Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker **Spoilers from post 2076**

speedboatchase

Rey reminds me of the Red Letter Media video where people are asked to describe original trilogy characters in one word (Han = "rogue") but can barely respond when asked to do the same for the prequel characters (someone settles for "...stoic?" for Qui Gon).

I can't think of anything to describe Rey, Finn or Poe. And as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I don't recall a single memorable line for either.

I'm somewhat glad however that it took TRoS for people to fully realise how terrible Disney has been for Star Wars and that we should just regards the last few years as fan fiction.

Brock Turnpike

Disappointing box office take less than a billion

speedboatchase wrote: »

I can't think of anything to describe Rey, Finn or Poe. And as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I don't recall a single memorable line for either.

They fly now.

J Mysterio

Runaway hit highest gross beating The force Awakens

speedboatchase wrote: »

Rey reminds me of the Red Letter Media video where people are asked to describe original trilogy characters in one word (Han = "rogue") but can barely respond when asked to do the same for the prequel characters (someone settles for "...stoic?" for Qui Gon).

I can't think of anything to describe Rey, Finn or Poe. And as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I don't recall a single memorable line for either.

I'm somewhat glad however that it took TRoS for people to fully realise how terrible Disney has been for Star Wars and that we should just regards the last few years as fan fiction.

Rey - lost
Finn - goofy
Poe - Brash

Dades

Runaway hit highest gross beating The force Awakens

Hmm this was discussed before.

It's pretty obvious Rey is the "hero/messiah", Poe the new "rouge", and Finn, I dunno, maybe the sidekick? It's disingenuous to suggest that because they don't measure up to the original trio doesn't mean they aren't defined.

The problem is they simply don't share enough screen-time. TLJ could have addressed this but separated them for most of the movie. Then, TRoS throwing them together seemed somewhat forced.

Sad Professor

Dades wrote: »

The problem is they simply don't share enough screen-time. TLJ could have addressed this but separated them for most of the movie. Then, TRoS throwing them together seemed somewhat forced.

Separating characters shouldn’t be a problem. TESB did it too. Establishing character relationships was TFA’s job and it mostly did a good job of it except for Poe who was meant to die in the first 10 minutes and ended up never interacting with Rey who ends the film light years away. Johnson was setting him up as a successor to Leia but JJ decided to rehash the Finn/Poe TFA dynamic for a whole film without doing anything interesting or dramatic with it. It’s another example of JJ failing to build and expand on the previous two films, his own included.

Foxtrol

speedboatchase wrote: »

Rey reminds me of the Red Letter Media video where people are asked to describe original trilogy characters in one word (Han = "rogue") but can barely respond when asked to do the same for the prequel characters (someone settles for "...stoic?" for Qui Gon).

I can't think of anything to describe Rey, Finn or Poe. And as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I don't recall a single memorable line for either.

I'm somewhat glad however that it took TRoS for people to fully realise how terrible Disney has been for Star Wars and that we should just regards the last few years as fan fiction.

I don't understand why people consistently blame Disney for nearly every issue with Star Wars.

If Disney incompetent as many make out, they wouldn't have had the success that they did building the MCU. The key issue is with the leadership at Lucasfilm, many of which have been there since before the purchase. If anything Disney's biggest fault is not bringing in more people sooner and taking more control, for one to ensure there was an actual plan for this trilogy.

Disney's success with the MCU probably left them with a false sense of confidence to trust those within the purchased organisation. Lucasflim just didn't have as talented a person to guide things as Feige

Gloomtastic!

I wouldn’t be the biggest SW fan but went to see this today.

Question/Spoiler:

From what I could see the bad guys were totally wiped out. Is this the end of Star Wars?

Slydice

Total flop and a financial loss for Disney

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

I wouldn’t be the biggest SW fan but went to see this today.

Question/Spoiler:

From what I could see the bad guys were totally wiped out. Is this the end of Star Wars?

