It’s true that the general public probably doesn’t care as much. Many are probably happy with a fun adventure ending to the ST that had action and Palpatine stuff. We won’t know the reality unless it gets released and has a box office return to measure. That being said TROS made half the money that TFA did so this might not be good plan.
I imagine that most of the population processes Star Wars movies the same way I process a Harry Potter movie. I barely know what’s going on, I think some things look cool occasionally, I have only a vague conception of what happened before in earlier movies, and I completely forget most of what I saw a few hours later.
But what if you think Rey was already a good character? I certainly did, at least until the whole “you are a Palpatine” fiasco. But I feel like a major goal of this movie is to rationalize and streamline some of the messiness of TROS, bringing the sequels’ reception back to the mostly-positive outlook pre-2019.
Remember, both TFA and TLJ had a more than 90% positive critical reception, and I feel like the audience score would look the same way if sequel hate wasn’t weaponized during the Trump-era culture wars. People liked the sequels before TROS, Disney just needs to figure out how to make people like them again.
For one I wouldn’t take payed critics opinions seriously
You lost me here. Anyone who seriously says to ignore the opinions of professional critics and trust obviously review-bombed audience scores instead is not worth paying attention to.
and second - this “Trump-era” culture war you speak of, I don’t think has anything to do with it. What happened is TLJ came out an completely destroyed Luke Skywalker. And people were pissed. You can try to blame outrage culture channels on Youtube for this. But the whole reason they ever rose to stardom in the first place is BECAUSE people were going to these sites to see if people felt the same way they did after leaving the theater from TLJ.
I know some people were genuinely upset by what happened to Luke (although I personally like it, YMMV), but the culture war grifters were the ones who turned it from individual dissatisfaction into a mass movement of right-wing nerd outrage. And it rubbed off on people of other political persuasions too: if everyone around you is saying “Rian Johnson ruined Star Wars”, you’re inevitably going to start believing it.
The only reason TFA was so positive is because it was a new mainline Star Wars movie after 15 years of none. And once that high wore off and TLJ came out, people looked at it far more critically. And it especially didn’t help that the movie itself was horrible.
One, as I already told you, a lot of people like TLJ. Stop acting like your opinions are objective.
And two, it being a “new mainline Star Wars movie after 15 years of none” didn’t stop people from hating TPM. You can have issues with how weak TFA was as a setup to the sequel trilogy (God knows I do), but the vast majority of people genuinely loved that movie. And it also helps that the “culture war” thing wasn’t anywhere near as big in 2015: I remember grifters trying to make people hate TFA because “How dare they have a female protagonist” or “How dare they have a black stormtrooper”, but no one listened to that stuff back then.
But anyways, I’ve said my piece. If you seriously don’t believe there was at least some political element to TLJ hate, you clearly weren’t paying enough attention back in 2017. Does that 40% Rotten Tomatoes audience score really look genuine to you?
My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX
The Last Jedi is the best Star Wars movie. I have spoken.
The Force Awakens has a lot of flaws, playing it mostly safe, but one bold move (to the credit of J.J. Abrams?) is to have made our (male) heroes some sad old losers! Luke is in exile, having failed to raise a new generation of Jedis (so to anyone lamenting that it should be Luke rebuilding the Jedi Order: no thank you), Han lost is beloved ship, and is back to his old job smuggling illegal and dangerous things, and being chased by half of the galaxy bounty hunters! Losers.
The Force Awakens has a lot of flaws, playing it mostly safe, but one bold move (to the credit of J.J. Abrams?) is to have made our (male) heroes some sad old losers!
Why does it have to be a gender thing? Why are so many people on here acting like Disney Star Wars is some evil woke plot to emasculate white men and replace them with women and minorities? If you’re trying to portray sequel hate as entirely apolitical and not right-wing at all, using literal right-wing rhetoric does not help your case.
Like I said, TFA had tons of problems with how it decided to continue the OT’s story, but I’d say those problems were caused less by “wokeness” and more by laziness. JJ figured “Well, people hate the prequels and prefer the OT, let’s make the new era exactly like the OT! What do you mean, it would feel insulting to have the galaxy fall into darkness again after the OT heroes fought so hard to restore the Republic? We have X-Wings again, no one will care!”
