The Ending: Beautiful, but problematic

I never took TLJ to set up moving beyond that.

It's a chiastic spin on ESB's big reveal.
ESB: Vader says he's Luke's Father. Everyone thinks it's a lie until ROTJ confirms it's the truth, and Obi-Wan (Ben) says what he told Luke was true from a certain point of view.
TLJ: Kylo says Rey's a no-body. Everyone thinks it's the truth until TROS denies it as a lie, and Kylo (Ben) says what he told Rey was true from a certain point of view.

If TLJ were to be the truth and Rey was a no-body, then the story would end right there. There's nothing left to talk about for Rey's arc of identity.
In each sequel, the identity arc takes three films to resolve...not two.

Rey is the primary protagonist...not Kylo/Ben. He's her Vader/Anakin. She's not his Obi-Wan.

The primary theme of the Saga is whether you can break the cycle of predefinition.
Rey being a straight no-body does nothing to follow that theme. It's just off in lala land if that were to happen - attending to nothing of the Saga's main theme.

Anakin goes left, Luke goes right. Neither break the cycle.
Kylo and Rey together break the cycle. Kylo breaks his by saving the enemy he loves by sacrificing his life and ending his line.
Rey breaks the cycle by learning to be self-defined, instead of predefined, in TLJ and then using that new found strength, only possible from TLJ, to defy her predefinition in TROS and choosing by her will to redefine herself as a Skywalker, which is the narrative path she has been following the whole trilogy, which breaks the cycle because that choice is not hers to take by predefinition, but she chooses to take it anyway and define herself by what she values - not who she comes from.

'Like those before me' has become effectively 'Not like those before me'.

If Rey went from TFA straight to TROS without TLJ, she wouldn't have the strength to resist that lineage inheritance. She would have gone straight to the dark side and said, "Well...I guess this is me now..." *sad face goes rage dark*

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I think we'll disagree here.
To me, TROS is powerful and beautiful because of what it does with the theme of predefintion, and with how Rey is used through the ST as a whole.

To me, TLJ was not the full-stop resting point on the subject of Rey and her predefinition. It was her existential crises and readying for facing her great dragon. Her great dragon, to me, was always herself, so turning her own blood against her is priceless and I love it.

Of course, I love Rey's entire arc. She's by far one of my favorite SW characters. Kylo is right next to her as well. Both, for me, are beautifully written in their arcs and follow the primary theme of predefinition brilliantly.

Also...Kylo is Anakin. Rey is Luke.
They are both our legacy characters. They've both been following one of our legacy hero's paths. So I never saw Rey as non-legacy.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Well of course, but that wasn't what I wanted out of this saga finale.

All the stuff after, sure. But not the Skywalker saga.
If that had been that way I would have been bummed.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Because the narrative themes needed to repeat or it's not the Skywalker saga to me.

It would be like asking me why does gothic architecture have to be made of stone, strive for height, and be an exploration in the technology of using light?
Why can't it be that as well as post-modern?

Because then it wouldn't be gothic architecture.
It would be post-modern gothic architecture.

There's nothing wrong with that, but I wanted to go look at a gothic cathedral; not a post-modern infused gothic structure.

If it's listed as risotto, I expect risotto. Not a fusion dish.

Now, I got that last cathedral. I'm good.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Wholly disagree.
It'd just be a different story than SW has been running on for 7 movies prior.

We obviously look for and value different things in Star Wars and that's fine. But to say that Rey not having special Jedi blood ends her story, is asinine

 

He ordered a risotto and thus he is expecting to find rice in the plate; if he can't find rice then he didn't get a risotto. Other say that Luke not being optimistic is a deal breaker, and Rey fans consider her incapable of getting pissed off even if she steps on a Lego.

What can you do and why do you find it strange ?

 

Exactly.

This goes back to what I was just expressing to @NinjaRen .

For me, Star Wars has always been far more than a story.
It's a style of art in the way that impressionism is a style of art.
It has a set of stylistic guides and rules that govern whether it is or is not that style of art.

Star Wars has always been an art form.
It is birthed out of Lucas' origins of being a rather esoteric pure cinema filmmaker, and his love of film.
One of the methods of pure cinema is the abstract collage. This is a style of strong interest to Lucas, as can be seen by the placement of 21-87 references through his Star Wars films. Indeed, it inspired "The Force" itself.

Abstract collage film is a form of art where you take already existing film, cut it up, and recontextualize that already existing film to make a new film.
When Lucas went to make Star Wars, he did something very fascinating and new (as well as deeply esoteric...true to his style): instead of using literal footage of films and recutting them, he used conceptual footage of films.
That is, he cut the idea of a scene or sequence from a film he had in mind, and then sliced them together into his script with a new narrative and character running over that already existing scene or sequence from another film.

