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The Rise Of Skywalker — Official Review and Opinions Thread — Page 14

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RogueLeader said:

Regarding the Emperor, I think the implication is that he’s not giving the throne to another, but he would possess whoever would open themselves to the dark side and kill him.

Aye, you probably most correct. I do remember him saying becoming “one”

The Rise of Failures

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I thought 3PO was great. Really don’t have any complaints about that aspect. But then, 3PO was always one of my favorite characters.

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NeverarGreat said:

There were far worse ways to close out the saga than with a focus on one of the two droids that have seen it all.

The only problem with it is the lack of R2!

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There was one shot that I really loved in the movie and keep thinking about. It’s when Rey is entering the Sith temple and it’s this super wide shot of her walking through it, with the dark floor and dark ceiling making her feel tiny in comparison. And during it, we hear the Emperor’s theme play in the background.

While I’m not a fan of Rey Palpatine, I think it would’ve been awesome if at this moment we had heard a version of the Emperor’s theme, but with a female chorus. It would be like the theme for her newfound past and potential future, the power she could have if she gave in.

But John Williams probably finished scoring by the time they changed that in reshoots!

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RogueLeader said:

But John Williams probably finished scoring by the time they changed that in reshoots!

Reason #5206 why I never want to be a Hollywood filmmaker.

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TavorX said:

They realllllyyyy beat a dead horse with the non stop C3PO jokes.

But at least C-3PO is relevant to the plot. In TLJ he’s nearly inexistant, and in TFA he’s downright pathetic.

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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I’m not disputing that.
I believe the issue was that 3PO doesn’t have his companion to play off of. Nearly every scene seems to require Poe to have beef with him. I didn’t mind much 3PO’s moments apart from the main characters. But combined with the over done ESB-esque humor cranked up way high, could had been toned way down.

The Rise of Failures

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DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

On second viewing I liked it even more. I had in the back of my mind that I might have missed something the first time around, but I don’t think I did. I didn’t find any big holes and it was even more fun to see it again. I was able to concentrate and hear most of the Jedi lines. Awesome film. Abrams best film ever. He actually managed to nail the ending and add in a short epilogue.

I didn’t have the same experience. If I turn off my brain, it’s a fun albeit messy movie, but once I really delved into the plot, and story it really sort of falls apart much like JJ’s Star Trek 2. There’s a ton of conveniences from the way the heroes conveniently stumble onto the dagger by conveniently landing in quick sand at the right spot, to the way they escape on a ship, that has stood untouched on a hill for a decade (contrast this with the Mandalorean finding his ship stripped for parts after a day), to how the dagger is used to find the location of the wayfinder on moving wreckage in an ocean. Then there’s Lando conjuring a massive fleet and getting it from the core systems to the unknown regions in a time frame that just isn’t possible according to Star Wars canon. I could go on, and on, but you get the idea. This movie is just so sloppy in terms of its storytelling both in terms of in-movie logic, and in relation to established in-universe rules, and lore. I’m not going to be debating this very much anymore, as I’ve kind of grown apathetic towards the new Star Wars movies in general, and the ST in particular (RO being the sole exception), but in my view TFA was a fun, reasonably competent retelling of ANH with a few elements of TESB, and ROTJ thrown in, TLJ is the anti-thesis of Lucas’ Star Wars for me, that I don’t care to discuss any longer, and TROS is ROTJ on steriods, a movie, that hides its many, many flaws with lightning fast pacing, and amazing visuals. It’s funny that with the release of TROS I’m kind of done with discussing these films. There’s just not much there for me, that I haven’t seen done better in the past, and so ROTJ will remain the conclusion of the saga for me personally. The one thing that I am oddly grateful for is, that the recent movies have given me a better appreciation of Lucas’ prequels. I think the Mandalorian, and other live action tv shows have a lot of potential for the future, but the Star Wars cinematic universe has grown stale in my view. I will sort of look at it from a distance to see how Disney will handle the inevitable fallout from the film’s likely underperformance at the box office, mixed reviews, and low cinema score. I suspect they will want to put this entire mess behind them, and will largely ignore this era in their future content, and a new team will likely be brought in to shape the future of the Star Wars cinematic universe.

If timing is part of sloppy story telling that TESB is one of the biggest offenders. Going from Hoth, through the Anoat system, to Bespin during the time Luke trains on Dagobah is nuts. It is a journey that should take years without a hyperdrive. Lando arriving with ships is peanuts in comparison. Not to mention Tatooine being as far as you can get from the bright center of the universe, but apparently being right off the major hyperspace lanes that connect everything. Naboo and Alderaan are nearby, as is Geonosis. And the wreckage of the Death Star was not moving. The characters standing on the wreckage are never tossed around as happens on a floating object. If you are going to dislike a film, please judge it with an equal measure to the three films we know you love. Don’t point out flaws that are also found in the originals (and the originals have their fair share of issues if you examine them too closely). They are supposed to be Space Opera myths for our modern age, so some of those things are not as important as the human story and the good vs. evil lesson that they try to get across.

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Standouts for me:
⟩Rey and Kylo playing Force tug of war with the transport ship and then the surprise lighting from Rey.
⟩3PO’s line, “Babu Frik is the oldest friend I know!”
⟩Poe and Zorri having a quiet conversation
⟩Poe in general having a bitter attitude about fighting a war that no one else seems to care for either.
⟩Finn not being the butt of a joke and actually grows into a leader
⟩Leia calling to Ben, which also afflicted Rey
⟩Rey losing it, giving into hate/fear/anger
⟩Rey taking on the Skywalker name

The Rise of Failures

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yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

On second viewing I liked it even more. I had in the back of my mind that I might have missed something the first time around, but I don’t think I did. I didn’t find any big holes and it was even more fun to see it again. I was able to concentrate and hear most of the Jedi lines. Awesome film. Abrams best film ever. He actually managed to nail the ending and add in a short epilogue.

I didn’t have the same experience. If I turn off my brain, it’s a fun albeit messy movie, but once I really delved into the plot, and story it really sort of falls apart much like JJ’s Star Trek 2. There’s a ton of conveniences from the way the heroes conveniently stumble onto the dagger by conveniently landing in quick sand at the right spot, to the way they escape on a ship, that has stood untouched on a hill for a decade (contrast this with the Mandalorean finding his ship stripped for parts after a day), to how the dagger is used to find the location of the wayfinder on moving wreckage in an ocean. Then there’s Lando conjuring a massive fleet and getting it from the core systems to the unknown regions in a time frame that just isn’t possible according to Star Wars canon. I could go on, and on, but you get the idea. This movie is just so sloppy in terms of its storytelling both in terms of in-movie logic, and in relation to established in-universe rules, and lore. I’m not going to be debating this very much anymore, as I’ve kind of grown apathetic towards the new Star Wars movies in general, and the ST in particular (RO being the sole exception), but in my view TFA was a fun, reasonably competent retelling of ANH with a few elements of TESB, and ROTJ thrown in, TLJ is the anti-thesis of Lucas’ Star Wars for me, that I don’t care to discuss any longer, and TROS is ROTJ on steriods, a movie, that hides its many, many flaws with lightning fast pacing, and amazing visuals. It’s funny that with the release of TROS I’m kind of done with discussing these films. There’s just not much there for me, that I haven’t seen done better in the past, and so ROTJ will remain the conclusion of the saga for me personally. The one thing that I am oddly grateful for is, that the recent movies have given me a better appreciation of Lucas’ prequels. I think the Mandalorian, and other live action tv shows have a lot of potential for the future, but the Star Wars cinematic universe has grown stale in my view. I will sort of look at it from a distance to see how Disney will handle the inevitable fallout from the film’s likely underperformance at the box office, mixed reviews, and low cinema score. I suspect they will want to put this entire mess behind them, and will largely ignore this era in their future content, and a new team will likely be brought in to shape the future of the Star Wars cinematic universe.

If timing is part of sloppy story telling that TESB is one of the biggest offenders. Going from Hoth, through the Anoat system, to Bespin during the time Luke trains on Dagobah is nuts. It is a journey that should take years without a hyperdrive. Lando arriving with ships is peanuts in comparison. Not to mention Tatooine being as far as you can get from the bright center of the universe, but apparently being right off the major hyperspace lanes that connect everything. Naboo and Alderaan are nearby, as is Geonosis. And the wreckage of the Death Star was not moving. The characters standing on the wreckage are never tossed around as happens on a floating object. If you are going to dislike a film, please judge it with an equal measure to the three films we know you love. Don’t point out flaws that are also found in the originals (and the originals have their fair share of issues if you examine them too closely). They are supposed to be Space Opera myths for our modern age, so some of those things are not as important as the human story and the good vs. evil lesson that they try to get across.

Unlike in TROS we don’t get a time frame for the Falcon’s journey, or Luke’s stay on Dagobah. Additionally we don’t know how long the gang stayed at Cloud City before they were lured into a trap. We don’t know how long the gang were imprisoned/tortured either, before Luke arrived. It could be months for all we know. TROS expects us to believe, that in less than 16 hours, Lando is able to travel to thousands of systems, convince them of joining the fight against the Final Order, despite the fact that they wouldn’t come to the Resistance’s aid, when they had destroyed SKB, mobilize a gigantic fleet of thousands of ships, that then have to travel across the galaxy to arrive just in time to destroy an immense fleet of star destroyers, that conviently are dead in the water from the get go. The situations are just not comparable. One film is just our heroes travelling/training/staying in a few locations over an unknown time frame, while the other sets a precise time frame, where somewhere in this time frame they meet Lando, have numerous adventures, and then have to conjure up a well coordinated enormous fleet somehow at the last minute. The former is perfectly believable, since there is no time frame given, the second is just nonsensical.

