Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

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Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

Post by Graham Kennedy »

So Ian and I went to a marathon showing of episodes 7,8,9 last night. Here are my thoughts and description. Bear in mind I'm not necessarily remembering everything, because a lot goes on in this movie!


So we open with a crawl which says that a mysterious broadcast has been sent to the galaxy - Emperor Palpatine is back! He's spent the last several decades building a massive fleet of Star Destroyers and is demanding that the entire galaxy submit to him or be destroyed. More, these Destroyers have "death star tech" - each has a big cannon on the bottom which can destroy an entire planet with one blast.

We see Kylo raiding some village somewhere and finding a "Sith Wayfinder", which is a small pyramid thing that's basically a GPS system. He plugs that into his fighter and flies to the Sith planet, which is not on any map of the galaxy and you have to fly through some weird nebula-thing to get to. Once there he finds Palpatine, who is kind of a zombified corpse that dangles off the end of a giant articulated arm. Palpy tells Kylo that he's been every voice he's ever heard in his head, every influence he's ever had, and that he created Snoke - Kylo literally walks past a big water tank with like three or four Snokes floating in it as he arrives. Palpy unveils his fleet, with the destroyers breaking out from under the ice and floating in the atmosphere. There's masses of them, many times more than the First Order has. Palpy says he wants Rey brought to him, and Kylo leaves.

Meanwhile we see Rey being trained to be a Jedi... by Leia. Yes, really. Rey meditates and whispering "Be with me", trying to get the spirits of the previous Jedi to talk to her, but nothing happens and she's disappointed.

The rebels/resistance/whatever also find out about the Sith planet, thanks to a First Order mole. The pyramid thing has an entry in the Jedi texts that Rey stole. Luke spent a long time looking for one but gave up, so they head off to the place he last looked to pick up the search. There's a big festival going on there, so they mingle and ask around. A woman at the festival puts a necklace on Rey and they talk a bit, then Rey has one of the Force-skype calls with Kylo. He tells her about Palpy and that he is going along but basically out for himself and that he's determined to turn Rey to the dark side. He grabs the necklace off her neck, and when the Force-skype ends he still has it in his hand. So Force teleport, basically.

His lackeys tell him where the necklace comes from and they order the local First Order guys to go after them. Lando turns up and picks up the heroes and they run for it. Lando says people didn't come to help at the end of Last Jedi because everyone is scared of the First Order. First Order troops turn up for a chase and the "They fly now!" scene, and they kill them and get away. They go to find some guy who was looking for the Wayfinder... I'm a little unclear on this point, but there's a guy they have to find, anyway.

They wind up falling into this black stuff in the desert and get sucked in. They think they're dying and Finn says "I need to tell you something... I never said it before" to Rey, but is sucked under before finishing. The stuff doesn't kill them though, they're deposited in some caves. Poe asks him what he was going to say to Rey and Finn refuses to tell him. This becomes something of a running joke, but it just kind of peters out. It seems like an "I love you" moment, but Finn never actually tells her he loves her, nothing romantic happens between them, so we literally just get Poe making jokes about Finn saying it a couple of times.

They find the guy's body in the caves, an old skeleton. He has an ancient Sith dagger with writing on it in the Sith language. C3PO says he has translated it but he won't tell them what it says because there's a law built into all protocol droids that they may not tell anybody the translation of anything in the Sith language.

Whilst there they come across a giant worm creature, which is injured. Rey heals it with a handwave, saying she used up some of her life energy to do so, and it breaks the cave open so they can get out. They find the dead guy's ship nearby and head for it. Rey gets distracted and walks into the desert, seeing Kylo's ship arrive. This is the trailer scene where she jumps over his ship, and cuts it in half. Meanwhile Chewie comes to find her, and is captured by the Knights of Ren and taken into a transport.

Rey uses the Force to grab the transport as it lifts off, dragging it down. Kylo, surviving his crash, uses his Force to fight her hold. She tries harder, and force lightning shoots out of her hands and blows the transport up, killing Chewie.

