Star Wars Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker

[Mavric]

1 hour ago, whateveritis1224 said:

The fact that JJ cut Rose's character down to 1 minute of screen time could be viewed as kowtowing to the reddit/twitter idiots/racists whom chased her off of social media. Trying to think where she could be used more in the movie, and really the only place would be replacing her and Jannah for the ending. I just don't know if adding her to the trip would have changed dynamics or would have made a better movie.

 

According to one of the writers, they Rose was supposed to be one of the main characters back at base with Leia.  They had quite a few interactions planned.  She was supposed to be the main "new" character to tie together with Leia from the OT.  

 

However, they were obviously having to piece together footage of Leia from the previous movie.  And they decided they just couldn't make it work in the way they wanted to.  So it ended up on the cutting room floor.

[whateveritis1224]

29 minutes ago, Landlord said:

 

 

I can see how someone would think that but I can't think of how it actually is a good opinion. Rose was a worthless and boring character addition, who went on a worthless and boring mission, and it would be more compelling to argue that she was added only to kowtow to the woke twitter left. I'm glad JJ more or less ignored her because her character never gave me anything.

I'm with you on this and forcing her into the story might have taken away the good interactions and chemistry between Daisy, John, and Oscar.

[Enhance]

Yeah, I was never a fan of Rose's character but it ended up being one of the strangest (and most awkward) character arcs in a major film/film series that I can remember.

 

Whether they had bigger plans for her or not, she went from having mountains of screen time in TLJ to being rendered irrelevant in TRoS. Her and Dominic Monaghan served almost equivalent purposes and Monaghan only made it into the movie thanks to a bet with JJ Abrams.

 

It was all very odd. And then they effectively retconned her value out of it all in that 15-second scene where Finn asks if she's coming along on the Falcon, and she basically says "thanks but no thanks, I'm researching battle strategy for Leia." 

[Cdog923]

Hmmm, this is interesting: 

 

 

[Mavric]

Eh, I'm not sure I buy all that.  Could be.  The last part doesn't seem to hold a lot of water considering other Disney projects.

 

But basically the TL;DR version is several things didn't get shown as in-depth as was wanted.  But I don't really see anything in there that significantly changed the story.

[Enhance]

20 minutes ago, Mavric said:

But I don't really see anything in there that significantly changed the story.

Kind of my takeaway, as well.

 

The biggest issue with this new trilogy really goes back to whatever pre-planning they did before TFA. Some of the quotes that have come out in the last year from JJ tell a really odd story. For example:

 

Quote

"When you look at this as nine chapters of a story, perhaps the weirder thing would be if Palpatine didn't return."

My guy... Palpy got tossed down the universe's longest reactor shaft and literally exploded. Nobody expected him to return.

 

Quote

"You just look at what [Palpatine] talks about, who he is, how important he is, what the story is... his absence entirely from the third trilogy would be conspicuous."

Again, the dude exploded.

 

Quote

"So there were discussions about [Palpatine] at the time. Yet, like any beginning, you want to put the threads in."

What threads were there about Palpatine in TFA and TLJ? What did we get to suggest either implicitly or explicitly that Palpy was making a comeback? And we don't even get any sort of explanation for it in TRoS other than being told the Dark Side is a path to some pretty wild stuff.

 

If they wanted fan service, mission accomplished. I loved the heck out of some of the stuff I saw. But, as a movie and as an overall coherent story, very little of it made any sense. And TRoS basically came right out and said TLJ was irrelevant.

[Mavric]

5 minutes ago, Enhance said:

The biggest issue with this new trilogy really goes back to whatever pre-planning they did before TFA. Some of the quotes that have come out in the last year from JJ tell a really odd story. For example:

 

I'd have to go find where I read it.  But I'm pretty sure JJ's plan was to have Snoke play that role.  But after they killed off Snoke in TLJ, they had to change plans.  Basically their choices were 1) bring in someone totally new to be the bad guy 2) Push Kylo's character to the limit of being a bad guy 3) bring back someone the fans already knew - Palpatine.  They thought it would be pretty rushed to introduce someone totally new and didn't want to go that direction with Kylo so they went with Palpatine.

 

I actually don't have a huge issue with it being Palpatine.  It is a nice way to tie back to the earlier episodes.  But they needed to at least have some semblance of a story for how it happened - and where all the surrounding stuff came from.  Heck, even if he somehow transferred into Vader's mask at least that's something that has been a significant part of the last two stories.

