Star Wars Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

[Redux]

Jedi was my favorite as a kid.  I still love it, but the movie is a disaster plot line wise.  Double if you watch the special edition.......Jedi Rock, ugh.

[Cdog923]

I wonder if it was a part of the deal that Lucas signed with Disney that the original versions won't ever be released; otherwise, Disney is sitting on a gold mine by not releasing them. 

[Mavric]

On 12/22/2019 at 1:38 AM, Landlord said:

 

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Ah yes, all the stuff about Rey being his granddaughter, about Lando going out into the galaxy to recruit civilian ships, destroying the star destroyer fleet, Ben coming back to help Rey, the channeling of all the Jedi through her, Palpatine changing his mind about being killed and instead rising to new life and power, and so on. All very heavy ROTJ plot points /s

 

 

I mean ... at this point it’s impossible to argue that this ISN’T what Abrams does.  He’s done it too many times.  Star Trek and The Force Awakens are almost direct retelling of previous movies in the same franchise.  Rise of Skywalker wasn’t nearly as close as those other two.  Part of that is he had to spend the first 2/3 of the movie putting his story back together after the disaster of Last Jedi.  But, as has been noted above, the last major scene in the movie is VERY similar to what we’ve seen before.

[Enhance]

7 hours ago, Mavric said:

Part of that is he had to spend the first 2/3 of the movie putting his story back together after the disaster of Last Jedi.

Do we know how much of the overall story line was agreed upon or decided before The Force Awakens went into production? I've never really looked into that. Like, I assume that there was a general direction or end point agreed upon i.e. Rey is a Palpatine, maybe Ben and Rey are force dyads, and there would be some climatic showdown with everything on the line at the end. But, otherwise, I wonder how much freedom there was in each movies' plot structure.

 

I primarily ask because of how rough TLJ was. Where we ended up story wise causes TLJ to make even LESS sense than it did before TRoS came out.

[Mavric]

5 hours ago, Enhance said:

Do we know how much of the overall story line was agreed upon or decided before The Force Awakens went into production? I've never really looked into that. Like, I assume that there was a general direction or end point agreed upon i.e. Rey is a Palpatine, maybe Ben and Rey are force dyads, and there would be some climatic showdown with everything on the line at the end. But, otherwise, I wonder how much freedom there was in each movies' plot structure.

 

I primarily ask because of how rough TLJ was. Where we ended up story wise causes TLJ to make even LESS sense than it did before TRoS came out.

 

I don’t get the feeling there was much of any agreement.  

 

Pretty much every reference to TLJ in RoS was retconning what happened.

[Landlord]

13 hours ago, Mavric said:

 

I mean ... at this point it’s impossible to argue that this ISN’T what Abrams does.  He’s done it too many times.  Star Trek and The Force Awakens are almost direct retelling of previous movies in the same franchise.  Rise of Skywalker wasn’t nearly as close as those other two.  Part of that is he had to spend the first 2/3 of the movie putting his story back together after the disaster of Last Jedi.  But, as has been noted above, the last major scene in the movie is VERY similar to what we’ve seen before.

 

I hear you. I guess my point is that this is the least he's ever done it, especially over the course of a whole movie. This is not Return of the Jedi 2.0, even if it borrows some elements in each act. 

 

I'm also a big Abrams fan in general, and think he has done that to great effect.

 

 

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Enhance said:

Do we know how much of the overall story line was agreed upon or decided before The Force Awakens went into production? I've never really looked into that. Like, I assume that there was a general direction or end point agreed upon i.e. Rey is a Palpatine, maybe Ben and Rey are force dyads, and there would be some climatic showdown with everything on the line at the end. But, otherwise, I wonder how much freedom there was in each movies' plot structure.

 

I primarily ask because of how rough TLJ was. Where we ended up story wise causes TLJ to make even LESS sense than it did before TRoS came out.

 

I've read that Abrams wrote a script for VIII, or at least a rough idea for one, and Rian tossed it. Everything I've heard is that not even the ending plot points were decided upon, especially not since Rian got his hands on it. 