They leave in the ship, and Rey recognises it as the ship her parents left in when they abandoned her. She Force-Skypes Kylo and he says "your parents were nobody... because they chose to be. To keep you safe. And they abandoned you when they couldn't." Rey's father was Palpy's son, and she is his granddaughter. Dun-dun-dun!

They talk about 3PO, and decide they can get the translation if they go to some expert hacker. So they go to another planet and find the hacker, who says he can do it but only by wiping 3PO's memory completely. R2, it turns out, periodically backs up 3PO's memory but 3PO says his backups aren't very reliable. So they wipe 3PO and get the message which tells them where the second Wayfinder is - in the wreckage of the Death Star. Meanwhile, we see that the exploded transport was a different one, and Chewie is still alive and on a First Order ship.

Poe meets an old ladyfriend who says he used to smuggle spices, and Finn teases him about this in retaliation to his "what were you going to say" jokes. She plans to leave as the First Order are oppressing everyone, and has some sort of "Captain's pass" from the First Order which can get her past any security. They realise Chewie is alive and she gives it to Poe so they can go rescue him. They use the pass to get onto the ship and break Chewie out, but they all get caught. They're going to be executed but at the last second Hux says "give me the gun, I want to do this myself" to the troopers - and then guns the stormtroopers down because, of course, he's the mole. "I don't care if you win or the First Order wins," he says, "I just want Kylo Ren to lose." He asks them to wound him, so he can claim they forced him to let them escape, and they do. But when he reports this to his boss, his boss just kills him and says "Tell Kylo I found the mole."

They go to the planet where the death star wreckage is, and Rey uses the dagger to find the location of wayfinder and goes to the wreckage to locate it. She winds up in the ruin of the Emperor's throne room where Luke defeated Vader. Kylo turns up and gets it first, destroying it and saying Rey will only get to the Sith planet if she goes with him. They fight, and he's about to beat Rey but he's distracted by a force moment from Leia as she dies. Rey stabs him with his own lightsaber and he dies. Rey then heals him and leaves him behind, escaping in his fighter. Why kill him and then heal him again? What was the point? Who knows.

Kylo has a vision of Solo. It's not a force ghost, doesn't seem to be a real ghost either, more one of those cases where you just imagine somebody. Solo calls him Ben and Kylo says his son is dead. Solo tells him no, his son is very much alive and it's Kylo Ren that is dead. Kylo/Ben accepts this, and apparently is turned back to the good side. He throws his saber into the sea.

Rey goes to Luke's island and burns Kylo's fighter, determined to give up and stay there just as Luke did. She tossed Luke's saber into the burning wreckage, and Luke's Force ghost appears and intercepts it. She tells him he was right to abandon the fight and she's doing the same, and he tells her flat out that doing that was wrong. She finds Kylo's own Wayfinder in the burned wreckage of his fighter and Luke raises his X-Wing from the ocean. He also gives her a gift - Leia's lightsaber. We flash back to young Luke training young Leia... not sure if these are CGI creations of the actors, my impression was that they were actually played by different actors. Anyway, Rey heads to the Sith planet in his X-wing, using the Wayfinder. She transmits her location as she goes, so that the rebels can see where the place is and how to get there.

Palpy confronts her when she gets there and says that he wants her to kill him, because then his spirit will possess her body and he will become "Empress Rey".

Kylo arrives and Rey refuses to kill Palpy. He sucks some of her energy from her, which heals his hand. He's amazed by this, and says there's some special link with her and Ben that boosts both of their powers, which is why they are both so strong. This is a known thing, but only happens once every few hundred years or so. He sucks the energy from them and regenerates himself, and his body comes back to life. Now he doesn't need to die and possess Rey, he can rule in person.

Ben fights the Knights of Ren, but he doesn't have his saber and is getting his ass kicked. Rey pulls Leia's saber and does a Force-skype moment to teleport it to him, and he kills all the Knights of Ren. Honestly the Knights don't have that big of a role in the film. We see them a couple of times but they never do anything especially badass and Ben kills them all pretty easily once he has a saber.

