# Rise of Skywalker: The Seen It/Spoilers Thread



## Morrus (Dec 17, 2019)

I'm off to see this in approximately 24 hours. Can't wait! This is the spoiler thread -- keep all spoilers to this one.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 17, 2019)

15 hours to go not feeling so good though.


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## lowkey13 (Dec 18, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Morrus (Dec 18, 2019)

I'll make my own mind up in 8 hours. When it comes to opinions on SW films, I've reached the point that I literally couldn't care less about the weird opinions associated with the franchise now.


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## lowkey13 (Dec 18, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Gladius Legis (Dec 18, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> Posting this here in the spoiler section; I call this review the @Zardnaar wins (I kid, kinda):
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yup, this about confirms my worst fears about this movie as well. A shame.


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## Gladius Legis (Dec 18, 2019)

Another review that pretty much says the same thing: The Rise Of Skywalker rebalances Star Wars into a force of safe, familiar fan service

Notably, this part:


> Watching The Rise Of Skywalker, you realize that J.J. has been hired to do the same thing here; he’s made what feels sometimes like a glorified apology for his successor’s choices


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## Morrus (Dec 18, 2019)

This is a seen it thread, guys. Not a “somebody else saw it” thread. Let’s just talk about the actual movie, eh?


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## Aexalon (Dec 18, 2019)

We get these early in Belgium (all movies land on wednesdays).

Looking forward to seeing it again several times over the next few days with friends, colleagues and family.


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## Gradine (Dec 18, 2019)

I mean, for better worse all of the other threads have fallen off Page 1 or petered out, so this might as well be the "here is what people who have seen it think about it" thread moving forward.

FWIW, there are few critics whose opinions on Star Wars I trust more than Bob Chipman, and he's largely positive of the film and thinks that the narrative that RoS is in any way an "apology" for TLJ is pretty much bogus. And he was a *huge *defender of TLJ.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 18, 2019)

Gradine said:


> I mean, for better worse all of the other threads have fallen off Page 1 or petered out, so this might as well be the "here is what people who have seen it think about it" thread moving forward.
> 
> FWIW, there are few critics whose opinions on Star Wars I trust more than Bob Chipman, and he's largely positive of the film and thinks that the narrative that RoS is in any way an "apology" for TLJ is pretty much bogus. And he was a *huge *defender of TLJ.




Critic reviews are mixed. There's no I loved TLJ, RoS is terrible or I loved both movies or I hated TLJ loved Ross narrative you can spin. Critic opinions mean nothing for the most part anyway.  They like art type indie films and historical dramas. 

 Mixed reviews IMHO are a good thing. When there's massive disconnects between the audience and critics it looks bad for the critics IMHO.

OMW to the theatre now, mate went to the midnight release, sleep is good though.


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## Gradine (Dec 18, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Critic reviews are mixed. There's no I loved TLJ, RoS is terrible or I loved both movies or I hated TLJ loved Ross narrative you can spin. Critic opinions mean nothing for the most part anyway.  They like art type indie films and historical dramas.




I mean, that's a really limited and demeaning take on film critics, particularly in regards to Chipman, who is _explicitly _a film critic _and a fan_ within the milieu of nerd culture.

Edit: Hope you enjoy the movie, though! I'm probably going to have to wait a few days


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## lowkey13 (Dec 18, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Zardnaar (Dec 18, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> Critic reviews are the worst of the new trilogy.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




 Na it's also things like The Orville. Got 90%+ audience rating and 27% 

If the movie is good or bad just determines how often I see it.


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## Mallus (Dec 18, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> They like art type indie films and historical dramas.



Did you know one of Roger Ebert's favorite films was Dark City?


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## Gradine (Dec 18, 2019)

Mallus said:


> Did you know one of Roger Ebert's favorite films was Dark City?




Ebert also, if I recall correctly, very much enjoyed _The Mummy_ (the 90's one with Branden Fraser)


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## lowkey13 (Dec 18, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Gradine (Dec 18, 2019)

I mean, if we're not fulfilling the originally intended purpose of this thread we might as well turn it into a Dark City appreciation thread


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## Zardnaar (Dec 18, 2019)

Well first half was good,they whiffed the ending.

 Has some pacing issues, there's 2-3 movies worth of stuff in there.


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## Mallus (Dec 18, 2019)

Gradine said:


> I mean, if we're not fulfilling the originally intended purpose of this thread we might as well turn it into a Dark City appreciation thread



Worse things there are.


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## pukunui (Dec 19, 2019)

I enjoyed _The Rise of Skywalker_. Didn't mind the pace. Loved the idea of undead Palpatine instead of endlessly cloned Palpatines. Loved the whole "I am all of the Sith" vs "I am all of the Jedi". 

Why are people upset about Rey's yellow lightsaber? Yellow lightsabers are already part of canon. The Jedi Temple guards had double-bladed yellow lightsabers as established by the _Rebels_ cartoon.

Oh, and it was nice to see another cameo of the_ Ghost_. I wonder if it was still being piloted by Hera. We know she survived at least until the time of _Rogue One_.

The Knights of Ren looked cool. I loved their dirty look and the smoking engines on their ship. Too bad they didn't really get to do anything other than die.

I thought it was a fitting ending for the saga. 

The only real lingering question I have left is whether it was Rey's mom or her dad who was Palpatine's child.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 19, 2019)

pukunui said:


> I enjoyed _The Rise of Skywalker_. Didn't mind the pace. Loved the idea of undead Palpatine instead of endlessly cloned Palpatines. Loved the whole "I am all of the Sith" vs "I am all of the Jedi".
> 
> Why are people upset about Rey's yellow lightsaber? Yellow lightsabers are already part of canon. The Jedi Temple guards had double-bladed yellow lightsabers as established by the _Rebels_ cartoon.
> 
> ...




 Dad the movie did cover it.

 Yellow lightsabers work but they put it on a desert background. Wasn't the best visual imho.


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## ccs (Dec 19, 2019)

pukunui said:


> Why are people upset about Rey's yellow lightsaber? Yellow lightsabers are already part of canon. The Jedi Temple guards had double-bladed yellow lightsabers as established by the _Rebels_ cartoon.




Pfft.  Yellow Lightsabers have been part of Star Wars far longer than they've been actual SW cannon.  
See, we had yellow lightsabers as kids back in the day ( '78 - '83).  
*The light saber that poked out of the Luke Skywalker action figure was yellow.  
*The inflatable lightsabers Kenner made that we chased each other around the back yard came in Red (Vader) & Yellow (Luke).
*Then they made hard hollow plastic red & yellow sabers that made LS sounds when swung as air went through vents in the end. (this was very much an improvement over the inflatable ones!)
*Then the Luke (Bespin Fatigues) figure came with a yellow saber.
And I'm sure there's been more since those first four.
So any yellow sabers your seeing in your cartoons or in this movie are just nods to what we played with as kids.


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## doctorbadwolf (Dec 19, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> Posting this here in the spoiler section; I call this review the @Zardnaar wins (I kid, kinda):
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What I’ve seen from the few people I know who’ve seen it is that the above review is just wrong.


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## Morrus (Dec 19, 2019)

Just got back. More thoughts later. Overall, I liked it, but it's a middle-tier Star Wars movie (not as good as the OT, way better than the prequels). I like it the most of the new trilogy, I think. But time will tell on that.

Tonally it's very Force Awakens. Everything is bigger -- Star Destroyers can blow up planets, force powers can knock out starships, the action is generally more non-stop and hectic than it's ever been. Nice to see Han back as a ghost, Luke back as a ghost.

The pacing in the first quarter or so felt off -- just sooooo much stuff shown super quick with fast cuts and brief scenes; it felt like one of those Guy Richie montages. They were trying to cover a LOT of ground in the first 20 minutes or so.

Those who hate Rey will hate this more than anything; they really shouldn't watch it for fear of doing themselves an injury. That said, those who love the way powerful force powers are depicted in SW video games will love it.

Kylo/Rey kiss at the end? Bad.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 19, 2019)

Gave it 3/5. Movie was spoiled 4 months ago on Reddit. Screenshot leak of Palpatine was also accurate. 

 Wonder if the leak came from Boyega Mr I lost my script.

 Would put it slightly under RotS, ahead of the other prequels.


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## pukunui (Dec 19, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Dad the movie did cover it.



Huh?



> Yellow lightsabers work but they put it on a desert background. Wasn't the best visual imho.



Fair enough. One of my girls thought at first that it was white like Ahsoka's _Rebels_-era lightsabers.



ccs said:


> So any yellow sabers your seeing in your cartoons or in this movie are just nods to what we played with as kids.



Yeah, I know. They go way back. I think the first one I saw was Bastila Shan's double-bladed yellow lightsaber (from KotOR). But those are all relegated to the non-canon Legends now. In terms of canon, we just had the Jedi Temple Guards' lightsabers from _Rebels_ as precedent.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 19, 2019)

pukunui said:


> Huh?
> 
> Fair enough. One of my girls thought at first that it was white like Ahsoka's _Rebels_-era lightsabers.
> 
> Yeah, I know. They go way back. I think the first one I saw was Bastila Shan's double-bladed yellow lightsaber (from KotOR). But those are all relegated to the non-canon Legends now. In terms of canon, we just had the Jedi Temple Guards' lightsabers from _Rebels_ as precedent.




 Her dad was Palps son. It was in the movie. Her mother is someone else.


 Yellow blade lightsabers predate the KoToR game they were in comics in the 90s. 

 I didn't know people cared about the colour. Seen enough of them myself the only slight problem was wrong colour for Tatooine. Luke's green one in RotJ stood out better.


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## pukunui (Dec 19, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Her dad was Palps son. It was in the movie. Her mother is someone else.



Aha. Sorry, I wasn’t able to make sense of your comment due to insufficient punctuation.

Anyway, I must have missed that bit. When was it?

And now I am left wondering who Rey’s grandmother was. To be honest, I think I would’ve liked it better if Palpatine had created Rey rather than her being a descendant of his. Palps never struck me as being interested in procreation.



> Yellow blade lightsabers predate the KoToR game they were in comics in the 90s.



I am aware of that, yes.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 19, 2019)

pukunui said:


> Aha. Sorry, I wasn’t able to make sense of your comment due to insufficient punctuation.
> 
> Anyway, I must have missed that bit. When was it?
> 
> ...




 I think Palpatine said something about his son near the end.

  They basically skipped over the details of Palpatines family.


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## pukunui (Dec 19, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> I think Palpatine said something about his son near the end.
> 
> They basically skipped over the details of Palpatines family.



OK. I'm sure I'll see it again, so I'll make sure to listen out for that bit.

And yes, they did skip over the details. I imagine Disney will include them in a novel or something at some point.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 19, 2019)

pukunui said:


> OK. I'm sure I'll see it again, so I'll make sure to listen out for that bit.
> 
> And yes, they did skip over the details. I imagine Disney will include them in a novel or something at some point.




 Yeah they'll make some novels or comics. I got a Lando plus daughter spin off vibe.


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## ccs (Dec 19, 2019)

pukunui said:


> Huh?
> 
> Fair enough. One of my girls thought at first that it was white like Ahsoka's _Rebels_-era lightsabers.
> 
> Yeah, I know. They go way back. I think the first one I saw was Bastila Shan's double-bladed yellow lightsaber (from KotOR). But those are all relegated to the non-canon Legends now. In terms of canon, we just had the Jedi Temple Guards' lightsabers from _Rebels_ as precedent.




Yeah, I think you missed the point there.  That ALL yellow lightsabers are fan service aimed at the original fans.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 19, 2019)

ccs said:


> Yeah, I think you missed the point there.  That ALL yellow lightsabers are fan service aimed at the original fans.




 If they wanted to do that purple. 

 Always found yellow ones boring. And orange.


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## pukunui (Dec 19, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Yeah they'll make some novels or comics. I got a Lando plus daughter spin off vibe.



I'd like to see some spinoff movies (or TV series) on the continuing adventures of Finn, Poe and Rey. Those three have some fun chemistry, and it would be fun to watch them continue to develop their characters. (And to see Rey wield her yellow lightsaber.)



ccs said:


> Yeah, I think you missed the point there.  That ALL yellow lightsabers are fan service aimed at the original fans.



OK.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 19, 2019)

Didn't get any vibe about yellow lightsaber one way or another.  Not to many people have seen Rebels and KoToR would be the other place to see them. 

 I'm not a big fan as they look a bit washed out.


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## Morrus (Dec 19, 2019)

ccs said:


> Pfft.  Yellow Lightsabers have been part of Star Wars far longer than they've been actual SW cannon.




In Attack of the Clones where all the Jedi were in the arena, there were lightsabers of most every color. Including Mace Windu's purple one. They're definitely canon.


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## pukunui (Dec 19, 2019)

Apologies for sidetracking the thread with a discussion of lightsaber colours.

What do people think of Snoke being a clone created by Palpatine? Why do you suppose Palpatine cloned him? Some reviewers have suggested that Palpatine was controlling Snoke but I disagree with that assessment. I suppose Snoke was a useful proxy for Palpatine until he was ready to reveal himself again. He clearly wasn’t a Sith, even if he was a super-powerful Force user.

I would also argue that Palpatine couldn’t have been directly controlling Snoke or else he would’ve known about Rey and Kylo’s Force bond. He doesn’t know about it until the two of them are standing together in front of him, which is when he switches his plan from having Rey kill him to sucking their life force to regenerate himself.

Palpatine as Force lich was a cool move, in my opinion.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 19, 2019)

They're all green and blue. Apart from Mace's.

 A couple are a bit washed out and kinda look yellow. 

 Who's been complaining about yellow lightsabers? Seems silly lol.







pukunui said:


> Apologies for sidetracking the thread with a discussion of lightsaber colours.
> 
> What do people think of Snoke being a clone created by Palpatine? Why do you suppose Palpatine cloned him? Some reviewers have suggested that Palpatine was controlling Snoke but I disagree with that assessment. I suppose Snoke was a useful proxy for Palpatine until he was ready to reveal himself again. He clearly wasn’t a Sith, even if he was a super-powerful Force user.
> 
> ...




 Smokes thing was basically retconning TLJ. 
 They never really explained Palpatine either. 

I think they tried to imply Snoke was a puppet. And Palps return was "clones and Sith magic". 

 It's something that falls into the don't think about it to much Michael Bay/JJ Abrams line of film making. There's nothing stopping Snoke or the Emperor returning again either. 

 They can always make a new movie with another secret facility with more clones.


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## Nebulous (Dec 19, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> They're all green and blue. Apart from Mace's.
> 
> A couple are a bit washed out and kinda look yellow.
> 
> ...




I haven't seen it yet, but I like the idea of a clone and force lich, I think that's pretty cool actually.  They said it was their idea all along, but I feel like it was something they slapped in it to fix what Rian Johnson did in Last Jedi and course correct.  And yeah, if they left it as vague as they did, I guess the Emperor can keep coming back over and over.  Rey didn't smash his PHYLACTERY did she?


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## Zardnaar (Dec 19, 2019)

Nebulous said:


> I haven't seen it yet, but I like the idea of a clone and force lich, I think that's pretty cool actually.  They said it was their idea all along, but I feel like it was something they slapped in it to fix what Rian Johnson did in Last Jedi and course correct.  And yeah, if they left it as vague as they did, I guess the Emperor can keep coming back over and over.  Rey didn't smash his PHYLACTERY did she?




 Well they didn't explain it. But since they introduced it they can reuse it. I think Palpatine is gone but yeah if he can theoretically keep coming back if needed.

Same with Snoke clones.


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## pukunui (Dec 19, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Who's been complaining about yellow lightsabers? Seems silly lol.



Nobody here on ENWorld. It was in one of the reviews I read and/or on Reddit.



Zardnaar said:


> Well they didn't explain it. But since they introduced it they can reuse it. I think Palpatine is gone but yeah if he can theoretically keep coming back if needed.
> 
> Same with Snoke clones.



The impression I got was that Palpatine was still in his original body, not a clone. That's why it looked all rotten and broken and undead. Snoke definitely was a clone -- Palpatine tells Kylo that he created Snoke and you can see at least two more Snoke bodies in a vat.

I maintain that Snoke was a proxy, not a puppet. Otherwise Rey and Ren's "Force dyad" would not have been such a surprise that Palps decided to change his plans once he discovered it.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 19, 2019)

pukunui said:


> Nobody here on ENWorld. It was in one of the reviews I read and/or on Reddit.
> 
> The impression I got was that Palpatine was still in his original body, not a clone. That's why it looked all rotten and broken and undead. Snoke definitely was a clone -- Palpatine tells Kylo that he created Snoke and you can see at least two more Snoke bodies in a vat.
> 
> I maintain that Snoke was a proxy, not a puppet. Otherwise Rey and Ren's "Force dyad" would not have been such a surprise that Palps decided to change his plans once he discovered it.




Palpatine said he died in the movie right near the start. When Kylo threatened to kill him. 

 It could be his original body I suppose but it doesn't make a lot of sense with the DS explosion in the shaft then the DS explosion.

 I suspect the pace of the movie was also an effort to distract. Look at the pretty visuals don't think about it, next scene wash rinse repeat.


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## pukunui (Dec 19, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Palpatine said he died in the movie right near the start. When Kylo threatened to kill him.
> 
> It could be his original body I suppose but it doesn't make a lot of sense with the DS explosion in the shaft then the DS explosion.



I agree that it doesn't make a lot of sense given the explosion. However, his body looked undead, like it was a corpse that was being artificially kept alive. Rather than a cloned body that had been grown in a vat. If that was the case, there'd have been no need to make it look so corpse-like.

Let's not forget that Maul somehow survived being chopped in half and dropped down a power shaft. With that as precedent, it's possible that Palpatine's body somehow came through the ensuing explosions without being entirely incinerated. Perhaps it just got really badly burnt and then was found by Sith cultists in the DS wreckage.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 19, 2019)

pukunui said:


> I agree that it doesn't make a lot of sense given the explosion. However, his body looked undead, like it was a corpse that was being artificially kept alive. Rather than a cloned body that had been grown in a vat. If that was the case, there'd have been no need to make it look so corpse-like.
> 
> Let's not forget that Maul somehow survived being chopped in half and dropped down a power shaft. With that as precedent, it's possible that Palpatine's body somehow came through the ensuing explosions without being entirely incinerated. Perhaps it just got really badly burnt and then was found by Sith cultists in the DS wreckage.




Possible. He's also really old by now and his spirit or whatever could be but ing up the bodies.

 There's a throw away line from the rebels about Sith magic and clones. 

 Just falls into the don't think about it next scene approach. Sit back and drink your member berry wine.

 Look it's a tie fighter.
Look it's OT stormtrooper helmet.
Oh look it's a lamda class shuttle.
Oh look it's wedge 
Oh look Deathstar wreckage is the room from ANH
Oh look it's Palpatine
Etc.

Member berries


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## pukunui (Dec 19, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Just falls into the don't think about it next scene approach.



I enjoy thinking about these things. It's how my brain works. I like to know. That said, I accept that not everything is -- or even should be -- explained. This lets me use my imagination to come up with my own explanations.


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## jonesy (Dec 20, 2019)

It was a good movie. Not an earth shattering fangasm, nor the greatest dissappointment ever. A regular good movie.


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## Galandris (Dec 20, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Yeah they'll make some novels or comics. I got a Lando plus daughter spin off vibe.




Interesting. I was under the impression that Lando was _flirtatious_ with the girl (with all the pairings alluded to just before or after...) I probably got the tone wrong.

Overall, I liked it more than the first prequel and the two sequels. I'd rate it below AotC and RotS. Pacing was a little off at first, I concur with what other have been saying. We do get a lot of "deus ex machina" moments, especially for the appearance of the "fleet" at the end when they already tried to pull this off at the end of the previous film and failed to gather a large support. Explanation of why it worked this time, when they got no significant victory to gather support around them was a little bit lacking ("it's them making us thinking we're isolated..." wuh?)
Some scenes were cool or fun (the spy one, the arrival the feast of the ancestor...) and the overall aesthetics on par with the other sequels, which is a good thing imho.

I don't think we'll see more of the Emperor. I understood him to be more undead (saying that the Dark Side allowed him to do unnatural things) rather than cloned. If cloning in SW terms is even remotely related to what we call cloning, his clone, even old, would look like Palpatine, not the wreck of a man he was made after the fight with windu and overusing his dark sides power to off him.


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## pukunui (Dec 20, 2019)

Galandris said:


> Interesting. I was under the impression that Lando was _flirtatious_ with the girl (with all the pairings alluded to just before or after...) I probably got the tone wrong.



Huh. I didn't get that impression at all but now that I think back on it, I can see how it might have come across that way ... Suggesting they find out where she's from could be seen as innuendo.



> We do get a lot of "deus ex machina" moments, especially for the appearance of the "fleet" at the end when they already tried to pull this off at the end of the previous film and failed to gather a large support. Explanation of why it worked this time, when they got no significant victory to gather support around them was a little bit lacking ("it's them making us thinking we're isolated..." wuh?)



I could be imagining it, but I feel like it was explained somewhere -- perhaps in a novel or something -- that the reason no one answered Leia's call at the end of TLJ is because the First Order was jamming the signal. But I also feel like one of the minor Resistance characters confirms that the signal is getting through in the movie itself, so maybe that's not right.

That said, the whole "divide and conquer" thing seems like a sound strategy for galactic dominion. Make everyone think they're alone so they can't join together and form a new, effective resistance. We know Lando has a way with words, so clearly he was able to succeed where Leia was unable to before.



> I don't think we'll see more of the Emperor. I understood him to be more undead (saying that the Dark Side allowed him to do unnatural things) rather than cloned. If cloning in SW terms is even remotely related to what we call cloning, his clone, even old, would look like Palpatine, not the wreck of a man he was made after the fight with windu and overusing his dark sides power to off him.



My sentiments exactly.

