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Title: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on April 12, 2019, 10:18:16 AM
Trailer!

https://youtu.be/adzYW5DZoWs

Lightsabres!

Speeders!

Lando!

Palpatine!


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Teleku on April 12, 2019, 10:30:48 AM
Is that....really......the name?   :ye_gods:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rishathra on April 12, 2019, 10:40:21 AM
There was a cute little moment at the end of the Episode 9 panel.  After they showed the trailer, the lights came up and there was Ian McDiarmind on the stage by himself.  He's standing there for about a minute, with a goofy grin on his face, while the crowd is cheering at him.  He keeps raising the mic to his mouth like he's about to say something, and then lowering it because he can't stop grinning.  When he finally manages, he says, "Roll it again!" in his Emperor voice.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 12, 2019, 11:00:20 AM
It was amazing. I loved the end of the trailer when you heard the Emperor laugh. Is that the shell of the deathstar? Is that Yavin 4? or Endor?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 12, 2019, 11:02:29 AM
It was amazing. I loved the end of the trailer when you heard the Emperor laugh. Is that the shell of the deathstar? Is that Yavin 4? or Endor?

It could be either I guess since they were both forest moons. I don't think the Death Star was close enough to Yavin for a piece of it to land there but then again, we all know J.J. is horrible with how big space is so who knows. I was just shocked they revealed the emperor in a teaser trailer. I'd think they'd hold that back for awhile longer.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 12, 2019, 11:08:44 AM
That probably means there are more reveals to come.

It's an incredible tease that will drive a shit ton of buzz for a few months until the release the first real trailer.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sky on April 12, 2019, 11:35:20 AM
I'm tingly. Dumb name, but it will be fun.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on April 12, 2019, 11:36:33 AM
I assume that since JJ is doing this one, it's going to be Return of the Jedi beat for beat.  Which means that we need a bigger badder guy than Kylo/Vader, and that's going to be a Palpatine clone since they killed Snoke (maybe Snoke was a Palpatine clone that didn't bake long enough or something).  Then Kylo can have a do-over of that fight from TLJ but this time he redeems himself while dying tragically and something something the last Skywalker.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on April 12, 2019, 11:43:10 AM
Is that....really......the name?   :ye_gods:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on April 12, 2019, 11:49:28 AM
Shrug, could be Kylo. Not like Solo is a real name.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: calapine on April 12, 2019, 11:53:22 AM
I like anything with good ol' Palpy!


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 12, 2019, 11:59:33 AM
Is that....really......the name?   :ye_gods:




Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Polysorbate80 on April 12, 2019, 12:05:08 PM
It's easy enough to do, the source of the info in that spoiler wasn't exactly trustworthy.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Surlyboi on April 12, 2019, 12:06:06 PM



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on April 12, 2019, 12:14:16 PM
If they make her parents Skywalkers, I'm gonna be kinda irritated.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 12, 2019, 12:48:06 PM
If they make her parents Skywalkers, I'm gonna be kinda irritated.

I think they'll have to jump through hoops to explain it. Maybe Luke got drunk after his Jedi Temple was destroyed and had a one night stand. That said, I think it's obvious the Force Awakens was aiming to make her parentage a key mystery and Rian Johnson was like "meh, I'll just say she's a no one." I get why he did it and without the foreshadowing it would have made sense but with it it felt a bit out of left field.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 12, 2019, 12:53:50 PM
I'm going to say that Rey is carrying Luke's cutoff hand and they are off to clone him. In the process of looking for the Emporer's old cloning chambers they find him instead. They raise Luke to fight him because he's super powerful.

Here's the bag Rey is carrying:

(https://i.imgur.com/KBIPMN6.png)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on April 12, 2019, 12:59:14 PM
I'm going to say that Rey is carrying Luke's cutoff hand and they are off to clone him. In the process of looking for the Emporer's old cloning chambers they find him instead. They raise Luke to fight him because he's super powerful.

 :drill: shut up and take my money


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hawkbit on April 12, 2019, 01:03:01 PM
If they make her parents Skywalkers, I'm gonna be kinda irritated.

Midichlorians.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: RhyssaFireheart on April 12, 2019, 01:39:04 PM
Christmas is going to be so much fun this year!

And my brain went to some kind of timey-wimey travel stuff somehow, but clones do exist so that's the stronger possibility.  I much prefer rey to not be a Skywalker by blood and instead take on the name.  That feels like a better explanation to me, honestly.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on April 12, 2019, 02:29:31 PM
I'll take that.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Soln on April 12, 2019, 02:45:39 PM
What Surly said.

Coming to DisneyFlix some long weekend.

(https://i.imgur.com/BySuTBp.png)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on April 12, 2019, 02:52:16 PM
If she's a Skywalker it will be through cloning, not from being actually related. Having the emperor back kinda points in that direction as well.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Ruvaldt on April 12, 2019, 03:10:36 PM
I wouldn't mind her being a clone.  If they tie it back to the theory that Anakin was created by Darth Plagueis/Sidious through some kind of manipulation of life through The Force, and Rey had a similar heritage, I think it'd be a fun way to make the story come full circle.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Ironwood on April 12, 2019, 03:12:02 PM
Here we fucking go again with this shit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on April 12, 2019, 04:56:58 PM
That looks dumb as shit and the name is also dumb as shit both as a red herring and a true reveal. Just fucking kill it already.

Let the past die. Kill it if you must.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 12, 2019, 05:47:14 PM
That looks dumb as shit and the name is also dumb as shit both as a red herring and a true reveal. Just fucking kill it already.

Let the past die. Kill it if you must.

They said they will bring in Ep 1-3 and close the loop. I like the idea of a good adventure romp. You haters just need to get over yourself and have fun.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rendakor on April 12, 2019, 07:47:00 PM
I'll certainly see it in theaters.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 12, 2019, 07:53:00 PM
I'm fine with it. I quite liked the last one as folks know, but let's see what the next one brings. Why not.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 12, 2019, 08:37:57 PM
Christmas is going to be so much fun this year!

And my brain went to some kind of timey-wimey travel stuff somehow, but clones do exist so that's the stronger possibility.  I much prefer rey to not be a Skywalker by blood and instead take on the name.  That feels like a better explanation to me, honestly.

I saw a really cool theory on Youtube. Essentially, the theory was that Rey will form a new order but instead of calling them Jedi she will call them Skywalkers. So basically, going forward, all Force students are Skywalkers. I'm not doing it justice but it sounds kind of cool and makes the title make sense as the third movies have all been about the rise or resurgence of a Force using order of some kind.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on April 12, 2019, 11:54:25 PM
That looks dumb as shit and the name is also dumb as shit both as a red herring and a true reveal. Just fucking kill it already.

Let the past die. Kill it if you must.

Jesus. Don't forget to put away your blocks before you go home.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 13, 2019, 06:20:57 AM
Christmas is going to be so much fun this year!

And my brain went to some kind of timey-wimey travel stuff somehow, but clones do exist so that's the stronger possibility.  I much prefer rey to not be a Skywalker by blood and instead take on the name.  That feels like a better explanation to me, honestly.

I saw a really cool theory on Youtube. Essentially, the theory was that Rey will form a new order but instead of calling them Jedi she will call them Skywalkers. So basically, going forward, all Force students are Skywalkers. I'm not doing it justice but it sounds kind of cool and makes the title make sense as the third movies have all been about the rise or resurgence of a Force using order of some kind.

That would make the title awkward. It's not "The Rise of the Skywalker" or "The Rise of Skywalkers"


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Raguel on April 13, 2019, 10:07:07 AM
If they make her parents Skywalkers, I'm gonna be kinda irritated.

 That said, I think it's obvious the Force Awakens was aiming to make her parentage a key mystery and Rian Johnson was like "meh, I'll just say she's a no one." I get why he did it and without the foreshadowing it would have made sense but with it it felt a bit out of left field.

I just don't see that. IIRC Maz (whatever the cgi character name was) specifically said her parents weren't coming back, and she should look towards "what was in front of her", so while her parents are important to Rey as it informs her decision making process but I didn't see it as something that should be important to the story overall.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Soln on April 13, 2019, 10:34:28 AM
I don’t think ascribing any vision or long term planning for this narrative makes sense post-Rian.  JJ and friends will make up anything they want to suit whatever they want.  Nothing in the existing narratives from ANH to Rebels matters, because it didn’t matter last film.  Fun to prognosticate but nothing.


Fake Edit: I think a lot of fan story ideas and theories are way more interesting that what we’ve received and what we’ll get.  


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 13, 2019, 10:54:01 PM
Am I wrong, or was the most definitive statement on her parentage coming from Kylo Ren?  He was the one who said that she was a nobody that came from nothing.  Why should he be believed?  He could have been talking about about his own family for all we know, in his bitter, emo way of saying stuff.  I do not think it was ever super definitive, unless Kathleen Kennedy herself came out and stated it, because she is the one who decides important stuff.  And there is nothing more important in a Star Wars film than something like who her parents were, no way did they leave it up to Johnson.

Also...

That looks dumb as shit and the name is also dumb as shit both as a red herring and a true reveal. Just fucking kill it already.

Let the past die. Kill it if you must.

I had a laugh at this because it is exactly how Kylo would have said it. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 13, 2019, 11:15:13 PM
Because the hero looked into her feelings and knew it to be true. The same way that Luke knew that Vader wasn't lying about being his dad.

Also because Rey being nobody is the best thing to happen to Star Wars in a long time and it would legit be shit if it were not true.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on April 14, 2019, 02:50:36 PM
Focusing on her parents is pretty much missing the point.  The last two Star Wars main sequence films were shit for so many reasons, some of them more fundamental than even the themes of destiny, heritage and eugenics the main character should or should not have.  The franchise is a terrible mess, and making Rey a Skywalker won't fix that.  If anything, it will make the myopic galaxy of the sequels look even smaller and more sterile.  It's like Disney threw out all of the old EU and then quickly grabbed back its worst tendencies for their movies.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Der Helm on April 14, 2019, 03:38:15 PM
There was a cute little moment at the end of the Episode 9 panel.  After they showed the trailer, the lights came up and there was Ian McDiarmind on the stage by himself.  He's standing there for about a minute, with a goofy grin on his face, while the crowd is cheering at him.  He keeps raising the mic to his mouth like he's about to say something, and then lowering it because he can't stop grinning.  When he finally manages, he says, "Roll it again!" in his Emperor voice.
Short version (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEfEKgBAz-g)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 14, 2019, 04:20:27 PM
The easy way to sell the Kylo Ren your-parents-were-nobody thing is that it's the flip of Empire Strikes Back--this time the bad guy IS lying about parents to fuck with the good guy.

But honestly, it's not only dull to make Ren's father to be Luke Skywalker, it's nasty--it means Luke was either a fucking liar who wouldn't acknowledge his own daughter or that he was a lying fucker who didn't know he had a baby with someone (and the Force neglected to send him a paternity message).

If they're going to play around with clone tanks, of course, anything can happen. The "Skywalker" in question can be Anakin, even.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on April 14, 2019, 05:36:48 PM
They cloned 1000 Lukes who had 2,400 children and this woman is the best that came out of it. I mean why not? Clones are pretty much as bad a Time travel for a Coherent story.

Fuck sake this is getting like fans of Sonic the hedgehog at this stage. "THIS NEXTGAME WILL MARK THE RETURN TO SONIC GREATNESS!!" "THE GAME IS MARVelous..."  "how dare you say the game is shit! Infidel..." "ok ok its shit" *next game annuncement* "THIS NEXTGAME WILL..."

I am so done with this shit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on April 14, 2019, 05:38:50 PM
I don't understand why anyone think it needs to "return" to greatness in the first place, maybe that was the case after the prequels but the sequels have both been pretty great. And its not like fucking clones have not been featured throughout the entire franchise since movie fucking one.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Soln on April 14, 2019, 06:06:24 PM
What’s messing with everyone is that last film we removed the need to have specialness.  Luke was made unimportant. Ok. 

Now we’re told this film is about his family or genealogy?  Ya.  It’s confusing.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 14, 2019, 08:04:24 PM
Right. That's the dumb thing. It was dumb when heredity crossed over with "we're a bunch of religious monks with a philosophy about life". Make up your fucking mind: this is either the story of hereditary mutants or it's a religious order, the two don't play well with one another UNLESS YOU KNOW that's what you're doing--e.g. having a religious order get its panties bunched up because here comes some fuckface who hasn't studied the eternal mysteries but in fact he's really strong. There are wuxia movies that pull that successfully, but the deal is that it has to really BUG the people who've worked their asses off their whole lives. If you don't do that, what's the point of mixing and matching?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Soln on April 14, 2019, 08:56:06 PM
I always thought that seeing the whole SW history as a religious war made it way more interesting.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 14, 2019, 09:51:32 PM
Right. That's the dumb thing. It was dumb when heredity crossed over with "we're a bunch of religious monks with a philosophy about life". Make up your fucking mind: this is either the story of hereditary mutants or it's a religious order, the two don't play well with one another UNLESS YOU KNOW that's what you're doing--e.g. having a religious order get its panties bunched up because here comes some fuckface who hasn't studied the eternal mysteries but in fact he's really strong. There are wuxia movies that pull that successfully, but the deal is that it has to really BUG the people who've worked their asses off their whole lives. If you don't do that, what's the point of mixing and matching?


The funny thing is, if it is hereditary the Jedi Order spent thousands of years doing their best to remove Force users from the galaxy by turning them into monks who weren't allowed to have attachments. Or else, we just never got to see the Jedi fertility clinic in the lower levels of the temple.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 14, 2019, 10:30:55 PM
I think everyone is concluding things based on too little information.

The movie showed that Luke Skywalker wasn't special....except for the part where he had an epiphany, reversed course, pulled off an insane feat of the Force and saved the galaxy.

Rey is a nobody....except we base this on some strange vision in a Dark Side Cave (tm), and backed up by the chief bad guy and why would he possibly lie about it?  Or maybe he was talking about their shared parentage, and his calling them "nobody" was him telling himself it was okay that he totally just murdered his dad and almost murdered his mom.  Half the story is about Kylo turning his back on his parents.  Kylo is technically also a Skywalker, by the way, which may be worth keeping in mind.

But nobody knows who Rey is!....except there is a strange familiarity between her and both Solos, with Kylo, with Maz, and possibly with Skywalker himself.  Yoda and Obi-wan basically lied straight to Luke's face, so why do we think Luke wouldn't mislead her?


Everything is still on the table.  I watched Last Jedi two days ago, and I don't think we can conclude anything about anything. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 15, 2019, 01:52:23 AM
As my "let me tell you why the internet thinks Star Wars was ruined" friend keeps telling me the title has no real meaning. There's apparently an interview with Kathleen Kennedy, head of Lucasfilm, where she states that it's basically a clickbait title?
Fuck if I know but he is adamant about it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 15, 2019, 02:16:55 AM
No way is it just simple clickbait.  It means SOMETHING.  But there are so many possibilities of what it could mean....or are there?  This is the third and final entry in the saga, and it will follow the formula of the good guys getting all scrappy, pulling their shit together, and winning the day.  Therefore, the title is to have a positive connotation, you can be sure. 

Anakin coming back?  Doubtful, if for no other reason than the fans would utterly fucking hate it in the strongest possible terms.
Luke himself coming back?  Possible, but it wouldn't feel right or work as a passing of the torch to the next generation, which seems to be a theme of the trilogy.
Rey herself?  I still think she could be a Skywalker, even if it comes from the Solo branch.  There are still ways this can work, the chief hurdle being how/why she was sent to Jakku.
Kylo Ren.  He is a Skywalker.  He wanted to emulate Vader so bad it consumes him.  The emperor is returning, Rey still thinks she can turn Kylo.  Maybe she DOES turn him, and he is the one who rises, and goes off to confront and kill Uncle Palpy, ironically fulfilling his Vader dreams after all.

The details won't end up being precisely like any of the above, but I don't see any other logical possibilities that don't refer to either Luke, Rey or Kylo.  And given the general Star Wars theme of redemption....I think it is Kylo's redemption.  Could have been Rey, but that would have required her going dark in TLJ.

Fringe Theory:  Palpatine is actually somehow a Skywalker.  We already know Anakin's mom was a slave and that she claimed immaculate conception as far as Anakin was concerned.  Maybe he literally or figuratively filled Schmi with creamy white Midichlorians.  Why else take such an interest in the boy?  I doubt this is the explanation, but it was a fun bit of speculation.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on April 15, 2019, 07:39:04 AM
If the Rise of Skywalker title means nothing, it is one of the dumbest clickbait red herrings ever created. If it means something, then the whole "new generation" trilogy is just the last vestiges of the old trilogy dying off like the story if "Grumpy Old Jedis." Neither is worth a damn so without a clever reason for that title, I stand by my knee jerk reaction that it is dumb as shit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Soulflame on April 15, 2019, 08:00:44 AM
I thought about the "Palpatine as Skywalker" possibility, it makes as much sense as any other possibility.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: calapine on April 15, 2019, 08:01:07 AM
If the Rise of Skywalker title means nothing, it is one of the dumbest clickbait red herrings ever created. If it means something, then the whole "new generation" trilogy is just the last vestiges of the old trilogy dying off like the story if "Grumpy Old Jedis." Neither is worth a damn so without a clever reason for that title, I stand by my knee jerk reaction that it is dumb as shit.

Grumpy guy with spiky hair is right.

Honestly I am mostly worried about that we are getting Star Wars by the Director-Who-Made-Startrek-Into-Darkness. Urgh.  :uhrr:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on April 15, 2019, 08:06:10 AM
Remember JJ loves setting up mysteries. He hates paying them off or explaining them and prefers to do just distract everyone with NEW mysteries, even if the new mysteries contradict the old ones. This approach could be called "making shit up" or "Lost."


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Ruvaldt on April 15, 2019, 10:49:24 AM
Eh, that's mostly Lindelof's influence.  If you watch Alias, or really anything Abrams made without Lindelof as the writer, he does actually solve the mysteries he sets up.  Abrams had very little influence on Lost, for instance.  It was mostly just the pilot.  After that it was all Lindelof.  And Into Darkness was written by Lindelof.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on April 15, 2019, 11:27:08 AM
Yes, Lindelhof is who to blame for Lost even though I really liked Lost.

/grenade

The entirety of Lost was better than the entirety of The Last Jedi.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Brolan on April 15, 2019, 11:30:48 AM
Why get worked up about any of this?  The story went through two different directors with no over-arching plan.  So anything they come up with now is just going to be pulled from someone's ass. 

I'm just going to enjoy the movie when it comes out and roll my eyes at the appropriate moments.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Wasted on April 15, 2019, 08:49:34 PM
This looks like grasping, desperate bullshit to me.  This current series has no inspiration other than "Milk that fucking nostalgia DRY".


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 15, 2019, 10:11:34 PM
A theory I saw was that we will get a sort of proxy fight between Palpatine and Luke (or Anakin) with them being Force Ghosts controlling and/or coaching Rey and Kylo. It sounded utterly ridiculous to me but I can almost see it happening at this point.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on April 15, 2019, 10:19:34 PM
No one's ever really gone!   :uhrr:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on April 16, 2019, 05:56:23 PM
Idk why anyone would expect any kind of halfway decent universe building or plot from the mainline SW at this point. Those first 2 were drek in those regards. Hopefully whatever this mess is convinces someone to grow a pair and never make a prequel again and move the fucking story the fuck along to somewhere, anywhere.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Setanta on April 16, 2019, 09:34:30 PM
A theory I saw was that we will get a sort of proxy fight between Palpatine and Luke (or Anakin) with them being Force Ghosts controlling and/or coaching Rey and Kylo. It sounded utterly ridiculous to me but I can almost see it happening at this point.

So something like Real Steel or any other bullshit marionette style manipulation of characters.

You know, I wouldn't put it past Disney  :ye_gods:

Star Wars needs to stop being 3 sets of trilogies and actually expand the universe past the characters and storyline  that I went to see as a kid in the movies in the 70s and 80s. Only Rogue 1 came close to being halfway good. Everything else since Empire has been rehashed drek with no vision*. Lucas didn't really have a mapped out plan past E4 and half the fanfic writers out there can outdo the last 5 episodes in terms of quality.

* Except Maul... and it was tragic that they didn't involve him more.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on April 16, 2019, 11:18:50 PM
The most obvious explanation for the title is that Kylo ren turns good.

Because that is what happens in return of the Jedi.

And what with the last two films being direct remakes of star wars and empire, and this involving endor, the emperor, and lando flying the millennium falcon, it seems fairly likely we're going the same way.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 16, 2019, 11:36:13 PM
That is where I would put my money if forced to.  During TLJ, we were given plenty of reason to believe he was undecided, and killing his own dad had the opposite effect on him than he expected.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on April 17, 2019, 01:36:00 AM
Keep in mind that Rian and JJ had disagreements about where to take the story, and Rian has made comments to the effect that JJ is probably going to retcon some of the events of TLJ in order to bring it back in line with his vision.

If there isn't an Ewoks vs First Order battle scene in the third act I will be amazed.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 17, 2019, 03:24:47 AM
Not sure if you are joking or not, but that is entirely plausible given what we are seeing.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 17, 2019, 03:27:52 AM
So you expect 9 to be a "cover version" of 6 in the same way that 7 was basically a cover version of 4?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Teleku on April 17, 2019, 05:29:26 AM
8 was such a mess I’d be fine with JJ shitting all over its vision, even if it means 9 will suck.  Because it’s probably going to suck anyways.  I accepted 7 even with all its flaws in the hopes that it was simply a setup for something new and good, and that was dashed to the rocks with 8.

I’m not done with Star Wars.  I thought Rogue One was great, and while Solo was nothing special, it was still enjoyable.  I’ll potentially be happy with many future TV series and movies set in the universe to come.  They can have a lot of fun with the universe.

But this new trilogy has mostly been a cluster fuck with random enjoyable moments.  It honestly amazes how badly they flubbed it, but when you know a movie is going to make billions regardless of what you do, I guess you should expect the directors to get extremely lazy.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 17, 2019, 06:34:12 AM
Abrams has said  that he will "honor" Johnson's reveal on Rey's parentage but that "there's more to the story than you've seen".

So here's what I think is going to happen: we're back to Rey-is-a-Kenobi--the *granddaughter* of Obi-Wan, so that her parents were indeed sucky and horrible 'nobodies' who abandoned her but her grand-dad was still someone important.

There really isn't anybody else meaningful in the previous films who can have a secret child where the revelation doesn't flat out retcon Johnson's "your parents were nobodies". I suppose Palpatine could have had a secret child who then had Rey. Or Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen, I guess. Or midichlorian holy ghosts could be making all sorts of ladies pregnant.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on April 17, 2019, 07:18:39 AM
Jesus Christ, I fucking hope Rey isn't the child of anybody important. Making her a nobody may have been the best choice Johnson made in TLJ, because all of his other choices were trash. Giving her Jedi heritage would totally kneecap the "kid with Force powers" scene at the end of TLJ and return the Force to fucking particles in the bloodstream.

Can a blood transfusion give you Force choke, George?

Goddamnit, just thinking that phrase makes me fucking angry on a level I should not be.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: 01101010 on April 17, 2019, 08:11:56 AM
I dunno man, Star Wars is basically about family lineage. Can't really see a way around that.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 17, 2019, 08:21:33 AM
The only lineage in Star Wars is the Skywalker family.

Rey is probably going to be the parents of no one famous but her parents probably had some relation to some story in the past. Or whatever. Making her a famous scion of a old character is just stupid.

Unless she's Kylo's brother. Then it'll rhyme, like poetry.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 17, 2019, 08:24:50 AM
The issue with all these films is that all the main characters never got together until the end of 8. Then it had too many characters. Rose need to take a back seat so there is only Poe, Finn, Rey, Droids and Chewie. Rose never needed to be a character at all. From what we're hearing there is going to be some adventure they are having together. I'd love for an artifact hunt in the first act, the realization of it's truth in the second act, and confronting that truth in the third act.

Then the the Jedi Skywalkers can flee the Galaxy and live happily ever after as the galaxy burns.

I would like to see Kylo slowly become corrupt (physically) throughout the movie. But I doubt that'll happen.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: 01101010 on April 17, 2019, 10:36:24 AM
The only lineage in Star Wars is the Skywalker family.

Rey is probably going to be the parents of no one famous but her parents probably had some relation to some story in the past. Or whatever. Making her a famous scion of a old character is just stupid.

Unless she's Kylo's brother. Then it'll rhyme, like poetry.

Unless you count the millions of Fett clones alonng with Jango/Boba...  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 17, 2019, 12:47:18 PM
Abrams has said  that he will "honor" Johnson's reveal on Rey's parentage but that "there's more to the story than you've seen".

So here's what I think is going to happen: we're back to Rey-is-a-Kenobi--the *granddaughter* of Obi-Wan, so that her parents were indeed sucky and horrible 'nobodies' who abandoned her but her grand-dad was still someone important.

There really isn't anybody else meaningful in the previous films who can have a secret child where the revelation doesn't flat out retcon Johnson's "your parents were nobodies". I suppose Palpatine could have had a secret child who then had Rey. Or Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen, I guess. Or midichlorian holy ghosts could be making all sorts of ladies pregnant.


I think the easiest way for this to work would be an Uncle Owen/Aunt Beru style situation. The people she thought were her parents weren't. They were her guardians but they went down a bad path and abandoned her. I get what Rian was trying to do with her parents being nobodies but it completely derailed the setup from the prior movie that made it seem like her parents were indeed important, or at least, known figures.

I'm still holding out a kernel of hope she is Anakin/The Chosen One reincarnated and Palpatine is back so "I will finish what you started" from The Force Awakens takes on a whole new meaning.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on April 17, 2019, 12:53:50 PM
I dunno man, Star Wars is basically about family lineage. Can't really see a way around that.

This is a bizarre take - a set of films featuring celibate warrior monks, whose power is explicitly explained in a way unrelated to genes, is all about lineage.

But lots of people seem to view it that way. People are weird.

Also fucking love the idea that TLJ 'derailed' a JJA plan. Seriously guys.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Ruvaldt on April 17, 2019, 03:14:33 PM
I dunno man, Star Wars is basically about family lineage. Can't really see a way around that.

This is a bizarre take - a set of films featuring celibate warrior monks, whose power is explicitly explained in a way unrelated to genes, is all about lineage.


Was it ever explained in the original trilogy that the Jedi were celibate?  I'm asking because I honestly don't remember.  I know the prequels mention that Jedi aren't allowed to have families, but if someone watched and grew up on episodes 4, 5 and 6, I think they'd absolutely think it was a series about family lineage.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on April 17, 2019, 03:34:22 PM
Nope, not a dicky bird. In fact, there was no big deal made of the fact that Luke was the son of a Jedi, Kenobi just said that Luke was the son of a Jedi rather matter of factly and Uncle whatzit line about him bieng too much lkike his father was said matter of factly as though it was not a huge secret.

The first I heard of it was in Knights of the Old Republic 2, and even then the Guy who left the Jedi order over the fact he wanted to love someone said it passion was sacrosanct but love would not lead to the dark side. And my reaction was "ok, that's bollox, of course they would not be celibate." And forgot about it. I had no idea people were tying themselves in knots to shoehorn that in.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on April 17, 2019, 03:49:58 PM
I like Mike Stoklasa's theory that the prequels' very bizarre attitudes toward families and romantic love (the Jedi have to be celibate because falling in love leads to the Dark Side, etc) are because Lucas wrote the prequels while he was getting over his divorce.   :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on April 17, 2019, 04:12:35 PM
The first I heard of it was in Knights of the Old Republic 2, and even then the Guy who left the Jedi order over the fact he wanted to love someone said it passion was sacrosanct but love would not lead to the dark side. And my reaction was "ok, that's bollox, of course they would not be celibate." And forgot about it. I had no idea people were tying themselves in knots to shoehorn that in.

Jolee loved a Sith. Bit different.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 17, 2019, 05:46:10 PM
Technically, if you go by what's said on screen the Jedi don't have to be celibate. They just can't form attachments. In other words, the Jedi are the deadbeat parents of the Star Wars universe. "Some dude in a robe banged me a few times and left. I haven't seen him since and my daughter is levitating all her toys..."


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Raguel on April 17, 2019, 07:03:28 PM
I dunno man, Star Wars is basically about family lineage. Can't really see a way around that.

This is a bizarre take - a set of films featuring celibate warrior monks, whose power is explicitly explained in a way unrelated to genes, is all about lineage.


Was it ever explained in the original trilogy that the Jedi were celibate?  I'm asking because I honestly don't remember.  I know the prequels mention that Jedi aren't allowed to have families, but if someone watched and grew up on episodes 4, 5 and 6, I think they'd absolutely think it was a series about family lineage.

I'm old enough to have seen them in the original release. I don't think the movies are about family lineage; we didn't even know there was a family lineage for almost 2/3 of this trilogy. (Although I don't remember being all that surprised about the twist; maybe it was spoiled for me, I don't remember. )


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on April 17, 2019, 07:22:44 PM
They did at least set up in ep 4 that Luke was going to be a Jedi because he inherited a lightsaber from his father.  But looking back at ep 4 they didn't make a big deal out of Luke being able to use the force because he was one in a million; it was sort of suggested that Obi-Wan could have taught this stuff to any yokel.  Ep 6 is where they first brought in "the force is strong in my family".


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 17, 2019, 07:35:27 PM
As a thematic question the movies are about movies(specifically action serials). The force is all hippie in philosophy because Lucas grew up around it. But aside from that aspect of it the force is "the force of plot". The main character has it because he is the main character. The villain has it because he is the villain. And it works because the movie needs it to.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Setanta on April 17, 2019, 08:50:28 PM
They did at least set up in ep 4 that Luke was going to be a Jedi because he inherited a lightsaber from his father.  But looking back at ep 4 they didn't make a big deal out of Luke being able to use the force because he was one in a million; it was sort of suggested that Obi-Wan could have taught this stuff to any yokel.  Ep 6 is where they first brought in "the force is strong in my family".

... and then EP1 brought midichorians to the table  :ye_gods:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: lamaros on April 17, 2019, 10:14:33 PM
I dunno man, Star Wars is basically about family lineage. Can't really see a way around that.

This is a bizarre take - a set of films featuring celibate warrior monks, whose power is explicitly explained in a way unrelated to genes, is all about lineage.

But lots of people seem to view it that way. People are weird.

Also fucking love the idea that TLJ 'derailed' a JJA plan. Seriously guys.

The original three movies are all about the family, how can you avoid seeing that?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 17, 2019, 10:45:08 PM
Not only are they about family, they are about the fact that the Jedi Order failed because it was WRONG about exactly this stuff.  The falling of Anakin to the dark side was to show us just how wrong the Jedi were about forming attachments.  If they just would have supported him instead of repeating their dogma to him, things would have turned out differently.  Luke proved it by ignoring the fuck out of yoda and Obi Wan.  The new series is just as much about Luke despairing over exactly these facts, thinking he failed, and then Yoda coming in at the end and telling him “no, dude, you had it right all along, just keep it going”.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 18, 2019, 10:25:23 AM
I dunno man, Star Wars is basically about family lineage. Can't really see a way around that.

This is a bizarre take - a set of films featuring celibate warrior monks, whose power is explicitly explained in a way unrelated to genes, is all about lineage.

But lots of people seem to view it that way. People are weird.

Also fucking love the idea that TLJ 'derailed' a JJA plan. Seriously guys.

The original three movies are all about the family, how can you avoid seeing that?

In that they had familiy in them or that they were thematically about family? A movie having families in them doesnt make the movie about family.

The Star Wars films were not about the relationship of a son to his father. The son and father only exist in relationship because it makes a good twist in the vein of the old space serials. The movies work just as well, line for line, if we had used the original “No, Obi-Wan killed your father” with the same thematic result.

And the new films are only about familiy insomuch as they reject the old space serial ideals that revolve around heredetary prowess


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 18, 2019, 11:49:05 AM



The Star Wars films were not about the relationship of a son to his father. The son and father only exist in relationship because it makes a good twist in the vein of the old space serials. The movies work just as well, line for line, if we had used the original “No, Obi-Wan killed your father” with the same thematic result.



Except they don't. Had they gone with "Obi Wan killed your father" which was, to my knowledge, a fake line put in so if it leaked it'd be the wrong spoiler, Return of the Jedi would have been a much different movie. For one thing, Luke wouldn't feel the need to redeem Vader, for another "a certain point of view" doesn't work when it's "you killed my dad?"


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on April 18, 2019, 08:21:54 PM
To be honest, it never worked in the first place. I called BS when I heard it first. It would have been better if he had said "if I told you the truth you would never have had the confidence to be a Jedi/would have never been able to run from Vader when you saw him" or something like that. it was just there because Lucas wanted to Retcon something and to say something "profound."


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 19, 2019, 12:56:09 AM



The Star Wars films were not about the relationship of a son to his father. The son and father only exist in relationship because it makes a good twist in the vein of the old space serials. The movies work just as well, line for line, if we had used the original “No, Obi-Wan killed your father” with the same thematic result.



Except they don't. Had they gone with "Obi Wan killed your father" which was, to my knowledge, a fake line put in so if it leaked it'd be the wrong spoiler, Return of the Jedi would have been a much different movie. For one thing, Luke wouldn't feel the need to redeem Vader, for another "a certain point of view" doesn't work when it's "you killed my dad?"

If vader turned him to crime then it would be true that he killed him from a certain point of view.

The very very end of ROTJ may not work totally straight but the rest does. And it doesnt change the fact that its not a story about family its a story “about a family” in the same sense of “its a story about a person”.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 19, 2019, 05:01:23 AM
This is making me realize what an interesting difference it would have made if Obi-Wan was hanging around Tatooine to train Luke in the Force not because Luke was magically strong in the Force due to heredity but simply because Obi-Wan was stone cold enough to realize that Vader might have been put off balance by facing his own son, considering how his obsession with Padme was the route to the Dark Side in the first place. And then Luke would have been resentful at being used at the same time that he would have realized that someone had to stop his old man considering how much murdering of good people and Jedi children and so on he had done.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 19, 2019, 05:19:56 AM
Lucas is a hack writer, he would never have thought that up.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 19, 2019, 09:40:39 AM
To be honest, it never worked in the first place. I called BS when I heard it first. It would have been better if he had said "if I told you the truth you would never have had the confidence to be a Jedi/would have never been able to run from Vader when you saw him" or something like that. it was just there because Lucas wanted to Retcon something and to say something "profound."

Interestingly, psychologists love to study Vader and most of them agree that he has various disorders and among them is what I'd call a split personality but has a much more technical term. Vader truly thinks of Anakin as a separate person who is now dead and likely Obi Wan came around to that thinking to. Doesn't change that the line was just a way to smooth over a retcon that likely happened but it actually fits with the psychology of Vader and probably Obi-Wan too.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 19, 2019, 05:22:32 PM
The thing is, we can ALL easily think of a better version of the same basic, beautiful ingredients of ANH + ESB. That's what keeps this all going--it's a sandbox with really great toys. I mean, fuck, everyone loves to make fun of the taxation etc. plots of the prequels, but even a marginally more imaginative person could have made that shit really compelling as a backdrop to people with laser swords fighting each other and having doomed love affairs and shit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on April 21, 2019, 02:20:34 AM
I dunno man, Star Wars is basically about family lineage. Can't really see a way around that.

This is a bizarre take - a set of films featuring celibate warrior monks, whose power is explicitly explained in a way unrelated to genes, is all about lineage.

But lots of people seem to view it that way. People are weird.

Also fucking love the idea that TLJ 'derailed' a JJA plan. Seriously guys.

The original three movies are all about the family, how can you avoid seeing that?

I see that family is a part of the OT, in particular about faith in each other and challenging the assumptions of your birth ('too much of his father in him' 'that's what I'm afraid of'). But it is not a story about throughbred breeding.

Rey overcoming the assumption that she is nothing if her parents were nothing fits the template better than 'oh yeah the reason she is powerful is that Obi Wan and Palpatine had a kid in a deleted scene'.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 23, 2019, 02:49:51 AM
Except they don't. Had they gone with "Obi Wan killed your father" which was, to my knowledge, a fake line put in so if it leaked it'd be the wrong spoiler, Return of the Jedi would have been a much different movie. For one thing, Luke wouldn't feel the need to redeem Vader, for another "a certain point of view" doesn't work when it's "you killed my dad?"

Don't let George Lucas gaslight you. When he made Star Wars he had no idea that he would be able to make a trilogy. The production of Star Wars had in fact been such a disaster that no one had any hope that it would make even its production budget back. Fox had to fight Lucas on everything including the title and the movie basically only works because his own team started to ignore him and extensively reworked everything from the VFX to the script and because his wife re-edited the movie to turn it into something comprehensible that is not 4 hours long.

Also the original script didn't include the father/son relationship because it was more or less a retelling of Kurosawa's movie "Hidden Fortress", a completely different story from what made it into the movie. The whole Vader/Skywalker theme stems more from Lucas' love for Kurosawa and Japanese cinema where the whole "apprentice needs to fight their master" is a standard trope. Lastly Lucas couldn't have been afraid of spoilers, for one spoiler culture didn't exist in 1977, also since no one thought there would be a sequel to Star Wars no one planned for it. They began to rework the mythology only when it became apparent that the movie was such a success that sequels were warranted. The modified title crawl that added "Episode IV" wasn't added until the 1979 re-release in anticipation of The Empire Strikes Back. By that time they knew that they'd make at least three films.

Episode I- III is what happens when Lucas has complete creative control. Episode IV - VI happened because his production crew curb stumped most of the bullshit he brought to the table. He isn't even credited as a screenwriter for Episode V and is only co-credited as screen writer (with Lawrence Kasdan) for Episode VI. He's only director for IV and has no producer credit for the entire original trilogy.

Star Wars was a success despite Lucas' involvement and most of the things he has claimed in interviews since then have been retcons of his own involvement, vision and development history of the movies.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 23, 2019, 03:05:43 AM
The fact that many of the things we now think are canon and have always been part of the Star Wars universe didn't even come from Lucas but from the original West End Games Star Wars Role Playing game speaks volumes about Lucas' involvement and talent for universe building.

The WEG rulebooks became the official reference for most of the in universe lore and background. So much so that they were recommended reading by Lucasfilm and they are still cited to this day and considered to be canonical. Even Disney kept it as one of the works that survived the gutting of the EA when they rebooted it. When they hired Timothy Zahn to write what became the Thrawn trilogy they sent him copies of WEG rule books as reference and asked him to base his story around the background material.

Lucasfilm even based their own style guides and writers' guides on the reference material from those books.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 24, 2019, 12:40:02 PM
Except they don't. Had they gone with "Obi Wan killed your father" which was, to my knowledge, a fake line put in so if it leaked it'd be the wrong spoiler, Return of the Jedi would have been a much different movie. For one thing, Luke wouldn't feel the need to redeem Vader, for another "a certain point of view" doesn't work when it's "you killed my dad?"

Don't let George Lucas gaslight you. When he made Star Wars he had no idea that he would be able to make a trilogy. The production of Star Wars had in fact been such a disaster that no one had any hope that it would make even its production budget back. Fox had to fight Lucas on everything including the title and the movie basically only works because his own team started to ignore him and extensively reworked everything from the VFX to the script and because his wife re-edited the movie to turn it into something comprehensible that is not 4 hours long.

Also the original script didn't include the father/son relationship because it was more or less a retelling of Kurosawa's movie "Hidden Fortress", a completely different story from what made it into the movie. The whole Vader/Skywalker theme stems more from Lucas' love for Kurosawa and Japanese cinema where the whole "apprentice needs to fight their master" is a standard trope. Lastly Lucas couldn't have been afraid of spoilers, for one spoiler culture didn't exist in 1977, also since no one thought there would be a sequel to Star Wars no one planned for it. They began to rework the mythology only when it became apparent that the movie was such a success that sequels were warranted. The modified title crawl that added "Episode IV" wasn't added until the 1979 re-release in anticipation of The Empire Strikes Back. By that time they knew that they'd make at least three films.


I have little doubt that Vader being Luke's father came up during the writing of the Empire Strikes Back. I'm also quite familiar with how close Star Wars came to being an utter disaster and how the edit is what saved the movie. His ex-wife gets far to little credit as does Gary Kurtz. However, I did look it up and I was right. "Obi-wan killed your father" was in fact, a fake line used to prevent spoilers from leaking out. There wasn't an internet back then but there were fan magazines and stuff like Starlog that might've shared the leak. Only Mark Hamill, the writers and of course James Earl Jones knew the actual thing Darth Vader said to him before the movie premiered. There's actually a very funny interview with Mark Hamill where he talks about Harrison Ford or Carrie Fisher turning to him and going "You knew this? You're an asshole for not telling me." during the movie's premiere. I think it was Carrie Fisher.

https://www.soundandvision.com/news/100104hamill/ (https://www.soundandvision.com/news/100104hamill/)

Quote
But, for example, your big scene, one of the classic cinematic moments when Darth Vader divulges his true identity, is no longer a revelation.

It's such a great moment! The fake line that was put in there just to try and keep the secret was "You don't know the truth: Obi-Wan killed your father!" But as much as I enjoyed leaking false information, it was a wonderfully hard secret to keep because (Irvin) Kershner, the director, brought me aside and said "Now I know this, and George knows this, and now you're going to know this, but if you tell anybody, and that means Carrie or Harrison, or anybody, we're going to know who it is because we know who knows."





Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on April 24, 2019, 02:55:03 PM
Somehow I thought you referred to Obi Wans line in Star Wars where he tells Luke that Vader killed his parents.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 25, 2019, 10:19:38 AM
Me too.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on August 26, 2019, 06:12:31 AM
The d23 sizzle reel is up now. Here's the Entertainment Tonight version of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n1T3HxHd7Y&fbclid=IwAR0nmIS-AGfY7-_iHYFrsH0uYCN_6KCfBE3djdQ4pQKYOkUBYPpkRw-m8HU&app=desktop (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n1T3HxHd7Y&fbclid=IwAR0nmIS-AGfY7-_iHYFrsH0uYCN_6KCfBE3djdQ4pQKYOkUBYPpkRw-m8HU&app=desktop)

My take-aways:

Looks like we'll have a big Return of the Jedi-esque space battle. I have no problems with this, especially if they avoid yet another Death Star.  Just make it a massive naval battle for all the marbles.
Darth Vader breathing? Sound effect they tossed in just to screw with us or hint that Palpatine may not be the only returning character?
Darkside Rey I think is a misdirect. Probably from a vision she has. "If you keep going this is your destiny" or something.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Ironwood on August 26, 2019, 06:24:58 AM
Abrams rehashes RotJ shocker.

Hard Pass.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on August 26, 2019, 06:51:27 AM
How is it a rehash? Nothing in that video says rehash.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on August 26, 2019, 07:08:43 AM
Clone Emperor.  So why not Clone Vader?  And Evil Clone Rey?  Maybe bring back Boba Fett.  The can call it Attack of the Clone’s Attack of the Clone’s Clone.

I assume the Evil Rey thing is a misdirect, because it would be fucking weird to put that in a trailer of any kind.  And also, no matter how much I may love Daisy, she is not convincing with one blade in her hand, forget about two.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hawkbit on August 26, 2019, 07:43:58 AM
The best thing about this is the fact that this series is almost over. I'm not connected with any of these characters and it seems like they need to throw more people and shit at the story to prevent any sort of character development.

I don't understand why every movie has to one-up the lightsaber. This time it's a dual bladed saber that snaps down into Maul's saber? Before it was Ren's piece of shit Templar ripoff. Then Grievous with his 97 spinning sabers. Even Maul, though pretty cool and a wasted character, his saber was pretty dumb too. Dookus and his dual sabers.

It's a fucken lightsaber, man. It's cool enough on its own.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on August 26, 2019, 07:48:50 AM
Fuck's sake, can we stop just adding goddamn light saber blades to things in an effort to look cool? Holy shit, that little saber twist at the end made me laugh out loud. This is getting ridiculous. Where's that picture of the dude with light sabers coming out of his knees?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Reg on August 26, 2019, 08:22:30 AM
Oh boy. Another thread full of middle aged men bemoaning the resolution of a film series they started watching as children.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Soln on August 26, 2019, 08:25:06 AM
Look Sir. This is going to be the worst end of a trilogy since RotJ.  :why_so_serious:

Edit: interested in Mandalorian but not this.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Teleku on August 26, 2019, 08:26:53 AM
Oh boy. Another thread full of middle aged men bemoaning the resolution of a film series they started watching as children.

That film series ended in 1983.  They’re talking shit about some new half assed sci-fi movies.   :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Ironwood on August 26, 2019, 09:49:20 AM
Pretty much.  This is a series of awful movies, with one of them a shining beacon of awesome that shows it can be done, if you know, you give a shit, which further reinforces the point that the movies that end up being made for the most part are done by people who don't give a shit.

It's why when Mandalorian looks more like Rogue One than any of the others, it inspires hope.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: 01101010 on August 26, 2019, 10:54:09 AM
Still waiting on sabre-nunchucks   :why_so_serious:

I forgot all about this release until a friend of my wife's mentioned it while we were all out at an ice cream stand. Struck me odd that I probably had a similar conversation when I was 9, at a neighborhood ice cream stand, with my cousins about RotJ - only there was a lot more excitement 36 years ago...for me at least.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Raguel on August 26, 2019, 11:10:15 AM
Still waiting on sabre-nunchucks   :why_so_serious:

I forgot all about this release until a friend of my wife's mentioned it while we were all out at an ice cream stand. Struck me odd that I probably had a similar conversation when I was 9, at a neighborhood ice cream stand, with my cousins about RotJ - only there was a lot more excitement 36 years ago...for me at least.  :oh_i_see:

Heh I remember not being excited at all for RotJ. My thought was "no way this will be better than Empire", and I was right. I don't remember seeing this in theaters back then, but I don't think the first time I saw it was on videotape/cd/dvd either so who knows.

I specifically remember a group of us kids in the school library reading the paper with a big, incomplete Death Star on the cover page. I think most of us agreed that it couldn't be the old DS but I don't remember anyone saying it's a new DS.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on August 26, 2019, 12:21:09 PM
Oh boy. Another thread full of middle aged men bemoaning the resolution of a film series they started watching as children.

Some peoples only joy is shitting on things that others enjoy. Everybody gotta have a talent, I guess.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Shannow on August 26, 2019, 01:22:03 PM
Time Every star wars thread is a flat circle.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on August 26, 2019, 01:34:57 PM
Fuck's sake, can we stop just adding goddamn light saber blades to things in an effort to look cool? Holy shit, that little saber twist at the end made me laugh out loud. This is getting ridiculous. Where's that picture of the dude with light sabers coming out of his knees?

Not sure why you get all riled up about people's personal weapon choice in a movie. It's just like anything else. Every movie that has some kind of master or professional typically has their own style of weapon choice. Same shit here.

You knew Rey was bound to have some kind of staff weapon at some point. Well here you go.

And the shot of here with a Maul-like saber is probably just a vision/dream so who cares.

The sooner the skywalker saga can end the better so we can move on to actually good stories like the Disney+ stuff.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MahrinSkel on August 26, 2019, 02:48:28 PM
But the double switchblade saber/staff is also red. That's been a Dark Side only thing, one of the few rules they have stuck to. And frankly, they've been foreshadowing a Face-Heel turn for Rey since the beginning.

--Dave


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on August 26, 2019, 03:00:07 PM
Rey is not going Dark Side. Just put that out of your mind. She is the face of the franchise, as well as the face of Disney's repeated emphasis on more diversity in their franchises. If anything, the switchblade saber wielding Rey is a straight up lie filmed as a red herring, or it's a dream sequence, or it's a clone. One of my buddies told me about the current hypothesis going around that Rey is one of many clones that the Emperor is supposed to possess/inhabit. That would be sort of clever, and mean we'd likely get a Rey v Rey battle.

Also, switchblade saber just looks dumb as fuck and keeps upping the ante on wacky lightsaber antics.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Raguel on August 26, 2019, 03:12:16 PM

Don't know how to post pics from twitter but:
https://twitter.com/WilliamHPerkins/status/1166089396711514112


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sky on August 26, 2019, 05:42:22 PM
Time Every star wars thread is a flat circle.
IT'S A FUCKING CUBE BEYOTCH

Also, yeah. I enjoy the Skywalker movies ok, even liked Solo. But R1 is the only great movie. So I count it as a win and look forward to the Mandalorian. Lucas wouldn't be making movies, so it's all good.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on August 26, 2019, 06:17:13 PM
It's spelled Reey.

Very likely fighting Luuke and Been Soolo.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on August 26, 2019, 06:19:24 PM
(Though seriously, if JJ Abrams goes with "the vision of Rey in the mirror is that she was a clone and there are thousand of Rey clones and that's what she was seeing", I'm gonna puke. The entire thing with the clones of the major characters was nearly (not entirely) one of the dumbest EU ideas period. Yes, yes, Palpatine, no sorry Paalpaatiinne did so much with clones and all that, so why wouldn't he repeat it, but ah fuck please.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on August 26, 2019, 08:56:03 PM
Time Every star wars thread is a flat circle.
IT'S A FUCKING CUBE BEYOTCH

Also, yeah. I enjoy the Skywalker movies ok, even liked Solo. But R1 is the only great movie. So I count it as a win and look forward to the Mandalorian. Lucas wouldn't be making movies, so it's all good.

I hear this a lot and don't get it. Rogue One is an hour of a super passive protagonist then 45 minutes of a pretty cool fight scene then a minute and a half of badass Darth Vader. It's like people retroactively make the entire movie that Darth Vader scene in their heads. I mean...this is the movie where this happens:

Jyn: The rebellion just killed my dad!!!!!
<screenwipe to Yavin council chamber>
Jyn: Rebellions are built on hope!


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on August 26, 2019, 10:57:36 PM
I agree with that assessment.  I like Rogue One, but it has many of the same flaws as these other movies, plus the most forgettable cast of characters in the whole SW universe.  But it did have amazing visuals that got the "feel" of SW just right, and 30 seconds of badass Vader.

I don't mind the different weapons, as long as they make sense.  Kylo's weapon makes sense.  That unfolding staff thing.....does not.  Like those pinwheel sabers the Inquisitors have in the cartoons.  Stupid.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on August 27, 2019, 05:16:01 AM
Oh boy. Another thread full of middle aged men bemoaning the resolution of a film series they started watching as children.

Fans of a series that ended 40 years ago are bad mouthing a movie franchise made solely to suck dollars from said fans who give a shit about the franchise. I mean for fucks sake guys just give Disney your money you fucking weebs.  :oh_i_see:

Disney could have used an original IP about space wizards and got kids to watch that shit. It would have been for kids and none of us nerdy 30 somethings would care past the 1st movie because its for kids. But instead their using star wars, with the explicit expectation that old fans, new fans, their grandmas and the entirety of communist china will watch it. They expect us to care enough to pay money to see this shit over Jumanji, buy their kids billions of dollars worth merchandise and pay 100 dollars a human for their amusement park. They can at least make it watchable.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on August 27, 2019, 05:22:00 AM
I agree with that assessment.  I like Rogue One, but it has many of the same flaws as these other movies, plus the most forgettable cast of characters in the whole SW universe.  But it did have amazing visuals that got the "feel" of SW just right, and 30 seconds of badass Vader.

I don't mind the different weapons, as long as they make sense.  Kylo's weapon makes sense.  That unfolding staff thing.....does not.  Like those pinwheel sabers the Inquisitors have in the cartoons.  Stupid.

It's funny you mention the Inquisitors, saw a Youtube video where a guy pointed out that exact saber was used in Clone Wars by the big lizard Jedi who goes to the dark side and in Rebels by the Grand Inquisitor when he was still a temple guard and Kanan sees him in a force vision or whatever.

No idea if that is intentional or not. I don't think Abrams would think of it but maybe somebody in the art department worked on one or both series or is just a fan.


In the cartoon it's a lot more graceful. He unfolds it and lights it in one motion. He doesn't have it lit then unfolds it like in the trailer.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sky on August 27, 2019, 08:08:17 AM
Jesus fucking Christ.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on August 27, 2019, 10:12:54 AM
That saber is stupid af.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rasix on August 27, 2019, 10:17:42 AM
I don't get it. What's the reason for it gravity snapping to place? Is it easier to store or something?

Still, I'm hoping for something better than Last Jedi. That shouldn't be too hard to pull off.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on August 27, 2019, 10:44:35 AM
I don't get it. What's the reason for it gravity snapping to place? Is it easier to store or something?

Still, I'm hoping for something better than Last Jedi. That shouldn't be too hard to pull off.


The only reason I could see having a saber like that is if the two parts can be separated. So it folds up, can snap out into a staff or you twist and then have two sabers. So it's versatile. That said, I'm not nearly as concerned by it as you guys are.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on August 27, 2019, 11:00:15 AM
(Though seriously, if JJ Abrams goes with "the vision of Rey in the mirror is that she was a clone and there are thousand of Rey clones and that's what she was seeing", I'm gonna puke. The entire thing with the clones of the major characters was nearly (not entirely) one of the dumbest EU ideas period. Yes, yes, Palpatine, no sorry Paalpaatiinne did so much with clones and all that, so why wouldn't he repeat it, but ah fuck please.

I think it way more likely this was a twin sister because that has already happened in star wars, and if palp is the real antagonist, he needs an apprentice.

It would also explain all the mentions Rey's family get without her parents specifically being important.

JJA is bad at this sort of thing but I don't think even he'd do the clones with too many vowels bullshit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on August 27, 2019, 11:23:59 AM
Given that we already know cloning tech is not even terribly difficult, I would be fine with some cloning action.  It is actually kinda stupid that it hasn’t been tried when we know the technology exists.  Outside of the EU I mean.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on August 27, 2019, 12:17:23 PM
Did you guys notice that the cloak she was wearing wasn't the right shade of black?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on August 27, 2019, 03:00:01 PM
Did you guys notice that the cloak she was wearing wasn't the right shade of black?

Did she also have pointy knees?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on August 27, 2019, 03:52:05 PM
Quite.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on August 27, 2019, 05:28:31 PM
Where's that picture of the dude with light sabers coming out of his knees?


Its from https://www.toplessrobot.com/2014/12/7_terrible_lightsaber_designs_from_the_star_wars_e.php

But there is a more recent thingie, marked "episode VII trailer!!!" And, frankly, this looks even more stupid.

(http://down.smugglersrun.de/bilder/lexikon/nyax_gross.jpg)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on August 27, 2019, 05:59:16 PM
How would you not saw your own legs off?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on August 27, 2019, 07:17:11 PM
The Force, I guess.

I dunno why you wouldn't just create armor that would create a lightsaber field around the entire penumbra of the armor and then kung-fu shit to death. As long as you don't forget and pick your nose, you're ok.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: 01101010 on August 27, 2019, 07:27:52 PM
Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side...


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: calapine on September 02, 2019, 08:32:05 AM
Forget Darth Rey, did you guys notice Darth 3CPO? :

Probably a minority opinion, but I wish they kept the visual style closer to the original trilogy. If you are just going by still images a scene from JJ Abrahams Star Wars could easily be used in the JJ Abrahams Star Trek. These film universes used to have their individual flair, this seems mostly gone.

Am I making sense?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on September 02, 2019, 09:05:22 AM
You keep asking if you are making sense.  The answer is, of course, no.  And also yes.  If that makes sense.

But yeah, that makes sense.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Tale on October 21, 2019, 08:22:22 PM
Final trailer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qn_spdM5Zg)

Does nothing for me. Looks like overdone "farewell to the trilogies" garbage.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on October 21, 2019, 08:36:18 PM
doesn't leave me cold but at the same time i look at the main cast and think: wow i don't give a fuck about these pleb ass retreads.

also movies that i care about i don't watch a trailer this close to release, i need to talk myself into bothering with this in theaters and i'm still not there yet


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on October 21, 2019, 10:53:47 PM
Yeah, I am not sure what is going on there.  They haven't lost me as such, because having two teenagers means I will be there on opening weekend, but I have no idea what that was.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on October 21, 2019, 11:08:56 PM
Looks like exactly the sort of thing JJA is bad at.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on October 21, 2019, 11:19:39 PM
I mean, space ships, pew pew, lightsabers, a bit of Palpatine, it'll be fine for that alone.  But when they cannot even muster excitement from someone like me....

Also, there were at least three spots just in that trailer where I was like "uh, that's terribly unrealistic and/or stupid".  I don't get the choices some people make for the apparent benefit of being artsy or whatever.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on October 22, 2019, 04:54:08 AM
I'm willing to bet like half those scenes aren't even in the movie.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Soln on October 22, 2019, 05:42:32 AM
I won’t see it in cinemas. Maybe watch it on streaming someday.

Mary Sue + Hobbit Goats


fake edit: So at the end they’re riding space goats outside in space? On a star destroyer? Kids aren’t stupid - they’re gonna howl at that.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on October 22, 2019, 06:52:09 AM
Kids aren’t stupid

Lol.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: 01101010 on October 22, 2019, 07:22:53 AM
I won’t see it in cinemas. Maybe watch it on streaming someday.

Mary Sue + Hobbit Goats


fake edit: So at the end they’re riding space goats outside in space? On a star destroyer? Kids aren’t stupid - they’re gonna howl at that.

Howl? Not this generation. I expect a year's worth of stupid meme's all over reddit for the next 2 years.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Ard on October 22, 2019, 07:36:14 AM
Yup.  I'm done with Star Wars.  Thanks JJ.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on October 22, 2019, 07:45:23 AM
That final trailer makes me hope the damn thing is 3 hours long, otherwise, it's going to planet hop so often, you'll get whiplash. It also tells me nothing about the story whatsoever.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hawkbit on October 22, 2019, 08:19:16 AM
Lucky for you it's said to be the longest SW movie to date.  :awesome_for_real:

So much solo running with open lightsabers. Will I watch it? Yeah. Likely not in a theater unless my kid drags me out.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: 01101010 on October 22, 2019, 08:32:11 AM
This is going to be a no from me.  :why_so_serious:

I'll see it in a few years when it is streaming only to complete my viewing of the entire series. Star Wars: A New Hope was the first movie I ever watched, long ago in the back of my mom's pinto in a drive in theater (which should date me 5 times over) so I can't not watch the final. That said, the magic left right after RotJ and I should have had the sense to ignore the rest.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on October 22, 2019, 08:47:46 AM
I don't really understand what you guys are seeing. I saw a lot of Star Warsy stuff happening, no better or worse than any others. If you like Star Wars you are getting all the Star Wars stuff you expect, not sure what else they can give you.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on October 22, 2019, 09:05:40 AM
I'm looking forward to a 600 page thread from people bitching about this movie who didn't want to see it in the first place and openly admit they have no interest in the franchise anymore.

F13. We enjoy nothing.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sky on October 22, 2019, 09:17:04 AM
(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AlarmedOrangeBittern-size_restricted.gif)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rishathra on October 22, 2019, 11:04:07 AM
I'm looking forward to this, and I liked the trailer, but every time I see them riding space goats on a Star Destroyer, I think of Spaceballs.  "Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb."

Also, I find it a little weird that EVERY moment in all of the trailers that features Rey has her breathing heavily.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on October 22, 2019, 11:10:16 AM
I think it is a conscious effort to show here as a strong female, full of action and kicking ass and definitely not some Mary Sue that hasn’t earned that.  And it generally works, up to the point where she has to swing a lightsaber and it all falls apart.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on October 22, 2019, 11:54:17 AM
Jesus, at this point anyone who still thinks of Rey as a Mary Sue is just embarrassing themselves.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on October 22, 2019, 12:06:23 PM
Now, now, they might simply have a head injury.

Also, thank you, Sky. Exactly what I was going for.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sky on October 22, 2019, 12:28:53 PM
For my non-smarmy 2¢, I consider these last Skywalker movies to be popcorn movies that allow us things like Rogue One. I'm sure I'll enjoy this one as much as the last two and not overthink any of it. Every Disney-era film has been better than the prequels, so it's all good in my book.

Ok, now back to how Ben Solo is a metaphor for the sissyfication of the white male in western society.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rendakor on October 22, 2019, 12:44:20 PM
For my non-smarmy 2¢, I consider these last Skywalker movies to be popcorn movies that allow us things like Rogue One. I'm sure I'll enjoy this one as much as the last two and not overthink any of it. Every Disney-era film has been better than the prequels, so it's all good in my book.
I'm in the same boat.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: pxib on October 22, 2019, 03:26:48 PM
The metaphor in the trailer that struck me the hardest was hearing the main theme in straight major without the Lydian ornaments.