Just to be clear, Bespin and Hoth are so close to each other, they are put in the same spot on the map.

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Many things to say about the movie, which I haven’t seen again since my first watching.

I Agree with NFT, while totally disagreeable and quite excessively compelled to say something about issues of today, TLJ felt like it came from a honest place. Yes, it has integrity, regardless of wether that integrity is placed in the easiest and most superficial approach on state-of-the-culture discussion. However, and besides Holdo, and other eye-rolling stuff like it, I think this movie puts forth the most fundamental flaw TLJ had, which is to make the trio of protagonists be together on screen, which as this movie proves and gets you wanting more of it, essentially works in an actors-chemistry level. In defense of TLJ, it had to develop the Luke-Rey thread, so had it quite difficult to solve that problem, though.

In a visual level, while palm on palm with TLJ in terms of the composition of colours and framing, this film is a relapse on some of Abrams most distinctive -and boring to me- signature: epic epic epicness and pretentiously oversized architectural scale.

While the father figure in ANH fell dead in a matter-of-fact corridor which name we -or at least, I- know for the title of a fan film, TFA’s father figure had to die in a bridge that had no utility but because it looked “kuhl” in the middle of a pit filled with darkness, with only one ray of light conveniently placed upon his head, which as well faded when he died. While you can relate to loosing someone from a heart attack in a bathroom, or some beloved one being killed in a dark alley, the whole idea of TFA was and felt more based in what’s vissually cool than what makes sense and is relatable. And these kind of underlining the symbolism up to the point of making it explicit is what makes both Abrams films feel like a itinerary made by a fan across scenarios that would-be cool to watch. Straight out of a comic book, or a Kurosawa film, and not mediated by the sui-generis filter that the Star Wars recipee is. Of course, that recipee takes from Kurosawa, but reformulates it in its own proper way, and therefore going back to the sources instead of going to what already had been elaborated from them always keeps rethreading the feeling that visually these movies delve in a register possible today and impossible yesterday, where visually Abrams makes in the ST what GL couldn’t make in the OT. And the fact that today we can on scren what yesterday we probably couldn’t is sufficient excuse to have a near-death head of state that instead of being in a controlled space beneath a bazillion locks is sitting in a weird rock chair in a colossal arena full of people whose presence doesn’t neither make sense nor is explainable in universe. Compare it to the throne room in ROTJ, which was monumental for its time yet had the scope of having a sense of intimacy; compare it to even Coruscant’s Senate Chamber, with all the symbol of being a capital of the galaxy, compare it to the Death Star’s low cieilings… the prequels, while betraying the scale of the events of OT, by being chronologically precedents within universe gave the feeling that the story closed from wide open, to open, to closed spaces as well as the story entwined itself from a a galactical conflict to a family conflict.
If on the other extreme of the rope you produce the exact same effect, the result is nonesensical, and more and more anime like, just because you now can.

This, of course, is true in our world, but within the movie Universe, which is by nature a romantic universe that longs to a long-lost past, like ObiWan says in ANH about those thousand generations, you keep making the symbolism of events bigger as you progress in the saga, while the trascendence of previous events as refered to within the saga is always backwards in scale and importance. Kylo Ren is made to look back on Vader while he achieves feats and reaches places Vader never was in back in the OT. So it was from the beginning a very difficult, near impossible position, where a guiding choice was to be made, and was never made except in a pragmatical need-to basis, from which the coherence of the saga ends up suffering:

-Anakin was the chosen one but not so much since had he been it, these movies wouldn’t make sense.
-The Empire is in ruins that look cool on screen but somehow it’s more powerful than before.
-Palpatine is to be feared because he was the big bad evil from previous installments, but somehow his return is a return on a grander scale that couldn’t possibly be explained.
-Had R2 (the most bastardized character of this trilogy) been awaken, TFA would have made not sense for most of it, but we need BB8, who is so cool.
And I could go on.

From these kind of stuff, TLJ tried to warn by making a script in which, toning down these contradictions, opened gates to other possible resolutions; if not even to consider the fact that there might not have been a resolution at all, unless TLJ was to be made EPVII and have another middle act and this resolution.

However, the “lock” that TLJ put on IX was so opressive that you could even argue TLJ was a liberating chapter not by its own postmodern dogmatisms but because it could only be precedent to this clear “fuck it, have fun and shut up” this episode is, with all its own flaws. At least to me, and albeit fast paced, it’s the most Star Warsy -OT way- episode since the OT, except for Rogue One, which in my opinion got almost all of it right.

As for character choices, Rey being a Palpatine is a turn-back on the supposed “Skywalker saga”. No matter how many fingers end up being pointed at me, I will say bloodlines matter for any human being. Based on this burgeoise-thinking “american way” that roots itself on the idea that “you and only you make your own fate” the trilogy had a very big a priori on the fact that chosen families are more important than true lineage. And while this is socially accepted from an extrinsic perspective to that of the individual who is in that position, and while I even agree with it at some point, it doesn’t, repeat, it doesn’t near closely resemble the conflict for the individual in question. For someone who doesn’t know where he/she comes from, chosen family is the only thing he/she knew, so overruling the idea by denying the identity conflict that implies not knowing where you factually come from, far from “progressive” thinking is actually a rather XIXth century position where adopted children were not even told they were adopted, in this case scenario, the explicit excuse would be “because it doesn’t matter where you come from”. Only that, as proven two centuries ago, it just doesn’t work that way on the affected person him/herself.
Transpolating, had Luke denied that conflict from the beginning, he would have been Luke Lars and no OT would have taken place.

On the other hand, this film attacks this conflict by actually giving Rey a lineage, and having her resolve on her own what she wants to be, based on what she is and what she can possibly be. The fact that she ends up being a Palpatine is a good mouth-shutter for all the Mary Sue issue the trilogy made up based on extrinsical reasons such as girl power and stuff; and at the same time an opening of the “mistery box” defined in TFA, which at least to me is the root of all the problem.

Why? Because not a single fan of the saga wasn’t prepared to know and see in a potential ST that the fellows of the OT had offspring. Luke with some woman, and Han and Leia. It’s the building of a pointless mistery box around both protagonists that defined a smock from which the writing simply never quite recovered up straight.

With Ben Solo, take up the Mandalorian for example, the last chapter where his name is revealed. Filoni doesn’t add up to the moment. The Moff speaks the line unconscious of how the line would fall on the viewer, because IN UNIVERSE it doesn’t make sens to make that underlining. Now take the hologram of Snoke in TFA: in the hands of your faaaaaathaaa…HAN…(dum dum dum) SOLO. It’s another case of epic epic epicness becoming a cartoonish shit.

With Rey, why not just from the very beginning made her Luke’s child? Why on earth would they think that would have been a duller or plain plotline? As if history wouldn’t have several cases of children of distinguished parents -whose fame and duty eclipsed their own domestical duties as parents- that end up being fuck ups or potential fuck ups. Yes, sure, not sympathetic for General Leia and Master Skywalker, but it would have been a good way to make the script, the scope of the trilogy a little smaller, and the depth a little larger.

As for OT trio, missed oportunity to have them on screen together by VII, but I have to say that besides from that, ending the Saga centered on Leia as a mentor is only regardable to again, extrinsic reasons. Leia is courage and determination, Han is conflict, Luke is wisdom. The structure of who had to be the present figure in every chapter was very very clear. And, keeping the titles I’ve put, it more or less ends up summarizing every chapter of the trilogy as it ended up being, only that there’s not a smooth transition from one to the other.

I’m sorry, but Leia dies. Of old age. It’s not Yoda’s death. While not developed, its clear within the 6 episode GL saga, that both OBK and Yoda paid in the OT the arrogance of the PT’s Jedi Order, his death in peace comes as a realisation after enduring his own failures and trying to make up for them with Luke. What was Leia’s arc in this ST, or worse, putting together OT and ST?

Princess dressed as ballsy woman gets her home-planet destroyed and her adopted family killed, not a wink 'cause she’s guts. Princess dressed as ballsy woman doesn’t know what to do with her feelings. Ballsy woman realises she’s a princess and acts on her feelings for the good rascal, ends up with him.
Cut up to VII, Princess is a ballsy woman again all development turned backward. The offspring of her feelings as a parricide, who kills the one who made her be in peace with her royal nature: not much of a wink. Parricide comes after her, her own son: not a wink… even makes joke about her hair.

IX: ballsy woman dies after not acting individually at all on most of these facts.
Conflict? Not so much. Wisdom? Jokes about hair, and Carrie Fisher branded -Not Leia’s- sarcasm. Power? Yes, power over the same type of character that got her in the OT, in this case the ST good rascal that later says “our mothers and fathers fought for”, even when two previous installments have shown not the mother of the OT trio, but both the fathers actually making the moves…closing titles, Carrie Fisher listed above Mark Hamill.
Between “the trauma” of a hand being chopped by a father, and life-lasting denial from a supposedly strong momma figure, it’s shallow to claim one is more violent than the other and that this trilogy is virtuous because we’ve left behind the age of offspring abusive traumas, just because what is denied is the explicit and densified act in a mutilation, while if it’s hypodermical it’s all good.

