Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

[Captaingault]

Anyone saw it, I've seen it twice, it could be compared to Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith, fast paced and straight to the point.

It could have been better and the plot is generally predictable save minor twists.

Some rumored cameos that turned out to be untrue disappointed me and one really surprised me.

Non plot spoilers:

In the end credits, Carrie Fisher is the lead character.
Two woman kiss near the end.
Nothing after the end credits.
J.J. Abrams brought Felicity and Sean from "Felicity" and Charlie Pace from "Lost".

 

[LunaMo]

Can't wait!!

 

[UnderBro]

The movie could've been better than it was. I thought the action was good but story was meh.

 

[tvstrip]

Saw it opening night because there were still good seats available. I'm not a big fan & generally don't even watch movies in theater unless they are SFX-heavy 3D movies, and figured as ILM's flagship franchise they will go out on this one.

I've lowered my expectations about the story ever since K Kennedy opened her mouth, and going in with lower expectations helped ease the sting.
(I'm assuming we can talk spoilers here since it's not the general movie thread). Mods: can we please get spoiler tags?
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We all knew the Emp was back from the trailers. I almost would have wanted that to be a secret, but it did get people talking.
Rey's heritage seemed like a cheap "I am your father" knockoff, but then again the entire series is premised on rehashing the OT so I guess that's in line.

Leia's passing... I'm divided. Yeah, it was emotional given Carrie is gone IRL, but part of me still feels like it was a cheap heartstring pull. Also you could tell they really tried to shoehorn her in with the footage & story for various reasons, from her request that XI was going to center around her, to simply putting her in enough to not make it a cameo.

I would have liked to have seen Darkside Rey more. I was really hoping she'd kill the Palpatine and we'd see a Ben Solo vs Empress Rey showdown as the finale. To me, that would have been perfect.
I did appreciate the small details, like them addressing they couldn't pull a Holdo and just hyperspace into the cruisers. Also Wedge was a nice cameo - I didn't even realize it was him when I first saw him.

BTW did anyone see the R2D2 popcorn holder? They were selling them at the theater: over a foot tall, holds popcorn in the body and you can fill the dome with pop. Apparently it's the one they sell in Tokyo Disneyland. I literally didn't see a single one sold though...

 

[Captaingault]

Disney tried to pull a Rogue One with this film aka pleasing fans but in a not so successful way, Rogue One was written by John Knoll, a guy who worked on almost all Star Wars movies so he knew what he is doing.
In Episode IX, Disney thought what was constantly the best thing in all Star Wars movies, the answer was obviously, Palpatine so they brought him back in a last effort to save the franchise after the disaster that Solo was.

 

[tvstrip]

Kennedy basically said "Fuck the SW Geeks", and IMO is still facing fanbase backlash for that. So it's hard to seriously take any attempt of "fan appeasement" from her. Major PR disaster; she could have done everything the same but not openly deride longtime fans like that, and it would make a world of difference. Can't put that cat back in the bag now.

BTW which "rumored cameo" are you referring to?

They did technically bring back all the prominent Jedi (at least in voice form - Heck, even FPJ! ), Solo/Leia/Luke, Wedge, etc. I was disappointed that there was no huge "force ghost family shot" where they all appeared, but AFAIK everyone that was able to make it from the OT seems to have made it. They even referenced the Mandalorian with the force healing trick.

 

[Captaingault]

Kennedy basically said "Fuck the SW Geeks", and IMO is still facing fanbase backlash for that. So it's hard to seriously take any attempt of "fan appeasement" from her. Major PR disaster; she could have done everything the same but not openly deride longtime fans like that, and it would make a world of difference. Can't put that cat back in the bag now.

BTW which "rumored cameo" are you referring to?

They did technically bring back all the prominent Jedi (at least in voice form - Heck, even FPJ! ), Solo/Leia/Luke, Wedge, etc. I was disappointed that there was no huge "force ghost family shot" where they all appeared, but AFAIK everyone that was able to make it from the OT seems to have made it. They even referenced the Mandalorian with the force healing trick.

You can't trust a company woman, that's why I really like Rick McCallum.

Well, you answered yourself, there was rumors about Hayden shooting something or better imagine bringing Liam Neeson back, I would pay to see a feature film about Qui-Gon.

They also disrespect their fans, the Mandalorian isn't (legally) available outside the US and a few countries.

 

[tvstrip]

I did not know the Madalorian isn't available worldwide yet. I thought they would have rolled out Disney+ internationally by now. That's stupid. But again, with Kennedy at the helm, not surprising.

There was unlimited potential for spinoffs, after all there was a Bobba movie planned, but that got nixed after the Solo disaster. So a Qui-Gon or any other spinoff is probably not on the radar. Good news is that they're probably more lenient for Disney+ shows, after all the Mandelorian is likely compensation for nixing the Bobba movie. I think I read they've already greenlit more SW shows for the network. I can't help but feel casual fans are overloaded at this point, and I'm kinda glad it's over. I haven't even bothered with Solo/R1 even though I have access to them. I'm enjoying the Mandelorian though, and I think that's enough for me.