I am also now wondering if one could interpret that "all of the Sith" made Snoke rather than Palpatine specifically. The Snoke we saw in the first two movies just seems to be too old and experienced too much to be a lab-grown fake baddy. Maybe it's one of the other Sith spirits inhabiting Palps' undead body that is saying that. Maybe the Sith cultists on Exogol were already there doing creepy Sith things when Palps arrived after the Battle of Endor. I really hope that Disney will now come clean and reveal a bit more about Snoke's backstory now that the saga is finished. We know that they know; they just haven't been willing to tell us yet.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 20, 2019)

Galandris said:


> Interesting. I was under the impression that Lando was _flirtatious_ with the girl (with all the pairings alluded to just before or after...) I probably got the tone wrong.
> 
> Overall, I liked it more than the first prequel and the two sequels. I'd rate it below AotC and RotS. Pacing was a little off at first, I concur with what other have been saying. We do get a lot of "deus ex machina" moments, especially for the appearance of the "fleet" at the end when they already tried to pull this off at the end of the previous film and failed to gather a large support. Explanation of why it worked this time, when they got no significant victory to gather support around them was a little bit lacking ("it's them making us thinking we're isolated..." wuh?)
> Some scenes were cool or fun (the spy one, the arrival the feast of the ancestor...) and the overall aesthetics on par with the other sequels, which is a good thing imho.
> ...




She was kidnapped didn't know her family. It's not definitive.

 They left Palpatines return open. Didn't really explain it but.

1. He died.
2. Line about clones and Sith dark technology or magic.


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## pukunui (Dec 20, 2019)

Unless we get _Sidious: A Star Wars Story_, I doubt we'll see him again. He's integral to the Skywalker Saga, which has now concluded.

I think it would be cool if the next Star Wars movies Disney makes are set in the Old Republic era.


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## GreyLord (Dec 20, 2019)

So, I know I said I was going on vacation after I saw the film (and yes, that means I'm on vacation and even travelling soon) but I have some responses I wanted to make, not necessarily to this thread, but in general to comments I've been reading around the internet.

Now that I can hopefully speak openly about it and the movie itself (the media blackout is absolutely over now so no fears there).

I keep hearing people bewailing that Lucas was not involved, and that is true to a point.  It is TRUE that this is the UNAPPROVED sequels to the rest of the Star Wars saga.  It is true that this is even less approved at this point than the original EU.  Lucas himself (I believe he was actually invited, vs. rumors he was not) I do not think was at the premiere.

That said, I think this is the CLOSEST you will ever get to seeing Lucas's actual ideas for a sequel to the Original Trilogy on the big screen.  Kathleen Kennedy said it first...though she's been ignored greatly on it.  The story stayed as it was.  It changed no more (and perhaps a lot less) than ANY OTHER Hollywood production.  Lucas had some ideas that changed in flux during the production, but the basic story line was there.  Lucas chose Kennedy and company because they could deflect the heat from him.  He had taken a LOT of criticism in the past over the prequels.  If he had mad these same sequels he would not have been welcomed with open arms, and probably even ostracized and disliked even more.  I think the basic story was his all along.

To put it in perspective.  I've said this elsewhere, but I don't think anyone has paid heed.  Feel free to broadcast this theory.  

Many years ago a very reviled storyline came out called Dark Empire.  In it the Emperor came back (this was after the return of the Jedi).  Lucas is reportedly stated to have said that this storyline was the closest story of all the EU that came to what his ideas of the sequel trilogy would have been about.  

In that light, it should surprise NO ONE what the sequel trilogy actually is about.

In addition, later Lucas DID have input to the EU.  He said it was not HIS story, but it WAS an ALTERNATE story that happened in an alternate universe.  He DID force or make changes to what others were doing in it.  One of those was to dictate storylines regarding the children of Han and Leia.  Han and Leia had three children in the EU.  One of the children was supposed to die off in the New Jedi Order Storylines but Lucas said no.  They could not kill him.  He had a plan for that child and thus that child could not die at that time from what I understand.  However, (I'm not so clear on this part) I believe he did have the other son die in that war.

The son that was not killed off at that time had an entire storyline about turning to the dark side, and becoming a basic Sith...

In the end, of course, it is not as clear as the movie, but it indicates that due to love he changes to a degree and tries to save (in the novels his daughter and love) the ones he loves.

Sound familiar...once again...it should.

What I'm saying, are these are storylines that Lucas had all along.  It should surprise NO ONE that they would be in his story treatments as well.

People have been bemoaning about the sequels and how it would have been better if Lucas was in charge...

I'm not so sure.  I think we'd have gotten something closer to the prequels in quality, but with a storyline very similar to what we have with the sequel trilogy.  Sure, we'd have different names for Rey and Finn and Kylo, and there would be a brother and sister...etc...

But the basics would still be there.  We'd still have Luke on an Island in self exile.  We'd still have the son of Han and Leia turn to the dark side.  We'd still have Rey trying to redeem him repeatedly (though she would be his sister instead of another which actually might have made a tad more sense).  We'd still have a resurrected emperor...

What I'm saying, and not necessarily to this thread, but to many of those bemoaning Lucas not being involved more is...I feel we got the basic core storyline that Lucas submitted long ago.  Iger, Kennedy, and others are getting the heat instead of him (big motivation for him to sell it too, so others could make it and get the heat).

It may not be approved with Lucas how it came out, but I think it is a LOT closer to how Lucas wrote his sequels than anything we've ever seen in the EU or elsewhere.

My thoughts on the actual movies will be in the next post (probably because this is long enough that for whatever reason I'm getting lag when I type).


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## GreyLord (Dec 20, 2019)

Okay, on the film itself.

I still think Rian's film was the better film, but the worst Star Wars movie.  Rian Johnson's Film actually answers questions and though it may not fit with the greater storyline, is a more self contained film.  Critics are absolutely RIGHT when they feel his film was the stronger film.

HOWEVER...Abrahms is a film maker right out of Lucas's heart.  His films are all flash and bang.  They move so quickly you don't have time to really think about the story or what's happening.  However, when you think back on it, you realize there are a LOT of things that make no sense in the overarching story and are never explained.  They have more holes than anything Johnson ever made.

BUT...they feel like Star Wars.  Abrahms makes movies that FEEL like Lucas's Star Wars while I'm not sure Rian Johnson ever understood the property to begin with.  Thus, if you want a movie that actually FEELS like a true star wars film, I'd say Abrahms is your guy.

In that light, this latest Star Wars movie FEELS like Star Wars.  It is a GREAT Star Wars movie.  It has many things that really have no explanation (for example, the emperor...he got electrocuted MORE in RotJ than this film, got thrown down a shaft of great distance, and then EXPLODED in the middle of Death Star II...and yet...here he is...in the flesh even if it is Zombie Palpatine) and on reflection make no sense (for example, another is suddenly they can return people from life, something NO JEDI OR SITH have ever been able to do, which is why Anakin turned to the dark side in the first place, Luke saw his father die, and Qui Gon died in front of Obi Wan).  If Anakin could have done that it would have stopped the entire series in it's tracks. 

But, despite that, it FEELS like a Star Wars movie.  It has many things that it tries to repair from Johnson's treatment (for example, why they don't go about hyperspace ramming, or the growth of Poe and his ability to command, as well as the REAL reasons for Luke to go off by himself...which also involved Lando...and who Rey's parents really were and their heroism) that FEEL FAR more star wars in their approach than what Johnson did or perhaps was ever able to do.

So, in that light I'd say this is the BEST STAR WARS movie (but not necessarily the best film of the star wars films) in the sequel trilogy, and perhaps for the past 6 or 7 Star Wars films (depends on whether we include the Clone Wars animated film I suppose).

I think there may be enough angst on the internet that we are not going to see it do as well as it could (it should do better than TLJ if things were fair...at least as a Star Wars film)...but that's how things go sometimes.

I still think those that loved TLJ hopefully will love this one, those who hated it MIGHT hate this one (but if they loved TFA they may also love this one more...it has that Abrahms touch which is prevalent in TFA) and those on the fence...hard to predict (an awful lot of those).

If you like Star Wars...I'd say go see this one.

And now the REAL spoiler...it's been said this is the end of the Skywalker storyline, but in truth, it really is the END of the SITH/JEDI saga.  It is the culmination of the Sith and Jedi conflict.  After this there is no real need for the Jedi in regards to stopping the Sith anymore, as the Sith are truly and completely defeated.  It is truly the Sith as one vs. the Entire Jedi Order, it is the culmination of their struggle.

It started before Skywalker, and it ends....well...after Skywalker and right as the Skywalkers get their beginning.

For if Palpatine made Anakin (as he hints in RotS) and can make Snoke, then they are his children as well.  And as his children who do not carry his name are Skywalkers...one who rejects his last name probably justly also fits in with the last name of...Skywalker.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 20, 2019)

Things I liked.

Leia. Got to me twas sad. 

They made an effort to explain alot. 

Explanations could have been better but they made an effort 

First 2/3rd if movie quite enjoyed. 

Incredible visuals. 

Fan service. Over did it a bit but it was fun seeing A-Wings. 

Chewie death fake out

Rey's presentation. She used the dark side. 

Kylos arc. Wish it ended a bit different. Siding with Reylo here feels bad man. 

 New 1st order general.


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## trappedslider (Dec 20, 2019)

I would have liked to have seen more of the Rey v Rey fight......otherwise I enjoyed it. The theater here offer four different cups: One normal cup that just had the movies title on it,a cup that looked like R2d2 and two cups that looked like light sabers, I got a red one. 



Spoiler


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## Zardnaar (Dec 20, 2019)

I'll admit Rey using the force to hold the shut the in place was cool. Mainly because I have had PCs do the same thing in the RPG.


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## Gradine (Dec 20, 2019)

Credits still rolling. Initial thoughts...


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## Gradine (Dec 20, 2019)

Didn't hate the parentage reveal nearly as much as I thought I would. Didn't like it, but then it's hard to fault a Star Wars movie for retconning parental information with "what I said was true, from a certain point of view." And they probably chose the best possible direction to go in that regard.

Part I hated the most: Tempted to go with Reylo kiss, but eh. However, and as much as I like the characters involved, you do not sneak a backdoor pilot into the last frakking movie in the Skywalker Saga. Jesus...

Also, they seriously couldn't let Finn get a chance to actually blurt it out? Seriously?

Oh, and sidelining Rose sucks. Probably the worst "concession" to the TLJ haters.

Also, Keri Russell should definitely be in more things.

Space battle action was a little disappointing, but that's just my own personal thing, and focusing more on it probably would have been a detriment to the character beats. Still.

Overall, I liked it. A lot more than I thought I would. It was Star Wars fun in a way the other sequel films weren't. Will probably be my least favorite of the three in retrospect, but that's pretty par for the course as far as the good trilogies go.

Will have more thoughts later


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## jonesy (Dec 20, 2019)

There was an idea formulating in my head that I didn't want to put out there until I'd slept on it first. As it hasn't gone away I have to write it down. I hope the following makes some sense.

I was thinking about what the problems I had with the movie were and it occurred to me that none of them are really about the movie itself. They are about the trilogy.

When I look back at the original trilogy and it's problems, all the various versions of the movies, the changes made, who shot first, how goofy that Vader V Kenobi fight really does looks like now, one thing always remains. It is a fully internally consistent trilogy. I can't think of the three movies as separate events because they fit so well together.

The same is true of the prequel trilogy. Whatever its problems the three movies are perfect for each other. It's a fully realized trilogy.

This isn't true for the third trilogy. The three movies are out of sync. The first one was pure fun fan service. A wild ride out into the world of Star Wars after a much too long wait. The second one now feels like a strange experiment into how far you can push the envelope before the fans break. What was the second movie even about, other than all of the characters on both sides having some kind of existential crises? And Rise is less about the other two as it is about the franchise as a whole and trying to gather all the loose threads into one whole Endgame. It doesn't feel like a trilogy to me. It feels like three different stories that only surficially relate to each other.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 20, 2019)

If the 1stvtwo movies didn't exist the crawl for rise could almost be episode VII.


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## lowkey13 (Dec 20, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Zardnaar (Dec 20, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> A Star Wars Guide to Killing Your Enemies so They Stay Dead
> 
> 
> Throwing them down a bottomless pit should be enough to kill them permanently!
> ...




JJ is Hollywood speak for original.


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## lowkey13 (Dec 20, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Gradine (Dec 20, 2019)

I saw a review that referred to JJ Abrams as "Hollywood's most consistent B Student" and that about encapsulates my thoughts. Better than the prequels by a wide margin. Worse than any of the OT. Definitely worse than its immediate predecessor, which I fear it will forever compare unfavorably to (a fate which I feel that Return of the Jedi always suffered from and never deserved). Maybe better than The Force Awakens? Certainly riskier, which again I know, low bar (which it only barely clears), but again, is another thing it will forever be compared unfavorably to The Last Jedi to (and say what you will about TLJ, _it took risks_). 

I see a lot of people complaining about the pacing, and fair but like... have you seen a Star Wars film? Like... any of them? Rise of Skywalker is probably the most conventionally paced film in the whole damn series. And yes, yes, low bar, etc. etc. At least it moves at a solid clip. I never felt like it was moving too fast, and the only places where it really dragged for me were the little-bit-too-long all-hope-is-lost moments.


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## Morrus (Dec 20, 2019)

Gradine said:


> I see a lot of people complaining about the pacing, and fair but like... have you seen a Star Wars film? Like... any of them? Rise of Skywalker is probably the most conventionally paced film in the whole damn series




The first third of RoS moves like a fast-clip montage scene. I enjoyed the film, but I can't agree with anybody who claims that first section wasn't unusually rapid-paced, darting from one short scene to the next. It really was very montage-like, and very, very fast-paced. More so than a Michael Bay film or a Fast & Furious.


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## lowkey13 (Dec 20, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Morrus (Dec 20, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> This is correct about Abrams, but the more I think about JJ Abrams, the more I think that calling him a consistent B student is over-praising him.
> 
> I mean, his films make money, and that's not a small thing. But he's kind of like a modern Ron Howard without even the gravitas of Howard (I never thought those words would ever form in that combination- lacking the gravitas of Ron Howard!).
> 
> ...



So I'm getting the sense you didn't like the film then? Just stretching here.


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## lowkey13 (Dec 20, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Gradine (Dec 20, 2019)

Morrus said:


> The first third of RoS moves like a fast-clip montage scene. I enjoyed the film, but I can't agree with anybody who claims that first section wasn't unusually rapid-paced, darting from one short scene to the next. It really was very montage-like, and very, very fast-paced. More so than a Michael Bay film or a Fast & Furious.




Fast-paced, yes. Moreso than Bay or F&F is *way *overselling it though. It was fast-paced, yes, but it never got to the point where I would describe it as even _frenetic_, let alone montage-like.

Compare (the good trilogies, anyway):
*ANH:* Very weird, disorienting media res intro; we follow two droids antics for a good 15-20 minutes before Luke even shows up on camera and the music cue swells to let us know "oh, this is the hero". It also takes _forever _for the action to move off of Tatooine for how little of the relevant plot actually happens there.
*ESB:* You might think this starts with the Imperial assault on Hoth, but you'd be wrong. It, again, takes 15-20 minutes of _glacially* _paced business with Wampa attacks and Tauntaun innards and incest and it's all very iconic but also damn slow. On a recent re-watch I also noticed how weirdly paced the Falcon escape sequence(s) is are.
*ROTJ: *Jabba's Palace.
*TFA:* Again, we follow comedic sidekick antics for a while before introducing our main heroine, but then, this film's structure is just A New Hope redux, so what else would we expect? Otherwise, it competes with RoS on the pacing front.
*TLJ:* Canto Bight. But also, it suffers from a lot of the same weird multiple-subplots awkward sense of how-long-any-of-this-is-taking issues that Empire Strikes Back also has.
*ROS: *Has a swift-moving first act that's honestly pretty typical for a big budget action movie in the New Teens.

*puns _always _intended


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## Morrus (Dec 20, 2019)

Gradine said:


> Fast-paced, yes. Moreso than Bay or F&F is *way *overselling it though. It was fast-paced, yes, but it never got to the point where I would describe it as even _frenetic_, let alone montage-like.



Yeah, you said. I disagree (still).


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## Gradine (Dec 20, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Yeah, you said. I disagree (still).




Well, leave it to a Brit to be flabbergasted by past-faced American blockbuster pacing


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## Larrin (Dec 20, 2019)

I saw it last night and while I didn't hate it and didn't love it (though I hated and loved bits and pieces of it), and I thought that was that, but now I'm noticing that I'm definitely moving through the 5-stages of grief with regards to it.  I hit anger at 4:30am this morning waking myself up and I'm currently trying to bargain (with myself?) to see if I can't find a better movie in there.   I think acceptance is possible for me, and once that happens it'll be a movie I can watch again and take away the things I like and ignore the really, really lousy stuff that made me "grieve".


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## Zardnaar (Dec 20, 2019)

It had some fantastic bits. Leia thing hit meh with Han and Luke it was more of course they did.

 Han was no real surprise, Harrison Ford had been wanting to kill him off since 1983. 

 Almost feels like 3 movies in there. 1st 3rd, 2nd third and the end which was a Marvel super heroes film. It was the final third which was a bit meh.

 Leia was handled better than I thought it would have worked with stock footage. Finn and Poe got better writing, they turned in a very good lightsaber duel on Endor.

 What makes a good lightsaber duel in Star Wars is the emotional investment in it IMHO, not the CGI used. 

 Would have like Ben to have survived and sit beside Rey at the end. Same fate as Vader, originality please.

   Having the Start Destroyers blow up at the end galaxy wide was a bit silly. The battle was on Exogol.


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## Tyler Do'Urden (Dec 20, 2019)

> Having the Start Destroyers blow up at the end galaxy wide was a bit silly. The battle was on Exogol.




Seemed a bit like an amped-up version of the Katana Fleet incident from Heir to the Empire. I liked that.


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## Tyler Do'Urden (Dec 20, 2019)

> This is correct about Abrams, but the more I think about JJ Abrams, the more I think that calling him a consistent B student is over-praising him.




I guess I must disagree... he has one great talent - he can take old wine and make it taste new again for a couple of hours.

Last night, I felt like I was 12 years old, gawking at Return of the Jedi for the first time. Sure, it wore off after the movie ended... but for that time, I was having a ball.

That was worth an $11.50 ticket. Heck, I'd pay $200 for that. It's like a Disney World ride - it may be over quickly, but dang was it a good time while it lasted!


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## Zardnaar (Dec 20, 2019)

Tyler Do'Urden said:


> I guess I must disagree... he has one great talent - he can take old wine and make it taste new again for a couple of hours.
> 
> Last night, I felt like I was 12 years old, gawking at Return of the Jedi for the first time. Sure, it wore off after the movie ended... but for that time, I was having a ball.
> 
> That was worth an $11.50 ticket. Heck, I'd pay $200 for that. It's like a Disney World ride - it may be over quickly, but dang was it a good time while it lasted!




 He's more like grape juice with vodka added. Might taste alright but not as good as the original recipe he's trying to copy.

 Rian Johnson's probably the better director.


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## Gradine (Dec 20, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Rian Johnson's probably the better director.




Oh, he is absolutely the better director. But it's a relatively known quantity that J.J. Abrams' greatest talent is in invoking nostalgia for older, better works in a way that is usually way more effective than it has any right to be, objectively speaking. See also: Super 8.

Plus anyone who is as dedicated to maintaining the career of Keri Russell as he is deserves at least some props.


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## lowkey13 (Dec 20, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## pukunui (Dec 20, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Having the Start Destroyers blow up at the end galaxy wide was a bit silly. The battle was on Exogol.



Somebody — maybe Zori? — says at the end when the fleet shows up that the whole galaxy is rising up. That’s what the whole Star Destroyers blowing up everywhere is meant to represent.


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## Gradine (Dec 20, 2019)

pukunui said:


> Somebody — maybe Zori? — says at the end when the fleet shows up that the whole galaxy is rising up. That’s what the whole Star Destroyers blowing up everywhere is meant to represent.




Plus, this was just the Final Order fleet that Palpatine was building. The regular old First Order had already had pretty solid control of the rest of the galaxy by that point


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## Stalker0 (Dec 20, 2019)

Saw it yesterday. It felt like Star Wars to me. It’s got some flaws, sometimes big ones, but it made me laugh, it made cry, it made me cheer.

the last Jedi didn’t do that for me. I was honestly bored through most of it, and therefore felt the need to nitpick it so much more.

Rise worked for me. It’s not a good lesson for making a good movie, but in terms of making me like Star Wars again, it did the job


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## Derren (Dec 21, 2019)

Watched it, sadly, because I am a completionist.

Garbage movie, no pacing, logic holes galore, too much fan pandering instead of having its own ideas and so full of cringe worthy scenes that it could have been a prequel movie (actually I would rate some prequels better than EP9).

Good for people with short attention spans who need constant action and have low standards and are happy with just ever bigger xplosions. But nothing more.


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## MarkB (Dec 21, 2019)

pukunui said:


> What do people think of Snoke being a clone created by Palpatine? Why do you suppose Palpatine cloned him? Some reviewers have suggested that Palpatine was controlling Snoke but I disagree with that assessment. I suppose Snoke was a useful proxy for Palpatine until he was ready to reveal himself again. He clearly wasn’t a Sith, even if he was a super-powerful Force user.



One thing that occurred to me about Snoke is that maybe he was a failed experiment with short-circuiting the whole "death by granddaughter" thing. Maybe Palpatine tried to create a clone of himself, or simply a customised force-bred being, into whom he could transfer his essence as he planned to do with Rey. Either the transfer failed and left Snoke in his debilitated physical state, or the creation process itself was flawed.

Using Snoke as the nucleus of the First Order was simply a way of making use of the otherwise-redundant material.


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## Gradine (Dec 21, 2019)

Derren said:


> Watched it, sadly, because I am a completionist.
> 
> Garbage movie, no pacing, logic holes galore, too much fan pandering instead of having its own ideas and so full of cringe worthy scenes that it could have been a prequel movie (actually I would rate some prequels bettet than EP9).
> 
> Good for people with short attention spans who need constant action and have low standards and are happy with just ever bigger xplosions. But nothing more.




I too love to insult everyone who has different tastes than I do.


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## Hriston (Dec 21, 2019)

The Rule of Two hadn’t worked out so well for Palpatine in the long run, whereas clones were a big part of his success. Having a clone apprentice/minion seems like a natural fit and strangely similar to the idea of miniaturizing and proliferating Death Star technology. 

And no, I haven’t seen the movie.


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## Vael (Dec 21, 2019)

I'll have more later, just ... this movie really proves that they needed a real plan for the new trilogy. Making it up as you go was not a good idea.


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## Nebulous (Dec 21, 2019)

i kinda like The Force Awakens first time I saw it.  Then it started sinking in that it was just a remake of ANH with big plot holes, and


Vael said:


> I'll have more later, just ... this movie really proves that they needed a real plan for the new trilogy. Making it up as you go was not a good idea.




