What's the point of this trilogy?

Disney are a HUGE company. They own Marvel and Pixar and now Lucasfilm. Unfortunately with a lot of big corporations they go for quantity, not quality. The ST trilogy had a lot of flaws...TFA for example, borrowed too much from ANH, with the same kind of villains, same kind of heroes, 'message in droid', and Rey was dressed similarly to Luke and lived on a desert planet - although her background was very different. Nevertheless it was still a fun film, and TLJ was going for something different, I think. TROS suffered from a rushed schedule, plus a last minute change of director, and it showed. Disney, again like big companies, are all about money; they wanted the film released at a certain time and got their wish.

I also think they wanted to move away from Lucas's legacy characters. They only gave them one descendant, and made him the 'bad guy'...and I really think looking back that Abrams wanted Kylo to kill his father so the audience would embrace Rey and despise the last blood Skywalker. If you watch the film again they were very obviously setting her up as 'the child Han and Leia should have had'; Han offers her a job, Kylo refers to her as seeing Han as a father figure...and who could forget Leia hugging Rey at the end instead of Chewie? Rather odd considering she'd never met her before!

I think at the end of the day, the ST is great if you're a Rey fan....but the other characters were pretty hard done by. And if like me, you were a Kylo fan - then maybe the best thing to do is walk away from SW, which I am doing my best to do, but finding it hard after forty odd years!

 

If something that’s supposed to bring you joy isn’t doing that for you, then yeah, probably best to leave it be and maybe come back to it later when you’re in a different place.

The idea of being a fan of a specific character is a strange concept to me. The characters are all just artifacts of the overarching story. They’re there in order to express different aspects of the singular narrative and the message it’s trying to relate to the audience. Some can be more successful at doing that then others, so I understand having a preference. But rooting for one over another? I just don’t get it. They’re all necessary to make up the greater whole.

Similarly, I also don’t quite understand the immense preciousness attached to a term the Disney PR machine made up so that they can better sell you things. ‘Skywalker Saga’. That’s what they called it, so that’s what it must be . . . but only in this very specific way that I’ve interpreted it to mean! Like ‘Book of Boba Fett’. So interestingly odd.

 

I think it's less about the greater whole in the case of rooting for a particular character and more about the connection to the character and how one perceives their relationship within the context of the greater whole.

An example I always go back to is my relationship with Finn and how I saw Kylo Ren in TFA. In TFA, Finn was my eyes through the story. Yes, Rey was supposed to be "the one," but I couldn't relate to her. So, I focused on Finn and his journey. This bled into what I wanted out of Finn in subsequent movies, and how I perceived if he was well or poorly used. Frankly, it still does.
For Kylo Ren, I didn't connect to him either, but I perceived him in the view of a multi-faced lens that reflected our heroes in different ways. Needless to say that the movies didn't fully lean into as much as I would have hoped, but that's neither here nor there. But because I was a fan of Finn and didn't care for Kylo Ren, I rooted for Finn over Kylo Ren in nearly every scenario. It's not that I didn't want to see Kylo Ren be useless, but rather that I wanted to see Finn be given the time I thought he was owed, time Kylo I didn't (and still don't) think Kylo needed or should have been given. That doesn't mean I hate Kylo fans though - I don't understand them, but I certainly don't hate them.

Or maybe a better example would be a television show. Say you like a character who's comic relief, but the longer the show goes, the more flanderized they become - the more of a punchline they are. Is it not acceptable to feel as if the character is being mishandled due to these changes? Even if being the punchline fits within the context, so did their previous characterization, so why can't one be mad at how they've been used? At how they've been treated compared to characters who haven't become a punchline or a mockery of their previous selves? (This hasn't happened for any show I've watched recently, but I've seen it in a few shows, just not to characters I cared enough about to feel this way.)

Or maybe it's just because I'm have been/am involved with the shipping (relationship-pairing) culture of different fandoms, so I'm not unused to wanting one group to succeed at the expense of another. (So long as it's done respectfully, of course.)

That feels surprising, to be honest. Maybe it's the other fandoms I'm in, but it's weird to not have favorites in other places. Be it your favorite Mass Effect companion, or favorite Brandon Sanderson character or Fire Emblem game, or favorite Harry Potter character/house, favorite Parks & Rec/Brooklyn Nine-Nine/How I Met Your Mother/Friends/Abbott Elementary/Modern Family character, or just your favorite MCU character. Favorites are fine IMO so long as people respect that others have other favorites. It's not different than having a favorite food, or band/singer, or book. It's just someone who resonated with you in some way, shape, or form, who brings you more happiness when they're on-screen than others, and because of that you want to see them more onscreen than others.

