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Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker - Discussion * SPOILER THREAD * — Page 159

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Broom Kid said:

idir_hh said:

Well it was a different time when they had less resources but they worked with what they had, I mean for a 300 million dollar picture made in 2019 they could have at least put more effort into this, especially for a series known for its climactic battles.

I get what you’re trying to say but the straight line you’re trying to draw from “having resources” to “making what you wanted to make” is almost never that straight. it’s a thing I see brought up in game reviews a lot too, the idea that misfiring creatively isn’t just that - a creative misfire - it’s evidence of “laziness” or “lack of effort”

Sometimes bad movies are bad due to lack of effort. But for as much as I dislike The Rise of Skywalker, and I very much dislike it - the crew on that movie weren’t being lazy at any point. That documentary on the blu-ray is nothing but people working as hard as they can, as fast as they can, to make the best movie they can.

They did not make that movie, unfortunately. They made a bad one. But most bad movies are made by well-intentioned people whose shortcomings on that project have nothing to do with their lack of effort. I don’t think them going through that footage and reworking it in THAT way to solve a problem they didn’t know they had until it was staring them in the face is a sign of laziness at all. It reads to me as the opposite.

Yeah the production crew definitely worked their ass’ off on this one, can’t say the same for the editors though.

Peace is a lie
There is only passion…

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RogueLeader said:
Off topic, but it still blows my mind how hard they tried to make Finn and Poe not gay. They need to give them both potential romantic interests, but people didn’t like Rose so we have to make a new female character for Finn. And look! Poe’s gotta old flame! She offers for him to runaway with her, but then at the end of the movie she turns down her advances. So I guess Finn and Poe can’t be gay, but they don’t want to pair them with anyone at the end either.

It’s really weird because the two films prior don’t really seem to be setting up any romantic relationships between the two, so why do Finn and Poe need to be confirmed as “not gay,” in the first place? Not to say it’s definitely the case (and it likely isn’t lol) but it really does feel like those two characters were included just to shut up Finn/Poe shippers.

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I got the impression that Poe swings both ways. Actually, I really like the ambiguity of the relationships in TROS. It may have been done to placate shippers - I don’t know - but I do love how there’s implied romantic potential all over the place without any real conclusions (except for the Rey/Kylo thing which I thought was beautifully handled).

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I do get the thrill in speculating who might get shipped with who. However when there’s three films with a whole bunch of characters and the only lasting romantic relationship (as in, it lasted the few seconds until one of them died) is between the main heroine and a genocidal ex-Space-Nazi then it just feels really weird. Not to say that romance makes one more human (it doesn’t as the existence of awesome 100% human aromantic people show) but the fact that none of the main characters have a healthy romantic relationship with someone else makes it seem like Disney were just trying to play things overly-safe.

And, really, if you’re going to put massive signs on characters saying “NOT GAY NO GAY SHIPS PLEASE,” then at the very least you could do us the courtesy of having them be in a relationship.

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Yeah but we’re talking about JJ. He couldn’t even leave the gay subjext in Star Trek.

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I left this thread due to wanting to avoid the toxic fanbase a few months before Episode IX was released. But I decided to leave my own personal opinion on the film since I would like to share my voice on the film now that it’s been some months since then.

I have been a big defender of the Sequel Trilogy for a while, as I loved The Force Awakens and especially loved The Last Jedi. However, I didn’t like how The Rise of Skywalker turned out, and it unfortunately sank the trilogy’s narrative a bit for me. Of course there’s a problem that there was no clear story thread plan for the trilogy, despite that I felt some threads were consistent, there were still some that didn’t pull through all the way. While I still loved how VII and VIII went about their own ways of being confident and with a strong story, The Rise of Skywalker felt like damage control to appease fans who hated the previous two installments, and felt as if the film and every story decision was solely driven by fan service.

I will say that I personally hate fan service, and while it can be used in the right way, it can also tank the narrative and quality of a film. The film had very rushed pacing and couldn’t even stand still and let the audience take in what is happening. Part of me believes that the majority of decisions were not done by J.J. Abrams. Even if some of them were, it surprises me just how bad IX turned out compared to his great work on VII. Palpatine’s return was clearly a case of breaking the glass in case of an emergency since Rian Johnson killed off Snoke, and even their origins and return were not explained well. The opening went by too fast, and it makes me even more disappointed that Lucasfilm is not releasing the deleted scenes in an effort to avoid fan criticism for cutting them. Rey being Palpatine’s granddaughter was poorly done and unnecessary, Finn as a character was wasted, and even his reveal to Rey wasn’t fully resolved in the story. The Jedi speaking to Rey didn’t really grab me, and felt kinda corny based on how it was done to once again, appease fans. Ben’s character, after being redeemed, was completely wasted, as we never spent enough time with him. Palpatine’s plan wasn’t very clear, and his death was terribly done, especially in comparison to Return of the Jedi. However, I was pretty mad at how Ben’s story was wasted by killing him off. There could have been so many great stories to tell with him, but his death wasn’t rewarding. Anakin had lived a full life and had done so much, Ben had not, and he is completely glossed over and doesn’t even appear with Luke and Leia.

