r/comics • u/TommySiegel • 20d ago

OC Star Wars vs Star Trek: a helpful guide [OC]

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Star Trek 2009? Fun! The Force Awakens? Fun! And yet…

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u/IronVader501 20d ago

I'd debate Force Awakens being good till the end of time.

That movie laid the groundwork for all the fundamental problems that plagued the trilogy, and killing the Jedi again off-screen + immidieatly blowing up the New Republic so Abrams can go rehash a New Hope was fundamentally the wrong choice.

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u/tarlin 20d ago

I find the Last Jedi to be the real problem. Force Awakens left storylines for the trilogy and built to something. The Last Jedi decided they didn't like any of that and destroyed all those storylines, acting as another first movie. In fact, it really didn't leave much open to build upon. And the movie was truly trash. The entire chase through space was nonsensical and an attempt to reproduce 33 from Battlestar Galactica, but executed badly.

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u/IronVader501 20d ago

I disagree with that.

Like I dont even like TLJ, but TFA left it with nothing but a worse rehash of the situation at the end of EpIV.

Luke and Han already had their entire character ruined and everything they spent 3 movies fighting for destroyed.

The only way to salvage from that point onward would have been to ignore what TFA set up even harder.

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u/Accipiter1138 20d ago

Like I dont even like TLJ, but TFA left it with nothing but a worse rehash of the situation at the end of EpIV.

Absolutely, but I also think TLJ doesn't get enough blame for being set three days after TFA and just handwaving "the First Order has conquered the galaxy" in the opening crawl somehow during the span of those three days.

TFA started the "Empires vs Rebels" shtick again, TLJ continued it when it could have tried to veer away from it, and RoS I couldn't be bothered to see.

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u/tarlin 20d ago

TFA was obviously a nostalgia heavy movie. I don't agree with you that it left it in a bad place.

We have the attempt to find Luke, which could have gone anywhere, but instead in TLJ Luke just shits on the jedis and throws away his lightsaber. We have no information about Luke being bad until in TLJ. Until that movie, he was just trying to find the original Jedi teachings or some stuff. That could have gone in nearly any direction, including just rewriting the entire ideology of the Jedi, instead it was just used to abandon them. And, the big bad of the trilogy was Snoke with Kylo Ren as second. So, after TLJ, Snoke is dead and Kylo Ren is in love with Rey?? The entire thing was just goofy.

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u/Storm_Bard 20d ago

There's some real interesting movies that couldve come out of the wierd decisions they made. Kylo Ren kills Snoke, says "Rey, join me and we'll rule the galaxy together"

What if Rey says yes? We could've had an interesting plot of her trying to change the course of this galaxy wide rights-trampling machine, we could've seen some dissenters take her side, maybe she would've concluded the only way is to destroy it and we see a splinter join the rebels, maybe she and Kylo fight earlier over morality..

I dunno. I feel like there's an interesting movie there. Maybe not the action centric movie that star wars likes to be.

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u/SandyBadlands 20d ago

This was my critique coming out of the cinema. I would've liked to have seen Rey say yes. Probably the biggest shake-up Star Wars could've been given.

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u/Cybercatman 20d ago

Personally, i think Force Awaken have a « It is the stuff you liked when you were a child, but BIGGER!!! Bigger death star, bigger palpatine, bigger sand planet, BIGGER PLANET EXPLOSION!!!!» feeling, which make me go « if i wanted to watch that, i would just rewatch the original trilogy ».

The last Jedi tried to do something new, with the characters going « fuck the Jedi and the sith », it could have opened a few doors like a grey line of jedi. Not everything was good, i hated the lightspeed kamikaze attack because it kinda create a « wait, why did they not do that before? » paradox, but at least the movie tried to not just be the old stuff reheated. Just the idea of Rey not being someone super special was interesting.

Then they brought back JJ Abrams for SW9, and instead of developing the idea was started in SW8, he put everything under the rug and went « well, let’s just redo SW6 but BIGGER!!!! ». Like « somehow Palpatine returned » is a meme for a good reason, it feel just shoehorned… same with Rey being related to Palpatine, it make the whole universe feel smaller, like it is story set in a literal galaxy, and every major event are around two specific family ?

But in the end, the core problem is that there was nobody to give a clear direction to the trilogy, so each director kinda made their own stuff without proper communication.

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u/tarlin 20d ago

You can do everything you said without destroying all the previous storylines. There was no reason for so much of what they did in the last Jedi that was done just to destroy the storyline that had been created in the first movie.

It was arrogance and a lack of respect for the previous movies.