 

[Pornfan99]

TV: pass on Solo; Rogue 1 is worth a view though.

 

[tvstrip]

Thanks, I think I will give it a shot. The Death Troopers are in the Mandalorian, and IIRC I saw them in the Rogue 1 toyline, so I'm guessing their backstory is covered in it.

 

[Rane1071]

The Mandalorian is the way to go.

"This is the Way!"

"I have spoken!"

 

[RASQ]

It's time for a new saga, and they should start with this:

 

[zeeblofowl_1969]

Excellent movie worth your time.

 

[D-rock]

The amount of plot holes and horrible writing in the last two movies is astounding. The whole overriding direction they took things was horrible. They treated all the old characters and the concept of what Star Wars was supposed to be about horribly, and I can't really think of a single new person they introduced that I liked much. I'm one of those people that hates Rey as a character concept how she turned out. It's not only her Mary Sue nature, but the virtual complete lack of of a hero's journey to justify her power and place in the setting. There was so many mcguffins or insane plot devices to cover for bad writing in the last two movies. Hell, did the Rise of Skywalker even have a single good large space battle. It's a fictional setting that calls itself "Star Wars" after all.

One good thing has come from all the Disney Star Wars movies so far. It's has generally been such a steaming pile a crap that as a long time Star Wars fan I no longer feel that bad about just washing my hands of the whole fictional setting and never having much to do with it from now on. As bad as some of the things that George Lucas did and as bad as some of the old Extended Universe stuff was I could never imagine myself saying that a decade ago. Despite all the flaws I was still a big fan of Star Wars despite that stuff. Not anymore. I don't know how Disney managed to screw things up as bad as they did. They didn't need to shake things up. They didn't need to subvert expectations. They just needed to write good decent Star Wars stuff and not piss long time fans of the setting off, especially if casuals wouldn't have cared either way.

Now I will admit the visual effects were often good, and if you the type of person that is just casually a fan of Star Wars or can completely turn off your brain to enjoy mindless flashy eye candy it might work, but as as a long time Star Wars fan it sucks. It's probably the final nail in the coffin for my love the the setting, and at this point I don't see how they can clean up the mess that is now made. What's sad is if you look at what Disney did with all their Marvel properties which am also a fan of they generally did a good job with those. It makes the level of screw up with the Star Wars stuff all the worse.

 

[Rane1071]

 

[tvstrip]

Now I will admit the visual effects were often good, and if you the type of person that is just casually a fan of Star Wars or can completely turn off your brain to enjoy mindless flashy eye candy it might work, but as as a long time Star Wars fan it sucks.

I was expecting something mindblowing SFX or fight-wise.

It wasn't "bad", but can you say it was actually better than the prequel trilogy?
Look at the major scenes:
A wet fight by splashing waves/rain: The Jango/Kenobi fight on Camino
Final space battle: it was "darker" being in an atmosphere, but other than that, I don't know if it was better than any other space battles
The "audience" for the Rey/Emp fight. The auditorium setting was already done in the galactic senate. Granted the Palpy/Yodo fight didn't have people in the seats, but I still found it more enjoyable than Rey fighting a handicapped senior connected to the amicus.

Don't get me started on the plot holes. Even the music was "ok"... no real outstanding themes like Duel of the Fates. Williams looks to have just phoned it in with a rehash of his past works.

The problem was that JJ was trying to push back the changes Rian did to his original vision... giving us plot whiplash in the process...

 

[Captaingault]

The movie id also filled with plot holes that had entire sites dedicated to, for instance how did Kylo Ren got off the Death Star after having his ship taken by Rey?
The Luke "that's a story for another time" lightsaber, well the trilogy ended, how did Maz get it?
Who are all these people on Exogol, they can't be Sith since "Always two there are"?
Who was Plapatine's wife? or is his child (Rey's father) a clone of himself?
Living in a world where we struggle to make a penny, from where does the "seemingly dead" Emperor got resources to build such a massive fleet?

And yes, the fights and music in the prequels were better, Yoda's fight with Dooku in Episode II was very short but way better than anything I saw in the last 3 movies.
No poignant themes like Duel of the Fates, Across the Stars or Battles of the Heroes although John Williams did the score for all of these.

And the list goes on...

 

[D-rock]

It wasn't "bad", but can you say it was actually better than the prequel trilogy?

For me, yes, the prequel trilogy was better than the Disney sequel trilogy, and I say that as somebody who generally hates most of the prequel trilogy. The scene by scene writing and dialog in the prequel trilogy was horrible, the way the love story of Anakin and Padme happened was cringeworthy, and Jar Jar was a terrible idea, but other than the concept of midichlorians, nothing in it hurt what the Star Wars setting was about on a fundamental level like the new sequels. The new sequels are like two bad fan fic writers that have a poor idea of what Star Wars is and don't really care about the fictional universe as they are nothing more than casual fans of it got into a fight to see who could get the crappiest ideas out between the two of them in one trilogy.