The problem with that mindset, again, is that when things don't go as you wanted or as you feel they should go, you get up in your feelings and hurt and start to hate the thing you once loved because of unrealistic and unfair expectations. Not unlike the major backlash to Luke's characterization in TLJ.

 

It might be because I'm autistic...who knows?
I will say this...I was upset that they killed off the Skywalkers, not just because Kylo was my favourite, but also because I now realise I'm more of a Skywalker fan than a SW fan. But people who send death threats absolutely disgust me. That is going way too far.

eeprom..believe me, I've tried to walk away from SW..but it isn't easy...I loved it for so long and it was a wonderful source of escapism through some dark times, it is still so hard to let it go. But eventually...I know I'm going to have to.
At least I won't be wasting any more money on anything Disney does!

 

I look at characters in a story like instruments in an orchestra. Like I said, I get having a preference or “favorite”. Being a ‘fan’ though, I define as something way beyond simply being partial. You’ve chosen to make that thing a defining aspect of who you are as a person. You’re fanatical about it.

If someone’s favorite instrument in an orchestra is the viola, they just appreciate its sound more than the others, look forward to hearing it, and are left lacking when they don’t - that makes total sense to me. Being a viola ‘fan’ though, where you’re principally only here for that one instrument above the rest of the symphonic experience, and its presence or how well its handled makes are breaks your enjoyment, I don’t get that.

I’m sure it exists and I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, it just seems like a self-defeating perspective to me. Was the whole thing bad? Was there truly nothing salvageable in the broader work you can’t focus on instead? If you can’t look past that deficiency, if you can’t find the joy in it, then the only one who loses in that scenario is you. I don’t understand why anyone would choose that when they don’t have to.

 

But you are also critical of "Disney" being stuck in the past with Star Wars. Isn't wanting the Skywalkers to live forever being stuck in the past?

 

No.
I wanted the family to go on. And as he's Leia's husband, and Ben's father, Han to me is part of it. No one can live forever - even in space fantasy (except perhaps Palpatine) - but although I might be in the minority here, I loved Ben Solo/Kylo Ren....and while he lived, Luke, Han and Leia would have lived on through his progeny. As I have said, I'm a Skywalker/Solo fan more than a general SW fan, and no matter how noble it seems that Rey took the name, as Lord of the Rens stated, she isn't a Skywalker. She's a Palpatine. I can't see it any other way, I'm sorry.

What angers me regarding Disney is I see their behaviour as double standards. They erase Lucas's legacy family, apparently to make way for Rey, yet now with the spin off SW tv series, such as Mando, BoBF and the forthcoming Obi Wan series, they are still falling back on his characters - Luke for example - in order to make money.
That isn't really fair both to Lucas and those of us who loved the Skywalkers.

 

The only Ben Solo we got to see was the Ben Solo who sacrifices himself for Rey. If you love Ben Solo then you love him dying and Rey living. Because Ben Solo doesn't appear at any other time in the trilogy.

Lucas didn't really want Ben Solo in the first place. I don't see how giving a noble death to a character that Lucas didn't really conceive and not carrying on the "saga" for their benefit is unfair.

Lucas brought back Palpatine. The idea that he is opposed to exploiting legacy characters has no basis in reality.

I loved the Skywalkers and I don't feel it's unfair to me that they didn't choose to keep Ben alive for "reasons". If "Ben" had just been killed in combat, knowing what he'd done before, to Han in particular, we would understandably think, "Well that figures". It's not even in the remotest sense a perverse or undue story development. It's absolutely straightforward and almost predictable.

Furthermore, fans have been lamenting that they never got to see a Luke Skywalker triumphant, as he surely must have been after Return Of The Jedi (although I would hesitate to call being orphaned, again, and burdened with the job of forming a new Jedi order on my on a "triumphant" period). They are getting it in a fashion with the cameos in Mandalorian and TBoBF. To say that it is unfair to treat the fans to what they claim to have missed out on and wanted all along from the ST is again quite at odds with reality.

Lets not forget that it would be way easier and probably a lot cheaper to have a movie/show with Adam Driver than to try and recreate 30 year old Luke/Hamill and avoid all the landmines that can be stepped on there. So LFL seem to be going out of their way and spending a lot of money to be unfair to the fans.

It's so unfair to the fans that apparently were in an uproar when a LFL employee didn't provide superlatives to describe one notable fan's reactions to how amazing Luke's appearance was.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 1, 2022, Original Post Date: Apr 1, 2022 ---

There's a difference between just having a favourite and gauging the success of the entire franchise on whether or not the authors share your favouritism and respect and endorse all the same priorities you have concerning a specific character, at the expense of other characters.

