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The Rise Of Skywalker — Official Review and Opinions Thread — Page 9

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They sat down to make this movie, talked about how everyone hated different aspects of each of the last two, and then said, “You know what? Fuck it.”

And the “fuck it” that they made was incredibly entertaining and I had a ton of fun watching it.

This isn’t the Episode IX that I would have made, and the ST as a whole is not the ST that I would have made. But I’ve enjoyed all three films to varying degrees for different reasons. This is the only one where it didn’t feel like they were trying too hard to either Please Everyone (TFA) or to Do Something Super Serious and Controversial but Also Silly at the Same Time (TLJ). They were just having fun and inviting the fans to join in on the fun.

I really wish we’d have gotten an entirely different approach for the ST from the start rather than competing visions and then a “fuck it” finale, but I liked each of the competing visions for different reasons and the “fuck it” finale had me grinning the whole time and when it did take some risks, I liked the risks it took (even if the one big one I really liked seems to be a thing no one else interpreted the way I did).

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Hal 9000 said:

ChainsawAsh said:

Saw it again today. Liked it even more. Definitely my 3rd favorite behind ESB and ANH.

I want to understand you.

“Conference room. Now.”

The one thing I can say for sure, outside of liking the film as well, is that there is really little consensus from viewers. Hard core fans or not.

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Star Wars fans have no taste. That should be evident by the fact people STILL defend The Last Jedi.

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DarthJarJarBlinks said:

Hal 9000 said:

I wouldn’t loathe this movie so much if it weren’t ostensibly the conclusion of the saga. In that respect, it fails utterly.

I can’t imagine ending a saga viewing with this. Broom boy is where it’ll have to be.

Broom boy

Not Endor celebration

Myself, I’d end it with Luke & Leia, arms around one another, watching the Millennium Falcon zip away into the stars.

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So, Ash, it sounds like you’re essentially saying this is a “Good-bad” movie, one enjoyable for being balls-to-the-wall bad.

What say you to the idea that trying to hold 9 alongside 7 and 8 makes them make no sense? In other words, must one divest themselves of investment in this particular story to then be able to enjoy the ‘fuck it’ approach?

My stance on revising fan edits.

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 (Edited)

NFBisms said:

DarthJarJarBlinks said:

Star Wars fans have no taste. That should be evident by the fact people STILL defend The Last Jedi.

because it fucking rules yo

You’re both wrong. 😛

Honestly, most of Star Wars can die in a fire for all I care — ROTJ included. But while I’ll continue to belittle ROTJ, the PT, and every entry in the ST, I’m gonna avoid belittling their fans as best I can. Y’all approach Star Wars differently than I, and glean enjoyment from it differently, and I can live with that.

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Morgan the Boost said:

yotsuya said:

Audience reactions have appeared on Rotten Tomatoes. Instead of the 58% the 309 critics have given it, 9628 audience reactions rate it at 86%. So right now it is critically panned but loved by the audience.

No. It’s a film being rated by people who do that kind of thing. And those ratings have been manipulated six ways from Sunday Up and Down and Sideways for all sorts of movies by angry reddit threads for years now.

RT has become a complete joke. A shame it’s still used, people should know better. Reading through the audience scores half have 1/5 stars, and the other half have 5/5 stars. Just a bunch of angry / joyful fans venting their opinion to the extreme.

Maul- A Star Wars Story

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NeverarGreat said:

I liked it.

NeverarGreat said:

The crawl lands like a passenger airline on an L.A. expressway and crashes into the first scene, killing everyone. I don’t know if Kylo was fighting the Knights of Ren or helping them kill some other people and I don’t think it matters. What matters is that while rooting around in the garbage behind Rian’s apartment JJ also managed to rescue the pieces of Kylo’s mask and welded them back together with his own blood. An alien tells R2 via SATA cable that Sheeve is back and has to outrun some TIE fighters, but makes them so mad that they forget they can’t go into Hyperspace for a minute, but they can’t catch the Falcon because it has gone so fast that it is on fire.

Meanwhile Rey is in the jungle with too much Force power and little by little is going insane.

Everyone decides to get out of the jungle and go to the desert to find a magical D4 or a dagger or something that leads to Sheeve. Rey gets a nice necklace from an alien and then has it immediately stolen by Kylo despite him not being there, and who is apparently jealous that someone else is giving her jewelry. They find the Horcrux after conquering Devil’s Snare and befriending the Basilisk, but it is stolen by some bad Quiddich players who also make off with its bearer, Chewbacca. Rey shoots spells at them and blows them up and is sad about killing Chewie, whom she doesn’t sense in the transport during any of this despite that being something she can do effortlessly.

Kylo flies straight at Rey with an entire spaceship and loses. This is the most normal part of the scene.

Anyway, C-3PO needs to nuke his hard drive to read some Black Speech and to do that they need a hacker, so they go to a planet where the First Order is harvesting babies to meet Poe’s old buddy Mask Lady and her puppet friend. Mask Lady has a medallion that makes the First Order act extra stupid for one scene and gives it to Poe, who immediately spends it, and this makes Hux stupid for the rest of his dumb life. It also allows our heroes to rescue Chewie, who was only dead inside, and also steal the dagger from the prop department before they could finish it.

