Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker*

PLEASE do not confuse my issues with The Last Jedi with the crap the prequels threw into the mix. There just isn't enough time.

However, the Sacred Jedi Texts are just as bad as midi-chlorians in my book.

 

Personally, I think it works, even if it wasn't planned that way originally. And it helps that The Empire Strikes Back is seen as either the best or 2nd best movie of the entire franchise. It is a wonderful film.

Yes, that was a major plot point. But I was sold, and I never thought in the years after when I watched the OT over and over again that it felt contrived (like the Ewoks did). Plus it sets up the great scenes in Return Of The Jedi with Luke, Vader and the Emperor.

 

Except that, for me at least, the Star Wars saga has always been about, y'know, Luke Skywalker.

The original movie novel and it's sequel (Splinter of the Mind's Eye) - possibly even the Empire novelisation as well - were all sub-titled "From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker" - and I bought into that idea. So did Marvel, too, it seemed - as the comic featured the continuing adventures of Luke on a weekly (in the UK) basis.

So to have Skywalker largely absent from TFA, and then have him be such a grumpy old sod in TLJ - and then dying, godammit - felt like the character was being done a massive disservice.

Let's be honest, here - of all the stories Disney could have told within the Star Wars universe - these were really the best they could come up with?

 

Psychology behind constructive criticism vs haters

 

I don't think this is like testing out string theory in physics class. It's about what kind of fudging and two sticks holding up an undershirt in front of a lamp story improv WORKS or doesn't work. There is no list of laws about WHY we buy something in movies or theater... but when the audience starts throwing cantaloupes at the stage that's not the time to wonder if you're winning them over or not(let alone asking WHERE the audience members are hiding the cantaloupes!)!

I'm against ardent fanboyism and toxic admiration as much as the next guy and I reject absolutely harassment or hounding a creator because they disappoint any set or subset of fans. As a kid I was an avid reader of books about warplanes and warships. If I'm a film maker then the only film where slow torpedo bombers attacking a ship gets to play is a movie about world war I or the battle of Midway... demonstrating the heartache of mismatched technologies and undelivered aircraft on runways in Hawaii. But if I'm making a space epic in 2014... I'd better have a GOOD reason why I'm rejecting the "space opera consensus"... which is that once I'm in a spacefaring story... then concepts like warp speed, laser and direct energy weapons and exotic reactor based energy and propulsion systems are everywhere and don't need a backstory!! If Johnson wanted to undo the consensus then he has to show where it helped the story. If it led MYRIAD fans to NOT suspend disbelief then that is a failing of the drama not science or physics! I'm also hoping that the next generation of action films will begin to retire the troops of cops or soldiers uselessly firing conventional rifles at 60 foot tall supernatural green monsters, witches, space aliens, or titanium insects as well as blowing up the empire state building for the hundredth time. I know...I'm stupid AND crazy but anyway...

Why do we let Star Wars slide? Because it delighted us from beginning to end and made it look easy and left us breathless(also Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing, James Earl Jones, and Carrie Fisher sold that script like used car salesmen!!!). I haven't seen the original since 1977.. i was up late a month ago and caught the last 20 minutes and was amazed at how little and slight it was but I didn't stop gripping the remote til the credits rolled. I love to give things a chance but TLJ just dragged and while it is good to break the mold and challenge orthodoxies... don't reinvent the wheel! This stuff goes back to Robin Hood, Captain Blood, Remo Williams, Back to the Future, Enter the Dragon, and Batman Begins! There is a film making 101 aspect here that is being missed and sure lots of sinister culture war agenda is in play but not all of these fans are wrong!

 

Really? I don't even think it comes close. I mean, clearly the Jedi had a library 'n stuff (we saw that in the prequels), and they must have had some training manuals and basic texts. So I can see those things existing, being things of value, and being of importance to the plot of the sequels.

I'm not sure why we needed or got midi-chlorians. They didn't advance the story or make any sense in context of what we knew about the Force going into the prequels. It diminished the whole endeavor.

 

I don't hate it as a plot point, but it was awkward in light of what Obi-Wan told luke in Star Wars. Clearly this wasn't where the arc was intended to go - it's something that got madeup on the fly and it clearly contradicts the previous installment. Certain point of view my ***!



I wouldn't have followed thru on it for a couple of reasons. One because it contradicts what Obi-Wan told Luke, and makes him out to be a liar. But two, because it's completely ridiculous that Darth Vader wouldn't find out his son was alive and well and living with his brother back on his homeworld. Give us all a break.

