Thoughts and Opinions on TROS' Story

Good movie, bad Saga story.

 

This will likely come out more aggressive than I mean it. This a legit question...

If you weren’t a huge fan of ROTJ and it was your 3rd favorite movie... you at best really liked 2/10 movies (prior to TROS)? So 80% of the films were no good? Why bother being invested enough to be on here?

I just don’t understand how that works. This seems to be an oddly self loathing fan base at times.

 

Well I didn't say he was wrong. I felt like he didn't explain what he meant.

 

It's alien to me how any big group of fans could dislike this movie.

 

Wasn't that a part of Kylos plan though?

 

Knowing Abrams, I'm sure we'll here a lot more soon.
He loves talking to fans and explaining his craft.

I'm hoping for a great full length film commentary on the disc.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I'm cross-posting a bunch of insights into/comments on TRoS and elements of its story that I shared in a comment on a Youtube video from the Star Wars Explained channel. Some of these things are points that I've already previously touched upon, but I'm presenting them in a more concise format along with some things that I haven't yet previously talked about:
* Rey was born 11 years after the Battle of Endor, so her father (Palpatine's son) would have most likely been born sometime between the events of Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi

* Both of the new lightsabers that we see in this movie that are associated with Rey have direct ties to the Jedi Temple Guards; the hilt of the double-bladed red saber that her dark 'mirror' uses is almost an exact replica of those guards' sabers, and the yellow blade color of the saber she made and had with her on Tatooine matches their saber blade colors

* Palpatine would have most likely sent his "Final Order" Star Destroyers to Exogol BEFORE the Battle of Endor, and so they were likely crewed by Imperials who remained loyal to him even after his supposed death

* Palpatine's return was mapped out with direct collaboration with and input from George Lucas, and so the new lore that we discovered in this movie regarding the Sith also likewise would have come directly from his mind

* The detail about Luke using an S-foil from his X-Wing as a door for his hut comes ONLY from the behind-the-scenes material on The Last Jedi, but Abrams and Terrio chose to retcon that particular detail out, which means that it is not actually a contradiction because retcons, by the very nature of what they are, are not and cannot be considered contradictions

* Spoiler Alert: Poe having been a Spice Runner is addressed in the Visual Dictionary, and it's not as recent a part of his history as some people might assume

* We can debate whether or not this Trilogy needed to have had its overall arc-line mapped out from the very beginning until we are all blue in the face, but, in the end, The Rise of Skywalker got us to that point with the story decisions that were made. JJ Abrams has also unequivocally stated that he had absolutely zero intention of 'undoing' anything that Rian Johnson did with The Last Jedi and was pleased with, supportive of, and surprised by some of Rian's choices and that said choices gave him the opportunity to go places with the story that he wouldn't have considered

* As I have previously noted, The Rise of Skywalker builds on Rian's choice to make both Rey and Ben the co-protagonists of the story and places their connection to each other as a 'Force Dyad' at the heart of all 3 films in the Sequel Trilogy; it also recontextualizes the Skywalker Saga as a whole so that it isn't just about the Skywalker family, but the Palpatine family as well, with both the light and the dark represented by members of said families

* Palpatine's message that is referenced in the crawl was an 'exclusive bonus' provided to players of the video game Fortnite as a viral marketing tie-in to the film's pre-release promotion

 

^Good points. And speaking of blue in the face. Did you find Luke on Ach-To a little too blue? I did.

 

I thought he was very blue. He kept swearing and making rude gestures and ...no I jest...

Seriously, although I’d have to have them both side-by-side to check, I did come away with the impression he did seem more blue than FG Yoda did in TLJ.

I think I posted earlier that (whether intentional or not) it did have the arguably positive effect that the Han ‘memory’ Ben (I do think it’s Ben who sees it) sees is more clearly not a Force Ghost. I know that will seem obvious to many of us, but I would argue there will be large portions of general audiences who could probably do with that extra visual cue, on top of the actual explanation in dialogue. I think it’s helpful anyway.

The other thing is, I don’t know if there’s any canon info on any significance as far as the amount of blue-sparkly-ness goes... ? I can imagine a few different explanations that I think might work if there isn’t.

But short answer: yes, he did seem quite blue. @Bluemilk . Hey, maybe it was all that blue milk he drank growing up on the farm!

