Thoughts and Opinions on TROS' Story

The ST is the inverse of the PT.

1) The PT had a cohesive storyline: The rise of an evil politician to become an emperor in command of the greatest army in the Universe, all while grooming an extremely powerful young Jedi Knight to become his ruthless apprentice.

The ST had a convoluted, disjointed, make-it-up-as-you-go, storyline: The evil First Order rises to power under Snoke and his apprentice Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa and who used to train under a now self-exiled Luke Skywalker. A lonely scavenger joins the fight against the First Order. As her powers grow to extreme levels, the scavenger and Ren team up to destroy Snoke. Ren, refusing to reject the Dark Side, becomes the Supreme Leader of the First Order. Then, Palpatine re-emerges on an ancient Sith planet with an enormous army of planet destroying Star Destroyers. The scavenger ends up being Palpatine’s granddaughter whom Palpatine needs to kill him to become fully reincarnated. The granddaughter refuses to do so but Palpatine is reincarnated anyways after he zaps her and a redeemed Ben Solo. Ben, the last of the Skywalker lineage, fights Palpatine who casually tosses him in a hole while the granddaughter kills Palpatine with two lightsabers.

2) The PT had some brutally cringeworthy characters, special effects, and acting with terrible dialog; The ST had really cool characters with great acting and interesting backgrounds, fantastic effects, and entertaining banter.

 

He's probably the closest to me as well.
There were fun bits, but they felt so disjointed.
It felt like two movies shoved into one.

 

And another thing. As Palpy is in IX, Darth Vader did not kill the Emperor in ROTJ and did not restore balance to the force. Meaning that the whole Anakin/Vader arc is now forever broken and irrelevant. A footnote at best.

I am Maaasta!
I kill you, Maaasta! I throw you!
I fall! Aaaaagh!
I die hero and bring balance to force
My daddy is hero, but deaded. I sad but happy also

30+ years later....

I back! I not deaded.
But you fall and go boom?! i see with own eyes. Wtf?
I see it too. Wtf?
So daddy not hero no more? Boohoo! I die in shock. Ack!
I am Maaaaaasta again! Muahahahaha!
I am Rey Palpatine. I kill my grandpa because he bad!
I dead! Ack!
I now hero too, and called Rey Skywalker because I kill my grandpa!
Errr, wtf??


Sucks!

 

This is a false notion for a number of reasons.

 

I dont mind the X-Wing working after being in water. Member Empire? Ok, the X-Wing was maybe a couple of hours in water on Dagoba...but does it really make a difference? A real plane wouldnt work after 5 seconds in water, so I dont get the objection to that. Let's just agree that in the galaxy far far away people produce much better quality gear. If anything, the water on Dagoba looked a lot nastier than the clean ocean an Ahch-to.

 

Y'know, his review is right in the neighborhood of where my feelings about the film currently lay. Though I don't have the problem with bringing Palpatine back that Alex does, I do feel like it needed some sort of explanation in the film. Having read Wendig's trilogy, I was able to lock some back story into it for myself, but I think for most viewers it will tend to sort of come out of nowhere and the lack of any explanation as to how he returned to life may tend to just hang there for them.

Gonna see it again in a few hours.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 20, 2019, Original Post Date: Dec 20, 2019 ---

Yeah, I think by now we should all be inured to the double handful of artistic license Star Wars takes with the laws of physics. Loud fiery explosions in the vacuum of space, going back to 1977.

Story/continuity issues bug me. Loopy Star Wars physics, not so much.

 

The significant difference between what happened to Luke's X -Wing on Dagobah in TESB and what TRoS does is that, in the former situation, the X-Wing had crashed into a freshwater swamp and only remained fully submerged for a matter of hours, whereas in TRoS, it had been fully submerged in saltwater for more than half a decade.

Having said that, however, I've realized that it's really not that big of a leap for it to have not actually corroded or been damaged by the salt in Ach-To's oceans when we're dealing with a Space Fantasy series like Star Wars.

 

Must have been some. Chewie had a fire in TLJ where he roasted Porg.

 

The books were literally kept in an ancient tree. people be complaining to complain again

 

Let's just presume that people are going to argue about the removed S-foil being converted into a makeshift door, and the effects of saltwater on a submerged X-Wing and so on. The problem for me was I just didn't feel it. Yoda lifting Luke's X-Wing out of the swamp was a magical moment. This - to me - just came across as Luke doing the same thing to the same musical cue... yeah, I get it - it's like poetry, it rhymes.
Just because it rhymes doesn't immediately make it poetic.
It kind of has the opposite effect for me, because in my mind, I don't picture JW coming up with the perfect music to underpin the emotion of the scene... I just picture a committee sitting around saying "right, it's a lifting the X-Wing out of the water moment - get me the lifting the X-Wing out of the water music!"