The Falcon crashes onto Endor because it has no landing gear and is too tired at this point to hover.

Rey goes to the complex of Extremely Expensive and Devastating Distractions (E2-D2) and is distracted by an evil version of herself into rolling a 1 on her magic D4, causing it to be picked up by Kylo who then fights her. She rolls another 1, and is defeated. Leia must spend her last action on an E2-D2, and when Kylo rolls to save he is defeated as well. Rey has a free action which she uses to heal Kylo, then takes the D4 and Kylo’s second spaceship to Luke’s island, where it bursts into flames. It is unclear whether this is simply how Kylo’s spaceships are designed to land.

Luke demands that Rey leave and throws his gross, waterlogged spaceship at her.

Rey finally faces Sheeve, champing at the bit to finally kill this monster. Sheeve gleefully cackles that he wants Rey to kill him so that his consciousness may flow into her and he will be immortal, and then checks himself with a ‘shit, did I really say that out loud’ expression. This ruins his whole plan.

Meanwhile, Rose, Finn and Jannah.

Meanwhile there are many Star Destroyers and, in keeping with their namesake, each one is capable of destroying an entire planet.

Meanwhile, the Falcon visits approximately 1,138 planets on its newly installed Recruitment Drive.

Kylo reminds everyone that he is still in the movie but he has foolishly thrown away his lightsaber after hallucinating an image of his dead father. Luckily, Rey has an extra one from where Luke was throwing things at her, and distracts the editor long enough to phase between locations and give it to him. They both face Sheeve, who drains them of their will to live and then gets to work on their life force. He throws Kylo down a big pit, knowing that this will surely kill him.

There is a cavalry charge on top of a spaceship. This is the most normal part of the scene.

Meanwhile, Klaud.

I forget how Sheeve dies. I blame Klaud. Maybe Klaud did it. Maybe he did all of this. I don’t know anymore.

Rey dies. Kylo emerges from the pit and brings Rey back to life at the cost of his own. Rey, upon awakening and seeking Kylo dead, brings Kylo back to life at the cost of her own. This continues for some time. They kiss. One of them dies, I don’t care which.

At the end there is a funeral for Snap Wexley and he posthumously gets the medal intended for Chewie. There are cheers and warm embraces, all live in the light of a new day for this, the galaxy reborn. The yoke of the First Order, which has lain heavy across much of the galaxy for a few weeks, has been lifted. The Rule of Palpatine, which lasted for thirty years and eight hours, is ended forever. Bask in this light, galaxy of peace.

Rey gets a yellow lightsaber. The camera falls to the ground, where it continues recording for several seconds.

One of these quotes is sarcastic as hell, from my understanding of the movie though I’m not sure which one it is…

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Hal 9000 said:

So, Ash, it sounds like you’re essentially saying this is a “Good-bad” movie, one enjoyable for being balls-to-the-wall bad.

I never said I thought it was bad. It’s not so bad it’s good. It’s good. It just didn’t try to please everyone or make any bold statements - it took the first 8 films into account and said “How can we wrap this up in a way that we can just have fun with?” And I had fun with it too.

What say you to the idea that trying to hold 9 alongside 7 and 8 makes them make no sense? In other words, must one divest themselves of investment in this particular story to then be able to enjoy the ‘fuck it’ approach?

I don’t see how 9 makes 7 and 8 any more nonsensical then they already were on their own.

Sorry you didn’t like it, man. I really wish you did, because I had a blast with it, especially the second time watching it, when I wasn’t watching it with a skeptical eye anymore. Hopefully one day you’ll be able to make your peace with it as I eventually could with TPM and ROTS…or maybe your hatred for it will continue to burn as mine does for AOTC. Best case scenario I guess is that someone eventually makes a fan edit that allows you to tolerate it the way I can with your TAS v5.

All I’ll say is that I just enjoyed the movie, and I really don’t have much desire to defend why I did over and over again like I did for months with TLJ, so I’m going to bow out of this discussion for good now.

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Valheru_84 said:

NeverarGreat said:

I liked it.

NeverarGreat said:

The crawl lands like a passenger airline on an L.A. expressway and crashes into the first scene, killing everyone. I don’t know if Kylo was fighting the Knights of Ren or helping them kill some other people and I don’t think it matters. What matters is that while rooting around in the garbage behind Rian’s apartment JJ also managed to rescue the pieces of Kylo’s mask and welded them back together with his own blood. An alien tells R2 via SATA cable that Sheeve is back and has to outrun some TIE fighters, but makes them so mad that they forget they can’t go into Hyperspace for a minute, but they can’t catch the Falcon because it has gone so fast that it is on fire.

Meanwhile Rey is in the jungle with too much Force power and little by little is going insane.

Everyone decides to get out of the jungle and go to the desert to find a magical D4 or a dagger or something that leads to Sheeve. Rey gets a nice necklace from an alien and then has it immediately stolen by Kylo despite him not being there, and who is apparently jealous that someone else is giving her jewelry. They find the Horcrux after conquering Devil’s Snare and befriending the Basilisk, but it is stolen by some bad Quiddich players who also make off with its bearer, Chewbacca. Rey shoots spells at them and blows them up and is sad about killing Chewie, whom she doesn’t sense in the transport during any of this despite that being something she can do effortlessly.

