Your Opinion Post-TROS

The Rise of Skywalker makes The Last Jedi better because it builds on what TLJ did while also recontextualizing the risks that TLJ took with its narrative structure in some fun and interesting ways.

 

TROS for me just highlighted the inherent flaws of TLJ, and the whole trilogy. It’s now evidently disjointed and clear there was no plan.

Palpatine back since Snoke was killed and Bendemption became a thing. Rose sidelined, and yet again no real arc for Finn. Luke back to his old self, with JJ suddenly «fixing» the lightsaber toss. Rey as a «insert last name of force user» after all.
The film had to rush through the plot to build up a story, while it really should just focus on concluding the middle movie. In my opinion TLJ left to little to build on as the middle entry, too few mysteries and cliffhangers, and little actual plot advancement considering the runtime. The character development had focus, and most of it was lacking or neglected in TROS.

JJ had to create a whole new central plot including a new antagonist. Done in a way that makes TROS invalidate both the chosen one prophecy, and the OT. Still blame that on TLJ though.

 

This is ridiculous. You are literally blaming TLJ for problems in other movies now. Good grief.

 

It made me TLJ enjoy even more, as I consider it the best of Sequel Trilogy now...
So far, we have Episode 7 - rehash introductory movie, Episode 8 - original movie with memorable scenes and striking visuals (I almost shat myself when Supermacy exited the hyperspace in cinema) and Episode 9 - The Rise of Damage Control.

If they had planned some overal start to finish from the start and then worked in those boundaries, it would be so much better.
I haven't expected to walk out of cinema after seeing Episode IX and thinking, well that was fun but what the Blast with this and that?
And A New Hope Star Destroyers with cannon that can make explode a planet or the exact star destroyer based on input, didn't help.

I am like Kylo Ren with this, I have enjoyed Episode IX and at the same time, there were aspects that I hated and have to explain them to myself head-canon wise based on the Visual Dictionary.

In the end then:
Episode 7 - I did like, it was surreal to see continuation of SW after the alleged ending. Was a rehash, the designs weren't pushed further, but it was clearly a sequel and set up some mysteries.
Episode 8 - after being afraid of ESB rehash that had one parentage plot twist, this movie was basically a dozen of plot twists and great cinematography, except for the Canto Bight sidequest BUT! This sidequest complimented the bigger storyline of Luke, Kylo and Rey about making mistakes and learning from them and gave us great aliens and nice escape from the blackness of the space run. I did lvoe the movie in cinema, tough left me uninterested in IX, because Resistance was defeated, Kylo Supreme Leader and all the storylines from TFA were kind of finished.
Episode 9 - I did like, but! Some more info or hint about the Sith magic that brought back Palpatine would be nice, this is not a side story like Solo, where you can put in Darth Maul and say hey, watch the Clone Wars! They could have add to the crawl, that Ren is looking for the wayfinder on MUSTAFAR as well!!! The film felt kind of rushy, but storywise, I did like it.
I didn't like the designs tough... Exegol was great but, you do build Star Destroyers based on outdated designs and call it Final Order, when the First Order that came before has clearly more advanced designs? And planet killing weapons on all of them with simple exploitable flaw? Even tough Visual Dictionary says that there were shipyards on Exegol, the destroyers simplay appear out of the ground, like Yamato in Space Battleship Yamato, magic-like.
Final battle being mess of reused assets, things flying all over the screen, nothing memorable.
When you do new designs, like the Sith Eternal (being just pinheads doing mexican waves like the audience at the podrace) and having new royal guards, you don't show them! Episode IX was the most dissatisfying more me. Also, the Visual Dictionary is missing a lot of things and the soundtrack in the movie is different and better than the official releasem that is missing lot of music.

But, even tough Episode IX was visually bad, I have liked the lighstpeed skipping, as it was probably the only memorable scene visually. Story I liked and think that it played well and complemented TLJ.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 20, 2020, Original Post Date: Jan 20, 2020 ---

One more thing... I really don't get that: They had to add Leia training as a Jedi, to explain her Mary Poppins spacewalk...
Well, that scene was added to get a little backstory to Leia's lightsaber, but being surprised by Leia's force powers in 8 (and 7 in that matter)
after knowing that she is daughter of Anakin and lot of EU before making her basically Jedi - What the hell?!

Or Luke retconning lightsaber throwing by catching it - I think that was a nice thing as he aknowledged being wrong before and dissilusioned by the Jedi, his story came full circle and I liked Luke's whole arc in ST. It made sense and made Luke interesting.
It just didn't pleased fans that wanted Jedi God and found normal and believable human being that did a really powerful jedi trick at the end,
but yeah, it wasn't that badass Luke, looking same as he did on Death Star II 30 years later (because force botox) and marrying redhead chick, that wanted to kill him... I liked Mara in Thrawn trilogy but after that the EU went crazy.

 

The Rise of Skywalker definitely improved my opinion of The Last Jedi...but, to be fair, I already thought it was pretty good!

 

The same but I already love The Last Jedi to a degree that leaves little room for improvement but I'm happy for those that Rise helped enjoy it more.

I wish Johnson had done the whole thing from acorn to leaf, I think he is the best director in the franchise beating out young George Lucas and Irving Kershner.

