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[SPOILERS] Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker


Lord Varys

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Mediocre. A few moments I enjoyed but I hated pretty much everything about the story. I think there was a lot of potential at the end of TLJ to do something interesting but instead, made up some stupid story that made absolutely zero sense. Couldn't stop rolling my eyes throughout.

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10 hours ago, Ran said:

Does Yoda?

Personally, yes, I'd have liked the idea if the "son" was actually a clone Palpatine made that rebelled against him somehow, but I'm fine with him artificially creating him through his powers of the Dark Side, or through the expediency of artificial insemination for reasons to be explained in some future book or comic, I guess. I definitely don't think he naturally procreated, and I doubt the mother was a willing subject of his plans.

My theory of baby Yoda is that there’s only 1 Yoda at a time, the baby just materializes whenever Yoda is nearing the end of his life, kind of like a phoenix. I guess through midicloriens or however Anakin was born except there is no ‘mother’ yoda. 

 

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Also, based on the conversations between Anakin and Palpatine in Episode III, and the way Palpatine doesnt seem to care that Anakin has a wife and a baby.... I guess it makes sense that Palpatine at some point in his life could have had a wife or girlfriend and fathered some children/child. That’s the fun of the Dark Side right? You can do anything you want without any rules like what the Jedi Order have. 

 

Plus isn’t Palpatine the original guy who tried to learn how to bring back people from Death? Why would he be interested in learning that power unless he was like Anakin and wanted to bring back someone he loved?

maybe losing someone he loved explains why he so obsessed with killing everyones ‘friends’. He showed the same disdain for ‘friends’ in XI that he does in VI.

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My second thought about the yellow lightsaber (first being, when did she make that?) was she better not be a fucking Grey Jedi now. 

am with you as to both.

for the first, though, i just tell myself that space wizards can divine anything through miraculous meditatory revelation and accumulate any resources through space wizard mind tricks; it goes without saying that they can resolve the struggle for material existence through exponentially effective labor-saving mental abilities--therefore it's a well-established process not worthy of representation in the mainline cinematic story. it becomes worthy only when it fails--mind tricks don't work on hutts and toydarians, say--a narrative conflict to be resolved on a freytag pyramid.

for the second, is that still EU legend--or should we infer it from her simultaneous proficiency in the healing arts and in force lightning?  curious however that resurrection is a dark side power--or maybe only when it is vampiric, as with mcdiarmid, whereas ridley's and driver's use is altruistic?  why is keeping people alive 'unnatural'? what is 'natural' when we have supernatural ghosts, telepathy, telekinesis? midichlorians as natural, maybe, but whills as supernatural--what significance for unnatural, then?

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3 hours ago, sologdin said:

dunno. i interpreted the fancy yellow lightsaber as an intention to bury the blue saber past and innovate into the future.  i didn't assume that she's gonna live on the old desert planet.

Yeah, didn't think about the yellow lightsaber when writing that - but it doesn't really change anything. She seems to be settling down there, and Obi-Wan's having a lightsaber in his hut didn't bring back the Jedi, did it?

3 hours ago, sologdin said:

seems that the empire remains purged and the first order is decapitated by a spontaneous democratic uprising as guided by the vanguard of the revolution. 

Yeah, right, just like it was the last time around. Which worked so well.

And considering how they treated Luke and Leia both in those films they can be read as a big 'fuck you' to George Lucas and Star Wars in general (and he seems to have interpreted it that way with his original honest reaction to the first new movie) considering they essentially buried the Solos and Skywalkers. They accomplished nothing, couldn't build a lasting government or restore peace to the galaxy, failed to rebuild the Jedi, and produced but one defective, perverse, uncertain creep as their descendant, a guy who murdered his own father to prove his loyalty to some Hologram dude who wasn't really important in the end (and who he wanted to kill, too).

That's just a very sad excuse for a story.

Is there any reason to imagine why these people should suck this hard as parents and uncles? Is there any reason why any child of theirs could be as fucked-up as the Ren character? Is there any explanation given why that child turned out to be as freakish as he was aside from the well-known fact that his grandfather was a troubled individual (which in his case had nothing to do with dear mother who loved him very much)?

No, there is not. They just wrote a bad fan fiction trying the 'being Darth Vader's grandchild means you carry evil in your blood' - and they then also tried to pull that with 'the Palpatine bloodline', too (thankfully the EU has no Palpatine but Darth Sidious be a Jedi or an otherwise Force sensitive).

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Well, that still doesn't mean nothing in relation to a star ship, no? I mean, are you equating speeder races with piloting an actual star ship? That's like claiming driving a car is the same as piloting an airplane or a space shuttle.

Well, the T-16 is a ship, not a speeder. It's kind of like the snow speeders in ESB, so they were actually flying ships through Beggar's Canyon,  That's why Luke says to Biggs "it'll be just like Beggars canyon back home" as they dive into the trench during the attack on the Death Star.

