Were the original characters used too much or too little in the Sequels?

I swear it’s like TLJ defenders watched a completely different movie

It doesn't matter how much they were used. What matters is how well they were used and all of them to an extent were used poorly.

People complain about Han, Luke and Leia not reuniting, but the modern trio doesnt even connect until the final film. Talk about a room full of incompetent writers and executives

Val kilmer happened to pass away the same day this video was published.
Think about TOP GUN: MAVERICK. Not only was it great to see Tom Cruise's character successfully return to the fighter pilot chair, but the movie found a way to feature Val Kilmer's character in a dignified role.
Kilmer was literally fighting for his life. Instead of having him play Iceman is a broken-down, depressed, and sloppy has-been, Iceman was a highly respected Admiral that was still involved with the military. The movie treated the actor and the character with as much respect as possible. The character died with dignity. Kilmer eventually died with dignity.
Imagine if the people behind the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy had done the same.

It's all about execution, not the amount of screentime the characters had.....and they basically executed the franchise itself by character assassinating all of our old heroes. Disney bought the golden goose of entertainment only to chop it up and serve it for dinner.

I mean, how can you re-assemble Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, AND Harrison Ford after 40 yrs.. and not even film a single scene together?

I'm always a little confused when people say TLJ is more grounded and realistic. What about it makes it more realistic and less fantastical than other Star Wars films? Is it the fact that the film tries to say, "Well, the light and the dark aren't so different after all" without doing anything to back that idea up? Is it the fact that DJ points out that people sell weapons to both sides so there's no difference between the Space N@z¡s and the Resistance? Is it the idea that you should just do whatever your leaders tell you to do even when it's going to get you and your entire people killed for no good reason? Is it the yo mama joke? Is it the force projection?

Whose bright idea was it to hit the "reset button," having Leia be leader of the Rebellion again, having Han be a smuggler again, having the only Skywalker heir be Darth Vader again, having Luke be Ben Kenobi again without a single Jedi trainee to show for it, and act like everything else from 4,5,6 didn't happen?
I wanted to give TFA the benefit of the doubt like everyone else did at the time, but even on the first watch in theaters I remember my heart sank when they killed off Luke's Jedi Order entirely offscreen and (practically) simultaneously destroyed the New Republic. They were creatively bankrupt from the phrase "A long time ago". TLJ throwing the scraps in the furnace didn't help.

Fans of the original heroes (like me) expected them to pass the torch to newer/younger ones - We just expected them to be treated with respect in a heroic manner. Is that too much to ask?

I don't think the sequels were leaning into "realism" at all, no in any way that respects the setting of Star Wars anyway.

If you are given the opportunity to work on a Back To the Future Movie and you decide to "subvert" and fool around with Marty McFly's character You will certainly fail.
...When they were given the opportunity after decades to work on Luke Skywalker's character and they misshandled him
They failed.

The worst scene of the sequels is the title crawl of force awakens, got all the lore wrong, ignored the established cannon, complete misunderstanding of the property. It was all downhill from there

The Thrawn Trilogy showed them what the sequels should have been. What made those books so good (and spawned the whole EU), was that Zahn understood the universe and the characters so well and created a story that truly felt like an extension of the movies. I know they would have needed to heavily adapt them, and account for the actors ages as well, but they had the perfect blueprint and just chose not to use it.
If they wanted to do something new and different, they should have just moved on to a new generation entirely and only had the old characters cameo.

How the fuck was TLJ more realistic?

It's not how much they were used. The issue was how they were used.
The one scene with Luke in Force Awakens was absolutely perfect and gave me chills. And than Ryan Johnson ruined that moment. And don't get me started with Leia Poppins.

They did one good thing with a legacy character in the ST. They gave Han the best, and most ironic, line in the entire trilogy.
“That’s not how the Force works!”

How in the hell did this asker watch TLJ and walk away saying it was "more grounded"? Genuinely, it had some of the biggest magic-Force-woowoo feats in the movie franchise, and the prequels already discussed war profiteering.

