Little details that you loved

So was the opening scroll and Star Wars fanfare the last ones we will ever see/hear for a Star Wars movie?????????????

 

The black chairs the First Order brass sit on in 'Kylo's boardroom' are like a cross between Kylo's Command Ship, Darth Vader's Castle and Vader's breathing filter at the front of his mask (only horizontal slats instead of vertical). The Supreme Leader is into thoughtful interior decorating.

 

In the scene where it’s revealed to the Resistance that Palpatine has returned and we follow Rey as rushes off to consult the Jedi texts, I’m sure someone (I think Beaumont probably) is saying something in the background involving the phrase “...cheat death...”.

Also, speaking of ‘cheating’, it occurred to me a couple of viewings ago that the dejarik game at the start of the film is a kind of lighter analogy for the movie’s spiritual battle between Rey&Ben/Palpatine - think about it:

Chewie only wins because he’s so old... or cheats are the reasons discussed(!) but Finn and Poe turn the game off after agreeing not to.

Palpatine, an old guy who we learn is ‘home’ to an even older legacy wins because he is old and cheats(death). Rey and Ben both seem to agree, at various points, to Palpatine’s demands, but then do not ultimately go through with that.

 

Some more little details I noticed...

At the end of the scene where Rey and Kylo fight through the Force (Rey in Kylo’s room on his ship, Kylo on Kijimi) the Sith dagger in Rey’s hand seems to disappear, much like that infamous blade from the guard in TLJ. Mistake or in-joke?! In my head-canon she pockets it between shots I guess.

The lightspeed skipping scene appears to foreshadow key points of the rest of the film-
The first one has that mass of spiky rocks(?) that I think look very much like the rocks and throne on Exegol. The second location with its bright cylindrical structures are quite like some of the design in Kylo’s quarters. The giant sand worm creature in a very green environment is surely a pre-echo of Rey healing the vexis (serpent), itself foreshadowing the healing of Ben.

Also, it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it, the second of the three worlds that Poe lightspeed skips to still confuses me - there are two falcons, and I still don’t know if the top one or the bottom one is a reflection. Either way it’s a very cool, blink and you’ll miss it example of two, underlining the whole theme of twos in the film. I can’t wait to be able to analyse that sequence and freeze frame it.

Also on ‘twos’... Ochi’s ship, the Bestoon Legacy has that design of two huge engines... but a similar design crops up on the First Order’s ship above the hallways... almost as if to perhaps a Sith influence in both designs... (maybe a nod to the ‘rule of two’ that is flipped on its head by the Force producing a dyad in response?!)

The Aki-Aki who asks Rey her family name is wearing a very similar headscarf to that which Rey’s mother wears in Rey’s visions/memories, which I find very interesting. The whole Aki-Aki festival is full of nods to the story and saga. There are these dancers dressed in dark clothes on top of a rock who remind me very much of the Knights of Ren who of course we later see atop a rock standing around (you know the shot!).

When Rey begins her climb in the Death Star II, there’s what I think looks to me like the side of an intact TIE fighter right at the bottom left of the shot, in quite a lot of darkness. (I’m not talking about the broken one we see right up in the screen). Could an example of a spare TIE fighter for Ben to get to Exegol in (maybe it was an experimental model with hyperdrive!).

 

I don't know if this is a 'little thing'. But the casting of Jodie Comer as Rey's mother. I almost chocked when I realized who it was when I first saw TROS For those of you who don't know, Jodie Comer is a British actress most commonly well known for playing the character Villnelle in the BBC drama 'Killing Eve'. Villenelle is an assassin and a psychopath and she is described as being “Wild & wildly self-possessed." So for Comer to be playing Rey's mom it's the highest form of symbolism. After all who best to play the mother to one of the most formidable and self-possessed women in film, but a woman who plays one of the most self-possessed women on tv?

I mean I am sure they could have chosen an unknown to play Rey's mother, just like they did for the father---for the 15 seconds they were on screen.


The effect would have been the same if they had cast Emily Blunt, or Clare Foy or Michelle Dockery in the role. It's highly symbolic and speaks to who Rey is and her lineage.

 

Maybe I’m just going crazy, but there’s a character who is very briefly visible in the background at the end of the film as everyone is celebrating on Ajan Kloss and Rey has just got back who looks suspiciously like Batman to me

 

Never noticed. But I do see a strong Batman motif with Rey. Her constant reference to the death of her parents (and how that made her who she was). And in the supplementary material for the TFA it talks about her studying new languages, practicing flying different ships on simulator, her study of machines and how they work. Her constant self -work to better herself (Mary Sue my foot!) and the air of darkness around her, and her solitary tendencies. Very Batmanish/Bruce Wayne.

 

Very good points! Maybe in Episode X she will have a Reymobile...

 

Personally I'd like her to get a nice big mansion. It'll make up for the fact that we never got Daisy in the role of Lara Croft. One of my other favourite heroines. And a role she would have killed it in.

 

I wouldn't call it a detail. But it made me smile with amusement. With how Palpy first tries to entice Rey to take over the Sith throne with it's her destiny as a Palpatine. And later berates her as being weak like her parents when she refuses him. Palpy must have been a fun person to be around. When he doesn't get his way he resorts to insults.

Another bit I liked was at the end, when the old lady asks Rey who she is. Rey stands up proudly and says "I'm Rey." Those two words and the delivery. Just spoke to her journey as a person. From an insecure girl who looked for worth and value in others. To a confident young woman who learned to value herself for who she is and what she has accomplished and what she has become. Rey, a true example of what the human spirit can be. Beautiful!

