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The Rise Of Skywalker — Official Review and Opinions Thread — Page 24

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It does seem like there was an issue where they felt they needed a primary, ultimate evil, antagonist, because they wanted to redeem Kylo and they felt that wouldn’t be possible if Kylo was that ultimate baddie.

In the OT you had the ultimate evil with the Emperor to contrast to Vader, and another example with Avatar: The Last Airbender, Ozai was the ultimate evil to contrast with Zuko. Both Vader and Zuko found redemption while the ultimate evil was defeated. It almost seems like a narrative rule. But I think it would’ve been compelling to keep Kylo as the ultimate evil, and ask the question, “Can the ultimate evil be saved?”

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DominicCobb said:

StarkillerAG said:

DominicCobb said:

I mean, I hate to defend TROS but the very first thing we see Rey doing in the movie is failing. Because of her failure, she decides to run the training course again, the implication being that she’s done this many times and so naturally knows it by heart at this point. They literally went out of their way to appease the fan complaints.

But who cares about what’s actually in the movies when you can put “Mary Sue” blinders on. Gotta twist everything to prove your narrative is right!

Doesn’t matter, Rey still doesn’t struggle enough in the first 2 movies, where the protagonist should struggle the most. It’s like putting whipped cream on a pile of dung, and trying to convince me that it’s actually an ice cream sundae.

And also, can you please stop responding to me with this condescending bullshit? I’m trying to have an intelligent conversation and you just keep belittling me.

I’m not trying to be condescending, but if you’re going to post something ridiculous my response will be likewise ridiculous. I don’t know what’s intelligent about warping the content of the films and then calling this made up version “dung.”

I’m not making anything up, I’ve posted evidence to back up my arguments. I don’t think I’m warping the content of the films, but since no one is going to change their mind about this, I’m going to leave this thread before things get nasty.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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RogueLeader said:

It does seem like there was an issue where they felt they needed a primary, ultimate evil, antagonist, because they wanted to redeem Kylo and they felt that wouldn’t be possible if Kylo was that ultimate baddie.

In the OT you had the ultimate evil with the Emperor to contrast to Vader, and another example with Avatar: The Last Airbender, Ozai was the ultimate evil to contrast with Zuko. Both Vader and Zuko found redemption while the ultimate evil was defeated. It almost seems like a narrative rule. But I think it would’ve been compelling to keep Kylo as the ultimate evil, and ask the question, “Can the ultimate evil be saved?”

It’s a lack of imagination. Especially if you’re going to have Kylo be the one to redeem himself, of his own volition (which is what basically happened in this film anyway), you don’t need a bigger bad to face off against. He should be able to look in the mirror and realize for himself what he’s doing is wrong, not just what someone else is doing is wrong.

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StarkillerAG said:

DominicCobb said:

StarkillerAG said:

DominicCobb said:

I mean, I hate to defend TROS but the very first thing we see Rey doing in the movie is failing. Because of her failure, she decides to run the training course again, the implication being that she’s done this many times and so naturally knows it by heart at this point. They literally went out of their way to appease the fan complaints.

But who cares about what’s actually in the movies when you can put “Mary Sue” blinders on. Gotta twist everything to prove your narrative is right!

Doesn’t matter, Rey still doesn’t struggle enough in the first 2 movies, where the protagonist should struggle the most. It’s like putting whipped cream on a pile of dung, and trying to convince me that it’s actually an ice cream sundae.

And also, can you please stop responding to me with this condescending bullshit? I’m trying to have an intelligent conversation and you just keep belittling me.

I’m not trying to be condescending, but if you’re going to post something ridiculous my response will be likewise ridiculous. I don’t know what’s intelligent about warping the content of the films and then calling this made up version “dung.”

I’m not making anything up, I’ve posted evidence to back up my arguments. I don’t think I’m warping the content of the films, but since no one is going to change their mind about this, I’m going to leave this thread before things get nasty.

I mean, just for example you said the training scene shows us Rey is a Mary Sue, which is a statement that doesn’t hold up to any sort of scrutiny whatsoever. I explained why, and you had no refutation except to say “well what about the other movies!” It’s one thing to hold up the movies as they are and say, “well I get that this is what they were trying to do, this worked for me but this didn’t, and I think that hurts the character” or whatever. That’s an intelligent conversation. But when you’re being willfully ignorant, like with the training scene, it hurts your argument. I don’t know how to respond other than being snarky, if you’re not going to argue on the level I don’t know how I can.

