Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker *****SPOILER THREAD*****

[SharkyMcShark]

This was not a good movie.


The Good:
- The opening scrawl gave me hope. It sounded genuinely interesting. In practise it was abandoned almost immediately.
- Some parts are gorgeous. The Death Star 2 bits look great.
- I liked the Han Solo cameo. I thought that was well done.

The Bad:
- Hux. An odd waste of the character. He was the spy because he didn't like Kylo? He didn't leak them any meaningful information, and really really obviously existed to free Poe and friends before dying. His death meant nothing. It developed no one's character.
- The whole final confrontation was kind of... generic? The arena looked generic, the way it was visually presented was generic, the format was generic. One of the things I was excited about after TLJ was that this trilogy wouldn't end with our protagonists offing an old wizard in a cloak. This trilogy then went on to end with our protagonists offing an old wizard in a cloak.
- Most of the Leia scenes. It was quite obvious that they were working with dregs in terms of the live action stuff.
- The rules for Palpatine dying (and surviving death) seemed oddly loose. There's a bit where he's trying to get killed because that's how the Sith pass on their power, then he realises he can just suck the life out of Rey and Ben, and then she kills him anyway, but presumably doesn't get the Sith spirits passed on to her?
- Likewise whatever it was that Leia did with Ben when she died seemed to be played a bit fast and loose. I get that they needed to remove her from the film somehow, but it was put together in a very odd way. My first reaction was that Rey caused her death by stabbing Ben while he was connected to Leia, but I'm assuming that this isn't the case because that's never touched on?

The Ugly:
- Palpatine being reinserted into the plot with no finesse or build up. The scene almost literally involves him going 'I did all of that shit and I'm alive for reasons. Don't ask any questions about any of that, just go with it'.
- Rey Palpatine. Awful. Unnecessary. Ultimately meaningless. Would the plot have been any different if she had not been a Palpatine?
- The metric shit ton of fan appeasement. Awful.

Things that didn't fuss me either way:
- Finn is Force sensitive now. Weird flex, but alright.
- Knights of Ren not amounting to anything. It would feel hypocritical if I said this bothered me, because I literally did not care that they weren't in TLJ.
- The copious fan service. Nice that they got all of the actors back to voice the Jedi. It didn't really add anything.

Next time Disney, can you plan this shit before starting the trilogy? Or at least not give it to the world's most generic director to resolve.

[Omega Metro]

I thought it was great. Much better than I thought it would be. There were a few cringey moments like Han Solo cameo and lightning coming coming from Rey’s hands. But yep, I liked it which was a relief.

[Paulbot]

You sum up most of the like and dislikes I had with this film. The lack of planning hurts because it doesn’t feel like the nine movies are one story and there was a better story there that could have been told.

But in some ways it very much the same problem the OT had so it’s tradition.

I don’t think Rey’s attack killed Leia, Leia just spent her energy reaching Kylo Ren which really just was a distraction.

The fan service bothered me, so did the lgbt content which felt forced and token. (Honestly would have preferred they just left it as subtext and didn’t force heteronormative moments on the main characters)

But there were things I liked. The Last Order feeet was stunning reveal (I believe it was in the trailer but I hadn’t seen that) and Lando leading the charge of ‘civilian’ ships fighting back actually brought tears to my eyes.

[shockNwave]

Felt a certain ROTJ (my favorite of the saga) nostalgia while watching this one. It certainly opens like ROTJ.

In giving an overall view it's a movie that ranges from uninteresting to excellent. But is better than The Last Jedi.

PS. If it turns out that Darth Maul from Solo is genetically engineered like Palpatine then I won't be surprised.

[SharkyMcShark]

PS. If it turns out that Darth Maul from Solo is genetically engineered like Palpatine then I won't be surprised.

Unless they decide to ignore Clone Wars (which is canon), the story is that he simply didn't die after being bisected.

[Lord_Zed]

This film is all over the place, I'm not sure what to think, It had some good moments, but I found it hard to care or invest in anything.

My initial thoughts are that Rise of Skywalker is a better 'Star wars film' than Last Jedi, but Last Jedi is a better 'film' than Rise of Skywalker.

[klystron]

I really enjoyed it and was pretty happy with how it wrapped up. I'm satisfied, but none of it was surprising - Rey being a Palpatine was a heavily discussed theory the opening week of TFA; and I was always pretty sure Snoke was a puppet.
For my mind, the issue with the sequel trilogy was the off-track TLJ. Now I'm not a TLJ hater, but I think some of the Rise of Skywalker story could have been told in the second movie. Or at least had its foundations laid. Instead (and this is my only real gripe) Ep9 feels like it had to do too much of heavy lifting. But having said that, I guess there are some parallels here between ESB and TLJ in this regard. Anyways....

Can't wait to watch it a second time!
Always knew that bloody staff would end up as something significant.

[VERT]

Totally loved it. Fan since 77 and it was a good ending for the saga. Ticked all my boxes. With two awesome cameos to boot.

[Miss Kitty Fantastico]

The dysfunctional planning between TFA and TLJ really showed - I liked both films plenty on their own merits, but you could practically see the duct tape where their leftovers had been jammed back together. If it could be done in a spirit of affectionate mischief rather than malice, this'd make an excellent MST3K episode just for the sheer opportunity for snark in how many cracks there were in the plot.

But still, in the end I was satisfied. I didn't expect that - I expected to be entertained, because you can trust JJ for that, but wrangling the well-meaning mess of the sequels into a finale that, for all its flaws, made my little saw-Jedi-at-6 heart feel good about the journey coming to an end at last... that's not a bad result.

[Tha_Phantom]

Saw it last night. Overall I felt it was a good ending to the saga, but definitely not without its flaws.

Some things that bugged me:
Hux betraying the first/final order and dying was random.
Lando felt like forced and unecessary fan pandering. Didn't hurt the movie, but didn't really help it.
Rose was a waste and what happened to her relationship with Finn?
What was Finn going to say to Rey?!
The chemistry between the three leads was barely there. I guess in part that's because we've only seen two of the three together at any one time until the last scene of TLJ.

Can't really critisize Leia scenes as they only had limited material to work with. It is what it is.
Rey being a Palpatine literally made me facepalm in the theatre, but I grew to accept it over the course of the movie and it does tie with bringing Palpatine back.

My biggest issue with this movie was the writing and editing of the first half. Very choppy and things just happened way too conveniently. There was very little build up to the issues that came up and then overcoming them. From the second half onward it seemed to flow a lot better.

Now for the positive:
I really, really liked the ending. It felt like proper closure to the saga.
Reylo is a thing! I totally called it and was happy with the way it was done. There was build up to this in TLJ and I'm glad JJ carried through with it.
I was glad to see Kylo turn to the light and his scene with Han echoing that in TFA, but with a positive outcome this time, was really good.
So glad Rey finally got her own lightsaber. I'm not even sure why there was a need to have the Skywalker lightsaber play such a prominent role in this trilogy after it disappeared in ESB.

I'll be seeing it again on Saturday and I may like it more the second time, but my current view is it deserves a 7/10. Overall I enjoyed it, but it is a bit of a roller-coaster the way it is now. I do think a directors cut would benefit the film immensely.

[i_amtrunks]

I have many conflicting thoughts about this movie. There were some amazing parts, Ridley and Driver were fantastic and I love McDiarmid as Palpatine, but I think that is where the problems begin. The complete lack of planning these movies shows as the big original trilogy bad appears off screen and we don?t get a single ?normal citizen? reaction. The fact he has a thousand star destroyer class ships with planet busting weaponry??? Who made them? Where did the materials come from? Who is manning and running these stupid ships that cannot even fly up???? I can accept that Palpatine survived the Death Star explosion or is a clone, but how did he get all those resources and people to the sith planet? (once again showing Dooku to be the only sith happy to not live or mostly hang out in a creepy cave/temple) it just reeks of poor planning and like many of my thoughts of this film, makes no sense. also if Sheev was so private and the sith have a rule of two, who the hell were all those creatures watching him get publicly murdered??!

The whole Chewie fake out irked me, then the whole rehash of enter the command ship to rescue just was a waste of time and made no sense. Hux was wasted but was also really irritating and barely More than an evil caricature anyway. At least there wasn?t a trash compactor, but I was expecting it as another piece of useless fan service.

The knights of ren did less than snokes guards (skipping the whole Snoke thing for now, that?s another massive cluster of stupidity). Either make them force sensitive pseudo sith or at least decent fighters. Personally I would?ve liked them to be loyal to Kylo/Ben at the end and fight palpatine or at least his guards who were also way worse than snokes guards!