 

The bass drop when Sheev shot the lightning into the air. Him in all his Sith lord glory!

 

Another 'little' thing I noticed. Is how in the tug of war between Rey and Ren to get the freighter. How it quickly starts to become a battle of egos between both of them. I in no way think that Rey would have wanted to harm Chewie and if she had known she had those powers she would have been more careful or backed off. But it's clear in that scene that getting control of the freighter was not purely about rescuing her friend. It was a battle of wills.

Full disclosure here, I am a Bond fan and a fan of Claremont's X-Men. So I tend to like heroes and heroines who have a dark side, and edge or who are far from perfect. They are 75 % angel but they have a dark side that has to be managed and/or channeled into good.

I think that now that Rey is no longer shackled by the need for approval and has made the peace with the fact that she was abandoned. It has now released her, and given her the freedom to be proud of who she is and what she has accomplished, which is really great , but conversely that pride can creep over to arrogance. It seems as if Rey has used her pride wisely or channeled it well. For example when they were on Kajimi she asked Zorrey for her help and didn't demand or use her force on her. But in situations of high emotional stress such as when she discovered the truth about her parents death and the reason for the 13+ years of hell she endured as a child. Restraint goes out the widow, which is why she wanted to confine herself to Ach-Too.

 

I saw TRoS more times. I feel more sure Batman is in there each time. I wish I could get bat-confirmation, but I'm pretty sure at this point (or... the two points of his cowl/mask, more to the point... ).

Today I saw it with someone who pointed out a lovely take on Rey and Ben - the whole "I did want to take your hand - Ben's hand" in relation to the ending - it's like a marriage. You know the expression 'take their hand in marriage' ?! Well that one moment of (as I see it) unconditional love that redeems Ben through his act of self-sacrifice results in Rey taking Ben's hand. It's also not unusual for one partner to take the other's name upon marriage, and even though Ben was a Solo (capital S), he is in some respects not solo - as part of the Force Dyad, but also ending his life with Rey embracing him, Ben. Palpatine calls him a Skywalker, Rey kind of 'marries' him symbolically, and then in the last scene takes on that name.

This movie just keeps on throwing up cool stuff for me, I love it.

I mentioned earlier that "The Aki-Aki who asks Rey her family name is wearing a very similar headscarf to that which Rey’s mother wears in Rey’s visions/memories, which I find very interesting" - I want to expand on that a little more, because there's also the old woman who asks Rey her name at the end of the film, just like Nambi Ghima (the Aki Aki teenager who asked Rey her family name earlier in the film) - it feels like they are bookending that question for Reyboth at the beginning of her adventure in TRoS, in a desert, and at the end of the adventure in TRoS, in a desert. I think it's symbolic of Rey's journey to find her own identity, she is asked by a young female what her family name is at the beginning and is "just Rey". During the adventure she remembers/has visions of her adult mother, wearing headscarf. At the end she is asked by an old female what her last name is, and it's then she chooses to call herself Skywalker, having seen Leia as a vision/memory/Force ghost(Still not totally sure which?!) who is also wearing her headscarf/hood. To sum up, it's a progression of headscarf/hood-wearing females who all invoke questions to do with Rey's identity and name. It's a little detail I loved!

 

I genuinely loved the festival sequence in The Rise of Skywalker. So many bright colours.

The sequence on Mustafar where Kylo is butchering his way through those aliens was pretty goof to see and something I would have enjoyed when I was a child as well as the journey through the maelstrom to Exegol.

 

I think there’s a lot of interesting symbolism going on with the Sith wayfinders.

Kylo recovers his grandfather’s wayfinder.
Rey recovers her grandfather’s wayfinder.

The Emperor’s wayfinder is located on the ruined, decaying wreckage of the DS II. The place where the Emperor was destroyed, yet survived after a fashion, but as we see is in a bad state and needs a new body.

Vader’s wayfinder is located on his old ‘home’ planet of Mustafar - the place his body was also ravaged yet he survived, after a fashion. Significantly though, Mustafar is healing. So even though Kylo has not returned to the light when he obtains Vader’s wayfinder, it foreshadows that he will, just as the healing planet also foreshadows his physical and spiritual healing(s) later in the movie.

When Kylo confronts Rey he destroys the Emperor’s wayfinder and tells her the only way she’s getting to Exegol is with her. In that scene they are arguably both heading down a dark path, and yet it’s ironic that they do both end up on Exegol, on the side of the light, not the darkness. And they got there because of the wayfinder that belonged to Vader, who was redeemed as Anakin and found his way back to the light. The Emperor’s wayfinder was crushed and shattered, much like Palpatine himself was at the end of the movie.

 

Something I just realised today...

In TRoS, Palpatine wears an Ommin harness (the crane thing he's attached to, "a mechanical spine once worn by a(the) Sith King" (novel says "a Sith King" audiobook says "the Sith King"!).

'Ommin' is an anagram of 'Momin', another Sith lord who appears inthe comics (I personally read the Lando one he's mentioned in - I haven't read the 'Dark Lord of the Sith' issues he's in yet):

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Momin

I think there's some very interesting allusions and comparisons to be made there, no?!

 

I don't recall if I've said this before here, but I love the ways in which TRoS adds to and changes what we know of and how we view the Sith. I especially love the way that the film recontextualizes the Rule of Two as an immortality ritual.