spoilers [SPOILERS] Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker

[HexMachina]

Oh shit, Rey’s mother was Jodie Comer! I knew i recognised her brief appearance but was too busy thinking on ither stuff at the time in the cinema (like where the fuck is Keri Russel’s luscious locks. And her face too of course. Seems a waste to get someone so talented and just put a bucket over her head)

[Ran]

Just now, HelenaExMachina said:

like where the fuck is Keri Russel’s luscious locks. And her face too of course. Seems a waste to get someone so talented and just put a bucket over her head

Ditto this. She's such a great actress and it just seemed odd to reveal that, yes, Zorri Bliss wears eyeliner under that helmet she appears to wear 100% of the time while not bothering to have her show the rest of her face. I guess they thought it was very Star Wars-y.

Did not realize that was Comer. Very cool.

 

@Darryk

I remember touching on some of the points you raise when TLJ was out, here. Think you and I are on the same wavelength.

[Kalbear]

I also am happy to see that folks who apparently had huge problems with TLJ because of its plot holes are enjoying this movie despite its even more gaping, absurd plot holes and contrivances. Because the plot holes were never the problem. 

Star Wars has always, always been about very silly plots and plans and issues. (The only ones that haven't were, amusingly enough, the prequels, which are bizarrely tightly-plotted and make a lot of sense and also suck complete ass). All the talk about not enough training time for Rey, innate power creep, all that stuff? None of it was a big deal, and none of it was important here either, and none of it matters because we want our heroes to have Something Special about them that allows them to fly a fighter in space just like it's flying in canyons on a desert planet and then be able to use the force to guide a torpedo through a 2 meter shaft and have it miraculously take a right turn just as it enters. 

I think that JJ got this one largely right for the fans, in that it made them feel happy and gave them things to enjoy a whole lot of. But if you were saying that TLJ sucked because of the plot holes? Then this movie should be complete garbage. But it wasn't! It was fun, and lighthearted at times, and almost shocking at other times (I really wanted them to go there with Chewie, but it wasn't that kind of movie), and very actiony and pretty. It was an excellent remake of both TFA and RotJ. 

@Ran - I don't think it's particularly plausible that the Emperor is going to come back to some form of Hellraiser-2 life and happily just give it all up for Kylo Ren peacefully and happily. That isn't very Sith-like at all, and it's really not very Emperor like. I guess that's what the Emperor said flat out, but I kind of figured he had a trick up his sleeve and was fucking with Ren. 

[sologdin]

Can't really compare that to Rey, who's using Jedi mind tricks and beating trained Jedi in lightsaber duels before she's even heard the word 'Jedi'. I mean, Rey's first use of the Force was a Jedi mind trick, something she'd never seen anyone do, and which we've only seen advanced Jedi like Obi-wan, Qui-Gon and a fully trained Luke do. Very different to Luke's first use of the force, which was a dramatic hail mary moment.

not a big deal, really. at first i was wondering how the fuck mcdiarmid had a whole other imperial fleet, each ship with an achilles heel superweapon (some motherfuckers never learn--and why are they quoting independence day but playing it straight?) as well as a cathedral of mantra-chanting worshippers.  but the answer is that its space-wizard magic--he conned his way to the top of the republic; he can con his way to the top of the uncharted regions. 

same with ridley--she can do what she does because space magic. same with christopher lee and ray park or liam neeson, and samuel jackson. the principle is that these people do impossible things because of religious miracle. it is not about education or experience. luke's first important use is you turned off your targeting computer. seems legit.

[RumHam]

3 hours ago, Ran said:

The general explanations in the EU looking back at events of TESB is thatLuke's time on Dagobah was anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. In particular, there's the line in which Luke argues that he's learned a lot about the Force since his experience in the cave, when Obi-wan and Yoda are trying to keep him from leaving to help Han and Leia.

Basically, it all depends on how long you imagine it took to get to Bespin after escaping the asteroids.

