Shopping Maul

OutboundFlight said:

Am I the only one who feels Rey Palpatine is far more compelling than “Rey nobody”?

Yes, because of her power levels. I love the idea of Rey Nobody because I never truly liked the idea of Force genetics, but this simply doesn’t fit with her godlike abilities. Plus her obvious anger when she kicked Kylo’s butt in TFA made me think she was accessing the Dark Side pretty strongly. I think the Rey Palpatine stuff - especially the accidental Force Lightning bit - made great sense. Just being a Skywalker or a Kenobi wouldn’t have cut it for me, but Sith powers and descendants are such an unknown quantity in the movies (not talking EU here) so it’s a nice fit. Having Palpatine as a kind of gothic sorcerer with his Gregorian chanting acolytes really added to the vibe of this for me.

Just the thought of Palpy sitting there in a state of sexual readiness and saying to his lady friend “you want this…don’t you…”

Sorry mods, please don’t ban me…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihf2pVjpzJI

RetroBlasting points out why the SE is superior and Lucas was right to bury the originals!

Just kidding…it’s a wonderful review of 4K77 that I’m sure we can all relate to!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihf2pVjpzJI

Really nice piece by RetroBlasting celebrating 4K77. I really related to the notion of ‘relaxing’ during viewing (as opposed to being distracted by revisions, seams, corrections etc etc). Apologies if this has been posted already…

FreezingTNT2 said:

Shopping Maul said:

I’ve said this already but I would’ve had Mon Mothma be the new Sidious - pissed off because her unholy alliance with Palpatine in ROTJ (she killed the Bothan spies herself and passed on the false Death Star information in exchange for a seat at Palpatine’s side) was thwarted by the rebels. She would have been reconstituting the Empire in secret whilst corrupting Ben Solo with lies about his folks and glorious tales of his grandfather Anakin Vader.

And I would’ve had the New Republic using Star Destroyers and Tie fighters while the FO flies X-Wings and Y-Wings. Just to mess with the audience’s heads…

So… you’d have Mon Mothma be Force-sensitive? '😓

Sure, why not?

The reason I’m sold on this idea is that it provides a direct link to the OT without diminishing its achievements. Let’s be frank, the only possible post-ROTJ scenario is either ‘a new deadly threat’ or ‘the Empire reconstituted itself’. The ST basically reboots everything to pre-ROTJ status.

Having Mothma as Palpatine’s ally (or wife/partner) and the true source of the Bothan tapes plants a sinister seed in the heart of ROTJ without undermining it. It allows the victory to be as it was - with a New Republic flourishing as expected and Palpatine staying dead - but now there’s a valid fly in the ointment that leads logically to the ST. Mothma would be in a prime political position to not only gather allies for her revenge on the rebellion/New Republic, but she would also be perfectly positioned to bend the ear of Han and Leia’s son. In this version of the ST she would be presented as a shadowy hooded figure a la Sidious, with her true identity revealed in the 3rd film. She could even play the dual-role that Palpatine did in the prequels - liaising with Leia and co. in a fanservicey white gown whilst simultaneously being a Sith creep via hologram.

If you imagine this scenario and then watch the “many Bothans died” scene in ROTJ, it’s really dark…

I’ve said this already but I would’ve had Mon Mothma be the new Sidious - pissed off because her unholy alliance with Palpatine in ROTJ (she killed the Bothan spies herself and passed on the false Death Star information in exchange for a seat at Palpatine’s side) was thwarted by the rebels. She would have been reconstituting the Empire in secret whilst corrupting Ben Solo with lies about his folks and glorious tales of his grandfather Anakin Vader.

And I would’ve had the New Republic using Star Destroyers and Tie fighters while the FO flies X-Wings and Y-Wings. Just to mess with the audience’s heads…

StarkillerAG said:

Broom Kid said:

Speaking of YouTube - I almost checked out that MauLer guy, after seeing someone on another forum I visit link to a funny back and forth on his twitter and going “oh yeah, he’s a youtuber, the Original Trilogy guys seemed to vouch for him.” So I followed the link and looked at his profile and… He basically just stalks some other YouTuber called “MovieBob” and a critic named Patrick H. Willems. That seems to be the last two straight weeks of his twitter feed, at least. I scrolled down for awhile and he’s just making fun of “MovieBob’s” weight and Willems’ intelligence and screencapping tweets by a YouTuber named Jenny Nicholson, who I guess has already blocked him. I know I got called out earlier for “judging a book by its cover” but it really seems like he’s a pretty toxic media personality, to me. Nothing but personal attacks on other people and angry tweets about people not liking things the way he wants people to like them.

