Abob Teff

If you had the option, which would you rather see when you look in the mirror?




Or

Why So Blu?

What a disaster.

Draven

Exactly. Same here - I was just happy to get new Star Wars movies.

coli

I try to watch SW movies in this context, “Enjoy what you like and don’t obsess what you hate.”

sherm42

Vader didn’t sacrifice himself to kill Palpatine. He sacrificed himself to save Luke. There’s a difference.

Decker

Okay, not to pick on you, but can I just for a moment touch on why it pisses me off that everyone here seems to be giving this mediocre-at-best movie a pass? It's because it commits the EXACT SAME mistakes that caused everyone here to FLIP OUT over the other big cultural event of 2019 - The final season of Game of Thrones. They both showed scattershot, frenetic writing trying to wrap up all their story-lines as quickly as humanly possible to end it all by some completely arbitrary, self-imposed deadline. Both take strong female leads and make them do or almost do totally out of character behaviors due to their evil lineages..They both shoehorn in completely unearned and inauthentic redemption arcs.
Now I will grant you that The Rise of Skywalker was well-lit throughout and there were no Starbucks cups carelessly strewn about. I would happily trade all that for one good honest emotional well-earned character-driven scene like we get with Brienne in S8E2. Seriously, some of you are saying their emotional high from this movie is an imagined Han Solo returning to say he forgives his son for murdering him. Really??

Why is nobody petitioning Disney to remake Episode IX?

General Zod

Because a vast majority of people disagree with you. 86% positive on Rotten Tomatoes by the viewers. Everyone I know who has seen it has liked it. Now my Star Wars die hard friends are pretty split on it and I certainly understand that being a Trek fan and seeing what the studios have done with that franchise. But, as I posted in my review, I think this was a highly enjoyable film if you don't have your arms crossed wishing things went a way you may have envisioned. Most people went into it with very little pre-conceived notions and just wanted to see the story play out. They got that.

Brack

I’m just not seeing the GOT parallels. They’re not even remotely alike.

tanman

Why do you want everyone to hate the movie just because you did? I really didn't like TLJ. And I will argue my points on why I think it's terrible. But that doesn't mean I want to change your opinion on that movie at all. In fact I'm jealous of the people who did like it. I would never want someone to dislike a movie just because I did. Specifically for RoS I think it's a great Star Wars movie. It's very clunky and not the best movie overall but I think it's more than serviceable when considering what was left of the story after TLJ.

brayzie

In the OT, I think they only introduced a new power to the Force in one film and that was in ROTJ when the Emperor shot lightning from his hands. As far as the PT, I don't think they introduced any new Force abilities in those films.

I always figured that abilities for the dark side of the Force was anything goes and that's why it corrupted the user.
The Jedi having the power to heal using the Force makes sense on the surface. They're good guys and would want to save people. But it kind of contradicts the philosophy displayed by the Jedi.
Yoda says, "Death is a natural part of life" and believes that we're "luminous beings, not this crude matter." Palpatine's dialogue about the power of preventing death being considered "unnatural" seems to imply that it's the Sith who are preoccupied with the physical world, whereas the Jedi consider the flesh as merely crude matter and that people never truly die, but merely shed the mortal coil and become one with the living Force.
And this new power displayed by Jedi Rey and a "good again" Ben Solo mean that the grandchildren of Darth Vader and Darth Sidious made progress in the two Siths' quest of preventing death, or at least reversing it. Yes, it comes at the price of someone else's life, but again, it has negative ramifications to the story because it's an example of someone (Ben) unable to accept the consequences of their actions and apparently using using a cheat code to undo it.

Not to mention all these new abilities start to become problematic just like they did for the Silver Age Superman. They kept adding new powers to the character and it got to the point that there was no real challenge for him unless it involved Kryptonite. You overpower a character and they tend to be less interesting. Or in the first Donner film where Superman just reverses time to undo Lois's death. It made for a spectacular ending and was really impressive visually at the time, but where do you go from there? Why doesn't Superman do that for everyone, or in every big villain situation?


I would be interested to see how consistent everyone's criticism and praise is, going from The Last Jedi to The Rise of Skywalker.
Maybe I'm wrong but I thought that there was lots of credit given to TLJ because it didn't indulge in fan service and was bold enough not to give in to fan expectations. That it did something different.
And yet TROS seems to indulge in lots of fan service, and gives in to fan expectations and demand to the point of retconning the more daring revelations of TLJ ("your parents were nobodies", the Force being more something more inclusive and less focused on familial dynasties and bloodline). It's also very predictable.