Kylo flies straight at Rey with an entire spaceship and loses. This is the most normal part of the scene.

Anyway, C-3PO needs to nuke his hard drive to read some Black Speech and to do that they need a hacker, so they go to a planet where the First Order is harvesting babies to meet Poe’s old buddy Mask Lady and her puppet friend. Mask Lady has a medallion that makes the First Order act extra stupid for one scene and gives it to Poe, who immediately spends it, and this makes Hux stupid for the rest of his dumb life. It also allows our heroes to rescue Chewie, who was only dead inside, and also steal the dagger from the prop department before they could finish it.

The Falcon crashes onto Endor because it has no landing gear and is too tired at this point to hover.

Rey goes to the complex of Extremely Expensive and Devastating Distractions (E2-D2) and is distracted by an evil version of herself into rolling a 1 on her magic D4, causing it to be picked up by Kylo who then fights her. She rolls another 1, and is defeated. Leia must spend her last action on an E2-D2, and when Kylo rolls to save he is defeated as well. Rey has a free action which she uses to heal Kylo, then takes the D4 and Kylo’s second spaceship to Luke’s island, where it bursts into flames. It is unclear whether this is simply how Kylo’s spaceships are designed to land.

Luke demands that Rey leave and throws his gross, waterlogged spaceship at her.

Rey finally faces Sheeve, champing at the bit to finally kill this monster. Sheeve gleefully cackles that he wants Rey to kill him so that his consciousness may flow into her and he will be immortal, and then checks himself with a ‘shit, did I really say that out loud’ expression. This ruins his whole plan.

Meanwhile, Rose, Finn and Jannah.

Meanwhile there are many Star Destroyers and, in keeping with their namesake, each one is capable of destroying an entire planet.

Meanwhile, the Falcon visits approximately 1,138 planets on its newly installed Recruitment Drive.

Kylo reminds everyone that he is still in the movie but he has foolishly thrown away his lightsaber after hallucinating an image of his dead father. Luckily, Rey has an extra one from where Luke was throwing things at her, and distracts the editor long enough to phase between locations and give it to him. They both face Sheeve, who drains them of their will to live and then gets to work on their life force. He throws Kylo down a big pit, knowing that this will surely kill him.

There is a cavalry charge on top of a spaceship. This is the most normal part of the scene.

Meanwhile, Klaud.

I forget how Sheeve dies. I blame Klaud. Maybe Klaud did it. Maybe he did all of this. I don’t know anymore.

Rey dies. Kylo emerges from the pit and brings Rey back to life at the cost of his own. Rey, upon awakening and seeking Kylo dead, brings Kylo back to life at the cost of her own. This continues for some time. They kiss. One of them dies, I don’t care which.

At the end there is a funeral for Snap Wexley and he posthumously gets the medal intended for Chewie. There are cheers and warm embraces, all live in the light of a new day for this, the galaxy reborn. The yoke of the First Order, which has lain heavy across much of the galaxy for a few weeks, has been lifted. The Rule of Palpatine, which lasted for thirty years and eight hours, is ended forever. Bask in this light, galaxy of peace.

Rey gets a yellow lightsaber. The camera falls to the ground, where it continues recording for several seconds.

One of these quotes is sarcastic as hell, from my understanding of the movie though I’m not sure which one it is…

Both statements are quite true. I liked it despite how it was a cavalcade of nonsense. I think ChainsawAsh and I liked it for similar reasons, actually. There is no serious defense of it. It’s just something that can’t be taken too seriously.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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NFBisms said:

I just don’t get it? Like, even if you didn’t like TLJ, it’d be better to at least try to follow up on that. What we got was transparently bad improv. Surely there was a better way to address the criticisms of the prior movie, while also doing something else that could feel like a continuation of it. Anything else!

As someone who loves TLJ, it’s honestly baffling. I mean, I had fun, but for all the wrong reasons. TROS was just ridiculous to me. I think I honestly would have hated it, if it wasn’t so cavalier in its capitalistic cynicism, honestly to the point of unintentional humor.

From Palpatine’s reappearance in the crawl, to when Rey was about to say “Rey Skywalker” I was laughing at how soulless and corrupt it dared to be. It was so shameless about everything it did. It reveled in it. I had fun watching the film eat itself alive. You could just see the puppeteers of every faux-emotional moment straining themselves, as well as you could their strings tied hastily to Carrie’s rotting corpse as a marionette. They couldn’t justify the existence of these movies at all.

Everything truly interesting and meaningful about the sequel trilogy was discarded in favor of what? Nothing here was genuine or good*. I’m only holding onto the idea that they made it as comically hollow as they did out of spite.