I could buy a couple weeks, but do we really think they had months of food on the falcon? And Han and Leia spent months in close quarters with little to do without fucking? Maybe I'm overthinking it but it really feels like it was only supposed to be a couple days from the asteroids to Bespin. 

[Ran]

29 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I don't think it's particularly plausible that the Emperor is going to come back to some form of Hellraiser-2 life and happily just give it all up for Kylo Ren peacefully and happily. That isn't very Sith-like at all, and it's really not very Emperor like. I guess that's what the Emperor said flat out, but I kind of figured he had a trick up his sleeve and was fucking with Ren. 

I mean, he was prepared to give it to Rey, quite obviously. Through her, he has a kind of immortality that he presumably does not have with whatever Sith dark side magic/cloning thing he had going on, as his falling-apart body goes. His body was failing, his power was as high as it could be, his Final Order was ready -- it was time to choose his successor. If Kylo slew Rey, he would have given himself over to the Dark Side for good and all. If Rey killed Kylo, and sought the Emperor out for revenge, he would have used the threat of the Final Order to force her to complete his ritual, absorb the evil essence of ten thousand years of Sith (or whatever), and be turned to the Dark side for good and all.

The only thing that changed his calculus was when he was going to at least revenge himself by destroying them, only to realize they were a dyad, and that he could drain them for new life.

29 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I also am happy to see that folks who apparently had huge problems with TLJ because of its plot holes are enjoying this movie despite its even more gaping, absurd plot holes and contrivances. Because the plot holes were never the problem. 

Taking this last because I've been scratching my head about the plot hole business. What are they?

Hell, the "dyad" business even fixes (for me) why Rey was so powerful, so score one for JJ for finding a clever and cool way to explain an issue with TFA.

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Something Special about them that allows them to fly a fighter in space just like it's flying in canyons on a desert planet

This isn't and never was a plot hole. Boring to have to go over it again. 

 

@RumHam

Well, the Millenium Falcon is a transport ship, I'd guess it does have supplies for long journeys? 

The Luke line is the thing everything else hinges on, really, with its explicit claim that enough time has passed that he's learned a lot off screen that we haven't seen.

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, Ran said:

I'm not sure any definitive answer exists in the canon.

There is none but there are hints.

6 hours ago, sologdin said:

do we have a timeline for the setting on this? i assume that mcdiarmid had a family while he was a senator prior to I, though, and his kid disowned him when he went full metal hitler.

No, but we can definitely sort of say that Palpatine was wifeless and childless during the PT/Clone Wars era - which means his son - who looks about thirty in Rey's visions - was born while he was Emperor, not while he was still Chancellor or Senator.

I know nothing about Rey's father and mother of course and what kind of back story they are going to get (they should get some) but one imagines one way to deal with that would be to actually have the son as 'Palpatine's heir' at the Imperial Palace and an unwilling pretender to mantle of the Emperor immediately after Endor. One could see him running away then, not wanting any part in his father's empire, with him possibly only meeting Rey's wife while living underground - to be then eventually tracked down by clone daddy's agents.

At least that the kind of story I'd imagine right now.

Palpatine did actually have a mutant son (and even a grandson) in obscure EU material, along with a great-niece and a third cousin.

[sologdin]

thanks for that. 

any idea if the snoke parts in the bacta tank during the first mcdiarmid scene in IX were proper snoke or just a potential clone snoke?

[RumHam]

23 minutes ago, Ran said:

Well, the Millenium Falcon is a transport ship, I'd guess it does have supplies for long journeys? 

I just figured the journeys weren't that long with the hyperdrive and all. Plus I remember the ship even had a backup hyperdrive. But I guess it would make sense to have extra food just in case.

[Ran]

1 minute ago, sologdin said:

thanks for that. 

any idea if the snoke parts in the bacta tank during the first mcdiarmid scene in IX were proper snoke or just a potential clone snoke?

I think those were Snoke clones rather than the Snoke killed by Kylo. Wasn't that ship destroyed that had his body, as well? Can't recall.

