Zanteogo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 02, 2018 10:07 pm
Oh damn I hated it.
If they wanted to erase the past and start over again, why not just place the new movies hundreds of years in the future?
Everything that happened in episode 4 to 6 is now officially pointless and a total waste of time.
I get way more enjoyment out of watching the Star Wars kiddie cartoon than this garbage.
Maybe they needed to continue the story timeline according to the age of the (now aged) actors of the original: to have well known characters again in the movies. (less so for their part in the story). Its much easier to market, if you have recurring elements that people already know. (Han,Luke,Chewie,Leia, the robots, Admiral Trap)
For those cameos to work, they had not much leeway with the timeline.
(cameo example: R2D2 shows up, but the actual role is taken over by the newer much cuter and easier to "market-as-toy" BB-8 )
BTW: Characters like Thrawn would not work in a 155 minute movie, as introducing him would take quite a bit of time, as he has an established backstory, and did not appear in the movies before. The writers will either take established (movie) characters, or completely new blank slates (Ray, Finn), as there is no backstory to explain.
Before I saw the movie (only available in this dreadful 3D) there was like 5 minutes of advertisement for Star-Wars toys, games and merchandize. This really was a killer for the atmosphere. Made me feel like: "when you are sitting here, you are a man-child, now go online and buy our fan-crap")