*well, save for babu frik. and genuinely threepio’s best movie imo

As someone that hates TLJ, I agree it is very odd to not logically follow on from TLJ at this point with TROS to try and salvage a narrative that could span at least 2 consecutive movies instead of this weird convoluted patchwork / director tug of war you get going on that ultimately makes the entire Disney Trilogy a pointless mess. Obviously they heard many of the criticisms aimed at TLJ but failed to understand the impact and lasting fallout from them which was that many fans have become outright apathetic to Star Wars altogether or entirely dismissive of the Disney Trilogy and you were never going to get them back into cinema seats anyway so why pander to their TLJ criticism to the point that you make the movie irrelevant to it’s own trilogy?

I like your line about watching the film eat itself alive and for me, I’d apply that to TLJ as well due to how meta it is. The whole trilogy is so self aware that it literally comes off at this stage as a spoof than any kind of respectful continuation to Lucas’s legacy.

Edit: I meant “consecutive movies” when I accidentally wrote “concurrent movies”.

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Hal 9000 said:

I feel like TFA and especially TLJ have enough merit to include, and I’ve invested a great deal into each. It ends with the death and figurative rebirth of the main hero, ending on a meta-reflection about people being impacted by the stories.

But, doesn’t it leave the plot unresolved? Not really, since the ST sets up the idea that empires and rebellions will continue to cycle around one another endlessly, anyway. No matter where you end the plot, the themes of TLJ are where they end with meaning.

I can understand this in a way as TLJ actually felt like a conclusion to the trilogy with nothing left for the 3rd movie to go on with, not in any logical sense anyway without taking at least a 5+ year time leap into the future.

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NeverarGreat said:

Valheru_84 said:

NeverarGreat said:

I liked it.

NeverarGreat said:

The crawl lands like a passenger airline on an L.A. expressway and crashes into the first scene, killing everyone. I don’t know if Kylo was fighting the Knights of Ren or helping them kill some other people and I don’t think it matters. What matters is that while rooting around in the garbage behind Rian’s apartment JJ also managed to rescue the pieces of Kylo’s mask and welded them back together with his own blood. An alien tells R2 via SATA cable that Sheeve is back and has to outrun some TIE fighters, but makes them so mad that they forget they can’t go into Hyperspace for a minute, but they can’t catch the Falcon because it has gone so fast that it is on fire.

Meanwhile Rey is in the jungle with too much Force power and little by little is going insane.

Everyone decides to get out of the jungle and go to the desert to find a magical D4 or a dagger or something that leads to Sheeve. Rey gets a nice necklace from an alien and then has it immediately stolen by Kylo despite him not being there, and who is apparently jealous that someone else is giving her jewelry. They find the Horcrux after conquering Devil’s Snare and befriending the Basilisk, but it is stolen by some bad Quiddich players who also make off with its bearer, Chewbacca. Rey shoots spells at them and blows them up and is sad about killing Chewie, whom she doesn’t sense in the transport during any of this despite that being something she can do effortlessly.

Kylo flies straight at Rey with an entire spaceship and loses. This is the most normal part of the scene.

Anyway, C-3PO needs to nuke his hard drive to read some Black Speech and to do that they need a hacker, so they go to a planet where the First Order is harvesting babies to meet Poe’s old buddy Mask Lady and her puppet friend. Mask Lady has a medallion that makes the First Order act extra stupid for one scene and gives it to Poe, who immediately spends it, and this makes Hux stupid for the rest of his dumb life. It also allows our heroes to rescue Chewie, who was only dead inside, and also steal the dagger from the prop department before they could finish it.

The Falcon crashes onto Endor because it has no landing gear and is too tired at this point to hover.

Rey goes to the complex of Extremely Expensive and Devastating Distractions (E2-D2) and is distracted by an evil version of herself into rolling a 1 on her magic D4, causing it to be picked up by Kylo who then fights her. She rolls another 1, and is defeated. Leia must spend her last action on an E2-D2, and when Kylo rolls to save he is defeated as well. Rey has a free action which she uses to heal Kylo, then takes the D4 and Kylo’s second spaceship to Luke’s island, where it bursts into flames. It is unclear whether this is simply how Kylo’s spaceships are designed to land.

Luke demands that Rey leave and throws his gross, waterlogged spaceship at her.

Rey finally faces Sheeve, champing at the bit to finally kill this monster. Sheeve gleefully cackles that he wants Rey to kill him so that his consciousness may flow into her and he will be immortal, and then checks himself with a ‘shit, did I really say that out loud’ expression. This ruins his whole plan.

Meanwhile, Rose, Finn and Jannah.

Meanwhile there are many Star Destroyers and, in keeping with their namesake, each one is capable of destroying an entire planet.

Meanwhile, the Falcon visits approximately 1,138 planets on its newly installed Recruitment Drive.

Kylo reminds everyone that he is still in the movie but he has foolishly thrown away his lightsaber after hallucinating an image of his dead father. Luckily, Rey has an extra one from where Luke was throwing things at her, and distracts the editor long enough to phase between locations and give it to him. They both face Sheeve, who drains them of their will to live and then gets to work on their life force. He throws Kylo down a big pit, knowing that this will surely kill him.

There is a cavalry charge on top of a spaceship. This is the most normal part of the scene.

Meanwhile, Klaud.