My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX
I think if D/LF didn’t see market potential for a continuation, they absolutely would not be doing it. And even if all three movies were loved by critics, but had flopped in the box office, they would not be doing it (maybe they’d commission a few books or comics instead). That is the way of corporate strategy. So this is a good sign. They see that this trilogy has fans who will show up, even if many of those fans were burned by TROS.
With all that said, I am concerned, as I am one of those people who hated that Ben died at the end. It’s a tragedy without catharsis. There were many death-fakeouts in the film, but this one I surely wouldn’t mind being somehow undone lol (beyond this forum and reddit, you’ll find many people who agree, actually) You set up this whole dyad thing, two that are one, “come home, Ben”, and then just kill him. So I’m concerned that they will just ignore him in this new story. If it’s an excellent story otherwise, perhaps that can be acceptable (a la TLJ after the reset that was TFA, but that’s not entirely analogous). The second thing I hated was Rey Palpatine, but they might well ignore that, for the better.
We shall see, for now I’m just glad that it looks like the story no longer ends with a big lump of nothing. The years of sequel draught will be over, finally.
reylo?
also, I agree with what has been said above about a large part of the vicious sequel hate being a culture war thing… there is no question about it. What I have suspected, but have no evidence for, and thus hope that it is not true, is that this very culture war aspect has been egged on to some extent by D/LF, maybe as a safeguard against valid critiques. But regardless, there is a fair share of hate that has spread over to this community as well, and it’s regrettable.
The Rey story is compartmentalized enough for these people to just ignore it and any news about it if they don’t vibe with it in the slightest, and I wish that were their judgement as well.
reylo?
Well, unless the Filoni-verse can pull off a miracle and make me care about the ST setup, this movie will be a hard pass, possibly an unpleasant pass. Still trying to ignore and forget about TROS completely, but we’ll see.
I will say it is indeed painful to see Rey take on this mantle of “first of the new” that was fully meant for Luke - regardless of what is text or isn’t, Luke wins in ROTJ by defying his elders, and they all look proudly back to him at the end, which symbolizes how right he was to go against their wishes. It’s been the major understanding of the franchise for decades - that Luke would be the first of the new, his masters the last of the old. It makes sense, the Empire that they were unable to stop was defeated by Luke, the status quo completely changed, everything changed. Luke has a clear path and a blank page to make a better Jedi Order than ever before. Even Timothy Zahn saw this way when writing Thrawn, and I don’t think anybody objected, because I’m pretty sure that’s how everyone interpreted Return of the Jedi.
Sadly for some inexplicable reason the sequels took that away from him, and while seeing Rey at the end of TROS explicitly on this same exact path felt really bad, actually getting, to her, what we should’ve gotten for post-ROTJ Luke is… hard to stomach. Ugh.
You took the words right out of my mouth. That’s the part that stings the most.
You lost me here. Anyone who seriously says to ignore the opinions of professional critics and trust obviously review-bombed audience scores instead is not worth paying attention to.
As for film critics, I have no trust in their opinions anymore. Anyone can become a professional critic. Granted, the audience score often isn’t a good metric, either, but I only think it counts as “review bombing” if it’s being done for reasons unrelated to the quality of the film itself. Maybe a lot of those people hated TLJ for the wrong reasons, but those were still the genuine opinions of people.
Of course, why all that vitriol was directed toward TLJ specifically, while TFA mostly got off scot-free, I’ll never understand.
StarkillerAG said:
Why does it have to be a gender thing? Why are so many people on here acting like Disney Star Wars is some evil woke plot to emasculate white men and replace them with women and minorities?
I think we ended up with Luke as a disillusioned suicidal exile not because Disney or Rian Johnson had some malicious desire to emasculate anyone, but rather as a fluke result following from a certain sequence of events. Michael Arndt wrote a script for Episode 7 that apparently included (based on concept art) some elements that ended up in TLJ, including a female protagonist (maybe named Kira) and Luke living alone on some island (but not necessarily disillusioned with the Jedi or suicidal). (Arndt’s script may have been based on Lucas’ original story treatments - Lucas originally hired Arndt after all - but it’s difficult to harmonize that with Lucas’ later claim that his Sequel was about Leia and Darth Maul, but whatever.)
