The Ending: Beautiful, but problematic

Despite being a slave until the age of 10, I never had the feeling that Anakin hates Tatooine. He spent his childhood there, he had his friends and he also loved to construct his things (C3P0 and the pod). He was always excited to participate the Boontha Eve race. I think he had good memories from that time.

Luke was a young man with desires to join his friend and become a pilot. Always dreaming in leave that Planet to go to the Academy. He probably hated the tranquility and his obligations on the farm. Don't think Luke hated the Lars homestead and his uncles.

 

How do you know the narrative is spirit over blood ? What if Rey told herself "I am not responsible for my grandfathers deeds.Those who came before him bore that name too as did my father .I dont have to be ashamed of my name.My name is Rey Palpatine and i am a Jedi." ? Maybe the narrative is not written in stone? Or am i talking nonsense as was @NinjaRen? Please enlighten us.

 

So... am I going crazy, because I keep reading abut the “sunset” on Tatooine at the end of the film...

And I’m pretty sure Rey arrives at dawn and it’s a sunrise. But it is quite ambiguous. What does everyone else think?

 

She was in a dyad with a Skywalker.
That Skywalker was the main antagonist in her life (during the trilogy)
She defeats that Skywalker in essence, and then that Skywalker gave his life to her.
Twin Skywalkers trained her.
She rejects the name Palpatine, the most evil man the galaxy has ever known.
The Skywalker story started on Tattooine.

The ending makes sense. It makes sense that she adopts the name. It makes sense it ends there. Come on, guys. Just accept and enjoy.

 

Yeah. I think it’s maybe to do with the directions of the shots. The scene opens with a blue sky, but as it descends from the sky it is dimmer/darker towards the ground... you can see a shadow across the sandcrawler... later, there are some little creeping bits of red/orange in some shots.

But as you point out, and I think was the clincher for me, the two shots of the suns, first the ‘BB-8’ suns, overlapping, then the shot of Rey and BB-8 with the suns separate and higher in the sky... and they look like they are rising too, to me, I think.

Anyone else that goes for another viewing, see what you think.

I mean it it would make sense to me, with the film’s title... !

 

Unreal to see Jawas again.I wonder who the old lady was, a neighbour i guess, i love the thought of her knowing little Luke and even remembering the name Skywalker, would have been nice to see her reaction to that name.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 7, 2020, Original Post Date: Jan 7, 2020 ---

I agree its rising. Maybe she went to Mos Eisley for a drink after talking to the Jawas , chopped off some arms, fell asleep at the falcon ,got up before sunrise and went to the homestead;-) by the way i loved the scene where Rey is sandboarding , she looks happy and innocent and i think she loved sandboarding as a child on Jakku.

 

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . sand…
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Han: I think my eyes are getting better. Instead of a big dark blur, I see a big light blur.
Luke: There's nothing to see. I used to live here, you know.
Han: You're going to be oddly memorialized in a awkwardly symbolic gesture here, you know. Convenient.

 

Whew

 

Because it's stated in the narrative and is the very resolution of that narrative. It's the motif that guides the movement of the narrative into the resolution. I know it's about spirit over blood because Luke states that and Rey chooses it. Rey saying "Skywalker" instead of "Palpatine" decisively resolves the narrative. Rey saying "Skywalker" instead of "Palpatine" is precisely how I know the narrative is spirit over blood.

You're offering an interpretative deduction of a narrative. Your interpretation needs support from the narrative to have any meaning. The ability to ask, "What if?" has no relevance or meaning of any kind by itself. What if Private Ryan in the movie Saving Private Ryan is really an alien from Alpha Centauri testing Tom Hank's character? A unique interpretive hypothesis for sure. Evidence?

I take it you've heard Beethoven's Fifth? It contains what's called a "fate motif" you know the notes: da-da-da DAAAA. Da-da-da-DAAAA. That motif runs through the movement of the symphony. In analogue to your hypothesis, it would be like asking, "What if the motif of Beethoven's Fifth isn't da-da-da DAAAA? Maybe the movement isn't written in stone?" Well, no. It is written in stone. On paper. The former being a figurative statement regarding the latter as the literal statement.

It is nonsense of a different variety. NinjaRen was employing abstract words with no contextual frame of reference to provide meaning. In the same way that the statement, "Green is a weak color" doesn't really make sense in that the word "weak" has no contextual meaning in relation to the statement, rendering it meaningless (nonsensical).

Your statement is linguistically understandable conclusion of an unstated deduction, but provides no actual support for that conclusion, rendering it also meaningless. His was linguistic nonsense, yours is hypothetical nonsense. "What if the motif of Beethoven's Fifth isn't the fate motif?"

But, as for TROS, the fact of the narrative is that Rey says "Skywalker" and not "Palpatine" as the resolution of the narrative, which is choosing spiritual identity over blood identity.

