STAR WARS: "Rise of Skywalker" **SPOILERS**

I wanted to split out a separate discussion thread for those who wanted to discuss the movie's many story and character points without spoiling it for those who haven't seen it yet.

You have been warned...

 

So...

This is a very dense film in terms of story and character, with tons and tons and tons of stuff going on. Don't be tempted to leave the theater during the show, because there's not a wasted moment in the whole thing where something isn't going on. I think Abrams' visual style is slavishly-imitative of George Lucas', but that's not necessarily a criticism: I think he's just continuing the "movie he saw in his head," so it makes sense. I do think the pace of the film is almost too fast, and a lot of the camera movement and cutting is maybe unnecessarily frenetic. That's totally a subjective call, and I get that they needed to make this 2-1/2 hour horse trot as fast as it can.

I liked the film, but jesus, it's kind of exhausting and they pile on the explanations and exposition to the point where the dialogue is non-stop. Don't doze off -- there's a lot of important stuff flying past. I think the problem for writer/director J.J. Abrams is that he had to overcome the story limitations set in The Last Jedi, particularly on the problem of Rey's parents, the death/transformation of Luke Skywalker, and even worse, the real-life death of actress Carrie Fisher.

Let me say that I thought Ms. Fisher's appearances in the film were good but brief. It was very obvious to me that they painstakingly composited her from other scenes shot for previous films, and then used a body double from the back so that she could be seen talking to other people. (For the non-technical: they "Photoshopped" her into a totally different movie.) I think this works to a point, but I suspect they also used some trickery to recreate her dialogue, because I'm not buying that everything she said was uttered by the real Carrie Fisher. I get it as a movie convenience, but you feel the painful loss of this actress, and I can't help but wonder how much better the film would have been had she been able to make it through the whole thing. There is a surprise flashback with Fisher at the end which is -- believe it or not -- an actual outtake from Return of the Jedi that they shot in 1982, showing Luke training Leia to be a Jedi. I think the faces are real but the backgrounds and outfits are all CGI, but I think it's a legitimate moment and I can live with it. You can say "it is the real Carrie Fisher... in a manner of speaking."

John Williams' music was excellent and quoted quite a bit from the last eight films in very clever ways. I was surprised to see from the credits that the 87-year-old composer conducted the recording sessions himself, which I did not expect. It's incredibly strenuous to conduct a full studio orchestra for days and days and days, particularly with a score like this, which has got to be at least 2 solid hours of tracks.

I was perhaps most surprised by the ret-conned "New Jedi Power" where suddenly the most powerful Jedis now have the ability to heal people, even those who are dead. We saw this recently in the Mandalorian TV show (and I won't give that away except to say it was a surprise), and now the ending of the movie hinges on this. I was equally surprised by the appearance of Ian McDermid as Emporer Palpatine, and even more so to learn that the actor is only 75... which means he was only 39 years old (!!!) during the filming of Return of the Jedi in 1982-1983.

All in all, I enjoyed the film and actually thought it had a lot of good moments. Some are complaining that there was too much "fan service," little winks to the audience reminding them of moments from past films, but they didn't bother me. I think it's a worthy addition to the Star Wars canon, and I'd be surprised if even Lucas hated it. We're set to see it again in a week when the crowds die down a bit.

 

Your thoughts mirror my own nearly.

But I'm shocked about the Luke/Leia flashback being an out take of ROTJ . I just assumed it was all cgi with new actors! Where did you find this out?!

Also your thoughts on Lucas probably liking this chapter hits on something I was toying with mentioning,but couldn't put my finger on. This movie,more than even TFA, felt like a movie the George Lucas of 1983 would have written. Hell the dialogue in scenes made me wonder if George didn't ghost write some of it with JJ and Terrio. The stuff with the Sith druids and Palpatine as well as all the Force Dyad stuff and the healing seems very very close to the midichlorian/Whills/microbiotic Force lore that apparently George's outlines for his versions of the sequels would have played with.

In fact I also wonder if the whole Rey Palpatine, eventually becoming Rey Skywalker thing is a George Lucas idea. I can't find the interview or source now,but just around the time of TFA , i remember reading that George'sson Jett said something to the effect that "Kira" ,the name George used for the Rey character in his version of the story of the sequels , to was going to have parallels to the story of Anastasia. That seems to be a thread carried over here.

 

First, Williams is in a class by himself. There is just no one as great as he is, especially for as long as he has been.