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DominicCobb said:

StarkillerAG said:

DominicCobb said:

StarkillerAG said:

DominicCobb said:

I mean, I hate to defend TROS but the very first thing we see Rey doing in the movie is failing. Because of her failure, she decides to run the training course again, the implication being that she’s done this many times and so naturally knows it by heart at this point. They literally went out of their way to appease the fan complaints.

But who cares about what’s actually in the movies when you can put “Mary Sue” blinders on. Gotta twist everything to prove your narrative is right!

Doesn’t matter, Rey still doesn’t struggle enough in the first 2 movies, where the protagonist should struggle the most. It’s like putting whipped cream on a pile of dung, and trying to convince me that it’s actually an ice cream sundae.

And also, can you please stop responding to me with this condescending bullshit? I’m trying to have an intelligent conversation and you just keep belittling me.

I’m not trying to be condescending, but if you’re going to post something ridiculous my response will be likewise ridiculous. I don’t know what’s intelligent about warping the content of the films and then calling this made up version “dung.”

I’m not making anything up, I’ve posted evidence to back up my arguments. I don’t think I’m warping the content of the films, but since no one is going to change their mind about this, I’m going to leave this thread before things get nasty.

I mean, just for example you said the training scene shows us Rey is a Mary Sue, which is a statement that doesn’t hold up to any sort of scrutiny whatsoever. I explained why, and you had no refutation except to say “well what about the other movies!” It’s one thing to hold up the movies as they are and say, “well I get that this is what they were trying to do, this worked for me but this didn’t, and I think that hurts the character” or whatever. That’s an intelligent conversation. But when you’re being willfully ignorant, like with the training scene, it hurts your argument. I don’t know how to respond other than being snarky, if you’re not going to argue on the level I don’t know how I can.

I understand what you mean. I am emphasizing things that fit my point while de-emphasizing things that don’t, but that’s how most argumentative writing works. But like I said, I don’t want to talk about this movie any more. I don’t want the conversation to escalate or people to get banned.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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StarkillerAG said:

yotsuya said:

StarkillerAG said:

yotsuya said:

StarkillerAG said:

yotsuya said:

StarkillerAG said:

yotsuya said:

Shopping Maul said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

A Mary Sue doesn’t cease to be a Mary Sue just 'cause she has ubermensch genes.

Yeah, but it helps. I guess it comes down to what one wishes to preserve most in the canon. Like I said, I hate the genetic thing and have hated it since the ridiculous Leia retcon in ROTJ. But I dislike the ‘no training required’ thing of the ST even more, because it takes away from Luke’s arc and struggles. I’d rather roll with a version of Force genetics (I find a Sith version of this at least mysterious enough to carry some weight) to justify Rey’s power levels than go with RJ’s random ‘X-Men Force powers’ thing.

Luke’s struggles are due to lack of faith and lack of concentration. Rey had heard of the Heroes of the OT. Rey knows what a Jedi can do from those stories. Then comes face to face with it in a way Luke never did (he didn’t see Vader do anything in canon until TESB during their duel and I don’t think he saw Ben do anything either). Ben gave him one lesson on the falcon and then he is able to make the shot that takes out the death star and then later is able to levitate his lightsaber before his second lesson with Yoda. Luke had doubts. Rey didn’t. Rey had belonging and abandonment issues, Luke never seemed to. He wanted to know more about his father, but he knew who he was and that was fine. Rey has plenty of struggles and failures in the films. More than Luke actually. No one powerful in the Force seems to have any problem using it once they see it used and Rey saw it used by Kylo many time. In fact, you could say that he activated the Dyad by trying to read her mind and that he basically taught her everything he knew and she just had to concentrate to draw on it. Snoke implied that he linked them, but I don’t think he realized what he was dealing with. They stayed linked after he died. So Mary Sue? Nope. She has too many flaws and failures to be one. Sure she picks up the force quickly, but that is not the only part of her character and she rarely does it right the first time.

Just because a character has flaws and failures doesn’t mean they’re not a Mary Sue. The original Mary Sue died at the end. Mary Sues usually have two qualities:

-An insane level of power and skill, without much struggle.
-The ability to make everyone they meet instantly like them.