Overall, I wanted to at least show my own voice on the film. I, like many were disappointed, but even though there wasn’t a plan, I still think you could’ve made a great conclusion to the trilogy, not the saga. My last complaint for here would have to be how rushed the film felt to cap off the entire saga, when it would’ve been better to focus on ending the trilogy, not the saga. Many got excited for a fourth trilogy, but after The Last Jedi came out, most people seemed to want it to end rather than continue it. Real shame.

Anyways, those are just my thoughts. I hope some great fan edits can come out of it.

The name’s Lawson. Noah Lawson.

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So, if you left TFA thinking “it really seems like they want to hint that Rey’s parents were Kenobis of some sort” you weren’t wrong. That was initially on the table.

https://twitter.com/starwarstuff/status/1303652748223754240

Then Rian Johnson made the case for Rey Nobody really strongly and everyone liked that, and they did that for The Last Jedi. And then Trevorrow’s script got junked, they asked Abrams back, and he decided Rey was REALLY a Palpatine, only to waffle on that throughout production, and then ultimately decide fairly late in the game that she was.

Everyone on the twitters and the forums and all the usual fandom places seem to think this is proof positive that YOU NEED A PLAN (you don’t) but I don’t know. The takeaway here seems to be that if you want to double back on an idea, you better have good answers and a clear vision for how you want to do it. Because if you don’t, it’s not going to work well. Johnson had a pretty strong, clear idea for not pursuing Abrams’ initial “Rey Kenobi” idea (if he even knew that was the idea), but Abrams didn’t have any sort of clear idea for why he was doing anything he was doing, as evidenced by the fact he couldn’t even decide on WHAT it was he wanted to do until deep into production.

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I was gonna post this in Hal’s Ascendant thread but I didn’t want to derail discussions of his excellent edit so here it is.

Alright, I am mad at Star Wars fans again… Did ANYONE really think that they would plan out the three movies fully in advance? The originals didn’t do that… the PREQUELS didn’t do that. OH NO, THEY WEREN’T SURE WHERE THEY WANTED TO TAKE THE STORY!!! DISNEY BAD!!! Get over it! Do you really think George knew that Luke and Leia would be siblings? Things always adjust as you move forward in the process. ROTS, the internet’s favorite meme machine had so much redone in regards to Anakin’s motivations but you don’t see these cry babies freak out over that! (Actually, we do since there’s a FREAKIN PETITION for the “4 hour-cut”).

Are you really going to rage over the fact that the writers weren’t sure what they wanted to do with Rey’s parentage if anything? Remember in 2017 when TLJ came out and RJ gave an interview even saying that he MADE the decision to have Rey’s parents be nobody. He CHOSE that. There was no plan, he had the ability to make the decision. Then JJ decided that it would make more sense in his film for Rey to be a Palpatine, and he was well within his right to do that if he felt it would make the film better (results notwithstanding).

RANT OVER

After being beaten and battered by prequel hate, I promise not to be that to the next generation.

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nl0428 said:

I left this thread due to wanting to avoid the toxic fanbase a few months before Episode IX was released. But I decided to leave my own personal opinion on the film since I would like to share my voice on the film now that it’s been some months since then.

I have been a big defender of the Sequel Trilogy for a while, as I loved The Force Awakens and especially loved The Last Jedi. However, I didn’t like how The Rise of Skywalker turned out, and it unfortunately sank the trilogy’s narrative a bit for me. Of course there’s a problem that there was no clear story thread plan for the trilogy, despite that I felt some threads were consistent, there were still some that didn’t pull through all the way. While I still loved how VII and VIII went about their own ways of being confident and with a strong story, The Rise of Skywalker felt like damage control to appease fans who hated the previous two installments, and felt as if the film and every story decision was solely driven by fan service.