Complexity of the femenine character that would have been interesting to develop buried beneath this testament of nerdish and idealistic idea of strenght in women represented only as gutsiness. Wisdom that this femenine character added to the protagonist to face the Emperor? Zero. All critics to this are meant to be regarded as sexist, just in case.

So:

With the OT trio misspent across the trilogy, with Luke gone prematurely and not being able to reach the protagonist in a constant way in her last act (the whole film) of growth, regardless of Rey’s coming of age ang growth tale being more paralable to a traditional male protagonist and hence being distinctive from what Leia’s coming of age story was in the OT, not to discuss gender stuff here.

With a framing that was thought for a stand alone movie based on nostalgia (TFA), that if thought spreaded across a trilogy would simply end up -as it ended up- feeling shallow and superficial, and whose only depth could come -and came- from its metacomment nature on why we love the OT:

a) Rebels, who won but somehow still exist, vs Empire, who lost, but somehow is still strong and even stronger.

b) in fronteer worlds, while somehow if there was a natural continuation, or even a debt (considering it was the original plan for ROTJ but couldn’t be done at the time) it was to move the action again to the core worlds, or to revisit previous films worlds, NOT FOR THEIR VISUAL APPEAL but because something was to possibly happen in some of those places to tie in with previous episodes, otherwise it doesn’t make sense to have the rebels always be in a jungle planet, the jedi and protagonists always be or come from a desert planer, the empire always be strong in white -ice, salt- environments.

With hollow concepts that take the most ominous symbolisms and make them explicit as fuck even if they weren’s established as such in previous films, such as “anakin’s lightsabre”, the “map to Luke Skywalker”, the “sith fleet”, the “knights of ren”, the “helmet of kylo ren”, the “helmet of Darth Vader”, the “sith dagger” (about the sith dagger, treated as if it was a 1500 years-old-artifact made me laugh hardly, it’s just something that was lost for Rey’s age since it was used to kill her parents. In fact it can’t be older than ROTJ, since how and why would the emperor write in a dagger his location, before he even gets to that location after his supposed death in DSII. Same for “sith language”, which a young Anakin from the ass-of-the-galaxy world of Tattooine could publicly upload in a home-made droid’s memory, yet some 50 years later is pretended to be a lost prehistoric language, killing all the indiana jones feeling of “archaeology of the galaxy” into a cartoonish shit that doesn’t make sense)

With those hollow concepts acting just as titles -even the grandish titles of the films themselves- for stuff that ends up being so general, so insubstantial and incorporeal that the hollowiness reveals itself in all its emptiness, which is filled with visual whims,

With the character that should have died in VII or VIII having a supposedly significant role in this one, while having to deal with the actress death,

With a story that couldn’t move to many places other than a sort of an isolated chapter than somehow summarized a trilogy in itself,

With a protagonist trio whose chemistry had never been fleshed out in previous installments,

With a vilain came out of nowhere just for this episode, and to which all those who could have helped somehow the protagonist are dead, and wouldn’t they be dead none of the trilogy, not even the vilain’s return would have taken place,

With an infuriated and polarised fan base to please,

With Disney’s meta-threads all over the place,

With the director’s own features and weaknesses, both visually and in script,

What was this movie to be if not what it is? Just a visually appealing compromise to all factions and conditionants, in which the original lievity of a bunch of spaceships pew pew and a gang of friends is the only thing that feels home, and by being the only thing that feels right and yet being enjoyable reminds us of how important that core base was.

And as such, it is a nice coda. The saga ended, against all odds for me given how distasteful the film feels for me in the context of the saga, in VIII with Luke’s death. Had I to pick one of them and edit Force ghosts to give closure -not saying that in IX they weren’t needed- I’d just put Anakin, ObiWan and Yoda in Luke’s death scene, and bye bye.

Some word more about JJ’s approach: he needs to stop thinking movies as a spectator. If you analyse his “mistery box” TedEx talk, he is clearly reversing the roles of film-maker and film-viewer in a way that “because I liked how it make me feel, I try to replicate the feeling and not the logical structure whence my feeling was rooted”.

As if Lucas thinking -or Rowling- was:

“I have a protagonist. He’s the son of a famous knight. He doesn’t know it. Famous knight has gone bad or dead in tragic circumstances. Protagonist doesn’t know it neither. It will have impact on protagonist. In part I I’ll make the protagonist wonder about these doubts”

While JJ’s: “I remember that the movie I liked as a kid was one where the protagonist didn’t know where he came from, and in the end it didn’t matter where he came from, what mattered was the mistery surrounding the subject”.

Hence, replicating the byproduct of good plotting, and not good plotting is not a guaranteed way to go, it’s the spectacle, the effect on the viewer what he seems to like, and at times it seems he’s not able to put himself in the other side of the bar.

If you call a film The Force Awakens, you need to make a film and a script where it is clear that the Force awakens. Not a film where you disgress in all your whims about what’s visually cool, and then tie the knots between those situations that are of visual nature, and tangentially and only tangentially two or three things or lines of dialogue take place where you take the title of the film. It has to be organic. Even if the title is completely metaphoric, as The Phantom Menace, it has to be organic.

Taking a stormtrooper and making it red, and because it is red and “looks badass” you call him “sith trooper” isn’t organic, it’s hollow. It’s just a trooper, that doesn’t have a single thing to do with the Sith. Whatever the Sith are, we can argue. But if within a story that has its own concepts and logics, wether you like them or are fond of them or not, you move your plotting with the only criterium of “feels good” or “looks good” or “feels challenging”, thus subjugating that logic, no matter how poor it was, to a soup where everything is the same, that’s called cynism.

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Mithrandir said:

Many things to say about the movie, which I haven’t seen again since my first watching.

I Agree with NFT, while totally disagreeable and quite excessively compelled to say something about issues of today, TLJ felt like it came from a honest place. Yes, it has integrity, regardless of wether that integrity is placed in the easiest and most superficial approach on state-of-the-culture discussion. However, and besides Holdo, and other eye-rolling stuff like it, I think this movie puts forth the most fundamental flaw TLJ had, which is to make the trio of protagonists be together on screen, which as this movie proves and gets you wanting more of it, essentially works in an actors-chemistry level. In defense of TLJ, it had to develop the Luke-Rey thread, so had it quite difficult to solve that problem, though.

In a visual level, while palm on palm with TLJ in terms of the composition of colours and framing, this film is a relapse on some of Abrams most distinctive -and boring to me- signature: epic epic epicness and pretentiously oversized architectural scale.

While the father figure in ANH fell dead in a matter-of-fact corridor which name we -or at least, I- know for the title of a fan film, TFA’s father figure had to die in a bridge that had no utility but because it looked “kuhl” in the middle of a pit filled with darkness, with only one ray of light conveniently placed upon his head, which as well faded when he died. While you can relate to loosing someone from a heart attack in a bathroom, or some beloved one being killed in a dark alley, the whole idea of TFA was and felt more based in what’s vissually cool than what makes sense and is relatable. And these kind of underlining the symbolism up to the point of making it explicit is what makes both Abrams films feel like a itinerary made by a fan across scenarios that would-be cool to watch. Straight out of a comic book, or a Kurosawa film, and not mediated by the sui-generis filter that the Star Wars recipee is. Of course, that recipee takes from Kurosawa, but reformulates it in its own proper way, and therefore going back to the sources instead of going to what already had been elaborated from them always keeps rethreading the feeling that visually these movies delve in a register possible today and impossible yesterday, where visually Abrams makes in the ST what GL couldn’t make in the OT. And the fact that today we can on scren what yesterday we probably couldn’t is sufficient excuse to have a near-death head of state that instead of being in a controlled space beneath a bazillion locks is sitting in a weird rock chair in a colossal arena full of people whose presence doesn’t neither make sense nor is explainable in universe. Compare it to the throne room in ROTJ, which was monumental for its time yet had the scope of having a sense of intimacy; compare it to even Coruscant’s Senate Chamber, with all the symbol of being a capital of the galaxy, compare it to the Death Star’s low cieilings… the prequels, while betraying the scale of the events of OT, by being chronologically precedents within universe gave the feeling that the story closed from wide open, to open, to closed spaces as well as the story entwined itself from a a galactical conflict to a family conflict.
If on the other extreme of the rope you produce the exact same effect, the result is nonesensical, and more and more anime like, just because you now can.

This, of course, is true in our world, but within the movie Universe, which is by nature a romantic universe that longs to a long-lost past, like ObiWan says in ANH about those thousand generations, you keep making the symbolism of events bigger as you progress in the saga, while the trascendence of previous events as refered to within the saga is always backwards in scale and importance. Kylo Ren is made to look back on Vader while he achieves feats and reaches places Vader never was in back in the OT. So it was from the beginning a very difficult, near impossible position, where a guiding choice was to be made, and was never made except in a pragmatical need-to basis, from which the coherence of the saga ends up suffering:

-Anakin was the chosen one but not so much since had he been it, these movies wouldn’t make sense.
-The Empire is in ruins that look cool on screen but somehow it’s more powerful than before.
-Palpatine is to be feared because he was the big bad evil from previous installments, but somehow his return is a return on a grander scale that couldn’t possibly be explained.
-Had R2 (the most bastardized character of this trilogy) been awaken, TFA would have made not sense for most of it, but we need BB8, who is so cool.
And I could go on.

