The Rise Of Skywalker — Official Review and Opinions Thread — Page 29

I guess since I’m one of the few people on this website who doesn’t hate TROS, I should just shut up. But I recommend that a lot of the hardcore haters should try and watch it again. If you’ve already watched it twice or more, but still hate it, then I understand.

I’ve lost count. With the current version of the film I can barely allow it into my headcanon. But with the fanedits that are being worked on, that could change.

StarkillerAG said:

I guess since I’m one of the few people on this website who doesn’t hate TROS, I should just shut up. But I recommend that a lot of the hardcore haters should try and watch it again. If you’ve already watched it twice or more, but still hate it, then I understand.

I saw it twice in theaters. The first time struck me as so bad it was good and as I kept thinking about it that night it became more and more hilarious. Literal side-shaking laughter for a good hour that night.

The second time really just cemented the impression from the first time except that it was less funny.

I was on record here in saying that I would have counted this movie as a win as long as we got an adventure with the entire crew for the first time, and the trailers were a cause for hope. There they all were in the Falcon, there they were in the desert, and for the record that’s the best part of the movie for me. On a surface level their banter is fun and it checks all the boxes for an adventure. The problem is that the entire exercise is tangential to the plot and, crucially, doesn’t move Finn, Poe, Chewie, or Threepio forward as characters. The main plot would have been entirely unaffected had Rey gone alone. So even the sure thing of the group adventure was ultimately a failure. Add to that Rey Palpatine, Sheev again, and the Dumb Sith Fleet and the movie becomes a complete waste of time.

NeverarGreat said:

StarkillerAG said:

I guess since I’m one of the few people on this website who doesn’t hate TROS, I should just shut up. But I recommend that a lot of the hardcore haters should try and watch it again. If you’ve already watched it twice or more, but still hate it, then I understand.

I was on record here in saying that I would have counted this movie as a win as long as we got an adventure with the entire crew for the first time, and the trailers were a cause for hope. There they all were in the Falcon, there they were in the desert, and for the record that’s the best part of the movie for me. On a surface level their banter is fun and it checks all the boxes for an adventure. The problem is that the entire exercise is tangential to the plot and, crucially, doesn’t move Finn, Poe, Chewie, or Threepio forward as characters. The main plot would have been entirely unaffected had Rey gone alone. So even the sure thing of the group adventure was ultimately a failure. Add to that Rey Palpatine, Sheev again, and the Dumb Sith Fleet and the movie becomes a complete waste of time.

Yeah, the secondary characters being sidelined was one of the movie’s biggest flaws. But I don’t think it breaks the movie, we still get some nice moments with them even though they’re not very consequential.

can’t break what’s broken to begin with xPPPP

NFBisms said:

can’t break what’s broken to begin with xPPPP

I don’t think the movie was broken to begin with either, even though there are a lot of dumb plot points. But that’s just my opinion, and it seems to be one that very few people here have.

DrDre you said yourself “So, the ideas and concepts are great. They are just mostly very poorly executed.”

Whether this is mostly trash or straight trash seems to be an exercise in semantics. Let’s just all call it a big pile of mostly trash.

It doesn’t really mean anything to anyone here because yeah, the movie is just not enjoyable to watch - but I at least respect AotC more than TROS. It’s fun and funny to call it straight garbage - I don’t really care - but George was trying to do something with it that is more admirable in concept than stroking nostalgia or cheap thrills. For as out of touch and misguided those prequels were - the cynical moneymaking aspect isn’t as pronounced, and the elements of it that are there was still encouraged with creativity.

Maybe my anti-establishment uncle just got to me early on, but AotC’s flavor of bad is preferable for being an earnestly missed shot - not a calculated attempt to please as many people as possible.

inb4 someone invalidates this opinion as nostalgia or irrelevant to how bad it is or whatever

TROS opinion: Joking about Sheev fucks aside, I did kind of like the implication that Palpatine was human and not just an evil warlock. Not like the film does anything about it, but I like the dark side as something rooted in our passion and humanity. Sure - Palps as corrupted by his own greed and ambition works fine for that, but it kind of helps his “Ultimate Sith” title if he was also guided by all the human sins, including possessive love or at the very least sexual vices. He can manipulate Anakin and Luke so effectively because he would have empathy for the same desires he might have had once.

I don’t think Rey should have been his granddaughter, but I really see no reason why they retroactively made Palps Jr. a clone. It turns an already stupid plot element even stupider.

NFBisms said:

It doesn’t really mean anything to anyone here because yeah, the movie is just not enjoyable to watch - but I at least respect AotC more than TROS. It’s fun and funny to call it straight garbage - I don’t really care - but George was trying to do something with it that is more admirable in concept than stroking nostalgia or cheap thrills. For as out of touch and misguided those prequels were - the cynical moneymaking aspect isn’t as pronounced, and the elements of it that are there was still encouraged with creativity.

Maybe my anti-establishment uncle just got to me early on, but AotC’s flavor of bad is preferable for being an earnestly missed shot - not a calculated attempt to please as many people as possible.

inb4 someone invalidates this opinion as nostalgia or irrelevant to how bad it is or whatever

True. This whole trilogy has been an exercise in pointlessness, an attempt to get back all the money Disney lost from buying Lucasfilm. Now that Disney made their money back, it seems like they’re starting to hire more independent creatives who are making Star Wars out of pure passion for the franchise. And so far, it seems like it’s paying off.

Opinion: Joking about Sheev fucks aside, I did kind of like the implication that Palpatine was human and not just an evil warlock. Not like the film does anything about it, but I like the dark side as something rooted in our passion and humanity. Sure - Palps as corrupted by his own greed and ambition works fine for that, but it kind of helps his “Ultimate Sith” title if he was also guided by all the human sins, including possessive love or at the very least sexual vices. He can manipulate Anakin and Luke so effectively because of his empathy for the same desires he might have had once.

