I did mention that as on of the criticisms tbf. Still enjoyed it, not going to lie.
Film Star Wars Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker [Theories]
- Thread starter vidic blood & sand
- Start date
I’m glad it didn’t go to waste.
Oh.. potholes... yes, they cant even create their own movies, the new trilogies are supposed to be fresh, with no attachment to the past, it's set in the present. They can write anything they want, but they choose this messed up switched princess and all that.
We never really cares for plots in the first trilogy because the whole chemistry works between leia han and luke. The first one is absurd, a boy from nowhere ended up going to bad guys base to rescue a princess he barely knew.
So very bad, rey can't act, poe and finn are overcheesy, luke doesnt feel like he's luke...
Overall would be forgotten soon. Just like i forgot what the last 2 movies is all about
Saw this this afternoon and I have to say, I feel completely vindicated in my support of The Last Jedi given how much this movie pandered, and how much it suffered as a result. I enjoyed parts of it (basically everything from Daisey Ridley and Adam Driver, who have been the heartbeat of this trilogy), but the movie is such a mess. They spend so much time course correcting they barely develop character arcs at all.
Just watched it, have to say, although the plot may not he perfect, but I enjoy it, dun understand the hate here.
Got no idea what the plot holes are that people keep going on aboht.
I can't believe they reintroduced the main antagonist of the entire franchise out of thin air, a villain that was built up in no less than 5 movies made decades ago, in ... the OPENING TEXT CRAWL!!!
It is a beautiful mess. I feel for those behind the art work, design, all the technical aesthetics, their work is fantastic. The writing is not.
It was actually revealed he was back in an event they did on fortnite... as in the game.... and the broadcast in the game was never repeated in the film
Hard to disagree with any of that.
The Rey retcon is kind of hilarious in its shade towards TLJ for absolutely zero end result. We go from a message that greatness can come from anywhere to "actually no, really just from these two families. Keep them bloodlines pure!"
It's also funny that with all the appeals to the past that Abrams crammed in, Johnson still had the best one with R2 playing back Leia's original message to Luke. And then took the piss out of it.
So i too watched The Retcon of Skywalker and really wanted to like it, but couldn't. It's all over the place. Characters out of nowhere, abilities out of nowhere, huge jumps in the story without even a vague attempt to explain what happened (you just have to go with it), etc.
This entire trilogy now feels like someone that has a very hard time concentrating is trying to tell you a story.
This entire trilogy now feels like someone that has a very hard time concentrating is trying to tell you a story.
Seen it twice now. Not a fan.
5/10
This is clunky, over-stuffed, and bogged down in exposition, but I can forgive all of that because the energy and enthusiasm for Star Wars is still there. The four central performances (Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac) are all excellent, Adam Driver especially, the humour really works through most of this (this might be C3PO's best film of the saga), and the characters that have been established over the length and breadth of this saga are so god damn likeable and strong that they can overcome any obstacle the script puts in front of them.
What I can't forgive, however, is the way this blatantly surrenders any imagination, conflict, or drama for the sake of forced nostalgia, exhausting fan service, and a total dismissal of consequence. You think that character is dead? Don't worry, they're not! You think that important MacGuffin is destroyed? Don't worry, there's another! You think the mission will fail because of carelessness and impulsiveness? Don't worry, someone will come in and save the day! On a micro level this kind of storytelling removes all suspense and forces the audience to be entirely passive. On a macro level it directly insults their intelligence. There's no need to worry. There's no need to panic. There's nothing to be afraid of. There's no need to think.
I don't care that this film treats The Last Jedi like an inconvenient red herring because this isn't my story and J.J. Abrams can do what he likes with it. But to give Rian Johnson full creative control and then all but completely erase his vision is unbelievably harsh. ("A Jedi's weapon deserves more respect"? We freakin' get it.) Johnson provided a new outlook for this franchise and gave Abrams a blank slate to work with going into the final episode of the saga. So how does Abrams respond? Well, by relegating The Last Jedi to episode 7.5 and cramming his own vision for episodes 8 & 9 into the space of a single film, of course.
Without going into spoilers, the conclusions this film reaches are fine. They're unimaginative and they row back on the most interesting aspects of The Last Jedi, but that's just my opinion and they make enough sense to work. The problem, though, is that this is so preoccupied with being the ninth episode of an entire saga that it forgets to behave like the third part of a trilogy - this means that the conclusions are never given time to build. Nobody pauses to explain, or doubt, or question, or speculate. It's just a quick "Here's some info, don't think about it, just move on because we've got a saga to finish!"
