They absolutely need a time jump if for no other reason than to get rid of Leia.

I still won't be seeing this in the theaters. It's unreal how badly TLJ ruined that franchise for me.
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To think, I was excited when TFA came out, even though its produced by Disney and is a reboot. I really for some reason thought OK, that first one was to set everything right and leave us with an interesting story arc and some characters that we might actually like and want to see grow...
Then TLJ...fuuuuuuuck....
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I can't wait to see what the opening box office numbers for this movie are. I am actually kinda giddy to see them fail at this point. Maybe then they will get it but I doubt it. They still think the Russians did it.
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It would be a massive amount of fan service to get people back on board and wouldn't surprise me. I know they said the books pre-Disney are not cannon but they still borrow liberally from them (Thrawn). In the Boba Fett trilogy, he shoots his way out of the sarlacc with his grenade launcher and another bounty hunter finds him.
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Truth. Well, sort of. They got it... they got that it is a cash cow. The newest episodes are generic action films reskinned to look like Star Wars. That's the best way I can look at them. There is no depth or nuance to characters; there is only trademarked sound effects and visual art.
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I will always contend that the real problems started with TFA.

How they didn't sit down and chart out the 3 movies with a unified vision is baffling to me. Especially with the success Marvel has seen by playing it that way.

JJ screwed things the moment he was allowed to make A New Hope Awakens.
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This. AND, the initial "idea" to sit down and do a soft reboot was stupid as fuck to begin with. SW fans, in general, live and die by quality NEW CONTENT. That is why all of the old EU characters are getting shoe-horned in to the TV cartoons and other places, and why there exists an ENTIRE UNIVERSE MMO game based on the quality writing of ONE NEW CHARACTER.

This shit isn't hard if you stick to two simple concepts:

1) Classic heroes doing classic things.

2) Hire writers who are proven skilled at their craft and want a crack at crafting a NEW story for the movie side of the franchise.


See how easy that was?
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I just don't agree. Ep VII was a knock off, sure. But it wasn't actively BAD. It didn't do anything to irreparably damage anything. It meandered and was little more than an origin story for the next wave of characters, but A New Hope was similar in that regard.

The problem is that where IV was followed by an amazing episode V, VII was followed by a shit VIII.

The problem, as you correctly identified, was the lack of a unified vision. That didn't HAVE to happen just because Abrams made a largely reductive re-boot in TFA. There was still a foundation for a great next episode there. But the man, what an absolute piece of shit they made instead.
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No one wanted a reboot.

NO ONE.

And they hid that sad shit for as long as they could. I remember when "Starkiller Base" was revealed; you could hear groans the entire world over.

It's easy to make a short trailer exciting and hype people up. It's much harder to make a real movie. Hell, that "robot girl" movie looks more exciting than anything Disney has dreamed up for SW. ( Yes, that bitch with the big google eyes )
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I do agree that the bolded text is the Cardinal Sin over JJ's ripoff of ANH.

The only thing I'll add to the other point is that JJ's unoriginality put any writer into a box for 8. Everything was set up for 8 to be a reboot of ESB.

Rey (Luke) had found a master Jedi (Yoda)
Who was this mysterious figure leading the primary antagonist? (Emporer-Snoke).
The rebels were now on the run after destroying the StarKiller Death Star.

Poe and Finn were the wildcards, but as it turns out, their characters didn't have designed arcs in 7 (Hell, Poe was supposed to die in the first fifteen minutes of TFA), and their arcs overstuffed the story.

JJ also created very real problems for the next director. JJ fully intended on Luke to be a master of the force on par with Yoda... but if that were true - why would he let Han die and the entire resistance be shattered if Luke were truly a Jedi Master. Putting Luke into his favorite mystery box was a terrible mistake. How in the hell was it not a mandate to have a final scene with Luke, Han and Leia?

I do think that these things could have been solved if all three movies had been charted out - but they weren't, and all JJ seemed to do was soft reboot ANH and set up a reboot for ESB.

Anywho - I'm ranting. The hate many feel for TLJ is what I feel for TFA. Sure, it's a fine movie in a vacuum, but I think it was a terrible set-up when there was no unified vision for this series.
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And now Disney thinks the way to go is to keep Kennedy for the next 3 years and just "slow down" on the output.

Really?

Just further proof that these people have not one fucking clue about SW and its fans.


Let me reiterate that:

"We're going to continue to pay this dumb bitch and failure of a Producer to sit on her ass and twiddle her thumbs while we purposefully deny fans new content until her contract runs out".

Great business model!
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The Mouse favors new consumers more than they favor new content for existing consumers.
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That is how most businesses operate. Especially franchises. They treat the die-hards as guaranteed income because usually the die-hards spend it regardless of the product.

Pokemon is a prime example.
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And that's why it's not going to work; SW is nothing BUT die-hards.
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Oh, I agree. I can't stand that business model. Stick with the ones that made you successful. But we all know that Kennedy isn't interested in stories. Just agendas.
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