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The Rise of Skywalker SPOILERS ALLOWED discussion thread


Jay

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There are multiple cuts of every film: its the nature of the editing process. The question is whether there are different edits with different stories/endings, which I doubt.

 

Its just hastily put together, that's all.

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I'd say the film was far better about 6 months ago, with probably 20 minutes of additional characterization in there. However, it was probably a pacing mess, so in a last-ditch effort to fix things they cut it back to the bone (with heavy restructuring of the plot), massacring any semblance of a cohesive narrative in the process.

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8 hours ago, crumbs said:

I'd say the film was far better about 6 months ago, with probably 20 minutes of additional characterization in there. However, it was probably a pacing mess, so in a last-ditch effort to fix things they cut it back to the bone (with heavy restructuring of the plot), massacring any semblance of a cohesive narrative in the process.

 

But the plot structure and elements themselves are poorly conceived. If I can come up with something like the above within 2 weeks of seeing their post-it note of a narrative, they could've spent some more time on it.

 

And that empty conclusion, gosh.

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20 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Johnson did the movie he WANTED to do, like it or not, it's his vision for the franchise. 

 

That is exactly the problem, of these movies and the world in general. 

It's always about what anyone WANTS, not what anyone NEEDS, and the false assumption what you WANT is what anyone NEEDS. 

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3 hours ago, gkgyver said:

 

That is exactly the problem, of these movies and the world in general. 

It's always about what anyone WANTS, not what anyone NEEDS, and the false assumption what you WANT is what anyone NEEDS. 

 

And what movies would anyone need? Or perhaps, what movies would you want them to need?

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4 hours ago, gkgyver said:

 

That is exactly the problem, of these movies and the world in general. 

It's always about what anyone WANTS, not what anyone NEEDS, and the false assumption what you WANT is what anyone NEEDS. 


I guess that depends on whether you see these movies as aspiring art or mere entertainment. 
 

I’m happy we got at least one movie with a clear artistic vision in a blockbuster franchise like this. 

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But it's true - TRoS further splintered the fandom, with people still reeling over TLJ two years earlier. It's all just righteous bickering now, pointing fingers, playing the blame game etc.

 

Where once Mattris sounded like an entitled crybaby, lost to whatever dogmatic elitist views he had, he now sounds rational by comparison with today's audiences who felt like Disney ruined their lives. 

 

I think people need to take a step away from Star Wars, take a break from the fuming and think back to how it used to be a single film no one had any faith would work. Nowadays Star Wars is one of a number of highly successful and profitable films that it's never going to have the same impact it once did, there's no way to rekindle that flame, at least not in the same way TFA managed to muster back in 2015.

 

 

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Star Wars will always be about the OT plus whatever the shiny new thing is.

 

The ST unfortunately is marred by a tennis match between the two directors, which sucks the fandom into this destructive meta space. I think people will be very ready to forget about it very quickly.

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It's just good that they can bury the saga. There was no way they were ever going to avoid starting with Episodes 7-9. Had to be done. But you know, Star Wars fandom just became this revolting monster. Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Zers, men, women (the children too!), it goes on forever but everyone clings on to the story and characters of the OT and anything you try to do with it turns to fucking insanity. 

 

I think making smaller things that appeal to these different subsets of fans is actually the way to go now. The Ewan show is a good example of that, it only feels like there's harmony there because the people most likely to hate it don't really give a shit anymore. At worst it'll probably fuck up some minor things with A New Hope. The stakes on the main saga films just got unreasonably high because the legacy got so long and those movies are ostensibly for every living breathing person. They've really gotta start over.

