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

[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.

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. 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

• Why is Finn Force sensitive now? He wasn't before.

• 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? 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! 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.