Did I hear some Wizard of Oz music in that score? Not trying to be funny, the score was excellent; however I was expecting the Wicked Witch of the West to pop out at any second.

This I can believe. And all things considered, a brilliant move. I know I give Lucas a lot of flack on this forum. However once upon a time in Hollywood, Lucas was a great writer/director/producer.

This has a zero chance of being a Rian Johnson idea. Doubt it was a J.J. idea. And I have the under on Kennedy.

 

I knew even as TFA wrapped that whether or not Rey was indeed Luke's daughter that by the end of IX she'd be a Skywalker,if only by name. There's a reason she doesn't have a last name through it all.

I know people give the Disney trilogy crap for not having a solid plan in place,some of which is valid criticism,but I do think everyone involved ,JJ, Lawrence Kasdan,Rian Johnson and Chris Terrio were indeed on the same page in terms of the arc of Rey and Ben Solo through this trilogy. Their relationship and arc through the three films is very strong even if everything else around it may have been ill defined at times. I've read that both Daisy and Adam were told from the start how their characters would end up by the end of IX. All evidence points to the fact that there was always a general rough plan for those two characters even if everything else was left to each individual director. That's probably because it was mapped out by George in his outlines and that was the one element the people involved took from his ideas and run with.

It's telling that even apparently in George's version we had a mysterious young girl gifted with the force seeking out Luke Skywalker,and a Jedi killer who ended up being Han and Leia's son. That core element has remained the whole trilogy.

 

Very neural read on this one to me, which makes for a huge meltdown after enjoying the hell out of 7&8. I’ll be going to see it again when crowds die down before I cement any final judgement because Jesus is it a lot. I feel like JJ is trying to ride the Fury Road wave of non-stop action but without the choreography and narrative purity it really becomes more of a spectacle than anything else. As a film I didn’t find too much to enjoy, especially in comparison to the smooth as butter TFA. As a story I think it really paled in comparison to TLJ and the retconning and lack of deeper context was jarring and unnecessary at times.

Lots of the story felt silly to me, I don’t like the resurrection stuff at all as it felt at odds with the lore and ethics of the previous 8 films. Rey’s parentage was handled as well as possible of this was the goal, but I think the idea presented in TLJ made more sense, and this just feels reductive to the power of her character especially through the lens of gender. I know a lot of female fans are upset at this twist and rightfully so.

On to the positive, I have to say I’m surprised so many are saying this is derivative of ROTJ, as I felt that this was the first sequel that really deviated from the look and feeling of the first 2 Star Wars. Visually it’s dark and stuffed full of fantasy signifiers like daggers and maps. The action movie tone is unique for the franchise as well. In fact I’d say this is the most structurally unique of all of the films, for better or for worse. Sadly I think the latter is just a bit more common, but I still liked the film more than I disliked it.

 

I just got back from seeing it, so these are just a few quick thoughts while they're fresh in my mind.
First of all, Disney really was in a no win situation. If they again strayed too far from conventional Star Wars storytelling, then again it becomes 'they're ruining the franchise'. And if they did what everybody expected them to do (and which is exactly what JJ Abrams did), then it becomes 'oh, this was nothing but fan service'. I mean, they couldn't win.
I personally found it...boring. Maybe it's because I just never cared enough about the characters. They never really had much time together onscreen, and so it never felt like they had a relationship to each other. They tried to correct that in TROS, but at this point it's a bit too late.
The pacing, especially at the beginning, was too much. They were trying to cram a lot in a little bit of time. That, of course, is a direct result of TLJ; I don't think that Rian Johnson really set it up for the finale very well (and I'm not really bitching about TLJ, either. I'm just saying that honestly, I always felt that whomever did the last one was going to have a hard time explaining things).
I love the Han bit, I thought it was very well done. I also loved seeing the old Lars crib at the end. I mean, how else would could they end the story?
I feel bad for Kelly Tran; she was pretty much regulated to being a stage prop, which I directly attribute to the online grief her character got, which is too bad.
I like the little guy who is the computer hacker.

 

It was an enjoyable movie, and it closed the saga nicely. There were some tear jerker moments here and there, especially the ending with Luke and Leia. You sort of had to kill off Ben.

The Battle scenes were great. Rey using Luke's X-wing was rather ingenious.
I could have done without the Ewoks, though I see why they were included.

I'll likely see it again. I saw it in 3d, but I'll likely see the 2d version the 2nd time.

