Star Wars Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker (Spoilers)

[ChrisIII]

I'm actually kind of curious about Vader's helmet. Did Ren just leave it on Kimiji or take it back to the Star Destroyer ("Steadfast" according to sources as apparentally the Finalizer from TFA and TLJ was abandoned in the Disney Ride of all things)? Either way looks like it got destroyed for good.

[ChrisIII]

Another slight problem is Luke's X-wing, in TLJ it's missing a Wing (or S-foil) and you can figure out where it is-It's luke's hut door (You can even see the faded red markings). So I guess Luke did a quick repair job on the X-wing too while he was getting it out of the sea?

[Mia]

Finally saw the thing after over a week of avoiding spoilers like they were machine gun flack in an action flick.

It was...fine.

As well made as any piece of cinematic cowardice I've ever seen.

The movie goes out of its way to retcon ALL the most interesting parts of The Last Jedi: (you don't need to be anyone in particular to use The Force, The Jedi and the Sith aren't the be and end all of the Galaxy).

--How does it retcon it out, when Finn says that he's force sensitive? Rey;’s being Palpatine's granddaughter and inheriting his powers. Does not mean that no one else can inherit Force like capabilities.

You mean to tell me Ray's Dad is Lord Palpatine's son and this imperial aristocrat can't think of anything better plan to hide her than to strand his daughter on a desert planet?

--It’s in the film. The mother and father were being hunted by Palpatine's bounty hunter Oochie. They ‘sold’ Rey to a junk trader and probably took off quickly so that no one could cover their tracks. Further I am guessing that no one in their right mind would suspect that they would offload their child to a junk trader. Jakku is a glorified garbage dump. What loving parent (and from money/aristocratic lineage) puts their 10 year old child to work in a garbage dump? They would most likely think that they would give her to some fellow noble.

And before Oochie could do further investigations he died. And the trail went cold. If Ochie was the kind of bounty hunter/tracker I suspect he was, he certainly was not going to share his work or knowledge of it with anyone else. So no one knew what he was up to and who his mark was. Therefore no one would go looking for Rey.

I get how Emperor Palp can build a fleet with the Empire's resources. But how did he do that as a half dead DarkSide zombie at the bottom of a pit? What'd he do create an army of Zombie Engineers?

--I think it was explained in the film, or at least as I understand it, in that part of the galaxy which was ruled by the Sith. They would still have sympathizers who would work on building the Sith fleet.

This movie didn't even have the guts to [Spoil]let Threepio's memory wipe sacrifice stick

- Don'’t see how this is problematic to the structure of the film.

So I think its pretty hilarious that not only did the critics who liked TLJ bash the movie. But if Youtube is anything to judge by, the Nerds they tried to appease ended up hating it anyway.

They didn't try and appease the ‘nerds who hated it’. If Disney had done that, then ROS would have been a facile empty film like Rogue One. A film which I walked out. Instead of ROS (as of today) having watched it 7 times –yes in a movie theater. .

[wjowski]

TLJ had problems but this was just utter crap. The whole plot reads like a bad EU story with the absurd 'daughter of Palpatine' crap and the one zillion trillion gillion Death Stars. And that's not even getting into the cloning nonsense. Imagine lifting plot points from Dark Empire for the finale of the first Star Wars trilogy in a decade.

Bonus negative points for throwing Rose under the bus after the **** the fandom put her actress through on social media.

[WebLurker]

TLJ had problems but this was just utter crap. The whole plot reads like a bad EU story with the absurd 'daughter of Palpatine' crap...

Dunno, liked the thematic idea of it and did work as a followup to her previous brushes with the dark side.

...and the one zillion trillion gillion Death Stars.

TLJ established that the First Order had "miniaturized Death Star tech," so it did make logical sense that the Final Order would have access to weapons like that.

And that's not even getting into the cloning nonsense.

Cloning was a well-established science since before the prequels. I will concede I would've liked more clarification on how Palpatine got Snoke into the First Order and exactly what Snoke was (a being secretly being controlled, a confederate, a brain-dead husk that Palpatine remote controlled, etc.).

Imagine lifting plot points from Dark Empire for the finale of the first Star Wars trilogy in a decade.

Was it on purpose or just different authors going to the same well?

Bonus negative points for throwing Rose under the bus after the **** the fandom put her actress through on social media.

I did not like that at all.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

I'm actually kind of curious about Vader's helmet. Did Ren just leave it on Kimiji or take it back to the Star Destroyer ("Steadfast" according to sources as apparentally the Finalizer from TFA and TLJ was abandoned in the Disney Ride of all things)? Either way looks like it got destroyed for good.