There are other issues too but I'll stop there. There is good in this that's worth mentioning. The droids (new and old) are wonderful, the action sequences are visually impressive and really passionately constructed, the actors and the characters they play are as reliable as ever. Plus, this is Star Wars. It's hard to truly hate a film that begins with THAT theme and THAT opening crawl, no matter how much Attack of the Clones might push me. And while this might smack of a scared corporation squeezing all life out of its creators to pander to its product's aggressive fans, this is still miles better than that pile of hollow garbage from the prequels.
So you know, small mercies.
What I can't forgive, however, is the way this blatantly surrenders any imagination, conflict, or drama for the sake of forced nostalgia, exhausting fan service, and a total dismissal of consequence. You think that character is dead? Don't worry, they're not! You think that important MacGuffin is destroyed? Don't worry, there's another! You think the mission will fail because of carelessness and impulsiveness? Don't worry, someone will come in and save the day! On a micro level this kind of storytelling removes all suspense and forces the audience to be entirely passive. On a macro level it directly insults their intelligence. There's no need to worry. There's no need to panic. There's nothing to be afraid of. There's no need to think.
I don't care that this film treats The Last Jedi like an inconvenient red herring because this isn't my story and J.J. Abrams can do what he likes with it. But to give Rian Johnson full creative control and then all but completely erase his vision is unbelievably harsh. ("A Jedi's weapon deserves more respect"? We freakin' get it.) Johnson provided a new outlook for this franchise and gave Abrams a blank slate to work with going into the final episode of the saga. So how does Abrams respond? Well, by relegating The Last Jedi to episode 7.5 and cramming his own vision for episodes 8 & 9 into the space of a single film, of course.
Without going into spoilers, the conclusions this film reaches are fine. They're unimaginative and they row back on the most interesting aspects of The Last Jedi, but that's just my opinion and they make enough sense to work. The problem, though, is that this is so preoccupied with being the ninth episode of an entire saga that it forgets to behave like the third part of a trilogy - this means that the conclusions are never given time to build. Nobody pauses to explain, or doubt, or question, or speculate. It's just a quick "Here's some info, don't think about it, just move on because we've got a saga to finish!"
There are other issues too but I'll stop there. There is good in this that's worth mentioning. The droids (new and old) are wonderful, the action sequences are visually impressive and really passionately constructed, the actors and the characters they play are as reliable as ever. Plus, this is Star Wars. It's hard to truly hate a film that begins with THAT theme and THAT opening crawl, no matter how much Attack of the Clones might push me. And while this might smack of a scared corporation squeezing all life out of its creators to pander to its product's aggressive fans, this is still miles better than that pile of hollow garbage from the prequels.
So you know, small mercies.
He kind of had to cram two films into one because there was nothing to build from the last one. What was there? Anyone can be a Jedi? That’s super but how do we follow that to conclude a trilogy. Johnson made the main villain pointless in his film and then killed him. Many of the problems this film had was because of the disaster that came before it. Aside from the overly fast action scenes that you had zero time to focus on.
I also think JJ having Luke choose to stay on an island while Han was murdered made Johnson's job a lot harder. Johnson set it up so that we didn't go down the ROTJ path but God forbid they try something new and risky.
Perhaps. The Force Awakens was far from perfect. Having Luke on the island at all made no sense. What was new and risky? Not following on from the movie before it and leaving nothing for the next isn’t new and risky. It’s shit filmmaking. What was set up for this film? What was the Return of The Jedi path? The good guy winning? That was always going to happen.
I've seen a few people say that TJL had left the third film with nowhere else to go but it also left the new film with no obvious way to bring the emperor back from the dead either. If they felt able to set that up out of nowhere in the opening scroll then they could have similarly set any other plot they wanted in motion too. They just chose to go down this particular route.
The more obvious path would have been to begin where TLJ ended with Driver's character as the main antagonist, as opposed to bringing a character back from the dead as a last minute ringer to immediately supersede him. Had they done that there would be no need to make Rey a Palpatine either, a move that makes the universe feel an awful lot smaller than Johnson's attempt to branch out from the established bloodlines of the past.
Maybe doing that would have had its own problems but at least more of the film would have been spent telling its own story rather than trying to undo the prior film.
