Rise of Skywalkers reviews (Spoilers in this thread)

[Anacronian]

In universe, they should have handled it by Rose being apologetic about her flying into Finn and saving his life but sacrificing unknown amount of resistance soldiers lives.

But yeah I do want to hold Rose to that standard, An while we are on it why not Leia who sexually assaulted her brother 3 times before admitting that she has always known he was her brother.

Luke: You're wrong, Leia. You have that power too. In time you'll learn to use it as I have. The Force is strong in my family. My father has it. I have it and... [looks directly at Leia] My sister has it. [waits for the words to sink in] Yes. It's you, Leia.
Leia: [astonished] I know. Somehow, I've always known.

And yes it is always Leia who kisses Luke.(on the death star, on the Hoth base and on Jabba's sail barge)

But no I think Rose was discarded because she was a shitty character.

[ray245]

Growing a fucking spine, JJ Abrams.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/20 ... -skywalker

[Vendetta]

So, now I've seen it.

It's kind of the opposite of the prequels.

The prequels were a decent germ of a story (Kid is destined to do Really Good Thing but the people who want him to do it are calcified in their rules and dedication to detachment and unwittingly push him to do a Really Bad Thing instead thereby sowing the seeds of their own destruction, with assistance from a smooth political operator out for his own advancement) wrapped up in three really bad films.

This was a story from Kevin J Anderson's scraps bin (literally, this hit all the low notes of the old EU all in one movie) wrapped up in an extremely competently shot film.

[The Romulan Republic]

So, now I've seen it.

It's kind of the opposite of the prequels.

The prequels were a decent germ of a story (Kid is destined to do Really Good Thing but the people who want him to do it are calcified in their rules and dedication to detachment and unwittingly push him to do a Really Bad Thing instead thereby sowing the seeds of their own destruction, with assistance from a smooth political operator out for his own advancement) wrapped up in three really bad films.

This was a story from Kevin J Anderson's scraps bin (literally, this hit all the low notes of the old EU all in one movie) wrapped up in an extremely competently shot film.

That tallies with my general impression of Abrams being "Competent director, shouldn't be let within thirty paces of an unfinished script".

[Vendetta]

That tallies with my general impression of Abrams being "Competent director, shouldn't be let within thirty paces of an unfinished script".

Well there's a thing. JJ Abrams is a very good director, and the script of TROS was fine. Script is the nittty gritty of what people say and specific actions in detail. A bit hyperactive because that's how modern movies roll, gotta go fast. But fine, the dialogue is good, people show good character through how they do things, etc (Y'know, all the stuff that was mostly terrible or nonexistent in the prequels).

But before the script there's the story.

And the story wasn't JJ Abrams.

It was Chris Terio and Colin Trevorrow.

If you've not heard of Chris Terio maybe you've heard of some of his prior art. He was story writer on Batman v Superman and Justice League. Both also notably messy ill concieved trashfires at the basic story level, just not saved by having JJ Abrams around to turn them into engaging movies.

[The Romulan Republic]

Hmm. I pretty much assumed that Batman v Superman's messy, clunky story was down to executive meddling, given how many rewrites the DCCU seemed to go through- I figured it was basically a case of "written by committee".

But if the same writer keeps churning out stories like that, then yeah its probably just that he's not a great writer.

[Galvatron]

FWIW, here's the lowdown on those new planet-killing ISDs.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Xyston ... _Destroyer

Does the stated length of 2,406 meters sound right or did Pablo just pull that number out of his ass?

[Rhadamantus]

The movie felt like an Archinist scenario. It was clear that the plot was driving the movie, not the characters, to a degree that's rare in big budget productions.

[wautd]

A bit off topic but special effects like putting an old and young Leia in the movie are getting so good it's getting difficult to realize it's all CGI. Pretty scary to realize where a moving to a world where this kind of technology can be used for less benevolent things like fake news or propaganda purposes

[Mange]

A bit off topic but special effects like putting an old and young Leia in the movie are getting so good it's getting difficult to realize it's all CGI. Pretty scary to realize where a moving to a world where this kind of technology can be used for less benevolent things like fake news or propaganda purposes

It's not all CGI. They combed unused scenes of Carrie Fisher from TFA and TLJ and replaced other actors with Ridley and others (most notable is the scene with "Never underestimate a droid" which is straight from a TFA deleted scene). Also, the other actors are, in effect, saying Fisher's lines.

Billie Lourd apparently played young Leia training.

[Abacus]

So many...many plot holes. Horrible pacing. And yet I enjoyed this more than I did TLJ.

