I agree. I was interested in where they ended up, and I thought some of their backstories would lead to interesting conflicts. But I was mostly disappointed in how they turned out because I felt that nothing really panned out. Rey’s more interesting traits were sacrificed for an overzealous interest in who her parents were, Poe’s character arc in TLJ was left almost entirely unacknowledged in TROS, to the point where he basically became a side character, and Finn’s unique background as a defected Stormtrooper was resolved in a really bland way, which ended up reducing him to Rey’s sidekick instead of giving him a real moment to shine.
I do remember people hoping that it would not be like ESB, which was a reasonable hope, and one which I don’t think was too difficult to manage. I feel that TLJ tried so hard not to be ESB that it ended up becoming ESB, if that’s not too paradoxical…
I heard that as well, and my response there was solely based on my reading of his script, which I think actually stuck with Rian Johnson’s ideas instead of trying to blatantly course-correct, as JJ did. Even though TLJ wasn’t great, in my mind, I would have preferred a final film that accepted it as its predecessor and tried to work within its guidelines, rather than an attempt to overcorrect.
I agree. People on both sides need to calm down. Personally, I blame Lucasfilm more than I blame the big, abstract corporation that is Disney. It’s clear that those in charge of George Lucas’ legacy were probably incorrectly chosen, because they lacked an understanding of Star Wars as a story, rather than a product. I think the Sequels would have been markedly better if a storyteller like Dave Filoni was in charge of the way the films went. Kathleen Kennedy is undoubtedly an excellent producer, but she should not have been given as much control over the direction of the story when her relationship to Star Wars was more tangential, as opposed to Filoni, who was George’s protege, and has an intimate knowledge of the story.
I think a great example of the kinds of problems I’m referring to can been seen in the Han Solo film. The creators of that film chose to include a Darth Maul cameo, but–as the voice actor for Maul, Sam Witwer, recently revealed–they did so with little influence from the Story Team. At first, they weren’t even going to hire Witwer to provide the voice of Maul. When they were told about him, they weren’t even aware that he had played Maul, because none of them had seen the Clone Wars. Then, when they did hire Witwer, who is a Star Wars geek, he had to offer them corrections on shooting Maul, as they had crafted a number of inconsistencies into his appearance that contradicted where he would have been and looked like in that era (for example, his lightsaber was incorrect).
This illustrates what I think the major problem is on “Disney’s” end–or, more accurately, Lucasfilm’s. Without last-minute changes, there would have been incredible inconsistencies in Maul’s cameo, because no one who worked on Solo had bothered to research his character, and the Story Team (who are responsible for continuity) hadn’t bothered to check in and ensure that continuity was being upheld. It came down to a voice actor to make everything work, when these things should have been accounted for by the producers themselves. The creators of Solo knew Maul was alive, but that was it–they saw his cameo as nothing more than a way to excite viewers, and they would have gone ahead with it without bothering to ensure that things made sense. That’s a pretty egregious oversight to almost let slip past, and I can’t even forgive that it didn’t happen, because it was an actor that had to point it out, not a producer…