During this conversation though, I've realised my main problem is mostly with sloppy filmmaking and writing, rather than the technicalities of how much training is required to perform a specific task. For example, ANH devoted a lot of screen time and dialogue to establishing Luke as an 'aspiring star pilot'. Whether or not piloting T-16s on Tatooine would have given him enough preparation to actually pilot an X-wing is beside the point; the point is that the writers did their job of establishing his passion for flying as an important part of his backstory.

Whereas when Rey steps up to pilot the Falcon, there's really no set-up for it. The filmmakers could have easily thrown in some dialogue or a scene or two that hinted at previous piloting experience on her part, but they just didn't bother. They just assumed the audience would accept it, or come up with their own explanations. Lazy writing.

I know a lot of people tend to blame the criticism of Rey's character arc on misogyny, because they feel people don't make the same criticisms of Luke despite him being a pretty similar character; but for me, it's down to the sloppy writing and filmmaking of the Disney trilogy. There's just no sense of Rey overcoming great challenges and growing stronger in the process, as there is with Luke, especially when you compare ESB Luke to ROTJ Luke. Also, the fact that she appears to be brilliant at everything she does, whether it's hacking, flying, fighting or the Force; comes across as lack of imagination on the writers' part; could they just not be bothered to create any other characters that contribute to the war effort in any substantial way?

Well, they have that strange connection - but, yeah, this also sort of something strange. But then - what kind of a father was Darth Vader ever to Luke? A monstrous shell of a man who killed his mentor and friend, hacked off his hand, helped to blow up an entire planet, and killed Luke's best childhood friend back in the first movie.

I dunno, the father and son connection is pretty strong; and it's clear in ESB that Vader has plenty of chances to kill Luke and chooses not to (he accidentally cuts off his hand while trying to bludgeon him into submission) Then after the fight he tries to reach out to Luke while he's recovering on the Falcon, referring to him as "son" and beseeching him to join him.

This is something that must have played on Luke's mind during his period of self-reflection between ESB and ROTJ. "Why didn't he kill me when he had the chance? Why is he so persistent that I should join him? Maybe I remind him of who he used to be before he became Vader?" Either way, it's always gonna be difficult for someone like Luke to kill his own father, so his only option is to try turn him.

Rey and Renn on the other hand, I just don't buy it. There wasn't enough set-up for such an extreme decision on Rey's part. I mean, she saw Ren trick Han Solo into lowering his guard, then stab him through the heart; that's pretty traumatic. Sure, Vader did a lot of bad stuff too, but it was mostly to subordinates who angered him, or slaying opponents in the heat of combat (the Death Star was never his idea, that was Tarkin's baby). 

I suppose you could say it was sexual attraction or something that made her want to save Ben; I mean Star Wars does have a history of women being attracted to mass murderers (remember Padme's reaction to Anakin slaughtering the sand people in AOTC?)

I think that's how quite a few people see it. But take a look at Luke's over-confidence, arrogance even, when dealing with Jabba. He is a manipulator there, not the straightforward kind of guy we know from the earlier movies. I think many people interpret this as maturity but it can also be read as very calculating and cold. This Luke could make a fine Darth Tyranus, say.

I see his dealings with Jabba as more crafty than manipulative; kind of like Qui Gon and Watto, where Qui Gon uses the force to make the dice land on the right side. Luke obviously had no intention of actually giving Jabba the droids, but he did at least try to solve the issue non-violently.

If there was an actual intention on the part of the writers to hint at a dark turn for Luke then yeah, they failed miserably. I guess I never missed it because I wasn't looking for it. Luke's black cloak and commanding manner in ROTJ; I always thought it was just to show his transition from brash rebel pilot to Jedi Knight. The idea of him turning dark does seem like something Lawrence Kasdan would suggest during the writing process, but I'm not sure if Lucas would have entertained it. 

21 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Also, to @Lord Varys and @Darryk - the point of training in the Jedi Temple wasn't to learn how to use force skills. As we've seen countless times in basically every single movie, cartoons and the Mandalorian now, force power is basically innate and largely inherited (ugh). If the force is strong in you you can do a whole lot of things without particular skill or training - including things like force lightning, jumping, pulling, pushing, and in TFA mind tricks. Psychometry is another rarer ability too, and one that neatly explains why Rey knows the existence of the jedi mind trick - she can see the past of things through objects, and touching Luke's lightsaber gives her a whole lot of insight. You might want years and years of training to matter, but it doesn't. 

No, the point of the Jedi temple is indoctrination. Yoda wasn't worried about training Luke late in life because it's too hard to train them to use abilities - it's because it's too hard to train them in that specific form of religion and viewpoint that late in life, because they have all those things that fuck it up - things like attachments and love and caring for others. You can teach kids early how to be good little child soldiers who have no attachments and no belongings and no physical needs, but older kids or adults? Way too hard. Way too easy for them to do the wrong thing and care about others or see the inherent unfairness in the Jedi ways. 

