Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker*

Those Ewoks were nasty little suckers. They couldn't even be bothered to shave Chewy or take the clothes off of Luke and Han before cooking them alive. No wonder the Empire didn't stand a chance.

 

I agree. I just recently watched SOLO again and I liked it even more than before. Probably more than any Star Wars film it captures the feel and asthetic of the first movie. It's a space Western. Very little Jedi or Force stuff, just a fun adventure. It deserved to do better at the box office.


I certainly hope that if the Mandalorian and The Obi-Wan series do well that we get a proper sequel series to SOLO.

 

Imagine that the last thing you hear as you are being turned on a spit and as the flames engulf your body i, is "Yub Nub".

Chilling.

 

True, but I would jump into the Rancor pit if I had to listen to Jedi Rocks again.

 

On that we agree. Not that the original scene was that great,but who in their right mind thought THAT was a better choice? I can pretty much live with the rest of the SE changes ,but that one...ugh.

Oh,and Vader yelling "Nooooo!" In Jedi. That...that is bad.

 

I had no problem with the happy ending - I loved the ending, and even loved that Vader was turned instead of simply destroyed.

But the film has some serious flaws, as bad or worse than either TFA or TLJ.

Yeah, I saw it with friends and we all liked it, but thought it had problems. I did not want or need to see it again. Unlike say, Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, which drew me out to the multiplex again the next week. Sorry, but it curb stomps ROTJ.

That's a fantastic sequence and almost makes the Death Star retread worthwhile. But I still thought it was kinda lazy screenwriting up until that point. Still, better than the Death Star Mk III we got in TFA.

 

Yeah, I do not get why Disney is rushing these films. There should be no more than one of them released a year, and honestly I think it should be no more than 2 every three years, with a summer release followed by a long gap and then a Christmas release. These films were special, which was part of their appeal. They've made them commonplace and screwed up the production with rushed schedules, questionable casting, director drama and all sorts of other silly mistakes.

Bingo. The guy seemed miscast to me, based on the trailers. Just wasn't feeling it.

Exactly. Again, they got greedy and rushed things, and it cost them dearly.

Yup. He should have listened to his producers.

The trailers unsold me on Solo. Still haven't bothered seeing it. I guess I'll get around to it someday...but Rogue One looks a lot more interesting.

 

The original concept art for TFA has some terrific new designs that pointed to a film that very much had it's own aesthetic instead of merely retreading the old iconic design work (God bless Joe Johnston!)... Rey lived on a 'garbage plant' very similar to the one seen in Thor: Ragnarok, the Star Destroyers and rebel fighters had unique new looks, even the Empire's... sorry, the First Order's (ahem!)... new superweapon had a new and interesting design, and the Rebel Alliance... 'scuse me again, sorry, meant to say the Resistance... had their own superweapon, the Warhammer.

All those would have at least lent that film it's own look and identity... but Jar Jar Abrams preferred to play it safe (he insisted they stick very closely to those older OT designs). I've heard rumors that the Warhammer plot may have been resurrected for the upcoming new film (and that's possibly where a good chunk of Carrie Fisher's 'outtake' footage being utilised in IX is being taken from), but those rumors may or may not be accurate, so who knows?

Had the sequel trilogy been given more time in the writing from the outset and been more adventurous in design and aesthetic, I think they would have made for better movies overall... not that they're bad in any way as they exist, just a little underwhelming, piecemeal in their narrative flow, and a little too beholden to the iconography of the OT, alas...

 

I'm not one to stick up for Darth... sorry, Bob... Iger (the man is very, very good at his job), but Abrams came on board Episode VII in January 2013... roughly two-and-a-half years before that film's originally-scheduled May 2015 release date, and a smidgeon under three years before it's eventual December 2015 release.; in theory if not ultimately in practice, he had plenty of time to get that film nailed down on paper and on screen... but he wasted a whole ten months with Michael Arndt before the latter departed in October 2013 and Abrams/Kasdan started from scratch that November with only six months before shooting had to begin to make it to any release date in 2015.

If Abrams felt that Arndt's draft(s) weren't the film he wanted to make, why did it take so long for him to change course... wasting valuable time in the process!?

I've heard that Abrams threatened to quit on more than one occasion during that film's development period... it was definitely not all sweetness and light getting that film made, that's for sure... not that we'll likely ever know what happened, but the fact that Abrams completely walked away from it before Disney came calling cap-in-hand for him to return for Episode IX is quite telling in itself...

By contrast, the making of TLJ seemed to be a highly smooth operation from beginning to end...

