Rise of Skywalkers reviews (Spoilers in this thread)

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah. If half of the things I'm seeing about this movie turn out to be true, I think I'll have to retract my previous support for him as a director.

I told you so since he was announced as the director for Ep 7. All the issues were there to see in his Star Trek movies and in Ep 7. People were just too hyped up about Star Wars coming back and JJ Abrams pacing that they've overlooked his issues.

Personally I supported him because I felt he cast good people and had a visual style more suited to Star Wars than Star Trek. I've long maintained that he's a poor writer, but pandering to the Reichists would be crossing a line that would force me to disavow him as a director as well, just like I disavowed Gabbard despite her support for Sanders when I found out about her Islamophobia and cozying up to Trump.

I try to at least be consistent in my condemnations.

I was laughing when he decide to come back to Ep 9, because I believe he might have to face fan backlash for the first time in his career. I thought he was smart enough to not come back to the Star Wars franchise and be found out by the fans. But he just couldn't resist coming back for a pissing contest with Rian Johnson ( who despite my issues with TLJ, is still a much better director than JJ Abrams).

Say what you will about Johnson, nobody can ever tell me that he is lazy or indifferent, or that he didn't care. He paid attention to detail, and it shows. People dislike him because he followed an unconventional plot with unconventional characters, because he subverted expectations, but I respect him for that too. Because a franchise which doesn't grow withers, and that means you have to take risks. They don't always pay off-that's why they're called risks-but at least Johnson had the nerve to take them. And (presuming he doesn't get a MeToo scandal in future years or something) I will always respect him as a director for that.

[ray245]

Personally I supported him because I felt he cast good people and had a visual style more suited to Star Wars than Star Trek. I've long maintained that he's a poor writer, but pandering to the Reichists would be crossing a line that would force me to disavow him as a director as well, just like I disavowed Gabbard despite her support for Sanders when I found out about her Islamophobia and cozying up to Trump.

I try to at least be consistent in my condemnations.

I think one of your biggest mistakes with Abrams is thinking his visual style suits Star Wars. He's a utterly frenetic filmmaker that doesn't allow the scene to speak for itself. He utterly fails to understand the deeper meaning behind certain shots. I think ROS is one movie where he utterly revealed his weakness to a big portion of the audience in terms of how weak he is in terms of visuals.

His visual style never suited Star Wars, and if you think he does, then I don't think you've fully grasped the original Star wars visual style. He doesn't understand why certain shots are important and why certain shots should be disregarded. He never puts any real thought into his shot composition.

Say what you will about Johnson, nobody can ever tell me that he is lazy or indifferent, or that he didn't care. He paid attention to detail, and it shows. People dislike him because he followed an unconventional plot with unconventional characters, because he subverted expectations, but I respect him for that too. Because a franchise which doesn't grow withers, and that means you have to take risks. They don't always pay off-that's why they're called risks-but at least Johnson had the nerve to take them. And (presuming he doesn't get a MeToo scandal in future years or something) I will always respect him as a director for that.

I can respect Johnson as a director, because unlike Abrams, he had a creative backbone and is willing to stick to it. TLJ had many major flaws, but I appreciate him at the very least trying to do something with Star Wars. And Rian Johnson is far superior of a director at visuals than Abrams can ever dream off. Johnson's shots can make no sense within the setting of Star Wars, but at the least it's beautiful.

Abrams' shot neither makes sense nor does it actually give the audience anything pretty to look at.

[loomer]

The astonishing insistence on putting half the action in extremely dark spaces is a great example of where Abrams style doesn't work that well. The saber fights on Exogol were made much worse by it.

[ray245]

The astonishing insistence on putting half the action in extremely dark spaces is a great example of where Abrams style doesn't work that well. The saber fights on Exogol were made much worse by it.

I swear Abrams has some sort of aversion to space battles...actually being in space. Lucas himself is bad with understanding space and science, but I swear Abrams is even worse than him in many regards.

[The Romulan Republic]

I just posted on the official Star Wars Facebook page that I am unliking the page in protest of the marginalization of Rose and romanticization of abuse with Reylo. I encourage others to do likewise.