Also going to skip all the wasted characters new and old, the forced time period to act and the fact that no one slept for 16 straight hours, or who destroyed those massive sith star destroyers across the universe, most of it comes down to lazy writing, just like force healing, which makes sense as a power the force could be manipulated with, but it needs a drawback to explain why we hadn?t seen it until yesterday in the mandalorian.
I?m also going to skip my thoughts on Mcguffins leading to Mcguffins.

Overall I like many parts of this film and some of the fan service was excellent. Sadly even more parts made no sense, even for a space opera western, some decisions and subplots were just garbage nonsense and there was altogether far too many winks, nods and circle jerking off fans who complained about the far superior last Jedi.

It?s a mess made by the producers and writers not planning ahead. You shouldn?t have to watch a half dozen television series, read twenty book series and comics to make a big Star Wars style movie make sense or to fill in plot chasms.

I want to like this movie more and rate it higher, but everytime I starts thinking about it, the more issues I find I have with it. It needs major work to be good, some of that is because of the fan service, some from the lack of planning, some from nonsical character decisions and the rest is from trying to pretend the last Jedi didn?t happen because loud whingers and trolls got upset by something different. (Last Jedi isn?t great either but at least it tried to be different and add to the series rather than just replay a greatest hits).

[drifand]

This movie gets a just 7/10 for me. I scored TLJ 6.5 by my memory and later I hated it scoring it less <which yes its unfair but thats after analysing further thoughts.

I already had this concept after TLJ how the movie was going to be saved and it was by introducing a super villain. Why?
It was an obvious collision course after Rian Basically ended the saga to begin with by
1. Killing Snoke > the problem I saw was there was no way Kylo was going to kill Rey in this episode, (there wasn't enough hate and rather they had a thing a moment)
2. Luke died > Techinically Rian had used all the juice of the main plot characters. If Leia had died because Kylo refused to listen to his mum, the story would have been way different.
This was the issue I had in TLJ, IMO no mother would have chicken out and ask her brother to confront her son. No way in any real life situation.
So basically this episode had no serious villain if the emperor doesnt come back into play.
My prediction was that Rey scarified herself to bring Ben back and that was the ending, but this was reverse and I am okay with it.

I guess a lot of fans are arguing about the Rey Skywalker issue. and here is where I felt they could have done better. A few things can be done or said like /ben saying I give you my life my blood, hence Rey becoming a partial skywalker or something within those lines. but yes I know people have a problem with the carrying of the name.

You can tell JJ disapproved Rians take on Rose and Finn as basically there was no more chemistry. The throwing away of light saber was basically a spit onto Rian's take as it specifically stated that it was to be respected. Say it as you will but is kinda obvious.

I have NO issues with Leia's parts, given the situation I say it was even lucky they got that far.
Hux being the spy didn't really sold it to me as the build up of him to betray is very minimal, felt they should have either build on this
Poh didn't feel like a moron such a BIG difference! Finn definitely was better in this episode.

Han solo coming back to give his son the final encouragement was on point. They had to turn Kylo back to Ben somehow and this was a good way to do it.

Lando, I agree didn't do much, basically was put in it to just fill gaps of where is he from Force awakens and TLJ.

IMO JJ did what he could to add enough emotions to the movie. This story has a story to tell unlike how TLJ is and was. I can strike off TLJ and I still enjoy this movie because TLJ had anything moving forward story wise, it concluded rather than give the audience anything to look forward to.

The trilogy as a whole unfortunately is a let down, and it was seriously flawed by TLJ.

For those who were wondering, the book will explain more how the Emperor was able to escape for the ROTJ thrown down by Darth Vader by doing a worm hole porter which drain his power.

There are things I don't like and things I do like. However, and ultimately it did not make me HATE Star Wars and this is a KEY point. One has to realise if you keep finding flaws and plot holes you will start to not enjoy the movie, I have to say though, there wasn't any part in the movie where I went hmm...ur...like I did in TLJ.

The main winner? Mandalorian . why? Baby Yoda sells. Yes simple as it is, people are just liking it. It brought the fandom back together.

A serious lesson here is don't Wing it. Make sure the story is stick and solid from A B and C.

[SharkyMcShark]

I'm impressed, though unfortunately not surprised, that you spent more time talking about The Last Jedi and Rian Johnson than this film in your post.

[drifand]

I like to recap my thought from my previous episode coming into this one. I had no intention to impress you by far.
Is my opinion, you dont have to kiss my review. I am not looking for praises or anything, is nice to see how selfish you can be.

[SharkyMcShark]

I like to recap my thought from my previous episode coming into this one. I had no intention to impress you by far.
Is my opinion, you dont have to kiss my review. I am not looking for praises or anything, is nice to see how selfish you can be.

Ita a public forum. If you dont want anyone to see or comment on your posts perhaps try a diary or journal?

[Tha_Phantom]

So I watched it again today and I liked the movie a lot more on my second viewing, and a friend who had similar criticisms to mine also agreed they liked it more. In fact, a lot of my earlier criticisms just feel like nitpicks now. I still would like to see a longer cut at some point, but as it is the movie is satisfying.

[GoktimusPrime]

My thoughts about The Rise of Skywalker
(and I haven't read the rest of this thread yet as I'm trying not to allow other people's thoughts to dilute mine; I'll come back and read this thread properly later)

PROS
The Sith Fleet. That thing is freaking amazing, and logically, makes way more sense than any Death Star or Starkiller Base. Really. Death Stars and Starkillers are no where near as practical as a fleet. The problem with a battle station is that you've put all your eggs in one basket. Even in The Last Jedi, the Last Order fleet was pretty damn menacing! Compare the Yamato (the largest and most powerful battleship ever made) vs the British Navy. The British never built a single ship as powerful as the Yamato or even the Musashi, but despite all that might it still failed to win WWII for Japan. Yet the fact that the British built a lot of ships - the fact that they had a massive fleet - was a key part in allowing them to conquer the world (and the reason why the English language has become the global lingua franca). The Brits built a stupid number of boats. A killer planet is an even dumber idea because it can only target a planet that it has perfect alignment with... so you literally need to wait for the stars to line up before you can fire your stupid weapon. It's not even mobile like a Star Destroyer. But the Last Order Fleet has the best of both worlds being an actual fleet and each equipped with a planet busting cannon. Effectively each ship was a Death Star. And as a fleet you can scatter them. This made it all the more important for the Resistance to ground this fleet before they can successfully take off; it really raised the stakes and made the big end battle more exciting.
Incredible visuals and great music.
It's a fun swash-buckling adventure, similar to the spirit of the original Star Wars. This is the first time that we've seen Rey, Finn and Poe all together and they work pretty well.
No real wasted scenes or pointless character arcs as we saw in The Last Jedi (re: Canto Bite/casino scene, Finn & Rose's meaningless adventure)
The way that they cut unused scenes shot with Leia from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi and attempting to weave it into the narrative of this movie was done pretty well. Having to work around Carrier Fisher's untimely passing would not have been easy.
Lots of neat Easter Eggs. Anyone else notice that Anthony Daniels^Denis Lawson (Wedge Antilles) appeared as a Rebel pilot manning the gun of the Millennium Falcon? The Emperor's Sith temple reminds me of the one seen in Rebels (where Vader fought Ahsoka). The Wayfinders remind me of Sith Holocrons.
Ben Solo's end was quite suitable. It would've been awkward if he'd survived, really. His ending allowed him to be redeemed and gave him that noble sacrifice, much like what Anakin Skywalker did for Luke
I liked the ending where Rey gives herself the name of Skywalker. This not only ties into her rejection of her Palpatine birthright, but also plays into the film's themes of Belonging and Identity (and the Search for Personal Identity). I also like how the ghosts of the twins looked on with their approval/blessing.
Lightsabres! I like how I could hear hissing sounds as water was hitting the lightsabre blades during the fight atop the ruins in the waves. That's one thing that's bugged me before about the appearances of lightsabres either in the rain or underwater in previous Star Wars movies and TV episodes. These are burning hot blades... why wouldn't they be constantly reacting with water that touches them? I also liked how we finally got to see Leia's lightsabre, and how she used the twins' lightsabres in defeating her grandpappy.
Speaking of which, I also really liked seeing the scene where Luke is training Leia! Finally! The digital de-aged faces on the stunt doubles also looked convincing. They've come a long way since Rogue One.
I like how they discovered more defected ex-Stormtroopers; and also at the end where Jannah says that she doesn't know where she's from (reminding the audience about the long term cost of these Stormtroopers who were abducted as infants). And it was touching for Lando to say that he'd help Jannah find her roots.
How cool was Dio? I didn't think I was gonna like this little hairdryer droid. Poor little dude has survived some serious abuse.