Defending TROS or TLJ by saying all Star Wars films are flawed is like arguing that they're all roughly equal in terms of quality, while dismissing any legitimate criticism.
Ex: Attack of the Clones was flawed, but so was the OT. I just see these movies to have fun and I'm just grateful we got another Star Wars movie.

I completely agree with this. Like I said, it was a fun film. But it was obvious that none of this was planned out and they tried to mask the similarity to ROTJ's amateur approach to script-writing by throwing everything at the screen but the kitchen sink at a break neck speed so you don't notice. Here's my breakdown of the good and bad of the movie:

The Good
I have to echo what Red Letter Media said about Adam Driver carrying the movie. He's makes the most out of a character with limited dialogue and thin motivation.
Daisy Ridley has an extremely likable personality and I like the idea that she's the one to continue the Skywalker legacy. That ending shot that even looked fuzzy and film grainy was beautiful. Even moreso than the one in TLJ.
The fight choreography was probably the best in the entire series. I loved the acrobatics and dueling while the ocean waves are raging at them. It actually felt that they were trying to harm each other as opposed to the glow stick dance competitions of the PT.
C-3PO was great, and just about every scene with him was perfect. His dialogue and "expressions" actually got some laughs from me.
The practical effects of the sand worm/snake were exceptional and made the creature feel more real and life like. At least I think it was practical effects.


The Bad
Despite going out of there way to show how George Lucas had nothing to do with this new set of films, Disney, Rian Johnnson and JJ Abrams were all channeling his lesser, cynical form when making this new trilogy because these new sequels are also like poetry, they rhyme.
Han Solo Poe Dameron is a hot shot pilot for the Rebellion Resistance with a sketchy past that involves being a spice smuggler, and currently has a price on his head.
Luke Rey finds out a horrible truth that he she is the blood relation of the main villain, Darth Vader Palpatine.
Darth Vader Kylo Ren becomes good at the last minute and turns against the Emperor in order to sacrifice his life to save Luke Rey.
Ghost Luke Obi-Wan shows up in the middle of the film to advise Luke Rey.
Lucas opened up with the Death Star, got lazy and reused it for the original finale.
Abrams opened up this new trilogy with a bigger Death Star, got lazy and and reused it for the finale x 1000.
The Emperor was the final boss in ROTJ, and is once again the final boss in TROS.


It was also full of cliche and tropes.
Like another poster said, a video game trope where the player has to get Item #1 in order to proceed getting Item #2. The fast pace of the film only made these two MacGuffins more out of place. A MacGuffin that leads to anotoher MacGuffin.
Hero's parents/family/loved one killed by the main villain, hero swears vengeance.
A magic coin that gives the user safe passage to any level.
The main character saving the day, dying in the process, only to be immediately brought back to life.
The male and female co-lead having to be attracted to each other and sharing a kiss in the end. Of course, this seemed to be a last minute development in the story so it also felt out of place.
A CGI battle royale finale made up of hundreds/thousands.
The hero being supercharged by the spirits of the ancestors/powers of their predecessor.

There was stuff that made it apparent that they didn't know what they were doing from the beginning and just making it up as they went.
There was nothing in the previous films to imply that Snoke was a clone or a puppet. And there was no clues or foreshadowing that the Emperor was back and pulling the strings. Usually good script writing has little subtle clues early on that the viewer can look back on and think, "oh, that makes sense now," while still being able to be surprised. So a couple Snoke clones in a vat were just thrown in at the last minute to make up for that. And the Emperor being shown as alive in the trailers and at the beginning of the text crawl was definitely a way of softening up the disappointment that 20 years later the big surprise is that it's still the same villain from the previous two trilogies.
The Knights of Ren definitely seemed intended to have some importance to the story without the writers coming up with how exactly. But Disney wanted to rush out a new Star Wars so they probably figured they would have time to figure that out later. Rian Johnson didn't want to use them too early, so he came up with the new Crimson Guard who LOOK like upgraded Knights of Ren, and are in the promo material to make it look like they're important, but really were nobodies. JJ Abrams comes back, realizes they don't have enough room in the script to flesh out the Knights of Ren, let alone time to come up with just who and what they are. But they're still used in the promo material to make people THINK they have some kind of importance. But just like the Crimson Guard, they were really nobodies.
Nothing was shown in the previous films that would even HINT at the possibility that Rey was Palpatine's daughter. They threw out some different possibilities of who she was in TFA (Maybe Obi Wan's daughter because his voice was speaking to young Rey, maybe Luke's daughter because his lightsaber was "calling out" to Rey) and again, they probably thought that would have time later to figure out just who she was and who her parents were. The change to her being nobody was great, although it could have been set up and handled better. But then they undid that with, "I didn't lie, they CHOSE to be nobodies."
No, that's not the same as Obi-Wan saying "What I told you was true, from a certain POV," although that line was bullshit too. It would be more like finding out in Return of the Jedi that Darth Vader WASN'T Luke's father.
And remember in TFA where there was "An awakening in the Force," which was the title of the movie? They probably had some vague plan to do something with that, but that didn't go anywhere either. How was it the Force awakening? What was different now?

