All Things Star Wars Thread (Spoilers)

IrishLax

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I must come out of posting retirement to agree completely with this.

It's almost poetic how JJ failed so hard to complete his own story.

Because some asshole completely threw out the script to the second chapter.....?
 

ShamrockOnHelmet

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Yeah Adam Driver carried the trilogy as much as he could.

See, I just see angsty soy boy whenever he’s onscreen. I couldn’t give two shits about kylo ren, he’s not a compelling character to me. And driver is just... bland, imo.
 
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greyhammer90

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Because some asshole completely threw out the script to the second chapter.....?

Snoke was killed and Rey was left as the only remaining jedi who could stop the First Order under it's new (and implied incompetent) leader Kylo Ren, who has a personal knowledge of her weaknesses and a personal hatred of the resistance which makes him dangerous. That's not nothing, it's just a different story than the rehash of the OT that everyone was expecting. Instead, it was retconned to answer the dumb mystery boxes that Abrams threw around in VII, and everything that was seen as "too different" was just sloppily pasted over with OT callbacks.

Seeing an unhinged inexperienced bad guy flying by the seat of his pants and doing tons of damage in his quest for vengeance was going to be interesting, so let's replace it with a guy on a chair in a robe who's masterminded everything. And let's make it palpatine, because fuck it people get angry when we do new things. A non-special character who was selected by the natural force to counterbalance the growing dark side? Because the force always finds a way to independently find balance? A little too deep into the metaphysical. Let's make her related to the only force user left that hasn't been essentially ruled out. Hereditary force power, back in midichlorian land baby. I'm comfortably numb again.
 
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Guyjin37

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Because some asshole completely threw out the script to the second chapter.....?

Nah--because he pulled a JJ Abrams, recycling stories without an interesting thought and leaving lame hanging plot threads, handing that asshole the unenviable task of having to follow A New Hope redux.

The problem doesn't really stem from the bad director choices, though. It was made in the board rooms when Kennedy and the other people in charge decided to see where the story went rather than have a single body or person to oversee it. As an ND fan I find the parallels interesting between ND admin and Disney admin. Both expect you to pull off a miracle while tying your hands behind your back and cutting off your legs.
 
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greyhammer90

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Nah--because he pulled a JJ Abrams, recycling stories without an interesting thought and leaving lame hanging plot threads, handing that asshole the unenviable task of having to follow A New Hope redux.

The problem doesn't really stem from the bad director choices, though. It was made in the board rooms when Kennedy and the other people in charge decided to see where the story went rather than have a single body or person to oversee it. As an ND fan I find the parallels interesting between ND admin and Disney admin. Both expect you to pull off a miracle while trying your hands behind your back and cutting off your legs.

Very good post. Agreed.
 

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See, I just see angsty soy boy whenever he’s onscreen. I couldn’t give two shits about kylo ren, he’s not a compelling character to me. And driver is just... bland, imo.

That's the whole point. He's a try hard edgelord that never grew out of his emo phase. He's supposed to seem weak and non threatening without his mask. He's projecting the idea of his grandpa without any of the substance to back it up.
 

wizards8507

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See, I just see angsty soy boy whenever he’s onscreen. I couldn’t give two shits about kylo ren, he’s not a compelling character to me. And driver is just... bland, imo.
That's kind of the character. You're SUPPOSED to see angsty soy boy. He wants so bad to be Vader but knows he isn't so he's a little bitch about it.
 

Sea Turtle

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Red Letter Media hates it. They think even TLJ, which they called an absolute mess, was slightly better.

I'll rent it.
 

calvegas04

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What was the the whole "Sith Crowd" hanging out in the bleachers where Palpatine was hanging out at.
 

phillyirish

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I thought it was awful. The OT is basically insignificant because of how the prequels and new trilogy play out. Everything Luke and Anakin/Vader do means nothing cause there’s Palpatine. Star Wars basically became a saga about defeating Palpatine. If he can come back from the dead, then why doesn’t he just come back for the next Star Wars movies too.
 

TDHeysus

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What was the the whole "Sith Crowd" hanging out in the bleachers where Palpatine was hanging out at.

You mean the "Subway Sith"? they get together for big events like Grandfather/GrandDaughter dances and stuff like that.
 

ulukinatme

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Red Letter Media hates it. They think even TLJ, which they called an absolute mess, was slightly better.

I'll rent it.

That's what they do though, every Star Wars movie they review is worse than the previous one. It's kind of their shtick, but they're not really wrong. Last Jedi was definitely worse between the last two films though.
 

ulukinatme

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If you don't think a decent critic with nothing at stake politically couldn't think that the movie was bad I don't know what to say. I thought Rose was by far the worst part of VIII and I thought IX was a total mess.