 

After dwelling on Rise of Skywalker for a couple of days, here's what I think. First, some important context:

1. I don't like Force Awakens. It had the look and feel of a Star Wars movie, but in my opinion was little more than a nostalgia trip. Not enough was done to establish identities of new characters and get the audience related to them. And I loathe the Han storyline (which rendered Han's journey in the OT to be meaningless) and strongly disagree with killing him off a-la Obi-Wan. I think that caused several problems going forward into VIII and IX because no one filled his role in how he balanced out the OT characters.
2. I enjoyed sitting through Last Jedi in the theater have found it to be almost unwatchable since. The plot holes and weird subplots get to me, plus I didn't sign up for a new trilogy just to see the original characters get systematically killed off one by one, movie by movie. And several parts of the movie were just silly, like the trip to the casino that ended in a cut-rate video game sidequest to free the animals. It was extremely clear in TLJ that Rian Johnson got carte blanche to do what he wanted and that there was no solidified story arc that was guiding production.

Enter Rise of Skywalker.

I expected this movie to be some of the biggest flaming garbage I'd ever seen, but its the best of the sequel trilogy and I had a rather enjoyable time Thursday night. Its still has many problems, but as I've told a couple of friends: it feels a lot more like the problems are because of the prior two movies more than they are because of this movie itself. TFA & TLJ's lack of character development, story cohesion, and the failures to handle original characters well, showed up in TROS like someone cramming for a final exam. All in all, most of the problems were a result of the overarching production failures. That's on Kathleen Kennedy. Absolutely inexcusable for the studio that successfully manages something as massive as the MCU to allow LFL to mishandle plotting a mere three movies. I more or less like where everything ended, I just wish that a more thought out path had been taken to get there.

What I liked:

• Palpatine made the movie for me, even though I wanted much more out of the final confrontation. It always made sense to me to have him return.
• The Rey/Finn/Poe trio story helped improve the tone (and showed how much that functioning trio element was missing in TFA & TLJ).
• I thought C-3PO was much more in line with his portrayal and personality in the OT and PT and it brought a significant "original trilogy" tone to TROS.
• New characters Babu Frik and Zorii Bliss are great.
• Poe backstory... better late than never.
• Lando. He's a scoundrel and I like him.

What I didn't like:

• Final confrontation seemed flat.
  • Palpatine - an all powerful and seemingly unbeatable Sith - didn't do anything but zap everyone with lightning again. Would've loved to see the lightsaber come out. Or that Rey/Ben would require the help of the Force Ghosts. Who knows - it just seemed like it could have had more to it. The confrontation went from being lopsided in Palpatine's favor to being lopsided in Rey's favor. Its tough to reconcile that with the slugfest that Yoda vs. Palpatine had in ROTS.
  • Battle at Exegol didn't seem big enough, despite the massive armadas. Rogue One set the bar high for a third act battle's intensity and ROTJ/ROTS/TPM set the bar high in terms of scale. Its bothersome that the supposedly concluding chapter in the saga couldn't deliver a final showdown on par with the others.
• Randomly injected moments intended to be emotional or perilous that didn't actually work. Like the weird thing with Chewie or 3PO's memory.
• Zorii Bliss had what, 4 minutes of screen time tops? Would've loved to see more done with her.
• Most of the random things added to try and make various factions of viewers happy - no matter how small or unserious their complaints were. Anyone able to amplify their grievance loud enough to get it on LFL's radar seemed to get it addressed somewhere in TROS.
• I liked the idea of Rey going to Tatooine to bury Luke and Leia's sabers at the farm. But the whole "I'm a Skywalker" thing? Why in the heck did Luke and Leia pointedly tell her multiple times to not be afraid of who she was and where she came from... just for them to smile in approval as Rey says she's someone else the first opportunity she gets? The whole exchange came across as rather contrived.

Again - I really enjoyed it, but there's clearly room for improvement going forward.

 

I'm sure I'll receive some negative ratings, but oh well.

It's amazing to me how anyone can see TROS as anything other than a convoluted mess. It felt like JJ going down a checklist of story choices with little to no thought.

-Palpatine is alive for vague reasons, basically gets on the galaxy-wide radio, announces to everyone that he's back, they're like "oh no we have to kill him,' so they go and kill him. Again.
-The one hour mcguffin chase involving a knife that makes no sense, a magic cheat code coin, and other nonsense.
-So fastly paced that even the editing felt screwed up.
-When Chewie "died" I thought "Oh boy....the movie's doing something...this is heavy," but the movie didn't even let the audience sit with that one for 5 minutes. We get a line basically saying "lolz nevermind."
-For four years I've listened to fans speculate on whether Rey was a nobody, a descendant from good (like a Skywalker), or a descendant from evil (like Palatine). What does JJ go with. She's.....all of those. I guess everyone got what they wanted....? :/
-Every bit of dialogue felt like either exposition, or vague nonsense.
-I'm seeing countless reactions online that say TROS is amazing because it "fixes" or "retcons" elements of TLJ. This is insane. Even if you hated TLJ, JJ had the opportunity for a very fresh start following that film. People think ghost Luke catching a tossed lightsaber and making a quip while basically staring into the camera equals quality filmmaking? People think Rose (and the audience) being blatantly told she can't go on a mission equals quality storytelling? No.
-I lost count of how many times characters "died" but then.........un-died.