So the Sith fleet is going to fly into space, but we're told that they need some sort of guidance tower to navigate their path. Without it they can only hover there, helpless. The Rebellion arrives to attack, and a big battle starts - but the Rebellion are outnumbered hundreds to one. Then Lando arrives in the Falcon. He's managed to convince the rest of the galaxy to come to the rescue, and is at the head of a vast fleet. So a huge battle begins. The Sith general decides not to use the tower, his command ship can guide the fleet out of the atmosphere. Finn guesses this (it seems to be a Force moment, where he 'feels' that the command ship is guiding them), so they attack the command ship. This is the horse scene, because they literally land on the command ship and attack on horses because "speeders can be jammed".

Palpatine goes on about how he has ultimate Force power because he's the culmination of all the Sith. We pan around and they're in this huge arena with thousands of hooded figures watching. Palpy shoots lightning up into the sky, shutting down the power systems on all the rebel ships. "You can't beat me!" He says "I am ALL the sith!"

Rey has a Force moment, and finally the Jedi spirits talk to her. We hear voices of past Jedi... not sure exactly, but Obi Wan is in there, and Yoda, I think Qui Gon and others, too. She stands up and says "And I... am all the Jedi." She takes on Palpatine, who tries to lightning-blast her and she uses her saber to reflect it back on him. Palpatine and all the watching Sith are obliterated, the fleet comes back to life, the Sith fleet is destroyed. But Rey exhausts herself in the effort, and dies.

Butttttt.... Ben comes to her aid, and uses the Force healing she showed him earlier to give her all his life energy. She comes back to life, and a moment later he dies. He fades away into the force, and back on the rebel base Leia's body does the same thing.

We see celebrations around the galaxy as we're told that everyone is rising up against the First Order - including, funnily enough, a bunch of Ewoks. We do not, however, see a bunch of Gungans shouting "We'sa Freeeee!"

In the aftermath Rey goes to Tattooine and finds Luke's old house. It's run down and there's a bunch of sand in it. She wraps Luke and Leia's sabers up in a cloth and buries them in the sand, then pulls her own one out. It looks like it's made from her staff, and has a yellow blade. A passing woman calls out, saying nobody has lived here in a long time and asking who she is. "Rey," she says. "Rey who?" asks the woman. Rey looks into the distance and sees Force ghosts of Luke and Leia watching and smiling. "Rey... Skywalker."

Rey and BB-8 turn to look into the twin suns as the Star Wars music plays, and that's the end.

So there's the basics. Like I say, I may be mixing up the order of stuff or missing bits, but that's the gist of it.

Things that jumped out at me...

You know, I know they didn't mean it that way, and it doesn't feel that way on screen, but that ending is kind of dark. This was advertised as "the culmination of the Skywalker Saga". Well, the culmination of the Skywalker saga is that every single Skywalker is now dead, and a Palpatine has stolen their land and their name. Um... okay. Yay, I guess?

For as much as JJ said he was fine with Rian doing what he wanted and dismissing most of JJ's setups from Force Awakens, he went out of his way in this film to do "take thats" to Force Awakens at every turn.

-Rey's parents were nobody? Nope! Kylo was just lying. They were Palpatine's son and his wife!

-Luke was a hermit who had given up on the fight? Nope! Luke admits that he was wrong to do that.

-Holdo's lightspeed-jump missile would revolutionise combat? Nope! Somebody suggests doing it to the Sith fleet, calling it the "Holdo maneuver" and Poe says something like "No, that was a million to one shot, it's not practical!"

-Kill the past? Nope! The past is super important. Kylo smashing his helmet represents that? Well guess what, he welds it back together and wears it again! Actually there's a funny scene where he meets with the officers on his ship and they're all like "Oh, the helmet is nice... looks good on you..." in a comically obvious bit of sucking up.

The galaxy has lost hope? Nope! The galaxy comes to the rescue!

Aww, Rose is in love with Finn! Nope! Rose is in this movie but she's a glorified extra who delivers some exposition and motivational speeches but otherwise does absolutely nothing, plays no real part in the film, and has no hint of romance whatsoever with Finn. I'm not even sure if the two ever talk to one another.