Yeah, MauLer makes some good points but his personality is really grating. Half of the stuff he does is just hating on other YouTubers for having different opinions than him. The first part of his TFA review was entirely devoted to picking apart the opinions of YouTubers who liked the movie. His movie criticism videos are entertaining but I really don’t like the way he acts online.

Well the TFA intro was a response to all the people who had ripped into him for daring suggest that some things are subjective and other things are objective. I get that not everyone likes his personality, but this was about being very clear on what he was criticising and why. He was understandably sick of people responding to ‘this is a plot hole’ with ‘it’s a movie about space wizards, man’. I don’t always agree with Mauler, but I still maintain he is so much more level-headed than someone like Willems who descends into tripe like “you’re just not watching movies correctly” as a defence against cogent points of disagreement.

I can’t attest to Mauler’s Twitter feed because I don’t follow it. While his EFAP podcasts come across like a circle jerk a lot of the time, I usually find (on the rare occasions I listen to it) that Mauler is the one that cuts through the personal stuff and tries to get to the heart of the actual conversation. They (he and co-host Rags) have even had some of their most vehement critics on the show, and Mauler seems to go out of his way to be polite and stay away from the bitchy stuff and just get down to the minutiae of the discussion.

act on instinct said:

Shopping Maul said:

somehow my ‘canon-brain’ experienced TROS as if I’d been living in seclusion for 40 years and TROS just happened to be the sequel to some amazing movies I hadn’t seen yet. This probably sounds insane!

It really doesn’t, this feeling absolutely resonates with me as well and overall I feel like each of the three movies have that quality when viewed in isolation that improves the experience more than watching the trilogy as a whole. Glad you had the experience you did! It’s refreshing to see from OT fans.

Thank you - I appreciate the feedback!

Broom Kid said:

Again, the big problem with devoting so much time and energy to a lot of these little fiddly details in the plotting is that even if those questions were answered satisfactorily within the narrative - it still wouldn’t be a good movie, would it?

If I put together a 1000 piece puzzle perfectly, but the picture I assemble with no missing pieces is of a broken mirror reflecting a junk-strewn yard… does it matter that all these fiddly details are there and accounted for?

the only notion I want to push back a little on in this ongoing discussion is that there are somehow ironclad “Star Wars Specific” rules that got broken here, and there aren’t, really. There are plenty of storytelling and filmmaking mistakes, and the normal sorts of things that happen to make ANY movie mediocre and uninteresting to sit through, but I don’t think most of The Rise of Skywalkers’ sins are specifically Star Wars related, and I don’t think if many of these grievances had been fixed prior to release, the reception would have been markedly different.

Star Wars tends to break its own “rules” with every movie anyway, and that’s good, honestly. They’re completely made up in the first place. So long as you can cleverly break them, with satisfactorily emotional results (even if the result is as surface level as “whoa, cool!”) then breaking “Star Wars” rules isn’t a big problem at all. Nobody’s going to Star Wars movies to see its rules upheld. They’re going to Star Wars to be emotionally engaged by the story being told. And that’s not really happening with Rise of Skywalker for a fair amount of its viewers.

The weird thing for me is/was that TROS somehow took me back to a time where ‘rules’ weren’t an issue - that time being 1980 and TESB. I can’t quite explain it, it was just a bizarre visceral thing that I haven’t experienced in a SW film since then. But the lore and canon are still a tangled mess for me. My wife joked - as we left the cinema after seeing TROS for the 3rd time! - that she could imagine me watching ANH followed by TESB followed by TROS as a kind of crazy machete order. She wasn’t necessarily wrong! Every criticism levelled at the ST (and the PT for that matter) I pretty much agree with in the general sense, but somehow my ‘canon-brain’ experienced TROS as if I’d been living in seclusion for 40 years and TROS just happened to be the sequel to some amazing movies I hadn’t seen yet. This probably sounds insane! For example I just watched Mauler’s takedown of TROS and I honestly can’t fault his points, but my fanboy brain wasn’t connecting those dots at all as I watched TROS. I’m obviously aware of Rey and Poe and Holdo and everything else, but during my viewings of TROS these things became vague notions rather than 'well Rey couldn’t be this and Luke wouldn’t do that and Palpatine couldn’t be X and the Force would never Y…". I think it was Dom who said in a thread that he experiences SW films individually rather than setting them against each other in terms of canon/consistency (hope I’m not misrepresenting you Dom!) and this was the first time it happened for me without my really noticing.

