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Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, a new thread arises


mormont

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So it took me a little while to see this because of personal reasons. But in general,my view is that it's a perfectly acceptable slice of Star Wars. If it disappoints, it's because it could and should have been more. It takes the safe option far too often, it could have done with more editing time, and as much as it pains me to say so, it hobbles itself by trying to crowbar as much Carrie Fisher on-screen as possible - mostly early in the movie, too. (Not that Carrie Fisher on-screen is a bad thing - quite the reverse. But the convulsions of pacing and dialogue required to get her there are obvious and waste goodwill from the viewer.)

Is the film a bit silly from time to time? Yes. But that's OK. It's Star Wars. Someone forging a dagger as a map to a highly portable item makes no sense at all but it's the sort of nonsense you can ignore in the service of having a good time.

The more substantial flaws come from what I assume are studio edicts to pretend TLJ didn't mean what it said, we take it all back, give us another chance, nerds! So we get Rey Palpatine, whose parents were nobody only 'from a certain point of view' (I'm somewhat surprised they didn't just go with that line), Rose Tico announcing why she isn't going to be in this film, Kylo's mask is back, etc. 

None of these are crippling flaws though. They're just wasted opportunities to do something more interesting. Abrams and Disney decided to play it safe. So it's fun, but not emotionally engaging. Which is a shame. I teared up and got thrills during the first two: this one, the emotional beats just didn't land for me at all.

Still parsecs ahead of any of the prequel trilogy, though. Those films were actively bad.

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3 hours ago, mormont said:

So it took me a little while to see this because of personal reasons. But in general,my view is that it's a perfectly acceptable slice of Star Wars. If it disappoints, it's because it could and should have been more. It takes the safe option far too often, it could have done with more editing time, and as much as it pains me to say so, it hobbles itself by trying to crowbar as much Carrie Fisher on-screen as possible - mostly early in the movie, too. (Not that Carrie Fisher on-screen is a bad thing - quite the reverse. But the convulsions of pacing and dialogue required to get her there are obvious and waste goodwill from the viewer.)

Is the film a bit silly from time to time? Yes. But that's OK. It's Star Wars. Someone forging a dagger as a map to a highly portable item makes no sense at all but it's the sort of nonsense you can ignore in the service of having a good time.

The more substantial flaws come from what I assume are studio edicts to pretend TLJ didn't mean what it said, we take it all back, give us another chance, nerds! So we get Rey Palpatine, whose parents were nobody only 'from a certain point of view' (I'm somewhat surprised they didn't just go with that line), Rose Tico announcing why she isn't going to be in this film, Kylo's mask is back, etc. 

None of these are crippling flaws though. They're just wasted opportunities to do something more interesting. Abrams and Disney decided to play it safe. So it's fun, but not emotionally engaging. Which is a shame. I teared up and got thrills during the first two: this one, the emotional beats just didn't land for me at all.

Still parsecs ahead of any of the prequel trilogy, though. Those films were actively bad.

Your faith in the ST is disturbing. I think both trilogies had their strong and weak points. The PT, IMO, had superior lightsaber fights and also had the benefit of following a script already written more or less. The ST may be better for the average fan, but for those of us who are invested in the history they just made way to many mistakes that cannot be overlooked.

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18 minutes ago, The Last Storm said:

Your faith in the ST is disturbing. I think both trilogies had their strong and weak points. The PT, IMO, had superior lightsaber fights

Eh, not so much. 

18 minutes ago, The Last Storm said:

and also had the benefit of following a script already written more or less.

Not a script but a plot, and this was not really to its benefit. In fact one of the major problems with the prequels in general and Revenge of the Sith in particular is that by the time of ROTS, so many required plot points had not yet been addressed. This made ROTS unwieldy from a plot point of view. But that's another story, literally. 

18 minutes ago, The Last Storm said:

The ST may be better for the average fan, but for those of us who are invested in the history they just made way to many mistakes that cannot be overlooked.

Ugh. The assumption there that you are more invested in the history than I am is pretty telling. 

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3 minutes ago, mormont said:

Ugh. The assumption there that you are more invested in the history than I am is pretty telling. 

Well it’s very hard for me to enjoy much of the ST when much from the OT (which I hope we agree should be the map both trilogies follow) is basically discarded. Say what you want about the PT, besides small things like Obi having Gin as his master ect it didn’t deviate from the what we knew.

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@HelenaExMachina

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Of all the criticisms of RoS this is probably the first time i have seen that one and i couldn’t disagree more. Even when given dud material the acting in this trilogy has been very good imo, with Driver and Ridley being the highlights. Acting is probably one thing i would say this trilogy has over the OT.

Well I won’t bang on about it because it’s probably subjective but I’d say it was a masterclass in blank expressions if anything. I thought Harrison Ford was more affecting in his brief role than anything Driver did.  Even Carrie Fisher was bad, so to speak.  Not her fault, obviously. Not any of the performers fault really.  But the bad acting was still there on the screen.

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1 hour ago, The Last Storm said:

Well it’s very hard for me to enjoy much of the ST when much from the OT (which I hope we agree should be the map both trilogies follow)

Why would we agree on that? 

If I want to see a trilogy of films that follows that map, I have the OT on the shelf. 

1 hour ago, The Last Storm said:

Say what you want about the PT, besides small things like Obi having Gin as his master ect it didn’t deviate from the what we knew.

That's not actually a good thing, even if it were true (which it really isn't). 

I love the OT. But let's not fetishise them and ask for ritual recreations of them every few years. New stories should be new. 

