The Rise of Skywalker Star Wars IX The Rise of Skywalker (JJ Abrams 2019) - NO SPOILERS ALLOWED

[Bayesian 304]

Will midi-chlorians be a theme again in Ep. 9, I wonder? Rey’s preternatural way with the force could be explained in one fell swoop by a finger prick that shows her m-c count is way higher than even Anakin’s was. 

[Jurassic Shark 3808]

1 hour ago, crumbs said:

Why is it so hard to believe that people born with a finely tuned connection to the Force don't require months or years of "training" to harness it? Why is it so hard to believe that people can be naturally gifted in their ability to wield it, not unlike a talented sportsperson or a genius mathematician?

 

Talented people still need practice to excel in their fields.

[Luke Skywalker 603]

It's weird that rey bests kylo ren in battle in tfa. You know, the guy that obliterated the whole new jedi order....which is rather unbelievable too...

[Holko 3482]

God, how is anyone still hung up on that? He was seriously injured and didn't even want to hurt her, he wanted to turn her! Rey gets the upper hand for a couple seconds, surprising Kylo, then the Deus Ex Earthquake separates them, complain about that.

[Quintus 4267]

I just put Rey's ability down to the idea that she's this untapped near elemental level of power without ever realising it. Prior to that, she'd had a survivor's attitude and little option but to quickly learn how to look after herself. 

 

The "accelerated learning" thing never dawned on me as being an issue, until I picked up on it online. But then I just passed that off as the usual nerdy nitpicking you see whenever these movies so much as fart in the wrong direction. 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 4859]

I didn't really have a problem with her in the swordfight, but rather when she pilots the Millennium Falcon and especially brainwashed a guy with the force. I don't chalk that up to raw elemental power. How did she know to do that? I still don't get why the MF was in TFA parked next to Ray's house, but maybe it's a part of the story we don't know yet.

 

I still don't care, by the way. These are just some of the few things I remember from the new movies.

[Pieter Boelen 526]

A lot of Rey's skills are explained in a pre-TFA book that was released before the movie was out.

Therefore it cannot be a reactionary retcon based on fan complaints, but has to be part of the actual story as originally intended.

 

They must simply have decided that a limited length means that explaining/showing EVERYTHING works against the flow of the movie.

And I agree. Nothing wrong with leaving some things to the imagination.

 

2 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Talented people still need practice to excel in their fields.

Define "excel".

It's quite possible to be pretty good at something right from the start.

But you're right that practice can make it better still.

[Jurassic Shark 3808]

3 minutes ago, Pieter_Boelen said:

Define "excel".

 

Microsoft Excel.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 4859]

Even in the prequels despite everyone complaining about midichlorians, the force is a magical thing, so it's fine. They never really jumped the shark with it. It's fantasy but it does more or less have a set of rules.

[First TROS March Accolyte 1190]

Have you ever heard the story of the three most powerful composers ever? I think not. It's not a story conservatoires would tell you.

J.S. Bach,  W.A. Mozart and L. van Beethoven were all scrappy desert dwellers.

 

Beethoven was a farmer boy who used to scare rats with a giant tuba (they were 2 meters long), Mozart---a slave in a music shop, while Bach was an orphan, who exchanged salvaged instrument parts for food portions.

 

Of the three, Beethoven received at best 2 weeks of private lessons with two admittedly famous teachers, Mozart went to the Academy (neeeerd) but spent a much shorter time there than the others and mostly relied on his inborn talent of over 20,000 musicchlorians anyway.  Bach needed no help at all.

 

Moral of the story? You need no conservatory.

[mstrox 3105]

[Naïve Old Fart 3500]

Asked about which classical composer he will play, in an upcoming biopic, Arnold Schwarzenegger replied: "I'll be Bach".

[First TROS March Accolyte 1190]

44 minutes ago, Richard said:

Asked about which classical composer he will play, in an upcoming biopic, Arnold Schwarzenegger replied: "I'll be Bach".

I would watch Schwarzenegger in a wig pretending to play a church organ and then running around and punching people.

[Arpy 2621]

2 hours ago, Pieter_Boelen said:

A lot of Rey's skills are explained in a pre-TFA book that was released before the movie was out.

Therefore it cannot be a reactionary retcon based on fan complaints, but has to be part of the actual story as originally intended.