I don't know if Rose was the worst part of VIII. It was a bit weird how she idolized her sister's sacrifice from the beginning of the film, but then she stops Finn from the same fate at the end...felt a bit hypocritical. Johnson screwed up so much with Last Jedi it's hard to pinpoint what was the worst part. Right from the get go he's dropping Space Bombs from a ship like there's fuckin' gravity in space...except there isn't, and Space Bombs have already been in the SW universe and they're fired as projectiles from Y-Wings and B-Wings. They're slow, but they have propulsion because...there's no fucking gravity in space. From there it was all downhill. They gave us the most boring space chase of all time as the First Order slowly chases down a Resistance fleet that can't jump (Nevermind that the First Order can't just jump in front of them), and they waste Luke Skywalker's character. It's all such a mess.

Snoke was killed and Rey was left as the only remaining jedi who could stop the First Order under it's new (and implied incompetent) leader Kylo Ren, who has a personal knowledge of her weaknesses and a personal hatred of the resistance which makes him dangerous. That's not nothing, it's just a different story than the rehash of the OT that everyone was expecting. Instead, it was retconned to answer the dumb mystery boxes that Abrams threw around in VII, and everything that was seen as "too different" was just sloppily pasted over with OT callbacks.

Seeing an unhinged inexperienced bad guy flying by the seat of his pants and doing tons of damage in his quest for vengeance was going to be interesting, so let's replace it with a guy on a chair in a robe who's masterminded everything. And let's make it palpatine, because fuck it people get angry when we do new things. A non-special character who was selected by the natural force to counterbalance the growing dark side? Because the force always finds a way to independently find balance? A little too deep into the metaphysical. Let's make her related to the only force user left that hasn't been essentially ruled out. Hereditary force power, back in midichlorian land baby. I'm comfortably numb again.

Palpatine was a necessarily evil after Johnson fucked up Snoke though. You need an ultimate obstacle/antagonist for a trilogy. Killing off Snoke left a power vacuum. Kylo was never going to be the guy, they teased his turn from the get go. Hux wasn't it either. You could try introducing a new bad guy for the final film, but it's hard to get invested in a new bad guy in the last film of a trilogy. That meant bringing back a past character, and Palpatine was the most logical choice. He had the powers to pull it off, and he was the only character that could take the place of Snoke in this trilogy to give them the Sauron they needed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy about it, but it was the most logical conclusion after Johnson's fuck up.
 

Domina Nostra

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I enjoyed the new film, ROS, (1) because I saw it with my kids in 4D and they are at exactly the right age to love that kind of thing and (2) because it apologized for Rian Johnson's slapping me in the face.

But, upon reflection, it was pretty darn mediocre.

It wasn't pretentious and nonsensically preachy like RJ's movie, but I no longer think JJ Abrams is a particularly great story teller. The characters were wooden. The continuous McGuffins and borrowing of old story lines seemed lazy, and JJ certainly buys into the "MOAR" approach to action. He can film a beautiful scene, but it doesn't translate into a coherent, worthwhile story.

I agree that some of the plot holes were not his directly his fault, but the trilogy, in the end, just wasn't that interesting.

I'd give it a B-. It was too entertaining to get a bad grade, but too much of a mess for a good one.
 

wizards8507

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Uh. You guys.

Mandalorian episode 8 talks about an ancient "Mandalore the Great" who fought Jedi a long time ago. And Revan is mentioned in the Visual Dictionary for Rise of Skywalker. Much hype.
 

tussin

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Finally saw it. A few random thoughts...

1. My immediate reaction upon leaving the theater was “WTF Palpatine?” And I still think his return is largely inexplicable in the context of the original trilogy. But upon reflection, JJ really had no options after Rian destroyed the trilogy with Snoke. Kylo was never going to be the big bad so Palpy was the only choice.

2. It’s a largely entertaining movie if not predictable. The action sequences are beautiful. Kylo remains a fantastic character and I like that they actually showed some semblance of character / skill progression with Rey.

3. Finn’s development was disappointing throughout the trilogy and it didn’t improve in this movie. I found myself not caring about his outcome whatsoever.

4. Thoroughly enjoyed Rose getting the Jar Jar treatment.

5. JJ is much much better than Rian but once again this film refuses to take any risks (much like TFA). Disney interpreted the TLJ backlash as a cry for pure fan service. They didn’t realize that risks are welcomed, so long as they don’t completely undermine established characters, cause massive plot holes, or break seemingly established rules of the SW universe.

6. How did Disney not loosely sketch out this trilogy? It baffles me that they just handed off the story from writer to writer and just let them do their thing without any guiding parameters.