I thought the stuff they chickened out of actually doing would have made the film so much more interesting.
Had Rey really killed Chewbacca by accident, that would have been shocking, and made for a more complex story. Forget about Rey wrestling with being the blood relative of a villain. That's an old cliche and most audiences in the US don't believe in the "sins of the father." There was never any real concern that Rey had the potential to turn evil, as she never displayed any problematic attitude other than her half-hearted "I'm gonna kill Palpatine for killing my parents." She was a goody two shoes, way more than Luke, who was shown as impulsive in the worst way and desiring a life of adventure rather than one of responsibility and altruism. But had Chewbacca died because of her, how would she reconcile herself with that? How would the audience reconcile that action with their hero?
I was also surprised when she killed Kylo in the middle of the movie. I really thought they were going to kill him off in the most un-Hollywood, un-cliche way. Snoke getting killed in the middle of the trilogy? He wasn't interesting whatsoever so what did it matter? But killing off the Darth Vader of the new trilogy in the middle of the third film without him getting the obligatory redemption? Without him getting his full chance to shine in the finale, let alone in his life? It would really hammer home that his life was cut short, and how tenuous life itself really is. Had 3PO really sacrificed his memory, essentially his identity, in order to help the Resistance...that would have been powerful and shown that even doing the right thing incurs permanent losses. Maybe a scene at the end where a determined R2-D2 is repeatedly trying to revive 3PO's memory, each time unsuccessfully. And I really thought that the Millennium Falcon was going to go down in flames based on that one photo, so that would have been a nice signifier that this was the end of an era and that we can't always keep or save the things we cherish. Zorii Bliss looking up before the planet is destroyed and staying dead would highlight just how important her sacrifice was.

drc

RT is not a great barometer for the public's view on something like Star Wars. I don't think this has been targeted like TLJ was (or may have been), but it's still a self-selecting sample. The Cinemascore for ROS was B+. Now, a B+ isn't that bad, but it's lower than Solo and lower than all of the prequels. Everything you wrote after the first two sentences could apply to any Star Wars movie since ESB.

Brack

Well I try to watch all movies for what they are, not what they aren’t. New Star Wars movies aren’t OT quality and I really don’t believe they ever will be. How could they? That was lighting in a bottle. Does that mean I can’t enjoy new movies for what they’re trying to accomplish, even if not every element is perfect, or wasn’t preplanned (don’t tell me the OT was preplanned, it wasn’t), or whatever else it wasn’t? Give me characters to care about and put them in some adventures in space, and that’s pretty much all I ask from Star Wars.

I do agree that the story elements have been all over the place, it wasn’t very original, and that not every movie flowed as well from one movie to the next in that respect. But ultimately does that matter? For me it didn’t. I care enough about the characters to forgive a lot of the flaws. I never cared much for the characters in the PT, period. You never felt like you knew who these characters were, just what they were meant to represent. It also didn’t help that Lucas didn’t know how to write interesting dialogue anymore.

brayzie

Now see, I disagree with you here.
All of the Disney sequels are easily better than Return of the Jedi, and now, I'd even argue that Rey vs Kylo at the ocean is equally good or even better than the emotional Luke vs. Vader final battle scene. And while I like A New Hope, it was this groundbreaking thing for viewers like me, who were unfamiliar with Flash Gordon, Dune, Heavy Metal/Metal Hurlant, and every other creative work Lucas was pilfering from. But watching it today, the majority of the film feels really cheesy, the dialogue and acting in particular. The Empire Strikes Back on the other hand still holds up fairly well.
I'd consider TFA better than ANH except it's not even stealing its ideas from obscure, contemporary creative works. JJ Abrams just remade A New Hope with better acting and special effects.