[Kalbear]

11 minutes ago, Ran said:

I mean, he was prepared to give it to Rey, quite obviously. Through her, he has a kind of immortality that he presumably does not have with whatever Sith dark side magic/cloning thing he had going on, as his falling-apart body goes. His body was failing, his power was as high as it could be, his Final Order was ready -- it was time to choose his successor. If Kylo slew Rey, he would have given himself over to the Dark Side for good and all. If Rey killed Kylo, and sought the Emperor out for revenge, he would have used the threat of the Final Order to force her to complete his ritual, observe the evil essence of ten thousand years of Sith (or whatever), and be turned to the Dark side for good and all.

The only thing that changed his calculus was when he was going to at least revenge himself by destroying them, only to realize they were a dyad, and that he could drain them for new life. 

How was his body failing, though? It didn't appear to be the case. Hell, he was able to create a crazy powerful dark side user who could do things even he never did, and apparently could create multiple of them given the cloning vats we saw. Why make Ren his successor when he could just, ya know, clone another Snoke? 

I guess I don't get this completely selfless Palpatine and how he'd be totes fine with someone else in charge. 

11 minutes ago, Ran said:

Taking this last because I've been scratching my head about the plot hole business. What are they?

Wow, I didn't expect that. You really don't see them? This is only a small sampling off the top of my head, mind you. 

• Why does Luke say he knows who Rey's lineage is now when he acted absurdly shocked at it in TLJ? 
• What the hell was Han?
• Why did anyone create a dagger with the location of the wayfinder on it? 
• Especially since the person with the dagger already knew where Palpatine was given that he was working for him?
• Who programmed C3P0 to not process Sith language? It certainly wasn't Anakin. 
• Why do thousands of star destroyers need a single thing to navigate away from? 
• How does Ren find Rey again on Exogol given that he doesn't have her coordinates and isn't part of the rebellion, and doesn't have a wayfinder any more?
• For that matter, where the hell did Ren get a TIE fighter from? His was taken by Rey, and he just finds an old TIE sitting around? (and if it was an old one from the Death Star wreckage, that also doesn't work because those TIEs don't have lightspeed capability)
• How did Ren know to go to the planet with the C3P0 hacker? He didn't know where Rey and everyone was at that point. 
• How did Maz know what Leia was going to do to Ren?
• How are force ghosts just casually lifting shit? (and they could be a bit more helpful if that's the case!)
• How is Luke's XWing totally fine to fly after being underwater for 10+ years?
• When the Knights of Ren captured Chewie, why did they not capture the rest of them? I mean they were like 20 feet away at that point. 
• How does Zorri go from almost killing Poe to giving him her most prize possession in like 3 minutes? 
• Where did the snappily dressed Final Order troops come from? (especially given that we hear earlier that they'll need to start recruiting like crazy to pilot the things)
• Where did Leia's lightsaber come from? 
• And why did Maz know that she would need it too?
• Why is Rose promoted to Commander, and why doesn't she actually command any one?

I'm sure I can come up with more if you want. But none of this bothered me, and I bet it doesn't bother you at all either, because you started first with the enjoyment. When you don't enjoy something - that's when you start looking for the reasons why, when it's probably just as simple as "I didn't enjoy that". 

11 minutes ago, Ran said:

Hell, the "dyad" business even fixes (for me) why Rey was so powerful, so score one for JJ for finding a clever and cool way to explain an issue with TFA. 

Sure, though that's not exactly awesome - they're a dyad because reasons, and something that was never mentioned anywhere before is suddenly a big deal. 

11 minutes ago, Ran said:

This isn't and never was a plot hole. Boring to have to go over it again. 

Whereas it's a plot hole that Rey, who apparently had a flight simulator in her cabin (which is canon!) knows how to fly so well? This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. 

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, sologdin said:

always been unclear on the timeline

this strikes me as a trainwreck in the new films. i usually understood some of the older films to feature interstellar travel taking quite a bit of time--but these films make it seem as though it were driving cross-town.  boyega says at one point in IX that in 16 hours the reign of terror starts; two or three planets later, the doomsday clock in his estimation has eight hours left, and they have a couple planets left on their itinerary.  i guess FTL travel is very fast, then?