JJ is maybe the best hack in the business but a hack nonetheless but better able to get quality performance than older GL by a longshot who I honestly feel in the end felt actors are a necessary evil. He was still a maestro of non-human elements but really struggled or flat didn't even care about performances anymore.

Marquand seems like he had more of a TV director role while Lucas was the "show runner".

 

Ok time to be shot at

Thought it was cack to start with. Still think it's cack now. Highly amusing watching JJ paddling backwards furiously in a canoo, trying to rectify the mess.

 

I was disappointed in TFA. It was alright to me but didn't feel like Star Wars to me. since then I haven't seen any of the new movies other then Rogue One (which I liked) It wasn't until I watched The Mandalorian that my passion for Star Wars returned.

 

The Last Jedi is still the pinnacle of all SW movies thus far.

TROS did not affect that in any way whatsoever. Although, it did make me appreciate TFA slightly more.

I have spoken.


"Ride the Tide"

-SOAS

 

After ep IX, I wished JJ directed ep VIII ... But what is done is done.

 

I don't think it changed a lot for me.

TROS wrapped up a lot of the TLJ plotlines in a way that I more or less expected.

Maybe the biggest surprise was Rey's lineage, but I did at least expect that it was more complicated than TLJ led on.

 

TROS made me appreciate TLJ more, from a certain point of view...

If you're locked in a room with five dead skunks and then you move into a room with twenty dead skunks, you look back at the room with only five dead skunks with new appreciation.

 

I said that TROS made me appreciate it more. But that's primarily because of the Rey and Ren arcs, and because their stories were carried directly into the next film. TLJ was the catalyst for many of the changes that overcame both of them. But in a strange way, I consider the two films to be a a 'set' that compliment each other. I mean I think I could read the wikipedia entry for TFA and not miss anything in TLJ. But I could not skip the TLJ and watch TROS without appreciating or understanding why certain characters behave the way they and choices they make. An entry or a verbal recap of the films does not capture the nuance.

 

I voted that my opinion didn't change, but I have some thoughts about it now that I have seen TROS a couple of times. I am a big fan of TLJ, and was a big fan of Rey not being related to anyone important in the star wars universe. I found it really interesting, beautiful and a fitting choice for Rey's arc after TFA. Nothing negative to say about this plot point. But it is kind of wierd seeing it again, now that we have the whole picture.

On one hand, I would have prefered if Rey wasn't related to anyone special, and think they should have stuck to this version of her backstory. It was definitely possible to make episode 9 without changing Rey's lineage, and I would have prefered that. I usualy try to avoid complaining about specific plot points, but it kind of bothers me that TROS changed how I look at the revelation in TLJ. With that said, I still adore TLJ, and like TROS. And i think the strongest message in Rey's story still is that she has to find her place in the universe without looking to her family. It just gets recontextualized to her having to reject the path her bloodline represents and making a choice to be good, and that is as Star Wars as it gets. And her taking the Skywalker name was exactly what I wanted in the end.

 

See, I still think of Rey as a nobody even though she’s related to Palpatine. Luke is introduced in 1977 as someone who was apart of the main story (even though it was given a new context in 1980). Leia was apart of the story as royalty and a main player in the rebellion and was given a new context in 1983. They were somebody in the story from the start so that transition to Skywalker was an easy transition.

Rey was introduced as truly no one in TFA so I’ll always see her from those beginning shots on Jakku. Yes she’s a Palpatine but she was never integrated into the story for THAT reason unlike Luke/Leia were in ANH.

I guess my point is Rey never had any intimate scenes with Palpatine the way Luke/Vader had in ROTJ where you could feel their connection. So it’s sort of the best of both worlds for me. I love the Rey Palpatine revelation because I think it ties the Saga together better, yet I still see her as Rey Nobody or Rey Skywalker.

I hope that makes sense?

 

I think that's the way I see it too.

 

Furthermore Luke was scared about being Vader's son and he was questioning himself, while the reveal of Rey's lineage had no real effect on her. At least she wasn't bothered by it that long.

 

that... She did go straight to the dark when Luke was training her in TLJ but in Tros... I was hoping the reveal would at least has a somewhat similar effect on her, but nothing.

 

In many ways she would have had to be connected to Palpy. Because it's used as the allusion as to where she is getting this tremendous dark power from. If she had not been related to Palpy they would have had to connect her to some other character and it would have introduced another convoluted story line that had to be explained. Even if you wanted to say she was just born with it, then you would have to gloss over her childhood trauma of being abandoned and her suffering. Also as anyone who has followed and loved the character for the 3 films knows that, Rey's greatness lies not in her powers or her bloodline. But her character, he choices, her resilience. That's all hers and something which she developed on her own. Her grandfather preyed on and manipulated others. She didn't. you can say she inherited kindness and responsibility from her parents. But she still had a choice in the type of person she became.


Please note have Rey being a Palpatine does not change or detract from Johnson's argument that anyone can have force power. Although it was never spelled out Finn clearly has it. And he's a nobody.

 

Good point! I think TLJ and TROS actually work together a lot better than TROS got credit for in the reviews. A lot of "retcon" and "course correction" arguments have been thrown around, and I would say some of it is unjust. But I see where they come from.