Marvel movies come across as one vision, one guy who is telling different stories in similar ways, with similar tones, as part of a greater whole. They come across that way because that's exactly what they are! This trilogy comes across like the movies are at war with one another. The Last Jedi came across as throwing a lot of shade on Force Awakens, and this movie comes across as a blatant attack on The Last Jedi. I can't tell how much of that is JJ being pissed at Rian for what he did, and how much is just Rian/Kathleen/Disney saying "Well Force Awakens pissed everyone off, so let's swing back the other way". But man, these movies are an absolute mess. A convoluted, contradictory, overly complicated mess.

That said, I found both the previous movies a mess but a fun mess. I'd read a lot of spoilers for this movie, so I knew the bulk of the plot going in. I expected it would be a terrible movie, and it kind of is. But I often find terrible movies entertaining, and I really did find this one entertaining. There's certainly a lot of spectacle, and to a degree I enjoyed just how blatant the shade JJ throws at Rian is. And there's some "so ridiculous it's funny" stuff in there, and some genuinely fun moments. So.. yeah. I kind of liked it. Certainly more than I thought I would.

So that's what I thought. What did you think?
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

Post by Nutso »

(Spoiler) List of connections between The Rise of Skywalker and Dark Empire, Legacy War, and other Legends material. Not my work, of course. Hopefully it's something Striker and Seafort might like.
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsEU/com ... e_rise_of/

Right now if you told me that JJ Abrams had never read Dark Empire or even been told the plot of it I would have a hard time believing that. Yes a infinite amount of monkeys on typewriters can create a Shakespeare play but at this point some of the same beats and tropes are just being used to amazing degrees. So I want to take the time to list down all of the connections between the RoS and the comics and books of the EU. If anyone wants to add on to this then come on. But be warned for spoilers.

The Emperor Reborn- This one is the very first thing to jump off the page. In this movie the Emperors spirit is possessing a body that is kept alive or called back to life by the use of Sith Alchemy instead of just transferring his soul into another body

*Soul Transfer- Speaking of transferring his soul just like he wanted to transfer his soul into baby Anakin Solo because his body was dying he wants Rey to kill him so that he and the spirits of all the sith lords inside of him can live on in her

Sith Spirits surviving after death- This has already been seen in the NEU in things like Momin but its here as well. Also interstingly their was a fantheory that Darth Bane moved his spirit into Zannah and all Sith were just bane. It was debunked in Legends but here its kind of true.

*Force Storms- Here its not a giant wormhole but just really powerful lightning that goes into the sky and ends up taking out the fleet. He can also use it to attack places on other planets hes not currently on as seen in RoK comic. To top it off in DE I he is defeated by having his force storm redirected back at him. The same thing happened here in this movie.

Force Sensitive Clones- Really this falls more under the Thrawn Trilogy but we lean in this movie that force users can be cloned. In fact Snoke was a clone.

*Puppeting someone with the force- While we are diverging from DE for a second I should mention Palpatine controlling Snoke from a distance with the force. This is much like the Sith Emperor in SWTOR.

Star Destroyers with Death Star lasers- In DE it was the Eclipse SSD but their was also a topps card that had a ISD with a scaled down DS laser. Here each of the 70+ ISD's have a DS laser (though it takes a second to make its way to the core of the planet since its not as strong) and one even uses it to blow up a planet.

*A hidden planet full of Sith Cultists filled with weapons- In DE Palpatine fled to the planet Byss and hid there while he hid and built up his navy and weapons. He does the same thing with Exegol in this movie.

Hidden Fleet blitzing the galaxy and destroying the New Republic- This is much more of a TFA thing but it is still something from DE. Now in DE he didn't blow up Coruscant but the NR was forced to flee and become the Rebel Alliance again basically and fight the Empire for a few months before it fell. Much like in this saga. This was also done in SWTOR with the eternal Fleet.

*More minor things- Both Star Killer and Galaxy gun destroy important planets. Kor stand in for the Inquisitors. Both involve ragtag rebel fleets. Both have Luke facing down AT-AT's. and a few minor things I'm sure others have noticed that I failed to.

The Prophecy of The Chosen One- On one hand we have DE which was written before the prophecy was even a thing. On the other hand we have Master and Apprentice recontextualizing the prophecy as well as Anakin's voice during the final fight. So this one is up to the people. I was never a fan of the prophecy since all it took to break the old version was a random person finding a tablet and calling themselves sith.

