The Rise of Skywalker (Spoilers: Read at Your Own Risk)

[Mecha82]

To be fair I don't see sequel trilogy Luke to be type that would be father. Not even based on scene in comic books that take place before TFA were he is seen traveling with Kylo.

[Yukaphile]

From all accounts Abrams had another vision, like maybe going to this planet to meditate on why this keeps happening, a repeat of another organization like the Empire coming into power. Like how he was kneeling with objects floating around him. And then Johnson comes in and changes it, has him standing on a cliff.

In all honesty, it's the treatment of the older cast and fans and material that is so enraging to me. I mean, yeah, we all know my feelings about the EU. On that subject, I will just add this. Simply cherry-picking what to slap into the M Canon from L Canon does not Legends content make. And hell, even George as a fellow sci-fi fan of another generation believed in the concept of parallel timelines, which is what he saw the EU as. I don't get that sense from those in charge.

Let's look at how they treat the older cast. They should have accepted input from the ACTORS. Mark Hamill in particular understood Luke better than anyone, he played him for 40 damn years. And then they had the actor for Ackbar pose with the tagline "That's a wrap!" Treating him as a goddamned meme, and coming off a death that from all accounts, was mediocre, like it was with all of the original cast. The original actor felt hugely disrespected. Hell, in Lucas's day, at his prime, he understood you need to give immense freedom to the actors. It is their performance. He's just there to facilitate the shoot. If Mark's words are to be given any weight, they were just too damned eager to chase the younger generation and the new fans, and we all know why. For marketing sales in merchandise. I hear there was some drama behind-the-scenes that ensured that The Mandalorian would have another protagonist past Boba Fett, who is the logical choice, because we can always sell Boba Fett toys, even those that have been around decades. But this is a new character! That means more toys! MORE SALES! Cha-ching! And yes, they are making money. But nowhere near the amount they want to. And to tie into the first point, I think it is entirely stupid for them not to wanna bring back the Legends fans, since I've talked to many of them and they consider the old EU an alternate timeline that still has storytelling potential, they may bash the movies, but they understand it means something to a lot of other fans. Instead they have encouraged fandom division with Kennedy's poor words, which is ironic since she preaches AGAINST bullying, the Twitter attack dogs say utterly stupid shit about the former EU, and as I had said, to take Rise of Skywalker as an example, simply retelling Dark Empire fused with the original trilogy AND the Legacy era does NOT satisfy Legends fans, since they see the older EU as a complete world, like George did. Those in charge do not now. It's adopting Lucas's approach in the 1970s, throwing in a bit of everything to try and make it work, but adding a totally antiseptic flavor to it. It's sterile. Pure corporate branding, and I think every one of us can feel it when the topic comes to the discussion of this franchise.

And that ties into the third point. The older fans. It really feels like being a Star Wars fan over a certain age means being marginalized under Disney's approach, because they REALLY want those toy sales more than anything else, and the new franchise is really underperforming in terms of what they want to make and where they want it to go. Let's forget the Legends fans. They can't make up even a percentage of the hundreds of millions who go to watch these as popcorn movies, and then forget all about them. To certain older fans, what they had done to Luke's character felt like a slap in the face. Nothing unusual to us, as sci-fi fans, we all know that, like how Picard went from a seasoned diplomat to an action hero. But we're a smaller niche audience. To some people, Luke Skywalker was all that was left, after Kirk died a meaningless death, and so much more. The prequels had "ruined" Star Wars, but to them, this felt the same as that or worse, because it was complete character 180 with no buildup. And it is very telling that under Lucas in the old EU, Luke remained consistent throughout the entire thing. He never ran and hide. It's another way they encourage fandom division, because it's turning this into a generational issue among Gen X and Millennials and Gen Z. I mean, let's take what Chuck had said about how you shouldn't have to buy supplementary material to make a good, standalone movie. Yet that is precisely the way they explain how Rey is suddenly super competent at everything she does, in downloading something from Kylo. And we know why. To aggressively promote their side material, books included alongside toys, so that you have to check ALL of it out in order to understand, get the complete picture, and to rewrite their errors along the way. How Kennedy speaks of the older EU is entirely self-revealing as to that being their approach. She saw that as being how George handled it, and that is how we will handle it.