I thought watching TROS again might expose the cracks, but what it really made me notice was just how much TROS resonated/resonates with me as a defacto Revenge of the Jedi. So much of TROS is what I wish ROTJ had been - the chemistry between the leads, the emotional moments and redemptions, the environments, the temptation of Rey, the horrific nature of Palpatine etc etc. So like I said to Dre earlier, my obvious bias allows for this particular rehash to get a free pass for me! Sorry about the rambling…

RogueLeader said:

Shopping Maul said:

I absolutely see your point, but for me the spectacular (and as you say iconic) aspects of DS II were drowned out by the silliness of it. When I saw ROTJ in '83 I was disappointed by the story but absolutely wowed by the SPFX.

I may have missed earlier hints but for some reason I imagined that you were in your 20s this whole time, Maul!

No, I’m just incredibly immature! When 900 years old you reach, look as good…

I’m 51 in 2020.

yotsuya said:

Broom Kid said:

It’s a good point that in both TFA and TROS Abrams doesn’t seem to understand the basic tension principles at play that made the climax of Star Wars and Jedi work. It wasn’t just that the weapon was destructive, and could cause destruction. It’s that the destructive weapon was pointed at people we cared about, and the heroes had to disarm and destroy the weapon before it went off in the worst way.

It’s why fan-edits that combine Starkiller firing on Hosnian Prime with the climax of the movie tend to make that film work better. The battle at the end of TFA and ESPECIALLY the battle here at the end of TROS are dramatically inert because THAT’S the difference between knocking a gun off a table and KILLING THE PERSON POINTING A GUN AT YOU.

ROTJ’s climax was a re-tread (a lot of ROTJ was a re-tread, Lucas admitted as much a couple times - it’s his ANH makeup with more money) but at least the idea of the gun being aimed (and even fired) at our heroes directly was still intact and it added stakes and tension to the proceedings. In TROS you had an entire fleet of Star Destroyers, some of which had planet-destroying guns, but there was never any goal but “Don’t let them get out.”

They should have already gotten out and the race was to stop them from being able to fire.

Now, hold on a sec. ANH and TFA share the exact same pacing of the use of the weapon (the one area I do see a clear parallel). In ANH it is test on Alderaan and then is menacing the base on Yavin IV. In TFA it is tested on the Hosnian system and then turns to D’Qar in the Ileenium system to destroy the Resistance base. So how can the battle of the First Death Star and the Battle of Starkiller Base have less dramatic tension? We see them preparing to fire in both (something added to ANH late in development). And ROTJ and TROS do the same thing. We see the weapon in action and then there is a race to destroy it. And in the case of TROS, there are many weapons ready to go out and force the surrender of all the major worlds of the Republic. The stakes are even higher and I got that. Each one of these films and every time I see it that tension is clear. If anything, ROTJ is the weakest because the Death Star is not mobile yet and any threat to other systems is more distant while the threat to the fleet is what is imminent. Each battle handles the situation in a different way. ANH requires the McGuffin plans to locate the weak point and it is a race against time with Tarkin giving the order to fire almost as Luke fires his shot. ROTJ adds the parley between Luke and Palpatine, then his duel with Vader, then his torture by Palpatine. The real drama of this version is in the throne room. Then in TFA it they don’t have secret plans, but they have a sabotage mission where Han faces his son, creating yet a different slant to the same type of battle. The X-wings don’t get their chance until Chewy blows the charges. Then in TROS, it isn’t the Death Star weapon that endangers the fleet, it is Palpatine himself. This time Rey directly stops him by taking his attention and letting the fleet finish their work. Each of these is a race against time and I found each pretty tense. Outside of ANH, the space battle is secondary to the other drama going on, but each finds its own way to build tension in the battle and tension in the parallel story. If Starkiller doesn’t destroy the Hosnian system, then how does anyone know it works? The urgency is minimized because the weapon may or may not work. But we do see the weapon work and we know the resistance base (where Leia is) will be destroyed if the raid is not successful. The part of the film that just yanks me right out is everyone on Takodana seeing the destruction of the Hosnian system. Unless they are orbiting the same star, that is so impossible that I consider it one of the two worst scenes in Star Wars (the other being C-3PO’s entire role on Geonosis). I think TFA has some serious issues but I think they can be easily fixed without altering the structure. But the battle sequence is one of the best parts of the film (along with the opening).

