**Spoilers** Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - Discussion thread **Spoilers**

[Cheeky Devlin]

Near the start when the Knights of Ren walk past a couple of Stormtroopers, one of the Stormtroopers points them out as the Knights, does the other one then say 'Goals!' or did I mishear it?

Ghouls I think he said.

[Tafdolphin]

And that's the sum total of their characterization

[Edd]

That does make more sense I suppose, not sure if I'm relieved or disappointed now.

[Denster]

I have strawberry floating thoughts:

- The two constants throughout the film were lack of reactions/tell don't show/bad editing, and its inability to commit to any of its plot points. Examples:

- We're told the Emperor has threatened the galaxy. We never see this threat outside the opening scrawl, which itself usurps TLJ as the film this movie is a sequel to. The escape from the desert planet? Not seen, we simply jump cut away. The Falcon disappears and reappears in the narrative with little to no warning. Things happening and the film blowing past them without a second thought happens multiple times...the editing is so utterly, bafflingly terrible I have no idea what the hell happened.
- Oh no, Chewie's dead! No he's not. Oh no, 3PO is dead! No he's not. Oh no, Poe's ex is dead. No she's not. Oh no, Kylo's dead! No he's not (twice). Oh no, Rey's dead. No she's not.

Secondly, the plot, macro and micro, makes zero sense. Like, zero. This is why I'd put RoTS above RoS because at least that film had a throughline:

- JJ in TFA: "What if the Death Star but bigger!" JJ in RoS: "What if 10 000 Death Stars?!?!" Genuinely, staggeringly laughable.
- 3PO can't translate the Sith runes. Can he not just strawberry floating point to where the Sith marker is on a map?
- Finn launches a ground assault on an unshielded Star Destroyer (this is specifically mentioned multiple times) to destroy a spindly, exposed antenna we see multiple X-wings do flybys of
- Rose gets less screentime than JJ's mates Dominic Monaghan and Cop Guy From Heroes. I felt so incredibly sorry for Kelly Tran: after all the abuse she received she's reduced to a bit part.
- Mary-Sue is a terrible lens through which to view characters but Rey once again becomes a monster plot machine capable of doing anything and everything. For eg, she'd never seen an ocean before TFA, here she's a master sailor.
- Maz is reduced from an ass-kicking bad-ass into a stationary exposition machine
- Leia strawberry floating kills herself?! And then Maz refers to her as a Princess? No, she's a strawberry floating General. The disrespect shown to both Leia's character and Carrie Fisher was, quite honestly, mindboggling.
- "Rey I've something to tell you..." Never returned to.
- If none of the Star Destroyers had broken atmosphere, what happened to the one that destroyed Kimiji? Is it still out there? Because a fully shielded, planet destroying ship with no leadership is...a problem. Never mentioned.
-"Watch out, there's Walkers!" Sounds like a lead in to a scene of them avoiding walkers! Nope, we never see a walker, except in the distance while Poe talks to a character we don't know or care about.
- For all the people bemoaning TLJ's humour there are far more terribly made jokes here than in TLJ. None of them, besides D-O, hit.
- None of the characters have arcs. None of them grow. Apart from Ben I suppose, who's reversion to the Light was as bad as Anakin's turn to the Dark in RoTS
- The Emperor surviving is never explained. The word clones is mentioned once (and utterly bizarrely referred to as a 'skill only the Dark side has.' Unlike, you know, in the prequels where it's a commonly practiced industry?) but we get nothing else.
- The Emperor turned into GlaDOS. Unintentionally amusing.
- The whole Palpatine Rey thig is strawberry floating embarrassing. In fact the whole thing feels like a first draft.

I could go on.

I came out of TFA back in 2015 beaming from ear to ear. I came out of RoS in 2019 shaking my head in utter disbelief and disappointment.

strawberry floating heartbreaking.

EDIT: Denster, I read the leaks. They are better than the finished product (the intro is better in the leaked plot outline, and the whole child abduction narrative has been excised from the final film for some reason)

Thanks mate. I honestly think if I saw this I'd get up and leave before the end.

[Denster]

How does Kylo come back to the light?

[Cheeky Devlin]

How does Kylo come back to the light?

Old Ghost Solo told him to.

That and he got sad that his mummy died.

It was bollocks.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

Taf, I disagree with the vast majority of your list.

Exceptions would be:

The multiple non-deaths, which undoubtedly cheapens things — however, this is done in TLJ and is much, much worse! There's the obvious Mary Poppins moment and I'm also including Fin's kamikaze, because he was several kilometres away from anyone else when suddenly Rose teleported her transport to ram him from the side, then they both teleported back to the base, from the feet of the FO army. None of the non-deaths in RoS (iffy as I agree they are) come anywhere close to being executed as badly as those two events in TLJ.

