10 Likes/10 Dislikes from TROS

Not exactly ten, but here they are:

Likes:
1. Ben returning to light - how it was done.
2. Adam's acting, mostly after he became Ben again
3. Rey acting like true Jedi - healing snake, healing Ben etc.
4. C3PO was quite funny, I admit.
5. lightsaber fights were good
6. Chewie mourning
7. Leia training (with Luke and then Rey)
8. special effects

Dislikes:
1. the whole "Palpatine is back" idea. The worst idea since Jar Jar.
2. story - too rushed, to convienient, too dumbed down (we need X. Oh, X is right here. Now we need Y. Oh, it's right here).
3. killing Ben. Absolutely unnecessary and extinguishing Skywalker bloodline.
4. Rey "Palpatine". Really? I was perfectly fine with her being "nobody". Now it seems you can't be a main Jedi character in SW universe if you're not related to someone famous and powerful. I'm waiting for Mando being Boba's son and baby Yoda being a clone of Yoda's sister.
5. Rey "Skywalker". No, Rey, you're not Skywalker. It doesn't work that way. Skywalkers are dead. Thanks, JJ, I hate it.
6. Hux as "spy". Cheap move.
7. boring, unoriginal planets.
8. the whole LGBT thing. Including tiny element just for the sake of including it.
9. another planet destroying superweapon. How... yaaawn... "original".
10. and main dislike - that they had no plan for the entire trilogy and were making up the story as they were filming each movies. Instead of a good trilogy it created a mess.

 

Likes:
1. They managed to have big emotions without killing off Lando, C3PO, Poe, Finn, Rey, Chewie, or Rose.
2. I'm satisfied with Rey's backstory. It really pulled it together better than I thought possible.
3. I like that we're now back to having the Sith as the one true supervillains in the galaxy - I'm sorry but it made no sense to me to have one main type of supervillain, but then there's also a second kind that's basically the same as the first kind.
4. Chewie finally got his dang medal!
5. Han had a presence, and his scene was awesome.
6. We got a backstory for Snoke - it was brief but still pretty effective.
7. The "final order" felt really original, and it was definitely not a Death Star 4. I like how both sides made smart strategic decisions during the battle.
8. Ben's line about "Are you still counting the days since your parents left?" was a nice little nod to the tally marks in TFA and gave a concrete explanation.
9. I like fast-paced movies. I don't know why many people have cited this as a negative.

Dislikes:
1. I know this has been asked a lot already, but considering how much screen time it got, I really would've liked to know what Finn wanted to tell Rey.
2. I feel like Rose had a surprisingly small role in this film - it seemed like she was an emerging character in TLJ.
3. A major problem with 7 and 8 was that they had basically no planets or species in common with 1-6 (except Chewie and mon calamari). Technically, 9 finally did fix this by featuring Endor, Tatooine, and surprisingly enough, a couple of ewoks - but nonetheless, the vast majority of planets and species in 9 are still so unfamiliar that it almost feels like a different galaxy.
4. The final scene was good enough, but it didn't give me that amazing feeling I get from the ending of ROTJ.
5. Didn't really get any more info about Maz or the "awakening"

Not a real dislike, but at least in my theater, I had to sit through a trailer for the movie Tenet that went on for about 17 years

 

Likes -

1. John William's soundtrack
2. They finally kissed!
3. Han Solo's scene. Well acted, well written
4. The "We're stronger together than we are individually" theme
5. Rey handing Ben a lightsaber through their Force connection
6. The idea that each Sith Master has the souls of all the previous Sith Masters
7. Bendemption
8. Rey's parentage. Not what I expected, but it fit the story well
9. Hux getting killed by a really badass Imperial, Pryde. Made the bad guys threatening again
10. The Final Order fleet with planet killing weapons on every Destroyer

Ten More -

1. The Dagger. The map it unlocks, the Sith inscriptions on it, and the overall dangerous look of it
2. Kylo vs. Rey on the Death Star wreckage. Great swordplay
3. Ben's "Ow!"
4. Threepio
5. Kylo using the necklace to figure out where Rey was
6. Rey using lightning to fry the transport ship
7. Rey vs. Dark Rey. And blast, Dark Rey looked sexy!
8. "It's not a fleet, it's just... people"
9. The Force Ghosts speaking to Rey and the Sith Masters chanting to Palpatine
10. Maz, after hypocritically lecturing Finn about standing up for what's right in TFA, finally chose a side

Dislikes -

1. Poe's spice smuggler background seemed unnecessary
   
2. There wasn't a really beautiful scene. No Death Star firing on Jeddha, no Holdo ramming Snoke's ship, no Jango Fett's seismic charges in the asteroid field, nothing visually arresting
3. Poe's girlfriend's Power Ranger costume
4. The Final Order fleet not defending itself adequately. Destroyers need protection from small fighters. Didn't you guys watch TLJ?
5. The new droid, D-O, seemed unnecessary
6. Why didn't the quicksand fall into the cave tunnels?
   