 

They must simply have decided that a limited length means that explaining/showing EVERYTHING works against the flow of the movie.

And I agree. Nothing wrong with leaving some things to the imagination.

 

You should never have to rely on peripheral material to understand something the movie could've explained, and while I'm not one of those 'Rey's a Mary Sue!' arseholes, I can also see why people were left to wonder how Rey could fight, fly ships, repair them etc. I just put most of this down to her harsh life on Jakku, where she's always had to defend herself and the fact she was force sensitive. 

 

[Pieter Boelen 526]

2 hours ago, Arpy said:

You should never have to rely on peripheral material to understand something the movie could've explained

That was the response last time we had this exact discussion as well.

I'm not sure I agree. In a book, you can take the time to fully explain every little detail.

But doing so in a movie is a different story.

It'd probably get boring real quick and exposition is often frowned upon.

 

You kind-of HAVE to skip over certain things, I think.

A LOT of things if you're trying to tell a fairly complex story within a reasonable time frame.

 

The question then is: what do you tell and what do you skip?

It's clear to me that the makers of TFA basically chose for "skip as much as humanly possible".

 

I agree they went overboard there and skipped more than they should have.

But Rey's abilities is not really something that stands out to me as particularly bothersome.

 

What bothers me much more are:

- Where'd that First Order suddenly come from?

- Why are the New Republic and Resistance separate entities?

- Why oh why couldn't Han and Leia have a happy life together?!?

 

2 hours ago, Arpy said:

I can also see why people were left to wonder how Rey could fight, fly ships, repair them etc. I just put most of this down to her harsh life on Jakku, where she's always had to defend herself and the fact she was force sensitive.

That's pretty much what the book I mentioned confirms too.

The actual explanations make sense to me.

They're really nothing special.

They've got no impact on the greater story.

I don't see why they would've been worth mentioning in the movie.

 

For example, the reason why Rey is a good pilot:

She scavenges crashed First Order ships.

Some First Order ships are equipped with flight simulators for crew training purposes.

Sometimes she gets bored from scavenging all day and uses one of those simulators as entertainment in the evening.

That's how real pilots are trained before getting an actual plane/ship, so if it works for them, there's no reason it wouldn't work for Rey.

 

In other words: she's a good pilot because she played a lot of computer games.

That makes her not a Mary Sue, but a geek.

Not unlike us then.

[Arpy 2621]

I'm not against you on the point of a book having the space to elaborate, however, no filmmaker is asking the audience to read the novels in order to understand something that can easily be done in a film.

 

Rey's abilities could've been worked into a conversation, or a montage, or even a flashback to show her life beforehand. I like the small scenes of her washing the scavenged parts and seeing herself in the old woman, thinking that her life would be resigned to scavenging - that's filmmaking that's revealing more than it's showing and says a lot about the character without dialogue and lengthy exposition.

 

9 minutes ago, Pieter_Boelen said:

 

But Rey's abilities is not really something that stands out to me as particularly bothersome.

 

Nor do I.

 

Quote

- Where'd that First Order suddenly come from?

The opening crawl of TFA doesn't do enough to show this and I kind of feel that we needed some character to be as clueless as we are to be able to ask the questions and have them answered on screen - shit, Leia or Han could've said something about the rise of the FO and Resistance and we're left to assume Rey knows about the First Order having spent her whole life on one planet...

[Mr. Manfrenjensenden 647]

I dunno, it was pretty amazing that Luke could suddenly fly an x-wing and blow up the Death Star. Or a young 10 year old could pilot a ship and destroy a trade federation vessel.

 

TFA was just following the trend Lucas established.

[Þekþiþm 5450]

7 hours ago, Pieter_Boelen said:

A lot of Rey's skills are explained in a pre-TFA book that was released before the movie was out.

Therefore it cannot be a reactionary retcon based on fan complaints, but has to be part of the actual story as originally intended.

 

They must simply have decided that a limited length means that explaining/showing EVERYTHING works against the flow of the movie.

And I agree. Nothing wrong with leaving some things to the imagination.

 

Define "excel".

It's quite possible to be pretty good at something right from the start.

But you're right that practice can make it better still.

 

Eh yeah, hardly anyone reads those books anyhow.