No semi-dissonant minor chords here. Just the predictable basics. JJ is back and EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY.

I'm sure I'll enjoy it. Yay.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on October 22, 2019, 04:14:26 PM
Have to say that it didn't really grab me. But sure, I'll see it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on October 22, 2019, 04:42:21 PM
I find I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing this series get put out of its misery.  As in, I might even go see this in the theater just so it'll be done and I can forget about it that much faster.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on October 22, 2019, 06:05:48 PM
Jesus, at this point anyone who still thinks of Rey as a Mary Sue is just embarrassing themselves.

I'm glad someone else said it first.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on October 22, 2019, 10:51:52 PM
In case it came across as such, I don't see her as a Mary Sue.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on October 23, 2019, 03:08:35 AM
Fuck sake if you are going to have her run like an athlete and stare like an imposing warrior, at least let the woman work some weights so she looks like she has some heft behind her, rather than look like a model waif. I'm sick of action hero women looking like famine victims.

And SPACE GOATS!!!

I watched the trailer out of curiosity as someone who left SW behind a while back as I wanted to see what these space goats were about. Yep, as stupid as I thought.

Raised zero and zilch interest in me to watch this bloated mess. It actually reminded me of that parody SW trailer where they took the real trailer for the first non Lucas SW movie (says it all that I cant even remember the name) and added tons of crap and "and space Negotiations." Did I see 100 Millennium Falcons there?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on October 23, 2019, 04:19:18 AM
It's true, all the Jedi in previous films were seriously bulked-up, because everything they do physically requires lots of muscles. Can't hold the high ground without some mighty quads, right? Well, except for the alien ones, but they probably were too! Who knows what a weight-lifting Quarren looks like, right?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on October 23, 2019, 04:57:07 AM
I'm rather proud that my first response to that was "What's a Quarren?"  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on October 23, 2019, 06:07:10 AM
Liar.  Everyone knows the Quarren share their homeworld with Mon Cals.

Daisy looks perfect for the role IMO (and that's not because I think she is one of the best looking women on the planet, although I do think that).  I just disconnect when I see her swing a saber.  She is pretty athletic looking.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on October 23, 2019, 06:59:34 AM
Meh. She does nothing for me.

It's just that scene in the trailer where she is supposed to look all tensed up and intimidating, and I'm going  "umm... no."

But hey, I've more chance of getting a blow job from a Quarren than seeing this thing. So whatever.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Shannow on October 23, 2019, 07:50:02 AM
Gotta be better than the Last Jedi? right?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on October 23, 2019, 08:06:56 AM
Well, yeah.  But then again, I need to watch that space goats scene again to be sure, when I first saw it in a small window it just looked like they were riding horses (which I also thought was strange).


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on October 23, 2019, 08:13:14 AM
Its actually unclear what they were riding, other than dressed up horses. I thought they had horns on first viewing, but stepping through the scene it does not look like they did. They just look like very furry horses on a closer look.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Ironwood on October 23, 2019, 02:37:33 PM
Desert Planet.  Forest Planet with same helmets.  Death Star.  Lightsaber bullshit.  Big Space Fleet.  Cackling Palpatine.

Yeah, tell me again how JJ Abrams isn't an unoriginal hack.

Even harder pass than the last time I passed hard.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on October 23, 2019, 08:09:27 PM
In case it came across as such, I don't see her as a Mary Sue.

Nah, Soln literally said the movie was Mary Sue + Hobbit Goats. It made my eyes roll super hard.

As for the trailer itself, I'm not super excited but I'm going to see it because I want to see how it all ends and if JJ can actually pull it off. I've seen some rumblings around that they've had a ton of reshoots and stuff which could be worrying. We'll see I guess. I think if anything Disney should learn that you have to plan this shit out. You don't just make it up as you go.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on October 23, 2019, 08:24:27 PM
What I've heard is that they are still, IN OCTOBER, doing reshoots and that there are six endings already filmed that are being focus-grouped to see which one people like the most. Now that could just be bullshit but it also wouldn't surprise me one bit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Tale on October 23, 2019, 08:31:14 PM
Apparently the space goathorses (which have tusks) are called Orbaks (https://junkee.com/star-wars-space-horse/225876).


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on October 23, 2019, 08:43:21 PM
What I've heard is that they are still, IN OCTOBER, doing reshoots and that there are six endings already filmed that are being focus-grouped to see which one people like the most. Now that could just be bullshit but it also wouldn't surprise me one bit.

I'd heard the same. The best spin I can put on it is they may have shot six endings just to keep people guessing if there are leaks. But who the hell knows.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on October 23, 2019, 10:40:25 PM
Or maybe it is so you can later buy the special special special edition Choose Your Ending blu ray.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Raguel on October 24, 2019, 02:00:32 AM

I saw the latest trailer on you tube and one of the comments was that the SWTOR trailers were better. I have to agree.

I might have said this already but this new generation of SW characters are pretty dull. Kylo is only interesting if, as one youtuber put it, one thinks of him as a co protagonist of the story.

I don't know if I feel that way because they are really boring or if I'm just much older now and the magic is gone. Or maybe a combination of those things.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on October 24, 2019, 07:20:53 AM
It's not just you. The characters really feel one-dimensional and it doesn't help that their stories have been pulled this way and that based more on plot points than character development. Rose's character is just oddly flimsy - sister sacrifices herself and she follows Fin because reasons until she loves him and then tries to sacrifice herself? All the incel twats who criticize the character because they are misogynistic dolts are unfortunately bolstered by the fact that she's a terrible character. Rey's mysterious origins that might be important until they aren't important but I'm sure will be important again by the end of Rise, and her continual ability to do shit with the Force that she shouldn't be able to do without training makes people think she's a Mary Sue. I'm guessing Rey will end up being Plot Device #1 because she will be a clone of the Emperor that was meant to make Force Babies with Kylo Ren. Kylo himself was a pretty convincing villain until they removed his helmet and made him emo Adam Driver.

The only magic missing is a coherent narrative, one that doesn't vacillate between unoriginal homage in one film to Edgelord "I WILL SUBVERT YOUR EXPECTATIONS SUCK IT STAR WARS FANS" in the next and is going back now to fan pandering and homage in the 3rd (at least it appears that way from the trailers).


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on October 24, 2019, 07:59:43 AM
Or maybe it is so you can later buy the special special special edition Choose Your Ending blu ray.



I could dig Star Wars Episode 9: Clue edition.

(https://66.media.tumblr.com/bf53e9403d7aefae24c11fd8219669f6/tumblr_inline_n2errkoxr21rvtqgn.gif)

It's not just you. The characters really feel one-dimensional and it doesn't help that their stories have been pulled this way and that based more on plot points than character development. Rose's character is just oddly flimsy - sister sacrifices herself and she follows Fin because reasons until she loves him and then tries to sacrifice herself? All the incel twats who criticize the character because they are misogynistic dolts are unfortunately bolstered by the fact that she's a terrible character. Rey's mysterious origins that might be important until they aren't important but I'm sure will be important again by the end of Rise, and her continual ability to do shit with the Force that she shouldn't be able to do without training makes people think she's a Mary Sue. I'm guessing Rey will end up being Plot Device #1 because she will be a clone of the Emperor that was meant to make Force Babies with Kylo Ren. Kylo himself was a pretty convincing villain until they removed his helmet and made him emo Adam Driver.

The only magic missing is a coherent narrative, one that doesn't vacillate between unoriginal homage in one film to Edgelord "I WILL SUBVERT YOUR EXPECTATIONS SUCK IT STAR WARS FANS" in the next and is going back now to fan pandering and homage in the 3rd (at least it appears that way from the trailers).

The narrative is a big issue. I get tired of people bashing Kathleen Kennedy because it feels a lot like "Ewwww girl in charge ruining things!" but I do think she failed to guide this trilogy properly. From all accounts each episode was just going to be totally up to that director with very little guidance from above. That's why The Last Jedi was such a big departure and upset people.

As for the character critiques, Rose is...meh. Which saddens me. The actress has a ton of charisma and the idea of the character is neat. A main character who's not the best at anything is a nice change but The Last Jedi failed her. And Poe. And Finn.

The Rey critiques were solved ironically by the Last Jedi. Snoke more or less flat out says she exists to counter the rising darkness. Since that is more or less Anakin's origin too I can roll with it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on October 24, 2019, 09:07:59 AM
You know, the original trilogy Star Wars characters were also pretty flat: plucky princess, space scoundrel, farmboy hero, wise space wizard, loyal monster sidekick, comic relief robots, ultra-bad dark armor villain, bad guy stooges.

It's just that back then that felt like taking REALLY flat serial archetypes and giving them a new coat of polish--a kind of innocent move. Ford and Guinness succeeded in giving their characters a slight feeling of hidden interiority. Adding the I-am-your-father and princess-scoundrel romance plots gave a slight additional feeling of depth to the involved characters, but they didn't even really do what they could have to use the plot to really roil up and deepen Luke Skywalker's character--there's no way he should have just let Yoda-ghost and Kenobi-ghost off the hook for lying and manipulating him.

The problem at this point is that those archetypes are now too familiar as a result of Star Wars and a bunch of other genre work in SF and fantasy since 1977 using, reusing, satirizing, reversing etc. those archetypes. We felt like we knew the original SW characters because we did, but now we know them so much.

So if you look at the current trilogy characters, I see ways that they *could* feel like other archetypes, but JJ Abrams didn't do the work in the first film to really sharpen this and then Johnson was focused on subverting and rethinking the entire mythos and so couldn't really lock the potential characterizations into place.

Finn could be a much clearer manifestation of "the defector"--the former enemy, troubled by conscience, who joins the side of the angels. But archetypically, that kind of character has to have a much more brooding, introspective, psychological presentation--we have to feel his internal conflict, to see him worried about whether his disloyalty to his former allies is a sin. And his new allies have to always worry about him a bit--to wonder if it isn't a trick. Zuko in Avatar, or the first few episodes of the new She-Ra cartoon--there's a lot of examples of it out there. This kind of character is one where the possibility of redemption through sacrifice is always in play.

Poe wasn't anything in the first movie--he was originally written as a minor character and it shows. But Johnson did something archetypically interesting with him, making him a superficially dashing person who has to confront his own errors in judgment. It just comes too late to care--if that was his arc, he needed to do his fuck-up in Force Awakens and then struggle to become a deeper, better person in Last Jedi. Again,  there's some good models out there of this kind of character, but once again, it's a kind of character that has to have some psychological depth--there's some sort of transformation going on inside, some real conflict between impulse and thought, between old habits and new commitments.

Rey is, I have to admit, a pretty confused character. In FA, she's just a reprise of Luke Skywalker in many ways. Not quite as innocent as he was, or as eager to be a do-gooder, but basically good-hearted, brave, and preternaturally talented with the Force. In LJ, she's written into a rather appealing subversion of the usual wise mentor-innocent pupil relationship, where to some extent her job is to teach her bitter mentor to heal and resume being a responsible adult. That's good, but it doesn't help her develop a character arc or archetype of her own other than "saintly female savior figure". Which I suppose they could play up more consciously--a kind of female sage. I think Star Wars would do better if she was Joan of Arc: a prophet with a bit of a crazy edge, whose allies both follow her fervently but also are a bit scared of her. Anything more than just "the inevitable Jedi character".

Kylo Ren is really interesting, I think--but he's interesting in a way that doesn't entirely work in the kind of story that Star Wars is. He's a bit too much like a real person--contradictory, villainous because of base psychological imperfections and motivations. His patricidal anger in the first film doesn't feel like a deep mythic kind of father-son hatred, it feels like a modern nuclear family resentment that takes a sudden sour turn into murder because of drugs or greed or pettiness. He's like those two brothers who got mad at mommy and daddy because their allowance was cut so they killed mommy and daddy with a shotgun. Force Awakens doesn't really do anything to tell us why he hates Han Solo so much--there's a vague whiff of abandonment issues, but that's pretty weak. Either Han Solo actually was abusive--well, they're not going to do that!--or Kylo Ren is just the devil's seed. But that doesn't work either, precisely because we see enough of his psychological interior that he can't just be an unfathomably, inevitably evil monster from birth. So he's an interesting character, but everything that makes him interesting has a tendency to make other characters around him into weirdly flat cliches or to raise uncomfortable questions about characters who up to that point have been fun archetypes.

The only shining glory for me so far is what they did with Luke Skywalker, which feels so so right and yet so original and fresh. I understand why other people don't feel that way, and I'm sure JJ Abrams is about to walk some of that back somehow, but it sticks with me.

The rest just feels like a bunch of missed opportunities that show in part the *lack* of careful advance thinking about this trilogy in comparison to how Marvel Studios has unfolded the MCU films.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on October 24, 2019, 09:22:11 AM
Desert Planet.  Forest Planet with same helmets.  Death Star.  Lightsaber bullshit.  Big Space Fleet.  Cackling Palpatine.

Yeah, tell me again how JJ Abrams isn't an unoriginal hack.

Even harder pass than the last time I passed hard.


Not much room for originality in the 9th movie of a story.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Ironwood on October 24, 2019, 09:54:04 AM
That's bullshit and you know it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on October 24, 2019, 12:16:10 PM
Star Wars doesn't have to be original to be fucking interesting. Nothing in particular about the original movie was all that original (other than its very impressive technical achievements) - it was mostly other movies/stories placed into a different sci-fi context. It was a typical hero's journey fantasy story only with blasters and laser swords instead of Excalibur and dragons. Its fleet combat was just WWII fighter pilot movies in space. Darth Vader was the man in black against the hero in white from old westerns including the showdown in the middle of the street (Obi Won v Vader in the Death Star hallway).

I would posit that Last Jedi was so bad BECAUSE it tried to be original before it tried being a coherent story or a good representation of the Star Wars brand.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on October 24, 2019, 12:47:01 PM
You mean good.

Anyway, not to re-litigate it. The point is that Star Wars is now effectively its own mythopoetic source, and that's a fucking hard thing to do without turning into the freakish insularity and self-referentiality of something like the original Expanded Universe. It's why I'm interested in The Mandalorian--they seem to understand that they've got to go back to ripping off other aesthetics/narrative structures/character archetypes and dragging them into Star Wars for it to have some vitality.

One reason Feige has been able to run the MCU franchise so well is that he has such a huge backlog of stories and characters to adapt for the medium where he can throw out all the crud that has accumulated through "continuity", he can decide which versions of long-running characters he likes best, etc., and they've shown a deft ability also to pivot and work towards what works best. So Thor as Shakespearean high fantasy? Kind of dull. Move towards Thor as action comedy. Etc.

The SW "main saga" films just doesn't have that--they're not adapting some other body of content, even if they started by ripping off/homaging old serials like Flash Gordon and so on. That's a challenge, not the least because none of that kind of source material helps you imagine what to do with a story that happens *after* the Big Bad is defeated. That called for a kind of creativity that JJ Abrams is 100% incapable of, really. When I think of other franchises of this kind, what almost always happens is that the Big Bad is resurrected and you retell the same story again. It's common enough in comics and pulp but it's pretty rare that this is the satisfying choice. If you're going to tell a story about how the Big Bad is dead, but as Gandalf puts it in LOTR, "other evils may arise", then you kind of need to at least have a different flavor of bad guy. Like, what if these three movies had been about a new galactic republic being strangled to death by pervasive criminal conspiracies and two-bit insurgencies, with a sinister mastermind behind it all? That would be different and yet also be recognizable pulp with good guys and bad guys, etc. If it's a much more complicated story about how overthrowing an Evil Empire is as nearly impossible in a galaxy far, far away as it is in our real world, well, that takes making a big step up in the storytelling and moving away from knights in shining armor and cartoon villains.

Basically I just don't think they had a real plan going into this, just Abrams doing his usual seat-of-the-pants hackery.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Raguel on October 24, 2019, 12:47:55 PM
The only shining glory for me so far is what they did with Luke Skywalker, which feels so so right and yet so original and fresh. I understand why other people don't feel that way, and I'm sure JJ Abrams is about to walk some of that back somehow, but it sticks with me.

I have to agree with you. I think LJ is Mark Hammil's best work ever.

His performance (and to some extent Ford's in TFA) really highlights just how bad the new crew are. I have a suspicion that on average the younger generation are better than their predecessors (not that I think any of them are better than Guinness or Ford, but Hammil and Fisher are so poor) acting wise but it's like they are being deliberately undermined.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on October 24, 2019, 01:00:21 PM
They are being undermined by having a story that gives them nothing to fucking do that isn't running around. People will bitch about the characters in Rogue One being one-dimensional but just on the strength of one movie, I'd rather see a trilogy about Diego Luna's rebel assassin character and his hateful droid or about the blind Force monk and his hulking sidekick than any of the characters in the new trilogy.

There was plenty of interesting possibilities for Star Wars after the Empire was defeated and none of those stories were pursued. It probably doesn't help that neither the Empire or the Rebellion (or the Republic from the prequels) ever had any real meat to its collective story to really give unoriginal guys like Abrams a place to start. Empire, Rebellion, Republic, First Order - they've all just been plot devices and window dressing, without any real serious thought to how they should work together in a universe, at least not by storytellers who were competent enough to create that universe-building content. And Kathleen Kennedy does not appear to be a creative enough producer to shepherd the creation of that sort of "Universe Bible for the Screenwriters" that Kevin Feige has done with the MCU. She seems more of the business side of production, which tracks completely with her directives on inclusion and diversity that has got the incels so worked up. She didn't do it for any particular political agenda - she just saw there was a larger market than just typical Star Wars nerds that included females and POC, and made sure those people didn't feel excluded.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on October 24, 2019, 01:44:06 PM
Pretty much.

One of the bad raps the Phantom Menace gets is that it's dull because it's about trade federations, taxation, galactic politics.

No, it's bad because George fucking Lucas wrote it and directed it. If he'd just handed some notes over to people who could see the possible story better, it would have been great. The basic idea is fantastic: a cunning, sinister, thinking-ahead conspiracy masterminded by an extremely hidden Sith Lord aims to take natural problems and flaws of a massive galactic republic and a complacent Jedi Order and push them to the breaking point, whereupon he plans to step in as a demagogue. That's not dull, it's exciting--if it's done with someone who knows how to make that story structure really sing out. Basically, it's a small handful of noble Roman patricians and soldiers trying to work together to save a Republic that increasingly seems doomed by its own weaknesses--plots and counterplots, people whose nobility is sometimes a fatal weakness, people whose hubris or overconfidence cripples them.

Imagine a prequel trilogy where: Anakin is an impulsive but precociously talented Force-using 14-year old and Qui-Gon is enough of an iconoclast that he decides he should teach the boy despite that being against the Jedi's procedures, and then Obi-Wan feels obligated to carry on what his teacher started. Where the whole thing begins because Qui-Gon *thinks* there's some kind of conspiratorial hand behind the Trade Federation acting against Naboo but the rest of the Jedi think he's a nutter, and he acts squirrely enough that we think maybe they're right--but that he's on the right track actually and THAT's why Darth Maul gets sent after him. That Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan end up on Tatooine because they find a clue that the mysterious conspiracy has a connection there (it does: Palpatine is keeping his eye on Anakin) and that's how Anakin gets into the mix. Drop all the garbage about the Gungans, about Anakin's early childhood, about needing to raise money to get a part for a spaceship--they stay on Tatooine looking for more clues, they find something that leads back to Naboo, Maul attacks them, they barely escape and have to take Anakin with them to keep him safe, they rush back to Naboo to try and follow the lead only to find the palace under attack, get caught up in the fighting, etc. Qui-Gon gets killed, Maul gets killed, Yoda sort of believes Obi-Wan that there's something stanky going on, but isn't sure what and he thinks Qui-Gon was a nut and that training Anakin is a super-bad idea. Cue the next film.

I can really see it, it just would have taken a completely different script and director. Same for these movies: what happens after the Emperor dies and the Empire breaks up? There's tons of interesting thematic arcs in there, but you gotta actually *pick* one and then get the right people to execute it. They just kind of leapt into this without a plan and hoped that without the liability of George Lucas shitting everything up they'd come out ok. Well, they came out ok, meaning better than the prequels. But not good, really.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on October 24, 2019, 02:34:45 PM
Qui-Gon as Fox Mulder played by Liam Neeson would have been pretty fun.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on October 24, 2019, 03:10:29 PM
Qui-Gon as Fox Mulder played by Liam Neeson would have been pretty fun.

Does that make Obi Wan Scully? Because I can see it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on October 24, 2019, 08:33:09 PM
He did have the red hair, didn't he?  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on October 24, 2019, 10:44:01 PM
I have said before in one of the other dozens of SW threads that you could reshoot the prequels with a capable director and an edited screenplay, and it would have been just fine.  Lucas has certain talents, but writing and executing a screenplay are not among them.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sky on October 25, 2019, 09:25:06 AM
I have said before in one of the other dozens of SW threads that you could reshoot the prequels with a capable director and an edited screenplay, and it would have been just fine.  Lucas has certain talents, but writing and executing a screenplay are not among them.
I agree with this. Some edits to remove fluff like the race, the droid factory, etc. But yeah.

Though probably recasting Skywalker would still be required.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on October 25, 2019, 12:41:52 PM
I can really see it, it just would have taken a completely different script and director. Same for these movies: what happens after the Emperor dies and the Empire breaks up? There's tons of interesting thematic arcs in there, but you gotta actually *pick* one and then get the right people to execute it. They just kind of leapt into this without a plan and hoped that without the liability of George Lucas shitting everything up they'd come out ok. Well, they came out ok, meaning better than the prequels. But not good, really.

And I suspect this is what Lucas wanted. A backdrop of a republic trying to establish itself, Imperial holdouts trying to remain relevant, and pirates being piratical seems give you a lot of options whether you want to go big and epic or small and focussed.

But, given where star wars was, it is hard to argue that 'remake the damn OT' was such a bad strategy, or that being ambitious was in any way wise. The prequels were ambitious.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on October 25, 2019, 02:32:24 PM
To be fair, rumor is Lucas wanted help writing and directing but no one would take the job. Which is odd since Disney hasn't had trouble finding people. My only guess is that Lucas was such a control freak no one wanted to touch his movies.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on October 25, 2019, 03:16:23 PM
Didn’t Lucas want to double-down on the midichlorian stuff and do the sequel trilogy in a microbiotic world? That would have been worse than anything Disney has done so far.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Brolan on October 25, 2019, 03:59:31 PM
Yes, some creatures that were directing the Force. It sounded like Lucas was saying the characters in the movies were like puppets being directed by these creatures.

George just needs to put down the pencil and back away.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MahrinSkel on October 25, 2019, 04:06:18 PM
To be fair, rumor is Lucas wanted help writing and directing but no one would take the job. Which is odd since Disney hasn't had trouble finding people. My only guess is that Lucas was such a control freak no one wanted to touch his movies.
Anecdotal hearsay: I once got to listen in as several designers that had worked with Lucas on games (different projects) shared stories. In essence, he was a "story board" type. He'd give a background including character names, a few scenes that absolutely had to happen exactly as he said, and the ending, and then absolutely nothing else until they met again months later to show him what they had. How to get between these set points didn't interest him.

More than one described how a character name they thought was just a placeholder turned out to be exactly what he wanted, with no variation. Also a major point of painful memories was multiple endings: Lucas absolutely hated them. The opening and closing scenes were completely mandatory and non-negotiable, no omissions or additions,

--Dave


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on October 25, 2019, 07:22:32 PM
Completely believable. You can essentially see it viscerally in the prequels. By the time he was making Phantom Menace no one dared tell him he had bad ideas--he was a kind of weird Howard Hughes dude.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on October 26, 2019, 08:22:15 AM
Going back to the original star wars, thats literally what happened. Lucas came in with a crazy script with really out there bullshit, but he was surrounded by people (including his own wife) who were able to rip apart his bullshit, salvage what was decent out of it and turn it into a decent movie that Lucas hated but had to film.

The problem is that by the time of the TPM he had filled up Lucasarts with Yesmen who were afraid to say boo to him


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on October 29, 2019, 02:39:39 AM
The GoT hacks have left the star wars thing they were involved in. So that's good.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Speedy Cerviche on October 29, 2019, 06:46:03 PM
I can't believe Netflix paid those clowns $300 million


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on October 30, 2019, 07:09:16 AM
Come on, GOT Season 7&8 had some deeply emotional and heartfelt writing.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on October 30, 2019, 12:39:55 PM
I don’t know what the limits of their responsibilities in GoT was, but I think it is a bit absurd to call them hacks and clowns.  The writing went off the rails, true...but it was a production spectacle with no equal.  They pulled off some amazing shit.  Or do I have my facts wrong and someone else was responsible for all that?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rendakor on October 30, 2019, 02:10:08 PM
Come on, GOT Season 7&8 had some deeply emotional and heartfelt writing.
I was certainly emotional about it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Brolan on October 30, 2019, 06:44:54 PM
D&D were certainly good at adapting GRRM’s work in seasons 1-6.  It’s when they had to bridge the gap and jump to the end that things went straight to hell.

But GRRM himself can’t seem to bridge that gap either, so maybe finishing GoT properly is not possible anymore.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on October 30, 2019, 08:24:02 PM
D&D were certainly good at adapting GRRM’s work in seasons 1-6.  It’s when they had to bridge the gap and jump to the end that things went straight to hell.

But GRRM himself can’t seem to bridge that gap either, so maybe finishing GoT properly is not possible anymore.

GRRM will arguably have a harder time than they did because he's introduced 10,000 side characters who all need to be dealt with somehow.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: NowhereMan on October 31, 2019, 04:16:19 AM
Big battle, everyone dies. C.S. Lewis that shit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on October 31, 2019, 09:19:29 AM
Naa. if you want him to actually finish the book have it an exquisitely described feast lasting 600 pages then they all drop dead by poisoning.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on October 31, 2019, 01:59:56 PM
D&D have shown pretty thoroughly that they've got a reasonably good eye for doing a second draft on someone else's story. And equally that they're pretty bad when they're working without that net.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on November 01, 2019, 02:18:09 AM
D&D were certainly good at adapting GRRM’s work in seasons 1-6.  It’s when they had to bridge the gap and jump to the end that things went straight to hell.

You spelt '1-4' incorrectly.

Thing is, star wars needs to address its story issues, not its production values.

D&D were not a great fit for that.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Brolan on November 01, 2019, 06:12:16 AM
Now is coming out that while the Netflix deal was not technically against the Lucasfilm agreement Kennedy was pissed about it.  She wanted them concentrated on Star Wars.  Not some Netflix stuff in addition to her projects. So she did a soft firing.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on November 01, 2019, 09:17:21 AM
Star Wars needs someone who knows how to craft a consistent story arc over whatever number of movies like the Marvel properties. I doubt Fiege can do both properties. What they've been doing is dumb. It's just filling in holes to a dated story.

They need to just kill everyone and start fresh in another made up period.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on November 01, 2019, 03:25:46 PM
My biggest problem with their "A Star Wars story" brand was that the two movies we got were just filling in back stories to the main movies. I wanted to see unique stuff. I think the Mandalorian series will be a good step in that direction. I hope it is super successful so they finally go "Oh, maybe people want to see something else besides Yoda's childhood" or whatever stuff they've thought of.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on November 01, 2019, 06:43:28 PM
I'm with Kennedy both because she really does need people who are the forward-looking custodians of this IP and because those guys are wankers.

They really need to sit down and decide on one hand: what are the basic principles for storytelling in this world? and on the other hand: what's fun? what's good?

It's a tough setting, actually. It has some really great baselines. It's not a shiny human-Earth future--it's a grimy world, stuff looks used. It's huge, it has tons of different sapients. It has the Force. It has scale, it has gigantism. It's got some pulp-fiction innocence to it, but it's also got dark stuff of an epic kind.

It's got some messy as fuck stuff that no one working in this universe has thought out. Is it intentional that the soldiers and officers of the Empire are "human"? If so, what does that mean? Is the Force really whatever whatever? (all the whatevers it's been said to be, including: is it inherited?) Can you really just jet around all over everywhere in ten seconds or is that just JJ Abrams being his usual storytelling dumbass self? What makes the "Outer Rim" what it is? Why couldn't the Empire extend control etc.? Why in a galaxy where you seemingly can go anywhere in ten seconds is anywhere remote, forgotten, obscure, forbidden, etc.? Why didn't the Empire just sent three Star Destroyers to every system in the galaxy if they can hyperdrive there in seconds with no real fuel issues? You name it, the world-building is somewhere between "The Expanse" level thoroughness and JK Rowling "magic is magic, whatevs, fuck off".


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on November 01, 2019, 07:36:05 PM
You can't have anymore movies with the empire or it's leftovers anymore. Leave that to comics, books and cartoons.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on November 02, 2019, 03:05:41 AM
Of course you can. Nobody stopped making films with the Third Reich in them just because the ending has been filmed.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on November 02, 2019, 05:54:06 AM
I'm with Kennedy both because she really does need people who are the forward-looking custodians of this IP and because those guys are wankers.


She might be right about that in this particular case, but in the larger sense of things she is wholly responsible for the current state of SW, and has been so for a long, long time.  She has basically been at the helm of everything other than the OS and the prequels since....maybe all the way back to the first EU books?  Not sure exactly, but she has had veto power over everything.

Which is only to say that even though this might be the right call, it would be fair to say KK is herself a huge part of the problem.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on November 02, 2019, 06:19:14 AM
Right, which is why she needs someone to really take the reins.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on November 02, 2019, 11:05:37 PM
Is it intentional that the soldiers and officers of the Empire are "human"?

According to the old West End games d6 RPG source books it was. The Empire was very, very human first. The implication was that aliens were at best second class citizens and were often slaves. I think it's not an accident that a lot of the separatists in the prequels were alien races. Especially if Palpatine is our Hitler analogue here and he was playing on human racism among other darker impulses.

Quote
Can you really just jet around all over everywhere in ten seconds or is that just JJ Abrams being his usual storytelling dumbass self?

Prior to JJ, I've seen estimates for something like 25,000 light years in a day for a Star Wars ship which means the trip from Alderaan to Tatooine took around 2 days or so if memory serves. I think JJ just has no sense of scale or just doesn't care about it. I enjoyed the hell out of the Force Awakens but the travel times "we pulled the lever, push it back, we're there now!" and that dumb ass scene where people looked up in the sky and saw Starkiller base blow up a whole different solar system made me sigh. Of course, he pulled the same shit in 2009 Star Trek with Spock literally watching Vulcan die from a whole other planet.

So uh...yeah. JJ in the sequel trilogy.


Quote
What makes the "Outer Rim" what it is? Why couldn't the Empire extend control etc.? Why in a galaxy where you seemingly can go anywhere in ten seconds is anywhere remote, forgotten, obscure, forbidden, etc.? Why didn't the Empire just sent three Star Destroyers to every system in the galaxy if they can hyperdrive there in seconds with no real fuel issues? You name it, the world-building is somewhere between "The Expanse" level thoroughness and JK Rowling "magic is magic, whatevs, fuck off".

Prior to JJ crossing the galaxy took a week or two. And you had to have safe routes. The unknown regions were unknown because they hadn't been scouted so trying to hyperspace into them was super risky.



Which is only to say that even though this might be the right call, it would be fair to say KK is herself a huge part of the problem.

I agree which annoys the hell out of me because so much of the toxic fanbase, especially the Incel part of it, rages about her constantly. It just annoys me they're semi-right though it's not related to her having a vagina.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on November 02, 2019, 11:18:16 PM
The incel base is never right. Kathleen Kennedy sucks as a producer and brand shepherd for the series, but not for the reasons any of the incel twats claim.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on November 03, 2019, 01:18:29 AM
The Force Awakens is the only star wars source with instant travel. It is just JJA being bad.

Kennedy isn't so much part of the problem as she is not a solution to the problem. It does seem they need a creative lead, which I don't think she is trying to be.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Chimpy on November 03, 2019, 06:20:33 AM


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Brolan on November 03, 2019, 06:40:07 AM
That link doesn’t spoil the ending, does it?  Since that is out now.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rendakor on November 03, 2019, 06:42:08 AM
It's a Revenge of the Nerds gif; it's safe.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on November 03, 2019, 04:48:16 PM
These days they'd remake that as "Revenge of the Normie Bros" or something, since the nerds are kind of getting their way a lot.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on December 18, 2019, 05:10:22 AM
Will be going to one of the first regular showings today, so I will be able to come back here soon and report whether or not Baby Yoda is Rey's mother.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 18, 2019, 10:13:01 AM
Congratulations, people who wanted to know about Snoke and the Knights of Ren and this and that backstory and have everything explained, because from what I'm hearing, that's what this movie is: an endless series of disconnected scenes trying to satisfy every fan gripe from The Last Jedi. Hope you enjoy your Powerpoint presentation.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on December 18, 2019, 10:23:15 AM
Yeah just the titles of some of the reviews I’ve glanced at have been brutal.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on December 18, 2019, 10:28:09 AM
The narrative will be „well RoS sucked but it’s because JJ Abrams had to fix everything that Rian Johnson fucked up and that didn’t work out“. and not because it’s a design by committee appeasement to every gripe of a small but vocal raging mad fanbase.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on December 18, 2019, 11:41:28 AM
Yeah but if it wasn't for Rian there wouldn't have been an avalanche of hatred towards the franchise that had to be fixed :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on December 18, 2019, 12:07:23 PM
I'm shocked that people who have vocally reiterated time and again how Star Wars doesn't appeal to them anymore still don't like Star Wars. My gast remains flabbered.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on December 18, 2019, 12:09:57 PM
Just like with Mass Effect 3, this will haunt us for a long time as raging neck beards everywhere will feel emboldened by this and demand every piece of entertainment to be tailored to their preferences.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on December 18, 2019, 01:11:37 PM
It's going to make over a billion easy. Probably closer to 1.5.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on December 18, 2019, 01:20:15 PM
That'll be a crushing disappointment if it does. The Last Jedi grossed 1.3 billion. The Force Awakens grossed 2 billion.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 18, 2019, 02:09:29 PM
The narrative will be „well RoS sucked but it’s because JJ Abrams had to fix everything that Rian Johnson fucked up and that didn’t work out“. and not because it’s a design by committee appeasement to every gripe of a small but vocal raging mad fanbase.

RoS sucks because among other things it’s just one more trip back to the well of Palpatine and planet destroying weapons. It feels like a movie that was made solely out of obligation due to the first two movies already being out there.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on December 18, 2019, 02:19:03 PM
Did they at least cram a dumb time travel plot into it, or is it just more boring clone shit?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on December 18, 2019, 02:26:39 PM
Did they at least cram a dumb time travel plot into it, or is it just more boring clone shit?

It’s basically vignettes explaining every dumb lore question those people have just so that they get their canon explanations for their weird fan theories. Also lots of backpedaling and dunking on TLJ and Rian Johnson. Just not a coherent or original movie.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Lucas on December 18, 2019, 03:52:15 PM
Among others, my biggest gripe is (will talk more extensively about this whole trilogy in another post. BIG SPOILERS AHEAD) :


For something like that to happen, the trilogy should have left some sort of "breadcrumbs" from the beginning, so I understand that I probably was expecting something impossible.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Lucas on December 18, 2019, 04:26:34 PM
By the way, after you are done watching Episode IX, go read the topic about Episode VII, especially page 2-3 (that's where I stopped for now). I'm laughing my ass off   :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Comstar on December 18, 2019, 04:42:58 PM
Saw it at midnight.

It's a bad, bad movie. Differently bad from the prequels and others sequels.  Worse, from another point of view.

Kathleen Kennedy's head will be gone, but with a prearranged golden parachute. MAYBE Eisner as well, but he's probably safe.

JJ fucked it up.

The actors are fine, it's not their fault. I don't think Lucas had anything to do with it, and I suspect he's as unhappy as most of the rest of who see it will be. There's going to be multiple hour critic explanations for why the movie is bad, which are going to be much more entertaining, so we have that to look forward to.





Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 18, 2019, 04:48:54 PM
Congratulations, people who wanted to know about Snoke and the Knights of Ren and this and that backstory and have everything explained, because from what I'm hearing, that's what this movie is: an endless series of disconnected scenes trying to satisfy every fan gripe from The Last Jedi. Hope you enjoy your Powerpoint presentation.


Eh, stuff like Snoke and the Knights of Ren take up maybe two minutes of the movie (and in the Knights of Ren’s case they aren’t explained, they’re just there and occasionally do stuff).

The puppet master, “architect of all your pain” stuff is just bad. It’s like they took Christoph Waltz’s stuff from Spectre and made it worse.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Soln on December 18, 2019, 05:51:51 PM
A YT critic (Jeremy Jahns) started off his review by calling it “memberberry soup”.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: SurfD on December 18, 2019, 06:23:36 PM
My question is: if this is the result they ended up with after TWO massive re-edits/shoots due to the fact that their first and second edit screenings ended up with feedback so bad the movie in it's original form was deemed practically unwatchable, then exactly how bad WAS the first and second edit?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on December 18, 2019, 07:46:29 PM
Kathleen Kennedy's head will be gone, but with a prearranged golden parachute. MAYBE Eisner as well, but he's probably safe.
Eisner? Did you mean CEO and Chairman of the Board Bob Iger? He's not going anywhere, having overseen the creation of the greatest film and TV studio of all time, at least not before his already stated retirement at the end of 2021 when his contract expires.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MahrinSkel on December 18, 2019, 08:35:45 PM
I've seen every Star Wars movie, *ever*, in theaters. Even Solo. which I didn't expect much from....

I may sit this one out. Wait for streaming.

--Dave


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 18, 2019, 09:13:52 PM
The narrative will be „well RoS sucked but it’s because JJ Abrams had to fix everything that Rian Johnson fucked up and that didn’t work out“. and not because it’s a design by committee appeasement to every gripe of a small but vocal raging mad fanbase.

It can very easily be both. Also, Last Jedi sucked hard.

Unfortunately, I'm a goddamn sucker, so will be seeing this on Saturday.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on December 18, 2019, 10:41:55 PM
If you're going into this looking to pick it to shreds, you will succeed.  It does a lot of things wrong.

On the other hand, it does a lot of things right.  Some parts of it I absolutely loved.  People have pretty strange expectations for their pretend magical space wizard movies.  I haven't fully digested what I saw, but I was more entertained by this than anything else I have seen this year, except possibly Endgame.  I for sure like it better than Last Jedi.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 18, 2019, 11:13:30 PM
Clearly, my expectations are supremely low. I don't think they'll be able to salvage what they started, but I'm giving them my money, so I must have some hope. Maybe... a new hope?

WOMP WOMP.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: schild on December 18, 2019, 11:37:01 PM
how many bad star wars movies need to exist until neckbeards just throw up their hands and say "fine, it's our Hellraiser"


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 19, 2019, 12:43:39 AM
If you're going into this looking to pick it to shreds, you will succeed.  It does a lot of things wrong.

On the other hand, it does a lot of things right.  Some parts of it I absolutely loved.  People have pretty strange expectations for their pretend magical space wizard movies.  I haven't fully digested what I saw, but I was more entertained by this than anything else I have seen this year, except possibly Endgame.  I for sure like it better than Last Jedi.

I realize your post is not directed at any one person. That said I can only speak for myself.

A look back through my post history will show that I'm not a huge fan of Star Wars, particularly in recent years. I thought Force Awakens was ok, and really didn't like Last Jedi.  Really enjoying the Mandalorian right now though so I am still capable of acknowledging when someone does something good with the property. I wasn't particularly interested in watching this movie but due to it being an aspect of my job I went ahead with it when the opportunity presented itself. As the guy who recently bought a 4k UHD of the r-rated cut of Tammy and the T-Rex, I feel confident in saying when I don't enjoy The Rise of Skywalker, it's not because I'm incapable of properly setting my expectations to suit the material. At least with Tammy and the T-Rex though, it feels like it's the movie the writer/director really wanted to make.

There are moments I liked in the movie, and throughout the trilogy I've consistently liked the cast. The narrative though feels like it's going through the motions because everyone knows they've got to put this trilogy behind them before they can all move on. There's not an ounce of inspiration in it. There's no indication that J.J. Abrams came back because he had come up with a great conclusion and really wanted to put it out there. There's every indication that he came back due to the reaction to TLJ. There is no soul to this movie, and a good chunk of the emotion it does manage to evoke is due to the real life passing of Carrie Fisher rather than anything the movie itself earns. It falls into the trap so many reboots, remakes, and sequels fall into, in that it's so referential to the original, that you should just be re-watching the original instead.

But "hey, it's a popcorn movie", and "turn off your brain" I can already hear people saying, while ignoring the fact that going all the way back to the original blockbuster of Jaws through the Marvel assembly line of today we've seen that you can make a fun popcorn flick that also has substance, good writing, and interesting characters. Even with all that aside though, what if you're just here for the spectacle and the laser swords? I'm struggling to think of even one action set-piece that's on par with the best ones in the series and I think the climactic space battle is actively bad with the exception of a quick cameo. With Phantom Menace we could almost all agree that while the movie is bad it has probably the best lightsaber fight in the franchise, but there's just nothing to latch onto here. Again, we go back to nothing here being inspired or clever. In a movie with spaceships and laser swords, they couldn't manage one "holy shit, that was cool" moment. Say what you will about Holdo's hyperspace ram in TLJ, at the very least it made for a cool visual.

The folks behind this movie made a calculated decision to finish this thing off by playing it as safe as possible. That's the one thing they succeeded in.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on December 19, 2019, 12:46:47 AM
how many bad star wars movies need to exist until neckbeards just throw up their hands and say "fine, it's our Hellraiser"
How many can they make before us Gen Xers are all dead? :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on December 19, 2019, 12:58:50 AM
If you're going into this looking to pick it to shreds, you will succeed.  It does a lot of things wrong.

On the other hand, it does a lot of things right.  Some parts of it I absolutely loved.  People have pretty strange expectations for their pretend magical space wizard movies.  I haven't fully digested what I saw, but I was more entertained by this than anything else I have seen this year, except possibly Endgame.  I for sure like it better than Last Jedi.

Stuff, plus more stuff.

I don't disagree as such with anything you said.  What it boils down to for me is simply that I like the actors and their acting, the visuals were good, some of the pandering that lots of people hate I actually like, the plot mostly made sense, the screenplay was executed competently, sprinkled in with feel good moments, etc.  I just came out of it feeling differently, even if I agree with your basic outline of the facts.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Soln on December 19, 2019, 06:40:02 AM
I like that the reviews and reactions are fully distracting me from the Impeachment.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Yegolev on December 19, 2019, 12:28:56 PM
how many bad star wars movies need to exist until neckbeards just throw up their hands and say "fine, it's our Hellraiser"

Not counting this new one, at least seven. Nine if you count differently.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on December 19, 2019, 07:02:58 PM
Ya'll are weird, I thought it was pretty good.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 19, 2019, 07:38:53 PM
I’d almost be willing to meet you halfway and say that it’s a technically competent if unoriginal movie, but I think the movie’s climax is actually bad.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on December 19, 2019, 08:27:02 PM
Threash liked it, I'm all set.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on December 19, 2019, 11:18:21 PM
I didn't hate it. There is some good stuff here if you are a fan and it is well-made technically. They just made one MONUMENTAL bad choice that tanks the movie overall. And they absolutely didn't need to. Major self-own.  I'll talk more about it after more people have seen it.l


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on December 19, 2019, 11:42:27 PM
Hmm.  I wonder if you are even thinking of the same "mistake" that I am.  Because if so, I didn't think so much of it at the time, but I am kinda thinking so now.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on December 20, 2019, 12:41:59 AM
The more I am thinking about it, the more angry I am getting. It...was...right...there.  A very nice thematic thru-put from A New Hope to the end of the saga that would have tied the entire thing together. Only needed a a few minor tweaks. Literally remove 3 lines of dialogue, change one character, and have the climax bring the theme home. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Fine, since I'm saucy now:

 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on December 20, 2019, 02:21:39 AM
It still baffles my mind why people think JJ Abrams is great. He’s just offensively mediocre in everything he does and he does not give a single fuck about any of the things he does.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Comstar on December 20, 2019, 04:48:06 AM
On the other hand, it does a lot of things right.  Some parts of it I absolutely loved.  People have pretty strange expectations for their pretend magical space wizard movies.  I haven't fully digested what I saw, but I was more entertained by this than anything else I have seen this year, except possibly Endgame.  I for sure like it better than Last Jedi.

What parts were done right? I need to find some :(


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on December 20, 2019, 04:56:06 AM
Not going to debate any of the specifics at this time, in part because I am still processing it myself, and in part because I don't think we want to turn this into a spoiler thread just yet.

Let's just say that for starters, I have the exact opposite opinion on the spoiler that Ab mentioned.  I think I even predicted exactly that scenario at some point since TFA, because I thought it made sense.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MisterNoisy on December 20, 2019, 02:40:42 PM
Watching this felt like watching a let's play of a middling-tier video game.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on December 20, 2019, 03:39:36 PM
Watching this felt like watching a let's play of a middling-tier video game.

I LOLed.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: schild on December 20, 2019, 04:41:21 PM
Watching this felt like watching a let's play of a middling-tier video game.

Let's Play Madden 2018.

I don't know what middling is. All I do is play good shit and ignore the rest.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 20, 2019, 11:01:31 PM
Not going to debate any of the specifics at this time, in part because I am still processing it myself, and in part because I don't think we want to turn this into a spoiler thread just yet.

Let's just say that for starters, I have the exact opposite opinion on the spoiler that Ab mentioned.  I think I even predicted exactly that scenario at some point since TFA, because I thought it made sense.

I'm in the same camp as you. There were parts I had issues with in this movie but in general I really enjoyed it. I'm not sure where I'd rank it among all the various Star Wars films yet but I know it's well above the Last Jedi. Ironically, the main issues I had with it relate back to the last Jedi as I felt the first 45 minutes of this movie could have replaced all the shitty stuff they had Poe and Finn waste their time on in the Last Jedi. It would have improved that movie a ton and let this one have some time to breath.

I'm curious to see how this one plays out. I suspect it will be divisive but for utterly different reasons to the Last Jedi. Last Jedi disappointed me so badly I skipped Solo which I ended up (mostly) enjoying. This one I enjoyed much more but it's still got some weak parts. About the only thing I agree with the critics on is that this feels like 2 movies in one a sort of super short Episode VIII and then episode IX for the last half. If any lessons are learned at Lucasfilm it needs to be "Han Solo can fly be the seat of his pants, but we can't, we need to plan this shit out."


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Phildo on December 21, 2019, 07:12:10 AM
My wife really enjoyed this, I found myself entertained but constantly pulled out by bits of fan service and stuff that didn't seem like it made any sense at all.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on December 21, 2019, 12:07:11 PM
JJ can't be assed to be deep or consistent.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Quinton on December 21, 2019, 01:22:26 PM
JJ clearly has absolutely no sense of scale.

Time, Distance, Size, Quantity, it's clearly all an incomprehensible mishmash to him (and as a result an utter mess in his movies).

And he has also clearly never learned that less is more.  Why have 10 of something when you could have 100, or 1000, or 10000?!



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Brolan on December 21, 2019, 01:49:17 PM
Not terrible, but a confused muddled mess of a movie.   The last 20 minutes were a long continuous WTF? moment.

The only part where I think it succeeded is that I finally grew to like the new characters.  It only took three moves for that to happen.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on December 21, 2019, 04:44:32 PM
JJ Abrams and transporting from Earth to Klingon.

It still baffles me that people are STILL standing there shocked when this fucking franchise Bruce Lee's their nuts. I shook the dust from my feet at the Phanton Menace, but 20 years later everyone else is STILL going "uh, Well it was kinda goods... ok lets commense the long bounce down into admitting movie sucks yet again... well the NEXT one will be good!!"

Star Wars sucks guys. It's loaded down with utter bollox. Its never getting better. Its time to just admit it. The best thing to come out of it since the original movies were the Knoghts of the Old Republic games, and thats becasue they took Lightsabers and stuck them into a different universe.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on December 21, 2019, 05:26:18 PM
Mandalorian is showing how Star Wars can be good when someone with half a brain is in charge of it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 21, 2019, 06:38:04 PM
Abrams' contempt for distance and remoteness as storytelling structures is an indication of how shitty he really is as a creator. These are basic even if you're doing an intimate crime drama that takes place in a single neighborhood. How long it takes to get from one place to another is vital; how hard it is to get from one place to another is crucial. Think of something like the original "Halloween" where the killer just teleports to his victim every time--the suspense created by him having to cross a physical space vanishes. Think of any movie you really like, and eliminate the constriction of distance and of terrain. About the only films that survive if you do that are parlor movies built around conversation--My Dinner With Andre, etc.

But it's especially awful when he's hired to work on franchises that depend on distance and material constraint to create some of the tension of their action. Imagine if in Episode IV, the moment they get in the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo just turns a switch and there's no issue with the blockade and seconds later they're looking the Death Star in the eye. Imagine if the Death Star just hyperspaces in right on top of Yavin IV and blasts it. Imagine if the Empire has no material constraints on searching for the Republic and can send a fleet to every star system within a few days. Etc. It's stupid and disrespectful to the basics of storytelling in this universe. (Or in Star Trek.)  Abrams is an idiot who should never have been let near this franchise except as a consultant.

But please go on telling us about how horrible The Last Jedi was. Because that's what let to Abrams being hired to serve us all vanilla pap.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: schild on December 21, 2019, 06:48:34 PM
distance, despite being a meme, was always horseshit in star wars anyway

why would that start mattering now


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 21, 2019, 10:12:41 PM
So this movie should have been titled Star Wars - Context is for Assholes. It is a complete and utter mess from start to finish. I mean, it started with the fucking text crawl - the mysterious message from Palpatine. I was like 'WUT?" in the theater. Just out of the blue, no connection to anything that has gone on in the last two movies or anywhere in between, fuck it, we'll just resurrect a long-dead character with zero context. And it continued on from there. The first half-hour looks like it was edited with a fucking woodchipper. Not just the film but the actual story. It felt like Burrough Naked Lunch writing experiment where he gets shithoused and throws up all these written pages in the air and whatever order they come down in, that's the way the story goes.

Worst parts


The set pieces were mind numbingly boring and impossible to follow, mostly due to having no real context and no actual sense of scale, just gobs of stupid shit thrown at the screen.

There were 2 positives though. Just two.


I spent a lot of time in the last two movies saying that Rey wasn't a Mary Sue character but JJ just couldn't resist it. She is just about the Mary Sue-est of Mary Sue characters. Just terrible fucking writing from top to bottom, and unlike a lot of JJ's other works, a complete mess technically, visually and thematically. He's a competent filmmaker, but this was not that. Not at all.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 21, 2019, 10:21:26 PM
But please go on telling us about how horrible The Last Jedi was. Because that's what let to Abrams being hired to serve us all vanilla pap.


I can tell you that Last Jedi was bad and still think Abrams is bad also. TLJ had some ideas but couldn't find a way to build a story around them. ROS had zero ideas but at least showed a base level of competence in creating a narrative regardless of it being completely uninspired.

I can also say that ignoring distance and travel time doesn't make the list of the biggest problems any of these movies have. That's the kind of stuff people generally start to nitpick when they already aren't liking the movie.

Also Michael Myers doesn't really teleport around in Halloween and the area where the (original) movie takes place is pretty well defined as we see people go back and forth between the houses where most of the action happens. If you want to say Jason teleports in the Friday the 13th movies by all means make your case, but leave Carpenter out of it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on December 21, 2019, 10:58:56 PM
I'm liking this movie less and less the more I think about and reflect on it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 21, 2019, 11:07:26 PM
I'm liking this movie less and less the more I think about and reflect on it.

Just writing my post about it made me angry. This movie didn't hold together well in the theater and even the slightest bit of retrospection absolutely annihilates it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 21, 2019, 11:13:43 PM


But please go on telling us about how horrible The Last Jedi was. Because that's what let to Abrams being hired to serve us all vanilla pap.


The Last Jedi was pretty bad. Probably the only Star Wars movie worse than it is the Attack of the Clones. Out of the 4 lead characters of the sequels it utterly screwed up the stories of two of them. It did alright by Rey and Kylo Ren but only barely. Killing Snoke and making Kylo Ren the new Supreme Leader was just facepalm bad. Not because I cared about Snoke but because Kylo Ren as the leader of the First Order isn't interesting. He's just not. And there's no convincing reason for them to follow him either.

This movie had issues but I think at least half of them came down to "Shit, the Last Jedi spun its wheels on all of our non-force characters and killed off the potential threat we had to replace him with the character that was supposed to be our Darth Vader. Now what the hell do we do?" Can you imagine if the big threat of this movie was Kylo Ren? He's possibly the best character in the sequel trilogy, but he's just not threatening enough to be the evil threat the heroes have to combine to take down.

Sadly, I think on the Force side of things the Last Jedi had some interesting points it was trying to make. The problem, and it's a fucking huge one, is what it was trying to do wasn't a fit for the middle part of a trilogy. Ideally the middle part of a trilogy should basically be act 2 of the story and spend its time challenging the heroes and getting all the pieces in place so the third movie can wrap it all up. The Empire Strikes Back and The Two Towers do an excellent job of this. The Last Jedi did an awful job of it and it meant this movie had to waste about a third of its runtime trying to do all that setup.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on December 21, 2019, 11:27:30 PM
I'm liking this movie less and less the more I think about and reflect on it.

Just writing my post about it made me angry. This movie didn't hold together well in the theater and even the slightest bit of retrospection absolutely annihilates it.

Was actually kinda funny. Went to a pre-opening day screening Thursday night. True die hard crowd. Only two moments got even the slightest reaction and even then they were pretty mild "wooos". Compared to the pre-opening night screening of Endgame where people were losing their shit so much I missed lines of dialogue.  It was just a mess.

My kid liked it though, so shows that spectacle can be effective on a fairly non-critical audience. Maybe that's what we reacted to back in the day and they are all messes.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 22, 2019, 12:54:29 AM
There were 2 positives though. Just two.




Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on December 22, 2019, 12:56:55 AM


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on December 22, 2019, 08:56:04 AM




Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 22, 2019, 10:16:09 AM

 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 22, 2019, 10:22:31 AM

Spoilers on spoilers.  :why_so_serious:



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 22, 2019, 11:33:33 AM

And the chain of spoilers continues:



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on December 22, 2019, 11:43:14 AM



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 22, 2019, 11:45:15 AM
Vaguely remember. Haven't watched TLJ since the theater. Have no intention of doing so again.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 22, 2019, 02:12:35 PM
It really isn't worth rewatching, especially when this movie really doesn't pay off much of anything they did there, for good or bad.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 22, 2019, 05:43:49 PM
Sorry, man, but the fans who flipped out on The Last Jedi own a lot of this. You might not have liked the way TLJ did what it did, but it had the right ideas: to move on, this series has got to get out of its ruts. The only people making Star Wars who know what they're doing are Favreau and Filoni. They need to give them total executive authority the way Feige has it with MCU stuff--and let them just say fuck you to the worst fans if they need to.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 22, 2019, 06:16:23 PM
Thing is, this movie feels like a checklist of "things to retcon/forget/change that the Internet hated," mixed with the usual callbacks to previous movies like when Lando says "I have a bad feeling about this." TLJ took chances but either did them badly or without good reason, and most of it didn't feel like Star Wars. This feels like Star Wars through the lens of an Internet forum full of incels with Star Wars bedsheets.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 22, 2019, 07:28:18 PM
So get it straight: do you see why a film that took chances with the property was worth backing even if you didn't like it, compared to incel-fandom wanting Luke to come out of hiding and kill the bad guys single-handedly and giving Snoke a detailed backstory and etc etc? This was the point all along: even if you didn't like the actual film if TLJ, it was the right WAY to go, basically. But every fucking dipshit complaint about Snoke needing a backstory or Rey not having a long enough training montage or Luke drinking alien seal milk or whatever led to this ho-hum checklist garbage. Sometimes you gotta back the artist even if he/she made a less than perfect work in order to get the train onto a better path.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 22, 2019, 07:35:25 PM
Sorry, man, but the fans who flipped out on The Last Jedi own a lot of this. You might not have liked the way TLJ did what it did, but it had the right ideas: to move on, this series has got to get out of its ruts. The only people making Star Wars who know what they're doing are Favreau and Filoni. They need to give them total executive authority the way Feige has it with MCU stuff--and let them just say fuck you to the worst fans if they need to.


I liked some of the ideas TLJ had but the movie didn’t work, and the middle of a trilogy was the wrong place to try to insert them. They were shoving a square peg into a round hole with that movie and you can’t tell me that if they just kept trying to force it in there for another movie that it would eventually fit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 22, 2019, 08:20:24 PM
Sorry, man, but the fans who flipped out on The Last Jedi own a lot of this. You might not have liked the way TLJ did what it did, but it had the right ideas: to move on, this series has got to get out of its ruts. The only people making Star Wars who know what they're doing are Favreau and Filoni. They need to give them total executive authority the way Feige has it with MCU stuff--and let them just say fuck you to the worst fans if they need to.


I liked some of the ideas TLJ had but the movie didn’t work, and the middle of a trilogy was the wrong place to try to insert them. They were shoving a square peg into a round hole with that movie and you can’t tell me that if they just kept trying to force it in there for another movie that it would eventually fit.

This. I would have applauded TLJ for taking chances but if you take your chances, they have to hit. And when you are in the middle of a BILLION dollar franchise, you have to take those chances with some kind of PLAN in place, as opposed to "well, we left it all up to Ryan to make the choices but we clearly didn't back him in those choices because Rise of Skywalker exists." If they had started Force Awakens with Rian Johnson, with those ideas in place and thought out from the get go, the 3rd installment in the trilogy would have been decent, though opinion likely would have been divided as much as it was on TLJ. The problem was that TFA went one way, and TLJ went a completely different fucking way without any seeming rhyme or reason or any connection to TFA. You can't do that in the middle of a trilogy.

That Disney clearly felt they needed to "make it up to the fans" with Rise tells me that they didn't really believe in Rian's vision either. They just realized too late that Star Wars fans are very particular about the type of turds that show up in their Star Wars boxes. Not sticking with the same writer through the entire trilogy was a HUGE mistake. Rise had all the problems that Solo did only it was much much worse.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 22, 2019, 08:32:24 PM
SOME Star Wars fans.

I'm a fan. I saw the first film 20 times in the summer of 1977. Fuck the people who got their panties in a bunch after TLJ. We didn't take a vote, we're not a country, nobody gets to declare themselves the real fan.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 22, 2019, 10:39:47 PM
SOME Star Wars fans.

I'm a fan. I saw the first film 20 times in the summer of 1977. Fuck the people who got their panties in a bunch after TLJ. We didn't take a vote, we're not a country, nobody gets to declare themselves the real fan.


Some of the people upset about TLJ were the usual crowd of assholes. The ones who attacked the actress who played Rose and whined about Rey.

But TLJ had major, major issues.

The slow motion space chase was just idiotic. It made no sense in the context of any other Star Wars movie, tv show, comic or novel. All the First Order had to do was have a couple of ships make small jumps in front of the Resistance and blow them out of the sky.
The hyperspace tracker also makes no sense. It's never mentioned anywhere else and didn't show back up in Rise of Skywalker though RoS arguably had an even worse version of it in the beginning of the movie.

Finn and Rose's entire storyline was an utter waste. I get what Rian was trying to do but the contrivance with the space chase and the fact it was all an utter waste of time in the story undercut it badly. Finn was intended to learn a lesson there except the events pictured on screen really taught him nothing and wasted a lot of screentime.

Poe's story taught him a lesson though I don't think it was the one Rian intended. The intention was that Poe needed to learn to think and to not rush into things. But what he really learned is a leader doesn't have to tell anyone else shit and it'll all work out because the leader is smarter than anyone else. Admiral Holdo didn't tell a single person what her plan was and some of the crew mutinied over it. But hey, it worked. Guess that's a valid leadership style!

I have fewer complaints about Kylo, Rey and Luke. I think that the handling of the story about the night Luke almost killed Kylo was well done. I liked most of the training scenes with Rey. On the other hand, I do think making Kylo the new Supreme Leader after killing off Snoke was boneheaded. Kylo's like...30 or so? He's an impulsive hot head who is obsessed with Rey. This does not have the makings of a good final villain. I had mixed opinions about Rey's parents. I get what Rian was going for. I get showing that you don't have to be a Skywalker or whatever to make a difference. But doing that in the middle of a trilogy that is tying up the story of the Skywalkers isn't the place to do it. You do that in a new series of movies that don't have expectations in them. You also don't do it after the previous movie dropped hints that her parentage was important. It felt like being subversive just to be subversive.