 

You're right, there is, but I don't think that line is as wide as you think it is either, especially not in today's environment or even our current fandom. Sure, today's talk is about Kylo Ren, but when TLJ came out it was all about Luke, and how dirty people felt he was done. (Now, feeling that way doesn't mean it was true.) Tomorrow, it may be about a different character.

Ah, I gotcha. I don't think we'll agree on this, but thanks for explaining your perspective!
I define the first as being a fan, and the other as being dangerously obsessed, or as you say, fanatical. "Fan" may have originated from "fanatical," but the two are so different to me now that it's not comparable. For example, I'd consider myself a moderate fan of the Dallas Mavericks. I used to go to games with my family, watch when they're on, remember some things about their previous iterations and have inside jokes with my dad about them, and have had favorite players throughout the years, players who I was sad to see leave the team. (And don't get me started on the Post-Championship choices.)
But by your definition I wouldn't necessarily be a fan.
My brother-in-law is a larger aficionado of the NBA, and loves the Golden State Warriors all because of Steph Curry, to the point that one of his Christmas gifts one year were prime tickets to a Golden State game when Steph was supposed to be playing. Games without Steph Curry don't interest him as much. I'd call him a fan of basketball and an even larger fan of Steph Curry, but he's not fanatical about it either.
I'm a fan of Pokemon. I have historically played the new Generations Day 1, can name my favorite Pokemon line, game, and all of the regions. I can name all of the types and I can probably sing the original Pokemon theme song. I'm a fan. A different type of fan could tell you about EVs, IVs, competitive tiers and how to build a competitive team. Yet another fan could do none of the above, but they know how to break the game for speedruns. A fanatic is something else entirely IMO, someone who crosses a dangerous and unhealthy in their obsession, such as acting like a Pokemon when they shouldn't, spending an unhealthy amount of money on Pokemon items or in-game purchases to the point they could be going into debt, or judging people's lives through how much they "know" about Pokemon (aka gatekeeping).

There are levels in-between of course, but I don't think it's as simple as you make it out to be, or at least not to me.

I think I get that, but it's the inverse of what you believe. It's not that symphony isn't important, simply that instead of listening for the symphony as a whole, you care for how the symphony addresses the viola as an individual. It's experiencing the symphony through the viola, not the other way around.
Or maybe it's like having your child in the play. You don't really care about many of the other parents' kids, because they're not your kid - and that's who you're here for, your kid. But if you learned that at the last minute your kid's role had been taken away or the director decided to do something else with your kid in the play, or maybe your kid's role simply as important as you thought it'd be or they made it out to be, you as a parent will be left cheated or hurt for the child (no matter how they actually feel, which is its own thing that needs to be addressed). I certainly don't have children so I'm not sure how well the example above worked (although I did once play an April Fools prank about me having a child on a friend), and fictional characters are clearly not our children or progeny, but people can connect to them in very real ways. Sometimes, people see themselves in the characters to a dangerous degree, to the degree that they feel as if their own fates are tied to the characters' because they relate that much. That is incredibly dangerous and incredibly unfair to the creators**, and is something that each individual has to watch out for. That is fanaticism.

But the reverse is true too. If someone only cares about the symphony and not the individual instruments that make up the symphony, then the sound made can be hollow and false, because there's no care about for the pieces. If the Big Picture (read: the Big Picture of the current conductor) is all that matters, then the sounds may not match the instruments given. Trying to play a Big Brass Band piece with two trumpets and forcing the Viola to do something unnatural should be upsetting for fans of the Viola, should it not? Watching Kylo Ren completely regress in his character arc and gain an ending that feels undeserved, unearned, and going by the previous two movies, unwanted - aren't fans who viewed Kylo that way right to feel offended at his character?

I know you've pointed out the themes of found family and adoption in Star Wars and have made some phenomenal posts about it. You've also made some posts about Rey being a Palpatine being a messy addition in terms of a twist, IIRC. (Although please correct me if I'm wrong and update me on your current feelings of the matter! I don't want to misrepresent you.) I'd argue that the twist and even Rey naming herself a Skywalker were all for the Big Picture, for the symphony, instead of understanding who the character is (or in this case, the Viola?) and what they need.***

Personally, I tried the whole "symphony" approach years ago. After a while, it feel apart, and my view of Star Wars hasn't been the same sense (in some ways for the better, in other ways for the worse.) IMO, the symphony approach works best if you can appreciate it all the way through, with all pieces as they are or were. If you can't, that philosophy falls apart.

