Story construction: Empire and TLJ (possible spoilers)

While watching The Last Jedi (TLJ) it was painfully obvious the writing team was trying to follow the Empire pattern. I think they never really looked at what the parts of the story were supposed to do, and how they would interact. This is a tough comparison because Empire was a really well constructed movie.

Apologies if this is too long, and for my bias against TLJ.


In Empire:
Act 1: We start with Hoth. This establishes the precarious situation the Rebellion is in, even after a victory in A New Hope.

Act 2a: Han/Leia/Chewey vs the Empire and Asteroids. This further establishes Han, gives characters time together and introduces us to Cloud City, setting the stage for a finale.

Act 2b: Luke goes to Dagobah. Classic master/apprentice story, resulting in Luke making a choice to leave early.

Act 3: begins with Han being frozen, Luke arriving and then culminating in Luke v Vader, while Leia and Chewey plan an escape.

Finally, our heroes regroup at the end setting the stage for Jedi, and we see the rag-tag rebel fleet, which really didn't play a part in the story as the story was a personal one with Han-Leia and Luke-Vader.


In TLJ:
Act 1: We start on some planet, transports are trying to leave quickly, but we aren't given story to help us fill in the gaps.

Act 2a: Casino Plot during a space chase. Lots of problems here. The Casino planet wasn't important at all to the story. Shoehorning a new characters for us to care about at this point is sloppy storytelling, and even before that, what was Finn going to do in an escape pod by himself trying to find Rey? He knew she was safe.

Act 2b: Rey and Luke / Snoke and Kylo. Aside from the milking bit, this was well done. Rey was the apprentice waiting days for instruction as an unspoken test from the master. Following Luke up and Down the island, seeing him perform humble chores is a solid eastern-thought motif. Snoke's manipulation of Kylo was predictable but expected. It reinforces how dark side acolytes are treated by their masters. Rey leaves voluntarily similar to Luke, but in this case, there weren't even teachings to disregard, she decided she must look elsewhere. NEITHER Kylo NOR Rey really complete any training!

Act 3: Battle on the Salt Planet. Again we missed a lot here. Finn could have sacrificed himself. Luke could have been present and sacrificed himself. The battle for conversion between Rey and Kylo could have been increased after they teamed up to defeat Snoke and the guards.

Finally, all that remains of the rebellion leaves in the Millenium Falcon.


The writers tried to follow the Empire model, but really didn't understand how it worked, or how the plot points intersected and advanced.