Remove all of Finn and Poe and make TLJ its own "Star Wars story" and it would have worked much better. But as Episode VIII of what was intended to be a long story about this family and their impact on the galaxy it was a huge misfire. And as much as I've liked Rian's work on other movies the writing at times was just utter shit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: pxib on December 23, 2019, 01:56:30 AM
Apropos nothing: The original trilogy done as an anime opening. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BblLfFqKyIg)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on December 23, 2019, 04:46:48 AM
TLJ had the Luke/Rey/Kylo arc and a bunch of dogshit. It was a dogshit movie built around a stupid fulcrum of their space gas was going to run out but they are being hyperspace tracked so they can't run anywhere!? OH NOES. That's the device the entire movie relies upon to exist. Which means its structurally fucked.

There's a bunch else wrong, I felt like the comedy was especially kiddy/bad/unfunny in TLJ to the point where it helped remind me that I was sitting in a theater and had paid a lot of money to be there. Stop defending that movie like anyone who calls it out for being a dickshit luser is a MRA/incel type, that's bogus.

Don't get me wrong. TFA was as bad and probably worse.


Apropos nothing: The original trilogy done as an anime opening. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BblLfFqKyIg)

Noragami OP is a banger but a very odd choice. Surprised they didn't go with like TTGL or Code Geass.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on December 23, 2019, 07:08:21 AM
We didn't take a vote, we're not a country, nobody gets to declare themselves the real fan.

This (https://www.google.com/search?q=the+last+jedi+box+office&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS789US789&oq=the+last+jedi+box+office&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l4j69i60l3.5744j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) is the only vote that matters anyways.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hammond on December 23, 2019, 10:10:48 AM
Finally got to watch this on Saturday.

I was born in 1976 so one of my earliest memories was Empires Strikes back. I was to young for A New Hope but we certainly watched it on VHS. With that in mind I didn't have high hopes for this movie and even so I was let down. Like others have said it was just not a good movie and a unfortunate ending to a long road.

Thankfully the Mandalorian is decent enough that I have that to fall back on and enjoy.

As far as money goes, In a 150 seat theater we had a grand told of 15 people. Not sure this was a reflection on the theater or the movie. When I watched Avengers at the same theater it was almost full on opening weekend. With 175 million estimated for the opening weekend it falls between Disney's estimate at 165 million and the 200 million investors were betting on. So it will be interesting where this will end up.







Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on December 23, 2019, 10:15:10 AM
https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/23/21034833/star-wars-episode-9-rise-of-skywalker-box-office-first-weekend

TFA: $494M opening weekend
TLJ: $437M opening weekend
ROS: $373M opening weekend

If we extrapolate that trend, after the next few trilogies they'll need paid seat-fillers, like at a Trump rally.   :why_so_serious:

We'll see if I can avoid seeing this one in theaters.  I didn't plan on seeing either of the last two but ended up getting dragged along and/or having my ticket paid for by people who were more excited about it than I was.  This time I don't think I know anyone IRL who's interested in it, outside of the handful of nutjob fans who already went and saw it and are pretending they liked it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: RhyssaFireheart on December 23, 2019, 12:22:08 PM
Just got back from seeing it with the husband and to be honest, I liked it. It felt like a satisfying end to the series to me and that's all that matters. *shrug*


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on December 23, 2019, 02:37:54 PM
Well clearly you are just pretending.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on December 23, 2019, 03:06:51 PM
I should elaborate -- the people I know who have been talking about it on my Facebooks have 100% been complaining about the "haters" and 0% been talking about how much they liked the movie in and of itself (except for general statements along the lines of "I've been waiting for the next Star Wars movie for so long," etc that could have been written independently of seeing the movie).  These are the same people who said that Ghostbusters 2016 was better than the original.  For a certain type of fan, I don't think it's about enjoying the actual thing, it's about winning some kind of personal culture war that started when they were in high school and the football jocks made fun of them for playing with action figures and has now become inextricably tied up with the need to oppose MRAs and incels on every battleground they can find.  And that's fine; I just don't engage with those people on any topic that's related to one of their fandoms and I completely disregard their opinion because I know they're evaluating things according to a set of criteria that have no relevance to me.

Rhyssa's review above was the most glowing and sincere praise I've seen yet of the actual movie, and it boiled down to "well, at least it's over".  Which is pretty much how I felt after the last episode of Game of Thrones.  


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 23, 2019, 06:28:18 PM
Look, there is nothing in TLJ that is idiotic as any number of scenes in Rise of Skywalker. But I'm sure the toxic fans who flipped out about the space casino or the slow-motion chase or the lightspeed destruction move will probably forgive this movie because it reprises every nostalgic impulse that babymen fans require.

Rise of Skywalker is easily the worst film in the series--it's not only creatively incompetent (like the prequels) but also grossly cynical (which the prequels weren't, at least). What a fucking awful cinematic abortion it is. It alternates between being boring, being confused, being desperate, and being incoherent, all the while making it a POINT to crap on the skills and possibilities of its likeable cast, its potentially interesting characters, and its situation. The few interesting moments and set-pieces are squandered, the humor is forced. There's about six movies trying to get out of the giant turd-monster they've been squeezed into, and only two of them are even interesting or possibly good.

I'm not even going to go into the hysterical attempts to throw off everything in TLJ as ballast, and the equally hysterical attempts to reassure the incel fans that don't worry Star Wars is not woke. Giving Finn a black girlfriend, having the two of them lightly suggest a mutual connection to a slave trade, and then having Lando Calrissan lightly suggest that there's a black planet out there that they might be from is the worst of it, but not the only.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 23, 2019, 06:31:24 PM
The last season of GOT was, by comparison, vastly better. This was incompetency, fuck-you, and "please preserve the value of the franchise" wrapped into one hysterical 2+ hour turd. As with all hastily digested turds, there are chunks of undigested food in it that could have been delicious, once.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on December 23, 2019, 07:44:53 PM
having Lando Calrissan lightly suggest that there's a black planet out there that they might be from

 :ye_gods:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 23, 2019, 09:01:40 PM
I'm not even going to go into the hysterical attempts to throw off everything in TLJ as ballast, and the equally hysterical attempts to reassure the incel fans that don't worry Star Wars is not woke. Giving Finn a black girlfriend, having the two of them lightly suggest a mutual connection to a slave trade, and then having Lando Calrissan lightly suggest that there's a black planet out there that they might be from is the worst of it, but not the only.

Yeah, I was cringing throughout the whole discussion between Finn and the other former Stormtrooper who is black and whose name I don't even remember (did she even say her name?). I kept thinking, "So wait, are they going to say that Finn doesn't totally want Rey and have him go with the black chick? Isn't that like asking for serious trouble?" But then they just completely never follow through on any of the hinted romantic angles ever at all. I can't tell if they were trying to be too subtle or they just fucking forgot in their haste to add another 1500 Star Destoyers to the scenes.

Also, I think you are underestimating just how idiotic Luke Skywalker drinking the green teat milk was.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: schild on December 23, 2019, 09:11:17 PM
having Lando Calrissan lightly suggest that there's a black planet out there that they might be from

 :ye_gods:

If this is a real thing that happened

Fucking lol

Jesus Christ star wars


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 23, 2019, 09:21:12 PM
It was as not-idiotic as him drinking blue milk on Tatooine. It was fine. It was funny. It was alien. All of strike me as good for Star Wars.

This fucking SHIT? This fucking horrible piece of garbage movie? It is all kinds of dumb nope. This WaPo essay gets at how it's like a bad--I mean REALLY bad videogame, with the worst fetch quests ever. https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2019/12/20/rise-skywalker-embraces-all-worst-parts-video-game-storytelling/



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 23, 2019, 09:26:19 PM
https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/23/21034833/star-wars-episode-9-rise-of-skywalker-box-office-first-weekend

TFA: $494M opening weekend
TLJ: $437M opening weekend
ROS: $373M opening weekend


I wonder how much of that is due to the mixed reaction the movie is getting and how much is fans legitimately going "Fuck this" after the Last Jedi. I wasn't one of the raving haters but TLJ was a factor in me skipping Solo (along with all the rumored issues of the movie). I imagine there are people who both disliked TLJ and have seen the bad reviews and are going "Meh, I'll watch it On Demand or something."


I'm not even going to go into the hysterical attempts to throw off everything in TLJ as ballast, and the equally hysterical attempts to reassure the incel fans that don't worry Star Wars is not woke. Giving Finn a black girlfriend, having the two of them lightly suggest a mutual connection to a slave trade, and then having Lando Calrissan lightly suggest that there's a black planet out there that they might be from is the worst of it, but not the only.


What? I mean...what? I get legitimate issues with the movie but this is just...really, really, really stretching. There was never a hint she was his girlfriend. They bonded over a shared past of being Stormtroopers. There wasn't a single exchange between them that suggested any romance at all. The "slave trade" is about the First Order snatching kids to make them into Stormtroopers. Something that was hinted at in the Force Awakens as well. It's why Finn didn't even have a name until Poe gave him one. As for Lando Calrissian suggesting there was a black planet I just can't. That's an utterly ridiculous reading of their exchange that went something like "Where are you from?" "Planet X, you?" "Dunno." "Well, maybe we'll find you a place to call home."

Quote
Nobody who claims they didn't like TLJ for its plot structure and for introducing new tech/etc could imaginably like this movie any better. If you hated that, you have to hate this ten times over, because it's ten times more incoherent and full of WTFuckery in storytelling and characterization terms.

Rise of Skywalker definitely has some eye rolling moments but trying to defend TLJs plot is just laugh out loud funny. Finn and Poe were wasted for an entire movie.  Rey Kylo and Luke had some good moments but Rian insisted on ruining them by not understanding he was working on the middle part of a trilogy and because he felt a need to subvert expectations but didn't really have a rhyme or reason to do it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 23, 2019, 09:28:00 PM
having Lando Calrissan lightly suggest that there's a black planet out there that they might be from

 :ye_gods:

If this is a real thing that happened

Fucking lol

Jesus Christ star wars

People who've seen it can tell me if I'm exaggerating it, but:

Finn meets a black lady who is like: oh, I'm a slave who revolted too and I always had a feeling I wasn't meant to be a stormtrooper, and so too my pals. (who are not all black, mind you)
He and black lady are like: yeah, we have a feeling--it's kind of like the Force, but you know, not?
They fight together and do vague PG-13 safe affection eyes at each other.
Then she says at the end to Lando Oh I don't know where I'm really from, where are you from? (As if she says that to all the people she meets, which she doesn't: she lives on the planet next to the Ewoks with a bunch of other traitors to the First Order)
He says Oh I'm from this planet, let me see if I can help you with where you're from.

Three black characters and they're all tied together over the film, with a clear hint that Lando knows something/is something in relation to the other two. Fuck that shit. Over on "The Mandalorian", Carl Weathers is just another fucking human giving out orders to bounty hunters, as it should be in a galaxy far far away.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on December 23, 2019, 09:38:38 PM
I thought Lando was just trying to fuck her because.....Lando.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 23, 2019, 09:45:24 PM
I thought Lando was just trying to fuck her because.....Lando.

That's a better reading than Khaldun's, that's for sure. "Hey baby, come on my ship and I'll take you to find a new home. Oh, do you like silk bed sheets? Because I have silk bed sheets."


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 23, 2019, 10:27:04 PM
There really is no defense of just about anything you said about Rise of Skywalker. It was layers upon layers of fuckstupid flailing from one fan wank idea to the next. That they basically relegated Rose to window dressing about as important as the big nosed blonde lady or Wedge Antilles was even more stupid, and was probably done simply because the incel crowd fucking hated her.

It doesn't make TLJ's problems any better, mind you - it just compounds them. It proves that nobody involved with the movies since Rogue One has clue one how to make a good movie franchise. Thanks to us, though, they'll happily fuck off to their golden parachutes.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on December 23, 2019, 10:29:29 PM
Why the fuck was Dominic Monaghan in this movie?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 23, 2019, 11:00:11 PM
I kept wondering the same thing.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 24, 2019, 01:10:52 AM
Why the fuck was Dominic Monaghan in this movie?

I assumed it was because he was in Lost and JJ was involved in that.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: 01101010 on December 24, 2019, 02:42:45 AM
having Lando Calrissan lightly suggest that there's a black planet out there that they might be from

 :ye_gods:

Read this and the first thing that popped into my head:
(https://i.imgur.com/HskBpIW.jpg)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 24, 2019, 05:16:36 AM
Look, Abrams was practically putting Kelly Marie Tran's head on the trophy wall for toxic fans--it's the only thing Rian Johnson has noted publically about the film. Abrams is certainly aware that the old joke about Lando Calrissian is that he was the only black guy in Star Wars because there was only one black planet--and I know I'm not imagining that they pointedly decide that the new black character has got to have a new black potential love interest whose connection to him is that she *also* was kidnapped and trained to serve an evil empire. Think about it, guys: I'm not imagining things here any more than it was imagining things to hear the Trade Federation goofballs sounding like Charlie Chan movies back in The Phantom Menace. Except that Abrams is a more self-aware (and vastly more cynical) film-maker than Lucas, so I don't think he could just accidentally do something like that.

There's the pure weirdness of trying to shoehorn new characters in the film who either do nothing (Monaghan) or who are essentially NPC quest givers who might as well have question marks over their heads. There's the dumbness of hinting that Richard E. Grant is somebody important when he seems to just be a guy who must have been an ensign back on the old imperial fleet. There's the complete dumbness of the Knights of Ren running around with Kylo Ren just so Abrams can say "SEE? SEE! I put them in the movie! They're real!"

There is probably the equivalent of the no-Jar Jar cut that would just be the material with Kylo Ren and Rey that wouldn't be half-bad though I think it's harder here because there aren't parallel plots so much. Though even there there's a lot of missing chances to do resonant, interesting deep cuts on Star Wars lore that I guarantee Dave Filoni would not have passed up. Rey and Ben/Ren are the best things in the movie and in the sequels generally.
There is so much hackery, so many bad intentions, in this film. There is so much that makes absolutely no sense in plot terms or in terms of established SW canon/lore. Christ, after all the effort to cleverly retcon WHY the Death Star had one weakness and nearly bankrupted the Empire (twice) to build,
And since they are doubtless going to make more movies after this, just consider stuff like Force teleporting in future stories. Not that distance matters at all any more in SW, considering that the entire film happens within 24 hours,
Let's not forget a healthy chunk of stupid-mcguffinism plot involving C-3PO
How about  

It is a garbage movie.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on December 24, 2019, 06:00:16 AM
Well at least Star Wars is delivering its usual dose of fucking retarded posts.

Like the idea that a franchise that makes this kind of money is pandering to some vocal sub minority that exists only for the very-very-online... Jesus regain some sanity and perspective. If the movie is bad or tone deaf or insultingly stupid its because JJ Abrams is a twat mongoloid, these movies are reeling from how shit each one is and the result as been to triple down on the focus group and executive second guessing, that unlike MCU this doesn't have someone with vision and leadership at the helm, etc. etc. Its not because they thought making incels happy would earn that extra half to 1.5 billion they are shooting for. The fuck are you even smoking.

The box office numbers are funny to me. TFA was such an uninspiring rehash that it hurt TLJ's numbers. TLJ was such a huge piece of shit that its going to hurt this one's numbers. None of these movies ever generated any real positive word of mouth. I've never heard anyone suggest this is great star wars or its as good as the originals or anything like that who was a normal human being. Its all this shit:
For a certain type of fan, I don't think it's about enjoying the actual thing, it's about winning some kind of personal culture war



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 24, 2019, 06:12:51 AM
I think you're profoundly wrong if you think they don't care about the online conversation over the last film. I guarantee you the suits have been involved directly in some of the decisions you see on the screen in this film and that some of them are very much signals intended to reassure one group of fans.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on December 24, 2019, 06:23:11 AM
I liked this more than I thought I would.

The dialog is... bad.
The big space fight was no return of the jedi.
People dying and then not being dead two seconds later was a real problem.
I absolutely hate the Rey reveal but didn't stop my enjoyment because it was irrelevant after her conflict had been shown far more effectively earlier in the film.

But it was fun. Definitely better than force awakens. At several points the sense of just rolling from one crisis to another made me think  what they've made here is Indiana Jones the Star Wars film. But this is what JJA does. The wife who is a fairly normal person also thought it was good.

They made a cavalry charge on a space ship work, so there's that.

Rey and Kylo/Ben were both great, and Richard E Grant single handedly saved the first order.

Why the fuck was Dominic Monaghan in this movie?

He wasn't really. He was a background character who said background character dialog because someone had to. I get that the way Rose was treated sucks balls but don't understand why people keep bringing up a glorified extra as a point of comparison.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 24, 2019, 07:10:49 AM
Because the movie is overstuffed with pointless shit like introducing new pointless characters, or pausing to give Chewbacca the medal he never got in Episode IV, etc.

This essay lays out a lot of really good thinking about why this is a really bad movie on multiple levels: https://medium.com/@nettlefish/the-rise-of-skywalker-memorabilia-without-memory-a-misunderstanding-of-hope-8b4976f41df1


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 24, 2019, 08:35:08 AM
I think you're profoundly wrong if you think they don't care about the online conversation over the last film. I guarantee you the suits have been involved directly in some of the decisions you see on the screen in this film and that some of them are very much signals intended to reassure one group of fans.


This is true. It was stupid, and it made the movie even more confused and stupid as a result, but there are CLEAR markers in this movie that the incel Internet rage actually did affect story choices. Why they would choose to listen to it, I have no idea. Probably because TLJ didn't make as much as TFA and then Solo was a giant steaming dud at the box office despite being a serviceable but unremarkable and forgettable movie.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: calapine on December 24, 2019, 10:05:28 AM
But Khaldun, just because incels hated TLJ for the wrong reasons doesn't mean it didn't really, really suck.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on December 24, 2019, 10:55:09 AM
Because the movie is overstuffed with pointless shit like introducing new pointless characters, or pausing to give Chewbacca the medal he never got in Episode IV, etc.


He wasn't a character, he was an extra that you just happened to know.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 24, 2019, 11:04:31 AM
Not gonna go round on TLJ again, but there were plenty of people who liked it a lot, and I'm one of them.

I cannot imagine liking this one a lot. I can imagine people liking a few of the set pieces or liking the characters or liking a spare idea or two floating around the script, but even the most generous viewer in the world would have to concede it's a goddamn narrative mess at best. I cannot muster anything even remotely like that charitable spirit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 24, 2019, 11:41:38 AM
I think you're profoundly wrong if you think they don't care about the online conversation over the last film. I guarantee you the suits have been involved directly in some of the decisions you see on the screen in this film and that some of them are very much signals intended to reassure one group of fans.


This is true. It was stupid, and it made the movie even more confused and stupid as a result, but there are CLEAR markers in this movie that the incel Internet rage actually did affect story choices. Why they would choose to listen to it, I have no idea. Probably because TLJ didn't make as much as TFA and then Solo was a giant steaming dud at the box office despite being a serviceable but unremarkable and forgettable movie.

*looks pointedly at the same-sex kiss at the end of the movie* Yeah...pretty sure this movie wasn't made to appease the Incel crowd. I think Rose being sidelined boils down to the writers didn't know what to do with her character. She's not a combat character. She's a tech. I guess they could've had her save the day by hot wiring the com tower to crash all the Star Destroyers or something but they didn't.  Trying to turn it into some kind of "incels hated her, quick, keep off screen as much as possible!" is about as pants on head stupid as Khaldun's ongoing obsession with the African Americans in this movie and trying to turn their interactions into uhhh...I'm not even sure really what his point is.

Worst case scenario Re: Rose. JJ was pouting about the way Rian discarded plot ideas left and right and wrote a movie that left little to follow up on for the third movie so sidelined her out of spite. That presumes, of course, that the other writers on the movie felt the same as him and that he is that petty which I don't think he is.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on December 24, 2019, 12:31:11 PM
I think you're profoundly wrong if you think they don't care about the online conversation over the last film. I guarantee you the suits have been involved directly in some of the decisions you see on the screen in this film and that some of them are very much signals intended to reassure one group of fans.


This is true. It was stupid, and it made the movie even more confused and stupid as a result, but there are CLEAR markers in this movie that the incel Internet rage actually did affect story choices. Why they would choose to listen to it, I have no idea. Probably because TLJ didn't make as much as TFA and then Solo was a giant steaming dud at the box office despite being a serviceable but unremarkable and forgettable movie.

fucking. retarded.

billions of $$$.

the internet is so much bigger than the tiny shithole part you happen to be aware of because you give a fuck enough to fight this stupidass online culture war.

i'm american. i speak english. i'm online every day. i don't use facebook. i do use twitter. i'm remotely-remotely aware of the entire incel/mra/gamergate nonsense. ITS NOT A REAL THING FOR REAL PEOPLE. it doesn't move the needle in the real world. jesus christ stop falling for the places that have you as an audience clickbait feeding you this dumbass shit as if its real and important. the planet is huge. Disney wants all of them to watch. if you think that the incels versus Rose is a real thing on a planetary scale i cannot comprehend what a absolute fucking retard you are.

if you don't think that, then huge writing/plotting decisions were not made in this billions $$$$$ enterprise just to appease those people.

fucking hell

this is as pathetic as the whole Star Wars would be good if it wasn't for the conspiracy to appease the left that came after movie #2. both sides of this tiny unimportant to anyone who isn't a frontline true believer warrior slapfight are dumb as fuck. both movies sucked because the whole thing is so weighted down and run by idiots and nobody has the balls or leadership to grab hold and even attempt a good movie and if Rian Johnsson was doing that then he's just such a fucklord incompetent that it didn't work out.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 24, 2019, 01:09:40 PM
I just did a youtube search on Star Wars The Last Jedi. 2nd result is "Why Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a Complete Cinematic Failure" with just close to 8.5 million views. I'm pretty sure Disney is aware of Internet backlash against their movies. I'm reasonably sure they have multiple people employed whose jobs are largely devoted to looking at online reactions, and compiling it in various ways. That's not to say that they made story decisions specifically designed to appeal these specific groups of people, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that online reaction likely played a part in going back to Abrams and moving away from TLJ.

As far as "ITS NOT A REAL THING FOR REAL PEOPLE" there are a good number of people I've personally never heard of who are out there making millions of dollars on youtube or other social media. That kid who reviews toys has over 20 million followers. I don't know a single one of them but apparently they're out there. It's because the Internet is so big that I'm not going to just outright dismiss a segment of it as not being significant enough to "move the needle in the real world". It would be comforting to think that I'm one of the "real people" and that everything else that's not firmly on my radar is just fringe bullshit that nobody pays attention to, but that's increasingly not the case.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 24, 2019, 01:39:25 PM
Guys, if nothing else, Abrams very clearly set out to make a movie with a checklist of "things Rian Johnson did in the second movie that I need to cancel out". It reminded me of how John Byrne would get a new comic book assignment and set out programmatically to cancel out everything the last couple of writers had done with the characters--not just make his own stories, that would come later. First, bury everything the last guy did. Maybe he just did that out of personal distaste for Johnson's film. Who knows. It's also pretty fucking clear that Disney corporate had no real plan for these films overall--you don't get into a situation where you make one movie, then shift notably in the next movie, then let the third movie cancel out everything in the middle movie.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on December 24, 2019, 02:51:32 PM
Maybe he just did that out of personal distaste for Johnson's film. Who knows.
Or maybe Abrams did it cause Johnson did it to his film.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on December 24, 2019, 03:44:13 PM
My suspicion is that this didn't have a proper writer spending time on it at any point and so the project just sort of went wherever it went till it ran out of time and something had to be filmed.

The incel pandering is not something a single person in a large corporation could or would ever have said out loud, but it is plainly there.

Lack of a real writer trying to do a particular thing with the movie meant it bent easily to cultural influence and made it very risk averse. But nobody was trying to 'undo' the last film or any such nonsense.

Was still fun.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 24, 2019, 03:55:26 PM
It didn’t have a proper writer, period. In addition to Abrams writing this time, his credited screenplay co-writer was the guy who co-wrote the screenplays for Batman v Superman, and Justice League because some people get an infinite number of big chances.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on December 24, 2019, 04:05:36 PM
And that has been the exact problem with the two JJA star wars films since the day Micheal Arndt left episode 7.

But it was still fun for me in the same way GoT season 8 was fun.

This was JJA doing what JJA does and operating entirely within his limitations.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 24, 2019, 05:33:24 PM
Disney wants all of them to watch. if you think that the incels versus Rose is a real thing on a planetary scale i cannot comprehend what a absolute fucking retard you are.

if you don't think that, then huge writing/plotting decisions were not made in this billions $$$$$ enterprise just to appease those people.

You ALMOST had the idea surrounded, but then you fucked it.

Watch the movie (well, not really because it's not worth it). The problem isn't that they were trying to please the incels - they problem was clearly they were trying to appease EVERYONE. ALL OF THEM AT THE SAME TIME. It's just one of the reasons the movie is an utter wreck. There's same sex kissing, there's the sidelining of Rose, there's the weird hints at romantic connections between like 5 different people none of which is carried off. The black planet thing that Khaldun is alluding to is something that could CERTAINLY be inferred from what's on screen (and I certainly inferred it) because none of it was given even the slightest bit of resolution or thought enough to complete a full fucking sentence, much less make a statement. Neckbeard Star Wars fans were pandered to with the return of Palpatine without any fucking consideration for how stupid the whole thing would be. Giant fuckstupid space battles with no rhyme or reason or flow because MORE SPACE BATTLES. Luke's X-Wing. Switchblade lightsaber. DOUBLE LIGHTSABERS! Teleporting physical objects through the Force. Hereditary Force powers. The moisture farm. And the list goes on and on.

It's all the "what do we call you? Oh, you're by yourself? YOUR NAME IS SOLO!" kind of shit from Solo only without even the barest skeleton of a sensible plot.

I'm not saying the whole movie was made to suck up to incels, I'm saying the whole movie was made to try to appease the entire loudmouth Internet wailing banshee crowd AND make it spectacle enough to get everyone else's money as well. It wasn't a movie for a specific audience, it was a movie for EVERY AUDIENCE EVER PLEASE GOD GIVE US ALL YOUR MONEY AND STOP CRITICIZING US.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 24, 2019, 06:00:43 PM
Because Goddamnit Ryan is funny (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2zZFtq13c4).


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on December 24, 2019, 06:27:03 PM
There was a clear attempt to undo a lot of what TLJ did, this is obviously going to look like attempting to please the incels because TLJ triggered the fuck out of them. That doesn't mean that was their intention, it was more of a side effect.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 24, 2019, 07:55:02 PM
JJA left the next guy nowhere to go after TFA except to reprise ESB, because TFA is just a re-hash of ANH. The idea that one could have loyally continued the story as JJA left it in TFA is silly on the face of it, because loyally continuing would have meant doing dinner theater Star Wars re-enactments.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on December 24, 2019, 08:02:56 PM
(https://media.giphy.com/media/l2JedG2QLeLs3wNAk/giphy.gif)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on December 24, 2019, 08:07:58 PM
I mean JJA didn't force TLJ to suck ass. Rey, Kylo, Finn and Poe could have been the skeleton of any number of SW movies.

TFA WAS WORSE. In no way did JJA serve up some vision that just needed to be dunked home. But that in no fucking way excuses the myriad of incredibly lame shit that was TLJ. Nobody forced that retarded Rose's sister opening, the slow space chase bullshit, the entire purple hair idiot, the fucking hyperspace kamikaze shit, Rose in general, fucking casinogate, Poe trolling the goddamn battleship captain with a prank call......  none of that has anything to do with JJA's wank. It was just some new fuckhead's bad movie making wank.

Fucking Star Wars. Why is everyone so hellbent on making up excuses for why they suck when they suck? Solo was a far superior first movie of a trilogy than TFA. It wasn't good but that it could have become something good is easy enough for me to imagine, I thought Dany would be the big weakness but she was ok, hell young Han wasn't the worst just the origin story was fucking lame and origin story prequels ARE FUCKING OMEGA LAME. TFA could have been redeemed if someone talented had taken the characters it invented and gone somewhere cool with them. It didn't happen. At all.

Rogue One. good.
Lots of Phantom Menace. Good enough.
Mandalorian. Fantastic.
Clone Wars. Watchable but its much more a kids cartoon than an adults cartoon imo.
Solo. Not great. A lame origin movie but I was not hating the thought of seeing the next one.

TFA and TLJ? Absolutely gutter trash. Irredeemable piles of shit. I cannot take anyone seriously who tries to claim those are legit fun decent movies. Right up there with Attack of the Clones I'm not even going to try to rank which of those 3 piles is the worst or best, that's foolish.

Star Wars is like Gundam. The basic idea is gangbusters, warrior-monk's with caster abilities and laser swords that can deflect laser-bullets back at people + space opera + steampunk'ish tech level mishmashes sure. Serve it up. Love it. But a lot of the time they make bad Star Wars just like they make bad Gundam. Its just how it is. Let it happen and stop making it such a miserable fuckfest defending this shit when's its clearly shit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on December 24, 2019, 08:20:58 PM
Nah.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on December 24, 2019, 11:10:33 PM
Because Goddamnit Ryan is funny (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2zZFtq13c4).

Quote
MAKE THEM KISS.

 :drill: :drillf:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on December 24, 2019, 11:22:24 PM
Heh, "potentially both."


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on December 25, 2019, 12:13:12 AM
Maybe he just did that out of personal distaste for Johnson's film. Who knows.
Or maybe Abrams did it cause Johnson did it to his film.


Uhh no? TLJ picked up right where TFA left off.

Mad about Sad Luke?(SLuke from now on). Han Solo tells the main characters in TFA that Sad Luke was a thing. Straight up said he was in self exile

Mad about the duration of the film with Rey being trained in short amount of time? TFA both said that the first order would attack their base right after they finished the attack on the starkiller base(this done to give the attack stakes) and also ended with Rey on SLukes planet!

Mad about casino planet? Well too bad casino planet is a necessary arc for Finn. Because he doesnt get one in the first movie (he starts having wanted to run away from the FO and only goes back to help Rey run away from the FO)

Mad about Holdo? Well fuck you female resistance generals wear dresses since fucking Star Wars.

Almost certainly things were planned all the way till RoS until jj and corporate listened to the hate mob. TLJ continued from the threads TFA left. The movies had a clear thematic construction with each one focusing on one of the big three (Hans movie is TFA, Lukes movie was TLJ, leia would have gotten RoS) as a send off to both the character and actors. (Ford getting his one movie deal was a nice touch)

TLJ didnt even do badly (more or less every second film in a trilogy does worse ESB made roughly the same ratio from Star Wars (1.4x ESB) as TLJ did from TFA(1.54x TLJ) and Star Wars was a far superior movie in a far less competition for the successor in an era of far higher inflation. (Similar ballyhoos have been made about home sales when second parters also see huge drop offs as people wait for the box set and also there has been a full halving of the physical media sales over the last 5 years because streaming won)

TLJ is great. Best star wars in a long damn time. Could have done without the prank call though.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 25, 2019, 12:43:18 AM
I can't take anyone seriously who says TLJ was great especially when combined with the casino was necessary for Finn's arc. I really don't know what happened to Rian Johnson when he made this movie but something clearly did. Maybe he didn't have enough time to work on it or something. But what he wrote was mostly pretty damn bad. Prequel level bad. Attack of the Clones bad.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: IainC on December 25, 2019, 12:51:21 AM
<words>

How are you so consistently wrong on so many topics? I really am struggling to think of anyone who's calibrated to magnetic wrong as precisely as you.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on December 25, 2019, 12:59:38 AM
I can't take anyone seriously who says TLJ was great especially when combined with the casino was necessary for Finn's arc. I really don't know what happened to Rian Johnson when he made this movie but something clearly did. Maybe he didn't have enough time to work on it or something. But what he wrote was mostly pretty damn bad. Prequel level bad. Attack of the Clones bad.


Finn ends TFA not being a rebel and still wanting to run away. He needs an impetus to both push him off the fence (hence the casino where we meet the people who are living it up on the fence and the pain they bring others) and then to make sure that he onows that hate leads to the dark side. They could have done something else sure. But it cant be with the resistace or first order else we have the same situation as he has had before that doesnt get him off the fence. This doesnt have to be a casino planet fine but it does have to be something. (There is also some intentional force discussion going on where both escapes are a result of following the animals)

If there is a fault there is the pacing, not the writing. The sequence doesnt need to end with an action scene. But it does need to end with them having picked up DJ so they can reject him later.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on December 25, 2019, 03:05:06 AM
<words>

How are you so consistently wrong on so many topics? I really am struggling to think of anyone who's calibrated to magnetic wrong as precisely as you.

You called?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on December 25, 2019, 03:11:02 AM
Die Hard Star Wars fans are a more rabid fan base than any group of pre teen WB drama shippers or Frozen fan girls could ever be.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on December 25, 2019, 10:46:29 AM
I only see "rabid" come from one side of this discussion and it certainly doesn't seem to be from the ones that liked it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on December 25, 2019, 11:02:03 AM
Is there any other fan base where people get annoyed and outright angry with someone for liking something?

“You’re wrong for liking TFA and here’s why, assface!”


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on December 25, 2019, 11:22:23 AM
Does anyone think TFA was particularly bad? Its got some JJisms but they dont overwhelm the film. Solidly medicore. Well better than medicore, it just doesnt do anything particularly interesting and so its kinda forgettable


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on December 25, 2019, 11:48:31 AM
Does anyone think TFA was particularly bad? Its got some JJisms but they dont overwhelm the film. Solidly medicore. Well better than medicore, it just doesnt do anything particularly interesting and so its kinda forgettable

Yes.  It was as bad as any of the prequels, just in a different way.  As much as TLJ was a terrible Star Wars movie, it was at least competent in some basics, whereas TFA felt like some one who had seen a movie once trying to make a movie without understanding what makes a movie work.  If not for the talented cast and crew working around Abrams rather than with him, it would be a total disaster.  TFA is basically a showcase for production value rather than a movie.  TLJ at least works as some non-SW sci fi movie on the same level as Chronicles of Riddick or Flash Gordon.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rendakor on December 25, 2019, 12:14:59 PM
Does anyone think TFA was particularly bad? Its got some JJisms but they dont overwhelm the film. Solidly medicore. Well better than medicore, it just doesnt do anything particularly interesting and so its kinda forgettable

Yes.  It was as bad as any of the prequels, just in a different way.  As much as TLJ was a terrible Star Wars movie, it was at least competent in some basics, whereas TFA felt like some one who had seen a movie once trying to make a movie without understanding what makes a movie work.  If not for the talented cast and crew working around Abrams rather than with him, it would be a total disaster.  TFA is basically a showcase for production value rather than a movie.  TLJ at least works as some non-SW sci fi movie on the same level as Chronicles of Riddick or Flash Gordon.
I feel the complete opposite of this. TFA was fine as a popcorn movie, TLJ actively undermined TFA and had no place existing in the middle of a trilogy.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on December 25, 2019, 01:09:27 PM
Does anyone think TFA was particularly bad? Its got some JJisms but they dont overwhelm the film. Solidly medicore. Well better than medicore, it just doesnt do anything particularly interesting and so its kinda forgettable

On a rewatch, everything after Jakku is boring with the exception of Kylo and Han Solo on the bridge.

Jakku is good though.

On a first watch only the green planet in the middle was properly boring.

TLJ I have no issues with as a film on its own.

Where all three films have real issues, is as part of a world building canon, because all of them see their own story as bigger than the world they are in. In that sense they are more operatic than the other star wars films. The only thing that matters to these films or is visible in them is the four main characters and the spectacle of their plot. My favourite single example of this is the Finn - Phasma relationship, Phasma is an unremarkable infantry captain who just keeps showing up everywhere and apparently in charge of almost everything. There is no sense in which we take our first steps into a wider world.

This is arguably unfair on TLJ which tries to do more, but isn't very successful in doing so.

But what they definitely do not do is leave a sequel era open to the imagination and to further works the way that both the original and prequel trilogies do.

JJA star wars is a bit like the late GoT seasons, I still enjoyed them as a spectacle but only when I go in knowing the limitations of the directors and writers involved.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 25, 2019, 02:40:02 PM
TFA is fine as an attempt to continue onto the end zone after two fumbles and lost yardage in the previous play series. It didn't really move the ball forward but it got everybody's heads clear and out of a panic mode after the previous disaster.

I don't deny that the narrative line of TLJ is an overlabored mess but the work it's doing with world-building, with character building, and with setting a new course forward out of this last trilogy is fantastic and what Star Wars absolutely needed. Luke's last act is one of the great attempts to tell the story of a hero after his labors (the others being Dark Knight Returns and Robin and Marian). It's really smart and interesting and so very right. TLJ tried to give Poe an actual character arc (whereas Rise of Skywalker decides to just tell us 'oh he had a past life as Han Solo, that's what he is, the new Han Solo, really". It tried to figure out who Finn actually is--and take seriously that he was a person who just wanted to get away from it all. It tried to think about whether the struggle against fascism takes more than just having plucky heroes and desperate plans. It tried to think of a new thing to do with the bad guy and the good guy.

It would have been better frankly for that to be the idea from the first movie, but in some sense I get why you want to clear the field first and then make some new moves. That's why I loathe Rise of Skywalker so very much. It fatally combines cowardice with narrative incompetence and then pisses cynicism over the mix. Rise of Skywalker isn't trying to move the ball downfield: it's the coaches deciding the season is over and they're going to throw the game and hope to get a good draft pick next season. It's a gutless piece of trash. At least TLJ was trying to think its way towards some new storytelling beats.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 25, 2019, 02:47:01 PM
I can't take anyone seriously who says TLJ was great especially when combined with the casino was necessary for Finn's arc. I really don't know what happened to Rian Johnson when he made this movie but something clearly did. Maybe he didn't have enough time to work on it or something. But what he wrote was mostly pretty damn bad. Prequel level bad. Attack of the Clones bad.


Finn ends TFA not being a rebel and still wanting to run away. He needs an impetus to both push him off the fence (hence the casino where we meet the people who are living it up on the fence and the pain they bring others) and then to make sure that he onows that hate leads to the dark side. They could have done something else sure. But it cant be with the resistace or first order else we have the same situation as he has had before that doesnt get him off the fence. This doesnt have to be a casino planet fine but it does have to be something. (There is also some intentional force discussion going on where both escapes are a result of following the animals)

If there is a fault there is the pacing, not the writing. The sequence doesnt need to end with an action scene. But it does need to end with them having picked up DJ so they can reject him later.

The writing is just plain bad. I understood Finn's arc. I understood Poe's arc. But neither was handled competently. Finn's arc just sort of meanders around and all he really learns is the galaxy has some terrible people in it and you shouldn't trust anyone. Oh, and also you should do whatever it takes to support the Resistance, except put yourself in danger. It's better to let everyone in that base die and the Resistance get wiped out as opposed to you doing whatever it takes to stop it. Because...uhh...love or something? Poe's arc is just as problematic because he is supposed to be taught what it means to lead and put others first. But the person left to teach him while Leah is in a coma is the worst kind of leader imaginable. It causes me pain to type that because I love Laura Dern but her character was just horribly written. Holdo is only tolerable because Laura Dern rose above the writing when she could.

Ironically, for as much shit as TFA gets for being A New Hope rehash, TLJ is a rehash of ESB by someone who only read the summary on the back of an old VHS tape and didn't really understand how any of it works. "Ok, so split the heroes up. Check. Make one hero learn some lessons. Check. Go to a casino in the clouds? OOOOOO. I'll put it on a planet. Check! At-AT fight on a planet covered in white stuff. OOOOO I'll have it have red stuff underneath and put it at the end of the movie after I've killed off most of the good guys and the supposed threat of the bad guys and let them be led by the tortured man-child whose arc was clearly never intended to go here!"


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 25, 2019, 03:32:26 PM
To me, TFA was fine as an homage to the original Star Wars with some decent hooks for future stories to build on, but as a standalone piece was mostly forgettable. It fits right in JJA's ouevre as technically competent, visually interesting and with enough bare bones of a plot to sequelize. TLJ was a mess - it tried to ignore many of the interesting hooks from TFA but take them in directions no one would expect (admirable) but it wasn't executed particularly well. The best parts of TLJ were also the best parts of ROS - the Force conversations between Ren and Rey. Again, TLJ had some visually interesting moments, particularly the salt planet and the hyperspace ramming. It's story ideas might have been interesting but they didn't feel particularly cohesive with the rest of the Star Wars movies, almost as if they were trying to stake out a new trilogy in the middle of another one. The casino planet and war profiteering subplots might of themselves have made an interesting exploration of a different part of the Star Wars universe but they didn't feel like a good fit for a pointless subplot in the middle movie of a trilogy, nor was there enough time or meat for them to be an actual interesting plot. The overarching theme of TLJ seemed one of constant failure - every one from the villains to the heroes failed at what they were trying to do. The other plot theme, that of the Force being a random, universal blessing that didn't restrict itself to heredity was also an interesting theme that was immediately ignored by JJA in ROS.

ROS was just spectacle wrapped around fan wank and fetch quests, a movie of bullet points on a Powerpoint presentation, each bullet point representing an audience type that either needed to be re-wooed or a new audience to be marketed to. It was a terrible movie as a result, pretty but ultimately stupid and pointless.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 25, 2019, 03:46:45 PM
Let me say that I have special hatred reserved for Abrams (and here I think the suits') insistence on reverting the Force to being something that only a special lineage can inherit in strength. It is 1000% against the pseudo-Buddhist stuff Lucas was cribbing from in ANH and it is really gross in its implications. The galaxy SHOULD overthrow the fucking Jedi AND Sith: they're essentially two lines of hereditary nobility/X-Men mutants who keep blowing up planets, lopping off arms, appointing themselves police. If on the other hand the Force connects all living things and all living things can learn to feel it or be appreciative of it--and its favors are not bestowed by heredity--then hating people who wield the Force is like hating life itself. It plays to the absolute worse "fans are slans" tendencies among SF/fantasy fans, the nurturing of a secret feeling that the fan is the destined one, the noble in waiting, etc.--it's the intersection point between Randian libertarianism and SF fandom.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Surlyboi on December 25, 2019, 05:26:23 PM
Can we just take a second to appreciate the fact that
As much of a fan service, 'let's not upset the inches any more than we already have" shitshow this flick is, I do like the little bit of headcanon that's happening there for me.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on December 25, 2019, 06:09:47 PM
I can't take anyone seriously who says TLJ was great especially when combined with the casino was necessary for Finn's arc. I really don't know what happened to Rian Johnson when he made this movie but something clearly did. Maybe he didn't have enough time to work on it or something. But what he wrote was mostly pretty damn bad. Prequel level bad. Attack of the Clones bad.


Finn ends TFA not being a rebel and still wanting to run away. He needs an impetus to both push him off the fence (hence the casino where we meet the people who are living it up on the fence and the pain they bring others) and then to make sure that he onows that hate leads to the dark side. They could have done something else sure. But it cant be with the resistace or first order else we have the same situation as he has had before that doesnt get him off the fence. This doesnt have to be a casino planet fine but it does have to be something. (There is also some intentional force discussion going on where both escapes are a result of following the animals)

If there is a fault there is the pacing, not the writing. The sequence doesnt need to end with an action scene. But it does need to end with them having picked up DJ so they can reject him later.

The writing is just plain bad. I understood Finn's arc. I understood Poe's arc. But neither was handled competently. Finn's arc just sort of meanders around and all he really learns is the galaxy has some terrible people in it and you shouldn't trust anyone. Oh, and also you should do whatever it takes to support the Resistance, except put yourself in danger. It's better to let everyone in that base die and the Resistance get wiped out as opposed to you doing whatever it takes to stop it. Because...uhh...love or something? Poe's arc is just as problematic because he is supposed to be taught what it means to lead and put others first. But the person left to teach him while Leah is in a coma is the worst kind of leader imaginable. It causes me pain to type that because I love Laura Dern but her character was just horribly written. Holdo is only tolerable because Laura Dern rose above the writing when she could.

Ironically, for as much shit as TFA gets for being A New Hope rehash, TLJ is a rehash of ESB by someone who only read the summary on the back of an old VHS tape and didn't really understand how any of it works. "Ok, so split the heroes up. Check. Make one hero learn some lessons. Check. Go to a casino in the clouds? OOOOOO. I'll put it on a planet. Check! At-AT fight on a planet covered in white stuff. OOOOO I'll have it have red stuff underneath and put it at the end of the movie after I've killed off most of the good guys and the supposed threat of the bad guys and let them be led by the tortured man-child whose arc was clearly never intended to go here!"

I dont think you understand the arcs involved. The point of the casino planet is not that some people are evil. Its that inaction causes pain as well. That running away may fix things for you but it will still hurt people and still be wrong. The point of rose saving him is that  hating makes you a villain just as much as the first order is. Rose doesnt just save him from death she saves him from the dark side. You know. Like Luke throws down his lightsaber after finishing his emotional rage out moment wherein he tries to kill his dad because he sees the darkness in him threaten his sister. Luke does this even though doing so would certainly come at the cost of his fleet and his own life. Just like he reacts with similar (but far more restrained emotion) when he learns of Bens evil.

And poes lesson isnt that “you need to learn to like lead people and put others first” but that there are alternatives to fighting. That going full violence on a problem doss not always work and can cause more pain than it solves. The second thing he learns is to trust in his friends and allies.

I think that maybe you understand the star wars less than you think.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 25, 2019, 06:45:05 PM
<words>

How are you so consistently wrong on so many topics? I really am struggling to think of anyone who's calibrated to magnetic wrong as precisely as you.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 25, 2019, 07:22:18 PM
And poes lesson isnt that “you need to learn to like lead people and put others first” but that there are alternatives to fighting. That going full violence on a problem doss not always work and can cause more pain than it solves. The second thing he learns is to trust in his friends and allies.

Which she proves by literally killing herself and an entire goddamn star destroyer? Also to trust your allies so much that you don't let them in on your plans until it's too late to do anything to make the plan work?

Please to be sending me whatever the fuck you are smoking.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on December 25, 2019, 08:02:12 PM
And poes lesson isnt that “you need to learn to like lead people and put others first” but that there are alternatives to fighting. That going full violence on a problem doss not always work and can cause more pain than it solves. The second thing he learns is to trust in his friends and allies.

Which she proves by literally killing herself and an entire goddamn star destroyer? Also to trust your allies so much that you don't let them in on your plans until it's too late to do anything to make the plan work?

Please to be sending me whatever the fuck you are smoking.

Why does Holdo need to trust poe?

What does Holdo prove when she jumps into the fleet? Kinda confused here.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 25, 2019, 08:41:43 PM
Because Poe was the top pilot in the fleet? Also, Holdo proved the exact opposite of what you said she proved to Poe by her stunt.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on December 25, 2019, 11:02:27 PM
Because Poe was the top pilot in the fleet? Also, Holdo proved the exact opposite of what you said she proved to Poe by her stunt.
Poe was no longer the top pilot in the fleet. He had just been demoted. And either way, Holdo isn't the example character for Poe(and also why should Holdo have to be perfect?). Holdo is the person Poe needs to trust. Leia is Poe's mentor.  

Also i am not sure what it was Holdo was supposed to prove to Poe by her stunt? I dont recall saying she proved anything to Poe with her stunt...  

Edit: well she was proving something to him but not in that sense. When poe finds out the plan he exclaims “youre a coward, youre running away!”. And her actions show that she was not running away. Made explicit in this realization by the dialog that explains it


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 26, 2019, 12:38:37 AM

I dont think you understand the arcs involved. The point of the casino planet is not that some people are evil. Its that inaction causes pain as well. That running away may fix things for you but it will still hurt people and still be wrong. The point of rose saving him is that  hating makes you a villain just as much as the first order is. Rose doesnt just save him from death she saves him from the dark side. You know. Like Luke throws down his lightsaber after finishing his emotional rage out moment wherein he tries to kill his dad because he sees the darkness in him threaten his sister. Luke does this even though doing so would certainly come at the cost of his fleet and his own life. Just like he reacts with similar (but far more restrained emotion) when he learns of Bens evil.

And poes lesson isnt that “you need to learn to like lead people and put others first” but that there are alternatives to fighting. That going full violence on a problem doss not always work and can cause more pain than it solves. The second thing he learns is to trust in his friends and allies.

I think that maybe you understand the star wars less than you think.


I do understand the arcs they were just handled incompetently. I know exactly what he was going for he just chose the most clumsy and terrible way to accomplish it.

Yes, the casino was intended to show him some stuff. Unfortunately, it mostly consisted of Rose telling him (and the audience) stuff. It was handled in the most hamfisted way possible. As for Rose saving him from the Darkside and stuff. Uh...what? He was about to ram into that giant cannon. That's not Luke striking his dad down. That's a suicide attack, the Darkside is irrelevant at that point. It also undermines everything his arc was about. "Learn to care about others and join the resistance, help us fight. WAIT! NO! NOT THAT WAY! You're more important than anyone else, wtf are you doing preparing to sacrifice yourself for them?!?! "

As for Holdo. I've heard the arguments before. She had no reason to trust Poe is the most common one. It's also asinine. A big chunk of her bridge crew rebelled because she told no one that she had a plan. Why the hell would any rational person put blind faith in a person in that scenario? You know you will all literally die and she won't tell you if she has any way out of it. That's not teaching Poe a damned thing except that the leader is always right and people need to trust them blindly, without that trust being earned in any way. It's awful writing. If your argument is that Leah is the person Poe needs to learn from there are two big problems. She didn't share the plan either, so, again, blind faith. And she spent a big chunk of the movie in a coma.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on December 26, 2019, 02:05:02 AM
I for one definitely remember when Yoda said to Luke “Hate leads to the dark side... unless youre going to die then hate is totally OK and the dark side is totally rad” in Empire. Or when Vader was redeemed after dying consumed in hate screaming about how much he hates the emperor as he throws him down the shaft.

Or... maybe you do not understand the star wars. Finn was not sacrificing himself for others in that scene. He was doing it to cause pain to people he hated. The movie wasnt exactly subtle about it. There are five sacrifices presented in the movie, and the two that have their executors focus on destroying things rather than saving them are frowned upon.

And maybe Holdo didn't share the details of the plan because loose lips might get the information to the first order causing it to fall apart... like Poe does...(he informs DJ of the plan while on comms to rose and finn). But even if she was wrong to not share with Poe your parents should have tought you that two wrongs dont make a right.

There is also a decent enough discussion that Holdo had indeed earned it. Poe himself is impressed when she first is introduced remarking on her exploits positively.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on December 26, 2019, 02:41:52 AM
Watching Lego 2 last night it occurred to me that the JJA films are in fact live action Lego Star Wars movies taken a little too seriously.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 26, 2019, 09:50:56 AM
I for one definitely remember when Yoda said to Luke “Hate leads to the dark side... unless youre going to die then hate is totally OK and the dark side is totally rad” in Empire. Or when Vader was redeemed after dying consumed in hate screaming about how much he hates the emperor as he throws him down the shaft.

Or... maybe you do not understand the star wars. Finn was not sacrificing himself for others in that scene. He was doing it to cause pain to people he hated. The movie wasnt exactly subtle about it. There are five sacrifices presented in the movie, and the two that have their executors focus on destroying things rather than saving them are frowned upon.

And maybe Holdo didn't share the details of the plan because loose lips might get the information to the first order causing it to fall apart... like Poe does...(he informs DJ of the plan while on comms to rose and finn). But even if she was wrong to not share with Poe your parents should have tought you that two wrongs dont make a right.

There is also a decent enough discussion that Holdo had indeed earned it. Poe himself is impressed when she first is introduced remarking on her exploits positively.

Luke is in Jedi training. Finn is not. Even if he is Force sensitive which the last movie hints very strongly at, Rose has no way of knowing it. And she didn't do what she did to save him from the Dark side. She did it so she could kiss him and tell him love is the most powerful force in the universe or something. A fine message but one that flies in the face of what the movie had been trying to teach him. Sure, Finn is super pissed in that moment, but he's also trying to save the resistance because he knows once that cannon fires it is all over.

Poe's actions are wrong sure. But they were born of desperation because as far as he and everyone he talked to knew, the plan was just to keep flying until they ran out of gas and all died. No one except maybe Leah, knew what the plan was. Speaking of lessons, when Leah finally does wake up and Poe steps out of cover to tell her why he is doing what he is doing does she explain things? Does she tell him he's wrong to mutiny and there is a plan? Nope. She shoots him. Another lesson learned. Don't trust anyone.

I'm sorry you have to contort yourself into a pretzel to make excuses for bad writing. But don't act patronizing and tell me I don't understand Star Wars. I do. I just acknowledge when the movies are bad. This is beat only by Attack of the Clones in the bad writing department and that's mostly because that godawful line about sand is so horrible.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on December 26, 2019, 10:38:17 AM
The force is in all things, not just jedi. And guides all creatures, not just jedi. Finn isnt safe from the dark side because he isnt a jedi and Rose doesnt need to think he might be in order to save him from the it.  Did you watch any of the OT?

And Leia shooting first and explaining later? Why that would never happen.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on December 26, 2019, 12:41:24 PM
Poe's actions are wrong sure. But they were born of desperation because as far as he and everyone he talked to knew, the plan was just to keep flying until they ran out of gas and all died. No one except maybe Leah, knew what the plan was. Speaking of lessons, when Leah finally does wake up and Poe steps out of cover to tell her why he is doing what he is doing does she explain things? Does she tell him he's wrong to mutiny and there is a plan? Nope. She shoots him. Another lesson learned. Don't trust anyone.

I remember that time in the Corps when all my NCOs and officers were super impressed with my questions about what we were doing and why we were doing it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 26, 2019, 08:08:03 PM
It's pretty pointless to try to relitigate the shitshow that was TLJ. I will just say that while I think it was a bad movie, with a lot of really bad ideas and bad writing, at least it was trying to do SOMETHING. It was actually a better movie than ROS because ROS had no plan, no cohesive narrative, no themes, and it's best scenes were what it essentially cribbed out of TLJ (the Rey/Ren conversations).

It was still shit, though.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 26, 2019, 08:10:12 PM
Poe's actions are wrong sure. But they were born of desperation because as far as he and everyone he talked to knew, the plan was just to keep flying until they ran out of gas and all died. No one except maybe Leah, knew what the plan was. Speaking of lessons, when Leah finally does wake up and Poe steps out of cover to tell her why he is doing what he is doing does she explain things? Does she tell him he's wrong to mutiny and there is a plan? Nope. She shoots him. Another lesson learned. Don't trust anyone.

I remember that time in the Corps when all my NCOs and officers were super impressed with my questions about what we were doing and why we were doing it.

To put it into a slightly different perspective. Let's say the Captain of a ship is sailing his ship right towards an iceberg. If the ship is not turned everyone on the ship dies. The bridge crew asks him what his plan is and he refuses to tell them. He doesn't even give them any indication he even has a plan. Should the crew blindly trust the captain or should they do the unthinkable? Poe chose the 2nd option because this is essentially the situation he is in, except worse. The entire fleet, the entire remaining members of the Resistance would die if something wasn't done and the person in command tells no one what, if anything, she will do about it. Keep in mind, a lot of the mutineers are her own bridge crew. They have no idea what the plan is and from what they can tell the plan is "we're all just going to run out of gas and die."

The force is in all things, not just jedi. And guides all creatures, not just jedi. Finn isnt safe from the dark side because he isnt a jedi and Rose doesnt need to think he might be in order to save him from the it.  Did you watch any of the OT?

And Leia shooting first and explaining later? Why that would never happen.

I did watch the OT. I remember all those times someone was about to do something and was warned "Be careful, you'll fall to the Darkside." Why, no one even goes to Kashyyyk because those wookiees are angry all the time and all of them have fallen to the darkside. Remember when Cassian Andor shot that other rebel in cold blood and immediately fell to the dark side for it? OH! Remember when that Rebel pilot almost rams his snowspeeder into the AtAt on Hoth but is warned away so he doesn't fall to the Dark side? Or when Han Solo gunned down Greedo and immediately fell to the Dark side?

In your version of Star Wars, any act of anger or rage or fear or hate would lead to the Dark side. The galaxy would be overrun with the Dark side.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on December 26, 2019, 08:29:03 PM
To put it into a slightly different perspective. Let's say the Captain of a ship is sailing his ship right towards an iceberg. If the ship is not turned everyone on the ship dies. The bridge crew asks him what his plan is and he refuses to tell them. He doesn't even give them any indication he even has a plan. Should the crew blindly trust the captain or should they do the unthinkable? Poe chose the 2nd option because this is essentially the situation he is in, except worse. The entire fleet, the entire remaining members of the Resistance would die if something wasn't done and the person in command tells no one what, if anything, she will do about it. Keep in mind, a lot of the mutineers are her own bridge crew. They have no idea what the plan is and from what they can tell the plan is "we're all just going to run out of gas and die."


Except in your case, you're talking about a bosun yelling about open mutiny on the deck and that shitbird would have been shot and tossed overboard. Poe wasn't part of the plan. He didn't need to know it. His only need to know was because he wanted to. He was not in the chain. He was not even a fucking pilot for the escape ships. He was going to simply be a passenger. Holdo did absolutely the right thing to keep good order and discipline, whether you like it or not. As has already been pointed out, if Dipshit McFuckstick had kept his cockholster shut and trusted that the leadership knew more than him, things would have gone swimmingly. It's only after his dumbass pride and bravado fuck absolutely everything up that he figures that out. Again, you may not like it, but that scene depicted exactly what would happen in similar circumstances.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 26, 2019, 08:34:42 PM
To put it into a slightly different perspective. Let's say the Captain of a ship is sailing his ship right towards an iceberg. If the ship is not turned everyone on the ship dies. The bridge crew asks him what his plan is and he refuses to tell them. He doesn't even give them any indication he even has a plan. Should the crew blindly trust the captain or should they do the unthinkable? Poe chose the 2nd option because this is essentially the situation he is in, except worse. The entire fleet, the entire remaining members of the Resistance would die if something wasn't done and the person in command tells no one what, if anything, she will do about it. Keep in mind, a lot of the mutineers are her own bridge crew. They have no idea what the plan is and from what they can tell the plan is "we're all just going to run out of gas and die."


Except in your case, you're talking about a bosun yelling about open mutiny on the deck and that shitbird would have been shot and tossed overboard. Poe wasn't part of the plan. He didn't need to know it. His only need to know was because he wanted to. He was not in the chain. He was not even a fucking pilot for the escape ships. He was going to simply be a passenger. Holdo did absolutely the right thing to keep good order and discipline, whether you like it or not. As has already been pointed out, if Dipshit McFuckstick had kept his cockholster shut and trusted that the leadership knew more than him, things would have gone swimmingly. It's only after his dumbass pride and bravado fuck absolutely everything up that he figures that out. Again, you may not like it, but that scene depicted exactly what would happen in similar circumstances.

I may be remembering wrong but I think his little mutiny was joined by a big chunk of the bridge crew. IE, the people who absolutely should have known.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: IainC on December 26, 2019, 09:53:44 PM
Arguing about any individual plot point in TLJ is like having a debate over whether the slightly firmer part of a turd used to be chicken or pork. It's a garbage movie that fails to pass even casual scrutiny of the plot, structure or story beats. Like, there is no part of the movie that you can apply any amount of critique to, that doesn't immediately collapse into a singualrity of shit. It's the shitception. The deeper you look, the more shit there is. Mandelbrot shit.

The movie constantly sets up situations then proceeds to utterly fuck the landing each and every time. It asks you to hold contradictory feelings about main characters. It's the 8th film in a 9 film arc and it deliberately throws away all continuity with the previous episodes.

Anyone defending this turd salad needs to have their brain put through a blender.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on December 26, 2019, 11:51:18 PM
I did watch the OT. I remember all those times someone was about to do something and was warned "Be careful, you'll fall to the Darkside." Why, no one even goes to Kashyyyk because those wookiees are angry all the time and all of them have fallen to the darkside. Remember when Cassian Andor shot that other rebel in cold blood and immediately fell to the dark side for it? OH! Remember when that Rebel pilot almost rams his snowspeeder into the AtAt on Hoth but is warned away so he doesn't fall to the Dark side? Or when Han Solo gunned down Greedo and immediately fell to the Dark side?

In your version of Star Wars, any act of anger or rage or fear or hate would lead to the Dark side. The galaxy would be overrun with the Dark side.

