Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker General Movie Discussion

I don’t see how it’s toxic. A toxic relationship is a characterized by behaviors on the part of the toxic partner that are emotionally and, not infrequently, physically damaging to their partner. A toxic relationship is characterized by insecurity, self-centeredness, dominance, control. And that doesn’t happen between Rey and Ren. If you’re referencing the way he treats her at the end of TLJ. That was inexcusable. And Rey lets him know that:

She refuses him and walks away.

I think it’s far more ‘healthier’ to teach girls/boys that people are scarred and make mistakes. And that you will be hurt. Than model some Harlequin romance/Prince Charming type relationship that does not exist. It is far more healthier to show that people make mistakes and act out of pain. Than some perfect infallible human being.


People complain about how Ren treated her. But into TROS he does almost everything possible to protect her life. There’s also..

· He needed the information on the map, so she would have been interrogated regardless. He could easily have allowed the ST to rough her up (or worse). Instead he bridal carries her onto the ship.

· He did not hurt her during their first duel. Yes he was wounded, but he could have easily have defeated her.

· He addresses her in a polite and respectful manner.

· He made her face inconvenient truths about herself that she was wasting her potential, and her life by grieving about her parents who abandoned her.

· He chose her over Snoke and offered her a place to rule at his side.

· He dragged his feet on Palpatine’s instructions to kill her.

· Even his destruction of the wayfinder. Was less about her. Than it was to prevent her from racing to Exegol by herself and being defeated by Palpatine.

· And again he chooses her over the chance to rule the universe.

Just because he doesn’t ply her with diamonds and champagne and tell her he loves every five minutes does not mean that it does not constitute a wrong relationship. I actually found it more couched in reality.

Apart from the fact that Ren is essentially rough around the edges. I think that he intrinsically knows the moment he starts groveling for her and starts behaving like some dog on a leash. Is the moment she loses interest. I know women like Rey and they tend to like alpha males.



I was never a Reylo shipper from the start. But I really enjoyed the relationship between Rey and Ren. It was one of the few pop culture relationships where the pairing really works in that the pairing was combination of both friendship and romantic. They were truly partners. A Dyad.

 

It's toxic because a good friendship of any kind, even one with your own self, isn't one where you tear into someone in hopes of getting them to be with you as a person.

If someone, anyone, on this planet treated me for a minute the way Kylo treated Rey, in reality...I wouldn't be around them ever.
That's not a healthy person who understands how to treat people or relate to them.

And Rey, takes the entire series to get to a place that I would say is possibly healthy (hard to say, I'm going to assume she's there, but the story ends - so...I'll just assume so).
She spends the bulk of the time incapable of self-value and needing to do things for others to have self-value, or needing to have people to belong to to have self-value by the merit and value of the others in her proxy. While at the same time having a lack of conviction in her own self worth.

That's kind of the whole thrust of TLJ. That's where she finally finds her own two feet for the first time and doesn't depend on others for a self-definition of her value.
She slips in TROS with her test, but she refinds her footing by the end.

However, again, in real life? No. I don't have time for that.
Because in real life, a person who is an adult who's like that only has one way to get where they need to go - live some painful sh*t and complain and cry a lot about getting hurt along the way. They're going to need a lot from the people around them and I'm sorry, perhaps it's cold, but I'm not interested in being in that heavy of a one-way relationship where I'm constantly having to give someone their definition of self worth and value as they repeatedly get themselves into situations that cause them to doubt their value and think that they're just making things worse.

Neither are healthy people I would personally tell my kids, "yeah - go hang out with that person!"

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Yes. Agreed. And as I mentioned above, Kylo tried to bully Rey and she rejected him.

So you’re essentially telling me. That you need people to be perfect. If someone (heaven forbid) has an emotional breakdown or an outburst once. Then you’ve written them off as a human being?

Sorry, but I don’t follow the point of your argument. Which character in the ST behaves like this?

 

No. There's a wealth of grey area between a person who treats people terribly in like-fashion as Kylo treats Rey and a "perfect person" (which doesn't exist).