The more obvious path would have been to begin where TLJ ended with Driver's character as the main antagonist, as opposed to bringing a character back from the dead as a last minute ringer to immediately supersede him. Had they done that there would be no need to make Rey a Palpatine either, a move that makes the universe feel an awful lot smaller than Johnson's attempt to branch out from the established bloodlines of the past.
Maybe doing that would have had its own problems but at least more of the film would have been spent telling its own story rather than trying to undo the prior film.
The main villain was Kylo Ren, this had been fairly clearly set-up. Obviously, in the end, Abrams actually wanted to return to the safety of a disfigured old bloke who says very evil things, but it didn't actually have to go that way.
Giving parts to your buddies, gets tedious, why does there even have to be so many decking characters
I mean why is pippin in this film and why has he got more than one line, they've almost given him a part that doesn't need to exist
Why is iron mans buddy in it, why does Poe (really badly) pretend he actually ever interacted with the guy who's been a thing for 2 minutes when his ship gets blown up "noooo!"
After the death star the film just really started to grate on me, especially the way the sign post everything to make sure no one misses their exceptionally clever writing (ha)
It asks you to just accept so may things are actually a thing, here Leia was a Jedi too and had a light saber and that's a thing now so just deal with it
Don't get me started on the weird love triangle (random girl from tlj that didn't need to be a thing loving Finn, who loved Rey, who turns out loved Ben, another thing that was just a thing that we just have to accept. And after all that turns out it didn't matter in the end and they decided it wasn't a thing anymore
Or that shit about that girl being Landos daughter for no real fecking reason
I just don't get any of it, I don't get what they were trying to do and it comes across like they didn't know either
Why is iron mans buddy in it, why does Poe (really badly) pretend he actually ever interacted with the guy who's been a thing for 2 minutes when his ship gets blown up "noooo!"
After the death star the film just really started to grate on me, especially the way the sign post everything to make sure no one misses their exceptionally clever writing (ha)
It asks you to just accept so may things are actually a thing, here Leia was a Jedi too and had a light saber and that's a thing now so just deal with it
Don't get me started on the weird love triangle (random girl from tlj that didn't need to be a thing loving Finn, who loved Rey, who turns out loved Ben, another thing that was just a thing that we just have to accept. And after all that turns out it didn't matter in the end and they decided it wasn't a thing anymore
Or that shit about that girl being Landos daughter for no real fecking reason
I just don't get any of it, I don't get what they were trying to do and it comes across like they didn't know either
It didn’t force him to do it and I don’t necessarily agree with that decision but the trilogy seemed to have a clear plan of where they were going with the Kylo Ren character. Doing what you suggest didn’t really go with that. Anyone can be a Jedi isn’t really something to get your teeth into in the third part of a trilogy.
Well at least we didn't get Star Wars: Rise of a thousand Buffys like Johnson wanted.
It's absolutely insane that there wasn't a clear planned arc for this trilogy though. It really does prove some things they don't even have to try with, any shit sells
It's absolutely insane that there wasn't a clear planned arc for this trilogy though. It really does prove some things they don't even have to try with, any shit sells
That final scene in TLJ featuring that kid with the broomstick on Canto Bight does feel silly now.
It really wasn’t. The ‘conflict’ was prevalent throughout all three films. Granted I’ve only seen The Last Jedi once so my memory may be hazy but that’s my memory of it anyway. It didn’t have to go that way granted, but there was also nothing set up from the Last Jedi to continue. I didn’t think bringing the Emperor back was a good thing but it didn’t spoil the film for me either. Had Johnson brought him back he probably would’ve used his powers for a handshake shock gag or some kind of face plant.
In thinking about it, some of the stupider things from The Last Jedi like force powered face timing was kept and were some of the more stupid parts of this film too.
Last edited:
I mean to me, the guy that kills his dad in the first film, kills the big sith bloke in the second to seize power, and ends the film very annoyed he didn't get to kill Luke Skywalker (which he tries, very hard, to do), is a realistic choice for the main bad guy. If ending it this way was mandated from the outset, they probably should've told the guy making the second film that.
I don’t think Disney were ever going to have the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia not be redeemed. That seemed obvious to me from the first film. Playing it safe no doubt but it was obvious. Their mistake was seemingly letting Rian Johnson do what he wanted and he made a shit show of it.
