Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker - Discussion * SPOILER THREAD * — Page 134

That’s what makes this decision to pursue the Emperor as the end goal (especially as it was executed) and to keep Leia in the story as the catalyst for Kylo’s turn so WEIRD. Just on its face that’s such a tiny eyehole to thread on a moving needle. Not saying you couldn’t do it - and maybe there’s a version of this story where they managed to build to that idea well, and maybe they actually tried to make Leia a legitimate character whose disassociated presence was actually felt. But both those decisions are SO deck-stacked against their successful execution I just don’t understand why they got pursued considering they knew how much time they had left to make and finish this thing.

They didn’t HAVE to choose this course of action.

I disagree that any of these movies have rendered any of the other films pointless, if only because the point of Star Wars has never really been in its plotting. The plotting is a means to get to the themes, and even the bad Star Wars movies are trying to say something, thematically, within their own runtimes. Sequels don’t nullify or make pointless their predecessors. But I think what this movie was trying to say for itself was so confused and honestly, kind of infantile - it’s just hard to get a good hold on what it wants to be AS a story.

I know it was just a simple comparison but the ST does actually have some commonalities with LOTR. An old evil trying to come back from the dead, and our heroes trying to stop it. Hell, I thought Vader’s helmet was going to be the “One Ring” that was holding Palpatine’s spirit. I do agree with Dre, that it would’ve been nice if the Sith’s return and Exogol had been set up more clearly from the beginning.

Broom Kid said:

That’s what makes this decision to pursue the Emperor as the end goal (especially as it was executed) and to keep Leia in the story as the catalyst for Kylo’s turn so WEIRD. Just on its face that’s such a tiny eyehole to thread on a moving needle. Not saying you couldn’t do it - and maybe there’s a version of this story where they managed to build to that idea well, and maybe they actually tried to make Leia a legitimate character whose disassociated presence was actually felt. But both those decisions are SO deck-stacked against their successful execution I just don’t understand why they got pursued considering they knew how much time they had left to make and finish this thing.

They didn’t HAVE to choose this course of action.

I disagree that any of these movies have rendered any of the other films pointless, if only because the point of Star Wars has never really been in its plotting. The plotting is a means to get to the themes, and even the bad Star Wars movies are trying to say something, thematically, within their own runtimes. Sequels don’t nullify or make pointless their predecessors. But I think what this movie was trying to say for itself was so confused and honestly, kind of infantile - it’s just hard to get a good hold on what it wants to be AS a story.

I don’t know. I think just like The Return of the King, ROTJ was the natural end of the six part story. This just feels like too much of the same. There’s a part of me that wants to relive my childhood, have that feeling again, and there are moments in ROTS where I’m transported back to that time, but it’s fool’s gold. I’m tired of seeing the same thing over, and over, gushing over another pointless cameo, or another reference to the glories of the past. I have some hope, that Star Wars might flourish in a different medium, like tv for a while, but as far as the movies go, I’m done with it all. I’ve had my share of Jedi falling to the dark side, redemptions and what not. The Star Wars movie franchise is running in circles with diminished returns.

Broom Kid said:

I disagree that any of these movies have rendered any of the other films pointless, if only because the point of Star Wars has never really been in its plotting. The plotting is a means to get to the themes, and even the bad Star Wars movies are trying to say something, thematically, within their own runtimes. Sequels don’t nullify or make pointless their predecessors. But I think what this movie was trying to say for itself was so confused and honestly, kind of infantile - it’s just hard to get a good hold on what it wants to be AS a story.

Plot is not important in Star Wars, except in this film plot drives everything (infuriating). But that’s not even the problem. You’re right, SW is about the characters and themes. And it’s that very thing that TROS undermines, not the plot. TFA and TLJ told a story that thematically justified the existence of the ST in the context of the larger saga. TROS completely killed that meaning. Those two films still exist as they are as individual films, of course, and nothing can take that away. But as a cap on the story of the ST as a whole, TROS has rendered the endeavor largely pointless.

What burns me about the lack of any attempt to explain Palpatine’s return is that Rebels actually laid the groundwork for a perfectly acceptable explanation. The blue explosion when Vader chucks the Emperor down the pit in ROTJ looks almost exactly like the smoke effect when Palpatine accesses the “world between worlds” on the show. They absolutely could have used that without getting in the weeds of the specifics of the cartoon, and just had him say that as he was falling he cast himself into the nether regions of the Force and it took some time to find his way back.

