Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker- critical reaction

[Buried Alien]

Right post; wrong thread. Please delete.

[AJBopp]

This is patently untrue. The decision to make Leia into Luke's sister came during the script writing phase of Return of the Jedi, not before.

So your position is that the Lucas-approved first draft publication of The Star Wars is...what...made up after the fact? I'm confused about what you're suggesting here. Leia and Luke being siblings from the earliest drafts is beyond debate.

[Theleviathan]

They gave the screenplay for this movie to a guy whose last movies was Batman vs. Superman and Justice League.

This made me laugh out loud. I'm not arguing he deserves it, I'm trying to rationalize how this guy gets work at this point.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

So I went and saw the movie today. I had read all the spoilers and was wondering if I should go or not, but then a bunch of friends made the decision for me so we went.

To be honest, I actually enjoyed the movie a great deal. Quite unexpectedly. I'd go so far as to say that this is a movie that works best if you go in knowing the spoilers, because then you can take it for what it is and you can appreciate what it does for the characters. Abrams announcing Palpatine's return way back was a genius stroke since the whole out-of-nowhere-ness of Palps is rubbed out because audiences knew well in advance and they can just accept it on face value when the movie starts.

spoilers:

- To begin with, I don't quite think TROS is a total negation/reversal of TLJ. It is up to a point but the movie does build off some stuff that Rian Johnson did, such as Ben Solo and Rey's force bond and connection, which JJ Abrams uses to a lot of creative ends in terms of translocation of objects and elements from one space to another, and also as a set up for the end-game lightsaber switcheroo. That kind of stuff is a lot of fun to see on a purely conceptual level and visually it's quite a surprise to see fruit and stuff go from a market in Kijima appear in Kylo Ren's personal closet, and Vader's mangled helmet then appear in the market and so on. Luke going to hide in Aach-To and him getting stuck there, and Rey trying to imitate him and so on, is acknowledged and given a pay-off. We even see the porgs. Force Ghosts having powers and so on, also shows up here. - The stuff with Carrie Fisher worked better than expected. I mean obviously some of the seams show. But it's better than otherwise, and thanks to what Abrams did, TROS really does become Leia's movie the way TLJ was Luke's and TFA was Han's. I didn't think it was possible, but that's how it happened. The scene with her funeral is really devastating since you know it's really about Carrie Fisher's death and funeral. - As for Rey Palpatine (which for Spanish speaks, translates as King Palpatine)...thematically this simply works better overall than simply Rey being nobody. It makes Rey into a Star Wars protagonist in the same way that Luke and Anakin were. It makes the story about her, rather than about Kylo. I mean until TRoS, there was an argument that Kylo was the protagonist of the ST...but this movie makes Rey the actual protagonist of her story. Making Rey into a nobody from nowhere was one of those good-ideas-in-theory that simply falls apart when you realize that this deprives Rey from having a real edge and drive in the story, it doesn't allow her to have the special grand context with Anakin and Luke. Rey-the-nobody leaves Kylo as the protagonist of the Skywalker Saga and it deprives the first female trilogy heroine her place at the center of her own goddamn story. - As for the new characters, I have to say Richard E. Grant looks astonishingly like Peter Cushing's Tarkin, far moreso than the CGI Cushing in Rogue One, and I don't know why Abrams simply didn't make him Tarkin's kid. This character is so compelling that it's a damn shame that he didn't show up in the earlier films. Grant oozes the same sinister sociopathic bureaucracy that Tarkin did, but combined here with a personal zealotry to Palpatine. While I don't know if it worked out well for Poe Dameron as a character, I did like Zorii Bliss by Keri Russell, not so much for the character but for her costume design. The costume is really Star Wars-y with a helmet with a Daft-Punk visor, a weird red-pink jacket that's almost Powers Ranges-esque but not quite, and a touch of Captain Cody B-Serials. - What can one say about Ian McDiarmid's Palpatine. This movie cements him as the greatest villain in the Star Wars, and him becoming a Sith God is great. That bit where he unleashes galactic-level Sith Lightning...yeah it's a little more anime and not quite Star Wars but on the other hand it's one of the few times the actual Force abilities affect the battle scenes which otherwise are separate. Palpatine being a total bastard who murders his own children and parasitically leeches off his own grandchild is just a perfect metaphor for patriarchy. Palpatine is truly bottomless as evil. The entire Exegol setting is quite evocative of the rejected plans that Lucas and Kasdan knocked over for Had Abbadon, which was the Fortress World of the Emperor that was going to be the final dungeon of ROTJ but Lucas felt it was too complex and not quite what he wanted. The entire Sith chamber and the scene where Rey almost succumbs to Palpatine to save her friends has a creepy Eyes Wide Shut like cult atmosphere and it's more Lovecraftian and/or Darkseid's Apokolips in atmospherics. - I will agree that Kelly Marie Tran's character was unfairly sidelined. I see no reason why she couldn't have taken Jannah's place in the story. It could well have been her on Endor on a secret mission by the Rebellion and so on. As it is she's fighting by Finn's side alongside Jannah at the end. Anyway, I am happy that JJ had the grace not to kill her at least. - I am glad that Billy Dee Williams' Lando Calrissian shows up as the character he was in ROTJ. He absolutely should have been earlier.