I think the new films have taken it to an insane degree, but to be fair in Empire Strikes Back an Imperial officer says that the Falcon could be on the other side of the galaxy "by now," about ten minutes after it latched onto the hull of the Star Destroyer. So the idea of FTL travel in the Star Wars universe being very, very fast is not new.

[Kalbear]

Oh yeah, there's another one - who the hell was Rey's grandmother? The canon story has Palpatine killing like all of his family, and we've never once seen him with anyone, yet he had the opportunity to have actual relations? 

[RumHam]

17 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

• Who programmed C3P0 to not process Sith language? It certainly wasn't Anakin. 

You may as well ask who programmed him to speak any language other than "basic" or whatever they call it. I remember when Episode I came out people were like "but there are other identical protocol droids so anakin building him from scrap doesn't make sense." So I assume Anakin basically followed a fairly standard design, and then loaded some off the shelf protocol droid software onto him.

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, RumHam said:

You may as well ask who programmed him to speak any language other than "basic" or whatever they call it. I remember when Episode I came out people were like "but there are other identical protocol droids so anakin building from scrap him doesn't make sense." So I assume Anakin basically followed a fairly standard design, and then loaded some off the shelf protocol droid software onto him.

Guess that's fair, though it's a bit odd. That'd be another one, mind you - when did R2D2 back up C3P0's memory given that C3P0 basically said 'that would NEVER happen, R2s memory sucks'? It's even weirder to program something with the knowledge of how to translate and then forbid them from actually using it. The programmer in me yells YAGNI, but some fucking PM probably had it as one of their bullet points and forced it in despite it being a pri 2. 

My headcanon has all those Sith Cultists shouting "Lock Her Up" in Sith at Rey. 

Oh right, another one - why was there a random Star Destroyer at Endor? Or Jakku for that matter. Neither have anything worth fighting over, at least not any more. 

[Werthead]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Guess that's fair, though it's a bit odd. That'd be another one, mind you - when did R2D2 back up C3P0's memory given that C3P0 basically said 'that would NEVER happen, R2s memory sucks'? It's even weirder to program something with the knowledge of how to translate and then forbid them from actually using it. The programmer in me yells YAGNI, but some fucking PM probably had it as one of their bullet points and forced it in despite it being a pri 2. 

My headcanon has all those Sith Cultists shouting "Lock Her Up" in Sith at Rey. 

I can see Artoo backing up Threepio's memory every ten minutes because he doesn't trust Threepio to open a can of beans that's already been opened. Plus Threepio managed to get his mind wiped once (that we know of, for all we know it happens every fortnight) before, so Artoo had his bro's back.

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Oh right, another one - why was there a random Star Destroyer at Endor? Or Jakku for that matter. Neither have anything worth fighting over, at least not any more. 

 

The First Order was clearly tracking down dangerous, hard-bitten interstellar terrorist Wicket, the Deathslayer, whose betrothed was killed by a stormtrooper during the Battle of Endor and he now lives only to slaughter the First Order everywhere he finds them.

[Ran]

33 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

• Why does Luke say he knows who Rey's lineage is now when he acted absurdly shocked at it in TLJ? 

What was he shocked at in TLJ? I'm confused. Her being Palpatine's granddaughter was only revealed here, I thought.

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• What the hell was Han?

A vision from the Force, or just a symbolic representation of the turmoil Ben was going through in his head and how he resolved it. This is a pretty common movie trope that doesn't even need the Force, really.

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• Why did anyone create a dagger with the location of the wayfinder on it? 

Ochi, the Jedi-hunter agent of the Emperor, was given the Sith dagger so that when the time came for him to get to Exegol, he would be able to find the wayfinder which was the only  way to get there.

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• Especially since the person with the dagger already knew where Palpatine was given that he was working for him?

I'm not sure he knew where he was, or how to get there, or ever personally met Palpatine post-RotJ. What says he did? 