Thank you! Some of these TLJ fans are delusional.

They based an entire main-sequence Star Wars movie on, for the first time in franchise history, running out of gas.

As far as I'm concerned, fan service can only mean treating the legacy characters with respect, while blending them in with the newer generation. What Disney has done to the legacy characters in SW is what I call anti-fan service. Otherwise, they wouldn't have humiliated Luke, Han and Leia just to prop up the newer characters ( Rey in particular ). They wouldn't have made Han Solo into a dead beat father, They wouldn't have made Luke into a cowardly, crotchety old hermit, they wouldn't have made Leia into a boring grandma, the list goes on and on about how they completely disrespected the older characters that we grew up with.

Hey, Thor. I've noticed that Thrawn in Rebels and Ahsoka doesn't really come up with strategies that make sense and whenever he fails he just says that it was part of the plan. This is in stark contrast to what the writers of KOTOR did with Revan. They read up on how the Red Army countered the Axis invasion of the USSR by fortifying vital areas and retreat further into the heartland, therefore luring the Germans into extending their front lines dangerously thin. This is basically how Revan and Malak were able to bring the Republic to the brink of collapse and carve out their own Sith Empire. At least according to the Rakatan computer on Kashyyyk. Do you think more Star Wars writers should consult with military historians or read up on history in order to make in-universe strategists look more impressive?

The problem isn't how much the legacy characters were used, but how they were used and how it was implied they didn't accomplish anything. I'll never forgive that they decided Luke wasn't able to build a proper new Jedi Order. It was important to me that he gets to live this dream of his. It didn't matter to me how much he would be shown in the sequel movies. You could have just showed him in a short scene, as he sends the new heroes off with some words of wisdom about the Force, and I would have been happy. As long as he is a wise Jedi Master.

They were used incorrectly on the presumption by Disney that STAR WARS would be enough to smooth over the transition, from Lucas era to Disney era, and Kennedy really didn't care except for her own agenda of promoting Rey over any other consideration or concern.
Kennedy's intent to promote Rey as the new face of Star Wars is about the only consistent theme in the Sequel Trilogy.

Disney and Lucasfilm should have done either gone all-in in using the original characters, or not at all by setting the sequel trilogy so far into the future that the original characters had died and become one with the Force.
By doing the half-assed attempt as they did, it only destroyed all the goodwill that Lucas himself and Lucasfilm had established and passed on.

TLJ Luke: Character assassination 101.

Even if the original trilogy characters were used more, it would not have helped. The scripts for all three felt as if they had no real direction and wanted to satisfy too many people.

I would argue the fact that people even need to ask how much of the original characters should've been in the sequels is what went wrong with the sequels. The sequel storyline should be one where a person who has never seen a SW movie before can appreciate just as well as someone who saw the OT in theaters. For instance, Leia can have a big or small role in the sequel. If it's a small role, think of something like how Mon Mothma was used in ROTJ. If it's a big role, imagine someone of Tarkin's role in ANH. Either way, a person who's new to SW should appreciate her as this capable high ranking official of some kind. While an old fan can appreciate the older, wiser version of a character they last saw as a young woman. Either way, it should be a role that can be filled by a totally new character and the story would still work.
But in the actual sequels, regardless of screentime, the OT gang had way too much effect on the story than they should.

Hey, Thor. The true problem with the sequels is that they feel like a corporate redo of the original trilogy that says it’s a continuation after the original trilogy. If they want to do their own thing, don’t label it as episodes 7, 8, & 9. But corporate wanted to tie into the previous story, forcing the sequel trilogy to have that in the marketing. They should have went with a path of testing the new republic and Luke’s Jedi Order to see if they can withstand another thousand generations instead of reverting to the status quo of the original trilogy during A New Hope and redoing the trilogy. The sequel trilogy feels like a Disney Live Action remake of the original trilogy.