"And Rey..."

The point was about a person who needs to be valued by others to see value in their self, and doesn't have self worth independently but instead sees themselves as of fairly low self worth.
Now, not all such people are terrible - some are brilliant jewels of people, but a good chunk of such individuals are quite taxing individuals who - because they are not a character in a film which needs to complete their arc in 1 to 3 films - will likely take years to possibly decades (I know a good many who've been as Rey is in TFA and the first 2/3rds of TLJ for most of their life) to get to a point where they will have self value and self worth sufficient enough to not be constantly seeking to define it by getting it defined for them by others they befriend out of a need to be defined as having worth.

Which is what happens for Rey in the first film and a half - that's why the ending of TLJ is worth anything for her character arc. She learns to have self worth and not be reliant upon her worth and value being determined by whom she belongs to or rides with. She realizes that whom she rides with is a result of what she values - not the other way around. She can be a "no body" and have worth and value people because those people are people whom she favors because of her values. She goes from seeking to plead with Luke to help because she can't do anything, to running to help her friends in spite of being completely torn apart and convinced that she was a nobody.

At that point, at the end of TLJ, she becomes a good self valuing person - what everyone should aspire to.
And that's why she has to be a mess to begin with. Otherwise we don't have anything to talk about - she's just a flat cardboard cut out and that's not interesting for stories, nor does it help communicate the point.

But for reality?
Yeah, no...look - almost everyone goes through some version of this as a teenager, but if you're 30 some-odd years old and needing others to define your self worth to yourself, that's an entirely different matter. And the reality is that such a person would be highly likely to be really dysfunctional in relationships because, unlike a heroic movie character plagued with doubting their self-worth, such a person is likely going to overly read into things - for example, if you don't call them for a few days, or you don't invite them somewhere you and another friend go, this kind of person is likely going to see it as an indication of your value of them as a whole and feel sad and hurt, and then probably frustrated and angry, and then you'll likely have a fight about things only to end up explaining how much you value them and weren't attempting to hurt their feelings by not including them in whatever - etc....yada yada.

That's NOT what Rey does, that last bit, because it's a heroic epic tale and not a show on the CW network (if Rey's character were on the CW, that's exactly where she would have gone in her arc), but the mold of the character as she is, is one who in reality is likely to be more like a CW character than Rey - I'm not about to point to Rey in TFA and most of TLJ and say, "Kids, that's a good person right there."

No, she's a good hearted person with severely crippling psychological issues that, if you want to have a relationship with this person, you need to be aware that it will be a long-term quest to help them along their way and they will need your input and company a lot.
If you are willing to do that, and have that availability for that person, then go for it.

If they are a casual friend slot...um...maybe don't do that.

But let's be real here - most film characters are really messed up people. That's why they make good stories.
It's not like there's a really interesting character story to tell about Bill Nye, and Mr. Rogers is only novel because everyone's basically wondering how anyone could just really be that crunchy.

People are flawed, but that doesn't mean you need to be surrounded by deeply flawed people.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

You’re entirely entitle to that perspective and I respect your difference of opinion.

Exactly. Rey was violently seized by Kylo for the purpose of plunder. He, with direct intent and knowingly against her wishes, violated her. That’s what happened. No, she was not literally sexually assaulted. Thus, the allegorical nature of their encounter.

We should certainly have those conversations and discuss the implications and ramifications, yes. In the first example you provided, the act was in-narrative equated to “torture”. That was on purpose. The scene was addressing the morally ambiguous essence of whether such a tactic is an excusable means to an end. Is torturing someone, you know to be deplorable, ethically justifiable in order to save the lives of innocent children?

That’s a serious question I sincerely hope you didn’t simply dismiss out of hand. What the Jedi did to Cad Bane in that scene was absolutely presented as an assault. But was it ‘worth it’? That’s the focus.