You can enjoy whatever you want. But what's with the strawman argument? Very, very few people argue that the OT was preplanned as it played out. Virtually EVERYONE knows Luke and Leia being related was made up at the last minute. And many fans cite it as a one of the many flaws of Return of the Jedi. In fact, a large portion of films criticize that entire movie for being too kiddie and a regression from the slightly more mature tone of ESB.

It just seems like some people are criticizing the people who have criticisms of the Disney sequels. If they have some weak arguments, I understand critiquing those arguments. But countering with stuff like "all the Star Wars fans are flawed" is some pretty specious reasoning, not to mention defenses that are the equivalent of "it's just a fun popcorn movie, as long as you don't expect much and you should enjoy it." I don't remember this many people making these same defenses for Prometheus or the Michael Bay Transformers films.

The Disney sequels are head and shoulders above the PT and YouTube trolls saying "Well at least the PT had..." no. The PT was trash.
I can understand why people enjoy the ST. I never didn't have fun while watching them. But I was expecting something more than just, better than the Prequels. For me, that's a low bar to measure from. And while the performances by the actors were solid in the Disney films, there was nothing that connected me to them, unlike what we got by the time of ESB for Luke, Han and Leia.
It just seems weird to repeat the same mistakes and flaws of the OT instead of learning from them.

Now, with all that said, I think everyone involved did a solid job considering this is a mainstream, corporate owned property by a company that doesn't want to take risks, and wants to create something for everyone, while also keeping a passionate fanbase happy. That's a lot of pressure to do create good while working within those limitations. I mean, if they do something really different, they run the risk, good or bad, of it not "feeling" like Star Wars.

Brack

The OT is one giant movie for me. They flow very well from one to the next.

Even the PT wasn’t very well planned out. I guess I could have used that as a better example. That wasn’t even a large point I was trying to make, but I do find it laughable this idea that there needed to be this grand plan of three movies when all Lucas did was tack on Vader at the last minute.

Again, I was just stating a fact. I can’t tell what you’re arguing based on my quote. I was stating I thought they were flawed, and now you’re just running with that as if my responses have not substantiated what I was talking about. And no, that’s not the same as not expecting much from a movie. I said that giving me characters to care about is what matters the most. But whatever, keep harping on something that you think was my only point when it wasn’t. I never said don’t expect much, you’re twisting my words to make an argument that I’m saying Star Wars might as well be Transformers, and I’m not. Not even close.

Right, they did that just a little bit with The Last Jedi, and now look what happened. Could they be better? Yeah, okay, but I think they're much, much better than the PT. I felt a lot of connection these characters, especially with Rey, Finn and Ben/Kylo. Poe got a bit short changed, but he’s still a really likable character and for me that goes a long way.

But you nailed it on the head, the problem with Star Wars is that for these movies to keep feeling like they already do is doing some form of a retread. I’d personally like to see something very different in future films, but if that doesn’t happen, I’m not going to criticize them for what they’re not, which is my bigger point.

Mike86

The reason I’m critical of these movies is because they sold themselves on being sequels to the original films, which technically they are in name yes, but what do they do to advance the story? Not a whole lot, and at the same time they disrespect a lot of what came before.

I can like elements of the new films for what they are if I pretend that they’re detached and are just a stand alone trilogy (and that’s a pretty loose term since all these films discounted elements from the films prior). To me these aren’t true sequels though.

Brack

Depends on what you mean by story I guess.

Draven

They showed us what happened to the previous generation of main SW characters and introduced a new group with new challenges to overcome.

Dictionary facts: a sequel is a published, broadcast, or recorded work that continues the story or develops the theme of an earlier one.

So how on earth are they not "true" sequels? They fit the definition perfectly.

Why So Blu?