Rey has both qualities. She flies and repairs the Falcon better than Han, despite having never flown it before. As soon as Finn meets her, he loves her more than anything in the galaxy. She uses a Jedi mind-trick successfully after seeing Kylo use it once. As soon as Kylo meets her, he wants her to become his empress. She beats Kylo in a lightsaber duel, despite having never used a weapon of that type before. As soon as Han meets her, he wants her to become his copilot. When she taps into the Force for the first time, she nearly destroys Luke’s temple. She lifts a huge pile of rocks on Crait, despite having never used the Force to lift objects before. She heals people using the Force, an ability which no Jedi has used before, and she doesn’t seem any weaker because of it. Zorri agrees to help the Resistance purely because she likes Rey. The list goes on, but you get the idea. In my opinion, Rey fits the definition of a Mary Sue almost exactly.

Then so does Luke.

People like you keep saying, “If Rey is a Mary Sue, than so is Luke!” But Luke doesn’t have any of the qualities that make Rey a Mary Sue. He struggled constantly to gain the level of power he showed in ROTJ, and the people around him didn’t like him instantly - Leia thought he was a complete idiot, Han thought he was a dumb kid who didn’t understand anything, and Yoda thought he was too hopeful and excited to become a Jedi. In order for Luke to gain the surrogate family he had in ROTJ, he needed character development - a term which the creators of the sequel trilogy don’t seem to understand.

Really? In one less he is able to deflect the remote’s shots.

Like Han said, “Good against remotes is easy. Good against the living, that’s something else.” Training with a remote doesn’t prepare you for fighting a living enemy.

Without any lessons (only Ben’s ghost voice saying to use the force) he is able to target the shaft and destroy the death star.

That wasn’t Luke making that shot. He closed his eyes and trusted his instincts, allowing the Force to take over. All the incredible things Rey does, she does by herself.

Without any lessons he can lift his light saber.
Lifting a lightsaber is easy. Anyone can do it, even Han. But Luke never had to use his lightsaber for complicated things until his duel with Vader, three years after he first used it. Rey, on the other hand, beats Kylo in a lightsaber duel, despite having never used a weapon of that type before. There’s a difference between lifting a lightsaber, and using it to defeat a Force user who was trained by both Luke Skywalker and Emperor Palpatine.
And it isn’t like Rey does everything successfully the first time. She has to try several times to get James Bond Stormtrooper to do her bidding.

She tries once. The second time, she succeeds. Compare that to Luke, who only knew how to use a mind trick in ROTJ, when he was already a skilled Jedi master.

She does fail and when you actually and honestly compare how she and Luke do things, they are very similar.

Which shouldn’t be taken as a compliment. Copying a much better protagonist does not make your protagonist good.

She just doesn’t have his doubts that made him fail with the X-wing.

Which also shouldn’t be taken as a compliment. Characters who have no doubts tend not to be very interesting.

She has family issues he always seemed okay with.

That’s just a plot point, it’s not a weakness. Rey doesn’t seem to be shaken by either one of her family reveals, unlike Luke who was shocked to his core by Vader’s revelation.

We never get to see Anakin train so we have no idea how he did.

He trained for ten years straight, so we can assume he did well.

And in case you missed it, Rey had a bit of a failure at the start of TROS where she wasn’t deflecting the remotes shots like she should.

What are you talking about? Rey deflected all those lasers completely accurately.

LOL… When she first encountered the remote she does (wearing a helmet with a blast shield). Then she cuts down the red strip and after that she can’t deflect a single laser. It hits her like 5 times. She finally smashes it against a tree with a stick. Watch the movie again.

How about you watch the movie again? Rey deflected the lasers completely accurately until she got distracted by Kylo talking to Vader’s helmet and started chopping down trees like a maniac for no reason.

She has a tough third film where Luke is pretty composed the whole way through and only has issues when Vader threatens Leia.

Luke isn’t composed, he’s arrogant. That’s the main lesson Luke learns in ROTJ, true Jedi aren’t smug about their abilities. Compare that to Rey, who has no doubts about her abilities the entire trilogy, and she never learns a lesson from it.

Have you seen TROS. This sounds like you haven’t.

I have seen TROS. Rey has no doubts about her abilities, you said so yourself. And she never learns a lesson from it during TROS. She shows up to Palpatine’s lair, is all like “I’m gonna kill you lol”, and then kills Palpatine with double saber power. Unlike ROTJ which teaches that violence isn’t always the solution, TROS has Rey kill Palpatine with double violence, and it’s portrayed as a heroic moment.