end of spoilers

So mostly I think JJ did bring things home with this. As a third part to a trilogy, it's maybe a better conclusion to its trilogy than ROTJ was to the OT (which is not to say it's better than ROTJ, just that relatively speaking it might be a better conclusion to a trilogy). It's better than The Dark Knight Rises.

As for where it ranks and so on in the Star Wars best-of list, I am not sure yet.

[thwhtGuardian]

So your position is that the Lucas-approved first draft publication of The Star Wars is...what...made up after the fact? I'm confused about what you're suggesting here. Leia and Luke being siblings from the earliest drafts is beyond debate.

It's not beyond debate at all...In Leigh Brackett's draft for Empire Luke's sister is called Nellith. Further, it was Gary Kurtz' recollection that Luke's sister was someone else way over on the other side of the galaxy and she wasn’t going to show up until the then planned episode seven where she would be Luke's apprentice in the sequel trilogy ending with the show down with the Emperor.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

It's not beyond debate at all...In Leigh Brackett's draft for Empire Luke's sister is called Nellith. Further, it was Gary Kurtz' recollection that Luke's sister was someone else way over on the other side of the galaxy and she wasn’t going to show up until the then planned episode seven where she would be Luke's apprentice in the sequel trilogy ending with the show down with the Emperor.

ESB did include some foreshadowing like for instance Leia at the end receives a force-insight that Luke is alive after jumping off the shaft down the chute at Bespin and she, Chewie and others rush over to pick him up.

So I kind of think that Lucas was subconsciously working towards Leia being the sister or in any case having some bond to the Force for some time.

It's true that Lucas had initially planned on Nellith and wanted the OT to be a seven movie serial, but the problems were fundamentally logistical.
-- Harrison Ford was extremely reluctant to continue making these movies, and he was quite reluctant to do any movies after ESB. So Lucas and others came up with carbonite so that they had a backdoor to kill Han Solo in the background or backstory or a cool rescue mission as per Harrison Ford's decisions.
-- Lucas realized that the main characters were Luke, Han, and Leia. Audiences responded to Han and Leia's chemistry making them the love story. So the only way for the story of their friendship to resolve is if Luke wasn't in some ways "rejected".
-- ESB was a terribly expensive production far beyond Lucas' original planned budget thanks in large part to Gary Kurtz's negligence which led Kurtz to step down before production finished. So Lucas realized that at best there was just one more of these films left at that point in his life.

[thwhtGuardian]

ESB did include some foreshadowing like for instance Leia at the end receives a force-insight that Luke is alive after jumping off the shaft down the chute at Bespin and she, Chewie and others rush over to pick him up.

So I kind of think that Lucas was subconsciously working towards Leia being the sister or in any case having some bond to the Force for some time.