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u/Cybercatman 20d ago

You say that, but the first movie of the new trilogy literally destroy everything set up at the end of SW6

New Republic? Blow up
Luke rebuilding the Jedi order? Destroyed off screen
Anakin redemption? His grandson is now a edgy wannabe

And to do what? More or less A remake of SW4

Let’s not act like the plotlines of SW7 were peak fictions, like who the hell was interested in Snoke?

SW8 completed the interesting plotlines, like the quest for Luke, but once those were done, there was not much left in the first place, so opening up with concept not explored in previous movies made sense even if that mean cutting down stuff like Snoke, but like i said, the concept like grey force users were just ignored for the most generic SW6 remake you can imagine.

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u/tarlin 20d ago

I did not like the destruction of the New Republic, though destroying the capital should not have brought it to one fleet with 100 people left.

The Luke story could have been explored and expanded. It was thrown away.

Who was the villain after tlj?

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u/Cybercatman 20d ago

So Luke’s Story went to a conclusion, obviously because they could not milk the character over and over because the actor was already on the older side when TLJ dropped, so they decided to have Luke go through the redemption by sacrifice road, was it a road i like? No, but that the reality of what disney delivered, it was cut short for similar reason they killed everyone that cannot be easily replaced (it is why Chewbaka, C3PO and R2D2 survive the sequel trilogy)

As for the villain, it is not like there was a Guy that killed his Master (following Sith tradition, they love betraying each other), heir of the Skywalker line, head of strongest military force of the galaxy at that point, and willing to burn the galaxy.

It could have made a good parallel, on One side, you had the child that had basically everything because he was the heir of the people that saved the galaxy, while on the other side, a girl that desperately try to be someone special but is just anybody, the opposite of the chosen one trope.

But it would have required someone willing to explore that kind of idea.

Snoke was just a boring idea, he existed only because they wanted someone to be their « palpatine », but that don’t mean it is a interesting idea, it is just more cheap recycling… Palpatine worked because SW4-6 was a regular fantasy story but in space and Palpatine was just a generic evil wizard, that was fine for a 80’s story, the prequel trilogy then fleshed it out by displaying how he managed to get access to the control of the galaxy, by manipulating everyone into giving him that power. Snoke was just another evil wizard and not many was interested in a concept that was already done once and way better. In the pre-disney expanded universe, you got to see new kind of antagonist like Thrawn, a guy who is so talented at military strategy that he managed to reach the admiral rank despite the pro-human stance of the empire. Sure, there is a world where they could flesh out Snoke, but even Disney and JJ abrams did not seem to want to bother given they just brought back Palpatine instead of making Snoke return (it is not like the « oh by the way Palpatine is back » could not have worked with Snoke, but they just knew nobody cared about Snoke, so they used the opportunity to bring back Palpatine to milk nostalgia.)

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u/tarlin 20d ago

You believe Mark Hamill is too old to continue to be involved?? That is why they killed him and had him become a coward??

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u/Cybercatman 20d ago

He was almost 70 years old when SW9 dropped, how long do you think he could do that stuff while still looking good?

And even if we ignore Mark, Harrison Ford was over 70 year old, and Carrie Fisher died before SW8 dropped

Hard for a company to justify risking keeping an actor that may die at any time as a major character

In the end, the company tried to replace the old generation of heroes with a new one, which make sense from a business side.

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u/tarlin 20d ago

He was 66 when the last Jedi released.

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u/SandyBadlands 20d ago

Kylo Ren, obviously.

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u/tarlin 20d ago

The person in love with Rey? Ok

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u/SandyBadlands 20d ago

What storyline was created in the first movie?

Luke is in hiding after his academy was destroyed. That was continued by filling in the backstory of what actually happened.
Kylo Ren is conflicted but moves further to the Dark Side. Continued by usurping his master.
Rey is a nobody orphan with mysteriously great Force potential. Continued with "Darkness rises, and light to meet it".

I hear this complain all the time that TLJ "undoes" TFA yet no-one has any specifics about either what storylines TFA actually had or how TLJ negates them.

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u/tarlin 20d ago

Ok, let's go down the specifics...

Snoke, the big bad. Removed. Never explained.

Kylo Ren is a shitty antagonist that is now in love with Rey. He was always portrayed as a barely contained child.

Luke was going back to the roots of the Jedi, which was erased and Luke killed.

There were definitely storylines after the first. Now what was left after tlj?

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u/SandyBadlands 20d ago

That which can be introduced without explanation can be removed without explanation. Snoke is a plot device to further Kylo's narrative. That's how he was used in both films. Snoke being "the big bad" isn't a storyline it's a hack trope.

