Episode 1 - 3 are not about Vader, they are about Anakin Skywalker. The episodes where Darth Vader plays a big part are of course the original episodes and the latest of them is dating back to 1983, that's 35 years. Since then, we have had 7 new Star Wars films. That's roughly 1000 minutes of film time and Darth Vader, the biggest name in the Star Wars universe (the guy with the helmet and dark suit, not the prequel brat Anakin Skywalker), gets something like 15 minutes out of these. So basically you're saying "go watch the original episodes if you want to see Darth Vader in action". I have watched the original trilogy a dozen times already, it would be nice to see a new Darth Vader feature movie.
So basically you're saying if Disney announces are Darth Vader "spin-off" you'd go saying "oh no, too boring, nothing left to explore here". Seriously? Darth Vader is plain evil that what Darth Vader has been about anyway. There are countless possibilities to create an interesing storyline about Darth Vader when he was pure evil. There is a whole universe at your disposal and many different characters and ideas available. And I would completely ignore any cartoon when it comes to creating a new Star Wars movie. Look how they ignored the "Thrawn" books up until now.
They don't make movies about plain evil guys. Certain things are required to make an interesting story, and Vader before A New Hope does not have them. He has no internal conflict, as his evil is of the pure variety. He has limited agency, as at this stage the Empire still had - in large part - rule of law. The military was still a military hierarchy and politics were governed by the rump Senate. And he is fundamentally a lackey of the Emperor, and it always sucks to have a main character say "yes master" all the time. He's also uninteresting personally. He has no friends. He has no hobbies. He has no personality. He's a zealot. And he's a dummy. His education consists of learning to fix technical crap and then learning to be a Jedi and he is incredibly unworldly in every other aspect of life. He isn't even a good military leader. When finally given power, his tactics in Empire Strikes Back were simple minded and he ended up failing in every one of his goals. Because of these issues he can't undergo a character arc. He has no character to arc, he is part of the Empire and thus has no external threats, has nothing material or immaterial to lose or gain, and he has no space to get more evil. None of that is fatal - you can have a movie like Judge Dread, where the arc belongs to another character who learns from the narratively steady title character. But the Star Wars mythology precludes Vader from having this kind of underling. You are left with having his opponent have the story arc and oh they already did that and it's called Rogue One. Everything you needed to know about Vader you learned when he choked that Rebel captain on Leia's ship. Everything. When you see a scene like that and think "dude, what a stone cold bad ass! I'd love to see more!", it means the scene was written well. It doesn't mean you actually want to see more. Trust me, it's never as good as you think it will be.
That's Vader when he was interesting. (And Lucas still managed to turn him uninteresting. (But that is a topic for another post. (Which is a cool way of telling you my opinion and not letting you respond.)))) What? I hate these childish movies and I've seen the original trilogy at least 50 times. Come back when you get on my level.
They need to stop making anthology and origin movies about characters that are no longer relevant in the current SW universe. In the comic book universes, they make an origin story about someone that they're introducing into the current main story line. Not make one about someone who's already dead or no longer relevant. They can't come up with much that's original; which is why they're making origin stories about the likes of Solo and now Boba Fett. They brought back Maul in Solo, who's already been killed.... twice. There's no reason to invest in the new characters of Solo because they're not part of the main trilogy, which means they are either dead or not relevant by the time episode IV starts. I'm thinking they know that and don't really care. They were counting on the nostalgia feel and it's beginning to backfire. That's why SW is basically dead. Unless Episode IX hits a home run, SW might be done for a lot of people.
They have an endlessly large universe to play with and they keep on returning to the same small group of characters. I don't think it's a coincidence that the best ever "Star Wars" game was consciously set in an era thousands of years prior to the events of the movies.
The main movies have all been about the Skywalker family, and it makes sense that that should continue. But the subsidiary films have all stayed close to that thread as well. There haven't been any modern equivalents to the Ewoks movies.
What Dills is referring to is the Rian Johnson-helmed trilogy, and I think it goes beyond "rumors"-- Johnson himself and Lucasfilm have both publicly stated that what he's working on will deal with entirely new characters and stories.