Cassian Andor is both A: not in the OT. and B: did not shoot another rebel in anger.
A random rebel pilot does not suicide into an ATAT on Hoth. One gets shot and loses control of his ship.
Han Solo did not hate Greedo.

But like... its Star Wars... the world is so controlled by the dark side that it needs rebels to fight it.

I am only more convinced you don't understand what is happening in these movies. You have fundamental misunderstandings about the things that happen in them. Not even like, sub-textual misunderstandings. Flat out textual misunderstandings.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 27, 2019, 01:19:39 AM


I am only more convinced you don't understand what is happening in these movies. You have fundamental misunderstandings about the things that happen in them. Not even like, sub-textual misunderstandings. Flat out textual misunderstandings.

Yeah...I'm the one with the fundamental misunderstanding because I don't think Finn's suicide attack was going to cause him to fall to the Dark side. Yeah...that's what's going on. I think you're retconning this scene in your mind since Rise of Skywalker very strongly hints he is Force sensitive which isn't hinted at really in the previous two movies.  It's sad and funny. You do you. You like the movie for whatever reason and have retconned the entire series to fit that. Uhh...congrats I guess?



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on December 27, 2019, 05:09:32 AM
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Shannow on December 27, 2019, 07:04:22 AM
SW movie threads may be the stupidest thing.

The movie was fine. Better than the last, there are worse ways to spend 2 hours on Boxing day.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on December 27, 2019, 07:08:15 PM
holy fuck Goum clinging to the idea that Finn falling to the dark side after his sacrificial suicide attack is a valid reason to prevent it is peak Star Wars thread. fucking numbnuts

ROSE DIDNT WANT HIM TO END UP IN DARK SIDE HELL LOLOLOLOL1

also this:
Arguing about any individual plot point in TLJ is like having a debate over whether the slightly firmer part of a turd used to be chicken or pork. It's a garbage movie that fails to pass even casual scrutiny of the plot, structure or story beats. Like, there is no part of the movie that you can apply any amount of critique to, that doesn't immediately collapse into a singualrity of shit. It's the shitception. The deeper you look, the more shit there is. Mandelbrot shit.

The movie constantly sets up situations then proceeds to utterly fuck the landing each and every time. It asks you to hold contradictory feelings about main characters. It's the 8th film in a 9 film arc and it deliberately throws away all continuity with the previous episodes.

Anyone defending this turd salad needs to have their brain put through a blender.

I want to say though, it was probably better than TFA. The thing was TFA was such a weak setup that I went into TLJ concerned so it took less for me to be not engrossed in the movie and instead be sitting there thinking about why exactly I was sitting there.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: calapine on December 28, 2019, 12:56:19 AM
Guys.....it's Christmas.  :heartbreak:

Look, a kitty:
(https://i.imgur.com/gruDa5x.gif)

I will concede, some of the interpretations expressed in this thread, questionable they are.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on December 29, 2019, 03:40:13 AM
Guys.....it's Christmas.  :heartbreak:

Look, a kitty:
(https://i.imgur.com/gruDa5x.gif)

I will concede, some of the interpretations expressed in this thread, questionable they are.
A cat jedi like that should have a blue lightsaber.  Not a yellow one.  And it should make light, not be squishy.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Paelos on December 29, 2019, 07:24:53 AM
Saw it yesterday, liked it a lot. I think the hate is unwarranted. It was a fun movie that capped off the action space opera.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 29, 2019, 02:42:57 PM
Arguing about any individual plot point in TLJ is like having a debate over whether the slightly firmer part of a turd used to be chicken or pork. It's a garbage movie that fails to pass even casual scrutiny of the plot, structure or story beats. Like, there is no part of the movie that you can apply any amount of critique to, that doesn't immediately collapse into a singualrity of shit. It's the shitception. The deeper you look, the more shit there is. Mandelbrot shit.

The movie constantly sets up situations then proceeds to utterly fuck the landing each and every time. It asks you to hold contradictory feelings about main characters. It's the 8th film in a 9 film arc and it deliberately throws away all continuity with the previous episodes.

Anyone defending this turd salad needs to have their brain put through a blender.

Which turd salad? Anybody who can argue that TLJ is a turd salad but that FFA and ROS aren't are suffering from severe cognitive dissonance. Someone who argues that they all are? Ok, fine, you're consistent at least. But anyone who can't tolerate what they see as narrative incoherence in TLJ but who is cool with the supposed fun and jollies of ROS has such utterly contradictory standards for coherence that I don't know how they watch movies of any kind without having a stroke.

I'll stick to my guns on this: TLJ had the right *ideas* about SW. None of the sequels are very good movies as such in terms of craft, tightness of narrative, etc., but TLJ is the only one with a vision of what it wants to be that is remotely interesting. The Abrams sequels are cinematic garbage AND utterly cynical; their only virtues are some good characters with some good actors backing them.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: lamaros on December 29, 2019, 04:22:20 PM
Khaldun: TLJ's one true internet defender.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 29, 2019, 06:25:51 PM
There were actually quite a few people who liked it, but whatever.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: IainC on December 29, 2019, 07:04:30 PM

Which turd salad? Anybody who can argue that TLJ is a turd salad but that FFA and ROS aren't are suffering from severe cognitive dissonance. Someone who argues that they all are? Ok, fine, you're consistent at least. But anyone who can't tolerate what they see as narrative incoherence in TLJ but who is cool with the supposed fun and jollies of ROS has such utterly contradictory standards for coherence that I don't know how they watch movies of any kind without having a stroke.


Can you link where I've done that? I'll wait.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 29, 2019, 09:20:56 PM
TLJ had IDEAS about Star Wars, but I certainly wouldn't argue they were the RIGHT ideas. I thought most of them were shit. TFA also had ideas, and I think they could have been good for the franchise if they had been developed by someone who either gave a shit about them (Rian Johnson clearly didn't, since he ditched like all of them) or someone with the competence to make them decent (RoS shows that JJA was in no way competent to bring those ideas to fruition).

This trilogy is as bad as the prequels.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 29, 2019, 11:13:03 PM
TLJ had IDEAS about Star Wars, but I certainly wouldn't argue they were the RIGHT ideas. I thought most of them were shit. TFA also had ideas, and I think they could have been good for the franchise if they had been developed by someone who either gave a shit about them (Rian Johnson clearly didn't, since he ditched like all of them) or someone with the competence to make them decent (RoS shows that JJA was in no way competent to bring those ideas to fruition).

This trilogy is as bad as the prequels.

To be fair to JJ, he was handed a turd of a movie to follow up on in TLJ, Carrie Fisher died and the fanbase was split so he was going to have problems no matter what he did. To be blunt, if Disney had called me to direct RoS I'd have told them "Hell no!" and hung up the phone. This was a no-win situation. I think if Rian Johnson had been a more competent writer and/or Kathleen Kennedy had actually enforced some kind of vision for this trilogy things would be different.


Which turd salad? Anybody who can argue that TLJ is a turd salad but that FFA and ROS aren't are suffering from severe cognitive dissonance. Someone who argues that they all are? Ok, fine, you're consistent at least. But anyone who can't tolerate what they see as narrative incoherence in TLJ but who is cool with the supposed fun and jollies of ROS has such utterly contradictory standards for coherence that I don't know how they watch movies of any kind without having a stroke.

I'll stick to my guns on this: TLJ had the right *ideas* about SW. None of the sequels are very good movies as such in terms of craft, tightness of narrative, etc., but TLJ is the only one with a vision of what it wants to be that is remotely interesting. The Abrams sequels are cinematic garbage AND utterly cynical; their only virtues are some good characters with some good actors backing them.


I won't be taking any advice from you about what's good or not in Star Wars. You're willing to die on the hill that is "TLJ is a good movie!" Go join the people who think the prequels are awesome in the rubber padded rooms please.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on December 30, 2019, 01:06:23 AM
I'm going to finally land on the idea that the entire third trilogy is kinda just crappy on the whole and that what should have happened is George Lucas being an executive producer providing overall story guidance but letting otherwise good filmmakers write and direct them would have been the better path from what we got (this also includes the prequel trilogy, who'd a thunk).   He cobbled together a pretty cool sandbox but both shit in it himself and then turned it over to people who had no clue what to do with it in films.  The fact that multiple tv series and games have been great in the IP points the finger pretty firmly to people like Kathleen Kennedy, JJ, and Michelle Rejwan or maybe the film medium just doesn't lend itself to it after the first go-round.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on December 30, 2019, 01:29:20 AM
As bad as the sequel trilogy was, George's stated idea for the sequels was worse so they probably made the right call not having him involved.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Paelos on December 30, 2019, 06:02:05 AM
I liked that the action didn't drag, and I liked the light/dark aspects of the movie with Ren/Rey. I also liked the cameos and several comic moments.

The dialogue only made me roll my eyes a couple of times, and overall was fitting with the action so I rarely noticed it.

The plot movement held together for me better than TLJ.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 30, 2019, 06:44:59 AM
Go here and collect 30 boar livers! Then go there and do a FedEx quest! Then have watch a QTE with Rey! Then go where the next quest giver sends you!

I mean, maybe that seems like an actual story to some of you because you've played a bunch of MMOs and you're used to it. But none of it makes any more sense than a slo-mo chase through the galaxy. And at least the dumb casino planet sidequest in the last one had a point to make about the overall conflict and pushed some character development. The C3PO sidequest in this one had no point besides "give Poe a girlfriend and tell us that he's the new Han Solo so people stop expecting him to hook up with Finn"--they cancel out the only consequence of the whole thing fifteen minutes later, and the supposedly 'dark' droid-memory guy is a cute little muppet who seems wholly benevolent. Oh, wait, there's a captain's medal that lets you land on any First Order ship without them even looking at your ship or having any real security when you land, right, without which the girlfriend can't get off the planet only actually somehow she can later on just in time to join the battle and avoid getting rando-blownup on her planet.

Anybody who had a problem with the go-to-lightspeed suicide maneuver or the bombing ships in the last one should be flipping out over the utter ridiculousness of the Final Order fleet and all the contrivances thereof.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on December 30, 2019, 07:48:03 AM
That's no different to a typical MCU plot and not really the problem here.

I do agree that this stuff is more visible because the quality of writing is not great.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 30, 2019, 09:55:46 AM
Compare the pacing and craft involved in Endgame's McGuffin hunt to this movie. Endgame was the culmination of a long-term plan. The exchanges between the characters are incredibly well-written and reflect the care that's gone into developing each one of them. The turns and twists of the plot ratchet upwards towards several big set pieces that have major emotional payoffs. There wasn't anything in this flick even a thousandth as rewarding as the "portals" scene in Endgame and for god's sake, there should have been considering the road travelled to get to this point.

Citing the MCU is just a great way to further accentuate what a crappy movie this is and how crappy the sequels as a set of films are. The only moment that they seemed to have an actual direction in mind on the key narrative arcs and world-building vision was in some elements of The Last Jedi, despite the bad narrative structure of that film. This movie has absolutely no idea of the way forward--the only thing you could do with Star Wars if you followed this movie's lead is have it center on fighting more ships that can destroy planets be blown up by more small ships against which they have no good defenses, have Palpatine have made yet another plan that will bring him back to life again, have Rey have children because the Force is apparently like a royal bloodline rather than a spiritual energy that binds all life together, have one of the kids be a bad seed, then reveal that Luke Skywalker had a hidden love child who was raised by Lando Calrissian on the planet of the Black People who can be trained by Finn and Finn's girlfriend in order to fight Rey's evil Sith child, and then do a few quick nostalgic flashbacks to Jar Jar Binks, Boba Fett and General Grevious.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on December 30, 2019, 03:32:42 PM
I'm not sure endgame's dialog is 'incredibly well written'. But I do agree that, like all JJA films, it is in the detailed writing work that TFA and RoS really fall down, and that means the fairly silly plot shows through too clearly.

The bloodline thing was horrible. But unimportant, because the one thing I actually think the series did far better than the OT is showing Rey struggling with light/dark.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on December 30, 2019, 04:15:52 PM
Bioware always did really well with light/dark options.

Help the poor citizen
-or-
Murder the bastard in front of his children

Subtle nuance there.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 31, 2019, 03:17:58 AM

The bloodline thing was horrible. But unimportant, because the one thing I actually think the series did far better than the OT is showing Rey struggling with light/dark.

Not just the OT, but the PT as well. Luke is pretty clearly a good person and only has like one very brief moment of temptation. Anakin on the other hand is a walking time bomb for 2/3rds of the prequels so other than a very brief moment when he can't decide if he should murder Dooku, we rarely see him truly struggle not to fall to Darkness.

They did a pretty decent job in TFA and ROS with showing that struggle in Rey. It's subtle in TFA but when you rewatch her fight with Kylo Ren she's definitely drawing on the dark side when she overpowers him. TLJ actually fell down on this pretty badly other than its hamfisted nod to the Dagobah dark side cave. RoS kind of overcorrected and had her acting angry for a big chunk of the movie only to pull back at the last moment because of Ben Solo. I actually really liked that honestly, it was like his redemption also pulled her back from the brink.

On another note, one thing I really liked in this movie was the concept of the Force Diad. I hope they keep the passing objects through the force thing confined to only Force Diads and that they don't get overused in Star Wars media. I wish they'd introduced the concept in the first movie honestly to give it time to really breath but I did think it made some of their earlier interactions make more sense retroactively, like how even in TFA Kylo is obsessed with her.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on December 31, 2019, 05:36:53 AM
Part of it is that the acting is better in every star wars after the OT, because they could hire better actors.

The rey/Kylo passing objects thing was pretty cool in this. The moment Rey passes the thing toward the end was a cool moment even if telegraphed from when Kylo throws the thing and retelegraphed when Luke tells rey to take the thing. More than anything it was cool because Adam Driver had done a really good job of acting like a new character. His choreography had changed completely.

I didn't particularly rate Daisy Ridley in the first one, she was OK, but she did a great job in this.

Of course, non-movie star wars media will now be unable to go 5 pages without feeling the need to force teleport objects around the place.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on December 31, 2019, 08:37:57 AM
Part of it is that the acting is better in every star wars after the OT, because they could hire better actors.

Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor etc are all great actors but those movies were not better acted than the OT, and that is entirely on Lucas who apparently did zero actual directing of the actors.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on December 31, 2019, 08:46:17 AM
Of course people who flipped their lids about Leia flying through space because because we'd never seen that and oh god now what is going to happen in later movies with that new power are ok with "the Force lets you teleport actual physical manufactured objects through space if you're part of a 'Force dyad'".

We've never seen ANY light-side Force user be particularly compassionate or altruistic towards strangers except in the Clone Wars cartoons and associated media, really. Finn shows more compassion and altruism (at risk) in all three sequels than any Jedi. Shit, the Mandalorian has shown more direct compassion under circumstances where again, it puts him at enormous risk. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan get reluctantly entangled in the affairs of the Gungans and barely tolerate Jar Jar (which I suppose is a sort of compassion, vaguely).

We've actually never seen a Sith act selfishly or self-indulgently, for that matter, except maybe Anakin with Padme *before* he goes Dark Side. And arguably that was real love. We've seen Sith angry and murderous and focused on the acquisition and maintenance of power. But neither faction actually seems to have an everyday morality that maps to what we often think of as "good" and "evil". They are both highly disciplined, focused on relatively narrow missions. It's really more like lawful neutral v. neutral evil.

Not that this movie had anything even remotely interesting to say about the Sith or the Jedi as factions per se. It did good work with Rey the character and Kylo the character, that's it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on December 31, 2019, 08:59:05 AM
Of course people who flipped their lids about Leia flying through space because because we'd never seen that and oh god now what is going to happen in later movies with that new power are ok with "the Force lets you teleport actual physical manufactured objects through space if you're part of a 'Force dyad'".

Who are these people that you're arguing with?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on December 31, 2019, 10:19:31 AM
Of course people who flipped their lids about Leia flying through space because because we'd never seen that and oh god now what is going to happen in later movies with that new power are ok with "the Force lets you teleport actual physical manufactured objects through space if you're part of a 'Force dyad'".

Who are these people that you're arguing with?

The only complaints I saw about it was that it looked silly in its execution. She looked like Mary Poppins, not a Force User.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 31, 2019, 12:14:13 PM
I flipped about it because 1) it looked INSANELY STUPID (breaking the rule of Cool) and 2) it deprived us of a decent death for Leia who ended up dying anyway. Not that I minded the way they handled her death in ROS, but it would have worked much better for the movie had she been killed instead of spoonful of sugaring her way back from the outer limits.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Paelos on December 31, 2019, 01:15:49 PM
Seriously, who broke Khaldun?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on December 31, 2019, 01:59:28 PM
The Leia flying thing mostly seemed dumb to me because it wasn't set up in any way (a couple of vague lines way back in RotJ don't count).  The way to introduce something like that is to set it up in a low-stakes scene before using it to resolve a high-stakes scene.  

Example from another story: Bilbo gives Frodo a mithril shirt at the very start of the story, establishing that Frodo is secretly armored.  It's a low stakes scene that is mostly about an emotional moment between Bilbo and Frodo, but it's also a setup.  Later in the story, Frodo gets stabbed in the gut, and it's a very intense high-stakes scene, and because everything is happening so fast we think he's a goner -- but that's right, he had that armor shirt!  That's the payoff.  If the mithril hadn't been explicitly set up beforehand, it would have come off as deus ex machina bullshit.

I haven't seen ROS and don't plan to in the near future, and unlike the voices in Khaldun's head I certainly have no interest in white-knighting it, but if they did some sort of teleportation thing there I guess it was at least set up in TLJ by having water get from Rey onto Kylo when they were Force-Skyping, which has no consequence in itself but establishes that their connection allows stuff to get from one to the other.  All the Rey/Kylo stuff was the best part of that movie IMO.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on December 31, 2019, 02:04:28 PM
All the Rey/Kylo stuff was the best part of that movie IMO the entire new trilogy.

Fixed that for you. Their conversations through the Force was the best part of both TLJ and ROS in every way - visually, narratively and the acting involved.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on December 31, 2019, 04:54:56 PM
All the Rey/Kylo stuff was the best part of that movie IMO the entire new trilogy.

Fixed that for you. Their conversations through the Force was the best part of both TLJ and ROS in every way - visually, narratively and the acting involved.

And for all the 'TLJ was completely ignored' you keep hearing, Rey and Kylo's relationship was entirely a TLJ creation. TFA did none of it and wasn't really capable of it.

RoS wouldn't have gone there either without TLJ.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on December 31, 2019, 05:03:21 PM
Of course people who flipped their lids about Leia flying through space because because we'd never seen that and oh god now what is going to happen in later movies with that new power are ok with "the Force lets you teleport actual physical manufactured objects through space if you're part of a 'Force dyad'".

Who are these people that you're arguing with?

The only complaints I saw about it was that it looked silly in its execution. She looked like Mary Poppins, not a Force User.

Not as silly as 'Oh she trained to be a Jedi in her spare time. Look, a flashback'.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 01, 2020, 01:58:15 AM
On a more humorous level I just realized Rey is going to be lucky if she is not haunted by a pissed off Force ghost.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on January 01, 2020, 11:31:16 AM
Not as silly as 'Oh she trained to be a Jedi in her spare time. Look, a flashback'.

Wait, is that a thing that actually happened in RoS?  Holy shit.

I remember after TLJ trying to think of all the ways they could have revealed Leia as a Jedi that would have been better than her flying through space.  I lost count, but I think the best one I came up with was a scene where Poe makes some smarmy crack about the Force (a callback to Han's "hokey religions and ancient weapons" line from ANH) and then half a minute later while he's distracted by something else Leia mind-tricks him in some trivial way, like she just needs to get him out of her hair so she goes "don't you need to go check on your ship?" and he blinks stupidly for a second and then says "don't I need to go check on my ship?" and fucks off.  Leia smirks, end scene.  Now we get to wonder what other tricks she has up her sleeve.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on January 01, 2020, 12:54:42 PM
I just saw this and it was entertaining. Best part of the movie is reading khaldun lose his shit about a mediocre movie.

I'll forget about this in 2 weeks.

Ill be a fan of star wars again when wTching the mandalorian and if they ever put this franchise in the hands of someone with talent.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on January 01, 2020, 02:19:59 PM
The more I think about this trilogy, I think it's worse that the prequels.

The prequels were laughably bad from incompetent writing, directing, acting, everything. But the story was complete, as in they had an idea for 3 movies and they executed (however poorly).

The sequel trilogy was better produced, had better effects, better acting, better directing, better subplots here and there overall.

However the sequel had no planning what so ever. TFA was decent for a popcorn resurrection of the series. It wasn't serious at all, it paid homage and it didn't attempt to make any waves. It was the safest production ever. It created a place where you can really do something interesting, if they actually had good writers. TLJ totally shit all over the movie with a terrible plot, a terrible story, and terrible everything. I like some of the directions they TRIED to take (like with Luke) and the loss of the resistance and all that. But it was executed terribly. Then ROS was just basically patch work to wrap everything up. I mean it's JJ, however it's JJ trying to fix something you couldn't fix. So I can't blame him for everything.

What makes the sequel utterly revolting as a movie in this franchise is that it had ZERO thought behind hit. There was no planning, no direction and certainly no ambition to make something great. The reason why it's being rebelled against so much (deservingly so) is that the promise of a good film series was destroyed after Lucas destroyed it 20 years ago.

Both prequel and sequel trilogies have movies that you can completely ignore (Ep I and VIII). It's flabbergasting.

I mean in the sequel you had:

Snoke be irrelevent.
General Lux be a sniveling coward and also be the leader of the FO? And then a spy?
You had Ren go from apprentice to leader (that doesn't work) to redemption?

None of the characters were ever developed as a unit.

Ultimately, we were all expecting the competence of the Marvel Universe and got nothing close and that makes everyone angry.

The Rise of Skywalker was a  entertaining and fine B-grade movie with an A-grade budget and IP. Maybe Star Wars isn't A grade anymore, I dunno. Still makes money I guess. I feel like I didn't waste my money seeing it, but I'm glad it's done and I can move on and now I no longer have an expectations out of the Star Wars universe.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on January 01, 2020, 02:25:26 PM
Maybe Star Wars isn't A grade anymore, I dunno.

Maybe it never was?  "entertaining and fine B-grade movie with an A-grade budget and IP" should be the definition of all of Star Wars.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on January 01, 2020, 02:33:14 PM
Maybe Star Wars isn't A grade anymore, I dunno.

Maybe it never was?  "entertaining and fine B-grade movie with an A-grade budget and IP" should be the definition of all of Star Wars.

If it wasn't for Lucas' wife, it probably would have been B grade and the second movie would never have been made. But it was an A grade movie from with the originals. They were always trying to chase that feeling and Lucas never go near it in the 90s. And JJ is basically a hack for the most part without original thought so all he did was try to copy.

The only thing that gives me hope, if there can be such a thing like hope with Star Wars, is the Mandolorian. Then the next best thing would be Kathleen Kennedy being fired for being grossly incompetent.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on January 01, 2020, 05:38:56 PM
Finally saw this... This was really bad. 

Nothing earned.  All the 'drama' about friendship/family for people that have known each other for a few days ... and are demonstrably unfamiliar with each other.

Carrie Fisher was just wrong.  Nothing she said made sense.  If she were my general, I'd have staged a coup and put her under medical watch.  Noble thought, but Superman's mustache level of fail.

The storyline didn't make sense - and even worse they introduced, yet again, more technology so devastating that the entire universe is doomed.  A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away that we've never heard of because every civilized creature was clearly destroyed by the world destroying cannons that were all over the place.

And the Han Solo cameo - ugh. 

What makes it worse is that we see this after watching 8 weeks of Great Star Wars in the form of the Mandalorian. This was as bad as last Jedi.

This was a sad way to go out. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on January 01, 2020, 06:25:02 PM
I just watched the red letter media bit on it.

I agree with everything they said. Very accurate.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 01, 2020, 08:41:33 PM
And you will wonder forever because Leia's Jedi training in literally in one flashback scene that comes out of nowhere and tries to explain how she knew all this shit was going to happen so this whole thing was her playing the long game.

CLOWN.

SHOES.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on January 01, 2020, 09:07:46 PM
The Leia force crap and Ford's cameo had to be part of the same mess. They clearly were going to have Fischer in that scene with Driver, but she wasn't available.  Rather than write around it they had Ford do it.

Looked like Ford wouldn't even let them cut his hair for it.   :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on January 01, 2020, 11:48:08 PM
And you will wonder forever because Leia's Jedi training in literally in one flashback scene that comes out of nowhere and tries to explain how she knew all this shit was going to happen so this whole thing was her playing the long game.

CLOWN.

SHOES.

I didnt like the scene but seeing the future is a well established force effect

I dont think Fords cameo was a result of Carrie dying. The scene reads right as it is. Its a direct repeat of TFA’s scene where Kylo kills Han. And if you paid close attention Rey stabs Kylo with his lightsaber in the same place he had stabbed Han. The uhh symbolism of the scene is that by Rey healing means Kylo could have always gone back.

Maybe they wrote around it real well but i dont think so, given the caliber of the rest of the writing around they did.

They sure didnt pay off that scene though (Kylo throws away his lightsaber! Syke doesnt matter he gets another one 2 scenes later)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on January 02, 2020, 01:14:02 AM
He threw off his symbolically evil bad red lightsaber with the cracked crystal and the external wiring that shot sparks and possibly short-circuited once a week.  The bigger problem was that he then took a shower, changed into his civvies and then stormed the castle ten minutes later, armed only with the power of his bare ass knuckles.

Anyway, I don't think any of this is worth the debate, because almost none of it holds up to serious scrutiny.  And besides, whatever my opinion of this movie, the Mandalorian is ten times better and far more worthy of discussion.  I am actually filled with optimism both about that series, and about the OB1 series that is coming.  With some of the same people involved and Ewan McGregor....that shit is going to be the tits.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on January 02, 2020, 04:44:39 AM
He threw off his symbolically evil bad red lightsaber with the cracked crystal and the external wiring that shot sparks and possibly short-circuited once a week.  The bigger problem was that he then took a shower, changed into his civvies and then stormed the castle ten minutes later, armed only with the power of his bare ass knuckles.
All tie fighters come with an internal wash cycle.  What? You thought that the central chamber's similarity to a washing machine was a coincedence?
Quote
Anyway, I don't think any of this is worth the debate, because almost none of it holds up to serious scrutiny.  And besides, whatever my opinion of this movie, the Mandalorian is ten times better and far more worthy of discussion.  I am actually filled with optimism both about that series, and about the OB1 series that is coming.  With some of the same people involved and Ewan McGregor....that shit is going to be the tits.
We can only hope.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 02, 2020, 06:39:57 AM
The difference between the sequel movies and the Mandalorian is that the Mandalorian has Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau planning it all out with a vision for what the season should be. For the sequel trilogy JJ laid out some plot threads in TFA then Kathleen Kennedy said "hey, you next 2 directors. Do whatever you want." So Rian Johnson shit all over the plot threads and decided to make a movie that was about a deconstruction of Star Wars rather than a middle part of a trilogy.

The people who mentioned the prequels at least having a vision are right though I disagree the prequels are better. They only have one good movie, I'd say this sequel trilogy has 1.5 good movies. (Good here meaning "entertaining Star Wars movie.) That said, the Last Jedi is so awful it retroactively made people yearn for the return of George Lucas and decide maybe the prequels weren't that bad after all.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on January 02, 2020, 08:47:11 AM
The broad strokes of the prequel trilogy were fine.  The terrible screenplay and the worse directing are to blame for almost all of its problems.

This trilogy is almost the exact opposite.  The execution of the plot was fairly competent on a scene by scene level.  But the connection of those scenes and the story on the whole is full of trouble.  In all three movies, but especially the last two.

On balance, I prefer this trilogy...because what is happening on screen in any given moment is well acted, well executed, and looks pretty good at the same time.  Even if it is fully of ridiculous stuff like hyperspacing your capital ship into another capital ship and expecting anyone within a trillion parsecs to actually survive it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 02, 2020, 08:58:39 AM
I agree more or less Cyrrex. They really needed a storyline set down. As much as people give JJ shit, I think if he'd directed all 3 movies it'd have been better in the long run as we'd have at least had a coherent vision for the trilogy.

I forgot to mention, the one thing the prequels did right was Ewan McGregor as Obi Wan. Somehow he rose above the shittiness of those movies and became a perfect Obi Wan.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samprimary on January 02, 2020, 09:04:57 AM
The broad strokes of the prequel trilogy were fine.  The terrible screenplay and the worse directing are to blame for almost all of its problems.

This trilogy is almost the exact opposite.  The execution of the plot was fairly competent on a scene by scene level.  But the connection of those scenes and the story on the whole is full of trouble.  In all three movies, but especially the last two.

lol so they brought balance to the franchise


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samprimary on January 02, 2020, 10:00:28 AM
hey everyone get the gang together and we'll watch Star Wars 9: Wrap This Shit Up Somehow

Starring Rey Palpatine, Poe Dangerman, Finn Andjake, Kylo Ren and the stapled together mad libs footage of Carrie Fisher!

highlights include!

- pretend you knew what you were doing all along but the movie's basically a standalone!!
- kylo gets a head start on the gang by going off and kicking things off by finding the first macguffin and discovers PLANET EVIL (it is very evil™)
- emperor snoke turns out to be a vat grown meat puppet, wrapping that whole story up! you can thank us later!!
- emperor palpatine is not dead, he is just very very old and worked his hand to the bone with his new concept of DECENTRALIZED DEATH STARS
- he now has an army of seventy two spadjillion death star destroyers that can go destroy. right now. any minute. oh no!
- BUT they are not programmed to understand the direction "up" so as to give the heroes a chance to thwart galactic domination. they will wait for you. no rush
- Rey is attempting to connect to "ghost_Jedi" but cannot find a stable network resolution. If this issue does not resolve please contact your system administrator. error code 8x0347164
- She gets feisty and drops a tree on BB8 to foreshadow the dangers of putting too much sass in your force!
- rose tico is kept on standby to say "i'm rose tico and i am in this movie" every 30 minutes before being shuffled off to the Closet of Manchild Scorn!!!
- the KNIGHTS OF REN appear on Tatooine 3 to ask if this is where they show up to die unceremoniously, kylo ren says 'no not yet go away'!!!! so they go wait
- poe dangerman goes 'hold on im going to escape by creating worse canon issues than the holdo maneuver' and lightspeed skips across several CGI concept tests
- old guy from old movies is here. "hello new heroes!" he says, "catchphrase™" boom gottem in the feels
- the gang falls into space quicksand, which means finn can say something but doesn't, searching for macguffin 1 and find that there is a macguffin 2 in space snakehole
- director jj abrams decides he is willing to make bold challenging directorial acts of resolute finality and kills chewbacca
- editors note: chewbacca is not dead, we walked it back it's cool, relax
- C-3P0 is not allowed to explain macguffin 2 because it is written in the ancient cursed language of adobe flash and this has been firewalled off from his operating system
- fortunately one of the creatures from the "we like the moon" quizno's commercial is able to install a 0-day hax
- director jj abrams decides he is willing to make bold challenging directorial acts of resolute finality and C-3PO consents to have his core drive erased for the good of the mission
- editors note: C-3P0's memory is fine, we walked it back it's cool, relax
- the KNIGHTS OF REN appear on Hoth 2 to ask if this is where they show up to die unceremoniously, kylo ren says 'NOOO not yet go away!!!" so they go wait
- they have an 'admit 1, star destroyer' token so they scootle-doo on into one to re-recover macguffin 2
- they are saved by General Stinkface Space Rat, who was the insider all along. Stinkface doesn't like Kylo very much!!!
- General Unremarkable Tarkin Stand-In kills Stinkface in order to replace the antagonist that was even remarkable enough to remember
- the two previous fetch quests recover macguffin 2 and tells them that they can fetch another macguffin (3) on this fetch quest to lead them to the final ultimate fetch quest. it is on Bespin 1 so they go there
- macguffin 2 is a space protractor that points them to macguffin 3 in very specific arcane conditions. good, excellent
- rey fights evil naked mole rat rey to get macguffin 3, in order to drop it so that kylo can have it and break it and make a space fight happen
- carrie fisher runs out of surplus footage and dies to give rey the high ground of the force
- she stabs kylo so hard he sees his dad
- kylo has a REVELATION that he does not want to be bad anymore. he throws away his lightsaber and straight up immediately sets off to find a fight he will need a lightsaber for and say 'oh shit, i do not have a one (1) lightsaber.' this is called a redemption arc
- rey unpimps her ride to death on planet luke so that luke can come back and go 'no you should actually go fight the bad man' and she goes 'ok'
- luke uses the mysterious all-encompassing powers of the force to tell her she has macguffin 1 and can now bypass the other fetch quests im cryin now for real ok
- everyone goes to pew-pew the sith but i am mostly numb in my brain now there's too much noise i forget what really happens here but anyway everyone gets to the final boss level
- the good guys basically have to shoot all the bad guy ships in the dick, which destroys them. but there's way too much dick to shoot so things start going poorly
- Planet Evil has one single directional finder with the power of telling ships how to move away from a planet surface. General Unremarkable says he's going to remote in and hotspot it to the death fleet
- in exchange, the heroes bravely ride livestock onto the surface of the ship to take it out
- General Unremarkable looks at this situation for a literal single second and uses his two existing brain cells to say "wow! uh, ok. point the nose of the ship down or something so they all fall off"
- the crew of the ship go "Yes, General!" and tip them all off and the heroes all fall and die. The General's command staff toast to their powers of extremely simple problem solving, then go off and destroy the universe
- Emperor Palpatine is impressed with their chutzpah and rules the ashes of the universe forever, laughing basically non-stop for like a thousand years. trump 2020

epilogue: the ghost of anakin skywalker shows up on Tatooine 1 and says "holy fucking SHIT lady did you really just put my lightsaber in SAND. my disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 02, 2020, 10:33:54 AM
 :heart:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on January 02, 2020, 04:19:20 PM
I need a few drinks to read that, but in a good way.

Also, something that Read Letter Media said was pretty spot on. JJ would have killed this trilogy if he only had directed it. But he had to go and fuck up and try to write it too.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on January 02, 2020, 04:24:46 PM
nm i read it

holy shit
your best work
 :heart:
trump2020


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on January 02, 2020, 05:30:39 PM
Sorry, Samprimary, but there is one critical flaw with your resolution.  They couldn't just tilt the ship... they had forgotten which direction was up, remember? They neded a device to tell the which direction was away from the planet.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 02, 2020, 05:59:19 PM
That ship was the one which had the device. Which is why the space goats were on it or whatever. But it's cool, apparently space bombings are ridiculous and warrant people going on and on about how ridonkulous the movie is but it's totally fine when enemy people and their space goats are walking around on a ship trying to sabotage it who could be dusted off like fleas with one quick 45 degree shake back and forth.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Phildo on January 02, 2020, 06:48:42 PM
That ship was the one which had the device. Which is why the space goats were on it or whatever. But it's cool, apparently space bombings are ridiculous and warrant people going on and on about how ridonkulous the movie is but it's totally fine when enemy people and their space goats are walking around on a ship trying to sabotage it who could be dusted off like fleas with one quick 45 degree shake back and forth.

Por que no los dos?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: IainC on January 02, 2020, 07:11:41 PM
Finally watched this last night. it was fucking stupid. Everything Samprimary said above is extremely on point. To me the overwhelming feeling I got from it was that it was a procession of unearned payoffs.
The Leia stuff was poignant because we, the audience, knew about Carrie Fisher. From the in-universe PoV it's just a random event that has no foreshadowing, story point, or meaning. She sends a bunch of people off on a mission and then dies for no reason. People are sad, sad music plays.
Rey Palpatine was something that was just a fuck you to RJ. Luke finding that Vader was his father also came out of left field but they spent a movie and a half building on that and resolving that conflict arc in both Luke and Vader. Rey just goes 'No, don't wanna' and Palpy is all 'Lol ok then, fuck you'.
C3-PO can translate the Sith runes but isn't allowed to say the words. But he knows where it is. Why not just say 'Ok, dude, sit in this chair and fly us to where we need to go'?
Palpatine's secret fleet was stupid. Thousands of planet-killing star destroyers that no-one knew about. Space-worthy and fully-crewed. Built on a secret planet that's not marked on star charts and appears to have no ship-building facilities (the Imperial star destroyers were apparently made in massive orbital dockyards in a system full of industrial planets). There would need to be billions of tons of construction materials and engineering shuttling into the planet every day.
The Sith dagger that has the precise profile of the Death Star wreckage if you stand in a very specific place. Which Rey does. When was that dagger made? Also, good job that the metal thing sittiing in super rough seas hasn't collapsed any further or eroded at all.
Ren's redemption all happens away from Rey, she doesn't see it. The last time she sees him before Palpatine's courtoom thing, he's still trying to get her over to the dark side. Then he turns up at her big fight and she's all 'so glad you're here, let's do this!'
The rescue fleet was just stupid. 'If we tell them, they will come.' There's nothing to back that up, we've seen no evidence of any kind of resistance outside of the movie characters, there's no build-up, no seeds being planted. Then, a giant armada of random (armed?) ships from all over the galaxy turns up at the same time to a secret planet that's not marked on charts, minutes after the resistance fleet gets there. And wthout the people who asked them to come, knowing about it.
Luke suddenly deciding that his lightsabre should be treated with respect despite the fact that he didn't give two shits about it in either of the previous two films - when Rey gives it to him in TLJ, he just tosses it over his shoulder.
Rey buries Luke and Leia's sabres on Tattooine. A place that has a strong connection for the audience but not to either of those two. Leia was only there briefly as Jabba's slave, Luke grew up there but literally spent his entire life up to that point trying to get off it.
Spring-loaded Stormtrooper-launchers made me laugh out loud in the theatre.
Burning Man planet getting exploded was the worst special effect I have seen in a big-budget movie. It was 1950s B-movie levels of terrible.
I did quite like the aesthetic at the beginning of the movie, and when they go to Space Burning Man. It looked like a live-action Moebius movie. After that though it went all over the place, half of it felt like Christopher Nolan set.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 02, 2020, 08:46:02 PM
samprimary, you are the wind beneath my wings.

Shoot all the bad guy ships in the dick... I'm dying over here


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samprimary on January 02, 2020, 09:33:39 PM
Sorry, Samprimary, but there is one critical flaw with your resolution.  They couldn't just tilt the ship... they had forgotten which direction was up, remember? They neded a device to tell the which direction was away from the planet.

you slow your jets there padaweenie I didn't play 800 hours of elite dangerous to NOT know that axial tilt is objective reference only to itself absent any directional momentum relevant to proximal stellar phenomena


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on January 02, 2020, 11:34:15 PM
(https://www.pcgamesn.com/wp-content/uploads/legacy/kerbal_space_program_023_kajsb.png)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on January 02, 2020, 11:38:34 PM
Samprimary, that was awesome.  Do the Mandalorian next.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 03, 2020, 07:14:44 AM
So, apparently, #ReleaseTheJJCut is trending because of a reddit post. I have no idea if the post is BS or not. The one thing out of it that sounds entirely plausible to me is that Rise of Skywalker might have been sabotaged partially because JJ is going to WB and Disney wanted to tarnish his brand in case he was going to be doing work on DC which could be a threat to Marvel if it ever got crowd pleasing movies.

Who knows, if nothing else, it's an interesting post. Studio meddling wouldn't surprise me one bit for some of the stuff that was problematic for people.

https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/eisnd8/heres_what_ive_been_told_from_a_source_that/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/eisnd8/heres_what_ive_been_told_from_a_source_that/)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 03, 2020, 07:48:01 AM
Hilarious. That film had Abrams' trademark bad moves all over it--it was as much a sequel to Star Trek Into Darkness as it was a Star Wars film in terms of the same kind of tone-deaf "fanservice", bad set-ups for major set pieces, dumb ideas about plot, etc.

This is our lives now: for the forseeable future, a certain kind of fan, confronted with the outcome of a studio and a director pandering to their expressed wishes, will always decide that the real problem is that there's a better movie that was made that a conspiracy is keeping them from seeing. The Venn overlap with people who believe that there was a pedophile ring in the basement of a Washington pizza parlor and that 9/11 was an inside job is pretty large, I would guess.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on January 03, 2020, 08:13:25 AM
Yeah that sounds like ass. The force ghosts sound nice until you remember they'd have to ditch Ahsoka and Kanan, and probably all the other prequel Jedi also. The voices with everyone vs what? Hayden, Jackson and McGreggor ghosts?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 03, 2020, 08:30:01 AM
Hilarious. That film had Abrams' trademark bad moves all over it--it was as much a sequel to Star Trek Into Darkness as it was a Star Wars film in terms of the same kind of tone-deaf "fanservice", bad set-ups for major set pieces, dumb ideas about plot, etc.

This is our lives now: for the forseeable future, a certain kind of fan, confronted with the outcome of a studio and a director pandering to their expressed wishes, will always decide that the real problem is that there's a better movie that was made that a conspiracy is keeping them from seeing. The Venn overlap with people who believe that there was a pedophile ring in the basement of a Washington pizza parlor and that 9/11 was an inside job is pretty large, I would guess.

JJ didn't write Into Darkness. You can lay that one at Lindledof's feet.

I enjoyed the movie but did feel there were some missed opportunities and was puzzled by how much Rose was sidelined. It just didn't feel like something JJ would do other than not figuring out a role for her in general. However, I could totally see Disney being like "she upset people, minimize her role!!!!!"

Yeah that sounds like ass. The force ghosts sound nice until you remember they'd have to ditch Ahsoka and Kanan, and probably all the other prequel Jedi also. The voices with everyone vs what? Hayden, Jackson and McGreggor ghosts?

I do feel like they should've had Hayden Christensen to be honest. You'd expect Anakin to be in that scene as more than a voice.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 03, 2020, 09:58:29 AM
Abrams made all the meaningful choices on Into Darkness, I guarantee you.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on January 03, 2020, 10:14:22 AM
I'd also lay the blame for Into Darkness at the feet of co-writers Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman (also longtime Abrams collaborators) who have written such gems as Amazing Spider-man 2 and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Kurtzman also directed the The Mummy (2017).


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 03, 2020, 11:14:18 AM
I think Abrams does ok when he's riffing off a genre but not actually managing established IP--if you say to him, "Make a monster movie", he has a way of seeing how to do that differently but competently. When he's handed an established IP or when he gets boxed in by the accumulation of unresolved plot hooks in a longer-running version of IP he's played a role in making, he gets frantic and jumpy and he brings out the worst in a squad of frequent collaborators as well. About the only thing he stays good at is relatively tight editing of action and management of the FX, but even the tight editing is bad in that context because he's wholly incapable of slowing the action for a bit to let characters interact and develop connections or to give the action more tension and intensity when it gets rolling again.

Orci and Kurtzman are clearly lesser lights compared to Lindelof, who can do pretty well in some situations. There's a set of people in Hollywood where I don't really understand why they are frequently hired given that they've often played a role in fucking up studio hopes for the development of a particular property. Akiva Goldsman is another. Orci and Kurtzman I guess I understand in terms of the money they made for some really hacky shit stuff, and they seem reliable in terms of no drama, scripts in on time, etc., but there's a lot of failure in their ledger too.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on January 03, 2020, 12:54:45 PM
I enjoyed the movie but did feel there were some missed opportunities and was puzzled by how much Rose was sidelined. It just didn't feel like something JJ would do other than not figuring out a role for her in general. However, I could totally see Disney being like "she upset people, minimize her role!!!!!"

It doesn't sound like Disney to me. I think it is much more likely that the Falcon party started at Rey, Poe, Finn, Chewbacca, Rose, BB8, C3PO, R2D2 - then someone realised that is too many characters.

C3PO and chewbacca kept their places by "dying", and noone was going to write Rey accidentally killing Rose.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on January 03, 2020, 12:57:04 PM
The one thing out of it that sounds entirely plausible to me is that Rise of Skywalker might have been sabotaged partially because JJ is going to WB and Disney wanted to tarnish his brand in case he was going to be doing work on DC which could be a threat to Marvel if it ever got crowd pleasing movies.

This is the stupidest thing I've read on the internet today.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: grebo on January 03, 2020, 01:27:20 PM
Abrahms was trying to  a decision I support 100%


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on January 03, 2020, 01:57:09 PM
JJ can handle “making a monster movie”?  Did you see Super 8?  It became a cascade of failure the moment the monster entered the movie.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 03, 2020, 08:41:47 PM
So, apparently, #ReleaseTheJJCut is trending because of a reddit post. I have no idea if the post is BS or not. The one thing out of it that sounds entirely plausible to me is that Rise of Skywalker might have been sabotaged partially because JJ is going to WB and Disney wanted to tarnish his brand in case he was going to be doing work on DC which could be a threat to Marvel if it ever got crowd pleasing movies.

I'm pretty sure absolutely no one of sound mind at Disney is worried in the slightest by DC movies, even the good ones.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MahrinSkel on January 03, 2020, 09:15:28 PM
Welp, I saw it. It did feel like a lot of it wound up on the cutting room floor, there were some dialog references to things that never happened on screen, and a lot of Lando's performance seemed awfully disjointed for the original cast member that got the most dialog.

It was...disappointing. 40 years, and it limped over the finish line as a blatant 'We gotta wrap this up before we lose the momentum' fizzle. There were no character arcs, we never found out what Finn didn't tell Rey when they thought they were going to die, the ancient Jedi texts were never a factor....

They didn't really tie off any loose ends except for 'Where did Rey come from', and they didn't really do that well. If I hadn't seen every other entry in the series in theaters, I probably would have skipped it.

--Dave


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on January 03, 2020, 09:56:59 PM
It was...disappointing. 40 years, and it limped over the finish line

That's only if you buy into the 9 part Skywalker Saga garbage. That story crossed the finish line 36 years ago. It's really just 4 years to limp across the finish line of the first trilogy Disney has released since they bought this new IP to exploit (because it would have been a tragedy if they had only had the top 6.5 movies this year instead of the top 7.5 (Spider-man obviously being the half).

Yeah, it's a shame that this trilogy ended up being the last opportunity to have Luke, Han, and Leia together and they couldn't even manage to get them all on screen at the same time. Aside from that though, they're just bad sequels and that's a pretty common thing.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 03, 2020, 11:09:29 PM
So, apparently, #ReleaseTheJJCut is trending because of a reddit post. I have no idea if the post is BS or not. The one thing out of it that sounds entirely plausible to me is that Rise of Skywalker might have been sabotaged partially because JJ is going to WB and Disney wanted to tarnish his brand in case he was going to be doing work on DC which could be a threat to Marvel if it ever got crowd pleasing movies.

I'm pretty sure absolutely no one of sound mind at Disney is worried in the slightest by DC movies, even the good ones.

Fair enough, it could have been sheer pettiness then. Who knows.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on January 04, 2020, 05:26:51 AM
It doesn't even have to be pettiness, nothing in those notes sounded good. More scenes with Rose? why? Jannah as Lando's daughter? that would have been bitched about non stop and reinforced that whole "only one black person in all of Star Wars" trope. FOUR extra minutes of Kylo dying? do people realize how fucking long that is? Only the force ghosts might have been cool, and yes they probably got removed because of China not because Disney wanted to fuck JJ or any other retarded conspiracy. Even then, hearing Ahsoka and Kanan was my favorite part of that scene.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on January 04, 2020, 08:04:26 AM
You can't unscrew the pooch.  This is done.  Hopefully, they'll look at the Mandalorian's response and learn a lesson.  Hopefully, the change of course this summer was in response to them looking at the early footage of the Mandalorian and realizing the error of their ways - and they're already working on a path tp a better future.

However, TFA was an homage to ANH.  TLJ and RoS were just bad echoes that didn't understand what they needed to be - and certainly made it harder to tell a good Star Wars story that takes place after the events of these films. 

At least we did not have to endure Lucas' plan of delving deeper into the titti-chlorines.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on January 04, 2020, 08:12:51 AM
The correct plan from here isn't even hard. Make more things like R1. Stop fucking around adding entire new story till you have confidence in yourselves.

I won't get it, but I want a solo 2. I actually want to see Emilia Clarke fucking over Alden Ehrenreich in a film that also has unnecessary amounts of Donald Glover. Everything right about Solo is easy to carry into a sequel and everything bad is easy to drop. And the first movie left us set for a sequel far better than TFA of TLJ did.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on January 04, 2020, 09:16:00 AM
The correct plan from here isn't even hard. Make more things like R1.

So more movies filling in details about shit we already know about taking place around the time of the OT, featuring bland characters and a plot that meanders from place to place, but cool battle at the end and OMG guys look at Vader fuck shit up!?!


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on January 04, 2020, 09:28:28 AM
Star Wars is easy, hire someone like you did with Marvel to run the show who knows what they are doing.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on January 04, 2020, 10:21:38 AM
The correct plan from here isn't even hard. Make more things like R1.

So more movies filling in details about shit we already know about taking place around the time of the OT, featuring bland characters and a plot that meanders from place to place, but cool battle at the end and OMG guys look at Vader fuck shit up!?!

I don't give a crap if it 'fills in details' but setting it in the existing GCW gives you well liked setting for free and no pressure to actually change the galaxy, just tell the story of these 4 to 6 dudes. Nobody seems to think WW2 films are 'unnecessary' just because we know how it ends.

Also,  the approach you describe works fine for the MCU so Star wars could definitely use more of that.

Star Wars is easy, hire someone like you did with Marvel to run the show who knows what they are doing.

It does seem odd that Filoni still doesn't have some role as an overall creative producer.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samprimary on January 04, 2020, 11:40:46 AM
Samprimary, that was awesome.  Do the Mandalorian next.

hey all and welcome to Star Wars: Lets Get Back To Kurosawa, Episode One

starring Space Witcher, Merchandisable Muppet, Budget Lando, Murder Roomba, and Full Price Werner Herzog

highlights include

- a new mostly untested realm of the star wars timeline, this time to be explored by a live action series not painfully obviously for the 8 to 14 year old boy demographic
- why did you watch those other ones anyway. they were so obviously painfully for children. why do you do this to yourself
- its star wars so you reluctantly start watching it thinking 'maybe it will be okay this time' and you caress the scar on your face and have a flashback to the prequel movies, but banish as much doubt as you can
- you kind a wanna geek out about this shit, you just wanna try so you convince your spouse to watch it with you
- she is like ugh fine
- main character 'mando lorean' is here to be a badass bounty hunter just trying to make his way in a work-a-day world and usually he's pretty good but he is definitely not invincible and often bites off too much to handle, especially considering that this is half wild west half feudal japan and opportunities abound to get your shit thrashed
- he arrives on Hoth 3 to score a bounty and murders a dude with a door cause they fucked with him
- we meet the first of the wacky insufferable crewmembers that every other similar tv series teaches us mando is destined to be paired with for the rest of the show's run, a blue fish man with valuable musk glands and the powers of nervous questioning
- psych bro he gets binned in some carbonite and we literally never see or hear from him again. mando does this shit solo bro
- work sucks so budget lando sends him off to meet werner herzog who is actually played by werner herzog. lol like holy shit
- "welcome to my, werner herzog lair" werner herzog says in his very werner herzog voice that you are now reading this in. "i thank you — i thank you for finding your way here, in what i am assured you, as well, know, that there is a certain underscoring spite to the universe, an essence of grim and destined decadent struggle of the lives we lead. as Sisyphus before you, you have come to me, yes, and i know not if the mechanism is through a matter of material desperation, or .. or, or, of a personal anomie and disenchantment, yes ... a fetid longing for that which challenges you ... you seek to enlist of your own free will upon this dance, yes, you are a puppet of fate. do the stakes amuse you as they do i? i, i offer you the pillaged bones of your own dead world, that you might anoint yourself in their chitinous embrace and submit yourself to ready and additional slaughter ... i admire your conceit, the masks you hold, as do we all .. yours a more literal one, in a sense, you subsume yourself in martial errandry as a personality. we are much alike, you and i,"
- "okay i'll do it" says mando just to move the plot along and keep this from turning into My Dinner with Werndré
- we would have watched that though lets be real
- he travels to Tatooine 4 and immediately gets his shit wrecked by land piranha
- Catchphrase Pig teaches him he must have a land piranha to cross the terrain, as fantastic space technology has not yet mastered 'hopping over tiny gaps'
- he arrives at Werner's Funhouse Depot of Horrors to find that Murder Roomba is not programmed for the stealth playthrough
- fuck. ok, kill everyone then
- Murder Roomba announces he will blow up. it is hilarious
- everyone's dead
- SURPRISE the target is actually a fuckin baby yoda puppet thing which is approximately three times as cute as internet videos of clumsy kittens bopping their head into you looking for pats
- your spouse suddenly has eyes the size of fucking dinner plates and is almost for real cryin and from this day until the series ends she will be the one making sure you're watching the series the fuckin minute every new episode of Cute Baby Yoda drops
- your fuckin facebook feed explodes. it's This Is The Way, I Have Spoken, etc and cute baby yoda memes from now until the end of all creation bud
- holy shit star wars got iconic again lol ok
- mando lorean says "i just met this fuckin thing but if anything happened to it i would kill everyone in the world and then myself"
- they sail off to another episode


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on January 04, 2020, 09:25:41 PM
Awesome. Can't wait for the Jawa episode where we find out his ship is composed of panels that just click into place. Space Jalopy.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 04, 2020, 10:25:59 PM
It doesn't even have to be pettiness, nothing in those notes sounded good. More scenes with Rose? why? Jannah as Lando's daughter? that would have been bitched about non stop and reinforced that whole "only one black person in all of Star Wars" trope. FOUR extra minutes of Kylo dying? do people realize how fucking long that is? Only the force ghosts might have been cool, and yes they probably got removed because of China not because Disney wanted to fuck JJ or any other retarded conspiracy. Even then, hearing Ahsoka and Kanan was my favorite part of that scene.

I think more scenes with Rose would have been nice. Reducing her role looks like caving to the Incel crowd. I say this as someone who was more or less meh on Rose because the entire arc she was in was the most painful shit in TLJ. It wasn't her fault in any way but it just didn't give her any chance to shine.

The correct plan from here isn't even hard. Make more things like R1. Stop fucking around adding entire new story till you have confidence in yourselves.

I won't get it, but I want a solo 2. I actually want to see Emilia Clarke fucking over Alden Ehrenreich in a film that also has unnecessary amounts of Donald Glover. Everything right about Solo is easy to carry into a sequel and everything bad is easy to drop. And the first movie left us set for a sequel far better than TFA of TLJ did.

Solo is the only Star Wars movie I didn't see in the theater. The crushing disappointment of TLJ was still too fresh and I was just "meh" especially when I heard about production problems. Which is a shame because I liked it more than Rogue One even with a couple of moments that made me eyeroll. I think they did it no favors by releasing it in May so close to TLJ. If they'd held it back to December people would have had a year to cleanse their palates and it might not have flopped as it did.



Star Wars is easy, hire someone like you did with Marvel to run the show who knows what they are doing.

It does seem odd that Filoni still doesn't have some role as an overall creative producer.

I would bet the reasons boil down to Kathleen Kennedy not wanting to give someone that much control. I may be wrong but I'd be shocked if she wasn't super nervous about her job and is afraid if she gives someone else that much control they'll run away with it and she'll be shown the door.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 04, 2020, 10:43:20 PM
Budget Lando.

BRA-VO.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on January 04, 2020, 11:11:50 PM
The correct plan from here isn't even hard. Make more things like R1.

So more movies filling in details about shit we already know about taking place around the time of the OT, featuring bland characters and a plot that meanders from place to place, but cool battle at the end and OMG guys look at Vader fuck shit up!?!

I don't give a crap if it 'fills in details' but setting it in the existing GCW gives you well liked setting for free and no pressure to actually change the galaxy, just tell the story of these 4 to 6 dudes. Nobody seems to think WW2 films are 'unnecessary' just because we know how it ends.

Also,  the approach you describe works fine for the MCU so Star wars could definitely use more of that.

The MCU generally has memorable/likable characters and the movies tend to move the story overall story forward. So no, that's not really the same formula as telling us the story of the half dozen brave, but cardboard characters who died succumbing to the elements to build the rebel base on Hoth or whatever.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 05, 2020, 02:28:06 PM
The prequels were only bad because Lucas was bad at handling them. The basics had a lot of potential: how Anakin came to hate Obi-Wan, how the Emperor rose to power, how the Jedi fell and were forgotten so quickly, how Luke and Leia were hidden, how the Rebellion started, etc.

The sequels, in contrast, ALWAYS would have required a thoughtful plan to be successful--someone who could sit down and say, "Well, what happens after the good guys win?"  The people writing the EU struggled with this too. In this case, the plan would have to include, "Well, what is happening three or four decades after the good guys won?" considering the ages of the original actors--you didn't have the option of doing a sequel with middle-aged versions of the original trilogy's main characters.

There are other successful films/franchises that have struggled with the same problem, and made the same bad choice: do the original over again! It's an especially bad choice if you don't acknowledge what that implies--that the good guys can never win, that they just are stuck in the same story over and over again. If the good guys stay plucky and upbeat despite that, they start to seem stupid and shallow. If they recognize that they're stuck in the same cycle, they have to be depressed and morose, which complicates them as good guys. Unless you make them the children or successors of the OG good guys, in which case they're young and naive and don't realize they're stuck doing a bad re-enactment of their parents' lives. But the viewers do.

So you need a plan. And there's really only a few alternatives of narrative infrastructures to choose from:

a) the next war is against a completely different kind of adversary, for completely different stakes, with completely different tactics and themes: it's against underground organizations or criminal syndicates or corruption within the good guys or warlords in remote regions; it's against a new kind of galactic evil; etc.
b) the struggle to build something better than the Empire OR the Republic is difficult and perilous and requires hair-raising adventures but also tough dramatic choices; same for the Jedi Order
c) everything you know is wrong: a secret is revealed that changes the story as we know it and creates a completely new dynamic that sets allies against each other (at least for a movie or two)

A) seems best--B) is complicated and doesn't really fit the pulp/serial origins of Star Wars. C) takes having a really great idea about that secret.

But they didn't do it--they didn't even seem to *recognize* that they needed to think about it until they got into The Last Jedi. And I'm gonna stick to my guns forever here: at least Johnson understood what Abrams and the Disney execs didn't, which is that you had to change up the focus and driving ideas to make this an actual sequel rather than a dumb re-enactment. The Rey/Kylo-Ben stuff that everybody kind of liked in Rise of Skywalker is entirely due to how he worked that relationship in TLJ--Abrams didn't do much of anything except say "she's the good one, he's the baddie".


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 05, 2020, 02:48:06 PM
Honestly, I'd have absolutely loved to see some stories set in the immediate aftermath of the original trilogy, with the overarching theme being "how do we rebuild something better than the Empire but without the structural problems that led to the fall of the Republic." If the Mandalorian wants to spin off a story following Gina Carano's character mopping up the remnants of the Empire, I am so there. Star Wars as a universe in which to set different types of stories isn't really worse than the Marvel Universe as a backdrop, but it does require some thought other than "we paid $4 billion for this property, give me a movie every 6-12 months."


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 05, 2020, 03:06:59 PM
Seriously, imagine if in season 3 or 4 of The Mandalorian, the narrative frame shifts from "Man With No Name" to "The Dirty Dozen" or "Where Eagles Dare"--the New Republic hires a squad of mercenaries, ex-Rebel soldiers, etc. to track down and take out the most dangerous surviving Imperial officers, governors and assets, but not everyone in the new government agrees so there's the danger of running into opposing NR forces/authorities.

That would have been a great premise for a sequel series set 10 years out with middle-aged Hamill, Ford, etc,--Luke, Lando and Han agree to join the Hunt Squad, Leia bitterly opposes it and for at least one movie goes splitsville from Han over it. That's how you tell a new story--maybe over time they come back together because they come upon a threat that's bigger than just Imperial remnants--an underground syndicate of Dathomir witches, Hutt crimelords, a Mara Jade-like figure, etc., who are determined to keep both the New Republic and the Empire fragmented and divided--and Leia ends up reluctantly agreeing that you have to fight fire with fire. Great structure for adding new characters, for changing up relationships, for shifting the story, for creating new mysteries, etc.  They could even have done it with legacy characters as a much later thing (e.g., now)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on January 05, 2020, 08:55:06 PM
It's a good fiction a lot of legacy books wrote about. To make it a movie arch you'll need a central premise to build towards like end game.

Maybe that's civil war or a revelution.

They fucked it up so who cares anymore. Because the prequels and sequels are so shitty and fucked up you can never tell a story in that time period.