Now we are going to talk about Legacy War. Now Legacy War may not be as familiar to people as DE. Basically all you need to know is that its in 147ABY and Cade Skywalker is a ex jedi turned bounty hunter who the Sith Emperor wants to capture to heal him. Legacy was forced to end about fifty issues quicker than expected so Legacy War is them trying to tie up every possible thread.

Sith Troopers- The sith emperor that everyone thought was dead comes back with a hidden fleet of super powerful warships and troopers called sith troopers. These troopers are hyper loyal to him and have been trained in secret. Much like out new sith troopers

*We also have him being found in the UR (or core) on a hidden planet in a skeletal state by one of his disciples and he stays in this state until healed

Sith Emperors obsession with Skywlaker- The sith emperor wants the Skywalker (or in this case the skywalker and his grand daughter) so that he can heal himself and live forever. This can also be said of DE. Seems to be a common theme.

*Force Healing- In legacy its Cade Skywalker who can heal. He at first does it out of fear of loosing the ones he loves and uses the dark side to do it. But eventually learns how to do it out of love and the lightside. We see both Rey and Kylo use force healing.

The Sith Fleet destroying its self when the Emperor dies- The new Sith Fleet in Legacy was much more powerful than the NR and Fel Empire fleet and was about to win untill the emperor died. When the Emperor died all Sith vessels crashed into the nearest planet (in this case coruscant). At the end of TRoS we see all of the FO ships crashing and going down in flames ending their threat as quickly as they came.

*A new republic remnant fleet fighting against a new imperial fleet- This is more Legacy than Dark Empire since in Legacy the whole NR government was destroyed and it was only a admiral who didn't give up the fight who was still continuing.

Skywalker who stuggles with a pull to both the light and dark- Cade turns to death sticks to keep Luke from visiting him and has to find peace and forgiveness after what happened to the temple and everything he did. However unlike Kylo Cade got a really cool visit from his grandfather who believes in the scared straight approach.

And here are some little things that don't really match to DE or Legacy so much as other stories or just general tropes

*Sith Alchemy- I love Sith Alchemy and it gets used a lot in legends and in canon with the nightsisters and Palpatine himself. Here its used to bring him back and keep him alive

Sith spirit possessing someone- In the Jedi Academy books the Sith spirit of Exar Kun talks Kyp Durron into turning to the darkside and doing some bad things. It ranges from just talking inside his head to pushing him to do things/controlling him. And as Palps said in the trailer he had been all the voices in Ben's head. So Ben had been in the same shape Kyp was in.

*Force Teleportation- We first learned about this in the Thrawn Dulogy. Secret alien monks who could teleport things with the force. Luke eventually kinda learned this skill but never mastered it. And in the NEU we see Merrin and the Nightsisters teleporting things and people. Here we see Rey teleporting Anakin's saber from her hand to Kylo who is in another room.

Force bonds- Bastila/Revan, Luke/Mara, Do I really need to explain this one?

*Jacen Solo- Same for this one. Not even worth mentioning.

the loyalists in the movie are like the Sith Eternal cultists and Vitiate's second attempt at controlling the galaxy was the Eternal Empire much like Palps has the First Order and his second hidden fleet. He even changes its name to the Final Order .

Their are also some that say their are Kotor connections but I honestly don't see it. Rey isn't that much like Bastila except that she is a white brunette and as of the last min of the movie has a double bladed orange saber. So appearances and a force bond are all we really have with that.

For Kylo its even less. Just basically a mask with a big reveal behind it. He wasn't leading a army against Mando's or Sith. He didn't turn his fellow students. He didn't have a apprentice turn on him. And he wasn't captured and brainwashed to be a jedi again. I'm sorry but I don't see this one.