To talk more about Darth Vader, the best movies about him are The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. They show the effect of the Myth of Vader on Kylo Ren: why it would be attractive to him, how it changes him, and the freeing effect of finally abandoning it.
I'm curious whether Johnson's other three Star Wars movies are also going to have a 55% review gap. I guess as long as they make money that's all Disney really cares about.
The complaints after SW:TFA were that it was too much of the same (which I agreed with). Then Rian Johnson does some very modest attempts at trying a few new things in SW:TLJ and he gets blasted by the fanboys. Neither film is perfect, but I'd rather see a director try to do something new (however limited the freedom of movement he or she has been afforded to do so might be) than just remix the original trilogy like J.J. Abrams did for the first movie of the Disney reboot of the series.
I might not be kidding in saying that, while not perfect, Rogue 1 and Solo are the best Star Wars since Empire.
This is a common argument but I think it's a bit of an oversimplification. The controversy surrounding The Last Jedi doesn't by any means begin and end with its ambitious originality or uniqueness compared to the other films of the franchise. Some of the substantial differences from the rest of the franchise were to the movie's credit, while others weakened the movie due to poor execution and resulting plot holes. A storyline that seemed at times kind of contrived [case in point the completely avoidable Holdo-Poe feud] weighed the movie down, among other things. Furthermore, The Last Jedi quite a bit of remixing of its own, from the latter two movies of the original trilogy. Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler Rey (Luke) confronting self-exiled Jedi Luke (Yoda) on a remote planet, who reluctantly agrees to provide at least limited training. Rey (Luke) going to a Dark Side cave on the planet and seeing a startling vision of...her own face. Rey (Luke) recklessly deciding to leave mid-training to confront Kylo Ren (Darth Vader) against the advise of Luke (Yoda). Rey (Luke) surrendering to Kylo Ren (Vader) in the hopes of redeeming him. Kylo Ren (Darth Vader) bringing Rey (Luke) before his master Snoke (Palpatine) as the redemption efforts continue. Snoke (Palpatine) forcing Rey to watch the destruction of the Resistance (Rebel) fleet from his lair. Kylo Ren (Darth Vader) betraying and killing his master Snoke (Palpatine) partially to prevent the execution of Rey (Luke). First Order (Imperial) walkers advancing on a Resistance (Rebel) base on a white planet Crait (Hoth), where the Resistance (Rebellion) decides to fight a stalling battle while it prepares rescue/evacuation plans. Need I go on?
The Holdo-Poe disagreement only existed because of Poe's hot-headedness, but to get rid of that would be to get rid of the main tension in the film and a moral about unthinking hot dogging versus experience and deliberation. If you think Holdo should have told Poe was was going on, that isn't how militaries work. There is a need for operational security. And that is exactly what happened - the Empire leaned of Holdo's plan because Poe was eventually told.
I'll admit I had forgotten about that, but he wasn't exactly told. He found himself in a position to see just enough of the plan to get entirely the wrong idea, which reinforced the urgency in his mind of the side mission he had planned when he had been kept entirely in the dark, a side mission the very existence of which directly caused the information leak. If Holdo's silence was an effort to protect operational security, then it backfired spectacularly by undermining the plan it intended to protect, encouraging the implementation of a competing perpendicular plan. Holdo made no effort whatsoever to deny, disprove, or correct Poe's claims that she was leading the Resistance [through incompetence, cowardice, or treason] to its total destruction, with any degree of specificity. And that appeared to be expressly for the purpose of setting up the bait-and-switch plot twist, not because it actually made sense. She antagonized Poe to the point that she had to have seen the rival plan and eventual mutiny coming and did nothing to preclude either. Once again, the execution was off, and the lack of information sharing came across less as an effort to follow military protocol than as a personality clash. The conflict seemed forced to preach an overarching moral, which seemed to be a recurring pattern in the movie to some extent.
They never did say that the reason Poe wasn't told was because of security - they seemed to frame it as just a matter of obeying authority. I certainly agree that it wasn't well told. I think the reason it was simplified this way is a failing of Star Wars in general instead of a failing of this movie in particular. Star Wars isn't designed to handle complex ideas.
Neither is blowing off undermining command authority nor munity…realism rarely has a place in defending nor explaining SW, and you certainly can’t have it both ways….