From these kind of stuff, TLJ tried to warn by making a script in which, toning down these contradictions, opened gates to other possible resolutions; if not even to consider the fact that there might not have been a resolution at all, unless TLJ was to be made EPVII and have another middle act and this resolution.

However, the “lock” that TLJ put on IX was so opressive that you could even argue TLJ was a liberating chapter not by its own postmodern dogmatisms but because it could only be precedent to this clear “fuck it, have fun and shut up” this episode is, with all its own flaws. At least to me, and albeit fast paced, it’s the most Star Warsy -OT way- episode since the OT, except for Rogue One, which in my opinion got almost all of it right.

As for character choices, Rey being a Palpatine is a turn-back on the supposed “Skywalker saga”. No matter how many fingers end up being pointed at me, I will say bloodlines matter for any human being. Based on this burgeoise-thinking “american way” that roots itself on the idea that “you and only you make your own fate” the trilogy had a very big a priori on the fact that chosen families are more important than true lineage. And while this is socially accepted from an extrinsic perspective to that of the individual who is in that position, and while I even agree with it at some point, it doesn’t, repeat, it doesn’t near closely resemble the conflict for the individual in question. For someone who doesn’t know where he/she comes from, chosen family is the only thing he/she knew, so overruling the idea by denying the identity conflict that implies not knowing where you factually come from, far from “progressive” thinking is actually a rather XIXth century position where adopted children were not even told they were adopted, in this case scenario, the explicit excuse would be “because it doesn’t matter where you come from”. Only that, as proven two centuries ago, it just doesn’t work that way on the affected person him/herself.
Transpolating, had Luke denied that conflict from the beginning, he would have been Luke Lars and no OT would have taken place.

On the other hand, this film attacks this conflict by actually giving Rey a lineage, and having her resolve on her own what she wants to be, based on what she is and what she can possibly be. The fact that she ends up being a Palpatine is a good mouth-shutter for all the Mary Sue issue the trilogy made up based on extrinsical reasons such as girl power and stuff; and at the same time an opening of the “mistery box” defined in TFA, which at least to me is the root of all the problem.

Why? Because not a single fan of the saga wasn’t prepared to know and see in a potential ST that the fellows of the OT had offspring. Luke with some woman, and Han and Leia. It’s the building of a pointless mistery box around both protagonists that defined a smock from which the writing simply never quite recovered up straight.

With Ben Solo, take up the Mandalorian for example, the last chapter where his name is revealed. Filoni doesn’t add up to the moment. The Moff speaks the line unconscious of how the line would fall on the viewer, because IN UNIVERSE it doesn’t make sens to make that underlining. Now take the hologram of Snoke in TFA: in the hands of your faaaaaathaaa…HAN…(dum dum dum) SOLO. It’s another case of epic epic epicness becoming a cartoonish shit.

With Rey, why not just from the very beginning made her Luke’s child? Why on earth would they think that would have been a duller or plain plotline? As if history wouldn’t have several cases of children of distinguished parents -whose fame and duty eclipsed their own domestical duties as parents- that end up being fuck ups or potential fuck ups. Yes, sure, not sympathetic for General Leia and Master Skywalker, but it would have been a good way to make the script, the scope of the trilogy a little smaller, and the depth a little larger.

As for OT trio, missed oportunity to have them on screen together by VII, but I have to say that besides from that, ending the Saga centered on Leia as a mentor is only regardable to again, extrinsic reasons. Leia is courage and determination, Han is conflict, Luke is wisdom. The structure of who had to be the present figure in every chapter was very very clear. And, keeping the titles I’ve put, it more or less ends up summarizing every chapter of the trilogy as it ended up being, only that there’s not a smooth transition from one to the other.

I’m sorry, but Leia dies. Of old age. It’s not Yoda’s death. While not developed, its clear within the 6 episode GL saga, that both OBK and Yoda paid in the OT the arrogance of the PT’s Jedi Order, his death in peace comes as a realisation after enduring his own failures and trying to make up for them with Luke. What was Leia’s arc in this ST, or worse, putting together OT and ST?

Princess dressed as ballsy woman gets her home-planet destroyed and her adopted family killed, not a wink 'cause she’s guts. Princess dressed as ballsy woman doesn’t know what to do with her feelings. Ballsy woman realises she’s a princess and acts on her feelings for the good rascal, ends up with him.
Cut up to VII, Princess is a ballsy woman again all development turned backward. The offspring of her feelings as a parricide, who kills the one who made her be in peace with her royal nature: not much of a wink. Parricide comes after her, her own son: not a wink… even makes joke about her hair.

IX: ballsy woman dies after not acting individually at all on most of these facts.
Conflict? Not so much. Wisdom? Jokes about hair, and Carrie Fisher branded -Not Leia’s- sarcasm. Power? Yes, power over the same type of character that got her in the OT, in this case the ST good rascal that later says “our mothers and fathers fought for”, even when two previous installments have shown not the mother of the OT trio, but both the fathers actually making the moves…closing titles, Carrie Fisher listed above Mark Hamill.
Between “the trauma” of a hand being chopped by a father, and life-lasting denial from a supposedly strong momma figure, it’s shallow to claim one is more violent than the other and that this trilogy is virtuous because we’ve left behind the age of offspring abusive traumas.

Complexity of the femenine character that would have been interesting to develop buried beneath this testament of nerdish and idealistic idea of strenght in women represented only as gutsiness. Wisdom that this femenine character added to the protagonist to face the Emperor? Zero. All critics to this are meant to be regarded as sexist, just in case.

So:

With the OT trio misspent across the trilogy, with Luke gone prematurely and not being able to reach the protagonist in a constant way in her last act (the whole film) of growth, regardless of Rey’s coming of age being distinctive from what Leia’s coming of age story was in the OT, not to discuss gender stuff here.
With a framing that was thought for a stand alone movie based on nostalgia (TFA), that if thought spreaded across a trilogy would simply end up -as it ended up- feeling shallow and superficial, and whose only depth could come -and came- from its metacomment nature on why we love the OT:

a) Rebels, who won but somehow still exist, vs Empire, who lost, but somehow is still strong and even stronger.

b) in fronteer worlds, while somehow if there was a natural continuation, or even a debt (considering it was the original plan for ROTJ but couldn’t be done at the time) it was to move the action again to the core worlds, or to revisit previous films worlds, NOT FOR THEIR VISUAL APPEAL but because something was to possibly happen in some of those places to tie in with previous episodes, otherwise it doesn’t make sense to have the rebels always be in a jungle planet, the jedi and protagonists always be or come from a desert planer, the empire always be strong in white -ice, salt- environments.

With hollow concepts that take the most ominous symbolisms and make them explicit as fuck even if they weren’s established as such in previous films, such as “anakin’s lightsabre”, the “map to Luke Skywalker”, the “sith fleet”, the “knights of ren”, the “helmet of kylo ren”, the “helmet of Darth Vader”, the “sith dagger” (about the sith dagger, treated as if it was a 1500 years-old-artifact made me laugh hardly, it’s just something that was lost for Rey’s age since it was used to kill her parents. In fact it can’t be older than ROTJ, since how and why would the emperor write in a dagger his location, before he even gets to that location after his supposed death in DSII. Same for “sith language”, which a young Anakin from the ass-of-the-galaxy world of Tattooine could publicly upload in a home-made droid’s memory, yet some 50 years later is pretended to be a lost prehistoric language, killing all the indiana jones feeling of “archaeology of the galaxy” into a cartoonish shit that doesn’t make sense)

With those hollow concepts acting just as titles -even the grandish titles of the films themselves- for stuff that ends up being so general, so insubstantial and incorporeal that the hollowiness reveals itself in all its emptiness, which is filled with visual whims,

With the character that should have died in VII or VIII having a supposedly significant role in this one, while having to deal with the actress death,

With a story that couldn’t move to many places other than a sort of an isolated chapter than somehow summarized a trilogy in itself,

With a protagonist trio whose chemistry had never been fleshed out in previous installments,

With a vilain came out of nowhere just for this episode, and to which all those who could have helped somehow the protagonist are dead, and wouldn’t they be dead none of the trilogy, not even the vilain’s return would have taken place,

With an infuriated and polarised fan base to please,

With Disney’s meta-threads all over the place,

With the director’s own features and weaknesses, both visually and in script,

What was this movie to be if not what it is? Just a visually appealing compromise to all factions and conditionants, in which the original lievity of a bunch of spaceships pew pew and a gang of friends is the only thing that feels home, and by being the only thing that feels right and yet being enjoyable reminds us of how important that core base was.

And as such, it is a nice coda. The saga ended, against all odds for me given how distasteful the film feels for me in the context of the saga, in VIII with Luke’s death. Had I to pick one of them and edit Force ghosts to give closure -not saying that in IX they weren’t needed- I’d just put Anakin, ObiWan and Yoda in Luke’s death scene, and bye bye.

Some word more about JJ’s approach: he needs to stop thinking movies as a spectator. If you analyse his “mistery box” TedEx talk, he is clearly reversing the roles of film-maker and film-viewer in a way that “because I liked how it make me feel, I try to replicate the feeling and not the logical structure whence my feeling was rooted”.

As if Lucas thinking -or Rowling- was:

“I have a protagonist. He’s the son of a famous knight. He doesn’t know it. Famous knight has gone bad or dead in tragic circumstances. Protagonist doesn’t know it neither. It will have impact on protagonist. In part I I’ll make the protagonist wonder about these doubts”

While JJ’s: “I remember that the movie I liked as a kid was one where the protagonist didn’t know where he came from, and in the end it didn’t matter where he came from, what mattered was the mistery surrounding the subject”.