Wrong. She doesn’t kill him. He is trying to kill her and she blocks it. Using both sabers she is able to push back and when she gets close enough the feedback from his own lightning destroys him. The entire point was that she didn’t kill him with violence. She didn’t actually kill him at all. He did it to himself. If she had tried to kill him, he would have possessed her and Evil Rey would be born. It really pays to pay attention to what is going on.

The evidence doesn’t back up Rey having it easier than Luke or being more powerful than Luke. They just have different journeys.

She doesn’t have a different journey, she has a very similar journey, which is a problem in itself. But while Luke made mistakes and learned lessons on his path to becoming a Jedi, Rey started out powerful and stayed powerful, with no opportunities for mistakes or character growth.

No opportunities for mistakes? Well, please watch TROS again and then tell me that.

She never makes mistakes, at least not voluntarily. She’s always morally right about everything, often at the expense of everyone else.

And also, I did watch TROS again. It’s still bad.

She makes plenty of mistakes. They are there in each of the movies. She does not perform perfectly any more than Luke did. That is the role of the hero. They have to succeed more often than they fail. Rey fails big when she unleashed the force lightning. She is lucky she was trying to stop the wrong ship.

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Shopping Maul said:

yotsuya said:

Shopping Maul said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

A Mary Sue doesn’t cease to be a Mary Sue just 'cause she has ubermensch genes.

Yeah, but it helps. I guess it comes down to what one wishes to preserve most in the canon. Like I said, I hate the genetic thing and have hated it since the ridiculous Leia retcon in ROTJ. But I dislike the ‘no training required’ thing of the ST even more, because it takes away from Luke’s arc and struggles. I’d rather roll with a version of Force genetics (I find a Sith version of this at least mysterious enough to carry some weight) to justify Rey’s power levels than go with RJ’s random ‘X-Men Force powers’ thing.

Luke’s struggles are due to lack of faith and lack of concentration. Rey had heard of the Heroes of the OT. Rey knows what a Jedi can do from those stories. Then comes face to face with it in a way Luke never did (he didn’t see Vader do anything in canon until TESB during their duel and I don’t think he saw Ben do anything either). Ben gave him one lesson on the falcon and then he is able to make the shot that takes out the death star and then later is able to levitate his lightsaber before his second lesson with Yoda. Luke had doubts. Rey didn’t. Rey had belonging and abandonment issues, Luke never seemed to. He wanted to know more about his father, but he knew who he was and that was fine. Rey has plenty of struggles and failures in the films. More than Luke actually. No one powerful in the Force seems to have any problem using it once they see it used and Rey saw it used by Kylo many time. In fact, you could say that he activated the Dyad by trying to read her mind and that he basically taught her everything he knew and she just had to concentrate to draw on it. Snoke implied that he linked them, but I don’t think he realized what he was dealing with. They stayed linked after he died. So Mary Sue? Nope. She has too many flaws and failures to be one. Sure she picks up the force quickly, but that is not the only part of her character and she rarely does it right the first time.

I’m not really pushing the Mary Sue barrow so much as just dealing with my own particular head-canon regarding the Force. Midichlorians and Chosen Ones (and even the 1983 ‘Leia’s the other by blood alone’ thing) sit really uneasily with me. I’m stuck in 1980 on this point - the Force is super-hard to master. Yes, Luke’s doubts and impatience impede his progress, but I don’t see this as an absolute. For example I don’t think Luke, having witnessed Yoda’s X-Wing feat, would have immediately gone “oh, I see” and then duplicated it just because he’d seen it done. I think Yoda’s lesson was more layered than that.

So when Rey stumbles into mastery so easily (from my POV anyway) it messes with my view of the Force and how I see Luke’s journey. I think a ‘school of hard knocks’ approach to the Force is fine, but Rey’s version crosses the line for me. I don’t think JJ even cared, I think he was just like “hey, let’s have her do cool stuff and we’ll explain it later”.