https://i.ibb.co/4jQRYzL/temp.jpg

CONS
The first act was too much. There was just too much exposition packed into it. It's part of the film's damage control (more on that later) and yeah... overwhelming. They would've been better off emulating the pace of the first act in Return of the Jedi; in that film several years have passed since the end of The Empire Strikes Back, but much of that exposition was told through simple things.
e.g. Luke having a new costume and lightsabre and calling himself a Jedi Knight with better skills shows that, yeah, he's not the same rookie who had his butt handed back to him by Vader on Bespin. This was told matter-of-factly in part of telling the story rather than having the story need to explicitly give us this information. Less is more.
Multiple MacGuffin Quests. This is the Wayfinder that locates the Sith Lord who commands the fleet that contains the ship that broadcasts the signal that deploys the fleet that blows up the planets that the goodies are defending with the help of the spy who works for the baddies who captured Chewbacca who carries the knife that holds the language that requires a hacker who can hack the droid who can translate the words that helps the heroes to defeat the Emperor who was manipulating Kylo who remembers he's Ben who is love with Rey who also loves Ben who saves her life who saved the galaxy which contains the house that Jack built! <phew>
DAMAGE CONTROL! (and a lack of a singular vision)
I think this is the cause behind much of this movies' woes. You have the two conflicting visions of JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson and... it's not working. *sigh* Compare and contrast this with the MCU where you have many different directors working on movies over an 11 year period that worked so much better, because Kevin Feige managed to keep them united under his singular over-arcing vision. Sure, individual directors were still given independent creativity, but they were all working to service the greater good that was the MCU story engine. I feel that Kathleen Kennedy could have been more disciplined with the directors... and this was only a trilogy, not a googology. :p Rian Johnson changed a lot of things, then JJ Abrams had to undo some of those changes while running with other changes while dealing with Princess Leia... plus Abrams wasn't given any additional time to work all this in -- DUDE! But I'm in two minds about the changes (see "Other" thoughts below)
Rather convenient that Palpatine survived the fall to the Death Star reactor. Seems that great falls don't kill anyone in Star Wars. Not Darth Maul. Not Boba Fett. Not Palpatine. I bet that Mace Windu's probably still alive somewhere with a pair of mechanical arms :p
Why is Finn Force sensitive now? He wasn't before. :confused:
Did the Resistance run out of helmets?

OTHER (things that I'm not sure are pros or cons; or maybe both)
Rey's background. This is part of the Damage Control that Abrams brought in. A Force Awakens hinted that Rey's parents might've been special, but then The Last Jedi confirmed that they were nobodies who sold her to repay debts or something. No wait, she's the freaking Emperor's granddaughter. Whaaaaa? :eek: I personally liked the idea that her parents really were noone special, but on the other hand being Palpy's granddaughter sorta explains why she's a Mary Sue. It's not a great explanation, but it's an explanation. The reason why I think it's an imperfect explanation is because it still doesn't explain why she's already highly skilled in the Force without any training. Even though Anakin Skywalker was created by Darth Plagueis and Sidious and was the most powerful Jedi with off-the-charts Midichlorians outnumbering that of Yoda's -- he still couldn't use Jedi weapons or powers without training. The only reason that he could pilot the Naboo fighter was because of his history in pod racing, and even then he was crashing and fumbling his way. Luke never used a lightsabre in A New Hope (beyond training on the Falcon) and he was able to get the Proton Torpedoes into the exhaust port with spiritual guidance from Obi-Wan Kenobi. Even in The Empire Strikes Back Obi-Wan appeared to Luke telling him to go find Yoda to complete his training. So the fact that they made Rey so over-powered did make the "nobody parents" story a bit weird. It still would've been possible to find another explanation as to why Rey is so powerful without making her the daughter of an already known powerful Force wielder, but yeah... this was the easy way. Which leads me to...
SAFE. This is a very safe and low-risk Star Wars movie. Rey's background? Make her the Emperor's daughter. Easy fix. Kylo Ren's resolution? He turns to the Light Side. There you go. Chewbacca's death? Just kidding. Threepio's memory wipe. Kidding again. What did you expect, a consequential war?? Rose's character arc? Better not give her one. I get that she and Finn were useless characters in The Last Jedi, but that doesn't mean that she has to continue being useless. Jar Jar Binks was useless in The Phantom Menace, but they made him useful in Attack of the Clones! And Rose's romance with Finn? Forget that! I think that this was done deliberately after the backlash from The Last Jedi where a lot of people got angry about having their expectations subverted, so now they've swung to the opposite of extreme and are just giving fans what they want. The Dark Side loses, Light Side wins. I was hoping that Rey and Ben would become Grey Jedi - achieving a balance between the Light and Dark Sides. Nope! Light wins, Dark loses. Expectations defended (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php/26690-Photocomic-Barricade-Grammar-Police?p=615920)! On one hand I blame the fans who cry when they tried to do new things, but on the other hand I blame Rian Johnson for going overboard with subverting expectations and making Disney more risk adverse. :( And movie studios are risk adverse by nature :( The same thing happened with Solo -- different directors made the movie muddled, but play it safe and make it conservative - don't subvert expectations. There you go.
So uh... Han Solo... Force hallucination, right? He wasn't a Force ghost as he lacked that blue hued ethereal glow.

OVERALL
It felt like they didn't try to make a Star Wars movies that fans would like but rather a movie that fans won't hate. And I think part of that is due to the very toxic and verbal nature of the fandom -- it's as if the fans have scared Disney into passive submission so that they don't dare take any risks. But as they say, nothing ventured nothing gained. This movie didn't soar to new heights nor did it sink to new lows... it was just okay. It's as if Disney's saying, "Here's a Star Wars movie. Please don't hate us." It's a Star Wars movie that's trying to survive but not thrive. Look at what happened to Rose. After the stupid fan reaction to Kelly Marie Tran, it seems that they're too scared to do anything with her character. I think that it should have been her with Finn on that Star Destroyer deck trying to destroy the broadcast transmitter instead of Jannah.

Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker is a fine movie. Nothing mind blowing, but it's fine.

[Bidoofdude]

Finn being somewhat able to use a lightsaber efficiently could be a small contribution to the notion of him being force-sensitive. Has there even been an instance of a force-user that is straight up just not a lot but only a little force-sensitive?

[SharkyMcShark]

Finn being somewhat able to use a lightsaber efficiently could be a small contribution to the notion of him being force-sensitive. Has there even been an instance of a force-user that is straight up just not a lot but only a little force-sensitive?

Unsure about the current Canon, but in the Legends Continuity there was. The first one that springs to mind is Tyria Sarkin (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tyria_Sarkin_Tainer) from Wraith Squadron.

I think one of the source books has said that the Knights of Ren are lesser Force sensitives.

Apparently JJ confirmed at the premiere that the thing that Finn wanted to tell Rey all film was that he was Force sensitive.

[drifand]

I think I heard Bobba Fett didn't die either. < I could be wrong
According to the Novelisation the Emperor used all his energy when being thrown down to the reactor to create a wormhole to teleport but at the same time drained up almost his entire life, hence you got the draining the life of Rey and Ben scene to regain his strength.

I actually felt they went into Youtube and took out all the main hate about what fans didn't like, consolidate and analyse, and then hand pick what they wanted to fix to please the fans. There were a lot of fans wanting to see Rey as Palpatine's daughter as speculation. The main issue was they needed a super villain to come into play without us asking who the heck is that! It was bad enough with speculation of Snoke and it needed some closure.

Technically, I was a bit surprised I didn't mind the movie, I thought it was going to be quite bad after the previous episode.

I felt the Han Solo part was required, it needed that emotional push to totally make Ben understand what he has done and what he has to do going forward. Yes its not a force ghost, just a basic conscious in Ben's mind that his dad spoke to him.

Finn being force sensitive was unnecessary, I don't think it contributed imo.

I think the part when Chewie is still in grief over Leia's death could have been done up better. I dont know how to describe but felt insensitive or something , like he just got up and continued.

[GoktimusPrime]

Finn being somewhat able to use a lightsaber efficiently could be a small contribution to the notion of him being force-sensitive. Has there even been an instance of a force-user that is straight up just not a lot but only a little force-sensitive?
Efficiently? He stabbed some Stormtroopers which he managed to take by surprise, but in a duel against the Riot Trooper he was defeated (and was saved when the Riot Trooper was shot by Han Solo). He also lost against Kylo Ren (who probably would've beaten him faster if he hadn't been wounded by Chewie before the fight) and was saved by Rey. The ability to just pick up a lightsabre and use it to a limited capacity doesn't necessarily make one a "Force user" in the sense of a Jedi or Sith; after all, Han Solo once used a lightsabre in The Empire Strikes Back (and made a fairly precise cut on the Tauntaun's belly). A lightsabre is basically an energy sword; anyone can pick it up and swing it, and given that Finn would have had melee combat training as a Stormtrooper, yeah, he has some combat skill. But beyond that of a regular being? I don't know. And even if he did, I'm not sure how he could have improved his Force sensitivity without any training. Luke was trained by Obi-Wan in A New Hope and then tried to continue training himself between then and The Empire Strikes Back, but he had made fairly limited progress (he was still bested by a mindless Wampa). It was only after he received intense training from Yoda on Dagobah that he made leaps and bounds, but even then was still bested by Vader. In the years between Empire and Jedi Luke continued to train himself, which is why he was further improved by Return of the Jedi.