7. Love the big J journos having a meltdown about this movie - especially at The Ringer. There’s some moron that’s legitimately upset because they undermined the Holdo Maneuver in this film.
 

ulukinatme

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Alright, I just had a thought and I take it back that Palpatine was the only choice for a final baddie. So, they needed an antagonist opposite Rey to complete her character arc for the final film, right? Snoke was toast, they needed someone else established that would resonate with the audience, someone they didn't have to build up over the final movie. What if...they brought back Vader as a clone. Kylo idolized his grandfather, had that stupid helmet like a trophy in his bedroom going all the way back to Force Awakens. They use DNA in the helmet to make the clone. Vader clone is pure evil, there's no good in him. Kylo embraces it at first, but then he begins to complete his own arc and having second thoughts. He gets struck down by the Vader clone, but not before helping Rey destroy it. The only problem with this angle is it doesn't explain where Rey gets her Mary Sue powers, that and I'm not sure if audiences would rail harder against Vader's comeback over Palpatine's. I will say this about Palpatine that I didn't realize at first: he ended up closing out all three trilogies and it worked. Either way, Snoke still should have been the final obstacle all along in this one.
 
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tussin

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Alright, I just had a thought and I take it back that Palpatine was the only choice for a final baddie. So, they needed an antagonist opposite Rey to complete her character arc for the final film, right? Snoke was toast, they needed someone else established that would resonate with the audience, someone they didn't have to build up over the final movie. What if...they brought back Vader as a clone. Kylo idolized his grandfather, had that stupid helmet like a trophy in his bedroom going all the way back to Force Awakens. They use DNA in the helmet to make the clone. Vader clone is pure evil, there's no good in him. Kylo embraces it at first, but then he begins to complete his own arc and having second thoughts. He gets struck down by the Vader clone, but not before helping Rey destroy it. The only problem with this angle is it doesn't explain where Rey gets her Mary Sue powers, that and I'm not sure if audiences would rail harder against Vader's comeback over Palpatine's. I will say this about Palpatine that I didn't realize at first: he ended up closing out all three trilogies and it worked. Either way, Snoke still should have been the final obstacle all along in this one.

Agree - should’ve been Snoke.

Who makes the Vader clone?

Another question I had - let’s accept that Palpy is back. Why did Rey have to be related? Why couldn’t she remain a nobody. That was the one angle in TLJ that I actually enjoyed.
 

phillyirish

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Alright, I just had a thought and I take it back that Palpatine was the only choice for a final baddie. So, they needed an antagonist opposite Rey to complete her character arc for the final film, right? Snoke was toast, they needed someone else established that would resonate with the audience, someone they didn't have to build up over the final movie. What if...they brought back Vader as a clone. Kylo idolized his grandfather, had that stupid helmet like a trophy in his bedroom going all the way back to Force Awakens. They use DNA in the helmet to make the clone. Vader clone is pure evil, there's no good in him. Kylo embraces it at first, but then he begins to complete his own arc and having second thoughts. He gets struck down by the Vader clone, but not before helping Rey destroy it. The only problem with this angle is it doesn't explain where Rey gets her Mary Sue powers, that and I'm not sure if audiences would rail harder against Vader's comeback over Palpatine's. I will say this about Palpatine that I didn't realize at first: he ended up closing out all three trilogies and it worked. Either way, Snoke still should have been the final obstacle all along in this one.

They should have made Snoke Darth Plageou and brought him back cause he can escape death or what not. Then make the last film about defeating him once and for all or something. Still doesn’t work, but better than having it be Palpatine being behind everything again.
 

Sea Turtle

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They should have made Snoke Darth Plageou and brought him back cause he can escape death or what not. Then make the last film about defeating him once and for all or something. Still doesn’t work, but better than having it be Palpatine being behind everything again.

They also should have just made Finn and Poe gay. It would have made them more interesting.

It could have went something like this throughout the series:

https://youtu.be/vuziQsUrbeM
 

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Agree - should’ve been Snoke.

Who makes the Vader clone?

Another question I had - let’s accept that Palpy is back. Why did Rey have to be related? Why couldn’t she remain a nobody. That was the one angle in TLJ that I actually enjoyed.

Because then it makes no sense that she's incredibly powerful, and ruins the intrigue of the set up done about her lineage in TFA.
 

Irishnuke

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Just watched ROS a few hours ago. I'm not emotionally invested in these films like a lot of you but I am a fan of SW. I think JJ did a decent job after Johnson completely fucked things up with the TLJ. That said, I don't think it was very good. Lots of entertaining action but too much story and exposition and shit that just didn't make sense. Greyhammer was right when he said it was like fans wrote it. Palpatine felt like a last minute addition because they figured they needed a main antagonist and didn't have one.