When he details the circumstances of his perspective of Luke ‘turning on him’ in TLJ. From his vantage point, we see a crazed and maniacal Luke intent on doing him harm. Ben had to defend himself. In that moment, he sees himself as the victim. He sees Luke as the aggressor. He was profoundly betrayed by someone he implicitly trusted - he believes. This is the catalyzing moment for Ben. It’s how he justifies his callous Kylo persona.

Exactly. Which is what he’s getting at with this exchange in TLJ: "Why did you kill him? I don't understand." "No? Your parents threw you away like garbage...But you can't stop needing them. It's your greatest weakness." He’s relating his experience to hers. He believes he was thrown away like garbage by his parents just like her. He’s a victim who became a victimizer so he’d never be victimized again. It’s pretty profound and surprisingly nuanced.

In essence, yes. And if the ST ended with Poe and Ben romantically linked, without really coming to terms with that brutal violation, I’d find that rather off-putting too.

I don’t dislike the Kylo character at all. Quite the opposite in fact. There was an enormous amount of thought and care put into constructing his layered and textured rendering. I both respect the figure and Driver’s sensational portrayal of him.

I have no personal grudge against any fictional characters. I’m simply unsettled by a less than savior message I see being conveyed wherein the victim of an aggressive violation becomes romantically linked to her victimizer. As I said before. I find it irresponsible and in poor taste. But that’s only my perspective. You don’t see it that way and that’s fine.

 

So, in your interpretation, there was never anything romantic about their relationship to begin with. They aren’t capable, since they aren’t separate individuals allowed autonomous, independent desires. It’s one person that decided to kiss itself . . . for some reason. That’s . . . unique. I’ll give you that.

I find it interesting that’s how you read my statement. I think what someone like Ben realistically needs is a sympathetic advocate. Not a girlfriend. Blurring those lines needlessly, I think, sends a potentially unhealthy message to young girls. Simple as that.

Didn’t Rian Johnson say that?

 

That's not me. That's Lucasfilm/Disney banging that drum about how it's "not romantic" because it's all this Dyad stuff.

My take on it is, yeah, it's romantic and I don't really care how unhealthy it is because ... dude...these people are F***ED UP to begin with. They're about as unhealthy as any character in Game of Thrones. The story just isn't as explicitly crass and violent as Game of Thrones. It's still the same level screwed up interpersonal relationships by everyone in this thing, though.

But to me...well...that's Star Wars. It's really messed up crap.

Actually, hell...that's kind of just Lucas in general - keep in mind it was his idea that Dr. Jones had slept with a 15 year old, and chose that specific age and it was supposed to be a slam against him. "I WAS A CHILD!"

I'm not saying that's justification for why you should like it.
I'm saying (A) That's not the film's position, and (B) My positions harsher than yours - they are horrible and warped people loooong before that kiss moment. That's just like holding a cigarette to the skin of a burn victim covered in 3rd degree burns to me.

Just to be clear, I didn't mean anything bad by the "I find it interesting". I meant that earnestly and literally.

For me, everything about Kylo as a whole is a potentially negative message to young girls - with or without the kiss.
He's entirely emo-rebel-in-need-of-saving the entire way through the series.
He couldn't be more "lost rebel you need to save" if he tried...which is a really common go-to trope, and one that I always find horrible for people to actually earnestly believe.
You see that s***bag of a guy? No. You can't save him. He's not extra hot because he's sad, angry, temperamental, violent, abusive, but once in a while throws you some hurt puppy dog eyes.

If I had to start a point of reference for real life values to young women, such as my own daughters, it wouldn't be that the kiss was bad.
It would be that you shouldn't be like Rey and go trying to save men like Kylo - move on and let them burn in their own hell. Don't jump into their flaming nightmare to try to pull them out - life isn't a movie - those guys don't climb out and become knights in shining armor and go get a great career with a respectful family-centered view of life all warm and bubbly all because you came in and gave them some bit of light in love.

More than likely, you'll have your light drained out of you and you'll find yourself in a miserable world - Rey, in the real world, more often than not ends up trapped in the Dark Side and a trashed depression of her former self she lost while trying to save Kylo.

But that's not a very good mythical story. There's no fireworks at the end of that story.

