TMD's Creatively Named Blog

It's not much to go by, but I have a feeling that the sequels are going to be what we all expected out of the prequels.

If we're putting up a list of things to be impressed by, I'd add the visual style. I was worried that from a visual perspective this movie would be one big obnoxious love letter to the original trilogy. But just from the two trailers there are shots that wouldn't feel out of place in either the original or the prequel trilogy, and then there are shots (like the Falcon at the end of trailer 1) which clearly belong all to Abrams.

 

Now hopefully the story isn't a love letter... though if we're still 'Rebels vs. Empire' like the trailer implies I'll be pretty turned off.

Uh, the Empire is gone, I thought. Luke/Vader destroyed it. 

Well, yeah, that's what I thought too. But with the trailer filled with Stormtroopers and TIE Fighters and an insignia that's riffing off the old Empire logo... well it'd be weird to resurrect those things to portray something other than the Empire.

Uh, the Empire is gone, I thought. Luke/Vader destroyed it. 

 

The Emperor and Death Star went kaboom, but that doesn't mean the rest of the Empire disappears. Wouldn't there be troops, commanders and governors, and other Empire officials all over the Galaxy? They are probably fractured and unorganized, but it doesn't seem unlikely some of them would continue fighting to uphold the Empire.

 

I can image that the Rebels went around taking out pockets of further resistance, but a band of Stormtroopers could have gone into hiding and, ironically enough, started a rebellion.

I think there's got to be more to this movie than a bunch of rebels running around fighting random rogue Stormtroopers through. Otherwise, 0/10 not watching the movie. 

I agree that may not be the greatest plot for a movie, but someone (new Sith?) could have taken charge of some remaining Stormtroopers to use in their own plot to rule the Galaxy. Because the bad guys, it seems, always need minions.

 

And actually, I'm not sure if we can even assume the Rebels won, or are even winning. There may still be a war going on, albeit on more equal terms.

A rehashing of original-trilogy elements is inevitably going to happen. If anything, Abrams and Co. should have relished the opportunity to capture a lot of things about the originals that made them better than the prequels.
 
In the end, making sequels is easier than making prequels. With prequels, you know where your story is going and it's very hard to create any suspense. With sequels, where the story goes is much more open-ended. The sequel team also has the added benefit of knowing where the prequels went awry—and, hopefully, how to avoid making the same mistakes.