Regarding the ST, I have so much more respect for Rian Johnson than JJ right now. I definitely don't call TLJ a great film, but even though RJ fell short on so many executions, he had such an interesting vision. He took us in an interesting and different direction. Luke having his Jedi Academy massacred and going into exile, cutting himself off from the force? Interesting. Kylo betraying his Sith master, seizing power, and attempting to bring in Rey as a partner? Interesting. Rey being torn between Luke and Kylo's perspectives on the events of the past decade? So interesting.

And then TROS just feels like a rushed checklist of fan service and laziness.

So many blockbuster films are feeling more like corporate products, rather true storytelling and art. I'd love to see more people like RJ get their shots at SW films (if you haven't seen RJ's other films, I can't recommend them enough). Even if they fall short, it's more genuine, and we're more likely to get stories that will really stand the test of time.

I'd love to see fans focus more on the merit of storytelling, rather than the meeting of their own demands.

Just my opinions.

 

^ This post is a perfect example of not looking below the surface with this movie or the Sequel Trilogy as a whole.

 

I'd love if you could elaborate on what you mean. I've been very heavily invested in all ST material since the drop of the first TFA teaser 4+ years ago. SW means a lot to me, and I don't formulate opinions on it without quite a bit of thought and effort.

 

Okay.

There are a lot of narrative elements peppered throughout all 3 films in the Sequel Trilogy that both rhyme with and build upon what was done with the Prequel and Classic Trilogies, but that get overlooked when people want to find reasons to criticize the films.

This is particularly true of The Last Jedi, where most, if not all, of people's complaints ignore the nuance and subtext inherent in the decisions that were made narratively in that film, and of The Rise of Skywalker, where people have mistakenly gotten the idea that JJ used the film to ignore or 'fix' TLJ and the various narrative decisions that Rian made, which is an idea that he has unequivocally pushed back against in a brand-new interview posted within the past couple of days.

When one looks below the surface of what we're shown throughout the Sequel Trilogy, much of the issues regarding Luke's character, Ben and Rey, the First Order, Snoke, etc. disappear because looking below the surface reveals interconnectivity and callbacks that aren't readily apparent if all you're doing is looking at the surface of what we're shown.

A perfect example of this, BTW, is Rey and Ben's conversation from The Last Jedi that seemingly confirmed her as an unimportant nobody; when re-examined in light of TRoS and the revelation of her being a Palpatine, the scene and conversation is not actually about that at all, but is instead about Ben getting Rey to acknowledge truths about herself and her parents that she'd willfully suppressed and then using the insecurities that resulted from said suppression of the truth in order to try and get her to do what he wanted her to do, which was to join forces with him.

It's in nuanced readings of things like that scene and conversation, amongst others, that narrative arc-lines begin to make themselves apparent and the Sequel Trilogy becomes a story about the connection between Rey and Ben and the recontextualization of The Skywalker Saga/Episodic films as a story about two families - Skywalker and Palpatine - rather than just one.

 

I liked TROS. It had all the standard elements of a modern Star Wars movie - plot holes, nonsensical elements, shortcuts etc but on the whole I enjoyed it. It did feel more like watching a SW video game played out on screen i.e the storyline to me felt like the premise to a game and I wondered how non SW fans would feel after watching it, but time will tell.

However, like so many of you I have questions. I like it when things make sense and a few things missed this mark for me:

1. What happened to the rest of the First Order? We were introduced to the shiny new Sith Fleet, which was dispatched to the great scrap yard in the sky with ease by a rag tag medley of ships, but the film implied peace fell over the Galaxy in the aftermath of this event yet as far as I know the First Order is still out there. Was Kylo's destroyer the only ship the First Order have/had?

2. It was clear to me that one overriding theme through this trilogy would be Balance in the Force. I expected to find at the conclusion of this trilogy that Rey/Kylo/someone would be both a light and dark force user simultaneously, thus becoming a Balance user and bringing balance to the Force. Even the prequel trilogy harped on at length about Balance. Now, at the conclusion of the Skywalker trilogy, I am no closer to understanding what the hell Balance in the Force is, or what it should look like. Balance needs Light and Dark, yet Dark is abolished at the conclusion of TROS, Light succeeded, so what happened to the whole Balance thing??