*I'd say I skirt the line in terms of Finn, as I do see a lot of myself or at least a role-model with a good arc I would have liked to have shown any future children I'm blessed with. But the arcs Finn has been given don't support that dream, at least not to me and not outside of TFA. Combine that with some subtle and we'll say unfortunate trends I've seen in SFF and the general American media, and things get complicated fast. But I've seen people take it a LOT farther, dangerously farther. I refuse to become like that.
**Although some could say that as soon as the media's out, any message intentional or unintentional is out of the creators' hands, and as such the consumers are free to interpret and take to heart whatever message they find, despite the creators' intentions.
***Counterpoint to myself - this may just be an alternate interpretation of the same character viewed through different lens. The writers viewed Rey and her arc in one way because of their desires, experiences, and wants, and I viewed it in another way. Both views have valid aspects to them, but unless both are given outlets (which is on me, not the movie), they are mutually exclusive and harmful to both me and my view of the franchise. Fortunately, I've addressed that and moved on.

 

Did you just Marie Kondo Star Wars?

 

The word has certainly come to have a negative connotation, but really it’s only descriptive of someone who is inordinately overzealous about something. You can be fanatical about pie. It doesn’t mean you’re dangerously obsessed with it. You just care way more about it than the average person.

I’ve seen the term ‘casual fan’ crop up in recent years as a way to distinguish between: OK, I like the thing, but I’m not dedicating big chunks of my free time to it.

What I’m speaking to is the point at which the fan feels a degree of ownership. Where a perceived mishandling of the thing is then interpreted as a personal slight as if it were a malicious attack. It’s something I, myself, can’t relate to. It’s like loving someone that is incapable of loving you back. Seems like mostly a recipe for heartache.

That much does indeed make sense to me. If a character represents a particular viewpoint or experience that’s intimately close to the person, it follows that they’d attach themselves and would feel a kinship.

When I was a kid, I had to deal with some issues I saw Luke coping with extremely heightened versions of in ROTJ. That invested me far deeper into his role than the rest of the players. But it would never occur to me to be upset if Luke was then presented out of character in other media. The emotional connection is what’s real. Not the character. That part is imaginary.

I guess that’s academically true. What matters, I feel, is whether the composition affects you emotionally on the level it was attempting to. The mishandling of a single instrument can certainly take you out of the experience, no doubt. But would that truly offend you? Would you be mad at the composer for ‘ruining’ his own work? I’d probably be disappointed, sure, but I wouldn’t be angry. It would never occur to me.

I’m trying my best not to put this in terms of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. People are allowed to feel however they want. They’re allowed to interpret the work however they want. I just feel it would be more beneficial to the individual to take personal investment out of the angle and engage with what’s actually there. Not what they would have liked more or what they think should have happened instead.

Truly ask “How does this connect to what was previously presented? Is there a connection that I’m maybe not seeing?” And it might turn out ‘nope’, I’ve turned it around on every side in my head and it just doesn’t track for me. And that’s totally fair. But did you really give it that chance?

And I don’t recommend this for just anything someone happens to like that falls short, but rather for something they’re already pre-invested in. If it’s in your life and it’s there because it, at some point at least, made you happy, then take the effort and find the bits in it that make you happy and work that avenue.

I don’t feel like I’ve ever criticized the twist itself, but certainly the handling of it. Much of TROS, to me, is strikingly clumsy. But charmingly so. It’s unintentionally hilarious. “You are a Palpatine.” “Where are you from, General?” “Rey who?” These lines and moments are so inorganic and graceless, I can’t help but laugh. I could never be mad at anything that’s brought me so much joy. Nondeliberate, yeah, but joy all the same.

The Emperor, at least in the OT, wasn’t really a character more than he worked as the living embodiment of the dark side. Anakin and Luke overcoming him is equivalent to each overcoming their own inner darkness. TROS uses him the same way with Rey, but makes it more literal. He actually is a part of her in a more direct way and so represents her darkness in a more direct way.

For someone like Rey, who has been defined by her quest for identity and desire for belonging and apprehension toward her own power, to discover that all that is tied up in this figure that symbolizes evil incarnate, that really works for me. She has an identity and it’s the worst one imaginable. She has a belonging and it’s one that’s antithetical to her nature. She was right to fear her power, because it comes from a place that’s worth fearing.

Her journey then becomes about facing all that adversity and recognizing that none of it at all is who she truly is. Her identity is her own choice. Her belonging is her own choice. Her power came from a dark place, but what she does with it is her own choice. In concept, I think that’s all great. As far as how it actually came together in the film? Not so much.

What/who Rey wants to be, by the end of the narrative, is a champion of the light, a beacon of hope, and the future of the Jedi. The name that best embodies everything she strives to be is ‘Skywalker’. It’s a statement of purpose. Like “I will earn your brother's saber one day.” It’s aspirational. Again, awkward as all get out, but beautiful in premise.

