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The "I've seen The Rise of Skywalker" Thread


Lucas1138
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Well, we made it. There will, of course, be more Star Wars to come, but 20 years after Nightly came into being we've finally reached the end of the "Skywalker Saga."

 

The Hollywood premiere was last night and the movie opens a few places globally this week prior to the US opening on Thursday night. Have at it.

 

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whoever sees it first please report back with who has the bad feeling about this line

 

none of the spoilers I've read address this very important information and I NEED to know. still not over ****ing BB-8 beeping the line in TLJ, the greatest crime that movie committed

In spoiler tags even though this is a spoiler thread, just cuz I don't think anyone's seen it yet.

 

 

Okay I've read a few times now that it's Lando. I like that it's a character who hasn't said it before, but it's hilarious that this is the new trilogy and not a single new trilogy character gets to say it (BB-8 doesn't ****ing count). Han said it four times if you count his good feeling variation from Solo. I don't know why I care about this line so much.

 

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Just got back from seeing it and this was the first Star Wars movie where I've come out straight up disappointed. This movie was honestly a gigantic mess. There are complaints that Mando has been full of side quests but this movie just feels like 8 or 9 of them stitched together where things just happen with hardly any pay off.

 

If they'd spent another year or so developing it, I think there could of been a good movie but this really felt like a case of "we don't know what we're doing so lets rush to finish it off"

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I really enjoyed it. I have been with The Skywalker Saga since 1977 when I was 10 years old. I was invested in the expanded universe as well and disappointed when most of it was overwritten. Im happy with how they wrapped it all up. I know it is at this time, the worst reviewed Star Wars film ever; but thats ridiculous and means nothing to me since I have enjoyed all the films - even TPM. I became a member here at nightly around 1999 to discuss the creation of the Prequels. Ive dropped back in occasionally to see the reaction to the new movies and am loving The Mandalorian. As this 9 movie saga comes to a close, I thought I would drop by once again to record my initial feelings. So here goes:

 

- I found it a very emotional experience in an entertaining way. Sad at times and humorous at others as all Star Wars movies have been

- It was full of action punctuated with quite character moments. Some will not like how it jumped from one planet to another but I loved it for that. Its the last of the Skywalker Saga and the galaxy is a big place. Im glad we got to see some more of it here and look forward to seeing more in the future.

- There were some surprises and some obvious plot points that I saw coming. I was reasonably happy with the plot decisions made though felt some of them were made just to appease the TLJ haters. Since I loved TLJ, I felt they didnt need to do this. Still I felt the choices worked on the whole.

- I loved that all the main characters got to interact with each other in different ways and felt the use of Leias dialogue was clever even though it wasnt seamless. I liked that there was a return of a lot of side characters and they all got a line or two rather than just be background. Same with new side characters. I like to see that there are more heroes than just those the story revolves around.

- The worst thing I can say about it is that there was a lot of fan service and an obvious effort to address fan criticism of TLJ which I personally felt was unnecessary. I loved TLJ and would have been happy to see where Rians vision went. I Feel the Kylo/Rey arc stayed true but there were other things that were obvious attempts to course correct.

 

So, imho, it was a satisfying if not perfect end to the Saga; but lets be honest, thats what can be said about all Star Wars movies. I need a couple more viewings to know where it finally sits in my favourites list but for now its below Empire and TLJ and above all the prequels. Where it fits amongst the others is tbd.

 

P.S. Apostrophes in contractions are not appearing in my post. Thats annoying.

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See I thought the biggest issue with this movie is they retconned not just TLJ but the entire damn franchise and made not only the journey in the OT meaningless but the PT as well.

 

  • They've been touching on it with Baby Yoda but they went too far with the force healing in this movie - it isn't specified as something unique to Rey and Ben, so why couldn't Obi Wan have just done the same to Qui Gon in TPM for example? The power of this ability really opens up a can of worms
  • At first I loved the bit where Kylo brings back Rey from the dead. . .he finally did what Vader/Anakin never could. But then was this the point? Kylo can just suddenly do something out of nowhere that was the entire reason of Anakin turning to the Dark Side?
  • There was a hopeful message in TLJ that you don't need to be born of privilege to become a hero and someone from nothing can rise up. But nope, Rey is actually a Palpatine!
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Seeing it at midnight tonight. Going back to the OT rerelease in '97, I will have seen E1-9 midnight showing.

 

Anyhow, I hear the reviews are mixed in that if you loved TLJ you will hate TRoS and vice versa. I hated TLJ with the passion of a million ****ing suns. So if Newton ain't bullshitting opposite and equal reactions, this should be the greatest ****ing move ever.

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Just got back from seeing it and as I went in with modest expectations after the hole they were left in at the end of TLJ, I really enjoyed this final film in the Skywalker saga!