Apparently Arndt’s script featured Luke prominently, unlike the Force Awakens. At some point, J.J. Abrams and Kasdan were added as writers. Around 2013, Arndt quit or was fired for unknown reasons, probably related to disagreements with Abrams. Note that George Lucas himself was involved peripherally in the creative process, collaborating with Disney on Episode 7, up until Lucas realized Disney was no longer using his ideas, after which he backed off. It seems reasonable to conjecture that this may have coincided with Arndt leaving and Abrams asserting more control, but who knows. Regardless, Abrams eventually got his way and turned Episode 7 into what we have now, but Arndt had said that as early as 2012, he worried that Luke featured too prominently in the story to the detriment of the new characters. At some point, either Abrams or Arndt or both of them were trying to come up with a “MacGuffin” for the film, and they settled on the search for Luke Skywalker. This required Luke to be missing for some reason, and also only appear at the end of the movie. It doesn’t seem like this aspect was part of Lucas’ original ideas (although Lucas may have had Luke on an island with a Jedi Temple), and it doesn’t seem to be the case that either Abrams or Arndt envisioned Luke as disillusioned with the Jedi or suicidal, just alone on an island for unknown reasons.
It appears that neither Abrams nor Arndt originally had a clear idea about why Luke was on this island - they simply wanted “the search for Luke Skywalker” to be the MacGuffin, and they didn’t want Luke to take the spotlight away from the new characters. But perhaps reasons for Luke being on the island were fleshed out later as the whole Ben Solo story-line was developed, and so ultimately Episode 7 was written with the implication that Luke’s disappearance was directly connected to Ben Solo’s murderous rampage. This still doesn’t exactly explain why Luke is on the island, but it points in some general directions I guess.
Rian Johnson was given this starting premise, and so he ran with the idea and decided that Luke was on that island because he had become disillusioned with the Jedi and was there on a self-imposed exile. Perhaps the Ben Solo tragedy led Rian Johnson to this idea. Of course, the idea of a suicidal Luke who is disillusioned with the Jedi doesn’t really line up with Abrams’ concept of a “map to Luke Skywalker”, or the fact that the island itself has an ancient Jedi Temple on it. But Rian Johnson obviously believed he could make it work, and thought the idea of a disillusioned Luke was very compelling.
So that’s how we got sad Luke alone on an island.
I personally really hate how Luke is portrayed in TLJ, but it’s obvious that nobody set out to “emasculate Luke”. Luke ended up like that as a result of a series of creative decisions made in isolation as part of a poor overall planning process.
That said, Rian Johnson obviously had more options than just making Luke a sad, suicidal exile. The fact that the island had an ancient Jedi Temple on it (an idea apparently going back to at least Michael Arndt’s early scripts, if not Lucas’ original ideas) suggests to me that Luke was probably meant to be there because he was searching for some kind of ancient Jedi wisdom or texts that would give some insight into how to handle the situation with Ben Solo. But that’s just my conjecture.
If you’re trying to portray sequel hate as entirely apolitical and not right-wing at all, using literal right-wing rhetoric does not help your case.
It isn’t obvious to me that there’s some strong correlation between hating the Sequels and holding right wing political beliefs. (Anecdotally, my political beliefs are heavily left-wing, but I don’t like the Sequels). The issue is that there are a lot of common Sequel criticisms floating around that overlap with similar criticisms motivated by right-wing political beliefs.
For example, I realize there is a perception that the whole “Mary Sue” criticism is strongly associated with ultra-conservative political beliefs, suggesting that this criticism is primarily motivated by sexism or misogyny. But I believe the “Mary Sue” criticism is at least partially valid (if often exaggerated), yet I also believe the Sequels should have a female Jedi protagonist. The non-sexist version of this criticism seems very straightforward, and it’s easy to imagine an alternate version of Rey’s story that would not fall under this criticism. Of course, this criticism is also a matter of degrees. A similar criticism could be made about Luke (I always thought it was ridiculous that Luke knew how to expertly pilot an X-wing in Episode 4; an earlier scene showing him piloting his T-16 Skyhopper would have helped alleviate this somewhat). But Rey suffers from these sort of problems to a much greater degree in my opinion. Of course, I can’t say what percentage of fans that voice this “Mary Sue” criticism are motivated by sexism, but it’s not at all obvious to me that it’s some large majority. It’s unfortunate that we use this female-gender term “Mary Sue” (another historical accident), instead of some more descriptive, neutral term like “Hero’s Journey Cheat Code” or something.
