whole Deathstar thing incredibly stupid and not just obsolete, as a Deathstar is nothing but a big ass target for someone to ram a ship into while in hyperspace.
a planet has far more mass than what you saw in VIII, if that’s what you’re referring to
I have no idea what you are referencing by “VIII” but in reality a reasonably dense object the size of an ashtray traveling at a multiple of the speed of light would turn any planet in the solar system into a cloud of dust. So a ship weighing thousands of tons would be overkill as a weapon all by itself.
Star Wars clearly follows maritime logic, not space logic
Yeah if anything the New Order showed a much more realistic outcome of assassinating an Empire’s Emperor.
If an assassination meant the end of an Empire, Rome would not have existed very long
It wasn’t just an assassination though. They defeated their two most powerful leaders; both of their Sith lords, at that. They destroyed their main battlestation and a large chunk of their military leadership along with it, decapitating the rest of their forces.
And it doesn’t end after the battle of Endor. The Empire is defeated, yes. So they celebrate. They begin reconstructing the New Republic and the New Jedi Order. But there’s still an imperial remnant, and wayward warlords throughout the galaxy. So a large chunk of the story following the Original Trilogy is them hunting down and pacifying those imperial remnants.
There could have easily been a trilogy made just from the material that already existed. They didn’t have to try to rewrite the whole thing, and do an ass job of it at that…
Nah, don’t put the blame on ep. IX mess into VIII. It also ignored everything set up on the previous movie, and even if it didn’t, there wouldn’t be any need for it to suck that much.
Now, none of that makes VIII good…
Nothing was “set up” in VII. It was the usual, hollow “mystery box” Abrams always uses. Given what was basically a blank slate, Rian did what he wanted with it, something new, which is something the franchise desperately needed. Exactly what fans say they want, but always shit on even while everyone moans about there not being anything but reboots and rehashes.
Abram’s style works much better in VII than it does in something like Lost or later Fringe. Abram’s is on record saying he is a Star Wars fan. He made a love letter to Star Wars. Whatever flaws it has it still sets tone and implies things about characters. Finn is force sensitive. Kylo can be saved. The main rivals were going to be Kylo and Finn with Rey being something of an Aakin between them. Father, brother, sister style. Snoke was where it was leading. With all three, Kylo, Rey, and Finn finding their own connections in the force.
Was it a lot of rehash? yes, but that only means that it was a parallel to the first movie. It set a familiar tone to take us somewhere new and complex. VIII takes a left turn on all of it and decides to do camp and expectation subversion and ruin any hope of telling a compelling and well-written story.
First, you’re falling for the trap of the mystery box. None of that is in or really even suggested by the movie itself - you’re putting your own interpretation and expectations in to fill in the absence of any given by the door. It’s exactly why Abrams uses it, and why it never pays off.
Second, being a fan of something doesn’t make a director better. If anything, their previous connection is baggage that will need to be managed and avoided to move a forward. In the case of VII, it worked. It was a safe, comforting return to a long running franchise that could lead to something new. IX shows how that usually ends, though - clinging to the old patterns with little to no deviation, culminating in a disappointing outcome. If nothing else, the attempt of VIII to break off into something different is commendable. Personally I think the film is good and its successes get lost in the nitpicking and hysteria of diehard fans that won’t ever be satisfied anyhow.
Agree to disagree. I don’t begrudge VIII as a movie on it’s own. In the theater I had an okay time and unlike the toxic fans I at least grew to appreciate things like Rose, but you can’t consider VIII in a vacuum because it was never meant to be consumed that way. It’s the center piece in a trilogy.
I would argue that the fact that these interpretations can be rendered from the movie alone, means that we aren’t dealing with a true Abrams style mystery box, and that even if we were, the general speculation about them doesn’t leave us scratching our heads wondering about a narrative direction for these characters.
It’s not a polar bear on a tropical island. In the context of the Star Wars universe most of Abram’s choices have implications.