So is their anything from DE or Legacy War or any other EU story you think I'm missing when it comes to big story beats or force powers? I think I bacialy covered everything. Again its so weird how this came out to be so close to DE and and Legacy. And I think it will kind of take Dark Empires place in the New canon. I might post a bigger version of this later on when the movie has been out longer but for now this is all I could think of.
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

Post by Graham Kennedy »

Just watched the most recent episode of The Mandalorian, and baby Yoda does a Force healing of Carl Weathers. Thought that was an interesting little thing to drop in, given that Rise of Skywalker features that (new, I think?) power prominently.
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

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Graham, I've seen the leaked vids for the movie, out of context, which makes the scenes look cringe. I usually avoid spoilers for movies but, I couldn't for this one. I didn't hate The Last Jedi because it was just too well made. However it didn't give me any reasons to want to re-watch it outside of Luke confronting Kylo nor did it give me what I really wanted- a reason to love Rey. I wanted to go through the struggle with her. Even though I'm an old fuck, I can relate to struggling to get where I want to be, and I wanted to experience that with Rey. I was very much looking forward to a teacher Luke passing on his lessons to a new pupil. I didn't want the unexpected, I wanted a traditional teacher-student relationship. Instead it felt like Rey is teaching Luke. Luke gave up hope, Rey never does, therefore Luke has something to learn from a girl a third his age. That's not what I want from Star Wars.

I don't know if I will see this because if it was bad, I could go through it. However cringiness makes me turn my head away from the screen and I end up going back to the cringe moment in my head, rather than paying attention to the rest of the movie.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this, which is something fans of the old Star Wars Expanded Universe might appreciate, I don't know...

"Revan, Addenu, and other sith canonized in the RoS visual Dictonary as names of Sith Trooper legions."

Image

The person got it from something called "Discord."
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

Post by AlexMcpherson79 »

TLJ is a sign of the times.

Luke (the old) was without hope, while the new (rey) was, and the new has to 'teach' the old...

kinda like what we're expecting of the new generation for some reason...
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

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Seems like there's a general trend of old franchises getting a "next generation" introduced. Predator, Terminator, Star Trek, Star Wars... all of them have had this "kill the past" moment. I think it's the owners of these franchises trying to say "the old is dead, long live the new iteration", hoping to draw in a younger fan base to guarantee longevity.

Thing is, it generally doesn't seem to be working. In every one of those cases the new iterations either outright fail, or at least are controversial.
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

Post by Graham Kennedy »

So Palpatine had a kid.

One has to wonder, did this happen before or after he got his monster face? Because if it was after... ew.
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

Post by Nutso »

AlexMcpherson79 wrote:TLJ is a sign of the times.

Luke (the old) was without hope, while the new (rey) was, and the new has to 'teach' the old...

kinda like what we're expecting of the new generation for some reason...
Babylon 5 sort off pulled that off really well. The whole story of the Vorlons and Shadows is about the younger generation seeing through the bullshit of the elder races who stayed around to "parent" them but they instead got lost in their own ancient quarrel, and then claiming the galaxy as their own, leading their own way. B5 even gave its hero an elder mentor who lived through the times of the Vorlons & Shadows and who then shepherded Sheridan towards the truth.
Graham Kennedy wrote:Seems like there's a general trend of old franchises getting a "next generation" introduced. Predator, Terminator, Star Trek, Star Wars... all of them have had this "kill the past" moment. I think it's the owners of these franchises trying to say "the old is dead, long live the new iteration", hoping to draw in a younger fan base to guarantee longevity.

Thing is, it generally doesn't seem to be working. In every one of those cases the new iterations either outright fail, or at least are controversial.
Those franchises had failings of their own. Predator and Terminator didn't have much potential beyond it's first two movies. They both tried going into their own worlds, with Predators being the lone good sequel. One then made a sequel with *meh* trailers, the other was rebooted to *meh* trailers, and no amount of nostalgia nor curiosity has made me what to give them a look, neither upon release nor to this day.

I don't know what to make of Star Trek, movies or television. You guys know I am a cynical a-hole but, I tried to push that aside and watch STD. The best I can say is I didn't hate Season 1 but, outside of episode 2, I cannot stand season 2. I remember when Captain Pike was putting together his away team that included Burnham (of course :roll: ), but then he called out Lt. Owosekun, I got excited. No hyperbole, I perked up in my chair because, we were going to learn something about another crewmember. She has experience in these kinds of colonies, as Pike said, so I thought she was going to have a major speaking role. We were going to learn about a character through her interactions in the plot. Didn't get much more of Owosekun because, I guess Burnham needs more lines but, at least Pike got to be instrumental in solving a problem.

