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The Rise Of Skywalker — Official Review and Opinions Thread — Page 38

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If TROS ended like this, it would end up being a two-parter. Part 2 would be released in 2020 and be a greater film.

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Can I just say that I love the ST and most of the choices made throughout the three films? Can I say that I enjoy the fact that each feels like it’s own thing, but that I still feel an overall cohesion to the story?

TRoS isn’t perfect, but it’s not the dumpster fire some make it out to be. There’s a lot of hate for TLJ, and I know there are a lot of us out there, but I for one find TLJ to be the most engaging of the ST films.

And I don’t think that TRoS retcons or attacks any of the decisions made in TLJ. Most of the plot points in TRoS only seem to solidify the choices made in TLJ.

It’s rushed and maybe tries to do too many things. The choices regarding the use of leftover footage of Carrie Fisher are not the best. It’s really obvious what’s happening in those sequences. But overall we get a galactic sized race and a satisfying continuation of Rey and Kylo’s dynamic relationship. The dyad is an excellent to introduce the divine union into the story. And I love that Finn is force sensitive now.

I have reservations about the handling of Ben’s death, but you know in each trilogy there’s been at least one film that doesn’t live up to expectations. RotJ and TPM & AotC and now TRoS, which isn’t quite as good at RotJ but is certainly miles ahead of the two PT entries listed.

It’s a fun serviceable movie.

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The Rise of Skywalker is a great ending to the Skywalker Saga. Episode 9 is the best movie of the Disney sequel trilogy. I think The Rise of Skywalker is more emotional than Return of the Jedi because of Leia’s death. I prefer the Rise of Skywalker ending over Return of the Jedi ending. The original unaltered trilogy along with the special editions of the original trilogy are still the best Star Wars movies in my opinion. Rogue One is the best prequel movie in my opinion.

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I really liked that J.J. brought back Palpatine in The Rise of Skywalker, and I thought it was an absolutely necessary thing to do.

By bringing him back, it ties all nine Skywalker saga movies together as one cohesive, overarching story and makes The Rise of Skywalker feel like an actual series finale to the saga, it feels like there really is one overarching villain for the saga rather than just killing him off for good in Return of the Jedi and then having Kylo Ren be the villain in the last trilogy.

He is so important to the saga, and had he not been included as the final villain of the trilogy, and, by extension, the saga, then it would’ve felt like something was missing. We have more of an established connection with him over the first six films than with Kylo Ren or Snoke or Plagueis or the Yuuzhan Vong from Legends or Maul.

Even J.J. Abrams, director of both The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker, agreed that, “…when you look at this as nine chapters of a story, perhaps the weirder thing would be if Palpatine didn’t return. You just look at what he talks about, who he is, how important he is, what the story is — strangely, his absence entirely from the third trilogy would be conspicuous.”

His return is also a metaphor for the current generation being affected by and facing the same struggles and battles as the previous one, something really impressive as a huge part of Star Wars deals with themes of the past.

It is also worth noting that his return pays off his interest in immortality as hinted at in Revenge of the Sith, only for his spirit to be trapped in a deteriorating clone as he is very much horrible at making clones — a fate worse than death.

It also works because we were shown who he was and what he could do throughout the saga — he is the Dark Lord of the Sith who is a mastermind, an orchestrator, a liar and master manipulator willing to do whatever it takes to take over the galaxy. He’s literally played both sides during the prequels, and lured the Rebels into a trap in Return of the Jedi.

Also, what adds to the finality of his return is that, in Star Wars, he is the embodiment of pure evil, he is essentially Satan, but in space. He cares about no one but himself, he made Anakin lose everything he loved and put him into a suit of hell for twenty-three years. Even in just Return of the Jedi, he spews out his physical hatred towards Luke via Force lightning and this is very obvious via acting and facial expressions.

Many point out that it invalidates Anakin’s redemption in Return of the Jedi, but it doesn’t, really. He only killed Palpatine to save Luke, his last remaining loved one, not necessarily to save the galaxy, topple the Empire or fulfill the prophecy as the Chosen One — his destiny as the Chosen One was merely there in the prequels to put in some additional weight to his fall.