I hope they do spend a couple years doing just that, have a PLAN and don't hand the reins off to someone and let them do their own random ideas.


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## Mercurius (Dec 21, 2019)

It was OK, entertaining enough. But after the last two films, my expectations were lowered.

The biggest annoyance for me was Palpatine. It was just too...safe, unimaginative. I'm kind of sick of the guy, and it also diminishes the greatest  moment in the entire corpus: Darth Vader turning and throwing him over the edge. 

A question: Who were all the robed dudes in Palpatine's audience? I mean, there aren't that many Sith, right? And so easily killed off?


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## Tyler Do'Urden (Dec 21, 2019)

It was a bit disappointing to have my pet fan theory - that Rey was Anakin reincarnated - shot apart.

Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter doesn't work _quite_ as well... unless, as was implied in Ep 3 and Ep 9, Anakin (and thus the Skywalkers) was Palpatine's creation. In which case the final dyad of Rey Palpatine and Ben Solo-Skywalker destroying the Sith together does close everything up rather nicely.

Luke wasn't entirely wrong to have gone into seclusion. It was time for the Jedi to end. There is a heavily anarchist subtext running through the third trilogy - all through VII and VIII I kept on wondering what's going on elsewhere. What's happening on Coruscant? Corellia? Chandrila? Dac? Eriadu? Kuat? Raaltir? Kashyyk? Malastare? Ryloth? There's this whole galaxy of major Republic/Empire worlds that don't seem to have much of anything to do with this conflict. They destroyed the worlds of the Hosnian system... which had never even come into the story until the same movie in which it was destroyed (admittedly the same could be said of Alderaan at the time Ep IV was made, though it was relevant to the prequels). As one of my friends said... "maybe the galaxy has decided to go on without them"? (Them being the First Order and the Resistance) "Perhaps it's a 'war in heaven', like in Stellaris?" (For those who have never played Stellaris, a War in Heaven is a great conflict between two very advanced ancient empire factions... which often doesn't have much impact on the majority of the galaxy.)

Ep IX confirmed that. "It's not a navy... it's just people." A bit of a cheesy line, but it worked. The huge armada that arrived were traders, local militias, bounty hunters, adventurers, private militaries... the minutemen of the galaxy, who no longer need the Republic, the Empire, the Jedi or the Sith.

Just people. The galaxy can now go it's own way and move on from 10,000 years of stagnation.

That didn't retcon or reject Ep VIII in any way... that confirmed it. It was a rebirth.

To me that was the most brilliant thing about this movie. My problem with the Expanded Universe was that it was a universe locked into the same conflict, the same story, over and over again... fought by the same people.

Ep VIII AND IX said... that ends right here.

Balance was restored to The Force. The Galaxy was liberated, at last.


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## Gradine (Dec 21, 2019)

Tyler Do'Urden said:


> It was a bit disappointing to have my pet fan theory - that Rey was Anakin reincarnated - shot apart.
> 
> Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter doesn't work _quite_ as well... unless, as was implied in Ep 3 and Ep 9, Anakin (and thus the Skywalkers) was Palpatine's creation. In which case the final dyad of Rey Palpatine and Ben Solo-Skywalker destroying the Sith together does close everything up rather nicely.
> 
> ...




This is the kind of content that restores my faith in fandom


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## pukunui (Dec 21, 2019)

Mercurius said:


> A question: Who were all the robed dudes in Palpatine's audience? I mean, there aren't that many Sith, right? And so easily killed off?



I assumed they were cultists / followers of the Sith but not practitioners. Ultimately they were just there to look intimidating.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 21, 2019)

They were sith cultists.


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## Leatherhead (Dec 21, 2019)

It was an OK Star Wars movie, better than half of them at least. Which means it worth watching, though I would tell anyone who asks that waiting for it on Disney+ would also be ok, if you can manage to dodge spoilers for that long.

I have two nitpicks, well two and a half:

They spent a lot of time undoing the last movie. I didn't love the last movie. But every time they brought it up to fix some problem it had, it grated on my immersion.

There were way too many fake deaths. Chewie should have been actually killed on that transport. C-3PO could have still been backed up by R2 (that fits with the movie's theme of using part of yourself to heal someone else), but by the time Ben was tossed down that pit I was thinking to myself "Yeah, he's going to be coming back from that". Then Rey died, and Ben crawled out of the to heal her. Then Ben died again, and instead of it being a dramatic turning point I couldn't help but feel "Is this _really_ where they stop passing around the death ball?" Then he force-ghosted his body and I felt a bit underwhelmed at a main character's death because I was so burnt out over it by then.

The last half-nitpick was, of course, Fin's romance arc (or lack thereof). I totally expected FinXRey to not be a thing, I just didn't expect the not being a thing part of it, to also not be a thing. A confession, a fallout, realizing he actually liked Rose or Poe, or having a special  connection with the new defector. Just anything more than "I'll tell you later".


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## Argyle King (Dec 21, 2019)

It was okay-ish, I guess.  I might have leaned toward being upset had I been subjected to a full price ticket to see it; as something I was able to see discounted via reward points, I felt okay with it as a way to pass some time.

I often see reviews talking about the movie being too much fan service.  I don't understand that criticism.  I feel as though it's an accurate criticism of Rogue One, but for this movie?  Fan service is supposed to be something that fans might want, right?  Are there really that many people who are Palpatine fantatics?  If so, there's nothing wrong with that.  It's just simply something which I have a hard time wrapping my head around.

Speaking of that, the big reveal of the movie feels like a very lackluster attempt to recapture the magic of the Luke/Vader story.  A lot of loud noises, special FX, and flashing lights look visually cool, but (IMO) do not translate into a good movie (and it could easily be argued that this movie -combined with TLJ- somehow manage to retroactively make the rest of the saga worse).  

It does enough to fill the obligatory third movie in a trilogy.  It will likely make money because of brand recognition.  What else can I really say?  It was a movie.


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## cmad1977 (Dec 21, 2019)

Perfectly fine movie.


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## Nebulous (Dec 21, 2019)

When did Palpatine sire Rey as a granddaughter?


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## tglassy (Dec 21, 2019)

He was the emperor. Pretty sure he had concubines galore.  He likely didn't pay attention to any of his progeny until one of them had a daughter, and he had a vision that she would grow powerful.


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## Nebulous (Dec 21, 2019)

tglassy said:


> He was the emperor. Pretty sure he had concubines galore.  He likely didn't pay attention to any of his progeny until one of them had a daughter, and he had a vision that she would grow powerful.




He might have lots of evil kids wandering the Star Wars-verse


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## Morrus (Dec 21, 2019)

tglassy said:


> He was the emperor. Pretty sure he had concubines galore.  He likely didn't pay attention to any of his progeny until one of them had a daughter, and he had a vision that she would grow powerful.



I can't really imagine that withered, cackling old man getting all sexy.


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## Mercurius (Dec 21, 2019)

Well, based upon Rey's probable age (20ish), her parents likely age when she was born (20-30ish), that would mean Palpatine got down and dirty 40-50 years ago - safely after he got super-nasty in Revenge of the Sith.

Which leads us to the big question: Who was this unfortunate grand-mother of Rey?

But here's a serious thought: maybe after Vader was injured he decided to take steps to "create" Rey? Maybe he saw Vader as too flawed? So maybe he started impregnating concubines to breed children strong in the Force?


----------



## tglassy (Dec 21, 2019)

Morrus said:


> I can't really imagine that withered, cackling old man getting all sexy.




Didn’t stop Jabba the Hutt.


----------



## ccs (Dec 21, 2019)

Mercurius said:


> Well, based upon Rey's probable age (20ish), her parents likely age when she was born (20-30ish), that would mean Palpatine got down and dirty 40-50 years ago - safely after he got super-nasty in Revenge of the Sith.
> 
> Which leads us to the big question: Who was this unfortunate grand-mother of Rey?
> 
> But here's a serious thought: maybe after Vader was injured he decided to take steps to "create" Rey? Maybe he saw Vader as too flawed? So maybe he started impregnating concubines to breed children strong in the Force?




Or he could've had any # of relations while a Nabu senator/Chancellor of the Republic - before his face altering fight with Mace Windu.
That this might not seem to make sense?  Well, you've seen Episodes I, II, III & VII, VIII, 
IX.  Go ahead & convince me that this would be any less absurd than some of the stuff those episodes presented.


----------



## Mercurius (Dec 21, 2019)

Hey, I don't have a problem with it from a "making sense" stand-point. I mean, I have kids - I know the cause and effect .


----------



## pukunui (Dec 21, 2019)

Maybe he used artificial insemination.

On a completely unrelated note, I’ve just read that Kathleen Kennedy says they won’t be abandoning Finn, Rey and Poe! Yay!

She did, however, say that they may abandon the trilogy format and just go with standalone films going forward, though.


----------



## tglassy (Dec 21, 2019)

That’s good. I mean, their stories don’t quite feel done. 

As for artificial insemination, you’re assuming the Emperor, Lord of the Dark Side, Which is all about power, greed, passion and such, would simply stay celibate because he’s ugly. I doubt very seriously that his son’s mother was a willing partner, but I also doubt he cared.


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## tglassy (Dec 21, 2019)

I realized I didn't leave a review.

I thought this was a solid entry to the series.  I didn't mind the Palpatine aspect, in fact I believe it was the plan from the beginning, including Rey's ancestry.  I just think The Last Jedi dropped the ball on leading up to it.  I think it would have been much more powerful if, at the end of The Last Jedi, like in an after credits scene or something, they should have had a scene where the camera pans slowly across the throne, and the Emperer's music starts playing, and you hear plapatine's low laugh, and then it ends.  That would have set up this movie so much better than revealing Palpatine in a trailer.  

I feel like nothing actually happened in The Last Jedi.  I liked all the stuff with Rey and Kylo and Luke, even though, like Mark Hamill, I disagree with the direction they took Luke.  But that stuff did wind up having an impact in this movie.  The stuff in The Last Jedi with Poe and Finn and Rose was pointless, however.  But in this one, they actually made those characters interesting and competent.  They actually had a point to the story, and I enjoyed it tremendously.  

I think the problem with The Last Jedi was they tried to pick it up right where The Force Awakens left off.  That's not how Star Wars is supposed to be.  Star Wars always fasts forward a year or two.  If they'd had it open with Rey training with Luke, even if Luke was training her reluctantly and not being a great mentor, that would have explained why she was so good with the Force.  Then she leaves before her training is complete, and she finishes it with Leia in The Rise of Skywalker.  That would have made it all make more sense, and Luke wouldn't have seemed like a pansy.

The one thing in The Rise of Skywalker that I did not agree with was Kylo Ren's death.  I understand why it had to happen, but think about it. If he and Rey had survived together, they could have gone off to restart the Jedi Academy.  Then, a Palpatine and a Skywalker would be restarting the Jedi Order, the way a Palpatine and Skywalker destroyed it.  It would have come full circle.  They sort of did that with Rey choosing Skywalker as her surname, but I think it would have been a powerful ending if he'd survived, and I usually like people dying in the end.

Kylo could have made himself a Green Lightsaber, one that was more stable, and become the Jedi Master that Anakin never could be.  

Note: When Han Solo showed up, I legit cried.  I don't cry often in movies.  I have to really feel it.  But that was a beautiful scene.  One of the best in the new trilogy, IMO.  

It is sad that Carrie Fisher wasn't there to finish it.  They could have done so much more with her character, but they didn't want to just CGI her, and I understand that.  In a way, Leia saved the galaxy by touching Kylo Ren when she did.  I do wonder at why her body didn't leave until his did.  My brother thinks she was, in some way, possessing him or influencing him.  It's probably something like that.  I did like how his scar disappeared when Rey healed him.  I also like that we have an in universe Force Healing, finally.  It's been in the games and some of the extended universe for a while, but I actually liked the new Force stuff they included.  It expands what was capable.  

I think Finn is Force Sensitive, and will be one Rey's first students.  I hope so, I hear they are going to continue their stories (just not in a "Trilogy" format).  After this movie, I hope they do.  Finn's story isn't complete.  I think showing them raising up the next generation of Jedi to help rebuild the galaxy could be interesting to see.  Palpatine is gone, but that doesn't mean there's nothing out there to threaten the galaxy.

One last thing: Palpatine wanting Rey to kill him so he could merge his spirit with hers.  Brilliant.  Why?  Because he kept telling Luke to do the same thing. He never seemed afraid of dying.  "Strike me down with your anger, and your journey to the dark side will be complete".  We always focus on the fact that Darth Vader was there to protect the Emperor, but what if it was more than that?  The Sith have always had two, a Master to embody power and an Apprentice to covet it.  This suggests that the reason they do this, the reason they take an apprentice, knowing one day that apprentice will kill them and take their place, is because if a force sensitive person kills them in anger, their soul passes to the other person, merging and bonding with it, and they live forever.  This right here, I think, ties all the lore together, and explains so much in such a fitting way.  The reason Palpatine didn't let Darth Vader do that?  Because he was "more machine than man".  He was flawed.  If he hadn't been cut down by Obi Wan, no doubt once he gained enough power he would have welcomed Anakin killing him.  Instead, he looked to others.  Namely, Luke.  And later, Rey.  That was a great inclusion in the Lore of the Sith.  

Good movie.  I'll watch it again, happily.


----------



## cbwjm (Dec 21, 2019)

Just watched this yesterday. For anyone who feels let down by episodes 7 & 8, this more than makes up for it. I thought it was awesome.


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## MarkB (Dec 21, 2019)

Did anyone else get a very "Avatar: The Last Airbender" vibe from both Rey's initial training scene and her final confrontation with Palpatine? The visual of her hovering cross-legged with the two offset rings of rocks circling her is straight out of the cartoons, and her attempt to connect with past Jedi is very reminiscent of the Avatar's connection to his past lives.

And when she finally succeeds at doing so, it's very much as though she were accessing the Avatar State, channeling her forebears in order to power-up her mystical abilities.


----------



## Mercurius (Dec 21, 2019)

tglassy said:


> I think Finn is Force Sensitive, and will be one Rey's first students.  I hope so, I hear they are going to continue their stories (just not in a "Trilogy" format).  After this movie, I hope they do.  Finn's story isn't complete.  I think showing them raising up the next generation of Jedi to help rebuild the galaxy could be interesting to see.  Palpatine is gone, but that doesn't mean there's nothing out there to threaten the galaxy.




Great post overall. I just wanted to highlight this point - if this is true, I'm glad to hear it as I always  want to see what happens next. Plus, there's that Force Boy that from TLJ that needs to be found and trained. 

I also like your theory on the Sith, and relates to what I said up-thread about Palpatine feeling like Vader was tainted, and thus the need for breeding Rey. It made me think, what if there is only one Sith, who keeps re-incarnating into new bodies? Or at least, what if Palpatine killed Sidious, but Sidious lived on through him? That could be implied, at least.


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## Nebulous (Dec 21, 2019)

Morrus said:


> I can't really imagine that withered, cackling old man getting all sexy.



My thoughts exactly! But then i think dark force erection  

Do it or don't do it, there is no try!


----------



## MarkB (Dec 21, 2019)

Nebulous said:


> My thoughts exactly! But then i think dark force erection
> 
> Do it or don't do it, there is no try!



Size matters not.


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## tglassy (Dec 22, 2019)

MarkB said:


> Size matters not.




The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.


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## Mage of Spellford (Dec 22, 2019)

Finally saw it and I thought it was great! Star Wars is back to being "A Great Sprawling Space Epic".  Left the theatre with a goofy grin on my face and listening to the happy buzz of the other watchers reliving their favorite parts.

One thing I thought was amusing..my 13 year old saw it the next day and when I asked her about it she enjoyed it but was confused by who the creepy guy in the hooded robe was. She had no idea who the emperor was or why it was such a big deal that he was back instead she just saw him as a villain. The bad guy!

I found it a relief to see a movie that unabashedly didn't care about intricate plots or moral ambiguity. That stuff is for a different kind of movie: this was a space opera made for kids or the kid in all of us.


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## tglassy (Dec 22, 2019)

Mage of Spellford said:


> Finally saw it and I thought it was great! Star Wars is back to being "A Great Sprawling Space Epic". Left the theatre with a goofy grin on my face and listening to the happy buzz of the other watchers reliving their favorite parts.
> 
> One thing I thought was amusing..my 13 year old saw it the next day and when I asked her about it she enjoyed it but was confused by who the creepy guy in the hooded robe was. She had no idea who the emperor was or why it was such a big deal that he was back instead she just saw him as a villain. The bad guy!
> 
> I found it a relief to see a movie that unabashedly didn't care about intricate plots or moral ambiguity. That stuff is for a different kind of movie: this was a space opera made for kids or the kid in all of us.




Well, this is the 9th movie in the series. If I hadn’t seen the first six, then I’d be confused, too.


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## EthanSental (Dec 22, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> The JJ movies are the equivalent of eating a whole bunch of pixie stix when you're an adult; sure, you get the rush of nostalgia. Then the rush of ... sugar. But 20 minutes after you've finished, you're left empty inside, and maybe a little sick. Because it's all surface, no depth. Nothing to fill you, nothing to (metaphor is starting to fail now) challenge you, or engage you ...




spot on!  Watching Force Awkens, I enjoyed it, 20 minutes driving home I realize how much of a copy it was and dislike the movie now....same with this one, enjoyed it while watching the visual but after it’s over, I felt that same let down again.


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## Mistwell (Dec 22, 2019)

Derren said:


> Good for people with short attention spans who need constant action and have low standards and are happy with just ever bigger xplosions. But nothing more.




If only you had just stated your opinion of the movie rather than your opinion of those who disagree with your opinion of the movie, you wouldn't be looking the way you look right now. Which is...lower than your view of the quality of this move


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## MarkB (Dec 22, 2019)

EthanSental said:


> spot on!  Watching Force Awkens, I enjoyed it, 20 minutes driving home I realize how much of a copy it was and dislike the movie now....same with this one, enjoyed it while watching the visual but after it’s over, I felt that same let down again.



While this is a flaw in the movie, I still enjoy it for the good character work it did in establishing Rey and Finn. The second half does drag a bit, though.

With Rise of Skywalker, I found it rather a drag in the cinema, especially the first act, and it all felt rather forced and artificial, but I'm prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps with further viewings once it comes out to stream I may find myself warming to it.


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## Bawylie (Dec 22, 2019)

MarkB said:


> Did anyone else get a very "Avatar: The Last Airbender" vibe from both Rey's initial training scene and her final confrontation with Palpatine? The visual of her hovering cross-legged with the two offset rings of rocks circling her is straight out of the cartoons, and her attempt to connect with past Jedi is very reminiscent of the Avatar's connection to his past lives.
> 
> And when she finally succeeds at doing so, it's very much as though she were accessing the Avatar State, channeling her forebears in order to power-up her mystical abilities.



Under developed. 

I thought she was the reincarnation of the Chosen one and I was waiting for that shoe to drop. When we got to “you’re a Palpatine” I was convinced she was a experiment from mustafar incubated in some poor schlubs and designed specifically to BE a host for Palpatine, biologically. And then the spirit of the chosen one inhabited that experiment to put a final end to P. 

I was slightly let down by the deflected force lightning win - I wanted a more Avatar/Energy Bend type conclusion. I am one with the force (versus all the Jedi).  

So the conclusion pulls a solid B for me. Delivered on Star Wars. Hit several doubles that should’ve been runs. 

Oh and there’s plainly two films in there that have been very hastily smashed together. 
—————-

If I were in charge, and nobody is asking or offering, I’d wait the appropriate amount of time, then reboot the whole thing as a series instead of films. The plot of each movie getting 9 or so hour-long episodes. And I’d definitely have an outline of the story before I started filming. Sheesh.


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## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

EN World's average rating for the flick is 3.35 so far.


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## Ulfgeir (Dec 22, 2019)

I liked it. Had good pacing and most of the stuff worked well. It was a worthy closure. 

My main gripe is one thing introduced in the disastermovie The Last Jedi, that they stuck with, which I didn't quite like. That being that Rey and Kylo could physically interact over a distance. It worked relatively well here though and led to some interesting scenes, but it does open up to a lot of weirdness when you think about it.  

And I would have liked to see more of the darkside dual-wielding version of Rey.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 22, 2019)

GAAAAHHHH!!! TIE FIGHTERS. DO. NOT. HAVE. HYPERDRIVES!!!!!!

_pant pant pant_

With that aside, it was OK. Definitely fun Star Wars, if you don't think about it too closely.

Frankly, it could have used  bit of a haircut. It just rushed through a lot of unnecessary stuff; the film should be allowed to unwind and expand and breathe, and then build rapidly to a crescendo. I prefer the pacing of the OT movies.

So much of the film is just repeats of OT moments slightly repackaged. It's like they have a checklist. Speeder bike chase, check. Throne room scene, check. Massive space battle, check. Cantina scene, check. ... That's Ok for fun, but a bit too much fan service. I finally choked out loud on the "give Chewie a medal" bit at the end since it was such extreme fan service. So that's disappointing. It doesn't have to be completely original -- TFA wasn't -- but make the copying and fan service less blatant.

I'm mixed on Palps as the villain. I think it would have worked better had they telegraphed better, but as it looks like they spent a good part of each movie undoing what they did in each prior movie, robbing the trilogy of some narrative coherence, that's hard to pull off.  Too, clone emporers have been done (Dark Empire, etc). But at least the throwback to RotS line gives some context.

I don't understand how this fits with Rule of Two. And I do wish Finn's Checkov's secret had gone off.

But it did have the fun and the feels. Not as good by a long shot as the OT, better largely than the PT. I really need a rewatch to fully evaluate.

3/5 for me.


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## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> GAAAAHHHH!!! TIE FIGHTERS. DO. NOT. HAVE. HYPERDRIVES!!!!!!




Clearly, they do. It's been 30 years!


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## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

One thing I didn’t enjoy so much - Star Destroyers as the mooks or cannon-fodder. A single Star Destroyer should be like a dragon.


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## tglassy (Dec 22, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> I don't understand how this fits with Rule of Two. And I do wish Finn's Checkov's secret had gone off.




It’s so the Sith can each live forever in the body of their apprentice. The Master’s Spirit bonds with the Apprentice’s when the Apprentice kills him in anger, as all Apprentices are destined to do. It’s why the Masters always take an apprentice, even though they know their Apprentice will eventually kill them. 