Turning the whole series into the Skywalker family saga with the prequels just compounded that problem with the original trilogy. Would have been much cooler if Anakin had actually been a Jedi betrayed by Darth Vader, and if Anakin had a secret son and daughter Vader didn't know about, and if those kids had been spirited away to parts unknown to Vader by Obi-Wan. That's believable.

What we got was just silly.

 

And there were lists posted online back during the prequel era of everybody's midichlorine count. It seems just about everybody had a little, which is stupid.


Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader = 27,700
Darth Sidious/Palpatine = 20,500
Yoda = 17,700
Luke Skywalker = 14,500
Leia Organa Solo = 14,500
Aenon Jurtis (Most powerful Jedi Master prior to Yoda) = 14,200
Shintor Beerus (ancient Jedi Master) = 13,900
Ce Ce Denowai (the most powerful female Jedi) = 13,700 (not anymore!)
Lex Luthor = 13,700
Ben (Jhon) Skywalker = 13,700
Anakin Solo (New Jedi Order novels) = 13,700
Darth Plagueis (Darth Sidious' master) = 13,600
Count Dooku/Tyranus = 13,500
Obi-Wan Kenobi = 13,400
Kaja Sinis (the first Jedi) = 13,250
Kyle Katarn = 12,200
Chef Boyardee = 12,000
Mace Windu = 12,000
Darth Maul = 12,000
General Grievous = 11,900
Kit Fisto = 11,800
Orko = 11,700
Exar Kun (Dark Lord of the Sith during the Sith War) = 11,700
Shindor = 11,500 (Dark Jedi from Episode 7)
Chancellor Gorkon= 11,400
Yaddle = 11,300
Xanatos' (Qui-Gon Jinn's former apprentice) = 11,300
Darth Seer (Founder of the modern Sith Order) = 11,200
Plo Koon = 11,100
J.J. McClure = 11,000
Mara Jade = 11,000
Joruus C'baoth = 10,350
Darth Imperius = 10,300
Lt. Dan Taylor = 10,300
Shaak Ti = 10,300
Tahari Vehlia (New Jedi Order novels) = 10,300
Echuu-Shen Jon = 10,200
Ernest = 10,200
Sheeti Preekwal = 10,000
Aalya Secura = 10,000
Qui-Gon Jinn = 10,000
Average Jedi = 10,000
Darkwing Duck= 9,000
Jedi Master Cihgal (New Jedi Order novels) = 9,000
Darth Rage (Sidious' apprentice after Darth Maul) = 9,000
Jedi Master Tionne Solusar (New Jedi Order novels) = 8,500
Tigger = 7,500
Xio Jade = 7,400
Chewbacca = 7,200
Aurra Sing = 7,000
Need To be Considered for Training as a Jedi = 7,000
Padme Amidala = 4,700
Harry Bentley = 3,800
Beru Lars = 3,700
Shmi = 3,300
Lando Calrissian = 3,300
Boba Fett= 1,500
Cheif Jay Strongbow = 1,500
Han Solo = 1,500
Jango Fett = 1,500
Owen Lars = 1,500

 

Where did that happen, though? Ships in the Star Wars universe have always behaved in a way that defies any sort of consensus, based on real world physics, space opera consensus, or any other consensus. They always seem to do whatever the plot demands / whatever looks coolest.

The only bit in the whole film that really bugged me was the hyperspace ram. Why haven't we seen that maneuver before? That seems like something that would have come up at least once, like in the battle of Endor. Like I said when I first gave my thoughts on the film, this was the point where Leia shoulda whipped out the Force.

But it's hard for me to trash TLJ for that when - as I noted up above - literally all of its predecessors pull stupid crap like that, often repeatedly in the same film.

If you're looking for another paint-by-numbers adventure, a la TFA, sure. Johnson was clearly trying to get far away from that with TLJ, though. As the middle of a three-part saga I think it works at least as well as Empire from a plot standpoint - which by the way is not dissimilar in terms of our heroes fleeing and scraping by and learning difficult lessons. I think where TLJ fumbles a bit is in missing some of its middle-of-the-trilogy predecessor's epic scope, and also its remote bleak darkness. Both the darkness of the Dagobah swamps, but also the isolation of the Falcon in the asteroid belt and on its flight to Bespin, the darkness of the industrial bowels of Cloud City, and the bleakness of Hoth. Tonally the Canto Bight scenes aren't a match for the rest of the film, which makes that sequence feel extremely out-of-place. I think it could have been handled in a much more foreboding manner.