[Pieter Boelen 526]

3 hours ago, Thekthithm said:

 

Eh yeah, hardly anyone reads those books anyhow.

True in my case.

I'm not reading the new ones anymore.

Would like to, but I just don't have the time.

 

Haven't a clue about "hardly anyone" though.

How do you know that?

 

I'd assume if it were true, Disney would stop releasing new ones.

But I'm pretty sure there are still plenty of new ones in the works.

 

5 hours ago, Arpy said:

Rey's abilities could've been worked into a conversation, or a montage, or even a flashback to show her life beforehand. I like the small scenes of her washing the scavenged parts and seeing herself in the old woman, thinking that her life would be resigned to scavenging - that's filmmaking that's revealing more than it's showing and says a lot about the character without dialogue and lengthy exposition.

That would indeed have been better!

[Þekþiþm 5450]

3 minutes ago, Pieter_Boelen said:

True in my case.

I'm not reading the new ones anymore.

Would like to, but I just don't have the time.

 

Haven't a clue about "hardly anyone" though.

How do you know that?

 

I'd assume if it were true, Disney would stop releasing new ones.

But I'm pretty sure there are still plenty of new ones in the works.

 

Only hardcore fans read those EU novels. The rest of the normie audience would be too intimidated by the sheer amount extracurricular literature to keep up with.

[Alexcremers 1810]

4 hours ago, El Jefe said:

I dunno, it was pretty amazing that Luke could suddenly fly an x-wing and blow up the Death Star. Or a young 10 year old could pilot a ship and destroy a trade federation vessel.

 

TFA was just following the trend Lucas established.

 

Luke and his buddy Biggs were already great pilots before the story started. So, yeah, few people were upset that he knew how to fly an X-Wing. And being good with cannon lasers didn't seem that far-fetched either. Now if Luke were to outforce Ben during their very first meeting, without ever having heard of the force, now THAT would definitely take us into TFA territory. 

[Þekþiþm 5450]

2 minutes ago, Alexcremers said:

Now if Luke were to outforce Ben during their very first meeting, without ever having heard of the force, now THAT would definitely take us into TFA territory. 

 

He could have done that if he was a woman in 2015.

[Arpy 2621]

1 hour ago, Alexcremers said:

 

Luke and his buddy Biggs were already great pilots before the story started. So, yeah, few people were upset that he knew how to fly an X-Wing. And being good with cannon lasers didn't seem that far-fetched either. Now if Luke were to outforce Ben during their very first meeting, without ever having heard of the force, now THAT would definitely take us into TFA territory. 

Yeah, that shot of him playing with the T-16 Skyhopper was in there too to suggest he had an interest in flying. Rey also has that Rebel helmet!

[Quintus 4267]

I remember when we would just answer idle conundrums like these with "the Force". That used to be enough to affectionately satiate any plot quandary, until the internet came along. Simpler times.

[theMaestraX 40]

WTF! I have a bad feeling about this & sense a great disturbance with this force! 

[Jurassic Shark 3808]

Too little, too late.

[theMaestraX 40]

So there's no hope or it's their last/only hope for Star Wars?

[Chen G. 1456]

3 hours ago, Quintus said:

I remember when we would just answer idle conundrums like these with "the Force". That used to be enough to affectionately satiate any plot quandary,

 

The Force can have a strong influence on plot holes...

[Pellaeon 258]

Based on TFA, I’ve been convinced for some time that Rey’s uncanny abilities will be explained by her being a clone of Luke, created from his severed hand. This is suggested by her mystic connection to his lightsaber, her vision of Cloud City, and various visual clues throughout the film (camera zooming in on hands, Rey posing and/or framed like old shots of Luke, her automatic rapport with Han and Leia). So she has the same Force and piloting training Luke had at the time of the end of ESB. The coolest part about this solution IMO is that people often complain TFA is a clone of the 1977 film; well, it was obviously a soft reboot, but, just like in his Star Trek film, JJ has come up with an in-world reason for the reboot, I would suggest.

[Chen G. 1456]

5 minutes ago, Pellaeon said:

her being a clone of Luke

 

There's an obvious flaw in that idea, though...

[TheUlyssesian 1020]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

 

The Force can have a strong influence on plot holes...