Luke's lightsaber got dropped in cloud city and then got ripped apart in the last film. Vader's helmet realistically should have been burned beyond slavaging in ROTJ (that's kind of the poiint of a funeral pyre). They can bring it back if they want it

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

TLJ had problems but this was just utter crap. The whole plot reads like a bad EU story with the absurd 'daughter of Palpatine' crap and the one zillion trillion gillion Death Stars. And that's not even getting into the cloning nonsense. Imagine lifting plot points from Dark Empire for the finale of the first Star Wars trilogy in a decade.

Bonus negative points for throwing Rose under the bus after the **** the fandom put her actress through on social media.

The worst part is that at least Dark Empire EXPLAINED why they brought Palpatine back. Here he was just back because. Also the only interesting thing Dark Empire did was have Luke test himself in the belly of the beast by being mentored by the Emperor, which really is the one cool thing you could do with him as his attempts to seduce Luke in ROTJ are still his best scenes. If it was an entire film of Rey who we knew had a propensity towards the dark side going around with her grandfather who was trying to groom her as the new Empress and it was about maybe Kylo who finally felt remorse and sensed the danger of the
Emperor teaming with Finn and Poe to save their friend it could have been a unique and satisfying story of Rey being her own person and rejecting something that actually could have made sense to her character. But it was another Luke situation of "turn evil", "no", "okay time to get zapped".

But they didn't. They just rehashed the shittiest points of Dark Empire, didn't even attempt to explain it which made it worse, didn't establish things well like the new fleet and the Emperors force storm (which is what I'm calling his lightshow at the end) and just had them their and then rehashed ROTJ mixed with a video game get this thing, to find this thing, turns out you didn't even need it, and it was all to go to this place that this other guy was going to take you to anyways.

[motherofpearl1]

The worst part is that at least Dark Empire EXPLAINED why they brought Palpatine back. Here he was just back because. Also the only interesting thing Dark Empire did was have Luke test himself in the belly of the beast by being mentored by the Emperor, which really is the one cool thing you could do with him as his attempts to seduce Luke in ROTJ are still his best scenes. If it was an entire film of Rey who we knew had a propensity towards the dark side going around with her grandfather who was trying to groom her as the new Empress and it was about maybe Kylo who finally felt remorse and sensed the danger of the
Emperor teaming with Finn and Poe to save their friend it could have been a unique and satisfying story of Rey being her own person and rejecting something that actually could have made sense to her character. But it was another Luke situation of "turn evil", "no", "okay time to get zapped".

But they didn't. They just rehashed the shittiest points of Dark Empire, didn't even attempt to explain it which made it worse, didn't establish things well like the new fleet and the Emperors force storm (which is what I'm calling his lightshow at the end) and just had them their and then rehashed ROTJ mixed with a video game get this thing, to find this thing, turns out you didn't even need it, and it was all to go to this place that this other guy was going to take you to anyways.

I'm an unashamed Reylo shipper so naturally I'm disappointed in the ending.
But that isn't the main reason I despise this film.
Not only did it treat three of its stars shamefully, it's a bad movie. People hate on The Last Jedi, yet it was original, thought provoking and had some terrific performances. The prequels get a lot of bad press, but both McGregor and McDiarmid were first rate, and they had a good plotline.

I was genuinely stunned at the corny scenes, awful editing and complete lack of a coherent plot. A lot of people loved it, which was fine, I'm glad they didn't waste their money. But for me it has tainted the entire saga.
The Skywalker/Solo family [I][were/I] Star Wars. They can call Rey what they want, but at the end of the day she will NEVER be anything other than a descendant of the Emperor. Lucasfilm have destroyed the heart and soul of Star Wars by killing off its first family.

I honestly wonder if I'll ever be able to watch anything SW related again. The magic's gone.

[kingaliencracker]

I really enjoyed TLJ. But when I found out that there was a group of fans who really, REALLY despised TLJ, I realized what a mistake it was to go back to the Skywalkers and the original characters in the first place, especially when I heard some of the specific complaints being levied towards TLJ. Similar complaints were there with the prequels, mind you. But with the prequels it was harder for fans to feel justified since it was George Lucas at the helm. Further, while the prequels proved inferior to the original trilogy, they were more or less inoffensive to the overall Star Wars lore. Everything lined up the way it was supposed to, which is the heart of the problem fans had with TLJ and why the sequel trilogy ultimately failed.

Star Wars fans have a sense of ownership of the characters and universe that is really unrivaled with any other franchise. So when TLJ turned fans' preconceived notions of the characters and universe on their combined heads, fans lost their minds. Then Abrams, who only really wanted to do an inoffensive quasi remake of New Hope in TFA and introduce a few new characters along the way, was more or less dragged back in to direct Rise of Skywalker and undo everything that fans hated in TLJ. This resulted in a complete fan-service film that of course they love because it resets everything back to how they want it, but was riddled with contrivances, plot reversals, and inconsistencies that critics disliked. And now, the entire film franchise is a mess.