As much as I liked TLJ, this one benefits from not making a random spot at a casino. Broomboy will also be missed. #not

Draven

While I like the idea of other Force users "rising", I then have to remember that when I was a kid I thought it would be super cool to see a bunch of Jedi going into battle and then that happened in the prequels and turns out my 10-year-old self was an idiot. Because it was fucking terrible

Why So Blu?

brayzie

The thing is, Vader being Luke's father was like catching lightning in a bottle. Yeah, if you don't plan anything, and miraculously it turns out great, who's to argue with that? But generally it's wiser to have some sort of plan if you want to make a coherent, well-written story.
Lucas tacking on Luke and Leia being brother and sister at the last minute? Horrible. Yeah, I get the whole, "There is another" line by Yoda was supposed to make the audience think Luke MIGHT go to the dark side or be killed. That was fine. But Lucas and them had no idea who this other person was supposed to be and looked what happened. They ended up ruining the whole love triangle dynamic/friendship for the worse and creating even more plot holes.
Yeah, apparently you don't have to have a grand plan for Disney to still make billions from a well known commercial property. But not having a plan and it shows, definitely warrants legit criticism.


It was a huge commercial success, critically acclaimed, and made over a billion dollars?


While I enjoyed TROS, I definitely doesn't feel like this was a satisfying end to the entire saga, which is what Disney was promoting it as. With the return of the Emperor I was expecting this film to tie in better to the OT. Instead it felt like some bad fan-fiction at times. The revelation of Rey being a nobody and then being retconned so she's a somebody? The ReyLo shipping actually becoming a thing?

Brack

I was talking about the PT, not the OT.

As much as I liked the movie, it was also very divisive and clearly hurt TROS opening. I was commenting on your point about making something different. Guess I’m not making my points clear enough for you or you’re making a bad joke, I can’t tell.

Paul_SD

They chose to trade on people's continued affection for the OT by bringing back the three main characters, this time in supporting roles, while at the same time being integral to the plot(s)
That was their first mistake IMO.

I realize most fans won't agree with that because they desperately wanted to see seventy year old versions of their faves running around cracking one liners and chasing macguffins with the rest of them, but the fact was Lucas ended the "Skywalker saga" with RotJ. Unlike with the earlier intention of confining Ep 6 to the defeat of Vader, and making the ST about Luke searching for his sister, finding the sister, and the two of them ultimately defeating the Emperor- Ep 6 as filmed simply left no lingering business or themes to tie up.

Using these OT characters as central to the plot simply to be able to trade on their affection for marketing/revenue purposes was bound to be awkward and ungainly in terms of the composition of these numbered films.

Whether you liked the first six films overall or not, there was a symmetry and cohesiveness to them in that character stories have an end point. Not necessarily good ones, but they do have something.
For some like Vader and The Emperor, it's death.
For Luke, it's completing a transformation from a backwater farmer to a galaxy hopping Jedi while resolving questions about his past.
For Han & Leia it's about the rebellion triumphing and all obstacles to their coupling being removed (or in this case, invalidated).

Taking Luke, Leia, and Han further than that is now fully crossing over into soap opera territory where any thematic resolution is merely arbitrary and/or temporary. The OT was frequently labeled as "space opera" but the three films were designed to have a classical beginning, middle, and end point. Lucas, imo, seriously shortchanged and botched that ending- but it was still a definitive ending.

If they absolutely. desperately needed to make a direct ST, that can mine the iconography of the OT (ships, costumes, settings, etc) then they would have been better advised to make a new set of trilogies focusing on entirely new characters taking place concurrent with the OT events, but from a different location/perspective and with a smaller set of stakes that progressively escalate in significance over the span of several films.

A Stormtropper that deserts is a great starting off premise. In fact, that could have been the big cathartic ending to an entire first film.

Ridley and Issac are great actors. It's a shame we didn't get to see them essay more interesting characters and not just dollar store knockoff versions of things we've already seen.

If fans like/love tRoS, great. Enjoy it. Taken in isolation there's things in these films that even I like. But it's more depressing to me to see all this technological capability, budgetary resources, and the high caliber of talent culled for the main characters, and not see huge wasted potential casting shade over everything else.

Obi-Wanma

Telekinesis to push/pull objects with the force was introduced in Empire.

Paul_SD

Obi wan threw, or made people believe they heard, sounds, and mentally altered the perceptions of Stormtroopers at the checkpoint.
Those could easily be taken as telekinetic powers.

It's also easy to reinterpret the way the torpedoes enter the exhaust port,. That it wasn't merely intuition allowing that, but that Luke force-willed them directly into that tiny opening.