 

In retrospect, I can certainly say from the narrative that Leia provided guidance, and to someone she knew was from a stigmatized bloodline. That she looked at the heart and not at the blood, as it were. But is this "far above" what Luke did? Luke also trained Rey (if even begrudgingly) and provided guidance. Moreover, Luke and Rey (in TLJ leading into the inverted resolution in TROS) shared in a crisis experience which lifted one another out of that crisis. I'm talking about fear of failure driving them to self-exile in turn.

In TROS, it's Rey's turn to be TLJ Luke - both in fearful exile and in courageous return. I was Luke who was there for Rey at Ach-To, when she was down at her lowest point. It was Luke who gave her guidance in the rise to her highest. Luke and Rey have a shared experience in the depths and the heights. But Leia? As far as the narrative goes, we only see Leia guiding Rey during the smooth path. In TLJ Luke goes from the depths to the heights, with Rey as the impetus; in TROS Rey goes from the depths to the heights, with Luke as the impetus. Thus Rey says she will finish what Luke started, and she does. Luke faced his fear of self in Kylo at the end of TLJ, and overcame and saved the Resistance. Rey faced fear of self in Sidious at the end of TROS, and overcame and saved the Resistance.

Luke and Rey are "war buddies" who faced the lowest and darkest times together. That is a strong connection. So while Leia yes did have a connection with Rey, to say it was "far above" Rey's relationship with Luke? How so?

Given that Rey is a Jedi, she is much more like Luke than Leia. She has chosen the same path as Luke. Since both Luke and Leia are Skywalkers, it makes more sense to claim the identity and heritage they both share - Skywalker. It doesn't make sense to disregard the mentor with whom she had the most significant experiences, and the mentor who was there to help her rise from the pit of fear, and the mentor who shared her same path and destiny. Luke and Rey had to overcome fear in order to face their own blood, overcome the darkness in order to bring healing. Leia did not do that.

Rey ending the Skywalker saga stating "Rey Organa"? It makes a hill of sense compared to the mountain of Skywalker. Plus it would really just wreck the narrative of the entire saga into a brick wall. It really is that bad.

It's not "blood or magic" it's "blood or spirit" and Leia chose the latter; and, like Leia, so did Rey. At the end of TROS, by claiming "Rey Skywalker" she is unifying both the spirit (what they stood for) of Luke and Leia in the shared heritage of their family. This is why we're seeing the spirits of both Luke and Leia together - Rey is everything that the two of them stood for.

I've only seen it twice so there's no doubt a lot I'm yet to realize. But I'd propose that the ending of TLJ is parallel to Rey. Meaning, Broom Boy and Rey are narratively connected in a reflective resolution. Rey is "going ahead" of him, which is why he's looking up at her ship as it moves across the sky along her flight path, as it were. Rey claiming "Skywalker" also ties into this in that Broom Boy is not restricted by blood, but by spirit, in the ways of the force. Broom Boy is a Skywalker to follow after Rey, the first Skywalker of the adopted family.

Luke and Rey at Ach-To inverts from TLJ into an involution in the resolution of TROS. Luke passes on the final teaching of learning from failure, as Yoda instructed in TLJ.

 

Lets presume we are the screenwriters having to decide which will be Reys answer to the old lady.
You mean Rey answering "Rey Palpatine and I am a Jedi" which means "my grandfather is Darth Sidious but I am not from the dark side " would be nonsensical? Isn't it a possible resolution to the narrative as well?
Wouldn't her answer change the narrative into "accept who you are then rise above it"? What could be wrong with this?

 

Let me add a thing.Did JJ said the motif is "give up your name and choose a new one"? If not its just your Interpretation.

 

Both scenarios affirm the same thing. The main theme of this trilogy could be summarized as "finding your own identity". Rey Palpatine calling herself Skywalker/Rey Nobody calling herself Skywalker/Rey Nobody just going with nobody - all of these works inside that thematic frame. If we want to go into scene analysis

* Rey Palpatine denying her legacy is thematically stronger in terms of her arc: she comes from "nobody" - realizes she's Palpatine - embraces her own identity;

* Rey Nobody calling herself Skywalker is basically the same but slightly weaker because it skips the middle stage and, from that pov, she has nothing to confront;

* Rey Nobody going with Nobody is the weakest of the three, even though it still works for the "finding your own identity" theme;

"Rey goes to Tatooine because it's a location the audience recognize" only if you want to read it that way - and it's an abherrant interpretation because it ignores a fundamental element. To me, going by what the whole saga tells us, it's pretty obvious that she goes to Tatooine because that's where the whole Skywalker story began, both for Anakin and (way more importantly) for Luke.

It's a symbolic act that, again, ties into the "finding your own identity" theme. She doesn't just bury the lightsabers: she laids those to rest and then ignites her own. That's the point of that scene - as for the act per se: it simply is the closest thing to a burial for Luke and Leia.
Not to mention that "the Reylo kids" (and, really, any kind of actual romantic involvment between Rey and Kylo) would've been a terrible idea, completely contrary to the themes of both this trilogy and the whole saga - but even if that wasn't the case: the "kids", just like Finn, should build their own saber.

