The Rise of Skywalker The Rise of Skywalker SPOILERS ALLOWED discussion thread

[crumbs 14,304]

The film would probably be doing a lot better if it wasn't hot garbage. I have no interest in seeing it twice in cinemas, but would happily have gone back if the film was great and JW's score wasn't treated like shit.

[Arpy 4,145]

The saving grace for the score as mixed in the film is the Farewell sequence - the destruction of the Sith Fleet and Rey emerging from it all in the X-Wing. It was one moment where finally, after two hours of sound effects killing the rest of the film, the score was allowed to breathe and what a spectacular moment it was. Pure Williams bliss like it was saying 'Yeah, remember me, I was here all along!'

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

So what was everyone's favourite bit in the movie?

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

3PO

[Chen G. 3,944]

1 hour ago, Þekþiþm said:

So what was everyone's favourite bit in the movie?

Poe sitting at Leia’s deathbed, doubting himself when Lando comes in. The scene is actually wonderful and should have been three times the length it was, but alas there was too much plot to go through.

[crumbs 14,304]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

Poe sitting at Leia’s deathbed, doubting himself when Lando comes in. The scene is actually wonderful and should have been three times the length it was, but alas there was too much plot to go through.

 

So good, in fact, that JJ saw fit to track over it with music from Revenge of the Sith.

[Luke Skywalker 1,793]

On 1/18/2020 at 2:28 AM, crumbs said:

 

TLJ was fighting an uphill battle against 3+ decades of glorified EU nonsense, which treated him as an overpowered galactic superhero. I liked that he was treated like a human being by Johnson, capable of mistakes and regrets. But I can understand why longtime fans hated this approach, given all that EU material which was far more conventional with a post-ROTJ Luke.

The EU had Luke making mistakes...and he even was exiled by the government. His story arc was much better than what we got. 

 

Anyway, seeing him as a wise master in the academy would have been enough. Wars don't make anyone great anyway

[gkgyver 1,645]

4 hours ago, Þekþiþm said:

So what was everyone's favourite bit in the movie?

 

Rey saying to Poe, after he survived the opening mission, "you're a difficult man". 

Because it made me realize from the start what kind of movie I'd be in for. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

8 minutes ago, gkgyver said:

 

Rey saying to Poe, after he survived the opening mission, "you're a difficult man". 

Because it made me realize from the start what kind of movie I'd be in for. 

 

Silly man... of course I'm not sure. 

[Edmilson 7,395]

8 hours ago, Arpy said:

Yeah, when something like Bad Boys For Life or Like A Boss is stronger than a Star Wars sequel it just tells me audiences are indiscriminate towards total shit and will watch anything.

 

These situations are not comparable, Bad Boys for Life is on it's first day on release, while TROS is on the 29th, so it's expected that BBfL would outgross SW on the dailies. 

 

However, while the new Bad Boys is outperforming its expectations and bringing a lot of smiles on the faces of executives, TROS' performance has been nothing but a disappointment for Disney. The only good thing going on for the movie is that its opening weekend led directly into the holidays week, when people are out of work/school/college and therefore have more time to go to the theaters. 

 

This advantaged was enjoyed before by previous December monsters such as Titanic and Avatar, and because of that by the end of its 2nd weekend TROS' box office was pretty close of TLJ's on the end of its second weekend ($368m for TLJ and $362m for TROS, despite Ep IX opening with $43m less than VIII). But, once the New Year came and went, TROS utterly collapsed, with the movie enjoying weekend-to-weekend drops on par with Captain America Civil War, a MCU movie infamous for its awful post-opening performance (it opened with almost $80m more than the following year's Wonder Woman and somehow it managed to have a final BO smaller than the 2017 DC movie).

 

On other words, the only thing that prevented TROS from utterly collapsing after its (by itself disappointing) opening weekend was the holidays, and even with that boost the movie will somehow manage to finish behind Rogue One and The Lion King. And this is not only me saying, my mentor in box office analysys Scott Mendelson had already said the same thing a few days ago:

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2020/01/09/star-wars-box-office-rise-of-skywalker-wont-top-rogue-one/#d6882377355c

 

The movie had awful word of mouth, smaller opening than its predecessors, terrible legs (again, not couting holidays), horrible reviews, pretty bad international performance, and it may end up with a smaller worldwide BO than Rogue One and Joker. A toxic combination for any franchise.