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Yeah, impinging on any aspect of the legacy - the original characters mainly - is a major risk that the ST ran headlong into. Although, when you have these beloved characters and a franchise that survived the Prequels and years of inactivity, it wasn't surprising that they would want to ride that nostalgia wave right through with the sequels. The moment when TFA was released the magic of Star Wars was well and truly alive again, then as it fell away and you had two films yet to follow it, you begin to wonder just what they could do to maintain that positivism without erring too far on the side of pissing off the very people they're catering to, and unfortunately the circumstances of The Last Jedi, in maturing Luke's character, toying with the established Star Wars formula, it just didn't have the impact it was meant to. It's the main reason why I think they could never have succeeded in the first place, at least not in such a social media driven climate where fans more than ever, vote with their tweets and facebook posts. We all know that the sequels could've been better, but could they go on unscathed by the fans who were gnashing at the ankles of Disney for some unobtainable, idealised version of Star Wars? 

 

15 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

I think making smaller things that appeal to these different subsets of fans is actually the way to go now. The Ewan show is a good example of that, it only feels like there's harmony there because the people most likely to hate it don't really give a shit anymore. At worst it'll probably fuck up some minor things with A New Hope. The stakes on the main saga films just got unreasonably high because the legacy got so long and those movies are ostensibly for every living breathing person. They've really gotta start over.

 Definitely, and these character driven shows can take it easy without stepping on any toes along the way. 

 

 

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Lucas should have democratized Star Wars. Any media that is meant to replace or comment on the OT should be a democratic endeavor. Because no individual can ever provide a satisfying and unifying experience that meets everyone’s needs.
 

Groups that have the technology to create Star Wars films would continue to discriminate groups that are forced or coerced to consume. Due to their conflicting interests, these groups would fight until a dominant group emerges from the conflict and takes complete control over Star Wars and the discourse surrounding it. 

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Dunno about  the authenticity of it, but here it goes:

 

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a30514233/star-wars-9-original-script-colin-trevorrow-leak/

 

Some of it still sounds dumb as hell, but I do find it appealing that in this version of the story Ren allegedly dies a villain. It reads much more like a genuine continuation of The Last Jedi.

 

It seems to me that, as Chris Terrio said, the idea that Ren is to be redeemed (again, if this is true) was what led Kathleen Kennedy to part ways with Treverrow.

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I'm as skeptical as the next man, but on a production where the plot of the actual movie leaked scene-for-scene, I wouldn't be too quick to deny this as potentially authentic.

 

The title I'm less impressed with because you tend to give scripts tentative working titles, and sometimes even silly codenames (The Lord of the Rings was titled Jamboree).

 

In this leak, Rey is still a nobody and Ren dies a villain, neither of which strike me as wishful thinking on the part of Star Wars fans.

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Clearly fanfic by a TLJ fan.

 

I heard rumors about Coruscant, and Kylo Ren going missing, all that stuff years ago. Glad they went with Exegol instead.

 

Bossk cameo *snort*.

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It's fanfic, but a pretty fun one to read! I would've loved to see this Lovecraftian-esque Thor Valum.

 

Also:

 

Quote

TEAM A successfully infiltrates the Jedi Temple and turn on the beacon. Cut to different places around the galaxy receiving the signal (Bossk cameo). It is then cut off by the First Order. TEAM A then flee into the underbelly of Coruscant.

 

Am I the only one who thought about this?

 

 

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2 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

In this leak, Rey is still a nobody and Ren dies a villain, neither of which strike me as wishful thinking on the part of Star Wars fans.

 

Still salty over the redemption arc? :dance:

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It sounds a lot better than the actual film Abrams put out.

 

I'm curious if it was Trevorrow & Connolly's script, why are they given story credit at all? It's pretty clear Abrams & Terrio worked from scratch.

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It was the most Star Wars thing to do. It's not like they gave him a medal and looked the other way in regards to his various killing sprees! 

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Just because it’s “the most Star Wars thing to do” doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. And in effect they did look the other way.
 

Plus, this isn’t Vader being redeemed at his last scene: we’re supposed to actively invest in a reformed Kylo for the entirety of the third act as he’s on his way to help Rey face the emperor. Horrible.

