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[SPOILERS] Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker


Lord Varys

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1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

I think you're conflating Nazism and fascism there. While the original Italian Fascism for example was ultranationalist and certainly wasn't lacking in racism, it wasn't built on official and rabid racism in the same way the Nazis were and certainly not on the exclusion or extermination of non-white or non-Romantic people.

Well, I'm no expert on the Italians there, but I'd assume that Mussolini did his fair share of ugly things in Africa. But, sure, the Nazis were very much extreme in this regard.

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

In any case the Emperor did grab power on a wave of xenophobia- he deliberately engineered a whole war with outside powers to generate the fear he needed to grab sole power. 

Palpatine and Dooku arranged a civil war, not a war with outside powers. In fact, the Clone Wars essentially are very much influenced by the American Civil War (sans the slavery issue, of course), with Palpatine having a lot in common with Lincoln - in his official persona/facade, not as Darth Sidious, of course. Lincoln also did wield extraordinary powers during the war - precisely because he had to fight the war. He did not plan to become an emperor.

The EU has a lot about the fascist tendencies of the Empire - the human only/first movement, COMPNOR, eradication/enslavement of certain alien races (Wookiees, for instance). But the movies never made that explicit, especially not George Lucas. Timothy Zahn had Palpatine as a xenophob/racist, being the explanation why Thrawn was the only non-human in the Imperial military (Anderson made him a misogynist, too, explaining while Tarkin's lover Daala was the only female fleet admiral). But the PT effectively buried the idea that Palpatine is the source for this kind of thing - his entire inner circle as seen in the PT movies were aliens (Mas Amedda, Dar Wac, Sly Moore) and his Sith master Darth Plagueis happens to be the non-human Muun banker Hego Damask.

The House of Palpatine of Naboo as per 'Darth Plagueis' are very conservative aristocrats descended from the human colonists of Naboo (originally coming form the Core World of Grizmallt), and there are some very subtle hints that Palpatine was not that fond of his Muun master, but if he looked down on other species we simply don't really know. I doubt he is supposed to be imagined to have thought in such categories - considering that his mastery of the Force made himself essentially a god among all mortal species, anyway.

Major new issue after watching the movie a third time with the family:

Did you guys realize that Rey held the evil Sith blade the entire time during her conversation with Ren but he only realized that she was in his quarters when they destroyed the Vader mask? That just doesn't make any sense.

Also Rey standing right at the right spot to use the knife to locate the Pathfinder is the utmost silliness.

I mean, this is a movie about a magical Force - just make her feel something to get her there. Make her conclude that a Death Star fragment means the key to the Emperor's planet would be hidden in the Emperor's fucking throne room.

Also - why did Rey die? She was not physically injured during the final confrontation. Reflecting Sith lightning might be taxing, but if she isn't visibly hurt, injured or affected by it the fact of her dying makes little sense.

Thus it would have been much better to have her act like Yoda there - absorbing and reflecting the Sith lightning and perhaps even sucking Palpatine dry of life force the way he restored himself by feeding off her. That kind of thing could have, perhaps, 'overloaded' her, causing her body to shut down. But the way it is presented it is pretty odd that she died there.

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40 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, I'm no expert on the Italians there, but I'd assume that Mussolini did his fair share of ugly things in Africa. But, sure, the Nazis were very much extreme in this regard.

Well sure, but then in-universe even without the EU stuff you can assume that the Emperor did ugly stuff. The point is that it wasn't a part of the fascist system or rationale or rise to power there- the Empire not explicitly showing it doesn't mean it's inherently not fascist. 

Fair point on the civil war bit though.
 

 

43 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Also - why did Rey die? She was not physically injured during the final confrontation. Reflecting Sith lightning might be taxing, but if she isn't visibly hurt, injured or affected by it the fact of her dying makes little sense. 


There's an established Star Wars tradition of pretty brunettes who look a little like Keira Knightley dying for no reason.
 

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15 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

A FUCKING HOBBIT

Swear to god, actual hand to the deity I don't believe in, the only time I cheered in this movie was when Charlie Pace showed up. I let out a genuine "Yahhh!" like a goddamn anime character. There are witnesses.

My husband and I both called out “Charlie!!” When we saw him. Abrams wanted to make LOST Star Wars and he did, oscillator and all. (LOST only worked once and it’s not ever gonna happen again, directors- even Abrams- should stop trying to make LOST happen again).