It’s actually brilliant. There are never more than two so all the power can be focused into one person, rather than spread out. It’s also why Palpatine never seemed afraid of dying, and why he told Luke to “Give in to his anger”, and that if he strikes Palpatine down in anger, his journey to the Dark Side would be complete. He was looking for a new body, and didn’t want Vader’s mechanical one.


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## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

tglassy said:


> It’s so the Sith can each live forever in the body of their apprentice. The Master’s Spirit bonds with the Apprentice’s when the Apprentice kills him in anger, as all Apprentices are destined to do. It’s why the Masters always take an apprentice, even though they know their Apprentice will eventually kill them.
> 
> It’s actually brilliant. There are never more than two so all the power can be focused into one person, rather than spread out. It’s also why Palpatine never seemed afraid of dying, and why he told Luke to “Give in to his anger”, and that if he strikes Palpatine down in anger, his journey to the Dark Side would be complete. He was looking for a new body, and didn’t want Vader’s mechanical one.



Except it was Vader who killed him.


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## tglassy (Dec 22, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Except it was Vader who killed him.




Apparently not.  And he didn’t do it out of anger.


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## billd91 (Dec 22, 2019)

Morrus said:


> One thing I didn’t enjoy so much - Star Destroyers as the mooks or cannon-fodder. A single Star Destroyer should be like a dragon.




Well, that's what you get with a level-based system. Eventually, the tougher opponents become mooks.


----------



## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

tglassy said:


> Apparently not.



Not now, no.

I do very much like that theory though.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 22, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Clearly, they do. It's been 30 years!




Not the OT TIE/ln that Kylo flew from the Death Star wreckage to Exowhatsis!


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 22, 2019)

tglassy said:


> It’s so the Sith can each live forever in the body of their apprentice. The Master’s Spirit bonds with the Apprentice’s when the Apprentice kills him in anger, as all Apprentices are destined to do. It’s why the Masters always take an apprentice, even though they know their Apprentice will eventually kill them.
> 
> It’s actually brilliant. There are never more than two so all the power can be focused into one person, rather than spread out. It’s also why Palpatine never seemed afraid of dying, and why he told Luke to “Give in to his anger”, and that if he strikes Palpatine down in anger, his journey to the Dark Side would be complete. He was looking for a new body, and didn’t want Vader’s mechanical one.




Thanks. I guess I follow. So all the chanting hooded folks Palps kept referring to a Sith were not Sith then?


----------



## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Not the OT TIE/ln that Kylo flew from the Death Star wreckage to Exowhatsis!



Clearly it does. It’s been 30 years!


----------



## tglassy (Dec 22, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Thanks. I guess I follow. So all the chanting hooded folks Palps kept referring to a Sith were not Sith then?




I think they were cultists, not Force Users. Like, followers of Palpatine and the Sith. Not everyone can be a force user.


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## MarkB (Dec 22, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Not the OT TIE/ln that Kylo flew from the Death Star wreckage to Exowhatsis!



That is a good point. They should've put him in a Lamda-class shuttle - but then you wouldn't get the iconography of him parking his OT TIE Fighter next to Luke's OT X-Wing.


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## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

MarkB said:


> That is a good point. They should've put him in a Lamda-class shuttle - but then you wouldn't get the iconography of him parking his OT TIE Fighter next to Luke's OT X-Wing.



It’s the new model. He’s not driving an antique.


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## MarkB (Dec 22, 2019)

Morrus said:


> It’s the new model. He’s not driving an antique.



Yes, he was. He was stranded on the Death Star without a ride. The idea was that he'd salvaged it from the wreckage.


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## Gradine (Dec 22, 2019)

What I liked a lot, in retrospect, is the whole "thousands of years of Jedi/Sith" thing. The Jedi and Sith get to have their big destined blowout, and then _both die._

The Jedi and the Sith both die with the Palpatine line. Balance brought to the Force. When Rey is brought back to life through Ben's sacrifice, the Skywalker line, completely engineered by Palpatine, also comes to an end.

Rey honors her teachers (and Kylo was definitely a teacher for Rey) by carrying on their name, but the most significant piece for me is that she's abandoning her true heritage. But not she gets to help usher in a whole new era for the Force.


----------



## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

MarkB said:


> Yes, he was. He was stranded on the Death Star without a ride. The idea was that he'd salvaged it from the wreckage.



Huh. Are you sure? How did he get there? I thought that was the ship he flew there in.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 22, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Clearly it does. It’s been 30 years!




I don't think there were First Order upgrade crews on Endor putting hyperdrives in 30-year old fighters. As MarkB points out ... he grabbed an antique from the wreckage to fly home. It's clearly an original model in the shot side-by-side with Luke's T-65, not a First Order TIE.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 22, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Huh. Are you sure? How did he get there? I thought that was the ship he flew there in.




He flew there in the FO Interceptor that Rey stole when she left.


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## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> He flew there in the FO Interceptor that Rey stole when she left.



Ah. Gotcha. You’re right!


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## Gradine (Dec 22, 2019)

Note that, at least AFAIK, nothing that would confirm that TIE Fighters post-ANH have no hyperdrives is still canon. Maybe there's more stuff in the new canon books about it.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 22, 2019)

Gradine said:


> Note that, at least AFAIK, nothing that would confirm that TIE Fighters post-ANH have no hyperdrives is still canon. Maybe there's more stuff in the new canon books about it.




Obi-Wan: "No, it's a short range fighter."

Sure, maybe FO TIEs have Hyperdrive ... but then why rely on Star Destroyers to shuttle them around?

And aside from TLJ and the whole "can't track through hyperspace" until they discover it takes a special ship and tech to track through hyperspace ... then all the TIEs in RoS not only have hyperdrive and track through hyperspace.

Lots of inconsistencies. I can live with an occasional retcon, but every film being a new retcon is a bit frustrating.


----------



## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Sure, maybe FO TIEs have Hyperdrive ... but then why rely on Star Destroyers to shuttle them around?



They’re there to defend the Star Destroyers.


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## MarkB (Dec 22, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Presumably lightspeed-skipping, as silly as it was as presented on-screen, is one of the techniques the Resistance have to use in order to defeat the First Order's tracking capabilities. At least they didn't ignore them.



Yep, agreed; that’s exactly why lightspeed-skipping was used. I felt that was pretty clear.


----------



## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> And aside from TLJ and the whole "can't track through hyperspace" until they discover it takes a special ship and tech to track through hyperspace ... then all the TIEs in RoS not only have hyperdrive and track through hyperspace.
> 
> Lots of inconsistencies. I can live with an occasional retcon, but every film being a new retcon is a bit frustrating.



That’s the exact opposite of an inconsistency. It’s a consistency. A new technology was used in TLJ, and it was rolled out by TRoS. It would be an inconsistency if they suddenly forgot about it.


----------



## Retreater (Dec 22, 2019)

Wasn't hyperspace tracking a thing in Rogue One/A New Hope? I mean, Vader was able to track the Tantive IV and its Death Star plans through hyperspace. I know they made a big deal about it in The Last Jedi, but I always assumed this was a thing that just happened in the Star Wars universe.


----------



## MarkB (Dec 22, 2019)

MarkB said:


> Yep, agreed; that’s exactly why lightspeed-skipping was used. I felt that was pretty clear.



@Morrus Did you, perhaps, edit my reply instead of quoting it? Because this is NOT what I posted.


----------



## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

MarkB said:


> @Morrus Did you, perhaps, edit my reply instead of quoting it? Because this is NOT what I posted.



Oh, crap! Sorry! I must have hit the wrong button. Yes, that was me posting there.


----------



## MarkB (Dec 22, 2019)

Retreater said:


> Wasn't hyperspace tracking a thing in Rogue One/A New Hope? I mean, Vader was able to track the Tantive IV and its Death Star plans through hyperspace. I know they made a big deal about it in The Last Jedi, but I always assumed this was a thing that just happened in the Star Wars universe.



That may or may not have been hyperspace tracking. It's also possible that they simply put out an APB on the Tantiive IV, and their garrison on Tatooine reported its arrival in-system.

However, hyperspace tracking wasn't introduced in TLJ - it was introduced in The Force Awakens, in a throwaway line by a Starkiller Base officer who tells Hux that they pinpointed the Resistance base by tracking the reconnaissance fighter that was sent to scan them. TLJ simply took the concept and ran with it.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 22, 2019)

In other speculation ... given everyone else they revived from the (near) dead I'm surprised Boba Fett Captain Phasma didn't make an appearance.


----------



## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> In other speculation ... given everyone else they revived from the (near) dead I'm surprised Boba Fett Captain Phasma didn't make an appearance.



I think they should have. It would have been a good repeated "they killed Kenny!" joke. You keep killing her and she keeps coming back.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 22, 2019)

Morrus said:


> I think they should have. It would have been a good repeated "they killed Kenny!" joke. You keep killing her and she keeps coming back.




LOL. Yes.

And was there an arm amputation? I missed it. They seemed to check the rest of the boxes ("I have a bad feeling" etc).


----------



## Morrus (Dec 22, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> LOL. Yes.
> 
> And was there an arm amputation? I missed it. They seemed to check the rest of the boxes ("I have a bad feeling" etc).



Good point! Nobody got their hand cut off!

It must have happened and I missed it.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 22, 2019)

I kept waiting for Kylo to cut off Rey's hand (or vice versa) ... but it didn't happen.


----------



## Gradine (Dec 22, 2019)

I don't think we lose any hands in any of the sequel films.

Clearly the trilogy is a failure of the highest caliber


----------



## Gradine (Dec 22, 2019)

Fun Fact: Many years ago I bought a Lego stormtrooper key chain. He's lost all of his limbs at this point, but the first thing to go? His hand


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 23, 2019)

Other missing bits:


Luke's green lightsaber. What happened to it? Rey buries Anakin/Luke's blue saber and Leia's on Tatooine (the former seems appropriate, the latter less so since Leia has minimal connection to Tatooine. Unless the saber was buried with a gold chainmail bikini ...)
Shame we never learned how Maz got Anakin's old saber. Nor did we learn how it got fixed after being cut in half in the prior movie. Did Leia help?
Why didn't they just Holdo all the Star Destroyers? Drone ships jumping to lightspeed as weapons ...


----------



## Morrus (Dec 23, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Why didn't they just Holdo all the Star Destroyers? Drone ships jumping to lightspeed as weapons ...



Not missing. Addressed (I mentioned it earlier in the thread).


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## pukunui (Dec 23, 2019)

I was wondering about Luke's green lightsaber too. I think it would've made more sense for Luke to give that to Rey rather than Leia's heretofore unknown lightsaber. I suppose he probably chucked it into the ocean shortly after arriving on Ahch-to, though.

As for fixing Anakin's, clearing some time has meant to have passed between TLJ and TROS (given that Finn has been able to grow his hair out), so I would assume that Leia must have helped Rey repair it, yes. A nice nod to it having been broken and repaired would've been to include a welding scar instead of making it look like it never actually broke.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 23, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Not missing. Addressed (I mentioned it earlier in the thread).



I missed it ...  scanned the thread but can't find your explanation. Can you point me?

Edit: And now I'm thinking too much.


Man, the Knights of Ren seem like such a missed opportunity.
If Palps lived, why woudn't he announce it right after Endor? The Empire would not have fallen in the first place, then. Why let the Rebellion take over to plot revenge 30 years later? There's a bunch of motivation and explanation that needs to be filled in there.


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## Galandris (Dec 23, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> I missed it ...  scanned the thread but can't find your explanation. Can you point me?




It wasn't really explained, IMHO. At some point, a hobbit suggested they did exactly that, but Poe dismissed the idea saying something like "the Holdo maneuver is a one in a million event". No more explanation given, but it's apparently non-replicable (so they don't have to explain why all the generals didn't think of it during the thousands of year of the Republic).

I guess they realized that having the heroes behaving like the Japanese Imperial Army and mass-training pilots to do suicide runs into star destroyers wasn't the vibe they wanted for the Rebellion, as well.


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## Morrus (Dec 23, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> I missed it ...  scanned the thread but can't find your explanation. Can you point me?



Sorry - it was in the other thread. We have too many Star Wars threads! 









						Order your Star Wars films
					

It was also bad there. There's a reason. TPM is regarded as bad. He wasn't busting out force powers either.   Regard it as bad all you like, but, it's still canon.  You cannot bitch on one hand that Rey is not following canon and then ignore the actual canon of the story.  If the Force can allow...




					www.enworld.org


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## tglassy (Dec 23, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> [*]If Palps lived, why woudn't he announce it right after Endor? The Empire would not have fallen in the first place, then. Why let the Rebellion take over to plot revenge 30 years later? There's a bunch of motivation and explanation that needs to be filled in there.
> [/LIST]




Judging from the way Palpatine looked, I’m going to guess he was just too weakened to announce his return. Perhaps whatever Dark Side ability/technology kept him alive took 20 odd years to get him to the point where he could do things again.


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## trappedslider (Dec 23, 2019)

you know....

Clearly the SW universe lacks in personal care products like wrinkle remover,moisturizer,etc... .


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## RangerWickett (Dec 23, 2019)

Okay, new ranking of films.

Return of the Jedi
The Empire Strike Back
(Rebels)
Rogue One
(Clone Wars)
Solo if you pretend it's not a pandering prequel but just about some other scoundrel
A New Hope
The Last Jedi
(The Mandalorian)
The Force Awakens
The Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
Revenge of the Sith
The Christmas Special
The Rise of Skywalker

My criteria? Is there a meaningful character arc or a compelling thematic core to the story? Then, does it have good action? Then, does it at least make narrative sense?

The actors in Episode IX deserved far better than the material they got.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 23, 2019)

New TIE fighters have hyperdrives old ones don't stock but the odd one does so it's not impossible. 

 New TIEs also have shields apparently. FO was supposed to be a lot weaker than the empire do they went for quality over quantity. 

 Never really see it onscreen though. New 1st Order Resurgent class star Destroyers has something like 10 or 20 times the amount of firepower. 

 I assume the Sith fleet was mostly unmanned with shields down. There was a throw away line about the first order needing to abduct more kids to train as crew.


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## Morrus (Dec 23, 2019)

Confirmation on one thing:


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## Morrus (Dec 23, 2019)

Which film is this screenshot from again?


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## Raunalyn (Dec 23, 2019)

Ok, so I finally went and saw Star Wars; Let's Play it Safe.

I will start off with the tldr; the entire movie is pretty much spoiled in the opening crawl.

So much potential and so disappointing. I could see Abrams wanting to take risks, but I could also see Darth Mickey saying, "There is no originality here, boy!"

So, let's start with my thoughts in the opening crawl and why I had such a problem with it.

Why the hell spoil Palpatine like that? It literally came out of left field. This was a missed opportunity throughout the entire trilogy; I watched TFA and TLJ right before going to watch RoS, and I saw no hints in any of the previous movies that he was the puppet-master. I just remember thinking "WTF?" as I read the crawl, and then I thought, "Oh, well that pretty much spoils the entire movie...Kylo Rey (spelling is intentional) is going to end up fighting him at the end after Kylo Ren has his turn from the dark side moment." It doesn't bother me that Palpatine lived, nor does it bother me that they don't explain how. What bothers me is that it seems that he was almost an after-thought.

I liked the sequence with Kylo Ren meeting Palpatine; I thought it was well done. However, I think it would have been more impactful later in the movie.

Chewbacca. This was them playing it safe. I had a brief moment where I hoped that he was actually dead; not because I dislike Chewie, but because I think it would have been both appropriate and emotionally impactful to have a major death like that. It took me all of about 2 minutes to realize that this would not be the case, that Abrams was too busy playing it safe and following the formula dictated by Darth Mickey.

Did anyone else see a second transport in the desert when Chewbacca was captured? Did I miss that?

I really liked Rey going to the ruins of the Death Star and entering the Emperor's throne room...nice call back to nostalgia there. That entire scene was, I think, one of the better moments in the movie.

What is it with the Force killing force users? Leia's death had absolutely no emotional impact. Like, at all!

I can't say I was surprised at the revelation of who Rey was.

The Knights of Ren. I was really hoping they would do more with them. But no, they were just a brooding menace (that really didn't feel very menacing) that did almost nothing until the end of the movie. And even then, it wasn't much.

The final battle. Good and bad here. Palpatine draining the life force from Kylo Rey was interesting, and it was a neat hint as to how he survived. The bad, though...

Why did Rey have to die after reflecting the force lightning back on Palpatine? Dammit...no wonder wielding the Force is so rare in the Star Wars universe; it kills whoever wields it! Ben Skywalker's death was no surprise; it is a consistent theme in the Star Wars universe that someone who turns to the Dark Side can return to the light with a great sacrifice. But I question the story creators at having him sacrifice himself the way that he did.

All said and told, it wasn't a terrible movie despite my negative comments. There were some genuinely fun moments; Poe being one of them. Sadly, though, the movie was just missing something.

A lot of people didn't like The Last Jedi, but it at least tried to push the boundaries and take risks. It had soul despite its flaws. This one fell flat...it just didn't have the soul of the previous two movies. I didn't feel it was an appropriate ending to the Skywalker series. It played it too safe.


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## Morrus (Dec 23, 2019)

Raunalyn said:


> Why the hell spoil Palpatine like that? It literally came out of left field. This was a missed opportunity throughout the entire trilogy; I watched TFA and TLJ right before going to watch RoS, and I saw no hints in any of the previous movies that he was the puppet-master. I just remember thinking "WTF?" as I read the crawl, and then I thought, "Oh, well that pretty much spoils the entire movie...Kylo Rey (spelling is intentional) is going to end up fighting him at the end after Kylo Ren has his turn from the dark side moment." It doesn't bother me that Palpatine lived, nor does it bother me that they don't explain how. What bothers me is that it seems that he was almost an after-thought.




It was an afterthought. There's a good reason you didn't see mention of it in the previous films.



> Chewbacca. This was them playing it safe. I had a brief moment where I hoped that he was actually dead; not because I dislike Chewie, but because I think it would have been both appropriate and emotionally impactful to have a major death like that. It took me all of about 2 minutes to realize that this would not be the case, that Abrams was too busy playing it safe and following the formula dictated by Darth Mickey.




I don't know what that means. Han, Luke, and Leia all die in this trilogy. Clearly Disney is happy to kill major characters.



> Leia's death had absolutely no emotional impact. Like, at all!




Well, not on you, clearly. I found it pretty moving.



> Why did Rey have to die after reflecting the force lightning back on Palpatine? Dammit...no wonder wielding the Force is so rare in the Star Wars universe; it kills whoever wields it! Ben Skywalker's death was no surprise; it is a consistent theme in the Star Wars universe that someone who turns to the Dark Side can return to the light with a great sacrifice. But I question the story creators at having him sacrifice himself the way that he did.




I would have liked it if Rey had stayed dead. It would have been a more emotional ending to the series than Kylo dying.


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## Raunalyn (Dec 23, 2019)

Raunalyn said:


> Why did Rey have to die after reflecting the force lightning back on Palpatine? Dammit...no wonder wielding the Force is so rare in the Star Wars universe; it kills whoever wields it! Ben Skywalker's death was no surprise; it is a consistent theme in the Star Wars universe that someone who turns to the Dark Side can return to the light with a great sacrifice. But I question the story creators at having him sacrifice himself the way that he did.




I said Skywalker...meant Solo. But, the point remains the same.


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## lowkey13 (Dec 23, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Raunalyn (Dec 23, 2019)

Morrus said:


> It was an afterthought. There's a good reason you didn't see mention of it in the previous films.




Exactly. I think it was a missed opportunity. I know they had to cut down the run time a little, but even showing a bit of what Palpatine was doing behind the scenes would have been nice. I did like seeing the Snoke thing in the vat, though; that makes me wonder if Snoke was some type of clone that Palpatine was using.



Morrus said:


> I don't know what that means. Han, Luke, and Leia all die in this trilogy. Clearly Disney is happy to kill major characters.




Valid point. However, in my opinion, it would have been more of a punch if Rey went into that final battle with that guilt weighing her down. Han's death was a part of Kylo's journey; it was required for him to turn from his birthright and become something else.



Morrus said:


> Well, not on you, clearly. I found it pretty moving.




I am probably going to be in the minority here, but I don't think Leia's death was necessary. Yes, I know that Carrie Fisher died, but I like to think that her continuing to live quietly and happily off screen after the end of the series would have been nice.



Morrus said:


> I would have liked it if Rey had stayed dead. It would have been a more emotional ending to the series than Kylo dying.




Yep, I agree 100%.


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## lowkey13 (Dec 23, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Gradine (Dec 23, 2019)

Like, I enjoyed the heck out of RoS, in spite of many of its issues, mainly because I'm tired of letting The Discourse dictate how I feel about my childhood pew pew space opera joy. I'm pretty sure all of that would be very different had they killed Rey off for real and saved Ben.

Thematically, the sequence fits with the reluctant, constantly shifting teacher/student relationship between Rey and Kylo. Rey learns how to use the Force in TFA primarily from Kylo using it against her. Ben learns how to heal because Rey uses it on him.

And as I mentioned before, my theory is that Rey had to die in the first place so that the "thousands of years of Jedi" that "live within her" can die too, and she can come back as herself to be free to chart her own course and usher in a new era for the Force.



I mean that or they just wanted to swing full circle back to the Jesus metaphor from Episode I.


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## Morrus (Dec 23, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> So .... just throwing this out there. I think a lot of us (even me) are getting tired of Star Wars discourse. Especially over this movie.
> 
> But just think for a second. Just imagine if ... in addition to:
> 1. Completely sidelining Kelly Marie Tran; and
> ...



Yeah, true. That would only work if all that that other stuff hadn't happened.


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## Morrus (Dec 23, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> Han died because Harrison Ford demanded it.
> Luke died because one director/writer tried to take a few risks.
> Leia died because the actress died (RIP Carrie Fisher).
> 
> ...



"Credit" implies some kind of moral evaluation I wasn't applying to it. My point was that there is clearly no "formula dictated by Darth Mickey" which prevents the killing of major characters.


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## Gradine (Dec 23, 2019)

In some ways, it's kind of a hilarious middle finger to the old EU to have Han, Luke & Leia all die but Chewie survive.


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## billd91 (Dec 23, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> Han died because Harrison Ford demanded it.
> Luke died because one director/writer tried to take a few risks.
> Leia died because the actress died (RIP Carrie Fisher).
> 
> ...