I'll paraphrase something I heard from the RedLetterMedia guys: "JJ Abrams is really good at remaking other people's movies." But badly.

[The Romulan Republic]

So many...many plot holes. Horrible pacing. And yet I enjoyed this more than I did TLJ.

#thankyourianjohnson is trending on Twitter:

https://comicbook.com/starwars/2019/12/ ... t-jedi/#10

Perhaps because:

I'll paraphrase something I heard from the RedLetterMedia guys: "JJ Abrams is really good at remaking other people's movies." But badly.

People are finally getting sick of endless rehashes made purely to cater to fifty year old fanboys, rather than giving us something new.

Also, I'm so fucking tired of hearing about RedLetterMedia. Its just some asshole on the internet who got himself a following by telling bitter fanboys what they wanted to hear.

[Vympel]

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.

Yeah, but this is never something Star Wars has been at all interested in. Lucas had no interest in the idea it takes to time a cross the galaxy either, really.

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

Yup.

So many...many plot holes. Horrible pacing. And yet I enjoyed this more than I did TLJ.

I'll paraphrase something I heard from the RedLetterMedia guys: "JJ Abrams is really good at remaking other people's movies." But badly.

RLM also said JJ Abrams should direct Star Wars back in the day so .. yeah.

[AniThyng]

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.

Yeah, but this is never something Star Wars has been at all interested in. Lucas had no interest in the idea it takes to time a cross the galaxy either, really.

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

Yup.

So many...many plot holes. Horrible pacing. And yet I enjoyed this more than I did TLJ.

I'll paraphrase something I heard from the RedLetterMedia guys: "JJ Abrams is really good at remaking other people's movies." But badly.

RLM also said JJ Abrams should direct Star Wars back in the day so .. yeah.

I grant that's true, but if fleets have essentially unlimited range and can go anywhere at the drop of a hat, why is it even meaningful to have "sector fleets" or regions even. Never mind the travel time, appearently lando can rally an entire fleet in less time than it took the entire sith fleet to leave anchor ( itself a stupid contrivance). Well I suppose that's hardly the worst issue with the movie...

[Vympel]

I grant that's true, but if fleets have essentially unlimited range and can go anywhere at the drop of a hat, why is it even meaningful to have "sector fleets" or regions even. Never mind the travel time, appearently lando can rally an entire fleet in less time than it took the entire sith fleet to leave anchor ( itself a stupid contrivance). Well I suppose that's hardly the worst issue with the movie...

Oh yeah it's totally a valid criticism. It's just something the films have never really been willing to engage with is all.

[ray245]

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.

Yeah, but this is never something Star Wars has been at all interested in. Lucas had no interest in the idea it takes to time a cross the galaxy either, really.

It doesn't matter. World-building is not necessarily about getting the tiny details right and consistent, but making the world as a whole feels big and alive.

Does it matter going from Winterfell to King's landing is going to take half a year? No, but giving the audience the sense that the journey itself takes enough time for interesting drama to happen along the journey makes the world as a whole feels alive.

Does it matter that JK Rowling constantly contradicts herself in world-building? Not as much, because she gives the audience a sense of a much bigger world beyond what's happening in the plot.

The idea that there is more to see in the world is the thing that makes the universe in interesting to people.

RLM also said JJ Abrams should direct Star Wars back in the day so .. yeah.

I hope for the love of god internet fanboys stop taking RLM as if those guys know what they are talking about. Because they don't.

[Patroklos]

FWIW, here's the lowdown on those new planet-killing ISDs.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Xyston ... _Destroyer

Does the stated length of 2,406 meters sound right or did Pablo just pull that number out of his ass?

Out of their ass. They are obviously using the Rogue One model as the base. So unless they scaled every component exactly 33 odd % (including standard items like the comm array, domes, and bridge windows) the claim is disproven by in scene visuals.

Perhaps fractal could give us an expert opinion.

[FireNexus]

So many...many plot holes. Horrible pacing. And yet I enjoyed this more than I did TLJ.

#thankyourianjohnson is trending on Twitter:

https://comicbook.com/starwars/2019/12/ ... t-jedi/#10

I gotta be honest, I thought TLJ was a giant hunk of shit, but not because of the SJW-hating reasons the Nazibots on the Internet did. I actually thought it would have been really good, but I got the distinct impression that Johnson got 50-75% through filming before Disney lost its nerve and told him to retcon the whole thing in the last 15 minutes.