Its not too much or too little the OT characters were used, it is that they were all used very poorly throughout the ST. It does not help that Disney and modern Lucasfilm hates the OT characters and their actions prove it.

Going into TLJ, I was hoping for a Yoda/Luke, Obi-Wan/Anakin-esque movie, with Luke & Rey. I was hoping for them vs. the knights of Ren in combat. I like Luke’s use of the force to project himself, but wouldn’t it have been cool to see his growth as a combatant as well? Akin to what we eventually got in Mandalorian season 2 finale. Could have set up Rey for being more powerful in Ep.IX, if trained by Luke in TLJ more so.

Well they were certainly used badly.

Hey Thor,
Do you think that Kathleen Kennedy wants the success of the second season of Andor to be the big win that will allow her to finally retire?

I personally think the original characters were used too little, but I think the bigger issue isn't if they were used too much or too little, but how they were used, and especially how they died.
Before TFA even began, Luke had already started and lost the New Jedi Order; Leia rose and fell out of grace with the New Republic Senate; and Han already started and lost his family.
Everything we wanted to see the main characters do in a potential Sequel Trilogy had already happened, and to make matters worse, every single effort failed - all of this before the movies even began.
It also doesn't help that every single original character died, and in 2 out of 3 times, basically for no reason.
Han gave his life to turn Ben from the Dark Side, which failed. Luke died because he was tired or something (Rian Johnson has since stated he decided to kill off Luke during post-production for shock value). And Leia died, presumably of old age, making one last effort to reach out to Ben, causing him to get stabbed in the torso by Rey.
I know there were real-life issues like Harrison Ford not wanting to come back or Carrie Fisher unfortunately dying in real-life, but I still believe there were ways to work around those hurdles.
Instead, people were paid millions of dollars to write each of the Sequels, and their end result was what I described above. If I was the one with the money and read any one of those things, I would have fired them and started over before filming began.

I just find it funny and sad how lucasfilm in both Indiana Jones and Star Wars take Harrison Ford's character's who are married and have their marriages fall apart in the movies they make after the Disney buyout

Hi Thor. Rian making a more realistic story??? I don't think kalahohu and I watched the same TLJ. The problem with it was that it didn't add up to anything, not even itself. Is it more realistic that you can have a force zoom call and you get the same weather as the one who calls has. Or the Holdo manoeuvre. Luke taking an overdose of the force.......
The problem with it was that is was to out of common sense to fitt in anywhere
I haven't seen it since it came out, probably won't ever see it again

Luke Skywalker's final duel with Kylo, when the dust settles and Luke dusts off his shoulder after a ludicrous amount of firepower...was one of 2 times in my entire theater going history that i stood up in the theater and screamed "YEAH!!!!"...to the bewilderment of most of the people seated around my wife and I. However...him dying shortly afterwards from overdosing on the Force...was a bit underwhelming.

I feel like the sequel trilogy was a mix of Disney and Lucas film saying “okay. The new characters. That’s everything. We need the new audience like Star Trek got in 2009.”
Here’s the little secret: those new folk leave as soon as the new big thing comes out.
This happened in Star Trek. It happens in all things. When a team is good, they get tons of new fans. They start to suck, the new fans stop watching.
Star Wars had a huge fanbase the is shrinking due to both leadership at LF and Disney. They had a general goal without understanding what they were buying themselves

Too much imo, one thing is Han & Chewie, Han leading to Leia, leading to Luke, that kinda makes sense, and then we had to have Lando.. It's again this huge universe where they all seem to be right around the corner, that said it could have worked with a proper story, but they where all of em misused.. Well perhaps apart from Han..
It could have been done, and it could have been as you your self say too little, but as it was it was too much..

Thor, I think your mistake in all this is assuming that anyone is actually reading through these scripts and not just scanning the summary page. If you look at what Disney has produced there's clear evidence, they are doing little to no editing on the page before starting to film. Headland even mentioned in an interview she was still writing the last few episodes of the Acolyte as she filming. While I agree that the sequel trilogy should have used the original characters more, Lucasfilm's ultimate sin is pantsing everything with no real oversight.