 

4 hours ago, Þekþiþm said:

So what was everyone's favourite bit in the movie?

 

I kinda dig the fight choreography for the second Ren vs Rey lightsaber fight, with the two of them doing some Crouching Tiger-like jumps on that sunken ship. Much more engaging than the forgettable The Ways of the Force fight scene from the first movie.

[Arpy 4,145]

I'm sure Disney will recover, they have Disney + and fifty other films worth a billion each on the way.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I still can't believe Disney owns Star Wars. I mean this was a company that made nothing but ditsy cartoons for little girls, and now it's destroyed 20th Century Fox.

[gkgyver 1,645]

1 hour ago, Þekþiþm said:

 

Silly man... of course I'm not sure. 

 

I'm re-translating from German. "Silly" is even worse. 

 

And Poe is right. While they were risking their lives, Rey was meditating and running over logs. Why exactly? She can already levitate, heal people, bring them back from the dead, mind control them, and beat the Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. 

[Demodex 557]

9 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

So good, in fact, that JJ saw fit to track over it with music from Revenge of the Sith.

 

What music was that?  I don't remember. 

[HunterTech 987]

I still found it odd how everyone had such different perceptions over how the music was mixed in the final film. I was able to hear a lot of it fine, while some claim that SFX regularly drowned the score. I'm sure that the more expansive mixes like the Dolby Atmos one puts more emphasis on the "immersion," while the normal 5.1 set ups are more balanced in general.

[gkgyver 1,645]

I found the score super loud in the film. 

[Arpy 4,145]

Well in my experience now having seen it twice, once in regular theatres and in IMAX, the mixing was still lower than usual - even for IMAX which has always had brilliant sound. It's not a theatre by theatre mixing issue - it's the way the sound editors did the final mix which pushed the score further down in the mix. There are moments where the score is quite loud, but those were for the obvious reprisal of the old themes and perhaps the statement of the Knights of Ren's motif on Pasaana. Otherwise, it's the worst mixed Star Wars score.

 

[Chen G. 3,944]

So was The Force Awakens.

 

Honestly, it’s the least of this film’s issues.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,891]

Another HD clip:

 

 

[DarthDementous 1,059]

On 1/17/2020 at 2:25 PM, Manakin Skywalker said:

Trevorrow's screenplay was awful, assuming it's real. I'm don't understand why so many people think it sounds better than what we got, not that TROS was perfect. But this sounds much, much worse.

You keep saying that and not qualifying why you think that. It's an especially baffling statement when I just described in detail why I think it is much better than the Rise of Skywalker.

THE FOLLOWING IS NOT ADDRESSED DIRECTLY AT MANAKIN SKYWALKER

I think it's absolute nonsense that a large number of people didn't like Luke's portrayal in TLJ because he wasn't a super-hero. People didn't like him because he straight up wasn't Luke. There's a reason Mark Hamill calls him Jake Skywalker, because if you break down Luke's character traits established in the OT and the kind of person he is, and compare him to TLJ it is like they are completely different characters. In fact, I'll prove it with this image which provides an excellent breakdown of this from a character writing perspective:

 

I'm honestly not sure why anyone would like this portrayal of Luke given the fact it's essentially not even the same character. Rian Johnson responded to this image too, completely missing the point and claiming that "Luke shouldn't have permanent video game power-ups as a character". No, he shouldn't, but he should also still be the same fucking person and address conflict in the way we know he would.

You're right when you say that many years of stories in the EU were against TLJ, because pretty much all of them actually understand who Luke is as a person. Hell, even Star Wars Battlefront 2 had a pitch-perfect post-ROTJ Luke in it's campaign.

When you fuck up one of the most beloved characters of all time and the star of the lauded OT, I'm surprised anyone should be surprised at all by any of the critical backlash this film received.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,891]

35 minutes ago, DarthDementous said:

You're right when you say that many years of stories in the EU were against TLJ, because pretty much all of them actually understand who Luke is as a person. Hell, even Star Wars Battlefront 2 had a pitch-perfect post-ROTJ Luke in it's campaign.

