Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Abrams says Anakin was the Chosen One but the balance wasn’t forever

Posted on by

anakin01

During a recent panel at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker writer-director J.J. Abrams said that he considers Anakin Skywalker to be the Chosen One. But he thinks that bringing balance to the Force didn’t mean it was forever.

(at 1:26)

 

“This whole trilogy — this VII, VIII, and IX — is really about the generation that sort of follows the great generation and the idea of balance, bringing balance to The Force. Which is the whole point of the Chosen One Anakin in the original trilogy. What I love was the idea that balance brought to The Force doesn’t mean it’s forever. It’s not immediately everlasting. And I think the idea that if we are not careful, the ultimate evil will rise again. That we have to be proactive in doing what we can to maintain the balance, and how does the generation that follows the great generation do that.

And the idea that these two main characters, both the grandchildren of these crucially important characters of Palpatine and Skywalker — as [co-writer] Chris [Terrio] was saying, these two houses coming together in this next generation felt like there was an inevitability to it. And if one were to watch [Episodes] I through IX, you know, 50, 100 years from now, hopefully you feel that these stories were inevitably leading there.”

25 thoughts on “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Abrams says Anakin was the Chosen One but the balance wasn’t forever”

  2. Ironic. Episode IX is the sequel movie who acknowledges the most the Prequels, but it’s also the one who weakens them the most.

    Unless you don’t consider the new trilogy to be canon, which is what I do.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply ↓

  3. There is nothing inevitable about Palpatine coming back after being definitively dead. How creatively bankrupt can one possibly be? Don’t give me any of this “coming from the worst place” nonsense – none of this was as much as a thought when Abrams made TFAA, and he’s now shoehorned it into TROS out of desperation, as a way to prop up his stupid decision to revive the man Anakin was supposed to have killed.

    The only inevitably thing here is the corporate greed of Disney to continually make shallow films which spit on the legacy of George Lucas.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply ↓

      • I am no fan or defender of JJ, but the story I heard was JJ consulted with Lucas about the script and was going to have the Son from TCW to be the villain to TROS. Supposedly Iger nixed it and wanted Plaps to return because he is more well known than the Son is. That and supposedly JJ and Ruin Johnson don’t like each which is why RJ burned all of JJ’s few and weak plot lines. The ST was doomed from the start, there was no way to continue the story after the perfect and complete ending with ROTJ without shitting all over the previous films. JJ can try to dance around it all he wants, but it is clear as day the SW sega ended with ROTJ.

        Liked by 2 people

      • I’ve read that too, but there’s not a single shred of proof to support this story about George Lucas and The Son. It’s just a wild rumor for now.

        Like

      • @Juju @Slicer

        Abrams has said that he consulted Lucas only on the nature of The Force, and “None of the story”. This is an video interview, if you want to look it up. It’s not really surprising, we all know how ungrateful and full of himself Abrams is when you look beyond the geek-cool facade.

        Though, yes, if Lucas had been involved in this trilogy it might actually feel connected to the other 6. It’s a great shame it isn’t, but what can you do? ROTJ will always be the ending in my mind.

        Liked by 1 person

      • i read acomment sayiong TFA was the first Quality Star Wars film in years how could fans enjoy movies That sh*t all over the ot Characters? oh because some fans are Blood Thirsty Psychopaths F**K THEM!

        Like

      • I just wish that there will be a definitive “Making of” book in Rinzler’s tradition, then we will (maybe) know what happened behind the scenes.

        Like

    • @archduke

      Here’s a reply to a post you wrote a few stories down, asking me why I hate the “old canon,” aka the EU, so much. Since that convo is dated a while ago, I decided to reply here.