This is an interesting take and appeals to me on some level. I do think the Jedi require some degree of training and guidance; I didn't like the whole "anyone can be a Jedi, the Force was inside you all along" BS Disney thing they did at the end of The Last Jedi. But it's also clear in the prequels that the Jedi academy had lost their way and become too rigid. 

That's why I was hoping Luke's disappearance in TFA would be because he was off searching for ancient Jedi temples to try figure out the true purpose of the Jedi, before they lost their way, so he could rebuild the order in a more pure form. But nope, cow tit milk was clearly the explanation Rian Johnson preferred.

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30 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Well, the T-16 is a ship, not a speeder. It's kind of like the snow speeders in ESB, so they were actually flying ships through Beggar's Canyon,  That's why Luke says to Biggs "it'll be just like Beggars canyon back home" as they dive into the trench during the attack on the Death Star.

Right. ANH creates the rules. People say "star ship", and they act like X-Wings don't bank and swoop and otherwise act like aircraft, not spacecraft. Hence why in ANH, being a great pilot is being a great pilot inside and outside an atmosphere. That's the rules of the setting, and trying to pretend an X-Wing isn't just a more powerful version of a T-16 with a bonus droid and hyperdrive is just a mistake.

32 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Whereas when Rey steps up to pilot the Falcon, there's really no set-up for it. The filmmakers could have easily thrown in some dialogue or a scene or two that hinted at previous piloting experience on her part, but they just didn't bother. They just assumed the audience would accept it, or come up with their own explanations. Lazy writing.

This is true. The VR simulator thing, revealed in a book no less, is nowhere evident in the film even as a hint; she goes into her scrap-hut and yes, she puts on an old Rebel helmet, but there's basically some cooking equipment and not much else in there. There's nothing explaining why an orphaned scavenger living in bond servitude would be a great pilot, when we don't see or hear anything establishing it, and indeed no one even asks her afterward about how she knew to do what she did. 

Abrams messed up with Rey in the first film, packing too much know-how into a character without even bothering to set them up or at least provide some explanation. Hence people (like me) speculating that in fact she must have had her memory wiped at some point, with all her skills being resurfacing memory rather than just being... well, just because. I do note that she's not really involved in flying a spacecraft in battle or doing mechanic-type stuff after TFA, so to some degree Johnson and Abrams seem to have decided to leave those parts out of the picture.

 

Re: Was Rey shown making the lightsaber at some point,

In the scene where she rushes to her quarters to get the Jedi text out, there's a table with what looks like a large magnifying glass on a movable mount, and down on the table seem to be various mechanical things. I (and others, I've seen, when trying to see if it's been confirmed) assumed that this was put there to show that she had started working on building one of her own as part of her training with Leia (who, as we know, learned from Luke how to make one as part of her own training).

 

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2 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

I just watched this film and I have to say I have never before experienced an entire movie theater bursting out laughing at a scene intended to be an emotional peek to send off a main character. 

During my second time watching I got the laughs for Ben's death scene, too. I guess this kind of shit doesn't really fly well with people. Especially not after what they had this character do. I mean, if there is somebody who doesn't deserve pity, understanding, or redemption it is him.

And unlike Vader who is Luke's father Rey doesn't have any obligation to him. There is no reason for her to try to save him - which definitely was a problem in the last movie.

In fact, considering Rey's own family history it could have been great if she had asked her dear granddad why he had been doing what he did. Not that would have changed much, of course, or that he would have had a good answer. But one imagines that anybody in Rey's shoes would have been interested in the why of Emperor Palpatine.

7 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Well, the T-16 is a ship, not a speeder. It's kind of like the snow speeders in ESB, so they were actually flying ships through Beggar's Canyon,  That's why Luke says to Biggs "it'll be just like Beggars canyon back home" as they dive into the trench during the attack on the Death Star.

Well, I imagined those to be more like those antigrav speeders which only reach a certain height and are essentially steered like a car - which is indeed also how they 'fly' in the Death Star trenches.

Luke's grand feature there is not his flying but his shooting - and if we attribute Qui-Gon's take on Anakin's ability (essentially all his talent is the Force telling him what to do in the right moment) then it just follows that people like that simpy don't need any training in things like flying, driving, repairing, etc. They just do it - in fact, the excel pretty much at everything they ever try (assuming it is something the Force can help them with).

And most of the Luke-Biggs stuff is apocryphical anyway - not part of the finished movie, especially not the pre-SE version. We don't know what kind of academy Luke wants to attend, just that it is some place away from Tatooine - what he would learn there the movie does not tell us.