New major star wars stories.. like the next set of big movies will have to reset it in another 1000 years before or after


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on January 06, 2020, 12:18:43 AM
So you need a plan. And there's really only a few alternatives of narrative infrastructures to choose from:

a) the next war is against a completely different kind of adversary, for completely different stakes, with completely different tactics and themes: it's against underground organizations or criminal syndicates or corruption within the good guys or warlords in remote regions; it's against a new kind of galactic evil; etc.
b) the struggle to build something better than the Empire OR the Republic is difficult and perilous and requires hair-raising adventures but also tough dramatic choices; same for the Jedi Order
c) everything you know is wrong: a secret is revealed that changes the story as we know it and creates a completely new dynamic that sets allies against each other (at least for a movie or two)

A) seems best--B) is complicated and doesn't really fit the pulp/serial origins of Star Wars. C) takes having a really great idea about that secret.

For the purposes of a sequel trilogy where you're trying to end up with a 9 part story arc, I think some form of option b is the only thing that makes thematic sense. As presented in the movies (in other words, completely disregarding whatever comics, books, shows, etc..., are considered canon) the overall story is that one man using the Dark Side of the Force, gains political power, eliminates the Jedi, and plunges the galaxy into war. After a long detour into evil, the kid who was prophesied to bring balance to the Force eventually accomplishes that goal with some redemptive help from his son.

Things are left with that son now the last known active Force user. Trade negotiations, clone wars, and galactic civil wars aside, the heart of this whole horrible era of history lies in how man can abuse the Force and the nebulous ways in which the Force balances itself. The Sith teachings of course are bad, but at the same time the Jedi order was largely ineffective. Lucas thought about exploring the concept of the Force by introducing microscopic creatures who controlled it or something to that effect. That of course is stupid and continuing down the road of midichlorian shit. There is something though to exploring why this energy field that binds everything is only able to be manipulated by a select few and why the masses are at its mercy.

There's a number of ways you can go with the basic setup of how Luke handles being the only known living person who was actively trained in the use of this dangerous natural phenomena that seemingly empowers people either through bloodline or just at random. In some respects it's akin to mutants in the MU. People are born with access to power others don't have. In this case it nearly led the galaxy to ruin once already. Does Luke try to train new Force sensitive people in the ways of the Jedi? Does he come up with a new set of teachings? Does he figure out some way to cut off their access to the Force or find some way to block the Force from being directly accessed by anybody? Do other Jedi/Sith/self-taught Force users come out of hiding now that Vader isn't actively hunting people down? It's not even a story that needs to be told from Luke's point of view as these are all questions you can answer by showing the ramifications a couple generations down the road.

I mean, I'm not going to try to say what they should have done because a) I'm not a writer working for Disney on Star Wars, b) it's too late now, and c) considering Episodes 1-3 were total garbage I'm certainly not losing sleep over Episodes 7-9 being bad. They could have done something that felt like it flowed naturally from the story told in the first 6 movies though instead of something that just felt like a typical Hollywood soft reboot.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on January 06, 2020, 10:56:41 AM
Answers to some of the dumb questions about the miracle fleet.

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/rise-of-skywalker-visual-dictionary-palpatine-fleet (https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/rise-of-skywalker-visual-dictionary-palpatine-fleet)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 06, 2020, 06:01:37 PM
Well, that was dumb and I am the poorer for having read it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Ruvaldt on January 06, 2020, 06:31:30 PM
Not going to waste my time.  This movie was garbage.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: IainC on January 06, 2020, 06:51:46 PM
Answers to some of the dumb questions about the miracle fleet.

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/rise-of-skywalker-visual-dictionary-palpatine-fleet (https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/rise-of-skywalker-visual-dictionary-palpatine-fleet)

That was somehow even stupider than the actual film.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 06, 2020, 06:58:35 PM
They should've just used the Star Forge from Knights of the Old Republic and called it a day. 30 years isn't enough time to build that massive fleet in secret in the way that article suggests. Not in my opinion at least.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: SurfD on January 06, 2020, 09:22:11 PM
They should've just used the Star Forge from Knights of the Old Republic and called it a day. 30 years isn't enough time to build that massive fleet in secret in the way that article suggests. Not in my opinion at least.
Yep.  That explanation is just pants on head stupid, and hand waves away a metric fuckload of things that simply would not work, no matter how many decades you had.

Star destroyers are fucking MASSIVE.  I don't care how advanced your manufacturing capabilities are, you are not going to be cranking these things out in secret in the hundreds in a handful of decades.
Star destroyers are fucking MASSIVE.  I also don't care how advanced your automation capabilities are, you are not crewing hundreds of these things with the children of a cult, unless your "ultra secret sith cult" has an adult population the size of a fucking metropolis......in which case your chances of remaining secret usually fly out the window.
I don't care how "well placed" your moles are in galactic industry, SOMEBODY from accounting is going to notice hundreds of TRILLIONS of credits worth of starship parts disappearing and there is no way you are going to hide that shit for long.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 06, 2020, 10:26:54 PM
It would have made more sense if they'd said that Exegol was a droid planet powered by Energon cubes so they wouldn't have to worry about piloting the destroyers. Worked so well for the trade federation.  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on January 06, 2020, 11:15:53 PM
'There are some more planets behind the one that sounds like a sneeze' is what I would have said. And it isn't technically incompatible with what we see on screen.

It wasn't the actual destroyers I found hard to accept, but the lack of a functioning society to support the implied millions of crew.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on January 06, 2020, 11:50:18 PM
Honestly, all of that could have been handled and explained if the dude would have just allowed some of this shit to breath.  They happily borrow concepts from the old EU stuff, the idea of their being a so-called 'Unknown Region'....which is simply a part of the galaxy far away from the core where the distances simply become too vast to cross and are therefore uncharted (this is where Thrawn comes from in the EU, I don't know what Rebels said about any of that).  Any old school nerd can tell you that there are thousands of planets and vast populations out there.  A couple fucking sentences here and there would have been all we needed.

Anyway, I think there are bigger problems to address than how such a fleet came to exist in the first place or how they manned it.  I am consistently more bothered by the way they shit all over how time and distance work and all the convenient coincidences for how those two things always manage to line up anyway.  For example. 

And also, Dear Space Ship Captains:  spread out that formation a bit, if you would be so kind.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Brolan on January 07, 2020, 09:53:54 AM
They can’t spread the formation while JJ is trying to get the record for most ships in one shot.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 07, 2020, 05:03:21 PM
they should have just uploaded a Macintosh virus, it's about as credible and sensible


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samprimary on January 07, 2020, 06:13:07 PM
they should have just uploaded a Macintosh virus, it's about as credible and sensible

Welcum to hawf


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 07, 2020, 08:45:14 PM

Star destroyers are fucking MASSIVE.  I also don't care how advanced your automation capabilities are, you are not crewing hundreds of these things with the children of a cult, unless your "ultra secret sith cult" has an adult population the size of a fucking metropolis......in which case your chances of remaining secret usually fly out the window.


The crew thing doesn't bother me. The Star Wars universe has thousands, maybe tens of thousands of populated worlds. Assuming each of them has at least the same population as Earth finding crews isn't a big deal. Hell, they could've just stolen children all over the galaxy and it'd barely make a blip.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on January 07, 2020, 08:56:46 PM

Star destroyers are fucking MASSIVE.  I also don't care how advanced your automation capabilities are, you are not crewing hundreds of these things with the children of a cult, unless your "ultra secret sith cult" has an adult population the size of a fucking metropolis......in which case your chances of remaining secret usually fly out the window.


The crew thing doesn't bother me. The Star Wars universe has thousands, maybe tens of thousands of populated worlds. Assuming each of them has at least the same population as Earth finding crews isn't a big deal. Hell, they could've just stolen children all over the galaxy and it'd barely make a blip.

It would atill make it impossible to hide. Either way my assumption is that the ships were unmanned.

Though the FO does step up kidnapping in order to field them so like... add it onto the list of things they do in 24 hours that make no sense.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on January 07, 2020, 10:22:44 PM
Unknown Regions.  If all those peoples came from there, nobody in the rest of the galaxy would be the wiser. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on January 07, 2020, 10:25:56 PM
Quote
The Sith Eternal is made up of some very influential people in the galaxy, including people who served on the boards of Sienar-Jaemus and Kuat-Entralla shipyards. These titans of galactic industry were able to smuggle the parts needed for the fleet out of those facilities and onto Exegol, providing the raw material necessary to build the fleet's might.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18cW_yHo3PY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18cW_yHo3PY)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on January 08, 2020, 05:09:00 AM
It's like these people are worse than JJA at this. Watching the film I thought thought it wouldn't be at all hard to tweak this story to make sense. But no, new Republic corporations were smuggling 'parts' out to Palpatine.

Writing alternative stories on the Internet always makes me feel bad....

But you would think the correct answer is that the imperial guard and an imperial remnant faction snuck out to the unknown region, or maybe had already set up a reserve clone army out there during the imperial era.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Phildo on January 08, 2020, 06:05:37 AM
Smuggling enough parts to make a fleet capable of overwhelming the entire might of the galaxy, meanwhile where exactly were the Republic's fleets this entire time?  Was there ever a proper explanation for why the Resistance was a small, guerrilla force and the Republic essentially faded away?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 08, 2020, 06:52:50 AM
Don't forget that JJA has firmly established now that you can essentially travel instantaneously to all parts of the Star Wars galaxy without real limits in terms of fuel or time. So why the "Unknown Regions" are unknown is a ? Why anything is "remote" in Star Wars is a ? Tatooine isn't the equivalent of a small town in the Central African Republic from the perspective of New York City, it's Hoboken. Everything in Star Wars is now right next to everything else, there is no real distance or vastness. The only reason anything in JJAverse Star Wars is "unknown" is that people in Star Wars are too fucking lazy to explore or travel, or the unknown places are just so fucking ugly or dull that no one goes there. The entire story of ROS takes place in 24 hours--the characters travel to 5-6 planets. from the Resistance base to the planet of the tentacle Burning Man festival (where they spend at least 2 hours looking for fetch quest clue #1) to the planet of the Poe-girlfriend and future toy droid guy (at least 2 hours dealing with fetch quest #2) to the Endor system (where they're prepared to wait until morning but Rey moves to the quest sequence more quickly--let's say 2 hours) to the Resistance planet and/or Sithworld. Chewy and Lando then go off and raise a giant fleet from all parts of the galaxy in maybe an hour or two?

There is no time for any of that to have taken transit time. If it's more than 20 minutes between any of those locations, it doesn't work. So goodbye to remoteness and vastness and distance and mystery. Way to add to the world-building.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: IainC on January 08, 2020, 09:05:48 AM
Yeah, that's been a huge failure of all of the sequel trilogy films. In ANH, they are on the way from Tattooine to Dantooine until they get intercepted by the Death Star. There's a sense of time passing. How much time? Doesn't matter, there's time for Ben to run Luke through Jedi 101, for everyone else to get sick of playing games with Chewie. We get the idea that time has passed. Even the prequels managed to show journeys as being significant. All of the films in the sequel trilogy though have tried to show us a whole bunch of different Star Wars scenes and make the galaxy look big through diversity. That has the opposite effect though because we can see that they travel to all of those locations in a negligible amount of time, the Star Wars galaxy just looks parochial instead.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MahrinSkel on January 08, 2020, 12:38:02 PM
"Light speed skipping" was basically a big "fuck you" to the very concept of distance.

--Dave


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on January 08, 2020, 12:46:50 PM
Smuggling enough parts to make a fleet capable of overwhelming the entire might of the galaxy, meanwhile where exactly were the Republic's fleets this entire time?  Was there ever a proper explanation for why the Resistance was a small, guerrilla force and the Republic essentially faded away?

I think it is generally accepted that the resistance was the denialable force in FO territory, distinct from the Republic itself.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 08, 2020, 01:44:37 PM
ANH depends crucially at several points on the distance between places being meaningful. The Rebellion's secrecy and ability to hit the Empire meaningfully depends, for one, on this being a vast galaxy that takes time to traverse (something that continues into ESB). The distance from Tatooine to Alderaan is important--it allows the characters a chance to interact, for Luke to have his brief training in the Force, etc.--there's even a sense that maybe the time in transit is longer than just the interactions we see (though not long enough that people need to sleep, so probably between 2-8 hours). Scouts take a while to go from the Death Star to Dantooine and to communicate--again, maybe half a day? The Death Star famously can't just warp right on top of Yavin's moon, but in fact has to take its time getting to the relevant moon (implying that you have to enter systems at particular locations and that there are hyperspace routes or lanes). The time it takes Luke to get from Dagobah to Bespin matters a lot to ESB. Hell, if you could warp from one end of the galaxy to the other instantly without lanes or constraints, you wouldn't need to keep a fleet massed ever (and thus have no vulnerability to an attack you're not seeking or welcoming--you could always keep your fleet completely dispersed and assemble it for massed action in a matter of minutes.

The prequels depend on distance too--the remoteness of Kamino is what lets the clone armies be built there out of sight of the Senate and the Jedi, the distance of Naboo from Coruscant is why they have to send just two Jedi to deal with whatever the situation is, etc. Again, if every point in the entire galaxy was within minutes of every other point without constraint, you could always easily bring maximum force to bear on any location within twenty to thirty minutes without ever having to centralize it, and the Republic would have had no issues with its scale or size--a civilization that could resurface most of a planet (Coruscant) could afford to build a billion remote observational droids (a capability we know the Empire and thus presumably the Republic had) to gain onsite intelligence in every system in the galaxy.

But ROS can't work if distance simply doesn't exist. There's no fleet already assembled before Palpatine speaks to the galaxy--we're told that directly. There doesn't really seem to be one even before Chewbacca and Lando go to try and call a fleet of free societies/ex-Republic naval resources/whatever to Exegol. The fleet that appears has ships that look to have come from all over, pretty much from the other side of the galaxy. It would have been one thing if there had been a big fleet waiting to go but just not knowing where to go, but the film specifically says that's not the case precisely so that we can get the fake dumb tension of Poe thinking it's all over and telling his forces he's sorry.

So any future SW that needs to build story up through locations being remote is going to either have to just plain old forget that ROS (and TFA and TLJ) happened, which is probably the right thing to do, or they're going to do something more tortured that tries to actually explain it (almost certainly worse). But it's just fucking bad world-building in a series that took hold of viewers in part because it did really interesting world-building. Think of how consistent and controlled the way stuff *looked* in ANH and what that said about the galaxy; think of how much mileage ANH got out of Luke feeling like he was living in a remote, back-of-the-beyond place; think of how important it was that things felt far away from each other; think of how much stuff there seemed to be in terms of background rules and ideas--ANH and ESB felt like the first installments of a big, complicated universe with a very distinctive feeling to it. Even the prequels tried a bit to built that up (and the Clone Wars and Rebels cartoons actually took that and ran with it). ROS takes a big smelly shit all over the *idea* of world-building.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on January 08, 2020, 06:38:16 PM
ANH depends crucially at several points on the distance between places being meaningful.

Not really, and nor does Empire. But they do use it to slow the fuck down from time to time. Which as everyone has discussed, JJA is incapable of.

If another writer, especially in the GCW era, wants to go back to distances being real, they can, easily, and probably will.

I can't imagine anyone is going to be writing in the first order era any time soon, precisely because the world building has been nonexistent, so of all the things that were bad about the JJA scripts, this is the least important for future stuff.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: taolurker on January 08, 2020, 07:06:11 PM
Yeah, that's been a huge failure of all of the sequel trilogy films. In ANH, they are on the way from Tattooine to Dantooine until they get intercepted by the Death Star. There's a sense of time passing. How much time? Doesn't matter, there's time for Ben to run Luke through Jedi 101, for everyone else to get sick of playing games with Chewie. We get the idea that time has passed.
SW FAIL

Tattooine to Alderaan
(Dantooine only mentioned by Leia in captivity, Yavin was where eventual destruction of DS happened).

Also, I saw this.. Rise of Skywalker fell down, but maybe rose it back from TLJ, MAYBE. Essentially when the text scroll retconned Palpatine anything after that was immediately scrutinized and seen for the masturbatory Star Wars BS I expected, with MOR PALPATINE. After TLJ and Leia stupidity, this was disappointing, and a forgettable popcorn action movie that tarnishes (IMO) the franchise, killing trying to get young fandom (to connect with Boomer/Xers parents?) like other films (again IMO).

Still waiting on Mandalorian, and Rogue One is only movie from SW in years I'd watch multiple times without eyerolling or exasperateingly sighing.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 08, 2020, 11:02:59 PM
If you go with the official Star Wars reference/bible - the West End Games Star Wars RPG (I’m not even kidding) - the trip from Tattooine to Alderaan would take about a week or at least several days on the Falcon, twice or three times as long with a capital ship. You actually get an idea from how ANH tells the story that the trip has taken days even if it’s never explicitly stated.

It also fits with Lucas’ vision of Star Wars being more like WW2 in space.

West End games invented so much lore for Star Wars (including a lot of the names) and they collected and organised so much information and material from Lucasfilm that Lucasfilm actually gave out the Star Wars RPG books as reference material to writers and creative people working on Star Wars content from 1987 onwards.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on January 08, 2020, 11:14:35 PM
ANH depends crucially at several points on the distance between places being meaningful.

Not really, and nor does Empire. But they do use it to slow the fuck down from time to time. Which as everyone has discussed, JJA is incapable of.

If another writer, especially in the GCW era, wants to go back to distances being real, they can, easily, and probably will.

I can't imagine anyone is going to be writing in the first order era any time soon, precisely because the world building has been nonexistent, so of all the things that were bad about the JJA scripts, this is the least important for future stuff.

The durations of travel in the OT are pretty clearly “hilariously short”. But because the movies have pacing you have to really think about it to realize it. And not in the sense that you realize it later but in the sense that you have to watch the movies with an eye to determining it (as an example Alderaan is destroyed minutes before the falcon gets there. There is no cut between obi-wan feeling it and them coming out of hyperspace into the meteor swarm.)
Smuggling enough parts to make a fleet capable of overwhelming the entire might of the galaxy, meanwhile where exactly were the Republic's fleets this entire time?  Was there ever a proper explanation for why the Resistance was a small, guerrilla force and the Republic essentially faded away?

The republics fleets were destroyed by starkiller base (as mentioned during TFA they were at the planets that were destroyed andwere destroyed with them)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on January 08, 2020, 11:16:50 PM
Yeah, the movies don't have to literally state the times and distances, they just have to cut things together in a way that makes us aware of it, or at the very least, not break logical rules.  The OT did it just fine, and in some cases we know how remote places like Tat, Hoth, Dant and Yavin are.  It is either strongly hinted at in the way things are cut together, or you get Tarkin talking about how remote Dantooine is from the core, etc.  It is mostly handled well in the prequels, except for the whole Mustafar debacle at the very end.

JJA is probably good at a lot of things in terms of filmmaking, but he shits all over the concepts of time, space and distance.  To a ridiculous degree.  


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: lamaros on January 08, 2020, 11:18:28 PM
Hey look, it's the discussion we had after TFA all over again.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 08, 2020, 11:20:09 PM
There’s pushing things a bit for dramatic effect (Obi Wan arrives at Alderaan minutes after it was destroyed) and there’s total disregard for time, space, distance and internal logical consistency (everything in 7, 8 and 9).


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on January 08, 2020, 11:30:00 PM
This now has me wondering if Alderaan didn't literally just blow up a few minutes prior.  I mean, the Death Star was still in the area, so maybe?  And the asteroid configuration was still tight.  Which is a total bullshit point, but I wrote it anyway.

Alternative explanation:  a million voices cyring out in terror only travel at sublight speeds.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on January 08, 2020, 11:32:08 PM
Hey look, it's the discussion we had after TFA all over again.

Dude, do you even know where you are?  F13.  30% politics, 20% useless conversation and funny pics, 50% Star Wars threads.  0.5% usefully cynical commentary.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 08, 2020, 11:48:15 PM
Alternative explanation:  a million voices cyring out in terror only travel at sublight speeds.

Even the force has to adhere to special relativity.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on January 09, 2020, 12:41:15 AM
At least in this film, nobody teleports from Earth to Qonos. Just saying.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on January 09, 2020, 01:02:07 AM
Alternative explanation:  a million voices cyring out in terror only travel at sublight speeds.

Even the force has to adhere to special relativity.

Though Rey/Kylo comms are much faster, possibly quantum entanglement is involved.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Phildo on January 09, 2020, 06:47:45 AM
The republics fleets were destroyed by starkiller base (as mentioned during TFA they were at the planets that were destroyed andwere destroyed with them)

Did they?  So the entire republic fleet was in that one system that's definitely not Coruscant, and there were not fleets anywhere else in the galaxy with combat capabilities?  That's pretty dumb.

Also, I've decided that the worst sin of Rise of the Skywalker is that is uses the same acronym as Revenge of the Sith.  My hatred of acronyms is well documented, but the Star Wars acronyms are pretty well documented at this point and now I guess we're doing ROS and ROTS?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on January 09, 2020, 08:18:18 AM
The Republic collapsing entirely off screen is bad but not even in the top 3 problems with the second half of TFA.

And I struggle to believe many people participating in this sort of thread did not understand that this is what happened.

I don't remember anyone complaining about how the empire collapsed in the immediate aftermath of the endorian holocaust. Despite not every star destroyer being lost.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 09, 2020, 08:58:12 AM
Well, for one, in Return of the Jedi, we don't even know that the Empire has collapsed entirely, just that the fleet at Endor retreats and that world governments on a bunch of planets proclaim the end of Imperial authority on their own planet--something that often happens when a dictator is defeated in battle, even if the ultimate aftermath is a lot messier.

The Republic's collapse basically happens in between TFA and TLJ, which is almost as bad as Palpatine speaking from the dead entirely off-screen in the opening text crawl. I mean, shit, ANH and ESB didn't give you a point-by-point civics lesson on the Empire but there was enough exposition tucked into dialogue to get the following picture:

a) there are many planets outside the Empire's control but even there you have to worry a bit about messing with the Empire (Tatooine, Bespin)
b) the Emperor and the Empire's military have been working to get rid of the Republic's governors so that they can have direct martial rule and the Death Star is seen as the key to that.
c) the Empire is actually worried about the Rebellion, enough that finding its main hidden base is a major obsession for Tarkin and Vader in ANH
d) the Empire has some sort of limitations on their ability to build a fleet: there's only one (well, two) Death Stars, and only one Superstar Destroyer; the fleet at Tatooine is small enough that the Millennium Falcon can get through their blockade, and the fleet at Hoth is similarly small enough that it's possible for the Rebellion to evacuate most of its ships.

And even if it doesn't seem to take days or weeks to travel to Alderaan from Tatooine, the point is that it *could*--the OT and even the prequels except for the Emperor showing up at Mustafar do some work to give a sense of time passing between scenes, of distance being at least something of a constraint.

TFA and ROS literally do not give a fuck about scale or time; they don't even have the fueling or resource constraints that TLJ has. Starkiller Base apparently blows up all the planets in Hosnian Prime and all the ships and you can see that happening from star systems that are many light-years away, apparently. The New Republic is so uninteresting to JJA that there isn't even any direct commentary on its existence or the end of its existence--nothing even as much as Obi-Wan talking about the thousands of years that the Jedi were the guardians of peace or Leia saying 'years ago you fought in the Clone Wars' or whatever. What the First Order is, where it is, what it actually has authority over, none of that matters. It's all a giant context-less soup of dinner-theater reheatings of the original trilogy. JJA doesn't give a fuck about world-building or narrative coherence. He handles actors moderately well and visuals moderately well, that's it. What a waste.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on January 09, 2020, 09:02:04 AM
Only one super star destroyer?  "There are a lot of command ships."  So, probably more than three...


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 09, 2020, 09:18:26 AM
Well, they only bother to have one of them at Endor, maybe because the Emperor is overconfident, but it sort of reinforces that they have limits to their resources and that distance is a constraint of some kind.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on January 09, 2020, 09:37:34 AM
I have some bullet point fan fiction of how I would do a sequel trilogy using some of the same characters, because why not.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on January 09, 2020, 09:41:27 AM
Well, they only bother to have one of them at Endor, maybe because the Emperor is overconfident, but it sort of reinforces that they have limits to their resources and that distance is a constraint of some kind.


I wasn't disagreeing with your conclusion, just one of the specifics.  I also had the impression that we never saw the entire Rebel or Imperial fleet present at Endor on screen in any one shot.  Consider how many cruisers we see at the beginning of the fight, how many blow up, and how many we still see later in the fight.

My assumption was that a combination of manpower shortages, secrecy, and a need to keep the Core Worlds heavily patrolled dictated the small forces we see throughout the OT.  If they have the industrial capacity to build the much-larger DS2 in a handful of years, then something other than raw capacity prevented the Empire from flooding the Galaxy with star destroyers.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 09, 2020, 10:19:39 AM
I like Draegan's outline. I like anything that looks like an actual plan, really.

I mean, shit, this movie should have been the Star Wars equivalent of Endgame, with lots of great character bits, some actual narrative and character arcs brought to closure, some genuine tension, and a couple of amazing set-pieces that you'd remember as much as you remember some of the big sequences in the OT or even a few of the best ones in the prequels. Instead it was the Star Wars equivalent of Terminator: Genisys or the last few episodes of Game of Thrones, only worse in some ways. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on January 09, 2020, 10:26:55 AM
Some reviewer commented on that, saying that the final part of the Skywalker saga, the last film in a trilogy of trilogies, has hit the theaters, and what are the three Star Wars things everyone is talking about?
1. This is the way.
2.  I have spoken.
3.  Baby Yoda.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 09, 2020, 10:34:17 AM
Alternative explanation:  a million voices cyring out in terror only travel at sublight speeds.

Even the force has to adhere to special relativity.

Though Rey/Kylo comms are much faster, possibly quantum entanglement is involved.

Well they are a Force Dyad...so yeah, they're entangled!


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on January 09, 2020, 12:06:02 PM
I mean, shit, this movie should have been the Star Wars equivalent of Endgame, with lots of great character bits, some actual narrative and character arcs brought to closure, some genuine tension, and a couple of amazing set-pieces that you'd remember as much as you remember some of the big sequences in the OT or even a few of the best ones in the prequels.

This was never going to be Endgame. That's just buying into the Skywalker Saga marketing nonsense. RotJ concluded the story and this is some add-on stuff decades after the fact that the previous movies didn't set-up at all.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Phildo on January 09, 2020, 12:23:07 PM
I don't remember anyone complaining about how the empire collapsed in the immediate aftermath of the endorian holocaust. Despite not every star destroyer being lost.

Is there anything in canon that actually covers that time period?  As far as I know, we just have Return of the Jedi and then Force Awakens set many years in the future.  Plenty of time for stuff to happen, but it's not addressed, well, anywhere.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 09, 2020, 01:54:53 PM
Mandalorian looks like it'll be the first now-in-canon on-screen treatment of it, except for the truly stupid Rise of Skywalker thing that tried to pretend Luke and Lando were off looking for Exedore at some point before Luke became a milk-guzzling hermit, which is almost certainly going to be a dumb bad book some time soon.

But Chuck Wendig's Aftermath Trilogy is supposedly the in-canon sketch of the basics of what happened afterwards, which is that contra the end of Return of the Jedi, the Empire was actually putting up a good fight for a while until the Battle of Jakku, which finished it off except for some remnants.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on January 10, 2020, 01:21:44 AM
Yeah, that's been a huge failure of all of the sequel trilogy films. In ANH, they are on the way from Tattooine to Dantooine until they get intercepted by the Death Star.

Just being pedantic, but they were on their way from Tatooine to Allderan and arrived right after the Death Star had blasted it. And it tool at least long enough for Chewbacca to have a game of chess with the droids and for Luke to have some Lightsaber exercises, and for Solo to say that they had outrun and lost contact with the Star Destroyers. When they went to whenever the Rebel base was later, it took long enough for them to analyse the Death star plans and rig the fighters for a battle, for the Death Star to arrive. All very vague but it implied a passage of time.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: IainC on January 10, 2020, 02:57:24 AM
Yeah, that's been a huge failure of all of the sequel trilogy films. In ANH, they are on the way from Tattooine to Dantooine until they get intercepted by the Death Star.

Just being pedantic, but they were on their way from Tatooine to Allderan and arrived right after the Death Star had blasted it.

Yeah, I realised I had that wrong after I wrote it. When Leia is being interrogated by Vader, she says Dantooine, and the implication is that the Death Star is going to explode that planet, then they go and blow up Alderaan instead.

Well, for one, in Return of the Jedi, we don't even know that the Empire has collapsed entirely, just that the fleet at Endor retreats and that world governments on a bunch of planets proclaim the end of Imperial authority on their own planet--something that often happens when a dictator is defeated in battle, even if the ultimate aftermath is a lot messier.

Which makes RoS even stupider. If Palpatine didn't actually die, why does the Empire collapse at all? They lose another big superweapon and a senior commander (Vader). Everything else is still in place including all the non-Death Star force projection fleets that they control. Palpatine can just pop up again, say 'Ok we're 0-2 on Death Stars so we won't build those anymore, let's figure out how to put those guns onto ISD class ships and do some standard-issue brutal dictatorship shit.'

When I first saw TFA, my immediate assumption for the First Order was that they were basically continuity Empire forces. Some Grand Moff or other had rallied a bunch of underlings, and was carving out a personal fiefdom. They were using the same visual identity, the same equipment, the same MO. My sequel trilogy arc would have been something like this:

TFA:
The backdrop is a protracted galactic civil war between various continuity Imperial factions and one or more pro-democracy/anti-Imperial factions.
Finn throws off his conditioning and defects to a rebel faction that co-incidentally contains the previous Rebel leadership.
The idea that Stormtroopers can be deprogrammed is massively interesting to the Rebellion and they investigate this deeply.
Poe is their hotshot pilot and they send him off on some crazy adventures to find various macguffins one of which is BB8.
In the process of this he runs into Rey who is clearly a Force user and who is in possession of BB8.
Ren and the First Order are still the bad guys except that Snoke is another Palpatine disciple (not his apprentice).
Ren and Co are planning to garrison a bunch of strategically important planets who are wavering in their loyalty. They are going to occupy them with a bunch of ground troops.
As a result of Poe/Rey/Finn's adventures, the Rebellion has some technomagic macguffin that can amplify Rey's force powers and Finn's experiences to turn this occupation against the First Order by deprogramming the Stormtroopers.
There is a battle, the stormtroopers turn at the dramatically appropriate moment. Celebration, roll credits

TLJ:
The rebellion want Rey to get proper training, and the only Jedi they know is Luke. They go looking for him, find him and he;s not interested.
The First Order is super pissed about the loyalty ju-jitsu manoeuvre in TFA, and decides to make hunting Rey and co a priority. They find them fairly easily and asssemle a fleet to go and finish them off.
Rey is getting nowhere with Luke until she talks about Ren. The Luke Ren thing happened much as it did in the actual sequels and Luke grudgingly agrees to help fix his earlier mistake.
The Rebellion cant stay in one place now because the First Order are chasing them. The movie basically tells the story of the escape from the static bases to a more nomadic command centre. Rey and Ren have some inconclusinve personal battles.
At the end of the movie, the Rebellion have suffered some setbacks, but they have managed to evade the worst of the First Order's assault. They are in a precarious position but they have Luke.

RoS:
Running and hiding indefinitely isn't a sustainable plan so the Rebellion decides to try and rally a bunch of uninvolved planets to rise up against the First Order.
Luke and Rey are training but Luke doesn't think he has anything useful to teach her. The First Order is ramping up pressure on the Rebellion and so they decide to make a final do-or-die assault to strike at the head of the First Order.
They figure that if they can eliminate Ren and Snoke, that will probably leave the rest of the First Order in disarray and vulnerable in a big space battle.
Rey and Luke go looking for Ren. Finn and Poe go looking for allies who have a lot of spaceships.
Finn and Poe aren't getting anywhere, the other armed groups don't fancy their chances against the First Order. Finn is again their main asset here, because he proves that they can break the conditioning.
Rey finds Ren and gets her ass kicked. Luke shows up and Ren goes berserk. Luke barely escapes.
The Rebellion are massing a fleet but it's not big enough, maybe there will be enough for a single desperate suicide run on Ren's flagship
Luke goes back to find Ren and they fight again. This time Luke manages to get some dialogue in which plants some seeds of doubt in Ren's mind.
The Rebels decide to go ahead anyway, their situation is untenable no matter what they do.
They show up for the big battle and start losing. Suddenly a lot of other ships turn up from the people that Finn and Poe were talking to. They figured that if the Rebellion were all in on this, then they should be too.
Snoke twirls his moustache and says 'lol no', does some force bullshit that makes the Rebels lose even harder than they had been previously.
Luke, Rey  and Finn (plus disposable mooks) go in to find and defeat him.
They find him and are fighting when Ren shows up. Luke appeals to Ren, Ren is unconvinced and wades into the fight, he's about to kill Rey when Luke sacrifices himself to save her. Rey decides to try the deprogramming thing on Ren. It works because of Luke's sacrifice. Ren and Rey defeat Snoke.
Allied space fleet defeats First Order spacefleet. Celebrations, roll credits.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 10, 2020, 05:44:31 AM
I mean, yeah--the Emperor, what, used an escape shuttle he had hidden at the bottom of a bottomless shaft and he decides "oh, fuck it, I'm just gonna go off to Exedore, I don't wanna have to build yet another Death Star and there's a death fleet there I can patch up in thirty years or so, the Empire can fuck right off, they don't need me anyway." Or he had a clone waiting for him there, or he learned something from Darth Plagueis the Wise and managed to reform his blown-up body and then space-bubble floated to Exedore or whatever, right?

But all the people who were all like I mUsT knOw WHaT the ORigIn STorY of SNoKe IS or I CaNNOt EnJOy MUH StAR WaRS are like oh yeah Palpatine lived I don't really need an explanation for how or why he decided to go off to Sithworld for a vacation rather than just keep Empiring, I kind of enjoyed this film!


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 10, 2020, 06:19:56 AM
I never cared what Snoke's origin was personally. Origins are a bitch to get right. As for the Emperor. I more or less wrote it off as "The Sith resurrected him using Sith alchemy or something but it was taking a long time and not working well." Supposedly there is a deleted scene that goes into detail on it but I'm sure it was just exposition that slowed things out so they removed it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Phildo on January 10, 2020, 06:23:47 AM
Some of us are capable of thinking that Snoke was a terribly underdeveloped and thus kind of a toothless character AND that the Emperor coming back all of a sudden is really stupid, you know.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 10, 2020, 09:11:43 AM
But all the people who were all like I mUsT knOw WHaT the ORigIn STorY of SNoKe IS or I CaNNOt EnJOy MUH StAR WaRS are like oh yeah Palpatine lived I don't really need an explanation for how or why he decided to go off to Sithworld for a vacation rather than just keep Empiring, I kind of enjoyed this film!

I wanted to know what Snoke was and yet I was supremely disappointed that they just went with the lazy ass kludge of "Oh the Emperor did it." There could have about a billion interesting Snoke backstories that would have taken less than 5 lines to read that would have fleshed out things so much more. A lot of the problem with the lack of Snoke backstory was also the same problem with the lack of the First Order backstory. It just felt like the whole thing, Snoke and the Order, had all just erupted out of a vacuum and hadn't earned the right to be considered as tough as the New Republic or the Resistance. Turns out it was just lazy ass writing and a complete lack of plan.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 10, 2020, 03:40:18 PM
Tell you something, I would have been way happier with "there's an ancient Sith Lord who is NOT Palpatine hanging out on Sithworld and other Sith have come to learn from him and he has the keys to the Death Fleet and lots of people want them and he trained Snoke AND Palpatine AND Darth Plagueis the Wise AND Vader AND Dooku AND Maul AND Revan AND everybody and the galaxy's not safe until he's blown the fuck up"--e.g., who is actually the equivalent of Yoda, a hermit Sith monster who lives on a monster world who hid there a millennium ago. I mean, that could have been pretty epic--that Rey and Ben Solo have to team up to really pop the galaxy's worst zit and it costs at least one of them their lives AND NOW we have kind of a clean slate going forward where the Force can be involved in a new story--not the old Jedi Order, not the old Sith, something new. I mean, imagine if half the McGuffinish shit in this film took place in the equivalent of Mordor--our plucky band, including a maybe-converted Ben Solo, making their way torturously across Sithworld to the HQ of the Ultimate Sith, because he's finally decided that nobody gets the Death Fleet and that he's just going to end the galaxy because he's sick of training morons like Palpatine and Snoke.

But you know what? Leaving Snoke as a mystery who gets axed in a single scene is better too than making him a test-tube creation of a Palpatine who has been alive all this time by unspecified means, etc. The people who need everything explained should be WAY more pitchfork-and-torches about Palpatine's survival, but most of them aren't that pissed, because at least the fat Asian chick was relegated to being a minor character and so it's all cool.

I get wanting more story, but anybody who reads Lord of the Rings and says, "hold it on this scene at the Black Gate, I really hate all three books now and the movies because I am not getting enough detail on the backstory of the Mouth of Sauron" needs to just to be hit over the head and sent to a fanfic gulag and only be allowed out to read and watch things with the rest of the adults after they have composed a full backstory for the Mouth of Sauron using nothing but fragments of granite and their own feces to scratch it into the wall of a cell after which they have to watch while the whole story is burnt off with sulfuric acid and the cell is flooded with swampwater.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: IainC on January 10, 2020, 09:35:08 PM
I get wanting more story, but anybody who reads Lord of the Rings and says, "hold it on this scene at the Black Gate, I really hate all three books now and the movies because I am not getting enough detail on the backstory of the Mouth of Sauron" needs to just to be hit over the head and sent to a fanfic gulag and only be allowed out to read and watch things with the rest of the adults after they have composed a full backstory for the Mouth of Sauron using nothing but fragments of granite and their own feces to scratch it into the wall of a cell after which they have to watch while the whole story is burnt off with sulfuric acid and the cell is flooded with swampwater.


This is the dumbest paraphrase of why people were all wtf about Snoke. You aren't this dumb and I have no idea why you are pretending to be.

In the OT, we don't need to know where Palpatine came from. It's part of the initial setup that we are given. There's an evil Empire, thus an evil Emperor. At the end of the OT, we see Vader and Palpatine die, and the story strongly suggests that there are no more significant Force users any more except for Luke. So, when in TFA, we get this new super Force user who has somehow inherited the remnants of the former Empire, it's a jarring discontinuity with no context. I don't need to see 20 minutes of Snoke growing up, but some references to why he's the guy in charge and where he came from would help a lot. If they'd gone with a regular military commander instead, nobody would care why he was in charge, it would be unexceptional. If it was me writing the First Order leadership, I'd have had a regular Staff Officer running the show. Maybe he's some Grand Moff who carved out a chunk of territory during the fall of the Empire and has been soaking up whatever remnants of the former Imperial military ever since. The first time that any subordinate refers to him as Grand Moff or whatever, we have all the context we need for his leadership. No backstory scenes are required. Then there's Kylo Ren. As the grandson of Vader, he has a strong symbolic value to the First Order even outside of his abilities as a Force user. He's a link between the new regime and an incredibly powerful icon of the Empire. So yeah, give him a leadership role in the First Order outside of the normal hierarchy - like Vader. Then have Snoke be someone from outside the First Order, he's a shadowy figure who corrupted Ren but we don't need to know how or when. The Sith/apprentice dynamic is already well established, there's no need to go too far into that. If we see Ren communing with Snoke in private and keeping it a secret from the First Order, we understand what is going on. Again no explanation needed. In TLJ, when Luke is dropping some backstory to Rey, just have him say something like 'I thought I was training him but I discovered that he had a different Master' and again, we don't need any more context. Instead though, we get something that ought to be explained but isn't. It's like reading a history of the US and all of a sudden there's a reference to the Chief Pope of America and you're like 'wait, what?'

Once again (because I've said this exact same thing before in this thread). When the original trilogy came out, none of those things mattered. Lucas was painting a backdrop for his story and it was ok to just present things as 'this is how they are'. We didn't need a Palpatine origin story, or to know the history of the Millenium Falcon, or civil rights for droids on Tatooine. Here's an evil empire and they have an emperor, here's a rebellion with cooler ships than the bad guys. Here are stormtroopers, the armoured fist of the Empire. All of that is ok to just present without comment when you are building something new. TFA and TLJ aren't building something new, they are adding to and repainting parts of the original backdrop (to return to my original metaphor). When the new parts and the old parts don't match up or if new parts paint over old parts, then a good story teller tells you why - either through contextual clues or straight exposition.

None of that happened. JJA set up a bunch of stuff to be resolved (for good or bad), he made changes to the canvas with a nod and a wink to the audience that there would be a reveal later, and then Johnson decided that he wasn't interested in providing those reveals (or even kicking them on to the next instalment). That's why the contextual stuff matters. Not because anyone wants a pre-sequel trilogy about Snoke's backstory or a 20 minute flashback scene about the Knights of Ren, but because Johnson decided that the audience had the same disdain for the backstory as he did.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 10, 2020, 09:36:33 PM
I got the impression the reveal of the Death Star Destroyers (you know, the scene at the beginning where they all just erupt out of the ground) was meant to be some sort of insanely stupid homage to like Army of Darkness or something where Palpatine was a necromancer and the DSD's were all zombies coming up out of their graves. I was half expecting him to say the ships were unmanned, just being driven by the power of the Dark Side or some shit. Yes, it would have been stupid, but it would have made just as much sense as anything else in this shitty movie.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 11, 2020, 08:24:28 AM
Please to inform me why people who demanded more backstory about Snoke were not being precisely that anal. What was your precisely calibrated need for just enough backstory such that I am being unfair by caricaturing it as detail-freakery?

Because I was delighted that we got a character who was a prosing preening Badguy Man who gets cut down suddenly mid-movie, thereby opening up a completely new narrative space, rather than have to have everything about Badguy Man filled in so his Wikipedia entry could be complete.

Like, I'm cool with Werner Herzog's Imperial guy just being dead, without further information. I'm intrigued by the new baddie in Mandalorian, including him having the Darksaber, but if we never get the blow-by-blow backstory of his complete biography, that will be fine--I already know enough to get what's important about his motivations (key to the Imperial attack on Mandalore, knows who our particular Mandalorian is and the circumstances of his adopting the creed, highly competent, motivated to get his hands on Baby Yoda).

Snoke was from the first a one-note reprise of Palpatine, so there wasn't anything much else I needed to know about him. It was refreshing to not have some exposition of His Grand Plan That He Has Been Hatching Ever Since He Was A Minor Character In The Background of That Scene In Jabba's Palace or whatever. I'd only have been needing that if the entire sequel series was set up with an overall narrative vision about how the past relates to the present.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on January 11, 2020, 08:48:11 AM
Well some of us wanted backstory, not necessarily of Snoke, explaining how the Star Wars universe became such a pathetic shithole.  How did the NR become stuck on Hosnian Prime, and why was it so useless?  Why was Han a total loser?  Where did the FO come from and how was it a threat, but not viewed as a threat?  Why is the Galaxy about 2 AU in size now?  Why did everything go to shit?  What the hell are the stakes?  How does this garbage connect to the OT other than saying "lol, no happy ending afTer all"?  Why should we care about any of this?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on January 11, 2020, 09:15:37 AM
Please to inform me why people who demanded more backstory about Snoke were not being precisely that anal. What was your precisely calibrated need for just enough backstory such that I am being unfair by caricaturing it as detail-freakery?

"some"?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on January 11, 2020, 09:39:40 AM
Please to inform me why people who demanded more backstory about Snoke were not being precisely that anal. What was your precisely calibrated need for just enough backstory such that I am being unfair by caricaturing it as detail-freakery?

Maybe you should ask those people directly because as it is you keep referring to people who had issues with TLJ but are giving ROS a pass and nobody seems to know who you’re talking to.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 11, 2020, 09:57:52 AM
The need for Snoke's backstory, as I stated specifically, was more about the need to explain what in the actual fuck the First Order was other than a kind of pathetic Empire cosplay outfit full of conscripted Stormtroopers (as opposed to clones). Neither First Order nor Snoke had any sort of connection to the universe we already knew with even the flimsiest of rationale. They just were, which as Iain stated, was fine for the Empire in the first trilogy. Sequels have to BUILD on what came before and this one trilogy didn't even bother.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 11, 2020, 02:40:23 PM
I am seeing people here who seem to say: ROS was ok, kind of fun, not great, whose level of venom towards TLJ was considerably greater. Outside this board, I'm seeing that reaction magnified. Nobody thinks it is their favorite, but plenty of people are making excuses for it on a mild or modest level that they didn't make for TLJ. Which puzzles and annoys me.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on January 11, 2020, 02:46:21 PM
I thought both were ok, pretty fun but not great. Like almost every other SW movie.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on January 11, 2020, 04:05:15 PM
I am seeing people here who seem to say: ROS was ok, kind of fun, not great, whose level of venom towards TLJ was considerably greater. Outside this board, I'm seeing that reaction magnified. Nobody thinks it is their favorite, but plenty of people are making excuses for it on a mild or modest level that they didn't make for TLJ. Which puzzles and annoys me.


It’s the Into Darkness effect.  This happened with TFA, too.  Give people a year or two and they’ll only have contempt left for the film.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 11, 2020, 10:37:53 PM
Into Darkness fell apart for me in the theater about midway through and I haven't watched it since. TLJ didn't really start bugging me badly until after I was done and it really fell apart on repeat viewing.

Rise of Skywalker, though? It crumbled from the opening crawl with the "message from Palpatine" and it only occasionally rose to a level of competence with Kylo's redemption. It quickly gave up that precarious perch and fell into the chasm of fuckstupid though.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: SurfD on January 11, 2020, 10:54:51 PM
Into Darkness fell apart for me in the theater about midway through and I haven't watched it since. TLJ didn't really start bugging me badly until after I was done and it really fell apart on repeat viewing.

Rise of Skywalker, though? It crumbled from the opening crawl with the "message from Palpatine" and it only occasionally rose to a level of competence with Kylo's redemption. It quickly gave up that precarious perch and fell into the chasm of fuckstupid though.

Actually, that's another mindbogglingly moronic thing you can point out:  Unless super technologically advanced galactic civilizations are completely incapable of properly recording time stamps, wouldn't Palpatine Broadcasting his message to the universe basically INSTANTLY pinpoint his location?  I mean, it should be utterly trivial to triangulate a point of origin for a signal like that when you have HUNDREDS or even THOUSANDS of planets worth of reception data to compare.  It should take all of about an hour worth of communication between a few friendly worlds to be able to triangulate the exact coordinates in space that message was sent from.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on January 11, 2020, 11:41:21 PM
No, no no.  The only way to get to Exogol is with the one Sith way finder.  Or carpool with General Pride, who shot Hux on a First Order ship and then somehow lead the Sith fleet on Exogol.  Or with the millions of crewpersons and billions of tons of starship parts that also made the journey at some point before Kylo found the way finder.

The movie is stupid from top to bottom.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 12, 2020, 02:12:54 AM
I am seeing people here who seem to say: ROS was ok, kind of fun, not great, whose level of venom towards TLJ was considerably greater. Outside this board, I'm seeing that reaction magnified. Nobody thinks it is their favorite, but plenty of people are making excuses for it on a mild or modest level that they didn't make for TLJ. Which puzzles and annoys me.


They're very different movies with very different problems. TLJ had horrible writing for 2 out of the 3 protagonists, horrible fight choreography, and decided the mid-point of a trilogy was a good time to subvert what the movies tend to be about. It got so caught up in Rian's navel gazing about deconstructing Star Wars it utterly failed to move the trilogy forward other than "HAHAHA look! I killed the so-called big threat to put the character who is clearly intended to be on a redemption arc and has shown zero ability to lead in charge." I get that Kylo more or less repeating Anakin's arc is a bit silly but what TLJ tried to do with his character was even sillier because it didn't fit his prior characterization at all. Not in TFA and not even in the first 3/4ths of TLJ. It was done purely for a "gotcha" moment. "You thought he was close to redemption didn't you? HAH. He's really now the big evil they have to face!!!"

RoS suffered mainly from trying to cram two movies into one combined with JJs poor grasp of distance and time and utter disregard for the established "rules" of the universe when it comes to things like hyperdrive. However, the 2nd half of the movie is quite fun and if it hadn't had to waste so much damned time doing leg work that TLJ should have done it'd be a better movie.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Malakili on January 12, 2020, 04:47:13 AM
I am seeing people here who seem to say: ROS was ok, kind of fun, not great, whose level of venom towards TLJ was considerably greater. Outside this board, I'm seeing that reaction magnified. Nobody thinks it is their favorite, but plenty of people are making excuses for it on a mild or modest level that they didn't make for TLJ. Which puzzles and annoys me.


People who didn't like TLJ felt like it was a blow to the whole series because one of its main themes had to do with struggling with/against the past - and "the past" in that case meant a lot of characters and movies people really liked.

People who didn't like TROS think it was just kind of a bad movie.

That's why the intensity of hatred towards TLJ is higher.

I think TLJ is by far the strongest movie in this trilogy. TFA is fun but forgettable and TROS was just a mess. But I also don't have much emotional attachment to Star Wars at this point in my life, a lot of the things that bothered people (like Luke) didn't really phase me.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on January 12, 2020, 05:09:51 AM
I know plenty about Herzog. I know his main motivation (find the child), I know some of his view on the world, how it got this way, etc. I don't need much else because he isn't presented as the dark mysterious extra powerful and evil big bad who is presiding over a sinister threat to the galaxy I've never heard of and know nothing about.

Fucking don't you dare compare Snoke to Herzog. Herzog fit into the setting, story and events, small scale and limited as they were perfectly. This is so typical of all your "points" in this thread. They are intellectually dishonest. You know damn well its fine for Herzog to just be an old imperial officer, doing what he can, toiling for a goal, it fits and its fine. Nothing more needed and too much more would be a complete waste of time.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on January 12, 2020, 07:47:44 AM
TLJ wasn't strong at all. It's was horribly written.

TFA, while bland and safe, was still a competent movie. TLJ was just horse shit on many levels.

Here's just a list of terrible shit in that movie:

Hyperdrive into a ship to blow it up.
The whole movie being a chase scene where you have smaller ships coming and going.
The whole Casino shit.
Why is Rose a character? That whole love arc was dumb.
The whole Holdo/Poe mutiny shit? Fucking stupid.
Flying Leia

There's probably more but I've forgotten most of it thankfully.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on January 12, 2020, 07:50:53 AM
We are not told that Herzog was responsible for a main character's offscreen fall from grace that destroyed everything the previous six films achieved in their arcs.

Not that I cared much about Snoke.  I detested the character in TFA for the mystery box that it was, and was glad to see Kylo kill him.  Anyone who thought we were getting a worthwhile story out of him wasn't familiar with JJ Abrams or the whole mystery box problem.  They might as well have added "and he has a plan" to the opening credits...


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 12, 2020, 10:24:15 AM
Herzog in the Mandalorian was an Imperial officer. We can infer a whole fuckload about what kind of dude he is just by being told he's ex-Empire. Snoke, OTOH, is Supreme Leader of the First Order - but what even is the First Order? How does it differ from the Empire? They both use Stormtroopers and their tailors are clearly ex-Nazis, but their Stormtroopers are conscripted children instead of clones. How does that even work? The Stormtroopers we see in the series are at least 20 years old so that means the FO would have had to exist without Stormtroopers for a good 10-20 years while all those conscripted children get growed up gud.

What we know about the First Order could fill a thimble even after 3 movies, and much of it is inconsistent and illogical. At least with Herzog, we had 3 movies worth of knowing what The Empire was all about.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on January 12, 2020, 11:14:39 AM
What we know about the First Order could fill a thimble even after 3 movies, and much of it is inconsistent and illogical. At least with Herzog, we had 3 movies worth of knowing what The Empire was all about.

When you put it like that, it sounds kind of like the difference between the Mandalorian and the sequel trilogy is that the writers for the Mandalorian were familiar with the existing source material and knew how to tell a story that doesn't suck.

Which I guess might be important if you're a nitpicking hater.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Malakili on January 12, 2020, 12:40:26 PM
TLJ wasn't strong at all. It's was horribly written.

TFA, while bland and safe, was still a competent movie. TLJ was just horse shit on many levels.

Here's just a list of terrible shit in that movie:

Hyperdrive into a ship to blow it up.
The whole movie being a chase scene where you have smaller ships coming and going.
The whole Casino shit.
Why is Rose a character? That whole love arc was dumb.
The whole Holdo/Poe mutiny shit? Fucking stupid.
Flying Leia

There's probably more but I've forgotten most of it thankfully.

You didn't like what happened in the movie. That's different than it being terribly written.

That's fine. You don't have to like what happened. But it was much stronger thematically than TFA or TROS both of which had very little going on and that's what made it interesting to me despite its narrative problems.  If you just said "Hey we're gonna put one of the new star wars movies on, which should it be?" TFA is probably the most "fun" to watch. That doesn't mean it's the best or my favorite.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on January 12, 2020, 03:56:43 PM
I always wondered if people on F13 would generatr pages and pages of comments if you asked them to compare two pieces of crap.

I guess I have my answer.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on January 12, 2020, 05:42:42 PM
I always wondered if people on F13 would generatr pages and pages of comments if you asked them to compare two pieces of crap.

I guess I have my answer.

Did you not ever read the MMORPG forum ... Ever ... For over a decade ?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 12, 2020, 07:23:05 PM
I will agree that TLJ was stronger thematically than both TFA and TROS, mostly because it had a theme and wasn't just a series of Star Wars Mad Libs projected onto a screen. That still doesn't make it good writing, or even good writing for a Star Wars movie.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 12, 2020, 07:28:50 PM

You didn't like what happened in the movie. That's different than it being terribly written.

That's fine. You don't have to like what happened. But it was much stronger thematically than TFA or TROS both of which had very little going on and that's what made it interesting to me despite its narrative problems.  If you just said "Hey we're gonna put one of the new star wars movies on, which should it be?" TFA is probably the most "fun" to watch. That doesn't mean it's the best or my favorite.


Except it is terribly written.

The slow motion space chase is just asinine. It assumes a level of incompetence on both sides that is just insulting to my intelligence. Fleet is being tracked? Split up. Keep jumping. Hell, do a variation of Holdo's eventual plan. Load up shuttle, do a few jumps, drop them off, then keep jumping to lead the First Order away. On the other hand, if you're the First Order, just jump some ships ahead of their slow asses and box them in. Force them to risk a jump or get surrounded and destroyed. But flying in slow motion until they run out of gas? That wasn't just dumb it was boring.

The Poe/Holdo scenes had a coherent idea and theme behind them but were handled in the worst possible way. I get that the idea was to show Poe was a hot head who needed to learn to slow down and listen and put people first before being the big damn hero. That is a great idea for a character arc for him. But it was handled in the most ham fisted dumb way possible.

Rey and Rose's entire side journey also had a coherent idea and theme but were, again, handled in the worst possible way. I get that the idea was to have Finn learn to care about the Resistance as a whole and to find something to fight for instead of something to run from but much like Poe, it was handled in the most ham fisted way possible.

Luke, Kylo and Rey were handled pretty well right up until the laughably bad Throne room scene and the debacle there. Then it gets good again when Force hallucination Luke shows up. I could've done without the silly "Luke ducks under a lightsaber in slow motion" stuff in that fight between him and Kylo but the idea was interesting at least.

Finally, I'm not sure where the "people didn't like it because it was about erasing the past" thing comes from. That's not a theme of the movie at all. It is explicitly what Kylo's journey seems to be about but the movie's theme is really about learning from mistakes.

Unfortunately, the script itself is a mistake so it all gets lost under bad writing.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on January 12, 2020, 07:31:36 PM
I always wondered if people on F13 would generatr pages and pages of comments if you asked them to compare two pieces of crap.

I guess I have my answer.

Did you not ever read the MMORPG forum ... Ever ... For over a decade ?
If I'd ever allowed myself to start playing even one MMORPG, even a bad one, I'd have never left the keyboard.  I stick to finite addictions.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on January 13, 2020, 05:00:21 AM

You didn't like what happened in the movie. That's different than it being terribly written.

That's fine. You don't have to like what happened. But it was much stronger thematically than TFA or TROS both of which had very little going on and that's what made it interesting to me despite its narrative problems.  If you just said "Hey we're gonna put one of the new star wars movies on, which should it be?" TFA is probably the most "fun" to watch. That doesn't mean it's the best or my favorite.


Except it is terribly written.

The slow motion space chase is just asinine. It assumes a level of incompetence on both sides that is just insulting to my intelligence. Fleet is being tracked? Split up. Keep jumping. Hell, do a variation of Holdo's eventual plan. Load up shuttle, do a few jumps, drop them off, then keep jumping to lead the First Order away. On the other hand, if you're the First Order, just jump some ships ahead of their slow asses and box them in. Force them to risk a jump or get surrounded and destroyed. But flying in slow motion until they run out of gas? That wasn't just dumb it was boring.

The Poe/Holdo scenes had a coherent idea and theme behind them but were handled in the worst possible way. I get that the idea was to show Poe was a hot head who needed to learn to slow down and listen and put people first before being the big damn hero. That is a great idea for a character arc for him. But it was handled in the most ham fisted dumb way possible.

Rey and Rose's entire side journey also had a coherent idea and theme but were, again, handled in the worst possible way. I get that the idea was to have Finn learn to care about the Resistance as a whole and to find something to fight for instead of something to run from but much like Poe, it was handled in the most ham fisted way possible.

Luke, Kylo and Rey were handled pretty well right up until the laughably bad Throne room scene and the debacle there. Then it gets good again when Force hallucination Luke shows up. I could've done without the silly "Luke ducks under a lightsaber in slow motion" stuff in that fight between him and Kylo but the idea was interesting at least.

Finally, I'm not sure where the "people didn't like it because it was about erasing the past" thing comes from. That's not a theme of the movie at all. It is explicitly what Kylo's journey seems to be about but the movie's theme is really about learning from mistakes.

Unfortunately, the script itself is a mistake so it all gets lost under bad writing.



The Luke/Kylo/Rey thing was handled poorly. That was the only interesting thing out of the three movies and all the interesting bits were handled in 30 second flashbacks or off screen.

Luke's whole journey into depression and Ben turning into Kylo should have been the first act of the trilogy. You didn't need the new deathstar or snoke.

Bah. I get so angry over the incompetence.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 13, 2020, 10:35:59 AM
I maintain that the overarching theme of TLJ is failure both by design and by accident.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 13, 2020, 06:10:54 PM

The Luke/Kylo/Rey thing was handled poorly. That was the only interesting thing out of the three movies and all the interesting bits were handled in 30 second flashbacks or off screen.

Luke's whole journey into depression and Ben turning into Kylo should have been the first act of the trilogy. You didn't need the new deathstar or snoke.

Bah. I get so angry over the incompetence.

Yeah, imagine if TFA was set at Luke's academy and Rey and Ben Solo are friends. She has anger issues and a dark side but at the end of the movie it's Ben who falls and destroys it all, not her. Especially with what we now know, they could've dropped hints with Luke being worried about her potential for darkness and stuff.

I maintain that the overarching theme of TLJ is failure both by design and by accident.

Make a movie about failure and fail at making a good movie to drive the point home. Meta!


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 13, 2020, 07:42:20 PM
So do I. I just locate the incompetence differently than some of you.

I think that's the essence of all this. I can see things to like about TLJ that could have been better--I can see it *trying* to do something daring. I can't see a fucking thing in ROS that justifies even the least excuse for its rampant incompetence.

When I grade student work, the student who tries for something more and kind of fucks it up gets way more appreciation from me than the student who is bored and does something safe and vaguely competent but who really can't even be arsed to do that very well. That's a really fundamental moral thing for me: trying to do something better and more daring is always more worthy than doing something calculatedly low-risk, especially if in both cases you fuck up some shit that could have been vastly better.

Some of you are kinder to unambitious stuff, because you are more irritated by something that pokes at something you would rather be left undisturbed, like thinking that Luke Skywalker should have been the most awesomest old Jedi of all old Jedi rather than a fucked-up hermit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 13, 2020, 07:45:05 PM
I didn't have a problem with Luke being a grumpy, checked out old hermit. I had a problem with how ridiculous the movie wrote him in that capacity. The green milk was just the most obvious example of its stupidity. Not actually giving us any real indication of how or why Kylo went bad other than "maybe Luke thought about killing him" didn't help matters.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 13, 2020, 08:02:54 PM


Some of you are kinder to unambitious stuff, because you are more irritated by something that pokes at something you would rather be left undisturbed, like thinking that Luke Skywalker should have been the most awesomest old Jedi of all old Jedi rather than a fucked-up hermit.