In hindsight, Disney should have focused more on Rogue One-type movies versus trying to continue from where RotJ left off. Rogue One to me is everything I personally love about Star Wars and a prime example of how you can expand the Star Wars universe in film without undoing or redoing anything that's been done before.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Star Wars fans have a sense of ownership of the characters and universe that is really unrivaled with any other franchise.

JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson are both part of the same fandom. They are included and not apart from that.

[kingaliencracker]

JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson are both part of the same fandom. They are included and not apart from that.

Maybe. But they're in a position to control and mold the product. Most of fandom are not. And regardless it's like Stan Lee used to say, never give the fans what they think they want.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Maybe. But they're in a position to control and mold the product.

To what end? Because the movies they made are ultimately not speaking to anything outside fan grudges and issues. Both TFA and TLJ are gatekeeping movies about rescuing the Star Wars franchise after the prequels. That's what these movies are all about.

So that drives the stories and stuff in those movies even when it doesn't make a lot of sense for characters in universe. Why is Luke in TLJ badmouthing the Jedi in the prequel era when:
a) He knew from the OT that Obi-Wan and Yoda weren't perfect,
b) He had 30 years to come up with something different,
c) He sunk far lower than they ever did by raising a lightsaber on a child, which Obi-Wan and Yoda would never have done.

Rian Johnson's TLJ is just a meta-movie that makes fun of fans for having theories and overly speculating characters, and other stuff inside it, while it's one big political point is dangerously close to moral equivalency.

When Lucas made the Prequels he was making the movies not just to fill out blanks but to tell a human story...it's about the decay of institutions, it's about the fear of death, it's about failure and defeat coming out of the best intentions. There's none of that in the sequels.

[Moon Ronin]

I think that the sequels suffered from a lack of planning. With different writers doing there own thing without a structure. I know the original trilogy changed over the course of filming but it had a "the buck stops here" with Lucas to either approve or shutdown changes to his story line and helped for it to flow together. The sequels seemed like "here is your sandbox do what ever you want we don't care". Johnson pretty much said this in an interview. With that Abrams made the movie he wanted (which was a good start even if it was "A New Hope 2.0", Johnson made the movie he wanted, (Though it was to "subvert the expectations" of what most thought was interesting about TFA to all be meaningless). And to finish it off Abrams made the movie he kind of wanted (he had to "explain" TLJ such as the Holdo maneuver and other retcons for lack of a better term to fit his story).

In the end we got a story that in inconsistent that does not flow well at all if you watch them all in order (which I did). This in not Johnson or Abrams fault. They were told to make the movie that they wanted and they did. I think that Kathleen Kennedy has not been the best "the buck stops here" person for the job with comments that its hard because there is no real source material to piggy back off of like Marvel did (there is literally hundreds in Star Wars that could be used for inspiration at least). I don't think Disney completely mishandled Star Wars but I do they took it and ran with it with out knowing which direction they were headed and with the sequels trilogy over they are only now trying to find there bearings.

[ChrisIII]

In the old EU, Palpatine also had kids-at least one had her as a mother: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sly_Moore. Thing is she's kind of an alien though and neither Rey or her father are that pastey.

[BeastieRunner]

I think that the sequels suffered from a lack of planning. With different writers doing there own thing without a structure. I know the original trilogy changed over the course of filming but it had a "the buck stops here" with Lucas to either approve or shutdown changes to his story line and helped for it to flow together. The sequels seemed like "here is your sandbox do what ever you want we don't care". Johnson pretty much said this in an interview. With that Abrams made the movie he wanted (which was a good start even if it was "A New Hope 2.0", Johnson made the movie he wanted, (Though it was to "subvert the expectations" of what most thought was interesting about TFA to all be meaningless). And to finish it off Abrams made the movie he kind of wanted (he had to "explain" TLJ such as the Holdo maneuver and other retcons for lack of a better term to fit his story).

In the end we got a story that in inconsistent that does not flow well at all if you watch them all in order (which I did). This in not Johnson or Abrams fault. They were told to make the movie that they wanted and they did. I think that Kathleen Kennedy has not been the best "the buck stops here" person for the job with comments that its hard because there is no real source material to piggy back off of like Marvel did (there is literally hundreds in Star Wars that could be used for inspiration at least). I don't think Disney completely mishandled Star Wars but I do they took it and ran with it with out knowing which direction they were headed and with the sequels trilogy over they are only now trying to find there bearings.

I dunno, apparently the Wayfinder Kylo uses was found on Mustafar and you can see it in Rogue One. Lucky break or evidence of planning?