No, it's more than that. Once they had established that Han was dying in the first, I fully expected each film to kill off one of the OT cast members in a suitably moving and important way and ending their personal story. And had Carrie not died too soon, I expect we'd have had the same in Rise of Skywalker. As it was, they did what they could with what they had and I have no complaints.


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## billd91 (Dec 23, 2019)

Gradine said:


> In some ways, it's kind of a hilarious middle finger to the old EU to have Han, Luke & Leia all die but Chewie survive.




And well deserved, if you ask me.


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## Morrus (Dec 23, 2019)

I never understood why Ford was so insistent that Solo die. It’s not like Disney can force him to keep playing the character as long as the character lives in fiction. Why does he care that a fictional character he doesn’t instead to play again is alive or dead?


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## Gradine (Dec 23, 2019)

Morrus said:


> I never understood why Ford was so insistent that Solo die. It’s not like Disney can force him to keep playing the character as long as the character lives in fiction. Why does he care that a fictional character he doesn’t instead to play again is alive or dead?




It's not like dying kept him out of the films at all. I always thought it was more a genuine desire to see his character arc turn out that way.


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## Morrus (Dec 23, 2019)

Gradine said:


> It's not like dying kept him out of the films at all. I always thought it was more a genuine desire to see his character arc turn out that way.



He wanted to be killed off back in the original trilogy too. Lucas clearly disagreed.


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## lowkey13 (Dec 23, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Morrus (Dec 23, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> Well, I can think of a few reasons.
> 
> 1. Ford always wanted Solo to die in the original trilogy,




I know he wanted him to die. The question was _why_ did Ford want Solo to die (then or now)?



> 2. In fairness, given Disney's penchant for resurrection of characters via CGI, can you blame him?




Back then, that wasn't a thing though.



> 3. Actors that become identified with a character often take some ownership of it; few are as identifiable as Ford/Solo (perhaps Ford/Indy being up there).




Sure. But again -- _why_ did he want the character to die?


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## Raunalyn (Dec 23, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Sure. But again -- _why_ did he want the character to die?



I think I read somewhere that Ford didn't think that Star Wars would be as popular as it was, and that he was fine with Solo dying because he didn't think the franchise would go anywhere.

I'll have to dig around and see if I can find that article


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## lowkey13 (Dec 23, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Morrus (Dec 23, 2019)

Raunalyn said:


> I think I read somewhere that Ford didn't think that Star Wars would be as popular as it was, and that he was fine with Solo dying because he didn't think the franchise would go anywhere.
> 
> I'll have to dig around and see if I can find that article



There’s a difference with being fine with the character dying and actively wanting it to happen.


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## DragonBelow (Dec 23, 2019)

I loved it, it was a bit cheesy at times (Chewie and Matz moment for example, cool, but how did she know?). It was a good finale to the saga, left the theater happy, and have seen it twice already. I'll probably watch it once or twice more at theaters, IMAX and 3D.


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## MarkB (Dec 23, 2019)

Raunalyn said:


> Why the hell spoil Palpatine like that? It literally came out of left field. This was a missed opportunity throughout the entire trilogy; I watched TFA and TLJ right before going to watch RoS, and I saw no hints in any of the previous movies that he was the puppet-master.



Because they hadn't decided it when they made the previous movies. There was no plan for an over-arching three-movie plot when they made The Force Awakens, so subsequent movies just picked up the dangling plot-threads and muddled through as best they could. That still seems utterly insane to me.



> The final battle. Good and bad here. Palpatine draining the life force from Kylo Rey was interesting, and it was a neat hint as to how he survived. The bad, though...
> 
> Why did Rey have to die after reflecting the force lightning back on Palpatine?



I feel like you answered your own question there. Rey was already almost dead after Palpatine had sucked the life out of her and Ben. Her final counter-attack was simply too much strain in her already-weakened condition.


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## darjr (Dec 23, 2019)

I loved it. I laughed and cried and yelled at the screen. I’m lucky they didn’t kick me out.


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## lowkey13 (Dec 23, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## pukunui (Dec 23, 2019)

Yes, if Rey has been all dead, her body would’ve faded into the Force like Ben’s did, once he was all dead.


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## Morrus (Dec 23, 2019)

darjr said:


> I loved it. I laughed and cried and yelled at the screen.



Blimey! I’m glad I wasn’t sitting next to you in the cinema! Did you actually cry?


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## MarkB (Dec 23, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that Rey here was only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead.
> 
> Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do. Wait for JJ Abrams to resurrect you in the next trilogy.



Oh, thanks for that. Now you've got Miracle Max crosswired with Yoghurt from Spaceballs in my brain.

"Don't worry about it! We'll meet again in Spaceballs 2: The Quest for More Money."


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## lowkey13 (Dec 23, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## darjr (Dec 23, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Blimey! I’m glad I wasn’t sitting next to you in the cinema! Did you actually cry?



I gave it my all! Don’t @ me


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## Zaukrie (Dec 23, 2019)

I'm one of those older guys.....who is no fan of nostalgia. I started watching and analyzing, as I had just completed a full re-watch of the movies. Once I stopped analyzing, and just enjoying it, it was entertaining. On re-watch, I won't like it as much, as I'll nit pick the heck out of it like I did Last Jedi last week......

Some great moments, and some things I did not like. I hope, really, really, really, hope, we can get a new story next time, with no skywalkers or palpatines.


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## trappedslider (Dec 23, 2019)

I plan to go see it again...._hides from the angry mob_

I'm guessing that was the senate building on coruscant at the end with the star destroyer crashing behind it?


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## OldGeezer69 (Dec 23, 2019)

I'd rather watch Episode One on a loop whilst my fingernails are being yanked out than see this garbage more than once.


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## Zaukrie (Dec 23, 2019)

Oh, the knights of Ren? Uh, why even mention them at all if they are so lame?


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## OldGeezer69 (Dec 23, 2019)

Zaukrie said:


> Oh, the knights of Ren? Uh, why even mention them at all if they are so lame?




Not to mention the Sith Troopers.


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## Morrus (Dec 23, 2019)

This was the message that Palpatine broadcast before the start of the film. You had to play Fortnite to hear it, apparently.


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## lowkey13 (Dec 23, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Mallus (Dec 23, 2019)

You know, for a movie that walks back/undoes the best parts of my 2nd favorite Star Wars movie, I enjoyed Rise quite a bit. I have plans to see in next week with friends, but I snuck out to see it alone this morning.

The worst part about it is the first 30 or so minutes, where J.J. races through the main plot like a player determined to have the worst possible experience of a BioWare game. It's in these frantic opening sequences Abrams seems most unsure of himself. Like he's trying to distract us from where he's going - to nowhere new, but to the end of the Skywalker saga.

But once the movie slows down, to the extent that it does, and character moments drop on the audience like colonies filled with sentimentality & nostalgia, not always exactly on target, but with great impact... anyway, for a while up through the end it approaches greatness.

It's glorified B-movie moviemaking punctuated by operatic melodrama and untreated nostalgia. I had tears in my eyes at least twice and I'm not sure my brain was fully operational for 2.5 hours. It's Star Wars!

I'm seeing it again in a week. I'll probably be drinking steadily through that screening, which could only make it better!


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## Mirtek (Dec 24, 2019)

What I disliked and what really broke my ability for suspension of disbelief was once again the movie not taking the context of it's own setting seriously.

Just like GoT S7&8 suddenly ignoring any remotely sensible travel speeds, RoS just gave a #### about the logistics in even building a single Star Destroyer class vessel and getting it crewed.

And somehow designing a planet buster laser that fits on a mere star destroyer instead of requiring the power of a moon / planet sized star base isn't even the worst of it.

Weren't worlds with star docks able to construct such huge vessels rare and highly valuable?  Didn't a single SD require a crew of almost 40k?

So this hidden backwater hiding place build 10k if those on the surface and found  400 million well trained people to crew every single one?

I couldn't really care anymore about the stuff the pro- and antagonists were going through, this giant not giving a ### anymore about the underlying coherency of the setting ruined it for me.


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## tglassy (Dec 24, 2019)

They do mention not having enough people to run each of the ships.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 24, 2019)

tglassy said:


> They do mention not having enough people to run each of the ships.




And yet run them anyway. Maybe on autopilot idk.


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## Mirtek (Dec 24, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Not the OT TIE/ln that Kylo flew from the Death Star wreckage to Exowhatsis!



I didn't pay that close attention to it. Was it just a standard TIE or one of the advanced types? Back then the standard TIE had neither shields nor hyperdrives, but even then there also more advanced models that features shields and hyperdrives.

Most of those showed up in what's no "legends", but Vader's personal TIE he was flying in ANH was one of those too.



tglassy said:


> They do mention not having enough people to run each of the ships.



Yes, you're right. Forgot about that one line. Yet all of those ships seemed pretty operational somehow. And they were talking about sending them out to all corners of the galaxy in a few hours rather than "letting the skeleton crews to them to orbit and then later send them out to all corners of the galaxy in a couple of years once we have trained enough crew"


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## Kaodi (Dec 24, 2019)

I thought they broadcast fairly strongly that Finn might be Force Sensitive in TFA when it seemed like he heard the cries of terror of the people in the Hosnian system.

I think my final rating of this movie would have been a whole rank better if they had no literally ripped off Wonder Woman for their final confrontation: crossed sabers/crossed arms reflecting a lightning attack between ascended beings.

I enjoyed watching the movie, and I will buy it on Blu-Ray and I will enjoy watching it again. But the film... I do not think it is a good film. The best way I can perhaps describe it is that it is less than the sum of its parts. Because there are lots of great _elements_ in this movie, but when you tack the not so good stuff onto them they kind of fade in importance. The way they resolved it just seemed too cheesy to me.

I will be interested to see how the big Rey vs Kylo duel rates to other Star Wars duels in the end. Perhaps it is to be expected that their lightsaber skills do not really have the crisp finesse of the Prequels. After all - they only get limited training from the only remaining lightsaber duelist, Luke, and even he probably did not really stack up well against the previous generation (Vader was old, and his father, so it is hard to compare there).


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## billd91 (Dec 24, 2019)

Mirtek said:


> I couldn't really care anymore about the stuff the pro- and antagonists were going through, this giant not giving a ### anymore about the underlying coherency of the setting ruined it for me.




New to the Star Wars saga and JJ Abrams movies, I see. Realism has never been a strong suit for either.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 24, 2019)

Mirtek said:


> I didn't pay that close attention to it. Was it just a standard TIE or one of the advanced types? Back then the standard TIE had neither shields nor hyperdrives, but even then there also more advanced models that features shields and hyperdrives.
> 
> Most of those showed up in what's no "legends", but Vader's personal TIE he was flying in ANH was one of those too.




Standard TIE/ln with vertical solar panels.


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## Vael (Dec 24, 2019)

So, I've had time to process.

Rise and Solo are easily the two worst of the new Star Wars movies. But let's be clear here ... they are still functional movies, which is more than I can say about the prequels, so I find some of the hyperbole ... well, hyperbolic.

Now, there's a few things I quite liked about Rise ... and several I detested. And since I want to end on a positive note, let's start with the bad, while alternating points.

*Bad: *The plot is utterly stupid. It's an endless series of fetch-quests for Macguffins that just drove me bananas. And, because the plot was so frenetic and ... meaningless, a lot of the emotional beats just did not work. Like Leia's passing. Chewie's "death". Han's cameo got more of a "huh, Ford came back", instead of a more emotional reaction.

*Good: *Why none of these movies will ever be as bad as the prequels, is because the cast does a great job of selling this stupid plot. I love the work put in by all the main cast.

*Bad, and by this I mean Infuriating: *As a part Asian, getting a fantastic character like Rose Tico is one of the reasons I have such love and respect for The Last Jedi, and why I defend the movie so much. So to have the Hobbit have more lines and more presence than her is ... 

*Ambivalent: *I didn't hate the Bendemption. Redeeming Ben Solo had moments that sucked (the kiss, getting thrown down the pit) and moments that really worked (renacting TFA, Ben vs. the Knights of Ren (seriously, that look Adam Driver gives when Rey sends him the lightsaber is cocky-son-of-Han-Solo-realness)).

*Pointlessly Bad:* Making Rey a secret Palpatine. It was an unnecessary retcon. You could've still had Rey have the same arc, the same struggles with the Dark Side, heck, her willingness to go towards it scared Luke in TLJ. There was no need to do this.

*Insultingly Bad: *I knew, I knew that JJ's assurance that there'd be a queer character in Rise was going to be a heap of BS, and I was right, and I'm still pissed off. 

*Well, that sucks:* I liked Snap. They killed Snap. Okay, if I'm being honest, it's more that I like Greg Grunberg.

*Seriously, stop it:* The status of Droids is a part of the Star Wars universe that doesn't hold under any scrutiny. Are they sentient, are they slaves? Better not to get into it. It's why I hate the L3-37 plotline in Solo, because they pass it off for cheap jokes and then introduce a real mental horror show of putting the droid's consciousness into the Falcon. So, the new droid in Rise ... acts a lot like a victim of abuse, and it's something that freaks me right the eff out.

*Okay, that was a grudgingly cool note to end on:* Rey taking up the Skywalker name.


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## pukunui (Dec 24, 2019)

I’ve still only seen the movie once, but I went into it having read multiple comments about the frenetic pace. None of that bothered me.

There were some things that bothered me, but I can say that of every single Star Wars movie.

One of the things that bothered me about TROS that has stuck in my head is how the outline of the Sith dagger lined up with the outline of a specific part of the Death Star wreckage like puzzle pieces.

I thought that was super-lame and nonsensical.

I reckon it would’ve made more sense if the dagger had guided Rey via the Force to the right spot.


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## Stalker0 (Dec 24, 2019)

pukunui said:


> the outline of the Sith dagger lined up with the outline of a specific part of the Death Star wreckage like puzzle pieces.
> 
> I thought that was super-lame and nonsensical.
> 
> I reckon it would’ve made more sense if the dagger had guided Rey via the Force to the right spot.




Amen,

just have Rey show up, get a force feeling and walk right to the Mcguffin. It’s a big contrivance in any other franchise, but in Star Wars that would be perfectly acceptable.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 24, 2019)

There's a lot of amazing coincidences. Works once or twice but they never did it.


----------



## MarkB (Dec 24, 2019)

Vael said:


> *Pointlessly Bad:* Making Rey a secret Palpatine. It was an unnecessary retcon. You could've still had Rey have the same arc, the same struggles with the Dark Side, heck, her willingness to go towards it scared Luke in TLJ. There was no need to do this.



So very much. One thing I just don't get in the new trilogy is the whole "hidden princess syndrome" thing, that people seem to think Rey can only be a valid protagonist and Force user if she has some special illustrious heritage. I really wanted her to be the hero simply because of who she is, not because of who her grandfather is.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 24, 2019)

Vael said:


> *Insultingly Bad: *I knew, I knew that JJ's assurance that there'd be a queer character in Rise was going to be a heap of BS, and I was right, and I'm still pissed off.




She was there. Leia's aide / staff officer. She had a couple of lines, and a same-sex kiss at the end, though it was a bit of a "blink and you'll miss it" moment.

I think if you were looking for it to be a bit more front and center you'd be disappointed; but then Star Wars does romance poorly.


----------



## Kaodi (Dec 24, 2019)

Rey being a Palpatine was a bit of one step back, one step forward. Having her be directly related to another top tier Force user clearly sucks and has bad implications, but on the plus side there is a character (characters, actually, given her father) who is directly descended from Prime Space Nazi who nevertheless spurns his legacy. That may be the most political thing about the new trilogy.


----------



## Galandris (Dec 24, 2019)

Mirtek said:


> Yes, you're right. Forgot about that one line. Yet all of those ships seemed pretty operational somehow. And they were talking about sending them out to all corners of the galaxy in a few hours rather than "letting the skeleton crews to them to orbit and then later send them out to all corners of the galaxy in a couple of years once we have trained enough crew"




I understood the need to "transmit signals" from a tower, then the lead star destroyer to the other was the sign the other were rather understaffed. If the commanding star destroyer can get out of the storm (really, BAD WEATHER can knock out ISD? I didn't understand that exactly) without the land tower giving a signal, it means that an operational star destroyer can do that. Yet, when the rebels destroy the emitter on this ISD, the Imps don't simply nominate another one as the new fleet leader. Maybe because they had a grand total of ONE space navigator in that fleet and mostly intended to use the fleet as a mobile artillery (maybe the weapon system is mostly automated).


----------



## lowkey13 (Dec 24, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Janx (Dec 24, 2019)

pukunui said:


> I’ve still only seen the movie once, but I went into it having read multiple comments about the frenetic pace. None of that bothered me.
> 
> There were some things that bothered me, but I can say that of every single Star Wars movie.
> 
> ...




There is that.  The empire fell about 25 years ago or something?  Who makes an ancient dagger with clues written on it and so it is shaped special to guide you to the deathstar if you happen to be standing on the shore in a universe where everybody has flying craft to just go directly to it. The way to find the hidden treasure in Goonies made more sense and I don't remember anything from that movie either.

I thought Rey being Palp's grand-daughter was a fine idea.  It's one we didn't hear bandied about and is in line with Vader having kids.

Ben's redemption seemed to work.

Having gotten into light saber fighting, yes, Yellow is a legit Canon color.

FN has got 2.5 romance options going on now.

Force powers: It can heal? Beats me.  Maybe that's been done before.  It can teleport?  That seems new and made up. It was a neat play on the mixed environment telepathic phone-call that parts of the illusion would spill over, and later, part of it be real.  But I didn't think the force could teleport, so expect munchkin abuse from gamers.

Imperial Logistics: That's probably the biggest plot hole. Nobody expects the movie to show us the entire supply chain. But a sudden reveal of mega-massive resources.  Who's feeding all these sith on crap planet exogol? Who's crewing the ships?  Who built them all of a sudden? It's not like they ferry contractors to build it to the secret planet that nobody knows about. Now for all we know, Palpatine has been cloning himself for decades and using force powers to assist themselves so all those Sith are him, and they all built the ships and they force-teleport nuts and berries from Endor.

In the theater, it was a fun ride.  On the car ride home, so many questions. Why does Leia's saber look like an UltraSabers Butcher with a different emitter?  Are they gonna make Rey's? Will it have a twisty activation switch?


----------



## Morrus (Dec 24, 2019)

Janx said:


> Force powers: It can heal? Beats me.  Maybe that's been done before.




In the Mandalorian. (and a ton of video games, but they don't count)



> It can teleport?  That seems new and made up. It was a neat play on the mixed environment telepathic phone-call that parts of the illusion would spill over, and later, part of it be real.  But I didn't think the force could teleport, so expect munchkin abuse from gamers.




It's continued from TLJ, as you observed. Just dialed up a bit as the two grow in power. Now they teleport small objects not just raindrops.

All force powers are new and made up. They make up a new one in each film. Telekinesis was new in ESB. Lightning was new in RotJ. Stopping blaster bolts midair was new in TFA. Force FaceTime (ForceTime?) was new in TLJ. Healing was new in tRoS.

Inventing new force powers in a Star Wars movie isn't a problem; it's tradition. It's how force powers get introduced. It would be weird if they didn't.


----------



## tglassy (Dec 24, 2019)

Yeah, I’ve got no issue with new Force Powers. You’re controlling a fundamental power of the universe. Surely not everything has been discovered.


----------



## Kaodi (Dec 24, 2019)

I wonder if the Son and the Daughter were a "Dyad" in the same sense as Rey and Ben. Palpatine said that one had not been seen in "generations" . Mortis was two generations ago.


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## MarkB (Dec 24, 2019)

Galandris said:


> I understood the need to "transmit signals" from a tower, then the lead star destroyer to the other was the sign the other were rather understaffed. If the commanding star destroyer can get out of the storm (really, BAD WEATHER can knock out ISD? I didn't understand that exactly) without the land tower giving a signal, it means that an operational star destroyer can do that. Yet, when the rebels destroy the emitter on this ISD, the Imps don't simply nominate another one as the new fleet leader. Maybe because they had a grand total of ONE space navigator in that fleet and mostly intended to use the fleet as a mobile artillery (maybe the weapon system is mostly automated).



A couple of things stand out about that. First, the Star Destroyer in question isn't one of Palpatine's fleet - it's the First Order's command ship. That means that it's been built using the latest technology in top-of-the-line shipyards, not by secret Sith cultists in a cave. It can be expected to have better sensors, better comms, and better trained and more experienced officers than any other ship in the fleet.

Second, it's positioned pretty much at the highest altitude in the fleet. There's a good chance that it was using its position and superior sensors to assist in guiding the fleet even before the beacon was compromised.


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## Vael (Dec 24, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> She was there. Leia's aide / staff officer. She had a couple of lines, and a same-sex kiss at the end, though it was a bit of a "blink and you'll miss it" moment.




Oh, I saw her, and that was exactly the amount of "representation" I thought we'd get, and it's insulting and annoying. Just like the gay dude in Avengers Endgame, or LeFou in the live-action Beauty and the Beast, Disney wants credit for such blink and you miss it representation and I will not give it any.

And I know why as well. It's quite simple, they want to avoid getting censored by homophobic governments, but still try and pander to queer positive audiences. And it's just condescending BS.


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## tglassy (Dec 24, 2019)

To be honest, the whole "There's a huge fleet, but they are only vulnerable right now because of the atmospheric disturbances make the sensors unable to tell which way is up so we just need to destroy one signal emitter, but wait, now it's on the main ship and so we need to destroy another one" thing struck me as just a way for them to have a chance against such an unstoppable force.  I liked the fleet itself, especially with each one being able to destroy a planet.  That seems like something Palpatine would have devised during his 25 years being mostly dead.  

But the way they defeated them just seemed like the writers had written themselves in a corner.  They gave the bad guys something so overwhelmingly powerful that there is just no way anyone could actually hope to fight it.  So instead of giving the good guys something equally powerful, they, like A New Hope, put an exhaust pipe in it that leads to the reactor to blow the whole thing up.  They just gave it a really, really easy to get to weakness.

Yeah, they explained that in Rogue One, but that was an attempt to explain a plot hole.  This is really just lazy writing.  They wanted the good guys to be able to win, so they gave them an easy way to win.  