7 minutes ago, Darryk said:

During this conversation though, I've realised my main problem is mostly with sloppy filmmaking and writing, rather than the technicalities of how much training is required to perform a specific task. For example, ANH devoted a lot of screen time and dialogue to establishing Luke as an 'aspiring star pilot'. Whether or not piloting T-16s on Tatooine would have given him enough preparation to actually pilot an X-wing is beside the point; the point is that the writers did their job of establishing his passion for flying as an important part of his backstory.

Yeah, I'd definitely agree that ANH is the better version of ANH - TFA is a caricature of that movie. I'd not say Luke had much dialogue establishing things, but it did have some. And it would have indeed very easy to do the same for Rey.

However, Lucas also ensured to make Luke look the backwater farm boy he was - he literally has no clue how space flight works, and what you have to do to do that. This is also established pretty well.

7 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Whereas when Rey steps up to pilot the Falcon, there's really no set-up for it. The filmmakers could have easily thrown in some dialogue or a scene or two that hinted at previous piloting experience on her part, but they just didn't bother. They just assumed the audience would accept it, or come up with their own explanations. Lazy writing.

I'd agree there. Where I think Rey works a tidbit better is the Force stuff. Because TFA actually does some weirdo shit there that sort of establishes how and why she suddenly can use the Force and wield a lightsaber. I don't think that works all that well, either, but there is at least some sort explanation attempt there.

And in a sense Rey intuitively does what Ben first has to explain to Luke - what we essentially learn in ANH about the Force is that it will help you if you allow it do 'act' for you. That's how Luke should should act when dealing with the remotes, and that's how Ben tells him to destroy the Death Star. Rey apparently doesn't have to learn that lesson. Perhaps she learned that all by herself being on her own for essentially her entire life, while Luke struggles with societal expectations and is torn between duty to aunt and uncle and his desire to leave.

[Rey essentially has the same conflict there, another pointless rip-off I realize right now, but she doesn't really get any outside pressure from an authority figure.]

7 minutes ago, Darryk said:

I know a lot of people tend to blame the criticism of Rey's character arc on misogyny, because they feel people don't make the same criticisms of Luke despite him being a pretty similar character; but for me, it's down to the sloppy writing and filmmaking of the Disney trilogy. There's just no sense of Rey overcoming great challenges and growing stronger in the process, as there is with Luke, especially when you compare ESB Luke to ROTJ Luke. Also, the fact that she appears to be brilliant at everything she does, whether it's hacking, flying, fighting or the Force; comes across as lack of imagination on the writers' part; could they just not be bothered to create any other characters that contribute to the war effort in any substantial way?

I think the Mary Sueish quality of Luke creeps in more in TESB and ROTJ - the telekinesis that comes from nowhere.

However, I'd have to agree that Lucas treats Luke pretty well on Dagobah, allowing him to make mistakes. That kind of thing never happens with Rey.

But then - Rey's character doesn't really have a very good arc. She is the only one who sort of has an arc, but when she is actually teaching her master some lessons in TLJ it is quite clear why she cannot really face any challenges. I'd have to watch those movies again to actually pin down all that. Perhaps I'll do that over the holidays before we watch TROS with the family.

7 minutes ago, Darryk said:

I dunno, the father and son connection is pretty strong; and it's clear in ESB that Vader has plenty of chances to kill Luke and chooses not to (he accidentally cuts off his hand while trying to bludgeon him into submission) Then after the fight he tries to reach out to Luke while he's recovering on the Falcon, referring to him as "son" and beseeching him to join him.

Yeah, because he apparently needs his help to kill the Emperor and use him as a pawn to rule the galaxy some more. I mean, that kind of thing does not have written 'fatherly love' written all over it. I actually think Vader deliberately cuts off Luke's hand, but I guess we can never know that. Luke injures his shoulder and he gets angry.

7 minutes ago, Darryk said:

This is something that must have played on Luke's mind during his period of self-reflection between ESB and ROTJ. "Why didn't he kill me when he had the chance? Why is he so persistent that I should join him? Maybe I remind him of who he used to be before he became Vader?" Either way, it's always gonna be difficult for someone like Luke to kill his own father, so his only option is to try turn him.

Things like that certainly are there - the thing is just that this is not really discussed, and considering Vader's monstrous deeds (he is also responsible for the murders of Beru and Owen, the torture of Leia on the Death Star, and the deaths of countless friends of Luke's on Hoth). And as I lay out above in this very same post this kind of angle does conveniently not show up in the new movie - Rey does not see any reason to ask her grandpa to renouce the darkness or even understand his motivation to do what he did. Something Luke also doesn't seem to want to know in ROTJ. He feels his conflict, but he never inquires why his father gave in to the temptation of the darkness - and that's what causes him to become Palpatine's apprentice in the Dark Empire comics. Which is actually a pretty convincing motivation - because after his father's death the motivation of why become Darth Vader must have weighed rather heavily on his son.