The Trek movies are really dumb. Not bad movies but just popcorn movies. There's nothing to remember fondly. If there's subtext, I can't figure it out. But J.J. Abrams and his crew, which included current Star Trek boss Alex Kurtzman, are big time Star Wars fans. Like Richie Evans once said, "Star Wars fans have a limited imagination."

Same with the Star Wars sequels. Limited imagination. It's not made for me. If it was, the first sequel would have had a reunion of the big 3, or 4 if we include Chewie. I wanted to see Luke, Han, and Leia interact one last time. This would have been a passing of the torch kind of movie, where they old guys either dies, or stepped aside and let the young run this galaxy, or more usefully, properly guided the younger generation to leanr from their own mistakes. This younger generation had a chance to grow up without the PTSD of their elders.

Therefore I don't get why Rey had to have a horrible upbringing. She could have been a middle-classed girl, or working class girl working at a 1950's America style diner on Coruscant, then a Jedi passing by notices something special about her. In my opinion Rian Johnson had it right, she should be just a girl. Unless the Force plays favorites and only certain lineages can be Force-sensitive in which case, midichlorians are the Force. It's not a spiritual thing that requires belief in the Force and in oneself, and the struggle between Light and Dark can be healed with chemotherapy. But Rey had to have a horrible, lonely, desperate, desert-based upbringing. And their needs to be a familiar bad guy. And a familiar super-weapon. And a familiar situation of undermanned good guys vs overpowered bad guys. So somehow, the characters are supposed to kill the past, the merchandising is supposed to move to new items but, the creative team can't seem to do anything without the characters, settings, and plot created in the past. But I do cede the point that we can't have Star Wars without "wars."
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

Post by Nutso »

Graham Kennedy wrote:So Palpatine had a kid.

One has to wonder, did this happen before or after he got his monster face? Because if it was after... ew.
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

Post by McAvoy »

To be honest after seeing the movie and figuring out how I would redo the Sequel Trilogy, I have a hard time finding a way to make it unique out of the previous movies and the books. Especially if you keep Rey as a Palpatine. Make her into a nobody girl with exceptional Force powers kinda seems to be a ripoff of Luke in New Hope or even Anakin in TPM. I mean both were technically not nobodies either.

Or maybe have Luke's new Jedi Order feel the disturbance in the Force as the Rise of the New Order start looking for the girl and the Jedi have to find her first. Maybe have Ben Solo be one of the Jedi be there and end up getting captured and turned into a Sith by Snoke by the end.
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

Post by Graham Kennedy »

McAvoy wrote:To be honest after seeing the movie and figuring out how I would redo the Sequel Trilogy, I have a hard time finding a way to make it unique out of the previous movies and the books. Especially if you keep Rey as a Palpatine. Make her into a nobody girl with exceptional Force powers kinda seems to be a ripoff of Luke in New Hope or even Anakin in TPM. I mean both were technically not nobodies either.
One thing I really like about TFA is the way Rey is introduced. We get a real slice of her life - we see her doing her job, we see how she lives, we see the petty injustices of her life. I love when she looks at the old woman doing the same thing she is, and you can just tell that she's wondering if that woman has been doing this for the last fifty years, and if Rey will be doing it for the next fifty. And it's done without them telling it to us, but just showing it.

But then you realise that yeah... this is so good because it's pretty much just a take on what we saw of Luke during his introduction in Star Wars.

Another thing that jumped out at me rewatching the movie is that Rey's parentage wasn't even set up as a big mystery. It was treated as such by the fans, who speculated like crazy and were badly disappointed by "they were nobody". But Maz talks about Rey's parents to her :

Rey : I have to get back to Jakku.
Maz : Han told me. Dear child. I see your eyes. You already know the truth. Whomever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back. But... there's someone who still could.
Rey : Luke.
Maz : The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead. I am no Jedi, but I know the Force. It moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes. Feel it. The light. It's always been there. It will guide you. The saber. Take it.

