Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker (SPOILERS!)

Cafe Society
1

Surprised to see there wasn’t a spoiler thread for SW TROS already. I’m not a hardcore fan of the series but I’ve seen every episode and was lucky to see the premiere the other night. Here are my thoughts and comments.

The Good
・Some good action sequences, especially the one where Rey and Kylo fight on the Death Star wreckage.
・Han Solo returns as a vision to help Kylo become Ben again.

The Bad
・Opening screen crawl starts by suddenly announcing the existence of Palpatine with no reasoning, and it’s never explained throughout the movie.
・Leia is training Rey in the art of lightsaber who herself was trained by Luke, which was shown in less than 15 seconds of flashback.
・Really thin plot line which is basically go find a device to find another device that will lead you to big boss Palpatine.
・No Anakin except as voice of Jedi past. (And I only found out because he was listed in the credits.)
・They made Hamill wear a cheap wig to make ghost Luke look like fat Jesus
・Palpatine and Rey are just too powerful. Palpatine can down ships in the sky through force lightening and Rey can resurrect a dead Ben who she killed herself.
・She’s Rey Skywalker at the end. Really?

The Downright Ugly
・Rey is Palpatine’s granddaughter? What?
・Palpatine effectively kills himself because he doesn’t know when to stop shooting lightening when it’s being reflected back at him by Rey.
・Ben and Rey kiss when he gives up his life to save hers and it’s every bit cringe-worthy as it sounds.
・It turns out Anakin wasn’t the chosen one and the first two trilogies were lies.

Overall score and comment
3/10
For those expecting a satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga, be forewarned, it’s a trap!

2

Wait—what!? Then who was?

For the record, I’m asking because I don’t plan to see the movie any time soon, and don’t care about spoilers.

3

Haven’t seen it but have been aware of plot details for a little while.

Yup. You nail it.

I thought ROTJ was dumb with its handful of “What???” Moments

This has triple, quadruple! Video Game plotting…bringing back Palpatine thus negating the end of ROTJ. New, unseen before Force powers…Palpatines granddaughter!! Palpatine being behind everything …GROOOOANNN…

And now I get to hear years of “It’s the fans fault cause they “made” Abrams pander to them.”

Those evil, toxic incel fans. Yeah because AV and Slate and Salon et al are never toxic

4

Well, The Chosen One was supposed to bring balance back to the force by destroying the Sith, which I assumed Vader/Anakin did in ROTJ by throwing Palpatine into the reactor core and making him explode. But seeing that Palpatine survived and is now “all of the Sith”, (his words), and he ultimately commits suicide by continually blasting lightning at Rey’s lightsaber so that it reflects back at him, that would make Palpatine The Chosen One.

5

The whole prophecy thing was dumb and Star Wars should have made a choice

I prefer:

Prophecies are dumb and they just get people killed (sort of the GoT route)

OR

He DID bring balance to the Force by wiping out so many Jedi

or finally…he ultimately did so by killing Palpatine.
HERE’S something I never thought of…the common dude? He should HATE Jedi. They’re all about redemption and "I feel the good in you father/ Ben Solo/whatever…

The common dude wants justice and vengeance.
Meanwhile in OUR world you’re cancelled for a racist joke you told 20 years ago.

6

Huh.
Okay, I responded to it differently. I’d put it as not quite as good as The Force Awakens, and slightly better overall than The Last Jedi*.

Yes, I was annoyed the Rey turned out to be Palpatine’s granddaughter. I thought (and think) that it would have been much better if Rey had not come from one of the “royal lines” of the Star Wars universe. Johnson’s message was that a hero can come from anywhere; I like that, and it’s pretty much true.
Still, the movie overall was good enough fun to let me past that. The banter between Finn, Poe, Rey, and all was great fun, and those characters have good chemistry together. The action scenes were at least good, and usually great. Leia got a good sendoff, and her character didn’t seem forced at all - neat trick, considering all they had to work with was previously filmed scenes.