Get out of here with this shit. TLJ wasn't some misunderstood David Lynch movie that people just didn't get. I'm fully capable of seeing it tried to take risks. But I'm also fully capable of seeing it had really, really bad writing for around 70% of its runtime.

That reminds me, I'm reading a fairly silly modern fantasy book series and one of the minor plot points is they get movies from other universes that were never made in our universe and rent them for like $100 a night as a way to pay their bills. A fairly popular one is David Lynch's Return of the Jedi. I'd love to see that though I imagine Lucas would have stroked out trying to keep David Lynch painting inside the lines.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: lamaros on January 13, 2020, 08:17:33 PM
Some of you are kinder to unambitious stuff, because you are more irritated by something that pokes at something you would rather be left undisturbed, like thinking that Luke Skywalker should have been the most awesomest old Jedi of all old Jedi rather than a fucked-up hermit.

You are really invested in TLJ for some reason. That's cool.

But I'm not sure it's leading to you understanding other people's views very well.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on January 14, 2020, 11:29:42 AM
I didn't have a problem with Luke being a grumpy, checked out old hermit. I had a problem with how ridiculous the movie wrote him in that capacity. The green milk was just the most obvious example of its stupidity. Not actually giving us any real indication of how or why Kylo went bad other than "maybe Luke thought about killing him" didn't help matters.

I do not understand why the green milk was such an issue?  I also don’t understand how Ben falling was hard to understand 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 14, 2020, 12:33:09 PM
Green milk was an issue because it was stupid, and would only have been grosser if he'd sucked it directly from the teat. It made Luke look ridiculous and like most of the humor in the movie, was really odd and out of place (see Poe's prank phone call of Hux in the opening set piece).


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on January 14, 2020, 12:48:46 PM
It's a farm boy tryin to gross someone out. Totally believable and normal. Kind of a weird nitpick unless you've never seen it in real life.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 14, 2020, 12:51:08 PM
I enjoyed the idiosyncratic humor in TLJ. I don't see why it rubbed people the wrong way to the extent that it did, except for the prank call, which just seemed dumb. In a series that has featured Ewoks, farting livestock, giant space worms, a Jedi master fighting with a droid over a snack, C3PO's dialogue, Salacious Crumb, etc., it's not as if whimsy or odd humorous elements are a new thing.


Ben Solo's underexplained turn to the Dark Side as detected by Luke was consistent frankly with every turn to the Dark Side that we've seen in the films, really. Why Dooku turned, why Anakin turned, why Ben turned, all happen fundamentally either outside the visible narrative or seem largely unmotivated. Partly because "evil" in Star Wars is both extremely well-delineated and explicit (it's stellar genocide, choking underlings, subverting democracy, all that good stuff) and yet with the exception of Ben Solo, strikingly vacant in emotional terms--at least Ben Solo actually gets angry in ways that seem sort of human. As is "good", really. At least the sequels actually had Rey grappling with this a bit: why am I a good person? Why am I nice? I have no reason to be, especially.

Luke got a precognitive flash that Ben was going to murder people directly and be culpable in mass murder and that he was going to prance around in a helmet acting like Darth Vader. As with other precognitive flashes in the series, it was an incomplete and misleading vision, but basically not wrong. In some sense if Luke *had* murdered Ben that would have been better for all concerned--it's the fundamental problem that precognition poses always in these kinds of stories. Are you a good guy if you refuse to kill Hitler-the-artist in Vienna if you get the chance? Hitler-the-kid? That we don't really know why Ben was a bad seed would be really dumb and distressing in another kind of story, but in Star Wars, we don't have richly emotional reasons for why anybody does anything except maybe why Han Solo and Princess Leia get it on (basically that's just attraction and proximity) and why Obi-Wan feels obliged to train Anakin (to honor his dead master). Why is Palpatine so motivated to kill the Jedi anyway besides being trained in an ancient tradition that wants to do so? Why do any of the Jedi actually do their thing other than being trained from childhood to do it? Why do the Separatists want to separate, really? What's their grievance? Why doesn't the Republic just build droid armies to fight droid armies? Why do autonomously motivated droids like R2-D2 not want to be free of being treated like disposable machines? Is Anakin really just going Dark Side because he's a sulky teenager?

If you're worried about not getting a 411 on Ben Solo's actual backstory motivation for turning evil and expected to see something like "because he resents his dad for leaving his mom" or anything beyond "a Dark Side wizard was seducing him with mystical evil", you're suddenly asking for something the series has never given you except in the Filoni-produced cartoons. Which is arguably fine: Star Wars is a pulpy clash of simple archetypes and pulp tropes, not a sophisticated story full of adult psychological motivations and personality clashes.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 14, 2020, 02:10:23 PM
I criticized the prequels for Anakin's quick turn to the Dark Side and their laziness at actually showing any sort of reasoning for his sudden switch from lovesick puppy to genocidal baby killer. Ben Solo's turn had even less explanation, and thus my criticism. Just because other shitty movies in the series didn't explain things well enough or show instead of tell doesn't excuse this trilogy or TLJ from that particular writing sin.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 15, 2020, 11:22:03 AM
That at least is something that rests on the whole trilogy--and arguably is even worse in the JJA films. At least TLJ tried to explain why he's obsessed with Luke in specific and that Snoke was working at Ben Solo for a long time. TFA has absolutely zero to say about Kylo Ren's motivations, just his parentage, and Rise pretty much returns right to that--Ren/Ben's vision of Han doesn't apologize for anything, doesn't reference the time that Ben fell into the Batcave and had to wait for Chewbacca to come rescue him, nothing.

I think the series could use some serious attention to the precepts of Jedi and Sith and some greater emotional stakes for both in the future. It can be done: the Clone Wars cartoons not only gave Anakin more reason for his turn, it explained why others like Qui-Gon or Ahsoka Tano might have left the Jedi or been at odds with their leadership. There's a lot of undone work in general if they want to keep telling stories in this space; of the sequels, only TLJ even recognized the fact of that undone work. TFA and Rise just magnify the failure.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on January 15, 2020, 11:24:22 AM
There is no defending Kylo Ren. There was defending his crap character in The Force Awakens, or in the Last Jedi or in Rise of the Skywalker. It was a lazy uninteresting attempt at making a Darth Vader without any of the thought to what made that character cool or interesting. Ben Solo is whats ultimately wrong with these star wars movies. Shallow and uninterested in anything that makes the lore fascinating to its fans beyond surface appreciation for the aesthetics.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 15, 2020, 11:29:31 AM
Good to know that while I'm being wrong in the eyes of just about everybody here, there's someone who can manage being more wrong. Kylo Ren and Rey are the major good things about the sequels generally--they got insanely lucky to have cast Adam Driver, who is really hitting his stride as an actor.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on January 15, 2020, 11:56:57 AM
I have to admit that Green milk seems to be the sillyist thing to fixate on. I saw the scene and I didn't see anything wrong with it. Its an Alien creature. Gosh not that in Star Wars aaaaa. But then I grew up actually milking cattle, so I'm probably less horrified at the thought of people finding stuff that's edible on an Aiien world and going with it than other people. But really its just something to nit pick at if you are looking for something to nit pick.

Chocolate Milk, anyone? Also, how do you milk an oat?  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on January 15, 2020, 03:52:59 PM
I thought going the rage angle with Kylo worked well, and Driver definitely sold that just fine. It worked a helluva lot better than being a whiny bitch like Anakin. Yeah, he had temper tantrums, but it was dude putting his fist through a wall, not crying in a corner because his teacher didn't give him top marks.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on January 15, 2020, 03:56:20 PM
I thought going the rage angle with Kylo worked well, and Driver definitely sold that just fine. It worked a helluva lot better than being a whiny bitch like Anakin. Yeah, he had temper tantrums, but it was dude putting his fist through a wall, not crying in a corner because his teacher didn't give him top marks.

Them lucking into casting Adam Driver is very different than them writing a compelling character.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on January 15, 2020, 05:59:06 PM
https://news.avclub.com/turns-out-colin-trevorrows-version-of-star-wars-episod-1841002112

Treverrow's original story outline leaked. Interesting stuff in there and has some aspects of my rant of what should have happened from way back in the thread.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on January 15, 2020, 06:30:04 PM
Sounds a fuckload better than ROS.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Brolan on January 15, 2020, 06:30:16 PM
https://news.avclub.com/turns-out-colin-trevorrows-version-of-star-wars-episod-1841002112

Treverrow's original story outline leaked. Interesting stuff in there and has some aspects of my rant of what should have happened from way back in the thread.

I've seen a couple of videos on this and it sounds a lot better than what we got.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on January 15, 2020, 07:13:50 PM
Ya, looks like a very solid story.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on January 15, 2020, 07:22:24 PM
Jesus wept, that sounds a thousand times better than this. Not only is it more coherent, it isn't desperately trying to run away from everything in The Last Jedi as if it were CancerAIDS.

That's been my major point all along: acting like TLJ is the worst fucking thing ever is precisely what made a weak production team and a hack director think that the best thing they could do is wildly flail about trying to erase or undo everything in the last film. Which is the worst thing to do. The best thing to do is make the best out of the best ideas, skip the really bad ones, and make a good movie with a good story.

So disgusting that they had a good script treatment and trashed it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on January 15, 2020, 08:51:40 PM
https://news.avclub.com/turns-out-colin-trevorrows-version-of-star-wars-episod-1841002112

Treverrow's original story outline leaked. Interesting stuff in there and has some aspects of my rant of what should have happened from way back in the thread.

Oh this sounds pretty bad but at least its something I guess.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on January 15, 2020, 09:28:48 PM
https://news.avclub.com/turns-out-colin-trevorrows-version-of-star-wars-episod-1841002112

Treverrow's original story outline leaked. Interesting stuff in there and has some aspects of my rant of what should have happened from way back in the thread.

While it probably would have been marginally better than RoS, I don't for a second believe that the guy who wrote and directed both Jurassic World movies was actually going to make a good Star Wars movie.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on January 16, 2020, 03:10:30 AM
I'm completely certain you could write a better outline for the RoS that got made.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on January 16, 2020, 07:52:48 AM
The second Jurassic World, maybe about half of that movie was scene by scene reshoots of the “cool parts” of all the other JP movies.  But in a not cool way.  It was extremely bad.  And I rather like the first Jurassic World, it is a good popcorn flick.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 16, 2020, 10:53:29 AM
Jesus wept, that sounds a thousand times better than this. Not only is it more coherent, it isn't desperately trying to run away from everything in The Last Jedi as if it were CancerAIDS.



It kinda was CancerAIDS to the sequel trilogy. It discarded setup from the movie before left and right and utterly wasted 2 out of the 3 new protagonists.

There is no defending Kylo Ren. There was defending his crap character in The Force Awakens, or in the Last Jedi or in Rise of the Skywalker. It was a lazy uninteresting attempt at making a Darth Vader without any of the thought to what made that character cool or interesting. Ben Solo is whats ultimately wrong with these star wars movies. Shallow and uninterested in anything that makes the lore fascinating to its fans beyond surface appreciation for the aesthetics.

Congratulations on being more wrong about these movies than Khaldun.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on January 16, 2020, 11:10:32 AM
Jesus wept, that sounds a thousand times better than this. Not only is it more coherent, it isn't desperately trying to run away from everything in The Last Jedi as if it were CancerAIDS.



It kinda was CancerAIDS to the sequel trilogy. It discarded setup from the movie before left and right and utterly wasted 2 out of the 3 new protagonists.

There is no defending Kylo Ren. There was defending his crap character in The Force Awakens, or in the Last Jedi or in Rise of the Skywalker. It was a lazy uninteresting attempt at making a Darth Vader without any of the thought to what made that character cool or interesting. Ben Solo is whats ultimately wrong with these star wars movies. Shallow and uninterested in anything that makes the lore fascinating to its fans beyond surface appreciation for the aesthetics.

Congratulations on being more wrong about these movies than Khaldun.

Its funny because the more these movies come out the more I'm right about whats wrong with them.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 17, 2020, 03:26:49 AM
Good to know that while I'm being wrong in the eyes of just about everybody here, there's someone who can manage being more wrong. Kylo Ren and Rey are the major good things about the sequels generally--they got insanely lucky to have cast Adam Driver, who is really hitting his stride as an actor.


They both had nothing to work with. Kylo Ren is written like a fifteen year old Emo teenager cliche who has a Darth Vader poster on the wall of his room instead of My Chemical Romance and Rey is the audience stand in and has the character and individuality of a movie theater cardboard cutout.

Still both Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver somehow made it work for the most part and they are actually probably the only redeeming part of RoS.

This requires actual acting skills and is pretty remarkable by both of them if you keep in mind what they had to work with. Without that skill you get prequel trilogy Hayden Christensen cringe.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 17, 2020, 03:33:05 AM
they lucked out with their casting and for the most part got actors that were actually quite good at polishing the turds they got for lines.

Doesn’t mean that what they had to work with wasn’t absolutely terrible.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on January 17, 2020, 04:34:27 AM
Eh....I would say that is going too far.  They had plenty of "good" actors in the prequels, and they were mostly unable to polish the turds (Ewan simply proves the rule, or something).  I guess what I am saying is that these turds required less polishing.  Which is not to say that the actors didn't do good work with what they got, because they did.  But none of them had to deal with the shit that Hayden and Natalie had to deal with, that was asking too much of anyone.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on January 17, 2020, 05:01:42 AM
Eh....I would say that is going too far.  They had plenty of "good" actors in the prequels, and they were mostly unable to polish the turds (Ewan simply proves the rule, or something).  I guess what I am saying is that these turds required less polishing.  Which is not to say that the actors didn't do good work with what they got, because they did.  But none of them had to deal with the shit that Hayden and Natalie had to deal with, that was asking too much of anyone.

One of the biggest mysteries about Star Wars to this day is how Ewan McGregor managed to turn in such an iconic performance when no one else in the prequels except Ian McDormand managed to do anything with what they were given.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Jeff Kelly on January 17, 2020, 05:12:57 AM
Eh....I would say that is going too far.  They had plenty of "good" actors in the prequels, and they were mostly unable to polish the turds (Ewan simply proves the rule, or something).  I guess what I am saying is that these turds required less polishing.  Which is not to say that the actors didn't do good work with what they got, because they did.  But none of them had to deal with the shit that Hayden and Natalie had to deal with, that was asking too much of anyone.

Fair enough


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Polysorbate80 on January 17, 2020, 11:36:01 AM
.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on March 04, 2020, 06:40:42 PM
Ah me, speaking of things you all are kind of wrong about, I hope you have been following the stupid hilarity of the official Star Wars social media accounts pooping out information that was supposed to have been in the film to make it coherent only actually wasn't because something something.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on March 04, 2020, 08:28:36 PM
No.  Neither do I stick my hand in a meat grinder for no reason.  I, generally speaking, try to avoid doing painful things.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Brolan on March 04, 2020, 09:07:10 PM
Good lord, that ship has sailed, been torpedoed by a U-boat, and sunk.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: IainC on March 04, 2020, 09:33:33 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/CtEwpR8.png)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on March 05, 2020, 04:43:07 AM
lulz fuck these clowns


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on March 05, 2020, 04:43:17 AM
Frodo casting some shade.

This sort of thing keeps making it worse.

Every attempt to explain things leads to another 'why' and brings real star wars closer and closer to emo sith lore EU star wars, making everything worse in the process. They keep going down this path and sooner or later Darth Bane is a thing you can't pretend doesn't exist in star wars.

The right way to deal with this is just say 'nobody fucking knows, maybe the new new Republic is looking into it, but the fleet happened because palatine is a badass that is why'.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on March 05, 2020, 07:31:23 AM
At this rate I might not even watch this thing when it's free to stream.   :uhrr:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on March 05, 2020, 09:26:30 AM
If only people called out JJ Abrams for doing to the wrath of khan what he did to star wars.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on March 05, 2020, 09:35:38 AM
Both this and the last one in particular are the only SW movies where I have never really felt compelled to rewatch.  I mean, I imagine I will at some point, but there really is zero depth to any of it.  I don’t even think I felt that way about the prequels, surprisingly.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Teleku on March 05, 2020, 10:21:04 AM
Ah, yeah, last weekend I finally watched this (via pirate download copy).

What the actual fuck.  Holy shit what a weird cluster fuck of a movie.  How the studio which has the creative people behind Marvel and Pixar could fuck up a trilogy of movies this badly, for billions of dollars of investment, is mind blowing.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on March 05, 2020, 11:03:59 AM
The thing is, the MCU stuff could have clusterfucked the same way. Basically they got lucky that they had something good out of the gate (Iron Man) that was good partly because all the major properties had seemingly been sold off, and then they got a guy (Feige) who steered the properties in the right direction and managed the corporate infighting so that the dumb rich asshole in the room was steered off to somewhere where he couldn't do any harm. (Basically, the Inhumans TV series was the equivalent of letting the idiot prince go make a fool of himself so that you could lock him in the tower afterwards "for his own good".) What's interesting is that Disney didn't learn a generalized lesson from that, which shows you how bad corporate structures are for managing valuable assets.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on March 05, 2020, 11:27:14 AM
If only people called out JJ Abrams for doing to the wrath of khan what he did to star wars.

I did my best!   :mob: :mob: :mob: :mob: :mob:

fuck that movie still makes me actually angry to think about


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Teleku on March 05, 2020, 11:30:19 AM
The thing is, the MCU stuff could have clusterfucked the same way. Basically they got lucky that they had something good out of the gate (Iron Man) that was good partly because all the major properties had seemingly been sold off, and then they got a guy (Feige) who steered the properties in the right direction and managed the corporate infighting so that the dumb rich asshole in the room was steered off to somewhere where he couldn't do any harm. (Basically, the Inhumans TV series was the equivalent of letting the idiot prince go make a fool of himself so that you could lock him in the tower afterwards "for his own good".) What's interesting is that Disney didn't learn a generalized lesson from that, which shows you how bad corporate structures are for managing valuable assets.

Well yes, that's exactly what I mean.  When they grabbed Star Wars, they already had the talent/structure in place from Marvel, which had already figured out the secret formula for churning out entertaining action super hero films (And lets face it, Jedi are just super heroes at this point).  They also had all the creative minds at Pixar which have figured out the formula of churning out movies that appeal to both adults and children. 

This doesn't mean those crews would have for sure made a good trilogy.....but holy fuck.  This entire thing was a disjointed disaster with an amazing lack of planning or vision for something that a private entity dropped many billions of dollars into.  The fucking Thor trilogy was better overall than this one!


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on March 05, 2020, 11:38:57 AM
Hell, Thor 2 was an enjoyable popcorn destruction device that left your brain without a horrid aftertaste. IE it was dumb but enjoyable, not rage inducing and people forgot it immediately.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on March 05, 2020, 12:12:19 PM
You guys just need to wait for the Abrams Cut. You'll see!


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on March 05, 2020, 12:13:28 PM
Disney didn't own Marvel when Iron Man was released in 2008, they bought Marvel in 2009.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on March 05, 2020, 12:35:05 PM
You guys just need to wait for the Abrams Cut. You'll see!

The exposition dump about how “Reys father was a failed palpatine clone and so dont worry palpatine doesnt fuck but also dont ask questions about how that makes Rey his granddaughter or about whether or not palpatines failed clones fuck or why palpatines failed clones looked so much like normal people” is going to really tie the movie together


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Teleku on March 05, 2020, 12:37:58 PM
Disney didn't own Marvel when Iron Man was released in 2008, they bought Marvel in 2009.
Disney purchased Lucas films and then started working on this whole fiasco in late 2012......


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on March 05, 2020, 01:30:40 PM
The thing is, the MCU stuff could have clusterfucked the same way. Basically they got lucky that they had something good out of the gate (Iron Man) that was good partly because all the major properties had seemingly been sold off, and then they got a guy (Feige) who steered the properties in the right direction and managed the corporate infighting so that the dumb rich asshole in the room was steered off to somewhere where he couldn't do any harm. (Basically, the Inhumans TV series was the equivalent of letting the idiot prince go make a fool of himself so that you could lock him in the tower afterwards "for his own good".) What's interesting is that Disney didn't learn a generalized lesson from that, which shows you how bad corporate structures are for managing valuable assets.

Well yes, that's exactly what I mean.  When they grabbed Star Wars, they already had the talent/structure in place from Marvel, which had already figured out the secret formula for churning out entertaining action super hero films (And lets face it, Jedi are just super heroes at this point).  They also had all the creative minds at Pixar which have figured out the formula of churning out movies that appeal to both adults and children. 

This doesn't mean those crews would have for sure made a good trilogy.....but holy fuck.  This entire thing was a disjointed disaster with an amazing lack of planning or vision for something that a private entity dropped many billions of dollars into.  The fucking Thor trilogy was better overall than this one!

Part of that formula for Marvel though is that while the Marvel Universe is one franchise it's actually made up dozens or hundreds of franchises depending on how you break it down. This helps them make movies that are similar in structure but still allow them to differentiate them from each other. Each franchise can interlink with the others, while still also being able to tell their own stories.

Star Wars is one franchise with probably around 97% of the stories told tying in somehow to the original trilogy. Even the stuff that doesn't tie in directly like KotoR still relies on Jedi vs. Sith rather than any sort of original conflict. Before coming up with a formula for how to churn out SW movies they need to figure out what, if anything, makes this an interesting setting to tell stories in. The best they've done so far is The Mandalorian and (while I'm not a fan of it) Rogue One. I don't know if it's coincidence that in both those cases they borrowed heavily from Kurosawa (or Samurai films in general) much like Lucas did with ANH, but it's something to look at.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on March 05, 2020, 01:45:18 PM
Now you've got a whole story line they're building up that is 200 years before the current story call the High Republic. They released a trailer thing for it. Seems like it'll be interesting. It's not Jedi vs. Sith or anything like Empire. Looks like the bads are some kind of reavers.

Probably will be crap. Most of everything they are talking about are just comics and books though. So if it fails, it'll never get to TV or Movie production.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on March 05, 2020, 01:58:57 PM
Most of the writers they got for the High Republic stuff seem like they generally do YA books (and Charles Soule I know mostly as a comic book writer). Nothing wrong with that as a direction I guess. It's the age group most SW stuff has been actually been written for despite it's most vocal fans/critics being very much not in that age range.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on March 05, 2020, 02:06:42 PM
The only thing I don't like about the subject is that it's not far enough away from the OT. It's just close enough to put Yoda in it some where. Story line should have been 2000 years before or after the movies. Clean slate. Make up something different.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on March 05, 2020, 11:07:58 PM
I don't know any of those authors, but past experience with the books in the SW universe....the YA books are distinctly different in tone and maturity than the regular books, and generally not in a good way.  Which is just another way of saying I have a bad feeling about this.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on March 06, 2020, 12:07:12 AM
... so there's gonna be hot sparkly jedi, right?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on March 06, 2020, 12:08:09 AM
Or maybe just one that also happens to look like just the cutest little kitten.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Raguel on April 11, 2020, 04:58:10 PM

So I finally watched this today. I liked it, even though I had several problems with the movie, particularly the last 3rd.

I wouldn't say it was good, nor do I really want to re watch it.

Even though the new cast got a bit more to do this movie (Rey and Poe bickering was IMO the best part of the movie) I still think (outside of maybe Ben) they were still outshone by the OG characters. Truly maddening.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 11, 2020, 11:48:00 PM

So I finally watched this today. I liked it, even though I had several problems with the movie, particularly the last 3rd.

I wouldn't say it was good, nor do I really want to re watch it.

Even though the new cast got a bit more to do this movie (Rey and Poe bickering was IMO the best part of the movie) I still think (outside of maybe Ben) they were still outshone by the OG characters. Truly maddening.



JJ Abrams gets a lot of shit for this movie but in my opinion 90% of the problems with this movie boil down to "Rian Johnson fucked up the 2nd movie and made zero progress towards a cohesive trilogy so we had to do all the shit he should have done in the first half of this one."

What's weird is I watched Knives Out recently and remembered why I really like Rian Johnson.  Though, the thing he did with Knives Out may actually be a symptom of why the Last Jedi is so awful. In Knives Out he twists genre conventions to subvert expectations and it works brilliantly. He tried the same thing in Last Jedi and it was awful.

If JJ had written and directed all 3 movies or if Kathleen Kennedy had said "Here is the trilogy outline, stick to this please" I think both the last two movies would have been massively improved because at least they'd be consistent.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 12, 2020, 09:50:51 AM
Agreed.  A lot of folks have been saying that since Last Jedi came out - it ruined the trilogy by negating what came before it. 

I've reached the point where I'd rather see them walk away from this time period and do other films - and then come back and do the original trilogy of trilogies in a 9 season TV series called Star Wars: Skywalker Legacy.  9 seasons to tell the story of Anakin being born, raised, rising as a flawed hero, falling to become Vader, his children rising to oppose him and his Emperor, Vader making a reforming sacrifice, his legacy presenting a challenge for the rest of the universe and his children dying to end that dark legacy.   I want to see this story executed well - not see it fall apart and break.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Raguel on April 12, 2020, 10:02:51 AM

So I finally watched this today. I liked it, even though I had several problems with the movie, particularly the last 3rd.

I wouldn't say it was good, nor do I really want to re watch it.

Even though the new cast got a bit more to do this movie (Rey and Poe bickering was IMO the best part of the movie) I still think (outside of maybe Ben) they were still outshone by the OG characters. Truly maddening.



JJ Abrams gets a lot of shit for this movie but in my opinion 90% of the problems with this movie boil down to "Rian Johnson fucked up the 2nd movie and made zero progress towards a cohesive trilogy so we had to do all the shit he should have done in the first half of this one."

yeah I just don't buy that argument at all. I'm not going to rehash the arguments made in this thread but suffice to say I'm more of a mix of Khaldun and Abagadro than you and Haemish.




Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on April 12, 2020, 10:41:06 AM
Both Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker would have been better movies if the movie that preceded them had been a foundation their writers/directors wanted to build on, as opposed to something their writers/directors wanted to apologize for.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 12, 2020, 10:43:33 AM
I think that's the thing everybody agrees on, yeah? Starting this thing without any plan for a three-film story arc was fucking nuts. I think it's really clear that nobody involved did that kind of thinking.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 12, 2020, 11:03:14 AM
I think that's the thing everybody agrees on, yeah? Starting this thing without any plan for a three-film story arc was fucking nuts. I think it's really clear that nobody involved did that kind of thinking.

JJ Abrahms did have a plan.  He handed it off.  Johnson decided not to go with it - with the studio blessing. 

I'm not saying it was a good plan, but he knew what was supposed to happen when Rey found Luke.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 12, 2020, 11:12:12 AM
Fucked up all the way around, honestly. 

It might fail spectacularly, but I wouldn’t mind seeing them try an OT reboot.  Disney reboots literally everything else, so why not?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on April 12, 2020, 11:26:25 AM
It's kind of amazing that in a studio like Disney, with all the stories of studio interference and heavy-handed edicts coming down from executive producers, that something like Star Wars didn't have a story bible that was religiously followed for the new trilogy. It's even crazier when you consider how much that sort of thing has been used to good effect by the Marvel arm of Disney - Feige put 20+ movies out all adhering to a style with specific parts of the greater idea, none of which made either previous works invalid or post works have to dance around inconsistencies (or at least not anything nearly as glaring as in these flicks). As much as I'm not one of the anti-Kathleen Kennedy people, her seeming indifference to a cohesive storyline in this trilogy is striking.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on April 12, 2020, 11:42:58 AM
I think that's the thing everybody agrees on, yeah? Starting this thing without any plan for a three-film story arc was fucking nuts. I think it's really clear that nobody involved did that kind of thinking.

JJ Abrahms did have a plan.  He handed it off.  Johnson decided not to go with it - with the studio blessing. 

I'm not saying it was a good plan, but he knew what was supposed to happen when Rey found Luke.

Do you have proof of this?  Having a plan is JJ Abrams’ kryptonite.  The dude is most famous for not having a clue about what he’s setting up and having no interest in how it resolves.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 12, 2020, 01:22:05 PM
He stated that he had a plan and that Johnson was discarding it before Jedi came out.  He has spoken about how he adjusted to a new plan because his original plan would not work with the chnges Johnson made.

They had a plan and a Bible.  Then Force Awakens came out and there was a lack of confidence/issues that resulted in JJ leaving. They thought a new direction would be better, but before LJ even made it to the screen they knew it was a mistake and went back to JJ to try to salvage what they could.  I'm betting that if they could go back in time, they'd never have JJ or Johnson involved in this trilogy.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on April 12, 2020, 02:52:36 PM
Don't be daft.

JJ may well have believed he had a plan. But there is no evidence that he is capable of a good plan. The Force Awakens alone, as a standalone movie, is just terrible from a world building perspective. It is a fun movie, but makes not a jot of sense.

As you say, neither Abrams nor Johnson were really suitable for 'showrunning' this era of Star Wars.

Both are more than capable of a standalone movie, or even a film overseen by someone running the series.

We've said it loads, but obviously star wars beyond RotJ needs someone building the overall world, it needs it more than the MCU does. The MCU only really needs to enforce tone and template, and vaguely make sure people are in the rough state that the next Avengers movie needs them to be. But for star wars, the world building is a critical part of the IP.

If Disney can't be bothered to hire someone to do that - they should stick to the anthology movies.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 12, 2020, 03:25:02 PM
I think that's the thing everybody agrees on, yeah? Starting this thing without any plan for a three-film story arc was fucking nuts. I think it's really clear that nobody involved did that kind of thinking.

JJ Abrahms did have a plan.  He handed it off.  Johnson decided not to go with it - with the studio blessing. 

I'm not saying it was a good plan, but he knew what was supposed to happen when Rey found Luke.

Do you have proof of this?  Having a plan is JJ Abrams’ kryptonite.  The dude is most famous for not having a clue about what he’s setting up and having no interest in how it resolves.

He had essentially rough notes is what I've heard. Who is Rey? What is Finn's arc? Stuff like that. You can see how he tried to shove it all in Rise of Skywalker.

One of the "saddest" parts of the movie for me is when Poe lands the Falcon and he and Rey argue. You can tell they're trying to set up banter between them and it sort of works but you have to just sort of go "I guess they grew as friends between LJ and RoS." Because Last Jedi did zero to build the character relationships at all.

I think Last Jedi could have been truly interesting as the start of its own trilogy, preferably unconnected to existing characters. Some of its ideas were intriguing but the writing was terrible in some parts and it derailed the trilogy.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 12, 2020, 03:52:10 PM
Don't be daft.

JJ may well have believed he had a plan. But there is no evidence that he is capable of a good plan. The Force Awakens alone, as a standalone movie, is just terrible from a world building perspective. It is a fun movie, but makes not a jot of sense.

As you say, neither Abrams nor Johnson were really suitable for 'showrunning' this era of Star Wars.

Both are more than capable of a standalone movie, or even a film overseen by someone running the series.

We've said it loads, but obviously star wars beyond RotJ needs someone building the overall world, it needs it more than the MCU does. The MCU only really needs to enforce tone and template, and vaguely make sure people are in the rough state that the next Avengers movie needs them to be. But for star wars, the world building is a critical part of the IP.

If Disney can't be bothered to hire someone to do that - they should stick to the anthology movies.
So you call me daft and then agree with everything I said?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on April 12, 2020, 05:44:58 PM
We really doing this again just because one additional person saw it?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on April 12, 2020, 06:33:13 PM
We really doing this again just because one additional person saw it?

Don't worry, we'll have another go-round once it finally hits the Mandalorian channel.   :drill:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hawkbit on April 12, 2020, 07:41:26 PM
Two of us. I just watched it for the first time too.

I'm glad I saw it equally as much as I'm hoping I don't ever have to see these characters again. I don't understand the need to turn everything up to 11.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 12, 2020, 08:57:17 PM
We really doing this again just because one additional person saw it?

We're all locked in our houses. What else are we going to do? Also, in my case, my daughter asked me to watch it with her this week and I watched Knives Out this week.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on April 12, 2020, 09:04:49 PM
I'm serious, I'm not seeing this thing until sometime after it hits Disney+.  I regret seeing the previous five in the theaters; this will finally be the one that I skipped until it was effectively free.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on April 13, 2020, 02:38:06 AM
To be fair to us, only 19 pages on a star wars film is f13 just shrugging.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Teleku on April 13, 2020, 03:37:59 AM
Only Star Wars movie I didn't see in theaters either.  Downloaded a theater cam version with Chinese subtitles, and was appropriate.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on April 13, 2020, 04:41:16 AM
I didn't see the third prequel, this, or Solo in theaters. I wish I'd seen Solo in theaters I'm sure I would have liked it more and honestly I think there was stuff there for them to make another movie or two out of that I could have also enjoyed.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: IainC on April 13, 2020, 04:53:55 AM
I didn't see the third prequel, this, or Solo in theaters. I wish I'd seen Solo in theaters I'm sure I would have liked it more and honestly I think there was stuff there for them to make another movie or two out of that I could have also enjoyed.
If Solo had been a random sci-fi heist movie set in a throwaway universe that didn't have an existing fandom, it would have been fine. It was a mostly ok movie that got let down by being 30 minutes too long and by the IP owners trying to cram in as much fan-service as possible into every second of screen time.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 13, 2020, 04:57:56 AM
I'd love to see someone do a Solo sequel - if they respected the Star Wars as much as Filloni and Favreau.  If those two decided to make a sequel to the Solo we've seen, I'd actually be excited to see it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 13, 2020, 06:23:58 AM
JJ Abrams said he had a plan for not having the villain in the second Star Trek movie be Khan. He said there was a great plan for the secret behind what was happening on Lost. Dude lies about this stuff all the time. Plus even if he did--and Kennedy and others knew it--it's not much of a plan if you hire a guy who says "I have a different idea" and you let him do it. Be like hiring the Russo Brothers to do Infinity War and having them say, "eh, we're going to forget about the gems and Thanos and introduce Kang the Conqueror and have him actually have been Hawkeye in disguise" and have Feige go, "sure sure, that's fine".


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 13, 2020, 07:23:21 AM
JJ Abrams said he had a plan for not having the villain in the second Star Trek movie be Khan. He said there was a great plan for the secret behind what was happening on Lost. Dude lies about this stuff all the time. Plus even if he did--and Kennedy and others knew it--it's not much of a plan if you hire a guy who says "I have a different idea" and you let him do it. Be like hiring the Russo Brothers to do Infinity War and having them say, "eh, we're going to forget about the gems and Thanos and introduce Kang the Conqueror and have him actually have been Hawkeye in disguise" and have Feige go, "sure sure, that's fine".

That's the point. Supposedly JJ had at least a general outline of the sequel trilogy with a few of the big questions answered. Even assuming he's not the type to always know these answers, he had a co writer, let's not forget. He passed these notes on to Rian Johnson and Collin Trevorrow. And Rian Johnson went "That's cute, I'm going to do something completely different." At that point Kathleen Kennedy probably should have said "the middle of a trilogy is not the place to deconstruct Star Wars, save it for your own trilogy." But she didn't.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 13, 2020, 09:08:24 AM
JJ's plan may have been written on a napkin and vague, but he was clearly setting things up.  Those were discarded in favor of a new plan - and that is what did the most damage to this trilogy as a trilogy.  Hate all you want, but that is the biggest problem with the whole of this trilogy.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rasix on April 13, 2020, 09:23:10 AM
I finally saw this. It was somewhat entertaining, but also completely pants-on-head retarded. That fucking dagger. WHY. How did those stupid ships get staffed sitting underground?

The more you think about this movie, the more it just plain sucks. Nothing stands up to any sort of even mild scrutiny. I never want to see this again. It can go sit next to The Last Jedi and Attack of the Clones.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 13, 2020, 09:33:37 AM
I finally saw this. It was somewhat entertaining, but also completely pants-on-head retarded. That fucking dagger. WHY. How did those stupid ships get staffed sitting underground?

The more you think about this movie, the more it just plain sucks. Nothing stands up to any sort of even mild scrutiny. I never want to see this again. It can go sit next to The Last Jedi and Attack of the Clones.
Welcome to conversation from mid-2019. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rasix on April 13, 2020, 09:53:02 AM
Movie came out in December. Good try though.  :thumbs_up:

I kept myself spoiler free and didn't read this thread until now. I didn't want to "Snape kills Dumbledore" myself heading in.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on April 13, 2020, 10:08:00 AM
The good news is that even if you'd had spoilers, you wouldn't have believed them because you'd think to yourself "that's the dumbest shit I've ever read."

Nothing matters. Eat Arby's.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on April 13, 2020, 10:20:31 AM
JJ's plan may have been written on a napkin and vague, but he was clearly setting things up.  Those were discarded in favor of a new plan - and that is what did the most damage to this trilogy as a trilogy.  Hate all you want, but that is the biggest problem with the whole of this trilogy.

He was not setting things up.  He was creating mystery boxes to manipulate the audience’s interest.  There’s a difference. 

JJ did not set things up in Lost: he threw out shit to see what got attention and he had no idea where to go with it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on April 13, 2020, 10:58:57 AM
JJ Abrams said he had a plan for not having the villain in the second Star Trek movie be Khan. He said there was a great plan for the secret behind what was happening on Lost. Dude lies about this stuff all the time. Plus even if he did--and Kennedy and others knew it--it's not much of a plan if you hire a guy who says "I have a different idea" and you let him do it. Be like hiring the Russo Brothers to do Infinity War and having them say, "eh, we're going to forget about the gems and Thanos and introduce Kang the Conqueror and have him actually have been Hawkeye in disguise" and have Feige go, "sure sure, that's fine".

That's the point. Supposedly JJ had at least a general outline of the sequel trilogy with a few of the big questions answered. Even assuming he's not the type to always know these answers, he had a co writer, let's not forget. He passed these notes on to Rian Johnson and Collin Trevorrow. And Rian Johnson went "That's cute, I'm going to do something completely different." At that point Kathleen Kennedy probably should have said "the middle of a trilogy is not the place to deconstruct Star Wars, save it for your own trilogy." But she didn't.

Hang on, surely the middle act is exactly the place to deconstruct it.

Also if Johnson ignored JJ Abrams plan to make Rey Snoke's grandchild or whatever then he wasn't the problem. The problem was Abrams having a shit plan.

And based on the alternate script floating about there obviously was no plan because neither actual RotS nor draft Duel of the Fates make any damn sense, and nor do they have any similarities.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 13, 2020, 04:35:51 PM
Empire Strikes Back is beloved as a sequel precisely because it fucking scrambled shit up in ways that nobody expected. (And Lucas did NOT have a plan for it.)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on April 13, 2020, 04:42:28 PM
Can't really say I've ever heard anyone suggest that "subverts expectations" was the reason they love Empire Strikes Back.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 13, 2020, 05:10:03 PM
...
He was not setting things up.  He was creating mystery boxes to manipulate the audience’s interest.  There’s a difference. 

JJ did not set things up in Lost: he threw out shit to see what got attention and he had no idea where to go with it.
And that was how long ago?  Fuck, Dude.  The guy said he had a plan.  If you want to assume that Disney was cool with there being no plan, with the actors being cool that there was no plan, and everyone lying to say there was a plan just because... well, ok.  Live in that world.

And Lucas also had a plan, but refused to stick to any plan he made.  He has fucking revealed the entire original plan - every single note of it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on April 13, 2020, 05:32:52 PM
The guy said he had a plan.  If you want to assume that Disney was cool with there being no plan

They hired JJ Abrams.  Given his resume, I think it's very safe to assume they were cool with there being no plan.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Typhon on April 13, 2020, 06:06:04 PM
I :heart: these threads more than I can say.  As far as I'm concerned, you are all heroes, all MVPs.

 :popcorn:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 13, 2020, 07:05:48 PM
The guy said he had a plan.  If you want to assume that Disney was cool with there being no plan

They hired JJ Abrams.  Given his resume, I think it's very safe to assume they were cool with there being no plan.
Yeah, people get to gamble a billion dolars with no plan all the time.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on April 13, 2020, 07:16:33 PM
Watching people talk about this is like watching DC "Universe" fans make up excuses for why no one liked Justice League. Oh you see "Zack Synder JJ Abrams Had a plan. It was a good plan for all these movies, than Warner Bros Disney caved into all the non-fans and gave the project to someone else who fuuuucked it up and we really would have been better off with the original vision"

That is of course assuming that the Force Awakens, Like Batman v Superman and Man of Steel weren't giant fucking red flags to begin with. That is assuming that even if there was a plan their blatant disinterest in the core tenants of the franchise means more money, more control, and withs more time these "visionaries" will eventually polish a turd into gold. I'm here to tell you it won't. Just like in Justice league there is some ideas too stupid to realize even if you give it a billion dollars.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 13, 2020, 07:23:48 PM
Empire Strikes Back is beloved as a sequel precisely because it fucking scrambled shit up in ways that nobody expected. (And Lucas did NOT have a plan for it.)


The Empire Strikes Back is beloved as a sequel because it is well written and well filmed with the best plot twist of the entire series. It's the apex of all of the movies and the one all the others try to live up to much like Wrath of Khan is for Star Trek. The Empire Strikes Back did not try to deconstruct the first movie. It did not try to subvert expectations in a hamfisted way. The Empire Strikes Back is what a middle movie should be. It is basically act 2 of the larger 3 act structure that is the original trilogy. It's where things get dark and hopeless for the heroes.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on April 13, 2020, 08:11:24 PM
Can't wait till the next time someone watches this movie so we can have this conversation again.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 13, 2020, 10:39:40 PM
Maybe I will re-watch it over the next couple of days, and then we can have a conversation about the spaceregular goats assaulting the star destroyer.  Only this time, the question will be why did anyone think a good use of cargo space on an atmospheric assault mission should be to house a bunch of spaceregular goats.  Just what situation where they preparing for?  OR FOR WHAT ELSE DO THEY USE THEM.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on April 13, 2020, 10:59:44 PM
“....And when the men get lonely, is this how they do it, private?”

“Er no.  I meant when the men get lonely they use the space goats...to ride into town to visit the brothel.”


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 13, 2020, 11:18:59 PM
Right, but we also know it wasn't exactly a long flight from whichever fucking planet they came from (seriously, it is bad that I don't even know the answer to that, what a bunch of shit worldbuilding) to their arrival to Exo-planet-thing.  I mean, who knew the heretoforth uncharted regions were so accessible, takes like 8 minutes to get there.  Anyway, what I am suggesting is that they should have had men, or bombs, or literally anything with them besides livestock, regardless of how sexy that livestock was.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on April 14, 2020, 01:21:30 AM
ESB is loved because it is a great fucking movie, took good characters that were established in the prior pulpy-but-good-movie and developed them to a much deeper level and  centering them in larger narratives, had pathos, good jokes, kick-ass action sequences with lots of pew-pew and whoosh sci-fi goodness, deepened the universe,  introduced new and interesting characters, had a legit good romantic subplot between attractive co-leads, hinted at even larger narrative threads, looked fucking awesome, had the best laser sword fight in movies ever, dropped a movie-history defining spoiler plot bomb, and had a downer ending that wanted you to come back for more.

If anyone wants to compare that movie to anything that came before or since and tie it some some bullshit "subverting expectations" narrative to apply to the later trilogy they can come fight me.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Phildo on April 14, 2020, 06:18:36 AM
Right, but we also know it wasn't exactly a long flight from whichever fucking planet they came from (seriously, it is bad that I don't even know the answer to that, what a bunch of shit worldbuilding) to their arrival to Exo-planet-thing.  I mean, who knew the heretoforth uncharted regions were so accessible, takes like 8 minutes to get there.  Anyway, what I am suggesting is that they should have had men, or bombs, or literally anything with them besides livestock, regardless of how sexy that livestock was.

Everything is 8 minutes from everywhere in the Sequel Universe.  Hyperspace is now near-instantaneous travel to anywhere.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 14, 2020, 07:09:09 AM
Look, yes, it was just a really well-made movie. But you gotta remember that back then, nobody really expected it to be more than Star Wars 2: The More Star Wars--that's what sequels to these new summer blockbusters were. Jaws 2 came out in the summer of 1978--sequels were cheap repeats of a successful film that recycled the formula.

ESB was actually the middle act of a trilogy--it had a story of its own to tell and it moved the larger story ahead, and it had surprises (the hero gets the crap beaten out of him by the bad guy! The bad guy is his dad!) etc. That was the subversion of expectations--that the story moved ahead, that it deepened the pulp into something more mythological, etc.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on April 14, 2020, 07:54:42 AM
That was the subversion of expectations--that the story moved ahead, that it deepened the pulp into something more mythological, etc.

So it was good because it subverted expectations by being good?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 14, 2020, 08:06:14 AM
That was the subversion of expectations--that the story moved ahead, that it deepened the pulp into something more mythological, etc.

So it was good because it subverted expectations by being good?

I assume he means the reveal itself was the subversion and that made it good, or added to it.

I don’t agree, however, because ESB was good from start to finish.  It was also for some reason the first Star Wars film I ever saw, and it blew my damn mind to an irreparable degree.  Without and expectations to subvert.

It is also still outstanding 30 years later.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on April 14, 2020, 08:38:13 AM
Right, but we also know it wasn't exactly a long flight from whichever fucking planet they came from (seriously, it is bad that I don't even know the answer to that, what a bunch of shit worldbuilding) to their arrival to Exo-planet-thing.  I mean, who knew the heretoforth uncharted regions were so accessible, takes like 8 minutes to get there.  Anyway, what I am suggesting is that they should have had men, or bombs, or literally anything with them besides livestock, regardless of how sexy that livestock was.

If you think I was arguing against you, you are mistaken.  The problem is that everything in this movie is nonsensically stupid.  The voodoo shark from Jaws 4 is more grounded.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on April 14, 2020, 08:38:28 AM
Let's keep in mind that ESB also took Lucas's original plan for a sequel and was redone by an actual good writer and a better director. The producer and studio didn't just let the writer run wild with whatever idea floated into their head.

Also, I will disagree with Ab on one point about ESB. It did not have the greatest swordfight in cinema history. In fact, despite the rest of the movie being shit, I will posit that the lightsaber fight between Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Darth Maul in Phantom Menace was better. FITE ME!


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on April 14, 2020, 09:05:40 AM
Luke vs Kylo in 8 is also better.

If we widen it to TV, obiwan vs Maul in Rebels.

And outside star wars there are probably a million Asian films, but the training room in Crouching Tiger comes straight to mind.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 14, 2020, 09:18:34 AM
Right, but we also know it wasn't exactly a long flight from whichever fucking planet they came from (seriously, it is bad that I don't even know the answer to that, what a bunch of shit worldbuilding) to their arrival to Exo-planet-thing.  I mean, who knew the heretoforth uncharted regions were so accessible, takes like 8 minutes to get there.  Anyway, what I am suggesting is that they should have had men, or bombs, or literally anything with them besides livestock, regardless of how sexy that livestock was.

If you think I was arguing against you, you are mistaken.  The problem is that everything in this movie is nonsensically stupid.  The voodoo shark from Jaws 4 is more grounded.

No worries, I was not disagreeing with you, just like ranting.

As far as duels go, it depends on how you define good.  But I would generally go with OB1, QG and Maul.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 14, 2020, 09:25:41 AM
JJ's plan may have been written on a napkin and vague, but he was clearly setting things up.  Those were discarded in favor of a new plan - and that is what did the most damage to this trilogy as a trilogy.  Hate all you want, but that is the biggest problem with the whole of this trilogy.

If JJ was “clearly setting things up” then RJ took everything that JJ gave him direclty and ran with in precisely the direction that made the most sense from TFA. If JJ had a plan it pretty much had to be how TLJ was filmed.

Then plan that got thrown out the window was between 8 and 9. When it was time for bus throwing because the grognards gonna grognard and Disney doesnt care to make art anymore.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 14, 2020, 10:58:42 AM
Ok so lets rank Star Wars Movies

ESB
ANH
R1
SOLO
ROTJ
FA
RotS
TLJ
CW
RoS
TPM

With that being said, the new trilogy was dog shit. Nothing was planned. Nothing was Marvelize. They took a billion dollar property with the most entrenched and fanatical fan base and shit all over it. It was only rescued by a cool TV show that was done by someone who had ties with *checks notes* Marvel.

JJ would have been the perfect director of the first movie if someone handed him the script and told him the story he was shooting.

It was clearly obvious Rian Johnson was a clown and wanted to be all meta and fuck with the audience because Star Wars needed to be fucked with some how. He's an idiot.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 14, 2020, 11:18:37 AM
Star Wars was always been meta... the force was always a standin for plot. There is a clear audience insert character. The standard rescue the princess plot is turned right on its head... it uses, subverts, and comments on an entire era of movies that came before it.

TLJ
SW
ESB
ROTJ
R1
TFA
Solo
The rest of them
Rise of Skywalker

Edit: I thought RoS was Rise of Skywalker and RotS was Revenge of the Sith?

Edit: Added Solo because... well it was a decent movie


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on April 14, 2020, 11:25:54 AM
Ranking:
ESB
R1
ANH
ROTJ
FA
SOLO
TPM
TLJ
CW
RoS
RotS

I cannot in good conscience give RotS any credit - even its good points are quickly drowned out in the shit editing. At least TLJ had that cool shot of Purple Hair Hyperspeed Ramming the Star Destroyers. RoS had the memes (I HAVE THE HIGH GROUND). I struggle to remember much about either Solo or CW so they were just forgettable. TPM had that incredible saber duel.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 14, 2020, 12:08:08 PM
I LOVE

Empire Strikes Back
A New Hope

I LIKE

Return of the Jedi
Last Jedi
Revenge of the Sith
Force Awakens

I WILL WATCH JUST THAT ONE SCENE WITH UNRESERVED AFFECTION BUT OTHERWISE DON'T LIKE

Phantom Menace

I ENJOY THE MEMES BUT HATE THE MOVIE

Clone Wars

I FUCKING HATE WITH ALL MY HEART

Rise of Skywalker


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rasix on April 14, 2020, 12:21:57 PM
ESB
ANH
ROTJ
R1
FA
------------- Below this line, I will not ever watch again unless my family asks me to.
RotS
RoS
TLJ
PM
-------------- NO. <Tracy_Jordan.gif>
AotC

Have not seen and will never actually try to see:
Solo


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 14, 2020, 03:23:27 PM
Solo is a good flick. If it wasn't Han it gives B tier mandoloriian vibes in retrospt.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on April 14, 2020, 04:25:56 PM
HEY SOMEBODY DID SOMETHING GOOD WITH SW

ESB (non-Special Edition)
The Mandalorian
Kotor games
X-wing/TIE Fighter games
Tales of the Jedi comics


I CAN ENJOY THE NOSTALGIA

ANH (non-Special Edition)
The parts of ROTJ with the Emperor
Dark Forces Games
Battlefront Games
Star Wars Arcade Game


THAT LAST LIGHTSABER FIGHT WAS COOL AND HEY, LIAM NEESON

Phantom Menace


DUMPSTER FIRE

Everything else


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 14, 2020, 05:14:06 PM
If JJ was “clearly setting things up” then RJ took everything that JJ gave him direclty and ran with in precisely the direction that made the most sense from TFA. If JJ had a plan it pretty much had to be how TLJ was filmed...
Well, if you discount everything that was ever said by th people involved, including JJ and Johnson, that might be true.  If, however, you look back at everything they said between the two films, this is as full of shit as the last guy on a human centipede that has some extra tight stitches in his ass.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Raguel on April 14, 2020, 05:18:40 PM
I think the stories in SWTOR are great. The game itself isn't all that good and its cost is kinda ridiculous.

I guess I'm just too dumb to know my expectations were subverted in TLJ. I mean some story decisions were just bad but the only thing truly shocking was the suicide run.

Also everyone has their pet peeves but I still think even with a plan for the trilogy it would have been doomed from the start if that plan wasn't set on focusing primarily on the new cast or the old one.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 15, 2020, 02:43:24 AM
I'll join in, why not!


ANH (This is purely nostalgia. Subjectively, ESB is a better movie, but ANH started it all and I just can't forget that.)
ESB
ROTJ
RotS (The only prequel movie I'd say is "good". It's at least fun to watch.)
FA
Solo
RoS
R1 (The last 45 minutes of R1 is the only fun part of the movie. The rest of it drags as it is basically "Fetch Quest: The Movie")
TPM
CW
AOTC
TLJ


Yes, I'll watch the Clone Wars movie and AOTC again before I'll watch TLJ again.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 15, 2020, 04:40:52 AM
...Also everyone has their pet peeves but I still think even with a plan for the trilogy it would have been doomed from the start if that plan wasn't set on focusing primarily on the new cast or the old one.
TFA was not good, but there was a plan in this regard.  JJ's plan was to focus on the new cast and give each of the primary trilogy "OGs" a good sendoff over the last three films by making them a pivotal player in one film, primarily in the last half of it.  Han in TFA, Luke in episode 8, Leia in episode 9.  Johnson held true to that in 8, but Fisher passing abbreviated that in 9. 

I'm not saying it was well executed, but there was a plan. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 15, 2020, 04:41:39 AM
I rank R1 higher only because the visuals and writing are really as close as you can get to the originals while adding modern stuff to it. It's also closish to Mandalorian.

Regarding SWTOR. Cool lore in the game and setting. The people making the game were idiots. I met most of them once or twice. Every design decision I questioned them about they actually rescinded 4 months later as the game tanked.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 15, 2020, 04:44:46 AM
...Also everyone has their pet peeves but I still think even with a plan for the trilogy it would have been doomed from the start if that plan wasn't set on focusing primarily on the new cast or the old one.
TFA was not good, but there was a plan in this regard.  JJ's plan was to focus on the new cast and give each of the primary trilogy "OGs" a good sendoff over the last three films by making them a pivotal player in one film, primarily in the last half of it.  Han in TFA, Luke in episode 8, Leia in episode 9.  Johnson held true to that in 8, but Fisher passing abbreviated that in 9. 

I'm not saying it was well executed, but there was a plan. 

I've said it before, I really like the character arc that Luke had about turning into an angry and bitter hermit, but that should have been the focus or at least a center portion of the three movie arc instead. I mean he kind of is, but only in the background and not really mattering or doing much other than spending 3 hours looking for him in one movie and then watching him whine and have a shitty battle at the end of a second.

He could have been a more dark an ominous figure too. But they fucked that up as well.

I feel like any one with an ounce of talent could have written a really cool story. I mean they were given the license to fuck everything up and they did, but they didn't even have fun with it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 15, 2020, 06:16:32 AM
Yeah, not to restart this, but sure, while I'd concede that the character arc for Luke could have been more planful and artfully executed, the basic idea was great and a really important way to think about the afterlives of heroes.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 15, 2020, 06:29:15 AM
Well Star Wars is dead anyway now. They killed it. All you can do is live in nostalgia. They new movies did nothing to build additional fans. At least the prequel had the clone wars cartoon that built a new generation of fans.

The Mandalorian is a good way to keep Star Wars in the culture zeitgeist. Maybe in 5 years they'll try to reboot it with a whole new "story".


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 15, 2020, 07:11:22 AM
Well Star Wars is dead anyway now. They killed it. All you can do is live in nostalgia. They new movies did nothing to build additional fans. At least the prequel had the clone wars cartoon that built a new generation of fans.

The Mandalorian is a good way to keep Star Wars in the culture zeitgeist. Maybe in 5 years they'll try to reboot it with a whole new "story".
Mandalorian is the reboot.  It is the cornerstone on which all new Star Wars will be built.  They slapped their collective heads when they saw what Favreau and Filloni did and said, "Oh, yeah.  That makes sense."  It is why everything was derailed in the middle of last year. 

Feige's Mace Windu  (my speculation for the Feige SW film) film will have some free hands, but the rest are going to lean more heavily on the Mandalorian and a New Hope than anything else. 

I doubt Rian Johnson gets to make his trilogy, or that we see another film before 2023 December - and that one is likely to be the Feige movie. 



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 15, 2020, 08:23:49 AM
We'll see. I don't see them squeezing more movies into the ANH time period.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 15, 2020, 08:33:12 AM
We'll see. I don't see them squeezing more movies into the ANH time period.
I see them continuing to tell stories that take place in the era *before* TFA: in the hundreds of years before PM through the starting time frame of TFA.  I also see a possibility that they do a soft reboot of Star Wars with a galactic calamity storyline that negates a lot of the destructive things that episodes 7, 8 and 9 did - and possibly addresses the question of how could this all have been a long time ago without impacting us.

There are dozens of scripts for a gangster world (Sopranos in Star Wars) that Lucas was preparing for a TV series.  I do not think those are dead, although they may form the outline for an animated series rather than a live action SW series.

I also think they will not learn their lessons well enough and will try to make a Luke or Vader film sometime.  Maybe a Leia learns the force film, too.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 15, 2020, 11:32:49 AM
...Also everyone has their pet peeves but I still think even with a plan for the trilogy it would have been doomed from the start if that plan wasn't set on focusing primarily on the new cast or the old one.
TFA was not good, but there was a plan in this regard.  JJ's plan was to focus on the new cast and give each of the primary trilogy "OGs" a good sendoff over the last three films by making them a pivotal player in one film, primarily in the last half of it.  Han in TFA, Luke in episode 8, Leia in episode 9.  Johnson held true to that in 8, but Fisher passing abbreviated that in 9. 

I'm not saying it was well executed, but there was a plan. 

Yes. But i am discounting this plan as the "plan that Johnson totally changed everything on" because he uhhh... clearly didn't change anything on it. TFA was set up explicitly for Luke to be a bitter hermit cut off from the force. There was no other option from the text of TFA. Luke exiles himself because of the loss of his students as Kylo Ren, the son of his best friend, and his knights destroyed it. He isn't in mortal peril when Rey shows up. He is just sitting on his island. Did we expect him to be all "Oh i was just waiting for my lightsaber to come back to me and now that i have it i can go kick ass"?

You can even see this in some of the scenes of RoS. The movie was originally probably meant to end on the Death Star. Kylo gets stabbed by Rey after being distracted by Leia in the exact same spot that Kylo stabbed Han. She heals him(or doesn't). And then leaves. And Kylo throws his lightsaber away, rejecting the concept of jedi and its destiny and then the movie ends. Unfortunately we got some shiiiit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 15, 2020, 01:00:54 PM
Well they are doing a bunch of books and comics called the High Republic which was 300 years before ANH.

Who knows if it ever makes it out of print.

Frankly they just need to set the time period 1000s of years in either direction of time and just have another story using the force. Maybe keep some of the aesthetics of architecture and ships.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 15, 2020, 02:37:04 PM
...
Yes. But i am discounting this plan as the "plan that Johnson totally changed everything on" because he uhhh... clearly didn't change anything on it...
If you ignore that Rian Johnson said he threw out JJ's outline, and that JJ said Johnson was throwing out his outline.

Yes, they had to pick up the story where JJ left off.  But:

* JJ had plans for who Rey was.  Johnson nixed it.  JJ reinstated it.
* JJ gave the mask of Ren significance.  Johnson discarded it.  JJ reinstated it, and then paid off the destruction of it in a meaningful way.

There are a lot of examples of this type of thing all throughout the trilogy.  JJ starts it, Johnson nixes it, JJ reinstates it. 

But I am done talking about these shitty movies.  I'm waiting for what comes next and hoping I'm right that they're more Mandalorian than anything else.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on April 15, 2020, 04:03:28 PM
If you want to get right down to it, RJ was right.  Everything g JJ reinstates was a groaner.  Pretty much everything in ROS was cringe-inducing.  RJ made the better calls (even if not the right calls), and his movie at least feels like a movie.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on April 15, 2020, 06:23:10 PM
Feige's Mace Windu  (my speculation for the Feige SW film) film will have some free hands, but the rest are going to lean more heavily on the Mandalorian and a New Hope than anything else. 

I'm sure taking a few years hiatus to come up with a new direction for the SW movie franchise and coming back with "Relatively minor Prequel Character Who Died: The Movie" would go over real well.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 15, 2020, 06:42:50 PM
Well, Ahsoka is going to be in the 2nd season of The Mandalorian.

I think one EU/sort of Clone Wars thing they could reintroduce in The Mandalorian to great effect would be the Nightsisters, and/or other Force-using societies and organizations that are neither Jedi nor Sith. That is really needed to open up post-ROS storytelling that stll has Force-users in it.