Definitely too little. I look not just at how the main trio are handled, but also the side characters. Admiral Ackbar was famously killed in an unceremonious fashion that rival's Kirk's death in Star Trek Generations. Chewbacca is kinda just there after TFA as there is no real plot reason for him to be there after Han dies particularly since he almost never shares any scenes with other OT cast members. R2-D2 and C-3P0 are extras in the first two movies with the last trying to fix this causing several plot holes in order to give them plot relevance because they aren't the designated comic reliefs anymore and Lando's omission from the first two films is glaring in my book considering his role as the Sixth Ranger in the OT and they only decided to bring him back when they killed off everyone else. Not to mention Wedge getting demoted to a cameo.

I wish I could thumbs up this video a million times. How anyone who likes that dump of a film could counter anything you just said is beyond me. Though…delusion seems to be a common trait amongst those fans. I’ve always believed that what they truly enjoyed about it was that Star Wars was being “ruined”, for lack of a better term…that long time fans had their lifelong relationship with the franchise they loved irreparably damaged.

It's pretty well known that LucsaFilm struggled with the OT characters over shadowing the new characters. This statement from the original screen play writer Michael Arndt in a EW interview really shows it. "Early on I tried to write versions of the story where Rey is at home, her home is destroyed, and then she goes on the road and meets Luke. And then she goes and kicks the bad guy’s ass. It just never worked and I struggled with this. This was back in 2012. It just felt like every time Luke came in and entered the movie, he just took it over, suddenly you didn’t care about your main character any more because, ‘Oh f-k, Luke Skywalker’s here. I want to see what he’s going to do.’" I fully expected a passing of the torch during the trilogy, I was certain Han was going to die too becasue I knew that's what Harrison Ford wanted. But they didn't pass the torch at all, they did something far worse, broke our heroes and tore them down. Unbelievable and I don't understand how people who like TLJ don't see this.

Hey Thor. Your best video. Thank you.

Didn't even watch the video. Just here to comment. Main thing is they weren't used properly. Doesn't matter how much screen time they get if the story is garbage. They were all used poorly.

OK going on a limb here and saying too little, oh yeah what sequels they never made Star wars Sequels those were fan-ficts made by Kennedy, and the miserable directors she hired.

This is what happens when "professionals" don't have a plan. Doesn't matter to them cause they still make money.

It’s not that they were used too much or too little; it’s that they were used so poorly! As Yoda might put it, the Sequels destroyed all for which they fought & suffered. It rolled back & ignored Han & Leia’s growth as characters, trashed their relationships, and reduced them to hollow, cardboard cutouts of themselves. Artoo was replaced by BB-8. Threepio was underutilized until the third film. Chewie was given little of import to do. And Luke…. What they did to Luke was fricking UNFORGIVABLE. It was disgraceful. And all of that was done to make these newer, far less interesting characters which were meant to replace the Big Three seem better (…when instead they could’ve, ohhh, I don’t know, developed the newer guys better and written a better script?).
They crapped all over my beloved childhood heroes. So it wasn’t a matter of being featured too much or too little. It was the disgusting way those characters were treated which hurt & infuriated the longtime, erstwhile faithful fans.

I honestly never understood the argument for the leaning more into the legacy characters thing to be honest.

Disney should be printing money. But they just keep abusing their legacy characters and just throw money away.

It isn't a question whether they were used too much or too little, but how they were used. Terribly is the only legit answer..

I’m so excited for the sequels to be bury and be put behind us.

Neither. They were just used poorly and they should have had at least 1 scene together.

You rewatched TLJ?! You are a braver soul than I. Since I walked out of the cinema, I’ve never watched any Disney Star Wars! Thank you Thor, for taking a hit for the team, cause I know how painful it must have been

Oh I mean it with all disrespect. If you see the last 3 movies as even, ok, you have no taste and should never be a film critic.
In-fact, you should be discouraged from ever talking about them.