Anakin could’ve thrown Palpatine into a ball pit and his sacrifice would still retain the same meaning — he did it to save his son. Luke dying ten minutes afterwards from some kind of disease or cancer would’ve made Anakin’s sacrifice all for nothing. His motivations were so obvious, just by watching the scene alone in Return of the Jedi.

I’ve seen some counter this by pointing out that Luke died anyways in The Last Jedi, but guess what? His sacrifice inspired the galaxy in a time of hopelessness, even children enslaved by some of the worst, and it’s also why the Resistance has more members in The Rise of Skywalker than at the end of The Last Jedi, and certainly why the galaxy’s citizens followed Lando to Exegol.

Furthermore, as stated, it gave Palpatine a fate worse than death — because he is so horrible at making clones, let alone any lifeform, his spirit is trapped in a deteriorating clone. Of course, he rejuvenates himself anyways, but he clearly hadn’t returned to the wider, known galaxy and Rey defeated him shortly afterwards.

Not to mention that Anakin did bring balance to the Force. He confirms himself that he did bring balance to the Force — he tells Rey to “bring back the balance, as [he] did.” Furthermore, Luke mentions in The Last Jedi that, “For many years there was balance, until I saw Ben.”

Critics also act like there was no explanation for how he is still alive after blowing up in a reactor shaft shortly before the second Death Star blew up, except he straight-up confirms he’s died before, and his main motivation is literally to possess Rey if she were to kill him in anger so he wouldn’t be trapped in that shitshow of a clone. Put two and two together, and one can infer that he transferred his spirit to this clone after Darth Vader killed him in anger.

The final argument I’ll be addressing is his apparent “lack of set-up or foreshadowing”.

The whole point of The Last Jedi is that everything is hopeless with the First Order in charge, until Luke Skywalker — the legend, the man who saw good in Darth Vader and turned him back to the light — shows up to save the day and inspires the galaxy, igniting a spark of hope that the First Order is going to be defeated, one day.

The scene with Temiri Blagg at the end of The Last Jedi drives this point home; he, like the other children at Canto Bight, are slaves, but, despite that, he still has a sense of hope — their enslavers represent the First Order and how they are in charge of the galaxy, and the children represent the galaxy itself… and us, the audience —, the final shot of the film is literally him looking off to the stars with hope.

If J.J. Abrams or Rian Johnson foreshadowed Palpatine’s return in The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi, it would take that away, because, now, we would be asking ourselves, “Why should we be hopeful that the First Order will be defeated when Palpatine is just going to come back and fuck everything up?”

Even then, in the way “I am your father…” in The Empire Strikes Back was “foreshadowed” by Obi-Wan being emotional before telling Luke what happened to his father in A New Hope, the same applies to Palpatine’s return:

  • During the opera scene in Revenge of the Sith, Anakin asks him if it is possible to “learn this power,” obviously referring to Plagueis’ desire to keep himself alive, and Palpatine responds, “Not from a Jedi,” as he grins at us and dramatic music begins to play as the scene cuts away — he implies he does know how to cheat his own death.

  • Most infamously, “Emperor’s Theme” is played very prominently when Snoke mind-probes Rey in The Last Jedi. Similarly, vocals from the opera music from Revenge of the Sith play during the “awakening” scene with Snoke and Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens, something people initially interpreted as potential foreshadowing for Snoke being Plagueis.

  • Kylo Ren asks Vader’s helmet to show him the “power of the darkness” again, implying this has happened before, at least by some sort of supernatural force. It could initially be interpreted as Snoke, but it does get some payoff in The Rise of Skywalker: “I have been every voice you have ever heard inside your head.”

  • Snoke acts very similar to Palpatine and even repeats his dialogue in The Last Jedi: “Welcome, young Skywalker. I have been expecting you.” “Young Rey. Welcome.” “It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator.” “It was I who bridged your minds.” Obviously, Palpatine would want Snoke to be a copy of himself.

  • Even Snoke’s guards share the exact color scheme with Palpatine’s guards. Palpatine would very much want both sets of guards to look similar to each other in terms of color scheme, and he still uses red-colored guards in The Rise of Skywalker.

Over, and out.

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The Monkey Welder demonstrates the dualistic nature of the Rise of Skywalker.

Based that they wrote in a monkey, cringe that they had him weld Kylo Ren’s mask together. The writing of this movie is a Hegelian Dialectic of which the Monkey Welder is the synthesis.