7. A woman in Imperial command. Kinda ruins the whole "Resistance is inclusive, First Order is racist" imagery
8. Rey healing the snake. I think Rey killing the snake while Poe and Finn watch in horror because they didn't have time to play nice would have furthered the story better, selling Rey as a Palpatine and making us wonder if she'd sit on the throne as Emperess Palpatine
9. Palpatine seemed a little off. Too direct, not the subtle master at seduction we saw in the Opera scene.
10. Leia training as a Jedi

 

1. Finn being Force Sensitive
2. The style of the movie
3. The Force-Skypes this time around
4. The lightsaber battles
5. The cameos
6. The fanservice (mostly)
7. JANNAH
8. The humor
9. The bantering of the trio
10. The music
11. Rey Palpatine

What I disliked
1. Palpatine
2. Reylo (it still reads like an abusive relationship to me)
3. The plot
4. The Knights of Ren were WASTED
5. Sith Troopers were WASTED (although I don't think anyone expected them to do much...)
6. Rey Palpatine
7. Too much crammed into one movie
8. No true ending for Finn and Poe (Jannah got a good ending though, so props!)
9. No truly memorable dialogue for me
10. Themes that feel flat.

 

Likes:
- Incredible use of all living legacy characters
- Some of the most moving moments in the saga (Leia's death, Rey/Kylo, Threepio's memory)
- Satisfying amount of lightsaber action
- Excellent sound design
- The sheer amount of plot developments made it very fun
- Daisy and Adam's performances along with Ian McDiarmid, Anthony Daniels and others
- The reintroduction of original trilogy planets into the story, which was done very organically
- The new crazy aliens were dialed down a lot, they didn't pull 40 species of aliens out of nowhere like TFA and TLJ.
- The humanisation of Rey, who is now likeable again
- Poe and Zorri's dynamic together was great

Dislikes:
- Crashing randomly in the desert, getting sucked into the sand and coincidentally ending up where Luke was and finding the dagger? Very contrived and video gamey.
- Many lines of dialogue fell flat, where they should have been punchy and potentially iconic.
- Klaud
- Too many star destroyers, and who is manning them? Too illogical really.
- Palpatine was not established enough, a literal breakdown or explanation of his survival was needed.
- Kylo's initial reaction to Palpatine was strange, pointing his lightsaber at his throat and barely caring about what he could get out of him. This undermined the threat and power of new big bad.
- Whatever your opinion is on the character, the lack of Rose just wasn't right. I feel bad for Kelly.
- The lack of Anakin
- The complete lack of Obi Wan being referenced in any form (2 second voice cameos don't count)
- The Emperor died way too easily.

 

Likes
1. The film felt like real effort was put towards giving the fans something satisfying. Not mystery boxes, not subversion, actual satisfaction. Could also be considered Pure Chewing Satisfaction depending on how old you are.
2. When Rey handed Ben the lightsaber behind her back.
3. When Ben did the Han Solo shrug/smile after getting the lightsaber from Rey.
4. When Rey and Ben ignited the Luke/Leia's lightsabers together.
5. How force powers were BACK and there were new ones! (I don't want to get into a TLJ discussion, but it felt like the film largely forgot that force powers existed. Force Skype was awesome though.)
6. The entire sequence with the saber duel amidst the crashing waves, Leia's intervention, the resurrection of Ben Solo, and Ben's conversation with his memory of Han.
7. Rey actually had real, tangible moments of struggle and darkness. That's what makes a character interesting in my opinion.
8. #Reylo. Sue me.
9. New and old characters were given as much screen time as I felt they needed. I would see a stand-alone Zorri Bliss movie I love how they resisted taking her mask off!! Ever since the Toby McGuire spidey films Hollywood is obsessed with putting actors in cool masks and then taking them off as quickly as possible. I know, I know, it helps connect humans to see faces, but.... yea. I prefer characters stay in costume so to speak.
10. I'm going to have a very hard time coming up with the list of dislikes. And that means a lot to me

...I could seriously list a few dozen more.