 

To the posts talking about Universe-killing additions. I agree but they have all done it now. When MCU brought Gamora back by snatching her out of an alternate timeline it’s the same thing. They make it so that nothing is ever PERMANENT. Which also ensures that they can react to any feedback however they want at any time. Anyone can be brought back, even f’ing Wolverine is back alive in the comics after ‘The Death of Wolverine’ series and ‘Logan’. Which REALLY took a toll on me, but then he’s just back alive like 2 years later so it meant nothing.

just ‘be sure to drink your ovaltine’ and know that it’s all about money, content doesnt matter, only money.

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I saw it a few days ago and will come back with a more elaborate post soon (not another review, but more a list of the missed potential). The ROS is supremely forgettable which is quite a damming thing to say about a SW film.

Even the prequels had their moments, but the ST is just so damn boring. The only movie in it  with some redeeming features is TLJ and with this movie now shitting all over that one and over the OT, I'm pretty much done with watching SW in the theatre. I never would have guessed that Disney would be so incompetent with this, seeing how they own pretty much everything. This seems like an uncharacteristically big fuck up from their side.

What has given me a lot of pleasure, is seeing all the nerd rage expressed here. Strange to see how people can put pieces of entertainment on such a pedestal. Especially given the rather lousy track record of the series up until now.. I think ESB is a legitimately Great Film based on every metric and ANH is an important landmark in cinematic history, but all the others are middling efforts at best. 

The best example, which prompted me to write this, is expressed here:

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Major new issue after watching the movie a third time with the family:

Lord Varys, consider this an intervention. If you love the franchise so much and really don't like the direction in which RoS takes it (which is understandable as it is really fucking lame), then please stop seeing it!

Continued exposure is clearly bad for your heart. Most of all though, it doesn't give Disney any incentive to change its ways. After all, they don't care about your anger, not as long as you go the cinema thrice. The Mouse believes in only one Force and that is the almighty USD. 

If we don't go to see it and don't buy any of the extra shit they put in the movie to sell toys and the like, then the Mouse will take note. Convince people not to see it, instead of growing their top line. 

Every dollar of profit this steaming pile of shit loses, the more likely we are to see Disney to invest in proper writers. I still can't believe how the cheapest thing in the entire process (i.e. the writing) is what always fucks up this kind of big budget movies. Crazily expensive animation is no problem, but a clear plot is too much to ask. Weird.

Added advantage of not seeing RoS is that it stops JJ from every fucking up a franchise ever again. He's a wildly incompetent director (I wonder who he is related to and why he's got so many shots) and he should be stopped imo. 

 

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6 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

Lord Varys, consider this an intervention. If you love the franchise so much and really don't like the direction in which RoS takes it (which is understandable as it is really fucking lame), then please stop seeing it!

Oh, Velt, I'm not that much of a weirdo as I come across here. I watched the movie once quite spontaneously the day it premiered (to prevent being spoiled by news, etc.), another time with my girlfriend and friends as a social event, and then yet again as part of a Holiday tradition with my parents, brother, his girlfriend and her geek sister (and hearing their comments when the opening crawl confused them was very enjoyable, too - as was my brother's laugh when we came to Palpatine's nonsensical fleet - 'Why does the guy need so many of those when just a couple of them would be enough to destroy all the planets?'). All that gives me joy. In fact, bitching about the movie(s) also sort of gives me joy, although that's quickly going to dissipate in the coming weeks.

For me, the harm was done with TFA. That forever killed 'my Star Wars'. I was so invested in the EU continuity that this was a pretty deep part of me (and I only realized that when it was gone - that was a very strange feeling). And chances are essentially nonexistent that anyone is ever going to give me back that as the (sort of) official Star Wars continuity. On that level it is irrelevant how bad or good the movies they made are, but I admit that I'm pretty surprised that those movies were this bad.

And I'm through with them now.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

For me, the harm was done with TFA. That forever killed 'my Star Wars'. I was so invested in the EU continuity that this was a pretty deep part of me (and I only realized that when it was gone - that was a very strange feeling). And chances are essentially nonexistent that anyone is ever going to give me back that as the (sort of) official Star Wars continuity. On that level it is irrelevant how bad or good the movies they made are, but I admit that I'm pretty surprised that those movies were this bad.

I think this is something important that people tend to Forget.

While tfa is a pretty solid movie with little to complain it is the biggest responsable for ruining the PT. Disney mixed a remake and continuation of the story instead of chosing between them. So the new characters don t  really have their story… They are relieving the story of the OT characters with them still hanging around… There was no way this was going to end well. Hell, ros ended with the first order fleet intact minus one ship… Nobody really knows how the galaxy is ruled now or has any reason to believe that another incarnation of the empire won t return in 30 years with palps returning from the dead again...