Could you imagine if L3 heard you say "just put a droid on the ship and have them pilot your ship into the enemies" like they are disposable garbage. Droids have feelings too you know.

To save you the hassle of reading my answer is just: Too little and too late.

Putting aside the character assassination of every male character and Leia, TLJ is one of the most fantastical and goofy of the bunch. It famously has Leia flying through space, a Vice Admiral with pink hair and no uniform or professionalism, sluggish WW2 bombers, a ground-based laser that uses "Death Star tech", The Resistance identitying themselves with ovaltine decoder rings, a silly slapstick casino planet, "Force Skype" with the transfer of touch and water droplets, etc.

They had the rest of time to do whatever they wanted, the Sequel Trilogy should have been about Luke rebuilding the Jedi Order, and Leia should have become chancellor, just my opinion.

For me the first movies set the tone and the theme - Star Wars is about the hero Luke. As long as he is alive in the galaxy, I want to know his continuing story. The sequels ruined that by making him a self-centered recluse. That's not the Luke of Star Wars. Stupid. Stupid.
Same with Han. I will never forgive Disney for killing him off in a meaningless death, to make way for a pathetic Darth Vader Lite character.

I haven't watched the video yet, but it has nothing to do with the amount of screen time and everything to with how they are used.
Long enough to impact the story and tie a neat bow on their characters, but not so long that they overshadow the new protagonists.
By and large, I feel like the amount of screen time was ok. It's just that it was almost all wasted and didn't add to their characters at all, and mostly actually detracted from them.
Tragic waste.

If you gave a million chimps a million typewriters, 999,999 would write a better script than JJ or Rian.

If Luke didn't die, it wouldn't have been such a problem.

This video just made me realize. Han really doesn’t have any scenes in the OT without Luke or Leia in the scene either on comlink or at least nearby. Vader torturing him is still a Skywalker present.
The only scene I can really think of is C-3PO and R2’s arrival in Jabba’s Palace. We get a quick glimpse of Han… but a recording of Luke is present.
Star Wars is about the Skywalkers. Disney seemed to fail to grasp this and we ended up with 2 Han focused films and 0 Luke focused films.

You know what sequel series had a legacy character who started out broken and beaten but it worked? “Cobra Kai.” That’s how you write a sequel series.

The story the ST should have done was one where we saw the OT heroes playing prominent roles within the New Republic when some new threat arises that they have to deal with. They bring in the new characters as the next generation of heroes with both groups working together to defeat the new threat and the movies showing a passing of the torch to this new generation. But somehow that was beyond the ability of Disney/LF to figure out.

I put it much more directly: when a "director" makes fun of those who had devised theories far better than the result put on the screen, then we need to start taking off the proverbial blindfolds. And, in any case, worrying signs of rot were already there with TFA.

I completely agreed with everything you stated about The ST. Even though I despised all the ST movies, the movies did look and feel like Star Wars and cinematography wise they all looked quite good. I didn't see this with Andor, in that it didn't look or feel like Star Wars and I felt I watched a generic Sci Fi dystopian Show, especially more so, if you took out the very small Star Wars elements taken from Andor. The idea of making a space fantasy opera genre into a more grounded, reality based genre, for me personally, takes way the DNA and essence of Star Wars.

They were used too poorly. And too little but mostly too poorly.

Canto Bight, Leia Poppins, Hitler Hux, Hyperspeed ramming, Somehow Palpatine returned, Chewie dead/not dead, so many candidates for worst scene 😂

Someday the mishandling of the ST will be a mandatory course of study in film school. A cautionary tale of greed, arrogance, and disrespect to a beloved franchise and its fans!

