Star Wars Thread: I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mosi Mynn]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I don't see how someone who kills his dad in cold blood should be someone who is redeemed so easily, and certainly not by Rey. 

I personally like it a lot more for this. Ren is someone who unlike Vader chose the evil path because he wanted to. Not because of love, or because of power, but because he wanted to prove how great he could be - he did it for glory. He isn't cold and calculating either; he's absurdly impetuous, self-damaging, cruel, and excellent at manipulation. 

He's not at all like Palpatine. He doesn't scheme, nor does he think he should be in charge of everything because he wants the power. He is constantly striving to show the universe that he's worthy of a legacy that he inherited, and he's doing it in the only way he knows how - by emulating those who were worthy before him. 

Ren is, in short, a very good analogy for the fandom and the series of Star Wars after the original trilogy. 

And on his 'do his own thing' - he does want that. He wants to obliterate the resistance and the last remnants of his background so he can move on. He wants to kill the past. He goes apeshit about killing Luke not because Luke is destined to beat him, but because it's another reminder of his past. At the same time, he's willing to kill his own master, wipe out most of the First Order, take Rey on and rule together with her, and do something different. It didn't work, so he turns to things he knows a bit more, but he absolutely tried and almost succeeded. 

Oh no - I don't him to be redeemed.  

I was disappointed that the Rey/Ren "relationship" was reset at the end of TLJ - she's back with the Resistance, he returns to being a petulant emo-boy.

It's the middle of the trilogy!  They could have easily ended on a cliffhanger of Rey and Ren joining forces in some capacity, leaving fans wondering where that was going to go in the final installment.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Mosi Mynn said:

Oh no - I don't him to be redeemed.  

I was disappointed that the Rey/Ren "relationship" was reset at the end of TLJ - she's back with the Resistance, he returns to being a petulant emo-boy.

It's the middle of the trilogy!  They could have easily ended on a cliffhanger of Rey and Ren joining forces in some capacity, leaving fans wondering where that was going to go in the final installment.

I think that would have been a massive disservice to Rey. We've been shown that he is basically pure evil. Fuck him. What Rey didn't realize (yet) was that he was pure evil. She still wanted to see the good in him, and the audience expected that we would given his parentage and the general way things work in Star Wars. Instead, we got the inverse of this, and it's better - that Rey firmly believes that he is not going to be any better, that he is willing to wipe out all of her friends and people she cares about if it gets what he wants (or even if it doesn't), and there is only opposing him at this point and nothing else. 

The relationship wasn't reset. Earlier they were antagonists, but Ren reported to others, and Rey didn't know what she was doing. The relationship has been set, in stone, for the final movie and the final fight. Rey now knows that Luke isn't going to be able to save them from Snoke and Ren. No one else is. It's just her duty to prepare the galaxy for the fight.

[Mosi Mynn]

Yeah, this is what TLJ gave us, so fine.

But I personally would have found it more interesting to through a little ambiguity into the mix for either Rey or Ren to end the film on a bit of a downer and with some uncertainty, and set up an interesting and unpredictable conclusion.  Rey as shown glimmers of the Dark Side, and Ren was clearly conflicted at various points.

I did wonder if Rey was going to be this trilogy's Anakin, seeing as she is a much of a Force prodigy as he was; that would have been an emotional wallop after her heroics in TFA.   But they are definitely not going there after TLJ.

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Mosi Mynn said:

Yeah, this is what TLJ gave us, so fine.

But I personally would have found it more interesting to through a little ambiguity into the mix for either Rey or Ren to end the film on a bit of a downer and with some uncertainty, and set up an interesting and unpredictable conclusion.  Rey as shown glimmers of the Dark Side, and Ren was clearly conflicted at various points.

I did wonder if Rey was going to be this trilogy's Anakin, seeing as she is a much of a Force prodigy as he was; that would have been an emotional wallop after her heroics in TFA.   But they are definitely not going there after TLJ.

Not after TLJ, no. But during TLJ, that was the question. We didn't know if she would take that offer from Ren. We didn't know if she'd turn her back on Finn and Leia. That said, you didn't say you wanted ambiguity from Rey - you said you wanted it from Ren, which seems like a horrible idea. I don't want ambiguity from the person who murdered Han to go up a rung on the ladder. I want justice. I want Chewie to tear his arms off.