I will say that I personally hate fan service, and while it can be used in the right way, it can also tank the narrative and quality of a film. The film had very rushed pacing and couldn’t even stand still and let the audience take in what is happening. Part of me believes that the majority of decisions were not done by J.J. Abrams. Even if some of them were, it surprises me just how bad IX turned out compared to his great work on VII. Palpatine’s return was clearly a case of breaking the glass in case of an emergency since Rian Johnson killed off Snoke, and even their origins and return were not explained well. The opening went by too fast, and it makes me even more disappointed that Lucasfilm is not releasing the deleted scenes in an effort to avoid fan criticism for cutting them. Rey being Palpatine’s granddaughter was poorly done and unnecessary, Finn as a character was wasted, and even his reveal to Rey wasn’t fully resolved in the story. The Jedi speaking to Rey didn’t really grab me, and felt kinda corny based on how it was done to once again, appease fans. Ben’s character, after being redeemed, was completely wasted, as we never spent enough time with him. Palpatine’s plan wasn’t very clear, and his death was terribly done, especially in comparison to Return of the Jedi. However, I was pretty mad at how Ben’s story was wasted by killing him off. There could have been so many great stories to tell with him, but his death wasn’t rewarding. Anakin had lived a full life and had done so much, Ben had not, and he is completely glossed over and doesn’t even appear with Luke and Leia.

Overall, I wanted to at least show my own voice on the film. I, like many were disappointed, but even though there wasn’t a plan, I still think you could’ve made a great conclusion to the trilogy, not the saga. My last complaint for here would have to be how rushed the film felt to cap off the entire saga, when it would’ve been better to focus on ending the trilogy, not the saga. Many got excited for a fourth trilogy, but after The Last Jedi came out, most people seemed to want it to end rather than continue it. Real shame.

Anyways, those are just my thoughts. I hope some great fan edits can come out of it.

I feel very similar in terms of appreciating TFA and TLJ for what they were, and also staying away a bit due to the extreme toxicity.

More than just saying “I wish they stuck with Trevorrow”, I think you really touched on an important point how this movie felt like damage control. Everyone knows at this point that they didn’t plan out the trilogy, but I think if they stuck with their guns, and stayed true to giving each director their own personal unique take on how to progress the story forward, this film would have been much more successful. It all comes back to what Lucas always tried to preach about the “fear of creativity” on the part of the industry itself. And even though it is his fault that he sold his franchise, he is completely right. What is upsetting to me is that I personally enjoyed TLJ compared to TFA so much because it felt so creatively free. But then Lucasfilm turned right back around and got cold feet. But that was most likely due to “fan response”, so who really is the one at fault???

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The complete interview with Daisy Ridley

Han: Hey Lando! You kept your promise, right? Not a scratch?
Lando: Well, what’s left of her isn’t scratched. All the scratched parts got knocked off along the way.
Han (exasperated): Knocked off?!

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The difference is the future movies need to stand by the change. Vader as Luke’s father isn’t contradicted by ROTJ. Luke and Leia as sisters was pulled in last minute but if you go back it isn’t that bad, as Luke and Leia never show romantic feelings or something. If it were so obviously a later change it would have been a bad twist. Same for Anakin, his motivation actually algins better imo with the love established in AOTC.

The ST though honestly feels like Abrams and Johnson wrestling for control over the story. TLJ at least tries to build on TFA even if many of the twists toe the line, I’d say they work. TROS abandons any regard of plausibility.

Imagine if ROTJ revealed the following. Vader lied to Luke and the twist was just for shock value, REALLY Luke’s father was a heroic Jedi Knight. All the emotional opportunities and arcs setup by ESB? Nevermind.

The Empire that has been steadily built up as the big bad is nothing more than a shill for the Yuuzhan Vong, who arrive with no explanation and midway through kill the Emperor. The threat level of the Empire last movie was literally based around? Nevermind.

Han suddenly has no agency… wait nvm ROTJ already had that. All his arc as a smuggler slowing turning good skipped over to the end, where he can be a flat character meant to drive plot.

The Vong seem to contradict everything Yoda told us about the force but no one addresses it. So all of Yoda teachings? Nevermind.

In the end, Luke wins and goes back to Tatooine where he takes up the name “Lars” in honor of his aunt and uncle for whatever reason. The entire point of Luke trying to move away from Tatooine and see the galaxy? Nevermind.

This contradicts everything ANH and ESB were setting up. Maybe a few of these could have worked, had it been properly developed, but using TROS as a model none of them would be and it’d all make no sense.

