Why The "Star Wars" Sequel Trilogy Was Doomed From The Opening Crawl - YBOC

[Music] that looks like a Sarlacc eating a thousand chili dogs this is my chart you're saying this is my no no no oh hey there you scruffy nerf-herder 'he's some results just came in and anyway my name is dr. dr. jordan breeding okay yeah i see i see you at the top of the chart now great but you wouldn't believe how many people spell my first name with an O instead of an A like nobody spells it that way and if you do you're probably a terrorist so whatever welcome to another episode of your brain on crack the show where I talk about star wars and have to avoid the internet for years after and the only show on crack that features sexy Leia scenes [Music] hot today I diagnose right off the top I will admit that millions of nerds are pretty much fine with the Star Wars sequels it's among the hardcore fans of the professional movie watchers at the galactic war rages most of them either believe it is pretty okay or personal he doesn't really matter to meet you much either way I was always a fan of the novels at least until Disney realized there were more books they could handle there too many of them what are we going to though [Music] still I enjoy the movies all they knew but I do think there's one basic easily avoided story problem that kind of doomed the whole sequel trilogy from being truly great and it happened in literally the first five seconds watching a New Hope's title crawl we immediately know the political situation in this massive universe were stepping into you bad guys rule the galaxy and they're opposed by a comparatively weak faction of rebels it's simple but that set up in Forbes the entire plot of the original trilogy through heroism the force and the ability to actually hit with a shoot at the rebels grow from this tiny band of desperate and rila fighters into a galaxy spanning coalition sporting an entire Armada commanded by fresh ray ball even the admittedly pretty stupid opening crawl for the Phantom Menace at least paints a clear picture of a declining civilization falling into conflict I mean it literally says turmoil has engulfed the doctor our bark plus we learned that there are midi-chlorians so you know things are pretty bad they live inside me now compare both of those to the situation presented in the force awakens opening crawl wait does that render everything that happened in the previous trilogy totally pointless for the first time if you're brand new this series this has to read like complete nonsense how are you a resistance if you have the support of the Republic that's like Rage Against the Machine opening for the State of the Union address mixed messages I'm the spy but if you are a fan it's even worse so the Empire's are dead they're just rebranded as the first order oh and the rebellion it's still a thing but it's not the Republic but it kind of is what I told you was true for almost every point of view as far as I can tell the first order in the Republic art piece but the Republic still funds a terrorist organization to assault the first order by proxy so does the Republic publicly denounce the actions of the resistance or just kind of pretend it's not happening see through you we can whatever the first order is doing it's apparently not sinister enough for the Republic to directly challenge it but it is bad enough that they need to sick space al Qaeda on them remain which makes Leia Osama bin-laden of space which isn't where I would take her story this is the first order directly control any systems or do they simply float through space and issue stead commands and British accents supreme even if they're an actual sovereign government the Republican resistance essentially committing war crimes and if the first order somehow isn't a functioning government are they space on Qaeda because if that's true why can't the Republic fight them directly somebody is a space terrorist and I'm gonna find out who also like how is the first order funded if they're not an actual government are they an Amazon competitor are there six tax breaks for superweapons do they run a death stick pyramid scheme you wanna buy some death sticks this isn't about just nitpicking the fictional universe it's about how this confusing set of struggles to create clear character motivations for instance the first order proves their evilness by obliterating the Republic's capital system but why would they even do that the two factions aren't at war and the Republic presumably spans the entire galaxy right and yet they blow up one system in a galaxy with 3.2 million of them and somehow it effectively ends the Republic that's like if in World War two a Nazi chucked a hand grenade into the White House vegetable garden and America was likewise supposed to be hanging up and give this here sauerkraut to try does the Republic not have any armies or politicians or can anything stationed anywhere else in the entire galaxy oh my god what happened to senator Binks this is a bustling with happiness because it's not like the Republic should go into hiding no words out Starkiller base firing again the resistance immediately blew it up we just never get any sense of the size or scope or threat of any of these factions and that's crucial for a movie like this which depends on us knowing the dramatic stakes for all of these big action set-pieces like how big of a deal is it that the first-order losses to Dredd now at the beginning of the last Jedi did they have a bunch of Dredd mouths or was that their only one similarly because imagine that the resistance lost a bunch of bombers taking it out Poe thinks it's worth it but Leia doesn't and honestly they're probably both wrong and the rise of Skywalker turns out that the Empire had like a million tricked-out star destroyers hidden away for no apparent reason and the resistance has access to a million ships of their own parked around the galaxy just waiting to be inspired by Lando Calrissian sexy arthritic dance moves whatever so how am I supposed to care about a couple dozen bombers here or dreadnought there I mean it'd be like if the Empire Strikes Back began with Darth Vader on the bridge of one of his 36 other Death Star's [Music] now you may be thinking excuse me back to breathing but none of this nerdy backstory stuff really matters after all this is about the characters and that journey and the truly uncomfortable makeout scenes the stories like this have to have all three it's different if the story is set in the real world where everybody already knows what it means to defeat the Nazis or win the World Series or quit your job build meth lab you wanna buy some death sticks but in a fantasy universe everything has to be established from scratch the world you create doesn't have to be simple but it does have to be clear the way modern blockbusters are made it's easy to just skip this part altogether it feels like they start with a series of huge sequences they know they won the trailer oh the sky is full of freakin Star Destroyers and then they just fill in the rest later with reshoots or a couple of throwaway lines in the novelization you can't make the Kessel run in less than 25 seconds watch me but rich backstory and world building is what helps these stories take root in your mind it's the reason that fans have remained obsessed with Star Wars after four decades look I was gonna say this but you know the cantina music they play on Tatooine it's called chiz seriously look it up that is what makes our was great there's this whole universe where freaky aliens covered in hair kickback with a glass of blue milk throw on the hottest jizz and about the current state of galactic political affairs this is how Liberty dies but without some kind of clear vision you get two directors in a tug of war each trying to undo the creative decisions of the previous one and falling back on the Stahl j'en when something doesn't work wait with Snoke dead who's the villain now not kylo we've already got a Redemption thing going on with him so what if we bring back Palpatine but this time he has a a podcast look what you have made we could talk about what less than Hollywood will take from this like maybe spend 20 minutes writing a story before filming next time let's be honest these movies still made billions of dollars they're not gonna change just because an actual doctor told him they should every word of what you just said was wrong all right yeah I accuse Leigh of being a zombie bin lunch space I tried to not say jizz so I guess that's pretty much it I guess I'm gonna head out to my underground bunker to avoid Star Wars commenters for the next decade but join us next appointment from my bunker when we diagnose which Star Trek captains have the juiciest behinds sounds great good work guys Thanks make sure to talk to Kathy on your way out to pick up some drugs for your rat gold plague oh crap this is still my chart Oh guys just kind of hang out in my bunker hiding from the nerds I don't know when I'll be able to do another video but until then you know subscribe ding the bell ring the notification bell and yeah hopefully we'll get you another one soon until then I'll tuna all night baby