 

The editing at the beginning of the film was way too fast and seemed pretty random to me

One of many things that annoyed me and made me cringe was that Rey's parents sold her into slavery in order to protect her from Grandad - I mean, WTF were the script writers thinking when they wrote that! Although I did like that Jodi Comer from Killing Eve was her Mum

Another was the medal given to Chewie just lying about, did someone just happen to rifle through Leia's belongings to find it (as she never got a medal I guess she ended up with Han's or Luke's?) and then some random woman runs up to give it to him apopos of nothing. And talking of Chewie, killing him off and then bringing him back in what seemed moments later seemed a waste of everyone's time

What was the point of Keri Russel's character other than to sell toys and give Poe a bit of a background, waste of a potentially cool new character

Also, I can't remember if there was any explanation as to how Palpatine survived? that annoyed me as well

I liked and thought it was funny how many of the voiced (or dying shrieked) stormtroopers were female, and the wee guy who worked on C3PO was a great wee character. Also loved the design of Palpatine and his creepy base

 

I was personally underwhelmed by this.

Very predictable. Rehash of ROTJ.

Rogue One is still by far my fav. of the new movies.

 

This is mostly speculation on my part but I think based on his line something like "The dark side is a pathway to many things, some considered to be unnatural" is a bit of a hint.
If you see his appearance in the film he's sort of connected up to this big mechanical arm thing so I wonder if his physical body is almost more of a puppet and his essence is sort of inside the shell controlling it through the force. I'm not entirely sure how his body survived the explosion to be found later but I suspect you could come up with some sort of shield created by the force or whatever.

 

I know many things! (Most of them useless.)

There was a recently-published interview with J.J. Abrams (damned if I can find it) where he said that they asked the Lucasfilm archives "can you show us every scrap of film of Carrie Fisher that was not used in any of the previous films?" and this was one of the scenes provided. It was just a moment in the new film, but it shows that yes, Leia was aware that she had some Jedi powers and did get some training from her brother. And Lucas had intended that to be part of the story, but opted to just end Return of the Jedi with the "Yub-Nub" Ewok celebration, on a high note.

I have to say, it moves at a breakneck pace, and a lot of it seemed to be, "here's an explanation on everything that's happened up to this point." And it also kind of hammered and bent The Last Jedi into the larger story that J.J. Abrams wanted to tell. It's convoluted, but it didn't bother me too much.

I think this was more fan service where Abrams said, "what the hell, let's finally give Chewbacca the medal." For the record, Lucas told me that Chewy did get a medal, but because Carrie was only 5'1" tall, and the Wookie was 2-1/2 feet taller, she would have had to have stood on a ladder, which they decided was unwieldly, so they just handed him the medal later. But you have to take George's word on that.[/quote][/QUOTE]

I fell outta my damned chair when he popped up. That surprise cameo was the best-kept secret in the history of Hollywoo.

But I'm sure the fans will go crazy. "Is Han a Force Ghost? Since when can a non-Jedi do this? How does Leia do all this by remote control?" But it's clear to me that -- if you can buy into the story, big 'if' -- she spent 100% of her energy getting all this to her son, dying in the process.

If I had one quarrel with the entire movie, it's that the "new Jedi power" of bringing dead people back to life was a little WTF to me. That's a total deus ex machina move, where you kill off an important character, and then bring him or her back moments later, just because you can.

Noted science fiction writer Steven Barnes remarked this week that he was disappointed that Ben Solo dies saving his friend Rey, and that it would have been a more interesting film if Ben Solo had to live with the knowledge that he murdered his own father, and somehow still found a way to carry on and atone for it someday. That would have been a much harder story to tell.

 

I agree with some of what you say, but I don't think they had a master plan. I think whatever plan they had went out the window when Carrie Fisher died. I've said for years that Lucas was just making **** up as he went along, and I think J.J. Abrams basically had to do the same thing. But you have to bear in mind both of these guys are extremely smart and talented, and they often had a knack for making very good **** up that happened to work dramatically and logically, and also be very entertaining... all at the same time.

It's interesting to note that Colin Treverrow was initially set to direct this film, but abruptly departed after The Book of Henry bombed at the box office and got negative reviews. And yet J.J. Abrams went through all the Disney scripts written up to this point and opted to use enough of what Treverrow did to earn him a "story by" co-credit.