Not if they plan on introducing the

Yuuzhan Vong

who I've only heard stories about. They were book baddies though so we might never see them since the move to Disney wiped out a lot of book stuff from what I've heard.

NIMAN

I saw this for the 2nd time a few days ago, and boy it felt very long.

I suppose he had a lot of stuff to try to fit in.

cdgalwegian

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

I wouldn’t be the biggest SW fan but went to see this today.

Question/Spoiler:

From what I could see the bad guys were totally wiped out. Is this the end of Star Wars?

It's the end of the Skywalker saga even though Abrams made Rey an honorary Skywalker :rolleyes:, but Rian Johnson is making a separate trilogy:

"The content of Johnson's trilogy is, like most things Star Wars, a heavily-guarded secret, so we don't know exactly what kind of story the director is planning to tell - or when it will release."
https://screenrant.com/star-wars-rian-johnson-trilogy-canceled/

nkl12xtw5goz70

silverharp wrote: »

No need for gold bikinis or heaving bosoms but for example Jennifer Lawrence's character in The Hunger Games trilogy was far superior to this block of wood character in SW.

Agreed. Rey's lack of appeal has nothing to do with her costume. She's just a bland and uninteresting heroine. She has no real flaws, and can do anything she wants without any meaningful training — from flying the Millennium Falcon four seconds after first stepping into it, to defeating a highly trained Sith Lord in hand-to-hand combat despite never having held a lightsaber before. Because victory is always handed to her on a silver platter, watching her save the universe with her pinkie finger while rarely getting more than a speck of dust on her Daz-white tunic gets boring quickly.

To get invested in a character, we need to see her flaws as well as her positive attributes. We need to see her struggle to get where she wants to go. We need to see her character evolve to meet the ever-increasing challenges placed before her — and there needs to be credible doubt to the very end about whether she can succeed.

This trilogy had huge potential, but it's been amazing to see them spend hundreds of millions producing scripts with such a bland central character.

Riddle101

I'm glad they brought Ian McDiarmid back reprise his role of the Emperor. That was the highlight of the movie for me. Ian has been as much of an importance to these movies as Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford were. Even though he was only in Return of the Jedi, and then the prequel movies but it's good to have him back. Plus the Emperor's story comes full circle as well. He connects all the movies of the saga now.

My only one gripe is how they referred to him as Emperor Palpatine in the movie. If I recall, they didn't refer to him as Emperor Palpatine in the original trilogy. He was called "The Emperor" in the original movies, and was later identified as Senator/Chancellor/Emperor Palpatine in the prequels. We as fans know that he is of course Emperor Palpatine, but in the context of the movie, I feel like they should have just referred to him as "The Emperor". When Palpatine suggested Rey to be Empress Palpatine I feel like this was unnecessary as well, he should have just called her "Empress".

Patser

Jaxen Low Dolphin wrote: »

Agreed. Rey's lack of appeal has nothing to do with her costume. She's just a bland and uninteresting heroine. She has no real flaws, and can do anything she wants without any meaningful training — from flying the Millennium Falcon four seconds after first stepping into it, to defeating a highly trained Sith Lord in hand-to-hand combat despite never having held a lightsaber before. Because victory is always handed to her on a silver platter, watching her save the universe with her pinkie finger while rarely getting more than a speck of dust on her Daz-white tunic gets boring quickly.

To get invested in a character, we need to see her flaws as well as her positive attributes. We need to see her struggle to get where she wants to go. We need to see her character evolve to meet the ever-increasing challenges placed before her — and there needs to be credible doubt to the very end about whether she can succeed.

This trilogy had huge potential, but it's been amazing to see them spend hundreds of millions producing scripts with such a bland central character.

Just seen it today, and this sums up my biggest problem with probably the trilogy - there's never really any threat to Rey (or any of them really).

IMO the biggest trick missed was that Rey should have stayed dead at the end, and Ben become the Skywalker in question. That would have been a truer character arc, and story of redemption. If he'd lived and had to rebuild the Jedis having embraced the dark side and rejected it. Proper true balance to the force.