I know Hammill said it in a group interview - maybe Johnson said it.
Hammill's context was humorous jealousy, a sort of, "Oh COME ON! They get a sex scene!?" type of joke.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I always thought that the relation of Rey and Kylo has a lot similarities with the syndrome of Stockholm.

 

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tried, wanted to, couldnt, they took a great premise with Rey, but turned into Lilith fair the space version

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 25, 2021, Original Post Date: Feb 25, 2021 ---

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dont agree with all but it is a well thought out and reasoned post, thanks, I enjoyed reading it.

 

I still like the movie but it definitely isn’t my favorite Star Wars movie

 

Ah blast here we go again

 

Time for some new Star Wars

 

"It's all good" = yep!

 

Let's be honest. Star Wars wasn't going to start telling it's fans that family lineage has no import in the saga storyline when it is eight ninths of the way completed and has been preoccupied with one particular family since the beginning.

I liked Rey nobody too. But everybody is somebody regardless of their heritage. Often in spite of it. Star Wars has for the most part shown is that one can choose to make their own destiny for many different reasons. Family history being just one of them. I think people who are upset about Star Wars telling us that Rey had to be an imperial granddaughter in order to be powerful are missing the point a little.

 

Well, Rey was still born to nobodies. It was just found out there her bloodline has Palpatine blood. That said, I may not like how they got to Rey Skywalker, but I love the ideals behind it. A blood Palpatine rejecting his grandfather's wishes, accepts the ideals of a Skywalker, and "becomes one". So, essentially the Palpatine name died and a Skywalker lived.

 

The ‘Rey Nobody’ concept, for me, represented the prospect of a paradigm shift. Where I thought the ST was going, after the underline theme of TLJ, was that a new path forward was needed. You can’t just keep doing the same thing over and over - expecting different results. “They blow you up today, you blow them up tomorrow.” It’s an endless ever-repeating cycle. True resolution, true reform, wouldn’t come from a vested party, but from someone outside. Someone with a new and unique perspective would find a new and unique solution.

Ultimately, TROS rests on the premise that the conflict really is cyclical. The galaxy really is doomed to repeat its pendulum swinging forever and ever. All you can do is be ready for when it eventually happens all over again. It’s like if the resolution to the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ was that Bill Murray just needed to make his peace with the infinite loop and accept there was no way out. That wouldn’t necessarily be a tragedy, just not as fulfilling for me as finding a way out by becoming ‘better’.

The ST then is sort of like an old abandoned thread on a forum, where the conversation had naturally run its course, but someone resurrects it years later. Not to necessarily bring anything new to the conversation, but to find their own spin on stating the same thing over again. Which is fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a good conversation. It deserves being repeated. I was hoping it was headed somewhere new though and ‘Rey Nobody’ was the face of that hope. Meh. Que Sera, Sera.

 

Yep.
It's about as likely as a new character in the final season of a soap opera not being related to someone. Sure. It can happen. Don't count on it.

But that's never been the story of this saga.
This saga has never been about how to rid the world of evil forever.

It's been about dealing with heritage debt and predestiny since Episode 5 came along.

And since the Prequels it's been openly about the cycles of society and the 'sins of the father' in all broad aspects of the idea.

It was never about ending evil. It was about each time dealing with the inherited pendulum. It was about this saga's baggage.

The ST's perfect ending, honestly, would have been Rey, Kylo, and Palps all dead; Rey and Kylo dying to kill Palps. That would be the perfect seppuko.

But this is America, so our Disney epics can't end in a lifeless pool of tragic yet heroic death.

We got pretty dang close. Everyone did actually die. They just "Americana-ed" out (copped out) of Rey's death in a macabre stained glass tango.

You had to be expecting this kind of cyclical loop at some level, if for no other reason than I've been blabbing about it so much over the years folks, including you, are kind of sick of hearing it brought up as a description for why things happen.

The ST was hardly subtle about repeating the previous narrative threads. No one needed a StarWarsRingTheory.com to point it out this time around. The ST is very openly saying it's the same thing with slight differences.