I also think Snoke should have just been an acolyte who stumbled across Palpatine and fell under his spell rather than a literal puppet. Those two changes would make it fit so much more smoothly in the continuity, but instead they opted to do it in the most inelegant and unconnected way possible.

ZkinandBonez said:

DrDre said:

What is the difference between the ST and a hypothetical sequel to LOTR, where the ring of power in the original story was a fake, such that that another small hero, a Wobbit from Wobbiton, can go on a similar quest to destroy the ring, and Sauron for real this time?

Well, SW isn’t based on a book or a comic or anything like that, so technically there’s no reason why you can’t change things or add to it retroactively. Also the emperor wasn’t really given much importance until the PT expanded his motives and abilities, so considering all that’s been added to the franchise in the decades since ROTJ him coming back really isn’t that strange.

Also I don’t get the whole “it undermines X-plot-point” argument. TROS doesn’s change any of the character stuff that happened in ROTJ, and going with the Middle-Earth analogy; Sauron was killed twice and just because they had to do it again later it didn’t undermine what Isuldur, Elrond, etc. accomplished a few millennia prior to LOTR.

Lack of originality aside, I don’t see how the ST breaks any in-universe logic.

Ehm, I think TROS and its predecessors undermine pretty much the entirety of ROTJ, except for Vader’s redemption.

joefavs said:

What burns me about the lack of any attempt to explain Palpatine’s return is that Rebels actually laid the groundwork for a perfectly acceptable explanation. The blue explosion when Vader chucks the Emperor down the pit in ROTJ looks almost exactly like the smoke effect when Palpatine accesses the “world between worlds” on the show. They absolutely could have used that without getting in the weeds of the specifics of the cartoon, and just had him say that as he was falling he cast himself into the nether regions of the Force and it took some time to find his way back.

Maybe it was just because there were bigger fish to fry for me but I didn’t really mind how they brought him back. So he’s still alive, whatever, it’s Palps, he’s powerful and makes plans, who cares. I actually really liked the imagery to of him strapped into that spindly crane and the spider throne. It all felt very Dark Empire. In general, it felt very much like an EU movie. Which is probably why I didn’t like it, but on some level I actually do appreciate the approach. Problem is really that it doesn’t gel with the last two films.

I also think Snoke should have just been an acolyte who stumbled across Palpatine and fell under his spell rather than a literal puppet. Those two changes would make it fit so much more smoothly in the continuity, but instead they opted to do it in the most inelegant and unconnected way possible.

I get that Palpatine essentially suggests that Snoke was a literal puppet, but to be honest, I think it’s ambiguous enough to just kind of reject that suggestion outright. In my mind, he created Snoke, but Snoke was still a creature with a consciousness of his own. That works fine enough for me.

ZkinandBonez said:

DrDre said:

ZkinandBonez said:

DrDre said:

What is the difference between the ST and a hypothetical sequel to LOTR, where the ring of power in the original story was a fake, such that that another small hero, a Wobbit from Wobbiton, can go on a similar quest to destroy the ring, and Sauron for real this time?

Well, SW isn’t based on a book or a comic or anything like that, so technically there’s no reason why you can’t change things or add to it retroactively. Also the emperor wasn’t really given much importance until the PT expanded his motives and abilities, so considering all that’s been added to the franchise in the decades since ROTJ him coming back really isn’t that strange.

Also I don’t get the whole “it undermines X-plot-point” argument. TROS doesn’s change any of the character stuff that happened in ROTJ, and going with the Middle-Earth analogy; Sauron was killed twice and just because they had to do it again later it didn’t undermine what Isuldur, Elrond, etc. accomplished a few millennia prior to LOTR.

Lack of originality aside, I don’t see how the ST breaks any in-universe logic.

Ehm, I think TROS and its predecessors undermine pretty much the entirety of ROTJ, except for Vader’s redemption.

Well, that’s really the most important thing, which is why I don’t really mind the ST that much. Though I still wouldn’t say the that First Order, Starkiller Base, etc. “undermines” anything so much as its just lazy writing. It works, it’s just underwhelming and something else would have been much more interesting.