It's true that Lucas had initially planned on Nellith and wanted the OT to be a seven movie serial, but the problems were fundamentally logistical.
-- Harrison Ford was extremely reluctant to continue making these movies, and he was quite reluctant to do any movies after ESB. So Lucas and others came up with carbonite so that they had a backdoor to kill Han Solo in the background or backstory or a cool rescue mission as per Harrison Ford's decisions.
-- Lucas realized that the main characters were Luke, Han, and Leia. Audiences responded to Han and Leia's chemistry making them the love story. So the only way for the story of their friendship to resolve is if Luke wasn't in some ways "rejected".
-- ESB was a terribly expensive production far beyond Lucas' original planned budget thanks in large part to Gary Kurtz's negligence which led Kurtz to step down before production finished. So Lucas realized that at best there was just one more of these films left at that point in his life.

The telepathy thing gets brought up as proof of a connection...but that's because of knowledge we gain in Return of the Jedi, but going only off what information we see on screen in Empire it's far more likely to see it as just Luke using a cool Jedi force trick he must have learned from Yoda.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The telepathy thing gets brought up as proof of a connection...but that's because of knowledge we gain in Return of the Jedi, but going only off what information we see on screen in Empire it's far more likely to see it as just Luke using a cool Jedi force trick he must have learned from Yoda.

Luke was unconscious at that moment, and his training was incomplete, and if he could telepathically communicate to Leia why didn't he do it as soon as he arrived at Cloud City?

I think that scene shows Leia having some connection to the Force. That's how everyone has interpreted it.

I am not saying that Lucas had decided mid-ESB that Leia was Luke's sister. I am saying that Lucas had some subsonscious instincts that was geared towards that direction and that when he worked on ROTJ he went there.


It's very similar to how Anakin became Vader. It wasn't something that solidified until Lucas wrote the draft for ESB after Brackett stepped down but if you follow the development of Star Wars from the original drafts to ANH and so on, and if you see the direction of Obi-Wan (a character who really developed during production) in ANH, it feels like it was something Lucas was working towards subconsciously.

[thwhtGuardian]

Luke was unconscious at that moment, and his training was incomplete, and if he could telepathically communicate to Leia why didn't he do it as soon as he arrived at Cloud City?

I think that scene shows Leia having some connection to the Force. That's how everyone has interpreted it.

I am not saying that Lucas had decided mid-ESB that Leia was Luke's sister. I am saying that Lucas had some subsonscious instincts that was geared towards that direction and that when he worked on ROTJ he went there.


It's very similar to how Anakin became Vader. It wasn't something that solidified until Lucas wrote the draft for ESB after Brackett stepped down but if you follow the development of Star Wars from the original drafts to ANH and so on, and if you see the direction of Obi-Wan (a character who really developed during production) in ANH, it feels like it was something Lucas was working towards subconsciously.

I don't think we can really say he was working towards these goals subconsciously, the hints we perceive as leading to that conclusion are just dots our minds are connecting after the fact, and that's just what are brains are trained to do; the human brain makes all kinds of connections between random points of data all the time, we just love patterns for some reason.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I don't think we can really say he was working towards these goals subconsciously,

Star Wars are made differently from most movies, the OT, the PT especially. These are the works of a single guy. Yeah Kershner directed ESB but he himself said that movie is entirely George's (which is why he approved the Special Edition changes that Lucas did).

No other modern film-maker owned his property and had such control over a project like Lucas did (or likely ever will again). So you can see whatever odd elements left in the final edit, whatever close-up and image he placed there, as a product of his subconscious instinct.

the hints we perceive as leading to that conclusion are just dots our minds are connecting after the fact

Well duh. But that doesn't mean the scene in ESB where Leia responds to Luke via force-link isn't there or that it doesn't have meaning. It definitely suggests something. Likewise, "there is another" which Yoda said when Luke left to Cloud City is still fresh in the audience's mind. And the basic rules of continuity film editing (bread and butter since the '20s) point the direction towards that.

There's no evidence that Luke did that in the movie based on the editing.