And that's how this saga should die. It's been obsessed with generational cycles since day one, how everything repeats, and how all you can do is define how you live in response to the world by your choices in it.

It is fatalist. Of course it is. Post ESB Star Wars has never been anything other than derivative, cyclical, and fatalist.

Essentially carrying the message that you can't stop the world from sucking, but you can make sure you are liked for your merits.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

To be frank, I think as new as The Last Jedi was, it does heavily draw from TESB, which in itself challenged things. Technically, TESB was a bit of an inverse from the first film from more emphasis on the personal (Luke, the droids) to a huge battle at the ending to a huge battle beginning to the personal 1 on 1 conflict between Vader and Luke.

I don't think it was actually a "paradigm shift", although I respect your opinion and thoughts on the subject, eeprom, as much as it was an alternate re-iteration of TESB's whopper idea that Vader was Luke's father, which was, in all likelihood, built on what is probably a soft reboot/retcon (Luke's father being a separate person from Vader in Leigh Brackett's first draft.).

ROTJ starts getting obsessed with family ties with the Leia twist as well (another retcon, likely). Even in the PT, there was the idea of asking, "who was the father" from Qui-Gon in The Phantom Menace, though it's more natural. For a long time (about 2008), before the Plagueis novel, I remember Wikipedia saying that Plagueis was hinting at being or was Anakin's father.

Ultimately, TROS rests on the premise that the conflict really is cyclical

TFA introduced that idea for prominent use in the ST, from Maz's words in the Cantina about the dark/dark side- actually I think one could trace it back even to TESB, with the idea that Luke could become his father, but the thing is, Luke still resists Vader- he makes a difference. In ROTJ, the idea is flat-out hammered hard that Luke is nearly repeating his father's mistakes, and he resists it.

The thing is, the ST focuses on legacy and cyclical patterns. I'd say that there is some of this in the EU as well, with Jacen Solo fulfilling Vader's legacy, but he does it to save the galaxy- not necessarily out of selfish and personal reasons as Vader had done (power, control over the galaxy, Luke- a son). Also, I believe there was a "grandson" of Palpatine in one of the EU books- again, he rejected Palpatine's legacy, despite being related to him, because, to be honest, Palpatine is an old and evil creep whom no one wishes to be with.

Perhaps this is a reason for rejection of the ST, because Vader was the main focus of the PT, and Luke was the focus of the OT overall. And Return was hammering hard on the idea of NOT repeating history again, which Luke took. The PT seems to focus on this with Anakin's "What have I done?" line in ROTS. Luke having a choice, similar to an earlier moment in Vader's life in ROTS, but choosing the right decision in this case and redeeming his father's mistakes, in a sense.

But since the PT ended up being a complement to the OT, this is like trying to add another 180 degrees to a 360 degree circle with the ST- it's odd when so much attention has been stuck elsewhere (Luke, Anakin) to start afresh.

a new path forward was needed

TLJ blazed a new path with Kylo inheriting Vader's legacy for once and taking more initiative than Vader did in TESB (needing Luke to kill). And a bit more on Rey fully rejecting Kylo, as opposed to Luke still being unsure/being contacted by Vader. I'd argue that that's it, aside from sub-arcs- Poe going from a reckless pilot to a responsible leader, Finn going from stormtrooper to rebel loyalist. TLJ is TESB, for the most point, with parallels with characters (Lando=DJ, Canto Bight=Cloud City, etc.) and plot points and ideas.

Return dodged addressing some of the riskier stuff in TESB (Luke's tough questions given still easy answers and/or responses to.). Luke being hardly emotional, aside from a few good beats, prevents answering his questions adequately.

 

I never said it was.

Well, since Episode 4, really. "It's your father's lightsaber...This is the weapon of a Jedi knight...Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough..." "I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father."

Really, it’s about one particular cycle. One where harmony is lost and then regained again. Misalignment, leading back to alignment. Anakin imbodies human fallibility and how the best of us can be compromised by our darker inclinations. Luke imbodies human resilience and how we can learn from the fallibility of others and grow beyond them. It isn’t inevitable. We CAN be better.

