Thoughts and Opinions on TROS' Story

This is a blatantly false statement.

 

So looking for opinions on when Ben redeemed himself.

To me he turned to the light after Rey saved his life, but he did not redeem himself until he saved Rey's life. This is why he could not continue to live, otherwise he made no meaningful sacrifice.

 

I will not argue religion, but you're talking to someone who studied textual exegesis with orthodox monks, continued the study afterward of textual anthropology for about a decade - learning to read Greek and Hebrew, studied levant region anthropology, has talked with and follows Israel Finkelstein's impressive work, has charted high priest line times in cross section with the Dead Sea scroll ages, has manually translated the Book of Matthew from the fragments of papyri, and has worked on cultural provenance of the gospel texts.

I understand the words I speak and for why I say them.

I will not argue this here, but when I say they are narratively inconsistent, you may ignore me. I am speaking to those who have ears and understanding for what it is I said and why it is that I said this. It is not, however, said to attack you, your religion, nor to degrade your religion or your belief.

It is to bring up Star Wars to religious comparison and literary heights, for as proud of your holy texts as you are, I am as proud of mine.
Mine happen to be Star Wars films, and I respect our difference.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Yeah. That was his redemption.

It could be said that he redeemed his father’s memory. Or his memory of his father, to be exact. At least in his own mind.

When his father appeared to him, Ben lamented that it was “just a memory”.

“Your memory”, Han explained.

Reminds me of the ghost of Christmas past in Dickens.

The Ghost: I am the ghost of Christmas past
Scrooge: Long past?
The Ghost: No. Your past.

Ben’s capacity to have his father show him compassion, as he had the last time they met, and to demonstrate the strength he thought he didn’t have to do the right thing but which Han still believed he had, symbolically honoured his father’s memory and broke the spell that his guilt had haunted him with since that day.

 

Abrams has said three things I think are worth noting:
He loves TLJ and admires Johnson.
There is no feud between himself and Johnson.
He did not write TROS to placate to complaining fans, nor to undo TLJ, and he doesn't consider TROS to undo TLJ.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I think Adam driver got asked about the option of Kylo’s Redemption and said something like ‘redemption from what? He’s not looking for redemption he’s followed his own arc and he’s not looking for redemption.’ And I largely think this to be true. I think the answer to this is han’s dialog where Ben says ‘I killed ben solo’ and Han says ‘no you killed kylo Ren.’ I belive when Leia called his name and Rey stabbed him she ‘killed’ Kylo Ren. So in that moment he became ben again and I do not think he redeemed himself by saving her life, you can’t save one life to make up for a decade of murder. However I think the reason he saved her is because he himself knew this and that she deserved to life And he deserved to die.
I actually think killing him was a big mistake. Makes the skywalker trillogy end on a down beat for their family. I wish they had both gone and buried those sabers in the desert. I think the thing is, that ben knew he couldn’t have lived with himself.

 

I said Kate Beckinsale was my girlfriend. It doesn't make it true.



(not that I disagree, but I am trying to talk that into being real)

 

The actual content of TRoS proves Abrams' statements correct, as does the fact that he served as a Producer on The Last Jedi.

 

I think it's worth noting what Abrams says, because Abrams is a pretty earnest person.

He doesn't have a history of placating to anyone. He does what he thinks is best for the story from his perspective and strives to make a film that will be entertaining and good.

Further, I think that to ignore his comments and assume he's saying things he wishes were true, but aren't, is to ignore the motivations for the story he wrote.
Regardless if we like something or dislike something that's in the story, it's shorting the digestion of the story as an experience to assign it as being what it is because it was a placation, fan service story bent to undo a disliked TLJ.

These are not the reasons that Abrams says that he wrote his story, and so thinking this way while looking at the story is to miss out on reading into why he did what he did.

For example, he gave Rey the Palpatine line because he felt that the lineage issue was one that was always in Star Wars with strong emotional energy and fuel, and when looking around through the various ideas in his story's potentials he decided that having her be of Palpatine offered the greatest fuel.

“I think one of the ideas, one of the themes of the movie, is that anyone can be anything, regardless of where you’re from. I don’t know if it resonates for everyone, but I think there are quite a few people who appreciate that idea of not coming from a place that you’re particularly excited about following or proud of. And though I completely understand ‘you’re nobody’ is a devastating thing, to me, the more painful, the more shocking thing is the idea that you’re from the worst possible place.
And is your destiny, is that thing that you feel, that you know is part of you somehow, that you’re haunted by, is that your destiny? The idea that choices — that there are things more powerful than blood, as Luke says — that feeling was important to convey, for us.
The idea of balance, bringing balance to the Force — which is the whole point of the Chosen One, Anakin, in the original trilogy — what I loved was the idea that balance brought to the Force doesn’t mean it’s forever, it’s not immediately everlasting.
And I think the idea that if we are not careful, the evil — the ultimate evil — will rise again, that we have to be proactive and doing what we can to maintain the balance, and how does the generation that follows the great generation do that?
The grandchildren of these crucially important characters, the Palpatines and the Skywalkers. The idea … [of] these two houses coming together in this next generation felt like there was inevitability to it. And if one were to watch I through IX 50, 100 years from now, hopefully you feel these stories were inevitably leading there.”​

https://comicbook.com/starwars/2019...peror-palpatine-legacy-lineage-rey-palpatine/

This is the reason for this idea.
She's not a Palpatine because Abrams read some fan hate over her being a no-body in TLJ, and the want for a Palpatine/Plagueis/Snoke return and decided to add that in to backhand RJ or appease angry fans.

