Mess of a movie with several plot holes but we loved it. Actually kind of reminds me of the last BSC Transformers movie with the pacing and editing.

Also, I saw some folks mentioning some SJW scenes early on in the thread, but I haven't seen mentioned what I thought y'all would be pointing out...

The fact that every Star Destroyer had a giant pen^s cannon that could destroy entire planets. And the Resistance's goal was to have to destroy every pen^s cannon. Unintentional or not, I thought this was high comedy that I'm confident the feminists will latch onto as a symbolic FU to men in power. I also thought maybe JJ was making fun of himself and this series rehash of having planet buster weapons in every damn film.

Poe and Merrys exchange on the giant pen^s cannons:

Merry: Every Star Destroyer has a planet killing gun!
Poe: Of course they do.

Swarely said:

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JW said:

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And I want to watch a story about who digs up those light sabers and why.

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Some bored retiree that has nothing better to do

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YouBet said:

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The fact that every Star Destroyer had a giant pen^s cannon that could destroy entire planets. And the Resistance's goal was to have to destroy every pen^s cannon. Unintentional or not, I thought this was high comedy that I'm confident the feminists will latch onto as a symbolic FU to men in power.

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That's funny; the glowing red spot in the middle of the dark triangular shaped object made me think of something else entirely. I was just impressed by how quickly the rebels found it.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/star-wars-palpatines-final-order-rise-skywalker-explained-1264714

Youtube video from two years ago, look at the side by side images around 6:50

Ulrich said:

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Q: "What's your plan to make the climax seem more climactic than other movies?"
A: "We're going to conjure so many ships out of thin air for each side that people are going to suspect that we gave an intern unsupervised use of the copy/paste tool in photoshop. I mean, it's going to look RIDICULOUS!"

But really, if the rebellion could muster thousands of ships on the spur of the moment for a fight that it seems like no one would have really known about, why was the First Order such a problem in the first place?

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yeah the resistance came a long way from almost all the surviving resistance being able to fit on the Falcon to leave Crait to thousands of friends with ships! (Have to go back and look to see how much time passed between 8 and 9)

Interesting - I recall watching that a couple of years ago. There is evidence presented there about Rey being a Palpatine - but now that presupposes they knew where this was going al along which seems to not be the case given Rian Johnsons statements regarding TLJ and her background.

1. the fighting style (jabbing and stabbing) like Palpatine
2. the name Rey deriving from Rex meaning king or royalty
3. the music of her theme that is similar to Palpatines theme
4. some of the uncontrollable rage she displayed in TFA mirroring Palps unleashed anger at times and Luke's reference to her "raw power" in TLJ
5. even though not shown certainly possible Palp had children or the possibility of cloning

also includes a story in SW universe where Palp survived and transferred his mind and consciousness into clones.

Matt_ag98 said:

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Ulrich said:

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Q: "What's your plan to make the climax seem more climactic than other movies?"
A: "We're going to conjure so many ships out of thin air for each side that people are going to suspect that we gave an intern unsupervised use of the copy/paste tool in photoshop. I mean, it's going to look RIDICULOUS!"

But really, if the rebellion could muster thousands of ships on the spur of the moment for a fight that it seems like no one would have really known about, why was the First Order such a problem in the first place?

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yeah the resistance came a long way from almost all the surviving resistance being able to fit on the Falcon to leave Crait to thousands of friends with ships! (Have to go back and look to see how much time passed between 8 and 9)

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well it was about 5 years. But it isn't the point that they had time to build a massive fleet. That is the public responding to a call to join the fight in mass numbers (much like the British call to the public in Dunkirk to raise a fleet to save their army on the shores of France from being wiped out). But why did they answer that call now when they did not answer that call in TLJ?

There are 3 primary reason it wasn't answered in TLJ:

1. TLJ was a middle movie and you couldn't have that then or there would be no third movie (duh).
2. Without knowing everyone else would come, responding to that would have been a death sentence in TLJ and while they feared the FO mostly people were just trying to lay low and not be involved directly hoping to just avoid conflict.
3. It was just a general call for help without a specific plan to defeat the FO. <count me out>

But in TROS they answer that call for a couple of reasons specifically:

1. the Emperor is now known to be back and I guess we are to assume that threat is enough to rally everyone more than the FO and a bratty former Jedi
2. They have a specific plan on knocking out the control mechanism and then targetting those sitting ducks.
3. LANDO CALRISSIAN - has a lot more panache and style and friends and maybe people that owe him so his call is answered

That's all I got - but that's basically what we are to believe.

Matt_ag98 said:

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Ulrich said:

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Q: "What's your plan to make the climax seem more climactic than other movies?"
A: "We're going to conjure so many ships out of thin air for each side that people are going to suspect that we gave an intern unsupervised use of the copy/paste tool in photoshop. I mean, it's going to look RIDICULOUS!"

But really, if the rebellion could muster thousands of ships on the spur of the moment for a fight that it seems like no one would have really known about, why was the First Order such a problem in the first place?

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yeah the resistance came a long way from almost all the surviving resistance being able to fit on the Falcon to leave Crait to thousands of friends with ships! (Have to go back and look to see how much time passed between 8 and 9)

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Well, I think the point was that the ships that showed up at the end of nine were the ships they were hoping would show up at the end of eight, but didn't.

I got to see it this weekend and took some time to think about it. Read through a lot of this thread and I think I agree with the main point that a lot of people are expressing: It's a mess.


What I Liked:

3PO's last moments before having his memory wiped.

Chewie's reaction to Leia's death. Very reminiscent of Han's carbonite scene. Suotamo did Mayhew proud here, it's one of the best scenes in the movie.