For me it undermines everything, because it undoes ROTJ’s conclusions only to give us a very similar story with a very similar ending. What’s to stop Palpatine from coming back again, or another gigantic fleet from being created from nothing?

Again, it makes me wish that Trevorrow’s version had been made because at least it did not have Palpatine. Something like Kylo being betrayed by the First Order and having to work with the heroes, and maybe a Stormtrooper Rebellion for Finn’s plot, could’ve set up an ending where the war ends in peace and unification rather than destroying the enemy, which would have set it apart from the way ROTJ ends.

Jannah tells this story about how her entire regiment of stormtroopers laid down their weapons when they refused to kill their enemy. Imagine instead of being told this, we actually saw it.

After Hux and the First Order council depose Kylo Ren, they could begin kidnapping children tenfold as a reaction to the growing Resistance. The final mission could have been to go to the planet where they take these children and free them. Maybe they fail and are at the execution block, but the stormtroopers, witnessing their attempt to save the children, finally turn on their masters. I also think an ending reminiscent to Temple of Doom, with children reuniting with their parents, would have been rather powerful.

And hell, you could keep Palpatine to some extent and I still think it could work.

After Hux happily deposes Kylo, he realizes the old Imperial guard, like Pryde, are nuts and have a plan to resurrect Palpatine. Hux thinks this is crazy and this is what makes him help the Resistance.

Maybe the storyline with Rey and Ben could revolve around the Knights of Ren trying to resurrect Palpatine, but in this version he has no physical form. Snoke could’ve just been a Sith acolyte wanting to resurrect Palpatine as well. You could still have some kind of battle (or exorcism) between the Force ghosts and Palpatine’s Sith spirit that add importance to the Force ghosts and not undermine Anakin’s destiny. I think this could’ve carried this message of trying to resurrect the past in a more nuanced way than what we got.

Have Ben LIVE, and when he retakes control of the remaining First Order forces he could disband the regime and reunify the Republic his mother fought so hard to restore. Then he could go off and help Rey start a new Jedi Order, but with a strong feeling that it will be different this time. More balanced than before.

I know this kind of “what if” is pointless, but I think we can agree Abrams once again retread old ground with this film. I was a little forgiving with TFA, but he had no excuse with TROS.

I don’t agree it undoes ROTJ’s conclusions any more than the onward march of time “undoes” the actions (and the meaning behind the actions) of the people who fought (and died) for things in the past.

The endpoint of that line of thought suggests death makes life meaningless because once you die you lose, and once you lose, nothing you did matters. Which is kind of nihilistic at its core, and Star Wars has never been that. The story shouldn’t be ABOUT the story, it should be HOW it’s about it - if that makes sense. “Well, peace in our time only lasted 30 years so that 30 years was meaningless” is kind of a harsh, unfair, and cynical read that kind of minimizes the good that 30 years of peace can be.

I think the first two parts of this trilogy were kind of smart about how they were approaching a new conflict born of an old one, and investigating how and why new characters were handling those pressures, and what they were doing in response to them (and more importantly, why they were responding the way they were). There’s a lot that’s worth investigating in there, and a lot of that can (and should) speak to the times we’re living through now, for obvious reasons. That’s what myth does, it provides young people a means to make sense of the upheavals going on around them. That’s not so easily “nullified” by bad plotting, I don’t believe.

But The Rise of Skywalker is, unfortunately, thematically hollow, and THAT is a very big problem. It’s not really saying anything, and it’s not putting any effort into saying that nothing, either. It’s structural problems aside, the many problems with it as a movie - thematically it’s just a void, really. It’s good at saying what it doesn’t want to be, because it seems to have an idea of what people DON’T want, but it doesn’t have any sort of sense of what to provide as an alternative. So you’re left with a movie that is solely plot, for plot’s sake, wrapping up on a plot-level and nothing else.

THAT feels meaningless to me.

The idea that this movie could have been about a First Order fighting itself, and a Resistance taking advantage of that… there’s a larger thematic potential there that’s HUGE and relevant. You can easily build from “Knowledge and defense, never attack” and “Don’t fight what you hate, but save what you love” and elaborate from there in a story where the resistance finds a way to use the First Order’s nihilism against itself. That can MEAN something useful that ties into the thematic thrust of prior films, and Star Wars in general.