 

I certainly wasn't looking for another TFA. I thought they skated by on that one with MAJOR problems. I didn't expect the original actors to do much more than make cameos but in retrospect the filmmakers robbed themselves of a chance to get some great work out of Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford at least. But the scene where Kylo Ren takes off his mask resulted in guffaws among the audience I saw it with and I greatly respect Adam Driver as an actor... I also like Daisy Ridley but she is not being helped by these filmmakers.

TFA left a bad taste in my mouth upon seeing but I said ok..it's no worse than most of the comic book megabudget sci fi I'm seeing though Marvel was producing competent entertainments by then. The next summer I started seeing trailers for Rogue One and the trailers played like some sort of redo of TFA... I was confused but even in the trailer I could see a setup that was more interesting. Not sure how that soup got made ..but I thought Rogue One was almost the same story handled better tighter and more believably than TFA and did a MUCH better job by way of it's actors and characters who were of course promptly vaporized!!! Not sure if the director or the reshoots behind the director fixed things or not but I liked Rogue One...I'd have LOVED it if they had gotten a thrilling 40 minutes of Forest Whitaker's character taking the young heroine and showing us the revolutionaries waging their fight against the encroachment of the empire and working some magic BUT that would mean more moving parts and risk the flow of the film so nevermind it worked ... 'nuff said!

Then TLJ erupted ... what can I say. I know we have a cadre of culture jihadis out there but the film did have those glaring shortcomings and the film makers did leave their necks stretched over a tree stump here. I mean... yeah you could see good intentions there when Rose stopped Finn(who merits a book in himself as to how this actor has been badly misused when he could have been a fine presence in this series!) but the circumstance and setup were so bad and such a violation of, admittedly, tired and timeworn conventions that I half expected Jim Brown to materialize out of nowhere, jump into the same flyer thing and crash it into the megalaser thing while Rose and Finn watched open mouthed... SOMEBODY would have to do it!!! Yes it's a cliche but if everyone in an action movie has messed up then SOMEBODY has to ride the nuke in as it were!!! But if not why did the script back everyone into this corner in the first place. Look I'm not going to rehash here you could spend years watching some Aussie guy in a room full of Star Wars action figures take 90 minutes to list what went wrong on YOUTUBE.

Regardless... TLJ came out... some people reacted... the internet mafia was all ready for SOLO and they helped take it down. There is a lot that is underwhelming about SOLO... I can't say there's anything great about it. The actor did a good job considering he wasn't a 25 year old Harrison Ford. I don't know how the soup was made there either with the director switch and all?.but I'll say that everyone did their job on that film INCLUDING Clint Howard! It was a competent effort and just about everyone I know who saw it afterwards enjoyed it.

 

That was kinda the point tho, wasn't it? He's a dweeb and a Darth Vader wannabe. Granted, a Force-gifted dweeb.

Come to think of it, not all that different from Anakin. Hmmm.

I thought the film subverted expectations brilliantly. Everybody has a brilliant plan. Leia has a plan. Finn and Rose have a plan. Poe has a plan. Snoke has a plan. Rey has a plan.

All of their plans go completely to ****.

That's war, kids!

And the only people making out on this are the arms traders.

Finally, after 40 years, a Star Wars movie that gets the "wars" part right. And everyone loses their minds.

 

...and so I'm guessing Captain Phasma is a clever exposition on how people in authority can spend an entire career as nameless faceless cogs in a machine?

 

I know that I've certainly been hungry for an arms trader sub-plot in a Star Wars movie ever since that trade blockade sub-plot in The Phantom Menace!

 

Ya know, you'd think they'd have backups or Xerox copies or a Kindle reader or some kind of additional version of the Sacred Jedi Texts that could be handed out, like at meetings or something. It's very interesting to notice that George Lucas never, ever had a book or a piece of paper in a single Star Wars film. And the words and numbers on visual readouts was all some kind of alien text. (They changed quite a bit of that in the 1997 and 2004 revised Star Wars films because some Arabic numbers snuck in here and there.)

 

Naaah. That's a JJ creation. She's this trilogy's Boba Fett - a really cool costume that does menacing things, but can be dispatched with fairly easily.

I found the arms traders a lot more interesting than the trade blockade. They probably should have been around right from the start, though. Can't have a war - or even a terrorist insurrection - without them.

In the original '77 Star Wars the readouts - at least some of them, like the tractor beam - were in English.

 

It's more than you might think. But Lucas changed them to an alien language -- correctly, I think.

 

Can you articulate how and why? It makes perfect sense to me that there would be ancient texts important to the Jedi Order, just like any other "religion."

 

Just to comment on this one point - my main beef is not that the sequence dealt with gambling/horse-racing/whatever, but that it was a completely pointless sub-plot which did zero to progress the story.