But whatevs.  It's in keeping with Star Wars tradition.  Anakin landed his ship right in the bad guy's main ship and blew it up from the inside (why didn't anyone else think of that?), Luke threw a missile down an exhaust pipe to blow up a moon sized space station (cause reasons), and they destroyed the Emperor's fleet by breaking a satellite. Whatevs.


----------



## Morrus (Dec 24, 2019)

tglassy said:


> To be honest, the whole "There's a huge fleet, but they are only vulnerable right now because of the atmospheric disturbances make the sensors unable to tell which way is up so we just need to destroy one signal emitter, but wait, now it's on the main ship and so we need to destroy another one" thing struck me as just a way for them to have a chance against such an unstoppable force.  I liked the fleet itself, especially with each one being able to destroy a planet.  That seems like something Palpatine would have devised during his 25 years being mostly dead.
> 
> But the way they defeated them just seemed like the writers had written themselves in a corner.  They gave the bad guys something so overwhelmingly powerful that there is just no way anyone could actually hope to fight it.  So instead of giving the good guys something equally powerful, they, like A New Hope, put an exhaust pipe in it that leads to the reactor to blow the whole thing up.  They just gave it a really, really easy to get to weakness.
> 
> ...



Yeah, they do that in pretty much every film. Phantom Menace (shut down the droid army by shooting the command ship), two Death Stars, Starkiller — it’s a common Star Wars trope.


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## lowkey13 (Dec 24, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Argyle King (Dec 24, 2019)

I know it's not the same actor, but one my biggest obstacles for taking Kylo Ren seriously is that he reminds me of J.P. from the movie Grandma's Boy.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 24, 2019)

Well as I said earlier switch your brain off and treat the movie as a Michael Bey popcorn for flick and it's fine. 

 Just don't think about. I suspect this movie won't hold up well on rewatch. 

New force powers are fine, the teleport thing is a bit silly and Palps force lightning the fleet is over the top stupid. 

 Ironically they ripped off huge chunks of plot from the Dark Empire comics 1991-95.

Star Destroyers with super lasers check
Palps using force storm/lightning in space
Palps consumed by his own power
Palps returning from the dead
Hidden planet where he had built a fleet
New planet destroying super weapon

 JJ is not big on originality.


----------



## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Looks like according to the poll its averaging roughly a 3 to 3.25.  Give or take .25.

Not great.  I voted that it was ass.  _shrug_


----------



## Zardnaar (Dec 24, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Looks like according to the poll its averaging roughly a 3 to 3.25.  Give or take .25.
> 
> Not great.  I voted that it was ass.  _shrug_




Small sample size, slightly higher than the critic scores. 

 It's not bad IMHO in terms of this is awful to watch a'la AotC. 

 It's a stupid fun type of movie. I gave it 3/5 probably won't see it again in the theatre but might go again with the wife who hasn't seen it.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred (Dec 24, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> Posting this here in the spoiler section; I call this review the @Zardnaar wins (I kid, kinda):
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yup, the whole movie, IMHO, is nothing more than SW market research driven pap. Nothing in it is surprising, inventive or really even decent storytelling. It just delivers up a sequence of SW tropes in a graphically pleasing candy wrapper.
It was mildly entertaining, but highly forgettable.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Small sample size, slightly higher than the critic scores.
> 
> It's not bad IMHO in terms of this is awful to watch a'la AotC.
> 
> It's a stupid fun type of movie. I gave it 3/5 probably won't see it again in the theatre but might go again with the wife who hasn't seen it.



I saw a few scenes.  Noped right out of there.  Kinda what i expected.  New star wars is twice as much worse on average as the prequels were to the originals.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 24, 2019)

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yup, the whole movie, IMHO, is nothing more than SW market research driven pap. Nothing in it is surprising, inventive or really even decent storytelling. It just delivers up a sequence of SW tropes in a graphically pleasing candy wrapper.
> It was mildly entertaining, but highly forgettable.




Hey I wasn't expecting it I thought they would double down.

I didn't like the treatment they gave Rose.
Her scenes in TLJ were crap but thats not on her but the writers.

They introduced two new characters I don't care about but they could have done something more significant with her assuming they didn't cut her.

Finn and Poe got a better treatment, didn't mind Rey to much in this one. They ramped up force powers all around so we have some context now.

But it comes across as can you top this/unlimited power. I prefer the more restrained use of the force in the OT.

It's kind of a movie from 25 years ago with over the top plotting and Powers from comics. It's Marvel in space.

Rey is a Disney princess now, grandpops is royalty lol. What's funny is the other sequel trilogy is 1-3 bestsellers on Amazon atm lol.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Hey I wasn't expecting it I thought they would double down.
> 
> I didn't like the treatment they gave Rose.
> Her scenes in TLJ were crap but thats not on her but the writers.
> ...



And kylo is a prince via leia.

Rey and kylo are perfect for eachother.  The prince and princess of cringe 

At the wedding of the force ghost and still flesh woman the bride's side of the wedding should throw salt and the groom side should throw sand.

I think that would be perfect


----------



## Zardnaar (Dec 24, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> And kylo is a prince via leia.
> 
> Rey and kylo are perfect for eachother.  The prince and princess of cringe
> 
> ...




 I kinda got with the Reyli crowd. Ben should have survived they just repeated the ending for RoTJ. After another trilogy we're basically back to where we started. 

At least Reylo would be a different ending.  Won't be to surprised if they retcon in a kid for Ben in a book or comic, worked for Palps.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> I kinda got with the Reyli crowd. Ben should have survived they just repeated the ending for RoTJ. After another trilogy we're basically back to where we started.
> 
> At least Reylo would be a different ending.  Won't be to surprised if they retcon in a kid for Ben in a book or comic, worked for Palps.



Well, kylo is basically a second generation descendant of a demigod of the force.  He brought rey back to life with his lifeforce.  I assume there will be a force conception coming up (just not quite as high grade as ani because it involved an actual person as opposed to purely and directly the force) due to him doing that.  The true "rise of skywalker".

Or perhaps a reincarnation of ani (one that doesnt flub up his life as bad perhaps) thereby kylo REALLY "finishing what you started" (if he was speaking to anakin _the will of the force made flesh_ as opposed to anakin _grampappy_) especially seeing as disney seems to be really into the very cheap and lazy strategy of "lets just bring people back randomnly and sell movies solely on nostalgia value"


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## Morrus (Dec 24, 2019)

That “worst movie ever” hyperbolic nonsense just makes me disregard that person. Obviously this movie isn’t “garbage” or whatever, even if you don’t like it. It’s clearly an OK movie even if it didn’t follow the plot you’d already written in your head.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Morrus said:


> That “worst movie ever” hyperbolic nonsense just makes me disregard that person. Toxic fandom is a side of the internet I’m happy to ignore. Obviously this movie isn’t “garbage” or whatever, even if you don’t like it. It’s clearly an OK movie even if it didn’t follow the plot you’d already written in your head.
> 
> Man, the internet is broken. What nonsense.



I dont consider it anywhere near "the worst movie ever".

But its pretty clear they didnt put much thought into these latter movies.  To the point where in some sequences of events and/or scenes its a complete copy with a new paint job.

This isnt toxic fandom.  Nor do i think it ranks close to (imo) the worst movies, but i do think the latter movies are incredibly lazy.  Am i not allowed to think they suck?

(Also far too many people think they are garbage for them to be "ok".  The amount of people who think its garbage actually outnumber the population of the original fanbase.  So its a bit hard for it to just be the original fans (plenty of which did like it.  Its a mix))


----------



## Morrus (Dec 24, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Am i not allowed to think they suck?



Straight to the hyperbole again, eh? You’re allowed to think what you want. I’ll have my own opinion about the way you choose to express it.


----------



## Nebulous (Dec 24, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Inventing new force powers in a Star Wars movie isn't a problem; it's tradition. It's how force powers get introduced. It would be weird if they didn't.




That's a good point.  Now I wish we had even more canonical force powers.

Wait, what was introduced in Phantom - Revenge?  I haven't seen those in a long time or tried to forget them.  I know R2D2 can fly, does that count?  Lol.  That was new


----------



## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Morrus said:


> That “worst movie ever” hyperbolic nonsense just makes me disregard that person. Toxic fandom is a side of the internet I’m happy to ignore. Obviously this movie isn’t “garbage” or whatever, even if you don’t like it. It’s clearly an OK movie even if it didn’t follow the plot you’d already written in your head.
> 
> Man, the internet is broken. What nonsense.



Right now the actual professional critics rotten tomatoes hires on are rating it in the 50s and they are signifficantly motivated to give it a good rating.  Thats HORRIBAD.  If you dont believe me check out rotten tomatoes.


----------



## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Straight to the hyperbole again, eh? You’re allowed to think what you want. I’ll have my own opinion about the way you choose to express it.



What was hyperbolic?  What level of dislike is considered "reasonable" while diverging from your personal assessment of the movie?  Like...whats your measuring stick?  I never said anything about it being the worst movie ever.  That was you being hyperbolic.

Consider how your post that i initially replied to is worded.

Most of the post i made that it was referencing was meant to be humorous (ani says he hates sand and its a huge meme btw)


----------



## Morrus (Dec 24, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Right now the actual professional critics rotten tomatoes hires on are rating it in the 50s and they are signifficantly motivated to give it a good rating.  Thats HORRIBAD.  If you dont believe me check out rotten tomatoes.



Nah; I’m only interested in what I and what we in this current conversation think about it. We don’t need to outsource our opinions. I’m sure we can muster the wherewithal to form our own.


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## Leatherhead (Dec 24, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Right now the actual professional critics rotten tomatoes hires on are rating it in the 50s and they are signifficantly motivated to give it a good rating.



No they aren't.

If anything, critics are motivated to give extreme ratings in order to generate clicks. Middle of the road reviews are bad for their business model.


----------



## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Morrus said:


> No thanks. I’m only interested in I and what we in this conversation think about it.



Ok.  _shrug_

I got my opinion and you got yours.

You think mine is hyperbolic.  Cool.  I dont think yours is.

Though i think your opinion of my opinion is hyperbolic and assumes an awful lot.

I guess only the time (10 years maybe?) will tell how good people really eventually settle on thinkinv the movie is when given a general comparison and time for the culture to really digest it.


----------



## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

"Right now the actual professional critics rotten tomatoes hires on are rating it in the 50s and they are signifficantly motivated to give it a good rating. Thats HORRIBAD. If you dont believe me check out rotten tomatoes."


Leatherhead said:


> If anything, critics are motivated to give extreme ratings in order to generate clicks. Middle of the road reviews are bad for their business model.



Yeah?  I alluded to that.  With star wars its specifically motivation for extremely good ratings.

I was saying that its bad enough that it has caused them to get into the middle region in spite of the motivation to be at the extremes (in this case AN extreme though)


----------



## Morrus (Dec 24, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> You think mine is hyperbolic.  Cool.  I dont think yours is.




I don’t know what your opinion is. Haven’t read your post yet. You’re just the person who jumped down my throat when I said I didn’t like internet hyperbolic opinions.



> Though i think your opinion of my opinion is hyperbolic and assumes an awful lot.



That’s not what hyperbolic means.


----------



## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Straight to the hyperbole again, eh? You’re allowed to think what you want. I’ll have my own opinion about the way you choose to express it.



The word "again" makes it clear whom you were responding to.

At this point both our time is being wasted so how about we just drop the talk of hyperbole and opinion?


Morrus said:


> That’s not what hyperbolic means.



I used it perfectly.  Perhaps you just didnt notice _how_ it applies.


----------



## Derren (Dec 24, 2019)

I guess this another case of "Everyone who dislikes a movie with a female lead is a misogynist" like with Star Trek Discovery?


----------



## Morrus (Dec 24, 2019)

Derren said:


> I guess this another case of "Everyone who dislikes a movie with a female lead is a misogynist" like with Star Trek Discovery?



Is it? I’ll point out that those are your own words. Do you get called a misogynist a lot?


----------



## Leatherhead (Dec 24, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Yeah? I alluded to that. With star wars its specifically motivation for extremely good ratings.



Negative reviews generate more traffic. If it was truly horrible they would be cashing in on that cow.


----------



## Derren (Dec 24, 2019)

Morrus said:


> Is it? I’ll point out that those are your own words.



Based on previous movie threads you do seem to have very different thresholds for what you consider "too much" critique based on the gender of the lead actor.


----------



## Zardnaar (Dec 24, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Right now the actual professional critics rotten tomatoes hires on are rating it in the 50s and they are signifficantly motivated to give it a good rating.  Thats HORRIBAD.  If you dont believe me check out rotten tomatoes.




Rotten tomatoes is junk IMHO. The divergence between critics and audiences is becoming very common.

Critics like arty fartie indie movies, historical dramas type movies.

The telling critical reception IMHO was the premiere. Disney's hand picked friendly reviewers gave it mixed reviews.

The other problem is a lot of reviews are simple up or downs. There's a big difference between a 60% movie and 90% IMHO but both count as positive.

Even the worst Star Wars movies (AotC, TPM) still count as good with simple ups and downs.

I'm not sure what counts as a one star movie. Highlander 2 maybe, some Netflix ones.
TLJ is probably plotted better, people don't like the way it treated Luke and other decisions. Probably should have been the third movie not second.

Plot and pacing RoS is a mess but it's more fun in a way. Only critics things I noticed was it's exposition heavy so I paid more attention to some of the lines. They do attempt to explain a lot of things, maybe not well but they try.


----------



## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Leatherhead said:


> Negative reviews generate more traffic. If it was truly horrible they would be cashing in on that cow.



There have been exceptions when there was ebough pressure.  Nu-star wars was one right up until this movie when they'd had enough.  Their go-plan was to give extreme good reviews.  And they did.  Until this movie.  This movie they are rating it in the 50s (most of the days its been out so far).  Like you yourself said, and i already knew, something they dont do often.  Its because some are towing the line and some arent.  And some are in the middle for assorted reasons.


----------



## Derren (Dec 24, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Rotten tomatoes is junk IMHO. The divergence between critics and audiences is becoming very common.
> 
> Critics like arty fartie indie movies, historical dramas type movies.
> 
> ...



Is metacritic more to your liking then? There the review and user score is close together. 54 and 5.1

Without the Star Wars bonus this movie would likely be a strong contender for the golden raspberry together with Cats.

Disneys stock price has also dropped a lot in the last few days.


----------



## Morrus (Dec 24, 2019)

Derren said:


> Based on previous movie threads you do seem to have very different thresholds for what you consider "too much" critique based on the gender of the lead actor.



I don’t know what that means. Only you have conjured gender and misogyny out of the blue. Nobody else has mentioned it. Or, indeed, mentioned you.  I think we’re talking about you, not me. It’s a curious association to go out of your way to make.


----------



## tglassy (Dec 24, 2019)

And this is where I unsubscribe from this thread.  Ciao.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Rotten tomatoes is junk IMHO. The divergence between critics and audiences is becoming very common.



I agree 10 billion%.

But my point in bringing them up actually was they they have been leaned on HARD to rate it as stellar and instead have given it 50 percentages over several days.  My point basically is that this is happening despite the dishonest biasing effect and that that is even more signifficant because of just how detached they normally are from even being a proper barometer.  Even they hate it.  But they cant just give it a single digit % because of who and what are attached to said franchise currently.


----------



## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

On a side note i didnt actually think of rey as the lead.  I thought of rey and kylo as a twisted deuteragony pair.

Most people would definitely say rey though.  I can see why.  Way more screen time.


----------



## Galandris (Dec 24, 2019)

Rise of the Skywalker made me think...

We thought the OT was Luke's story.
We thought the PT was Anakin's story
We thought the ST was Rey's story.

It was not. The 9 films are Palpatine's story. He's clearly the lead of the whole arch : rise to power, fall, coming back, death.


----------



## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> The telling critical reception IMHO was the premiere. Disney's hand picked friendly reviewers gave it mixed reviews.



I forgot about this.  Thats absolutely true.  And a pretty extreme bit of evidence for the suckitude.


----------



## Zardnaar (Dec 24, 2019)

Derren said:


> Is metacritic more to your liking then? There the review and user score is close together. 54 and 5.1
> 
> Without the Star Wars bonus this movie would likely be a strong contender for the golden raspberry together with Cats.
> 
> Disneys stock price has also dropped a lot in the last few days.




Metacritic is a lot better yes. 

 I was gonna go see RoS regardless. The only difference between a bad sw movie and a good one is how many times I go see it and do rewatches. 

I'm a bit more generous than the critic scores but not a huge amount. I would rate it 60-65%.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 24, 2019)

Galandris said:


> Rise of the Skywalker made me thing...
> 
> We thought the OT was Luke's story.
> We thought the PT was Anakin's story
> ...




That's not a bad structure, if they can make it work. IMHO if you want Palp's complete arc, though, we need the pre-prequel trilogy to set it up.

Sadly, I think the interpretation of episodes 1-6 as "The Tragedy & Redemption of Anakin Skywalker" was undermined by Episode 9 ... cause now his redemption doesn't matter.  With a bit more thought they might have pulled it off, but then that would have required plotting the entire ST from the beginning, rather than improvising one movie at a time based on audience reaction.


----------



## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Galandris said:


> Rise of the Skywalker made me think...
> 
> We thought the OT was Luke's story.
> We thought the PT was Anakin's story
> ...



Well hes certainly always been my favorite character.  Actually...it really is his story (even if lucas intended it to be ani's (which he has stated before) that may have been what he thought but its not what happened).

I like pappy palps so much that if you take all characters from a given star wars movie and add together how much i like them i like the senate better.


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## Morrus (Dec 24, 2019)

Galandris said:


> Rise of the Skywalker made me think...
> 
> We thought the OT was Luke's story.
> We thought the PT was Anakin's story
> ...



While that is true now, I’m sure it wasn’t the original plan.


----------



## Derren (Dec 24, 2019)

Galandris said:


> Rise of the Skywalker made me think...
> 
> We thought the OT was Luke's story.
> We thought the PT was Anakin's story
> ...



That would require that his return was planned instead of being an act of desperation for Ep9


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## Zardnaar (Dec 24, 2019)

Morrus said:


> While that is true now, I’m sure it wasn’t the original plan.




Nope Lucas was clear the story was Anakins.

 They recycled Palps because they needed a villain ASAP


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 24, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Nope Lucas was clear the story was Anakins.
> 
> They recycled Palps because they needed a villain ASAP



Hah.  Double tapped.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 24, 2019)

Box office is also down a lot. Came right near the bottom estimates. 

 Well know more week two looking at the drop off. 30% or less drop is good, 70% is had. Speculation is it might not break a billion.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Dec 24, 2019)

I will say the movie was better than it had a any right to be. It creates some good character arcs, and nice character interaction, even the humour works better. Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley were working really well together again, I really hope we'll see them worth together in some other scenario again.
The movie however really needed to cramp a lot of stuff in a very short time. Almost as if there would have needed to be another movie in between.

But it still doesn't feel to me like the "real" continuation of Star Wars story (though obviously it is).

Palpatine's return invalidates the triumphs of the original trilogy. Which is kinda the entire theme of the sequel trilogy. "Han and Leia confessing their love to each other" => "Han and Leia don't work out, and their kid turns evil". "Rebels triumph over the Empire" => "Nah, it's still there, and even more powerful with Starkiller bases and Death Star Destroyers". "Luke's victory signals the return of the Jedi" => "Nope, he screws up majorly and gives up". "Anakin Skywalker redeems himself and sacrifices himself to defeat the Emperor" "=> "The Emperor got better". It's not like some new Sith Lord or Dark Side User or Upstart politicians came along to put a wrench in the Rebel/Republic restoration process. No, it are really the same guys that you already thought you defeated at the end of the original trilogy.

And of course, too much doesn't really make sense if you somehow have the time to think about (but the movie is so fast you don't get the time). 40 years from now, we'll probably get a Rogue Two movie that explains how putting a bunch of Star Destroyer into a very hostile planetary environment on a remote, unknown location with only two gizmos that could guide them safely out there seemed a good idea. (Oh, and it was only possible to transfer that control from one gizmo to teh other, but not the other way around, and that gizmo couldn't just be bombarded from orbit).
Or maybe something that explains how these giant fleet was assembled in complete secrecy from a dead Emperor on a remote, unknow location that could only be found by a very specific gizmo. It was apparently completely unfathomable that other intel gathering methods could be used to reveal how resources, ships or trooops were funneled toward that system to build these ships.

What was it: "Jam their Speeders!" "We can't, they don't have any" _cue space horse riders running across space ship hull_. Seriously? How often have we seen speeders being jammed before in the movies? I think it was never? Did the original draft have a combat that actually used that tech and this was the only scene that survived? Quite possible.



Galandris said:


> It wasn't really explained, IMHO. At some point, a hobbit suggested they did exactly that, but Poe dismissed the idea saying something like "the Holdo maneuver is a one in a million event". No more explanation given, but it's apparently non-replicable (so they don't have to explain why all the generals didn't think of it during the thousands of year of the Republic).
> 
> I guess they realized that having the heroes behaving like the Japanese Imperial Army and mass-training pilots to do suicide runs into star destroyers wasn't the vibe they wanted for the Rebellion, as well.



Sure, but it just makes the whole story of TLJ rely even more on coincidences than any sense of "planning". I guess people will say "The Force works in mysterious ways", but that will always feel like a cop-out to me. Especially when the characters aren't force-sensitives. Why even have Jedi or Sith if the force creates miracles all the time to engineer things to happen. It means the characters lack real agency, and the only reason anything you do works or fails is because The Force decided it does, not because it might make sense and you have a good idea.

I guess I am a nitpicker, maybe you can claim that my nostalgia makes it impossible to see all the flaws in the original trilogy and not realize that the new ones are achieving exactly the same standards in terms of story-telling, cohesiveness or consistency... But it just does not feel like it does.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Dec 24, 2019)

tglassy said:


> To be honest, the whole "There's a huge fleet, but they are only vulnerable right now because of the atmospheric disturbances make the sensors unable to tell which way is up so we just need to destroy one signal emitter, but wait, now it's on the main ship and so we need to destroy another one" thing struck me as just a way for them to have a chance against such an unstoppable force.  I liked the fleet itself, especially with each one being able to destroy a planet.  That seems like something Palpatine would have devised during his 25 years being mostly dead.
> 
> But the way they defeated them just seemed like the writers had written themselves in a corner.  They gave the bad guys something so overwhelmingly powerful that there is just no way anyone could actually hope to fight it.  So instead of giving the good guys something equally powerful, they, like A New Hope, put an exhaust pipe in it that leads to the reactor to blow the whole thing up.  They just gave it a really, really easy to get to weakness.
> 
> Yeah, they explained that in Rogue One, but that was an attempt to explain a plot hole.  This is really just lazy writing.  They wanted the good guys to be able to win, so they gave them an easy way to win.