I don’t think Rey should have been his granddaughter, but I really see no reason why they retroactively made Palps Jr. a clone. It turns an already stupid plot element even stupider.

Also true. Palpatine’s son being a clone is one of the most unnecessary retcons in history. It was clearly done out of a misguided attempt to please the Twitter crowd, without actually understanding what they were complaining about.

NFBisms said:

It doesn’t really mean anything to anyone here because yeah, the movie is just not enjoyable to watch - but I at least respect AotC more than TROS.

This is a good distinction to make, I appreciate the ambition and even the courage to test the untested, it really depends on how you measure success. From my point of view TROS never gets as boring as AotC but it also never gets as interesting.

It also helps that there was at least a rough plan for the prequels, regardless of their eventual execution. Anakin’s fraught relationship with Obi-wan, the loss of his mother, the forbidden love…these storytelling decisions are in service to his character and in the hands of a better director they could have been realized brilliantly. On the other hand, the storytelling decisions of TROS act in opposition to Rey’s character and actively undermine it.

One caveat however - Anakin’s murder of the Tuskens does turn Anakin from sympathetically flawed to ‘bad apple’, but at least it’s not the cornerstone of the story like Rey Palpatine. That puts AOTC above TROS for me, if only slightly.

NeverarGreat said:

It also helps that there was at least a rough plan for the prequels, regardless of their eventual execution. Anakin’s fraught relationship with Obi-wan, the loss of his mother, the forbidden love…these storytelling decisions are in service to his character and in the hands of a better director they could have been realized brilliantly. On the other hand, the storytelling decisions of TROS act in opposition to Rey’s character and actively undermine it.

That is true. Whether you like Anakin’s portrayal in the prequels or not, you can’t deny he had a consistent character arc across the trilogy. Rey, on the other hand, is basically a completely different character every movie. In TFA she’s a streetsmart scavenger with a heart of gold and a mysterious past, in TLJ she’s a clueless novice whose parents were random losers, and in TROS she’s a Sith princess who spends most of the movie staring introspectively into the middle distance. I really wish there was only one writer-director for this trilogy, because everyone’s character arcs would have been a lot better.

That’s the eternal refrain for the ST, isn’t it? It’s astounding that there was just no plan.

It’s ok it’s just a movie. You have to stop this wallowing in despair now or forever will it dominate your destiny.

Peace is a lie there is only passion

Through passion we gain strength

Through strength we will fix this trilogy

Through fixing this trilogy our chains are broken

The fanedits shall free us.

krausfadr said:

It’s ok it’s just a movie. You have to stop this wallowing in despair now or forever will it dominate your destiny.

Consume you it will! As it did the people on Twitter and Reddit.

In all seriousness though, I agree. I’m not the biggest fan of the ST, but I’m not depressed and miserable about it like Neverar seems to be.

idir_hh said:

Peace is a lie there is only passion

Through passion we gain strength

Through strength we will fix this trilogy

Through fixing this trilogy our chains are broken

The fanedits shall free us.

I guess I must be one of those weird Grey Jedi, cause I kind of agree with that too 😉

StarkillerAG said:

krausfadr said:

It’s ok it’s just a movie. You have to stop this wallowing in despair now or forever will it dominate your destiny.

Consume you it will! As it did the people on Twitter and Reddit.

In all seriousness though, I agree. I’m not the biggest fan of the ST, but I’m not depressed and miserable about it like Neverar seems to be.

Depressed and miserable implies investment. I’m invested in this community, which at the moment is talking about TROS so I feel obliged to contribute to the discussion both here and in the fanedit section. I’m invested in the ST as well, these characters and their stories. But for me this is the first Star Wars movie that I can definitively say isn’t part of my personal canon. I always thought such a concept was rather silly until this point, but now I get it. So I apologize if I come across as miserable or biting when talking about TROS, it’s just that I can’t pretend like there’s something secretly good or even interesting that this movie is trying to say. If you find something about it to enjoy I’m genuinely happy for you, but for me there’s just nothing there.

Oddly enough, I’m actually pretty pleased with one aspect of these events because it’s given me an excuse to set aside fanediting and return to writing in order to complete the saga to my satisfaction. The Shattered Sword is the longest complete story I’ve written in years (50 pages) and it’s really a blast. I’m having endless fun working on the final draft as well but that’s in the scriptwriting section of the forum, not the most trafficked area.

So, since I’ve nothing nice to say here I’ll endeavor to say nothing at all on the subject from now on, and just stick to mostly writing quietly in the corner.

Just curious, when finished will you be releasing it in script format?
I read the first act and I enjoyed it very much, I’d rather read it in full when your completely done with it.

NeverarGreat I know how you feel. I waited more than 25 years for my favorite book series, the Dark Tower, to become a film. And when it finally did it was a steaming pile of shit.

^It’s miserable when that happens. In the early days of the internet I was so hyped for the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie and when it arrived it was quite a disappointment. But at least with these adaptations you still have the original material, with Star Wars there really is no story other than what’s up there on the screen or earlier scripts.

idir_hh said:

Just curious, when finished will you be releasing it in script format?
I read the first act and I enjoyed it very much, I’d rather read it in full when your completely done with it.

Glad you enjoyed what you read!

I’m thinking about the final draft being more of a novel format since there’s no chance of it ever seeing the screen. It will still move at a fast clip but will at least have all the dialogue and maybe some illustrations 😉 There are already so many big changes for this final draft that it will feel entirely different, but hopefully in a very good way.