 

Me? I've never once mentioned the EU. In fact I disliked the majority of the old EU.

[DarthDementous 1,059]

Just now, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

Me? I've never once mentioned the EU. In fact I disliked the majority of the old EU.

That wasn't directed at you, my bad. I'll update my post to make it clearer.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,891]

5 minutes ago, DarthDementous said:

That wasn't directed at you, my bad. I'll update my post to make it clearer.

 

No worries.

[Arpy 4,145]

Luke is an old man in TLJ, why can't people recognise that the same way they do for Han and Leia? 

[DarthDementous 1,059]

6 minutes ago, Arpy said:

Luke is an old man in TLJ, why can't people recognise that the same way they do for Han and Leia? 

Him being old has nothing to do with it. People change through experience but rarely does their entire character and personality change, and if it does then why are we now following a completely different character from what was established? Why not make a new character at that point?

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

Out of all the problems I have with TLJ, I have absolutely none with Luke's portrayal at all. None whatsoever.

 

Luke is a side character in the sequel trilogy. I think fans just have to accept that.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I wish he'd cut his hair and shaved. He looked like a smelly guy at the bus stop picking through the garbage can.

[Chen G. 3,944]

2 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

Luke is a side character in the sequel trilogy. I think fans just have to accept that.

 

Luke is the main character of The Last Jedi, though. Its his decisions and actions that propel the climax of the film.

 

Other than the "I will not be the last Jedi" cop-out, its actually the best aspect of the movie.

[crumbs 14,304]

15 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Other than the "I will not be the last Jedi" cop-out, its actually the best aspect of the movie.

 

Is that a cop out? He realises by narrative's end that Rey is perfectly placed to continue the Jedi legacy and forge the path forward for a new generation. Atoning for past mistakes is the climax of his arc (something JJ didn't bother applying to any character in TROS outside of Ren or Rey).

[Chen G. 3,944]

Like I said, Luke atoning for past mistakes is great: My favourite part of the film by far.

 

I just think that, on top of that, it would have been so much more powerful if the film ended on the conclusion that the Jedi ought to end, regardless.

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

31 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

Luke is the main character of The Last Jedi, though. Its his decisions and actions that propel the climax of the film.

 

Other than the "I will not be the last Jedi" cop-out, its actually the best aspect of the movie.

 

Kylo is the main character, Luke is a mentor figure to essentially the supporting character (Ye Rey is a supporting character in TLJ). Luke is stuck on an island and that's it. TLJ has 3-4 separate plot lines happening in several places. The Ach-To plot line is centered on Rey with Luke helping her. Kylo is ostensibly involved in all the plot lines in one way or another.

 

I don't see Luke as the protagonist of TLJ at all.

[crumbs 14,304]

12 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

I just think that, on top of that, it would have been so much more powerful if the film ended on the conclusion that the Jedi ought to end, regardless.

 

Seems like an internal contradiction to his atonement if he starts cherry picking which parts to atone for.

[Edmilson 7,395]

Great video essay detailing how the Finn character was poorly handled by the trilogy, and TROS in particular

 

 

[Holko 9,499]

For some reason I thought about the space battle today. SW and RotJ spend just enough time setting up the precise plans ahead of time, and you know the goals and can follow it first time even when things temporarily go wrong (shield's up, gotta bide time - got caught, gotta have a ground battle to get another chance to deactivate the shield).

 

I've seen TROS once, and... what happened above Exogol?

The Resistance just went because we gotta fight.

The FO was already there unified with the Sith fighters and fleet, into the Final Order, in... that 18 hour time limit they idiotically gave again in the opening?

Enemy fleet ridiculously big, no real tension.

Finn and co ride horses on a Star Destroyer, until they don't. I don't know if I'd even remember it if it wasn't in the trailer.

They go for the one antenna which controls all the gajillion ships until it doesn't because now another one does.

Lando arrives out of nowhere with another ridiculous fleet out of nowhere, no impact, meh, we only see 10 shots of the whole thing anyway.

Palps überlightnings everything and they all start going down until he doesn't and they don't.

At some point Finn (and BB maybe?) open some hatch?

Richard E Grant gets blown out the window and the battle is won and they all go home.