Hell, that idea makes little to no sense, honestly, because look at all the people throwing flack over these kinds of choices.

And pushing that idea over earnestness entirely misses the reading of the story for the motivations that it has in it; that Abrams wrote it with.

Cheers,
Jayson

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 23, 2019, Original Post Date: Dec 23, 2019 ---

From the way Abrams speaks of it, it's not even a conflict of vision.
He speaks of RJ's story with high praise and loves where it took the story, and loves the fuel he gained from it.

"The perspective that, at least personally, I got from stepping away from it and seeing what Rian did, strangely gave us opportunities that would never have been there, because of course he made choices no one else would have made.
In a way it felt kind of like a gift, though of course there were challenges in every direction.
It was actually weirdly more helpful than not, having that other energy to the story. There was an alchemy because of the things that he did."​

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/12/jj-abrams-reacts-last-jedi-rise-of-skywalker

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I don't mean to stir the pot too much, but given that we are debating whether or not Abrams was in disagreement over Johnson's take on Rey's lineage, it is worth noting that in this Rian interview with Indiewire, Rian came to a different conclusion altogether than the one we ended up with in Episode IX:



So while it is open to debate whether or not you find these views compatible within the narrative, it is clear that the two filmmakers had differing opinions on how to challenge the protagonist.

 

Absolutely, and I think both are true.

In TLJ, the hardest thing for Rey at that point was to deal with being of no lineage and standing on her own two feet for her own worth.
She needed that to happen because all of her character motivation in TFA was basing her personal value off of who her parents were - she placed a large chunk of value on lineage and was jealous of Ben for having a great one.

She needed to firstly accept herself for her own merit.

Once that happened, then what?
What's the internal beast to battle? She's already conquered being worth her own merit unto herself, so....what now?
Just flip on the kick-butt-take-names switch and let the camera roll with no internal struggle in her, or strip her security out from under her again and make it the worst thing she can fear - being of the darkest hell of lineage possible and not having any personal relationship to that in identity.

Both are right from each of the writer's perspectives for where the story was at the time they had it to work on, and I don't think either thinks the other went way off course or did what they did to spit in the other's face, or to contest each other over the arc.

And I think it's funny that folks are taking the comments from Johnson about pandering to be comments about TROS when Abrams says the same things almost exactly about pandering. They both agree that pandering is a bad way to write a story.

The only people thinking TROS is pandering or course-correcting for appeasement are media hypes and fan conversations.
Neither Abrams or Johnson have yet to express this perspective, and Abrams has outright rejected it.

So yeah, I don't see a problem here.
They both did what narratively made good sense for where the characters were at the time they had them in their curation to deliver the most amount of fuel for where the character was at that moment, and neither three arc directions invalidate the other.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Fixed some of the wording in order to make this statement more accurate.

JJ and Rian aving distinct viewpoints, however, doesn't mean that there is any inconsistency between TLJ and TRoS in terms of Rey's lineage, nor, as per JJ, was there ever any intent to make such a declaration in any way, shape, or form.

 

I disagree here.
The Skywalkers have a long history of sacrificing themselves to save another; the ones whom they love.

Anakin basically went into hell attempting to do so for Padme, as Vader he gave his life for his Son, Luke was willing to give his life for his Father and did sacrifice himself to save Ben from himself, Leia and the Resistance, and hope, and Ben was willing to do the same.

If Ben hadn't been willing to do that, and especially with all of the dang overshadowing of Vader all over his story arc, if he hadn't died to save another, it would have been a bit weird to me.

Palpatine wanted to kill the Skywalkers, but the poetry is that he never did. They died giving life to others - not being killed by enemies. Even Leia died giving life to Ben.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

In The Force Awakens, Ben, as Kylo Ren, expresses that his goal is to finish what his grandfather started; it takes two films and a literal slash symbolic death, but he ultimately accomplishes said goal.

People really ought to look below the surface in order to see just how this entire Trilogy is thematically linked to what came before and how TRoS links itself to both TFA and TLJ because doing so negates most of the 'major' complaints that could be leveled against it.

It's not a perfect film, but the things that don't work about it really aren't the things that a lot of people keep claiming they are.

 

He also stated today I think it was that;the one's complaining about TROS are right and the one's that loved it are right. I was like, huh?

 

by finish what he started are you referring to saving the ones we love from dying? Like Anakin wished to do for padme but failed to do? Because I like this reading of it.

it also begs the question where Rey first learned this sharing life power, because it is not a power a Jedi would have taught her. Maybe it was innate within palpatines blood like the lightning. Like she had a short cut to powers ‘some would consider unnatural.’

 

I feel the same way as he does on this, so I can relate.
Both are right in how they feel because Star Wars isn't a singular thing. It means something different to everyone, and it's an allegorical moral fairy tale for ontological introspection, so you can't really say someone is wrong for identifying with a particular point of interpretation of meaning of the symbolism in the story.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Yes.

She learns how to do it as soon as she does it when they're on Kajimi in those tunnels and she heals that worm creature.

And Palpatine saying that being able to save people from dying can't be learned from the Jedi was a lie designed to force Anakin's turn to the Dark Side; the fact that we've actually seen another Force-sensitive character - The Child ('baby yoda') (who, I'm pretty sure, isn't a Dark Side user) - do the same Force Healing thing that Rey and Ben do (thanks Internet) pretty much proves it.

Anakin turned because he believed that only the Sith and the Dark Side of the Force could help him accomplish his goal of saving Padme (keeping the ones he cared about from dying), but that doesn't mean that said belief was the truth.