 

I have one of those 'art' books about TFA with all the original concept art and so on and looking at that is amazing, all the different people and planets and designs. Looked like they were really going to expand the universe but what we got really was the opposite. We got another sand planet, a Forest in England and another forest covered in snow. Quite dull when you think of it. SW blew my mind when I saw it as a kid in the 70's and people should be experiencing the same again with lots of weird planets and locations. To be fair the prequels did have this, and even TLJ had more interesting locations.

 

And that's the thing people , especially the "fandom menace" completely miss when it comes to why Rian Johnson got his own trilogy even though they all screamed like stuck pigs over TLJ. He caused Disney and Lucasfilm very little headaches,stayed within budget,on schedule, ran a good set and was liked by the cast. The only "controversy" during filming were Hamill's initial objections to the direction of Luke Skywalker in the movie,but even then he and Johnson got along well and the whole thing has been greatly exaggerated and overblown mostly by clickbaity YouTube channels with their own agenda.

Add in the fact on top of all of that,the movie made 1.3 billion dollars. Why wouldn't Johnson be asked back to do more? He made a big budget film that stayed within time and budget with no major behind the scenes drama AND it turned a big profit. That literally almost never happens in Hollywood. It's a no brainier.

 

I have big hopes for the Mandalorian, it looks very promising. IMO recently TV series in general are of far better quality compared to the mainstream theatrical movies.

 

I have a feeling time will be exceptionally kind to The Last Jedi... yeah, it's a good nine-to-ten minutes too long and doesn't always entirely hit the mark, but it's a pretty intelligent and well-crafted popcorn movie all told... even if I think the 'Leia Poppins' scene was frankly ludicrous and stretched credulity to the very limit, but whatever, they're only movies not matters of life and death.

In fact, I have the feeling that I'll warm to the Sequel Trilogy more and more as time goes on; they have their flaws (mostly in the rather piecemeal narrative) and don't really offer anything essential to the SW canon we haven't seen before for the most part, but they're very likeable films with an appealing cast, they look fantastic (35mm for the win!), and I'm hoping Jar Jar Abrams absolutely aims for the stars and swings for the fences on The Rise of Skywalker... Lucas (almost) redeemed the prequel trilogy with Episode III alone, let's hope Abrams can do the same with Episode IX.

After that, I'm done with SW... but it was fun while it lasted.

#OneMoreTime.

 

Awww! How can anyone not like the Ewoks?

 

The only thing that gives me pause about ROS is that Kasdan isn't involved on the writing this time around and Abrams writing partner is Chris Terrio ,who wrote Argo...but he also wrote Batman v. Superman (which I personally don't think was that bad of a movie, especially the ultimate cut,but had its flaws) so I do worry that this will lean too heavily on nostalgia and be a copy of past glories to try and apease those who hated TLJ. We shall see.

I agree with you about TLJ's ultimate place in history. I don't think it will be seen an equal to Empire as some have predicted,but I do think with time and distance, and if Episode IX ends up being fairly popular,peoples views will mellow over TLJ.

 

One thing I'll say about TLJ, it was a fine looking film, for what that is worth.

 

To the contrary, I think it may end up being entirely skippable, since none of the main characters or plot points were significantly advanced.

 

Since you've also already mentioned Star Trek: The Motion Picture, so as an Original Series fan I have to ask what are your thoughts about...

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek (2009) Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond?

 

Do you have a link to that artwork? Id like to see that!

 

What's your evidence for this? This is news to me. Generally, release dates for $200 million+ films these days are decided by a roomful of executives, not just one man. Bear in mind that Iger as CEO has under him the president of Disney film production (Sean Bailey), the chief creative officer (Alan Horn), plus Doug Chiang (the VP/creative director in charge of Star Wars), plus Asad Ayaz, who is head of marketing, and let's not forget Kathy Kennedy, head of Lucasfilm. Release schedules are very complicated, and they generally set them long in advance to line up numerous factors in a row. It's not just one person's decision. I would bet at least a dozen or more people would be part of that decision, so it's not just Iger.

I think what is true was that when they realized that Solo was turning into more of a comedy/drama than the dramady script they had read, the Disney studio execs went nuts, fired the creative team involved, and brought in somebody who would basically shoot the approved script and get it done on time. But I don't think it was Iger alone. I think the entire executive branch (particularly production, marketing, and distribution) understood they had a hard deadline they couldn't change.

I also don't think Disney as a company feels the three other Star Wars films released under Kennedy's control -- The Force Awakens ($2.068 billion), The Last Jedi ($1.333 billion), and Rogue One ($1.056 billion) -- were "missteps" at all. Each one did very well financially, and that's their main concern. Would they love movies that got great reviews and made a lot of money? Sure. But I think when push comes to shove, it's really a business over everything else. Solo making $392 million -- which was a tremendous loss from most points of view -- must have really been a wake-up call that not everything with a "Star Wars" label on it was going to make money.