The most famous is the Dam Busters, because he literally cut together that footage and handed it to the VFX team to go back over and create anew with their models.
But it's all through ANH. As Carrie Fisher once said (and I'm paraphrasing), 'Lucas is like a breathing editing machine'.

Then, from ESB onward, Star Wars did the same thing, to its own previous films as it had previously done to films not in the saga.
Scenes from previous films in the saga would be conceptually reused and ran back over, just like films that weren't part of the saga were.

Lucas, being a student of anthropology and literature, as well as a reader of Joseph Campbell would be beyond ignorant to overlook and somehow miss the similarities between chiasm in mythological tales and pure cinema's collage film.

This is the reason that I would be frustrated if I walked into the Skywalker saga and it made a hard left turn and didn't do these things with its narrative arc.
If Rey didn't refrain Luke's arc, and Kylo Ren didn't refrain Anakin's.
If the middle film wasn't an existential crises, and the primary arc of the trilogy wasn't about self identity in the face of predefinition which is resolved and tested in the third film.

If these things didn't exist, it would be like walking up to me and saying, "Let's go see the impressionist gallery that just opened", and when I walk in, I see Andy Warhol art everywhere.

It's a different style entirely to do otherwise, and I'm fine with other styles, but I wanted to see this saga end by remaining true to its style of art that it invented (and almost exclusively used).

Now I'm sated. I don't care what happens next. Let the reigns of Pandora loose!

On a related note: One thing interesting to see is that out of all the new live-action content, only one of them has seemed to venture out beyond thematic prose being a primary motivator for the narrative arcs - Rogue One.
Now, Solo, and Mando don't follow the same style as what had been done in the Skywalker Saga, but they are certainly exploring where to take the art form now.

Whether it survives or not, I'm happy that I got it one last time in a final sweet goodbye.
Nine films. A trilogy of trilogies showcasing a truly unique form of cinematic narrative art.
I wish I could somehow frame the entirety of this saga on a wall.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I just realized that I didn't really go into this, but absolutely Kylo's the anti-Luke.
Rey is the Anti-Anakin.

But they drug the Anti-Luke through the types of plot beats that Anakin/Vader went through, and drug the Anti-Anakin through the plot beats that Luke went through.

It's an interesting Celtic Knot.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Now people are saying Palpatine put those Jedi voices in Rey's head, making her kill him, and in the end, his spirit lived on through her.
Cool theory, but no.

 

I agree, BUT.....why not?
He put all the voices in Kylo's head. I mean, it's essentially such a superfluous thing they did with him, why not? He can literally be anything/anyone now.

 

I don't mean it's not possible, it really makes a lot of sense, but an ending like that goes against the central SW themes of hope and redemption.

 

So does bringing him back in this way in the first place to me.
But here we are.

 

I would have preferred a better ending. Going back to Tatooine is romantic but it's also full of bad experiences for everyone (Anakin, Luke, Leia, Han). So, why go back to that planet? Better for Rey to keep Luke's lightsaber or at least leaving it somewhere else like the old jedi temple.

 

I can't see grandpa palps telling his granddaughter to rise in the light

 

what are you referring to?

 

Haven't been on this thread for a while but I meant, do you really think Palpatine would be speaking those words especially after each other?

Luminara Unduli

"The light. Find the light, Rey."

Adi Gallia

"Rise, Rey."

 

I think I'll throw a lot of the speculation and possible different pitches for the movie to still end on Tatooine aside and mention what really, truly bothers me about this end; It's insulting to Rey's growth as a character.

From the first moment we see her, she wants to live a life away from Jakku. Her journey revolves around finding herself and finding her own power. I won't get into the usual debates about Rey's parentage being someone or no-one here despite having a very clear opinion on it because in this specific instance, it doesn't matter who her parents were, this would've been a poor choice no matter what. Every single thing that happens with Rey in these films up until the very end is her finding herself, finding the will to be the person she was meant to be and to find faith and trust in herself to become her own person and take strength in being that.

This doesn't give her that. It's a full circle for her in the worst way possible. Thematically, what it says about her is that it never mattered if she left Jakku or not, and that her entire journey of self-discovery has no meaning. She was where she was meant to be from the beginning, she needed to just grow to appreciate that... which is disturbing because she had tricked herself mentally to staying into a situation that was unhealthy for her because of a devotion to parents who had left her, with a false hope that they would come back. Every other part of this story is screaming that she shouldn't be there.

Add on top of that the 'Skywalker' piece and it really starts to become frustrating. I don't mind the concept even if I think it's cheap and tacky. What I definitely do mind is that she's now taken on the burden of three generations of Skywalkers, all of whom desperately wanted off of that planet, and one of whom (despite his many atrocities) was a slave on that planet. It adds that same pale complexion onto them as it does Rey, and it also serves to romanticize Tatooine. Tatooine was never meant to be romanticized, the binary sunset was never meant to feel like returning home. It was meant to represent getting away from that place, once and for all.

That ending upsets me more than anything else in the sequels.