I suppose. Maybe I’m just not as fully invested as other ‘real fans’. ROTJ was the first Star Wars thing I ever experienced. At the time, I had no idea it wasn’t a self-contained story. I thought that’s all Star Wars was and I was entirely fine with it. I never needed or wanted more.

For me, everything we’ve gotten since 1983 has been bonus material. It’s like getting a free desert from a restaurant because it’s my birthday. I didn’t ask for it, but here it is for me to enjoy. I’m never oblivious to its faults, but I’m incredibly forgiving of them because it’s more than I was expecting to receive. If it’s here for me to enjoy, then hell, I’ll do my best to try and enjoy it. Warts and all.

 

Wow. Never thought I'd see the day when someone would tell me I should be happy that my favourite character...died.
Congratulations...my flabber is totally gasted.

By the way....I loved Kylo as well as 'Ben', I never saw them as different people.

 

You're on a Star Wars forum talking about the intricacies of fandom, fans, and fanaticism. I've seen you discuss the themes, meanings and interpretations of characters, events, and movies. If you don't qualify as a fully invested fan, I'm not sure what does.

I'd argue that the word's connotation is the new definition. If a word has come to be described and used in a new circumstance that is understood by the general public to the point that the original definition now feels awkward, then I'd argue that the definition is has now changed. But that's prescriptivism vs descriptivism.

I've heard of it and I'm pretty sure I've used it, but I'm not entirely a fan of the phrase. (Pun Intended.) It's ripe for gatekeeping uses and elitism in other communities. If I'm a "casual gamer," or a "casuan fan of gaming" if I don't play competitively or professionally? Would I be considered a casual gamer if I interact with the fandom of a series like Fire Emblem because I don't care for the stats or super hard difficulties, or Low-Turn Counts, despite having put in hundreds of hours into the past three games over the past six years? (Don't judge, there was a time in my life where there was physically little else to do.) Am I casual Star Wars fan because I don't go to conventions or know obscure trivia? By this definition, I'd be a casual fan of several books I've read or other things that I wouldn't even consider myself a fan of. I read or watched the thing, liked it, and moved on. On rare occasions I may think about it, on rarer occasions I may revisit it, but I don't really talk to anyone about it or care enough to seek out a community. To me, I guess, that's the biggest difference. Fans want to seek community to share the thing they love, regardless of knowledge level or intensity of appreciation.
Then again, I'd probably call most people who watch MCU moves casual fans. They like the thing enough to continue watching, but they aren't necessarily seeking community or people to share that experience with. (Again, me using the definition but not entirely satisfied with it.) What's the difference between casual and recreatonal? (Rhetorical question here.)

I agree that's dangerous and unhealthy, but I don't think it's out of the right of the fan to do so. But that relates to the Death of the Author philosophy IMO, as well as separating the art from the artist to a smaller degree. Once a work is out of the creator's hand, anyone can do anything with it, be it from fan art, to appreciation posts, to obsessing over characters within it to the point that they feel a degree of ownership. Again, THIS IS NOT HEALTHY AND I DO NOT CONDONE THIS, nor is the character truly the fans', but it's not out of their right to do so.

Oh, it very much is. 0/10 do not recommend.

I can't fully relate to it, but I do understand it, personally. I think the difference is the idea of the attack being malicious. I've only seen something "mishandled" in the eyes of one or two fans seen as malicious once or twice. One time happened just the other night, in fact, but it had less to do with a specific character and more to do with the entire story and adaptation as a whole, and it had nothing to do with this conversation...anyways! Yeah, I can understand it.

I agree. But the character is experiencing the things that create an emotional connection, and that's why people connect to them.

I definitely had a different experience as a kid, but everyone else has a different experience. Personally, I didn't relate to any Star Wars character as a kid. Yeah, Luke had the coolest lightsaber, and it was fun to quote ESB with my dad - heck, it still is - but they never resonated with me. It wasn't until Finn that I found a character who finally did.

Personally, I usually agree with this, but I also don't think that flies for everyone. I also think that we can rate things on more than one way. I've previously tried to separate the "does this succeed at what it's trying to do," from "how do I feel about this," because they're two separate feelings and sets of thoughts. For example, a movie like Logan absolutely succeeds at what it's trying to do and what type of movie it's trying to be. I also happen to absolutely loathe it. If a movie affects me emotionally the way it was supposed to, but you don't like or want those emotions, is it a success or a failure? Can it be both?