 

My biggest issue with the above post is that it is basically trying to put all the blame for the "bad" story on Disney as if JJ is the victim of everything.  But, as we noted, there really weren't any major story changes in any of that.  And it ignores the choices that he made that did get into the movie(s) that are at least as questionable.

[Cdog923]

43 minutes ago, Mavric said:

 

I'd have to go find where I read it.  But I'm pretty sure JJ's plan was to have Snoke play that role.  But after they killed off Snoke in TLJ, they had to change plans.  Basically their choices were 1) bring in someone totally new to be the bad guy 2) Push Kylo's character to the limit of being a bad guy 3) bring back someone the fans already knew - Palpatine.  They thought it would be pretty rushed to introduce someone totally new and didn't want to go that direction with Kylo so they went with Palpatine.

 

I actually don't have a huge issue with it being Palpatine.  It is a nice way to tie back to the earlier episodes.  But they needed to at least have some semblance of a story for how it happened - and where all the surrounding stuff came from.  Heck, even if he somehow transferred into Vader's mask at least that's something that has been a significant part of the last two stories.

 

My biggest issue with the above post is that it is basically trying to put all the blame for the "bad" story on Disney as if JJ is the victim of everything.  But, as we noted, there really weren't any major story changes in any of that.  And it ignores the choices that he made that did get into the movie(s) that are at least as questionable.

 

I would lend some credence to it, particularly if it's coming from the parties that were responsible for the plot leaks (which were virtually 100% correct). It makes sense for Disney to want to cater to as large of an audience as possible with fan service, and to make as least controversial of a movie as possible. If this story is anywhere close to as truthful as the plot leaks were, JJ's edit of the film would make for a much more cohesive story, but still probably not one worthy of closing up 40+ years of films (certainly not anywhere near as satisfying as Avengers: Endgame ended up). 

 

As for Palpatine, it's well established in the old canon that he's capable of cloning himself and coming back from the dead, so at least from my point of view, I didn't have that big of an issue with it. Dropping important story in both the title crawl AND the Fortnite game was an awful decision, though. The point made in the reddit post about splitting into two movies would have been for the best; the first half could have been the "Find the MacGuffin" event while reintroducing Palpatine, while the second could have been the "Find the Palpatine" portions of the film.

[Mavric]

6 minutes ago, Cdog923 said:

As for Palpatine, it's well established in the old canon that he's capable of cloning himself and coming back from the dead, so at least from my point of view, I didn't have that big of an issue with it. Dropping important story in both the title crawl AND the Fortnite game was an awful decision, though. The point made in the reddit post about splitting into two movies would have been for the best; the first half could have been the "Find the MacGuffin" event while reintroducing Palpatine, while the second could have been the "Find the Palpatine" portions of the film.

 

Yeah, I do think there was too much to squeeze into one movie.  Although a lot of that was they had to try to recover from the travesty that was TLJ.  Had they not completely screwed that up, it would probably have been fine.

 

But the story goes the stuck with Lucas' vision of a trilogy of trilogies.  So splitting in two went off the table pretty quickly.

[Enhance]

15 hours ago, Cdog923 said:

As for Palpatine, it's well established in the old canon that he's capable of cloning himself and coming back from the dead, so at least from my point of view, I didn't have that big of an issue with it. Dropping important story in both the title crawl AND the Fortnite game was an awful decision, though. The point made in the reddit post about splitting into two movies would have been for the best; the first half could have been the "Find the MacGuffin" event while reintroducing Palpatine, while the second could have been the "Find the Palpatine" portions of the film.

I think the biggest problem with Palpatine is the complete lack of bread crumbs or expectation of his return. It didn't necessarily need to be obvious but it needed to be meaningful. JJ's suggestion that the "threads" of Palpatine were laid out in either TFA or TLJ is an outright lie. I think it's pretty clear that his return was never set in stone and it makes each of the new trilogy films more separate than equal IMO.

 

So, I think fans would've been more accepting of his return if it at least made some contextual sense. We wouldn't have needed to know exactly "how" he came back, but knowing that he was back (or that someone was pulling the strings somewhere else in the galaxy) prior to TRoS would've helped. Instead, what we're essentially told in the first few minutes is "I'm back and don't ask questions."

 

But, you're right that it was too much for one movie and I think this really all hinges on TLJ. Given the "trilogy" structure, TLJ needed to be the film that set up TRoS to some degree. It didn't. The ending of TLJ was basically a 'we're not sure where this is going next' statement.