[AJBopp]

Luke was unconscious at that moment, and his training was incomplete, and if he could telepathically communicate to Leia why didn't he do it as soon as he arrived at Cloud City?

I think it's clear he did it out of desperation, and had no idea if it would actually work. He tried calling out to Ben but had already been told Ben couldn't help him (which I never really understood - perhaps if they had explained why we wouldn't have some of of the outrageous things I've been hearing about in the latest movie).

Also, Luke never lost conciousness.

I don't think we can really say he was working towards these goals subconsciously, the hints we perceive as leading to that conclusion are just dots our minds are connecting after the fact, and that's just what are brains are trained to do

As a writer, as a creator telling an interesting narrative, you don't include certain things without paying them off.

"He's just not a farmer, Owen. He's got too much of his father in him." "That's what I'm afraid of."

What context do those lines possible have if not to foreshadow Vader being Luke's father. Why bother to have the lines at all, or at least leave off the last sentence and reply. Clearly Lucas intended right from the start to set up a dynamic between Luke and his "dead father," and there's no other rational place to take the story than where it went.

"That boy is our last hope." "No, there is another."

The two films went to some pains to set up a love triangle between Luke, Leia and Han, within the context of a type of story in which there could not be a bad ending for anyone. No one was going to "lose" in this relationship. When Yoda says there's another, what would anyone expect other than Leia? That George was going to introduce an unknown character that would save the day in case of Luke's failure?

There are rules and conventions in storytelling, in constructing a narrative as an interwoven driving force behind characters. These kinds of elements are perfect examples of this, and clear evidence that there are basics of the story that were understood from the very beginning.

Did George make changes along the way? Sure, but they were of the sort that said, "Oooo....Jar Jar didn't work very well. Let's play him down in the next movies, but he's still critical to the story and to the fate of the galaxy, so he's not getting written out." Or, "Ohh, Alec doesn't want to play a crazy old hermit, so we'll make him a wise old hermit. But I really like the crazy old hermit so we'll give that personality to Yoda."

That is, he responded to elements that worked and didn't work, and listened to the input given from those around him, but there's no evidence he ever walked back or altered the broad story elements that he had established before filming a single frame.

[ZeroBG82]

"He's just not a farmer, Owen. He's got too much of his father in him." "That's what I'm afraid of."

What context do those lines possible have if not to foreshadow Vader being Luke's father.

Yeah, you're seeing things that aren't there. The line in question ultimately works once Vader is revealed as Anakin, but that clearly wasn't the intent of the original scene. Anakin Skywalker is being portrayed as a wild adventurer. A man who rushes towards danger and puts himself at risk. The kind of man Luke WANTS to be, which is what scares Owen. Owen is showing concern for Luke, not because his father is an evil overlord (which, by the way, Owen doesn't know even in context of what came later) but because he wants the boy he raised to choose a safe, honest life away from danger. It's the equivalent of a boy wanting to join the Army because his late dad was an old war hero, but his adoptive parents are concerned because they know what kind of risks that entails and the boy clearly doesn't really understand them.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

As a writer, as a creator telling an interesting narrative, you don't include certain things without paying them off.

Exactly.

"He's just not a farmer, Owen. He's got too much of his father in him." "That's what I'm afraid of."

What context do those lines possible have if not to foreshadow Vader being Luke's father. Why bother to have the lines at all, or at least leave off the last sentence and reply. Clearly Lucas intended right from the start to set up a dynamic between Luke and his "dead father," and there's no other rational place to take the story than where it went.

You could read those lines as a concerned guardian not wanting their nephew to die like a hero like Anakin but the delivery of that line is vague and suggestive.

It's also left ambiguous exactly how much Owen and Beru, and for that matter most of the common people of the galaxy, know about Anakin being Vader. I mean there's a line in ANH when Luke meets up with Biggs and their commander tells Luke that he heard Anakin was a great pilot and hope he follows through.