7 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Rey and Renn on the other hand, I just don't buy it. There wasn't enough set-up for such an extreme decision on Rey's part. I mean, she saw Ren trick Han Solo into lowering his guard, then stab him through the heart; that's pretty traumatic. Sure, Vader did a lot of bad stuff too, but it was mostly to subordinates who angered him, or slaying opponents in the heat of combat (the Death Star was never his idea, that was Tarkin's baby). 

See above of some of the crucial things Luke has a reason to personally blame Vader for. And Leia would also have told him that he was part of the decision to destroy Alderaan. She was there when it happened.

I guess they try to sell us the idea that as pitiful a villain wannabe as the Ren character definitely coult invite some people to want to get him back on the right track, but I'd agree that the fact that Rey was neither Ben's sister nor his cousin definitely undermined the motivation there.

7 minutes ago, Darryk said:

I suppose you could say it was sexual attraction or something that made her want to save Ben; I mean Star Wars does have a history of women being attracted to mass murderers (remember Padme's reaction to Anakin slaughtering the sand people in AOTC?)

Yeah, that scene is among the more hilarious ones in the PT movies. I mean, she certainly could have understood his initial rage and grief and that he couldn't think straight - but her not being visibly horrified at the confession of how many people he killed is clearly very bad directing and writing.

7 minutes ago, Darryk said:

I see his dealings with Jabba as more crafty than manipulative; kind of like Qui Gon and Watto, where Qui Gon uses the force to make the dice land on the right side. Luke obviously had no intention of actually giving Jabba the droids, but he did at least try to solve the issue non-violently.

Well, Luke's plan always was to attack and kill Jabba at the pit should he not accept his offer. And the cocksure manner in which he made it sort of ensured it would not be taken ... so one can interpret the whole ploy as Luke giving himself an excuse to kill Jabba the Hutt. Which for a Tatooinian would certainly be very understandable...

7 minutes ago, Darryk said:

If there was an actual intention on the part of the writers to hint at a dark turn for Luke then yeah, they failed miserably. I guess I never missed it because I wasn't looking for it. Luke's black cloak and commanding manner in ROTJ; I always thought it was just to show his transition from brash rebel pilot to Jedi Knight. The idea of him turning dark does seem like something Lawrence Kasdan would suggest during the writing process, but I'm not sure if Lucas would have entertained it. 

Not him turning dark as such, but to consider it a possible ending for the film that there is a chance that Luke could actually join the dark side at the Emperor's or Vader's side. And, I mean, they do play with that. We do have Luke striking at Palpatine with all his hatred, etc. And if we can take the weirdo Sith ritual stuff from the new movie seriously then a possible reinterpretation of that scene (which was always kind of weird - did Palpatine want to die there or not?) is that 'good Vader' actually saved Luke from becoming the next host of the Emperor's evil spirit.

7 minutes ago, Darryk said:

This is an interesting take and appeals to me on some level. I do think the Jedi require some degree of training and guidance; I didn't like the whole "anyone can be a Jedi, the Force was inside you all along" BS Disney thing they did at the end of The Last Jedi. But it's also clear in the prequels that the Jedi academy had lost their way and become too rigid.

With the EU in mind, this definitely happened to some point - after all, there were Jedi with families and multiple students before some reforms when the Jedi were nearly destroyed. I think they made it so that it was Nomi Sunrider who established some of those changes, and then of course there were also the Ruusan Reformations both in the nearly extinguished Jedi Order as well as the newly (re-)formed Republic.

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

Right. ANH creates the rules. People say "star ship", and they act like X-Wings don't bank and swoop and otherwise act like aircraft, not spacecraft. Hence why in ANH, being a great pilot is being a great pilot inside and outside an atmosphere. That's the rules of the setting, and trying to pretend an X-Wing isn't just a more powerful version of a T-16 with a bonus droid and hyperdrive is just a mistake.

It might also just change that the rebels on Yavin were just very desperate. Because it is also quite clearly established that Luke Skywalker doesn't really know anything about actual space flight.

And as I said above - in a sense TPM established that you simply can do pretty much everything with the Force. It just tells you what to do. Anakin clearly has never flown anything before he ends up in that cockpit yet he still figures everything out and ends up blowing up the droid control ship.

If we imagine Rey having Anakin's Force potential (or something more) then the Force could help her do literally anything - especially in an adrenaline rush. One still should sort of establish that this kind of thing works, and make the things she does sort of relevant or meaningful in the context of the story.

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

Abrams messed up with Rey in the first film, packing too much know-how into a character without even bothering to set them up or at least provide some explanation. Hence people (like me) speculating that in fact she must have had her memory wiped at some point, with all her skills being resurfacing memory rather than just being... well, just because. I do note that she's not really involved in flying a spacecraft in battle or doing mechanic-type stuff after TFA, so to some degree Johnson and Abrams seem to have decided to leave those parts out of the picture.