Reading R + L ≠ J theories

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^ALLOL. And I agree. Endlessly frustratingly fascinating thing, this movie

reylo?

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SandMTV said:

If TROS ended like this, it would end up being a two-parter. Part 2 would be released in 2020 and be a greater film.

‘Video not found’

Yeah that would have been a better ending.

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TestingOutTheTest said:

Even then, in the way “I am your father…” in The Empire Strikes Back was “foreshadowed” by Obi-Wan being emotional before telling Luke what happened to his father in A New Hope, the same applies to Palpatine’s return…

It wasn’t foreshadowed in Star Wars because Vader-as-Luke’s-father wasn’t written until years later.

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I think TestingOutTheTest is referring to something I said, like, a month ago about TRoS and ESB’s reveals. And it’s a fair enough point for Palpatine’s return in a sense, you can look back at RotS, TFA, and TLJ after the fact and read foreshadowing into them even when it was never there. But foreshadowing alone isn’t really enough.

I wouldn’t even really call the example of Ben’s Hut scene foreshadowing, it’s more that it’s a detail which makes more sense after the twist than it did before. Stuff like that sells a twist. Stuff that either makes more sense, or only makes sense after a twist. Stuff that takes on a new, deeper meaning after the twist. Stuff that you look back on and see the twist in.

Not to use the some of the same examples again, but (avoiding spoilers for movies people haven’t seen…) Oh Dae-Su’s captivity doesn’t make a whole lot of sense… until it does. The time dilation aspect of Planet of the Apes isn’t all that relevant… until it is. Bruce Willis’s wife’s behavior seems like a detour from the main focus of the story… but it’s not. Adam being in Nerv’s basement is a blatant contradiction of the facts we know… because that’s not really what’s going on.

Those are the kinds of clues you need leading up to a twist. Foreshadowing is great and all, especially on rewatch once you know the twist, or to flex if you’re an author who’s sold a convincing twist. But it doesn’t actually sell the twist.

Bad twists fail to sell themselves to an audience when they aren’t really rooted in what’s come before. They’re just random new information which changes nothing (which is ironic). Like in Now You See Me.

They could have had every single screen in TFA and TLJ flash “Palpatine will return in Episode 9” in Aurebesh, I doubt it would help sell the reveal to many people. Because how does Palpatine returning and being Rey’s grandfather really have anything to do with the story of TFA and TLJ?

I guess it answers a few unanswered questions, but while those questions were unanswered, you can extrapolate and infer reasonable answers from the info we’re given. More importantly, though, there’s no reason Palpatine is a better answer. Not in an entertainment sense, that’s subjective. But in the sense that the answers we were led to believe were flawed or contradictory, and Palpatine is a better answer.

Snoke being a Palpatine puppet might be better setup for Palpatine’s return if we were led to believe he had another backstory, but had some reason why it couldn’t be true. Maybe we’re led to believe Snoke is some cultist or something who took power by managing to swing old Imperials and Neo-Imperials to his side by acting like the next Palpatine. Then, separately, we learn that he has some secret knowledge or something that the Republic thought died with Palpatine, and that’s how he’s able to… I don’t know, maybe build Starkiller Base or raise a clone army (fake twist misdirect there) or something related to the conflict or plot of Episode 7. When it turns out Snoke was a puppet all along and Palpatine’s still out there, you look back and think “I should have seen this coming, there’s no way Snoke could have been just some nobody because of that secret knowledge.”

But that’s kind of cheating, retroactively coming up with ideas for 7 knowing how 9 eventually turned out, because that’s not a luxury Lucasfilm had.

Another thing worth mentioning is that Vader being Luke’s father fits because it’s a natural continuation of Luke’s arc in ANH. Not the natural continuation, there’s no such thing, but it logically flows from ANH. Luke spends ANH and most of ESB wanting to be like his father, then learns his father is not at all what he should be striving to become.

