I remain surprised that Kathy Kennedy and others at Disney approved a script that had:
I liked TLJ, though I do feel that Force Awakens is the far superior movie. I have a lot of fond moments about Ep. VII, but Ep. VIII just kind of sits there for me.
I am optimistic about Episode IX, though. We’ll see what they come up with.
Huh…I guess technically that throne room fight was not a lightsaber battle, but it was damn near the same thing and pretty awesome to boot.
The Imperial Guard or whoever those schmokes were, they used zappyswords, right? I’m not gonna split hairs over whether the zappyswords they used were official lightsabers or an off-brand knockoff. Lightsaber battles are cool because people hop around and bang glowy sticks together, not because they use Officially Licensed Lightsaber Brand glowy sticks.
The reveal of Rey’s parentage was one of those things I mentioned that Abrams forced on Episod VIII. Either she’s a Skywalker, or she isn’t. Either way, it’s bound to come up when she meets other Skywalkers. Abrams was able to keep it hanging for one film, but there wasn’t any possible way to keep it hanging for a second, that starts with her meeting Luke.
And I thought, past tense, that it was unambiguously better than VII. I still think it’s better, but it’s clear that it’s not unambiguously so.
Moving back on to the topic of Episode IX and the recently-released trailer, does anyone else get the feeling that that opening scene with her lightsabring a TIE fighter is going to turn out to be some sort of self-discovery Force-vision sequence, like Luke fighting “Vader” on Dagobah?
I thought we already had that with the infinite-Rey sequence where she faced herself in the search for her parentage.
I thought it was some sort of training exercise given than she gets in the “starting order” runner pose before taking off.
I don’t know why, but I can not stop giggling at this video from Redlettermedia:
Note: watching the above goofy video gives me a prediction.
We will see
In some kind of cool “help the hero” type thing. It’d be a great way to unify all the previous movies and I don’t think JJ can resist using everyone he can get.
Now I’m picturing a Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire scene, with all the Force ghosts flying out of Rey’s lightsaber to tackle the Emperor Force ghost.
“We can only hold him for a little while, Rey. Do it now! Go!!!”
:Rey charges at ghost-Palpatine:
No Alec Guinness or Christopher Lee? Actors that are dead don’t seem to be an issue lately.
“He slimed me”
Maybe it’ll end up on the cutting room floor like the “facing down a TIE fighter” scene in the Rogue One trailer!
Just coming here to restate what the Nerdist pointed out: The title is in purple, aka Sith-Red plus Jedi-Blue. I know Jedi are multicolored, but in the new trilogy they consistently use the original blue lightsaber. And it would be a terrible idea to make a cult of Skywalkers, but that’s just me.
This whole thing for me is just an exercise in how bad planning can ruin storytelling. I didn’t like VII or VIII very much, but baffling is the combination of both and the lack of oversight. I don’t care if they switch Directors three times in the movie - someone like Kennedy needs to have the boss-hat and realise “This does not a make a coherent Story, cut it out. Here is our overall plan.”
Yeah. Rian really left Abrams in a hole. It scans more like an old 80’s comicbook mini-series where each issue was helmed by a different author. The preceding author would end his issue with an outrageous cliffhanger and next author had to figure his way out of it.
I’d have been fine with the last movie being split in two, to give the series more time to breathe.
And it has an audience score of 44%
Compare that to The Force Awakens: 92% critics, 87% audience
The Force Awakens did $936 million domestic and $2.1B worldwide #1 all time in Sci-Fi adventure.
That can only mean one thing… anyone know what Sam Jackson’s been up to for the past year? 
D23 trailer:
Brian
I think it’s a fake-out, same as the “evil Luke” moments from the trailers of Eps VII and VIII. No way that Rey goes for a Darth Maul knock-off flip-phone lightsaber.