Finn showed no real Force potential in The Force Awakens and appeared to have no improvement in The Last Jedi. Suddenly in The Rise of Skywalker he's developed Force sensitivity? Now Leia did develop Force sensitivity in The Empire Strikes Back, but that's because it was later revealed that she's Luke's sister and the daughter of Anakin Skywalker; so she's already really powerful in the Force. And her Force sensitivity was only activated when Luke reached out to her. It's my understanding that the Organas deliberately avoided exposing her to any Force training in order to prevent any awakening of the Force within her, and the same with Luke's upbringing as a simple farm boy. I think that this was done to avoid allowing them to be detected by the Emperor and/or Vader. Because when Vader was attacking Luke in the Trench Run, he could sense that, "The Force is strong in this one," because indeed Luke's latent Force potential had already been activated. And the whole reason why Obi-Wan separated himself from the team on the Death Star was because he knew that Vader would sense his presence and while his primary objective was to shut down the tractor beam, his secondary objective was to distract Vader from Luke and company. Obi-Wan's more powerful presence masked Luke's; like a kind of Force misdirection.

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On a separate note, I'm still really not happy about how Rose Tico got sidelined as a character. I think the worst thing about this is not what it does to Rose, because she's just a fictitious character, but what it does for Kelly Marie Tran, who's a real person with actual feelings. We all know about the hate that spewed forth towards her because fans didn't like Rose; and we know that this kind of vitriol adversely affected the mental health of Ahmed Best and Jake Lloyd. :( But Lucas tried to make things better for the fans and Best by improving the character of Jar Jar in Attack of the Clones (making him useful). By making Rose still useless but throwing her into the sideline, this feels like it's legitimising the fan hate towards Tran. It also made Jannah feel like she was a replacement for Rose... I think that much of Jannah's role in the movie, especially the assault on that Star Destroyer deck, could've been done by Rose. Rose should've teamed up with Finn to take out that tower. Why Jannah? :confused: One of the poignant things that Rose did in The Last Jedi was verbalise the Rebel/Resistance cause... when she saved Finn's life she said that they will win not by hate but by love. This is how Luke defeated Palpatine - through love (his love for Anakin and Anakin's love for him). And ultimately, it's how Rey was able to destroy Palpatine and how Ben was able to resurrect her - through love. And the whole reason why Palpatine won at the end of Revenge of the Sith was through hate. This has been a recurring theme in the Star Wars saga -- the struggle between love and hate, and it was Rose who articulated and embodied this over-arcing principle. But no, let's just make her... there. :rolleyes:

Rose's uselessness in The Last Jedi is a legitimate criticism - one that I share. But I don't think that sidelining her was the answer. Just make her useful! The problem with Rose wasn't because she was Asian or that she kissed Finn or any of that stupid nonsense - it's because you could remove Rose from the story and nothing consequential would change. She was useless. And guess what? Same in The Rise of Skywalker! You could remove Rose from the story and nothing much would change. She doesn't do anything that no other nameless Resistance personnel could've done. There's no more compelling arc in her character... no reference to her sister or feelings for Finn. Nope nope nopety nope! :rolleyes: She was arguably even MORE useless in Rise of the Skywalker than in The Last Jedi. It's just less noticeable because she has bugger all screen time.

------------------------------------------

RE: Armitage Hux

I personally think that it was a nice surprise that he was the spy. It makes sense to me because Kylo Ren always treated him like crap, both in The Force Awakens, but especially in The Last Jedi. I liked how Hux said that he didn't even care if the Resistance won or lost, he just needed Kylo Ren to lose. This was a personal vendetta. On one hand, I do agree that his character was wasted and it would've be nice to see him do more... but on the other hand, having him be shot by Allegiant General Pryde also made sense as it showed that Pryde wasn't an idiot and is more attune to the old school Imperial way of dealing with under-performing officers. I liked the follow up line of, "We've found the spy." It felt similar to the spirit of, "You have failed me for the last time, Admiral." :) Although the even more menacing part with Vader was the follow up line of, "You are in command now, Admiral Piett!" Kinda sucks being promoted in the Empire. :p

[philby]

No real wasted scenes or pointless character arcs as we saw in The Last Jedi (re: Canto Bite/casino scene, Finn & Rose's meaningless adventure)


[list]Lots of neat Easter Eggs. Anyone else notice that Anthony Daniels appeared as a Rebel pilot manning the gun of the Millennium Falcon?



That is Wedge in the turret, not Anthony Daniels.

The middle of this movie is a macguffin quest, just like in TLJ. How is it better?

[drifand]

That is Wedge in the turret, not Anthony Daniels.

The middle of this movie is a macguffin quest, just like in TLJ. How is it better?

Are you referring to the quest in the desert? As it was supposed to be Only Rey's quest, and part of that scene was Kylo's purpose to show her true powers and he did. Or was it another scene you referring? < But yes I agree that everyone need not go and loosing Chewbacca in the process being caught.

Or the quest to reset C3PO?

As for Rose, no comment. She shouldn't been picked imo. I wont go in more because is bound to upset people on either side.

[philby]

Speaking of cameos, John Williams is the bartender when they are looking for Babu Frik

[Sinnertwin]

Hux must have felt a small pang of remorse for killing everything in the Hosnian system after his mad speech and decided to atone for his sins

Bzzzzt. Fail.

[Raider]

It had parts that I liked, parts that I hated and parts that just made me rolls my eyes. Overall not a terrible movie which is more than I expected. They tried to retcon a lot of TLJ (which they couldn't avoid) and it detracted a bit from the storytelling. The Holdo Manoeuvre explanation? Hahahahaha.

It's worth seeing even if you hated TLJ. It does bring it to a close.

And for those saying that only trolls and whingers disliked TLJ, it's very unfair to pass judgment on others just because they didn't agree with the path the franchise took. I certainly dislike that movie. Ep IX almost redeems the sequels. Almost.

[GoktimusPrime]

That is Wedge in the turret, not Anthony Daniels.
You are correct, sir. :)


The middle of this movie is a macguffin quest, just like in TLJ. How is it better?
Because this movie's MacGuffin quest (amid the many other MacGuffin quests) actually contributes to the story. As I said before, this movie does suffer from having way too many MacGuffin quests, but at least they are all relevant to the story. Feels like a video game. :p The issue I have with the Canto Bite scene isn't that it's a side-quest, but that it's an ultimately irrelevant side-quest. Other Star Wars movies have side-quests too, and that's fine so long as they all service the story.

* Episode 1: while on Tatooine, the Jedi embark on a side-quest to help some slave boy and end up freeing him.
* Episode 2: Obi-Wan Kenobi goes on a side-quest to Kamino; finds a clone army. Anakin goes on a side-quest to Tatooine; finds his mother.
* Episode 3: Obi-Wan Kenobi goes on a side-quest to Utapau; kills Grievous, survives Order 66.
* Episode 4: Obi-Wan Kenobi goes on a side-quest to shut down the tractor beam power and confronts Vader. Man this dude loves side-quests!
* Episode 5: Luke goes on a side-quest to Dagobah. Meets a wrinkly green Muppet.
* Episode 6: Luke abandons his teammates on Endor to go on his personal side-quest to confront Vader.

Side-quests are fine. Multiple side-quests in on themselves aren't inherently bad (Avengers Endgame also has several side-quests in motion). They just need to be relevant to the story, and the test for that is whether or not the final outcome of the story would be any different if that side-quest never happened. What would happen if Finn and Rose never left for Canto Bite? Pretty much nothing. They still wouldn't have broken the First Order code. The First Order would still have decimated the Resistance fleet. The Resistance survivors would still have been forced to flee to Crait. The Battle of Crait would still have happened all the same. Nothing different.