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16 hours ago, Raja said:

On the plus side, all this Star Wars talk made me order Thrawn - I hope it's good :)

Now he would have been a great villain for this Trilogy....................who am I kidding Disney would have found a way to screw him up. I've not watched the cartoon with him in it, but I've heard from friends that he's just a shadow of his former self in that series.

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44 minutes ago, Raja said:

Yeah, no. Adam Driver & Kylo Ren was one of the best parts of the new trilogy for me. Same with Rey.

:dunno:

Agreed. I enjoyed having a Star Wars villain who was consistently conflicted and not in control of himself. He was a very interesting character. And even in this last movie, the Rey/Kylo Ren stuff was pretty strong.

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5 hours ago, Mexal said:

:agree: My issues with this trilogy was the writing and storytelling, not the two main characters.

Ohh I hated both of them. One was an invincible Mary Sue and the other was a man baby who loses so many fights, I can’t view him as a threat. I just don’t know which one I hated more. I’m just glad this turd of a trilogy is over.

R1 and Mando have been the only Disney SW’s properties that have had likable characters in my book.

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6 hours ago, sifth said:

Now he would have been a great villain for this Trilogy....................who am I kidding Disney would have found a way to screw up him. I've not watched the cartoon with him in it, but I've heard from friends that he's just a shadow of his former self in that series.

Never read the books he was in. But on Rebels his super power is basically being the only competent imperial. 

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On 12/24/2019 at 11:48 PM, Jace, Basilissa said:

If you enjoyed the movie, whatever. I'm glad you got your money's worth. But if you're acting like it's anything other than a jumbled mess then you're wrong from a basic film making perspective.

Dunno about the rest of them, but the conversation I was talking in wasn't about TRoS, it was how ANH and TFA are both pretty chock-filled with coincidence and bizarre chance that would make the movie go. TRoS...it's probably most telling to me that I've simply not really thought that much about it, and what I did remember is not really about the story itself. 

I mean, here's a great example. You know those randos that Ren is slaughtering in the beginning? Where is that happening? Apparently it's on fucking Mustafar, and they were some weird-ass cultists that were hanging out around the ruins of Vader's castle. But would you know that from watching the movie? Nope! There's nothing indicating it's Mustafar, there's no visual cues that it is the same planet as a lava planet, there's no idea it's anywhere near Vader's castle, there's no indication that those guys are cultists or anything other than random peasants that Ren is killing. 

That is just a mess. And that's literally the first thing we see in the movie. Who are these guys? Where are they? We eventually get the why - the wayfinder - but why would they have it? Why would Ren come there or know to come there? It's just...there. 

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9 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

There's nothing indicating it's Mustafar, there's no visual cues that it is the same planet as a lava planet, there's no idea it's anywhere near Vader's castle, there's no indication that those guys are cultists or anything other than random peasants that Ren is killing. 

FWIW, Grant and Gleason have noted in interviews that they had a scene with Kylo in a "forest" that was cut, which seems to have been either before or after the battle, which no doubt explained all the details now relegated to secondary texts like the Visual Dictionary. I assume they decided that a more propulsive, urgent beginning would be more effective than following the text crawl with another infodump.

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7 minutes ago, Ran said:

FWIW, Grant and Gleason have noted in interviews that they had a scene with Kylo in a "forest" that was cut, which seems to have been either before or after the battle, which no doubt explained all the details now relegated to secondary texts like the Visual Dictionary. I assume they decided that a more propulsive, urgent beginning would be more effective than following the text crawl with another infodump.

I don't think you need an infodump. You can tell it entirely visually. Mustafar is incredibly distinctive as far as how it looks, especially Vader's castle. Instead of fighting in a random reddish forest, fight near some lava. Or fight IN his castle! We've already seen how his castle looks (from Rogue One). You can simply have that right there, have a bunch of cool battling in that. Or have fights near the various lava fields that we see in RotS. 

Instead, they pick this entirely generic looking thing that doesn't look like anywhere we've ever been, and as a result we get...this. 

I mean, they manage to show us places like Jakku and Endor's forest moon without explaining that that's where they are - give the viewers some credit for being able to piece it together. 

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Reading more about it, it seems like this is an example of the Star Wars universe not remaining static. They laid in story prior to TRoS, in some sort of Vader comic and in  the Vader Immortal VR game, about why Mustafar was so volcanic and how in the years after Vader it began to cool and plant life started to return on a planet that was once apparently some sort of fertile garden before a catastrophe (regarding an attempt to resurrect the dead).

 

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