 

Fast pace for sure, a few macguffins in there, but the gang were all back together, Lando was having a great time (really pleased with his contribution), and the Leia scenes were really well done when considering they are just outtakes from TFA & TLJ - really impressed how they did that (in my opinion) so slickly.

 

Hux twist was fun, and the whole sequence on the star destroyer to be honest. And who was the gunner on the falcon at the end? Nice touch and wasn't expecting Rogue 3 himself to come back!

 

Looking forward to a second viewing!

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I don't know when I'll get round to seeing it, which shows how uninterested I am. Maybe next week.

 

Tempted to go and see Cats even though I probably won't like it, not because of digital costumes and make-up etc. (I'm impressed with those), but because I don't like the musical much.

 

Just so that I can tell me that I chose to see Cats instead of TROS and see how they react, even though I will see TROS before the 25th.

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I do have to add though that the way they worked Leia in was pretty amazing. It was seamless, great job with that.

 

Making Rey a Palpatine, although not what I would have done, worked fine in that it plays up the possibility she could turn when prior to this she hadn't shown much darkness.

 

As a huge TLJ fan I didn't think this movie undid that movie at all. Not in any bad ways at least. Id say the third movie SHOULD undo some of the things in the 2nd movie. So I have zero problem with really any of that.

 

It just had alot of stuff that seemed like was in the old EU and even some of the cartoons. A Sith dagger and wayfinder? A diode in the Force? Thats the kinda stuff I used to hear book fans talk about and I'd think "thank god none of that is in the movies."

 

Really in the end I kinda knew this wouldn't be the movie "for me". From the first trailer I could see that. I was fine with that though and figured I'd at least get some great saber fights and some great battles. The saber fight on the Death Star wasn't very good. The huge battle at the end lacked any sort of tension.

 

Having said all this Im still so happy Disney bought Star Wars and weve gotten all 5 of these movies. I like 80% of them, not a bad hit rate!

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Well that was certainly a Star War!

 

I'm a mixed bag of feelings about it. I'm not disappointed or let down, but I certainly did just see a bunch of bullshit as well.

 

What I liked:

 

+ the sense of finality/duality/full circle-ness. It really did feel like the culmination of nine movies coming together

 

+ the "in between" moments where characters come to life (like Poe and Finn gaming with Chewie) this movie was full of them, and that reminds me of the OT. TLJ was completely devoid of these moments for the most part

 

+ Rey's journey. I like Rey, I've never had a problem with her, or her power-- and now her power level makes sense. I missed a little of the optimism and sweetness she had in TFA and TLJ, but I think that was intentional.

 

+ Han's cameo. That wasn't spoiled for me, and it was sweet. I'll give JJ credit for not putting him in the ghost shot at the end, cause you know he wanted to.

 

+ Kylo Ren is still to me how Anakin should have been portrayed in the PT. His redemption was inevitable, we knew that from the start-- even if Rian Johnson tried to steer us away from it. Much like Vader, you couldn't let the character live when they've caused so much destruction and Death.

 

+ Loved how the band was together for most of the movie. TLJ suffered from keeping them apart the whole time. Having them together makes them better characters.

 

+ Finn made so much more sense in this movie than in TLJ. I always thought he was a fun character, giving him confidence, an inkling of the Force-- all good. I love his face when he sat in the gunner's chair-- he's ended up in that position clueless a few times before, seeing him sit down and pull on the gloves Han-style was great. Similarly, Poe was back on track after seeming like a different character in TLJ.

 

+ I am shocked I am saying this, but I like the new little droid. If BB-8 is a faithful golden retriever, D-0 is like a cat. He rolls up to Rey, she reaches out to pet him, and he pulls back. "No thank you."

 

+ 3P0-- my least favorite character of the OT, pretty much pointless and tacked on to the PT, and shrill and annoying in the ST, I finally felt like he was made good use of in this movie and was actually kind of fun.

 

What was just okay:

 

+ The scavenger hunt plot. Let's be honest, Star Wars plots are always pretty flimsy and hung on the framework of a chase. So it wasn't a shock, but it was also kind of low stakes for the finale movie.

 

+ Leia's inclusion. It was really clever to write around what lines they had for her to say, and she was integrated pretty seamlessly (albeit a bit stiff, but so was DeNiro in The Irishman's de-aging scenes and he's still living), but it never quite felt like she was actually to talking TO the people she was sharing the screen with. I mean, she wasn't, and they did the best they could, but it never felt 100% on for me. Though I did love that quick flashback image of OT era Luke and Leia training together. I want THAT movie.

 

+ Lando. Sorry-- he was too old, stiff and mumbly for me to really love. I think Donald Glover stole the part.

 

+ All the new characters-- just interesting enough to like, but not likeable enough to really get into. And it seemed like there was one too many of them I was supposed to care about. ANd not to be a dick, I know JJ puts Greg Gruenberg in all his movies, but how huge is he going to get and we're supposed to buy he can fit in an X-Wing cockpit... prob why he crashed... SON OF PORKINS.

