Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker- critical reaction

[Punisher007]

. Tfa (7/10).
2.tlj (3/10).
3. Tros (2/10).

[Anthony W]

With Last Jedi I was never bored, I just sat there wide awake seeing some of this characters like Luke get character assassinated. Rey continuing her Mary Sue journey,

It just occurred to me that Rey isn't a MaRey (See what I did there?) Sue she is a Disney Princess dropped into the Star Wars Universe.

Good at everything right away? Disney Princess
Gets into dangerous fights and never has a body part chopped off? Disney Princess
Always wins. Disney Princess
Ends up inheriting everything in the end? Disney Princess
Wakes up from a death like sleep with a prince by her side? Disney Princess

Sorry for the edit but I have more...

Father is royalty? Disney Princess
Everyone loves her the second they meet her? Disney Princess.

[WebLurker]

It just occurred to me that Rey isn't a MaRey (See what I did there?) Sue she is a Disney Princess dropped into the Star Wars Universe.

You should tell the Disney Princess people that; maybe they'll make toys of it.

Good at everything right away? Disney Princess

Wrong. Some things, like tech, are things she's been doing for years by the time we meet her. She crashed the Falcon through a gate on her first time flying it. Her starting Force skills are a bit overstated when taking things into context of the larger franchise ("You need a teacher"). She's a terrible shot with a blaster.

Gets into dangerous fights and never has a body part chopped off? Disney Princess

By that same logic, Han Solo is a Disney Princess, too.

Always wins. Disney Princess

Let's see, Kylo overpowered her on Takodana, she failed to convince Luke to return, and accidentally destroyed the transport she was trying to pull down with Force lighting.

Ends up inheriting everything in the end? Disney Princess

We actually don't know what happened to the Falcon, the lightsabers make sense given that their original owners were her teachers (and she did burry them and make her own in the end), and its unclear if BB-8 was "inherited" or just coming along for support.

Wakes up from a death like sleep with a prince by her side? Disney Princess

Happenstance.

Sorry for the edit but I have more...

Father is royalty? Disney Princess

She was born after the Empire was overthrown.

Everyone loves her the second they meet her? Disney Princess.

Han doesn't. Kylo doesn't. Snoke doesn't. Those that do do have obvious reasons (she saved BB-8's heinie, she and Finn bond over their escape, etc.).


Sorry, not convinced.

[Joker]

It just occurred to me that Rey is a Disney Princess

As is Leia. So what?

[Anthony W]

As is Leia. So what?

Leia is just "a" princess that Disney bought. Rey is a full blown Disney Princess. The only thing this trilogy was missing was her breaking out into song lol.

[Joker]

Again, so what?

[MASTER-OF-SUPRISE]

Having just seen the movie I am convinced critics have a preference for cynical deconstructions and dislike tales that are optimistic.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Having just seen the movie I am convinced critics have a preference for cynical deconstructions and dislike tales that are optimistic.

Critics are like any group in the audience. Make a movie that makes them feel smart, knowing, and their biases and suspicions are confirmed, and they'll fall in.

It's not any different from movies which target fanboys and so on. Some critics are smart and honest about this, others less so.

[bob.schoonover]

Critics are like any group in the audience. Make a movie that makes them feel smart, knowing, and their biases and suspicions are confirmed, and they'll fall in.

It's not any different from movies which target fanboys and so on. Some critics are smart and honest about this, others less so.

This seems pretty right. It's also worth noting how many mindless genre movies critics end up seeing - it's impossible to imagine that the drain of seeing so many mediocre sci-fi and fantasy movies doesn't affect their view of even good genre movies. For example, I think the way TLJ seemingly ended a bunch of "continuing story points" (e.g. killing Snoke, saying Rey's parents were no one, etc.) was a bad choice* for the middle movie of a trilogy or the eighth movie of a nine movie cycle, but I can see how a critic who has seen their 23rd Marvel movie that continues plot points from the first, their sixth Transformers movie, their ninth Fast & Furious movie, would be MORE inclined to like that idea and have hope that they could see IX w/almost no baggage.

As a side note, I sometimes butt heads w/Jack in the Spider-man forums (I think mostly cordially and because we like the property so much), but it's lovely to see his posts in the SW forum and how much I agree with them.

*Not that any one of these couldn't have been done, but the totality of them was overkill

[Revolutionary_Jack]

This seems pretty right. It's also worth noting how many mindless genre movies critics end up seeing - it's impossible to imagine that the drain of seeing so many mediocre sci-fi and fantasy movies doesn't affect their view of even good genre movies. For example, I think the way TLJ seemingly ended a bunch of "continuing story points" (e.g. killing Snoke, saying Rey's parents were no one, etc.) was a bad choice* for the middle movie of a trilogy or the eighth movie of a nine movie cycle, but I can see how a critic who has seen their 23rd Marvel movie that continues plot points from the first, their sixth Transformers movie, their ninth Fast & Furious movie, would be MORE inclined to like that idea and have hope that they could see IX w/almost no baggage.

