"Somehow, Palpatine..."

None of her predecessors tried to offer Palpatine another way. No Jedi every thought that showing compassion to Palpatine was a viable strategy.

At no point in this entire saga is it ever faintly suggested that there is a chance to offer Palpatine a way out,

No. Luke was being tortured to death until Vader unceremoniously killed the Emperor to prevent it from happening. Without offering him compassion or a way out.

Luke never offered a villain a way out of anything before delivering the final blow.

Nothing about Palpatine echoes anything regarding any other character in this entire saga. Apart from Dooku and Snoke also using force lightning.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 2, 2022, Original Post Date: Dec 2, 2022 ---

Tell us one example from the saga where the Jedi showed compassion for the enemy instead. And I don't mean a Jedi showing compassion for his saintly Jedi father he's been told is trapped inside this Vader person since he was seduced by the Empror.

Vader was just an Imperial heavy who made a much bigger impact than Lucas imagined. In 1980, Lucas decided to combine Vader with Luke's saintly martyred father. It's because of this paradox, of already having an image of his father being such a good person, that Luke was able or willing to show compassion for Vader. Not out of any basci Jedi trait of showing sympathy for the devil. Of which there are zero examples.

He already had a relationship with the dead father he idolised and wanted to emulate. Then he discovered Vader was his father and transferred that affection on to Vader. There's nothing in the narrative of the previous eight and a half movies that justifies Rey transferring her affection on to Palpatine at the end of TROS.

Because he'd been told previously what a good man his father was. And how we ceased to be Anakin and became Vader. None of that applies to Palpatine. But you want it applied in the last half an hour of Palpatine's appearance in the saga.

None of this stuff applies to Palpatine. The saga has gone out of its way to depict Palpatine as having none of the saving graces or extenuating circumstances that allow Vader to credibly be offered compassion.

She has no such relationship with the clone of her grandfather how hunted down and murdered her parents. So there's zero narrative justification for her offering Clone palpatine him a way out.

And it was split over two movies. You're saying that the ending of one movie doesn't work because they don't show Rey offering compassion for someone the saga has not provided any credible justification for sympathising with. Unlike other characters.

Are we just ignoring the prequel movies that showed Anakin trying to be a good Jedi and being misguided? Convenient.

The literally express concerns and then immediately hand wave them away because they still believe Anakin is the chose one,

They could have done a lot of things you wanted them to do. But they were interested in doing what they wanted instead.

They, like almost all the audience, knew that there has been zero preparation or justification provided in the last eight movies that made a policy of appeasement, compassion and bargaining with Palpatine seem a remote possibility or preferable to anything else.

It would have been a perverse choice for the final act of the last movie in a saga where there is zero groundwork for the Palpatine character having sympathetic people offering him a way out of his implacable ambition to rule the galaxy and consume it with darkness.

This is not a someone. This is not a real person (as you're fond of pointing out) that we're talking about. This is the devil. A person depicted as having no redeeming features. Not even a hint at a past life that was redeemable. Like Vader and Kylo.

If it's the devil in a fantasy story where the alternative was the galaxy being ruled over by darkness or destroyed. Yes I get a vicarious thrill from that in movies. It's why they make these films. I imagine you got a thrill the first time you saw Luke blow up the death star killing thousand and thousands of imperials on board.

Semantics. There's no difference. If you present an argument then you are arguing for, or against, something. If you have an argument then you're doing the same thing. What exactly is wrong with having an argument anyway?

You sarcastically called Rey "MY HERO!!!" because she, you claimed, saw Palpatine's face in the final second of his life and didn't care that it looked horrific.



They had eight films to establish that Palpatine had a relationship with someone that allowed them to see the potential for redemption. That suggested there was justification for offering him compassion. Instead, the saga has done the opposite of that for the past forty years. But the ending doesn't land because it didn't ignore all that has come before, everything we have been told and shown about Palpatine, and have Rey unduly show sympathy for him and his face. And not when it was a practical solution mind you. At the moment when he's head is coming apart and it's too late to offer him anything except an ashtray to keep his face in.

It's not the ending of TROS that doesn't exploit what you say are the themes it needs, regarding Palpatine's death. It's virtually the entire saga as it pertains to Palpatine.

What you're asking for is the entire original trilogy pertaining to Luke and Vader to be repeated with Rey and Palpatine and condensed into one act of one film. A relationship which contradicts everything we've been told about Palpatine from the eight movies prior. The only justification for Rey treating Palpatine like Luke treated Vader (as did Obi Wan for a while) is if Palpatine was like Vader. Palpatine is nothing like Vader and there is no suggestion from any quarter of this whole saga that he can be viewed that way.

Spoiler: It bears repeating

 

Yes, that is really well done. Some fan edits are better than the finished films....

 

I call BS on the "SoMehOW PaLPaTiNe REtUrnEd" complaint. No one batted an eye at this scene:

In fact, people gushed over it. Palpatine's return, besides being explained in the GD opening act, is just an extension of something Lucas himself wrote. Lucas created the idea of it (technically he stole it from that terrible old comic, but he introduced it into the movies, which is where it counts). I guarantee you Lucas could have made the same call (Palpatine returning) and anyone complaining about him coming back. Criticism of his return is nothing more than anti-Disney sentiment.