 

 

I have no fucking clue what happened.

[Pellaeon 593]

You know, they really missed a trick in TRoS… Imagine if they took the helmets off the Knights of Ren one by one and you see Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ewan McGregor, and Hayden Christensen. And someone gasps, “Clones!”

 

Aw, come on, you know you would have loved it! Like in a dark, nightmarish sequence, perhaps after having already established the idea of evil clones.

[Holko 9,499]

[dylanskie 104]

44 minutes ago, Holko said:

For some reason I thought about the space battle today. SW and RotJ spend just enough time setting up the precise plans ahead of time, and you know the goals and can follow it first time even when things temporarily go wrong (shield's up, gotta bide time - got caught, gotta have a ground battle to get another chance to deactivate the shield).

 

I've seen TROS once, and... what happened above Exogol?

The Resistance just went because we gotta fight.

The FO was already there unified with the Sith fighters and fleet, into the Final Order, in... that 18 hour time limit they idiotically gave again in the opening?

Enemy fleet ridiculously big, no real tension.

Finn and co ride horses on a Star Destroyer, until they don't. I don't know if I'd even remember it if it wasn't in the trailer.

They go for the one antenna which controls all the gajillion ships until it doesn't because now another one does.

Lando arrives out of nowhere with another ridiculous fleet out of nowhere, no impact, meh, we only see 10 shots of the whole thing anyway.

Palps überlightnings everything and they all start going down until he doesn't and they don't.

At some point Finn (and BB maybe?) open some hatch?

Richard E Grant gets blown out the window and the battle is won and they all go home.

 

 

I have no fucking clue what happened.

 

I completely agree. The whole thing is way too convoluted and unmemorable. It seemed like the main point of the battle was to show that other people from around the galaxy showed up. I think the Resistance went to stop the star destroyers from obliterating other planets... that's my impression, anyway.

 

The "they're not an army... they're just people" line (or however it goes) is just terrible. I think it's my least favorite in the whole movie. Why does the officer who says that seem only mildly dumbfounded? Why does it even matter to the other officer that they're "just people"? How would they even know that? That line, like a few other scenes in the film, was put in there JUST to make people in the theater laugh/cheer.

 

Also, while I'm complaining, Poe's line of "they call it the Final Order" is also cringe-worthy. Why does it matter what they're called? Palpatine already said it once in the film--it already has a name. I think I'm bothered because it seems like Disney (or JJ, or whoever) intentionally marketed the film to a much younger audience than TFA and TLJ, and they pushed for it to be understood by the most casual viewer.

 

Regardless, there are plenty of things that I do like about the film. It shows Rey and Kylo's relationship in an honest way, and the end with Rey on Tatooine was satisfying and conclusive enough.

[mrbellamy 6,272]

1 hour ago, Holko said:

I’ve seen TROS once, and... etc.

 

I have no fucking clue what happened.

 

I’ve seen it twice and this is about my recollection and understanding of it as well.

 

[Edmilson 7,395]

The climax made literally zero sense. It was embarassing. They decided to copy ROTJ's climax, and the results were woeful, and unengaging. 

 

And what about the awful Rey and Ren v Emperor confrontation?

 

-Rey goes to Exegol to kill the Emperor.

 

-The Emperor says that, by killing him, his spirit will possess her like Pazuzu and Reagan, or something.

 

-So, after defeating the (generic and uninspiring) guards in a (very dark and poorly directed) action scene, Rey, with Ren by her side, tells the Emperor that she WILL NOT kill him. 

 

-Which is not very helpful for the galaxy, since, on his form, the Emperor was able to create Snoke and influence Ben's actions his whole life (Lord, what a moronic script!), so with Rey leaving him that way, he would continue to spread his terror throughout the whole galaxy.

 

-The Emperor then decides to kill Rey and Ben (throwing into the trash can decades of planning, but anyway).

 

-Rey finally decides to kill him, and by doing so, his spirit for some reason doesn't possess her.

 

In other words, it doesn't really matter if the Emperor possess her or not. That's pathetic, lame screenwriting, which seem to have been done by a bunch of morons that think the audiences are as stupid as them.