Overall, 7/10.
*Overall, quite good, but the Canto Bight sequence really dragged it down.

7

I might still see it but man that ending sounds like it was written by a committee of 8 year olds with action figures.

“They fight!! He sucks the life out of them!! They fight!!! ZAPZAP ZAP AIEEEEEEE!! They die!!! NOOoooooo!!! Ben brings her back to life!!! They kiss!!! Muahhhh muahhhh smoochy smooochy!! He dies!!”

Kind of like this

8

I quite liked the first third, but that part whizzed by very fast. It felt like the Star Wars newspaper comic strips I used to read in the early 80s. It seemed like if JJ had directed The Last Jedi it would have been mostly that kind of whizz-bang heroics.

The next third answered all the big questions, but they were questions I didn’t desire any answers to, and in the end I didn’t like the answers that were given.

The last third was chaotic formulaic madness that I’m still not sure holds up to scrutiny and needs a liberal dose of hand-wavium.

Overall, though, it was an enjoyable romp that thrilled me, so I give it a good 7 out of 10.

I am a huge fan of The Last Jedi. The subversion of expectations while serving up the basic formula of Star Wars and of second acts of trilogies made it unpredictable and exciting and a real departure that excited. Whereas The Rise Of Skywalker, a title I still don’t understand yet, went not only back to formula and predictability, but was guessed at by fanboys, screamed for, no less, from across the back alleys of the internet. All those idiot sad grown-ups who said they were going to crowdfund a remake of The Last Jedi would have made a haphazard cacophony like this.

Overall I liked it, and may even grow to love it, but I was sadly disappointed by some of the fundamentals. I did not like Palpatine. I did not like the maguffins. I did not like Rey’s family history. I did not like the “set-up, immediate resolution” formula that was repeated multiple times (Chewie’s dead, now he’s alive; Threepio’s memory is wiped, now it’s back; The map thing is destroyed, oh here’s another one; Kylo’s ship crashed into a fireball, oh he’s fine; Zorii Bliss’s planet blew up, oh she’s right here; We’ve escaped from Kylo Ren, but he’s followed me right behind, multiple times etc etc etc).

The pressure to conclude everything was palpable and maybe outweighed any potential elegance of the story. It needed an extra movie, or a more deft screenwriter.

9

Wow…that was… eh, weird?

It really felt like a big F you to Last Jedi. I am not sure it is more like two child like directors bickering about what star wars should be, or justJJ trying to appease the child like fans that are still stuck in the temper tantrum they got in after the last movie.

In any case, it just felt like a bad movie with far too many “come again?” moments. Altough I probably need to see it again to assess it as a stand alone movie…this time around it mostly landed as an “answer” to last Jedi. I think the Forbes review is pretty spot on… altough I do feel bad Star Wars is still better than no Star Wars.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn moto g(6) met Tapatalk

10

I wish people would stop trying to blame this on “fanboys,” as if “normal people” and other casual fans who limit themselves to the movies, don’t give two shits about their favorite fanfic (which they don’t have) being expelled from canon, or indeed even follow the Star Wars universe beyond the films couldn’t possibly find flaws in it.

Disney botched this trilogy. The writing was crap, and even the much vaunted Rogue One didn’t, as you say of this latest venture, “hold up to scrutiny.” The characters are generally well-acted (with the exception of Carrie Fischer’s hack Leia and Harrison Ford’s equally dull portrayal as Solo), the trouble is that, as written, they don’t get to “act” like people. Now, I might be able to excuse that, or at least turn my brain off long enough to enjoy the films as an experience, but the storyline that should have connected the three episodes together was apparently the last thing Disney was worried about. Much more important to insert BB-8 into a walker so they could sell toys.

This isn’t a fringe group of costume-wearing “fans” vs “all us normal people” (my words) with Disney as a poor little mouse caught up in the cross-fire and ultimately caving to the all-powerful “fan base”, but rather a major corporation doing a shitty job of managing what has become its intellectual property.