And this was the big criticism about Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace (and likewise Daniel and Wheelie in the Transformers G1 cartoon continuity). If you remove these characters and what they do, what would change? In TPM you could easily have re-written the story where Qui-Gon Jinn gives Jar Jar a Jedi communicator and orders him to go into hiding and to wait to be contacted by him. Jar Jar would obey as he has a life debt. The Jedi then take the Queen and her entourage to Coruscant but end up in Tatooine, blah blah blah, all the same stuff happens. Then when they return to Naboo, Panaka says that the Naboo don't have the manpower to retake Theed, so Qui-Gon Jinn calls Jar Jar and asks him to arrange a meeting between Queen Amidala and Boss Nass. The Naboo make the same alliance with the Gungans and the Battle of Theed happens in the exact same way. Jar Jar's entire presence on Tatooine and Coruscant are completely useless and could easily be removed without changing the outcome of the story. Contrast this with say Luke Skywalker's side-quest to Dagobah in The Empire Strikes Back. This would obviously have massive consequences on the story if it didn't happen. If Luke chose to ignore Obi-Wan, or if for whatever other reason, he didn't go to Dagobah or didn't find Yoda etc. -- everything would change. The Dagobah side-quest has consequence, the Canto-Bite side-quest does not. Sure, it does give us an interesting look into the machinations of society in the Star Wars universe; how the privileged live off the suffering of the poor. That's all interesting and stuff, but it's ultimately not needed when you're telling a movie story.

The original trilogy also mentioned the suffering under the Empire, but we didn't have to see it. The OT handled "less is more" quite well. Politics was mentioned or referenced but not directly witnessed, and quite frankly, we didn't need to witness it. The Prequel Trilogy was bogged down with too many talking heads scenes between politicians. Really? Who wants to see that? This stuff only needs to be mentioned in passing by other characters.
e.g. in A New Hope, Palpatine dissolves the Imperial Senate. That's a pretty big freaking deal! But we're not shown the Senate chambers and how all this happened. It's just discussed between an Imperial officer and Grand Moff Tarkin, and that's all the information that the audience needs to know. At most, this is the kind of stuff that you can include in an extended director's cut or something. Things that don't service the immediate narrative can be removed. And this is why Peter Jackson had to cut or change a lot of stuff from The Lord of the Rings when he adapted them as books, because a lot of it would have bogged down the narrative in the film medium. It can work fine as printed text, but with film as a time limited visual format, you need to adapt. I don't agree with all of Jackson's changes, but I generally agree with most of them. No Tom Bombadil? Good freakin' call!

[SharkyMcShark]

You are correct, sir. :)


Because this movie's MacGuffin quest (amid the many other MacGuffin quests) actually contributes to the story. As I said before, this movie does suffer from having way too many MacGuffin quests, but at least they are all relevant to the story. Feels like a video game. :p The issue I have with the Canto Bite scene isn't that it's a side-quest, but that it's an ultimately irrelevant side-quest. Other Star Wars movies have side-quests too, and that's fine so long as they all service the story.


...

What would happen if Finn and Rose never left for Canto Bite? Pretty much nothing. They still wouldn't have broken the First Order code. The First Order would still have decimated the Resistance fleet. The Resistance survivors would still have been forced to flee to Crait. The Battle of Crait would still have happened all the same. Nothing different.

Re: Canto Bite, there are two things to consider

1) It was meant to fail. It was a dogshit plan, that then failed and got a bunch of people killed, same as the plan to attack the Dreadnought at the start of the film. It's part of Poe's arc. He has to learn that you can't lead by flying by the seat of your pants. You can't lead on rash impulse. That might get you by as a fighter pilot, but it gets people hurt when you apply it to leading. As with Luke in ESB, the film bothers to show him and his plans failing. I'm not saying its my favourite section in any Star Wars film, but it has a purpose. Ironically, to say it was pointless and led to nothing is both to miss the point entirely but also kind of get it. It doesn't move the plot forward - in fact it hinders our protagonists. It absolutely moves Poe's character forward though.

2) It really doesn't take that much screen time up. It's literally two sections. The first is that they land and get chucked in jail. The second is when they escape from prison and free the planet. It's not like it's cutting back for forth for the whole middle third of the film.

[Miss Kitty Fantastico]

What would happen if Finn and Rose never left for Canto Bite? Pretty much nothing. They still wouldn't have broken the First Order code. The First Order would still have decimated the Resistance fleet. The Resistance survivors would still have been forced to flee to Crait. The Battle of Crait would still have happened all the same.

Not necessarily - the First Order only picked up the Resistance transports because DJ sold them out to save himself, which he wouldn't have been able to do if Rosefinn hadn't recruited him and then let him overhear Poe talking about them having cloaked ships. I mean sure somebody on the Supercalifragilistic might've thought to scan for cloaks anyway just in case (you'd think that'd be routine, but maybe once you've built a ship 60km wide there's not much left in the budget for repairing wear-and-tear on the scanners so they save money by just having a guy look out the window instead), but just from what's on screen it looks like Holdo's original plan (the one that didn't involve ramming) might've worked. Of course they'd still have needed somebody to come pick them up, but they'd have had more time to play with while the First Order chased an empty cruiser, and "Hey can we get an Uber?" might have gotten a better response from the Resistance's so-called allies than "Hey giant laser pointed at us and we're doomed, wanna come join in?"

...that's not a good look for Team Poe, granted, but they did make a difference.

Then again I feel like there's an argument to be made that if Poe hadn't gotten the Suicide Squadron annihilated bombing the dreadnought, it would've jumped after them along with the rest of the enemy fleet, and judging by the dialogue its autocannons could've blown away capital ships at extended range, since that's exactly what they were about to do over D'Qar before they asploded. That old line about the winner being the second-last person to screw up seems relevant.

[GoktimusPrime]

Re: Canto Bite, there are two things to consider

1) It was meant to fail. It was a dogshit plan, that then failed and got a bunch of people killed, same as the plan to attack the Dreadnought at the start of the film. It's part of Poe's arc. He has to learn that you can't lead by flying by the seat of your pants. You can't lead on rash impulse. That might get you by as a fighter pilot, but it gets people hurt when you apply it to leading. As with Luke in ESB, the film bothers to show him and his plans failing. I'm not saying its my favourite section in any Star Wars film, but it has a purpose. Ironically, to say it was pointless and led to nothing is both to miss the point entirely but also kind of get it. It doesn't move the plot forward - in fact it hinders our protagonists. It absolutely moves Poe's character forward though.

2) It really doesn't take that much screen time up. It's literally two sections. The first is that they land and get chucked in jail. The second is when they escape from prison and free the planet. It's not like it's cutting back for forth for the whole middle third of the film.

Not necessarily - the First Order only picked up the Resistance transports because DJ sold them out to save himself, which he wouldn't have been able to do if Rosefinn hadn't recruited him and then let him overhear Poe talking about them having cloaked ships. I mean sure somebody on the Supercalifragilistic might've thought to scan for cloaks anyway just in case (you'd think that'd be routine, but maybe once you've built a ship 60km wide there's not much left in the budget for repairing wear-and-tear on the scanners so they save money by just having a guy look out the window instead), but just from what's on screen it looks like Holdo's original plan (the one that didn't involve ramming) might've worked. Of course they'd still have needed somebody to come pick them up, but they'd have had more time to play with while the First Order chased an empty cruiser, and "Hey can we get an Uber?" might have gotten a better response from the Resistance's so-called allies than "Hey giant laser pointed at us and we're doomed, wanna come join in?"

...that's not a good look for Team Poe, granted, but they did make a difference.

Then again I feel like there's an argument to be made that if Poe hadn't gotten the Suicide Squadron annihilated bombing the dreadnought, it would've jumped after them along with the rest of the enemy fleet, and judging by the dialogue its autocannons could've blown away capital ships at extended range, since that's exactly what they were about to do over D'Qar before they asploded. That old line about the winner being the second-last person to screw up seems relevant.
Replied in the Last Jedi spoiler discussion thread (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php/24990-SPOILER-THREAD-The-Last-Jedi?p=619362#post619362) to avoid further derailing this thread about The Rise of Skywalker. :)

[GoktimusPrime]

So... Rey's parents...

We know that one of them was Sheev Palpatine's child. Umm... huh? :confused:
If Palpatine had a kid then surely he would have either raised the child as a Sith or had the child killed; probably the latter. In the Original Trilogy it's stated that any offspring of Anakin Skywalker would be seen as a threat, which is why the twins' existence was kept a secret from Vader and the Emperor. And indeed when the Sith discovered the Luke was Anakin's son, Palpatine initially wanted him dead, but it was Vader who suggested and convinced the Emperor that Luke could be a powerful ally if he could be turned to the Dark Side of the Force. And even then, there was only ever two options for Luke -- become a Sith or die. Surely Palpatine would have at least held the same standard for any of his own offspring.