I forget how Sheeve dies. I blame Klaud. Maybe Klaud did it. Maybe he did all of this. I don’t know anymore.

Rey dies. Kylo emerges from the pit and brings Rey back to life at the cost of his own. Rey, upon awakening and seeking Kylo dead, brings Kylo back to life at the cost of her own. This continues for some time. They kiss. One of them dies, I don’t care which.

At the end there is a funeral for Snap Wexley and he posthumously gets the medal intended for Chewie. There are cheers and warm embraces, all live in the light of a new day for this, the galaxy reborn. The yoke of the First Order, which has lain heavy across much of the galaxy for a few weeks, has been lifted. The Rule of Palpatine, which lasted for thirty years and eight hours, is ended forever. Bask in this light, galaxy of peace.

Rey gets a yellow lightsaber. The camera falls to the ground, where it continues recording for several seconds.

One of these quotes is sarcastic as hell, from my understanding of the movie though I’m not sure which one it is…

Both statements are quite true. I liked it despite how it was a cavalcade of nonsense. I think ChainsawAsh and I liked it for similar reasons, actually. There is no serious defense of it. It’s just something that can’t be taken too seriously.

Fair enough and yeah it sounds like Ash has a very similar opinion. Essentially enjoyed it for what it is but don’t try and think too much into it in regards to pre-Disney Star Wars lest it become nonsensical.

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Valheru_84 said:

NFBisms said:

I just don’t get it? Like, even if you didn’t like TLJ, it’d be better to at least try to follow up on that. What we got was transparently bad improv. Surely there was a better way to address the criticisms of the prior movie, while also doing something else that could feel like a continuation of it. Anything else!

As someone who loves TLJ, it’s honestly baffling. I mean, I had fun, but for all the wrong reasons. TROS was just ridiculous to me. I think I honestly would have hated it, if it wasn’t so cavalier in its capitalistic cynicism, honestly to the point of unintentional humor.

From Palpatine’s reappearance in the crawl, to when Rey was about to say “Rey Skywalker” I was laughing at how soulless and corrupt it dared to be. It was so shameless about everything it did. It reveled in it. I had fun watching the film eat itself alive. You could just see the puppeteers of every faux-emotional moment straining themselves, as well as you could their strings tied hastily to Carrie’s rotting corpse as a marionette. They couldn’t justify the existence of these movies at all.

Everything truly interesting and meaningful about the sequel trilogy was discarded in favor of what? Nothing here was genuine or good*. I’m only holding onto the idea that they made it as comically hollow as they did out of spite.

*well, save for babu frik. and genuinely threepio’s best movie imo

As someone that hates TLJ, I agree it is very odd to not logically follow on from TLJ at this point with TROS to try and salvage a narrative that could span at least 2 concurrent movies instead of this weird convoluted patchwork / director tug of war you get going on that ultimately makes the entire Disney Trilogy a pointless mess. Obviously they heard many of the criticisms aimed at TLJ but failed to understand the impact and lasting fallout from them which was that many fans have become outright apathetic to Star Wars altogether or entirely dismissive of the Disney Trilogy and you were never going to get them back into cinema seats anyway so why pander to their TLJ criticism to the point that you make the movie irrelevant to it’s own trilogy?

I like your line about watching the film eat itself alive and for me, I’d apply that to TLJ as well due to how meta it is. The whole trilogy is so self aware that it literally comes off at this stage as a spoof than any kind of respectful continuation to Lucas’s legacy.

This might veer a little off topic, but the biggest difference between TLJ and TROS for me is that their meta-natures come from different places. TLJ does it in earnest. Johnson is aware of our expectations, but basically begs the audience to scrutinize his work because there is something there. The result may be unwieldly but it’s not soulless. For as much as people say it ruins the originals’ legacy, it’s really just putting the same understood conventions under new thematic tests - by the end reinforcing Star Wars’ ideals of heroism and redemption through perhaps a now stronger, humanistic lens. He broke some rules, introduced some logical quandaries, but it came from a good place. And even if you disagree with his vision, I still felt like Johnson had a reverence for the franchise that permeated the film. Basically saying: This is why Star Wars matters, and how we make it matter moving forward. Like the capability for good in TLJ, Star Wars doesn’t have to be an exclusive club. It’s not a perfectly realized vision by any means, but the self awareness served a thematic purpose. Johnson’s vision at the very least had integrity.

TROS willingly shuns anything TLJ said that might justify why a sequel trilogy should exist, to vaguely placate fans. It doesn’t make any decision based on what it could mean or say about anything. Any exploration of why we should care is forgone to tie us onto a moving rollercoaster, with a villain audiences already know. The self-awareness is used as winks and nods. You can practically hear the “fuck it, this is what they want right?” It’s a product designed entirely by talking points we’ve all heard over and over again in the past two years. It’s cynical and manipulative. Where TLJ had a beating heart and lungs, TROS is barely a Frankenstein of calculated choices.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the ride that was TROS - probably more than my initial TLJ viewing - but it wasn’t because it was any good. It was so tenaciously cynical that I couldn’t help but enjoy how low it was willing to go to earn its paycheck.