Rey Palpatine is a good explanation for me. While I hate ‘Force-genetics’ in general, her being the descendant/creation of the Palpatine depicted in TROS (basically an evil sorcerer) makes it fit. It kind of justifies the notion of someone being born into power rather than having to master it - plus we’re not talking about the same kind of power Luke was struggling to attain. This is (to me anyway) a whole new twisted side of the Force that hasn’t been presented yet. So it works for me at that level and also gives Rey a depth of character I felt was previously lacking - the idea of someone brimming with a kind of ‘dark magic’ that she can barely control let alone comprehend. It’s almost a ‘reverse-Luke’ in a way and I find it interesting.

Hm… I like that perspective. Very interesting. Adds more layers to her character looking at it like that.

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yotsuya said:

She makes plenty of mistakes. They are there in each of the movies. She does not perform perfectly any more than Luke did. That is the role of the hero. They have to succeed more often than they fail. Rey fails big when she unleashed the force lightning. She is lucky she was trying to stop the wrong ship.

She’s an underwritten character. I guess maybe she makes mistakes (can’t think of many). But as with her using force-lightning on the ship, her mistakes never seem to have any real consequences. Guess she’s just “lucky” that Finn mixed up the ships.

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This is a great example of why it was so stupid for JJ and co. to try to appease the fans. The fans have already made up their minds. You can try to fight something like the “Mary Sue” label, but people will just reinterpret anything to make it fit their narrative. Might as well continue forward with the character as written rather than try to make those happy who will always find some way to complain.

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DominicCobb said:

This is a great example of why it was so stupid for JJ and co. to try to appease the fans. The fans have already made up their minds. You can try to fight something like the “Mary Sue” label, but people will just reinterpret anything to make it fit their narrative. Might as well continue forward with the character as written rather than try to make those happy who will always find some way to complain.

It’s also very stupid to constantly seek validation from fans online. So what if I don’t like some of the narrative decisions they made. They should have still tried to make the best out of it. They should have the balls to stand behind their own decisions. With TROS they just went out of their way to try and address everything you could possibly read online about the sequel trilogy. That goes at the expense of coherent storytelling.

I didn’t like TLJ but at least I could respect it for what it was apparently trying to do. TROS is just pathetic.

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Wexter said:

DominicCobb said:

This is a great example of why it was so stupid for JJ and co. to try to appease the fans. The fans have already made up their minds. You can try to fight something like the “Mary Sue” label, but people will just reinterpret anything to make it fit their narrative. Might as well continue forward with the character as written rather than try to make those happy who will always find some way to complain.

It’s also very stupid to constantly seek validation from fans online. So what if I don’t like some of the narrative decisions they made. They should have still tried to make the best out of it. They should have the balls to stand behind their own decisions. With TROS they just went out of their way to try and address everything you could possibly read online about the sequel trilogy. That goes at the expense of coherent storytelling.

Exactly. Have some confidence in the story you’re telling.

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I agree. TLJ may have been a very mixed movie, but at least Rian had the courage to tell the story he wanted to tell. Both of JJ’s movies have just been 2 hours of responding to fan complaints, and they feel soulless because of it. I wish Rian directed the whole trilogy.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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StarkillerAG said:

I agree. TLJ may have been a very mixed movie, but at least Rian had the courage to tell the story he wanted to tell. Both of JJ’s movies have just been 2 hours of responding to fan complaints, and they feel soulless because of it. I wish Rian directed the whole trilogy.

Personally I would have preferred someone with better feel for the Star Wars lore, but I’ll absolutely take Rian’s singular vision over that of three different guys that don’t talk to each other.

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I went back and read over the leaked plot points of Trevorrow’s Episode 9 and I noticed a nice little easter egg. The very last scene of the film would have shown Finn and the crew help Rey make a sanctuary on a ranch-like planet for Force-sensitive children (including Broom Boy), presumably to train them as the new generation of Jedi. What I thought was a nice touch was that the name of the planet was MODESTA, which I think is meant to be a reference to Modesto, California, George Lucas’ hometown.

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Wow this video really hit the nail on the coffin.

Peace is a lie
There is only passion…

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idir_hh said:

Wow this video really hit the nail on the coffin.

Yeah! The final nail in the head, so to speak.

Seriously though, it really did thoughtfully and accurately breakdown perhaps the movie’s biggest technical flaw.

