jr15aggie said:

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Ok so help me out... what is the internet saying about Reys lightsaber staff? Did her parents leave it to her, did she build it, did she always know what it could do?

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The one at the end, she built using her staff to craft the hilt with its dope rotating switch.

She had Anakin's saber hidden in her staff at one point when they were fighting Zorii, I think.

Ok... I just saw it. Haven't read anything here. I thought it ended perfectly. I honestly never considered that line of heritage. I was too stuck on Obi Wan.

The fast pace of the first act didnt bother me. I was able to follow what was going on and actually enjoyed the pace. If there was anything I would have cleaned up a bit, it would have been the air battle at the end and a little bit of what went on in Palp's place. I thought the navigation thing was kind of weak. And I think some of the interaction between Palp and the two could use a little more work.

That he wanted some of that white meat

Looks like he spent his debate energy on people who have the audacity to be annoyed by 30+ minutes of trailers and commercials.

I had a fantastic time. Taking my daughter to see it in 17 hours. MTFBWY

The Han and Ben part was my favorite and I almost jumped out of my seat when I heard Han's voice before they showed him.

Luke catching the light saber was #2 for me.

BCSGrubber said:

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The Han and Ben part was my favorite and I almost jumped out of my seat when I heard Han's voice before they showed him.

Luke catching the light saber was #2 for me.

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Yup. His line "no, kylo ren is dead" was pretty good. I was a Ben Solo redemption fan. Would have preferred if he'd lived, but was fine with what they did.

Was definitely surprised by the Han cameo.

InternetFan02 said:

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So we've got a couple hours left until TCTTS comes storming in and tells everyone he hated it. I still remember when he **** all over the TFA threads on opening night and caused a mini meltdown.

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You mean when I expressed my opinion of TFA that basically went on to be the consensus after the shine wore off? That, and I never hated the movie. I've said time and again how fun I thought the first half was, but that the A-New-Hope-redo nature of the second half just didn't work for me (among other things). In the admittedly pompous words of the Joker... I wasn't a monster, I was just ahead of the curve.

Either way, I have absolutely no desire to tear TROS apart piece by piece, nor do I care to debate it.

Parts of it were fun, certain elements were incredibly satisfying, and a couple of moments were genuinely moving, but more than anything the word that comes to mind is exhausting. I'm exhausted and I'm numb. It was just way, way too much. Way too much plot, but also way too much happening within in each scene, of which I don't think a single one lasted more than 45 seconds. Everyone keeps saying, "This was Star Wars to me," and I just didn't have that experience at all. To me, Star Wars - the original trilogy, at least - is patient. It's spiritual. It's impeccably paced. It lets moments breathe. Not every last scene has to be stuffed to gills with endless effects and wizardly and spectacle. In the OT, the spectacle is the drama and the tension between characters. But in TROS, for whatever reason, there can never *just* be discourse. There can never be stillness or subtlety. Something else always has to be happening, every last scene as busy and as hurried as humanly possible.

In that sense, the main thing this movie convinced me of, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that Abrams legitimately has no idea how to tell a story. He knows how to string plot points together. He knows how to deliver moments. He knows how to make it all feel fun. But he does not understand what it takes to tell a proper and compelling story. I could spend countless words going over why, but most of it has already been expressed in various form and fashion in this thread. That, and I have to get up in five hours for a flight home for the holidays, so even if I had it in me, I literally don't have the time. But there's really no more argument anymore. What Abrams can do, he does very, very well. Without a tried and true story, though - where theme and character and plot are all one - his movies time and again just end up feeling so hallow to me, with TROS now the ultimate example.

I listened to The Big Picture podcast on my drive home, and Sean Fennessey and Mallory Rubin sum up my more specific, plot-centric thoughts perfectly. It's not a bash-fest by any means, as Mallory is one of the most passionate and knowledgeable and caring Star Wars fans there is, but boy do they do a great job of questioning so many of the choices made, while explaining just how inept this movie is at times without being d*cks about it...

https://www.theringer.com/2019/12/19/21030930/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-emergency-deep-dive-spoilers