3. So Luke's X-Wing simply just worked first time after being submerged in water for decades? I had the same issue with the Millennium Falcon in TFA - "this ship hasn't flown in years" but praise the Lord it started first time!

4. Wow, the Force now grants unprecedented new powers not seen in SW before, including the ability to replenish life. How did this happen? When did this happen? Why can Rey and Kylo cheat death but Yoda couldn't? Its not the powers themselves that bother me, it's the lack of explanation/precedent as to where/how/when/why these new powers came about that does. We're just supposed to accept that they do?

5. I felt uncomfortable with how little regard the team had for Threepio. None actually asked him outright if he was happy to undergo a life changing procedure - and when he tried to protest they ignored him. In other moments, when he simply tried to engage them in conversation or open up as to how his friends made him feel, they just talked about where his volume control was and blanked him. I really felt awful for Threepio, given all he's been through.

6. Who was flying the Ghost?? That's a massive deal for me! (Rebels was awesome).

7. Why was it called The Rise of Skywalker when, at the conclusion of the movie, they are all deceased? Rey is not a Skywalker despite what she says. I didn't see the title of the film played out on screen. I think "The Redemption of Skywalker" would've been a more fitting title.

8. Why did Ben have to die? To me the legacy and journey of the Skywalkers IS Star Wars. I grew up watching SW and the Skywalkers are the most intrisic element to it for me, so to have them all eradicated by the conclusion of the Skywalker saga, save for a pseudo-Skywalker, really doesn't float my boat. Ben should've lived.

9. Last but not least - my most agonising unanswered SW-related question that I was hoping this film would answer as it seriously drives me crazy. Where the hell is Ezra Bridger?????? I had secretly hoped we'd see an elder Bridger turn up in the ST, maybe even with Thrawn in tow! Alas, not to be.

I sound like I didn't enjoy the film but I did, I promise!

 

I thought TROS made perfect sense in regards to what the sequels have essentially been all about: legacy.

I’ve been hung up for a long time on the idea of Plagueis being behind all this. I felt his origin story and powers could tie directly into the story of Vader and provide a new threat that a tacked on Palpatine could not. However, I’ve completely changed my mind upon seeing the film. Everything fell into place.

This trilogy is about the legacy of all the previous heroes and villains of the saga - but mostly that of Skywalker and Palpatine. The challenge for the new characters in this trilogy was in overcoming the shadows of these legacy characters and going beyond them: “We are what they grow beyond”. In this context, bringing back Palpatine and having him related to Rey makes perfect sense and is perhaps what was intended all along (I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of Lucas’ treatment).

Thematically, for this trilogy alone, it made sense due to the rhyming with Kylo’s backstory - something we have all spoken about many times before on these forums. But for this trilogy to truly end the story of the Skywalker tale, it had to deal with the main elements that came before and Palpatine was a huge part of that. His shadow, as with Vader, looked over the galaxy. As described by Luke, the Jedi and by extension the films themselves, are about overcoming fear. Well, the story really wouldn’t have ended if the legacy of Palpatine wasn’t vanquished. Vader killing him for his son wasn’t enough. The cycle would and did continue until the galaxy vanquished his shadow. Rey embodied this and she achieved it by not killing Palpatine (and confining the cycle of hate) but by turning his power back on to him.

But this film went beyond tying up the legacy angle, it answered so many other questions from the previous films - and I’m not just talking about TFA and TLJ. For me this film answered questions about the OT, the PT and generally about the lore of the Force/Jedi/Sith.

I found it emotionally and intellectually satisfying. No Star Wars film can ever live up to our expectations or give us everything we want. And nor should they try to do that. Sure, there was some lip service being paid in this film. But overall I think it was making a point about legacy and did a great job in tying everything together. It was a fun ride from start to finish, different to any other Star Wars movie (faster and more intense!) and have us scenes and story elements we haven’t seen before. Once the dust has settled and people step back and take a wider view of the saga, I think it will become clearer that this is a great addition and superb ending to the tale.

 

Have you seen what happens when someone involved in the films suggests that a fan's opinion could possibly be ill informed?

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

I totally agree that Anakin saved Luke for the same reasons that he saved Palpatine from Windu. I don't understand how people somehow call it the the antithesis of the scene of Anakin's betrayal of the Jedi.

All the knowledge in the Jedi texts?

I think there's a distinction between cheating death and healing like Rey did with the worm thing.

Which is why Ben died. Where there was death, there is still death. Rey died. Ben couldn't cheat her death without it costing his own.