 

That was truly awful. Fine idea, terrible execution. It woulda worked if they'd made it look like a controlled fall back into the ship...

I think it's likely to be viewed as the best entry in this trilogy, but we'll see how the final chapter plays out.

 

III wasn't awful, but it felt very dark and disjointed to me. Did we really need to blow up the Big E? I guess they were constrained by needing to bring Spock back...

Shoulda used time travel.

IV was the most accessible and commercially successful film in the franchise. It played as a comedy/drama, so maybe the bigwigs at Disney shoulda pulled the stick out of their butts and let Solo drift in that direction as well, because it paid off handsomely for Paramount 30 years ago... I also wish the powers that be at Paramount would look to it as a source for inspiration, instead of releasing increasingly crappy retreads of Wrath of Khan. But not enough stuff blew up in it, so I'm sure today's studio executurds have no idea what to make of it.

V was a catastrophe and nearly killed the film franchise. A half-baked mishmash of images and ideas, some of them potentially workable, most of them not. Kinda like the Star Wars prequels, only with the original, now over-the-hill cast and no budget.

VI was a respectable farewell to the original cast, although quite a bit of it didn't make much sense - surprising, coming from Meyer and Nimoy. Still, better than any of the films that followed.

Generations. Awful. Annoying and awful. Depressing. If it had been a TNG episode, it wouldn't have ranked in the top 40. Malcolm McDowell completely wasted. The regular cast besides Stewart and Spiner had almost nothing to do. Whoopi is in it, being cryptic, so there's that.

First Contact. Best of the TNG movies, but not that great. Sort of emasculates the Borg by introducing the tired "queen" concept - they were more menacing when they were just a hive mind. Some odd production and casting decisions (James Cromwell? Really?). Love Alfre Woodard, but shouldn't Whoopi have been the one talking sense to Picard? At least this film acknowledged the rest of the cast existed, though.

Insurrection. Bad Wrath Of Khan-inspired mess married to insipid California philosophizing. They gave the whole cast something to do - something stupid. F Murray Abraham lived up to the final syllable of his last name. The pop-up Thrustmaster joystick might have been the most idiotic moment of the franchise up to this point. And they should have quit while they were ahead...

Nemesis. Atrocious. Stupid. Boring. Depressing. Fan service. A colossal waste of money. Paramount allowed the franchise to be driven into the ground by hacks. A pity, because TNG had so much promise as a film series, especially with all that had been established on it, DS9 and Voyager. The shows had setup a thousand more interesting things they could have done than a lame "Picard's clone" story.

Lens Flare. The casting was good. Nimoy grounded it. Not sure why they needed to destroy Vulcan. The Romulan antagonist made no sense whatsoever. Again, old Trek setup a thousand interesting things they could have done on a revisit...and they did this. Meh.

Lens Flare II. Yet another Wrath of Khan retread. Again with the insane English casting choices - Benedict Cumberbatch? Really? No. Idiotic. The cast does as much as they can to redeem it. Could have been worse, I suppose. Philosophically turns out to be more like old school Trek than Lens Flare I. Frustrating because this could have been an OK flick, as opposed to mediocre and muddled.

Lens Flare III. Couldn't be bothered. Star Trek doesn't really work as a roller coaster ride. Either let Tarantino do his action/drama take on the franchise or put it out of its cinematic misery. Trek belongs on television. It doesn't work as one of these tedious, braniless, smash-em-up infantile comic book films.

 

Solo was a fun heist film. I feel like it will gets its due in a few years down the line.

 

The GENIUS thing that the 80's Star Trek films did was make the Enterprise crew a family, not only to each other, but to the audience. These were old friends interacting in new ways that the audience expected these characters to be behaving after working 20 plus years together stuck on a ship in space. This wasn't "fan service", cuz that would have had T.J. Hooker in a tummy belt running around punching up aliens and bedding green chicks 20 years his junior. The original television show was really just a workplace drama/western in space, the movies turned them into REAL people with a history that was unbreakable.

The J.J. Abrams re-boot has GREAT casting, and I'll die on the hill that says Chris Pine is a better Captain James T. Kirk. Abrams almost made his Kirk suicidal or at the bare minimum willing to die WEEKLY to save his ship/his crew, even before that lame Wrath of Khan pastiche. However, the re-boots have THE WORST villains and garbage story-lines. It's a shame because I would have liked to see more movies with this cast.

 

Well, if I’m a typical Star Wars casual fan I simply wasn’t interested in Han Solo to go see an entire film based on his character. I think they miscalculated interest and if that’s the case, the quality of the film is immaterial. I saw it on a cruise ship and it was fine, but I really remember nothing about it now and won’t watch it again. I did love all the others including Rogue One.