TFA is basically looking how ANH would look like if the whole movie would have been told from Threepio's perspective. Neither Rey nor Finn have any idea what's going on, and that continues to be the case throughout the movie. And nobody had any idea what the point of Finn was even till the end. If they had had an idea they would have given him a proper arc.

Having no time pass between the first and second movie - which also very much underlines how stupid a MacGuffin it was to have the gang look for Luke Skywalker and end the story with a stupid cliffhanger - also ensured there could be no off screen development.

Some time clearly passed between the second and third movie, so there is some development there, although it is effectively only evident in Rey's formal Jedi training and the magical reappearance of Palpatine. None of the other characters got any offscreen development.

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11 hours ago, Ran said:

Does Yoda?

Personally, yes, I'd have liked the idea if the "son" was actually a clone Palpatine made that rebelled against him somehow, but I'm fine with him artificially creating him through his powers of the Dark Side, or through the expediency of artificial insemination for reasons to be explained in some future book or comic, I guess. I definitely don't think he naturally procreated, and I doubt the mother was a willing subject of his plans.

No, as far as I know Yoda better not fuck. Just because there's another of his species doesn't have to mean he's related (although with new cannon, why-the-fuck-not-right?). Qui-Gon didn't fuck. Obi-Wan doesn't fuck. Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn't fuck, no matter what slash fiction Neil Stephenson gets published.

And let me clear a few things up real quick.

 When I say "This character doesn't fuck" I don't mean that if they're not an asexual being you clearly don't understand them on even a basic level. I'm saying that if you are making a story with the FUCKING EMPEROR IN IT and the coolest thing you can come up with for him to be up to is having procreated... you're wrong. You're just soooooooo wrong. From the fucking word "go".

Because it's not that I reject the concept of the Emperor fucking some bitch. It's that I reject that THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE DOING? THAT'S IT? WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!???????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When Sheev wanted to create an instrument, he impregnated spirituality its-fucking-self. Shmi describes an immaculate conception that Palpatine later takes credit for! And now he's got Snoke In A Jars, and a son without a name and a fucking granddaughter. Are you fucking kidding me? For real right now? Holy shit. Like, when I shit on The Last Jedi, part of it is just for fun. Like I didn't like the movie, but I didn't sit in the theater feeling like Brian Johnson was pissing in my mouth. I seriously had to revise my entire concept of what a bad Star Wars movie is last night. I thought I couldn't dislike a 'Star Wars' product more than I dislike Rogue One. Holy shit. I was so wrong, when I said that Rogue One isn't a movie. It just doesn't have characters. Movie, not a movie, that standard has been shifted. Rogue one has over two hours of cinema dedicated to a two sentence occurrence, no characters, and ethically repugnant digital caricatures of passed actors. But it at least didn't blow the brains of Star Wars into the ceiling.

Stupid people said that The Last Jedi killed Star Wars. Or people like me who were just dog piling on a movie we didn't care for for fun. All The Last Jedi was, all it had to be, was the one that a lot of people don't like. The Attack of the Clones of the Sequel Trilogy, if you will. You could fix the plot holes, you could get over them.

You know what you can't come back from? Palpatine, alive without explanation, sitting in the NEW home of the Sith with a bunch of Ghosts of Sithsmas Pasts waiting to eat his granddaughter's soul when she kills him but then the Siths temple is destroyed and Rey is just a Skywalker now what the fuck even happened?

I'm angry at how angry I am. I went into this movie hoping I might actually enjoy it! I figured it'd be bad, but I can enjoy parts of Star Trek: Into Darkness! I enjoy the way J.J. puts films together, even if I think he's a hack. I was emotionally ready to just enjoy some stupid schlock, maybe one more Reylo fight to get the blood flowing. It actually never even crossed my mind the last few days that I might genuinely hate the film, I didn't think I could. I thought I was over Star Wars from an emotional investment standpoint. I honestly thought I'd checked my attachment to a childhood imaginary world at the door and could just enjoy some flashing lights. Solo was a frankenstien nightmare and too dark, but I had fun watching it.

It was worse than a Transformers film. There is zero hyperbole in me right now. I am capable only of sobriety in this moment. It was worse than a Transformers film.

At one point, at the beginning, I was physically out of breath. And not in a good way. I felt like I was having heart palpitations and had to set down my silverware.  So when I say "This is the Batman v Superman of Star Wars", I don't mean it's literally as incoherent and awful as that film. Batman v Superman stands alone in the pits of major blockbuster failure. It's not even as nonsensical as Fantastic Beasts 2. There is technically a progression of plot in The Rise of Skywalker. I am not accusing it of being that incoherent. I mean to draw attention to the way that it's just an assault on the senses, where things are occurring so quickly and without a moment to absorb what's happening that in my case I physically couldn't breathe for a second. At one point I looked away from the screen and closed my eyes, just for a second, to remind myself that I was still alive and wasn't having a dying nightmare. But I had to open them after not even two seconds because I missed something.