Now, Rey being ambiguous would be a bit more interesting, I agree. But they already did that with Luke and Anakin, and if they ALSO do it with Rey I think the obvious complaint was that they're just copying things again.

I think what TLJ does is set up the next movie with only a couple of required things to hit - they need Rey and Ren to finish what they started, they need to show the next generation of Jedi starting, and probably what Leia does with her new resistance. Unlike TFA, which set up a crazy amount of things that had to have some resolution, we have a far more open - world. So we don't have as much ambiguity about things, but we do have a lot more variety and complexity in what may happen. 

[Mosi Mynn]

What was ambiguous about Luke?  And we knew where Anakin's story was heading - that was the point of the prequels.  I think Rey from TFA turning into a new Vader (especially as there is a wannabe Vader in this trilogy) would have been pretty devastating for fans, but a bold and interesting move.

I initially thought a good ending to TLJ would have been if Rey had taken Ren's hand at the end (maybe to save the Resistance fleet), but that might not have played well with audiences!

Do we need a new generation of Jedi?  The Jedi in the films, with only a couple of exceptions, were terrible.  And with Rey and Ren, all that needs to happen is one last meeting, then Ren dies.  He's never come close to beating her.

[Kalbear]

8 minutes ago, Mosi Mynn said:

What was ambiguous about Luke? 

Holy shit, really? He had the image of him becoming his father. We found out that his father had turned. The Emperor believed he'd turn. At the start of RotJ he's fucking force-choking guards, wearing all black, and giving up his droids to be slaves. During the fight with Vader he only starts succeeding when he gives in to his anger and beats the shit out of his dad, and almost kills him. 

The whole series is whether or not Luke is going to give in to the same passion and anger and hate that his father did. That's one of the main points of the whole series. 

8 minutes ago, Mosi Mynn said:

And we knew where Anakin's story was heading - that was the point of the prequels.  I think Rey from TFA turning into a new Vader (especially as there is a wannabe Vader in this trilogy) would have been pretty devastating for fans, but a bold and interesting move.

I think it would have been a retread of the above and a retread of Anakin. I don't see how it's bold to have a young, energetic jedi fall into darkness and turn to the dark side, given that they made 3 movies about it and a central point in the next two series. 

8 minutes ago, Mosi Mynn said:

I initially thought a good ending to TLJ would have been if Rey had taken Ren's hand at the end (maybe to save the Resistance fleet), but that might not have played well with audiences! 

Ren literally said that he wanted to kill them all (or at least let them all die), so...no

8 minutes ago, Mosi Mynn said:

Do we need a new generation of Jedi?  The Jedi in the films, with only a couple of exceptions, were terrible. 

And yes, one of the things I hope that Rey does is figure out the parts of the Jedi that sucked - like Luke said in TLJ - and move away from them, while maintaining the Jedi order that makes sense. Another part of TLJ that was awesome was that it is the only movie that has done any kind of real inspection into how the Jedi at the height of Yoda's leadership was an authoritarian fascist nightmare group that condoned slavery, cruelty and ignorance of real events in order to protect power and structure. If the Empire under Palpatine was Nazism, the Jedi and the Republic under Yoda was the Catholic church. 

8 minutes ago, Mosi Mynn said:

And with Rey and Ren, all that needs to happen is one last meeting, then Ren dies.  He's never come close to beating her.

Cool! That'd be an interesting change, honestly - let the third show not be about Rey figuring out how to beat Ren, but Ren instead realizing he's outmatched and that he needs something more to beat Rey. 

 

[Mosi Mynn]

I never got the feeling that Luke was going to succumb to the Dark side!  Every hero gets tempted, but Luke was always going to be the good guy.  Same with Rey now.

It might have been a re-tread of Anakin, but with actual emotional investment from the audience this time, as Rey is pretty likeable - or was in TFA. She's on Luke's path any way - so it's still a re-tread.

RE saving the fleet - Rey could have mentioned that his mother was on one of the ships. I assume Ren still thinks Leia is dead.