Channel: Cracked

Views: 172,824

Rating: 4.7551956 out of 5

Keywords: Cracked, Your Brain on Cracked, Jordan Breeding, Star Wars, Star Wars commentary, Star Wars Sequels, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker, JJ Abrams, Disney, Sequel Trilogy, Prequel Trilogy, Admiral Ackbar, It's a trap, After hours, Small Beans, May the fourth, Rian Johnson, George Lucas, Kylo Ren, Star Wars Review, Star Wars sucked, Star Wars doomed, Sequel sucks, Sequels bad, satire, parody, film review, funny, informative

Id: 0BG3FloMvOU

Length: 9min 35sec (575 seconds)

Published: Fri May 08 2020

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[u/ralok-one]

They could have just hired writers... instead of trying to get the directors to write

[u/Gandamack]

TFA failed or refused to properly setup the full stakes of the conflict. TFA left it for the next writer to actually set the terms of the conflict.

It could have been something other than just Rebels v. Empire afterwards, TFA did not set that aspect in stone, though it was happy to leave the door open for it.

Johnson had no interest in setting up or truly developing a new conflict, and made the story even more so Rebels v. Empire than it was before. You could say it shouldn't have been his job to have to do that, but the responsibility ended up coming to him, and he tossed it over his shoulder like a lightsaber.

TROS is frankly an unintelligible mess in that regard too, trying to balance TFA's own shitty worldbuilding along with TLJ's.

[u/cmdrNacho]

This is absolutely the first issue I had when I went to see the movie. I was so confused like wtf happened?? why is there still a rebellion and the empire. Let's be real the first order looks exactly the empire.

This ruined the entire first watch for me. Then after learning more, it just feel into a pile of shit

[u/BreakTacticF0]

Stagnant feed back loops of things we've already seen before. Rip off a new hope. The last jedi? Darker spy noise of esb. Tros? Rotj eith a treasure hunt and blue filter

[u/GillyMonster18]

In 6 years, so many issues with ST have been highlighted. I feel like if TFA had been written competently, RJ still would’ve sabotaged it. Given the massive step backwards TLJ is I don’t know if a competent TFA/TROS could’ve held the story up. Not that TFA and TROS were anything except technically competent (visual effects, set pieces etc). The entire ST is literally rotten from the foundation in TFA to roof of TROS. We can say “TFA screwed it up” all we want but the entire trilogy fails on almost every conceivable level.