Hence, replicating the byproduct of good plotting, and not good plotting is not a guaranteed way to go, it’s the spectacle, the effect on the viewer what he seems to like, and at times it seems he’s not able to put himself in the other side of the bar.

If you call a film The Force Awakens, you need to make a film and a script where it is clear that the Force awakens. Not a film where you disgress in all your whims about what’s visually cool, and then tie the knots between those situations that are of visual nature, and tangentially and only tangentially two or three things or lines of dialogue take place where you take the title of the film. It has to be organic. Even if the title is completely metaphoric, as The Phantom Menace, it has to be organic.

Taking a stormtrooper and making it red, and because it is red and “looks badass” you call him “sith trooper” isn’t organic, it’s hollow. It’s just a trooper, that doesn’t have a single thing to do with the Sith. Whatever the Sith are, we can argue. But if within a story that has its own concepts and logics, wether you like them or are fond of them or not, you move your plotting with the only criterium of “feels good” or “looks good” or “feels challenging”, thus subjugating that logic, no matter how poor it was, to a soup where everything is the same, that’s called cynism.

Great post! This trilogy feels like a reverse engineering of the OT, which I think to a large degree explains its meta nature. Both JJ and RJ reverse engineered the OT to figure out where to go with their part(s) of the story either in an attempt to replicate the Star Wars formula, or to deliberately starkly deviate from it at key moments, but neither feels like a good, and natural way of developing a story to me. It feels very artificial, like the writer is constantly aware someone (the audience) is watching over their shoulders, and so the entire trilogy is shaped by what the writers’ believe are the audience’s expectations, and they either chose to cater to, or subvert those expectations.

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DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

On second viewing I liked it even more. I had in the back of my mind that I might have missed something the first time around, but I don’t think I did. I didn’t find any big holes and it was even more fun to see it again. I was able to concentrate and hear most of the Jedi lines. Awesome film. Abrams best film ever. He actually managed to nail the ending and add in a short epilogue.

I didn’t have the same experience. If I turn off my brain, it’s a fun albeit messy movie, but once I really delved into the plot, and story it really sort of falls apart much like JJ’s Star Trek 2. There’s a ton of conveniences from the way the heroes conveniently stumble onto the dagger by conveniently landing in quick sand at the right spot, to the way they escape on a ship, that has stood untouched on a hill for a decade (contrast this with the Mandalorean finding his ship stripped for parts after a day), to how the dagger is used to find the location of the wayfinder on moving wreckage in an ocean. Then there’s Lando conjuring a massive fleet and getting it from the core systems to the unknown regions in a time frame that just isn’t possible according to Star Wars canon. I could go on, and on, but you get the idea. This movie is just so sloppy in terms of its storytelling both in terms of in-movie logic, and in relation to established in-universe rules, and lore. I’m not going to be debating this very much anymore, as I’ve kind of grown apathetic towards the new Star Wars movies in general, and the ST in particular (RO being the sole exception), but in my view TFA was a fun, reasonably competent retelling of ANH with a few elements of TESB, and ROTJ thrown in, TLJ is the anti-thesis of Lucas’ Star Wars for me, that I don’t care to discuss any longer, and TROS is ROTJ on steriods, a movie, that hides its many, many flaws with lightning fast pacing, and amazing visuals. It’s funny that with the release of TROS I’m kind of done with discussing these films. There’s just not much there for me, that I haven’t seen done better in the past, and so ROTJ will remain the conclusion of the saga for me personally. The one thing that I am oddly grateful for is, that the recent movies have given me a better appreciation of Lucas’ prequels. I think the Mandalorian, and other live action tv shows have a lot of potential for the future, but the Star Wars cinematic universe has grown stale in my view. I will sort of look at it from a distance to see how Disney will handle the inevitable fallout from the film’s likely underperformance at the box office, mixed reviews, and low cinema score. I suspect they will want to put this entire mess behind them, and will largely ignore this era in their future content, and a new team will likely be brought in to shape the future of the Star Wars cinematic universe.

If timing is part of sloppy story telling that TESB is one of the biggest offenders. Going from Hoth, through the Anoat system, to Bespin during the time Luke trains on Dagobah is nuts. It is a journey that should take years without a hyperdrive. Lando arriving with ships is peanuts in comparison. Not to mention Tatooine being as far as you can get from the bright center of the universe, but apparently being right off the major hyperspace lanes that connect everything. Naboo and Alderaan are nearby, as is Geonosis. And the wreckage of the Death Star was not moving. The characters standing on the wreckage are never tossed around as happens on a floating object. If you are going to dislike a film, please judge it with an equal measure to the three films we know you love. Don’t point out flaws that are also found in the originals (and the originals have their fair share of issues if you examine them too closely). They are supposed to be Space Opera myths for our modern age, so some of those things are not as important as the human story and the good vs. evil lesson that they try to get across.

Unlike in TROS we don’t get a time frame for the Falcon’s journey, or Luke’s stay on Dagobah. Additionally we don’t know how long the gang stayed at Cloud City before they were lured into a trap. We don’t know how long the gang were imprisoned/tortured either, before Luke arrived. It could be months for all we know. TROS expects us to believe, that in less than 16 hours, Lando is able to travel to thousands of systems, convince them of joining the fight against the Final Order, despite the fact that they wouldn’t come to the Resistance’s aid, when they had destroyed SKB, mobilize a gigantic fleet of thousands of ships, that then have to travel across the galaxy to arrive just in time to destroy an immense fleet of star destroyers, that conviently are dead in the water from the get go. The situations are just not comparable. One film is just our heroes travelling/training/staying in a few locations over an unknown time frame, while the other sets a precise time frame, where somewhere in this time frame they meet Lando, have numerous adventures, and then have to conjure up a well coordinated enormous fleet somehow at the last minute. The former is perfectly believable, since there is no time frame given, the second is just nonsensical.

Just to be clear, Bespin and Hoth are so close to each other, they are put in the same spot on the map.

Well, we did get a time frame for the Falcon in ANH, and it all happened pretty quick once we met Han. But my point was that travel time has never been realistic in Star Wars. Never. It just happens and how long it takes depends on how long the scenes on the ship in hyperspace need to be, not how close the locations are supposed to be to each other. I think Abrams has less sense of scale than Lucas did, but neither one gave us any indication how long it takes to get from place to place. The trip from Tatooine to Alderaan took a few hours and Tatooine was supposed to be out of the way, yet in TPM it was closer to Naboo than Coruscant. In ROTJ, Luke pops over to Dagobah and is back before the fleet gets their orders. The logic of hyperspace is subservient to the story. What Abrams did is the same. And I noticed that when Kylo Ren fell and Palpatine changed his plans, the countdown seems to have changed. So it wasn’t as rushed as it first seems. Abrams is just following in Lucas’s footsteps.

And while that is a nice map, none of the maps are canon. The journey the Falcon went on in TESB should have taken years, even at full speed. The timeline that Lucas insists upon doesn’t give it any time at all. ANH to TESB is 3 years and TESB to ROTJ is 1 year making 4 years from ANH to ROTJ and the journey through three systems should take something 19 years if you want to be practical. The story requires that it be much less than that so there would have to be some explanation outside canon as to what went on and how long it took.

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DrDre said:

Both JJ and RJ reverse engineered the OT to figure out where to go with their part(s) of the story either in an attempt to replicate the Star Wars formula, or to deliberately starkly deviate from it at key moments, but neither feels like a good, and natural way of developing a story to me. It feels very artificial, like the writer is constantly aware someone (the audience) is watching over their shoulders, and so the entire trilogy is shaped by what the writers’ believe are the audience’s expectations, and they either chose to cater to, or subvert those expectations.

There are only 2 films I can think of in the entire saga that didn’t do the above (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back).

Writers are always aware the audience is watching/reading. Knowing that isn’t a bad thing. Catering to it CAN be a bad thing, depending on how indulgent the writers get. Pandering is absolutely a bad thing. But many good, natural ways of developing stories involve keeping the audience in mind. “Write for yourself first” is great advice for any storyteller, but that “First” implies that there ARE other concerns to keep in mind as well.

But creation (especially on a scale this big) isn’t all inspiration and desire. Sometimes you have to plink and plunk at it, and that can feel (or appear to be from the backseat) artificial in the moment. That’s where the craft comes in. Passion can’t get a project across the line alone. Often you have to “artificially” introduce things that didn’t just appear in a flash, hand-delivered from the muse.

But that’s also a huge part of why I feel like judging finished work mostly on suppositions of behind-the-scenes machinations and making-of anecdotes isn’t very useful. Most of the audience will never know HOW a thing got made, or what went into its making, or even think to wonder about that aspect, and it honestly shouldn’t really matter. What matters is if it works or if it doesn’t - and if it doesn’t, WHY it doesn’t should be pretty clearly explained without having to go “I bet the guy who wrote it just didn’t feel it like this other guy did.”

Granted, The Rise of Skywalker was very obviously fumbled in its execution and I imagine there are plenty of behind-the-scenes stories we’ll hear eventually as to why it’s such a mess. But acting like the very business of creating fiction is somehow “artificial” because they had knowledge of “the formula” and chose to tinker with the recipe for their own purposes seems like a weird read considering how often that exact bit of business is NECESSARY as a creator to come up with solid work.