Maul- A Star Wars Story

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OutboundFlight said:
This contradicts everything ANH and ESB were setting up. Maybe a few of these could have worked, had it been properly developed, but using TROS as a model none of them would be and it’d all make no sense.

*Thunderous Applause 👏

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OutboundFlight said:

The difference is the future movies need to stand by the change. Vader as Luke’s father isn’t contradicted by ROTJ. Luke and Leia as sisters was pulled in last minute but if you go back it isn’t that bad, as Luke and Leia never show romantic feelings or something. If it were so obviously a later change it would have been a bad twist. Same for Anakin, his motivation actually algins better imo with the love established in AOTC.

The ST though honestly feels like Abrams and Johnson wrestling for control over the story. TLJ at least tries to build on TFA even if many of the twists toe the line, I’d say they work. TROS abandons any regard of plausibility.

Imagine if ROTJ revealed the following. Vader lied to Luke and the twist was just for shock value, REALLY Luke’s father was a heroic Jedi Knight. All the emotional opportunities and arcs setup by ESB? Nevermind.

The Empire that has been steadily built up as the big bad is nothing more than a shill for the Yuuzhan Vong, who arrive with no explanation and midway through kill the Emperor. The threat level of the Empire last movie was literally based around? Nevermind.

Han suddenly has no agency… wait nvm ROTJ already had that. All his arc as a smuggler slowing turning good skipped over to the end, where he can be a flat character meant to drive plot.

The Vong seem to contradict everything Yoda told us about the force but no one addresses it. So all of Yoda teachings? Nevermind.

In the end, Luke wins and goes back to Tatooine where he takes up the name “Lars” in honor of his aunt and uncle for whatever reason. The entire point of Luke trying to move away from Tatooine and see the galaxy? Nevermind.

This contradicts everything ANH and ESB were setting up. Maybe a few of these could have worked, had it been properly developed, but using TROS as a model none of them would be and it’d all make no sense.

Luke VERY CLEARLY had romantic feelings for Leia in SW77 and TESB.

http://henrynsilva.blogspot.com/2023/10/full-circle-order-new-way-to-watch-star.html?m=1

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Instead of the Vong, have the threat in ROTJ be a secret Separatist fleet where each ship has a mini Death Star led by Viceroy Gunray whose spirit survived ROTS and was reanimated into a cloned body and Vader is searching for this secret fleet in order to control the galaxy after the Emperor died and left him all his Imperial ships which already control the galaxy and Yoda dies but Luke has found a secret holocron which tells of the location of this Separatist fleet and he learns how he’s actually the cloned son of Gunray which means he’s destined to become the leader of the Final Trade Federation and he must resist this temptation in order to use two lightsabers he didn’t build to beat the clone of Gunray while dying in the process but luckily Vader tuns good and brings Luke back from the dead leading to a romantic kiss and then the Separatist fleet blows up conveniently and the galaxy rises up against the Empire off screen and Yoda’s body finally disappears and Chewie gets a medal for winning the Clone Wars and Luke goes back to Naboo and buries some lightsabers in the sand and tries to guess the names of the birds singing.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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It’s really weird because the two films prior don’t really seem to be setting up any romantic relationships between the two

That’s what I said, but apparently I’m just a weird straight person who can’t see gay subtext. At least that’s the impression I get from what I’ve been told.

I thought RLM hit the nail on the head when discussing how sexless TFA was in comparison to the first two trilogies, and this carried through the entire ST. I would have preferred some definite romantic relationships of any type instead of the vague platonic mess that was TROS.

That’s right! Where’s our Reylo sex scene?

the fact that none of the main characters have a healthy romantic relationship with someone else makes it seem like Disney were just trying to play things overly-safe.

When has Star Wars ever had a healthy romance? Han’s yes means no and divorce when the kid goes rogue approach is hardly admirable, and need I explain what’s wrong with Padme and Anakin?

My last complaint for here would have to be how rushed the film felt to cap off the entire saga, when it would’ve been better to focus on ending the trilogy, not the saga.

Really? AFAICT, all it did to cap off the Saga over the trilogy was bring Palpatine into the mix.

Luke and Leia as sisters was pulled in last minute but if you go back it isn’t that bad, as Luke and Leia never show romantic feelings or something.

Luke and Leia being related is just as embarrassing as Rey Palpatine. Okay, well technically not as much since it didn’t contradict the last film, but the idea is just as cringey.

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Anakin Starkiller said:

Luke and Leia being related is just as embarrassing as Rey Palpatine. Okay, well technically not as much since it didn’t contradict the last film, but the idea is just as cringey.