There is another factor that I always harp on about (it seems I’m somewhat alone in this) and that is the fact that Luke’s showdown with Vader/Palpatine was irrelevant to the battle. In fact, somewhat ironically, fans have postulated TROS-like scenarios to explain this fact away ie “oh, Palpatine was guiding the Imperial fleet through the Force”. The truth is Lucas suddenly decided that the point of the series was Anakin’s redemption rather than Luke’s being the only hope for saving the galaxy. But I seem to be one of five people on earth actually bothered by this…

In TROS the stakes were higher because Rey’s interaction with Palpatine was crucial to the outcome of the battle. Her failure would have been the Resistance’ failure as well. Better yet, her being drawn to the Dark Side made sense - she literally had no apparent recourse but to sell her soul to save her loved ones. This is what Luke should have been offered in ROTJ rather than “ha ha you got angry so you don’t get a Jedi merit badge…”

DrDre said:

Shopping Maul said:

The planet-killing Star Destroyers were one of many reasons I see TROS as ROTJ done better. Not that it’s necessarily the greatest idea on earth, but more because it was a cool way to retain that ‘super weapon/final showdown’ idea without the blatant retread of the Death Star.

I don’t agree, because while the idea of planet-killing Star Destroyers might seem more original, and interesting on paper, it is used in the lamest way possible in the film. Essentially, they show one of these Destroyers blow up a planet, in an attempt to artificially raise the stakes, to then never use the lasers again for the rest of the movie. At least in ROTJ the Death Star was used in an interesting way, to lure the rebels to it, and then as a twist, have it be be operational. It was also actively used in the space battle to increase tension, forcing the rebels to engage the Star Destroyers at point blank range. Lastly, the part where the rebels fly through the Death Star super structure, has turned out to be so iconic, that thusfar each of the ST entries have rehashed it in some way:

I absolutely see your point, but for me the spectacular (and as you say iconic) aspects of DS II were drowned out by the silliness of it. When I saw ROTJ in '83 I was disappointed by the story but absolutely wowed by the SPFX. Naturally SPFX alone can’t really sustain the love forever. For me the Star Destroyers were at least logical (well, Star Wars logical) as a next step for the Empire whereas DS II was obviously something of a desperate story move. Plus I had issues with such pedantry as the size of the ship-destroying beam relative to its source, the size of the DS next to the Endor moon (as a reflection of its planet-destroying capabilities) and such. But I see your point regarding the tension and stakes as well as the great visuals.

I mean my anti-ROTJ bias is in full flight here and I freely admit that. TROS is the one OT clone that gets a pass from me because it just feels like what I always wanted Revenge of the Jedi to be. But if I had a higher regard for ROTJ I’d be writing TROS off as a retread along with TFA and TLJ.

Valheru_84 said:

Shopping Maul said:

Broom Kid said:

Hiding reasonable, justified criticisms behind something called “two-hour-rage” is ridiculously counterproductive. Why would anyone want to watch a “two-hour-rage” directed at anything?

If the criticisms are reasonable and justified what’s the benefit in presenting them as two hours of concentrated rage?

In Mauler’s defence the whole ‘Rage’ thing is a result of his initial ‘success’ being a response to his TLJ ‘rant’ - which was just that - a rant (which I personally found hilarious). After that he did a proper critique of the film over several hours, and then sought to differentiate between his ‘rants’ and his critiques. I haven’t watched this one yet but I’m assuming it’s a big combination of both approaches.

I absolutely agree with you about the post-Plinkett Internet, but I have to say I like Mauler a lot. While I don’t agree with everything he says, he seems to have a good grasp of the subjective vs the objective in his assessments. But like I said, I haven’t watched this one yet.