Personally - and I appreciate other people may not have an issue with this - I'm not really keen on dead Jedi being able to interact in this way.
To my mind, Lucas toyed with the idea of having Yoda and Obi-Wan literally intervening in the final battle in ROTJ, but intentionally chose not to go down this route.
"If you choose to face Vader, you will do it alone. I cannot interfere." - I always thought Ben's line set the ground rules anyway.
But now Force ghosts can invoke lightning storms, catch discarded lightsabers and raise fighters from the ocean.
Doesn't really jive with me, I'm afraid. It's moving the goalposts too much for my liking.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 20, 2019, Original Post Date: Dec 20, 2019 ---

Just remembered as well - not really a big deal, but I couldn't help chuckling to myself when Rey actually set off to Ahch-To. The planet which the whole first movie kind of revolved around, in that it required a missing map to locate... yet she just finds her way there using Kylo's TIE Fighter, presumably from memory.
I thought navigating hyperspace required "precise calculations".

 

I've always read that Obi-Wan line to mean that they can't intervene outside of isolation. The numerous Jedi voices Rey hears don't appear at all. All the Rebels' interactions establish the power of connection the live-Jedi has to the Force dictates how powerful the Force Ghost can be. Ezra only hears Yoda first, then is able to see him in subsequent season. Luke & Rey are at the height of their powers when the ghosts mess with them, and always in isolation, including when Ahsoka, Ezra, and Kanan all split up in the Jedi Temple and have their own visions/interactions.

 

Obi-Wan clearly meant that he couldn't - or wouldn't - step in to stop Luke from choosing to face Vader down despite being warned against doing so.

Trying to take that as a blanket statement and apply it to TRoS is as nonsensical as trying to do the same thing with comments like "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" or "You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view", neither of which apply to situations beyond those in which they were uttered.

 

Really doesnt she just need to remember the coordinates. The computer does the calculations.

 

Also, Kylo was going to take the map from her mind in TFA, so it tracks.

 

I agree. That said, given how he was made out to be a sniveling fool in TLJ, they didn’t have many options for him. Sniffing him out and replacing him with a bad guy that actually had some gravitas and gave you sense that he actually was worth being afraid of was a fair story telling move IMO.

I liked the movie a lot but I think this is one of the handful examples of it being a bit a victim of some of the choices that care before it.

 

Without having yet seen the film, but based solely on the spoilers, it is my understanding that Hux does what he does because of personal hatred towards Kylo, period.

And what Rian did in TLJ with the character really isn't as incompatible with TFA as people have convinced themselves that it is.

 

Clearly...

Well, he says can not, not will not, so I'd say the former is most likely...

Doesn't seem that way to me. Yoda and Obi-Wan both do to urge him not to make that choice.
"You must not go!"
I don't see any reason not to take it at face value - if you face Vader, we cannot interfere.

I'm not, I'm applying a couple of the things that happen in TLJ and TROS to my understanding of the GFFA from the previous seven films, with examples of why that came to be my understanding...

I'd say the latter is probably always true. In the GFFA and in real life.
The former was pretty nonsensical from the moment it was uttered, but I get what Lucas was driving at.

 

I disagree here. Well I do agree that the ending was fab service, but I loved it. As fans of Star Wars for decades we were saying goodbye to characters that we love. I found it wholly appropriate and touching that there was a return to the Skywalker moisture farm and the burying of the sabers. I found it a touching way for the audience to say goodbye.

Fan service, yes. But the best kind.

I also don’t think Rey taking the name Skywalker was self entitled or appropriation. First, Luke and Leia were the mother and father figures that she had been searching for and she obviously earned their respect and affection. Second, she did it to honor them. Finally Luke and Leia were literally smiling over her during that scene, so I took it as them clearly approving.

You could certainly argue that they wouldn’t have approved but that seems to me as if the argument would be coming more from a “this movie/moment violated my head cannon so I’m angry” place vs a real criticism.

Adpoted children choose to take the name of their adopted families all the time. I’d hardly call that self entitlement or inappropriate.

 

I'm honestly surprised that other people are surprised by or upset about Rey taking on the name 'Skywalker', as JJ himself set it up in The Force Awakens and it is both wholly consistent with and appropriate to the situation she finds herself in with Luke, Leia, and Ben throughout both TFA and TLJ (especially TLJ).

 

This was not a sequel trilogy. It was an attempted woke reboot cash-in with OT bait, which I fully reject in favour of the original material.

There is no Episode VII, VIII or IX.