 

Or just people gobsmacked by how Palpatine came back, killed off all the Skywalkers, and left behind an heir ...when the heroes....didn't.

 

Please answer this question honestly and I’ll be comfortable leaving this topic with you as the incontestable victor. If Vader wasn’t Luke’s father, would it still be wrong to finish him the way the Emperor wanted?

 

I can't think of any scenario where it wouldn't be wrong for Luke to do anything the way Darth Sidious wanted him to.

 

Have it your way.

 

Yeah, gobsmacked. Ok.

 

Ah...good old Sheev.
The original Opera Ghost....

 

Never really had a problem with that line from Poe. We don't need Poe giving a blow-by-blow account of how Palpatine returned ahead of basically a mission briefing/debriefing.

I think my issue was always basically handling Palpatine's return in the crawl, It just felt rushed and not earned. The issue was simply that they needed a villain for the last film as they wanted to redeem Kylo/Ben, Snoke was dead and Hux was more of a comedy character and not a threat to force users. So they went with Palpatine, but then equally they didn't want to make the film about Palpatine returning, they wanted it to still be about Rey and Ben, so they just bit the bullet and went Palpatine's back... moving on. In fairness, this does give the film more time to dwell on Rey and Kylo/Ben but I have to admit the first 5 minutes do give you a bit of plot whiplash.

 

Bruce Willis having been dead the whole time was plot whiplash.
Kaiser Sozé was plot whiplash.
Darth Vader being Luke's father was plot whiplash.

Bringing back a long dead villain seemingly on a whim or a dare because you can't invent a real bad guy... that's something other. If JJ could convince anyone that he had this planned all along...

 

I think episodes I-VI established quite definitively that Palpatine was the real bad guy. It would have been weird if they invented another, real, real bad guy (which Snoke never was, let's be honest)just to add a trilogy on to the saga.

 

Films or shows featuring Comic book superheroes or sci-fi/fantasy settings often fail when it comes to creating compelliing villians. When they nail it -- like with Darth Vader, Hannibal Lector, or Heath Ledger's Joker -- the films become instant classics. For all the hoopla surrounding Luke, Han, and Leia in the original Star Wars, the character most responsible for making it a blockbuster world-wide hit was Darth Vader voiced by James Earl Jones.

Coming out with a brand new trilogy, I'd hoped we see a new, hold-on-to-your-theatre-seat Baddie. When I heard he'd be an Andy Serkis-acted creation, I got really intrigued. But.....alas, Snoke was rather 'eh.' I'd hoped RJ would flesh out his 'Big Badness' in the second film, but instead he--stunningly--killed him off.

For me, this is one of the reasons the ST films as a whole didn't work. The whole point of a three film trilogy is to slowly lead up to a grand finale payoff where the Big Baddie is finally destroyed (Sauron in LOTR, Palpatine in OT, etc.) If Palpatine had been predetermined to be the Big Bad again in the STs (which we know he wasn't), then all three films should have all built up to the final confrontation---and THAT, IMO, could have been really cool.

I just think Star Wars lends itself to SO MANY incredible Big Baddies. Speaking of awesome baddies, the other frustrating thing about Star Wars is when it produces an AWESOME live-action baddie like Darth Maul or Cad Bane---they kill them off WAY too soon. Grrrrrrrrrr!

 

That's actually what causes the problem.

With my writing colleague I've spent the past few years with (in a sort of Lucas/Kasdan sort of manner back and forth), I kept reminding what I call the "narrative boomerang effect". For example, Travis (as is his name) would say something like, "Well, why would they say that (a plot motivator)? Wouldn't they instead ask about this (something any person in their shoes would naturally want to know, but that the audience already does know)?"

And I would remind of the boomerang effect. The point is, the audience already knows something so the character can't say something the audience already knows even if they don't because the narrative has to follow the audience's mind more than anything else. In retrospect, after watching the movie and having time to think, sure, they'll sit and say, "Hey, that doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't that character <fill in the blank>?"

However, during the movie (especially the first time through), they won't. They'll be thinking about that other thing that the character is touching on instead.

Let's get more specific instead of abstract.

John's run to get a needed car part to fix the get-away car to make it work properly. It'll work without the part, but at depreciated functionality. While he's out, complications happen that prevent him from getting the part, but also now he's found out that someone he cares about has been kidnapped and is in transit. He has little time to get caught up to them and save the person he cares about. He dashes back and Mark, the mechanic awaiting the part, is there. John runs up to him and drills him,
John: "Does the car run?"
Mark: "Well, yeah, sort of. I mean, once the part's in-"
John: "We'll do without it."
Mark: "What? It can't top 40 without it!"
John: "We'll do without it!"

And they rush off.

Now, in a real-world logic, Mark would almost always stop and say, "Hang on, where's the part? What's going on?". Basically anything. And then John would have to stop and fill him in.

