So, as many of you are, I have been very critical of TLJ, including for its handling of Luke Skywalker. However, I believe I now understand what Johnson, R. (2017), was very subtly trying to communicate. See, TLJ does not make sense if Luke is merely going away to sit the fight out, but what if the green milk of the creatures is in fact addictive? Luke travels to Ahch-To to seek guidance from the Jedi texts, the temptress nuns, a common trope in these types of heroic stories trick him into drinking the addictive milk and suddenly, he's caught. Note how he does not offer Rey any of the milk and how he looks just as angry as he looks relieved when he drinks it. This is also why he does not leave with her - the crippling addiction to the green milk is just too powerful even for a Jedi Master to overcome.

The temptress nuns and the addictive milk also explains why Yoda burns down the Sacred Texts. The Jedi Order is revealed to be so corrupt that they protect their texts with an insidious trap in the form of irresistible temptation. Whilst not many would consider the nuns siren-like, I would argue that they represent what Johnson would consider the female ideal. Hence, Yoda understands that a group that would risk inflicting such horrible evils upon those who would seek wisdom, would ultimately be a force for evil rather than good, paranoid and elitist as opposed to humble and wise like Jedi were supposed to be. Note that Yoda only appears when Luke, having come to the same conclusion, fails in his mission to destroy the texts.

Therefore, what we can learn from TLJ is that addiction can happen to anyone and that whilst the love we provide may sometimes be of the tough variety, we should still provide it. True success is to live with your limitations and learn how to metaphorically force project, not challenging and overcoming problems that may be too large to overcome. And you thought you were watching a Star Wars movie!

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2024/10/24/steven-knight-exits-as-writer-of-star-wars-new-jedi-order

Steven Knight is officially out as the writer of Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Star Wars/Rey movie, which is supposed to star Daisey Ridley, and has been plagued with numerous exits and delays. It’s turning into the ‘Blade’ of the Star Wars verse.

First things first, if you’ve been a reader long enough to remember, here’s the scoop I wrote on June 26 concerning Knight’s contentious disagreements with Lucasfilm over the film:

If only I could tell you what I’ve been hearing when it comes to the behind-the-scenes drama with [“Star Wars: The New Jedi Order”]. I swore not to say anything, and it’s killing me to not write about it, but I’m fairly certain some of it will eventually come out.

What I will say is that Steven Knight has been trying to crack the script now for well over a year. A final draft still hasn’t been submitted to LucasFilm. Knight, who is about to shoot his “Peaky Blinders” movie, has written a total of four drafts, with LucasFilm’s Kathleen Kennedy continuously giving him notes on how to improve the story.

Fast forward to this evening, and Puck’s Matt Belloni is reporting that Knight is out as screenwriter of ‘New Jedi Order.’ Lucasfilm is now looking for a new writer, which almost certainly means that the film will not be ready by December 2026, the date Disney had originally settled on for the film.

These issues with Knight, who clashed with Lucasfilm over creative direction of the film, come only two years after development on ‘New Jedi Order’ started, and various drafts had circulated, with different writers, including Damon Lindelof (“Watchmen”) and Justin Brit-Gibson (“Counterpart”) taking a crack at it, before both eventually exiting the project due to creative differences.

There’s also another issue: Disney might be second-guessing the entire nature of the project. Will they or won’t they allow this film to move forward? Do we really need another Rey movie? Plot details have been kept fairly hush-hush, but based on what I’ve heard, the film would focus on Rey’s tutelage at an Academy of up-and-coming Jedis, and part of her attempt to build a new Jedi order.

Disney/LucasFilm hired Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a documentary filmmaker, to direct the Rey movie, and there have also been whispers about her potentially being replaced. Regardless, what we have here is yet another Kathleen Kennedy mess over at Lucasfilm.

I often see this as a response to why bringing Palpatine back wasn't a big deal.

On one hand, I do somewhat agree that notion that the focus of the scene in ROTJ was more about Anakin saving Luke than killing the Emperor.

But on the other hand, to me there's something about it that feels like a cop-out. I can't really explain it. It feels like an alternate way of saying "it's the thought that counts".

To me it makes no sense. I get it’s a parallel with vets in our world but the dudes a literal clone of the best bounty hunter in the galaxy. The bad batch from what I understand are turncloak clones and seem to do fine, other clones became instructors in the army. But this guy couldn’t become a Mercenary? A bounty hunter? Some private security job? A bouncer?

Why would he even wear his clone armour anymore?