You could still have him be the film's main villain and be redeemed in the end though. It's not like it's a particularly unusual story structure to opt for.
I enjoyed it a lot, even though the plot feels somewhat rushed. Feels like they could have improved the trilogy by binning TLJ and stretching this one over two movies.
Possibly. Bringing the Emperor back was cheap no doubt and when I heard about it before the film I thought it was a terrible idea but it didn’t bother me when watching the film. Maybe I got swept up by the fact I was enjoying it after hating the last one. I’ll find out when I watch it again.
Fully agree only ROTS goes anywhere close to the standards . The new trilogy is much better than these prequels.
I feel like the stuff we haven’t seen is far more interesting than the stuff the 3 movies cover. How did Snoke manage to turn the son of Han Solo and Leia to the dark side? Who even is Snoke, and how did he get where he is? What made Luke go into hiding, and why? He lost his new Jedi order and the temple burnt down while his apprentice went bad. All while the empire regains prominence. That’s a better movie than ‘desert teenager discovers special droid the bad guys are after and goes on journey to become a jedi’, which we’ve already seen once!
Seriously, nothing in these 3 films is as interesting as what apparently went on in between. Even in the new film, Palpatine is back. But how? Let’s see that. It’s a damning indictment on these new characters that no-one gives a shit what happens to them, and the film essentially has to rely on a dead character from when these films were good to get bums on seats.
In 30-odd years, I don't think many are going to be interested in the likes of Rey and Finn and what they are up to. None of these new characters are particularly well written or memorable.
I mean it was enjoyable but it wasn’t what I guess you want a movie like this to be. Wanted epic, got enjoyable.
I also can’t hear Hamill without hearing the Joker. It feels like he is stuck in that voice
Rise of the Shitewalker.
So much to hate and a little to love. I just felt disappointed and let down though. The forced nods to the previous films were awful too.
I have to say the tribute trailer at the beginning where Lucas is saying it's 9 films blah blah blah... That just pissed me off, he should have had control over all 9. At least then it would have been HIS Star Wars.
Also, Kylo Ren got proper fecked over. He deserved better. The Knights of Ren deserved even better too.
So much to hate and a little to love. I just felt disappointed and let down though. The forced nods to the previous films were awful too.
I have to say the tribute trailer at the beginning where Lucas is saying it's 9 films blah blah blah... That just pissed me off, he should have had control over all 9. At least then it would have been HIS Star Wars.
Also, Kylo Ren got proper fecked over. He deserved better. The Knights of Ren deserved even better too.
Watching TFA and TLJ, I actually thought there could have been a great storyline of Rey (yes, Rey, the hero!) turning to the dark side and Ren being redeemed. Obviously that is far too 'out there' for Star Wars and especially Abrams, but it would have been a hell of a plot in my view. Kylo Ren has always been shown as conflicted, and to have compassion for Rey (ok, he just fancies her) - his part is easy. As for Rey, she shows all the sorts of traits that you would expect from a Sith - the anger, the unpredictability, the impulsiveness and lack of control. When Ren tried to get her to join him at the end of TLJ and break apart from the Jedi/Sith and Rey refused, I really thought that might have paved the way for a total role reversal. Now that would be a Star Wars I would be keen to watch.
Having established in the first 1.5 films that Rey > Ren in pretty much every way, suddenly flipping their roles on their heads would have been a fantastic subversion to give us the underdog hero like we all want, too.
That’s what I’d hoped for too but they were going to have the balls to do that unfortunately.
I agree that would have been good, but I really don't think it'd have been received well if only for the fact that people were calling that outcome at the end of TFA so if it did happen I bet anything that the internet would have been calling it predictable/boring/unoriginal and still not happy.
Basically my problem with these nostalgia ridden rewalks through cinema. The new characters are just shells walking through things with the director pointing and loudly shouting "REMEMBER THIS GUY?! OR THIS THING?! REMEMBER!!!"
I thought it was fine, entertaining but flawed. With Star Wars that is never enough so the reactions for this will be extreme when it shouldn't, positive and negative.
Definitely well-acted, though. Kylo has precisely one line of dialogue in the last 40 minutes of Rise - which is just "Ouch!" - but Adam Driver still manages to communicate an entire emotional journey without missing a beat. He's sealed the deal for Kylo to be my favourite character from this trilogy (aside from BB-8).
Adam Driver is what Ewan McGregor was to the prequels. It's all still a mess, but imagine it without them.