So Yoda is the Pope??? Yeah, that's quite creepy!

I think Ren will need something extra to beat Rey. I'm sure JJ will think up some convincing stakes - but at the moment i'm thinking the Resistance will triumph pretty easily.

[Kalbear]

16 minutes ago, Mosi Mynn said:

I never got the feeling that Luke was going to succumb to the Dark side!  Every hero gets tempted, but Luke was always going to be the good guy.  Same with Rey now.

At the time Empire came out, there was a whole lot of speculation that 'there is another' was going to have to beat Vader - and Luke. 

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It might have been a re-tread of Anakin, but with actual emotional investment from the audience this time, as Rey is pretty likeable - or was in TFA. She's on Luke's path any way - so it's still a re-tread. 

I do wish that the prequels were done competently, because there are a LOT of really good beats in story there that are damn compelling, especially if you work at interrogating the Jedi as actually being pretty horrible and making Anakin's point of view be pretty damn right. If you make the prequels more like Killmonger's righteous quest in Black Panther, it becomes a good story with a tragic ending. That said, I have no interest in this series remaking the prequels. 

As to Rey copying Luke, sorry, don't buy it. She hasn't had the loss like Luke did. She hasn't had the setback personally. She doesn't have the overcoming her parents. She's not remotely on the traditional hero's journey. And she isn't the one being told that she needs to save the universe; she's the one who is deciding to go and do it. It sounds like you basically want a story about Anakin again, except done better, and anything that isn't that is a story like Luke's, and, well ,that's just not particularly fair. 

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RE saving the fleet - Rey could have mentioned that his mother was on one of the ships. I assume Ren still thinks Leia is dead.

Of course he knows she's alive. They sense each other. That's again established in the movie. He wants them all to die, and even if it's hard for him to personally kill them, he wants her gone. 

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So Yoda is the Pope??? Yeah, that's quite creepy!

So is kidnapping hundreds of kids and training them in a cult

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I think Ren will need something extra to beat Rey. I'm sure JJ will think up some convincing stakes - but at the moment i'm thinking the Resistance will triumph pretty easily.

Well, again, yes - it's Star Wars, not GRRM. 

[The Mother of The Others]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Another part of TLJ that was awesome was that it is the only movie that has done any kind of real inspection into how the Jedi at the height of Yoda's leadership was an authoritarian fascist nightmare group that condoned slavery, cruelty and ignorance of real events in order to protect power and structure. If the Empire under Palpatine was Nazism, the Jedi and the Republic under Yoda was the Catholic church

I wanted to nod along with this and sort of did, because it started off interesting and I want to sound sophisticated like a prof too.  Who doesn't?  But the wording got bumpy as it went and I got thrown off of the bull.   The Jedi were a service knights organization like kung fu maesters, right?  So they signed on to protect power and structure, okay, but they didn't set policy on slavery in the outer worlds.  It's like booing police for working for a country where sex trafficking is taking place due to politics outside their perview. 

Human society is imperfect and Jedi couldn't perfect it even if they went hog wild and gave everyone the beatdown in all directions for as long as they could.  Folks would tire of the Jedi's high and mighty ethics and the people would turn against the jedi all on their own without any evil prompting from Sideous.  You can only play your part, change what you have the power to change, and yes, pray for the serenity to not let the other stuff bother you too much.   Even as better angels, the jedi still had to settle for that arrangement.  That's why yoda was constantly having to recharge his zen after he felt the force telling him that day's depressing news from the realm.

I always deduct a point whenever the word fascist is used, because that's such an explitive these days.   The term is used by all sides to label each other simultaneously, there's no real fixed meaning historically, you have thugs "standing up against fascism" on college campi by putting on ski masks and beating people with chains who were just trying to peacefully exercise free speech, etc.  The word is a trainwreck and good arguments would do well to avoid its use.

Did the Jedi's ethics cave in as culpibly as the Church did?   The star wars chancellor looked cleaner than the one in germany who was obviously responsible for the aggression and death toll.

But I liked the Ren and Rey stuff.

[Darth Richard II]

Have any of you actually ever seen a star wars film?

