Making Sense of The Rise of SkyWalker's Story

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I'm mainly talking about bringing back Palpatine and basically employing a goaltending move for the sake of the movie itself. In the past I've thought of it as them actually trying to culminate the trilogy and saga, but actually now I'm thinking it's largely that first idea totally in spite of the other. After all, I did like the movie like I like Temple of Doom. It does work somewhat in itself.

I know that there's a lot of non artistic directive that probably went into that decision, not to mention commercialism/marketing. For instance I heard it was actually partly or more an executive lined order from Kathleen Kennedy, which makes one go "hmm." But I'm really curious if there is an artistic rationale for how this is supposed to make sense, mainly as a conclusion of a trilogy, given that that succinctly defines this story as a Disney project. It's not like there wasn't a team of creative artists that were on some level trying to make a coherent conclusion, at least just for this movie.

Also I would like to more commentate about my experience as the movie commenced. I felt as if I somewhat was in the audience of a stage performance, like where all the characters are in really convincing costume and makeup come out and do a set at Disneyland. Not as embarrassing as dancing Vader etc.. but some gag and not a movie. . It makes no narrative sense that they're there interacting with each other in the way they do, but you forget about it as it's completely entertainment and not canon. I mean I didn't think that back then but that's what the scene reminds me of.

[Winter]

For me, the worst thing about Palpatine's involvement is that they don't actually do anything with him. Take, for example, his "relationship" with Rey. Now this Should be an engaging dynamic as this is his granddaughter, his only known family, he's also the one who had her parents killed and seeks her to take his throne of his empire. Not out of love but just to further spite the Jedi and the Skywalker's. He lost his old empire because of them but now he's managed to wipe them all out and now his only family will take his throne and insure he's Empire will continue to reign eternal.

And yet, he and Rey don't actually have any real connection. When they finally meet all they do is exchange generic "I'm Going to Stop You"/"I'm Going to Turn you to the Dark Side" lines. And part of the problem here is that Palpatine hasn't done anything to Rey or anyone she or the audience has any real connection to.

Over on the fifth Season of She-Ra Horde Prime is the ONLY villain in the entire series that Adora ever comes to Hate because of what he does to Catra. After Catra saved Glimmer Adora realized that there was still good in her and all her love for her came rushing back but when she went to save her Prime revealed that he had tortured and brainwashed her and used her to try and Force Adora to give him She-Ra. Prime even basically skilled Catra just to further mess with Adora which causes Adora to transform into She-Ra and starting from that episode onward Adora all she can to let Prime know that she is the one screwing with his plans.

Over on The Princess Bride, while we never meet Inigo's father we do still feel that connection to him as Inigo goes over his backstory and we see how much he loves his father so we understand why his quest to avenge his father means so much to him. And we get to meet the man who killed his father and grow to hate him for what he does to Wesley so when the two finally confront one another we feel that connection despite the fact that this is the only time they've ever met onscreen.

The reason Rey's connection to Palpatine is because we have no connection to her parents. Rey never really talks about them, never learns that much about them and what we do learn contradicts what we do learn. So, the films says that Palpatine can feel the hate she has for him We can't because there has been no real build up to this.

For all my issues with Rey and Kylo Ren's relationship I do think it worked as adversaries. Kylo killed Han who was one of Rey's heroes and surrogate father, he beat Finn, Rey's best friend, so badly that he ended up in a coma and he indirectly killed Luke and Leia, Rey's other two heroes and her surrogate Mother in the latter's case.

Side note, I never bought the idea of Rey and Kylo developing a romance or friendship because he had done to much to hurt her and the people she was close to for really petty reasons and the two have no connection beyond that pain. Catra also hurt Adora and for equally petty reasons but they were also friends since before they were old enough to spell. And you can see how much being enemies hurts both of them, that they never get use to the idea of being on opposite sides of the war.

But back on topic, if Rey has a nemesis it's Kylo given all he did to hurt her and characters the viewer could actually get invested in. Rey has no real connection to her parents and we don't even learn anything positive about them until ROS and even then what they do to Rey is both kinda stupid and F#(ked up (yeah just abandon your only child on a desert planet instead of taking her to, oh you know, Luke's Jedi academy?! Parents of the Year Here!!! )

Those are my issues with Palpatine, he was brought back solely for the purpose of getting butts in seats and he has no real chemistry with Rey, Despite McDiarmid and Ridley's best efforts.