[Lord Insanity]

So I saw the 3D showing of the movie and I remain convinced that Star Wars looks awesome in 3D. (I was one of the few people that actually went to see the 3D re-release of Episode I and it was glorious. If only they finished the conversion on the other 5 movies.) I suspect that much like the Holdo maneuver in TLJ much of the movie probably looks like crap in 2D while in 3D it looked awesome. Of course being an awesome 3D tech demo isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for a Star Wars movie.

Over on a Lego forum that I read a member posted something that I think sums up the sequel trilogy quite accurately.

Now that it's over, I can neatly treat this series of films just like another entry in the EU. To me personally, the old EU had too much in it to care about in its entirety. The six films were the main Star Wars content, and all of the EU was fun to delve into now and again but it didn't matter if it was good or bad, because there was plenty of both to go around.

This new trilogy has been just another take on a future, and now I can cast it aside and never watch or discuss these films ever again, much like I will never read and discuss every plot point in the Yuuzhan Vong war ever again.

I have a bit of melancholy that that's the state of things, as I recall the thrill in 2015 of seeing the Lucasfilm logo, seeing A long time ago..., seeing the words Star Wars and hearing the familiar music. But that's how things are, and I'm very at peace with it now.

I still think it is absolutely silly that Rogue One and Solo were far more beholden the the original trilogy yet managed to give us something far more fresh and original than the sequel trilogy. Rogue One and Solo also successfully "painted" the background as this massive galaxy with all of these other things going on like real Star Wars movies. The sequel trilogy utterly failed at that.

Several years ago I remember watching a short behind the scenes video with Dave Filoni about the Clone Wars episode Cat and Mouse. Basically George Lucas said this small ship has a cloaking device and Dave Filoni made sure to have the line "Usually no ship this small has a cloaking device" because the fans pay attention to details that have already been established like that.

See Dave Filoni is one of the only people that understands fans want continuity respected not just a rehash of the original trilogy.

I just posted on the official Star Wars Facebook page that I am unliking the page in protest of the marginalization of Rose and romanticization of abuse with Reylo. I encourage others to do likewise.

Maybe watch the movie first. If anything they intentionally added Rose to a few scenes and gave her a few lines here and there when they could have cut the character entirely and it wouldn't have made any difference to the plot. Likewise Kylo/Ben's redemption isn't at all what you think.

[AniThyng]

Fwiw if diversity in the human composition of the officers and enlisted of both sides militaries is your concern ROS does quite well on that front.

[The Romulan Republic]

Maybe watch the movie first. If anything they intentionally added Rose to a few scenes and gave her a few lines here and there when they could have cut the character entirely and it wouldn't have made any difference to the plot. Likewise Kylo/Ben's redemption isn't at all what you think.

Again, I am writing based on the presumption that the events described are reasonably accurate. If it turns out that ray and others seriously misrepresented the film, I'll modify my views accordingly, though my larger points about the tendency of fandom to be coopted by, and major media outlets to pander to, the far Right stand.

But, you know, they could have actually written a plot that made good use of the character. There was not a pre-ordained, fixed story that had no place for Rose in it that they were compelled to keep to, so forgive me for not being satisfied with some token gestures.

[Galvatron]

This movie already had too much of its main story to tell without devoting even more of its limited runtime to every secondary character who may have wanted a big scene. Hell, it could have used another half hour just to give us a moment to breathe, but they clearly wanted to keep it under two-and-a-half for the usual reasons.

My advice is to holster the outrage until you see it for yourself. I expected to hate it too, albeit for different reasons than yours.

[The Romulan Republic]

This movie already had too much of its main story to tell without devoting even more of its limited runtime to every secondary character who may have wanted a big scene. Hell, it could have used another half hour just to give us a moment to breathe, but they clearly wanted to keep it under two-and-a-half for the usual reasons.

My advice is to holster the outrage until you see it for yourself. I expected to hate it too, albeit for different reasons than yours.

This is a general point, not specifically about this film, but you can absolutely tell a coherent story that gives multiple supporting characters a chance to shine within a reasonable time frame, if you know how to pace it and use time efficiently. Unfortunately, a lot of writers in Hollywood seemingly don't.