Andor: The Rogue One Arc

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NFBisms said:

Valheru_84 said:

NFBisms said:

I just don’t get it? Like, even if you didn’t like TLJ, it’d be better to at least try to follow up on that. What we got was transparently bad improv. Surely there was a better way to address the criticisms of the prior movie, while also doing something else that could feel like a continuation of it. Anything else!

As someone who loves TLJ, it’s honestly baffling. I mean, I had fun, but for all the wrong reasons. TROS was just ridiculous to me. I think I honestly would have hated it, if it wasn’t so cavalier in its capitalistic cynicism, honestly to the point of unintentional humor.

From Palpatine’s reappearance in the crawl, to when Rey was about to say “Rey Skywalker” I was laughing at how soulless and corrupt it dared to be. It was so shameless about everything it did. It reveled in it. I had fun watching the film eat itself alive. You could just see the puppeteers of every faux-emotional moment straining themselves, as well as you could their strings tied hastily to Carrie’s rotting corpse as a marionette. They couldn’t justify the existence of these movies at all.

Everything truly interesting and meaningful about the sequel trilogy was discarded in favor of what? Nothing here was genuine or good*. I’m only holding onto the idea that they made it as comically hollow as they did out of spite.

*well, save for babu frik. and genuinely threepio’s best movie imo

As someone that hates TLJ, I agree it is very odd to not logically follow on from TLJ at this point with TROS to try and salvage a narrative that could span at least 2 concurrent movies instead of this weird convoluted patchwork / director tug of war you get going on that ultimately makes the entire Disney Trilogy a pointless mess. Obviously they heard many of the criticisms aimed at TLJ but failed to understand the impact and lasting fallout from them which was that many fans have become outright apathetic to Star Wars altogether or entirely dismissive of the Disney Trilogy and you were never going to get them back into cinema seats anyway so why pander to their TLJ criticism to the point that you make the movie irrelevant to it’s own trilogy?

I like your line about watching the film eat itself alive and for me, I’d apply that to TLJ as well due to how meta it is. The whole trilogy is so self aware that it literally comes off at this stage as a spoof than any kind of respectful continuation to Lucas’s legacy.

This might veer a little off topic, but the biggest difference between TLJ and TROS for me is that their meta-natures come from different places. TLJ does it in earnest. Johnson is aware of our expectations, and basically begs the audience to scrutinize his work because there is something there. The result may be unwieldly but it’s not soulless. For as much as people say it ruins the originals’ legacy, it’s really just putting the same understood conventions under new thematic tests - by the end reinforcing Star Wars’ ideals of heroism and redemption through perhaps a now stronger, humanistic lens. He broke some rules, introduced some logical quandaries, but it came from a good place. And even if you disagree with his vision, I still felt like Johnson had a reverence for the franchise that permeated the film. Basically saying: This is why Star Wars matters, and how we make it matter moving forward. Like the capability for good in TLJ, Star Wars doesn’t have to be an exclusive club. It’s not a perfectly realized vision by any means, but the self awareness served a thematic purpose. Johnson’s vision at the very least had integrity.

TROS willingly shuns anything TLJ said that might justify why a sequel trilogy should exist, to vaguely placate fans. It doesn’t make any decision based on what it could mean or say about anything. Any exploration of why we should care is forgone to tie us onto a moving rollercoaster, with a villain audiences already know. The self-awareness is used as winks and nods. You can practically hear the “fuck it, this is what they want right?” It’s a product designed entirely by talking points we’ve all heard over and over again in the past two years. It’s cynical and manipulative. Where TLJ had a beating heart and lungs, TROS is barely a Frankenstein of calculated choices.

Agreed. TFA felt like a love letter, TLJ tried to move forward, and TROS regresses to the point that it sabotages even TFA. I think that the Rey as a Palpatine angle is what really does it in, so if that were removed as well as incorporating the Broom Boy into the ending somehow it would go a long way to making TROS less of a Frankenstein’s monster of fanservice and more of a Frankenstein’s monster in the sense of a synthesis of nostalgia and necessary message.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Hal 9000 said:

So, Ash, it sounds like you’re essentially saying this is a “Good-bad” movie, one enjoyable for being balls-to-the-wall bad.

What say you to the idea that trying to hold 9 alongside 7 and 8 makes them make no sense? In other words, must one divest themselves of investment in this particular story to then be able to enjoy the ‘fuck it’ approach?

So I’ve seen your Homer response already (LMAO) to editing the movie but I did have an idea I was thinking of creating a thread for in the fan edit area, if not for myself (as the Disney Trilogy might as well never have happened for me to continue enjoying the original saga) then for those that didn’t like TLJ and find it hard to reconcile the DT as a result with JJ’s two separate entries. I thought instead though just to post the idea here to see what you thought and leave for someone else to take on board if they think it has merit.

Basically I wondered if it would be worthwhile to edit both TFA and TROS into one single movie or maybe two or three new fan edit movies (together without any editing their runtimes total 277min which could become three 1.5hr movies if all the footage were to be used) or any other split up you could imagine, maybe even including TLJ in a super edit much like some people have edited the entire PT into one movie. But the original basic idea was to mix TFA and TROS together to make a single much more cohesive narrative that could be viewed in a standalone sense much like RO and Solo are.