The film ultimately felt like it didn’t go anywhere because all of the plot was made irrelevant by the decision to turn 180 degrees right at the end. I liked Rose Tico. I liked the idea that Kylo had stumbled upon a better way (or was close to one) and the Jedi were bad. I liked that Rey was nobody like Anakin Skywalker was (something that made it to the end only to be retroactively made shitty by Disney). I liked the idea that the War was allowed to continue because of profiteering bad people who got fat off of the clone wars, then the militarization of the Empire, then the war between the Resistance and the first order. I liked all of it, but none of it mattered because it all meant nothing by the end of the movie or the halfway point of the shittier third one.

Also, fuck the Rise of Skywalker and the whole JJ Abrams vision of Star Wars. Based on how much the prequels were like a sturdy old house that had been finished by someone with more money than sense, I have no doubt that if they’d used Lucas’ outline but kept him out of day-to-day production decisions the sequels would have been truly great. As it stands, they let JJ Abrams ruin another sci-fo franchise with his visually-stunning mediocrity.

Rise of Skywalker was a hunk of shit even by the standards of the sequel trilogy. It had the same “copy” feeling as TFA, but not softened by it being new Star Wars and the argument that it was “the more things change” rather than artistic cowardice. It gave us five minutes of the biggest missed opportunity of the whole trilogy at the end: Adam Driver doing his level best to play Ben as “Han Solo if he were a Jedi”, which would have been a fucking great central character of the trilogy (no hate to Daisy Ridley. She is delightful as Rey, a true bright spot in the trilogy, though she’s hampered by a terrible script in one and three and dramatic whiplash in two). This, unfortunately, only serves to put a spotlight on how much this trilogy sucked ass.

I think if they had given someone like Rian Johnson or Taika Watiti the whole trilogy to play with, it would have been something truly great. Instead, they gave two thirds and creative control to JJ Abrams. They gave Rian Johnson apparently 75% of one movie and seemed determined to reverse his every artistic choice. Rian Johnson gets too much hate for a film that could have been great but was clearly hampered by cowardice that not only wasn’t his, but seemingly came so late that it made it impossible for his film to not be incoherent.

[Vendetta]

Yeah it bears mentioning how exceptionally gutless Rise of Skywalker is as a movie.

Anything that looked like it might have emotional moment was sure to be undone in minutes.

Chewie’s dead but no he isn’t, 3P0 is mind wiped but oh no he isn’t, a planet got blowed up but all the characters we met there got out OK.

So none of it mattered and it leaves the things those stakes were supposed to be attached to Hollow. The only consequence of 3P0 not being able to just read out what was on the dagger was the film was 20 minutes longer. Nothing of consequence changed because of it. Even Hux as the spy does nothing because he gets shot immediately because who has time to deal with the antagonism between him and Kylo Ren when we have all this terrible EU drek to work with. Characters are boring.

[Anacronian]

Hux arc.

The Force awakens: "I'm HUX I hold grandiose Riefenstahl-like speeches while we blow up planets".

The Last Jedi: "I'm HUX, I'm an Imbecile with ragdoll physics"

The Rise of Skywalker:"I'm HUX and Now I'm a traitor..Now I'm dead"

[Galvatron]

That's why I liked it. Hux was always a sniveling twat who was only motivated to betray the First Order because he was jealous of Kylo Ren's status and the veteran general didn't fall for his bullshit cover-story at all. His unceremonious death was beautiful.

[Galvatron]

FWIW, here's the lowdown on those new planet-killing ISDs.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Xyston ... _Destroyer

Does the stated length of 2,406 meters sound right or did Pablo just pull that number out of his ass?

Out of their ass. They are obviously using the Rogue One model as the base. So unless they scaled every component exactly 33 odd % (including standard items like the comm array, domes, and bridge windows) the claim is disproven by in scene visuals.

Perhaps fractal could give us an expert opinion.

It sounds like the VD is full of shit on this.

[Patroklos]

Agreed, not a single detail about them makes even any sense.

[Anacronian]

Of course nothing makes sense about them, They were born out of the sentence - JJ:"I think we need some planet destroying weapons, make star destroyers capable of blowing up planets" and that is all, there is no deeper thought behind it.

[Vendetta]

That's why I liked it. Hux was always a sniveling twat who was only motivated to betray the First Order because he was jealous of Kylo Ren's status and the veteran general didn't fall for his bullshit cover-story at all. His unceremonious death was beautiful.

He was, but at least there was a relationship between him and Kylo Ren as characters that would have made a much better contrast to the whole “we win by sticking together” thing they kept saying. To have the First Order’s internal divisions in command cause its actual downfall.