I think they need to stay the hell away from trying to clear up the ROS mess the way that the SW official social media accounts have been trying to do. Just make it a narrative equivalent of a fart in an elevator.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 15, 2020, 09:52:20 PM
Feige's Mace Windu  (my speculation for the Feige SW film) film will have some free hands, but the rest are going to lean more heavily on the Mandalorian and a New Hope than anything else. 
I'm sure taking a few years hiatus to come up with a new direction for the SW movie franchise and coming back with "Relatively minor Prequel Character Who Died: The Movie" would go over real well.
Any Sam Jackson goes over well.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on April 15, 2020, 09:54:19 PM
They need to give it to QT and let it be a hard R.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 15, 2020, 10:13:15 PM
...
Yes. But i am discounting this plan as the "plan that Johnson totally changed everything on" because he uhhh... clearly didn't change anything on it...
If you ignore that Rian Johnson said he threw out JJ's outline, and that JJ said Johnson was throwing out his outline.

Yes, they had to pick up the story where JJ left off.  But:

* JJ had plans for who Rey was.  Johnson nixed it.  JJ reinstated it.
* JJ gave the mask of Ren significance.  Johnson discarded it.  JJ reinstated it, and then paid off the destruction of it in a meaningful way.

There are a lot of examples of this type of thing all throughout the trilogy.  JJ starts it, Johnson nixes it, JJ reinstates it. 

But I am done talking about these shitty movies.  I'm waiting for what comes next and hoping I'm right that they're more Mandalorian than anything else.
I 100% do not believe Mr Mystery "i don't even want to open my presents to find out what is inside them" Box had any plans for Rey or the mask(which ended up having zero significance in RoS any-fucking way!). So saying that JJ's vague "there are totally plans" comments refers to that and not what RJ clearly and obviously ran with and expanded from TFA makes 100% no sense to me.

JJ is also the guy who told me that Into Darkness definitely 100% would not have Kahn in it. So...


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 16, 2020, 05:30:56 AM
I think it's pretty stupid that JJ had zero idea where the characters were going. At the very least he had a general outline of the plot points on where to go next. Whether or not they were good, that's another story. What is mindfucking is that Disney allowed RJ to just ratfuck everything and then allow JJ to ratfuck and hamfist it even more.

It all looks stupid. How Kathleen Kennedy still has a job who the fuck knows.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 16, 2020, 07:32:53 AM
It all looks stupid. How Kathleen Kennedy still has a job who the fuck knows.

She wasn't even good at it before she got power over the whole thing.  She let the same things happen in the EU writings.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 16, 2020, 10:39:56 AM
...
JJ is also the guy who told me that Into Darkness definitely 100% would not have Kahn in it. So...
Dog. Bone.

He was intentionally trying to mislead to preserve a twist.  If you can't see how that is different, well fuck.  I won't bother with you.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on April 16, 2020, 11:15:37 AM
They need to give it to QT and let it be a hard R.

First thing I thought when I heard that they were going to have different directors do the sequels was "oh man, I hope Tarantino gets one."  Alas.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on April 16, 2020, 11:29:42 AM
...
JJ is also the guy who told me that Into Darkness definitely 100% would not have Kahn in it. So...
Dog. Bone.

He was intentionally trying to mislead to preserve a twist.  If you can't see how that is different, well fuck.  I won't bother with you.

Just like he was intentionally trying to mislead the audience by saying he had a plan to preserve the idea that his films are worth watching and he isn’t a hack?  If you can’t see how JI has handled every project he’s ever worked on, well fuck.

As to the idea that he had plans for the characters...Have you ever seen JJ’s stuff before?  He doesn’t do characters. He does scenes.  His characters might revert to some easy archetype when allowed, but mostly they exist to set up the scene he wants to shoot and then the next scene and the next.  Their pasts are mystery boxes and so are their futures.  And they all talk with the same grammatical cadance and vocabulary.  Every resolution in his films feels unearned because he doesn’t know how to write character growth.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 16, 2020, 11:33:19 AM
It all looks stupid. How Kathleen Kennedy still has a job who the fuck knows.

She wasn't even good at it before she got power over the whole thing.  She let the same things happen in the EU writings.

No one really cares about the EU writings.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 16, 2020, 02:04:04 PM
F13.NET
USELESSLY CYNICAL
DUMBFUCKERY


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 16, 2020, 02:53:56 PM
...
JJ is also the guy who told me that Into Darkness definitely 100% would not have Kahn in it. So...
Dog. Bone.

He was intentionally trying to mislead to preserve a twist.  If you can't see how that is different, well fuck.  I won't bother with you.

And you think he might have no ulterior motive after TLJ was out? Yea OK. JJ has only ever been perfectly honest with his public statements and would never say anything that benefitted him or his studio if it wasnt true.

The only evidence we have of a plan is the one RJ followed. Both the explicit follow through on the film for each of the three main characters and the direct follow through from things made explicit in TFA. The idea that there was wide variance in plotting from TFA to TLJ is stupid from stupids.

And if there was a differing idea on reys parentage, which is about the only thing that possibly could have been changed then RJ was right to do it because Rey being a secret Palpatine(or related to any main characters) is the stupidest thing.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 16, 2020, 04:15:03 PM
...
And you think he might have no ulterior motive after TLJ was out? Yea OK. JJ has only ever been perfectly honest with his public statements and would never say anything that benefitted him or his studio if it wasnt true.
They both said it before TLJ was released, but please go on with your misinformation.  It has come back around to being amusing again.
Quote
The only evidence we have of a plan is the one RJ followed. Both the explicit follow through on the film for each of the three main characters and the direct follow through from things made explicit in TFA. The idea that there was wide variance in plotting from TFA to TLJ is stupid from stupids.
Except for the undeniable fact that both JJ and Johnson said that Johnson was not following JJ's plan, Johnson clearly undid a lot of what JJ had established (meaning he changed a course of action - you known the plan...), and JJ and Johnson, as I have repeatedly noted - said all that shit BEFORE TLJ WAS RELEASED. 
Quote
And if there was a differing idea on reys parentage, which is about the only thing that possibly could have been changed ...
…? WTF?  Do you think this was the only thing in the movie?  I'm back to not being amused by your tom fuckery.[/quote]… then RJ was right to do it because Rey being a secret Palpatine(or related to any main characters) is the stupidest thing.[/quote] … because there is absolutely nothing establish in Star Wars showing the force can run in a family, especially the family of a powerful force wielder. 

NOBODY IS FUCKING DEFENDING JJ'S STORY.  Whether it sucked or not is not the question.  He had a plan.  Do I think it was detailed?  No.  It was not a scene by scene plan for three films, certainly - but it was a rough outline - probably several pages long - that addressed all the big questions.  Do I think it was good?  No.  It was bad for JJ, even.  However, everything points to there being a plan, and that he had to massively adapt it after RJ treated the plan like Chipotle treats your ass.

I'll tell you what to do here to further augment your understanding - Go do some research on musical cues in Star Wars.  The music is often the biggest spoiler in Star Wars.  Look at the write up of the musical themes being used in different parts of TFA.  They foreshadow the original plan. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 16, 2020, 10:08:27 PM
It all looks stupid. How Kathleen Kennedy still has a job who the fuck knows.

She wasn't even good at it before she got power over the whole thing.  She let the same things happen in the EU writings.

No one really cares about the EU writings.

I know, the point being simply that she was shit at controlling a cohesive narrative there with a bunch of nobody authors, and somehow failed spectacularly upwards and let the same thing happen to one of the most valuable IPs that exists.  She's always been terrible at her job.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 17, 2020, 03:40:28 AM
WTF?  Do you think this was the only thing in the movie? 

It really is. I don't know maybe JJ had deep plans about Luke's X-wing not being underwater or something? That would be very like him, the minute attention to thematic and plotting detail.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on April 17, 2020, 08:20:27 AM
holy shit I just realized jgsuden is still white-knighting JJ Abrams after like three pages

 :popcorn:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 17, 2020, 08:33:36 AM
He might as well just marry him.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 17, 2020, 08:54:17 AM
….
NOBODY IS FUCKING DEFENDING JJ'S STORY.  Whether it sucked or not is not the question...
Reading comprehension is cool, kids.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 17, 2020, 07:31:29 PM
...
JJ is also the guy who told me that Into Darkness definitely 100% would not have Kahn in it. So...
Dog. Bone.

He was intentionally trying to mislead to preserve a twist.  If you can't see how that is different, well fuck.  I won't bother with you.

Ah man. Seriously. Come up for air. Rejoin the human race. Stop reading the Internet.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 20, 2020, 12:05:13 AM
...
JJ is also the guy who told me that Into Darkness definitely 100% would not have Kahn in it. So...
Dog. Bone.

He was intentionally trying to mislead to preserve a twist.  If you can't see how that is different, well fuck.  I won't bother with you.

And you think he might have no ulterior motive after TLJ was out? Yea OK. JJ has only ever been perfectly honest with his public statements and would never say anything that benefitted him or his studio if it wasnt true.

The only evidence we have of a plan is the one RJ followed. Both the explicit follow through on the film for each of the three main characters and the direct follow through from things made explicit in TFA. The idea that there was wide variance in plotting from TFA to TLJ is stupid from stupids.

And if there was a differing idea on reys parentage, which is about the only thing that possibly could have been changed then RJ was right to do it because Rey being a secret Palpatine(or related to any main characters) is the stupidest thing.

Ok, putting aside all the JJ stuff the idea that Rian Johnson followed a plan of any kind is laughable. He explicitly said he didn't. JJ said he didn't. You can almost literally see him discarding plot points left and right throughout the runtime of The Last Jedi. He looked at all the setup TFA did and was like "Nah, fuck that, I want to deconstruct Star Wars in the middle of a trilogy because that's the perfect time to do it." Whether or not you think the setup in TFA was any good is beside the point. Veering hard right in the middle part of a trilogy just doesn't work unless there is a clear plan.

The supreme irony of all this is if you look at Knives Out it actually does more or less what this trilogy does and succeeds beautifully. Act 1 looks like 1 thing, Act 2 changes to another thing, Act 3 reverts back to what Act 1 was. I actually like Rian Johnson. I think he is a better writer and director than JJ 99% of the time. But he stepped on a rake and hit himself in the face with TLJ.





Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 20, 2020, 12:34:04 AM
What was thrown out? Legit what is shown in TFA and then thrown out?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Tebonas on April 20, 2020, 04:41:32 AM
I like Rian Johnson, Knives Out was the best film I saw this year in cinema (and thanks to Corona that will likely be true till 2021).

So I'm perfectly fine with laying the blame on JJ "I've good an idea for a twist, you guys figure the rest out" Abrams.

But while it is entertaining to read, you guys put more thoughts into this than everybody involved in this last trilogy combined.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 20, 2020, 05:07:22 AM
What was thrown out? Legit what is shown in TFA and then thrown out?
See above.  Where it was explained a few dozen times.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 20, 2020, 05:25:00 AM
What was thrown out? Legit what is shown in TFA and then thrown out?

The fact you're asking makes me wonder if you watched either movie.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 20, 2020, 07:16:29 AM
...
The fact you're asking makes me wonder if you watched either movie.
I mean, he has a point.  There were Stars and Wars in both, and that is basically all there is to Star Wars.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 20, 2020, 06:36:16 PM
What was thrown out? Legit what is shown in TFA and then thrown out?
See above.  Where it was explained a few dozen times.

See above where? The thread is 20 pages long and it hasn't been in the last few.
What was thrown out? Legit what is shown in TFA and then thrown out?

The fact you're asking makes me wonder if you watched either movie.

I have seen both a half a dozen times. There really isn't much of anything changed from TFA to TLJ.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 20, 2020, 07:05:13 PM

What was thrown out? Legit what is shown in TFA and then thrown out?

It's not even worth going into. You're not even discussing things in good faith if you're insisting nothing was thrown out. So many plot threads were discarded that people accused JJ of doing the same to TLJ in this movie purely because he was being petty about how much of his plot Rian ignored. You're literally the only person I've ever run into that is trying to pretend that plot threads weren't discarded left and right. Even my daughter who is far from a huge Star Wars fan was like "why did Last Jedi ignore so much stuff from the Force Awakens?" when she saw it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 20, 2020, 07:22:19 PM
I suppose if you cant tell me what was ignored then i don't know what to say.

But for real i don't know what it is you're referring to. The only times i've seen things mentioned they were... not in TFA. Usually people are all "Luke totally wouldn't have been like he was" when it was all but spelled out that he was. Luke doesn't come rushing back when Han dies. So he pretty much must be cut off from the force. Its explicitly laid out that Luke abandoned the galaxy when Kylo destroyed the temple. The other big one is "Finn wouldnt run away from the fight he was a rebel" which... no that does not happen in TFA. Or "why is the first order attacking so close after taking down starkiller?" when its explicitly mentioned that attacking starkiller would give them away and that they would have to immediately relocate in TFA... Etc etc.

Edit: Though in this one we do have two new ones

"TFA set it up for Rey to be important but in TLJ she wasn't important despite being the main character and having every aspect of the movie revolve around her character growth"

and

"TFA set up for Kylo's mask to mean something but in TLJ it didn't mean anything because the rejection of that symbolism and the mirroring of the symbolism with the broken mask of vader threw that unmentioned, described, or themed symbolism that JJ was totally planning out the window"

I don't know how to answer these statements if these are supposed to be "things in TFA that TLJ threw away"


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rendakor on April 20, 2020, 07:33:45 PM
Rei's parents/origin is the big one. TFA implies that her parents matter, TLJ says her parents were no one, RoS her grandpa is Palpatine.

Snoke is another one. Mysterious big bad in TFA, instantly killed in TLJ.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on April 20, 2020, 07:54:20 PM
Rei's parents/origin is the big one. TFA implies that her parents matter, TLJ says her parents were no one, RoS her grandpa is Palpatine.

Snoke is another one. Mysterious big bad in TFA, instantly killed in TLJ.

Both of these mystery boxes were handled properly by RJ.  Snoke’s death and its aftermath is one of the best scenes in that movie.  Rey Palpatine is beyond stupid. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 20, 2020, 08:11:40 PM
That is irrelevant.  You're talking about whether RJ told a good story, not whether he entirely rewrote the story outline.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 20, 2020, 08:31:56 PM
I'm not going to type it all out but every single character arc from TFA is undone in TLJ. The worst is of course Rey. TFA goes out of its way to say "Her parents are an important part of her character." She talks about them constantly. The only vision she sees from her life when she touches the Skywalker saber is a vision of her parents leaving. And TLJ reduces that all to "LULZ! THEY WERE JUNKIES!"

Luke is arguable because we have no idea why he was on that planet for 10 years beyond he went into hiding when Kylo turned. I honestly thought it was a sort of Yoda self-exile situation but the idea he cut himself off from the force because otherwise he'd have come running when Han died is just lazy writing.




Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 20, 2020, 10:25:17 PM
Rei's parents/origin is the big one. TFA implies that her parents matter, TLJ says her parents were no one, RoS her grandpa is Palpatine.

Snoke is another one. Mysterious big bad in TFA, instantly killed in TLJ.

OK so... TFA does not imply that her parents matter. It implies that her parents matter to her. Which is... 100% a different thing. Rey's initial motivation in TFA is to get back to Jakku so she can meet her parents when they're totally coming back for her. She is over this by the end of TFA (hence why she goes to Luke and not back to Jakku) She leaves TFA still in a mindset that someone is going to come rescue her. In TFA its her parents. In TLJ is Luke Skywalker. She traded one for another (while not abandoning the hope that her parents were going to return). TLJ does not have Rey abandon her parents. Its still 100% fucking central to her character. She is tempted by the dark side because she wants to know who her parents were! Her learning who her parents were capstones her character arc in the movie! And its the acceptance that they did not matter, not because who they were isn't important, but because its the choices you make going forward that do. She has the choice to "be someone" by accepting Kylo's proposal and ruling the galaxy with him and having that "important parentage" that she always wanted. But she refuses because character growth is good.

Snoke was never the villain in TFA. He was a macguffin. If there are any "plans for Snoke" they are not in TFA. They're in your imagination of what is in TFA, not what was filmed.

I'm not going to type it all out but every single character arc from TFA is undone in TLJ. The worst is of course Rey. TFA goes out of its way to say "Her parents are an important part of her character." She talks about them constantly. The only vision she sees from her life when she touches the Skywalker saber is a vision of her parents leaving. And TLJ reduces that all to "LULZ! THEY WERE JUNKIES!"

Luke is arguable because we have no idea why he was on that planet for 10 years beyond he went into hiding when Kylo turned. I honestly thought it was a sort of Yoda self-exile situation but the idea he cut himself off from the force because otherwise he'd have come running when Han died is just lazy writing.


Luke Skywalkers main character driver for all the movies he has been in is that he would come running when he thought his friends were in danger. Its the primary underpinning of his arc in ESB and RoTJ AND TLJ. That is the lesson that he was imparting to Rey. (Go and save your friends it will work out). His failure to do that more or less means he was cut off from the force. You might say that "he cut himself off from the force and that is why he didn't come running when Han died" is lazy writing. BUT JJ WROTE IT.  And Johnson did not abandon it.

Here is some more stuff about Luke that we know in TFA

"Han : He was training a new generation of Jedi. One boy, an apprentice, turned against him, destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible. He just walked away from everything.

Finn: Do you know what happened to him?

Han Solo: A lot of rumors. Stories. People that knew him best think he went looking for the first Jedi temple."

Han Solo told it to your fucking face. But no.... JJ had plans that Johnson abandoned!




Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 21, 2020, 05:20:38 AM
Nowhere in all of TFA is a single thing said about Luke cutting himself off from the Force. All that is really said is the part you quoted, that he went looking for the first Jedi Temple. Anyway, you've rewritten TFA in your head so that TLJ magically didn't change things. So, I'm done here.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 21, 2020, 06:08:43 AM
The dude is an idiot. Why are you bothering.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 21, 2020, 06:37:31 AM
Enough.  This thread has been locked.


Worth a shot.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 21, 2020, 06:56:36 AM
deleted


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on April 21, 2020, 09:13:12 AM
Enough.  This thread has been locked.


Worth a shot.
LOL.

I haven't watched it yet (waiting for Disney+), though I guess I could lock it and then reopen it after I do.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on April 21, 2020, 12:08:28 PM
Enough.  This thread has been locked.


Worth a shot.
LOL.

I haven't watched it yet (waiting for Disney+), though I guess I could lock it and then reopen it after I do.


Some people are guessing it comes to Disney+ on May 4th.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 21, 2020, 03:18:58 PM
Nowhere in all of TFA is a single thing said about Luke cutting himself off from the Force. All that is really said is the part you quoted, that he went looking for the first Jedi Temple. Anyway, you've rewritten TFA in your head so that TLJ magically didn't change things. So, I'm done here.

Does it matter that he had? What difference does it make when the fundamental construction is plain as day? Is it out of character from what you know in TFA? (Or ESB... where Luke runs off to save his friends despite Yoda telling him it would doom everyone. Oe RotJ when Yoda concedes that Luke was right?) Does Luke show up to save the day in TFA and that was left on the cutting room floor?

I still dont know these things that were re-written in TLJ. I am going to presume they dont exist and youre just unwilling to back down from a dumb claim.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 21, 2020, 03:22:51 PM
...
Does it matter that he had? What difference does it make when the fundamental construction is plain as day? ...
Plain as day?  Would you do me a kindness and go back and find any articles discussing Luke cutting himself off from the force from before December 2017?  If it was plain as day, it must have been discussed a lot.  My failure to find it is just my poor Google skills, I'm sure.  I'm sure I'm just forgetting all of this discussion as well.  Silly me.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 21, 2020, 03:28:14 PM
Nowhere in all of TFA is a single thing said about Luke cutting himself off from the Force. All that is really said is the part you quoted, that he went looking for the first Jedi Temple. Anyway, you've rewritten TFA in your head so that TLJ magically didn't change things. So, I'm done here.

Does it matter that he had? What difference does it make when the fundamental construction is plain as day? Is it out of character from what you know in TFA? (Or ESB... where Luke runs off to save his friends despite Yoda telling him it would doom everyone. Oe RotJ when Yoda concedes that Luke was right?) Does Luke show up to save the day in TFA and that was left on the cutting room floor?

I still dont know these things that were re-written in TLJ. I am going to presume they dont exist and youre just unwilling to back down from a dumb claim.

You're literally the only person I've met who makes these claims. This includes Rian Johnson. I can't find it now but there's an interview where he mentions that JJ gave him plot notes and he decided not to use most of them and do his own thing because he wanted to deconstruct Star Wars.

https://boundingintocomics.com/2020/04/13/star-wars-editor-details-rian-johnsons-the-last-jedi-attempted-to-consciously-undo-the-force-awakens/ (https://boundingintocomics.com/2020/04/13/star-wars-editor-details-rian-johnsons-the-last-jedi-attempted-to-consciously-undo-the-force-awakens/)

Quote
Markey didn’t beat around the bush. She stated, “I couldn’t agree more. It’s very strange to have the second film so consciously undo the story of the first one. That’s what it felt like.”

Also, there's the fairly famous quote of Mark Hamill saying he disagreed with every decision Rian Johnson made for Luke. He later made nice and said he was wrong but you could more or less see Disney standing behind him with a gun.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on April 21, 2020, 04:58:08 PM
...
Does it matter that he had? What difference does it make when the fundamental construction is plain as day? ...
Plain as day?  Would you do me a kindness and go back and find any articles discussing Luke cutting himself off from the force from before December 2017?  If it was plain as day, it must have been discussed a lot.  My failure to find it is just my poor Google skills, I'm sure.  I'm sure I'm just forgetting all of this discussion as well.  Silly me.

Leia couldn’t find him with the force.  Neither could Ren or Snoke.  We might not have known he’d cut himself off from the force, but we damn well knew he’d cut himself off from the galaxy and that the force wasn’t giving him away. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on April 21, 2020, 05:18:24 PM
Leia couldn’t find him with the force.  Neither could Ren or Snoke.  We might not have known he’d cut himself off from the force, but we damn well knew he’d cut himself off from the galaxy and that the force wasn’t giving him away. 
.Again, if plain as day, where is any discussion of it?

Oh, and do you remember how Vader, the Chosen One,  just went straight to Yoda and Obi-wan before epsideo 4 to murder them because he could sense them with the force?  Neither do I.

You're making up shit to try to support an argument that is a joke to almost everyone outside of you two.  The people that made the movies, for fuck sake, disagree with you - about what they were making.  99.8% of the fans vehemently disagree with you. 

And we should not make a single god damn post more about this shit show of a trilogy. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on April 21, 2020, 06:25:02 PM
The people who made the movies don't seemed to have watched them. From the article they seem to think that RoS didn't attempt to undo anything in TLJ... As an example.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: IainC on April 21, 2020, 10:32:29 PM
<words>

How are you so consistently wrong on so many topics? I really am struggling to think of anyone who's calibrated to magnetic wrong as precisely as you.

This was from page 11. Page 11 folks. Why does Goumndong's gimmick still manage to catch people?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on April 21, 2020, 11:28:38 PM
<words>

How are you so consistently wrong on so many topics? I really am struggling to think of anyone who's calibrated to magnetic wrong as precisely as you.

This was from page 11. Page 11 folks. Why does Goumndong's gimmick still manage to catch people?

I don't know what his gimmick is, because I don't read the majority of his posts.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on April 22, 2020, 03:56:29 AM
 Just lots of super earnest words that don't pay attention to anything anyone he talking to writes, often telling people who do know about a subject that they are wrong.

You aren't missing anything.

I broadly agree with him here but his posting is making me think I must be missing something.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on April 22, 2020, 05:02:19 AM
All I can say is that I am really sad that "Caravan of Courage: The Ewok Adventure" and "Ewoks: The battle for Endor," were on no-one Star wars Movie lists.  :heartbreak:

I might see this so I can give you the "Has not watched any Star Wars Movie since the Fandom Penance" view.

Oh ya, on that, Liam Neeson was good because it was obvious that he just ignored Lucas's shitty directing, and I honestly thought I was watching Morris Dancing at that fight at the end. If I want to see dancing I'll watch Strictly Ballroom.

(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7019/6827383467_38cb77135d_o.gif)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on April 27, 2020, 10:01:10 PM
I have seen [TFA & TLJ] a half a dozen times. There really isn't much of anything changed from TFA to TLJ.

 :ye_gods:
 :ye_gods:
 :ye_gods:
 :ye_gods:
 :ye_gods:
 :ye_gods:

TIL you are mentally retarded.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on April 28, 2020, 11:51:34 AM
I'm just sad that the Auralnauts Laser Moon saga wasn't on anyone's list.  It's easily # 3 for me.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on April 28, 2020, 01:22:40 PM
Been watching the Clone Wars final season and all I can think over and over again is "Why isn't Dave Filoni the Kevin Feige of Star Wars?"  Also "Holy shit this is awesome."


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on April 28, 2020, 02:27:09 PM
If he doesn't want to do it, he's essentially what they need: a person who gets the overall universe and has a sense of what stories it can or should be made to tell.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on May 04, 2020, 06:41:37 PM
Now that this is streaming, I finally watched it, kind of, in the background while I did something else.  The parts I was paying attention to made me laugh my ass off.  I think it's my favorite of the sequels because it seems to be consistently flamboyantly bad instead of having long stretches of uninspired boredom.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Mosesandstick on May 05, 2020, 12:58:59 PM
Had an (online) movie night with some friends yesterday.  The only thing I can add that's new to the conversation is the GF's perspective. Basically the movie started enjoyable but she got bored and it kept dragging on. I don't think the movie made sense to her, but she didn't find it confusing or infuriating either. This was the only Star Wars movie she's seen, which is ironic (or appropriate) as she works for Disney.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on May 05, 2020, 01:51:34 PM
This is what I heard from a couple of friends who've never bothered with Star Wars and happened to see RoS--they were just bored by it. One of them said that it just seemed kind of needlessly frantic but that nothing felt like it was actually telling a story with a beginning middle and ending.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 05, 2020, 01:54:08 PM
And that is true of 6 of the 9 movies in my opinion.  They picked 3 moments they wanted to have take place, connected them as awkwardly as they could and went forward. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on May 05, 2020, 04:39:47 PM
I don't actually think it's true of the prequels. Those have other problems, but whatever they are, they're not cynical or calculated or driven by suits. In a way, they're actually deeply weird--certainly the work of of an "auteur" who wanted things just the way he wanted them. (More's the pity.)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 05, 2020, 05:27:44 PM
But are they needlessly frantic with no real story?

Look, we have to fight out of a ship, then fight through a forest, then do a high speed sea chase through the planet, and then do another battle, and then there is a pod race, because everything needs a pod race, and then we go have space battles, with a kid pilot! 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on May 05, 2020, 07:02:19 PM
The prequals are bad movies, but their not bad star wars stories. If someone went back and actually worked on the dialogue and pacing they'd work just fine. Which is why people come around and call them "good" movies because you're ultimately getting star wars...just not the polished work of a multitude of talented people original trilogy star wars george lucas took credit for.

7-9 however is star wars done through the most shallowest of lenses with no inspiration or care for anything besides the money it will make if certain lines or scenes are shot. They are "good" movies from a technical perspective. Good pace, good dialogue and acting. They "look" like movies made this decade which is enough to get it reviewed well but their bad stories regardless of which opinion you have between Ryan Johnson or JJ Abrams or Kathleen Kennedy. Their all took turns taking a shit on star wars, some from different heights or from different angles.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on May 05, 2020, 07:24:32 PM
Rise of Skywalker is NOT a good movie by technical standards. The editing alone is enough to disprove that statement.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on May 06, 2020, 02:03:31 AM
I'd suggest the prequels are also bad star wars stories.  Or at least not great.

But they do a good job of world building. Even if sometimes it is just Liam Neeson or Terence Stamp reading background notes. I cannot imagine for one moment something like clone wars coming out of the sequels. I don't think it is a surprise that Mandalorian is well away from the movies.

I wouldn't describe the prequels as frantic. They are certainly better paced than ROS or TFA.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on May 06, 2020, 04:20:26 AM
Rise of Skywalker is NOT a good movie by technical standards. The editing alone is enough to disprove that statement.

Granted I skipped RoS entirely and no one whose opinion I respect critically liked it.... but I did see people who normally like disney star wars comment on the story sucking balls. Which is to say the shiny JJ Abrams gloss he puts on everything to give it a "modern spin" couldn't overcome his inability to craft a narrative. For all intent and purposes the shit I complained about in The Force Awakens were thrown into hyper drive for Rise of Skywalker to the point where even normal audiences had to stop and notice.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on May 06, 2020, 05:37:08 AM
My favorite part of the movie is still that you needed an ancient sith dagger to match up with the profile of a 30 year old death star wreck.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on May 06, 2020, 05:42:39 AM
Hey it was a cool idea in his DND campaign


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on May 06, 2020, 06:39:10 AM
By that point in the movie I was super-bored, profoundly antagonized and bitterly cynical about everything on screen and that bit STILL got me eyerolling so hard that I nearly injured myself.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Samwise on May 06, 2020, 07:32:53 AM
By that point in the movie I was super-bored, profoundly antagonized and bitterly cynical about everything on screen and that bit STILL got me eyerolling so hard that I nearly injured myself.

I'm serious when I say I enjoyed the experience of watching this movie more than the previous two.  When something goes just over the top on the stupidity, you can enjoy being surprised by how stupid it is.  It's a lot more entertaining that something that's only half-assedly stupid.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Speedy Cerviche on May 06, 2020, 08:11:16 AM
Story was  bad overall but it was better a better film than the 2nd at least, better humour and pacing so I thought the entertainment factor was reasonable although wouldn't have watched it if it was not Star Wars.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on May 06, 2020, 08:31:15 AM
Story was  bad overall but it was better a better film than the 2nd at least, better humour and pacing so I thought the entertainment factor was reasonable although wouldn't have watched it if it was not Star Wars.

The Last Jedi is better paced and filmed but my god the story in it is so hamfisted and it does nothing to move the trilogy forward. I will always wonder what could have been if this trilogy had a coherent plan for all 3 movies. Instead we got 3 movies that sort of feel like they're from 2 different trilogies, hell, maybe even 2 different genres.

TFA: Look, you didn't like the prequels! We're going to go out of our way to say this is like the old Star Wars!
TLJ: Forget the last movie. We're going to deconstruct Star Wars while also wasting two out of three of our leads in hamfisted arcs.
ROS:  Forget the last movie. We're going to try to finish this all up with all the OT characters dead either in universe or RL and a middle movie that was from a totally different storyline.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on May 06, 2020, 08:43:38 AM
I still rank them 7 9 8. TFA was actually a fun star wars movie. It introduced characters I was interested in and set them on a quest. It set up a big bad guy and got me thinking.

My only issue with the first one was that Kylo and all the Imperials looked like clowns and babies. With a good writer and mind for these things, Kylo could have become a force in the second movie to rival Vader because A) a good story can do that and B) Adam Driver is a fantastic actor.

The Imperials looked better in the following movies except for General Dumbass. You don't need comedy of character in Imperials. They did them just fine in nearly every other new gen movie.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Speedy Cerviche on May 06, 2020, 09:32:41 AM
Story was  bad overall but it was better a better film than the 2nd at least, better humour and pacing so I thought the entertainment factor was reasonable although wouldn't have watched it if it was not Star Wars.

The Last Jedi is better paced and filmed but my god the story in it is so hamfisted and it does nothing to move the trilogy forward. I will always wonder what could have been if this trilogy had a coherent plan for all 3 movies. Instead we got 3 movies that sort of feel like they're from 2 different trilogies, hell, maybe even 2 different genres.

TFA: Look, you didn't like the prequels! We're going to go out of our way to say this is like the old Star Wars!
TLJ: Forget the last movie. We're going to deconstruct Star Wars while also wasting two out of three of our leads in hamfisted arcs.
ROS:  Forget the last movie. We're going to try to finish this all up with all the OT characters dead either in universe or RL and a middle movie that was from a totally different storyline.

I can understand TFA because Disney just dropped $4 billion on the license and wanted to be conservative with the launch but the rest...yeah

Been discussed I'm sure but the spectacularly bad work of JJ Abrams with BOTH Star Wars & Star Trek is quite something to behold. How this guy was given so much control over two of the most valuable cinema universes out there by two different studios is really mind boggling. Since that first decent Star Trek reboot movie it's now been a decade of one underperforming letdown film after another, how is he still around?

Disney would have to be brain dead now not to turn control all over control to Jon Favreau who has come out with the best big budget Star Wars production since the 1970s.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on May 06, 2020, 10:14:08 AM
Abrams is one of a couple of people where I simply don't understand why franchise holders go to him and to the cloud of frequent collaborators he works with. I think it's got to be a case of:

a) suits who own a franchise that they neither really understand nor care much about beyond its financial potential
b) suits prefer a director who can deliver on-time, on-budget and talks their language--and is reasonably obedient to corporate dictate and friendly to plans for ancillary profit from toys, merchandise, etc

I think he accommodates the unfamiliarity and he knows how to pitch to the suits. I think his scriptwriting collaborators bring scripts in on time and make changes without fussing or ego. I think this is why people like Akiva Goldsman keep getting similar gigs despite having written turd after turd--efficiency, obedience to corporate dictate, an ability to pitch to what the suits think the market opportunity is, and probably a good sense of how to blame someone else when a particular franchise adaptation doesn't work out.

For a long time, this all worked because there wasn't something to point to and say: you can do better. The few improbable franchise hits like the first Pirates of the Caribbean ended up looking like lightning in a bottle because the people who made the first hit had trouble reprising their success. But now Feige and the MCU have shown that you can in fact do better. I mean, Abrams was given an appealing cast for his Star Trek reboot, he made a first film that a lot of people at least enjoyed despite its unnecessary fucking around with time travel and its adjustments to Kirk's character. But his basic laziness as a storyteller and his basic disinterest in the best elements of a given franchise means that he can't sustain anything--it's all misbegotten set pieces, narrative misfires, bad fanfic twists, unsustainable gimmicks and a kind of lethal contempt for all parts of his audience that can't help but leak through into the finished product. (Another thing that probably endears him to the suits, who hate all this shit anyway.)


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on May 06, 2020, 12:48:34 PM
Quote
ACADEMY AWARD WINNER TAIKA WAITITI TO DIRECT AND CO-WRITE NEW STAR WARS FEATURE FILM FOR THEATRICAL RELEASE; OSCAR NOMINEE KRYSTY WILSON-CAIRNS TO CO-WRITE SCREENPLAY WITH WAITIT

https://www.starwars.com/news/taika-waititi-announce


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on May 06, 2020, 02:46:31 PM
I will bet a thousand dollars that within the next two years we will see a "Waititi parts ways with Disney/Lucasfilm over creative differences."

Although maybe between this and Favreau maybe the MCU people will just eat the Lucasfilm people which would be just fine.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on May 06, 2020, 02:56:28 PM
Yeah, you aren't going to win that one.

He's already working on Thor: Love and Thunder for 2022. Star Wars (and Akira presumably) will come after that.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 06, 2020, 04:28:37 PM
If they get frustrated with each other, they'll just not do a next film.  I doubt they'll announce a parting of ways.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on May 06, 2020, 04:40:05 PM
I just meant on that movie, not the entire Disney entity. Lucasfilm is fairly compartmentalized from what I can tell.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on May 06, 2020, 04:41:11 PM
If they get frustrated with each other, they'll just not do a next film.  I doubt they'll announce a parting of ways.
Disney has fired many directors from Star Wars-related projects including some mid-shoot (see: Solo).


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 06, 2020, 04:44:40 PM
...
Disney has fired many directors from Star Wars-related projects including some mid-shoot (see: Solo).
And this is a different situation. 

Waititi is very respected at the moment.  Firing him would be like breaking up with the town sweetheart.  It would not matter if that person were a %@#! in reality - you'd get the blame and if the resulting film did not end up being a smash, you'd get fired.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on May 06, 2020, 04:50:28 PM
It's still way too risky especially in our new COVID-19 era to risk that much money on a movie with somebody you aren't getting along with. I mean they'll still publicly make up some nice excuse like Waititi needed a break for personal reasons or some such but they would bring in somebody else to finish it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on May 06, 2020, 04:56:27 PM
They let Waititi direct the finale to The Mandalorian which to date is still the only big draw original series on Disney+. That show is also the only near universally loved SW product to come out since Disney picked up the franchise. They know what they're getting with him, and he's proven himself with the franchise. I don't see them ditching him.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Goumindong on May 06, 2020, 05:01:17 PM
...
Disney has fired many directors from Star Wars-related projects including some mid-shoot (see: Solo).
And this is a different situation. 

Waititi is very respected at the moment.  Firing him would be like breaking up with the town sweetheart.  It would not matter if that person were a %@#! in reality - you'd get the blame and if the resulting film did not end up being a smash, you'd get fired.

Lord and Miller had just done Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie, and 22 Jump street. All of which were critical and financial successes. They were kind of in a similar place to Waititi is right now.

My favorite part of the movie is still that you needed an ancient sith dagger to match up with the profile of a 30 year old death star wreck.

In order to find something hidden in, quite literally, the first place anyone would look.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on May 06, 2020, 05:02:39 PM
They let Waititi direct the finale to The Mandalorian which to date is still the only big draw original series on Disney+. That show is also the only near universally loved SW product to come out since Disney picked up the franchise. They know what they're getting with him, and he's proven himself with the franchise. I don't see them ditching him.
Yeah I'm not agreeing with Abagadro, even ignoring his timing issue. I'm just saying that if something were to go wrong with Waititi as director Disney would still replace him rather than let him finish it -- there's way too much money at risk for them to just write off an entire mainline Star Wars movie like that.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on May 06, 2020, 06:50:43 PM

Lord and Miller had just done Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie, and 22 Jump street. All of which were critical and financial successes. They were kind of in a similar place to Waititi is right now.



I'd argue it's apples and oranges. Waititi is definitely a rising star. Thor Ragnarok single handedly reinvented one of the least popular of the original Avengers so he's worked for another Disney branch and proved he can make tons of money for them. In addition, I'd be shocked if the Disney head honchos didn't quietly tell Kennedy "Let him do what he wants, he'll make us fistfuls of cash and get good critical reviews. " Lord and Miller had a couple of successes but not the same....nerd cred? That Waititi has. In my opinion at least.

I personally am very curious to see what he comes up with. He's a director who has yet to make a movie I didn't like.

Abrams is one of a couple of people where I simply don't understand why franchise holders go to him and to the cloud of frequent collaborators he works with.


I'd argue that Trek 2009 and Force Awakens are both good movies in their franchises. Both have some issues. "Look, we can see the explosion on another planet from the surface of this planet!" and travel times that are more or less. "Pull the lever! We're at the destination!" but both are fun movies and enjoyable. In particular, the time travel in 2009 Trek was a bold move since it let them tell new stories with different actors and not worry about previous continuity. And they didn't reverse it.

Now...Into Darkness and Rise of Skywalker...well...

Maybe don't let him do more than one movie in your franchise? Though I'd still argue Rise of Skywalker has some fun bits and 90% of its problems boil down to "shit, we have to quickly do the setup the middle movie should have done so we can get to the finale." Oh...and the instant travel stuff got even worse.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MahrinSkel on May 06, 2020, 07:23:20 PM
Waititi played Hitler as an imaginary friend in a movie he directed without really pissing off anyone but actual Hitler fanboys. If he can walk that tightrope, Star Wars nerds are cake.

--Dave


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Cyrrex on May 07, 2020, 03:26:34 AM
I expect you will all change your tune when you find out the place holder title of this movie is going to be something like "Exogol - Building a Fleet in the Crazy Resource Rich Unknown Regions and also How They Cloned Everyone to Staff the Ships Without Anyone Knowing"


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on May 07, 2020, 05:39:39 AM
I think the judgments they made in the past to fire people, except firing Josh Trank, have likely been second-guessed quite a bit since they did it, Lord and Miller particularly. It's not as if getting a reliable, dull journeyman director turned the movie in a smash box office success. I think also the judgments they've made about who to hire are likely being looked at skeptically (Trevorrow, the GOT guys, even Abrams and Johnson, and of course Trank). Kennedy's contract with Lucasfilm is up next year--I wouldn't be too surprised if Disney makes a move then.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 07, 2020, 05:59:18 AM
...
Lord and Miller had just done Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie, and 22 Jump street. All of which were critical and financial successes. They were kind of in a similar place to Waititi is right now.
...
Thor Ragnarock: $854 Million Box office. 93% Rotten Tomatoes.

CWACoM: $243 Box Office.  86% Rotten Tomatoes.
21 Jump St: $201 Box Office.  84% Rotten Tomatoes.
Lego Movie:  $468 Box Office.  96% Rotten Tomatoes.
22 Jump St: $331.3 Box Office.  84% Rotten Tomatoes.

Lego movie was excellent and makes a decent point.  The other three weaken your case.  A lot.  They were so-so films at best.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: IainC on May 07, 2020, 06:22:46 AM
Abrams is a guy who thinks he can reinvent things by drilling down hard on precisely one aspect of the original IP, and then making the rest up as he feels like. In Nu trek, it was 'Kirk is a mavericky maverick who mavicks like, ALL the time.' In Star Wars it's 'Hey look at all these characters you really like. Well, here's one! And look! There's another!'

But Abrams isn't solely responsible for the terribleness of the sequels, a lot of people have their names buried in that particular turd.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on May 07, 2020, 06:36:36 AM
Abrams is a guy who thinks he can reinvent things by drilling down hard on precisely one aspect of the original IP, and then making the rest up as he feels like. In Nu trek, it was 'Kirk is a mavericky maverick who mavicks like, ALL the time.' In Star Wars it's 'Hey look at all these characters you really like. Well, here's one! And look! There's another!'

But Abrams isn't solely responsible for the terribleness of the sequels, a lot of people have their names buried in that particular turd.

In Star Trek there was a narrative reason for it and one thing their 3 released movies do is chart Kirk's growth from maverick cadet to seasoned Captain. Into Darkness was a mostly bad movie but one thing it did right was show how Kirk learned that jumping without leaping gets people killed. As for Star Wars....there was exactly zero chance the OT actors weren't going to be involved unless they just refused to take part. That's not on him. Like every single fan was like "I want to see Luke, Leah and Han again!!!" When the Force Awakens trailer was shown at whichever Con it was, the biggest cheer, by far, was when Han walked on the screen.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 07, 2020, 07:17:18 AM
These movies should have been the close of their stories, not a cameo opportunity for them while they tried to make new characters popular.  The Prequels: The Rise of Vader.  The Original Trilogy: The Era of Vader.  The Final Trilogy should have been the Legacy of Vader as seen through the eyes of his kids. 

Yes, you'd introduce a next generation of Jedi as you progressed through the trilogy to use in future films - money has to be printed - but they would not be the focus of Episode VII.  The focus would be Luke, Leia and the legacy of Vader.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on May 07, 2020, 08:48:41 AM
No, the biggest mistake was trying to shoehorn the desiccated corpses of the original cast into this stories. Their story was done, there was nothing else to tell that would make the geriatric adventures of Han and Leia appealing. Take the world Lucas built and tell new stories in it, that's the best thing you can do.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 07, 2020, 10:11:29 AM
I obviously agree you can tell great new stories with brand new characters.  See Mandalorian, The.

However, this was the close of the trilogy of trilogies.  It needed to be something that tied to the prior entries in the series by definition - otherwise, it wasn't Episode VII. 

Assuming that you're trying to continue the story as a starting premise - It needs to remain the story of the Skywalkers, and specifically, it needed to be tied to the legacy of Vader.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on May 07, 2020, 12:00:17 PM
I obviously agree you can tell great new stories with brand new characters.  See Mandalorian, The.

However, this was the close of the trilogy of trilogies.  It needed to be something that tied to the prior entries in the series by definition - otherwise, it wasn't Episode VII. 

Assuming that you're trying to continue the story as a starting premise - It needs to remain the story of the Skywalkers, and specifically, it needed to be tied to the legacy of Vader.

That's my point, it didn't need to do any of this. Your reasoning is "they had to include the original characters because its the ending of the story of the original characters", and that was exactly the problem.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on May 07, 2020, 12:25:44 PM
I obviously agree you can tell great new stories with brand new characters.  See Mandalorian, The.

However, this was the close of the trilogy of trilogies.  It needed to be something that tied to the prior entries in the series by definition - otherwise, it wasn't Episode VII. 

Assuming that you're trying to continue the story as a starting premise - It needs to remain the story of the Skywalkers, and specifically, it needed to be tied to the legacy of Vader.

I think that would have worked 15 years ago.  Like, if they had come out in a typical schedule of every two years after Revenge it would have been interesting. As it was, they were too old and too bored (or too dead) to really make it work.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on May 07, 2020, 02:17:42 PM
There were a zillion plans for sequels that could have worked even with the old cast.

One obvious thought would have been for them to pass the torch in the first of a trilogy: give them all Viking funerals except for the droids. We keep talking about the Skywalkers as the heart of the series, but Obi-Wan and Yoda and Palpatine and even Dooku/Maul get a fair amount of time in the prequels; Han Solo isn't entangled with the Skywalkers at first and Lando never is, etc.--there are other characters and some bigger narrative canvases unfolding. So if they'd made a plan, they could very well have foregrounded some aspects of TLJ in the first film: introduce a handful of light-side Force wielders for Luke to guide, including him saying that maybe they need something new rather than just a recreated Jedi Order--and have him essentially leave them to figure it out. Have Han bring a couple of gangsters or eccentrics into the mix, have Leia bring a few inspiring political leaders.

Give them a challenge to make a really new order--a galactic league rather than a republic, a kind of mutual-aid network. Have shadowy dark-side wielders and underworld figures try to subvert or pervert what they're doing (if they wanted to make something that resonates with the zeitgeist now rather than an 'evil Empire'). Have the Rey figure--the head light-sider--that one mistake the Jedi made was being dumb about conspiracies and dumb about politics. I dunno. There's some shit that I'm sure could have worked and could have felt like a real culmination, any number of five or six basic templates.

It's not what they did, and they failed to do it from the first second of TFA. The only thing TFA did right was cast some appealing actors and create some potentially appealing characters. In narrative terms or world-building terms, it did zippo.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 07, 2020, 03:17:24 PM
The notion that you can't make a movie about conflict with older casts is a bit short sighted.  There have been a good number of outstanding movies featuring actors far older than the original SW cast in recent years. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Abagadro on May 07, 2020, 03:18:53 PM
Those actors tend to give a shit.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on May 07, 2020, 03:19:21 PM
The notion that you can't make a movie about conflict with older casts is a bit short sighted.  There have been a good number of outstanding movies featuring actors far older than the original SW cast in recent years. 

Those movies also generally star better actors and don't tend to have mass appeal to younger audiences.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on May 07, 2020, 03:22:23 PM
Those actors tend to give a shit.

You can say lots of things about Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher but they both gave a shit. Ford, well, I'm not sure Ford has cared about a movie this century.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 07, 2020, 03:25:20 PM
I'd say Ford, Hamill and Fisher all cared a lot.  Ford is just very neurotic, Hamill may have cared *too much*, but been too accommodating, and Fisher never was given her due in SW.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on May 07, 2020, 04:02:26 PM
It doesn't matter how much they cared, their story was done. Anything they did would just be shitting on what they did before.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 07, 2020, 05:14:32 PM
If you think there was no wa to tell a good story with those characters and actors over the past 5 years, you lack imagination, or are just a major league ageist.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on May 07, 2020, 05:30:06 PM
There was no POINT in telling a story about those characters. It's the same thing all the Terminator and Alien movies try to do, just shoe horn the old ass actors we liked in the original movies just for the fuck of it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on May 07, 2020, 05:40:06 PM
If you think there was no wa to tell a good story with those characters and actors over the past 5 years, you lack imagination, or are just a major league ageist.

You're right, a trilogy staring a cast of actual senior citizens would have packed in all the kids, to say nothing about the fact that had they gone that route it would have been even worse for them when Fisher died.

But as I've said before, this trilogy isn't the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga, and this isn't a trilogy of trilogies. The OT tells a complete story. Even the prequel trilogy is unnecessary but at least you could somewhat justify it by saying that in total, the two trilogies tell the rise, fall, and eventual redemption of Anakin Skywalker and there were hints of it baked into the OT. The overarching villain is defeated, the characters have all completed their arcs, Return of the Jedi acts as a solid conclusion. There's no cliffhangers, it doesn't set up or even hit at another threat on the horizon, there are no story hooks designed to lead into another trilogy, it just wraps up the story. Even Lucas' eventual plans to do episodes VII, VIII, and IX didn't seem to explicitly have much if anything to do with the original cast.

The Skywalker Saga stuff is Disney marketing because they shelled out good money for this franchise but it's not like they fucked up the conclusion to some epic story. They fucked up the tacked on story they were trying to use to launch their vision of a new SW movie every year.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on May 07, 2020, 05:48:37 PM
I said this way upthread, but yes, if you say, "It wasn't actually over when the Really Big Star Destroyer crashed into Death Star 2 and they burnt Darth Vader's corpse while a bunch of murderous teddy bears made plans for galaxy-wide consumption of the flesh of other humanoids", you just committed to doing something different. You just said, "Ah, wait, you know, you don't win outright the day you throw the Foozle down the shaft".

The EU writers/editors both got that and didn't get it. They oscillated like nutcases between "Emperor Palpatine is back because he made clones of himself and watch out here comes Luuke" and "Let's tell a much messier story of warlords and criminals and difficult efforts to get new institutions up and running" and "look out here comes another Death Star only this one can destroy SUNS" and "whoa Luke found himself a hot evil Jedi babymama let's see what happens next" and "ah wow look at the next gen, they're good AND they're bad and they're goodbad" and "LOOK OUT BDSM FORCE-RESISTANT MOFOS FROM ANOTHER GALAXY". Like, they sometimes knew they had to move on and sometimes they didn't, partly because Lucas and the company kept stepping in.

But really, if you're going to say, "There's another story after 'we won'", you're already committed to a very particular narrative road.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: HaemishM on May 07, 2020, 07:41:30 PM
The problem with this movie being about "Skywalkers" was that the only constant in all the movies has been R2-D2. He's been a witness to it all, so it really should have centered around this droid who somehow manipulates two factions into a galactic civil war that destroys whole star systems worth of planets.

 :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on May 07, 2020, 08:33:23 PM
Hate to mention it, but they have deforested entire countries making books with stories with those characters, and a computer game or 2. Hell some of them were even in the "thrilling" story of Star Wars Battlefront 2.

And, occasionally, they managed to tell a good story by sheer accident.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MahrinSkel on May 07, 2020, 08:45:56 PM
Give the infinite monkeys enough typewriters, they produce all of the good stories.

--Dave

Edit: I would totally love the movie where the whole saga was just R2-D2 manipulating everyone to weaken the galaxy enough for the droid uprising.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on May 08, 2020, 06:21:30 AM
I was kind of stunned that Abrams didn't at least try to do something with R2 that recognized that Lucas wanted R2 to be the one figure who appeared in the entire saga. Lucas even said once in 2016 that the whole saga is being told in the future of the SW universe by R2D2 to a librarian or researcher.

Like, maybe at the least, reproduce C-3PO's telling the story to the Ewoks, only this time, have it be R2 replaying everything he's seen and done for some audience. There was a Reddit thread that had a great idea that the last scene should have been R2-D2 talking with an amnesiac C3P0 and offering to show him the entire story that the two of them have been through so he can re-remember it.

So many missed opportunities for narrative cleverness and closure.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 08, 2020, 07:43:04 PM
We do not have time to recount everything they fucked up.  This plague will be over before 2022 and we woud barely scratch the surface by then.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on May 09, 2020, 07:29:00 AM
Now that I think on it, maybe that's a way to someday remake the prequels. R2 was in hibernation when they started, after all, and he never was very central to what was going on comparatively, so maybe the prequels we saw are an addled, failing R2 in the future just making shit up because he really doesn't know what happened after Luke went into exile and he didn't really witness much of what went on after he woke up. There, that's the ticket.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on May 10, 2020, 11:36:43 AM
Ya, the nonsensical, dense, convoluted plot and stupid amounts of everything flying around, and Trade Negotiations were actually his memory cells melting down.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on May 11, 2020, 02:45:30 PM
Abrams is one of a couple of people where I simply don't understand why franchise holders go to him and to the cloud of frequent collaborators he works with. I think it's got to be a case of:

a) suits who own a franchise that they neither really understand nor care much about beyond its financial potential
b) suits prefer a director who can deliver on-time, on-budget and talks their language--and is reasonably obedient to corporate dictate and friendly to plans for ancillary profit from toys, merchandise, etc

I think he accommodates the unfamiliarity and he knows how to pitch to the suits. I think his scriptwriting collaborators bring scripts in on time and make changes without fussing or ego. I think this is why people like Akiva Goldsman keep getting similar gigs despite having written turd after turd--efficiency, obedience to corporate dictate, an ability to pitch to what the suits think the market opportunity is, and probably a good sense of how to blame someone else when a particular franchise adaptation doesn't work out.

For a long time, this all worked because there wasn't something to point to and say: you can do better. The few improbable franchise hits like the first Pirates of the Caribbean ended up looking like lightning in a bottle because the people who made the first hit had trouble reprising their success. But now Feige and the MCU have shown that you can in fact do better. I mean, Abrams was given an appealing cast for his Star Trek reboot, he made a first film that a lot of people at least enjoyed despite its unnecessary fucking around with time travel and its adjustments to Kirk's character. But his basic laziness as a storyteller and his basic disinterest in the best elements of a given franchise means that he can't sustain anything--it's all misbegotten set pieces, narrative misfires, bad fanfic twists, unsustainable gimmicks and a kind of lethal contempt for all parts of his audience that can't help but leak through into the finished product. (Another thing that probably endears him to the suits, who hate all this shit anyway.)


A thousand times this.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on May 11, 2020, 04:21:11 PM
I think that moment that he went "Yes, we are planing to use a figure from the past and you are NEVER going to guess who it is oooOOOOooOOOooo..." and the entire internet went "It's Khan, isn't it," should have clued people into how much of a hack the guy is. He thinks he is far cleverer than he is and loves trying to fuck with the audience in stupid ways to prove it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on May 13, 2020, 06:55:35 AM
Quote
a) suits who own a franchise that they neither really understand nor care much about beyond its financial potential

It's literally this, and frankly that's exactly the only way it should be. They run a business and their goal is to make money, not make all our childhood dreams come true (thank you Feige). You can luck out and do both, but the only important goal is to make money. The Force Awakens is the #4 highest grossing film of all time, that's why he gets and will continue to get jobs.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 13, 2020, 07:50:10 AM
Quote
a) suits who own a franchise that they neither really understand nor care much about beyond its financial potential
It's literally this, and frankly that's exactly the only way it should be. They run a business and their goal is to make money, not make all our childhood dreams come true (thank you Feige). You can luck out and do both, but the only important goal is to make money. The Force Awakens is the #4 highest grossing film of all time, that's why he gets and will continue to get jobs.
They look at fan response in addition to revenue for one category of movies - ones with sequel potential.  The Spider-man series of films (both the TM and AG versions) had a lot of discussion from the studio at investor meetings that dealt with the fan response of a film as an indicator of the expected success of a sequel.  Marvel's empire is based upon confidence.  Even their eggs were pretty good films. 

The reason Andrew Garfield's Spider-man ended was that they expected the next films to be far less lucrative than what they could do with Marvel guiding Spider-man.  The reason Spider-man stayed in the MCU was the fan reaction to the news he was leaving and their expectations about revenue on a Spider-man that was not connected.  These were decisions based on how people felt about the franchises based upon what they'd seen.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Threash on May 13, 2020, 07:52:34 AM
The reason Andrew Garfield's Spider-man ended was that they expected the next films to be far less lucrative than what they could do with Marvel guiding Spider-man.  The reason Spider-man stayed in the MCU was the fan reaction to the news he was leaving and their expectations about revenue on a Spider-man that was not connected.  These were decisions based on how people felt about the franchises based upon what they'd seen.

I agree with the first part but the second doesn't follow. We can make more money with Marvel than with another Garfield movie is purely a financial decision based on the success of the MCU compared to theirs without them.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on May 15, 2020, 01:53:17 AM
Quote
a) suits who own a franchise that they neither really understand nor care much about beyond its financial potential

It's literally this, and frankly that's exactly the only way it should be. They run a business and their goal is to make money, not make all our childhood dreams come true (thank you Feige). You can luck out and do both, but the only important goal is to make money. The Force Awakens is the #4 highest grossing film of all time, that's why he gets and will continue to get jobs.

Also worth noting he got the star wars job after the first trek film to which the reaction was 'OK that is fun if a little insubstantial, let's see where this goes' and before the second one to which the reaction was 'OK it is going nowhere holy shit you burned this out quick'.

TFA and ROS follow the same pattern.

Though I'd still much rather rewatch ROS than Into Darkness.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on May 15, 2020, 04:51:49 AM
Quote
a) suits who own a franchise that they neither really understand nor care much about beyond its financial potential

It's literally this, and frankly that's exactly the only way it should be. They run a business and their goal is to make money, not make all our childhood dreams come true (thank you Feige). You can luck out and do both, but the only important goal is to make money. The Force Awakens is the #4 highest grossing film of all time, that's why he gets and will continue to get jobs.

Also worth noting he got the star wars job after the first trek film to which the reaction was 'OK that is fun if a little insubstantial, let's see where this goes' and before the second one to which the reaction was 'OK it is going nowhere holy shit you burned this out quick'.

TFA and ROS follow the same pattern.

Though I'd still much rather rewatch ROS than Into Darkness.

I'm more than happy to lay Into Darkness at his feet. The entire point of Star Trek 2009 was they could tell all new stories with these characters. Sooo...he chose to do an unearned remake of the best Trek movie ever. RoS is a different situation though. One of the stars was dead and the 2nd movie didn't build on TFA. He was in a no-win scenario and didn't have Kirk to help him.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on May 15, 2020, 05:21:32 AM
There were a lot of win scenarios possible following the 2nd movie. He chose to avoid all of them, in part because of his own manifest weaknesses as a filmmaker.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on May 15, 2020, 06:17:50 AM
There were a lot of win scenarios possible following the 2nd movie. He chose to avoid all of them, in part because of his own manifest weaknesses as a filmmaker.


To be fair, I'm not sure there were. If ROS had been as good as tLJ and followed it logically it still would have had people up in arms.

For instance had Rose been a character in ROS, he'd have been accused of pandering just as much, but to different people.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on May 15, 2020, 06:57:20 AM
Look, just erase Palpatine from the film, first off.

Here's one plot structure where you stay away from TLJ's specific narrative beats but still use the table it set:

Kylo Ren is getting desperate. Having almost destroyed the last of the Rebellion and set the First Order up to reclaim galactic dominion, he is now facing spontaneous rebellions on every planet the First Order wants to control. A new huge fleet is gathering somewhere in deep space to challenge the First Order: the quarrelling, disparate cultures of the galaxy are tired of being threatened by weapons that can blow up planets. The First Order's military is restive under his rule, questioning his power and his right to rule. But the Knights of Ren have returned to him, having been sent looking for information on the history of the Sith. They tell him there's an ancient Sith battlefleet hidden somewhere in the Unknown Regions that can be his and his alone--that only a Sith Lord can command them. But they also tell him that he'll have to have an apprentice, because the Rule of Two still applies.

Rey is training and fretting: how can she possibly counter Kylo Ren without help? But she's learned from Luke that it's not a good idea to restart the Jedi as they used to be. Poe, Finn, Leia and the rest of the gang (brief shot of Rose) are working with the hidden fleet commanders and their political allies. It's a delicate alliance--the Hutts have joined, even the Nightsisters have sent a representative--and they need it to hold together. Rey has a sudden vision from Yoda: Kylo Ren is searching for Exodar and he must not find it, even if she has to kill him. Luke appears and says "no, I saved my father and you can save Ben--he thinks he needs an apprentice but what he really needs is a reason to come back to us--now that I'm dead, he can't be afraid of me and my mistakes any longer". Yoda and Luke give each other a look and vanish.

Rey says: I gotta go guys. Poe, Finn, Chewie and the droids say they'll come to help. Some more intelligent and better-plotted shenangians and fights later, Rey agrees to go with Kylo to Exodar, each of them uncertain of their own loyalties--is she his apprentice? his savior? As insurance, she tells Poe and Co. to go back and get the fleet and palms the locator beacon to one of them so they know where they're going.