Anyway, take it or leave it. It’s of no consequence to me but thought some others might see merit and use in it 😃

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 (Edited)

NFBisms said:

Valheru_84 said:

NFBisms said:

I just don’t get it? Like, even if you didn’t like TLJ, it’d be better to at least try to follow up on that. What we got was transparently bad improv. Surely there was a better way to address the criticisms of the prior movie, while also doing something else that could feel like a continuation of it. Anything else!

As someone who loves TLJ, it’s honestly baffling. I mean, I had fun, but for all the wrong reasons. TROS was just ridiculous to me. I think I honestly would have hated it, if it wasn’t so cavalier in its capitalistic cynicism, honestly to the point of unintentional humor.

From Palpatine’s reappearance in the crawl, to when Rey was about to say “Rey Skywalker” I was laughing at how soulless and corrupt it dared to be. It was so shameless about everything it did. It reveled in it. I had fun watching the film eat itself alive. You could just see the puppeteers of every faux-emotional moment straining themselves, as well as you could their strings tied hastily to Carrie’s rotting corpse as a marionette. They couldn’t justify the existence of these movies at all.

Everything truly interesting and meaningful about the sequel trilogy was discarded in favor of what? Nothing here was genuine or good*. I’m only holding onto the idea that they made it as comically hollow as they did out of spite.

*well, save for babu frik. and genuinely threepio’s best movie imo

As someone that hates TLJ, I agree it is very odd to not logically follow on from TLJ at this point with TROS to try and salvage a narrative that could span at least 2 consecutive movies instead of this weird convoluted patchwork / director tug of war you get going on that ultimately makes the entire Disney Trilogy a pointless mess. Obviously they heard many of the criticisms aimed at TLJ but failed to understand the impact and lasting fallout from them which was that many fans have become outright apathetic to Star Wars altogether or entirely dismissive of the Disney Trilogy and you were never going to get them back into cinema seats anyway so why pander to their TLJ criticism to the point that you make the movie irrelevant to it’s own trilogy?

I like your line about watching the film eat itself alive and for me, I’d apply that to TLJ as well due to how meta it is. The whole trilogy is so self aware that it literally comes off at this stage as a spoof than any kind of respectful continuation to Lucas’s legacy.

This might veer a little off topic, but the biggest difference between TLJ and TROS for me is that their meta-natures come from different places. TLJ does it in earnest. Johnson is aware of our expectations, but basically begs the audience to scrutinize his work because there is something there. The result may be unwieldly but it’s not soulless. For as much as people say it ruins the originals’ legacy, it’s really just putting the same understood conventions under new thematic tests - by the end reinforcing Star Wars’ ideals of heroism and redemption through perhaps a now stronger, humanistic lens. He broke some rules, introduced some logical quandaries, but it came from a good place. And even if you disagree with his vision, I still felt like Johnson had a reverence for the franchise that permeated the film. Basically saying: This is why Star Wars matters, and how we make it matter moving forward. Like the capability for good in TLJ, Star Wars doesn’t have to be an exclusive club. It’s not a perfectly realized vision by any means, but the self awareness served a thematic purpose. Johnson’s vision at the very least had integrity.

TROS willingly shuns anything TLJ said that might justify why a sequel trilogy should exist, to vaguely placate fans. It doesn’t make any decision based on what it could mean or say about anything. Any exploration of why we should care is forgone to tie us onto a moving rollercoaster, with a villain audiences already know. The self-awareness is used as winks and nods. You can practically hear the “fuck it, this is what they want right?” It’s a product designed entirely by talking points we’ve all heard over and over again in the past two years. It’s cynical and manipulative. Where TLJ had a beating heart and lungs, TROS is barely a Frankenstein of calculated choices.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the ride that was TROS - probably more than my initial TLJ viewing - but it wasn’t because it was any good. It was so tenaciously cynical that I couldn’t help but enjoy how low it was willing to go to earn its paycheck.

Firstly, I edited my post to correctly say “consecutive movies” as I meant to and not “concurrent” 😉

Secondly, I somewhat agree with you on TLJ but he went about it in completely the wrong way and many will never understand or even sniff any hint of your POV due to how insulted they felt by what they watched. Also any integrity Johnson’s approach had was thrown out by his seemingly endless need to subvert expectations for what felt simply the sake of doing it at the expense of maintaining any sort consistent tone, emotionally invested reaction or logic to the overall story and tie-in to the universe it wanted to exist within.

Regarding TROS, I am seeing the “fuck it” worked into many discussions all over the place so I think many people feel JJ took his own words quite literally when he said “fuck it, I’m going to do the thing that feels right”.

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NFBisms said:

Valheru_84 said:

NFBisms said:

I just don’t get it? Like, even if you didn’t like TLJ, it’d be better to at least try to follow up on that. What we got was transparently bad improv. Surely there was a better way to address the criticisms of the prior movie, while also doing something else that could feel like a continuation of it. Anything else!