The last thing I'll mention that really stuck out to me is how shocked I was at just how much this movie reneged TLJ. Somehow, all of the reactions and discourse since Monday still didn't prepare me for not only the giant middle finger it gave TLJ, but that it seemingly gave Rian Johnson himself. I know the crowd here is mostly a "*****Rian Johnson" crowd, so I'm no doubt going to be in the minority on this, but it was so blatant that it felt callous to me. There was an almost jocks-picking-on-the-nerd vibe in its pointed dismissal of TLJ, time and again, that just didn't sit right with me. And this is coming from someone who doesn't like huge parts of TLJ, and actively wanted a return to TFA form. But man, to see it actually happen in the fashion it did was straight up weird. At this point, I don't think Disney fires Johnson. I honestly think he walks now. And I know many here will be metaphorically spitting on him as he goes, but it was just insane to me to see a corporation do that. There was a way to pivot gracefully from TLJ and this was not it. For lack of a better word, it simply felt mean in its dismissal. (And yes, I get that Johnson basically did the same thing to Abrams. I'm not saying Johnson is blameless. But Johnson doing what he did felt somewhat selfish, whereas this feels like the people who first empowered and championed him now turning their backs on him in two-faced fashion.)

Anyway, again, this is all not to say that I didn't have fun. I laughed, I teared up a couple of times, and I definitely enjoyed big chunks of the movie. But the second I left the theater, it all just started to crumble for me (as it did for my friends the more we talked). So much of this movie is genuinely dumb, rushed to the point where I'm still having trouble believing the points Abrams chose to gloss over, and huge chunks of it make no sense on multiple levels. Yet, I didn't hate it, or even dislike it, really. More than anything, I'm just relieved it's all finally over. I love this franchise, but after tonight, I need a long, long break from it, and I'm glad we're getting just that.

When did the shine wear off TFA?

I think 4 years later everyone agrees it was the best of the new trilogy and as fun as they remember it being.

I don't doubt that many still have TFA as their number one of the sequel trilogy. What I'm saying is that it felt like it had like a super high approval rating opening weekend, but has since cooled a bit now that Star Wars isn't this brand new thing again after a ten year absence. And that because I wasn't outright praising it opening weekend - instead, I was merely expressing some of the issues that most people now seemingly agree on - I was getting undeserved sh*t in retrospect. Regardless, out of that whole chunk, this is thing you're stuck on?

jr15aggie said:

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I'm curious what in particular do you think dismissed TLJ? I didn't see anything in particular that just took a crap on the story.

Luke is still very much "dead". Rey and Kylo still have their thing going. I personally didn't see anything that completely went against TLJ story.

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- Rey's parents going from drunk nobodies to literally being the son and daughter-in-law of the Emperor of the galaxy (which, for the record, I still don't completely understand).

- In TLJ, Rey representing the idea that *anyone* could be a Jedi, but then in TROS, Rey only being special because she has the blood of Palpatine running through her.

- Making a show of Kylo having his helmet built back piece by piece with zero explanation as to why. Destroying his helmet in TLJ was the physical manifestation of "letting the past die," the theme he held so dearly in that movie. So for him to then literally embrace his past again so soon into this movie felt like Abrams essentially saying to Johnson, "That was a cool helmet, and *****your Kylo character arc."

- Poe's dismissal of Dominique Monaghan's character's mention of wanting to "Holdo jump" The Final Order, i.e. Abrams explicitly having to state why they couldn't just do that maneuver all the time now (which, admittedly, was one of the more necessary reneges).

- Luke catching the same lightsaber he threw over the cliff at the beginning of TLJ. While his "I was wrong" comment to Rey shortly after was a sign of character growth, that whole bit perfectly represented the tug-of-war between Abrams and Johnson.

... and then there were a couple others I can't recall at the moment (that, and I REALLY need to get to bed). While some of these seemed innocent enough on the surface, it was just the way in which most of them were underlined that felt to me like a little too much of a middle finger to Johnson. My main issue, again, is that Lucasfilm signed off on and backed all of the decisions by Johnson. I'm not saying they were the *right* decisions by Johnson, but for Lucasfilm to support him as much as they did, even in the aftermath, and then basically do a 180 in such blatant fashion the second Abrams showed back up, felt a little gross to me. It's just an unfortunate situation on all sides, with everyone, including Johnson, to blame.

I agree with everything TC said. Basing your script on the rantings of Reddit users doesn't seem like a good way to tell a story. Also the point about the original trilogy breathing is 100% spot on. It's nots the action spectacle this movie so tries to be.

And yet, I liked large parts of the movie. As art it is poor, and I can't blame the critics for pointing that out. But as entertainment it is decent, and I long ago decided that was all I was going to hope for from this movie.

In an ideal world, Johnson would have made his bold narrative choices but in a less meta/"**** you" sort of way, and he would have actually left the next director with options. And then JJ would have continued that story, or if he didn't, at least changing directions would have felt more natural.