As for film critics, I have no trust in their opinions anymore. Anyone can become a professional critic. Granted, the audience score often isn’t a good metric, either, but I only think it counts as “review bombing” if it’s being done for reasons unrelated to the quality of the film itself. Maybe a lot of those people hated TLJ for the wrong reasons, but those were still the genuine opinions of people.
I get what you mean, but I heavily disagree with the TLJ audience score representing the “real opinions of people”. There was clearly at least a bit of manipulation going on to make the score as negative as possible: people using bots to spam multiple negative reviews at once, people who hadn’t even seen the movie rating it negatively because their favorite culture war grifter told them to, that sort of thing. Again, I know TLJ was controversial, but “40% on Rotten Tomatoes” controversial? That seems suspicious.
Of course, why all that vitriol was directed toward TLJ specifically, while TFA mostly got off scot-free, I’ll never understand.
Like I said before, it’s because “white male nerd outrage” wasn’t anywhere near as big of a thing prior to Trump getting nominated. There were still right-wing grifter channels back then, and they did hate TFA, but the idea of “anti-wokeness” wasn’t really mainstream yet. Luckily, the grifters sank back into obscurity once more after the Capitol riot failed, but the pollution of movie discourse that they started still persists.
My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX
But what if you think Rey was already a good character? I certainly did, at least until the whole “you are a Palpatine” fiasco. But I feel like a major goal of this movie is to rationalize and streamline some of the messiness of TROS, bringing the sequels’ reception back to the mostly-positive outlook pre-2019.
Remember, both TFA and TLJ had a more than 90% positive critical reception, and I feel like the audience score would look the same way if sequel hate wasn’t weaponized during the Trump-era culture wars. People liked the sequels before TROS, Disney just needs to figure out how to make people like them again.
For one I wouldn’t take payed critics opinions seriously
You lost me here. Anyone who seriously says to ignore the opinions of professional critics and trust obviously review-bombed audience scores instead is not worth paying attention to.
Just food for thought- Chris Stuckmann is a top critic on RT, and he’s literally just Joe Blow with a YT channel. “Critics” are just people, and I don’t see why their opinions hold any more weight than someone who has at least a cursory knowledge of film.
It’s obvious that the TLJ audience score on RT was review bombed. You only have to look as far as other user voted scores to see that. It currently sits at 6.9 on IMDB.
I don’t understand the rejection of critics’ opinions in recent years. As bad as some can be, I’d still generally take the word of that group over a group of randoms. Even if the professional pool has been diluted, I don’t see how an audience score consisting entirely of less informed reviewers is a better option. For Rotten Tomatoes specifically, its flaws are obvious as long as you understand how the % is generated, but as a guide of general critic approval - the odds for finding something enjoyable - it functions just fine to me.
On Topic: Despite not enjoying TROS, I like Rey and Ridley’s performance as the character. I’m all for her returning. I hope she gets something good to do. If you’re not happy about it, there’s plenty of Star Wars to go around. You can just not watch this.
I think the critic/audience distinction on RT is completely unproductive and should be abolished, but I think the fact that a critic’s knowledge of film isn’t cursory is what gives them more weight. It’s just populist snobbery to construe that as “elitist” just because they have more education or put the work in to have that engagement IMO. If anyone could be one then we’d all be
Criticism isn’t about being right or wrong, and even the perspective of it as “consumer review of product” is wildly off base about their value in society, but I digress
not a Jedi apologist or a Jedi hater but a secret third thing
I think the critic/audience distinction on RT is completely unproductive and should be abolished, but I think the fact that a critic’s knowledge of film isn’t cursory is what gives them more weight. It’s just populist snobbery to construe that as “elitist” just because they have more education or put the work in to have that engagement IMO. If anyone could be one then we’d all be
I’m saying it is cursory and that we all could do it. Chris Stuckmann is literally a man off the street and he’s a top critic on RT.
Chris Stuckmann still put the work in that most audience reviewers definitely didn’t. He has 2million subs on YT, you don’t have to respect it to realize that’s not really a normally attainable thing
not a Jedi apologist or a Jedi hater but a secret third thing
Perception of criticism has devolved into red vs green on a site which shows no distinction between good scores and mediocre ones. It all just gets lumped together and called ‘fresh’ which is odd when a 100% rating can be all disappointed 6/10 reviews. As for snobbery… well let’s just say TROS gets 52% critic and 86% audience. Do all these perspectives hold the same value? Will that same adoring audience rush out to buy tickets for Episode X: Everyone Loves Rey?