Not a magic reincarnation of Rey, a soppy kiss and disappearing magic death of Ben.

Tony EH

speedboatchase wrote: »

Rey reminds me of the Red Letter Media video where people are asked to describe original trilogy characters in one word (Han = "rogue") but can barely respond when asked to do the same for the prequel characters (someone settles for "...stoic?" for Qui Gon).

I can't think of anything to describe Rey, Finn or Poe. And as I mentioned earlier in this thread, I don't recall a single memorable line for either.

Rey -> supergirl
Finn -> comedy black sidekick
Poe -> GOAT pilot

Conall Cernach

Patser wrote: »

Just seen it today, and this sums up my biggest problem with probably the trilogy - there's never really any threat to Rey (or any of them really).

IMO the biggest trick missed was that Rey should have stayed dead at the end, and Ben become the Skywalker in question. That would have been a truer character arc, and story of redemption. If he'd lived and had to rebuild the Jedis having embraced the dark side and rejected it. Proper true balance to the force.

Not a magic reincarnation of Rey, a soppy kiss and disappearing magic death of Ben.

I thought the same. To quote Pa Cox "The wrong kid died!"

Tony EH

Sad Professor wrote: »

Separating characters shouldn’t be a problem. TESB did it too. Establishing character relationships was TFA’s job and it mostly did a good job of it except for Poe who was meant to die in the first 10 minutes and ended up never interacting with Rey who ends the film light years away. Johnson was setting him up as a successor to Leia but JJ decided to rehash the Finn/Poe TFA dynamic for a whole film without doing anything interesting or dramatic with it. It’s another example of JJ failing to build and expand on the previous two films, his own included.

'The Force Awakens' did nothing to establish their friendship though, so why would these people care for one another? In addition, it rushed through the "friendship" of Rey and Finn.

The original 'Star Wars' firmly solidified the stars as a group of people thrown together in a life or death situation and they end up becoming reliable buddies to one another in the later movies. It made a relative sense. You could understand why these folk gave a damn.

In the sequels the stars don't even share the screen until the last film, leaving the audience to wonder what it is that holds these, so called, "characters" together.

The reality is, that they all only exist to riff off of the original film's characters, because JJ is a really shit writer. Johnson's screenplay for his film was nothing to write home about either.

I hope that Disney can learn from this and...ahem...going forward, can give the writing jobs to people that can actually write a story for a movie.

Foxtrol

Riddle101 wrote: »

I'm glad they brought Ian McDiarmid back reprise his role of the Emperor. That was the highlight of the movie for me. Ian has been as much of an importance to these movies as Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford were. Even though he was only in Return of the Jedi, and then the prequel movies but it's good to have him back. Plus the Emperor's story comes full circle as well. He connects all the movies of the saga now.

My only one gripe is how they referred to him as Emperor Palpatine in the movie. If I recall, they didn't refer to him as Emperor Palpatine in the original trilogy. He was called "The Emperor" in the original movies, and was later identified as Senator/Chancellor/Emperor Palpatine in the prequels. We as fans know that he is of course Emperor Palpatine, but in the context of the movie, I feel like they should have just referred to him as "The Emperor". When Palpatine suggested Rey to be Empress Palpatine I feel like this was unnecessary as well, he should have just called her "Empress".

Sure, fans would know but you can't presume everyone that attends the movie has seen or paid enough attention to know surnames. You can't just start throwing around random surnames without a set up and presume a proportion of the audience won't be lost.

For all the feel good memberberries that his appearance brought, it was completely jarring and shoe horned in. JJ has more fault in that than Johnson.

Foxtrol

Tony EH wrote: »

'The Force Awakens' did nothing to establish their friendship though, so why would these people care for one another? In addition, it rushed through the "friendship" of Rey and Finn.