Yeah, the critics really got fooled with TLJ. The Last Jedi doesn't have anything tangible or human to say. It's entirely working in the context of Star Wars baggage and because it seems to say what critics want to hear or what they felt, people gave it undue credit. It's a movie about "Star Wars fatigue, prequel letdown, and the Disney spinoffs". I mean it spends an entire movie showing Luke to be a fraud and then in the end, he is still a fraud but he becomes a toy for children to play with so that makes it okay...and there's nothing ironic or deconstructionist there. It's played straight. Rey being "nobody" and so on is one of those "good-ideas-in-theory-but-poor-in-execution" concepts since what it does is position Kylo at Rey's expense. TROS spells out clearly that the ST is Rey's story, whereas TLJ amounted to saying she could be replaced by Broom Boy and the story would be the same.

Whereas The Last Jedi is entirely about Star Wars fandom and those who are tired of it. And that's true of the entire ST. They were made by fanboys who loved the OT and wanted to free the franchise from the Prequels. So that's why everyone blathered about practical effects during production even if they used way more CGI than the prequels did (which used more practical effects than the OT). These movies are made by two film-makers (Abrams and Johnson) who have a history of telling highly convoluted stories working in a franchise where the main storytelling is on the surface and goes from A-B and B-C. Both Abrams and Johnson are also "meta guys" so their knowingness infects the movies.

The Star Wars prequels is about the fear of death and how that produces fascism, it's about the weak institutions that fail to prevent the erosion of liberty, it's about authoritarianism. It likewise paints Darth Vader as a school shooter in the Jedi youngling massacre, which is a really contemporary thing for Lucas to have done. And Lucas created an entire new aesthetic to show the world of the prequels. Whereas the sequels just continue 30 years later with the galaxy looking like the Empire. That was a dumb choice. I mean logically the ST is closer to the PT in that it's about how the Republic gets subverted by the Empire rather than with the Empire in charge...ideally the movies' goal should have been doing the prequels but with the OT cast in terms of story and world-building, instead we have Empire and Rebellion cosplayers amid theme-park settings and props of the OT and it means zilch.

As a side note, I sometimes butt heads w/Jack in the Spider-man forums (I think mostly cordially and because we like the property so much), but it's lovely to see his posts in the SW forum and how much I agree with them.

Thanks. It's been a year since I'm on CBR and all of you were locked in with me. Glad you stuck it out, hopefully won't be as hard in the future.

[David Walton]

Using the Jedi Order as a vehicle to take on religious reform was a great concept that got lost in extremes.

Luke would have been the ideal bridge between the failings of the old Jedi Order and its future. Contrary to Johnson's implications, Luke was aware of the institution's failings by ROTJ, as he rejected both Obi-Wan and Yoda pushing him to kill Vader. If anyone was more likely to romanticize the Jedi Order it would have been Rey, who had only encountered the concept as a legend.

The idea of Luke using his powers less as an offensive mechanism and more to turn his opponent's negative energies back on themselves was great. A lot could have been done with Luke experimenting with more creative uses of his power and passing that onto students. That might have been a truly revolutionary idea: Luke rejecting the lightsaber as the Jedi's primary weapon. More of a training tool until the Jedi is ready to move on as Yoda had by ESB.

[Mider2009]

Haven’t seen it but I’ve read the spoilers

Frankly I’m not interested

[SiegePerilous02]

Haven’t seen it but I’ve read the spoilers

Frankly I’m not interested

You're not missing much.
See Cats instead because at least it sounds like it will be a memorable trainwreck.

[Triniking1234]

I'll be seeing the movie tomorrow but after seeing some of the spoilers, it ain't looking good.

Also I'm hating all of this Rian Johnson defending. The Last Jedi was a 5/10.

https://www.cbr.com/the-rise-of-skyw...-rian-johnson/

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

I'll be seeing the movie tomorrow but after seeing some of the spoilers, it ain't looking good.

Also I'm hating all of this Rian Johnson defending. The Last Jedi was a 5/10.

https://www.cbr.com/the-rise-of-skyw...-rian-johnson/

Even as someone who wasn’t crazy about Last Jedi, this trilogy would have been better off following up on the threads of that and crafting a cohesive and unique trilogy instead of doing what they did here. Now it all just feels like a disjointed mess and we basically got a video game plot filled with so much fan service it overwhelms combined with basically a soft remake of Return if the Jedi