Because SOMETHING'S ALWAYS HAPPENING. Holy shit, like did you notice how everyone was talking ALL THE TIME!?!! Now don't be a smartass, I understand there were shots without characters in them, and I know you can cherry-pick shit. But be real for just a quick-fast-in-a-hurry-second for me and recognize that at any point more than two characters were in frame dialogue was flying back and forth faster than the fastest drunk frat boys can send a ping pong ball because we don't have any time at all for you to understand what's happening. It wasn't exposition. Entire scenes felt like the dialogue continued without more than a half second pause and it was someone reading an abbreviated version of the Wikipedia description of the plot, modified to work as dialogue. Search your feelings, remember when they're in that sand tunnel finding the dagger, and you'll know it to be true.

I feel so bad for my best friend right now. Because he looked crushed. Absolutely destroyed. He didn't speak until we got into the car, and then he just had this animal wail of hurt. He buys all the comics, reads all the new books. He was so excited that I liked the new game and enjoy The Mandalorian and was getting back into the expanded universe a little. He liked The Last Jedi. Recognizes it's flaws, but he defends it. It's our single biggest divergence of opinion in our Star Wars fandom besides where Phantom Menace ranks in relation to Attack of the Clones if you give weight to longevity of grievance.

He was so hurt. A grown man. He's not a neckbeard. Keeps his comics in a box and doesn't display his fandom all over the walls and shit like a fucking child. He's a grownup, has a big boy job and 'sponsibilities. Pays his bills. And that movie tore out a chunk of his soul. I hurt now too for my friend.

I honestly resent that movie, and I think it's important to be honest about something in our new corporate hellscape world. Internet outrage is just awful, it's stupid and usually misdirected. But there comes a point when an actual wrong has been committed. If you signed a petition for The Last Jedi to be remade, you're fucking dumb. It's okay to be dumb, but you are. Now you know.

But I paid money to go see that shit. Like actual American dollars to see a film made by an experienced director and a major motion picture studio concerning a longstanding property. At some point, I expect a basic level respect as a consumer to not walk into a film and feel like a five year old who really knows his Star Wars could produce a better story. Do they think I'm stupid? Am I just supposed to not care about how movies work because Disney clearly doesn't? Fuck that! When I pay money I want to see a fucking movie, not have a panicked nightmare of sounds and lights that seems intent on purposefully trotting out all the things you thought you hated most about Star Wars just to rub your nose into it a little more how little your shared fantasy means to the people who profit off it.

I have never in my life felt like I was owed something more by a piece of media I enjoyed. Until last night I found the idea entirely contemptuous, but I understand what it is. I'm not owed a certain level of quality, per se. As I've said, I think Rogue One is utterly dismal in every regard as a Star Wars film. But it didn't fail to meet the thing I'm entitled to, because it tried. It failed for me, failed utterly, but I never doubted for a second that the people who put Rogue One together did their best, what little they could do. Watching this horrific excuse for a story, I felt actively insulted because my desire to have a connection to this series (more acutely, my friend's) was not even worth a second draft of whatever napkin that screen treatment was written on. The lights will do. Have the Emperor, they'll eat the slop. 'Couple of X-Wings? They'll be masturbating to the Star Destroyer Death Stars so much we don't need character arcs. Just fuck it I guess, they'll watch it.

 

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profound verfremdung effect in a text that generates this much rage.

 

 seems to be settling down there, and Obi-Wan's having a lightsaber in his hut didn't bring back the Jedi, did it?

plausible.  though mcgregor was hiding in exile as a secret warden after a catastrophic defeat.  I nevertheless like that the ending supports both your and my readings.  ambiguity and doubt are strengths.

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Another nice thing about them calling it the holdo maneuver is that canonically explains why we havent seen it before - because no one has done it, or at least done it in so long that anyone remembered. 

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9 hours ago, Ran said:

I agree with this. J.J. Abrams tried to salvage a conclusion to the Skywalker Saga with very little to work with coming out of TLJ, IMO, and while I think the conclusion succeeds in capping off the nine-film saga, it was very rough and far from perfect. 

Disney has to be the one to blame for this, and Lucasfilm. For all Lucas's faults, he was the guy who had overarching approval of everything put on the screen in the previous six films, and so even when other writers and directors handled them they reflected a aesthetic and thematic unity that made it all feel a part of a whole. If they had assigned Abrams or Johnson as the lead on all three films, this would almost certainly have come out much less divisive. 

@HelenaExMachina

Ooooh, you are right! I remember trying to recall whose ship that was. You're spot on. 

(And good, I didn't like the idea of Chewie breaking under torture.)

Hmm, if im correct in remembering that scene then its not shown who is piloting, but the implication is he knights of ren

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Just now, HelenaExMachina said:

Hmm, if im correct in remembering that scene then its not shown who is piloting, but the implication is he knights of ren

I think that's right, because we saw the ship earlier, after Kylo and the Knights have his helmet reforged and return to his star destroyer. 