The Luke/Leia thing is infinitely worse than Rey Palpatine. Firstly Luke clearly had romantic feelings for Leia in eps 4 and 5. Secondly there was nothing whatsoever to indicate she was a Force-sensitive Skywalker all along. Thirdly it contradicts Yoda’s entire “too old to begin the training” thing since Leia hadn’t had a lick of training when he announced the ‘other’. And finally, the most overlooked one, Leia was a prisoner on Cloud City when Yoda said “there is another” - immediately after stating a) “now matters are worse” (meaning he couldn’t have known Luke or Leia would survive the Bespin fiasco) and b) he had just insisted Luke sacrifice Han and Leia for the greater good!

Rey’s being a Palpatine at least made some sense of the fact that she had godlike powers for no good reason.

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Rey’s power level was never something I had an issue with. Leia Skywalker and Rey Palpatine are both equally dumb for shrinking the Galaxy by making people related without it actually benefiting the plot in any way. It just happens and you’re expected to accept it.

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Yeah Luke and Leia being related is one of the retcons that irritates me the most.

While the fact that Rey’s origin kept changing throughout production is weird, I find it funny that most people in the reddit/YouTube sphere seem to be ignoring the fact that all of starwars has practically been BUILT on retcons and the idea of “making it up as you go along.”

One can’t help but wonder what the fandom would be like now had we gotten Splinter instead of Empire as the sequel to Star Wars. Sure, maybe there wouldn’t be as much fans or as much passion, and maybe the movies wouldn’t feel as “grand” as they do now, but it sounds like things wouldn’t have been so “retconny” had the series stuck more closely to its “pulp serial” roots.

http://henrynsilva.blogspot.com/2023/10/full-circle-order-new-way-to-watch-star.html?m=1

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dgraham414 said:

I was gonna post this in Hal’s Ascendant thread but I didn’t want to derail discussions of his excellent edit so here it is.

Alright, I am mad at Star Wars fans again… Did ANYONE really think that they would plan out the three movies fully in advance? The originals didn’t do that… the PREQUELS didn’t do that.

The difference is that both the OT and the PT were created from the singular vision of one person. They had other writers and artists that contributed massively but it was all done under the approval of a single person, George Lucas.

The Sequel Trilogy had no singular vision. Each film was done in a vacuum with the next one being written while the previous was still in production. There is no cohesion between them. And that is why they fail.

With just a little planning this mess could have been avoided. To make it work, all they needed to do was figure out who their writers and directors were going to be and then sit them all down in a room together to figure out what the overarching story would be. Hash out the big picture ahead of time instead of doing it all piecemeal.

But they didn’t do that and this is the result.

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Tobar said:

But they didn’t do that and this is the result.

Factual information.

Even a little bit planning would have gone along way, even if they’d end up changing a lot. Of course changes will be made, but look at what they did to my boy Finn!!! When you don’t have a plan, best case scenario is you avoid lost potential, worst case scenario is you lose a lot of potential! (Finn) *cough. Ugh, i’m sad. I like that they originally chose 3 different directors, but 3 different writers without a plan? Eesh. They ended up doubling down on everything that was wrong with this trilogy from the start. (And I loved TFA and TLJ).

I read “The Making of STAR WARS” book over the summer and it was just so humbling to read about George as a young man trying to create his space opera. The inspiration came from a place of optimism during the pessimistic 1970’s. He wanted to create a myth for young people after their positive reaction to American Graffiti. George says in his Charlie Rose interview that Lucasfilm was losing money, and he had employees to think about. Honestly it sounds like he was coming from a place of fear, even when he started to think about this new trilogy. My point is, the initial reasoning behind creating the ST came from a place of “we need a story to make money” rather than a place of singular inspiration.

On the bright side, my young cousins experiencing star wars for the first time with this trilogy really love it. They can’t see through the cynical cracks like we can.

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but 3 different writers without a plan?

Five, actually. TFA has three credited writers and RoS has two, although Abrams is one of each. For comparison the OT had three and the PT had two, and all the of the first six films at least gave Lucas a story by credit, so there was guiding vision. RoS gives that credit to DotF’s writers (for some reason), so if you count those the ST has a whopping seven different writers, only one of which appeared for more than one entry (Abrams). Compare that to the PT being almost singlehandedly written by Lucas (with help on AotC) and the difference is night and day. The PT knew what story it wanted to tell and the ST didn’t. Hell, the ST even had a different producer each on top of Kennedy and Abrams (the latter only for the ones he directed).