TCTTS said:

---

---

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

---

After sleeping on it, a couple more moments that I really, really liked -

Seeing the circular dish atop the Millennium Falcon again. The rectangle dish just never looked right to such an old-school Star Wars nut who had put together a model of the Falcon back in '79.

The flashback scene of Luke training Leia while wearing the blast shields - and when Leia raises her blast shield, there's the face of Princess Leia circa Return of the Jedi. Brief shot but very well done.

Which brings me to another thing. We all know Carrie Fisher has died, so the fact that her character was even in this movie is a minor miracle. But wow, she was in far more of the movie than I could have ever anticipated. Prior to any previews, I had thought we might see a brief funeral scene at the beginning of TROS, but instead, we get to see her in quite a bit of the movie. Did they seriously have that much unused footage from the earlier films to be able to use for this one, or did they CGI her ala Rogue One in some of those scenes?

---

Blatant Disregard said:

---

Are we just gonna sit here and not acknowledge that goofy-looking Adam Driver got to kiss Daisy Ridley and Scarlett Johansson in his last two films?

---

MBAR said:

---

Ultimately this trilogy missed the mark due to a lack of planning. I don't get why they didn't just give jj the reins for the whole thing. We're they so arrogant that they thought they could do nothing wrong with the franchise?

---

TCTTS said:

---

There's absolutely no chance they wouldn't have told Johnson.

---

TCTTS said:

---

There's absolutely no chance they wouldn't have told Johnson.

---

Quote:

---

Johnson also made it clear that he was free to invent any answers he wanted about Rey. "I think Daisy thought she knew what it was," he said. "Maybe J.J. had an idea of what it was. I mean, we discussed a lot of things, but I was never given the information that she is this or she is that. There were conversations along the way with J.J. and also the [Lucasfilm] story group where we'd discuss 'Could she be this, could it be this, could it be this?' Then it was a conversation of, 'OK, what's going to have the most impact in our story going forward?' Which is perfect. That's the way it really should be.

---

TCTTS said:

---

InternetFan02 said:

---

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.

---

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.

---