But instead the concerns were primarily “how do we fit deleted scenes in here and make a character out of that” and “How can we get the Emperor back in here so the parentage angle I don’t want to abandon takes center stage.” Those are plot concerns, not STORYTELLING ones, and the ultimate failing of The Rise of Skywalker is that its architects were more concerned about making their bad ideas fit into a plot no matter what than they were with trying to figure out how to actually SAY SOMETHING about… ANYTHING.

DrDre said:

ZkinandBonez said:

DrDre said:

ZkinandBonez said:

DrDre said:

What is the difference between the ST and a hypothetical sequel to LOTR, where the ring of power in the original story was a fake, such that that another small hero, a Wobbit from Wobbiton, can go on a similar quest to destroy the ring, and Sauron for real this time?

Well, SW isn’t based on a book or a comic or anything like that, so technically there’s no reason why you can’t change things or add to it retroactively. Also the emperor wasn’t really given much importance until the PT expanded his motives and abilities, so considering all that’s been added to the franchise in the decades since ROTJ him coming back really isn’t that strange.

Also I don’t get the whole “it undermines X-plot-point” argument. TROS doesn’s change any of the character stuff that happened in ROTJ, and going with the Middle-Earth analogy; Sauron was killed twice and just because they had to do it again later it didn’t undermine what Isuldur, Elrond, etc. accomplished a few millennia prior to LOTR.

Lack of originality aside, I don’t see how the ST breaks any in-universe logic.

Ehm, I think TROS and its predecessors undermine pretty much the entirety of ROTJ, except for Vader’s redemption.

Well, that’s really the most important thing, which is why I don’t really mind the ST that much. Though I still wouldn’t say the that First Order, Starkiller Base, etc. “undermines” anything so much as its just lazy writing. It works, it’s just underwhelming and something else would have been much more interesting.

For me it undermines everything, because it undoes ROTJ’s conclusions only to give us a very similar story with a very similar ending. What’s to stop Palpatine from coming back again, or another gigantic fleet from being created from nothing?

Well yeah, exactly. I was fully expecting Palpatine to just say at the end before he died the same line that he said to Kylo… “I’ve been killed before.” That would have actually made sense. That’s the whole fucking point. You can’t defeat the dark side forever. They completely ignored that. Stupid.

Also, I know people who didn’t like Rose will probably disagree, but I think Rose was totally mishandled in this film. I was at least expecting for the gang to communicate with Rose more like she’s mission control or something. Rose really should have been with Finn and Jannah (or just cut Jannah) at the end of the film when they get rescued by the Falcon. Rose risked her life trying to save Finn at the end of TLJ, and now Poe is like, “Where’s Finn?” and Rose says, “Oh, he didn’t make it off the ship.” TLJ Rose would have ran out there and said, “I’m not leaving here without you.”
Finn and Rose didn’t even hug at the end either! Fine, you don’t like this kiss in TLJ, but we can’t even get an embrace at the end?

There are a ton of characters in this who are basically props.

Rose
Jannah
The guy from LOST who’s character name I don’t even remember
Klaud (LOL)
Leia (she is literally a prop for the last half hour of the movie)
The Knights of Ren

Also, why is there a vat of Snokes on Exegol. How many Snokes do you need laying around. What’s the point of that.

RogueLeader said:

Again, it makes me wish that Trevorrow’s version had been made because at least it did not have Palpatine. Something like Kylo being betrayed by the First Order and having to work with the heroes, and maybe a Stormtrooper Rebellion for Finn’s plot, could’ve set up an ending where the war ends in peace and unification rather than destroying the enemy, which would have set it apart from the way ROTJ ends.

Jannah tells this story about how her entire regiment of stormtroopers laid down their weapons when they refused to kill their enemy. Imagine instead of being told this, we actually saw it.

After Hux and the First Order council depose Kylo Ren, they could begin kidnapping children tenfold as a reaction to the growing Resistance. The final mission could have been to go to the planet where they take these children and free them. Maybe they fail and are at the execution block, but the stormtroopers, witnessing their attempt to save the children, finally turn on their masters. I also think an ending reminiscent to Temple of Doom, with children reuniting with their parents, would have been rather powerful.