Take Nolan's Batman films: Batman Begins interwove a detailed and lengthy origin story with a main plot, while Dark Knight and Batman Begins both had multiple major and minor villains taking screen-time (Dark Knight Returns did drop the ball a bit, with rushing over Bruce's return to Gotham and Bane's rule).

Infinity War did a wonderful job of giving each of about twenty characters their due (Endgame less so, which is one of my gripes about it).

Guardians of the Galaxy is the stand-out example, though, introducing no less than nine major characters and several other significant supporting characters, substantially expanding the MCU, forming a team composed entirely of new characters and convincingly bringing them together, giving multiple characters arcs, and telling a solid story, all in one film. Its a space opera, too, so a particularly apt comparison to Star Wars.

Seriously, GotG is a fucking master class in how to use time efficiently in a film. People too often forget that, despite being part of the MCU, at the time it premiered it had very little in it that had been previously established in the MCU, and what little there was (the Collector, Thanos, and the Infinity Stones are about it) had not been developed in any great detail, and were largely explained/elaborated on by GotG. People complained that DC rushed a team movie without doing several solo films first, but GotG effectively did that too. Its a brilliant film in terms of how to structure a film to use time efficiently while giving multiple characters and stories their due.

[Ralin]

I just posted on the official Star Wars Facebook page that I am unliking the page in protest of the marginalization of Rose and romanticization of abuse with Reylo. I encourage others to do likewise.

Holy fucking God, there is something wrong with you.

You are literally calling for a protest because you heard that a film you haven't seen maybe didn't have enough of a secondary character who was played by an Asian woman. Think about this for a moment. Or better yet, talk to a therapist about it.

[The Romulan Republic]

Everybody else in this conversation has managed to resist the urge to be a gratuitous dick (which I do appreciate), so in the spirit of the season, I'm going to let Ralin's post go at that.

[Civil War Man]

It wasn't as bad as I feared, but part of that was because I was so disconnected from the movie that I couldn't really muster up the energy to actively dislike it. I thought the whole bringing back Palpatine idea was dumb, and so when that's one of the first lines in the opening crawl, that basically took me out of the entire rest of the movie.

The whole movie felt like it was trying desperately to keep from offending anyone, even during the movie, hence the numerous fake out deaths that are in some cases reversed literally seconds later. The one with Chewbacca was the most craven. If they actually had the guts to off Chewbacca, or at the very least didn't reveal his survival until much later in the movie, that might have actually added some weight. But no, that might have upset some people, and so we are almost immediately shown that he was fine.

On a similar note, I almost laughed at the one with C-3PO. The whole thing basically had a "PLEASE BE EMOTIONALLY MOVED" sign hanging on it, except a) they had just established that R2 had backups of C-3PO's memories, and b) that is not even the first time C-3PO's memory has been wiped. If it was R2's memory that was getting wiped, that might have actually had some kind of emotional impact.

It was nice to see Billy Dee Williams again, though he should have been back in TFA, TLJ at the latest. And I liked the other deserter stormtroopers, though it was fairly bittersweet since it just highlighted how much they squandered Finn as a character, and they were introduced too late to really be able to do anything with them. Writing protip: if you are introducing new important characters and giving us giant background infodumps on them two-thirds of the way through your final chapter, you have a pacing problem. Honestly, characters like them should have been around in a hypothetical different version of TLJ, as part of Finn's character arc, where he's inspiring defections among other stormtroopers.

Overall, the visuals were pretty cool, with the exception that I found the Force Lightning from Palpatine in the finale to be some of the worst lightning effects I've seen in a while. It looked like they were manually drawn onto the frames with white markers.

The Reylo shipping was also dumb. I liked the dynamic of a one-sided infatuation on the part of Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren was interesting to me as an exploration of toxic entitled masculinity, and for me his freakouts in the end of TLJ seemed like they were driven by confusion and anger over Rey rejecting him, even though he saved her from Snoke. He viewed himself as being the big hero who gets the girl in the end, and Rey rejection was ruining what he thought "should" happen.