Chris Stuckmann still put the work in that most audience reviewers definitely didn’t. He has 2million subs on YT, you don’t have to respect it to realize that’s not really a normally attainable thing
I don’t really see what that has to do with quality though, beyond things having an agreeable personality or good presentation. What about 2 million subs makes his opinion better than mine or yours? Popularity and quality are not closely related. Transformers 5 made plenty of money but I wouldn’t let that movie tell me what movies to go see.
Look, I’m not saying his opinion is better because he got “critic” status. My initial post is really quite economical because I literally open saying that I feel the distinction on RT is useless, and then even talk about what I think Criticism is which IMO shouldn’t [just] be a consumer review telling you what to see.
not a Jedi apologist or a Jedi hater but a secret third thing
to the people that are butthurt because " Rey took away from Luke’s story " …the sequel trilogy was never intended to be Luke’s story , even when George talked about as far back as interviews from the 1980s , he said if it got made it would be about passing the baton to the next generation and Luke would be in his 60s . Rey is that next generation . I love a lot of the EU/Legends material myself , but it got over bloated towards they end , enough to where they had to put a dramitis personae listing of all the characters at the start of each book . And Luke didn’t exactly have a happy ending in the Legends material either . So what if Rey is getting her own movie ya whiny snowflakes , it should be pretty obvious by now to anybody who has been watching the streaming shows ,that we will see Luke in his prime again , leading a Jedi order , which we already saw him start to establish in The Book Of Boba Fett . The AI technology gets better every day and I would be willing to bet they have already started work on it . So , both the story of Luke’s Jedi order and Rey’s Jedi order will be told and can exist side by side…https://www.ign.com/articles/star-wars-is-dave-filoni-making-an-heir-to-the-empire-movie
to the people that are butthurt because " Rey took away from Luke’s story " …the sequel trilogy was never intended to be Luke’s story , even when George talked about as far back as interviews from the 1980s , he said if it got made it would be about passing the baton to the next generation and Luke would be in his 60s . Rey is that next generation .
Well, nobody expects the Sequel trilogy to have Luke as a main character. I mean, obviously Mark Hamill is getting old, and the Sequel trilogy should be about the next generation of Jedi with a new cast of main characters. I’m pretty sure everyone understands and expects this.
The specific complaint here (which I agree with) is not that the Sequels focus on new younger characters, but rather that the Sequels retroactively nullify the previous accomplishments of the older OT characters, when the Sequels should instead build upon those accomplishments with a new generation of characters.
So:
Good Story: Luke as an old man takes on the wise mentor role (like Kenobi in Episode 4), trains a new generation of Jedi, including Rey, who is the main character and focus of the story. Rey learns from Luke and goes on to have her own adventures and carry on the torch for the Jedi Order.
Bad Story: Luke as an old man trains a new generation of Jedi, but his entire Jedi school is destroyed in a fiery explosion, resetting the Galaxy back to an earlier state when all the Jedi were dead. (This is basically Order 66 2.0) Then Rey meets Luke but doesn’t really learn much from him, then Luke dies. Then Rey goes on to create a Jedi school that is not destroyed in a fiery explosion this time. This turns Luke’s story (from the OT) into a footnote, since there was no progression from Luke’s story to Rey’s story. Rather, Luke’s story is a dead end that leads nowhere, and Rey’s story becomes a replacement (not a progression or continuation) of Luke’s story.
I know what you mean, Channel72. Despite me white-knighting hard for the sequels earlier today, I do recognize that they were pretty much completely unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. The exact same things that happened in the OT happened again, just with different people. And as a consequence, the sacrifices of the OT characters seem pointless.
After thinking about it for a while, I’ve come to the realization that the sequel trilogy would be monumentally improved if you made just one change: have Luke be part of the Resistance in TFA. Rather than his entire new Jedi Order being obliterated and him being in exile, have most of Luke’s apprentices survive Kylo’s downfall, with Luke himself still dedicated to defeating the First Order and restoring the Jedi.
In this hypothetical scenario, TFA would be centered around Luke’s efforts to find the first Jedi temple, with pretty much the entire first half of the theatrical movie intact otherwise. Luke would be mentioned throughout, but would only appear in person once the Falcon lands on the Resistance base, with a big fanservicey introduction scene of him training the six-or-seven remaining Jedi. He would stay on the base for the final battle, but the very end of the movie would feature him, Rey, and the other students landing at the first Jedi temple, aiming to establish it as their new home.