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DrDre said:

A good and balanced analysis by the channel Films&Stuff of why TROS doesn’t work as a film for many (12 min):

The broken structure of Rise of Skywalker

https://youtu.be/HQrNK8NYevI

While it may not work for some, a great many seem to love this film, including myself. I found his argument that because we didn’t see landings that indicated a problem to be silly. And his analysis that Rey redid her journey in one film is off. Star Wars has always had a larger structure than a single film, but each film has always followed the 3 act structure and this one did as well Rey goes on her final journey - her final test if you will.

Sequel movies have a hard job in coming back to revisit the same characters and places with a new story. They were never going to please everyone. I think they set up to please the people who wanted to be entertained and I think they succeeded. The box office numbers are not final yet, but it has done very well. People have wanted to see it and keep seeing it. The numbers indicate that the critic score is way off on RT. The audience has not been that divided and a great many love it and have called it the best Star Wars since the originals.

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yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

A good and balanced analysis by the channel Films&Stuff of why TROS doesn’t work as a film for many (12 min):

The broken structure of Rise of Skywalker

https://youtu.be/HQrNK8NYevI

While it may not work for some, a great many seem to love this film, including myself. I found his argument that because we didn’t see landings that indicated a problem to be silly. And his analysis that Rey redid her journey in one film is off. Star Wars has always had a larger structure than a single film, but each film has always followed the 3 act structure and this one did as well Rey goes on her final journey - her final test if you will.

Maybe you loved it, and that’s fine, but the majority of audiences didn’t, which seems to indicate that there’s something wrong with the pacing and structure of the movie. That’s what the video is about, it isn’t about not having any shots of the heroes landing on a planet, although that is part of the pacing problem.

Sequel movies have a hard job in coming back to revisit the same characters and places with a new story. They were never going to please everyone. I think they set up to please the people who wanted to be entertained and I think they succeeded.

That’s my main problem with the movie. JJ didn’t want to make a meaningful movie, he didn’t even want to make a good movie, he just wanted a big dumb blockbuster that lots of people would enjoy without really thinking about it.

The box office numbers are not final yet, but it has done very well. People have wanted to see it and keep seeing it.

The box office numbers are still disappointing. Keep in mind that most people were expecting this movie to make almost as much as TFA, and the ones who successfully predicted the current box office numbers were labeled as pessimists.

The numbers indicate that the critic score is way off on RT. The audience has not been that divided and a great many love it and have called it the best Star Wars since the originals.

Where are you getting this from? The audience reception is almost as divided as TLJ, and even the people who like it know it isn’t even close to being as good as the OT.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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yotsuya said:
The numbers indicate that the critic score is way off on RT. The audience has not been that divided and a great many love it and have called it the best Star Wars since the originals.

I’m not a conspiracy-theorist but that frozen 86% seams just a little suspicious.

Peace is a lie
There is only passion…

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Yeah, I wasn’t going to mention that audience score, but it is really suspicious that no new reviews were allowed after opening weekend. It’s like Disney knew that the audience score would decline after people had time to think about the movie, and they convinced RT to just freeze the score permanently.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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StarkillerAG said:

The box office numbers are not final yet, but it has done very well. People have wanted to see it and keep seeing it.

Keep in mind that most people were expecting this movie to make almost as much as TFA

Anyone predicting that would have been rightfully in the minority.

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DominicCobb said:

StarkillerAG said:

The box office numbers are not final yet, but it has done very well. People have wanted to see it and keep seeing it.

Keep in mind that most people were expecting this movie to make almost as much as TFA

Anyone predicting that would have been rightfully in the minority.

It seems like they would be in the minority, but most people were predicting that this movie would make an insane amount of money at the box office. I remember one guy (who doesn’t post here anymore) said something along the lines of “This movie will make 1.8 billion dollars, that is a fact. The haters won’t put a dent in this one.” If you look in the box office predictions thread, you’ll find many more examples. The people predicting 1 billion were labeled as pessimists, but it turns out the pessimists were right.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

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Concerning the box office, I recall most of us expecting higher than TLJ but lower than TFA.

My reasoning for liking this movie (and ranking it third in the saga) is simple. It is fun; it is original. TFA is a bit too derivative for my tastes but still a great fun movie, so it gets the fourth place. TLJ is not fun. Yes, TLJ introduces complex themes and I respect RJ as an artist, but the various subplots make it too cringe-worthy for me to enjoy. Keep in mind there is a large gap between the smart/original/fun ANH, TESB, and Mandalorian vs the dumb/original/fun TROS.

Maul- A Star Wars Story