As for Rey, I never held much truck with the whole "Rey is a Mary Sue" argument, but at times it almost felt like the writers here were trying to turn her into one. It had a few hallmarks of it, not just being super good at everything, but her secret relation to an established character (which happened to be the one Rey's family theory that I thought was the stupidest), and undoing the accomplishments of other characters (namely Darth Vader's redemption by killing Palpatine) so she could then do it instead.

One reviewer actually pointed out something that I found kind of interesting. Did she actually suffer any physical injuries at all during this trilogy? I can think of times where she almost did, but I don't recall any moments where she even got so much as a cut on her, while her OT and PT analogs each have at least one dismemberment as part of their character arcs, just to start.

As a cultural artifact, the most interesting part of this movie for me was that you could almost taste Abrams' passive-aggressive sniping at TLJ. I'm pretty sure it checks off almost every single box. Trying to pass off Johnson's unceremonious killing of Snoke as part of Palpatine's master plan. Rose's minor role. Holdo's sacrifice being mentioned once before being immediately dismissed as a one-in-a-million fluke. Countering the despair of no one responding at Crait with "There are more of us than them, they win by making you think you are alone," which, to be fair, is a decent theme. Luke's "A Jedi's weapon deserves more respect" line (while talking about the lightsaber he himself had thrown away before, no less). Hux's marginalization in response to Johnson turning him into a bumbling joke of a villain, and filling his previous role with a brand new over-the-top fascist Imperial officer. And, lest we forget, rebuilding Kylo Ren's mask.

That mask actually, I think, is a perfect allegory of the Disney trilogy as a whole. In TFA, JJ Abrams has the character of Kylo Ren, and gives him this "cool" (your mileage may vary) black mask to wear. Through it, he is announcing that he's making a cool new Star Wars that's like the old Star Wars you remember, and it's going to have the cool new conflicted villain Kylo Ren who is totally like Darth Vader. Then, Rian Johnson comes in and says no, that idea is dumb and you are dumb if you like it. Kylo Ren is called out as a pale imitation of Vader who cannot live up to that lofty legacy, and Kylo Ren in his rage destroys the mask, signifying that he is going in a different direction as a character. Then, Abrams comes back, and Kylo Ren has the mask repaired, but the repairs are reminiscent of a Japanese art style called Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired in a way that not only doesn't try to hide the cracks, but actually draws attention to it. Abrams is basically saying no, we are going to have the cool new Star Wars that I tried to build, but everyone's going to know that it's only happening because I had to fix it, because someone broke it.

[Mange]

I just posted on the official Star Wars Facebook page that I am unliking the page in protest of the marginalization of Rose and romanticization of abuse with Reylo. I encourage others to do likewise.

Rose was a secondary character who had quite a large role in TLJ. Why wasn't that enough? Aren't you equally upset that Billie Lord, who also had quite a prominent role in TLJ, was reduced to a cameo in TROS? Or the female officer?

I'm for one was pleased that she had a minor role in TROS. She's one of the worst characters in the single most stupid scene with the most ridiculous dialogue in SW (when she crashes into Finn). She's also in the most pointless subplot in SW that leads absolutely nowhere, the Canto Blight[sic] scene.

However, I agree that it was pointless for Abrams to introduce so many new characters. He also gave his friends more screentime.

[The Romulan Republic]

I just posted on the official Star Wars Facebook page that I am unliking the page in protest of the marginalization of Rose and romanticization of abuse with Reylo. I encourage others to do likewise.

Rose was a secondary character who had quite a large role in TLJ. Why wasn't that enough? Aren't you equally upset that Billie Lord, who also had quite a prominent role in TLJ, was reduced to a cameo in TROS? Or the female officer?

I made it quite clear why: because she represented a frequently marginalized group, and her marginalization in ROS takes place in the context of a vicious campaign of bigoted harassment against the actor, and can be taken as rewarding that harassment and pandering to the perpetrators.

Also, with all respect to Billie Lord, to compare the significance of Lord's role in TLJ to Tran's is a pretty clear exaggeration, to put it mildly. Ditto the female officer who's role was so important that you don't even call the character or actor by name.