And how come it was so easy for Finn and Rose to skedaddle with the ship and fly back later without getting blown to pieces by the First Order?

Honestly, it just felt like the entire sequence was in there to justify a level in a spin-off computer game.

 

You can still be a fan of something whip

Except that Star Wars stopped being about Luke Skywalker when Lucas decided to make the prequels and decided to transform the series into a generational tale about Luke's father Anakin Skywalker. Then Lucas changed things again when he decided to make an Episode VII and it suddenly became about the Skywalker lineage and legacy. Disney of course has since bought the franchise,but it doesn't change the fact that the CREATOR of Star Wars itself has changed the focus of the main overarching tale of these 9 instalments from being almost exclusively about Luke to only the middle part of the saga being about Luke. You may not like it or Personally accept it,but it's the reality of the situation. Star Wars hasn't been the adventures of Luke Skywalker for 20 years.

With this current trilogy, Luke isn't the main character. Rey and Kylo Ren are. He's the old Jedi figure we had with Obi-Wan and Yoda in the original trilogy. To expect him to be the main hero of this trilogy and the focus was wishful thinking. His function in the story as was with Obi-Wan and Yoda in the original in any Joseph Campbell heroes journey story is that as the mentor character in these types of stories,sets our hero/heroine on a certain path,imparts some knowledge and then they have to die in order for our hero to be able to stand on his or her own. It would be like expecting Obi-Wan to stick around in the flesh after the escape on the Death Star. His part was done after he set Luke on the path to be a Jedi,so thematically and narratively, Obi-Wan had to die. It's how these stories work.


If you can't accept that or can't get over your childhood hero dying...well perhaps the sensible thing to do is move on. The beauty of these trilogies as they are set up is you can approach them as individual tales and ignore the rest if you wish.

 

I've heard all those details not addressed in the movies are expanded on in books and comics. I'm not going down that path. If the film makers couldn't be bothered, I sure as hell won't either.

 

There's a difference between " you know this film just didn't work for me and here is why....etc." or "I personally didn't like this film and here's why"....

And ...

" this film is an abomination that ruined my childhood,my life and my children's lives,and because of that Star Wars is ruined for everyone for all time and RUIN Johnson should be ashamed of himself for killing my Luke!" or " SJW's ruined my Star Wars! If you don't dispise it like I do you are a Disney shill!"

The former two examples are constructive criticism. The later two are just hate and anger and outrage for the sake of it

 

George Lucas didn't ruin your childhood. He did ruin Star Wars though. Disney is just piling on the with the ruining.

 

Well in Lucas case, until 2012, Star Wars was his lock stock and barrel. It was his to "ruin" ,and even in that case he didn't objectively ruin anything. He just made a few movies that not everyone embraced. If the fact you let those prequels ruin the previous three movies for you,that's on you,not George Lucas. Lucas didn't come to your house and burn your Original trilogy VHS tapes and erase your positive memories of growing up with those movies. That's a choice you make to have the mindset of " oh I don't like these new movies ,so now I can't enjoy the other movies or even think back fondly on those previous movies because Jar-Jar and midiclorians."

For many that came of age in the late 90s and early to mid 00's,the prequels were a gateway into the Star Wars fandom and universe. As derided as those films were,they all made a ton of money and sold a crapload of merchandise. If that was "ruining" Star Wars, then George was ruining it all the way to the bank. It doesn't mean you are wrong in not liking them or the new ones,but objectively speaking to say George "ruined" Star Wars or even that Disney has "ruined " Star Wars is hyperbole and trying to turn your personal opinion,which you are entitled to ( and all you are entitled to as a fan, in my opinion) into some objective fact.

The closest thing I can think of that even came close to "ruining" Star Wars was Lucas's stubborn refusal to not allow the original theatrical cuts of the Star Wars trilogy to coexist with the special editions. Even then there are other sources out there if you want those cuts.

 

So, let's say someone orders a custom birthday cake that costs like $50.00. First order is delicious so they re-order another one for the next birthday. Second one is just as good, if not better, than the first, so they plan on ordering yet another cake for the next birthday. Third cake is just as good as the first, so everyone agrees to continue to order birthday cakes ONLY from this bakery, because the wonderful taste and craftsmanship justifies the cost. However, cake order number four tastes like poo-doo and looks sloppily put together, as does cake order number 5 and number 6. Same baker, same bakery. But I guess, with your logic, it is the fault of the cake eaters NOT the cake baker that the last three cakes tasted like and looked like garbage compared to the first three. Everyone should just sit around and reminisce about how good those first three cakes looked and tasted and NOT the $150 they threw away on garbage.