I wanted to see Lando in those first two sequel Trilogy movies but after seeing how they tore down Luke and Han Solo I'm glad they didn't have Lando in those movies he was spared his character being torn down

The Last Jedi couldn't even do the new characters well, much less anything with the legacy characters. Finn was wasted, Rey was made into a Mary Sue, Poe was demonized for questioning how bad the plan was, Rose Tico was a pointless character, and people still think that Last Jedi makes sense as a standalone much less a sequel.

Immaterial. They were used poorly.

It's less about how much they used them, but how they used them.
They spat on their legacies.

TLJ being a grounded realistic Star Wars is certainly a hot take 😮

I remember going in as blind as I could for TLJ. In the first scene I was already feeling uneasy. The character who was later revealed to be Rose Ticos sister sacrifices herself and ship in a really dramatic way. But I was like; why is this chick getting so much screen time?? Am I supposed to care? The music is making me think the film wants me to, but I got nothing.
The flying Leia was when I was pretty sure this was a bad movie and the casino planet was when I was sure it was.
But hey the throne room fight scene was neat.

Honestly the sequel trilogy should have either 1.) Take place a century after the return of the jedi 2.) In another galaxy to build distances and story for the new characters

I am so jealous of those who actuality enjoyed TLJ and the ST in general that I don’t even really like criticizing it anymore and ruining it for them.

I managed to compartmentalise Luke being the way he was, telling myself that there must be a good explanation, but the chance scene was and is irredeemable from start to end - hyperspace ramming is only a thing in this universe for the 2 minutes when it happened

Honestly, as much as I hate The Last Jedi, I do genuinely love the line Luke says to Kylo at the end: “Strike me down in anger and I’ll always be with you” it’s an echo of Obi-Wan’s line in ANH only this time it’s phrased for a loved one instead of an enemy. The set up and everything around this interaction is bullshit but it’s actually a really good line in a hemorrhaging script full of shit dialogue. I just wish the rest of the story had been given as much care and forethought

Just the opening scene of TLJ with the joking and then using bomb ships that were massacred in an idiotic way broke any “realism” some advocated for.

everything about these movies makes my skin crawl

Hey Thor, totally agree about your take on how they treated Luke. Why not use the actor of the main three OT characters that actually loves SW and could not wait to reprise his role? He’s the one that would have carried the new characters on his back. Arndt’s first script was Luke centric

I think we can all agree they were definitely *used*.

Anakin preprogrammed the Malevolence to jump to lights peed in the first season of the Clone Wars. Why can't Holdo do the same thing against the First Order? I don't get why fans say you can't do that?

Nothing about TLJ was "realistic" just stupid, inconsistent, boring and the movie version of a dunning krueger addled loser.

2:24 J. J. Abrams & Lawrence Kasdan’s apparently.

Honestly, the Luke and Kylo scene was only bad in hindsight. Luke literally could have said anything and I wouldn’t mind because I just remember being so hyped that Luke was back in action and doing something. Him disappearing under the Tatooine suns was infuriating as I saw it unfolding.

The first movie should've been primarily about the legacy characters, the second movie should have been like a 50-50 passing of the torch movie, and the third movie should've been primarily with the new characters with some assistance by the legacy character, but the new characters should be the focus.

People can like what they like, but that doesn't mean they aren't objectively wrong.

Hey Thor, let me give you something better to talk about... Imagine if they got it and did it in the right way. Imagine that, in the first movie, they started with Loke teaching and Ben and Rey were his latest bach of Jedi knights... And go from there.
Imagine how different this fandom would be and how reverend Kathleen Kennedy would be. What a shame it is...

It's not about leaning to hard it's about how you use them. They destroyed Luke. They also ruined Finn which going by people's reaction was the most well liked new character. They gave him a sub plot that could've easily been written out and nothing would be lost.

I don't consider passing physical items through the force to be "more realistic."