The story that fans ruined the trilogy or fans somehow coerced Disney into making a bad movie through fear is tantamount to a false consciousness.

So can we all please stop deflecting blame away from Disney? It’s infested with rot, and that rot is spilling over into casual conversations between normal people who just happen to disagree on how enjoyable their Star Wars films have been, and to what extent they are or are not flawed in some objective way. I say I don’t like the writing, and it didn’t make sense that Holdo would act so toxic towards Poe and yet be lauded as a great leader, and that that and other highly questionable elements made it hard for me to enjoy the films; some podcaster with his hand out hoping for early screening tickets from Disney says, “Admiral Holdo was a brilliant leader, and I should know because my cousins dog used to be owned by a veteran, and if that’s not evidence enough, just consider that everyone who appeared on screens with her was in awe of her, even Leia (never mind that the script was written to have them be in awe of her, and that her actions didn’t square with her reputation and how that derailed things is precisely the point at issue). Anyone who tries to argue otherwise just feels threatened by the idea of a woman being empowered over men.”

11

Haven’t seen it but I did read all the spoilers beforehand. This confirms them. And I’ve read reviews. Sounds messy, not what I would have wanted, but I will definitely go see it.
Bringing Palpatine back is wildly unnecessary. Making Rey his granddaughter is equally unnecessary. And it is a criminal shame what they did with Luke’s character in this sequel trilogy. So misused.

12

see this is where disneys cherrypicking of the discarded "expanded universe"comes back to bite it in the ass

theres a book or 3 where they discover that the emperor had been cloning for him self for decades because the power he had would his physical body and luke or someone brings him back and becomes his father for a bit …

and moving ships with the force is for pikers in jedi/sith lore theres people who can destroy an entire planet with their minds just by getting pissed at people

13

Most of us have no grounding in the EU. Most of us don’t care. These films aren’t bad because they discarded a bunch of glorified fanfic, they’re bad because the writing is mediocre at best and the trilogy as a whole lacks coherence.

14

Clones clones clones…ARGGGGHHHH

If they needed to bring him back, do it as some sort of “Sauron thing”…he attached himself to Vader,

'When you burnt the body, I thought that was the end of meeee. But noooo, Yoda and Anakin himself and Obi Wannnnn were there as well. Just enough power for me to use to keep my non-corporeal form alive. For years I skulked til I arrived here. And i brought something back with me from the dark."

And then i don’t know. Whoever the most famous Sith from ancient lore (not Maul. Not again.) steps out of the shadows. The good guys defeat him.

Rey throttles, yes STRANGLES Palpatine (Keeping with Rian’s tone of ‘we’re beyond that good-dark side bullshit now.’) and kills him. I’d like to see her use force lightning, but that might confuse the audience TOO much and have them thinking for the rest of the GD film that she’s secretly evil.

Or some such shit.
Edit: And i HATE the title. Just typical crap meaningless drivel meant to be inspirational but makes no sense on examination. The end of the Skywalker saga (And what horseshit THAT is too, yo call it that) is called “Rise of Skywalker”??? Featuring a cringy last line that makes…not so much sense.

15

This is exactly why I can’t take all the complaints about new movies seriously. You are literally describing the originals, do you think they suck too?

16

The more I talk with people like you, yes, the less I think of the originals. Happy?

17

It’s fine to say you just don’t like Star Wars, but if you are one of those people who think the originals are great and the new ones suck then the issue lies with you.

18

I reject your hypothesis.

19

Return of the Jedi DOES suck. It’s saved some by Luke on the Death Star and the final battle. BUT: The lonnnnng opening, Hans emasculation, (not helped by Ford looking bored), Vaders emascualtion, ewoks, yub yub, a second death star…

ROS triples down on the eye-rolling nonsense.

20

I wasn’t blaming fanboys, I was pointing out how JJ Abrams story ideas matched what certain specific groups of fans were specifically asking for.

Also, denying you’re a fanboy then behaving exactly like a fanboy is not helping.