In the end, I think say what you want about Abrams ripping off Dark Empire, and not even having the decency to admit it out loud only a month after Kennedy says they have no source material, but that actually gave the whole three trilogies much-needed structure after what Johnson had done, and I think that, in the end, is the final failing of these movies. Even George had somewhat of a central creative vision with the original trilogy, and he most definitely had that central creative vision with the prequels. Not so much anymore. Hell, let's ignore George. That's what the MCU did, while respecting the source material and the older fans. And this is sad, because the story has so much potential, that has been utterly been ground into dust this way.

[Deledrius]

It wasn't a lack of planning, plans can change and there is such a thing in performance as improv. Good improv starts needs to honour what immediately came before, not ignore it.
What they were basically saying was... JJ Abrams is bad at improv.

If that's the case, then TLJ failed at improv at least as much as TRoS did. Almost the entire film is a long list of "No, actually..."

Well, if you needed more evidence to the fact of how truely Johnson fucked everything up, here you are. All the twists and turns he did in order to subvert expectations, undone. GG

As for the rest? What a clusterfuck.

Yup, JJ did a really good job of putting the plot back on track, and he did it without completely ignoring TLJ, but re-incorporating it back into where things were set up in TFA and then picking up and continuing a story other than "nothing matters".

Well the movie is : Skywalker bloodline is gone. Palpatine's bloodline is going strong in the end. He won in the end even if he is dead.

That kinda bugged me a bit. Maybe I missed a bit of dialogue saying she renounced her lineage. It's small, but still.

The entire point of her arc in this final film was about her own choice, symbolically, which path to choose. His bloodline, and the Sith, have ended. She chose to follow the Jedi path, and follow Luke and Leia.

But there is a blood Palpatine. And she can stand there with triumphant music blaring calling herself Skywalker all she wants: she isn't. The destruction of the ending of the OT is now complete.

Blood doesn't matter. She completed something further than either Anakin or Luke. They defeated the Emperor. She defeated the Sith. That wouldn't have been possible without them, their sacrifices, or their victories. She chose that against whatever demands "blood" may mean.

2) The Last Jedi has been unofficially retconned. The Rise of Skywalker comes off as a sequel to The Force Awakens and nothing more. Luke is heroic again, Holdo's light speed jump was given a handwave, they gave Kylo back his helmet, Rey actually has a personality again (kind of), we see the Knights Of Ren (kind of), Hux is no longer a comedic character (kind of). If this is not proof that TLJ failed in the eyes of Disney then I don't know what does.

They fixed here what had been broken for no reason, but did it respectfully. The Holdo Maneuver was handled wisely here: it was given special status (it was a one-in-a-million chance, and she pulled it off), and through that prevented TLJ from breaking the universe by acknowledging that a galaxy of FTL-equipped ships where the HM is easy makes Death Star Destroyers redundant.

4) Rose and Finn have been relegated to third rate characters. She was barely in it and he exists now just to shoot and go ''woo'' whilst doing it. And three films in, despite Rey showing no interest in him, Finn STILL loves her more than any other woman alive. What happened to the brewing relationship between him and Rose? We know the answer because I have already said it - TLJ has been unofficially retconned. Finn loves Rey, because that is what he did in TFA.

That was disappointing. I was hoping that Rose would be written competently in TRoS to improve on her poor role in TLJ, but instead they just removed her from the film. Poor show. I loved that Finn's arc that started in TFA, and was completely ignored by Rian (it would surprise me to learn he even watched TFA), finally was continued here. It's only a shame that it was still under-developed due to losing an entire movie of his development. As for "brewing relationship"... there was no relationship between him and Rose. She hated him in the beginning, went on a dead-end adventure with him, still hated him on the FO ship, and then tried to kill him while claiming to save what she loves, dooming the resistance (the same Resistance that her sister died fighting to save) to certain death. TLJ presented no romantic relationship. Finn was always trying to save Rey, find Rey, and protect her and the Resistance. I don't think there's any indication he's in love with her in TLJ or TFA, but he cares for her deeply.

Got back from seeing it not that long ago. A very quick summary - I enjoyed it a lot more than TLJ, it felt rather more like a Star Wars film. I've still got some big plot issues but at least they didn't bother me that much whilst I was watching it - the biggest criticism I've got straight from the viewing is that it tried to cram too much in.