TLJ would have the same character arc for Rey, with her being tempted by darkness via her connection with Kylo, but it would be completely reframed in the context of a non-grumpy Luke attempting to train her as the latest addition to his Jedi school. Several scenes on the island would be mostly intact, but others would be almost completely new. Since Luke is on the island for most of the movie, the Resistance plot would play out like it did originally. At the end, Luke still pulls his teleportation trick, but doesn’t die: Luke now does it with the hope that his bravery will inspire Force-sensitives across the galaxy to join his temple.
At the start of TROS, it would be revealed that Luke’s wish came true: dozens of new Jedi are now being trained at Luke’s temple. However, Luke’s health is failing, and he knows that his time is near. Around the end of the first act, he gathers all of his students around his deathbed to hear his final lesson. He tells them that Rey will be the new master of the Jedi academy, and that he’ll always be watching them in the next life. And so, with his mission to restore the Jedi finally complete, Luke dies with a smile on his face.
I know that was a bit wordy, but I was just feeling a little inspired today. If the sequels actually played out like that, I’m sure a lot of their most vocal haters would like them a lot more. Too bad that will never happen.
My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX
I know what you mean, Channel72. Despite me white-knighting hard for the sequels earlier today, I do recognize that they were pretty much completely unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. The exact same things that happened in the OT happened again, just with different people. And as a consequence, the sacrifices of the OT characters seem pointless.
After thinking about it for a while, I’ve come to the realization that the sequel trilogy would be monumentally improved if you made just one change: have Luke be part of the Resistance in TFA. Rather than his entire new Jedi Order being obliterated and him being in exile, have most of Luke’s apprentices survive Kylo’s downfall, with Luke himself still dedicated to defeating the First Order and restoring the Jedi.
In this hypothetical scenario, TFA would be centered around Luke’s efforts to find the first Jedi temple, with pretty much the entire first half of the theatrical movie intact otherwise. Luke would be mentioned throughout, but would only appear in person once the Falcon lands on the Resistance base, with a big fanservicey introduction scene of him training the six-or-seven remaining Jedi. He would stay on the base for the final battle, but the very end of the movie would feature him, Rey, and the other students landing at the first Jedi temple, aiming to establish it as their new home.
TLJ would have the same character arc for Rey, with her being tempted by darkness via her connection with Kylo, but it would be completely reframed in the context of a non-grumpy Luke attempting to train her as the latest addition to his Jedi school. Several scenes on the island would be mostly intact, but others would be almost completely new. Since Luke is on the island for most of the movie, the Resistance plot would play out like it did originally. At the end, Luke still pulls his teleportation trick, but doesn’t die: Luke now does it with the hope that his bravery will inspire Force-sensitives across the galaxy to join his temple.
At the start of TROS, it would be revealed that Luke’s wish came true: dozens of new Jedi are now being trained at Luke’s temple. However, Luke’s health is failing, and he knows that his time is near. Around the end of the first act, he gathers all of his students around his deathbed to hear his final lesson. He tells them that Rey will be the new master of the Jedi academy, and that he’ll always be watching them in the next life. And so, with his mission to restore the Jedi finally complete, Luke dies with a smile on his face.
I know that was a bit wordy, but I was just feeling a little inspired today. If the sequels actually played out like that, I’m sure a lot of their most vocal haters would like them a lot more. Too bad that will never happen.
Yeah, I would’ve liked this. I would’ve still had some problems with the movies, but nothing that would make me object to them on a fundamental level.
As far as film critics’ vs. audience scores go, I don’t trust either.
Gods for some, miniature libertarian socialist flags for others.
As far as film critics’ vs. audience scores go, I don’t trust either.
Rotten Tomatoes and its consequences has been disastrous for discourse on film criticism.
Like I posted earlier, I can’t get excited about this movie because throughout the ST Rey overcomes any and every challenge life throws at her without breaking a sweat. She’s skilled at pretty much everything when we first meet her. One mind probe from Kylo Ren was all it took for her to unlock her full Force potential. Never held a lightsaber before? No problem, she immediately defeats Kylo Ren who had at least ten years of lightsaber training.
Based on all that she should have problem creating a new Jedi Order because she’s Rey, Master of all trades.