      Why do I hate the old EU (which was never canon)? Oh, I don’t know…maybe because it’s BAD? Maybe because it foisted the most unbearable pet characters imaginable on us, from Mara Jade to Kyp Durron to Mara Jade to Mara Jade to Mara Jade to Kyle Katarn to Prince Isolder to Mara Jade to Bria Tharen to Mara Jade to Mara Jade to the Solobrats…oh, and did I mention Mara Jade? Maybe because it made those unbearable characters into ubiquitous superpeople, constantly undermining the movie characters? Mara Jade got so obnoxiously ever-present that she became inescapable. Whenever a semi-decent scene I wanted to read came along — like Luke comes across a video of his parents in R2-D2’s memory banks, or he hears about his father, pre-Vader, from someone who knew him — who is there stinking it up but Mara, offering her unwanted, unneeded, and hypocritical two cents. Worst of all, Luke is so whipped by that shrew that he wouldn’t sneeze without her written, notarized permission. In ESB, Luke calls out to Leia via the Force, and she immediately responds, risking Imperial capture to save him. In the EU, Leia calls out to Luke when she’s captured and tortured, and what does he do? Shrugs and resumes making out with Mara. Nor does he spare Leia a single thought, much less a comforting visit, when she’s recovering from nearly having her legs sliced off, constantly in great pain. No, combing Mara’s precious red-gold hair is more important to him. And people complain about him in TLJ, for pete’s sake!

      Speaking of which, it’s interesting how Wonderful Perfect Mara is supposed to be a Jedi master, yet she lacks self-control so much that she has to remind the whole galaxy that she is at the center of it by broadcasting her labor pains all over it. Leia, the derided, ignored, insulted “weakling,” managed to keep her labor pains (with twins) to herself despite being only a padawan at the time. And she was a full Jedi by the end of the Bantam books, only to be demoted so precious Mara could become adored and worshipped as primary heroine in the Del Rey series: omnipotent, omniscient, and the best Jedi, the coolest smuggler, the best Force User, the best mother, and of course the most beautiful woman EVER. Never mind that she barely trained as a Jedi and had entirely the wrong temperament to be a Jedi, much less a Jedi master, being vicious, insensitive, self-centered, violent, and filled with fury. No one ever tells her to shut her nasty mouth, no matter how horrid her behavior or inappropriate her utterances (which is almost all the time). Luke is such a marionette that he obeys immediately when she tells him to stop grieving when his nephew dies, and whenever she nearly gets her team killed with her reckless behavior, he rewards her with another makeout session. He stands there like a mute when she hypocritically insults his family, living (Leia) and dead (Anakin). But her fans say, “Maybe he’s afraid of her wrath.” Really? And he STILL doesn’t question his decision to make this violent, self-control-free, insensitive, wrathful woman a Jedi master? Or to friggin’ MARRY her? Again, and people complain about him in TLJ! They ain’t seen nothing yet. Pick up any New Jedi Order crapfest and you’ll see REAL destruction of Luke Skywalker.

      I don’t CARE what the polls say, and they’re probably the same polls that name Mara as the most awesomest character EVER. Again, if the Darth Plagueis novel is among “the best” of the old EU, or new EU, or whatever, that’s not saying much. If Disney had any sense, they’d AVOID the EU, old and new, like the…well, like the plague. Lucas borrowed a couple of the not-so-crappy elements of the EU, as is his right — but that doesn’t canonize (so to speak) the whole shebang.

      Now does that answer your question?

      Like

      Reply ↓

      • @Maychild

        I’m apathetic on Mara Jade, but obviously you do care – negatively – and that’s fair enough. I have no interest in debating this topic.

        There’s no need to throw the entire old EU under the bus though, even if was never “canon”. The Darth Plagueis novel was released in 2012, just barely before the new regime came to power, and it still offers solutions and respect for a topic ignored ever since.

        Like

  5. I understand JJ’s point of view. And it would normally be a message that I would support: Be careful that the defeated evil does not return.

    However, I am not sure whether it is in line with GL’s ideas (or better, with my understanding of the Saga).
    SW is IMHO in its core a (beautiful) fairy tale and follows the rules of mythology. And Anakin’s sacrifice was IMHO not only the defeat of the evil powers “this time,” but a major turning point in the history of the GFFO. It showed to Luke that the path that he (Luke) had chosen was right, it inspired him to re-build the Jedi order or something different, but better (at least in my mind and as I once read in a great SW article on a German fan site…) And let us not forget the possible change in the nature of the Force…
    You may obviously find a Christian theme in my interpretation, but you can IMHO also find a strictly historical example like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: You cannot undo the Declaration. And I interpret Anakin’s sacrifice as something similar (obviously not only on a philosophical, but also on the metaphysical level: an event that changed the Force and fabric of the GFFO forever).