"Maybe Palpatine's child was raised as a Sith, but just like Finn and Jannah, s/he broke free of his/her brainwashing, then ran away. After which s/he got married and had Rey. Long after Palpatine's reported death, they started a family and lived together for a few years, but then when they discovered that the Emperor being resurrected and hunting them down, they went to Jakku and abandoned Rey there for her own safety. Then they were discovered by one of Palpatine's followers (Ochi) who killed them with that Sith dagger."
Uhh... sure. I guess that could work. But the film never explains this. For no apparent reason there seems to be a generational skip between Sheev's kid and Rey. Huh? That's kinda like jumping from Anakin Skywalker to Ben Solo and entirely skipping any real exposition on Han Solo and Leia Organa. Ya what? :confused:

Am I the only one who thinks that they might've been better off postponing the release of this movie by at least a year? Release it in late 2020 and allow time for the story to be better perfected. We know that we lost Carrie Fisher after The Last Jedi, so fans will understand and forgive just a single year time delay (and any who don't aren't worth listening to).

P.S.: Just watched the Rise of Skywalker Pitch Meeting video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2zZFtq13c4) which is hilariously on point. :)

[Miss Kitty Fantastico]

I figured something similar. My headcanon at the moment is that Palpatine created his son (who for want of a confirmed name I've decided was named Steve Palpatine) in a lab - maybe 'born' mature, maybe just the project was started way back so by the time of RotJ he was a young man - and when Death Star II did what death stars do and it looked like the Emperor went up with it, some captive scientist lady they'd been forcing to work on the project who'd sympathised with the poor kid busted him out amid the general chaos of the fall of the Empire, and they ended up having a baby. It kind of explains to me how 'sell her into slavery' was Plan A for keeping Rey safe: despite loving each other and her neither of them were really very well-adjusted people (especially if Steve has been brainwashed from birth so he'd be really easy to goad into hating his dad so he could strike-him-down etc. and it was only the Power of Love that was keeping him halfway sane).

Palpy wanting to kill Luke I can understand - specifically it was "the son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi," that'd be more of a concern when he's hanging out with rebels and has the ghost of Obi-Wan dropping helpful hints in his ear, Steve in his secret prison controlled by the Emperor would be much less likely to suddenly decide to be a Jedi. Or perhaps the Emperor wanted Vader to bring Luke to him all along, and just ordered him killed initially so Vader would think 'saving' Luke was his own idea; that is kind of on brand for the Emperor.

I don't love the whole Palpatine's-granddaughter thing, in the theatre that was my most "Wait, seriously?!" moment. I can forgive it just because it doesn't seem really that crucial to anything - yes yes Rey's upset she may become Bad Rey, but the whole thing at the climax of the Emperor trying to turn her to the Dark Side and her being "nuh-uh gramps" totally felt like just something that happens in Star Wars anyway, I didn't feel like it was shoving the improbability of her being his granddaughter in my face in a way that took me out of the scene.

So we getting a Zorii Bliss spinoff? Her little wordless interaction with Poe at the end was magic. (I know she's got a bucket on her head, but it's a lovely bucket. That could be like a theme for Disney+ shows, everyone's got a helmet on. Maybe in the Obi-Wan series he'll be wearing a flight helmet with the blast shield down the whole time because he's honing his skills.)

[Autocon]

Saw star wars. Ending was very american hollywood. We all dead! No wait reinforcments have arrived last minute. It felt lacking in any different action scifi narrative as mentioned above.

Overall i enjoyed it. 6/10. Just a bit lacking in creative narrative.

[drifand]

It was grand daughter because they didn't want to crap your mind with who the hell Palpatine mate with. so it become not an immediate thing. Technically going by unofficial books Maria jade was the daughter of the emperor, and I think JJ did considered using it.
Palpy was chosen because if JJ introduce a new villain, you be going who is that? another Snoke?
also, if you are a Star wars fanatic it was speculated Rey was Palpatine's daughter and Many did recommend "I want to see this!" go search it up.
Plus there was even instances of how she ignites the light saber and how she wield it was Palpatine moves. > is all there internet.

Things that people will criticise and I like to be enlighten if you know more:

Who create the Sith Dagger? How did that Sith even know where the death star will crash and give those location? Meaning this Sith was alive when the death Star crash?

Wave Finder: what the hell for? Why would the Emperor wants you to know where he is hiding?

[Tha_Phantom]

Who create the Sith Dagger? How did that Sith even know where the death star will crash and give those location? Meaning this Sith was alive when the death Star crash?

Macguffin.



Wave Finder: what the hell for? Why would the Emperor wants you to know where he is hiding?

Macguffin.

[Raider]

Saw it again today with mates who don't know anything about Star Wars other than the main Skywalker movies and they loved it. On reflection, if I block out a lot of my knowledge on Star Wars and think about how your average movie goer might respond to this movie, it is probably pretty positive. Sure it has its faults, but if you don't go too indepth it really is quite enjoyable.

Not always easy for us fans who know that little bit more to just ignore the problems but it would make the viewing more enjoyable.

[Sinnertwin]

Plus there was even instances of how she ignites the light saber and how she wield it was Palpatine moves. > is all there internet.

This has got to be one of the silliest things I remember reading. If anybody believed that Rey was Palpatine's daughter based on the 4 thrusts she made at Kylo during TFA, I really don't know what to say. You have a laser sword. You're either going to stab someone with it, or chop them down. Plus she had a big stick that I bet she routinely stabbed and hit things with too... Keep reaching, nerds.

Palpatine was also far more theatrical and camp when he slayed the Jedi members and faced Yoda. In comparison, Rey spent half the fight against Kylo running away like a little girl and only got her act together when she had a D&M, coffee and cake discussing The Force with Kylo. Oh yeah, The Force, I can use that! Kylo is also just standing there like a spare dick at a wedding watching, waiting, commiserating.

Her fight in TLJ was utter shite too. The guard that she was fighting in the throne room miraculously has one of the two weapons he was using vanish into thin air... the one he could have stabbed her in the back with when he put her in a lock. But hey, who's paying attention?

Palpatine only came back because they bodged the story by killing Snoke. Simple band aid measure.

[kup]

I like the scene where senile Lando just laughs all the time because he doesn't know where he is.

[drifand]

This has got to be one of the silliest things I remember reading. If anybody believed that Rey was Palpatine's daughter based on the 4 thrusts she made at Kylo during TFA, I really don't know what to say. You have a laser sword. You're either going to stab someone with it, or chop them down. Plus she had a big stick that I bet she routinely stabbed and hit things with too... Keep reaching, nerds.

Palpatine was also far more theatrical and camp when he slayed the Jedi members and faced Yoda. In comparison, Rey spent half the fight against Kylo running away like a little girl and only got her act together when she had a D&M, coffee and cake discussing The Force with Kylo. Oh yeah, The Force, I can use that! Kylo is also just standing there like a spare dick at a wedding watching, waiting, commiserating.

Her fight in TLJ was utter shite too. The guard that she was fighting in the throne room miraculously has one of the two weapons he was using vanish into thin air... the one he could have stabbed her in the back with when he put her in a lock. But hey, who's paying attention?

Palpatine only came back because they bodged the story by killing Snoke. Simple band aid measure.

I dont disagree. But if you search you will find it. just saying. This isn't my theory at all.

[kup]

If you want to enjoy Star Wars again, you got to pretend that there has been no new media since 1996 - That's when Star Wars ended.

[GoktimusPrime]

I figured something similar. My headcanon at the moment is (SNIP)
Herein lies the problem. Good stories don't require the audience to fill in massive gaps.

[Miss Kitty Fantastico]

Herein lies the problem. Good stories don't require the audience to fill in massive gaps.

True.

But on the other hand, it led to Steve Palpatine, which is a name I'm legitimately proud of making up. So from a certain point of view...

[drifand]

https://youtu.be/hzG3m-ZW198

And for those who were questioning about Rey being Palpatine theory. Again it was in the list.

[GoktimusPrime]

But on the other hand, it led to Steve Palpatine, which is a name I'm legitimately proud of making up. So from a certain point of view...
I'd prefer Parker Payton Palpatine. Say that 10 times fast.

[SharkyMcShark]

I figured something similar. My headcanon at the moment is that Palpatine created his son (who for want of a confirmed name I've decided was named Steve Palpatine)

I was listening to the Weekly Planet review at the gym on Monday and they dubbed him Darren Palpatine, which almost caused me to drop a weight on my head.

[Lord_Zed]

So I feel like they should not make any Star Wars movies for a decade, to give people time to care about Star Wars again. It all feels very ho-hum at the moment.

[drifand]

So I feel like they should not make any Star Wars movies for a decade, to give people time to care about Star Wars again. It all feels very ho-hum at the moment.

It does, especially the generation comes with all the social justice agenda doesn't make the story any better.
Its been said Lucas didn't even want to attend the launch as he is so ticked off with what has became.

[Paulbot]

If you think the original Star Wars or the prequel trilogy didn’t have a “social justice” agenda you are kidding yourself.

Also f-off with that rubbish.