If that single instrument is all I'm there for, yeah, I'd be offended. I'd feel like it was a waste of time. Sure, the composition is trying to reach me through majesty of every piece, but if I'm only experiencing the majesty through the lens of one instrument that is mishandled, the entire story doesn't work.
Say I'm watching a comedy movie about a man trying to win back a woman. The man is an absolute jerk, but everything is played for laughs, or the movie just brushes it off for the sake of romance. By the end of the movie, I may feel as if I wasted my time because nothing worked for me. The music could have been great, the jokes hilarious, and the side-characters brilliant, but if the lens by which I observed the movie - the lens of the main character - doesn't work, then the movie itself won't work for me. Now, say I watch the movie with a friend. Her favorite actor is the best friend in the movie. She's having a great time watching the movie because she loves the favorite actor, and maybe the movie did that character justice. She's enjoyed the movie because the lens through which she watched and related to it it is different from the lens through which I watched and related to it.

It depends on the composer and what I expect from the story, honestly. If I'm expecting more than what I'm given because I've seen more from them, then yeah, I'm going to be disappointed and annoyed when it feels as if they had something great and threw it away. Now in my personal case, I get to be even more annoyed since several of the things I felt that TROS could and/or should have done differently were explicitly done in Duel of the Fates. That doesn't mean that DOTF would have been a better movie, but it makes me feel justified when there is proof that the other ideas I and others had were valid enough that a former composer shall we say, thought they should have been in the movie at one point.
(Also for TROS the lack of a directors commentary doesn't help IMO.)

Directors' Commentaries are great for this as well, since they can provide insight that we as fans may have missed. The fact that TROS doesn't have one is a shame and a missed opportunity to, if not change people's minds, and least open them up some. I know that TLJ's commentary was one for me.

That's hard to do when you're already pre-invested. Not even presuming or predicting, simply pre-invested. I try to go into most films with no set expectations other than "I'm going to be entertained." If the movie fails on even that front, I'm going to have problems with the it. Personally, thinking about the "what should have happened," is both a two-fold writing exercise and a form of catharsis. It allows me to get out my own feelings and expectations by rewriting the story to fit my needs. By doing so, I can link what I wanted to have happened/thought should have happened to what makes me happy, and use that to figure out the reason I was disappointed. But I also do that with movies I enjoyed as well, and that process isn't for everyone.

So long as you don't feel as if you've wasted your time with it by the end of things. Contrary to my favorite author's best book series, the Destination does matter, and the destination impacts how one sees the journey. (This is more impactful for TROS than many other things IMO.)

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the correction!

And where you found joy, I found annoyance and disrespect. The same thing, different lens. For me, not only did the movie fail at what it was trying to do, the destination was so improperly handled that I dread the journey leading up to it.
We have the saying that "time heals all wounds," but that's because time gives us distance from the wound. The wound may be an ending of a sort, but it's not THE ending. TROS was, at this time, THE ending.* We haven't had any real canonical material taking place after it, which means I personally would have to end any movie marathon on a movie that I hate with nothing to look forward to after. And that makes me personally dread wanting to have Star Wars movie marathons, something that I loved to do.
I do believe that time and distance will heal this wound too, but like the wounds implied in the saying, it will probably take some work too, work I don't necessarily see Lucasfilm putting in. (They'd rather us focus on the High Republic.)
And that being said, the experience you had with TROS is not unlike the one I had with the live action Bleach movie. It was so bad it was almost good, in a "watching a trainwreck while eating popcorn" sort of way. Still, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone just because I found some unintentional joy in it.

And I never saw him as that. (Again, same thing, different lens.) To me, Luke and Anakin conquering the Dark Side was...them conquering the Dark Side. Their moral victories let to physical victories elsewhere. However, the Emperor was a physical villain to be defeated by using all of the things the Light Side represented, but he wasn't a stand-in for something already present. But I do get your point of view, even if I don't share it.

And to me, that arc was reductive and reptetive. Rey had found out about her past and her ultimate fate in TLJ. She wasn't the daughter of heroes as a next generation hero, nor was she the daughter of villains, rising up to fight the legacy they wanted from her. She was a nobody, fearing the thing inside of her and desiring a place in the story only to find out that she had no manufactured place, and that the Force chose her as a sword against Snoke and Kylo Ren. Leia's final lines in the film, "we have everything we need" was the perfect capstone to that entire arc. Rey doesn't need a family legacy, because she was enough. Rey doesn't need to be nothing, because she is enough. Rey's action of helping the Resistance results in her being known, because she's not a nobody, not to them. And then TROS redoes all of this in order to justify a twist that, while on its own is as good as you say, hurts both the movie and its characters by being included. Now, had this twist been included in TLJ instead of TROS, then I may feel different.