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14 minutes ago, sologdin said:

profound verfremdung effect in a text that generates this much rage.

 seems to be settling down there, and Obi-Wan's having a lightsaber in his hut didn't bring back the Jedi, did it?

plausible.  though mcgregor was hiding in exile as a secret warden after a catastrophic defeat.  I nevertheless like that the ending supports both your and my readings.  ambiguity and doubt are strengths.

But was there any sort of need for ambiguity there? Seriously asking. The great point of the second movie in that trilogy was that the Jedi were supposed to end as per the last (sort of) proper Jedi, Luke Skywalker.

Did TROS do anything to establish that a new Jedi Order was needed or would be built? In fact, if it turns/turned out (sort of) that Finn was a Force sensitive, then I'd have ended the movie with him becoming Rey's apprentice.

For me, the important point in that last scene is that Rey is alone again. She is not with her friends, she has her own life now, a life she is making for herself. She doesn't have to be a Skywalker by birth to be one by choice ... but the Skywalkers are literal ghosts now, and so is she in a figurative sense in the Tatooine desert. Because you really go there to bury yourself.

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2 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Oh, the two dudes who were cuddling behind me tried to start a clap but nobody wanted a goddamn thing to do with it. I turned to remark on this to my friend and he was already standing to leave, as was half the theater.

People did clap much more than I expected at the end. The only clap that occurred during the movie was for the Wedge Antilles cameo.

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That was truly amazingly bad. Just a series of awful decisions both on-screen (like did anyone in the movie at all make the right decision in a situation? Like one time?) and behind the scenes.

C3-P0 and the little new droid were easily the best thing about it.


Was a completely cowardly story too. JJ Abrams obviously bowing to percieved pressure or possibly his own pettiness in minimising Rose and not having her as a potential love interest for Fynn, but not having the bollocks to go with any of the other choices he was hinting at either. Just for example. Killing Chewie, that would have been bold, but nooooo.

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5 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Yeah, didn't think about the yellow lightsaber when writing that - but it doesn't really change anything. She seems to be settling down there, and Obi-Wan's having a lightsaber in his hut didn't bring back the Jedi, did it?

Yeah, right, just like it was the last time around. Which worked so well.

And considering how they treated Luke and Leia both in those films they can be read as a big 'fuck you' to George Lucas and Star Wars in general (and he seems to have interpreted it that way with his original honest reaction to the first new movie) considering they essentially buried the Solos and Skywalkers. They accomplished nothing, couldn't build a lasting government or restore peace to the galaxy, failed to rebuild the Jedi, and produced but one defective, perverse, uncertain creep as their descendant, a guy who murdered his own father to prove his loyalty to some Hologram dude who wasn't really important in the end (and who he wanted to kill, too).

That's just a very sad excuse for a story.

Is there any reason to imagine why these people should suck this hard as parents and uncles? Is there any reason why any child of theirs could be as fucked-up as the Ren character? Is there any explanation given why that child turned out to be as freakish as he was aside from the well-known fact that his grandfather was a troubled individual (which in his case had nothing to do with dear mother who loved him very much)?

No, there is not. They just wrote a bad fan fiction trying the 'being Darth Vader's grandchild means you carry evil in your blood' - and they then also tried to pull that with 'the Palpatine bloodline', too (thankfully the EU has no Palpatine but Darth Sidious be a Jedi or an otherwise Force sensitive).

 

When a friend of mine, with whom I was hoping to go see the movie, said she didn't want to see it, I gave up on seeing it in a movie theater and decided to wait until it came out on TV.  Then I went to Wikipedia and read the plot summary, especially the ending.

I am so disappointed.  I watched the original Star Wars when I was 20 or so, on campus; and I remember the excitement and wonder of it all.  The first trilogy was a pretty awesome film achievement, and ended optimistically, with romance and courage and hope for the future.  The prequel series was not as good.  I liked Star Wars: The Force Awakens; and surmised that Rey was actually a Skywalker.  Now I feel let-down and disappointed and glad that I didn't spend money on the movie.

To kill off all our heroes, i.e. the Skywalker/Solo clan, wipe their family line from the mythos, and set up Palpatine's granddaughter as the new (and only) Skywalker, is indeed a slap in the face to George Lucas; the man without whom there would be no Star Wars movies at all.  

I like Rey as a character, and am glad that she lived.  But they could have given Han and Leia one or two other children who lived and were not corrupted, or given Luke a child.  And bringing back Palpatine seems stupid.  

I probably should have realized that the Star Wars franchise would end badly when they killed off Luke in The Last Jedi.  Luke should have survived to train more Jedi and have some peace and fulfillment in his old age.

So a huge meh from me.  I will watch the movie when it shows up on HBO or wherever.

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