Unfortunate, but unsurprising when the middle film in the trilogy intentionally throws out most of the world-building from TFA while replacing it with nothing, and you have to find a way to both set up and resolve the final film in a trilogy with characters that haven't gotten the middle act to develop in meaningful ways, and no useful plot threads left over that weren't literally cut short or thrown off cliffs. TRoS is ridiculous, and it's not what I would have done, but then outside of some of the setup in TFA I would have done a lot differently. Coming in to write TRoS, I wouldn't envy anyone needing to resolve those two films into a coherent, satisfying conclusion. TLJ was intentionally at odds with everything that came before, but provided little of its own.

Both TFA and TLJ made a point about how Rey was nobody. This was great because it took Star Wars from being about one family to being about any one. Then this movie gets rid of that to once again make the series about the same group of people so rather than expanding the world it's not been condensed.

No, TFA was clearly saying she was somebody. And I'm sick of people saying that about what Star Wars was before. This post was made before I saw RoS.
https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2019/12/star-wars-never-had-problem-you-think.html

This whole thing is weird to me, too. It's never been about "One Family" until the marketing for TRoS started saying it was the end of the Skywalker Saga. Yes, the story has had a lot of them in it, but it's never been ABOUT them, or some dynasty. The prequels retroactively made the OT a redemption story, but that was father and son. That's it.

It's a weird excuse that feels made up, only so that people can claim that this brand-new thing invented by the hype around this movie... is ruined by that very movie.

The issue of Balance was always implied since the Force was always partly based on Tao.

Right. If you accept the OT at face value, then the PT's notion of "balance" would be the destruction of the Sith. The Jedi are all about balance. None of this post-modern false-equivalence BS... the point is that the good guys are good, not just a different way of being bad. Balance is good, the good is balance. The Jedi are (generally) the good guys, seeking balance.

Sadly, Legend of Korra took a swing at this and missed it by a mile, too, despite lining the shot up perfectly. It would seem that Western storytellers just seem to have trouble grasping this idea, even when they think they've got a handle on it.

[MrL1992]

If that's the case, then TLJ failed at improv at least as much as TRoS did. Almost the entire film is a long list of "No, actually..."

How? I don't remember TLJ flat out reversing any explicit, major developments. Han Solo didnpt spring back to life for example.

[thetrueelec]

Patrick H Willems made a great video partly about Rise of Skywalker, and partly about Star Wars, and partly just about fandom. It's great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PjlM2R88E0&

[Mecha82]

If that's the case, then TLJ failed at improv at least as much as TRoS did. Almost the entire film is a long list of "No, actually..."

How? I don't remember TLJ flat out reversing any explicit, major developments. Han Solo didnpt spring back to life for example.

As I could see it it didn't. Sure there are people that believe that JJ Abrams was brought back to "fix damage done by Rian Johnson" when it's clear that that's not the case.

[MrL1992]

As I could see it it didn't. Sure there are people that believe that JJ Abrams was brought back to "fix damage done by Rian Johnson" when it's clear that that's not the case.

As the Trevorrow sraft shows, they were intending to actually follow through on Johnson's direction (well, for the most part but again, draft).

Don't why people think Lucasfilm, a studio prone to letting go of directors as of late, was somehow unable to stop some maverick director 'sabotaging' everything? Doesn't fit together.

[McAvoy]

As I could see it it didn't. Sure there are people that believe that JJ Abrams was brought back to "fix damage done by Rian Johnson" when it's clear that that's not the case.

As the Trevorrow sraft shows, they were intending to actually follow through on Johnson's direction (well, for the most part but again, draft).

Don't why people think Lucasfilm, a studio prone to letting go of directors as of late, was somehow unable to stop some maverick director 'sabotaging' everything? Doesn't fit together.

I agree. I think they wanted to follow whatever outline Rian Johnson had for the followup but perhaps because of the backlash of The Last Jedi, they decided against it.

Doesnt explain why Rian Johnson was allowed to rip up JJ Abrams outline either.

[TGLS]

Doesnt explain why Rian Johnson was allowed to rip up JJ Abrams outline either.

That answer is beyond obvious. There wasn't one.

[PapaPalpatine]

What's happened to the Star Wars franchise is a prime example of why you should never, EVER, sell your IP to the Mouse Mafia; they can't be trusted not to turn it into a landfill fire. Star Wars merch used make money hand over fist, now it's sitting on store shelves collecting dust.