Unlike the Empire which was born out of the already massive republic, the first order was only some imperial remnants and some militaries in the outer rim. As the events of the sequel trilogy only take place across a year I think that most planets basically carried on as normal after Hosnian Prime blew up and that the New Republic was basically intact.

For many of us, Disney's discontinuation and 'de-canonization' of the EU was the first major red flag of Disney's mishandling of the franchise. In a single moment, decades of storytelling that fans had invested into were sidelined. With this came Disney's promise of a new 'better' continuity, but time has shown that this promise was never kept.

Let me be clear, this decision to ignore the EU was one of Disney's MANY missteps in their handling of Star Wars. That being said... I'm actually glad that they did. Disney has evidently shown their ineptitude in running the Star Wars franchise, and if Disney had operated the EU, I doubt the results would have been good. If Disney has run the EU awful retcons, stories, and character assassinations would likely have littered the universe. Because the EU was disregarded so early on it has managed to remain untouched and unsullied by Disney.

For me the EU remains as the true Star Wars cannon. Disney can say it's 'not canon' all they want, but the fact remains that the EU's stories are leaps and bounds better than Disney's corporate 'content'. Unlike Disney's content which directly ignored the will of George Lucas, the EU's stories were subject to George's edict as Star Wars creator. If anyone reading this is tired of Disney's slop and hasn't gotten into the EU before, I highly recommend Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trillogy (Heir to the Empire, Dark Forces Rising, The Last Command) as an entry point.

TLDR: Because Disney disregarded the EU, it remains as the True unsullied Star Wars Canon for me.

Curious if anyone else has/is going through something similar.

Coming up on almost a decade now since the release of The Force Awakens, I can admit I was one of those jokers who got caught up in the hype that Star Wars was "back." Now, suddenly, after years of kind of ignoring it after the prequels left me cold, I thought "they've finally gotten it right." And, even better, I was now an adult with disposable income, which meant I could finally engage my Star Wars fandom by buying stuff. So. Much. stuff.

Board games (all of them). Books (most of them). Miniatures. Comics. Action figures. DVDs. Apparel. Trinkets. Toys. LEGOs. Posters. All manner of cheap (and not so cheap) objects with the Star Wars logo on it was now an emotionally satisfying way to express the reanimated love I had for the galaxy far, far away.

It didn't matter that I didn't have space or a dedicated purpose (or, to be honest, discretionary funds) for most of this crap. Filling my house with Star Wars felt like I was perpetually a "part" of Star Wars. High quality or not, the brand was the selling point and I was a grade-A sucker funneling money into the Mouse because I believed that buying things was the proper way to show I was a fan. Honestly, if the Galactic Starcruiser opened just a few years earlier, it's quite probable I'd have blown a good chunk of several month's pay to visit it.

But, eventually the visible decline in quality and downward trajectory of all new Star Wars content became too prominent to deny anymore. Every new series just got progressively worse. The books were trash. The comics were fluff. The veneer of "the brand" cheapened and tarnished and once you realized the pablum underneath was flavorless and insipid, it became harder and harder to pretend all these material goods were adding any measurable enjoyment to my life. Now, instead of a "collection", I had endless amounts of "junk." Games I never played. Books I never read. Minis I never painted. Clothes I never wore. Toys that just collected dust and took up shelf space and that I was constantly reshuffling and assuring my wife I would "find a place for" that didn't bring her palpable embarrassment.

So I've just said fuck it. It's all gone. Donated. Sold. Left on the street. A lot of it just straight up dust-binned. After a few months of gradual and heartless de-Star Wars-ification, I'm now left with a handful of objects that carry genuine sentimental value:

• The original trilogy screenplays
• The Ralph McQuarrie full art 2-book tome
• The art books for Rogue One and Solo (because I like film production design and still get a kick out of seeing the process for what are, arguably, the two best looking and most imaginative of the Disney Star Wars films)
• A book about the history of Star Wars posters around the world (pre-Disney acquisition)
• A book about the Lucasfilm archives published in the 90s
• Three posters only: the Polish versions of each OT film poster
• Blu-Rays of the OT, the PT, Solo, Rogue One, Andor, and the Tartakovsky Clone Wars.
• Star Wars Rebellion and Outer Rim board games.
• A Boba Fett helmet

And that’s it. Fits comfortably in two KALLAX cubbies and a small spot above my desk, and holy shit, it feels great. The anxiety of constantly being surrounded by the bulky detritus of a dead franchise has evaporated, and the objects I’ve held on to are irregular reminders that there was (and is) still good inside Star Wars. Somewhere. It just requires careful curation, culling a lot of crap, and seriously asking the question “does this Star Wars object bring joy?”

No? You may fire when ready.