    Sorry for the rambling. I am aware that it is purely subjective, but I hope that I could convey why I have problems with Abrams’ interpretation of “bringing balance to the Force” (which seems to be “kill the bad guy [again], and it will be necessary in a couple of decades, too”)

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • To be fair, the movies have to have a villain. Conflict is what makes a story like this interesting, and stories in general interesting. But they already had a villain, in Kylo Ren. Why resurrect Palps? I’m sure Ian McDiarmid was delighted to play the part again, as he was clearly having a grand time in Episodes I-III — playing a younger version of the character he played in ROTJ, only without the prostheses (until the latter third of ROTS, that is). When he delivers his “I love democracy…I love the Republic” speech in AOTC, his facial expression and voice just dripping with false sincerity, he is having so much fun, I don’t know how he keeps from giggling like crazy. I myself have a good chuckle whenever I watch that scene.

      But even so…resurrecting Palps was just redundant, an EU trick, and lame…in addition to crapping on Anakin bringing balance to the Force. Which he did at a high cost, not just to himself (as he kinda, you know, died) but to the whole galaxy. Not just the Sith had to be done away with, but so did the Old Jedi Order, which had become corrupt and unconcerned, hidden away in their literal Ivory Tower. Those who complained that the Jedi were remote and cold and “not clear heroes” in the prequels missed what I think is the very obvious point: they were SUPPOSED to be. They were SUPPOSED to have become that way, thus giving Palps the very means by which he could start chiseling away at them and eventually destroy them.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

      • I agree with everything you write here, maychild. I do not remember who was supposed to be the main villain in GL’s original treatments (to be precise, I do not even remember whether this was leaked/revealed at all), but I somehow doubt that it would have been Palpatine.
        I would have found it interesting if Snoke turned out to be Plagueis…

        Like

      • Thanks, Stefan K. 🙂

        I don’t know who Lucas’s villain would have been either, nor whether that was leaked. (I do know that he invented Rey, or rather, a prototype of her.) But he surely had a villain. The movies are called “Star Wars,” after all, not “Star Peace,” or “Star Our Characters Go About Their Mundane Lives.” But Palps? I, too, seriously doubt it.

        Going back a couple decades: the second Death Star in ROTJ was a controversial redundancy that didn’t quite work, IMO, and, among other things, shows that by then Lucas was fairly exhausted with SW. He’d just become a father, his marriage was starting to crumble (partly because he’d been so focused on making SW and building LFL), and while he certainly cared about telling what was then thought to be the final chapter of the story, he may have forgone a bit of creativity. I’m thinking he would have learned from that, and, especially given the large chunk of passed time between 1983 and 2013, realized that resurrecting a vanquished villain was probably not a great idea. Especially since it went against the central theme of the saga as it stood: Anakin bringing balance to the Force.

        Like

      • @Maychild

        If Lucas invented the prototype of Rey, then do we know what her relationship to the heroes of the OT would have been? Surely, she would have been a daughter of either or Leia or Luke? When he talks about his idea of the sequels, he mentions “the grandchildren of Darth Vader”.

        Like

    • The head villian in Lucas ST treatment was named Uber, who was the leader of a group of Jedi killers that took over and recruited imperial fractions while the Emipre was busy infighting itself after ROTJ. He was based off of Atha Prine, and supposedly was defeated by Luke after ROTJ and fled to the Unknown Regions to rebuild his forces by the time of the ST. He would also have had a darksider female second in command based on Darth Talon from the EU. She would operate by seducing Jedi in order to kill them.

      Like

      Reply ↓

  6. CYA, Abrams, at any and all costs. Including the story you claim to love so much.

    Oh, who am I kidding. He loves one, maybe two, of the SW movies: ESB and ANH. In that order. I’m sure he hates ROTJ as much as the prequels, like a good little hipster mensch.

    Like

    Reply ↓

Leave a comment