And when you see Alec Guinness' performance as Obi-Wan (which is a character developed late into production of ANH), it's even more suggestive. Remember that the close-up on Obi-Wan's face when he hesitantly chooses his words is very much an editor/director's choice. Obi-Wan takes his time before talking to Luke. An editor could have cut straight to Obi-Wan's speech and left out that pause, but George Lucas and Hirsch included that in the edit for ANH (and this is something there in all editions not added in or touched up). You could say that they did it to emphasize emotion and closeness and Obi-Wan has difficulty talking about Anakin, either because he was a really close war buddy (which is still true...Anakin was his brother once), or because it's really difficult for him to talk about it (also true). The twist from ESB makes that scene work really well and it makes Obi-Wan into a far more complex character.

That is, he responded to elements that worked and didn't work, and listened to the input given from those around him, but there's no evidence he ever walked back or altered the broad story elements that he had established before filming a single frame.

Exactly. And it's not so uncommon to how actual writers of fiction and others worked. Look at J. R. R. Tolkien. He wrote The Hobbit, and then the publisher asked for a sequel and he thought about what he could do, and he thought "Hmm...that ring which Bilbo won from Gollum, what if, but wait if that ring is so addictive why did Gollum just give it...I might have to rewrite stuff" and that's what Tolkien did, he actually rewrote a section of the Hobbit and had it published in second and third editions (which is what is in print today). There are other examples where writers and others noted that "characters took a life of their own" and so on.

Most movies aren't usually made that way because virtually no producer/director/writer has that kind of control over the creative process. Charlie Chaplin was one exception, and Lucas is another. And the way Lucas worked out story concepts and ideas across movies, sometimes unconsciously laying down tracks, other times working things there...is quite analogous to how creators in other fields worked out stuff.

[Punisher007]

The OT had the benefit of being structured in a way where the changes mostly felt like they fit, even if they weren't planned that way all along, when it was all said and done.

The ST, they felt a lot less natural. Also as I've said many times, just because Lucas got away with making it up as he went decades ago, doesn't meant that it was a good idea for LF to try and do that now. And for me, a lot of the problems can be traced to a lack of coherent vision or narrative.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The OT had the benefit of being structured in a way where the changes mostly felt like they fit, even if they weren't planned that way all along, when it was all said and done.

The ST, they felt a lot less natural. Also as I've said many times, just because Lucas got away with making it up as he went decades ago, doesn't meant that it was a good idea for LF to try and do that now. And for me, a lot of the problems can be traced to a lack of coherent vision or narrative.

The OT had a narrative style that was fairly simple and straightforward. Right from the get-go, there was no ambiguity that the story would be about the Rebellion defeating the Empire, along the way they level up, stumble, pick-up and then bring it home. Within that framework, there's some room for change and improvisation. Darth Vader was introduced as a lackey to Grand Moff Tarkin and they were all taking orders from some guy called the Emperor, so Vader was never the final boss of the stories even in ANH. It wouldn't matter greatly if he went down in ESB, as far as the overall plot was concerned. On an internal character level, to provide an emotional center of gravity to the stories, and to make Luke Skywalker have a dynamic character arc and growth, Vader got beefed up. And that opened up new stories to tell.


Whereas the ST is overly complicated and convoluted. Under George Lucas, no Star Wars movie had a single flashback. Whereas there's one in each of the movies of the ST. Rey was introduced by a fanfare of visions and flashbacks all hinting that she has a special past. Kylo Ren unlike Vader is introduced as the Jimmy Special of the movies, and was set up in TLJ as the main final villain of the stories. The First Order were simultaneously presented as dangerous and violent and also as jokes at the same time. The pikers of the First Order (Kylo, Hux, Snoke) could never be credible overall villains, they were conceived as meta-jokes rather than characters. So for the actual climax, they had to get legit villains, so Richard E. Grant arrives to immediately sell us on Tarkin 2.0 with his immense gravitas, Palpatine comes back and reminds us who made Vader his little b--ch who he sent to buy cigarettes around the corner...and that closes the story.


In the ST...there was never clarity about the conflict, the scope, and the situation. It was always murky, clouded by meta-jokes and takes, and it was very much playing to the internet cooler room and forums rather than you know a mass audience who need to be brought in emotionally.