Just because we notice the artifice involved in creating and maintaining good fiction doesn’t mean that by the mere fact of our noticing it that it’s now BAD. That’s unfair not only to the writer, but to us as well, because it assumes that we shouldn’t be smart enough to spot seams if we’re looking for them. Of course we are. Most audience members are, honestly. The magic of a good story is that it distracts us from looking, or it engenders enough goodwill that even if we do spot the seams - we don’t care. In some cases, even the seams look good to us.

Basically, what I’m saying is: The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t work because the elements IN the story aren’t well-thought-out, and aren’t executed very well on top of that. If I’m not willing to indulge an imaginative exercise as to how a fabulous movie I watched this weekend was written and executed - like, for example, I didn’t finish watching Little Women the other day and conjure up a possible story as to how Greta Gerwig adapted the book to explain why it worked the way it did - I don’t know that it makes sense for me to do that when JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio drop the ball.

I do think it’s safe to assume they didn’t MEAN to drop the ball.

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Broom Kid said:

DrDre said:

Both JJ and RJ reverse engineered the OT to figure out where to go with their part(s) of the story either in an attempt to replicate the Star Wars formula, or to deliberately starkly deviate from it at key moments, but neither feels like a good, and natural way of developing a story to me. It feels very artificial, like the writer is constantly aware someone (the audience) is watching over their shoulders, and so the entire trilogy is shaped by what the writers’ believe are the audience’s expectations, and they either chose to cater to, or subvert those expectations.

There are only 2 films I can think of in the entire saga that didn’t do the above (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back).

Writers are always aware the audience is watching/reading. Knowing that isn’t a bad thing. Catering to it CAN be a bad thing, depending on how indulgent the writers get. Pandering is absolutely a bad thing. But many good, natural ways of developing stories involve keeping the audience in mind. “Write for yourself first” is great advice for any storyteller, but that “First” implies that there ARE other concerns to keep in mind as well.

But creation (especially on a scale this big) isn’t all inspiration and desire. Sometimes you have to plink and plunk at it, and that can feel (or appear to be from the backseat) artificial in the moment. That’s where the craft comes in. Passion can’t get a project across the line alone. Often you have to “artificially” introduce things that didn’t just appear in a flash, hand-delivered from the muse.

But that’s also a huge part of why I feel like judging finished work mostly on suppositions of behind-the-scenes machinations and making-of anecdotes isn’t very useful. Most of the audience will never know HOW a thing got made, or what went into its making, or even think to wonder about that aspect, and it honestly shouldn’t really matter. What matters is if it works or if it doesn’t - and if it doesn’t, WHY it doesn’t should be pretty clearly explained without having to go “I bet the guy who wrote it just didn’t feel it like this other guy did.”

Granted, The Rise of Skywalker was very obviously fumbled in its execution and I imagine there are plenty of behind-the-scenes stories we’ll hear eventually as to why it’s such a mess. But acting like the very business of creating fiction is somehow “artificial” because they had knowledge of “the formula” and chose to tinker with the recipe for their own purposes seems like a weird read considering how often that exact bit of business is NECESSARY as a creator to come up with solid work.

Just because we notice the artifice involved in creating and maintaining good fiction doesn’t mean that by the mere fact of our noticing it that it’s now BAD. That’s unfair not only to the writer, but to us as well, because it assumes that we shouldn’t be smart enough to spot seams if we’re looking for them. Of course we are. Most audience members are, honestly. The magic of a good story is that it distracts us from looking, or it engenders enough goodwill that even if we do spot the seams - we don’t care. In some cases, even the seams look good to us.

Basically, what I’m saying is: The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t work because the elements IN the story aren’t well-thought-out, and aren’t executed very well on top of that. If I’m not willing to indulge an imaginative exercise as to how a fabulous movie I watched this weekend was written and executed - like, for example, I didn’t finish watching Little Women the other day and conjure up a possible story as to how Greta Gerwig adapted the book to explain why it worked the way it did - I don’t know that it makes sense for me to do that when JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio drop the ball.

I do think it’s safe to assume they didn’t MEAN to drop the ball.

Well, not all of us think they dropped the ball. But the rest of your post I highly agree with. Formulas are a key ingredient in stories. A great many writers adhere to a formula. Many firmly believe you must have three distinct acts. some don’t care and just want to tell a good story. So I don’t think it is a flaw at all if Abrams sought out and copied the formula from Lucas. That means he was trying to make a Star Wars movie. He failed to do that with his Star Trek films. He played it safe with TFA and I think it shows. That film lacks something that I think he found with TROS. I think what he did worked very well. Sure the film is a non-stop ride, but I have yet to find (or agree with other ides put forward) anything that is a major flaw in the story.

The only flaw I could think of was the 16 hour limit. I think the story sticks to that up until the saber battle on the old Death Star. I think Rey’s defeat of Kylo Ren and the return of Ben Solo wrecked the Emperor’s plans and so he put the countdown on hold while Kijimi was destroyed and until he could sense that Rey was coming to him again. The story feels like that is what is happening and the 16 hour countdown isn’t mentioned other than the first time. I think the story works beautifully and really cements this as the end of the saga. So many things work and enhance the original. And I don’t think Abrams reconned or reversed a single thing from TLJ. I don’t see a single course correction. The story feels organic like Palpatine was always the one pulling the strings. And while how he came back is never really addressed, he is on a planet full of Sith believers who all seem to want him back and are following him. And I’ve seen some interesting hints that Palpatine’s return and Rey being a Palpatine were Abrams original ideas back when he did TFA. To me this was all a natural conclusion to the trilogy. Nothing felt out of place. And with Anakin saying “Rey, Bring back the balance as I did,” it really blows apart the argument that Anakin wasn’t the chosen one and that his sacrifice was negated by this trilogy. Sometime after ROTJ, Palpatine was resurrected by the Sith followers to try to start things over again and that led to this Sequel Trilogy and his (and the Sith) final defeat.

And one of the things that has amused me since first viewing is that the Star Destroyer over the Forrest Moon of Endor was destroyed by the Holdo maneuver. Just another nod to Johnson’s TLJ.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

yotsuya said:

Broom Kid said:

DrDre said:

Both JJ and RJ reverse engineered the OT to figure out where to go with their part(s) of the story either in an attempt to replicate the Star Wars formula, or to deliberately starkly deviate from it at key moments, but neither feels like a good, and natural way of developing a story to me. It feels very artificial, like the writer is constantly aware someone (the audience) is watching over their shoulders, and so the entire trilogy is shaped by what the writers’ believe are the audience’s expectations, and they either chose to cater to, or subvert those expectations.

There are only 2 films I can think of in the entire saga that didn’t do the above (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back).

Writers are always aware the audience is watching/reading. Knowing that isn’t a bad thing. Catering to it CAN be a bad thing, depending on how indulgent the writers get. Pandering is absolutely a bad thing. But many good, natural ways of developing stories involve keeping the audience in mind. “Write for yourself first” is great advice for any storyteller, but that “First” implies that there ARE other concerns to keep in mind as well.

But creation (especially on a scale this big) isn’t all inspiration and desire. Sometimes you have to plink and plunk at it, and that can feel (or appear to be from the backseat) artificial in the moment. That’s where the craft comes in. Passion can’t get a project across the line alone. Often you have to “artificially” introduce things that didn’t just appear in a flash, hand-delivered from the muse.

But that’s also a huge part of why I feel like judging finished work mostly on suppositions of behind-the-scenes machinations and making-of anecdotes isn’t very useful. Most of the audience will never know HOW a thing got made, or what went into its making, or even think to wonder about that aspect, and it honestly shouldn’t really matter. What matters is if it works or if it doesn’t - and if it doesn’t, WHY it doesn’t should be pretty clearly explained without having to go “I bet the guy who wrote it just didn’t feel it like this other guy did.”

Granted, The Rise of Skywalker was very obviously fumbled in its execution and I imagine there are plenty of behind-the-scenes stories we’ll hear eventually as to why it’s such a mess. But acting like the very business of creating fiction is somehow “artificial” because they had knowledge of “the formula” and chose to tinker with the recipe for their own purposes seems like a weird read considering how often that exact bit of business is NECESSARY as a creator to come up with solid work.

Just because we notice the artifice involved in creating and maintaining good fiction doesn’t mean that by the mere fact of our noticing it that it’s now BAD. That’s unfair not only to the writer, but to us as well, because it assumes that we shouldn’t be smart enough to spot seams if we’re looking for them. Of course we are. Most audience members are, honestly. The magic of a good story is that it distracts us from looking, or it engenders enough goodwill that even if we do spot the seams - we don’t care. In some cases, even the seams look good to us.

Basically, what I’m saying is: The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t work because the elements IN the story aren’t well-thought-out, and aren’t executed very well on top of that. If I’m not willing to indulge an imaginative exercise as to how a fabulous movie I watched this weekend was written and executed - like, for example, I didn’t finish watching Little Women the other day and conjure up a possible story as to how Greta Gerwig adapted the book to explain why it worked the way it did - I don’t know that it makes sense for me to do that when JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio drop the ball.

I do think it’s safe to assume they didn’t MEAN to drop the ball.

Well, not all of us think they dropped the ball. But the rest of your post I highly agree with. Formulas are a key ingredient in stories. A great many writers adhere to a formula. Many firmly believe you must have three distinct acts. some don’t care and just want to tell a good story. So I don’t think it is a flaw at all if Abrams sought out and copied the formula from Lucas. That means he was trying to make a Star Wars movie. He failed to do that with his Star Trek films. He played it safe with TFA and I think it shows. That film lacks something that I think he found with TROS. I think what he did worked very well. Sure the film is a non-stop ride, but I have yet to find (or agree with other ides put forward) anything that is a major flaw in the story.