Dislikes
1. "Rey ..... Skywalker." The moment the title of this film was released I told my wife that it would end exactly that way. Although I didn't think Rey was a Palpatine; I just thought she would go from having no family name to adopting that one. But, in my opinion, other than Rey being the main character and Skywalker being the main surname of the franchise, it doesn't make any sense at all for her to take that name.
2. The Knight of Ren could have been used more deeply, but, at least they were used!! I'm sure they will make for a great graphic novel someday.
3. I don't really understand why Kylo would have a new ship. The Silencer was awesome and even though the Whisper is also sweet, they didn't really do anything with it and so it seems like an obvious attempt to create new merch.
4. I wish the final blow against Palps was Kylo and Rey together. But I get it, Rey is the star.
5. Woulda been cool if Ben was also there as a force ghost at the end.

(I'm already really stretching to come up with things I didn't like)

6. ermmm, uhhh. Would have been neat to give Luke a little extra moment of shine just to make people feel better about his "failure" overall.

(sitting.... thinking......)

(.....still thinking......)

7. Oh, when Lando is talking to Jannah at the end that was really confusing. Part of me was like "is he hitting on her?" and then part of me was like "is that supposed to be his daughter?? cuz that'd be insane." and then I was like "are they gonna travel together? why would they do that? Why would she leave her group of former Stormtroopers for some wrinkly she just met??" It better not be because they just assume black people would rather live with a stranger that was black as opposed to their lifelong friends of other colors.

aaaand that's it. I'm sure if I spent more time I would think of a few more nitpicks but, I've spent enough time on this task for now.

 

I will post only the likes (the dislikes will come with the time):

1 - CP30.
2 - All the Luke forceghost scenes.
3 - Babu frik
4 - Rey's character, best of the sequels.
5 - Han and Kylo scene.
6 - Flashback of Luke and Leia trainning
7 - The "fight" of Ben and Rey for the vessel with Chewie "inside".
8 - Rey adopting the Skywalker family name.
9 - All Leia scenes (what was real and what was improve by CGI, hard to tell?)
10 - The quest of Kylo for Exegol and Palpatine.

 

Likes:

1. Ian McDiarmid as Sheev Palpatine. It felt as if he hadn't skipped a beat since 2005, and you can tell he was, once again, enjoying himself.
2. Palpatine's "Final Order" being a separate faction that the First Order higher ups weren't confident in at first was an interesting idea.
3. Lightsaber duels in this were easily the best in the sequel trilogy, with only one exception.
4. Audio mixing was stellar, with some moments being carried by the sounds of their environments rather than just John Williams' score. The fight on the ruins of the Death Star II in particular was an experience, as the sounds of crashing waves shook the seats in the theater.
5. The ways in which JJ expanded on the Force bond between Rey & Kylo were pretty creative at times.
6. The film looks absolutely stunning from beginning to end.
7. Kylo Ren's arc, while maybe a tad more predictable this time around, was thoroughly enjoyable and genuinely touching at times.
8. An entire stadium of Sith cultists actually chanting the mysterious vocals used for certain tracks in the prequel trilogy put a big dumb grin on my face.
9. The John Williams cameo.
10. Zorii Bliss is awesome, I just wish she was in the movie more.

Dislikes:

1. No offense to the great maestro himself, but The Rise of Skywalker's soundtrack is probably the weakest within the franchise as a whole. Much of the film recycled tracks from the past two trilogies, often without the context to justify doing so. Much of the soundtrack is painfully slow and lacks the emotion or energy of the Prequel and Original soundtracks. I am genuinely disappointed that this is the soundtrack Williams retires from the franchise with.
2. Finn mentions wanting to tell Rey something a few times in the film, but is never actually brought up again, making it pointless and really shouldn't have made it into the final cut of the film.
3. The film's pacing is a high octane fueled mess that doesn't know when to slow down. Some character moments in the film were genuinely great but weren't given enough time before the heroes are off running to the next plot point.
4. The Knights of Ren were pointless and could've easily been replaced by some form of Storm Trooper. I'd have been more forgiving if their only action sequence wasn't them just getting destroyed by Kylo. The moments where they do do something mostly occur off screen, and nothing in the film really convinced me they were much of a threat. They just kind of stood around striking poses, and that was it. Pointless concept that could've had potential.
5. The fight between Rey and her Force-vision doppelganger was a literal eyesore to watch, and has the messiest editing of any lightsaber duel, regardless of length, in the franchise.
6. The way in which the Sith dagger points to the wayfinder in the wreckage of the Death Star II was way too silly for me.
7. Rey being a Palpatine isn't the worst idea, but it also felt somewhat forced.
8. The only Force ghosts showing up at the end being Luke & Leia. This is the last film in the clumsily named "Skywalker Saga", and at the very least Ben should've been there in the same way Anakin appeared to Luke alongside Yoda and Obi-wan at the end of RotJ. A seriously missed opportunity if ever there was one. Never mind how Yoda, Obi-wan and Qui-gon kind of got the shaft.
9. While I understand they needed Leia to have a role in the story, the use of unused footage from TFA felt very awkward. Like you could tell the actors were talking to a recording of someone giving lines for an entirely different scene with different context. It's the best they could do given the circumstances, but it was still just really weird.
10. Rose getting sidelined was a major disappointment for me. I know the character wasn't universally loved, but it seems ridiculous that a character that played a major role in the last film does next to nothing and barely has any interaction with Finn this time around.

 

The things I loved about this movie are almost too numerous to mention, so let's stick with the things I was more concerned by
- The ways that the Force got used in this movie; I had to turn off my brain and just 'go with the flow' while I was watching, but honestly Abrams really stretched believe-ability with all of the new things that people were able to do using the Force here

- I'm 99.9 percent sure that the Imperial Stormtroopers who killed Owen and Beru in A New Hope also torched the homestead, so it should've been a burnt husk when Rey went there at the end of the movie

 

The most impressive to me was the ability to pass some objects trough the force.
First a hint with the necklace and then with the saber.

PS. RJ started that in TLJ but I think his ideas were more ambiguous and symbolics.
JJ took these ideas and made it real, physical.

 

^ And that's the biggest thing I had to just 'turn off my brain' for and just go with while watching the movie.

 

Well, don't forget, even in TLJ things were physically tangible and transferable through Force Skype. Kylo had the water on his hand and Kylo/Rey were able to feel each other's hands.

 

But for me RJ's ideas for theses scenes were always symbolic.

 

Likes:

Chewie - the reaction to Poe damaging the Falcon, to seeing Lando, to Leia's passing, him receiving a medal - loved how TROS treated him
Rey - finally challenged, finally failure and hardship; any notion of Marie Sue discarded; always liked her, now even more
Epilogue - respectful to Luke & Leia, and Rey having her own double-bladed lightsaber in Jakku-yellow - wonderful
Han - great scene! Was very happy to see him in the final piece of the saga
The whole exploration part - wayfinders and daggers, symbols and secret language, Sith ruins.... very Indiana Jones-y. Liked it a lot!
Character chemistry - Poe, Finn and Rey are wonderful together!
Threepio - great scenes whenever he appeared
Zori and Babu - excellent new characters on a very interesting location
Luke and Leia - good to see Luke having a positive influence on Rey, and Leia was handled well
The humour! Subtle and in character - loved it


Dislikes:

Runtime was too short
Palpatine felt off... hard to describe, and I'm not sure whether it was his voice or something else
Luke's role was too small
Some of the Force powers felt over the top
Hux - I understand they couldn't go back to TFA Hux after he became General Hugs in TLJ... somewhere between pathetic and comedic
Knights of Ren - found them underused, still. Felt as intimidating as regular stormtroopers to me
No Nien/ Lando reunion
Artoo - hardly present
My mind not comprehending how the quicksand didn't fall into the tunnels
Black Squadron wasn't there

 

lulz. That confounded me too. Oh well, the quicksand and my disbelief will remain forever suspended!!

 

Likes:
1. The middle part of the movie, especially the way the Kylo Ren-Rey relationship was handled.
2. The way Han Solo was worked in as a memory of sorts rather than another lame resurrection (see below).
3. Chewbacca finally got his medal.
4. The Lando scenes were generally handled pretty well.