ETA: I forgot D-O revealed that Ochi did know some stuff about Exegol, but they  did not know how to navigate through the hazards around it until Rey used Kylo's wayfinder and transmitted her data about the course to them. So he knew where he was -- which makes sense, since Luke was tracking Ochi to find out about Exegol -- but didn't actually have the details about the route.

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• Who programmed C3P0 to not process Sith language? It certainly wasn't Anakin. 

C-3PO explained that there were some kind of Galactic Republic regulations that forbade him, which means whatever spare parts Anakin used to build him already had that block in palce.

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• Why do thousands of star destroyers need a single thing to navigate away from? 

I had a different understanding from Luz on that. My view was that whatever magnetic terrors were up in the upper atmosphere would destroy ships if they couldn't navigate through them, hence needing a stable beacon to provide the data they needed. But his understanding was different.

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• How does Ren find Rey again on Exogol given that he doesn't have her coordinates and isn't part of the rebellion, and doesn't have a wayfinder any more?

He already knew the route to Exegol and no longer needed a wayfinder to take him there, I thought.

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• For that matter, where the hell did Ren get a TIE fighter from? His was taken by Rey, and he just finds an old TIE sitting around? (and if it was an old one from the Death Star wreckage, that also doesn't work because those TIEs don't have lightspeed capability)

First Order ships were in Endor, as we see in the celebration montage.

ETA: I assumed they have ships all over the place, because they're basically trying to reform the empire... but at least with Endor, it'd make sense that the activity there pulled a First Order ship to that location.

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• How did Ren know to go to the planet with the C3P0 hacker? He didn't know where Rey and everyone was at that point. 

Kijimi, I think the planet is called. I feel like that was explained, but I can't recall it off hand, as this was still in the very hectic patching-up-TLJ-related-problems part of the movie.

ETA: Did it have to do with the realization that C-3PO would need to be hacked for them to get the information from the dagger, and he just had a feeling of where they would go to find a droid engineer who could do that for them? Though I suppose they must have files on Poe, if he's a known former criminal from the area.... But I feel like that's not explicit.

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• How did Maz know what Leia was going to do to Ren?

You mean the character who with prophetic ability thanks to some weird Force connection? I don't know.

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• How are force ghosts just casually lifting shit? (and they could be a bit more helpful if that's the case!)

Seems like the location of the birthplace of the Jedi has a particular deep connection to the Force, to me, given what Yoda does in TLJ. And perhaps what Luke did in TLJ, given that he's briefly able to touch Leia and present her the dice that seem solid until after he's gone. Hmm... maybe they should have leaned on that, actually, to make Luke needing to be there make ironic sense.

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• How is Luke's XWing totally fine to fly after being underwater for 10+ years?

That stainless unobtanium on an air-tight space ship does wonders. (I will grant that this was weak. They should have had Luke stop her from destroying the TIE in the first place rather than doing that, but this is one of the places where JJ goes overboard. I mean, if I remember right, Luke was supposed to have used part of the X-Wing for the door to his hut or something, so it was a little surprising to see it fully intact.)

 

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• When the Knights of Ren captured Chewie, why did they not capture the rest of them? I mean they were like 20 feet away at that point. 

I actually think Kylo planned that to try and see Rey's limits with the dark side, given what he says later. I suppose he told the Knights of Ren to capture whoever they could quietly, and arrange an empty transport to see what she did when they confronted one another.

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• How does Zorri go from almost killing Poe to giving him her most prize possession in like 3 minutes? 

Wuv. That's pretty much straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark, though I hope Zorri wasn't thirteen when she fell for Poe...

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• Where did the snappily dressed Final Order troops come from? (especially given that we hear earlier that they'll need to start recruiting like crazy to pilot the things)

Unknown Regions people, aren't they? Though personally I would have liked it if they were clones.

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• Where did Leia's lightsaber come from? 

How do you mean? She must have made it, I assume. We know she gave it to Luke, and he took it with him to Ahch-to.

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• And why did Maz know that she would need it too?

See TFA.

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• Why is Rose promoted to Commander, and why doesn't she actually command any one?