The only flaw I could think of was the 16 hour limit. I think the story sticks to that up until the saber battle on the old Death Star. I think Rey’s defeat of Kylo Ren and the return of Ben Solo wrecked the Emperor’s plans and so he put the countdown on hold while Kijimi was destroyed and until he could sense that Rey was coming to him again. The story feels like that is what is happening and the 16 hour countdown isn’t mentioned other than the first time. I think the story works beautifully and really cements this as the end of the saga. So many things work and enhance the original. And I don’t think Abrams reconned or reversed a single thing from TLJ. I don’t see a single course correction. The story feels organic like Palpatine was always the one pulling the strings. And while how he came back is never really addressed, he is on a planet full of Sith believers who all seem to want him back and are following him. And I’ve seen some interesting hints that Palpatine’s return and Rey being a Palpatine were Abrams original ideas back when he did TFA. To me this was all a natural conclusion to the trilogy. Nothing felt out of place. And with Anakin saying “Rey, Bring back the balance as I did,” it really blows apart the argument that Anakin wasn’t the chosen one and that his sacrifice was negated by this trilogy. Sometime after ROTJ, Palpatine was resurrected by the Sith followers to try to start things over again and that led to this Sequel Trilogy and his (and the Sith) final defeat.

And one of the things that has amused me since first viewing is that the Star Destroyer over the Forrest Moon of Endor was destroyed by the Holdo maneuver. Just another nod to Johnson’s TLJ.

Well, I think there’s a difference between reverse engineering, and a formula. With reverse engineering you attempt to define a formula often with mixed results, which considering the mixed reaction to these films is the case here in my view. With TFA and TROS JJ wanted to replicate a formula, and while he managed to incorporate many elements for many people, I think for many others several key elements are somewhat off. RJ wanted to discover the formula to deliberately deviate from it in places, or recontextualize it, and to many it worked, while for many others RJ discarded key elements of Lucas’ formula, such that it no longer is Star Wars to them. So, in my view in following a formula to create something new, when done right you get Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke, etc. JJ made Freeway Cola (too similar, while the taste is still off) with his two entries, while what RJ made is some drink that visually looks like cola, but to many it no longer tastes like cola with a very bitter aftertaste.

Author
Time

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

Broom Kid said:

DrDre said:

Both JJ and RJ reverse engineered the OT to figure out where to go with their part(s) of the story either in an attempt to replicate the Star Wars formula, or to deliberately starkly deviate from it at key moments, but neither feels like a good, and natural way of developing a story to me. It feels very artificial, like the writer is constantly aware someone (the audience) is watching over their shoulders, and so the entire trilogy is shaped by what the writers’ believe are the audience’s expectations, and they either chose to cater to, or subvert those expectations.

There are only 2 films I can think of in the entire saga that didn’t do the above (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back).

Writers are always aware the audience is watching/reading. Knowing that isn’t a bad thing. Catering to it CAN be a bad thing, depending on how indulgent the writers get. Pandering is absolutely a bad thing. But many good, natural ways of developing stories involve keeping the audience in mind. “Write for yourself first” is great advice for any storyteller, but that “First” implies that there ARE other concerns to keep in mind as well.

But creation (especially on a scale this big) isn’t all inspiration and desire. Sometimes you have to plink and plunk at it, and that can feel (or appear to be from the backseat) artificial in the moment. That’s where the craft comes in. Passion can’t get a project across the line alone. Often you have to “artificially” introduce things that didn’t just appear in a flash, hand-delivered from the muse.

But that’s also a huge part of why I feel like judging finished work mostly on suppositions of behind-the-scenes machinations and making-of anecdotes isn’t very useful. Most of the audience will never know HOW a thing got made, or what went into its making, or even think to wonder about that aspect, and it honestly shouldn’t really matter. What matters is if it works or if it doesn’t - and if it doesn’t, WHY it doesn’t should be pretty clearly explained without having to go “I bet the guy who wrote it just didn’t feel it like this other guy did.”

Granted, The Rise of Skywalker was very obviously fumbled in its execution and I imagine there are plenty of behind-the-scenes stories we’ll hear eventually as to why it’s such a mess. But acting like the very business of creating fiction is somehow “artificial” because they had knowledge of “the formula” and chose to tinker with the recipe for their own purposes seems like a weird read considering how often that exact bit of business is NECESSARY as a creator to come up with solid work.

Just because we notice the artifice involved in creating and maintaining good fiction doesn’t mean that by the mere fact of our noticing it that it’s now BAD. That’s unfair not only to the writer, but to us as well, because it assumes that we shouldn’t be smart enough to spot seams if we’re looking for them. Of course we are. Most audience members are, honestly. The magic of a good story is that it distracts us from looking, or it engenders enough goodwill that even if we do spot the seams - we don’t care. In some cases, even the seams look good to us.

Basically, what I’m saying is: The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t work because the elements IN the story aren’t well-thought-out, and aren’t executed very well on top of that. If I’m not willing to indulge an imaginative exercise as to how a fabulous movie I watched this weekend was written and executed - like, for example, I didn’t finish watching Little Women the other day and conjure up a possible story as to how Greta Gerwig adapted the book to explain why it worked the way it did - I don’t know that it makes sense for me to do that when JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio drop the ball.

I do think it’s safe to assume they didn’t MEAN to drop the ball.

Well, not all of us think they dropped the ball. But the rest of your post I highly agree with. Formulas are a key ingredient in stories. A great many writers adhere to a formula. Many firmly believe you must have three distinct acts. some don’t care and just want to tell a good story. So I don’t think it is a flaw at all if Abrams sought out and copied the formula from Lucas. That means he was trying to make a Star Wars movie. He failed to do that with his Star Trek films. He played it safe with TFA and I think it shows. That film lacks something that I think he found with TROS. I think what he did worked very well. Sure the film is a non-stop ride, but I have yet to find (or agree with other ides put forward) anything that is a major flaw in the story.

The only flaw I could think of was the 16 hour limit. I think the story sticks to that up until the saber battle on the old Death Star. I think Rey’s defeat of Kylo Ren and the return of Ben Solo wrecked the Emperor’s plans and so he put the countdown on hold while Kijimi was destroyed and until he could sense that Rey was coming to him again. The story feels like that is what is happening and the 16 hour countdown isn’t mentioned other than the first time. I think the story works beautifully and really cements this as the end of the saga. So many things work and enhance the original. And I don’t think Abrams reconned or reversed a single thing from TLJ. I don’t see a single course correction. The story feels organic like Palpatine was always the one pulling the strings. And while how he came back is never really addressed, he is on a planet full of Sith believers who all seem to want him back and are following him. And I’ve seen some interesting hints that Palpatine’s return and Rey being a Palpatine were Abrams original ideas back when he did TFA. To me this was all a natural conclusion to the trilogy. Nothing felt out of place. And with Anakin saying “Rey, Bring back the balance as I did,” it really blows apart the argument that Anakin wasn’t the chosen one and that his sacrifice was negated by this trilogy. Sometime after ROTJ, Palpatine was resurrected by the Sith followers to try to start things over again and that led to this Sequel Trilogy and his (and the Sith) final defeat.

And one of the things that has amused me since first viewing is that the Star Destroyer over the Forrest Moon of Endor was destroyed by the Holdo maneuver. Just another nod to Johnson’s TLJ.

Well, I think there’s a difference between reverse engineering, and a formula. With reverse engineering you attempt to define a formula often with mixed results, which considering the mixed reaction to these films is the case here in my view. With TFA and TROS JJ wanted to replicate a formula, and while he managed to incorporate many elements for many people, I think for many others several key elements are somewhat off. RJ wanted to discover the formula to deliberately deviate from it in places, or recontextualize it, and to many it worked, while for many others RJ discarded key elements of Lucas’ formula, such that it no longer is Star Wars to them. So, in my view in following a formula to create something new, when done right you get Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke, etc. JJ made Freeway Cola (too similar, while the taste is still off) with his two entries, while what RJ made is some drink that visually looks like cola, but to many it no longer tastes like cola with a very bitter aftertaste.

But Star Wars doesn’t have much of a formula. It is basically mixing Flash Gordon, Dune, Foundation, with epic myths and the hero’s journey in a movie format. Somethings are nice and shiny while others are old and lived in. Lucas kept most of his tale pretty simple for the OT. And while the story is a bit more subtle and complex for the PT, I think this trilogy goes back to being more simple and I think it deviated in some ways, but not in any way that broke Lucas’s basic format. For the previous 6 films, the stories follow the three act format with the trilogies forming another 3 act layer. The first movie introduces the characters and the basic situation, the second film is more character driven with less action, and the third film ramps up the action in a grand finale. The ST follows that precisely. I am well aware of your distaste for how RJ made TLJ, but my problems have all been with how Abrams set things up. I feel that this film fixes some of those mistakes in how it wrapped things up. It answered fan questions about Rey and Snoke without undoing anything about TLJ or undoing how the characters grew. It picked up the story and concluded it.