I am patiently awaiting Spice Runner 2049, the Zorii Bliss spinoff/prequel series. I will watch the hell out of it, especially if Babbu Frick is along for the ride.

Ben's redemption (Which I didn't think I wanted, but I liked the way it was done) and the lightsaber from behind the back scene fantastic. That's a top scene from the sequel trilogy.

Adam Driver crushed it again. I felt like all the performances were good, but his especially was something else.

All the duels were amazing, and the final space battle is absurd and stupid and I loved it.

John Williams. God bless you man, we won't see anyone like your kind ever again.

What I Didn't Like:

It's just so damn messy. Just sprinting from one moment to the next without giving you the time to digest what you've seen or where the characters are. The first bit especially, until about the time they found the dagger, I thought I was going to lose my mind with how jumpy it was. Even after it slows down though, it's like it just lightly touches on so many interesting topics without diving into them, without giving answers, without giving you just a second to appreciate what you've seen. It's really frustrating. And it explains why we left the theater and my wife asked if that was supposed to be split into two movies. Would have loved seeing Poe struggle with being in command more, or Finn learning more about his "Force sensitivity", or actually having some build up to the Rey Palpatine reveal (which is not a plot line I'm a fan of anyway but here we are), or more development in the "Hux is a spy" plot ("Hey, shoot me so they don't think it was me.", gets killed immediately because they know it was him).

And I realize all that paragraph is a byproduct of the fact that zero planning when into the overall story of this damn trilogy and JJ had 2.5 hours to work with, but it's just frustrating.

Some of the dialogue is pretty rough too. Not "I hate sand." bad, but pretty bad in places.

Anyway, I didn't hate it. In fact, I take the brave and controversial stance that almost all Star Wars is fine. Some of it is excellent, very rarely is actually bad though. Don't know where I rank it overall, but I think it ends up on a middle tier with the rest of the sequels, Revenge of the Sith, and Solo. I probably need to watch it again, but don't know when I'll get the chance to do that. Overall, it was alright, I'm glad it exists, because the world is better with Star Wars in it, and I'm kind of relieved we can move on from that particular story line.

I Have Spoken said:

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I guess. I was convinced of it after TFA just based on the forest scene.

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May have been JJ Abrams plan at the time of TFA.

But since the series was then handed to RJ and someone else before going back to JJ it wasn't a given. Especially since as RJ says he was given no specific direction and they played with several possible outcomes. He just wasn't going to answer it definitively in TLJ. His direction may have been either misdirection or a path that might have been taken by another director/writer.

Only I think with the return of JJ for the last movie did it become definitive. It could have gone another direction with Colin Trevorrow.


What we know is there was no plan from the start and it could have gone any direction. But that doesn't discount the fact that there were clues that it was a possibility in TFA. It just may not have played out that way if JJ did not return.

Was the General that killed Hux a Sith apprentice or just a general? When he was talking to hologram Emperor, they almost suggested he may have been more than just a general and then his eyes went weird but that may have just been reflection of Palpatines hologram.

They should've done one movie with the old cast and then started a new trilogy either hundreds of years into the future or hundreds of years in the past with all new characters.

Or recast all the old characters and start right after episode seven with new, younger (and cheaper) cast playing same characters
People would've *****ed, but gotten over it if it was compelling.

Instead, they tried to cash on on nostalgia while creating new characters to market going forward and the money grab blew up in their face.

It was a nice try. Pretty enjoyable overall, but hardly worthy of an epic ending of a once epic franchise. At least they didn't deliberately **** on everything good about Star Wars like the last one

But abrams just can't pull off anything of substance.

We got an hour of useless, ridiculous typical abrams sideshows, idiotic catapulting flying stormtroopers with useless inaccurate mortars, 'ready set go' pointless idiotic footraces with fancy tie fighters, encounters with power rangers, and being confronted with the absurdity of the entire economic output of the galaxy spending decades to build a massive fleet of ***** cannons and millions of 'final order' (seriously? How dumb is that?) troops, all stationed - you guessed it, in a place so secret even luke skywalker couldn't find it after years of trying. And the first order (that was pretty bad too) didn't even know about it.

Then we got a half hour of really lame attempts at humor and sideshows

Then we hauled ass through the important scenes so fast and at such a shallow level you leave going 'what?'

I'm afraid this ones going to settle in mid pack

1. Sw
2. R1
3. Esb
4. Rots
5. Rotj
6. Tros
7. Tfa
8. Solo

The other prequels pretty bad


DFL by far - Tlj. Active trash.

The great:
1. ESB
2. ANH

The really good:
3. ROTS
4. ROTJ
5. R1

The solid:
6. TPM
7. TFA
8. TROS

The just OK:
9. AOTC
10. Solo
11. TLJ

My hot take:

John Williams' best SW score

I enjoyed it and will probably see it again. There was a lot to take in so I feel like i need to see what I can catch on second viewing. I agree with most and would rank this trilogy just above the PT.
I'll miss the tradition my daughter and I had by seeing a SW flick every Christmas but I think Disney would do some good keeping SW on the small screen for a little while then maybe hit theaters in a few years with an old republic.

https://uproxx.com/movies/the-rise-of-skywalker-luke-rey/

I don't think it's quite that simple. For instance, there was no reason that Luke and Leia both needed to know all along that Rey was a Palpatine. They could have been just as surprised, and then it wouldn't have made Luke such a phony lier in retrospect when Rey showed up on the island. It was little extra things like that that were pointlessly annoying. Like I said earlier, there was a way to retcon TLJ gracefully, but instead Abrams chose to do so as haphazardly as humanly possible.