I never really considered it a plot hole. One could even argue the weakness wasn't that big, because the Rebels almost failed. Rogue One actually (depsite how much I enjoyed the movie) might have made the hole bigger, actually, because Erso's flaw is so specific that in a typical Rebel attack run without any would-be-Jedi, the chances are good that no one can succesfully exploit the flaw. And it's not like there are many second chances to try it again in some other fight. Once the Empire realizes what the attackers were trying to do, they probably can figure out the flaw themselves. I guess it's plausible that putting in such a flaw deliberatly without being found out immediately by some other engineers involved in the project is really hard and that is all he could accomplish, but still. We don't really need the explanation.

With the Final Order (or Last Order? Sorry, watched it on german this time) Star Destroyers, their entire location flying across a planet in a star system that basically know one knew the location of was nonsense already. Why even bother with putting Star Destroyers on the planet? The could be in orbit, or anywhere in the system. No one was going to come around and see them. And if someone was going to come, at least the Star Destroyers would not be vulnerable.  We don't just have a construction flaw in this whole thing, we have a strategic and tactical errors along with serious construction flaws that cannot even be explained with hybris. Maybe dead Sith don't think as clearly? (Not that dissimilar from The Last Jedi, really, where the First Order launches Fighter way too late - which the officer on the dreadnought actually explicitely remarks on -  and start targeting the ground base first instead of the ships that can hyperspace away first.). We have to assume that First and Last/Final order are simply incompetent at their job, and that feels a bit lame.


It would really be more plausible if the fleet wasn't that big, and the people that Lando can rally (within 8 hours, but the days,weeks or months since The Last Jedi no one could muster up that many?) simply a larger fleet that has a chance to beat these (undermanned) ships. Or if at least the Resistance had lured these ships into the situation we find them in.

I guess it's having read Timothy Zahn Star Wars (and some others, actually) novels... There it's usually competent protagonists and competent antagonists having to rely on imperfect information to divine their opponent's moves, and them using desinformation and trickery to lure their opponent into a trap. 
If I cared for people bumbling around incompetently outside of comedies, I guess I'd watch more reality TV.


----------



## Zardnaar (Dec 24, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I never really considered it a plot hole. One could even argue the weakness wasn't that big, because the Rebels almost failed. Rogue One actually (depsite how much I enjoyed the movie) might have made the hole bigger, actually, because Erso's flaw is so specific that in a typical Rebel attack run without any would-be-Jedi, the chances are good that no one can succesfully exploit the flaw. And it's not like there are many second chances to try it again in some other fight. Once the Empire realizes what the attackers were trying to do, they probably can figure out the flaw themselves. I guess it's plausible that putting in such a flaw deliberatly without being found out immediately by some other engineers involved in the project is really hard and that is all he could accomplish, but still. We don't really need the explanation.
> 
> With the Final Order (or Last Order? Sorry, watched it on german this time) Star Destroyers, their entire location flying across a planet in a star system that basically know one knew the location of was nonsense already. Why even bother with putting Star Destroyers on the planet? The could be in orbit, or anywhere in the system. No one was going to come around and see them. And if someone was going to come, at least the Star Destroyers would not be vulnerable.  We don't just have a construction flaw in this whole thing, we have a strategic and tactical errors along with serious construction flaws that cannot even be explained with hybris. Maybe dead Sith don't think as clearly? (Not that dissimilar from The Last Jedi, really, where the First Order launches Fighter way too late - which the officer on the dreadnought actually explicitely remarks on -  and start targeting the ground base first instead of the ships that can hyperspace away first.). We have to assume that First and Last/Final order are simply incompetent at their job, and that feels a bit lame.
> 
> ...




Thrawn trilogy is number 1 for Star Wars books on Amazon.

But yeah that trilogy was plotted out well with believable and interesting characters.

Thrawns carried over into the new canon as well he's to popular with the fans lol. His new books are apparently good, Thrawns Revenge mod is still a thing, and on occasion he's beaten Vader in polls for best SW villain. He's kind of a hero now though in Disney canon.

Thrawn lives!!!

Movies visual guide to RoS has a Sith legion named after Revan.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone (Dec 25, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Thrawns carried over into the new canon as well he's to popular with the fans lol. His new books are apparently good, Thrawns Revenge mod is still a thing, and on occasion he's beaten Vader in polls for best SW villain. He's kind of a hero now though in Disney canon.




I would have preferred Thrawn as the final villain to Palps.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 25, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> I would have preferred Thrawn as the final villain to Palps.




 I kinda wanted him in the First Order. In the new canon they play up how good the new FO stuff is but we never see it. 

  Just slight tweaks like using Kylos TIE Silencer flanked by TIE defenders or a handful of those new Star Destroyers being used to blow the crap out of a New Republic fleet. 

 Drive home the point the new villains have learnt and are dangerous. But they went with comic book evil bwa ha ha we're bad.


----------



## doctorbadwolf (Dec 25, 2019)

Morrus said:


> In the Mandalorian. (and a ton of video games, but they don't count)
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Also Rebels has Force Time Travel and Force Portals, so Force Teleportation ain’t a big deal.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 25, 2019)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Also Rebels has Force Time Travel and Force Portals, so Force Teleportation ain’t a big deal.




 Rebels is Disney though. Lucas force was a lot more restrained, Disney force does leans towards magic and superhero type powers. 

 Teleportation has been done before Disney it's not original.  I suspect the force and lightsaber colours are whatever the writer/director feels like. There's pros and cons to that approach.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 25, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Rebels is Disney though. Lucas force was a lot more restrained, Disney force does leans towards magic and superhero type powers.
> 
> Teleportation has been done before Disney it's not original.  I suspect the force and lightsaber colours are whatever the writer/director feels like. There's pros and cons to that approach.



i expect the palpatine and yoda's fight went by DBZ rules and we were viewing a high speed fight.

I say this because palps was far faster than windu in the windu fight.  Yoda is faster than windu.  Yet the fight between him and yoda looks slower at times.  I say this is actually because the whole fight is slowed down.  Palpatine is so fast the there is no cannon im aware of that ever even confirms someone close to him in speed.  Yoda at young age would probably come closest.  Physically palps biggest advantage was his speed.


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## doctorbadwolf (Dec 25, 2019)

Galandris said:


> It wasn't really explained, IMHO. At some point, a hobbit suggested they did exactly that, but Poe dismissed the idea saying something like "the Holdo maneuver is a one in a million event". No more explanation given, but it's apparently non-replicable (so they don't have to explain why all the generals didn't think of it during the thousands of year of the Republic).
> 
> I guess they realized that having the heroes behaving like the Japanese Imperial Army and mass-training pilots to do suicide runs into star destroyers wasn't the vibe they wanted for the Rebellion, as well.



It takes an exceptional navigator and the all right circumstances. Lowered shields to conserve power, etc. 



Zardnaar said:


> Rebels is Disney though. Lucas force was a lot more restrained, Disney force does leans towards magic and superhero type powers.
> 
> Teleportation has been done before Disney it's not original.  I suspect the force and lightsaber colours are whatever the writer/director feels like. There's pros and cons to that approach.



I don’t care if it’s disney. Canon is canon.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 25, 2019)

doctorbadwolf said:


> I don’t care if it’s disney. Canon is canon.



Wonder how long it will be until disney buys the ring of the fisherman and puts it on mickey's tail.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 25, 2019)

doctorbadwolf said:


> It takes an exceptional navigator and the all right circumstances. Lowered shields to conserve power, etc.
> 
> 
> I don’t care if it’s disney. Canon is canon.




If you're a canon purist sure. It's not good Star wars.

Note the ones with the most over the top force effects are also rated the lowest lol.

Lucas was guilty big this as well. Yoda/Dooku fight and Palps/Yoda.

 Also they won't age well lol. 

Canon but still dumb IMHO.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 25, 2019)

Didn't realize the yellow lightsaber thing was a debate bit I did notice it looking a bit meh.

This is why.

Thumbnail not the video. Ignore the videos I didn't watch any it's purely visual.

It just doesn't look that good in that shot.

Change the lighting though. Once again just the thumbnail.


Rey's shot looks meh the bottom one looks good. Both yellow.

Neutral background

I just don't think they look good except in darker backdrops.

I'm not a fan of yellow sabers ascetically. Beyond that idk what people are complaining about colour wise.

Video of yellow sabers used in combat around the 3:50 mark. Note darker scene.

Yellow on yellow around 3:07 mark. 


To look good yellow needs to be in a darker shot. Might be why they used green in RotJ. It stands out better on Tatooine.

As a visual yellow would probably be the last colour to use on Tatooine.

Personally in game on KotoR I liked using red and purple as Sith and blue and green as Jedi. That and I colour coded mine blue was good vs droids, red or purple lots of damage etc.


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## Imaculata (Dec 25, 2019)

I enjoyed it. It was the epic story of a desperate corporation trying to save a movie trilogy, by bringing in their first director after the previous one killed off the villain a movie too soon. The plot is a bit of a mess and the movie does so much that it feels like two movies in one. But it is obvious that it had to set up a ton of things after The Last Jedi neglected to do so (that is usually the job of the 2nd movie in the trilogy). So what do you do? There's plenty to like in The Rise of Skywalker. Amazing performances, excellent chemistry between the actors, beautiful art direction and special effects. But the plot is a mess. It is like a master class in bad Hollywood writing. They need to get this thing, to go get this other thing, which conveniently helps them get this other thing. That is the plot in a nutshell. Also, giant fleet of Star Destroyers conjured out of nothing.

I was quite amused by the ending, where everyone is hugging and kissing. I was about to tell my female friend in the seat next to me that everyone has a case of the not-gays, when all of a sudden there's a blurry shot of two women kissing in the background for like a second. Wow Disney, you really are Passive Progressive (as Red Lettermedia put it).


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## Zardnaar (Dec 25, 2019)

Imaculata said:


> I enjoyed it. It was the epic story of a desperate corporation trying to save a movie trilogy, by bringing in their first director after the previous one killed off the villain a movie too soon. The plot is a bit of a mess and the movie does so much that it feels like two movies in one. But it is obvious that it had to set up a ton of things after The Last Jedi neglected to do so (that is usually the job of the 2nd movie in the trilogy). So what do you do? There's plenty to like in The Rise of Skywalker. Amazing performances, excellent chemistry between the actors, beautiful art direction and special effects. But the plot is a mess. It is like a master class in bad Hollywood writing. They need to get this thing, to go get this other thing, which conveniently helps them get this other thing. That is the plot in a nutshell. Also, giant fleet of Star Destroyers conjured out of nothing.




 This everything they set up in TFA was demolished in TLJ. 

 Money grab trilogy not exactly an organic story.


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## Imaculata (Dec 25, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> This everything they set up in TFA was demolished in TLJ.
> 
> Money grab trilogy not exactly an organic story.




It still baffles me that Disney did not plan out this whole trilogy in advance. That was monumentally stupid. Instead they let Rian Johnson just kill off every plot hook with an unsatisfying twist and set up absolutely nothing for the next movie. It is no wonder Rise of Skywalker had to set up its 'new' villain in the opening titles, because it barely has enough time to set up everything else that The Last Jedi neglected to do. But think about it for a second, and realize how crazy it is for the third movie in a trilogy to set up the main villain in the opening text crawl.

And yet, The Rise of Skywalker does acknowledge the few things about the Last Jedi that worked, such as the force link between Kylo Ren and Rey, and the nifty warp thing that they do, where they talk to each other from two different locations and yet interact with one another. But for the observant, JJ Abrams also gives a subtle middle finger to Rian Johnson when Luke catches the lightsaber.


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## Derren (Dec 25, 2019)

They probably intended for Kylo to be the BBEG, but to many people shipped ReyxKylo and Disney was desperate to please people after Solo and Ep8 failed. So they had to bring in a new one. And when you want to play it safe, whats better than to reshoot a movie people like, characters and everything?


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## Zardnaar (Dec 25, 2019)

Imaculata said:


> It still baffles me that Disney did not plan out this whole trilogy in advance. That was monumentally stupid. Instead they let Rian Johnson just killed off every plot hook with an unsatisfying twist and set up absolutely nothing for the next movie. It is no wonder The Last Jedi had to set up its 'new' villain in the opening titles, because it barely has enough time to set up everything else that The Last Jedi neglected to do. But think about it for a second, and realize how crazy it is for the third movie in a trilogy to set up the main villain in the opening text crawl.




 Yeah people blame Rian Johnson but something like that is part of the producers job. Rian might have done it because it was in his job description which put it on the writers or producers.

 I'm not 100% sure whose idea it was and why it was okayed.


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## Imaculata (Dec 25, 2019)

Derren said:


> They probably intended for Kylo to be the BBEG, but to many people shipped ReyxKylo and Disney was desperate to please people after Solo and Ep8 failed. So they had to bring in a new one. And when you want to play it safe, whats better than to reshoot a movie people like, characters and everything?




No, they clearly meant for Snoke to be the big bad. He wasn't supposed to die a movie early. Honestly, the moral gray that both Rey and Kylo are in is the thing that interested me the most about the characters. I shipped them as well, because I want to see Rey go to the dark side, and I wanted to see Kylo Ren redeemed. I think that was the plan all along. But Disney neglected to set this all out and put it in stone. They went with the JJ Abrams method of writing, which is to leave a ton of dangling plot threads and figure it all out later. They should not have done this obviously. And they should not have given Rian Johnson so much freedom to do whatever. The 2nd movie is the most important movie in the trilogy after all.

Now the Rise of Skywalker had to redcon a ton of stuff from the Last Jedi in order to close the trilogy properly. Lots of stuff, such as The Knights of Ren, Rey's parents, Rey's visions, Snoke's backstory, are thankfully brought back. I strongly suspect that Snoke was never intended to be one of many clones by the emperor, but it was a quick fix to solve this unresolved plot thread that The Last Jedi blew up, like so many others.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 25, 2019)

Derren said:


> They probably intended for Kylo to be the BBEG, but to many people shipped ReyxKylo and Disney was desperate to please people after Solo and Ep8 failed. So they had to bring in a new one. And when you want to play it safe, whats better than to reshoot a movie people like, characters and everything?




 They didn't develop Kylo properly to be the villain. He got hurt/lost in TFA and got made to look like an idiot in TFA. He was also wishy washy on light/dark. 

They had 3 choices.
1. Ineffective villain
2. Recycled villain
3. New villain. 

3 bad choices.


When he is getting called Darth Emo and Darth Angst all over the net might not be the most effective villain. Hell Finn did the same character arc twice apparently the script for TLJ was written at the same time as TFA. They rushed it for the 2years between the movies as it takes around 15 months from from filming to release.

 3 months filming 1 year post production.

 Strangely enough the three films almost stand up ok judged as an individual film independent of the trilogy.

 Consider this if RoS opening crawl popped up onscreen in 2015 would it be a decent jump off point for a new trilogy?


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## Imaculata (Dec 25, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Consider this if RoS opening crawl popped up onscreen in 2015 would it be a decent jump off point for a new trilogy?




Honestly, they could have made two movies out of this. It would have given them more time to set everything up and right the ship, sorta speak. It doesn't have to be a trilogy, and more movies means more money. But of course there are contracts to consider, and a fantastic actor like Adam Driver has better movies to do. They probably wouldn't get him for another movie.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 25, 2019)

Imaculata said:


> Honestly, they could have made two movies out of this. It would have given them more time to set everything up and right the ship, sorta speak. It doesn't have to be a trilogy, and more movies means more money. But of course there are contracts to consider, and a fantastic actor like Adam Driver has better movies to do. They probably wouldn't get him for another movie.




 Whose gonna have much if a movie career after this? And who gets bit parts or indie movies? 

 Adam Drivers probably safe not sure about the others. Oscars probably safe as well.


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## Imaculata (Dec 25, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Whose gonna have much if a movie career after this? And who gets bit parts or indie movies?
> 
> Adam Drivers probably safe not sure about the others. Oscars probably safe as well.




That is a good question. Daisey Ridley hasn't been in anything impressive since The Force Awakens and I'm not sure if she has a lot of range as an actress. I can see John Boyega doing some voice work, but again, nothing sensational on the movie front.

Driver and Isaacs are the only two whose movie careers seem safe. Driver is in Marriage Story right now next to Scarlett Johansson, where apparently both do a fantastic job (haven't seen it yet myself).


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## Zardnaar (Dec 25, 2019)

Imaculata said:


> That is a good question. Daisey Ridley hasn't been in anything impressive since The Force Awakens and I'm not sure if she has a lot of range as an actress. I can see John Boyega doing some voice work, but again, nothing sensational on the movie front.
> 
> Driver and Isaacs are the only one two whose movie careers seem safe. Driver is in Marriage Story right now next to Scarlett Johansson, where apparently both do a fantastic job (haven't seen it yet myself).




 Yeah Adams been getting critical acclaim and his Klansmen movie is good. 

 Boyega got Pacific Rim 2.

Daisy crickets

Oscars has Dune coming up. Could be great or a giant cluster. Also seen him in a movie he played a Nazi hunter. 

 But yeah my monies on Adam.


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## Imaculata (Dec 25, 2019)

Lets also talk for a bit about how Disney pretends to be progressive. This was a nice article with a perfect title: Are We Really Going to Pretend the Gay Kiss in The Rise of Skywalker Matters?

Disney pretends to be progressive, saying that it is important for them that everyone feels equally 'represented'. There it is, that ugly word '*equal representation*'. It is an ugly word, because it is a meaningless word. When all it amounts to is two blurry women who aren't even main characters having one short kiss in the background, it means nothing (except if you are living in Singapore or Vietnam, where the scene is cut from the film completely).

There is no progress to speak of here, when representation amounts to the financially safest way to cater to everyone as ordained by a commitee. They are eager to yell out how progressive they are, but they are more eager to keep it all in the background so they don't offend all those other people. To me that means that as a company you are taking no position at all. Basically what we have here is a group of business men deciding if they should or should not hide a token representation scene in the movie somewhere.


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## trappedslider (Dec 25, 2019)




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## Galandris (Dec 25, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> That's not a bad structure, if they can make it work. IMHO if you want Palp's complete arc, though, we need the pre-prequel trilogy to set it up.




Sidious: a Star Wars Story? In which it's explained how he offed Plagueis and used the Force to make Shmi pregnant (he could create life, after all)? Everything was already hinted about... Would see it, though.



> Sadly, I think the interpretation of episodes 1-6 as "The Tragedy & Redemption of Anakin Skywalker" was undermined by Episode 9 ... cause now his redemption doesn't matter.  With a bit more thought they might have pulled it off, but then that would have required plotting the entire ST from the beginning, rather than improvising one movie at a time based on audience reaction.




I concur. Sacrificing his life to kill Palpatine and end the Empire (as was implied in the OT) has a lot less meaning right now.

At least the revelation about Rey's parentage provide explanation about her outstanding skill level, which was used by some to accuse her of being a Mary Sue (compared to Luke). Luke was explained because he was from the Skywalker line, reputed to be strong in the Force. Rey's skill level isn't an achievement of her own or being inexplicably good, she's simply the heir of an even more powerful line (the one who even created, as I read it, the Skywalker line). This should quell the accusation and provide explanation. No wonder she can mind control after just learning the existence of this power... it must be nearly innate if we judge it by Anakin "let's be an innate precog" standard.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Dec 25, 2019)

I don't know why people claim that Luke shouled some outstanding skill level. His two big force accomplishments before he trains with Yoda are shooting a proton torpedo into the Death Star's exhaust tube without a targeting computer (but he actually recieved some training by Obi-Wan blind-fighting the training droid, and recieved a force spirit message during the scene), and him grabbing his light saber with the force (under some struggles). And in the same movie, despite the training, he gets his ass beaten by Vader in a light saber combat and loses a hand. His presence on Cloud City was mostly useless, because the rest is already escaping without him.

Rey already force-tricks someone without guidance, and she succesfully holds her own against a force-user in a light saber battle (and a force user that can do some fancy tricks like stopping a blaster shot at him, and definitely had training with Luke). I still don't like the term Mary Sue, because it's pretty much distracting from the actual issue this creates - it doesn't feel like Rey is undergoing a struggle or growth, and she lacks a bit in features that make her relatable. The tragic backstory of being orphaned could be something, but it mostly seems to be about her not wanting to leave the sucky planet she's on. But that doesn't really feel like something relatable, since that is usually not how being practically orphaned works. If we saw her searching for her parents across the galaxy, or if she in turn had problems creating connections with people because she fears to be disappointed and abondendd again, it would probably work a lot better. But none of that seems an issue. She has an instant connection with Han, Leia and Finn, and losing Han is only a brief, sad moment, she quickly moves on from it.



> Lets also talk for a bit about how Disney pretends to be progressive. This was a nice article with a perfect title: Are We Really Going to Pretend the Gay Kiss in The Rise of Skywalker Matters?



No, we aren't, but the movie was so thick of plot elements that it's surprising they even had time for that tiny moment. And sure, it was just to put a checkmark on a list.


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## Eric V (Dec 25, 2019)

I am by no means a fan of TLJ.

I don't think that film left Abrams with no choice but to bring back Palpatine, however.  That was a creatively bankrupt decision...even if I think that was the best lich I have ever seen. 

After Kylo refuses to call off the attack on the fleeing rebels, and wants to rule...that's the making of a good villain there.  Would have given a talent like Driver's more to do in the 4rd film as well.

Twist ending: not a whole lot of things blowing up, but a grey order with founders Kylo and Rey.

Obviously insert some action in there.

This trilogy make me think of a campaign shared by different DMs with the same PCs...who didn't have similar visions.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 25, 2019)

Right now the poll says ~44.6-44.8% of this site give the movie a rating of "not good" or "less than good" basically.  Even with the boosted popularity due to it just simply being a SW movie.  Furthermore this forum is obviously populated by a lot of nerds (myself included) which would obviously help the film get a better score than most places.  And it has.  Other places tend to rate it lower than that.

But the fact that nearly half this forum rates it below "good"?  Yeah.  Thats not good.  Just saying.  The film clearly sucks.  Its a star wars film and its not even getting a better rating than that here.