C3PO not being able to translate the runes. There's got to be a better way they could have done that (avoided it entirely) and that leads me to add something you haven't mentioned — that bloody knife. Fine, the weapon used to murder her parents, cool, but what on earth was that pulling out the interior of the handle and holding it up from the perfect angle all about?! That was probably the worst part of the film for me.

Not sure about the solo Star Destroyer... that might be another fair point, I'd like to see it again to check if there was an explanation there.

Like I say, everything else I disagree with you. I think the fact you believe the mum joke in TLJ was better than the humour in this, which raised genuine laughter from me and the entire cinema on multiple occasions, speaks volumes about the fundamental differences of our judgment!

[Dual]

Not in a rush to this reading this thread

[Benzin]

The start really concerned me. The first sentence in the crawl especially was just

Not sure why they started in the middle of a film either. It really did feel for the first half like 30 minutes was missing, probably not at all helped by the difference of opinions regarding TLJ. I also don't like (much like Endgame) the initial mystery of Palpatine (or how Tony escapes space) is solved in 5 minutes. At least build some tension/interest first!

But I did enjoy the film. Certainly not one which will keep when you actually question issues with it (how did Palpatine escape? When did he sire kids? Why was he cloning? Who were the Death-Eaters?). But it didn't have a truly awful sequence like the casino planet which added nothing to the plot (though granted many sub plots of pointlessness were added, as well as a few Deus Ex Machinas mentioned and then utilised because foreshadowing).

The Rey/Kylo fight scenes were very good I thought, especially the one taking place on the Star Destroyer/planet. The "I am all the Jedi" line though was dumb The entire end sequence was basically Endgame again

Richard E Grant was brilliant

Might be my expectations were so low I ended up enjoying it. There's plenty of flaws to pick apart (as some have done already) and whilst you can't disagree with some of the points it didn't stop me enjoying the film. Even if the plot twist was stupid

[Tafdolphin]

This review really gets to the heart of my feelings, that now go beyond dislike and head towards outright rejection of what it's trying to do and say in the grander scheme of blockbuster culture.

It's long one but contains so many well written critiques I actually couldn't quote bits out. It should be read in its entirety.

https://them0vieblog.com/2019/12/18/non ... ssion=true

[Oblomov Boblomov]

This review really gets to the heart of my feelings, that go beyond dislike and head towards outright rejection of what it's trying to do and say in the grander scheme of blockbuster culture.

It's long one but contains so many well written critiques I actually couldn't quote bits out. It should be read in its entirety.

https://them0vieblog.com/2019/12/18/non ... ssion=true

I managed to get past the bit where the writer tells me I am a fan not worth saving, then got to "There’s an understandable anxiety about potential anxiety around The Rise of Skywalker". Mmm, so well-written, think I'll save it for later...

[Tafdolphin]

We have different views on Star Wars but you're absolutely not one of the fans he's talking about. You're not a toxic Reddit crusader, or Kelly Tran harasser.

I'd be interested in seeing your reaction to the whole thing. Genuinely.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

I did only glance at it very quickly as I've not got time right now. I will probably read it later, although I'm not exactly desperate to learn exactly why I shouldn't like the film I just saw!

[Tafdolphin]

It's less him telling people who liked it why they're wrong, and more an interpretation of the trends it represents. It's not so much a review (as it says!) as it is an in-depth reflection of the thing in context.

How does Kylo come back to the light?

Leia kills herself and this sets him right. There's an implication that Rey saving his life, by transferring some of her essence to him, also affects him.

The scene where he turns is literally, like literally the same lines of dialogue, the same scene where he kills Solo but reversed.

"It's like poetry"

[Wedgie]

Also riding on the star destroyer?

Why don’t they just tilt the ship so the riders fall off?

I don’t mind the Emperor being the big bad. But I agree with the points above.

The opening crawl should say that an unseen danger, and the opening 30 minutes should see the resistance and First Order finding out its the Emperor d SD one how back from the dead.

But no. It’s all done in 5 minutes.

[Tafdolphin]

Now I've had a bit of time and read some reviews that more clearly express my own thoughts, I actually think this is the worst Star War.

TPM and AoTC suffered because of stilted direction but at least they had an aim, a throughline. They are terrible films, but terrible films with purpose. This had none.

TLJ=ESB>RO>RoTJ>TFA>ANH>Solo>RoTS>TPM>AoTC>RoS

[Benzin]

And I thought the edgiest thing about the film was the Sith blade

[Edd]

Now I've had a bit of time and read some reviews that more clearly express my own thoughts, I actually think this is the worst Star War.

TPM and AoTC suffered because of stilted direction but at least they had an aim, a throughline. They are terrible films, but terrible film with purpose. This had none.