Nothing about TRoS really flows forward from TLJ. Rey ends TLJ moving on from placing so much importance on her family to her and the movie placing tons and tons of importance on her family in TRoS. TLJ ends setting up Kylo Ren as the Supreme Leader who’s going to be in conflict with Hux, but to say Kylo Ren is playing second fiddle in TRoS, that alone is a pretty charitable interpretation when he’s even being upstaged by Pryde. The conflict with Hux is there, but it’s inconsequential and I wholeheartedly believe it’s only there to dodge criticism. If it weren’t for “I want Kylo Ren to lose” becoming a meme, I think people would forget Hux was even in this movie.

Every loose thread from TLJ is dropped and ignored in TRoS for an entirely new story, and like I said, the reason a lot of people don’t buy Palpatine’s role in TRoS is because it’s not a twist, it’s a premise for an entirely new story which tries to sell itself as the completion of an old one.

What do you guys think? Do I make sense or have I gone too deep into schizo territory?

Reading R + L ≠ J theories

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SparkySywer said:

I think TestingOutTheTest is referring to something I said, like, a month ago about TRoS and ESB’s reveals. And it’s a fair enough point for Palpatine’s return in a sense, you can look back at RotS, TFA, and TLJ after the fact and read foreshadowing into them even when it was never there. But foreshadowing alone isn’t really enough.

I wouldn’t even really call the example of Ben’s Hut scene foreshadowing, it’s more that it’s a detail which makes more sense after the twist than it did before. Stuff like that sells a twist. Stuff that either makes more sense, or only makes sense after a twist. Stuff that takes on a new, deeper meaning after the twist. Stuff that you look back on and see the twist in.

Not to use the some of the same examples again, but (avoiding spoilers for movies people haven’t seen…) Oh Dae-Su’s captivity doesn’t make a whole lot of sense… until it does. The time dilation aspect of Planet of the Apes isn’t all that relevant… until it is. Bruce Willis’s wife’s behavior seems like a detour from the main focus of the story… but it’s not. Adam being in Nerv’s basement is a blatant contradiction of the facts we know… because that’s not really what’s going on.

Those are the kinds of clues you need leading up to a twist. Foreshadowing is great and all, especially on rewatch once you know the twist, or to flex if you’re an author who’s sold a convincing twist. But it doesn’t actually sell the twist.

I listed the clues already, such as Palpatine’s influence on Snoke’s personality and the guards’ color scheme, for example. It screams, “Palpatine has some sort of influence!” You’d think those’re rehashes of the OT (and they still are to this day), but they make more scene with Palpatine back.

A reveal doesn’t have to be a plot twist. (Yeah, I changed my mind about that Palps’ return is a plot twist, but… yeah.)

Bad twists fail to sell themselves to an audience when they aren’t really rooted in what’s come before. They’re just random new information which changes nothing (which is ironic). Like in Now You See Me.

The surprise of Palps’ return works because he’s been out there all this time, pulling the strings and trying so hard to take over the galaxy for the past thirty years. It puts a halt to TLJ’s theme of hope. And now, in the climax of the whole saga, the heroes are going to have to fight the man who started everything.

They could have had every single screen in TFA and TLJ flash “Palpatine will return in Episode 9” in Aurebesh, I doubt it would help sell the reveal to many people. Because how does Palpatine returning and being Rey’s grandfather really have anything to do with the story of TFA and TLJ?

By that logic, what does Thanos taking the Infinity Gauntlet and saying, “Fine, I’ll do it myself,” have anything to do with Age of Ultron? Same with other set-ups in the MCU?

Nothing about TRoS really flows forward from TLJ. Rey ends TLJ moving on from placing so much importance on her family to her and the movie placing tons and tons of importance on her family in TRoS. TLJ ends setting up Kylo Ren as the Supreme Leader who’s going to be in conflict with Hux, but to say Kylo Ren is playing second fiddle in TRoS, that alone is a pretty charitable interpretation when he’s even being upstaged by Pryde. The conflict with Hux is there, but it’s inconsequential and I wholeheartedly believe it’s only there to dodge criticism. If it weren’t for “I want Kylo Ren to lose” becoming a meme, I think people would forget Hux was even in this movie.

Every loose thread from TLJ is dropped and ignored in TRoS for an entirely new story, and like I said, the reason a lot of people don’t buy Palpatine’s role in TRoS is because it’s not a twist, it’s a premise for an entirely new story which tries to sell itself as the completion of an old one.