Why do you assume that the final image has to be "empowering"? If, up to that point, you (where "you" is "you, member of the general audience", not specifically "you, NinjaRen") didn't get the empowering message in this trilogy, the final shot is not going to drive that point home.
Final shots in SW are generally meant to be poetic rather than thematic and the final shot in TRoS is both: on the poetic side, it's the classic "riding off into the sunset"; on the thematic side, it's the image of a girl, who just affirmed her own identity, walking into her new life, head held high. She has a very clear direction: her own.

I don't want to be confrontational here but I feel that most of your (and several other people's) gripes come from not wanting to like the movie rather than from actual problems with the movie itself.

 

I can't help myself but I could forget a lot of things that I don't feel comfortable about in TROS if Ben would have been alive at the very end.
He was not half machine like Vader. So why not give him and the legacy he represents a second chance to do something good for the galaxy together with Rey.
We have a dyad.. good.. let's kill it as fast as we could.
Fast and furious is not always the very best solution

 

I agree with this. The statement that worthiness doesn't necessarily come from bloodlines was a staple of the Last Jedi. You may like or not like many things about that film, but it made it very clear that to be the case. Rey and Kylo's dialog in the throne room was very powerful (that all scene was), and probably one of my favorite moments of the entire saga. I'm not bothered by the reverse of ideas in TROS where she is a Palpatine, but it does feel contrived, at least to me.

I understand Tatooine may not be the best choice for everyone, for me it felt a bit forced. It was a very significant planet in the whole sage though. It was there where the saga started (both in IV and I). Where Anakin (the first Skywalker, apparently) was born, Shmi lived and was killed. Where Anakin started his path to the Dark Side by seeing her mother die (which to this day I still feel could have been arranged), where Luke was born and lived. Where Obi-Wan dwelled for a long time. Where we meet Han Solo, where we then experience Jabba's segment in RotJ. It is a central planet in the whole saga. It was not really relevant to Leia, but it was definitely relevant to the Skywalkers, in general.

That said, it didn't feel relevant to Rey, although after being trained by Luke and Leia and loving them as father and mother figures, I can see why she would want to go and see where their father and Luke lived. In that journey she probably thought burring their light sabers was a way to end their legacy in a sort of "jobs done" kind of way. So, while not perfect, and a bit rushed (I'd love to see a bit more dialog there or a couple more scenes) it's still ok in my book. Could there be many other equally powerful or more powerful endings? Sure.

Well, look it at this way. A Jedi needs to be able to make her/his own lightsaber to achieve the "Jedi" status, at least that's one interpretation of events. So, if more Jedi are to appear they will make their own sabers. Of course, they seem to be in short supply now, and if you need to train more Jedis, you will need more sabers. However, if Rey could build her own, I guess she could build a couple more if she wished.

As for Reylo, you know, I too wished Ben could survive in the end. Not Kylo of course, that character would always die. You could say part of it already died in TLJ. However, I understand why they killed him in the movie. It puts an end to the Skywalkers bloodline and at the same time the Skywalker "life force" still lives with Rey. Man, it was such a sad ending. I wished they could be together in the end. Their chemistry and acting was superb since TFA. I really wished the best for those two. It would have been a nice turn of events too. Anakin died in ROTJ, but Ben could have lived in TROS. The Rise of Skywalker indeed. But, it was not meant to be.

I guess she is still looking for belonging and connection by going there. She learned she was a daughter of an evil person. She has very few memories of her parents and does not know for sure if they were really good or bad persons. I mean, I'm not totally sure myself. We see the events through her eyes, how she experiences them. I guess she was there looking for more clues of how the Skywalkers, these mythic people, have started.

And, you know, she may have realized by going there, that you don't need to come from a powerful bloodline or from a rich or luxurious place to have a significant impact on the world. The Skywalkers started as slaves, like she was. They also lived in a desert wastland. Luke was also an orphan (well, kind of, at least he thought that), like her. And, look at what they did and how such great people they were. So, perhaps ending on Tatooine is a way for her and us to see that you have a chance to be whatever you wish to be, even if you start from a very humble beginning. It's not a grandiose ending, but it kind of works, for me.

 

Yeah, it is very sad, and I too think the whole thing kind of works but I also wanted more.

I also think the film didn't live up to the potential it had. It could have been more. I'm not saying it needed to be different, necessarily. I mean, it could had a more impactful ending and a better sense of closure. However, for that to happen, and given all the baggage you had from the previous movies, I suppose you'd need this to be a 3 hour movie, and we know that would never happen.

So, I totally relate and understand your point of view. Good? Yes. But it could be so much better. And, I also wanted more. This was the end of the saga after all.

 

This is why I want to see the JJ cut, if it even exists. I think it does, it's very believable that he wanted to do more with the film but couldn't. And I know a few cameos were cut, which I really would like to see.