The movie introduces Rey's parents as a mystery and then dismisses the mystery as being an unimportant distraction. That plot thread is concluded in that moment, and nothing ever needed to be said about it again. But because it became important to the fans, Rian felt the need to act like Rey was still motivated by that question, and because the fans didn't like that, JJ felt the need to make it important in the trilogy and do a big reveal.

But he didn't need to. The clear implication of the above is that Rey needs to stop living in the past, move forward, and forge a mentor/apprentice/father/daughter relationship with Luke. Half of The Last Jedi should have been just that. Luke bonding with Rey, teaching her - teaching her how to swing a lightsaber, but also teaching her to be a more complete person. Remember Yoda taught Luke how to lift rocks and such, but what do we remember from that training, what are the famous moments?

Yoda : "Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmph. And well you should not... for my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter! You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you, me... the tree, the rock... everywhere. Yes... even between the land and the ship."
Luke : "You want the impossible!"
[Yoda lifts the X Wing from the swamp without effort.]
Luke : "I don't believe it!"
Yoda : "That is why you fail."

I know everyone knows that, but I quoted it because it's one of the most famous scenes in Star Wars, and it's not an action scene, it's not about lightsabers. And it's not even really about the Force, as such - it's a life lesson about self confidence, and it's as applicable to anybody doing anything as it is to using magic to pick spaceships up. It's why that is such a great scene - because Yoda could be speaking to us, not Luke. If Luke had ONE scene like that with Rey in The Last Jedi, it would have completely changed the film.

As an aside, I always thought that Luke should have been on that island with half a dozen Jedi trainees - a counter to the Knights of Ren. That's the one thing that could have made him go into hiding, IMO - not because he'd given up, but because he was building his forces to take on the First Order. And I'd have done a similar ending, only with Luke living after his Force projection thing. Then when you see the kids telling stories about Luke at the end, you see that what he did is kindling hope in the galaxy again - and that's how you have the galaxy riding to the rescue in the last film, because they rallied around Luke.
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

Post by McAvoy »

I like the idea of Luke training a small group but the problem could end up as being who or what they are. Are they just fodder or they something else.

I kinda feel that The Last Jedi truly did screw it up as far as how the Trilogy was supposed to be. I mean first film sets it up, second film continues and adds to the first and the last wraps up everything from the previous two. TLJ just ripped all of that up.

I don't mind how Rey was introduced honestly but I didnt like especially with hindsight with the new movie that the granddaughter of Palpatine just ended up finding the Beach all Droid and then the Millennium Falcon. Too convinent and cliche.

At least with Luke it was still fresh.
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

Post by RK_Striker_JK_5 »



Only halfway in, but holy crap Jenny does not like this movie.

As for me? They should've just adapted the Thrawn Trilogy.
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

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RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:As for me? They should've just adapted the Thrawn Trilogy.
No, they shouldn't. They'd have botched that.

Says a lot when a review of a movie listing all the dumb things is half the runtime of the movie... And I wish she'd add a "dumb" counter to list how many times she says the word "dumb". because the film is dumb.

5.
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Re: Episode 9 Spoilerrific review/discussion

Post by Nutso »

AlexMcpherson79 wrote:
RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:As for me? They should've just adapted the Thrawn Trilogy.
No, they shouldn't. They'd have botched that.

Says a lot when a review of a movie listing all the dumb things is half the runtime of the movie... And I wish she'd add a "dumb" counter to list how many times she says the word "dumb". because the film is dumb.

5.
But if they adapted The Thrawn Trilogy, or really any of the old EU, they would have have a blueprint to follow, a plot, a story, a villain, rather than this pathetic mishmash of ideas each director put in to their respective movies. I don't think the ideas themselves are bad but, trying to join them, or just outright dropping each other's ideas, made for a mishmash of a trilogy.
RK_Striker_JK_5 wrote:


Only halfway in, but holy crap Jenny does not like this movie.

As for me? They should've just adapted the Thrawn Trilogy.
Jeez. It didn't even feel like an hour. Felt short.
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