Slightly over 1/3rd of people here rate it specofically good.  Again.  Thats not great seeing as its a SW film.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 25, 2019)

The average vote is almost exactly 3 and 1/3rd.

Not an ok movie.


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## Zardnaar (Dec 25, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Right now the poll says ~44.6-44.8% of this site give the movie a rating of "not good" or "less than good" basically.  Even with the boosted popularity due to it just simply being a SW movie.  Furthermore this forum is obviously populated by a lot of nerds (myself included) which would obviously help the film get a better score than most places.  And it has.  Other places tend to rate it lower than that.
> 
> But the fact that nearly half this forum rates it below "good"?  Yeah.  Thats not good.  Just saying.  The film clearly sucks.  Its a star wars film and its not even getting a better rating than that here.
> 
> Slightly over 1/3rd of people here rate it specofically good.  Again.  Thats not great seeing as its a SW film.




 Star Wars movie automatically=good hasn't been a thing since 1999.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 25, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Star Wars movie automatically=good hasn't been a thing since 1999.



I completely agree.

That isnt how most (including mainstream consumers) have seen it though (until force awakens came out at least)


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## Mirtek (Dec 26, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Rey already force-tricks someone without guidance, and she succesfully holds her own against a force-user in a light saber battle (and a force user that can do some fancy tricks like stopping a blaster shot at him, and definitely had training with Luke).



 A force-user who had suffered a nasty blaster wound and was leaving a trail of blood all the way to the battle. It's a testament to his power that he could even still lift his light saber at this point


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## Nebulous (Dec 26, 2019)

Eric V said:


> This trilogy make me think of a campaign shared by different DMs with the same PCs...who didn't have similar visions.




That's a fair comparison.


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## Morrus (Dec 26, 2019)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I don't know why people claim that Luke shouled some outstanding skill level. His two big force accomplishments before he trains with Yoda are shooting a proton torpedo into the Death Star's exhaust tube without a targeting computer (but he actually recieved some training by Obi-Wan blind-fighting the training droid, and recieved a force spirit message during the scene), and him grabbing his light saber with the force (under some struggles).




While this exact conversation has been had exactly 1,324,765 times on this forum alone, let alone everywhere else on the internet, and it has always gone exactly the same way, with the exact same things being said and the exact same number of minds being changed (spoiler: zero), I'll just leave this short video of an entirely untrained Luke doing something impossible on his first attempt.


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## Nebulous (Dec 26, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Star Wars movie automatically=good hasn't been a thing since 1999.




If anything, nerds are even more hypercritical of their favorite stuff.  If we don't like we don't like it.   The hope that it's good is always there, but it hasn't fulfilled expectations since 1983.


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## billd91 (Dec 26, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Right now the actual professional critics rotten tomatoes hires on are rating it in the 50s and they are signifficantly motivated to give it a good rating.  Thats HORRIBAD.  If you dont believe me check out rotten tomatoes.




No, they aren't. That's a complete misunderstanding of how the Tomatometer aggregate works. It doesn't indicate that professional critics are giving it a middle-of-the-road rating. It indicates what percentage of reviews are positive rather than negative. It can't differentiate between a highly positive, moderately positive, or marginally positive review (or the same for negative). It abstracts all of those variations, since they can come from any number of incompatible scales (5 stars systems, 4 star systems, letter grades, thumbs-up/down systems, etc). Currently, 55% of reviewers give it a positive rating using whatever system they use.


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## Randomthoughts (Dec 26, 2019)

Saw the movie over the weekend. My vote was "Average". The good parts:

Movie was beautiful to watch. 
One of the most emotional scenes (I didn't expect) was seeing Chewie's reaction to Leia's passing. Teared up on that one.
Liked Luke's and Han's cameos.
Action was (as usual) top notch.
Liked Daisy as Rey and Driver as Kylo. I thought they had chemistry and would like to see more of them - but alas.
What I didn't like:

Didn't care to have Palps back. I'm not much on Legends stuff but know one arc was Palps was back as a clone. I really didn't want that. The lich idea was better, but not by much.
Lessening the effect of the OT is pathetic. Things came full circle and nothing progressed. I blame the showrunners/executive producers I guess - which they should have stuck with regardless of director - and the writing.
I didn't find the chemistry between the three protagonists to be endearing. I liked each of them but the movies didn't capture the chemistry of the OT (the banter, the relationships).
The worst was Poe, not as a character (I certainly like Issacs) but the writing and his story arc. The progress of his arc to Supreme General (or whatever) didn't progress well. His character presented an opportunity that you don't see a lot in SW movies - the story of the person in the trenches, leading the Rebellion/Resistance. (Just like how the Mandalorian shows a side of SW that you don't often see in the movies too).
Ultimately, I said it was average b/c it was supposed to the climax of all the trilogies. It wasn't. Worse yet, it didn't lay a good foundation for the next step in the universe. It was a wasted opportunity.

Saw it was my two kids and they rated it as the worst of the SW series (note they grew up on the ST). For context, they liked TLJ but not as a SW movie (if that makes sense).


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## Nebulous (Dec 26, 2019)

Randomthoughts said:


> Saw it was my two kids and they rated it as the worst of the SW series (note they grew up on the ST). For context, they liked TLJ but not as a SW movie (if that makes sense).




I hadn't even thought about how kids would react to RofS.   I've only been thinking about jaded adults.


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## Morrus (Dec 26, 2019)

I spoke to a guy who said his mate say he overheard somebody say it was the best film ever! So, that's that solved.


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## Nebulous (Dec 26, 2019)




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## pukunui (Dec 26, 2019)

My daughters, aged 7, 11, and 14, all thoroughly enjoyed it. They would all like to see it again.


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## Kaodi (Dec 27, 2019)

To a discussion from a few pages back: Rey has one of the best lightsabers ever. The only one where the physical structure of the saber follows clearly from another object in the series.


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## Maxperson (Dec 27, 2019)

I just saw the movie and it was better than the last one for sure.  What I really didn't like was that Leia, Rei and Ben all died just from using the force, and not even in a major way like Luke.  If using the force were that lethal, we would have been out of Jedi just a few short years after they came into being, rather than the Jedi being a force for justice for thousands of years.  It was so bad that I actually thought that the movie makers missed an opportunity at the end and should have had Rei and Ben heal/dying for each other in perpetuity, but she was a bit slow and he disappeared on her.


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## Imaculata (Dec 27, 2019)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Sadly, I think the interpretation of episodes 1-6 as "The Tragedy & Redemption of Anakin Skywalker" was undermined by Episode 9




Lets be honest, the redemption of Anakin Skywalker was already thoroughly undermined by episodes 1-3, by making Anakin an unlikable a-hole who murders children and whines about Obi-wan being mean to him.



Galandris said:


> At least the revelation about Rey's parentage provide explanation about her outstanding skill level, which was used by some to accuse her of being a Mary Sue (compared to Luke).




It doesn't make her any less of a Mary Sue either though. Just because they give a reason for her outstanding skill in the force, does not change the fact that she is a character with outstanding powers and very few flaws. So the checkmarks for a Marie Sue character still stand.

To be clear, I never called her a Mary Sue, because it is a bit of a weak argument against her as a character, since Luke could also be seen as a Mary Sue character all the same. But the people that did call her one are not in the wrong. Bare in mind that when people call a character a Mary Sue, they are often recognising a weakness in the writing of the character. This often translates in a character that is a sort of stand in for the writer him/herself, who is liked by everyone and is great at a ton of things that stretch believability in comparison to other characters in the story. It is also often a character that is well liked by older established characters in the story, which the new trilogy of course has in the form of Luke and Han. Rey has a lot of all of that, but so does Luke.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Dec 27, 2019)

Mirtek said:


> A force-user who had suffered a nasty blaster wound and was leaving a trail of blood all the way to the battle. It's a testament to his power that he could even still lift his light saber at this point



It can be "plausible" for her to succeed in this fight as she does - but the point is that the win doesn't feel "earned". She didn't overcome great odds, she won because the odds were already in her favor. Seeing the underdog beating the odds because he or she's smarter, more insightful, or was better at convincing others to work with him is what we want to see. But Rey didn't need to convince Chewie to fight at her side and shoot at Kylo Ren, she didn't need to have a cunning plan.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 27, 2019)

Neither luke nor anakin are mary sues.

Rey is.

All three have phenominal force talents.  Makes the most sense with ani and the least sense with rey.  But shes got'em.

Ani and luke (especially ani) have flaws.  Real actual flaws.  Not fake flaws that are really strictly and exclusivelt good things.
Rey has the basic fake mary sue flaws that mary sues tend to have.

Also rey is a physically weak (without the force.  Also that may be her grandfather's influence.  He wasnt physically very strong.  But he was one of the few characters faster than yoda) female (at least shes portrayed that way.  Barely any muscle, small of frame like if blew in her direction shed crumple and not tall, soft looking, and female) who bests large numbers of males in physical contest practically without ever once acting so much as winded (climactic fights are exceptions.  She dies get winded then.  Strictly for dramatic effect but there is actually nothing particularly mary sue about that.)

They arent even close.  Rey is a mary sue and luke/ani are not.


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## MarkB (Dec 27, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Also rey is a physically weak (without the force.  Also that may be her grandfather's influence.  He wasnt physically very strong.  But he was one of the few characters faster than yoda) female (at least shes portrayed that way.  Barely any muscle, small of frame like if blew in her direction shed crumple and not tall, soft looking, and female) who bests large numbers of males in physical contest practically without ever once acting so much as winded (climactic fights are exceptions.  She dies get winded then.  Strictly for dramatic effect but there is actually nothing particularly mary sue about that.)



Where are you getting this from? Rey isn't "portrayed" as physically weak - she's portrayed as someone who spends her mornings spelunking in Star Destroyers for spare parts, and her afternoons doing gruelling labour cleaning and restoring those parts, all in order to earn a literal subsistence wage, in a town where people will kill you and take your stuff as soon as look at you.

If you saw that and came away with "soft, weak female", that's on you and your own prejudices, not the character.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 27, 2019)

MarkB said:


> Where are you getting this from? Rey isn't "portrayed" as physically weak - she's portrayed as someone who spends her mornings spelunking in Star Destroyers for spare parts, and her afternoons doing gruelling labour cleaning and restoring those parts, all in order to earn a literal subsistence wage, in a town where people will kill you and take your stuff as soon as look at you.
> 
> If you saw that and came away with "soft, weak female", that's on you and your own prejudices, not the character.



Not by physical activity to be sure.  No no.  Im directly talking about visual/physical appearance.  That is how shes portrayed in the way i was talking avout (weak).

Shes like palps.  Really looks like she couod tear in half like a wet napkin.  But her behavior and activities show otherwise.

It has nothing to do with me lol.  She really does look like that. But i mean you can assume im prejudiced if you want.  I know what i saw and what it looked like.  Dont have to be prejudiced.  Just not blind.


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## Mallus (Dec 27, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Barely any muscle, small of frame like if blew in her direction shed crumple and not tall, soft looking, and female) who bests large numbers of males in physical contest practically without ever once acting so much as winded (climactic fights are exceptions.



Have you never seen a kung-fu movie with women fighters in them? There are a lot. Some are classics. Is every killer martial arts lady a Mary Sue?


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## doctorbadwolf (Dec 27, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Neither luke nor anakin are mary sues.
> 
> Rey is.
> 
> ...



You seem to really just have a problem with the fact the hero is female this time.


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## doctorbadwolf (Dec 27, 2019)

MarkB said:


> Where are you getting this from? Rey isn't "portrayed" as physically weak - she's portrayed as someone who spends her mornings spelunking in Star Destroyers for spare parts, and her afternoons doing gruelling labour cleaning and restoring those parts, all in order to earn a literal subsistence wage, in a town where people will kill you and take your stuff as soon as look at you.
> 
> If you saw that and came away with "soft, weak female", that's on you and your own prejudices, not the character.



Good point. It requires actively trying to interpret the character that way.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 27, 2019)

Mallus said:


> Have you never seen a kung-fu movie with women fighters in them? There are a lot. Some are classics. Is every killer martial arts lady a Mary Sue?



No.  But most of them are.  Thays why i only like a couple of them.  Only a couple are characters that took a bit of thought beyond "der...bewbs and punches hehe" on the writer's effort and arent completely cheap.

So yeah.  There are only a few of those that i dont think are pretty dumb.  Very few of them are actually very muscled.  Very few of them look remotely believeable.  Really ruins suspension of disbelief.


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## doctorbadwolf (Dec 27, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> No.  But most of them are.  Thays why i only like a couple of them.  Only a couple are characters that took a bit of thought beyond "der...bewbs and punches hehe" on the writer's effort and arent completely cheap.
> 
> So yeah.  There are only a few of those that i dont think are pretty dumb.  Very few of them are actually very muscled.  Very few of them look remotely believeable.  Really ruins suspension of disbelief.



Most of them are actual martial artists. Ming-na Wen doesn’t look ripped, but is an actual accomplished martial artist. 

Seriously maybe examine your own biases a bit.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 27, 2019)

doctorbadwolf said:


> You seem to really just have a problem with the fact the hero is female this time.



Nah.  Thats just your perception.  I just have a higher standard for female heros than most people have.  It makes me unable to take a lot of male heros seriously too actually.  For instance, i have a love hate relationship with batman because in some ways hes an interesting character but in other ways he just makes me want to head desk myself into a coma.  He is far too unrealistically strong.


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## Maxperson (Dec 27, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> No.  But most of them are.  Thays why i only like a couple of them.  Only a couple are characters that took a bit of thought beyond "der...bewbs and punches hehe" on the writer's effort and arent completely cheap.
> 
> So yeah.  There are only a few of those that i dont think are pretty dumb.  Very few of them are actually very muscled.  Very few of them look remotely believeable.  Really ruins suspension of disbelief.



Wiry strength is a thing.  Not everyone who is strong, looks strong.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 27, 2019)

doctorbadwolf said:


> Most of them are actual martial artists. Ming-na Wen doesn’t look ripped, but is an actual accomplished martial artist.
> 
> Seriously maybe examine your own biases a bit.



No.  You ned to reexamine.  Not i.

1. Other than rey i named no names.  Never stated specifics of who it applies to.  So the actress you threw out there?  Whatever.  I made no comment about her.  Frankly i didnt look up who she was either.

2.  This is going to come as a shock, but, an actor/actress being an IRL martial artist doesnt really "move the needle" much for me.  Sorry bud.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 27, 2019)

Maxperson said:


> Wiry strength is a thing.  Not everyone who is strong, looks strong.



Yeah.  Im aware of the fact that you can have unusual percentages of slow or fast twich.  And also that you can have unusual muscle densities.

There are still minimums that come into play.  They (most male and female actor/actresses) are well below them.  FAR.


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## Maxperson (Dec 27, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Yeah.  Im aware of the fact that you can have unusual percentages of slow or fast twich.  And also that you can have unusual muscle densities.
> 
> There are still minimums that come into play.  They (most male and female actor/actresses) are well below them.  FAR.



A buddy of mine was moving when we were in our early 20's.  A 70 year old friend of his grandfather's helped him move.  This guy was 70 and very thin.  My buddy told me in awe how this guy casually lifted a couch by himself, threw it over one shoulder, and carried it with ease supported by only one hand.


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## Vael (Dec 27, 2019)

Accusations of Mary Sue-ness is the original ethics in game journalism. It's a dog whistle and most of the time is not an argument in good faith.


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## Imaculata (Dec 27, 2019)

I can definitely see how people might see Rey as a Mary Sue character, because it doesn't feel like she has to do much of anything to earn the trust and respect of other characters around her. She is highly skilled at various things (which is normal for a main character), but she seems to have relatively few flaws to balance that out. She is a little bit too perfect. But a lot of people felt that about Luke too when the original trilogy came out.

However, at least we saw Luke train with Yoda and fail to defeat vader. Empire Strikes Back does a lot to course correct and make him more of a flawed hero. Rey's backflip across a Tie Fighter feels a bit out of left field in comparison. Plus it is still not explained how she was able to mind trick the Stormtrooper in The Force Awakens without any knowledge of the force. Such unexplained miraculous abilities undermine her credibility as a character. I think it's this very problem that makes a lot of people refer to her as a Mary Sue character. But regardless of what label you want to put on it, the weak writing is certainly there.



Vael said:


> Accusations of Mary Sue-ness is the original ethics in game journalism. It's a dog whistle and most of the time is not an argument in good faith.




I disagree. I think it is simply the label people decide to put on a problem that I think we all recognize with her character. There are aspects of her character that simply aren't developed very well.


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## Mallus (Dec 27, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> No.  But most of them are.  Thays why i only like a couple of them.  Only a couple are characters that took a bit of thought beyond "der...bewbs and punches hehe" on the writer's effort and arent completely cheap.



I think we're thinking about different kung-fu movies.



> Really ruins suspension of disbelief.



I’ve accepted Tom Cruise as a badass action movie star for over three decades now. In fact, he’s only getting more badass as he sails through middle age. I can accept Daisy Ridley. She’s got the height advantage!


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## Vael (Dec 27, 2019)

Calling Rey "too perfect" and a "Mary Sue", are just ways to dismiss her as a character, because it's such nebulous BS that willfully ignores both her backstory and the nature of the Force. As I said, it's a dog whistle most of the time, because it's an accusation leveled at every female character that dares to show independence and competence.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 27, 2019)

Maxperson said:


> A buddy of mine was moving when we were in our early 20's.  A 70 year old friend of his grandfather's helped him move.  This guy was 70 and very thin.  My buddy told me in awe how this guy casually lifted a couch by himself, threw it over one shoulder, and carried it with ease supported by only one hand.



Thats not that surprising to me.  Most 70 year old thin men cant do that but plenty can.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 27, 2019)

Mallus said:


> I think we're thinking about different kung-fu movies.
> 
> 
> I’ve accepted Tom Cruise as a badass action movie star for over three decades now. In fact, he’s only getting more badass as he sails through middle age. I can accept Daisy Ridley. She’s got the height advantage!



See now, this actually shows that its not a gender thing for me.  Ive just been innaccurately assessed.

I dont think there is any movie ANY in which ive been able to take tom cruise seriously as a martial artist.  It all looks so ridiculous.

We literally just have different cut off limits for suspension of disbelief.  Its not sexism.  I just am not very forgiving of bodily physicality being stretched (unless something makes it make a lot of sense.  Ie the force or alien anatomy, but i dont give very many passes)


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## Morrus (Dec 27, 2019)

Oh, god, have we reached the Rey Mary Sue stage of the conversation now? Well, we managed 15 or 16 pages without it, which has to be some kind of record. I guess we all know exactly how the rest of the conversation goes now, word for word, before it gets closed.


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## doctorbadwolf (Dec 27, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Thats not that surprising to me.  Most 70 year old thin men cant do that but plenty can.



But a 20 year old fit woman...using a finesse weapon...who has lived as a scavenger and learnt to defend herself, that’s just too wild. 

Yeah, nothing to do with gender bias.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 27, 2019)

doctorbadwolf said:


> But a 20 year old fit woman...using a finesse weapon...who has lived as a scavenger and learnt to defend herself, that’s just too wild.
> 
> Yeah, nothing to do with gender bias.



Nice straw man


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## MarkB (Dec 27, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Nice straw man



You really have no idea what that is, do you?


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## cmad1977 (Dec 27, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Nice straw man




That isn’t... that’s not... 

Sigh.


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## Maxperson (Dec 27, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Thats not that surprising to me.  Most 70 year old thin men cant do that but plenty can.



Same with strong wiry women.  You only have to suspend disbelieve if something is unbelievable.  Rey's strength is not unbelievable.


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## Mercurius (Dec 27, 2019)

Thinking that Rey is a Mary Sue isn't inherently based on sexism or gender bias. It may be, but it may not be. Why assume that it is? Isn't that a way of just negating or ignoring what someone is saying? I mean, I get that there are actual sexist takes on this on the interwebs, but EN World is pretty mild in that department, and I like to think that as a community, we can be a bit more tolerant of people's views and not jump to such conclusions.

On the other hand, even if Rey is a Mary Sue--or rather, _to what degree _she may or may not be "Mary Sueish"--does not write her off as a good character. For one, Daisy Ridley is a better actress than Mark Hammill or Hayden Christiansen were in their respective roles. Secondly, let's remember the trajectory of the films, as far as the primary "Force hero" (or  anti-hero): we go from Anakin to Luke to Rey. Why can't the third in the line be the most powerful?

Not to mention that if she is Mary Sueish, then Anakin and Luke are Gary Stuish. Maybe not all to the same degrees, but it is a matter of degree.

Finally, I think part of the Mary Sueness is based on cinematic context. The third trilogy was created after the MCU revolution, so it makes sense that--for better or worse--heroes are more super-heroic than in the previous two films. the prequels  were made after Hollywood started integrating Chinese cinematic action, so Anakin and Obi-wan could do things that Luke couldn't (or didn't). Rey did things that were clearly influenced by MCU and enabled by improved technology.

Now even if there is some gender-related Mary Sueness (that is, propping Rey up as the Best Evar because the Future is Feminine, etc), given the long history of male heroes dominating--not to mention the fact that I am the father to two girls, so love seeing such strong female leads portrayed on film--I have no problem with it. I mean, so what? And this goes to both sides of the argument. If you hate the Mary Sue argument, it is likely because you either think it is inherently sexist--which it isn't--and/or that it is just 100% wrong, which seems far-fetched in that all such heroes have some degree of Mary Sue/Gary Stu-ness.


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## Son of the Serpent (Dec 27, 2019)

Maxperson said:


> Same with strong wiry women.  You only have to suspend disbelieve if something is unbelievable.  Rey's strength is not unbelievable.



Almost no thin 70 year old women can do that.  Maybe 1 in a couple hundred.  1 in a 1000 if its a heavy couch.  See the problem?  It stretches things a lot further.


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## Maxperson (Dec 27, 2019)

Son of the Serpent said:


> Almost no thin 70 year old women can do that.  Maybe 1 in a couple hundred.  1 in a 1000 if its a heavy couch.  See the problem?  It stretches things a lot further.



And that's a real Strawman.   My argument was not about 70 year old women. It was about strong wiry young women. See the problem?


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## Morrus (Dec 27, 2019)

Since we’re deep into the usual Rey/Mary Sue and general gender politics phase of any Star Wars conversation, and having seen how it goes every time, it’s time to put this thread to bed before that happens. Say goodnight, everybody!


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