George Lucas never cared what the fans thought and he made poor narrative, character, and stylistic choices along the way during the prequels. He thought "Star Wars is whatever I say it is" to the point his product looks and feels nothing like Star Wars

Rian Johnson never cared what the fans thought and he made interesting narrative choices but poor stylistic choices. He got that we needed new story ideas, and he got the look down for the most part, but he missed the feeling part.

JJ Abrams cares too much what the fans think (at least fans like him, of which I consider myself and many others on this board), and he made poor narrative but good character and stylistic choices. He nailed the look and feel, but couldn't separate those from familiar story beats

There is a happy medium with new stories and themes but still Star Wars style, but now we will never get it. Years from now when someone hopefully writes the behind the scenes book, the part I'm most interested in was the the period between JJ being rehired and TLJ coming out and the backlash starting. If I remember JJ submitted an outline to Disney the week the movie came out. Was the course correction already in place before the public saw the movie? Was it already in place when they fired Trevorrow? Was this a JJ thing or a Lucasfilm thing?

I don't understand people complaining about Rey being Palpatine's grand daughter. Unless it's people that complain about everything and they are irrelevant.

If you don't like the story, fine. If you can't "believe it", then you are a simpleton.

He parents smuggled her, gave a phony back story, and hid her. They were trying to hide her from the most powerful force in the universe. They wouldn't say "She is showing signs special powers. I'm also the son of the Palpatine and this is his grandchild. But don't tell anybody".

No way. They would cast her out as a trash orphan from nowhere. And they would put her on a desolated place where people don't ask a lot of questions. She was always treated as nobody from nowhere because that is what nearly everybody thought.

I think they could have made Rey truly being a nobody and that trilogy could work. But it also worked the way they did it.

One of the simple patches for Last Jedi was her training. They showed her training with Luke for about an afternoon. They could have shown her training over months. She and Luke could have been working together for long time. They could have been the first two minutes of the movie or handled by the text crawl. But they made the stranded transport ship and her training at the same time. Dumb movie making.

Too much to quote, but I enjoyed RoS as the best way to end this particular trilogy, but as a whole TFA,TLJ, and RoS will live as being largely unnecessary. RoS leaves us exactly where ROTJ left us. A lone Jedi left to rebuild the order and a galaxy left trying to figure out how to govern itself after the fall of the Emperor.

I don't think Rey was always a Palpatine, because I don't think in TFA they had a plan for Rey. Honestly, I thought her being a clone from Luke's hand plus some Sith alchemy made the most sense if she was going to be "someone". But honestly I didn't hate her being a Palpatine. It seemed the best choice after TLJ advanced the Reylo story and Disney felt obligated to make her someone due to fan backlash.

I think I agree the TCTTS, although in a slightly different way. The worse part of this new trilogy is the business side. This whole trilogy "failed" because Disney allowed JJ to set up a bunch of questions that they did not have set answers. TLJ and RoS provided two different sets of answers to the same questions. TLJ pitches that what matters is individuals making choices and RoS pitches that what matters is the mythology. Put another way, free will vs determinism.

RoS felt like Star Wars to me because it answered the questions in TFA in the way I wanted them answered. I am personally glad they did it, because Star Wars is about mythology and without the mythology the story becomes meaningless or worse pointless.

But I can certainly appreciate the frustration people feel about how it happened and disliking this approach.

Here's a 2016 article on Rey being a palpatine. I think JJ had the idea while making TFA because of the fighting styles.

https://www.insider.com/star-wars-theory-that-rey-is-palpatines-granddaughter-2016-7

We need to have a thread where we rewrite TLJ our way that fits correctly in between TFA and ROS

The first episode set up some questions, like it's supposed to.

Then the second episode chose to answer all those questions in the least satisfying way possible. (I think RJ said something about wanting to always do the opposite of everyone's expectations.) And the story was left with nowhere to go.

So JJ had to put a ton of stuff in episode 9 to get the narrative back on tracks, basically retcon bad ideas (like Luke walking away from the force and RJ making a huge deal of Rey being a nobody), find a reason for bad characters to not get screen time (Rose), kill a major villain RJ had turned into A cartoonish idiot (Hux), Develop a new big bad threat since Snoke was killed, work around the fact that Carrie Fisher was dead, and get to a conclusion people didn't hate.

Given the terrible state of story JJ was left to work with, I don't know how anyone expected much more from this movie. It course corrected as best it could and delivered a fun experience. I think it's pretty impressive how well it turned out despite the steaming pile RJ dumped on everyone in episode 8.