Again, I never said it was about “ending evil”. I’m talking about being better. I’m talking about addressing the pattern of behavior that allows evil to come to prominence in the first place. The Republic and the Jedi and Anakin all fell because they gave in to their assorted negative impulses and allowed evil to take root.

A generation later and they all did the same thing over again. Why? Isn’t that an important question to ask? Why did all that happen again? How did they all make the same mistake again? I guess it’s because it was all inevitable after all. It happened before, it’s happening now, and it’ll happen again. It is what it is.

I wasn’t caught off guard, Jayson. I was just disappointed. What we got is certainly what I was expecting coming out of TFA. I was holding out hope for more. Iteration, more than reiteration. I wanted them to prove old Georgie wrong. That they weren’t just making a “retro movie”. They were taking it some place new. They were continuing the conversation. Not rephrasing it.

Wow, hard disagree there. The finale to George’s saga is the exact opposite of that. It’s about how the cycle WASN’T repeated. How change was made. How the paradigm did shift. How convention and inevitability were defied. Everyone in authority is dictating to Luke what his destiny is - dictating what’s possible and what must happen. He forges his own path and proves them all wrong. That’s not fatalism. That’s self-determination incarnate.

 

Oh, no doubt it was a full on article of retroactive continuity. The trajectory of the narrative took a deliberate left turn with ESB’s revelation. George recast his hero from ‘avenger’ to ‘evangelist’. His motivation was altered from ‘fighting what he hates’ to ‘saving what he loves’. That was a HUGE shift. But that’s not the paradigm I’m referring to being upset.

And the answer he got: “there was no father”. That is, there is no relevant lineage before this point. There is no greater Skywalker legacy. Our story begins right there with Anakin and it ends with him.

An early 2003 draft of ROTS has Palpatine revealing that he was the one who modified the midi-chlorians to create Anakin. “You might say I'm your father,” Lucas actually wrote. Guess he thought better of it. Otherwise, technically, Skywalker = Palpatine and there is no blood feud. It’s all one big family

She states the case at any rate. But that’s no different than Yoda saying “If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.” That’s surely what the character believes. That doesn’t mean the character is right or that this preconception can’t be disproven.

Pretty much my thoughts. Luke, having been instructed on his father’s failings, learned from them and chose a higher path. “The greatest teacher, failure is." That’s the crux of TLJ. It’s purposely calling attention to it. We didn’t truly learn from our mistakes. Now we’re being forced to repeat them. How do we keep from doing this all over again?

TROS couldn’t really care less about that. The status quo is preserved. When those pesky Sith, and their bothersome empires, rear their scraggly heads again, the Jedi will be there to push that snooze button and we’ll do it all over again. See you next time!

Maybe. Except, like mentioned earlier, that was a big focus of TLJ. That was essentially its thesis statement. We don’t simply do again what we know has already failed. But we don’t simply burn it all down either. We find a solution in the middle. We learn from the old way and build a new, better one from it. Just because the ST started as reiterative, doesn’t mean it was destined to end that way too.

There’s a lot of cosmetic parallels, yeah. But the big divergence is in the context of the application. One of the biggest and obvious of these is the mentorship element. In ESB, the mentor figure is proven correct. Luke, the student, doubts his teacher and suffers a massive blow he wasn’t prepared for. In TLJ, it’s almost flipped. The mentor figure is proven incorrect. Rey, the student, doubts her teacher and, in the end, after her own hardship, is vindicated in her obstinance. The teacher instead needed to come around to the student’s mindset.

It’s a thing we know. It’s something we have preconceptions about. But it plays out in a way different than we expected. Moral: just because that’s how we’ve always done it, doesn’t mean that’s the way it always must be done. We can challenge the standard. That’s a sentiment that rests at the very heart of Star Wars. It’s about *REBELLION* for crying out loud!

I agree in the sense that it drops us in the same basic place that TROS does: Don’t worry, guys. We’ll figure it out . . . somehow.