[shockNwave]

It does, especially the generation comes with all the social justice agenda doesn't make the story any better.
Its been said Lucas didn't even want to attend the launch as he is so ticked off with what has became.

Also agree with Lord_Zed. The original trilogy paved the way for so many special fx sequel spectaculars (e.g. the Batman trilogy, the Matrix trilogy, the Indiana Jones trilogy etc.) that the new high watermark is Marvel Studios rich body of work these days. I'm sorry to say that Star Wars is playing second fiddle these days but the decline originally started with The Phantom Menace.

[Meister]

Ok so I ended up watching episode 9 and in my opinion, as a movie, it’s a bit of a mess, and that’s probably because it feels like they tried to squeeze two movies in one, the first 30 minutes to an hour which played like an extremely weird sort of montage sequence probably could have been made into a movie on its own. It has a lot of interesting themes that could have been explored a lot better if they had the time to hash them out properly but I guess that was the way they tried to salvage the lack of continuity from episode VIII. Palpatine seemed forced in, again it could of worked if clues and hints were included in episode VIII. Rey being a Palpatine also was a bit of a roll my eyes moment. Throughout the whole thing I was left pondering whether JJ had seen the Memberberries episodes of South Park and was deliberately taking the piss. In the end, it was ok, but honestly the only thing I was left feeling was what could have been. There was clearly a lot of potential for this trilogy with great new characters and themes they tried to explore but the lack of a set plan for continuity throughout the 3 episodes seemed to have sucked any soul out of it.

[griffin]

I saw it on Boxing day and thought it was okay. Better than the last two in this trilogy... mainly because this one didn't recycle plot elements from the original trilogy like episode 7 and 8 did (they were like watching a reboot of episode 4 and 5).

The other two movies in the trilogy had been playing on TV a few times by the nine network in NOV-DEC, so I recorded both and watched them several times in the weeks leading up to this final one, to help make sense of anything that played off a previous movie (as well as to re-familiarise myself on the new characters introduced in 7 and 8 ).

- Rey being Palpatine's grand-daughter - when they said that in the movie, I was so distracted for about 5 minutes, trying to get my head around how that could be possible. I guess he could have had groupies or gold-diggers.... or he enslaved someone as a concubine and used mind-control just to create a sith offspring, but even if he had a child, there is no way that child would have been able to roam free or hook up with anyone that Palpatine and his followers didn't allow. They would have been locked away in some isolated, barren world, and trained as a sith, while being paired up with another sith to create an even more powerful child as their offspring. I can't believe that Palpatine's child, and the person they hooked up with, wouldn't be loyal to Palpatine (at least one would remain loyal, even if one wavered and wanted to escape with their child.

- Finn appearing to be force-sensitive - in Rogue One, the blind Jedi Temple attendant was force-sensitive, but not strong enough with the force to become a jedi or sith, so Finn is probably like him. It was just difficult to believe that he now had the ability, but nothing was ever noted in the last two movies. (almost like a retcon)

- The ability of Rey and Ben to be able to hand off objects to each other from great distances... seemed to be a new trick from Disney's version of Star Wars, and it kinda got annoying how often it was now being used. It was a nice trick, especially when one was in a bind, but it felt like a cheat when they kept using it. Same with the force-healing ability that was new to this movie... it was required as the key plot device to turn Ben back, but to suddenly show up in this movie, felt wrong.

- The Skywalker "ranch" (farm) on Tattooine was rebuilt, but no one was living there? It was destroyed by Storm Troopers in Ep 4, so if someone rebuilt it to look exactly the same, why weren't they currently living there?

- Lando was totally under-used. Maybe the actor was just too old and frail to be able to do much moving about (like Carrie Fisher in Ep 8, as Leia did a lot of standing and hobbling in that one).

- Hux was also under-used. He was the leading First Order officer in Ep7, then pushed back to third in the hierarchy in Ep8, to almost be a cameo character in Ep9 and quickly killed off. He wasn't shot for being the spy, he was shot for being incompetent and then labelled as the spy... without any evidence. That's Imperial justice.

- If the three movies of this trilogy were written at the same time, we would have seen hints or clues to Palpatine being around, even if it was Snoke mentioning "his master" in conversation, without saying who it was. None of that happened in Ep 7 and 8, making it feel like he was added to this one after 7 and 8 were filmed. Just a few minor mentions of a mysterious puppet master would have made these three movies feel more like a trilogy. Even Luke noted that he and Leia knew that Rey was a Palpatine, but nothing was noted in Ep7 or 8 by either of them... and it actually contradicts Luke asking Rey who she really was, when he started training her. As it stands, this movie could have easily been episode 7, replacing the other two, and just having some short flashbacks added in to explain why Han and Luke were ghosts.
(if the directors of the three movies were clever, they could have had Rey having saber movements that were identical to Palpatine in Ep 3, so that it was an easter egg from the beginning... even though sword-skills are like fingerprints, in that everyone is different, it probably would have been too subtle to be worth doing)

- Back when Ep 1 was released, I had a theory that Senator Palpatine was actually possessed by a powerful Sith, because of his concern for Padme and his home planet (if Jedi can come back as ghosts, why not have Sith be able to come back as ghosts as well, but be more invasive by taking possession of others). Having Palpatine in Ep 9 claim that he could possess Rey if she kills him, reminded me of that really old theory of mine.

- Another theory I had way back related to the prophecy (someone bringing balance to the Force), in that "balance" only occurs when there are an equal number on each side, or an absence of all on each side. The Star Wars Movies never had a true "balance" because there were always Jedi or Sith, and one always outnumbered the other. Anyway, my theory was that at some point in time, all Jedi and Sith would be gone, and there would only be neutral Force-Sensitive people with white lightsabers, not to be involved in the affairs of the Galaxy (not to conquer or police it), other than to prevent the return of the Jedi and the Sith. At the end of Ep 9, we have Rey with a new lightsaber that has a white blade, and the Sith and Jedi are finally thought to be all gone (until the next Disney movie or TV series that needs the element of Jedi/Sith for them to cash in on, with toys and ratings).

- Another damn annoying droid... it wasn't needed for the story, but allows Disney/Hasbro to sell more toys.

- Some backstory to Poe was good to see. It took some shine off his hero status, but not much. And why did the female "friend" never reveal her face?

- The scenes with Leia - these were said to be filmed during one of the previous two movies, but I just can't pinpoint where those scenes would have made sense in the run of Rey's story. For Leia to be training Rey with Luke's lightsaber, it would have had to have been before she left to find Luke at the end of Ep 7 ... but when she was with Luke, she didn't seem to have any of the force powers yet that were in these "deleted scenes with Leia".

- Luke training Leia flashback - this should have been a flashback scene BEFORE Leia was blown out into space in Ep 8, as her use of the force in that scene seemed very unbelievable, due to her never being shown to having force abilities before that point.

- Finding the second navigation device, only to have it destroyed - what a waste, running around several planets during the middle of the movie, only to have it destroyed as soon as Rey finds it. At least have her use it when she defeated Ben, as he didn't need to still have it in his ship.

- The ragtag fleet that arrives at the end of the movie - first of all, it was totally wasted, as this massive fleet of ships show up, and we don't have a significant battle between them and the Star Destroyers. The focus was on the planet below, and we didn't end up seeing much ship-to-ship fighting. Rogue One had a better space battle scene than this one.
And secondly, it didn't make sense that at the end of Ep 8, no one in the whole galaxy was willing to come help the Rebels take on the small remaining force of the First Order, in which just a few friendly ships would have easily helped outnumber the surviving Star Destroyers.... but at the end of Ep 9, we have thousands of ships willing to fly into an uncharted area of space to take on thousands of Star Destroyers, in what would have sounded like a trap.

The ironic thing is that when I first saw Rogue One, I didn't like it because of everyone being killed off (it wasn't even necessary, as we saw in the Rebels cartoon, with all but one of the main crew surviving to the end), but the movie has really grown on me, and I've watched it several times... and will still watch it again when it is on TV. The story is more interesting and makes more sense than Ep 7 and 8... it flows better and doesn't have redundant plot elements to distract you from what is going on. And Rogue One has a much better final battle (in space and on the surface) than any of the space battles in Ep 7-9.

I'll see Ep 9 again, but maybe not until it shows up on TV in two years time.