As someone who loves TLJ, it’s honestly baffling. I mean, I had fun, but for all the wrong reasons. TROS was just ridiculous to me. I think I honestly would have hated it, if it wasn’t so cavalier in its capitalistic cynicism, honestly to the point of unintentional humor.

From Palpatine’s reappearance in the crawl, to when Rey was about to say “Rey Skywalker” I was laughing at how soulless and corrupt it dared to be. It was so shameless about everything it did. It reveled in it. I had fun watching the film eat itself alive. You could just see the puppeteers of every faux-emotional moment straining themselves, as well as you could their strings tied hastily to Carrie’s rotting corpse as a marionette. They couldn’t justify the existence of these movies at all.

Everything truly interesting and meaningful about the sequel trilogy was discarded in favor of what? Nothing here was genuine or good*. I’m only holding onto the idea that they made it as comically hollow as they did out of spite.

*well, save for babu frik. and genuinely threepio’s best movie imo

As someone that hates TLJ, I agree it is very odd to not logically follow on from TLJ at this point with TROS to try and salvage a narrative that could span at least 2 concurrent movies instead of this weird convoluted patchwork / director tug of war you get going on that ultimately makes the entire Disney Trilogy a pointless mess. Obviously they heard many of the criticisms aimed at TLJ but failed to understand the impact and lasting fallout from them which was that many fans have become outright apathetic to Star Wars altogether or entirely dismissive of the Disney Trilogy and you were never going to get them back into cinema seats anyway so why pander to their TLJ criticism to the point that you make the movie irrelevant to it’s own trilogy?

I like your line about watching the film eat itself alive and for me, I’d apply that to TLJ as well due to how meta it is. The whole trilogy is so self aware that it literally comes off at this stage as a spoof than any kind of respectful continuation to Lucas’s legacy.

This might veer a little off topic, but the biggest difference between TLJ and TROS for me is that their meta-natures come from different places. TLJ does it in earnest. Johnson is aware of our expectations, but basically begs the audience to scrutinize his work because there is something there. The result may be unwieldly but it’s not soulless. For as much as people say it ruins the originals’ legacy, it’s really just putting the same understood conventions under new thematic tests - by the end reinforcing Star Wars’ ideals of heroism and redemption through perhaps a now stronger, humanistic lens. He broke some rules, introduced some logical quandaries, but it came from a good place. And even if you disagree with his vision, I still felt like Johnson had a reverence for the franchise that permeated the film. Basically saying: This is why Star Wars matters, and how we make it matter moving forward. Like the capability for good in TLJ, Star Wars doesn’t have to be an exclusive club. It’s not a perfectly realized vision by any means, but the self awareness served a thematic purpose. Johnson’s vision at the very least had integrity.

TROS willingly shuns anything TLJ said that might justify why a sequel trilogy should exist, to vaguely placate fans. It doesn’t make any decision based on what it could mean or say about anything. Any exploration of why we should care is forgone to tie us onto a moving rollercoaster, with a villain audiences already know. The self-awareness is used as winks and nods. You can practically hear the “fuck it, this is what they want right?” It’s a product designed entirely by talking points we’ve all heard over and over again in the past two years. It’s cynical and manipulative. Where TLJ had a beating heart and lungs, TROS is barely a Frankenstein of calculated choices.

Pretty decent sum up.

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It’s so weird. This movie has so many obvious flaws, yet I still kinda like it. It’s a movie without pretense, which just attempts to be a fun ride, without being apologetic about it.

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I can’t type much right now but I wanted to say that I don’t begrudge anyone their opinion on this, and am sincere in wanting to pick the brains of those who enjoyed it.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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DrDre said:

It’s a movie without pretense

I’m pretty sure making a movie supposed to give closure to the most important cinematographic Saga ever created qualifies as “pretense” 😉

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ChainsawAsh said:

“You know what? Fuck it.”

You’re right. It’s how the movie was made.

Screenplay ? Fuck it
Editing ? Fuck it
Production value ? Fuck it
Consistency ? Fuck it
The OT ? Fuck it
The PT ? Fuck it
Episode 8 ? Fuck it

This movie is a middle finger made by people who don’t give a shit anymore. I can understand the morbid feeling to witness that, to see Carrie Fisher butchered to oddly be there (like Bela Lugosi in Plan 9), but it feels so wrong in every single way…

Chewie is dead ? No… fuck it
3PO got a memory wipe ? No… fuck it
Heroes are gonna die ? No, Hux is the spy…
Rey’s parents were nobody… by choice ! You’re actually a Palpatine…
etc.

Even Lucas’s AOTC screenplay is less dumb. It’s saying A LOT…

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 (Edited)

Just a reminder given the content of the last few posts…

From the opening post of this thread:-

oojason said:

This thread is NOT the place for members to rehash previous circular and oft-repeated debates that have taken place in the TFA/TLJ or more relevant character threads etc - this thread is for discussing Episode IX.

Thank you.

A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…

Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com; some info & answers + FAQs - includes info on how to search for projects and threads on the OT•com

A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)

… and take your time to look around this site before posting - to get a feel for this place. Don’t just lazily make yet another thread asking for projects.