[whateveritis1224]

About the leak, I think its mostly true, but tinged with bias as the leaker is on JJ's side. Especially the parts where Disney wants to tank JJ because he selected WB over them for Bad Robot. I do think there was a lot of executive meddling to make sure this movie was "fine" after their complete hands off approach with TLJ.

 

Palps was never going to be brought back, this is a lie similar to the Kahn one from ST: Into Darkness. It is very easy to track that Snoke would be the one in the center of the Sith Ceremony so that he can fully heal himself. Heck there were leaks/rumors that the Sith dagger in the movie was something called the Dagger of Mortis, which was a big part of a Clone Wars arc involving beings analogous to the sides of the force (Father:Balance, Daughter:Light, Son:Dark) with the Son being the big bad in this movie, being killed by the Dagger like his Father and Sister (he was not in the arc, instead ended by Anakin's lightsaber in the back). Matt Smith (of Dr. Who and The Crown fame) was hired to be in the film to play as the Son, but was dropped when the storyline was deemed too esoteric.

[knapplc]

Apparently there was a second script (there were probably half a dozen, but the one we saw was the one chosen).

 

Here's a breakdown from the leaked script:

 

Quote

 

Much of the story is different, with characters like Zorii Bliss and adorable internet fave Babu Frik absent, but the most notable absence is Emperor Palpatine. The late Sith lord does appear in Trevorrow’s script, but not as a living (or whatever the hell it was in Rise) entity. As in Abrams’ version, Kylo Ren travels to Mustafar, but Trevorrow’s script actually follows him there and shows the audience what he’s been up to while Rey tries to figure out if she’s worthy of being a Jedi or if Jedi should even be a thing anymore. While Kylo searches Mustafar for a Sith “holocron”—an artifact that will aid his nefarious plans—he’s tormented by the Force ghost of Luke, who taunts him with lines like, “This is where the dark path leads: an empty tomb.”

 

The holocron opens to reveal a hologram of Palpatine, apparently leaving his last will and testament to Darth Vader. Should Luke kill the wrinkly old space wizard, Palpatine says Vader should take the young Skywalker to see Tor Valum—the Sith master who taught Palpatine everything he knows. Throughout Duel Of The Fates, various characters attempt to reach Kylo Ren and bring Ben Solo back into the light. General Leia remains skeptical, but Rey believes that anyone can change; she tells Finn that his actions proved this.

 

Meanwhile, Kylo tracks down Tor Valum, who turns out to be a 7,000-year-old (extremely Adam Driver voice) ghoul described as “Lovecraftian” in appearance—a note that should make everyone shriek with grief at the lost possibility of something so f#&%ing cool. Anyhow, Kylo Ren trains with Tor Valum, confronts a Darth Vader phantom, loses, and stomps and broods his way over to Rey. There’s also a cool bit somewhere in there where the holocron wounds Kylo’s face, which is repaired with smelted Mandalorian armor.

 

As many fans speculated/hoped, this iteration of Episode IX would have seen Rey and Kylo working from similar motives, with both characters fighting against the binary ideologies that have governed their world for ages. Ultimately, unlike Rise, Rey’s attempts to coax Ben Solo out of his Kylo Ren angst helmet fail, and he is “extinguished”—but not before revealing that he killed Rey’s parents (who were, indeed, “nobodies”) on Snoke’s orders.

 

There are several other key points, including Chewbacca flying an X-Wing, the Resistance gang stealing a Star Destroyer, and a droid described as being similar in appearance to Darth Maul (again, cool). Of course, Trevorrow’s movie might not have been “good” by whatever metric you use (this is the same auteur behind The Book Of Henry, after all), but there are some great ideas and concepts here, including the aforementioned ancient Lovecraftian Sith ghoul whose name sounds like a Norwegian black metal album.

 

 

[Enhance]

That script does have a lot of interesting potential. Overall, I think I would've been more interested in that as a general direction as opposed to what we got. Of course, there isn't near as much fan service happening in that story, so I can't say I'm surprised that it was ultimately shot down. And as the author of that breakdown mentions, a lot of movies can seem great at a high level. Then you start reading the script and they can turn into a dumpster fire.

 

The only thing I wouldn't have liked is another Star Wars movie focusing around a central theme of 'should the Jedi die.' I feel like we beat that narrative to death in The Last Jedi.

[Mavric]

Word is they are strongly considering retconning the entire trilogy out of cannon and starting over.

[RedDenver]

14 minutes ago, Mavric said:

Word is they are strongly considering retconning the entire trilogy out of cannon and starting over.

Please just let it die and move on!

 

But it's Disney, so we'll probably get musical remakes of the whole thing in a few years.