[clearspira]

You CAN'T make sense of it because it was never planned.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

For me, the worst thing about Palpatine's involvement is that they don't actually do anything with him. Take, for example, his "relationship" with Rey. Now this Should be an engaging dynamic as this is his granddaughter, his only known family, he's also the one who had her parents killed and seeks her to take his throne of his empire. Not out of love but just to further spite the Jedi and the Skywalker's. He lost his old empire because of them but now he's managed to wipe them all out and now his only family will take his throne and insure he's Empire will continue to reign eternal.

Over on The Princess Bride, while we never meet Inigo's father we do still feel that connection to him as Inigo goes over his backstory and we see how much he loves his father so we understand why his quest to avenge his father means so much to him. And we get to meet the man who killed his father and grow to hate him for what he does to Wesley so when the two finally confront one another we feel that connection despite the fact that this is the only time they've ever met onscreen.

The reason Rey's connection to Palpatine is because we have no connection to her parents. Rey never really talks about them, never learns that much about them and what we do learn contradicts what we do learn. So, the films says that Palpatine can feel the hate she has for him We can't because there has been no real build up to this.

I don't think there was even supposed to be a connection between her and Palpatine. It's all just a matter to make Rey's heritage as muddled as possible (for her), given the direction of and how important the subject was in the last movie.

When the movie you're following up establishes that you and your parents are nobodies then the idea of her having an emotional connection with Palpatine is worthless. The whole thing being a ruse makes sense if he was using the dark side of the force to tell Rey that her parents were nobodies to give her more disparity ultimately using her in the process to become a more powerful sith.

For all my issues with Rey and Kylo Ren's relationship I do think it worked as adversaries. Kylo killed Han who was one of Rey's heroes and surrogate father, he beat Finn, Rey's best friend, so badly that he ended up in a coma and he indirectly killed Luke and Leia, Rey's other two heroes and her surrogate Mother in the latter's case.

Side note, I never bought the idea of Rey and Kylo developing a romance or friendship because he had done to much to hurt her and the people she was close to for really petty reasons and the two have no connection beyond that pain. Catra also hurt Adora and for equally petty reasons but they were also friends since before they were old enough to spell. And you can see how much being enemies hurts both of them, that they never get use to the idea of being on opposite sides of the war.

Well they went one step forward with the romance in TLJ then took a couple steps back in the next movie up until the end iirc. And I don't think it was supposed to be an overt romance in The Last Jedi, more of a mystic attraction binding them. Their chemistry and adversarial feelings are part and parcel to what their complementary arcs involve.

[Scififan]

The whole movie felt slapped together with no real direction. Like when Finn (my favorite character), ,meets another ex-kid Stormtrooper like him it's just a throw away scene because it goes nowhere. Also, I liked the idea of Rey being a nobody, there was really no reason for her to be related to anyone aside from her deadbeat parents. The whole granddaughter to the Palpatine was just out of nowhere.

Very disappointing film.

[McAvoy]

The whole thing seems to be slapped together is because it was slapped together.

I mean there was no reason to have Palpatine. Could have easily have had a Snoke clone in the middle of a Sith Temple filled with Snoke clones or something.

No reason for using the wreck of the Death Star either. Could have easily been a Sith or Jedi temple on some great tall island.

The great Death Star Destroyer fleet could have just easily been a fleet of those new Destroyers we saw being amassed together in secret. One is let loose and destroys a local fleet of some planet, then bombards the planet.

Just those three things could have easily been done. But what we really got was a revisit of the OT and some PT stuff.

Rey could have easily been a nobody with exceptional skills. There was no reason to put some romantic elements into the movie. Could have easily had Rey defeat Kylo without killing him. Maybe making him injured and defeated where he starts to doubt himself. Then he digs in breaks out of being in the Dark Side. Maybe have Luke come to him at that time as a Force Ghost. Telling him to help Rey. No need of the whole bringing the dead back to life thing. That wasn't needed.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Well I thought about it for a few days, and I have decided that the problem is consistent with everything that this trilogy has done that everybody hates, but did it in an up close and vivid manner.