Why wouldn't she? Everyone else gets promoted up the ladder for just surviving a film.

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

What was he shocked at in TLJ? I'm confused. Her being Palpatine's granddaughter was only revealed here, I thought. 

Luke says he knew it, and Leia knew it too and trained her anyway. Implication was that both knew it before. Leia certainly knew it before taking her on. 

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

Ochi, the Jedi-hunter agent of the Emperor, was given the Sith dagger so that when the time came for him to get to Exegol, he would be able to find the wayfinder which was the only  way to get there. 

How was he given the dagger by the Emperor then? And how did that person get back to the Emperor? 

Why would you have him not go to Exegol in the first place, or if you were going to be all secretive about it, why would you not have him just drop her off where you picked up the dagger and then have whomever gave him the dagger go back to Exegol? 

And why did Palpatine stop looking for Rey?

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

I'm not sure he knew where he was, or how to get there, or ever personally met Palpatine post-RotJ. What says he did? 

The movie we just watched? Luke certainly thought that. 

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

C-3PO explained that there were some kind of Galactic Republic regulations that forbade him, which means whatever spare parts Anakin used to build him already had that block in palce. 

So why would you program him to understand it at all? (the programmer in me knows exactly the answer to this, and it's a very depressing one)

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

He already knew the route to Exegol and no longer needed a wayfinder to take him there, I thought.

Doesn't work that way apparently - you need to have the route. Otherwise they would have gotten it from Ren. 

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

First Order ships were in Endor, as we see in the celebration montage. 

But no where near him, and no reason to help him at that point. 

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

Kijimi, I think the planet is called. I feel like that was explained, but I can't recall it off hand, as this was still in the very hectic patching-up-TLJ-related-problems part of the movie. 

It wasn't explained. 

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

That stainless unobtanium on an air-tight space ship does wonders. (I will grant that this was weak. They should have had Luke stop her from destroying the TIE in the first place rather than doing that, but this is one of the places where JJ goes overboard. I mean, if I remember right, Luke was supposed to have used part of the X-Wing for the door to his hut or something, so it was a little surprising to see it fully intact.) 

It was totally awesome, and totally didn't make sense. 

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

I actually think Kylo planned that to try and see Rey's limits with the dark side, given what he says later. I suppose he told the Knights of Ren to capture whoever they could quietly, and arrange an empty transport to see what she did when they confronted one another. 

That is really impressive gymnastics. It still doesn't answer why they wouldn't capture Finn and Poe and C3P0. 

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

Wuv. That's pretty much straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark, though I hope Zorri wasn't thirteen when she fell for Poe...

There was a bit in Raiders where Jones saves her from dying horribly. 

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

How do you mean? She must have made it, I assume. We know she gave it to Luke, and he took it with him to Ahch-to.

I mean we don't hear anything about it from anyone ever, until this very last thing, and the main reason is so that they can have two lightsabers. 

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

See TFA.

Yes, leaning on prior plotholes doesn't make this less of a plothole.

Another one - so the Emperor wanted Rey to kill him so he'd inhabit her body as a ghost, right? So...why doesn't he inhabit her body as a ghost when she ends up killing him? (IMO, it would have been both better fanservice and make more sense that Rey couldn't actually kill Palpatine because of this, but Ben could - and Ben gave himself up to save her, just like Vader gave himself up to save Luke. But that didn't happen, sooo...)

[Jen'ari]

2 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Oh shit, Rey’s mother was Jodie Comer! I knew i recognised her brief appearance but was too busy thinking on ither stuff at the time in the cinema (like where the fuck is Keri Russel’s luscious locks. And her face too of course. Seems a waste to get someone so talented and just put a bucket over her head)

As we don't know if it was Reys mother or father who was descended from Palpatine, I'm going to assume it was her, and henceforth Villianelle is a Sith Lord .

[Kalbear]

Just now, Jen'ari said:

As we don't know if it was Reys mother or father who was descended from Palpatine, I'm going to assume it was her, and henceforth Villianelle is a Sith Lord .

We do, Palpatine says that it was his son that was her dad.