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5 hours ago, mormont said:

Which is a shame. I teared up and got thrills during the first two: this one, the emotional beats just didn't land for me at all.

Interestingly, for the most part TRoS was the film that engaged me most emotionally. Yes, Han's death was a moment, and Luke's joining the Force was stirring, but those were the only things that really moved me, and I realized that all of those moments were tied only to the OT characters. TRoS was the film where it was predominantly the new characters that moved me: the eucatastrophic moment of Poe's apology for his failure followed by the arrival of hope in the form of the fleet of rescuers, Rey calling to the spirits of the Jedi who came before her or choosing her family at the end, Ben's sacrifice.... there were a lot of moments, starting (yes) with Leia reaching to Kylo and Ben's memory of his father playing out, but then extending beyond the old and into the new.

Obviously, mileage does vary on when things click or not for a person.

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1 minute ago, Ran said:

Interestingly, for the most part TRoS was the film that engaged me most emotionally. Yes, Han's death was a moment, and Luke's joining the Force was stirring, but those were the only things that really moved me, and I realized that all of those moments were tied only to the OT characters. TRoS was the film where it was predominantly the new characters that moved me: the eucatastrophic moment of Poe's apology for his failure followed by the arrival of hope in the form of the fleet of rescuers, Rey calling to the spirits of the Jedi who came before her or choosing her family at the end, Ben's sacrifice.... there were a lot of moments, starting (yes) with Leia reaching to Kylo and Ben's memory of his father playing out, but then extending beyond the old and into the new.

Obviously, mileage does vary on when things click or not for a person.

See, the moment with Rey doesn't land for me because other than Luke and Leia, Rey doesn't really have an existing connection to those Jedi who came before. It feels unearned. It could have worked better if given a bit more time to breathe, I think. 

I felt there were a number of emotional moments for the new characters in TLJ - particularly for Rey - but as you say, MMV. 

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3 hours ago, mormont said:

Rey doesn't really have an existing connection to those Jedi

I don't think who the Jedi were as individuals mattered. She ended the first film looking for Luke to train her to be a Jedi, the second film learning to be a Jedi, the third film opens with her continuing her Jedi training (but not managing to communicate with the spirits of Jedi past despite her obvious power). So it was more the affirmation of her embracing, and being embraced by, the Jedi that moved me. I don't even know who half the characters were (I've never watched the cartoons).

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9 hours ago, mormont said:

I teared up and got thrills during the first two: this one, the emotional beats just didn't land for me at all.

 

3 hours ago, Ran said:

Interestingly, for the most part TRoS was the film that engaged me most emotionally.

Team Ran?      I saw the actors' workshop faces they were making in the first two movies, but since nothing was really happening the smouldering emotions didn't seemed to connect to anything, or to me.  Emotion in isolation, sort of like rehearsal.  I see those films as demos.   Extended trailers.  And this new one as the event.  Maybe for me it worked precisely because they had to pull back from all that smouldering to fit in all the events.   When things are really happening to people and they must deal with it, it's easier for me to connect with that then when the rey/ren long distance stare down was happening in TLJ and they were sending each other looks of "why you little stinker you!"

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29 minutes ago, Ran said:

I don't think who the Jedi were as individuals mattered. She ended the first film looking for Luke to train her to be a Jedi, the second film learning to be a Jedi, the third film opens with her continuing her Jedi training (but not managing to communicate with the spirits of Jedi past despite her obvious power). So it was more the affirmation of her embracing, and being embraced by, the Jedi that moved me. I don't even know who half the characters were (I've never watched the cartoons).

Yeah, that's what I mean when I say maybe if the moment had more room to breathe. In the moment, it didn't have those resonances for me: it was just a cool way for her to power up as the plot required. There wasn't anything substantial about her being embraced by those Jedi and becoming part of their tradition, they just gave her a way to kick Palpatine's ass.

Besides, the Jedi sucked. :p

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I guess I understand how all the people who made fun of the Leia in space scene felt now, cause the Jedi voices part of TROS just made me laugh. I think when the dagger matched up to random Death Star wreckage is when I just complete checked out.

Also I absolutely hate her choosing the name Skywalker. She might as well have winked at the screen.

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56 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

I guess I understand how all the people who made fun of the Leia in space scene felt now, cause the Jedi voices part of TROS just made me laugh. I think when the dagger matched up to random Death Star wreckage is when I just complete checked out.

Also I absolutely hate her choosing the name Skywalker. She might as well have winked at the screen.

Welcome to the dark side.

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I especially appreciate that they needed a map to tell them that the wayfinder...was in the Emperor's throne room, which is basically the most obvious place to look anywhere. 

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9 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I especially appreciate that they needed a map to tell them that the wayfinder...was in the Emperor's throne room, which is basically the most obvious place to look anywhere. 

I think finding the room would be a bit of a needle-in-a-haystack if you didn't know that there was a throne room to begin with, or where it was located in the wreckage. It's a pretty big wreck.

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2 minutes ago, Ran said:

I think finding the room would be a bit of a needle-in-a-haystack if you didn't know that there was a throne room to begin with, or where it was located in the wreckage. It's a pretty big wreck.

Wouldn’t it have resonated with force energy or something?, like there have been previous examples of Jedi/Sith sensing the power within places etc.

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Just now, Jen'ari said:

Wouldn’t it have resonated with force energy or something?, like there have been previous examples of Jedi/Sith sensing the power within places etc.

That, I can't say, though I feel like the death place of Palpatine v1.0 would probably have a lot of bad juju in general. 

I do recall how the cave in Dagobah drew Luke to it, but I guess you'd still have to be a certain distance to feel that dark side energies or whatever.

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