What do you think of the Sequel Trilogy? - a general discussion thread — Page 14

Dagenspear said:

daveybjones999 said:

but even if you agree that Last Jedi did abandon what was setup by Force Awakens, at least most of the runtime of the 8th movie isn’t devoted to undoing what the previous movie did. There’s also a lot of things that aren’t properly setup that just happened hear, the film feels more like a series of video game fetch quests instead of a cohesive narrative, and it lazily brings back Palpatine. I actually used to like the movie but the more I rewatched it the more I grew to hate the movie.

I’d disagree, as I think reylo being a romance existing in TLJ alone undoes TFA, which I think set up a straightforward antagonistic relationship and I think TLJ undoes that and undoes the potential relationship dynamic between Finn and Rey in pursuit of it, which was a lot of TFA. I think reylo is a solid amount of that movie. That, plus, just shrugging and going the first order rules the galaxy now. While TFA was open ended on the galaxy, I find it out of nowhere that the first order rule the galaxy.

As far as bringing back Palpatine, well, I think that’s poor writing construction, but also Kylo is a complete black hole of a character and a villain (anything you could do is basically soft rebooting him, which I think both DOTF, if it’s legit, and TROS both do, in different ways), so I don’t care enough. I think Kylo has basically nothing to offer. At least Palpatine is entertaining to me. I’ve had a stance for some time that I’d have preferred if Kylo had just been killed by Snoke. They’re already wrecking the whole family of Skywalkers/Solos, so who cares if that garbage pail of a character Kylo survives. That’d have been actually surprising to me. At least Snoke has gravitas to me.

Except that while yes in The Last Jedi there’s an emotional connection between them that you could read as being romantic, but the film ends with Rey literally rejecting him she actually rejects him twice. The last scene of Kylo Ren in the movie is him looking up and seeing Rey in one of their force connection moments, while she stares at him and closes the door. She literally closing the door on there even being a romance between them. It’s Rise of Skywalker that decides, actually no there is romantic connection between them, not Last Jedi. Sure you could argue that Last Jedi is undoing the potential romance between Rey and Finn, but it’s not undoing the antagonistic relationship between Rey and Kylo Ren. The start the movie as foes and end the movie as foes. Sure they make their relationship more complex and hint that there could be something between them, but Rey rejects it and they and the movie as foes.

As far as Kylo goes, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. Snoke is an incredibly boring and dull villain with literally nothing to him. Ren is way more interesting of a character given his past and his character motivations. Sure a complex character isn’t necessarily better than a simple character but I think Kylo Ren is the best thing about the entire trilogy and one of only things that’s consistently good through all 3 movies.

daveybjones999 said:

Except that while yes in The Last Jedi there’s an emotional connection between them that you could read as being romantic, but the film ends with Rey literally rejecting him she actually rejects him twice. The last scene of Kylo Ren in the movie is him looking up and seeing Rey in one of their force connection moments, while she stares at him and closes the door. She literally closing the door on there even being a romance between them. It’s Rise of Skywalker that decides, actually no there is romantic connection between them, not Last Jedi. Sure you could argue that Last Jedi is undoing the potential romance between Rey and Finn, but it’s not undoing the antagonistic relationship between Rey and Kylo Ren. The start the movie as foes and end the movie as foes. Sure they make their relationship more complex and hint that there could be something between them, but Rey rejects it and they and the movie as foes.

What you just argued is that the movie wastes an entire film setting up a romance that it then seeks to shirk away from, making it’s own story pointless. That the romance exists at all is what I criticize, not whether or not the end of the movie tries to hide it. It came out of nowhere, was trash written and then Kylo is dumb and a psycho so Rey rejects being with him, being used to sideline Rey in her own story and make her subservient to Kylo’s agency and what he wants and needs for his story. I think that’s just undoing it and then doing it again at best, which I think renders it pointless.

It does undo the antagonism, because it strips away all of Rey’s anger and issues with Kylo and then shrugs at just them still being enemies, because Rey’s not a psycho and Kylo is. That means nothing to them as characters. I think that the romance happened at all was nonsense. There was no point. Them being foes is just Rey being a hero and Kylo being a villain. By shirking away all of Rey’s reasons to hate Kylo, based on her personal experiences with him, in putting them in a romance, the movie strips Rey of all her emotional agency in being against for her personal experiences with him and what he did to her, instead making her against him because he’s the bad guy and she’s the hero, not because of anything he did to her or anyone she cares about.

I think there’s no real complexity to ‘Rey fell for Kylo out of nowhere and she hates him again’.

As far as Kylo goes, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. Snoke is an incredibly boring and dull villain with literally nothing to him. Ren is way more interesting of a character given his past and his character motivations. Sure a complex character isn’t necessarily better than a simple character but I think Kylo Ren is the best thing about the entire trilogy and one of only things that’s consistently good through all 3 movies.