[GoktimusPrime]

Same with the force-healing ability that was new to this movie... it was required as the key plot device to turn Ben back, but to suddenly show up in this movie, felt wrong.
Force Heal has been around for yonks. It costs the character 1 turn and 1 Force Point and removes 1 point of Damage from an adjacent character. Oh sorry, I mean, in the cinematic universe we've previously seen Obi-Wan Kenobi use it, but not to the same extent as what Rey and Ben can do.
https://i.ibb.co/Njgb6wW/starwars-forceheal.jpg
Episode II: Obi-Wan attempts to heal a fallen Jedi but it is too late. Although Episode IX does show that using Force Heal to resurrect a recently deceased being is basically a sacrificial move, which wouldn't make sense in the Battle of Geonosis
Episode III: Obi-Wan uses Force Heal on Padme to try and keep her alive (he does succeed in extending her life long enough to be evacuated to Polis Massa and to give birth to the twins; she (and the twins) may have otherwise died on Mustafar
Episode IV: Obi-Wan uses Force Heal to help Luke recover after having been assaulted by Tusken Raiders

[Trent]

I saw it on Boxing day and thought it was okay. Better than the last two in this trilogy... mainly because this one didn't recycle plot elements from the original trilogy like episode 7 and 8 did (they were like watching a reboot of episode 4 and 5).

So you didn’t notice the recurring the theme of being able to rely on your friends just like in ROTJ? The attempt by Kylo Ren to turn Rey to the dark side, just like Vader did in ROTJ? A (bunch of) new planet killing weapon that threaten to solidify Palpatine’s power in the galaxy? The ragtag bunch of rebels on a do or die mission to destroy said weapons? The rebels can’t destroy these weapons until a small strike force take out a vital piece of infrastructure or the whole assault would be in vain? Palpatine’s disciple ultimately switching sides and sacrificing himself to save the protagonist? The protagonist ultimately facing their fear and refusing to do Palpatine’s bidding by not giving in to their fear and hatred? All of which was lifted straight out of Return of the Jedi.

You didn’t notice any of these things Griff? Are you sure you went to see Star Wars?

[griffin]

Force Heal has been around for yonks. It costs the character 1 turn and 1 Force Point and removes 1 point of Damage from an adjacent character. Oh sorry, I mean, in the cinematic universe we've previously seen Obi-Wan Kenobi use it, but not to the same extent as what Rey and Ben can do.


Episode II: Obi-Wan attempts to heal a fallen Jedi but it is too late. Although Episode IX does show that using Force Heal to resurrect a recently deceased being is basically a sacrificial move, which wouldn't make sense in the Battle of Geonosis



Episode III: Obi-Wan uses Force Heal on Padme to try and keep her alive (he does succeed in extending her life long enough to be evacuated to Polis Massa and to give birth to the twins; she (and the twins) may have otherwise died on Mustafar



Episode IV: Obi-Wan uses Force Heal to help Luke recover after having been assaulted by Tusken Raiders



If that was what they were doing, it was not mentioned or made obvious. To me it looks more like someone checking to see if a person is still alive, like a doctor checking a pulse... a jedi might just be feeling if their life-force was still there and how strong it still was.


So you didn’t notice the recurring the theme of being able to rely on your friends just like in ROTJ? The attempt by Kylo Ren to turn Rey to the dark side, just like Vader did in ROTJ? A (bunch of) new planet killing weapon that threaten to solidify Palpatine’s power in the galaxy? The ragtag bunch of rebels on a do or die mission to destroy said weapons? The rebels can’t destroy these weapons until a small strike force take out a vital piece of infrastructure or the whole assault would be in vain? Palpatine’s disciple ultimately switching sides and sacrificing himself to save the protagonist? The protagonist ultimately facing their fear and refusing to do Palpatine’s bidding by not giving in to their fear and hatred? All of which was lifted straight out of Return of the Jedi.

You didn’t notice any of these things Griff? Are you sure you went to see Star Wars?

Those are just small plot elements... I was referring to the overall premise or structure of the three movies.
(I'm not saying that Ep 7 and 8 are mirror images of the Original Trilogy, but they seemed to play out as if they were written by someone asked to replicate the premise of Ep 4 and 5... something that Ep 1-3 didn't need to resort to.)

Ep 7 (4) - finding the chosen one on a desert planet, meeting up with a smuggler duo who don't really want to get involved but get them to the rebels, and then ending with the rebels destroying the "deathstar" before it destroys them.
Ep 8 (5) - being chased through space by the "empire", having a ground assault with AT-ATs on a snow/salt planet (in a different order between the two movies), a Jedi in training, and having an ending of loss instead of victory.
The flaws in Ep 9's plot (which I noted in the previous post) prevented it from being similar to any of the previous 8 movies, but did have a similar feel to Rogue One, in that there was a mission spread across several locations (not just one or two locations like the previous 5 Episodes), needing every step to go right in order to get to the end with a completed mission.

(to be fair, Ep 6 was very similar in premise to Ep 4 as well, starting out on a desert planet and ending with the rebels taking on a deathstar, with a side-mission on a forest moon thrown in as something different)

[Seraphim Prime]

Short review - I ended up really liking this film as I was watching it, however I find that only some of it has really stuck with me.

I felt the opening was off, and the lead in felt completely disjointed from where we had left off the last movie. Some reworking of the set-up would have made the movie much better. Instead it felt like "Brand New Story! Go!".

But once we were set up and going it felt like Star Wars and was a fantastic finish to the set of 9 films and helped set up a future that basically wraps up the legacy characters and continues Episode 8's ending which opened up the force to people that weren't just chosen to be Jedi or born into a family lineage.

That feels to me the theme of this movie - our freedom to choose the paths that make us who we are, rather than being dictated by "destiny".


I personally would have set up the film from where we left Ep 8 - a physically and emotionally dwindled resistance making hit and run ops on a First Order led by Kylo Ren, and his Knights - sidelining the existing First Order military structure. The voice of Palpatine begins to makes its presence felt in the first battle scene, leading to both sides investigating the Wayfinders. Kylo Ren to diverts the military resources to finding the Wayfinder, further insulting Hux and the newer military leaders while the older leaders (Richard E Grant & co) like the potential shift back to the old ways. This leads into the rest of our film with Rey / her training and everything from there onwards

[MV75]

So the mary sue retcon is over? HOORAY! Starwars finished at ep6.

[Trent]

So the mary sue retcon is over? HOORAY! Starwars finished at ep6.

If you wanna be like that, then it started with episode 4.

[XMan]

If you wanna be like that, then it started with episode 4.

LOL!

I really enjoyed the movie, I loved TLJ and hoped some things carried on over but of course not everything could. The only thing I would've liked is 10-20mins of more dialogue

[philby]

I don't get the complaints "we've never seen anyone before using force power XYZ, it's bullshit"
Like are you expecting there to be some documentary or movie that explains every single force power ever used or described or invented? Why can't people come up with new powers? Why is it so weird that you see something for the first time??

[G1Optimal]

Theres a rumor that the movie was 3 hours and j j abrams will not do a disney movie again after they altered the movie that he directed originally

can not find the link again

[Tha_Phantom]

Theres a rumor that the movie was 3 hours

I heard this as well. Apparently JJ's initial cut was 3 hours and 2 minutes and there were even rumours he wanted to split the movie into two parts, which would indicate a massive amount of footage was left out from the final version. He and Disney then agreed to a 2 hour and 37 minute cut, but Disney chopped it down further to 2 hours and 22 minutes without his knowledge. I can certainly understand he would feel betrayed and blindsided by this move considering he was the freaking director! I hope we get to see the 3-hour director's cut someday as that would do the film more justice (hopefully).

Here is my source, for what it's worth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ybXsZ1w5c

[drifand]

Is hard to say nowadays as Disney is like king and owns everything. Would be great to see a JJ full cut version. Rian on the other hand refuses to do a cut and insist that the version release is perfect.

[Paulbot]

I dunno... it sounds like a retread of Release the Snyder Cut stuff that keeps circulating. Angry fans imagining that the perfect version of a flawed film exists and the evil studios aren't keeping from the true fans.

(But if it's confirmed that Poe and Finn kiss than I'm all for #releasetheJJcut)

[G1Optimal]

I heard this as well. Apparently JJ's initial cut was 3 hours and 2 minutes and there were even rumours he wanted to split the movie into two parts, which would indicate a massive amount of footage was left out from the final version. He and Disney then agreed to a 2 hour and 37 minute cut, but Disney chopped it down further to 2 hours and 22 minutes without his knowledge. I can certainly understand he would feel betrayed and blindsided by this move considering he was the freaking director! I hope we get to see the 3-hour director's cut someday as that would do the film more justice (hopefully).

Here is my source, for what it's worth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ybXsZ1w5c


I hope so to.

[Tha_Phantom]

I dunno... it sounds like a retread of Release the Snyder Cut stuff that keeps circulating. Angry fans imagining that the perfect version of a flawed film exists and the evil studios aren't keeping from the true fans.

Haha! Well I doubt it will be a perfect film even if this 3 hour cut exists. I do however think that it will fix one of the biggest issues I have with it, which is the pacing.