Loose threads? I can agree with “See you around, kid,” but Luke inspiring hope does get a payoff - hence why the Resistance has more members, and why the galaxy immediately follows Lando to Exegol. I don’t remember any other loose threads in TLJ.

I can also agree with Hux’s storyline feeling anti-climactic. Regarding Rey’s family, even if you ignore the reveal that her parents hid her for her safety, she doesn’t place importance onto Palps being her grandfather - as I’ve told you already, she’s scared of that because of what it means to her.

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SparkySywer said:
What do you guys think? Do I make sense or have I gone too deep into schizo territory?

Nope you are correct. What you’re describing is the process of writing a sequel properly in a way that addresses previous threads and consolidates earlier details. Unlike TROS which is just a shambles.

What they needed to do was:

  1. Bring back Rey’s visions and work out the details of the saber connection
  2. Address what exactly was awakened in The Force… Awakens… and why Snoke cared
  3. Finished the Rey and Kylo arc in a meaningful way, in particular the idea that Rey was desperate for belonging and Kylo rejected it
  4. Explicitly say that Palpatine funded the First Order to forward his plans
  5. Explicitly say that Palpatine used his foreknowledge of the Dyad to forward his plans
  6. Explicitly say what Snoke was doing and how this gave Palpatine a good reason to exist in this trilogy
  7. Actually write a story about family instead of just having Carrie’s soundbite become a joke
  8. Finish the potential of a First Order vs Final Order conflict
  9. Finish the potential of Finn vs Kylo or by extension his former death squad team members
  10. Or just actually write a script that fills out the trilogy in a nice interwoven triangular format instead of it being three disparate movies. Is this so hard? How can a corporation with so much time and money make such a mess, when just 5 minutes typing this on the fly offers a better outline?
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Many point out that it invalidates Anakin’s redemption in Return of the Jedi, but it doesn’t, really. He only killed Palpatine to save Luke, his last remaining loved one, not necessarily to save the galaxy, topple the Empire or fulfill the prophecy as the Chosen One — his destiny as the Chosen One was merely there in the prequels to put in some additional weight to his fall.

Anakin could’ve thrown Palpatine into a ball pit and his sacrifice would still retain the same meaning — he did it to save his son. Luke dying ten minutes afterwards from some kind of disease or cancer would’ve made Anakin’s sacrifice all for nothing. His motivations were so obvious, just by watching the scene alone in Return of the Jedi.

I’ve changed my mind.

Anakin saving Luke isn’t the point.

I mean, personal motivation for bringing balance to the Force isn’t really that important, just that it’s done. Fate/destiny often tends to end up being fulfilled unintentionally, or even when actively trying to avoid it. That’s a common theme throughout the ages in literature.

The prophecy fulfills regardless of the reason Anakin kills Palpatine.

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The idea of any sort of “balance” when one side is always evil should have been left out entirely.

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Critics also act like there was no explanation for how he is still alive after blowing up in a reactor shaft shortly before the second Death Star blew up, except he straight-up confirms he’s died before, and his main motivation is literally to possess Rey if she were to kill him in anger so he wouldn’t be trapped in that shitshow of a clone. Put two and two together, and one can infer that he transferred his spirit to this clone after Darth Vader killed him in anger.

Actually you have some of the details mixed up here. Palpatine wanted Rey to strike him down with her anger and hatred and a desire for revenge because striking him down with those negative emotions is what would complete the Sith ritual and allow his spirit to transfer into Rey, but Rey refused to feel hatred toward Palpatine:

"Palpatine: The time has come! With your hatred, you will take my life and you will ascend.

Rey: All you want is for me to hate, but I won’t. Not even you."

And we can infer that if Luke or Vader had killed Palpatine out of hatred in RotJ, it would have ostensibly allowed Palpatine to transfer his spirit into Luke or Vader, respectively. This is how the Sith have been passing down their spirits from Sith Lord to Sith Lord for generations, and thus is why all the Sith (at least, the ones who successfully killed their master and became Sith masters themselves) exist in Palpatine.

When Vader killed Palpatine out of love for his son, it broke the cycle and Palpatine just straight up died, temporarily bringing balance to the Force. Palpatine’s later revival in a clone body was a separate thing that occured later.