The whole trilogy is a pretty narrow story involving Rey, Finn, and Poe as hardline characters with a pretty steady tread of plot focused on them instead of the Skywalkers. The Star Wars universe as we know it is plainly happening to these characters. Each story serves as a conclusion to each original character and each actually never really cross or develop in the slightest, save for Han and Leia backdrop in Force Awakens.

Something I never noticed, was that, while the Jedi represented the light side of the force while Sith represented the dark, the sides ended up switching in the end. Somehow Anakin's waffling transponds to Rey adopting the Skywalker name, I do not know.

[ChrisTheLovableJerk]

Palpatine in TROS is just another part of infuriating and perplexing parts of the ST and all the more reason they should just wipe it from canon. Bringing him back was an obvious act of desperate people who just aren't very smart. It's glaringly obvious it wasn't planned, nowhere in TFA or TLJ was it foreshadowed and Colin Trevorrow's script only had Palpatine as a brief cameo as a hologram (and he hilariously distanced himself from the movie before it came out)

They did it for two reasons; marketing, they needed something to put people in seats after TLJ scared audiences away. Rumor is they were originally going to have Matt Smith play The Son of Mortis from TCW as the villain until Iger said he wasn't marketable enough and casuals would be to confused, I don't know if I buy that since I highly doubt JJ Abrams knows jack shit about anything Star Wars that isn't surface level OT, but because all those reddit and 4Chan leaks turned out to be true I guess we'll just have to wait and see until more info comes out.

Secondly, they needed a proper villain. Phasma's dead, Hux is a joke, Snoke is dead and a joke, the Knights of Ren couldn't be the baddies because they had like four seconds of screentime in TFA and Johnson didn't even bother mentioning them in TLJ. And Kylo Ren is half a joke and half the only character people find interesting, and they were in a bad situation because TLJ tried to make him out as this innocent victim and the Rise of Kylo Ren comic pretty much tries to absolve him of any wrong doing (All those dead bodies and the burning temple? Yeah, a bolt of lightning did that.) Bringing Snoke back would have looked like they were walking back too hard on TLJ (which they were anyway) and they'd either have to make Kylo go full on evil monster (and lose the Reylos) or just come up with a new big bad out of nowhere at the last minute.

Palpatine's resurrection is a major case of the Voodoo Shark, it attempts to answer questions but instead just raises more questions and creates further problems.

[McAvoy]

I think there is a strong element of Abrams bringing in the nostalgia factor into the movie.

Maybe Palpatine was a storyline that was introduced as the big villain for the movie because they couldn't figure out who it would be.

Couldnt be Kylo. No one really takes him serious as a big bad villian. He ain't Vader. That he has been bested twice already by Rey.

The big the threat of Death Star Destroyers is the result of them making a huge threat to the Galaxy and not creating something unique and different as a threat. Though IMO, then having watered down Death Star super lasers wasn't that big of a deal. Being raised from the ground and being so numerous was.

What also hurts is the whole 'Kill her' to the 'she will take over the Sith'.

I have far more issues with this movie then I ever did with TLJ. At least that movie could have been viewed as a stand alone if needed.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I think there is a strong element of Abrams bringing in the nostalgia factor into the movie.

Maybe Palpatine was a storyline that was introduced as the big villain for the movie because they couldn't figure out who it would be.

Couldnt be Kylo. No one really takes him serious as a big bad villian. He ain't Vader. That he has been bested twice already by Rey.

The big the threat of Death Star Destroyers is the result of them making a huge threat to the Galaxy and not creating something unique and different as a threat. Though IMO, then having watered down Death Star super lasers wasn't that big of a deal. Being raised from the ground and being so numerous was.

What also hurts is the whole 'Kill her' to the 'she will take over the Sith'.

I have far more issues with this movie then I ever did with TLJ. At least that movie could have been viewed as a stand alone if needed.

When I come to think of it, I encourage all dumping on the movie but of course, but this here is more the uphill gear I'm looking for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psHdd-4FGQk

That guy seems to agree with me, in that these people's inability to handle Star Wars isn't so much a result of creative bankruptcy, given the projects that, particularly, Kathleen Kennedy has worked on directly.