But the audience already knows this and so it's boring information. Instead, Mark's line is "boomeranging" off of the audience's knowledge - we don't have the part because John ran into trouble, and the important bit the audience wants to know is - oh, if John uses this car, what's the complication it sets up?

So, no one cares in the middle of all that.

Flip this around and you have the inverse where it's a problem. Characters talking to characters about things the characters would reasonably do, but that have nothing to do with where the audience's mind is.

For instance: Palps is back in town. How? "Somehow".
Well, okay. That's fine for the characters given their situation and completely reasonable, but to the audience's minds at that moment aren't in the same place as the character's minds. Because the question was asked, "How?", Everyone's mind is now on, "How?"
And, "Somehow", just says, "Oh, um. Pause that thought. We'll (the movie) come back to that."

That's the cinematic value anytime any character on screen explains something as, "Somehow".
It boomerangs to the audience, who wants to know, and says, "Oh, we'll learn later".

Case in point, Indiana Jones's famously made-up plans which are preceded by things like, "I don't know, I'm making this up as I go". Or, "I'll think of something".

Those are all cinematic pauses of exposition (exposition is not a dirty word - it's only a dirty word when the exposition is boring and pretty much stuff everyone either could have done without or already knew... heist movies live off of exposition).

They rely on eventually getting an answer. It doesn't have to be said, like in Indy where it's shown what his "plan" evolves into, but it has to be given.
The weakest version of responding to boomerang conversations like this is through subtlety.

The reason is because, well... look. I like people in general, but most of the audience was confused by the first Mission Impossible movie. And that's not really that complicated of a movie plot.

It's basic magic show ethics. If you bring it up, then it's on you to bring it back around. That is, if you suggest that you put a card somewhere, then at some point the card has to show back up somewhere. You can delay the reveal as long as you like, but it has to show up eventually.

Explaining to characters what's good enough for characters because the characters have other pressing matters, but you ignore the conversation with the audience, it's a theatrical foul.

It's not a massive one. It happens a lot. A hell of a lot. But it's technically a foul here. It's relatively easy to fix with a line of dialogue or action somewhere that makes the otherwise very subtle "explanation" a bit more brought forward and straight out stated/shown.

Now, me personally? I didn't care about the technical of how Palps got back. I got it. I saw the mechanisms, the implications. Yep. Visual language of pictures. Moving on.

What actually bothered me, Poes line. That was painfully weak. More painful was the question being asked in the first place.
Man that was painful. I just sat there and thought, "Oh, come on... no... go the other way with that and you're fine!"

What do I mean? If the line had been along the lines of, "No! It can't be! He can't be back!"

And then moving on!

Better. Even better? Don't even bother! Shove all of the "They're mounting a massive attack" pressure on the info from Poe, leave Palps out of it as a revelation to the characters later when they face him. The audience mind right before that moment was mixed between, "Pressure's mounting against them and they need to get up and get moving" and "Whoa, she's floating and floating rocks".

It was an unneeded third tangent. A woops. But even by bringing it up, fine. Whatever. Like I said, could be made to work by just flipping it from a question to a rejection and then a slap in the face from Poe, or whomever, that they can't deal with that right now.


But, eh. In the grand scheme it's not that big of a deal. I say all of this above and I don't think anything terrible about it.
Look, I made it through the 80's watching stuff like They Live, Superman, or Back to the Future.

Movies packed with, "Wait...hang on." breaks in logic if you stop and think about it. It doesn't truly matter. It's a woops. Screw it. S**t happens.
Everyone's so spoiled with "perfect" as an expectation now they don't seem to be able to take anything less than polished platinum.

Dial it back a bit and just let it be whatever. Silver Streak is a great fun movie full of cracks that make no sense.
And you know, so is the first Star Wars.

In the words of Frank Darabont (little things like Shawshank, Walking Dead, Green Mile), "The amazing thing about any movie is not whether it's good, but that it got made at all."

Folks think movies are so d**n easy, and they've become so very, very spoiled in a complete wash flood of media material that any small slip and BAM! They're all over it. Well, look. That's the way it is. There's a slip. Theatrically speaking, that's a slip. It could have been handled better, but it wasn't. Whatever.

It's not that big of a deal, in the grand scheme of things. The only real value in that slip up is if you're learning to write or make movies. Otherwise, put another movie on and enjoy yourself.

How about this one.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

This.

 

During and after the release of TFA, there was a lot of criticism about Snoke; he was referred to as a 'second rate Palpatine wannabe' by critics and fans alike.

I might be wrong, but I think it's one of the reasons Johnson got rid of him....and it seemed he was setting up the final conflict to be more like a clash between two military factions each lead by characters that were not entirely 'black or white.' He gave Kylo a sympathetic background, and made Poe a lot 'darker'...and Kylo's last scene had Hux watching him like a predator smelling blood, as if he was just waiting for the right moment to get rid of him.

 

Johnson never does things other than for what he sees as creating the best dramatic tension and punch (except easter eggs).

He's been very open about his whiole process, and he's no different on other movies.

If anything he's more the type who would hear you complain and then laugh and troll you harder with more of whatever that was.

Cheers,
Jayson