I'm for one was pleased that she had a minor role in TROS. She's one of the worst characters in the single most stupid scene with the most ridiculous dialogue in SW (when she crashes into Finn). She's also in the most pointless subplot in SW that leads absolutely nowhere, the Canto Blight[sic] scene.

So pure spite because you did not like a couple of her scenes. You have a right to that opinion, but keep in mind that not everyone shares your tastes, and that they may not be objectively correct.

In any case, even if your criticisms were correct, a more impressive thing to do in my view would be to actually make better use of the character this time around, rather than marginalizing her. Any hack can write an unpopular or flawed character out. It takes talent to actually fix one.

However, I agree that it was pointless for Abrams to introduce so many new characters. He also gave his friends more screentime.

No comment on that at this time.

[Mange]

I just posted on the official Star Wars Facebook page that I am unliking the page in protest of the marginalization of Rose and romanticization of abuse with Reylo. I encourage others to do likewise.

Rose was a secondary character who had quite a large role in TLJ. Why wasn't that enough? Aren't you equally upset that Billie Lord, who also had quite a prominent role in TLJ, was reduced to a cameo in TROS? Or the female officer?

I made it quite clear why: because she represented a frequently marginalized group, and her marginalization in ROS takes place in the context of a vicious campaign of bigoted harassment against the actor, and can be taken as rewarding that harassment and pandering to the perpetrators.

Yes, I know that she Tran was harassed and that must be universally condemned. However, just having a character for the sake of them having certain characteristics... I don't think that Abrams (who is a hack) knew what to do with the character. He wanted to tell his story and his ideas diverged from those of Johnson.

I'm not English or American, but perhaps I should be upset that everyone in the First/Final Order leadership is a white dude.

Also, with all respect to Billie Lord, to compare the significance of Lord's role in TLJ to Tran's is a pretty clear exaggeration, to put it mildly. Ditto the female officer who's role was so important that you don't even call the character or actor by name.

Billie Lourd had quite a substantial role in TLJ. Yes, I think it's comparable when it comes to their respective roles.

I'm for one was pleased that she had a minor role in TROS. She's one of the worst characters in the single most stupid scene with the most ridiculous dialogue in SW (when she crashes into Finn). She's also in the most pointless subplot in SW that leads absolutely nowhere, the Canto Blight[sic] scene.

So pure spite because you did not like a couple of her scenes. You have a right to that opinion, but keep in mind that not everyone shares your tastes, and that they may not be objectively correct.

Yes, I'm perfectly aware that not everyone shares my opinion and my opinion isn't "objectively correct" as there's nothing that's "objectively correct" when it comes to this sort of opinions. Each one to their own.

Well I must say that my opinion of the character is colored by those scenes. It has nothing with the actress (which is absolutely fine) or her characteristics to do. I also think it's somewhat of a Star Wars tradition that secondary characters are utilized less in following movies.

[AniThyng]

I'm not English or American, but perhaps I should be upset that everyone in the First/Final Order leadership is a white dude.

True of the very top leadership, but at least one of the senior staff officers and the captain of the destroyer that vaporised kajima were not white. Though I suppose one might ask if there was glass ceiling to get to high council, hrm...

[wautd]

Saw it in 4D last night. The Original trilogy together with Rogue One (that captured the spirit of the OT) remain my favorite movies of the franchise by far. That said, this one was pretty entertaining and I'm glad that, after the trainwreck that was The Last Jedi, they've managed to turn it around and put in back on track.
Possibly my favorite moment was the no-nonsense general Pryde shooting down Hucks, who always was a joke that couldn't be taken seriously anyway

The only glaring plothole I noticed was Kylo Ren somehow getting to Exogol with a mere TIE/LN starfighter, which I assume he found at the death star wreckage? Nevermind the astronomical slim chances of finding a surviving Tie fighter, that model isn't even capable of FTL.

[AniThyng]

Saw it in 4D last night. The Original trilogy together with Rogue One (that captured the spirit of the OT) remain my favorite movies of the franchise by far. That said, this one was pretty entertaining and I'm glad that, after the trainwreck that was The Last Jedi, they've managed to turn it around and put in back on track.
Possibly my favorite moment was the no-nonsense general Pryde shooting down Hucks, who always was a joke that couldn't be taken seriously anyway

The only glaring plothole I noticed was Kylo Ren somehow getting to Exogol with a mere TIE/LN starfighter, which I assume he found at the death star wreckage? Nevermind the astronomical slim chances of finding a surviving Tie fighter, that model isn't even capable of FTL.