[Redux]

Considering JJ had to reboot 2 movies and the middle was done by a completely different guy who didn't care how the story was set up......the sequel trilogy was a landmark success!

[Cdog923]

38 minutes ago, Landlord said:

 

I hear you. I guess my point is that this is the least he's ever done it, especially over the course of a whole movie. This is not Return of the Jedi 2.0, even if it borrows some elements in each act. 

 

If plotting the last 1/4 of the film along the same lines as the end of RotJ is the least he's ever done it, that says a lot about Abrams' creative process. 

[Landlord]

5 minutes ago, Cdog923 said:

 

If plotting the last 1/4 of the film along the same lines as the end of RotJ is the least he's ever done it, that says a lot about Abrams' creative process. 

 

 

Well, only in regards to the 3-4 movie reboots of massive franchises who had lost their way he's donee. Outside of that context he's got plenty under his belt that isn't just retelling or stealing the same story ideas.

[Cdog923]

 

[Cdog923]

On 12/24/2019 at 3:15 PM, Landlord said:

 

 

Well, only in regards to the 3-4 movie reboots of massive franchises who had lost their way he's donee. Outside of that context he's got plenty under his belt that isn't just retelling or stealing the same story ideas.

 

I wish there was more of his originality here, and in The Force Awakens. 

[Landlord]

52 minutes ago, Cdog923 said:

 

I wish there was more of his originality here, and in The Force Awakens. 

 

in 9 I agree with you, but I loved TFA and I thought it functioned and still functions as an amazing reset and back to basics star wars sequel.

[whateveritis1224]

3 hours ago, Landlord said:

 

in 9 I agree with you, but I loved TFA and I thought it functioned and still functions as an amazing reset and back to basics star wars sequel.

With TFA, the story at the surface level is similar to ANH. A droid is given the macguffin and finds himself in the possession of a local while trying to find his way back to the "Rebellion". Along the way they run into a "Death Star". The only other similarity is a trench run to destroy the nuDeath Star. Rey is not Luke (though she does follow Campbell's Heroes Journey like Luke), Finn is not Han, Poe is not Leia, and Kylo is not Vader. Without Starkiller Base, this critique does not hold up as well because the individual characters are different from the OTs. And I enjoyed the heck out of it, even with my first rewatch since TLJ (which turned off my enjoyment of Live Action Star Wars for a while).

[whateveritis1224]

Here's a rant I found while reading through a thread defending TPM. It brings up issues with TLJ, and some criticisms about the ST as a whole/whats happened to the story due to decisions TLJ made with characters. Also some shots at Mr. Johnson who is back in the news being propped up by #filmtwitter due to decisions JJ made with ROS (no idea when it was posted, but it was definitely before ROS) (I'm sorry if the originator somehow finds I posted this here, I'm an idiot and forgot to include the username):

Spoiler

 

Actually, The Last Jedi completely sidelined the black male lead of Star Wars to drum up more sympathy and screentime for the white male antagonist (who is arguably now the True Protagonist of the trilogy--while he’s Evil, he’s also the one the plot pivots around the most, and if he has a Redemption Arc in the third movie, then the main overarching plot was Ben Solo’s Return to the Light). At the same time, the Vietnamese female supporting was given a shallow and self-contradicting plotline that turned out to be little more than being a love interest, and the Latino hero from the first one was put into his place by being made to show respect for a white woman (by performing actions that didn’t fully mesh with his character from his first movie). Furthermore, Rey’s potential development was given a hamstring by a sudden obsession with redeeming the aforementioned tortured white evil guy (because he’s handsome and has an eight-pack), and the promise of a reckless-and-relentless space-fantasy-heroine who protects the weak was replaced with a soft, hand-touching girl who immediately felt sorry for the murderer who had tortured her two days prior. Furthermore, Carrie Fisher was needlessly sidelined for two films in a row, and Mark Hamill’s most famous character was twisted into something that would suit the white-evil-boy’s narrative. Almost everything the non-white characters did had little-to-no impact on The Last Jedi’s plot (when Poe and Paige blow up the Dreadnought and save the fleet, their actions are criticized and condemned), while the new white female ends up saving the day without having a story arc or any real development. Plot holes repeatedly open up to let our characters pass through without a challenge (diminishing their accomplishments even when they have them), the story structure is flimsy and doesn’t properly support the fantastically-diverse and talented cast, and a lot of the more memorable parts were ad-libbed by the actors and actresses and accepted by the overacclaimed director. John Boyega was all but erased from the promotional material, Kelly Marie Tran’s character was never fully explored, and Rey never got to have a proper training sequence or even a proper philosophical debate--the one interesting scene with her and Mark Hamill was left on the cutting room floor, and the legendary actor of two generations past never had any proper positive interaction with the shining star of this current generation. Then again, you can probably count the instances of positive interaction in The Last Jedi on your fingers, but...what do I know? Tiny-brained, right?