The original 'Star Wars' firmly solidified the stars as a group of people thrown together in a life or death situation and they end up becoming reliable buddies to one another in the later movies. It made a relative sense. You could understand why these folk gave a damn.

In the sequels the stars don't even share the screen until the last film, leaving the audience to wonder what it is that holds these, so called, "characters" together.

The reality is, that they all only exist to riff off of the original film's characters, because JJ is a really shit writer. Johnson's screenplay for his film was nothing to write home about either.

I hope that Disney can learn from this and...ahem...going forward, can give the writing jobs to people that can actually write a story for a movie.

Far bigger issue was the lack of oversight over the trilogy as a whole, so they didn't end up looking like three random movies that were fighting with each other.

Despite how some complained about the news, from Disney bringing in Feige to help it looks like they clearly have learned.

Tony EH

Foxtrol wrote: »

Far bigger issue was the lack of oversight over the trilogy as a whole, so they didn't end up looking like three random movies that were fighting with each other.

Despite how some complained about the news, from Disney bringing in Feige to help it looks like they clearly have learned.

Agree completely on a lack of a plan. One would have thought that that was priority number one. But, not so at the new Lucasfilm apparently.

As for Feige, I've said it before, but I just don't get the fascination with this guy. He oversaw the MCU, sure, but he didn't actually make any of it. He's didn't write any of it and didn't direct any of it.

He's one of these nouveau Hollywood uber producers that everybody knows the name of despite having a completely nebulous input.

I remain thoroughly unconvinced that he's the saviour of movies that some make him out to be. Perhaps, if he can get Disney's shit together regarding Star Wars movies that may change. But, honestly, at this stage I'd rather see John Favreau get that gig and Deborah Chow get a movie.

Foxtrol

Tony EH wrote: »

Agree completely on a lack of a plan. One would have thought that that was priority number one. But, not so at the new Lucasfilm apparently.

As for Feige, I've said it before, but I just don't get the fascination with this guy. He oversaw the MCU, sure, but he didn't actually make any of it. He's didn't write any of it and didn't direct any of it.

He's one of these nouveau Hollywood uber producers that everybody knows the name of despite having a completely nebulous input.

I remain thoroughly unconvinced that he's the saviour of movies that some make him out to be. Perhaps, if he can get Disney's shit together regarding Star Wars movies that may change. But, honestly, at this stage I'd rather see John Favreau get that gig and Deborah Chow get a movie.

From all accounts, Feige did with the MCU what we both agree was sorely lacking with the latest Star Wars trilogy, he put structure and focus on telling a larger story across movies. Many don't like this as it is seen to limit directors and writers and at times awkwardly shoe horns in connections between movies but without it you end up with messes like here, DC, or X-men.

I agree that this skill set shouldn't be hailed as some sort of saviour or a unique skill but basically every other executive that has been tasked to do similar has failed, in this case not even capable to develop a trilogy forget about 23 movies over 10 years. It might say more about how poor the others are but Disney would be fools not to leverage Feige when he already works for them.

cdgalwegian

cdgalwegian wrote: »

I've never really paid attention to the shenanigans surrounding the making of movies, only what the end product is. In relation to Johhson's Last Jedi- that Abrams supposedly had to 'fix': before the script emerged and money had to be fronted, an outline would have had to be presented for approval, prior to the script development. How come it wasn't shredded, and Johnson told to cop on, and go back to the drawing board, or fired- because of 'creative differences'- and someone else sought?

Sad Professor wrote: »

TLJ had by far the smoothest production in the history of the franchise. The script was finished months before shooting began, which was almost unheard of. Johnson kept Kennedy/Disney in the loop during all stages of its development. He involved the LucasFilm story group to a huge extent, meeting with them regularly to bounce ideas off them. JJ also read the script and said he wished he had written it. The film and its script were fully approved by everyone and was finished ahead of schedule. The only person who really had issues with it was Hamill and his approval wasn't a requirement.