Good post SM and I agree. His original TLJ unbridled rage video where you get to watch a watermelon slowly decay into rott was literally a rage filled rant which was just good for some catharsis if the film royally pissed you off (which it did for me) as well as a good laugh at times. Regardless of the ridiculous method of conveying criticism though, it was all pretty much on point. As you said, he did then follow up with a far more detailed and level headed break down of the whole movie and these two approaches pretty much defined his new channel and so he’s continued with that formula for the other movies.

In regards to this latest one for TROS, it’s definitely longer than normal but I think that is down to how much is compressed into TROS and how much is wrong with it, especially how it affects the saga at large. I don’t feel the “rage” was authentic here as it was in his TLJ rant, he is obviously pretty pissed at some things but more in an exasperated manner but moreover this one feels a bit more manufactured, especially his carefully crafted insults which after 1hr were really starting to get completely over the top and on the nose (and unnecessary, I think he’s really just trying to make the rant fit it’s own “unbridled rage” title and over doing it). All the points he makes though again sound completely on point, at least so far as I understand and from snippets of footage he has obviously pulled from a pirated source. You could say he nitpicks a lot as well (which could also be said of his massive critiques) but they again are on point and the sheer amount of them add up to the fact that the writers clearly have no real understanding of the IP they are working within.

Anyway this one wasn’t nearly as entertaining for me, more just sad as to the abysmal state the DT ended up at.

You’re right Val, I’m about an hour in and it seems Mauler is trying a bit too hard to be Mauler - and it’s more nitpicky than his usual fare. But it is interesting so I’ll keep going…

Broom Kid said:

Hiding reasonable, justified criticisms behind something called “two-hour-rage” is ridiculously counterproductive. Why would anyone want to watch a “two-hour-rage” directed at anything?

If the criticisms are reasonable and justified what’s the benefit in presenting them as two hours of concentrated rage?

In Mauler’s defence the whole ‘Rage’ thing is a result of his initial ‘success’ being a response to his TLJ ‘rant’ - which was just that - a rant (which I personally found hilarious). After that he did a proper critique of the film over several hours, and then sought to differentiate between his ‘rants’ and his critiques. I haven’t watched this one yet but I’m assuming it’s a big combination of both approaches.

I absolutely agree with you about the post-Plinkett Internet, but I have to say I like Mauler a lot. While I don’t agree with everything he says, he seems to have a good grasp of the subjective vs the objective in his assessments. But like I said, I haven’t watched this one yet.

The planet-killing Star Destroyers were one of many reasons I see TROS as ROTJ done better. Not that it’s necessarily the greatest idea on earth, but more because it was a cool way to retain that ‘super weapon/final showdown’ idea without the blatant retread of the Death Star.

theMaestro said:

Even the SE version still had Shaw, at least it did before 2004.

Anyway, I can sort of see how people might not immediately recognize the Shaw ghost as Anakin since the ghost form is healed and in Jedi robes. But that’s what’s cool about it. It requires the audience to turn a few cogs in their brains to figure it out: Obi-Wan was a Jedi and he died…now he’s a ghost. Yoda was a Jedi and he died…now he’s a ghost. So who is that 3rd guy with them? He must be a Jedi…oh, it’s Anakin, because he became good and died as a Jedi! Things don’t need to be so explicitly spelled out as to awkwardly paste Hayden’s head from episode 3 onto the scene, especially when the Hayden ghost fails on both a visual and thematic level.

In '83 I didn’t think Shaw was in Jedi robes - I thought he was dressed as a Tatooine moisture farmer. Which seemed appropriate at the time…

All of it. This was/is my favourite SW film since TESB. I just had an innocently joyful immersive time watching it.

The annoying thing about the Anakin change (to me) is that once again Lucas was changing the OT to suit his prequels when the prequels should have been made to suit the OT. Anakin died as an old man in the original canon - Lucas described him as being ‘in his 60s’ and I believe the novelisation described him as old and looking ‘not unlike Ben’. When I first saw ROTJ in '83 I felt Anakin looked like Owen Lars, which was a touching moment and conjured all kinds of speculation of what had occurred back in the day between these brothers. I can’t for the life of me understand why Lucas didn’t simply stick to the timeline and have Anakin/Hayden be around 35-40 (with Obi Wan being 45-50 or so) when Luke was born.