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I changed my mind about the Palpatine inference. He simply transferred his essence into a clone, which can be inferred from the fact that he straight-up confirms that he’s died before, and the implication that he is in a clone, plus the mere fact that he’s survived implies he found the secret to cheating death that “only one has achieved”.

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The Rise of Skywalker - Look What You Have Made by Nerrel

Excusing the deliberately terrible thumbnail, this 40-minute critique of TROS is genuinely one the most intelligent and believe it or not, important video essays I’ve ever watched. It goes beyond complaining about the plot, having you understand the movie and why movies like it still get made. It has important thoughts about the current state and future of cinema in general, something that’s never really occurred to me before but which makes me very worried. Please watch!

Beware of spoilers for Colin Trevorrow’s Duel of the Fates and The Mandalorian season 2.

“Remember, the Force will be with you. Always.”

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Nerrel has a lot of good videos in general.

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There never should’ve been a continuation of TLJ. Ever. The canon timeline, not just the main saga, should’ve just ended at the boy looking at the stars with hope. Period. End of story. Zilch.

Continuing the story and creating any new threats AFTER TLJ strips away any emotional impact from Luke’s sacrifice and inspiring the galaxy with hope, even if TFA and TLJ, themselves, remain untouched. Because what was the point of Luke’s sacrifice if TROS or DOTF or whatever continuation even exists? It was all for nothing since Palpatine came back anyways in TROS, or Kylo was gonna search for some planet-destroying Force ability in DOTF or the Resistance struggled against the FO in both Episode IX’s.

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Luke’s sacrifice was never meant to end the war. The First Order still had forces and still controlled much of the galaxy - that was a thread that still needed resolving. The point of Luke’s sacrifice was simply him finding purpose in helping the new generation live to fight another day, as Ben Kenobi once did for him, Han and Leia.

“Remember, the Force will be with you. Always.”

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It’s a jab at people acting like foreshadowing Palpatine’s return in TFA or TLJ would’ve destroyed the themes of hope or whatever.

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jedi_bendu said:

The Rise of Skywalker - Look What You Have Made by Nerrel

Excusing the deliberately terrible thumbnail, this 40-minute critique of TROS is genuinely one the most intelligent and believe it or not, important video essays I’ve ever watched. It goes beyond complaining about the plot, having you understand the movie and why movies like it still get made. It has important thoughts about the current state and future of cinema in general, something that’s never really occurred to me before but which makes me very worried. Please watch!

Beware of spoilers for Colin Trevorrow’s Duel of the Fates and The Mandalorian season 2.

It is a very good video essay. If you’re gonna listen to some asshole youtuber talk about their opinions on Space Kino, this is the video you should watch.

TestingOutTheTest said:

It’s a jab at people acting like foreshadowing Palpatine’s return in TFA or TLJ would’ve destroyed the themes of hope or whatever.

I don’t know why you’re so hung up on that. It’s not like Palptine’s return not being foreshadowed was a creative choice, it’s because it’s some shit they came up with 10 months before the movie came out. If you’re talking about fanediting and just fanediting, you really gotta worry less about other people’s projects and their own creative decisions. There’s tons of ideas I don’t like that people incorporate into their fanedits. They can do whatever they want, even if it doesn’t appeal to me.

Regardless, I hope you know there’s a difference between retroactively altering a story and… releasing a third movie in a series that was always understood by literally everyone to be a trilogy.

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TestingOutTheTest said:

It’s a jab at people acting like foreshadowing Palpatine’s return in TFA or TLJ would’ve destroyed the themes of hope or whatever.

Has anyone else made that argument on the board except you?

If Test isn’t intending to get a rise out of anyone, why make sarcastic jabs anyway?

“The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.” - DV

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Has anyone else made that argument on the board except you?

I kinda changed my mind on that?

If Test isn’t intending to get a rise out of anyone, why make sarcastic jabs anyway?

Sometimes I get rather angry or stern to try and make my point.

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TestingOutTheTest said:

Has anyone else made that argument on the board except you?

I kinda changed my mind on that?

You’re missing his point, nobody else really seems to be making this point, or at least it’s a very rare take. You’re arguing against a fictional position. I’m not sure anyone else has made that argument except you, although I’m not gonna say you’re the only one because that’s a quick and easy way to get owned.

Reading R + L ≠ J theories