[Corvinus85]

Has anyone watched the fan film (series) really about Vader? Episode 1, Shards of the Past, is on youtube. People are raving about it, and I agree it's quite good for a fan production. Interesting plot, decent acting, and pretty good technical work.

For the past 2 days, there's been some drama about it, as Warner Chappell, a Disney owned company, that handles the music licensing, hit them with a copyright claim on their music. They did use a composer, but the composer basically took the original music and modified it as needed. Now, apparently the claim got pulled. Just a few hours ago, the guy who made the film posted an update on his channel saying that LucasFilm stepped in (he had an agreement with them on what he could/couldn't do), and told Warner Chappell to fuck off. So victory for the fans, and mixed PR moment for Disney.

[Mosi Mynn]

9 hours ago, Kalbear said:

At the time Empire came out, there was a whole lot of speculation that 'there is another' was going to have to beat Vader - and Luke. 

Ooh - that would have been good.  They should have done that!  

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As to Rey copying Luke, sorry, don't buy it. She hasn't had the loss like Luke did. She hasn't had the setback personally. She doesn't have the overcoming her parents. She's not remotely on the traditional hero's journey. And she isn't the one being told that she needs to save the universe; she's the one who is deciding to go and do it. It sounds like you basically want a story about Anakin again, except done better, and anything that isn't that is a story like Luke's, and, well ,that's just not particularly fair. 

There are some similarities between Luke and Rey: desert orphan, mysterious parents, refusing the call, prodigy in the Force (way more than Luke, but I assume he had some affinity for it), grizzly old mentor.  I don't need her to be on Luke's journey at all - ideally, she'd be on her own - but the beats in her story are more similar to Luke's than Anakin's.

I remember really loving Rey, Finn and Poe after TFA, and thinking how tragic and heartbreaking it would be if Rey turned a bit Anakinish, because we were so invested in her, and the impact of that on Finn in particular would have been awful.  It would have been an interesting trip to take the audience on.  In the prequels I think we were all desperate for Anakin to become Vader (and they botched that too), so it didn't feel very tragic.

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Of course he knows she's alive. They sense each other. That's again established in the movie. He wants them all to die, and even if it's hard for him to personally kill them, he wants her gone. 

Him sensing her at the start and not mentioning anything after makes we wonder.  I think he got distracted by Rey and the Force-timing.  Ren deliberately did not kill Leia, and look pretty gutted when he thought she was dead.

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Well, again, yes - it's Star Wars, not GRRM. 

There's no doubt that End Game will see the Avengers victorious and an UnSnappening; there was no doubt that the Empire would fall in The Return of the Jedi.  But they were/are still much anticipated because the preceding films set them up so well.  I'll go and see Star Wars IX, and I know JJ will make me care again, but nothing about the end of TLJ makes me wonder how the Resistance are going to beat the First Order.

[Heartofice]

If and when the ‘resistance’ beats the first order, well then what? We are back at square one of the force awakens. Blah blah. 

Something dramatically different is going to need to happen for this entire trilogy to not feel incredibly unsatisfying 

[Jace, Extat]

57 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

If and when the ‘resistance’ beats the first order, well then what? We are back at square one of the force awakens. Blah blah. 

Something dramatically different is going to need to happen for this entire trilogy to not feel incredibly unsatisfying 

I cannot imagine a trailer tease that would incite even the most moderate interest from me for this film.

[divica]

5 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

I cannot imagine a trailer tease that would incite even the most moderate interest from me for this film.

The same for me. And I think it is one of the problems with tlj… There simply is no hype for episode 9...

I think I would prefer to watch a new trilogy 10 to 20 years in the future with rey being a master jedi and kylo final growing out of his whinie phase and with several jedis and siths on either side that watch a movie about the newbie jedi and the wannabe master sith that will fight to decide the future of the galaxy with a background exactly equal to ep6...

[Heartofice]

8 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

I cannot imagine a trailer tease that would incite even the most moderate interest from me for this film.

Well exactly. What is there to anticipate? 'Ooh I can't wait to find out whether the universe goes back to how it was only a couple of years ago' Thats not keeping me on the edge of my seat.