I know this is completely off-canon but Palpatine in TROS was, to me, more like an extension of the original TESB Emperor with the monkey-eyes. This version didn’t feel like the Naboo Senator gone bad or even the hammy ROTJ guy to me. The idea of the Sith as this secret cult of gothic sorcerers really worked for me too, even if it doesn’t necessarily line up with what has gone before.

I swear, no SW film has messed with my head-canon more than this one! But god I love it…

RogueLeader said:

Thanks for the words of encouragement Tavor and Duracell. Happy Holidays to you two.

I second this Rogue - I’ve never known you to be anything but reasonable and pleasant. I think we forget how good we have it here (thanks mods!). On that note, happy holidays/life-day everyone and may the Force do whatever your head-canon deems appropriate…

RogueLeader said:

Then why was her father a nobody? Did the power levels just skip a generation?

I just wish fans could accept the Force awakened and things are different now. I feel like the new movies tried to bring back the Force as this mysterious power beyond total understanding, and Abrams ironically fell back on midichlorians. “Rey has Palpatine’s high midichlorian count! It’s gotta be at least 20,000 if not more!”

I appreciate your willingness to discuss this Shopping Maul! Don’t get me wrong, I did have fun with the movie still, these are just some of my issues with it. So I’m not criticizing you or your enjoyment, just the story decisions of the movie.

I just assume her father didn’t want to go there. I mean Luke could have lived a life of total Force-ignorance if Ben Kenobi had never come along. Rey was prodded by circumstance (both survival necessities and then the events in TFA) into accessing her powers, and (for me) the crazy magnitude of those powers is explained by her being in the Sith family. I don’t have Midichlorians in my personal lexicon. I’m seeing the Sith and the Emperor as being an unknown quantity - not including EU (which I don’t follow) and bearing in mind that Palps doesn’t get an origin story in the prequels. Having the Sith be mysterious whacko gothic sorcerers actually works for me.

I get what you’re saying about the Force awakening but I’m not really on board with that. It makes the Force seem sentient when I just personally prefer the Force as a substance rather than an entity.

RogueLeader said:

I just think having Rey’s power being tied to a male bloodline feels so lazy and totally defeats her purpose in my eyes. And regardless if you feel she needs to be related to someone, I think cramming all that information into the last movie was a mistake. If they wanted her to be Rey Palpatine, they should’ve told Rian that’s the direction they want to go in. But once his movie was out and she wasn’t, Abrams should’ve continued painting that picture rather than trying paint over what was already on the canvas.

I actually agree with you in spirit - I’m not sure if you saw my post where I said to Broom Boy that I love the movie but not necessarily the sandpit it’s playing out in. I’ve never liked Force genetics, not since the Leia fiasco of '83! But since this is how it is now, I think the Palpatine connection really ties up Rey’s power levels and behaviour in the previous films. In TLJ she lifts a billion boulders and looks completely surprised. I found this annoying because to me it diminished the importance of training (and Luke’s entire arc) in the previous instalments. Now we know why - she’s a Sith Lord! Even the anger she displayed whilst beating Kylo that first time - the Palpatine connection actually makes all this coherent for me. I agree that these bozos should have written a trilogy before filming it! But I think given what he had to work with, JJ tied it all up really well.

Broom Kid said:

“People didn’t reject TLJ because their emotional maturity wasn’t up to the task”

Some people obviously did though. The idea that NOBODY did that doesn’t make any sense. It’s an overstatement you’re making in response to an overstatement he’s making to arrive at one of his bigger points (which I find lucid and relevant). It’s not total nonsense to suggest people didn’t understand the Last Jedi, especially not in the face of two years of people very loudly not understanding it in front of as many people as possible.

There’s no point in attempting to reject observable reality simply because it doesn’t align with your personal viewpoint. You’re not the people he’s talking about, and that’s fine. You don’t need to then try and further argue that the people he’s talking about don’t, and have never, existed. They did, and they still do. You aren’t among their number, and don’t need to count yourself among them for your opinions to have validity.

I don’t take your arguments against the review as an attack at all, but I do think trying to erase the group of people he’s talking about doesn’t help anything.

Further - I don’t think there’s anything really sanctimonious about the tone of the review at all because he’s also describing how he understands, and sometimes indulges, in the headspace he’s also criticizing. He’s saying that he’s been there, and he still visits semi-frequently, but it’s because he knows of what he speaks that he’s able (and willing) to make the criticisms he’s making.