Tony EH wrote: »

Agree completely on a lack of a plan. One would have thought that that was priority number one. But, not so at the new Lucasfilm apparently.

Seems to me Mike Tyson was right: "Everyone has a plan 'til they get punched in the mouth". TLJ was fully approved, but fan service punched them in the mouth, so the plan changed to accommodate this (and Abrams had the chance to do what Johnson had done to his storyline).

Tony EH

cdgalwegian wrote: »

Seems to me Mike Tyson was right: "Everyone has a plan 'til they get punched in the mouth". TLJ was fully approved, but fan service punched them in the mouth, so the plan changed to accommodate this (and Abrams had the chance to do what Johnson had done to his storyline).

Oh sure, and dear old Mike was only paraphrasing Von Moltke, as he said "no plan survives contact with the enemy".

However, purely making it up as you go (which is what Diswars did) isn't a good approach on any level. Plans will, undoubtedly, have to be tweaked along the way. But not having any plan at all is a recipe for disaster.

cdgalwegian

Tony EH wrote: »

However, purely making it up as you go (which is what Diswars did) isn't a good approach on any level. Plans will, undoubtedly, have to be tweaked along the way. But not having any plan at all is a recipe for disaster.

I'd agree that an over-arching plan worked out in advance would have been a good idea, while still allowing scope for creativity in different films (if using different directors). Nevertheless, fan service could still have knocked the studio for six, and forced a major rejig. Pandering to zealots using social media seems to have been the major problem here with the last third of the ennealogy (;)). Certainly this would have hamstrung Johnson from going rogue, except, at the end of the day, his script was roundly approved as it stood. So it wasn't really the lack of an over-arching lack of plan that scuppered the project; it was being blind-sided by the hardcore fan reaction to The Last Jedi.

johnny_ultimate

Given that the most robust, long-term planning in the history of cinema has led to nearly two dozen bland, unremarkable and maddeningly commodified MCU films (I'm speaking for myself there), I am not entirely convinced a fabled 'plan' would have had the creative* and storytelling dividends many seem to think it would.

And thank **** Johnson was allowed say exactly what he wanted in TLJ as far as I'm concerned - would take one film I loved over three 'ok' or 'pretty good' ones any day of the week.

*I say creative in particular, as it is now indisputable that these three sequel films have been remarkably commercially lucrative

Giruilla

Finally got around to watching, and as someone who was disappointed by TFA, and hated with a passion TLJ.. i thought this was surprisingly quite good!
Probably the first film since RoTJ that felt like a real star wars film. Sure there was flaws in it, and rehashing palpatine was weak, but finally I actually felt some emotion with the characters involved. Rey passing light saber to Ren, and resistance fleet appearing where nicely done.
I'd pretty much given up on star wars, but now I'd actually be interested to see a brand new trilogy - free from any nostalgia or references to any film before. By far the biggest problem with the sequels has been paying homage and including geriatric actors and characters from the originals.

_Kaiser_

eviltimeban wrote: »

BTW the new trilogy is WAY WAY better than the prequel trilogy.

No, no it's not.

For all it's flaws, the prequels were at least consistent and respectful of the previously established canon. I personally didn't have the same issues with Anakin that others did, but young Obi, Palpatine and some of the others were great.

The sequels were stuffed with shallow unlikeable characters who we learned almost nothing about over 3 movies, the well published production issues with the second and third left an incoherent mess that they had to reboot again at the last moment, and they literally made it up as they went along as a result.

The only good one of the 3, TFA, was a straightforward remake of ANH without the charm and ruined the character of Han by the time it was done. Deadbeat dad whose character has reverted to where he began.

These latest 3 won't be rewatched by many, and will be remembered by a lot less in 5 years time - except maybe as an example of how not to deal with a decades long multi-billion franchise.

Brock Turnpike

Disappointing box office take less than a billion

Tony EH wrote: »

Oh sure, and dear old Mike was only paraphrasing Von Moltke, as he said "no plan survives contact with the enemy".