I'm sure somebody could tell a long, long tale of the story they didn't do for Episode IX. Ultimately, Abrams had to make some decisive moves in order to hit the delivery date of this week, and I think Disney just gambled that he knew what he was doing. (And I think audiences would have been bored to tears if they had used Lucas' ideas, which reportedly revolved around midichlorians in the blood and more political intrigue and a bunch of other ideas that didn't involve blowing stuff up real good.)

It's fair to say the movie is getting mixed reviews, but I think there's more good than bad in it and I also think it's going to be a big financial success. Even if a $195 million dollar weekend is less than the last two Star Wars episodic films, trust me, that is still a spitload of money:

Box Office: ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ Eyes Massive $195 Million Opening, ‘Cats’ Struggling

I again say that Abrams had an impossible job to hit all the story points, and I think he did the best anybody could under these circumstances. You can argue that maybe if they could've delayed the film another year, maybe they could have done a better job. But they no more could've done that than they could have brought back Carrie Fisher. Not even Jedi magic could do that.

 

Oh,I know these three weren't planned out,but I do think Rey and Kylo Ren's basic arc (how they wind up...Rey a Skywalker by name who becomes the last living Jedi and the Scion of the new Jedi order,and Kylo Ren,the dark Prince of the Skywalker/Solo bloodline who literally finishes what his grandfather started overcoming the dark side and ultimately giving his life to atone for his sins and ensure the Jedi will live beyond him,was likely the only thing that was sketched out. How they reached that end was never nailed down for sure,but both Ridley and Driver were basically told their characters endings way back before filming started on TFA. Driver has even said he used what he was told then to craft how he was going to approach Kylo Ren as an actor.

As for the lower than originally anticipated opening,I think it will all even out ultimately over the Holidays. Once word of mouth gets around that it's a good entry in the saga and the people who stayed away because TLJ turned them off finds out this film did a good job of putting the narrative back on the figurative track,more people will see it. I'll predict it will have better legs than TLJ given the lack of competition and the fact it's a fan pleaser. It'll likely end up right under or at the 1.3billion TLJ did.

 

As for Chewie getting the medal,if you noticed when Leia decides to sacrifice herself to reach Ben through the Force she is holding Han's medal from the battle of Yavin. It's in her hand as she does and the rebels obviously find it with her. It makes sense then that Maz gives it to him as he's the last survivor of that battle and he was close to Han and Leia.

As for Palps surviving,he really wasn't alive in the classic sense until he sucked the life force from Rey and Ben. He was basically a reanimated corpse hooked up to a machine to retard his decay. Now that could have been his original body found in the wreckage of the death Star by his loyalists or a clone body that Palps spirit ended up possessing that has since died itself . Either way what's likely is Palps ,the guy who played three dimensional chess with Galaxy for 30 years had a back up plan in place should Vader betray him (which he knew was always a possibility) and enacted it through these Sith worshiping druids (seemed to be hundreds if not thousands of them). That's all I needed to know. The dots are all there to connect especially once you understand the guy has always been obsessed with immortality and achieving it through what ever means necessary. Whether that's cloning,Sith magic,body possession ,or all of the above.

That's why also I can buy him having secret children. Not to procreate and pass on his lineage in the literal classic sense,but in the hopes he created a being strong enough in the force through which he could possess should the rest fail. I could easily see him enslaving and impregnating women (probably not in the usual natural way, probably through sith science) they having his children in the hopes the offspring is as strong as he is with the force, and disgarding them like garbage when they aren't. Eventually he hit the jackpot with Rey.

 

No such scene was shot during photography on Jedi in 1982 (it appeared in none of the script drafts)... I believe the new flashback sequence is body doubles then Luke's and Leia's faces added in digitally.

But if I'm wrong, I'm prepared to stand corrected.

 

Except none of that is explained in the actual film, is it? If they were going to reverse such an iconic moment as Palps' death at the hands of Anakin/Vader in Jedi, you'd think they'd at least think of some way to explain it... it's not a mystery as much as it is just plain lazy storytelling.

And I always took Palpatine's spiel about cheating death in Sith to be just a hook to reel in Anakin more than a reflection of his own obsessions... he's a liar; everything he says in almost any given moment is about manipulation.

 

A couple things I've thought about this morning...

I think Finn is indeed force sensitive. There were times when Finn talked about feelings and instinct etc. He felt Rey die through the Force. I think that is what Finn was going to tell Rey when he thought they were about to die in the quicksand. I think it's inferred that Finn may end up being Rey's first student in the Jedi arts. I certainly hope it gets followed up on in other media.