 

+ New Force powers... I mean... I get why fanbabies won't like it. I don't mind too much. I've always said that people use what Luke could do as a benchmark, and the ST has set Rey up to more powerful from the start. New powers are fine, rediscovery of old powers is fine too. To be fair, every SW movie has added a power to what Jedi can do. It just seemed like in this movie they were all invented to help the plot in some way. Like they wrote themselves into a corner, and used a new power to get out of it.

 

What I didn't care for:

 

+ The pace. When my 14 year old, who lives on video games and youtube clips, leans over to me and says "Jeez, this thing is moving way too fast." You know there's a problem. Things moved so quickly in the first half that the dramatic moments never landed. Not 3 minutes in and we have Kylo facing a returned from the dead Palpatine-- that should have WEIGHT and importance-- and instead, it felt like a "previously on" edit. In fact, I'd say the first forty-five minutes of this moves was basically a "previously on" edit of the Episode 8 JJ Abrams would have made. Easily the first third of the movie is just putting the plot where he wanted it to be after TFA. Whether it was ego, fan service, or having a story too big for one movie, it was forced and it showed.

 

+ Speaking of course corrections-- look, pretty much every SW film other than ANH retcons what came before it... and I get why people didn't care for TLJ, but pretty much all of its bold choices were reversed-- Rey's lineage DOES matter, Luke DID make a mistake, Leia DID train to be a Jedi, Rey DIDN'T shut the door on Kylo, Rose DOESN'T love Finn, Kylo IS redeemable. Even little things like Ren's fixed helmet and the Holdo maneuver quip were basically bitchy little pokes at TLJ. Again-- either fan service or ego-- either way, they could have done better. The ONE thing people would have wanted retconned more than anything, was to see more Luke.

 

+ Knights of Ren and Snoke. So Snoke was set up as a leader and dark side user. The Knights of Ren were supposedly Kylo and the other former Jedi students he left Luke with. Apparently NO ONE in the galaxy had the same questions we did about Snoke and where he came from? Now Palpatine just says "I made Snoke" and we see Snoke clones in a jar. WTF does that even mean? And the Knights of Ren are what exactly? Clearly not force users... what sort of organization are they? What does Kylo have going on with them? How is he the master of them? It's like JJ was told, "you can't have the Emperor or the Sith. Luke beat them" and he said "Okay-- what if I just have them but call them something else?" That got the go ahead, but then this movie comes around and they decide-- "Ah to hell with it. Just do what you wanted to do." And now it's up to some book I'll never read to figure out. They should have just said the Crimson Guard in TLJ were the Knights of Ren. I would have bought that at least.

 

+ The lightsaber battles in those movie were lame. I recall both JJ and Rian said they preferred the methodical, dramatically charged lightsaber fights of the OT, and both of them seemed to make good on that. I guess JJ forgot-- because this movie had lightsaber action constantly and it was all jumpy/flippy and pointless save for when Rey stabs Kylo. So basically-- kind of like the PT.

 

+ Apparently Palpatine only ever has two plans-- get ultimate power, blow planets up. And If he just had a fleet of warships I might get that-- but legions of troops and officers? Where did all those jerks come from and why were the just standing around?

 

+ So Rose and Finn's romance was dropped? Sort of? But Finn loves Rey now? Or maybe he loves the other black ex-stormtrooper? This was all very weird and I didn't understand the point.

 

+ Maybe I am a nerd on this one-- but I felt like the art direction was really lacking. TLJ had such a striking and unified look to it, TROS seemed all over the place. I think more planets were visited in this one than any other film (other than maybe ROTS) and none of them really stuck out as unique.

 

+ I agree with Choc's EU statement. A lot of the elements of this movie-- Emperor resurrected, Sith daggers, special gadgets, everybody's badass backstory, etc. It all felt very much like an EU novel-- bogged down in arcane little details that take away from telling a big mythic story.

 

+ My last point, and it's pretty huge... from day one, I said the only thing the ST shouldn't do is invalidate Luke's victory. The Sith were defeated. I was okay with the dark side returning-- it does that. But to specifically bring Palpatine back basically says everything Luke did ultimately did not matter. I had hope-- the screenwriter even said they didn't want to invalidate what Luke did. I knew Palpatine was going to be in this, but I guess I thought maybe it was going to be his essence in a holocron, or some sort of fake transmissions to rally people.. anything other than actually being Palpatine

 

So at the end of the day, I feel the same way about this one as I did about TFA. I think it is fun, and it feels right, and I love the characters-- but ultimately it defies its own logic and comes of as fan-wanking one to many times, and under close scrutiny falls apart. It is at least watchable and fun, unlike the PT, but it still doesn't come close to the OT.

 

I liked it, but I would never try and debate somebody who doesn't, because their complaints are probably valid.

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