 

It’s the worst aspect of this movie and - along with “to be angry is to be human” - the worst aspect of the entire series.

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One thing I like about the supposed Trevorrow script is that it gives some structure and importance to the First Order and doesn't relegate them to mere Imperial rip-offs. You also get a sense about the rest of the galaxy and how it's changed over the years, and of course, the mythic status of the Jedi is spread from The Last Jedi, making Rey embody that title. 

25 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Just because it’s “the most Star Wars thing to do” doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. And in effect they did look the other way.
 

Plus, this isn’t Vader being redeemed at his last scene: we’re supposed to actively invest in a reformed Kylo for the entirety of the third act as he’s on his way to help Rey face the emperor. Horrible.

 

It’s the worst aspect of this movie and - along with “to be angry is to be human” - the worst aspect of the entire series.

The framing of his redemption is admittedly wonky, but it is the same as Vader who was arguably responsible for more murder and destruction throughout the galaxy, bringing the Jedi Order to an end etc. Both Kylo and Anakin become murderers, psychopaths, but Kylo's redemption isn't as subtle and intertwined as it was for Anakin. Where the Anakin redemption arc was concerned with his son, Kylo's is with his parents. It's just a shame it was so rushed in this final film and trilogy as a whole.

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11 minutes ago, Arpy said:

The framing of his redemption is admittedly wonky, but it is the same as Vader who was arguably responsible for more murder and destruction throughout the galaxy, bringing the Jedi Order to an end etc.


Is he? The way I see it, Kylo has done much more evil (certainly, much more on camera) than Vader ever did.

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10 Mustafarians, Han Solo, Lor San Tekka, Star Destroyer computer banks...

 

vs.

 

Obi-Wan, Jedi Younglings, countless Jedi who escaped the Purge, hundreds of Rebels, his own officers...

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He ordered his troopers to shoot the villagers, it wasn't him. Also in the extended new canon I think he didn't murder any of the new disciples himself. From onscreen only we can't know.

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1 hour ago, Holko said:

in the extended new canon I think he didn't murder any of the new disciples himself. From onscreen only we can't know.

 

"He vanished with a handful of my students, and slaughtered the rest." - Luke Skywalker

 

1 hour ago, Docteur Qui said:

There’s still hope for your redemption arc Adolf, you didn’t pull the trigger yourself!

 

Exactly the example I was going for. Some of the most heinous real-life fascists demonstrated the same kind of conflict Kylo did. In the only mass execution of Jews that Himler witnessed, he famously fainted, and spent the whole of the next day reeling from it in what can only be described as a panic attack.

 

So common was this phenomenon in the Nazi ranks, that it resulted in more sanitized extermination methods. Gas Chambers were actually much less efficient than mass shootings - they were deployed purely to ease the conscious of the perpetrators.

 

That Kylo felt terrible for killing his father doesn't make what he did any more forgivable: if anything, that he does what he does in spite of his latent moral compass telling him otherwise only makes him more monsterous. 

 

He crossed a moral rubicon that Vader never did - killing his own kin.

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5 hours ago, Chen G. said:

You’re forgetting the villagers at the opening of The Force Awakens, Luke’s disciples (essentially, younglings) and many more.

 

I agree with you in the general sense that he's a baaaad widdle boy, but the ongoing comics dealing with the seduction of Kylo Ren show that Snoke/Palpatine were responsible for the destruction of Luke's academy/disciples, not Kylo (although there are a small handful who survived and chased after him).  Time will tell what happens to those schmoes!

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Kylo had to be redeemed. Han and Leia’s love and suffering and triumph in the OT — and Han’s sacrifice in TFA — had to bear some fruit other than total death and destruction.