Anyone else notice that when Ben crawled out of the pit at the end before going to Rey that he was injured on the same side as he was injured by Chewie's bowcaster in TFA. He was favoring the same side. A subtle touch there.

So,the Jedi voices at the end...I heard Yoda, Obi-wan (Ewan McGregor's version) Anakin (Hayden) Luke of course. Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon. Did I also hear Sam Jackson as Mace Windu as well? Who were the other female voices?

 

Mace Windu, Ahsoka Tano, Aayla Secura, and some more from the Rebels cartoon, I believe.

 

The Luke/Leia training scene is not a ROTJ deleted scene. From what I've read they filmed the scene with a clean shaven Hamill and de-aged him with CGI and had Carrie's daughter Billy Lourd play Leia.

Plus considering that Leia doesn't learn of her Skywalker heritage until the very end of Jedi, where would such a deleted scene even have fit in ROTJ?

 

And just when Ben is going to say 'I love you' to him, Han cuts him off by saying-of course!-'I know'. Brilliant.

 

Whole lotta call-backs, but ya know, I smiled at that one.

The piece I read the other day was very specific, but I can't find the link. I'll continue to investigate. (This is the world we live in, where we might read a dozen "real" news websites and then another half-dozen "fake news" fan websites, and it all merges together in our heads to become one story.) I'll concede that the entire scene looked very "CG-y." My observation is that the faces looked real, but the helmets and backgrounds were composited.

Here's a good example of how they removed the background and composited outtakes of Fisher into new scenes with new actors:



Note they gave her a different look and earrings as well. In some cases, they altered her hair and clothes, but kept her face real:



So it's not exactly a "CGI Princess Leia," but it's also not a real image, either.

 

There is still something like 50 minutes left of the movie after the scene where Luke tells Leia she is his brother so it's not exactly at the end. He doesn't see her again until the very end so it's possible there is a gap between burning Vader's body and the celebration or something like this which would explain why the scene ended up on the cutting room floor. It's also possible that the script was in flux during the shooting of the movie and they shot a scene or 2 that just didn't end up working with the final piece. That said it felt to me like it was done with doubles or something similar to what you said rather than old footage spruced up but I could be wrong I didn't do the research on this.

 

I dunno if anybody has made a complete list yet, but they did get as many actors as they could to recite a line or two, and I think you covered most of them, and I would bet that Carrie Fisher might be in there. It's amazing to me that Hayden Christensen was willing to participate, and Frank Oz has a contentious relationship with Disney. It's possible there were enough sound outtakes to piece together enough words or pieces of words to make the scene work.

 

One of the resistance characters mentions briefly the possibility of Cloning,sith magic etc when they all find out Palps is alive. It's a very brief moment but they do acknowledge those possibilities within the movie. Palpatine does acknowledge that he died and repeats to Kylo Ren the line that "the Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to abilities that some would find unnatural. "

Again,the guy in the prequels and even the old pre-Disney Canon was obsessed with immortality and power and achieving both. He was playing 3d chess with the Galaxy for three decades until his fall. of course he had a contingency plan in place should Vader betray him.

I personally don't need a power point presentation on every detail on the hows and why's. It worked for me.

I guess I buy it because for the longest time it was established in the old Canon, when an on screen sequel trilogy was thought as something that would never happen it was established Palpatine did return through similar means after Endor more than once,and I personally think they handle it better here .

I guess it also does boil down to whether you see the OT and the PT as sacrosanct or not and whether or not ROTJ was your favorite Star Wars film. As an adult I don't think ROTJ was that great of an ending and feels rushed especially when viewing it as a six chapter saga rather than the smaller story ROTJ initially wrapped up. It simply feels too small to be the ending of this thing that had grown into this Galactic epic. Also I never warmed up to George retroactivly using the prequels to insert this "Chosen one" prophesy stuff in order to reframe the whole thing. This sequel trilogy and neither this ending takes away anything from the emotion of the ending of ROTJ. That ending was never supposed to Originally be about Anakin Skywalker fulfilling some ancient prophesy to destroy the Sith. it was proving Luke's faith that there was still good in Vader and Anakin redeeming himself through his love for his son. In my opinion that is still very intact.

But again YMMV. I personally think one should see the movie and then make up their mind. If you can't overcome that sticking point,well,you will always have your head Canon and can just ignore the sequels.