TLJ=ESB>RO>RoTJ>TFA>ANH>Solo>RoTS>TPM>AoTC>RoS

The same could be said about TLJ though. It completely failed at what it had to to as the middle film in a trilogy. It either resolved or just ditched stuff set up in the first film while adding nothing to carry forward to the finale.

It basically ended up being Abrams trilogy just jammed into two films, I'm sure with some editing and a new opening crawl you could go straight from TFA to RoS without losing much.

The more I think about it the less I do think I like RoS but I don't think the fault is with Abrams, I think he basically did the best he could with what he had. I also appreciate what Johnson was trying to do but don't think the middle of a trilogy and penultimate entry of a nine film saga was place to do it.

The fault is just with the higher ups who let it all happen how it did.

[Tafdolphin]

Now I've had a bit of time and read some reviews that more clearly express my own thoughts, I actually think this is the worst Star War.

TPM and AoTC suffered because of stilted direction but at least they had an aim, a throughline. They are terrible films, but terrible film with purpose. This had none.

TLJ=ESB>RO>RoTJ>TFA>ANH>Solo>RoTS>TPM>AoTC>RoS

The same could be said about TLJ though. It completely failed at what it had to to as the middle film in a trilogy. It either resolved or just ditched stuff set up in the first film while adding nothing to carry forward to the finale.

It basically ended up being Abrams trilogy just jammed into two films, I'm sure with some editing and a new opening crawl you could go straight from TFA to RoS without losing much.

The more I think about it the less I do think I like RoS but I don't think the fault is with Abrams, I think he basically did the best he could with what he had. I also appreciate what Johnson was trying to do but don't think the middle of a trilogy and penultimate entry of a nine film saga was place to do it.

The fault is just with the higher ups who let it all happen how it did.

Again, I disagree, strongly, with the idea that TLJ failed. It's a coherent film at least, which RoS is not. But that's by the by, as I do agree with the key fact that this whole trilogy was mishandled from a management point of view. Disney plans out Marvel films almost a decade in advance. Why on earth wasn't that mentality brought to bear here?

Here's hoping Rian Johnson takes his time with his new trilogy, and that he's not dumped as soon as Kathleen Kennedy takes a dislike to him.

[Cheeky Devlin]

Having digested it I still think I enjoyed it more than The Last Jedi but it's not much better as while it fixes some of the issues I had with that, it brought a whole load more with it.

I don't want to dive too deeply into it because I think I need to see it again to cement an opinion, but I certainly think that the issues with TROS and the sequel trilogy in general (TLJ onwards at least) can ultimately be boiled down to Disney not having a coherent plan for what story they wanted to tell from the beginning. Instead they got the rights and rushed to announce they were putting out a new trilogy with no idea where it was going to end.

The prequels, for all their faults (Which were almost entirely with execution rather than concept issues) had a definite end-goal from the very start. We knew we were going to see the rise of the Empire, the fall of Anakin Skywalker and the hiding of Luke and Leia. With this Disney banked on three different directors, each telling a different part of a story they were making up as they went along.

This possibly would have been more successful if TLJ had followed the threads that were laid down in TFA, but instead it discarded most of the plot points in an attempt to do something different. Not to turn this into TLJ bashing, but I'm not entirely sure that part 8 of a 9 part saga that's been going for 42 years is really the place to start changing things up and "subverting expectations" when it really should have been about moving the pieces into place for the ultimate end of the Skywalker saga (And Star Wars at it's core has always been about that family).

So with TLJ essentially trying to set up a whole new status quo (Which really would have been better placed at the start of Johnsons new trilogy) rather than preparing for the end it essentially didn't advance things on much at all, meaning that TROS had to squeeze two movie into one.

I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with the story they tried to tell in TROS it just felt so crammed in that nothing had any room to breath. Someone described it as "relentless" and that's true. It never stops moving to allow for character moments or anything like that, simply because it doesn't have time.

Then there are the smaller TROS specific issues.

- Death Star lasers (again)
- Kelly Marie Tran (Sp?) - She was really wasted. There's definitely a combination of factors when it comes to her character and the backlash by Internet banana splits against her was a big one. I also think the overall issues with the trilogy won't have helped her in that there really wasn't anything for her to do here. She wasn't a character Abrams had created or planned for, so ended up essentially being background. The only character she could have replaced was the leader of the deserters.
- The navigation beacon shite - When they said they were going to board the ship I though they were going to go "into" the ship. Nope. Why an X-Wing didn't just bomb the gooseberry fool out of it I don't know.
- The "Portals" moment was eye-rollingly gooseberry fool. We've suddenly got millions of ships. strawberry float off.
- Kylo turned back to the light with so little effort. Needed to be made a bigger deal of.
- Rey (And Kylo to an extent) just making up powers to suit the plot (Teleporting items? Really?).

There are more, but I really should be working.