I wonder if the super overpowered girl will win everything? I wonder if the moody emo guy will get angry again (he will) I wonder if Finn will be used as embarrassing comic relief? Will there be more Porgs? 

Its really going to take a lot to rescue where TLJ took the franchise, just in terms of story if nothing else. 

[Darth Richard II]

You got a problem with porgs? Not even the most furious enraged TLJ haters I know don’t like porgs.

[red snow]

Not only will i be wondering whether the overpowered girl wins everything, i'll be wondering whether she's overpowered and what would be her version of winning everything.

I'm also curious as to who Luke will be a force ghost friend to. Rey (already had that in TLJ) or Ren, which i think could be far more interesting/fun. I'm also not ruling out the reappearance of snoke (maybe he pulled a force projection prank and never died, maybe he had some gameplan by dying?)

While the last jedi muted my enthusiasm somewhat i'll still be there watching the premier on the opening night. I suspect many, maybe even the majority of those who so energetically claim the franchise is dead, etc, etc will be the first in line to see episode IX because they won't be able to stop themselves. I bet there are fans who've "hated" the franchise since ROJ and have been progressively upset with each additional film yet have still watched each film (probably a couple of times so they can confirm how bad it is). Because some vitriol comes from a deep love of the franchise.

 

[Kalbear]

The thing I want to know is what Rey's version of the Jedi Order looks like. She saw what it did to Luke, what it did to Ben, and is an odd idealist who knows the galaxy has a lot of places that suck. She is not going to be about preserving the Order of the world, but what is she going to be about? 

Does a universe where the rich continue to survive and thrive despite constant suffering continue? Does Finn fight against that? Does Rose? Does the resistance? 

And Ren - this is the first time we've seen him entirely to his own devices. The First Order aped the Empire out of a lot of things, and he aped Vader because he wanted to live up to him - but now he's beaten Snoke, taken over everything, Luke is dead and he is in charge. What does someone like Ren do when he has no more excuses for his failure? In this, I think he can be one of the most amazing villains we have seen in almost anything, and a descent into continuing spirals of madness and anger and self-destruction could be very interesting. 

Really, if you need mysteries to keep your desire to see something big, chances are good you'll be disappointed by the story anyway. That's the lesson of all JJ Abrams stories - the mystery answers always suck, and the good thing about them is the characters. I'm hoping for something that feels as good as TLJ felt and as familiar as what TFA felt for me, something that has decent story beats and good laser sword fights, and an earned, painful, happy ending. 

[Heartofice]

 

17 minutes ago, red snow said:

While the last jedi muted my enthusiasm somewhat i'll still be there watching the premier on the opening night. I suspect many, maybe even the majority of those who so energetically claim the franchise is dead, etc, etc will be the first in line to see episode IX because they won't be able to stop themselves. I bet there are fans who've "hated" the franchise since ROJ and have been progressively upset with each additional film yet have still watched each film (probably a couple of times so they can confirm how bad it is). Because some vitriol comes from a deep love of the franchise.

 

I'll definitely watch it. But this is certainly the least enthusiastic I've been for a SW movie in a long time. Even with the Prequels I was enthused by the thought that 'the next one MUST be better' idea.

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The thing I want to know is what Rey's version of the Jedi Order looks like. She saw what it did to Luke, what it did to Ben, and is an odd idealist who knows the galaxy has a lot of places that suck. She is not going to be about preserving the Order of the world, but what is she going to be about? 

Her Jedi order will probably eschew teaching for a form of Jedi Mastery that involves just waking up and being brilliant. All Jedis who aren't just brilliant will be excommunicated.

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Does a universe where the rich continue to survive and thrive despite constant suffering continue? Does Finn fight against that? Does Rose? Does the resistance? 

Or we could simply try and forget the Canto Bight section altogether, especially as it doesn't really seem to reflect anything else presented in the SW universe.

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 I think he can be one of the most amazing villains we have seen in almost anything, and a descent into continuing spirals of madness and anger and self-destruction could be very interesting. 

I thought he had potential In TFA, but when he simply reverted to type in TLJ I've given up on him being an amazing Villain. I can imagine with a time jump the story could well restore my faith in him as a baddie.