I don't know if it matters that it can't hyperjump anymore heh. In the sequel trilogy people cross the galaxy in less time than it takes me to drive to work. I don't know what happened but it seems both modern SW and ST suffer from this remarkable compression of travel time to make plots work.

[Ralin]

And I liked the other deserter stormtroopers, though it was fairly bittersweet since it just highlighted how much they squandered Finn as a character, and they were introduced too late to really be able to do anything with them. Writing protip: if you are introducing new important characters and giving us giant background infodumps on them two-thirds of the way through your final chapter, you have a pacing problem. Honestly, characters like them should have been around in a hypothetical different version of TLJ, as part of Finn's character arc, where he's inspiring defections among other stormtroopers.

I do think that Finn inspiring a stormtrooper mutiny during the final battle would have been a better wild card than the (completely expected by the audience) flotilla of good-natured beings in every ship available arriving as the cavalry.

[Vympel]

I don't know if it matters that it can't hyperjump anymore heh. In the sequel trilogy people cross the galaxy in less time than it takes me to drive to work. I don't know what happened but it seems both modern SW and ST suffer from this remarkable compression of travel time to make plots work.

Wait though, since when have the SW movis ever had any interest in displaying hyperspace travel as anything other than basically instantaneous in accordance with the needs of the plot? Just look at Palpatine rescuing Vader in RotS.

Anyway, let's talk Rose's marginalisation. It's incredibly insulting to the actress, and it's really damn ugly. Like, here you have a character who was a big part of the last film. And instead of giving her a decent supporting role (its fine if you can't find her a role equivalent to that in TLJ!) with all this dialog you have - you give it to ... newcomer Dominic Monaghan? Really?

[ray245]

Wait though, since when have the SW movis ever had any interest in displaying hyperspace travel as anything other than basically instantaneous in accordance with the needs of the plot? Just look at Palpatine rescuing Vader in RotS.

It works at the needs of the plot, but it also works at the needs of world-building, to give the idea that it takes time to cross the galaxy. It gives the galaxy a sense of scale.

Travel time in movies is incredibly underused and misunderstood by the younger generation of directors. LOTR was essentially one long road trip trilogy and look at how well it managed to give the world a sense of scale and permenancy.

Anyway, let's talk Rose's marginalisation. It's incredibly insulting to the actress, and it's really damn ugly. Like, here you have a character who was a big part of the last film. And instead of giving her a decent supporting role (its fine if you can't find her a role equivalent to that in TLJ!) with all this dialog you have - you give it to ... newcomer Dominic Monaghan? Really?

Yeah, and if you're someone who is white who thinks that's okay, you're coming from a very privileged position.

[Anacronian]

Well Rose sexually assaulted Finn in the last Jedi so it's understandable they sidelined her for this film.

[Galvatron]

A new idea just popped into my head: maybe Rey's parents were on Jakku because they intended to leave her in the care of Lor San Tekka. Then Ochi caught up to them and they had to flee quickly so they either begged or bribed Unkar Plutt to take her to him...and he reneged.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well Rose sexually assaulted Finn in the last Jedi so it's understandable they sidelined her for this film.

If you mean her kissing him at the end of the film, I think we both know that that's not why they sidelined her.

Beyond that, my answer is that it is technically assault to kiss someone without their consent, and if you want to hold Rose to that standard, great- as long as you also hold to it every man who has ever kissed a woman without explicit consent obtained in advance (often in a much more aggressive or threatening manner, and with much more ability than Rose had to be a physical threat to the other person). Which is, like, probably half of all male characters. At least.

In-universe, it should have been handled by Finn confronting Rose about her kissing him, her apologizing for making things awkward, and noting that she had just suffered a severe injury at the time and was delirious. And from there you can take it any direction you want (personally, I ship Rey/Finn, albeit mostly just to make the Reichist squirm by pairing a white woman with a black man).