 

 

That being said, yes, there are a lot of idiots who criticize The Last Jedi for stupid reasons. But most of them were criticizing The Force Awakens for similar reasons, and the backlash wasn’t as intense; the difference was that The Force Awakens used its diverse and talented cast effectively enough to show promise and potential and earned a fresh new fanbase. Daisy Ridley’s grit and determination, John Boyega’s wild enthusiasm, and Oscar Isaac’s endless charm all pushed their characters into the hearts of millions. The Last Jedi gave all three of them subpar scripts and evoked tepid performances--there isn’t a single moment of The Last Jedi where Daisy Ridley delivers a line as poignantly as “I never knew there was this much green in the entire galaxy”, or as memorable as “No, no, no, the one I’m pointing to! No!”, or even as memetic as “The garbage will do!” John Boyega never leans into the camera with the same intensity as he did when he delivered the line, “You don’t know a thing about me. Where I’m from. What I’ve seen”, and he never gets to smile at someone the same way he did every time he bumped into Rey. Oscar Isaac’s confidence and calm is wiped away for bravado and ire. Heaven knows what Kelly Marie Tran might have been allowed to do with a proper script and director, but we know that Lupita Nyong’o was wiped aside for a brief cameo of vague warnings.

 

 

Again, I would love to defend The Last Jedi against the racists and misogynists who plague the fandom. But their arguments are petty and don’t matter, and there are actual arguments to make against the film--and these ones are continually ignored. People can blather on about Leia floating and a lack of Snoke backstory all they want, but those are trivial pieces that smart fans can wipe aside in an instant; it’s harder to explain why an ultra-rich and exclusive casino would just let two scruffily-dressed strangers inside without money or ID, or how larger ships can’t outrun smaller ships while in the vacuum of space (remember how the bigger ship outran the smaller ship in the very first shot of the entire franchise?).

 

 

The pathetic “fans” can’t ruin Star Wars. What can ruin Star Wars is a corporation that’s so greedy for money and so careless about its products that it will churn out a three-part saga in a five-year-span without having a consistent story set in stone from the start and turning the project over to an inexperienced director and writer before the first part is even released--especially when he’s a middle-aged white man being tasked to write a story starring a white woman and a black man. This goes for all of them, really.

 

 

Tying this all back to the OP...Lucas tried. He did his best with his limits and he always tried to go for new things. He pushed for racial diversity in his galaxy and he drew from every culture, language, and speech pattern he could find. He warned about the greed of corporations and the malleability of politicians, and demonstrated how a determination to protect what we believe to be important could be twisted to evil purposes. The new saga is...a warning against the sudden appearance of well-armed Space Nazis from remote regions of space, and how even if someone beats up you and your friends and stabs his own dad, you should still give him a chance because...he’s pretty? I guess? And you’re a woman? So...gentle girl, damaged guy? That’s a story.

 

Maybe this should have been posted to the TLJ thread, or a new thread created, if so, please move them.

 

[knapplc]

Just walked out of the theater. I guess because TLJ was so utterly bad, my expectations for this one weren't that high. So I liked it. A lot.

 

Successfully avoided a lot of spoilers, especially the big ones. Pretty happy with it overall.

 

I think when I end up rewatching these movies some day, I'll just skip from TFA to TROS. Unless someone can remind me of something I learned in TLJ that I need so I can watch this movie. Ren/Rey's Force bond, maybe?