Things I liked
Kylo. He's by far the most interesting character of the new trilogy. Loved his scene with Han.

John Williams. Kinda goes without saying. He's a genius.

C3PO. Had a better arc than Rey.

Rose barely being in it. She was awful in the TLJ. The new trilogy's Jar Jar.

Didn't like
Palpatine. Vader fucking killed him. Bringing him back as anything other than a force ghost was stupid and felt like desperation. And how did he build an entire fleet without Luke, Leia, Kylo and everyone else noticing? And who is flying those things? Where did his army come from? And now he wants Rey to kill him because he suddenly cares about the Sith lineage when all he ever wanted to do was be immortal?

Leia. The scenes just felt so out of place. I feel like they should have killed her very early on in the movie. RIP

Rose. She's still in the movie.

The entire movie took place over like 16 hours but Lando had enough time to gather up troops from across the galaxy Endgame style?

The kiss. Unnecessary. Total fan service. Also the force can bring people back to life now? Okay.
 

nlroma1o

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Ok finally saw RoS. I wasn’t going to see it in theatre because of how much I hated TLJ. But I regretted not seeing Solo in theatre, so I decided to stop being so negative and just go see it with my wife and siblings.

Initial impression. I honestly liked the film. I think it did about as well as it could to make up for the abortion TLJ was. They definitely had to fit too much plot into this one film. Probably should have explored making this chapter two films. One thing plot wise that I thought was a mistake and lost opportunity, was that Palpatines “return” message or “reveal” wasn’t on film. TLJ should have ended with the reveal that Palpatine is back. Hell write the last part of TLJ into the plot so that Rey triggers or discovers that Palpatine is back. Or make a episode 9 part 1 should plot that includes his reveal. Instead his return was from a fucking trailer. Massive loss of a potential great audience pop.

I personally loved every bit of TLJ shit housing that took place like mocking the holdo maneuver and retcon Luke, rose, Rey etc. Fuxk Rian Johnson. I haven’t said that in a while. That TLJ is such a fuxking waste of time.

Last thought for right now, I wish they would have sent Rey on more of an exploration mission and stumble into Jedi or Sith lore subject manner on her own. That what she should have been doing in TLJ. Luke should have sent her on a mission and have her discover some cool lore items and then discover Palpatine is alive or maybe she could even trigger palpatines return. Instead TLJ was focused around Rey and Kylos weird connection and random sjw preaching. What a stupid movie....

I hope SW make an old republic series now. Like 1000 years prior about a dark Jedi. That would be hype.
 

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Palpatine. Vader fucking killed him. Bringing him back as anything other than a force ghost was stupid and felt like desperation. And how did he build an entire fleet without Luke, Leia, Kylo and everyone else noticing? And who is flying those things? Where did his army come from? And now he wants Rey to kill him because he suddenly cares about the Sith lineage when all he ever wanted to do was be immortal?

I think I had a different interpretation of what happened with the whole Palpatine storyline. I took it more in line with what Mike from RLM thought. The Palpatine we see die at the end of RoJ isn't the same person that is in RoS. The "Palpatine" in RoS is more of just an embodiment of what's left of the Sith. Him having Rey strike him down would have transferred that spirit of the Sith into her making her the empress and him "immortal".

Leia. The scenes just felt so out of place. I feel like they should have killed her very early on in the movie. RIP

Agreed. She should have been the one to die in TLJ.

THANKS RIAN!
 

calvegas04

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I wish C3PO would have died when they made a big deal about him losing his memory. All he had to do was reboot his backup? lame
 

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Initial impression. I honestly liked the film. I think it did about as well as it could to make up for the abortion TLJ was. They definitely had to fit too much plot into this one film. Probably should have explored making this chapter two films. One thing plot wise that I thought was a mistake and lost opportunity, was that Palpatines “return” message or “reveal” wasn’t on film. TLJ should have ended with the reveal that Palpatine is back. Hell write the last part of TLJ into the plot so that Rey triggers or discovers that Palpatine is back. Or make a episode 9 part 1 should plot that includes his reveal. Instead his return was from a fucking trailer. Massive loss of a potential great audience pop..

Totally agree with this. I think there is probably a bunch of stuff cut from RoS. I know theres supposedly a Lando storyline that tied in to his final conversation with that black girl for example. I think adding in some stuff that was cut for time and shifting the opening with Palpatine back to TLJ would make a huge difference.

I think there's probably a really good edit of TLJ and RoS together in there somewhere.
 
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