I think Kylo has no real past or real motivations in TLJ. The closest thing is Luke went psycho once, so Kylo murdered every single person in his jedi school and joined Snoke. Why does he want to rule the galaxy? Why did he join Snoke? Why does he want power? Who was Kylo before he became a maniac? The movie has nothing. My goodness by the time we reveal that Vader is Luke’s dad in the OT in TESB, we’ve learned more about him as a whole. We get no information about Kylo beyond the vague notion of Kylo being turned by Snoke and having too much Vader in him, and then Luke’s mental breakdown in the tent and then Kylo just a psycho now who wants to assist the first order into blowing up planets, kisses Snoke’s behind and is willing to murder his dad. Why? I dunno. Something something power, something something Vader maybe? For some reason?

I wholly dislike Luke’s arc in Rise of Skywalker. Just pointless really. Key jangling. Ooh look he raised the ship out of the swamp like Yoda. and he admonishes Rey on chucking a lightsaber because that was what he did in episode 8, he did the Jake on an island. It’s time for the Jedi to end.

I was a coward, but Rian didn’t write me that way but don’t tell JJ.

He never trained Rey the movie pretends he did and acts like Skywalker was her previous master before Leia.

It also acts like they are surrogate parents to her when they literally never had any connection in 7 or 8. And Han was the kind of father figure that Kylo killed.

They hint at Finn’s force sensitivity in 7 and 9 and do nothing with it.

These films are endlessly debated and disappointing.

They botched so much it’s a wonder if Lucasfilm will ever have the courage to make that Rey film. Endless books, comics and shows to try and fill in plot holes and no outlining of the sequels. The post ROTJ timeline is garbage in Disney.

JadedSkywalker said:

I wholly dislike Luke’s arc in Rise of Skywalker. Just pointless really. Key jangling. Ooh look he raised the ship out of the swamp like Yoda. and he admonishes Rey on chucking a lightsaber because that was what he did in episode 8, he did the Jake on an island. It’s time for the Jedi to end.

I was a coward, but Rian didn’t write me that way but don’t tell JJ.

I think he did write him as a coward. He may not have realized it, but I think he did it. Because Luke in TLJ is a petty childish person whose constantly blaming everyone else for his own mistakes (blames the Jedi when they have nothing to do with his wrong actions against Kylo, blames Kylo for just randomly attacking him out of nowhere, as far as he says) and feigning guilt, while never actually admitting what he did, avoiding the actual blame and shame of his actions, and hiding from it all. Only admitting it when Rey confronts him with it.

He never trained Rey the movie pretends he did and acts like Skywalker was her previous master before Leia.

Maybe a little, but also not really much I think.

And Han was the kind of father figure that Kylo killed.

But TLJ disregarded that emotional resonance for Rey in favor of Rey having a romance with Kylo. Though also, TROS has Leia be Rey’s mentor to try and work in that point of Leia being important to Rey.

They hint at Finn’s force sensitivity in 7 and 9 and do nothing with it.

I think similarly. Though TLJ also did nothing with it, in spite of 7 seemingly hinting at it.

These films are endlessly debated and disappointing.

I think similarly.

What is Finn’s story though? why does he want to join the new Rebellion other than being a Stormtrooper who broke his programming. I get he stays around because he likes Poe and Rey. and has made friendships. I thought he wanted to get away from the resistance and the first order. He was more of a reluctant, almost Han Solo type.

His character doesn’t develop.

Rose is a character for one film and almost written out of the next.

Poe goes from being a Wedge Antilles leader of Rogue Squadron type to being a smuggler like Han as his backstory.

Rey is a nobody from nowhere like Luke was, and then she is Rey Palpatine.

She was searching for her parents. And trying to latch onto an identity. Joining the Rebellion, wanting to be a Jedi. Those are Luke’s motivations.

Kylo wants to be Darth Vader and finish what he started. He finds being on the dark side isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Nobody likes you and it’s hard to get a date. And he can’t say he hates sand. He hated his father for loving him, a psychopath with no real motivation in the story for his turn to the dark side and corruption. A bare mention of Luke with a pointy saber trying to kill him in his sleep is not enough exposition. Or dollar store Palpatine/ aka space Gollum, reached him through the force and sensed his power. Fair enough it still isn’t explained.

The force dyad thing and Rey being the new chosen one I didn’t even want to broach. One of those seems to explain why she is so powerful with no training. She is The Emperor’s daughter and granddaughter. Born for the sole purpose to house his spirit like some Lovecraftian nightmare. According to ROS he also wanted to possess Anakin and Luke and take over their bodies.

And the other aspect is to explain Reylo and their romance. And restore the balance as I once did, a disembodied Hayden Anakin says, per Rey being someone chosen by the whills of the force or destiny and one to bring about the end of Palpatine.

I probably gave it more thought in the last twenty minutes than any of the screenwriters of these movies did.