And let’s not forget how the OT came about. It was too epic for one film so Lucas took the beginning and simplified his tale and then went back to add in pieces from the original to TESB and ROTJ (giving that film the epic battled he’d envisioned initially). And let’s not forget how he changed his mind so often that the OT and PT are riddled with inconsistencies that we have to explain away. Let’s be fair in how we judge the ST and not hold it to a higher standard than we hold Lucas and his two trilogies. Nothing really tops the OT, but this ST I think outdid the PT in just about every way. I think Lucas had a definite vision for the PT that was too subtle and nuanced for most and it really doesn’t come across unless you understand what he was doing. Where the ST is just a more modern mythic story that deals with the return of the old evil. Apt for today in many ways.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

yotsuya said:

DrDre said:

yotsuya said:

Broom Kid said:

DrDre said:

Both JJ and RJ reverse engineered the OT to figure out where to go with their part(s) of the story either in an attempt to replicate the Star Wars formula, or to deliberately starkly deviate from it at key moments, but neither feels like a good, and natural way of developing a story to me. It feels very artificial, like the writer is constantly aware someone (the audience) is watching over their shoulders, and so the entire trilogy is shaped by what the writers’ believe are the audience’s expectations, and they either chose to cater to, or subvert those expectations.

There are only 2 films I can think of in the entire saga that didn’t do the above (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back).

Writers are always aware the audience is watching/reading. Knowing that isn’t a bad thing. Catering to it CAN be a bad thing, depending on how indulgent the writers get. Pandering is absolutely a bad thing. But many good, natural ways of developing stories involve keeping the audience in mind. “Write for yourself first” is great advice for any storyteller, but that “First” implies that there ARE other concerns to keep in mind as well.

But creation (especially on a scale this big) isn’t all inspiration and desire. Sometimes you have to plink and plunk at it, and that can feel (or appear to be from the backseat) artificial in the moment. That’s where the craft comes in. Passion can’t get a project across the line alone. Often you have to “artificially” introduce things that didn’t just appear in a flash, hand-delivered from the muse.

But that’s also a huge part of why I feel like judging finished work mostly on suppositions of behind-the-scenes machinations and making-of anecdotes isn’t very useful. Most of the audience will never know HOW a thing got made, or what went into its making, or even think to wonder about that aspect, and it honestly shouldn’t really matter. What matters is if it works or if it doesn’t - and if it doesn’t, WHY it doesn’t should be pretty clearly explained without having to go “I bet the guy who wrote it just didn’t feel it like this other guy did.”

Granted, The Rise of Skywalker was very obviously fumbled in its execution and I imagine there are plenty of behind-the-scenes stories we’ll hear eventually as to why it’s such a mess. But acting like the very business of creating fiction is somehow “artificial” because they had knowledge of “the formula” and chose to tinker with the recipe for their own purposes seems like a weird read considering how often that exact bit of business is NECESSARY as a creator to come up with solid work.

Just because we notice the artifice involved in creating and maintaining good fiction doesn’t mean that by the mere fact of our noticing it that it’s now BAD. That’s unfair not only to the writer, but to us as well, because it assumes that we shouldn’t be smart enough to spot seams if we’re looking for them. Of course we are. Most audience members are, honestly. The magic of a good story is that it distracts us from looking, or it engenders enough goodwill that even if we do spot the seams - we don’t care. In some cases, even the seams look good to us.

Basically, what I’m saying is: The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t work because the elements IN the story aren’t well-thought-out, and aren’t executed very well on top of that. If I’m not willing to indulge an imaginative exercise as to how a fabulous movie I watched this weekend was written and executed - like, for example, I didn’t finish watching Little Women the other day and conjure up a possible story as to how Greta Gerwig adapted the book to explain why it worked the way it did - I don’t know that it makes sense for me to do that when JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio drop the ball.

I do think it’s safe to assume they didn’t MEAN to drop the ball.

Well, not all of us think they dropped the ball. But the rest of your post I highly agree with. Formulas are a key ingredient in stories. A great many writers adhere to a formula. Many firmly believe you must have three distinct acts. some don’t care and just want to tell a good story. So I don’t think it is a flaw at all if Abrams sought out and copied the formula from Lucas. That means he was trying to make a Star Wars movie. He failed to do that with his Star Trek films. He played it safe with TFA and I think it shows. That film lacks something that I think he found with TROS. I think what he did worked very well. Sure the film is a non-stop ride, but I have yet to find (or agree with other ides put forward) anything that is a major flaw in the story.

The only flaw I could think of was the 16 hour limit. I think the story sticks to that up until the saber battle on the old Death Star. I think Rey’s defeat of Kylo Ren and the return of Ben Solo wrecked the Emperor’s plans and so he put the countdown on hold while Kijimi was destroyed and until he could sense that Rey was coming to him again. The story feels like that is what is happening and the 16 hour countdown isn’t mentioned other than the first time. I think the story works beautifully and really cements this as the end of the saga. So many things work and enhance the original. And I don’t think Abrams reconned or reversed a single thing from TLJ. I don’t see a single course correction. The story feels organic like Palpatine was always the one pulling the strings. And while how he came back is never really addressed, he is on a planet full of Sith believers who all seem to want him back and are following him. And I’ve seen some interesting hints that Palpatine’s return and Rey being a Palpatine were Abrams original ideas back when he did TFA. To me this was all a natural conclusion to the trilogy. Nothing felt out of place. And with Anakin saying “Rey, Bring back the balance as I did,” it really blows apart the argument that Anakin wasn’t the chosen one and that his sacrifice was negated by this trilogy. Sometime after ROTJ, Palpatine was resurrected by the Sith followers to try to start things over again and that led to this Sequel Trilogy and his (and the Sith) final defeat.

And one of the things that has amused me since first viewing is that the Star Destroyer over the Forrest Moon of Endor was destroyed by the Holdo maneuver. Just another nod to Johnson’s TLJ.

Well, I think there’s a difference between reverse engineering, and a formula. With reverse engineering you attempt to define a formula often with mixed results, which considering the mixed reaction to these films is the case here in my view. With TFA and TROS JJ wanted to replicate a formula, and while he managed to incorporate many elements for many people, I think for many others several key elements are somewhat off. RJ wanted to discover the formula to deliberately deviate from it in places, or recontextualize it, and to many it worked, while for many others RJ discarded key elements of Lucas’ formula, such that it no longer is Star Wars to them. So, in my view in following a formula to create something new, when done right you get Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke, etc. JJ made Freeway Cola (too similar, while the taste is still off) with his two entries, while what RJ made is some drink that visually looks like cola, but to many it no longer tastes like cola with a very bitter aftertaste.

But Star Wars doesn’t have much of a formula. It is basically mixing Flash Gordon, Dune, Foundation, with epic myths and the hero’s journey in a movie format. Somethings are nice and shiny while others are old and lived in. Lucas kept most of his tale pretty simple for the OT. And while the story is a bit more subtle and complex for the PT, I think this trilogy goes back to being more simple and I think it deviated in some ways, but not in any way that broke Lucas’s basic format. For the previous 6 films, the stories follow the three act format with the trilogies forming another 3 act layer. The first movie introduces the characters and the basic situation, the second film is more character driven with less action, and the third film ramps up the action in a grand finale. The ST follows that precisely. I am well aware of your distaste for how RJ made TLJ, but my problems have all been with how Abrams set things up. I feel that this film fixes some of those mistakes in how it wrapped things up. It answered fan questions about Rey and Snoke without undoing anything about TLJ or undoing how the characters grew. It picked up the story and concluded it.

And let’s not forget how the OT came about. It was too epic for one film so Lucas took the beginning and simplified his tale and then went back to add in pieces from the original to TESB and ROTJ (giving that film the epic battled he’d envisioned initially). And let’s not forget how he changed his mind so often that the OT and PT are riddled with inconsistencies that we have to explain away. Let’s be fair in how we judge the ST and not hold it to a higher standard than we hold Lucas and his two trilogies. Nothing really tops the OT, but this ST I think outdid the PT in just about every way. I think Lucas had a definite vision for the PT that was too subtle and nuanced for most and it really doesn’t come across unless you understand what he was doing. Where the ST is just a more modern mythic story that deals with the return of the old evil. Apt for today in many ways.

I disagree. As I stated earlier, I prefer the PT over the ST. In my view the PT is a good story poorly executed in many places, while the ST is a poorly developed, messy story generally executed well. There’s nothing in the first two films that even hints at the return of an old evil. You shouldn’t have to watch two films to find out what the good guys are really fighting, while also not finding out how that old evil was able to return.

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The PT is even more “reverse engineered” than the ST is. The amount of “reverse engineering” is the whole reason people honestly believe “The Ring Theory” has merit.

The PT films are ALL bad stories, but they’re bad not because they’re reverse engineered, but because the ideas behind each entry aren’t elaborated upon, or executed competently. They’re THERE. But their mere presence isn’t enough to justify the larger story they’re trying to prop up.

The ST has one decent-ish story (TFA) that led into one great story (TLJ) that ended with a giant mess (TROS). Execution means more than intent at all times. If you execute well the intent doesn’t even really get questioned. If you don’t execute well… well, you wind up here, haha.

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there’s some good stuff in there, though!

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There hasn’t been a perfect Star Wars film since ESB for me personally. But if you dislike something, you find holes.

It’s not hard to pick a film apart.

Part of the reason I enjoyed Rise was that my 9-year-old daughter and I had a blast. I’m wondering if it takes a kid’s mind to appreciate Star Wars in 2020?

Anyway, to each their own. I enjoyed the snot out of it,