Well I can only run with my own anecdotal observations obviously, but the criticisms of TLJ seem (to me) to be pretty consistent and very rarely in the meta realm. I don’t see anyone saying for instance that Luke couldn’t be broken and dejected, or that Leia couldn’t have Force abilities, or that a slow chase wasn’t possible or that the legend of Luke Skywalker and the Jedi couldn’t use an overhaul. I only ever see the same stuff about character and lore and plot holes and the like. It’s generally surface stuff rather than fans balking at brave ideas. But again that’s just my observation and I accept your point about my generalisations.

There’s a wider point that I think many reviewers are ignoring - TROS exists within an established realm. For example I actually don’t like many aspects of where SW has ended up. I still cringe at the ‘Leia as sister’ thing even now, and hate that she’s a Skywalker/Jedi. I hate that the Force is so genetic, or that Force Ghosts have progressed beyond Obi Wan’s casual log-sitting and now control the weather and grasp solid objects! I could go on, but the point I’m making is that I really enjoyed TROS in the context of really liking what it was doing despite not being thrilled with the sandpit the game is now playing out in. Rey being a Palpatine was awesome to me - not because I like the idea of inherited power at all - but because it reconciles how I felt about her insane power levels in the previous films. Her being a Skywalker would not have done the trick for me - her being a baby Sith Lord (an unknown quantity at this point as far as I know) was a great antidote to the rather cavalier writing in the previous instalments. So it’s not really fan-conservatism driving me so much as a desire for a consistent narrative.

But I’m rambling now, sorry! Thanks for the reply!

Broom Kid said:

I posted what I think is my favorite review of this movie earlier, but its author tweeted something that is very relevant to the discussion.

https://twitter.com/mangiotto/status/1207423051404431360

"The thing about giving fans what they want is it holds a mirror up to the sad limits of a fan’s imagination. Not just for possible paths to evolve their objects of veneration, but for their own potential growth as human beings. “Look! Look! This is all you think you deserve.”

That’s an effective description of the creative impulse behind this movie. It really is.

(that review, again, if you missed it: https://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2019/12/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker.html)

I’m not attacking you but this guy’s sanctimony is off the chart. People didn’t reject TLJ because their emotional maturity wasn’t up to the task - they rejected it because they thought it was a badly written mess. Yes, it had some great ideas, but it was a car-crash of a film (for many) in terms of plot, tone, lore, characters etc etc. This whole “you’re just not sophisticated enough to understand it” thing is total nonsense. I really enjoyed TROS because it was to me (a fan since '77) a great SW movie that pretty much exemplified what I wish ROTJ had been. Plus (IMO) it cleaned up the mess Rian Johnson left behind. I don’t need some guy telling me that it it’s because I’m riddled by sad limitations and am happy to stunt my own growth as a human being!

DrDre said:

Shopping Maul said:

I see the supposed rejection of ROTJ’s ‘happily ever after’ as more of a reaction to ROTJ than anything else. People seem to have forgotten what a disappointment that film was, not just to many fans but to folks who were involved in the films. I’m pretty sure that’s why the comics had Luke turn to the Dark Side in the 90s, or why we have a ‘disillusioned Luke in exile’ in TFA with Han having his long overdue death scene. Not everyone left the 1983 Ewok party feeling satisfied. I’m more than happy to see ROTJ as ‘a’ victory and not necessarily ‘the’ victory.

But at least ROTJ had some powerful themes at its core, even if everything ended a bit too neatly. TROS essentially redoes this ending only much bigger, and louder, but ultimately much less effective imo.

Yes, ROTJ had the themes but for me this film really does them better. Of course it will only ever be a copy, since ROTJ already happened, but here’s what I loved…

No Death Star. While a fleet of planet-smashing Star Destroyers isn’t the greatest idea in the world, it is infinitely better than DS II.

Rey was actually tempted to turn to the Dark Side for a legitimately compelling reason - give up your soul to save your friends. Luke’s temptation was simply “go on, get mad 'cos that’s bad!”.

Rey’s temptation and how she dealt with it actually had a bearing on the battle. Luke’s scenario on DS II was irrelevant to the war.

I liked the movie in general, but the above really made it for me.