[dylanskie 104]

36 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

-Rey finally decides to kill him, and by doing so, his spirit for some reason doesn't possess her.

 

In other words, it doesn't really matter if the Emperor possess her or not. That's pathetic, lame screenwriting, which seem to have been done by a bunch of morons that think the audiences are as stupid as them.

 

Yeah, I still don't understand the decision behind this. Rey says she won't kill Palpatine because his spirit will pass to her. Then, maybe 20 minutes later, she does that, and she lives happily ever after. Did no one realize? Or is Rey actually supposed to have the spirit of Palpatine inside her? If the latter is true, it was never hinted at after the final confrontation.

[Arpy 4,145]

I think the combined powers of the past Jedi within Rey eradicated Palpatine's body and spirit. 

[Remco 685]

She didn’t strike him down in anger, but merely reflected his force lightning back to him.

 

Lame, but that’s the explanation there is I think.

 

But why didn’t palps just quit the force lightning then....? Ugh this movie. I’ve been able to forgive SW for a lot of these kind of things but in this one it’s just too much.

[gkgyver 1,645]

I'm all the Jedi is something a toddler would say out of spite to his friends, who wouldn't let him be Luke in their Star Wars cosplaying. 

[Arpy 4,145]

Palpatine doesn't know how to turn the lightning off.

[Edmilson 7,395]

What exactly is the Final Order? Those thounsands of Star Destroyers with Death Star-like power to obliterate entire planets (someone please make me forget this movie ever existed)? 

 

And how Palpy built them, since he was pratically a corpse? Using the Force? So the Force now grants you powers of building entire ships? Or maybe those idiots cheering for Palpy on Exegol were actually the workers who spent the last 35 years bulding Star Destroyers? If that's the truth, then Rey just annihilated a bunch of blue-collar lower level Sith workers, lol.

 

And yeah, they are probably remote controlled, hence the climax of Poe and the other non-Force wielding characters is to destroy an antenna or something, but I don't think it's too pratical to command thousands of mega ships from one ship, making very difficult for the First (or Final, I don't know anymore) Order to use them strategically.

 

There is so much more interesting stuff that could've been done for the climax of the saga, or maybe just this trilogy. But instead Abrams chose to remake the climax of ROTJ, which had already been done before in some capacity by TLJ. And Abrams did the laziest, most uninspired, remake of all time, with some cringeworthy dialogue comparable to the worst lines in the entire saga.

[gkgyver 1,645]

RoS ties with AOTC in terms of shittiness. 

[Fabulin 3,510]

52 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

And Abrams did the laziest, most uninspired, remake of all time, with some cringeworthy dialogue comparable to the worst lines in the entire saga.

TFA: Am I a joke to you?

[dylanskie 104]

2 hours ago, Remco said:

But why didn’t palps just quit the force lightning then....? Ugh this movie. I’ve been able to forgive SW for a lot of these kind of things but in this one it’s just too much.

 

I don't know. It's hard to tell when he actually stops because you can't really see his hands anymore when he starts disintegrating. I guess I can be okay with Rey not striking him down in anger and having the combined power of all the Jedi, but still. It seems like a cheap move that wasn't given any thought.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Tros is clearly the best of the saga.

[crumbs 14,304]

Don't forget the bizarre, blink-and-you'll-miss-it integration of Rose into the climactic battle. She gets all of 2 inexplicable shots near some transport atop the Star Destroyer (wasn't she staying behind at the Resistance base?!), then Finn has a bizarre telekinesis moment where he seemingly talks to her via the Force to tell her something, which is never explained. Then she vanishes from the rest of the sequence (and I think she only re-appears in the background during the reunion sequence).

 

But before I could even comprehend what was happening there, suddenly there's Sith Troopers flying around on jetpacks (remember how they were built up to be crucial characters, only to appear in 3 shots?) and everything starts exploding.

 

The whole climax is like an epileptic seizure captured on film, leaving you dazed and confused. Probably the worst directed and edited sequence of any major Hollywood film in recent years. Were JJ and his editor smoking crack when they signed off on this?

 

Dislike Rian's story choices in TLJ all you like, but that film is superbly directed. At no stage are you utterly dumbfounded by a total lack of context and geography for the events unfolding before your eyes.