Those Implications where ignored by Johnson. It’s misguided to blame Abrams for trying to leave questions that mirror the original film. If VIII had built on any of it, at all, we likely wouldn’t be having this discussion. We would be talking about how VIII took the threads of familiar from the previous movie and actually made it good.
It’s not on Abrams for Johnson’s narrative left turn. At release The Force Awakens was incredibly well received. It wasn’t until after VIII dropped that people really started to tear into Abrams for not keeping narrative control, and deflecting the blame from Johnson onto Abrams.
I find that outrageous.
Any collaborative story teller worth their salt can draw the through lines for some of these characters and tropes. It’s not on Abrams for choosing to leave the story about space wizards open ended on what is the opening note of a familiar trilogy. The worst thing you could say about the Force Awakens is that it plays too safe. Which, for an opening movie isn’t a problem unless the rest of the trilogy sucks.
I don’t think it would have been perfect if Abrams held the wheel for all three films. It’s the nature of fandom to nitpick and complain, but it at least would have been consistent. This trilogy is a narrative mess and it got that way because of Johnson having no skill as a collaborative story teller and likely little love for Star Wars.
Johnson did to Star Wars what Abrams did to Star Trek.
It’s not, though. That’s my point. Barring Finn being force sensitive, nothing you mention is obvious or supported by anything except your own expectations.
Or if Abrams had the courage to follow through, we would have something that wraps up VII and VIII in something that wasn’t such a cluster fuck. Or maybe it would have all been even worse either way. We won’t ever know. Speculating “If it was better, I would have liked it” isn’t proof of anything.
We can’t blame Rian for “ignoring” plot hooks that weren’t there. What vague questions were asked, he expanded on. For everything else, people were left to create their own expectations like yours that didn’t line up with what he chose to do. There is no outcome that would have left any number of people satisfied that wasn’t even more of a retread.
What an incredibly self-centered statement. To question and even deny someone’s care for something just because it’s not the way you want them to is just callous and cruel. Nobody is obligated to care the same way you do, and Rian obviously cares for the franchise and has said as much, even saying he’d come back for more despite the extreme reaction he’s gotten so far. Nobody puts up with shit like that for something they don’t care about deeply and that should be welcomed and encouraged. Accusations like yours won’t keep a fandom or franchise healthy - it just pushes everyone reasonable away and leaves the bitter, angry leftovers that nobody wants to touch.
I really don’t see it. I’ll reflect on it.
Rian made a fun movie. He did not make a good middle trilogy movie. When taken as the center piece that it is, his choices mirror Abram’s choices with Star Trek. That is, similar and familiar but lacking a deeper understanding of the property. The Star Trek movies are also mostly good. Understanding the deep nuance isn’t needed to make a good movie in a franchise, but it does help inform structure. I flat out refuse to blame Abrams for Rian’s movie. I’ve said way more on this than is needed and obviously we’re not going to agree beyond the fact that the squeals are bad. And that’s fine. I’m not an angry and bitter fan. I’m just profoundly disappointed. like many were.
but I am getting older and I understand that the way I want things to be isn’t how they are. I just won’t be silent about it in the spaces where we’re supposed to have discussion.
random point of fact, I checked out these movies Rotten Tomatoes scores last night and it’s interesting how well regarded they are. So either, there’s corporate thumbs on the voting scales or the general public don’t care as much about these complaints. Either way. My desire to be thorough in my thoughts may have painted me as one of those obsessive fans that rages at people online. That isn’t me. Passionate, yes, but not so much so that I will lash out at people for having different opinions. - maybe my blood sugar is just better balanced atm.
IDK. VII was disappointing, but I hated VIII so much I still haven’t watched IX. But maybe picking a winner out of these is besides the point. Rogue One showed what a good, modern Star Wars film could look like, and in comparison with that, both VII and VIII are just terrible.
A few missteps is quite the understatement. I’d take boring rehash over universe-breaking any day. But it doesn’t matter in the end. It’s like comparing different flavors of shit.
they already broke the universe before the seventh movie by declaring that nothing mattered. eight felt like a fan reaction to that by trying to bring stuff back.
“Universe breaking”, lol.