 

The Force was the equivalent to "He's Batman" explanation by fantrolls to explain away the plotholes in Nolan's Batman movies.

[Pellaeon 258]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

There's an obvious flaw in that idea, though...

 

Opposite-Sex Clone – TV Tropes

 

It literally goes back to Adam and Eve.

[Þekþiþm 5450]

That's like that episode of Sliders where Quinn met his interdimensional double who happened to be female in that particular reality. DID THEY HAVE SEX?!?! AHAHAHAHA!!!

[Pieter Boelen 526]

9 hours ago, Thekthithm said:

 

Only hardcore fans read those EU novels. The rest of the normie audience would be too intimidated by the sheer amount extracurricular literature to keep up with.

I'll believe that.

There must still be quite a number of those hardcore fans; but you're right that there are less than there are regular movie-goers who wouldn't read the books.

 

Here's what makes it funny:

As far as I can tell, the people complaining about contrivances in TFA are not what I'd call "regular movie-goers" either.

 

This suggests to me there are two groups of hardcore fans:

1. Those who enjoy what they get.

2. Those who complain about what they get.

(And probably some/a lot who fall somewhere in-between.)

 

For some reason though, there seem to be a lot of very vocal #2's around the internet these days and I cannot help but wonder why.

Is it really that much more fun to complain about stuff than to enjoy stuff...? 

[Jurassic Shark 3808]

59 minutes ago, Thekthithm said:

DID THEY HAVE SEX

 

Well, did they?

[Quintus 4267]

On 8/28/2019 at 6:17 PM, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Talented people still need practice to excel in their fields.

 

So then, imagine what she'd be like in another twenty years. She'd be fuckin' maiar level. 

[Jurassic Shark 3808]

I guess we'll see that in less than 20 years.

[mrbellamy 3688]

10 hours ago, Thekthithm said:

Only hardcore fans read those EU novels. The rest of the normie audience would be too intimidated by the sheer amount extracurricular literature to keep up with.

 

Or just plain uninterested, as far as adults go. These books as leisure reading are primarily for kids and teenagers. Even working people who are genuinely into the lore surely struggle to find the time to read the damn things.

[theMaestraX 40]

Many questions unanswered! Failure to find a true spoiler it has been!

[Holko 3482]

Having read many old EU books but loving none of them (I liked some of the comics like KotOR much more back in the day, the SW universe is much more visual than wordy), I looked through a guide and deducted Bloodlines is the only one really worth reading for background. After not finding an e-version of it in any convenient store at that moment and pirating it, I deleted it after the first chapter, the writing was just atrocious, like an unedited first draft.

[Quintus 4267]

18 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

 

Or just plain uninterested, as far as adults go. These books as leisure reading are primarily for kids and teenagers. Even working people who are genuinely into the lore surely struggle to find the time to read the damn things.

 

Reading expanded universe of anything, let alone Star Wars stuff, is equivalent to someone taking an industrial Black and Decker end suction pump to my sphincter and tearing out my eyeballs through it.

[Jurassic Shark 3808]

That's doable.

[theMaestraX 40]

Search your feelings Pellaeon you know it to be true!

[Þekþiþm 5450]

It'd be great if that Dark Rey shot was the final shot of the film.

[TheUlyssesian 1020]

Or an end credits stinger.

[First TROS March Accolyte 1190]

3 hours ago, Pieter_Boelen said:

For some reason though, there seem to be a lot of very vocal #2's around the internet these days and I cannot help but wonder why.

Is it really that much more fun to complain about stuff than to enjoy stuff...? 

I have a crazy idea that it might have to do something with the quality of products and services purchased in good faith.

 

Compare: Berlin Airport, rated by thousands of people with 2,2/5 stars on average. I guess people who complain about it also find it more fun than enjoying it.

 

Most of those "very vocal" fans will just leave one comment. Those who go to great lengths discussing usually review other films / media as well.

[mrbellamy 3688]

Services? What have I been missing out on?

[First TROS March Accolyte 1190]

1 minute ago, mrbellamy said:

Services? What have I been missing out on?

Galaxy's Edge?

[Jurassic Shark 3808]

Star Wars church service.

[Naïve Old Fart 3500]

Has anyone seen Kylo Ren, as UNDERCOVER BOSS? Funny as.