Dislikes about Palpatine (everything)
1. Palpatine shouldn't have been brought back. It's become like comic books...they kill off characters, but then resurrect them again and again because the writers can't let go. It shows a complete lack of creativity and guts. Show some courage...kill off characters and leave them dead! Create some new characters! Why didn't they develop Snoke more instead? Betcha that Palpatine will be resurrected again in the next sequels set further in the future.
2. If they were going to bring Palpatine back, we needed an explanation. Lame.
3. Ian McDiarmid's acting was one of the highlights of the prequels. He gave Palpatine depth and subtlety. So why did they portray Palpatine as a one-dimensional, B-list comic book villain? "Bwahaha, I will kill you all!" What a waste of talent.
4. Palpatine using force-lightning against tens of thousands of ships at once? Please. If he's that good, why didn't he just do that in the earlier movies? Hell, who needs a fleet of 1,000 planet-destroying Imperial Cruisers...just force-lightning 1,000 planets at once too! Lame.
5. Why was Palpatine surrounded by tens of thousands of chanting Sith? What happened to the Rule of Two? The whole thing felt like a third rate teenage quasi-occult scare-me movie with the low-voice chanting.
6. Rey as Palpatine's granddaughter? I was expecting maybe they would say that she had been force-created by Palpatine like Anakin was by (probably) Darth Plagueis. But Palpatine's natural offspring? And with no explanation? What were her parents doing when the original series was going on? Lame.

Dislikes about other things:
7. People complained that the prequels had too much politics and not enough action, but this was action scene after action scene with no breathing room for development. An overreaction to the criticism of the prequels.
8. The celebration at the end...people complain about the Ewok celebration at the end of ROTJ, but this one dragged on about 3 times as long and was completely syrupy.
9. Like episodes 7 & 8, this had too many stereotypical Disney/comic book movie moments. Such preachy platitudes. "We're all in this together." Says every good guy in every good vs evil Disney move in the last two decades.
10. Abrams got criticized for recycling the Death Star thing in episode 7. So what does he do here? Recycle with yet another planet-killing weapon. Plus recycle the whole Attack of the Clones hidden army idea. Plus recycle the whole treasure-map, put together the clues and find Luke thing from episode 7. Plus recycle Palpatine showing Luke his friends losing a battle. Another indication that he had no original ideas.
11. Kylo Ren throwing away his light saber in the sea and Rey burying her two was such an obvious set up for the next series. Talk about recycling...Rey just found a dagger under quicksand, and in the next series, the writers are already committed to finding her light sabers...in the sand.
12. The kiss at the end. Are you kidding me? If you want to write a love story, then develop it. Han-Leia was developed over three movies in the original series. Don't have a kiss completely out of nowhere. And people thought George Lucas couldn't write a love story...there WAS no love story preceding this kiss.
13. They hinted throughout the sequels that Finn was force sensitive, but went absolutely nowhere with it. Or maybe went backwards with it, since at least he picked up a light saber in episode 7.
14. The name. The Rise of Skywalker? What? Oh, Rey is taking on a new name? That was cheesy.
15. We've all heard it before...part of the appeal of the Force in the original series was that it was mystical. People criticize Lucas (rightly) for making the Force too "scientific" in the prequels with the midichlorian thing. But this series, and this movie especially, trivialized the Force as nothing more than a collection of comic book powers. No spiritual dimension or mysticism to it at all.

As you can tell, I really, really didn't like this movie (despite some good writing in the middle part), especially the ending. Episode 7 was OK (despite the recycled Death Star and despite Rey becoming so powerful with no training way too fast), but 8 and 9 were disappointments.

 

It was explained during the movie. He was brought back because of the cloning technology, rituals of the sith, some kind of witchery stuff.

But I'm with you, I guess. Maybe JJ could've thought about something more original.

 

Likes

1 Humour
2 3PO
3 Chewie
4 Opening montage of Kylo’s quest
5 Kylo and Rey in the desert
6 Death Star
7 Lightspeed skipping
8 Hux and Pryde
9 Luke
10 Han, and Ben’s turning
11 The development of force connection
12 Kylo’s quarters
13 Rey Skywalker and the slide down the sand callback to TFA. (Rey likes sand. The circle is now complete)


Didn’t like so much

1. Palpatine reduced to an exposition dispenser
2. Strobe effects etc virtually obliterating McDiarmid’s performance.
3 Lack of Hux and Pryde
4 Didn’t think that keeping the characters together worked as well as them being apart did in TLJ
5 Ben’s lack of lines in the final act and non reappearance as a ghost before the end
6 The navigation beacon plot thing
7 General lack of an impression of the galaxy wide uprising hinted at by the final shots of T L J, until the cavalry of “people” showed up.

 

Palpatine's survival and the Lord underpinning it was worked out with the direct co-operation of George Lucas and is absolutely justifiable within the context of mythological and thematic narrative structure.