 

That said, I didn’t like him being redeemed so early on in the movie. And the kiss, barf. Blatant Reylo shippers service. I also don’t like how Finn is sidelined from leading status. I get that Kylo had to have an intense connection with Rey in order for it to work, but, I think brother and sister would have been the most compelling way to connect them, much more so than the mumbo-jumbo “Force Dyad” explanation. I also still kind of like the theory that Kylo Ren could have been on a “deep undercover” assignment from Luke all along (and of course fell along the way, but with good intentions).

 

By the way.

I have a confession to make.

I didn’t like Carrie Fisher in any of her four recent appearances (the ST + R1).

I just don’t enjoy watching her in any way.

I love her in the OT, and I get the idea of being sad she’s dead and giving her a last hurrah, it just got to be way too much.

I even roll my eyes every time they show her daughter with a OT Leia hairdo, it’s like, okaaay!

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11 minutes ago, Pellaeon said:

Kylo had to be redeemed. Han and Leia’s love and suffering and triumph in the OT — and Han’s sacrifice in TFA — had to bear some fruit other than total death and destruction.


That’s one of the deepest aspects of moral entropy of Star Wars: that Kylo Ren is redeemable by virtue of being descendent from a certain bloodline.

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3 hours ago, Pellaeon said:

Your idea that sin and righteousness have no bearing on the next generation seem to me modern, and not grounded in any traditional moral system or storytelling tradition.

Sins of the father etc. is a morally bankrupt concept, definitely not what Star Wars was built on.

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Star Wars was built on Luke Skywalker’s “Father Quest” (Campbell); even before the ESB switcheroo there is all that business in SW about finding out who his father really is, and deciding whether he will follow in his father’s footsteps. George’s eventual saga was all about the multigenerational epic in which the first generation fell and the second generation redeemed it. So where does that leave the third generation, especially if you are ruling out telling a story about the fourth generation? The third generation falls and that’s it, sorry? Of course that would be unsatisfactory.

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The soap-opera aspect of Star Wars is decidedly NOT present in the original film and, to my mind, is therefore not necessarily something that is so truly inherent to this series that future filmmakers should consider themselves beholden to it.

 

In fact, I dare say it’s the least compelling and most tired aspect of these films. To use it as an excuse for a truly heinous conclusion makes it all the more detestable.

 

Oh, and George Lucas didn’t even read Campbell until sometime around Return of the Jedi, I think. All this rhetoric about Star Wars being constructed out of Campbell is just meant of prop-up that film. Heck, most of cinema probably parallels Campbell - intuitively so.

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1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

The soap-opera aspect of Star Wars is decidedly NOT present in the original film and, to my mind, is therefore not necessarily something that is so truly inherent to this series that future filmmakers should consider themselves beholden to it.

 

I would agree it’s not inherent to Star Wars. A lot of great Star Wars fiction didn’t go there—the early Marvel comics, the Brian Daley novels, the Timothy Zahn novels, etc. (The Mandalorian?) But it is the paradigm of all the ostensible Episodes (V, VI, I, II, and III), and so when they make three more films consciously within this paradigm, well, obviously they’re going to be beholden to adhere to the format. It’s called the Skywalker Saga for a reason.

 

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

Heck, most of cinema probably parallels Campbell - intuitively so.

 

Well, so at least we can use Campbell to help analyze cinema.

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I still can't believe, sorry. It's simply too much for me to imagine that the guy who wrote the atrocious script for that crap called Fallen Kingdom could've written something more compelling, interesting and true to its trilogy than the Academy Award winner screenwriter of Argo.

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3 hours ago, Pellaeon said:

It’s called the Skywalker Saga for a reason.


Only because Disney needed a terminology that allowed them to bundle their sequel trilogy with the original six movies. Prior to that, George Lucas would have had us believe it’s “The Tragedy of Darth Vader” and prior for that still it was The Adventures of Luke Skywalker.

 

What it actually is is “Star Wars”. It’s about a war - between those on both sides of The Force, and their allies - in a Galaxy far, far away. Members of the Skywalker family just happen to play key parts in that war.

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