This sounds exactly like what I wanted for Episode 8. I hadn’t written my own version going in, which is probably why I can defend a lot while still not enjoying it that much, but after seeing Episode 8 I was wanting these specific plotlines. In Episode 9, I think the way Kylo would have turned in Trevorrow’s just because his army turns on him would be too little, too late. It would make me dislike him a lot. Not sure how to convey anymore without going on a novel-long vent. The Temple of Doom ending is also what I’ve been thinking anytime my head goes to a stormtrooper rebellion, you hit the nail right on the head. I’m sad that it appears they cut a lot of context with Lando and Jannah, as I feel it deserves far more attention.

I don’t know if I may say this either in the Mandalorian spoiler thread of this one as there is cross-pollination at possible play here…I suspect that the person behind the person who put the bounty on the Yodling is Palpatine. He needs something that is loaded with the Force to hopefully rejuvenate himself.

act on instinct said:

DominicCobb said:

Well yeah, exactly. I was fully expecting Palpatine to just say at the end before he died the same line that he said to Kylo… “I’ve been killed before.” That would have actually made sense. That’s the whole fucking point. You can’t defeat the dark side forever. They completely ignored that. Stupid.

This exactly, also why I really dislike the exchange of “I am all the sith” it felt like another last ditch attempt to tie together all and any loose ends. See? This HAS to be the end of the saga! That was all the sith!

Maybe it’s a reaction to knowing they couldn’t just defeat the Order like the Empire in ROTJ, needed to be distinctly final. But oh man what a ham-fisted fumble we got. I know this is intended for children but I felt like the intelligence level was operating on Nick Jr. scale.

Yeah, I mean maybe that’s the issue, they figured it needed to be simple enough for a kid to understand, and the idea that the fight against evil is a constant, ever vigilant battle is maybe too nuanced. But also, do they really think kids will understand this movie? I barely understood it.

RogueLeader said:

Also, I know people who didn’t like Rose will probably disagree, but I think Rose was totally mishandled in this film. I was at least expecting for the gang to communicate with Rose more like she’s mission control or something. Rose really should have been with Finn and Jannah (or just cut Jannah) at the end of the film when they get rescued by the Falcon. Rose risked her life trying to save Finn at the end of TLJ, and now Poe is like, “Where’s Finn?” and Rose says, “Oh, he didn’t make it off the ship.” TLJ Rose would have ran out there and said, “I’m not leaving here without you.”
Finn and Rose didn’t even hug at the end either! Fine, you don’t like this kiss in TLJ, but we can’t even get an embrace at the end?

Hard not to take the handling of Rose as a fuck you to Rose. I was willing to accept the first half, unfortunate as it is, when she doesn’t go on the mission. JJ wants it to be about the trio he set up. But the final battle where she does nothing? When they literally have horses and she doesn’t even ride one? The perfect place to at least throw the character a bone but nope.

“Rey, I have to tell you something!”
“What were you going to tell me?”
“I’ll tell you later”
“Hey, what were you going to tell Rey”
“I’m not going to tell you, I’m going to tell her.”
“Oh no, I felt Rey die. I didn’t get to tell her!”
“OH LOOK, REY IS ALIVE. ISN’T THAT NICE. GUESS I’LL NEVER TELL HER WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY THAT WAS LITERALLY SO IMPORTANT IT’S BASICALLY THE ONLY PLOT THREAD I HAVE IN THIS MOVIE”

Canto Bight reads like Upton Sinclair compared to that.

It obviously reads like he’s going to tell her he loves her. But the way the movie is, I think we’re to believe that he’s going to tell her he has the force. At first I thought this was a reshoot/reedit thing we’re they cut out his love proclamation and figured people would guess the force thing was what he wanted to say. But my working theory after thinking more about it that he really was going to tell her he had the force, and there’s a deleted scene where they do a fakeout where it seems like he’s going to tell her he loves her but then says he has the force instead. Somehow, that makes more sense to me as an explanation for why it’s like that.

I think the art of book got pushed back because having evidence in print of what this movie was supposed to be before it got dismembered and glued back together would have made its legs even weaker.

We’re going to find out in May what this thing was intended to be, and it might not be better, but the game of what-if that spins out of that is going to take over all discussion from that point forward.