However, purely making it up as you go (which is what Diswars did) isn't a good approach on any level. Plans will, undoubtedly, have to be tweaked along the way. But not having any plan at all is a recipe for disaster.

What did you make of Rise of Skywalker?

El Duda

Runaway hit highest gross beating The force Awakens

Sorry but this new trilogy does not have any impact on the prequel trilogy.

The prequel trilogy is the holy grail of cinematic dog sh!t. Utterly awful. Rewatched them a couple of years ago and it was a turgid, miserable few days.

I'd rather watch the Fifty shades films on a loop for a month than watch them again.

Bacchus

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

No, no it's not.

For all it's flaws, the prequels were at least consistent and respectful of the previously established canon. I personally didn't have the same issues with Anakin that others did, but young Obi, Palpatine and some of the others were great.

The sequels were stuffed with shallow unlikeable characters who we learned almost nothing about over 3 movies, the well published production issues with the second and third left an incoherent mess that they had to reboot again at the last moment, and they literally made it up as they went along as a result.

The only good one of the 3, TFA, was a straightforward remake of ANH without the charm and ruined the character of Han by the time it was done. Deadbeat dad whose character has reverted to where he began.

These latest 3 won't be rewatched by many, and will be remembered by a lot less in 5 years time - except maybe as an example of how not to deal with a decades long multi-billion franchise.

I kinda agree. For me, AotC was the only read BAD movie of the prequels. TPM has flaws (mostly JarJar, some stiff dialogue and nonsense about mediclorians) but it was thrilling in the cinema... Maul and the Duel of the Fates, pod racing, epic space battle. It served as a good prequel story to show how it all began and showed us what the galaxy was like before the Empire. AotC went a bit silly and OTT with the lightsaber duels but set up the beginnings of the Empire with the clones and Boba Fett Snr. The biggest flaw with AotC was the awful romance between Anakin and Padme. It just never worked. Cut just that stuff out and AotC is a much better movie. RotS then is by far the best of the prequels and is top 3 or 4 for me in the whole series.

The prequels were plagued with bad writing but they had thrilling action, a vibrant visual vision of the galaxy, and the story they told progressed well through all three and got from A to B to C in a clear narrative. The sequel trilogy is just a muddle from movie to movie. TFA was a fun nostalgia trip that staged all these mystery boxes JJ loves (who is Rey). Things were promising at least. Then TLJ sh*t on that (Rey is noone), was dull as heck and left trilogy in an impossible place to wrap up. And finally, TRoS had to resurrect the Emperor to create a "new" baddie (oh and Rey is his grandaughter!) and spent 2 hours in a massive rush to get to the end of RotJ. So we're left with a sequel trilogy that ends pretty much in the same place as RotJ did.

If I was to rank the (core) Star Wars movies, 2 of the sequel trilogy would be in my bottom 3, alongside AotC. They managed to avoid the pitfalls of the prequels but they ended up a bland, purposefully mysterious but never really that interesting series of movies that muddle to put together a consistent plot like a drunk trying to walk a straight line. They'll both get to the end, but someone else really should be driving.

Foxtrol

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Given that the most robust, long-term planning in the history of cinema has led to nearly two dozen bland, unremarkable and maddeningly commodified MCU films (I'm speaking for myself there), I am not entirely convinced a fabled 'plan' would have had the creative* and storytelling dividends many seem to think it would.

And thank **** Johnson was allowed say exactly what he wanted in TLJ as far as I'm concerned - would take one film I loved over three 'ok' or 'pretty good' ones any day of the week.

*I say creative in particular, as it is now indisputable that these three sequel films have been remarkably commercially lucrative

I would understand that perspective if you were talking about 3 stand alone movies (for example 3 movies with different characters within the MCU) but it is nonsense to think that having no overall plan could in any way improve storytelling within a trilogy.

What we ended up in the 2nd and 3rd movie was each director seeing how much they could retcon what happened in the previous movie.