Tag: rktho

The Force Awakens: So Snoke is out hiding somewhere, on a secret ship that’s constantly moving so no one knows where it is, and he only talks to people via hologram

The Last Jedi: Which is why his ship is going to show up in the second movie and Rey will be able to find it no problem and a random hacker knows it like the back of his hand for some reason and calls it “Old Man Snoke’s Boudoir”

The Last Jedi: Oh and Snoke and the ship are both going to get cut in half and be destroyed

The Last Jedi: Man this worldbuilding is fun I love creating mystery

Episode IX: Mystery like “how does this make sense?”

The Last Jedi: Exactly!

Episode IX: Mind if I ignore that mystery and just do my own thing?

The Last Jedi: Of course! That’s what I do!

Me, an author currently stuck on his WIP for no reason, having an argument with myself

Plotter me: Why did you stop in the middle of this scene? This is exciting!

Writer me: They’re just talking.

Plotter me: You write talky scenes all the time! 90 percent of your WIP is dialogue!

Writer me: Do I have to write this part right now?

Plotter me: You always write in chronological order! Which is why every time you get stuck, you don’t touch this thing for weeks! It’s a serious problem!

Writer me: Yeah, I’d ask on a forum, but I don’t actually have anything to resolve. I know how I want this scene to go down.

Plotter me: Exactly! This is a confrontation scene! Remember how excited you were, planning this?

Writer me: Yeah, but there’s no buildup. This is a new character being introduced and a slightly more familiar character saying “I know who you really are” and exposing them. Then they team up.

Plotter me: Exciting!

Writer me: Yeah, but not to write.

Plotter me: [sigh] I guess I should expect this from the guy who opens his book from the perspective of a pack of ACTUAL DRAGONS HUNTING IN THE FOREST and takes forever to even finish the chapter.

Writer me: The prologue is just so much more interesting to me though.

Plotter me: [tearing hair out] In what world is a page of infodumping more exciting than two people talking about a tangled web of alliances?!

Writer me: It’s like, a cool infodump. Like the kind Tolkien wrote. It’s the grandiose worldbuilding stuff. You know we both live for that. Can we skip fourteen chapters ahead to the part where the character I haven’t even introduced yet runs into his best friend who I also haven’t introduced but happens to be the son of one of the characters in this scene, where one character knows something the other one doesn’t and there’s a huge confrontation?

Plotter me: [banging head on desk]

Writer me: What? That one’s more exciting. There’s shouting and running away in it. And a perceived betrayal that absolutely devastates that character I haven’t introduced. You know he’s my favorite. Come on. Can we skip to that one?

Plotter me: Forget it. Let’s work on our Star Wars knockoff until you feel ready to come back to this.

Writer me: Yippee!

[later]

Plotter me: YOU HAVE SEVEN BLANK CHAPTERS WITH NOTES LIKE “ANOTHER JANGO FLASHBACK” and “SCENE WHERE THEY TRY TO KILL PALPATINE AND HARDEEN IS REVEALED TO BE OBI-WAN”! YOU WANTED TO WRITE THAT OBI-WAN SCENE SO BAD!

Writer me: Yeah but I really want to get to Darth Maaaaaaaaaaul and the Original Trilogy eraaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Plotter me: How are you ever going to get published

Writer me: Chillax. My MAIN WIP will be a labor of several years and I won’t publish it until all the books in it are done. Until then I’ll just write one-offs and publish those.

Plotter me: You mean one-offs like this one, or the five other one-offs you’re only twenty pages into?

Writer me: Oh.

Writer me: …I see your point.

Writer me: Maybe I should write songs instead?

Plotter me: YOU CAN’T WRITE MELODIES.

Writer me: Yeah but I have a few decent lyrics…

Plotter me: No more listening to concerts on YouTube while you work. You’re not going to be the next Ed Sheeran.

Writer me: What about the next Marcus Mumfor–

Plotter me: NO.

Rktho, thanks for submitting your Finn fic to me. I won’t be publishing it on my blog because I have some issues with it–send me an ask if you want me to go into more details–but I’m glad you had fun with it and hope you will share it with others who may also enjoy it.

How Disney SHOULD have made the sequel trilogy

1. Choose ONE writer. This will be the George Lucas of the new age. JJ Abrams, Dave Filoni, just choose someone you think will take care of the franchise the way George did. (I am not saying JJ or Filoni should have been the ones in this position, but they wouldn’t be the worst.)

2. Balance out Lucas’s successor with a different director or multiple different directors. The Kershners and Marquands of the new age.

3. Spend THREE YEARS on each episode the way it’s ALWAYS been done. Absolutely no cranking out saga installments.

4. Keep an animated show handy to tide people over. Ideally, this show could tie into the sequels, taking place between them the way the 2003 Clone Wars miniseries tied directly into Revenge of the Sith and got people hyped for it after Attack of the Clones. Or, better yet, devote a show explaining what happened between ROTJ and Episode VII. But under NO circumstances assume people will watch it and not have to have it explained in the film. Give enough exposition for people who only watch the movies.

5. The anthology films are a good idea, much like the TV show. Work on them at more or less the same time as the saga films with a different crew and release them between saga installments. Again, three year gaps provide a nice middle year for anthology films to be released. Lucasfilm could get away with cranking these out instead of devoting huge effort to them, but obviously they don’t want people losing interest in the franchise.

6. Make the film clear for the Internet™ and explain it to them, because they won’t understand. None of this “is Reylo going to happen” BS. People should know what Lucasfilm’s intentions are and what messages it’s promoting.

7. The mystery box approach isn’t really the best thing for Star Wars. No one walked out of A New Hope thinking, “I bet Vader is Luke’s father!” or “I bet Leia is Luke’s sister!” Those iconic reveals punched us in the gut instead of building anticipation (during which time, theorists would figure out the twist before it happened.) On the other hand, be sure to subtly set up the reveals so they don’t come off as butt-pulls (coughs at Rey Nobody.)

JJ never said Snoke was never important, you just thought he was. Luke’s purpose on Ahch-to was always to die quietly. JJ never hinted that Rey was a Skywalker, you made that up. Balance of the Force has always meant equal light and dark. Finn was always a side character. Star Wars’ humor was always this goofy. Poe was always a reckless hothead. Rey is unselfish to a fault, not someone who spent years looking out for herself and not trusting people. Rey’s parents are buried on Jakku. Luke was always a stickler for the orthodox Jedi ways, but Yoda didn’t care about them. Star Wars was repetitive, borrowing too much from itself, and something needed to break the mold and do something different. No, I’m not ‘gaslighting’ you, you’re just remembering things incorrectly through the lens of your unrealistic expectations.