Kylo Ren the barely contained child lashing out at the world around him not caring who he hurts or what he destroys in the process. Sounds like a pretty dangerous villain. One that can't be reasoned with, such a tragic end to someone with such esteemed heritage. That's a compelling story to me.

Was Luke doing that? All TFA says is that he walked away from everything and that "People who knew him best think he went looking for the first Jedi temple". No actual concrete info that's what he's actually doing and no motive for what he's going to do once he gets there. Where he is in TLJ aligns with what is said about him in TFA. So, not erased.

After TLJ we're in a galaxy where the bad guy wants to dismantle the system. The system itself seemingly doesn't care about who's in charge as it'll continue to fuel conflict regardless so long as the elite are untouched. The good guys are faced with saving a galaxy that doesn't look like it wants to be saved. And the Force is trying to self-correct as it goes. That's a plot setup rife with opportunities. Is Kylo right to tear down the system just for the wrong reasons? What can the good guys do in the face of such apathy from the galaxy at large? What will the Force throw up next as the Dark Side remains rampant?

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u/icantsurf 20d ago

I completely agree with you. TFA was mediocre, but it had places to go and it also felt like a SW movie for the first time in a long time (just counting the main trilogy movies.) The trilogy could have been very interesting if Rey and Kylo Ren had to team up, hell they could be against all authority both the Empire and rebels or whatever. Instead we're just left in roughly the same position as the movie started so JJ Abrams had to invent 500 plot points for movie 3 to try and find the end.

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u/Himser 20d ago

TLJ was the best of the 3 by far. 

They were all mediocre compared to ...well basiclaly every other Disney SW. But it was definitely the best of the 3. 

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u/tarlin 20d ago

Ok, so did you like the slow paced chase through space, the ability for people to leave and return without problem, the casino planet, the mutiny on the ship, the violating of rules of Star Wars such that every battle should just be based on hyperdrive weapons, and the really clumsy love story?

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u/EitherExamination343 20d ago

In my case yes, minus the casino planet. But also I stopped with Star Wars around this time (watched TROS out of a sense of duty) because it seems unfathomable to some people that you could like TLJ and they end up acting like you kicked their grandma when you mention it. Just turned me off the fandom as a whole.

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u/djabae 20d ago

Is the TLJ the one where Leia is floating in space but survives b/c of plot armor?

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u/SandyBadlands 20d ago

the one where Leia is floating in space but survives b/c of plot armor the Force

FIFY

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u/djabae 20d ago

They never established that before. They clearly just didn't have the courage to kill Leia, but wanted to have her death scene to force "meaning" and emotion into the movie.

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u/Himser 20d ago

FA was worse in every one of those aspects. 

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u/tarlin 20d ago

Ok, how did the FA violate the rules of Star Wars?

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u/SandyBadlands 20d ago

Dropping out of hyperspace in-atmosphere.

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u/Isolated_Hippo 20d ago

TFA wasn't good. Anybody who says otherwise is just wrong.

But for the first part of a trilogy, it's supposed to set the stage for the actual plot. It provides something to work with. It's like getting a 12 in blackjack. It's not good, but you can at least play. And there is always next round.

TLJ was like getting dealt a blackjack hand consisting of a cigarette and cat piss with chips made of chocolate.

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u/Doomsayer189 20d ago

Force Awakens left storylines for the trilogy and built to something. The Last Jedi decided they didn't like any of that and destroyed all those storylines

What storylines were destroyed? The Last Jedi followed up on the important things like why Luke was in exile or who Rey's parents were. If you're talking about stuff like Snoke, well, he had a bigger role in TLJ than TFA and I straight up don't believe that anyone was so invested in getting his backstory that the lack of it is a reason to dislike TLJ (while giving TFA a pass for also not explaining anything about him).

And I don't agree that TFA "built to something." If anything it tore down the OT by reverting everything to how it was in A New Hope.

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u/spudmarsupial 20d ago

The New Republic was such a good setting. I hope they start mining it for stories.

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u/SummerBirdsong 20d ago

All three of the last trilogy.....

https://giphy.com/gifs/134vVkHV9wQtaw

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

[deleted]

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u/tarlin 20d ago

Tlj is a truly awful movie. It makes no sense.

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u/SummerDaemon 20d ago

It's a good movie that handles the subject matter poorly. I'd argue it's a fantastic popcorn adventure film, but a terrible Star Wars film.

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u/djabae 20d ago

All 3 movies were poop. Arguing about which poop is less stinky doesn't seem productive to me.

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u/friday126 20d ago

Yuuuup