It still doesn't work for me. It still feels like fanservice for the sake of fanservice, partially because it doesn't work and partially because I feel like it's against what the characters would want or needed to do. It worked for Luke and Anakin because Luke's idealization of Anakin and the Jedi is core to his character. Luke saved his father. Rey's idealization, and disillusionment, and subsequent regaining of respect of Luke happens in TLJ, but it was never as intimate as being able to call herself a Skywalker. No, Rey's "saving" of Luke isn't an action that would earn her of his name IMO. Not to mention that Rey's relationship with the Skywalker clan is most positive with Han and Leia. So, if Rey was going to name herself something, then I still feel as if Organa would have been more meaningful in-world (and a great follow-up to Rey thinking of Han as a father-figure, and a great retroactive way to paint the trilogy in contrast to the OT - in the OT you start with a brother saving a sister while in the ST you'd end with a brother saving a sister), a great and emotion fanservice moment for fans, and a beautiful homage to Carrie Fisher. Luke's legacy is secured in the Jedi still being around, and as much as I'd have liked for him to have kids, I don't think he needed much more than that. (Although I'm not opposed to having a Jedi rank named after the Skywalkers, so Lucasfilm and Disney can milk that name by allowing any future character to be a Skywalker.) Leia needed more. Leia deserved more.
But these were thoughts that I had coming out of the movie, these weren't presumptions or even predictions.

Interesting! Thanks for sharing that! I grew up with the OT, and the first Star Wars movie I remember seeing in theaters was Attack of the Clones. (Although I can all but guarantee my 7-8 y.o. self saw TPM in theaters as well.) Star Wars was always a part of my childhood. I remember reading the Jedi Apprentice books at my elementary school library. It reigned second in my life next to Superheroes and cartoons. Heck, in many ways it still does. But because of when I got into it, I always knew there was more than just the movies, I guess, so I expected more from everything.

And I ask in that in the instances where some of us can't find the enjoyment within us, you enjoy it for us. Either way, I feel like this is a good stopping point for our discussion. You ended on a positive note, so let's end this discussion positively!



*This is also the secret to bad superhero movies IMO. You didn't like Black Widow? Shang-Chi is in a couple of months! Don't like Eternals? Why not try Spider-Man: No Way Home! You don't like Ben Affleck as Batman? How about Robert Pattinson? You don't feel like Henry Cavill's Superman is good enough (said nobody ever)? How about Tyler Hoechlin's Superman?

 

'Enthusiast', maybe?

 

I never told you what you should do. I’m pointing out what you already are doing.

I said that if you do love Ben Solo then that’s what you are referring to. That brief spell near the end of the saga where he sacrifices himself for Rey. (The aspect which you are opposed to.). Kylo Ren executed a man loyal to Ben’s mother, murdered Ben’s father in a cowardly way, tortured her to get information and used Rey to satisfy his lust for power.

So if as you claim you love Kylo and Ben jointly, but you reject the one thing that Ben does in the entire trilogy, it’s super hard to take seriously, or to see any logic or discernment in your arguments that Ben dying was undue, unwise and unfair. Ben dying for Rey is the only good thing that Kylo/Ben does.

 

Has a character to accomplish only good things for liking him/her?
For my part Kylo Ren is my favourite character and not his Ben Solo persona.

I still like Ben Solo as a concept, but unfortunately it wasn't really well used in TROS.
Kylo's character and conflict was much more interesting to me.

Yes, I also wanted him to get reedemed, but if I had known this leads to his death, then I would have preferred him dying as a villain. His one good deed, didn't do much more for me because it had no consequences for his character journey and for the over all story. Killing hin was the easy and lazy way out.

 

It's not just about liking the character. I'm addressing the argument that Ben dying was somehow undue or at odds with where the story and character should have been headed. . And yet everything else in the story, and in previous trilogies, almost necessitates it. Someone had to die. The saga (since the prequels redefined it this way) teaches us that death cannot be cheated. To conclusively defeat Palpatine, it cost Rey her life (as it had cost Anakin his) but Ben redeems himself by taking her place, giving his life to save hers.

What exactly does Ben dying give the writers a "way out" of? Why is it lazy? Killing central characters is not an easy thing to do. There will always be a section of the audience who are outspoken about not killing them, or wanting them back?

Would having them just live without consequence and happily ever after been less lazy? Is that ending that you feel the writers wriggled their way out of?