Hey Thor, I really enjoyed our little friendly debate about the Ahsoka series not too long ago, so I'm hoping to keep some positive correspondence flowing between us by asking you a question about the show we can mutually agree is awesome: Andor.
Like you, I am very much of the belief that the show is in-fact, real Star Wars, and it baffles me how others can't seem to see it that way.
There's a quote from a video essay I really like, by the RUclips Channel: "So Uncivilized", entitled: "The Star Wars Sequels: Disney's Anti-Trilogy", where in elaborating on how he believes Force Awakens feels too similar to the Star Wars movies which had come before, he talks about how in order to _truly_ make something feel like Star Wars, you have to make something different to what Star Wars had ever been before.
(Since one of Lucas' main goals with each of his films to make them all feel unique and different from one another)
And, I absolutely agree with that idea.
Of course, it has to be done with respect, and feel cohesive with what has come before, but you should absolutely strive for originality in storytelling.
Not just in Star Wars, but in general!
That is why I personally feel Andor _is_ very much Star Wars, because it tells a kind of story which we've never really seen in that universe before in a mainstream way; a story about how average people try to get by and survive living underneath the boot of a brutal dictatorship, while those who are working to overthrow that government are forced to make some pretty hard choices and serious sacrifices, [potentially even contemplating having to become something far worse than their enemy] in order to defeat them.
Yet, along with adding this complexity and nuance to the heroes within its story, it also makes sure to respect the main themes of the Saga by showing how Evil is Evil and Good is Good... no matter the circumstances; never trying to justify evil or say that those who commit those actions are in the right.
(Such as with Luthen for example.)
So, my question to you about this is, how do you feel about that quote, and is it an accurate summary of why Andor is indeed true Star Wars?
P.S. Again, I know it's pretty late to bring this up now, but I wanted to say before that I honestly really pitied the no-win situation you seemed to be in with some Star Wars fans, where when you both praised and critiqued the Ahsoka show, being accused of being both a Disney Shill and Star Wars hater, simultaneously.

Maybe it was just me but I always assumed Hyperdrives and lightspeed don't work if there were solid objects upon takeoff, before the dimensional warp. Of course you could "end up" right in front of something and be too slow to react/decelerate. Han also says "Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick"....but stars are basically balls of gas and gravity, not necessarily solid. Either way, the Holdo thing is confounding

Too little I mean They could have been tracking the Secret Armada since the start as a B Plot rather than the written by Staplers Sequals

They didn't use them. They literally buried them...

Hey Thor, two questions:
First, could another big reasons TLJ gets the ‘hate’ is because there is resentment that it just wasn’t good and up until that point Star Wars films still had mostly positive reception with endearment as time wore on? I feel as if as time passed, the bitterness toward TLJ only intensified as the scope of how damaging it was gradually realized by more people
Two: should it have been Anakin to talk to Luke in TLJ? I’ve always felt Disney/LFL missed a massive opportunity to link the trilogies, and that was the perfect opportunity (despite the glaring question of: Where were the Force ghosts to tell Luke to get off his duff and stop feeling sorry for himself a whole lot sooner?)

Hey Thor, you just manage to make me feel worse about The Last Jedi because I hadn't thought about the final Luke/Kylo confrontation in quite that way. But speaking of Legacy characters and ripping of the EU a bit, there was talk about Maul being considered for the sequel trilogy at one point. While, I don't really want to change his fate in Rebels, what if had fled to build up his forces again. I believe the YA EU books I didn't read had something like the Shadow Academy. If meeting Ezra inspired him to meet others and Maul's Dark Side academy were villains or anti-heroes in the sequel. I assume Maul would fight the Emperor's legacy, and to him that would include the children of Anakin. The main draw would be Luke trying to convince Maul not only of his own goodness (really hard since Maul had no trust for the Jedi either, except maybe Kenobi), but that Anakin had returned to the Light. I feel that could be a fantastic conversation.

TLJ was a joke and the sequel trilogy was a joke. The fact they got ALL the OG main characters to return and didn’t bring em together for one last hurrah was a tragedy. No one going into The Force Awakens cared to see who the new characters were, we wanted to see what happened to our legacy hero’s.