 

'No redemption but death' to me is ALWAYS a 'lazy' way out...not necessarily for a truly vile character with no redeeming qualities, such as Darth Sidious, but for a conflicted character like Kylo Ren, it is.
Kylo was not a 'one note' villain, like Maul ( who ironically DID survive), he was coded originally as a mentally ill abuse victim. For those who dislike him, DLF unfortunately left most of the facts of his background to supplementary material, so therefore they never found out the details of his character's history. Yet another thing I'm annoyed about them. The former is one of the reasons I liked him, as I'm mentally ill myself. The latter is also why a number of real life abuse victims loved and identified with him; I have spoken to a lot of them on the internet, both men AND women (also quite a few POC, by the way) and a lot of them were upset by TROS because they saw the ending as the 'Skywalkers' - Luke and Leia - happily accepting a 'pure' replacement for their damaged flesh and blood.

From my aspect, I was stunned at Disney's hypocrisy. This is the corporation who made the TV series Once Upon A Time, which was chock a block full of 'baddies' who actually did worse than Kylo Ren, yet most - if not all - of them got their 'happy endings'.

Here's a few examples - Mr Gold, aka Rumplestilskin, killed numerous people, including his own wife, yet got to live a happy life with Belle and raise a child.
Killian Jones, aka Captain Hook, killed Prince David's father, yet got a happy ending with the woman he loved, Emma.
The Wicked Queen, Regina's alter ego, got a happy ending with her version of Robin Hood.

I wanted Kylo to live, and atone for his actions through good deeds. I was a reylo fan...but I would have happily taken this over the reylo kiss any day, especially as post TROS Daisy Ridley, JJ Abrams, and TROS novelist Rae Carson insist there was 'nothing romantic' in the kiss.

Fact is, I suspect Abrams wasn't happy that Kylo Ren became such a popular character, hence why he cut his screentime and pushed Rey so much - he was practically telling Kylo fans to forget him and embrace Rey, I noticed all the other characters, especially Finn, were also shunted aside to focus on Rey. Terrio also wanted to focus on Luke and Leia as they were his favourites from back when he was a kid, and he was quoted as wanting to make the film 'he would have loved as an eight year old.'
@Martoto ...you are entitled to your opinion of course, but as I pointed out Disney's characters in OUAT have done worse things and survived ...and I'm sorry but I will never accept that a character whose entire life was filled with loneliness and a feeling of rejection, and also had SW's closest equivalent to a child molester in his head throughout his childhood, served just one purpose - to die for a snotty self righteous prig who promptly forgot what he did for her, and didn't even tell her friends that he'd died for her, and died redeemed. Because that was exactly what Rey became in TROS - an unrelatable Mary Sue. Even Darth Vader got a funeral pyre and a Force ghost - at the end of the ST it was as if Ben/Kylo had never existed.

I'm sorry, but I will never see it any other way.

 

And that's nonsense. No one has to die. George Lucas actually never was a fan of characters dying in the first place. Dying only makes sense if the death drives the plot, but the plot was already over when he died.

It's lazy because now Kylo or better said Ben doesn't need to face the consequences for his deeds. We have never seen someone returning to the light and then standing up for his/her actions. Now that's a difficult story to tell- a story which they didn't dare to tackle.
With Ben dying the writers don't need to bother about how his actions were seen by other characters. They actually don't need to mention him anymore (which they did).

You misunderstood me. Him getting redeemed AND dying is just as useless, as him dying as a villain. Just like you, I wanted him to get redeemed and live. But he didn't get the chance to prove himself to the galaxy. Him dying redeemed or him dying as villain has the exact outcome. => evil is destroyed.
But if Ben had survived then the light would have had a even bigger victory.

 

Sad thing is...Vader's death was actually a mercy, he was only half alive, but Ben/Kylo had so much living to do. I think you're right regarding they didn't have the guts to keep him alive, I often wonder if Rian Johnson would have. I really liked his take on everything, it seemed he was going in a direction I'd never seen before - showing everyone as shades of grey, not black/white. I was shattered when Abrams and Terrio threw everything he'd done away and reverted to black/white all over again.

Purely personally, I think the ST could have done something completely different. It could have ended with Rey and Kylo bringing balance to the Force between them, no more black/white, with Force sensitives learning to accept the dark in all of us, and not so much as suppressing it, as learning to control it. This would have brought an end to the centuries old conflict between the Dark and the Light...there never again would be, as Snoke put it, 'Darkness rising and Light to meet it'....and its opposite, Light rising, and Darkness to meet it. A lot of people argue that the 'balance' was found in Rey...but at the end she looked exactly like an old fashioned 'Light' Jedi, complete with pure white clothing and pretty obviously a future as yet another space monk - her 'other half' in the dyad was dead, and the introduction of Jannah and Zorri more or less ruled out a relationship with Finn or Poe.

All I can think of now is the peace brought will inevitably end and at some time in the future, once again 'eeeeevil' will rise in the galaxy. What's to say Palpatine won't come back yet again?

There was no 'satisfying' conclusion, no matter what Abrams says.