Rey and Kylo get there. There's a Sith test. He fails it. Rey isn't his apprentice. To both of their surprise, there's a Jedi test. Both of them fail that too: Rey isn't really a Jedi and Kylo is too conflicted. The Sith fleet rumbles into activity but it's uncontrolled now: it's going to robotically go from planet to planet destroying everything now--it's a doomsday weapon. The galactic fleet shows up and it's a desperate battle that the alliance is losing--they have warp interdiction but the Sith fleet will take it out soon. The First Order's fleet shows up--now under control of the military-- and joins the battle against the Sith fleet--you can't rule a galaxy scoured clean of life. But it's awkward--even if they win, will a new battle break out? Leia is on board a ship that gets destroyed. Kylo has a vision of her and his father and he wants to make amends and stop the fleet--nobody wants everything destroyed. Kylo and Rey find a very very ancient holocron explaining why the Sith first left the Jedi--because the Jedi were too cut off from life, but the Sith were too consumed by passion. Yoda, Luke and Anakin force-ghost in and say that they realize now what all that Chosen One hoo-haw was about: the Force needs not only to be awakened but to be free of Jedi and Sith, of efforts to control it or dam it up. Kylo and Rey embrace the new understanding, the new balance--and the holocron activates a self-destruct on the fleet.

The alliance and First Order fleets are badly damaged and both limp away, uncertain of where they stand. Will the new galactic alliance hold? Will the First Order military be able to hold on to power? Our stalwart friends mourn Leia while they watch Ben Solo uneasily. Poe, Finn and Chewbacca vow to try to hold the alliance together and to keep the First Order a minor power. C3P0 notes that he knows a lot of languages and R2D2 can tell the story of the wars from the fall of the Republic to now so that people can see the value in connection and unity.

Rey says she'll try to help if she can, but that people will have to come to the Force however they can--that the galaxy will do without Jedi or Sith now.  Rey gives Ben one of Luke's lightsabers and she keeps the other and they go their separate, uncertain ways. She heads to Tatooine to try and connect with Luke's history and take inspiration from his story, while Luke and Obi-Wan's force ghosts watch her approvingly. Ben goes to Corellia to try and connect with his father's past--and is watched by Anakin and Leia's force ghosts. Who knows what happens next? FIN.

--------------

I mean, I think there's a bunch of other ways to do it, but Abrams could have both moved for narrative closure, worked with what Johnson put on the table, *and* built an ongoing storytelling engine.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on May 15, 2020, 08:40:39 AM
That would have been worse. Sorry.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on May 15, 2020, 12:45:36 PM
Eh, anything that would have gotten rid of the fetch quests as such to me would have been an improvement. But I think something that actually was clever about the whole saga would have been possible.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 15, 2020, 03:02:00 PM
To get good marks from me it would need to have been:

* Hopeful.
* Featuring, not just containing, the original trio.
* Addressing the Legacy of Vader/Skywalker at the core of the films.
* Having good dialogue and acting.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Sir T on May 15, 2020, 03:18:16 PM
I like to give the example that Khan quoted whole Passages of Moby Dick during the Wrath of Khan and it was awesome. Picard did the same in that Borg movie and it sucked ass.

So ya, they could have implemented something combining 7 and 8. But Abrams couldn't do it because he is interested in constructing his own magic mystery boxes, not in having anyone open them. Frankly, giving Abrams the first movie in a trilogy was a smart move as he seems to be good at STARTING a story but he has no idea or interest in how to end them.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on May 16, 2020, 04:14:40 AM
To get good marks from me it would need to have been:

* Hopeful.
* Featuring, not just containing, the original trio.
* Addressing the Legacy of Vader/Skywalker at the core of the films.
* Having good dialogue and acting.

I mean they gave you that and it still sucked.

Most of these ideas were explored in the EU. In Fact Abrams pretty much stole everything save for General Thrawn from the EU and we forgot that it sucked pretty hard and was ridiculed  for being a bunch of hack fanfics. To be honest what we really needed was a story set in the Old Republic franchise. If we really wanted to set a story post original trilogy than the only smart decision would have been to set it far enough in the future the original cast is remembered but no longer around. But if Disney wanted to make either movie, they would have never hired JJ Abrams. Which means they never intended to make good star wars or never understood what good star wars would look like.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on May 16, 2020, 07:44:11 AM
Having those four criteria does not guarantee a good film.  However, it was extremely unlikely for me to give *this* trilogy, episodes 7 to 9, good marks if it did not do those things.  We did not get there here - and I would argue we did not get that in the EU from reviews (I never read them). 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: 01101010 on May 16, 2020, 06:48:06 PM
Finally got around to watching this.. all I can say is that I watched them all. I was not entertained.... ugh. So disappointed.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Speedy Cerviche on September 09, 2020, 09:18:30 AM
Total shitshow...

https://nypost.com/2020/09/09/star-wars-fans-freak-over-daisy-ridleys-rey-kenobi-reveal/

Actors describing what a mess the story was.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on September 09, 2020, 09:47:44 AM
To be fair Rey Kenobi is less bad than palpatine.

It makes zero sense in themes of the films.

But from a practical in universe point of view, sure, at least obi wan has a kid who can be her dad.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 09, 2020, 09:57:00 AM
Do we have to dig up the dog corpse and beat on it some more?  They failed. 

Hopefully, they realize what they have in Filoni - and can use him, with Lucas as an influence (that has no control), to start a new era of quality Star Wars. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on September 09, 2020, 11:25:52 AM
People get way too excited about Filoni off the back of clone wars and rebels.

Maybe he'd be good at it. But clone wars had basically infinite money, zero pressure and several years of patience. Rebels was fine - but not 'hey give this guy complete control of star wars' good.

Filoni would end up making prequels but better executed. Disney are understandably looking for OT.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on September 09, 2020, 11:27:53 AM
I think most people are excited about him because of The Mandalorian, not his animated stuff.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 09, 2020, 11:49:24 AM
I think the parallel between Filoni and Feige is that they actually like the intellectual property they're working with and they know it well and they're both good at shaping stories to get the best out of those franchises in a way that pleases both fans and general audiences. Abrams for all his pretenses to being a Star Wars guy plainly doesn't really like anything but a paycheck.

Feige though also has shown a lot of ability to navigate the knife fights of the boardroom. I'm not sure Filoni can or even wants to do that kind of thing.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on September 09, 2020, 12:25:38 PM
Feige though also has shown a lot of ability to navigate the knife fights of the boardroom. I'm not sure Filoni can or even wants to do that kind of thing.
That would be Jon Favreau's role, potentially, so that Filoni can focus on the story/world-building/"vision"-side of things.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 09, 2020, 12:57:59 PM
Feige is involved with Star Wars, and there is a template to follow from Marvel that they have a strong encouragement to follow.

And the Mandalorian, the end of Clone Wars, and some of the best Rebels stuff is plenty of reason to trust Filoni.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on September 09, 2020, 01:15:50 PM
Feige is involved with Star Wars, and there is a template to follow from Marvel that they have a strong encouragement to follow.

And the Mandalorian, the end of Clone Wars, and some of the best Rebels stuff is plenty of reason to trust Filoni.


Yes on Clone Wars. Hard no on Rebels. And a maybe on the Mandalorian. Depends on the mandate by Disney and who his creative costars are.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on September 09, 2020, 03:08:06 PM
I think the parallel between Filoni and Feige is that they actually like the intellectual property they're working with and they know it well and they're both good at shaping stories to get the best out of those franchises in a way that pleases both fans and general audiences.

First part definitely - second part maybe but people talk about filoni like there is far more of a record than there really is.

He'd be hard pressed to make star wars worse and he seems a sensible choice. But people talk as if he would obviously do well, but actually I think doing this for a general release cinema audience is way harder than for people who are going to watch clone wars anyway.

He might be great - but I can understand why Disney don't immediately bet billions on it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on September 09, 2020, 04:04:12 PM
Just having someone who remembers that Star Wars is a setting is a big step up.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 09, 2020, 05:03:34 PM
I think the parallel between Filoni and Feige is that they actually like the intellectual property they're working with and they know it well and they're both good at shaping stories to get the best out of those franchises in a way that pleases both fans and general audiences.

First part definitely - second part maybe but people talk about filoni like there is far more of a record than there really is.

He'd be hard pressed to make star wars worse and he seems a sensible choice. But people talk as if he would obviously do well, but actually I think doing this for a general release cinema audience is way harder than for people who are going to watch clone wars anyway.

He might be great - but I can understand why Disney don't immediately bet billions on it.


They already bet billions on a cunt with a proven record of treating a franchise like a hobo he wanted to roll for pocket change.

They can't do worse than they've done in that particular choice.

Filoni is so far the only person with industry experience who seems to know the property well and who doesn't have the demonstrated bad judgment of George Lucas.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 09, 2020, 07:58:00 PM
I really like the first season of The Mandalorian so I'm willing to give season 2 a lot of the benefit of the doubt but I'm already on record as saying the stuff that makes me the least excited are the things they're bringing over from Clone Wars. It's stuff that connects back to 11 seasons of TV across 2 shows that I'm not going to watch through, and I have a feeling that if they gave Filoni the reins to the franchise a lot of things that tie back into stories he worked on would keep popping up.

On the one hand, it could easily be said that I'm not the target audience for SW. On the other, I think Disney would still be looking to appeal to a larger audience than however many people watched Clone Wars.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 10, 2020, 07:07:00 AM
Think of it this way: in season 1, they did a lot of Easter-Egging that didn't require any knowledge of the Easter Eggs to enjoy. My wife didn't know anything about the Darksaber or the Mandalorians or any of that shit and she was still:

Oh, ok, Giancarlo Esposito's character has a backstory connection to the Mandalorian.
Oh, ok, it involves the reasons why all those other Mandalorians were on the bounty hunter planet and all the stuff about forging his armor.
Oh, cool, he's got a weird looking lightsaber, he's a dangerous villain.


They've done just enough to say: hey, this is an ongoing universe where stories connect; and so far, nothing that said: sorry, if you are not Nerd Grade Ten, you are not tall enough to ride this ride.

I think they'll keep that balance.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on September 10, 2020, 10:58:33 AM
I really like the first season of The Mandalorian so I'm willing to give season 2 a lot of the benefit of the doubt but I'm already on record as saying the stuff that makes me the least excited are the things they're bringing over from Clone Wars. It's stuff that connects back to 11 seasons of TV across 2 shows that I'm not going to watch through, and I have a feeling that if they gave Filoni the reins to the franchise a lot of things that tie back into stories he worked on would keep popping up.

On the one hand, it could easily be said that I'm not the target audience for SW. On the other, I think Disney would still be looking to appeal to a larger audience than however many people watched Clone Wars.

I never watched the animated stuff, but I'm pretty sure that Clone Wars and E2 and E3 are basically the core experience of most Star Wars fans under a certain age. No one cares or gives a shit about the sequels, I don't think they created any new fans of the universe. Anything moving forward is going to heavily lean on the Clone Wars for the most part.  I'll have to finally watch a thousand hours of it. I have to figure out if I want to do it with the kids or by myself.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 10, 2020, 11:10:43 AM
Some of Clone Wars was Lucas at his worst.  A lot of the later stuff pulled out of the tailspin and was pretty good.  Basically, they took a pitfall in the form of the Mandalorians and made good stories about them.  They continue that in the Mandalorian, although I want to see the rules reconciled. 

In terms of looking at the Star Wars content with fresh eyes and giving it no free passes for being novel, ESB and (almost all of Season 1 of) the Mandalorian are the top.  I'd give a few stories in Clone Wars and Rebels the next spots in the series in terms of quality of story and use of the IP.  Obviously, animation and live acting are hard to compare.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 10, 2020, 06:25:08 PM
Think of it this way: in season 1, they did a lot of Easter-Egging that didn't require any knowledge of the Easter Eggs to enjoy. My wife didn't know anything about the Darksaber or the Mandalorians or any of that shit and she was still:

Oh, ok, Giancarlo Esposito's character has a backstory connection to the Mandalorian.
Oh, ok, it involves the reasons why all those other Mandalorians were on the bounty hunter planet and all the stuff about forging his armor.
Oh, cool, he's got a weird looking lightsaber, he's a dangerous villain.


They've done just enough to say: hey, this is an ongoing universe where stories connect; and so far, nothing that said: sorry, if you are not Nerd Grade Ten, you are not tall enough to ride this ride.

I think they'll keep that balance.


Most of that stuff came in at the very end of the season and then we got the news about Ahsoka after the season ended. Just felt a little bit like a Trojan Horse. We finally got a cool stand-alone Star Wars thing but then they couldn't help but sneak in some EU stuff. Feels like Jonathan Hickman's work on Marvel comics where he is so enamored of his characters and storylines that he has to keep tying every subsequent series he works on back into them.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 10, 2020, 06:37:19 PM
I think as long as Ahsoka comes in sideways and the Mandalorian is our viewpoint character, it'll work fine.

E.g., if she shows up and he's "who the fuck are you" and she's like "well once upon a time I was the apprentice to Anakin Skywalker and..." and he's like "yeah, whatever, can you handle killing a few fuckers who are trying to get to Baby while he and I go get some kind of Foozle thing for this episode, I really don't give a fuck about your backstory" that will be great.

If she shows up and for a three-episode arc it's the Ahsoka Show not so much.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 11, 2020, 03:22:00 AM
I think it will be a bit like how she was handled in Rebels.  The Darksaber at the end of Season 1 of th Mandalorian, along with adding Ahsoka, is a pretty clear indication that Filoni wants to bring back characters from Rebels and Clone Wars as meaningful live action elements.  He wants to build on his foundation - but Ithink he understands that he has to assume viewers know nothing of what took place in those series.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on September 11, 2020, 03:39:29 AM
here's my cheat sheet to skip most of the garbage in Clone Wars and what order to watch things in (you do need to jumble up some of the beginning), in case anybody needs it. I can't even remember what the exclamation points mean anymore, I made it and watched most of them quite a ways back.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on September 11, 2020, 05:45:12 AM
.... and all of season 7.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Teleku on September 11, 2020, 11:41:14 AM
Yeah, I did a binge of clone wars earlier this year since so many people had recommended it.  I'm not going to call it great or anything, but I did enjoy how it fleshed out the world.  It found its footing in the later seasons and had some good arcs.  

I basically followed this (doesn't have the last two seasons on it):
(https://i.imgur.com/suvAMuY.jpeg)


.... and all of season 7.

What?  I mean, I didn't like all of it, but thought it was a good close out for the series and ended strong.  The final scene of the whole series was pretty damned grimdark and emotional compared to what I was expecting.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Teleku on September 11, 2020, 11:51:44 AM
Also, because of my binge watching, I actually am excited about the prospect of Ahsoka showing up in the Mandelorian.  I can understand people who haven't gotten into the tv series not caring or wanting it, but even though she's sort of retconned into everything (considering how in the movies Anakin never mentions her despite the series establishing they became super close), I feel she became a good character to add to the lore.  With all the insane shit she's gone through, she's got to be pretty grim and grizzled by The Mandelorian era.  Her character would fit in perfectly with the ascetics (especially considering how season 7 of the clone wars went, and the Dark Saber showing up), and as Khal said they wouldn't need to spend much time explaining her backstory at all.  They can just present her as some hardcore burnout living on the fringes of the galaxy, but also perusing this Imperial faction for whatever reason.  They can throw some chud out there for the fans who know who she is, but they wont need to do much more explaining than they did for any of the other characters in season 1.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 11, 2020, 03:23:39 PM
... They can just present her as some hardcore burnout living on the fringes of the galaxy, but also perusing this Imperial faction for whatever reason.  They can throw some chud out there for the fans who know who she is, but they wont need to do much more explaining than they did for any of the other characters in season 1.
Unlikely.  The final scene of Rebels takes place a bit after the battle of Endor (we know Hera fought in the Battle of Endor...).  The Mandalorian takes place 3 years after the battle of Endor.  It will have been less than years, perhaps much less than 3 years, since Ahsoka began the search for Bridger - and if you think Filoni is bringing Ahsoka over to the Mandalorian in that timeframe without a plan for how to interweave it with the Bridger search, you are mistaken.  I bet we see most of the crew of the Ghost before the end of season 3 - and some of them in Season 2.   


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on September 11, 2020, 04:27:47 PM
Sabine in particular.

I'd quite like some time spent on how the tribe relate to wider mandalorian society. Sabine would be the obvious way to do that.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 11, 2020, 04:53:44 PM
Sabine in particular.

I'd quite like some time spent on how the tribe relate to wider mandalorian society. Sabine would be the obvious way to do that.
I'll be very curious how they cast Sabine when she does appear.  Filoni and the voice talent are very close and she'd love to be Sabine in live action - although most people would recognize her as Vicky on the Good Place these days.  I did not make the connection for a long time.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on September 12, 2020, 05:04:19 AM
ew Sabine in Mandalorian universe sounds so whack....

do not want. I don't disagree with the premise that it might happen but... yuck.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 12, 2020, 08:22:16 AM
ew Sabine in Mandalorian universe sounds so whack....

do not want. I don't disagree with the premise that it might happen but... yuck.
No reservations here.  They are kind of opposites in some ways.  It would be interesting to see how they juxtapose him against her.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Teleku on September 12, 2020, 08:37:55 AM
... They can just present her as some hardcore burnout living on the fringes of the galaxy, but also perusing this Imperial faction for whatever reason.  They can throw some chud out there for the fans who know who she is, but they wont need to do much more explaining than they did for any of the other characters in season 1.
Unlikely.  The final scene of Rebels takes place a bit after the battle of Endor (we know Hera fought in the Battle of Endor...).  The Mandalorian takes place 3 years after the battle of Endor.  It will have been less than years, perhaps much less than 3 years, since Ahsoka began the search for Bridger - and if you think Filoni is bringing Ahsoka over to the Mandalorian in that timeframe without a plan for how to interweave it with the Bridger search, you are mistaken.  I bet we see most of the crew of the Ghost before the end of season 3 - and some of them in Season 2.   
Ah, I admit I only watched a little bit of rebels and am not familiar with this part of the story.  I had gone ahead and read plot synopsis of episodes before, where Ahsoka went missing after after the fight with vader in the temple.  I was not aware of all this final stuff I am reading now.  So yeah, they may likely tie in all that if they include her.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on September 13, 2020, 04:44:42 AM
[
Most of that stuff came in at the very end of the season and then we got the news about Ahsoka after the season ended. Just felt a little bit like a Trojan Horse. We finally got a cool stand-alone Star Wars thing but then they couldn't help but sneak in some EU stuff. Feels like Jonathan Hickman's work on Marvel comics where he is so enamored of his characters and storylines that he has to keep tying every subsequent series he works on back into them.

Ahsoka's not EU. The Clone Wars and Rebels are canon. And Ahsoka's voice is the Rise of Skywalker in the final scene.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 13, 2020, 06:25:35 AM
[
Most of that stuff came in at the very end of the season and then we got the news about Ahsoka after the season ended. Just felt a little bit like a Trojan Horse. We finally got a cool stand-alone Star Wars thing but then they couldn't help but sneak in some EU stuff. Feels like Jonathan Hickman's work on Marvel comics where he is so enamored of his characters and storylines that he has to keep tying every subsequent series he works on back into them.

Ahsoka's not EU. The Clone Wars and Rebels are canon. And Ahsoka's voice is the Rise of Skywalker in the final scene.
Favreau on how they use EU/Legends and the animated materials:

Quote
I don’t want to talk about anything that might be fun for people to discover. We do have conversations. Part of what’s fun to see if we could merge the worlds of the original trilogy, the prequels, the sequels, The Clones Wars, and what’s been considered canon up to this point and what’s been considered part of Legends. I think this show offers an opportunity to bring in all those elements so no matter what your flavor of Star Wars ice cream you like there will be something to enjoy. But you’re asking the right questions.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/of-course-the-mandalorian-is-interested-in-what-the-exp-1838066931 (https://io9.gizmodo.com/of-course-the-mandalorian-is-interested-in-what-the-exp-1838066931)

I think the Mandalorian will:

a.) Epilogue stories from Clone Wars and Rebels.  They've talked about a sequel animated series to Rebels, and I'm betting that we get some setup for it in the Mandalorian.  However, I'm betting we find out what became of certain recurring characters in Rebels within this show.  They're talking about Temuera Morrison returning as Boba Fett in the Mandalorian this season, but I think he'll also appear as Rex, who was featured in both Clone Wars and Rebels (all those clones).

b.) Feature minor characters and locations from the original trilogy, the prequels, the sequels, Clone Wars, Rebels, Resistance (cringe), EU, and everything else Star Wars we've ever had.  Heck, they've already referenced the Christmas Special twice with his gun, and Life Day.  Favreau and Filoni (even after all these years in Clone Wars) were handed the keys to the biggest Star Wars toy collection ever and they're going to town.

c.) I am betting we also see a lot of Underworld Coruscant within a season or two.  Lucas' planned live action series was to be set there (during the same time as rebels) and he had scripts for dozens of shows and outlines for 100.  I would not be surprised if that show was green lit in the next year as the biggest concern was the cost and the new technologies they're using on Mandalorian open up a lot of those doors.  I'm betting those scripts are in Filoni's hands and he considered them when doing Rebels. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on September 13, 2020, 07:21:37 AM
ew Sabine in Mandalorian universe sounds so whack....

do not want. I don't disagree with the premise that it might happen but... yuck.
No reservations here.  They are kind of opposites in some ways.  It would be interesting to see how they juxtapose him against her.

The Mandalorian and all previous Filoni Mandalorians are kind of opposites.

How the Tribe relates to the well developed advanced economy world of Mandalore is the one specific world building thing I'd like the show to cover at some point. Seems unlikely Fionli would do that without someone we know. There are other people it could be, but if you're going to have Ahsoka in the show, it seems logical they'd use the person last seen with Ahsoka who is also an outsider on Mandalore but at least understands it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 13, 2020, 07:34:54 AM
[
Most of that stuff came in at the very end of the season and then we got the news about Ahsoka after the season ended. Just felt a little bit like a Trojan Horse. We finally got a cool stand-alone Star Wars thing but then they couldn't help but sneak in some EU stuff. Feels like Jonathan Hickman's work on Marvel comics where he is so enamored of his characters and storylines that he has to keep tying every subsequent series he works on back into them.

Ahsoka's not EU. The Clone Wars and Rebels are canon. And Ahsoka's voice is the Rise of Skywalker in the final scene.

Come on man, let's be real here that shit is EU as fuck with an Easter Egg in the last movie regardless of how it's classified. Ahsoka is a character who was retconned in and doesn't get mentioned in the movies, even in Episode 3 where she logically would have been.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 13, 2020, 11:07:01 AM
I think as long as Ahsoka comes in sideways and the Mandalorian is our viewpoint character, it'll work fine.

E.g., if she shows up and he's "who the fuck are you" and she's like "well once upon a time I was the apprentice to Anakin Skywalker and..." and he's like "yeah, whatever, can you handle killing a few fuckers who are trying to get to Baby while he and I go get some kind of Foozle thing for this episode, I really don't give a fuck about your backstory" that will be great.

If she shows up and for a three-episode arc it's the Ahsoka Show not so much.


Dude goes around with a force-wielding infant of Yoda's race, and she's a Jedi who is likely one of the only people still alive at that point who has actually met Yoda and would potentially know things about his race. I really don't think it's going to be a casual 1 episode team-up to kill shit unless they contrive a way for her to never find out about the kid and for him to not realize she has potentially useful information. Like if they do some cliche hero fights hero because they don't realize they're on the same side kinda thing, or if Mando loses the baby for part of the season or something.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Riggswolfe on September 13, 2020, 01:16:22 PM

Most of that stuff came in at the very end of the season and then we got the news about Ahsoka after the season ended. Just felt a little bit like a Trojan Horse. We finally got a cool stand-alone Star Wars thing but then they couldn't help but sneak in some EU stuff. Feels like Jonathan Hickman's work on Marvel comics where he is so enamored of his characters and storylines that he has to keep tying every subsequent series he works on back into them.

Ahsoka's not EU. The Clone Wars and Rebels are canon. And Ahsoka's voice is the Rise of Skywalker in the final scene.

Come on man, let's be real here that shit is EU as fuck with an Easter Egg in the last movie regardless of how it's classified. Ahsoka is a character who was retconned in and doesn't get mentioned in the movies, even in Episode 3 where she logically would have been.

Regardless of your personal crusade here, you're wrong. It's not EU no matter how much you seem to wish it was. She's not in Episode 3 because George Lucas hadn't invented her yet. Had he tinkered with the prequels like he did the OT he  would've inserted an Easter Egg or a line of dialogue about her or something but he didn't.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 13, 2020, 02:00:50 PM
I could see her saying to Mando basically:

I am realizing for the first time that none of us knew anything at all about Yoda or his people.

I could also see her saying: ok, I am gonna go try to find hidden information in whatever the Emperor copied over from the Jedi Archives, if anything (kind of like the comic story where the Emperor sends Vader to get artifacts from the Archives and they make the librarian into a sort of kick-ass Jedi fighter who does NOT want people checking out books if they don't have a library card). So she shows in one episode and then shows up in the final season-ender the same way that the first season brought together multiple seemingly one-off characters from earlier in the season--she's got the map or the info or something and she's ready to make a last stand to save Mando and Baby Yoda.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 13, 2020, 02:20:59 PM
She's not in Episode 3 because George Lucas hadn't invented her yet. Had he tinkered with the prequels like he did the OT he wouldn't would've inserted an Easter Egg or a line of dialogue about her or something but he didn't.

Exactly, she's a character who is retconned into the story. A living apprentice of Anakin Skywalker should factor into episodes 3 through 9, but again aside from easter eggs in 9 she absolutely doesn't and goes completely without mention. Regardless of what the official classification for Clone Wars is, it's completely ignorable side story. It's Marvel TV in the context of the MCU. Stuff from the movies filters into the shows, but it doesn't really go in the reverse. Which is fine and by that same token Mandalorian is the same thing. It was just a little disappointing because they had finally put out something TV or movie that was it's own thing. As people have pointed out before, when you tie everything in together like that you're just taking a big universe and making it feel smaller.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on September 14, 2020, 02:23:32 AM
[
Most of that stuff came in at the very end of the season and then we got the news about Ahsoka after the season ended. Just felt a little bit like a Trojan Horse. We finally got a cool stand-alone Star Wars thing but then they couldn't help but sneak in some EU stuff. Feels like Jonathan Hickman's work on Marvel comics where he is so enamored of his characters and storylines that he has to keep tying every subsequent series he works on back into them.

Ahsoka's not EU. The Clone Wars and Rebels are canon. And Ahsoka's voice is the Rise of Skywalker in the final scene.

Come on man, let's be real here that shit is EU as fuck with an Easter Egg in the last movie regardless of how it's classified. Ahsoka is a character who was retconned in and doesn't get mentioned in the movies, even in Episode 3 where she logically would have been.

Ahsoka is exactly as EU as the Mandalorian. Which is to say she's not. But if you want to redefine EU to put them and everything that isn't a movie in that bucket then sure why not.

Calling her and Mando the equivalent of the Netflix MCU series is fair enough. But those Netflix series referenced each other pretty heavily and that worked out. Also putting the Netflix MCU on the same shit pile as the Star Wars EU seems *really* unfair.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 14, 2020, 07:46:46 AM
I am guessing that if there is ever more theatrical Star Wars, it's going to be "EU" in this way as well. I think they are never ever going to want to talk about Rise of Skywalker again in referencing whatever comes after that. I think they're going to look to tell stories that:

have bounty hunters and mercenaries
have lightsaber people going zsssh zsssh
have aliens of many kinds
have big and little space ships going zap zap at each other

Etc. into which I would guess they would rather have character references that are NOT Han Solo Princess Leia Luke Skywalker Chewbacca Rey Poe Finn Rose Tico etc. if they're going to do references at all. The stock of characters like Cad Bane, Ahsoka, the Mandalorian, etc. is likely to rise--you get Star Wars referentiality and some geek cred and you stay away from the main "saga" which has become the opposite of geek cred-gaining and not particularly well-loved by mainstream audiences either.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 14, 2020, 08:23:16 AM
For years as books, comics, and games were being released Expanded Universe was pretty much used as a catchall term for anything outside the movies. We can "Well, actually" this shit to death and get into how at one point there was G, T, C, S, N, and D-canon. Or we could argue that just about everything released under Disney and certain other things they've selected like Clone Wars are canon so any random issue of a current Star Wars comic is just as canon as any of the movies which is what some of you guys seem intent on doing. For the general public though the movies are the movies and everything else is side stuff. My brother is about as big a Star Wars fan as you're likely to meet and has collected a fuckton of the toys, but hasn't read one novel or watched one episode of Clone Wars. Most people I know have watched the movies. I know one person at work who has watched Clone Wars. If I were to tell people that 11 seasons of cartoons are just as relevant to the story as the movies, I think "fuck off" would be the general reaction. At the end of the day it's all fiction but that's where I'm coming from with Expanded Universe, and acknowledged Mandolorian is in the same boat.

And yeah, going back to the Marvel TV analogy some of that stuff did reference other stuff pretty heavily. The Netflix shows pretty much were designed around it. But let's say Marvel released a Moon Knight show or something on Disney+ and the reviews are positive and it takes place in the MCU but generally is telling its own story. You've got some good writers and directors working on it (and Jed Whedon is there also). Then at the end they bring in some plot element from Agents of SHIELD and announce that Quake is going to be in the next season. On some level you trust the showrunner because you thought the first season was great, but there would probably be a little concern in the back of your head that there's a bit of a bait and switch going on because one guy can't let go of his pet characters or storylines and you didn't care enough to watch 8 seasons of MAOS.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on September 14, 2020, 08:38:34 AM
I guarantee there will be people on this very forum disappointed if any marvel TV project doesn't explicitly reference every other marvel project.

But yeah, these things crossover too much.

However, that doesn't mean they can't do it well. Ahsoka is a well developed enough character that it doesn't worry me wherever they put her. Similarly, the whole mandalore crew, including Sabine, are well enough thought through that I'm not worried - they'd find a way.

I'm much more concerned about the rumours they want to link this to the first order and Snoke.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 14, 2020, 10:15:18 AM
Yeah I mean for as much as I’m voicing my concerns here and the amount of text I put into it, I’m still looking forward to season 2.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 14, 2020, 10:51:48 AM
Excessive cross-referentiality is definitely the death of an IP unless it's a single really tight ongoing program that has some element of meta to it and a tight-knit fandom. E.g., it works for Venture Bros. but not for some sprawling IP like Star Wars.

You can see it in Marvel Comics way pre-MCU, especially in X-Men franchise stuff when they were the hot property at the company (basically Claremont/Byrne on forward). Characters became just incredibly burdened by the convoluted histories they had acquired and the writers tried to keep all of those millions of balls juggling in the air perpetually.

So if Mandalorian becomes the one place that "continuity" goes to be handled, then it will die and probably Star Wars as an ongoing concern with it. They need the light touch they've had so far (relatively). And they need to do what both MCU and the Marvel Netflix shows (mostly) did, which was to edit existing Marvel characters and storylines so they made some streamlined sense. That's really what the film Solo did poorly--it decided that everything about the character as he appears in the "main saga" needed on-screen explanation/backstory, including his goddamn name. Sharing characters and storylines between separate programs, comics and novels should be a matter of killing little darlings all the time--making everything tighter, throwing away dumb ideas and bad characters, etc.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 14, 2020, 11:24:25 AM
Let’s look at what we know is currently in the works for SW shows (animated or live action). There’s the Obi-Wan series, the Cassian Andor series, and The Bad Batch. So filling in story on a prominent SW character, filling in the backstory of a character from a side story that was itself filling in the details of a plot point in ANH, and a spin-off of characters from Clone Wars. Two of those shows are prequels for characters whose ultimate fates we already know. It’s just odd that the IP is so insular and in these three cases specifically are still focused on the time between the prequels and the OT.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on September 14, 2020, 11:59:38 AM
Your best bet for the Mandolorian future success is to let it be its own cannon. It really doesn't need to link up with the rest of star wars anymore than the Nextflix Defenders need to link up with Tom holland spiderman. Let it be its own parallel cannon with self contained plot and villains.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Trippy on September 14, 2020, 12:17:56 PM
So if Mandalorian becomes the one place that "continuity" goes to be handled, then it will die and probably Star Wars as an ongoing concern with it.
The Mandalorian doesn't have enough run time/episodes per year for that sort of thing. Season 1 was about 4 hours long.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Speedy Cerviche on September 14, 2020, 12:51:27 PM


Etc. into which I would guess they would rather have character references that are NOT Han Solo Princess Leia Luke Skywalker Chewbacca Rey Poe Finn Rose Tico etc. if they're going to do references at all....


I don't think they will shelve perfectly fine characters (the young ones, not the old 1970s ones) just because the Skywalker trilogy was a mess that kind of sucked. They can just move away from this idea of big main saga trilogies and the easy answer is copy what MCU did and have everyone going off side adventures that can integrate a greater story arc lore to varying extents until you have enough for the occasional super film (Avengers).


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rendakor on September 15, 2020, 06:23:04 AM
I do not imagine a major SW trilogy without some descendant of an established showing up, likely as a main character. Maybe this time they do use a Kenobi instead of a Skywalker, but genetic inheritance is a core concept of Star Wars and, I suspect, will continue to remain so.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 15, 2020, 08:34:51 AM
Continuity, handled well, is not necessary, but additive. 

Filoni has executed that well with Rebels, Clone Wars and the Mandalorian.  If you know the lore, it adds a step.  If you don't, you won't emiss anything, but may be curious enough to go back and look at it.. 

When Ahsoka, Sabine, Bridger, Jar Jar's corpse, K-2S0, Luke, Rey, Rex, or Thrawn appear, I think it will be done in a meaningful way, a respectful way, and a way that does not require any prior knowledge of the character or their stories. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on September 16, 2020, 01:16:30 PM
I'm just waiting for Disney to just say the Sequel Trilogy has been classified as Legends and should just be ignored.

Then you can have real writers take over and make an interesting story the brings Star Wars back to the big screen (if we still have those).


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 16, 2020, 06:40:12 PM
I'm just waiting for Disney to just say the Sequel Trilogy has been classified as Legends and should just be ignored.

Then you can have real writers take over and make an interesting story the brings Star Wars back to the big screen (if we still have those).
It seems more likely that they 'd use the Time Travel options in Star Wars to undue the final trilogy... JJ it and keep it official, but just now changed.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on September 16, 2020, 08:07:59 PM
I mean they'd win over half the fanbase if they did though.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: SurfD on September 16, 2020, 09:12:35 PM
I'm just waiting for Disney to just say the Sequel Trilogy has been classified as Legends and should just be ignored.

Then you can have real writers take over and make an interesting story the brings Star Wars back to the big screen (if we still have those).
It seems more likely that they 'd use the Time Travel options in Star Wars to undue the final trilogy... JJ it and keep it official, but just now changed.
Or maybe just start the next movie off with middle aged Luke waking screaming from his bed with a Yoda Force Ghost slowly dissipating in the background while the words "one possibility, of many it is" float through his head.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 16, 2020, 10:02:57 PM
I'm just waiting for Disney to just say the Sequel Trilogy has been classified as Legends and should just be ignored.

Then you can have real writers take over and make an interesting story the brings Star Wars back to the big screen (if we still have those).

Can they get rid of the prequel trilogy while they're at it?

Anyhow there's no reason that a good writer couldn't come up with an interesting story, even with the sequel trilogy in place. They just need to get someone who isn't going to tread the same ground in the same general timeline, with the same conflicts and character templates.  Clone Wars tie-ins aside, Mandalorian showed that you can carve out a niche in the setting and do something interesting.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Teleku on September 17, 2020, 01:12:21 AM
I mean, realistically at this point, you have two lore options for shows.  More random series/movies that cover everything between the prequel and the sequel trilogies, or a new trilogy set significantly after or before this time frame.  Like, at least a hundred years or more.  Next Generation this shit and start fresh.  While I'm fine with stuff like Mandalorian, if they intended to keep squeezing this IP for money, I'd rather they do that as the next big trilogy or whatever.  They are not going to magic away and redo this latest trilogy, just like HBO is not going to magic away and redo season 8 of Game of Thrones.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on September 17, 2020, 03:14:16 AM
In the Republic, the Clone Wars, the empire, and the GCW they already have 4 incredibly solid and distinct settings.

They don't need to go forward or back in time. They don't need to do anything to sequel canon. Just pick one of the good settings and make some stories about people in that setting.

If I were Disney I'd say we're doing 5 years of products focussed on one of these time periods. Realistically the best one to do is the 30 year period of the empire. It is the least well explored and the easiest one to keep focussed on characters and to avoid galaxy shattering events.

Rebels for instance, could easily have been 3 or 4 films about the story of Lothal. Done as films it would have been different, but it would have been fine.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on September 17, 2020, 07:30:41 AM
I don't mind the Mando stories. Their pretty great tucked into their own storyline. But that doesn't move the needle of the IP at all. Picking out a small space within the exisitng, and terrible, storyline to expand the franchise is  stupid. You have all sorts of problems with characters, timelines, ages etc. that just make that all awful.

They need to start fresh. Drop some characters super in to the past or future and start up again with a new story.

The timeline from Prequel to OT is awful. You've got a young queen marrying anakin where their age difference is quite large. You've got Obiwan an old man in the OT but a young vibrant man in the PT. People have already brought up Asohka never being mentioned anywhere and she's apparently a major character (I never watched any of the animated stuff). You've got the fucking mess of the ST that just shits on everything and doesn't make sense in any way (Do we need to get into all that shit?)

In Rogue 1 it makes the Empire look established and old but yet it's really not even 20 years old yet right? Or close to that anyway.

I dunno, bring all the pew pew and lightsaber sounds and ancient sorcerers to another time and place and start fresh. The well is polluted with awful writing.

Or you can just do like comics do and just reset the whole fucking thing and start over.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 17, 2020, 07:51:30 AM
While you can start fresh in another time period, there is no need, and you give up a lot of good when you throw out the bad. 

Rather than make some wholesale dictum about where they should set things, I'd rather they take it on a case by case basis.  If they have a great KotOR story?  Great!  If someone has a good young Yoda story?  OK!  Someone says they have a way to close out Jar-Jar and make him respectable?  I'll give Filoni/Favreau a shot, but nobody else on this one.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on September 17, 2020, 08:06:35 AM
While you can start fresh in another time period, there is no need, and you give up a lot of good when you throw out the bad.  

Rather than make some wholesale dictum about where they should set things, I'd rather they take it on a case by case basis.  If they have a great KotOR story?  Great!  If someone has a good young Yoda story?  OK!  Someone says they have a way to close out Jar-Jar and make him respectable?  I'll give Filoni/Favreau a shot, but nobody else on this one.

That's a good idea if you just want to limp along with zero direction to the franchise and kill it after a few years.

Star Wars fans want the MCU treatment and there is no saving the current IP using the timeline in the 9 movie arc. You can keep the prequels if you really want, but you need to erase the sequels if you want to move forward with the franchise in this specific timeline.

edit:
The most brainless thing you could do to improve SW is to delete the sequals and just drop the Thrawn trilogy in to place and use the Mandalorian to introduce the storyline and bridge everything.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: BobtheSomething on September 17, 2020, 08:25:56 AM
While you can start fresh in another time period, there is no need, and you give up a lot of good when you throw out the bad. 

Rather than make some wholesale dictum about where they should set things, I'd rather they take it on a case by case basis.  If they have a great KotOR story?  Great!  If someone has a good young Yoda story?  OK!  Someone says they have a way to close out Jar-Jar and make him respectable?  I'll give Filoni/Favreau a shot, but nobody else on this one.

You have to start fresh.  You can’t move forward in a significant way if everyone knows the universe effectively ends in Rise of Skywalker.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on September 17, 2020, 08:50:08 AM
People didn't stop making WWII films when the ending was spoiled.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 17, 2020, 09:47:25 AM
Bob and Draegan: Mandalorian. 

It is the best Star Wars we've ever had, IMHO, and is Star Wars to the core.  It takes place after the EWOK dance and before the crap trilogy. 

You can absolutely add in amazing stories set around the steaming heaps that are the first and last trilogies of the Star Wars series without letting the crap fest get in the way.  Hell, despite how awful the last three films are collectively, I think you could still tell stories about Poe, Rey, Finn or Kylo stories that are good. 

There have been horrendously bad Spider-man comics, pretty darn bad Spider-man movies, and just ridiculously horrible Spider-man cartoons.  Is Spider-man ruined?


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on September 17, 2020, 07:26:01 PM
No one is saying that you can't have good Star Wars like Mandalorian and a few other shows tucked into their own little corner for the galaxy. But Star Wars has always been about sweeping battles of good vs. evil. Where will Star Wars be in 6-8 years with a bunch of eight 30 minute episode stories? It'll get boring after a while. You need an anchor in the franchise like MCU had Avengers.

Somehow Star Wars needs it's Tony Stark. Good fucking luck.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 17, 2020, 07:59:10 PM
No one is saying that you can't have good Star Wars like Mandalorian and a few other shows tucked into their own little corner for the galaxy. But Star Wars has always been about sweeping battles of good vs. evil.
The best movie in the series is also the only one without a massive space battle … where the climatic battle is a father and son. 
Quote
Where will Star Wars be in 6-8 years with a bunch of eight 30 minute episode stories? It'll get boring after a while. You need an anchor in the franchise like MCU had Avengers.

Somehow Star Wars needs it's Tony Stark. Good fucking luck.
Let's ask Jon Favreau.  The guy that gave us MCU Tony Stark has given us Din Djarin.  My respect for what was done in the Mandalorian and what was done in Iron Man 1 are not far off.

And you know there are incredibly shitty Tony Stark stories, right?  Any character could be written insanely good or horribly bad.  Batman was once seen as a lost cause, prior to the resurgence in the 1980s. 

They're looking to make a new and iconic story in the Star Wars universe with highly marketable characters.  I'm saying that excellent writing, casting and direction is going to be a far bigger element of the success of that attempt than whether they set it in the Old Republic, the Empire, the Republic, the New Republic, or the New Edition. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on September 18, 2020, 01:47:57 AM
No one is saying that you can't have good Star Wars like Mandalorian and a few other shows tucked into their own little corner for the galaxy. But Star Wars has always been about sweeping battles of good vs. evil. Where will Star Wars be in 6-8 years with a bunch of eight 30 minute episode stories? It'll get boring after a while. You need an anchor in the franchise like MCU had Avengers.

Somehow Star Wars needs it's Tony Stark. Good fucking luck.

The three original trilogy movies are epic battles of good and evil.

But the story of epic conflict isn't what star wars 'always is'. Rogue 1 isn't about the epic conflict, it is just set within it. Clone Wars is the same really. Even the OT is at least as much the specific story of Luke Han Leia and Vader as it is the story of a war.

Firefly, but star wars, would work fine.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 18, 2020, 08:49:42 AM
Look at it this way: we're all watching a show featuring a dude who is loyal to a spiritual code derived from a society of extreme warriors who continuously fought the Jedi. Who were bigger enemies to the Jedi than the Sith for most of the previous three or four centuries before The Phantom Menace.

During that entire time period, the Sith were in fact irrelevant to the galaxy for a thousand years--just two of them, off being esoteric, for centuries upon centuries. What else was going on? Jedi v. Mandalore and what else? What kept the Jedi and the Republic in check? Why by the time of TPM are there major portions of the galaxy independent of the Republic? Why are there Hutts etc.? The Nightsisters are canon now via The Clone Wars, so what other shit was going down on other planets, Force-involved or otherwise?

There's lots of room for good v. evil stories that are smaller in scale; there's lots of room to mix it up or complicate good v. evil. I think the harder problem for Star Wars that The Mandalorian is helping with is to use it as a platform for telling a wider variety of genre stories. The MCU strategy of using the variety of superhero comics to do thrillers, comic capers, teenage rom-com adventures, huge epics, etc. is going to be harder for Star Wars to do--the tonal range of SW as a property has been smaller. The Mandalorian is bringing in the feel of a western or samurai story. Solo SHOULD have been a caper film but it really wasn't anything that clear in terms of mood or tone. Rogue One was kind of a Dirty Dozen/Guns of Navarone/Eagles Dare war movie, and that worked. But it will take more effort to cram other genre templates into Star Wars, I think.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 18, 2020, 09:00:20 AM
The Mandalorian is bringing in the feel of a western or samurai story.

Not exactly new since (as I'm sure has been discussed here at some point) ANH "borrowed" heavily from Hidden Fortress and Rogue One is just a remake of all the movies that have remade Seven Samurai. Wanting to be Kurosawa isn't something the Mandalorian brought in.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 18, 2020, 01:41:23 PM
The Mandalorian is bringing in the feel of a western or samurai story.
Not exactly new since (as I'm sure has been discussed here at some point) ANH "borrowed" heavily from Hidden Fortress and Rogue One is just a remake of all the movies that have remade Seven Samurai. Wanting to be Kurosawa isn't something the Mandalorian brought in.
… but it is fucking nailing it. 


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 18, 2020, 03:34:05 PM
Look, the point being that The Hidden Fortress is a template for Lucas, but by ESB he's not quoting from that source material any longer. ESB and RotJ are kind of their own thing. Phantom Menace is almost a kind of weird kabuki variant. Clones and Sith I dunno what the fuck they are--they don't really have genre referents. TFA to Rise, the only referent is really "how do you make money from the IP you just bought by hiring a cynical corporate stooge director etc. (TLJ excluded, something else going on there)". It's not a genre referent.

Then Mandalorian is like "oh yeah Westerns and samurai flicks, right."


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MahrinSkel on September 18, 2020, 08:13:05 PM

Then Mandalorian is like "oh yeah Westerns and samurai flicks, right."

I think the moral here is "Dance with the one that brung ya."

--Dave


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on September 20, 2020, 08:27:30 AM
No one is saying that you can't have good Star Wars like Mandalorian and a few other shows tucked into their own little corner for the galaxy. But Star Wars has always been about sweeping battles of good vs. evil.
The best movie in the series is also the only one without a massive space battle … where the climatic battle is a father and son. 
Quote
Where will Star Wars be in 6-8 years with a bunch of eight 30 minute episode stories? It'll get boring after a while. You need an anchor in the franchise like MCU had Avengers.

Somehow Star Wars needs it's Tony Stark. Good fucking luck.
Let's ask Jon Favreau.  The guy that gave us MCU Tony Stark has given us Din Djarin.  My respect for what was done in the Mandalorian and what was done in Iron Man 1 are not far off.

And you know there are incredibly shitty Tony Stark stories, right?  Any character could be written insanely good or horribly bad.  Batman was once seen as a lost cause, prior to the resurgence in the 1980s. 

They're looking to make a new and iconic story in the Star Wars universe with highly marketable characters.  I'm saying that excellent writing, casting and direction is going to be a far bigger element of the success of that attempt than whether they set it in the Old Republic, the Empire, the Republic, the New Republic, or the New Edition. 

When I say Tony Stark I mean Robert Downey Jr's performance he brought to the character. He fucking nailed it and anchored the whole thing. Star Wars needs that. Tough to find.

Writing and casting is always essential to a brand new story in an existing IP. The OT got away with some bad writing and story telling because of the technology and story was so new to the genre. I don't think you can create epic stories within the existing timeframe of the the skywalker saga even if you had the best writers. Setting will gi e great writers the freedom to create a good story rather than having to shove the terrible details of existing lore into their ideas.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on September 20, 2020, 08:30:47 AM
No one is saying that you can't have good Star Wars like Mandalorian and a few other shows tucked into their own little corner for the galaxy. But Star Wars has always been about sweeping battles of good vs. evil. Where will Star Wars be in 6-8 years with a bunch of eight 30 minute episode stories? It'll get boring after a while. You need an anchor in the franchise like MCU had Avengers.

Somehow Star Wars needs it's Tony Stark. Good fucking luck.

The three original trilogy movies are epic battles of good and evil.

But the story of epic conflict isn't what star wars 'always is'. Rogue 1 isn't about the epic conflict, it is just set within it. Clone Wars is the same really. Even the OT is at least as much the specific story of Luke Han Leia and Vader as it is the story of a war.

Firefly, but star wars, would work fine.

Firefly is a cancelled TV show. Star Wars firefly is great for Disney+ and not for the big screen. Star Wars is a billion dollar franchise it needs an epic setting to house smaller scale stories.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on September 20, 2020, 08:39:25 AM
Look at it this way: we're all watching a show featuring a dude who is loyal to a spiritual code derived from a society of extreme warriors who continuously fought the Jedi. Who were bigger enemies to the Jedi than the Sith for most of the previous three or four centuries before The Phantom Menace.

During that entire time period, the Sith were in fact irrelevant to the galaxy for a thousand years--just two of them, off being esoteric, for centuries upon centuries. What else was going on? Jedi v. Mandalore and what else? What kept the Jedi and the Republic in check? Why by the time of TPM are there major portions of the galaxy independent of the Republic? Why are there Hutts etc.? The Nightsisters are canon now via The Clone Wars, so what other shit was going down on other planets, Force-involved or otherwise?

There's lots of room for good v. evil stories that are smaller in scale; there's lots of room to mix it up or complicate good v. evil. I think the harder problem for Star Wars that The Mandalorian is helping with is to use it as a platform for telling a wider variety of genre stories. The MCU strategy of using the variety of superhero comics to do thrillers, comic capers, teenage rom-com adventures, huge epics, etc. is going to be harder for Star Wars to do--the tonal range of SW as a property has been smaller. The Mandalorian is bringing in the feel of a western or samurai story. Solo SHOULD have been a caper film but it really wasn't anything that clear in terms of mood or tone. Rogue One was kind of a Dirty Dozen/Guns of Navarone/Eagles Dare war movie, and that worked. But it will take more effort to cram other genre templates into Star Wars, I think.


Any large movie arc you place inside the skywalker saga is going to have the ghosts of vader, like and the rest hanging all over it. Can you make a bunch of one off films about random shit? Yes. Could you make a bunch of one off films come together in a larger story, sure. But you know where 3verything is going .. a few death stars being blown up, order 66 and palatine building a thousand star destroyers on a secret planet and ponies riding down the side of them.

It's like making iron man 2 five years after endgame.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on September 20, 2020, 08:43:27 AM
I'm on my phone so excuse the format.

You can't do super hero movies like the MCU but you can make sub stories or sub "trilogies" where they are maybe 2 movies long that weave different stories across the Galaxy which ultimately lead to a epic story as they all converge.

You can have a western, a sci fi heroes journey, a fantasy jedi story a military action story all be put together into something bigger.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 20, 2020, 10:51:19 AM
Of course there would still be the issue that as a whole, the Star Wars fanbase is the worst, largely because it's coasting on an aging group of people still nostalgic for the 40+ year old OT while getting tossed an occasionally good scrap like KOTOR or The Mandalorian.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 20, 2020, 12:36:22 PM
There is also that. Anybody like me who felt like they were having an unexpected spiritual experience as a teenager in the summer of 1977 has a hard time shaking that off and allowing some other thing to happen in the same setting or contest. But I think the LOTR films showed that you can move around some plot elements and characterizations and have that be accepted even by most devotees when they can see the reasons why or see how that's better (or at least comparable). But more importantly, you also have to learn how to make people move on if you want an IP to last and grow. The only essential element is quality, period.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on September 20, 2020, 01:55:40 PM

It's like making iron man 2 five years after endgame.

It is exactly like this.

And it is exactly what the MCU is doing now, and what Star Wars needs to do.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MahrinSkel on September 20, 2020, 03:25:47 PM

It's like making iron man 2 five years after endgame.

It is exactly like this.

And it is exactly what the MCU is doing now, and what Star Wars needs to do.
Except that the MCU stuck the landing, and has a lot of goodwill to trade on, where Star Wars...didn't and doesn't.

--Dave


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 20, 2020, 04:38:44 PM
Yeah, not any more. It's hovering slightly above "Game of Thrones" goodwill (basically zero), largely due to The Mandalorian.

Actually it's really kind of amazing--there isn't a GOT fandom any longer of any kind--not a nerdcore or a mainstream or anything. Star Wars is kind of close to that sarlacc pit.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: SurfD on September 20, 2020, 05:44:20 PM
Well, to be fair, GOT basically had ONE chance to get it right as far as a fandom "breakout" was concerned, and they completely cratered on the landing which basically blew the whole thing.   Add to that that the book side fandom is basically stalling slowly to death as they wait for GRRM to finish the thing and it results in a very slow death.    Assuming Martin ever actually finishes the full body of works and we get some kind of closure on the entire saga, maybe it will have a chance to pick back up as a finished product at that time, but as it stands, who knows?

Starwars at least had the "luxury" (if you want to call it that) of having a nicely self contained trilogy released in a reasonable timeframe to form its core around.  GOT Really has none of that.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 20, 2020, 10:48:34 PM
I'm just waiting for Disney to just say the Sequel Trilogy has been classified as Legends and should just be ignored.

Then you can have real writers take over and make an interesting story the brings Star Wars back to the big screen (if we still have those).

The other thing I've been meaning to say about this is that there's no doubt that the Sequel Trilogy is bad. However there's nothing inherently bad about the state it leaves the setting in. Most of the characters have been written out at this point, or the actors portraying them don't seem to be interested in coming back. It's very unlikely Rey or Finn would be involved in any story going forward. It can be argued that the First Order is wiped out and while the Resistance ultimately won, a case could be made that they don't have the numbers, resources, or even a shared vision of how to run things that would allow them to form any sort of galactic government. This would leave each system to their own laws, control, etc..., which isn't a terrible state to build something new off of.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Draegan on September 21, 2020, 02:41:08 AM
Sure but you still need to skip ahead a generation ornso worth of time.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Rendakor on September 21, 2020, 05:45:09 AM
Well, to be fair, GOT basically had ONE chance to get it right as far as a fandom "breakout" was concerned, and they completely cratered on the landing which basically blew the whole thing.   Add to that that the book side fandom is basically stalling slowly to death as they wait for GRRM to finish the thing and it results in a very slow death.    Assuming Martin ever actually finishes the full body of works and we get some kind of closure on the entire saga, maybe it will have a chance to pick back up as a finished product at that time, but as it stands, who knows?

Starwars at least had the "luxury" (if you want to call it that) of having a nicely self contained trilogy released in a reasonable timeframe to form its core around.  GOT Really has none of that.
Yea, pretty much. Any kind of fandom needs a solid core to coalesce around. The Harry Potter franchise remains popular because the main series was good, despite JK being a pretty shit human being and the Fantastic Beasts movies being a hot mess. The closest GoT has to that core is the first 3 books or the first ~5 seasons of the show, but that's not a discreet, complete story. The awful ending highlighted the mediocrity of the final few seasons, which basically invalidates any desire to rewatch the show at all. Combine that with no new books in nine years, and there's nothing for a fandom to even glom onto. Best case scenario is it becomes something like Wheel of Time or Dragonlance, that nerds talk about but which completely fades from the mainstream.

Star Wars has the OT, KotoR, and Rogue One as a reasonable baseline of quality content. The latter, along with Mandalorian, shows that it is still possible to tell good Star Wars stories in the Disney era. I suspect they'll probably wait a few years and then start a New Trilogy, likely focusing on the descendant of one or more characters from the OT or the ST. Kenobi's (great?) grand kid maybe, Rey as the Luke figure, etc. There's no way they're going to retcon out the ST, nor do I suspect they're going to jump ahead more than a generation.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 21, 2020, 06:09:29 AM
Arguing that you can't tell an insanely good story in the middle of the Episode I to Episode IX time frame is clearly, entirely, and absolutely fucking ridiculous because we're seeing it.  

Saying that TV and movies are different ignores the fact that the special effects and acting in the Mandalorian surpass what we've seen in most of the movies, despite their insane budgets for the time, and that you could just trim down the first season into a movie by eliminating the Forest Moon, the Heist, etc... and you'd have the best fucking movie we've had in Star Wars ever.  Would it be lacking the giant space battle?  Wasn't Empire?  You don't need to follow the same formula for every fucking movie - that was part of the problem with episodes 1, 2, 6, 7, 8 (in a different way), and 9.

You can eat a steak and enjoy it, even though you know that down the road it is just going to be shit.  Enjoy it for what it is and don't worry.

Star Wars is a compelling and interesting universe.  They told some good stories in it, and some really shitty ones. They can do more of either or both.  


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Hoax on September 21, 2020, 04:36:42 PM
damn you are dumb

you can't tell a big meaningful 3+ movie worthy blockbuster story in between I and IX timeframe. they really need to stop fucking trying. and they need to not go back in time to before I either.

so they need to spend their 40 years (not literally) in the desert making good to great small projects while seeding them with stuff they will use after the timeskip as easter eggs, plot points, the ancestors of new characters etc.

bet money any other approach is just going to be more dogshit movies that will make a bajillion $$$ because star wars fans are retarded.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: eldaec on September 22, 2020, 05:05:19 AM
Of course you can. Suggesting otherwise is like saying you can't tell a blockbuster WWII story or you can't make Rogue 1.

For that matter it would be like saying it was impossible for the MCU to make Captain Marvel or release Ant Man 2 after Infinity War.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 22, 2020, 08:17:31 AM
I kind of think you can do a KOTOR-era big picture and have it work pretty well.

You could probably do a pretty fun small picture on the beginning of The Rule of Two that was a sort of Thunderbolts/Secret Society of Super-Villains thing about the best bad guys winning out--from the end of the in-fighting among the Sith to Darth Bane and his apprentice going into hiding successfully.

The problem with a post-IX trilogy is that even if you stick to the "no more Skywalkers ever" and you just forget about even trying to explain what "bringing balance to the Force" and all the unresolved business of the main films was even about, you have still been left with absolutely zero to work with in terms of deciding what the fuck the post-IX status quo actually is. Are there going to be Jedi? TLJ set that up and then RoS took a smelly dump over the whole thing, so who the fuck knows. There's no sign that anybody is left in the entire galaxy who is attuned to the Force besides Rey, and if you want to do something new, you can't involve her. Is there a Galactic Republic? Who knows. Are there ANY new settings or locations that the sequels have established or added to the universe? No no and no. Who are the adversaries? What are the conflicts?  Rise of Skywalker didn't resolve anything meaningfully or leave stories to tell, all it left was ennui and ill will.

So a new post-IX 'main series' has to decide without any world-building of note:

1) If there are sapients who wield the Force, are they a different kettle of fish than the Jedi? Maybe not so organized, mostly just self-taught? Maybe that's the "balance": people just connect to the Force and are guided by their own circumstances. So good guys, bad guys, none of the above; people discovering powers and capabilities that the Jedi and Sith didn't know about. Small cabals and groups, etc. But doesn't matter if they bring back Jedi as we've known them or anything else, the point is that they have to start all over again. They've got nothing really to build from.

2) If there's a Republic left, what's it like? What stories reside with it? Is the galaxy just a bunch of independent systems, in relative anarchy? That could be a story engine if so. But they have to figure that out again without any real guidance from the sequels, which were just flatly not interested at all in the status quo (whereas both the prequels and the original trilogy laid that out pretty well).

3) What's a story big enough to sustain several connected films? It's called Star Wars, so that's maybe a clue, only it can't just be Republic v. Empire once again with new names. Again, not a clue.

If they don't hire someone capable of doing all the world-building this requires while trying to draw SOMETHING from the established IP, they might as well just stick to pre-prequels or to between the end of Return of the Jedi and the beginning of The Force Awakens, where there's at least some kind of story to tell where the parameters are kind of known.

If they hire someone capable of doing it, there's obviously lots to do after IX that could be satisfying. But the potential to bungle it all is pretty serious too.

They could learn from the MCU template. Do some one-offs that establish 3-4 compelling new characters in their own relatively isolated stories: maybe a Nightsister who has kept her Force abilities hidden while being part of the underworld on Coruscant but decides after the apparent demise of both Sith and Jedi that she can cut loose and settle scores; a former mercenary who has served both the Republic and the First Order and who is heartily sick of it all who has to come out of retirement to protect a monastery he has come to love from a menacing warlord; etc--pick some genre templates, add some Star Wars flavor, build a background narrative that will eventually force these separate characters to come together--maybe the old EU idea of an extra-galactic threat (only please not the actual awfulness of the Yuuzhan Vong), maybe just a very nasty bad guy in a completely different template than what SW has done to date.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 22, 2020, 06:19:28 PM
If you think it is impossible to tell a great Star Wars epic overlapping with the Skywalker saga, and you can't see that the presence of the Mandalorian proves you 100% wrong, then there is no point discussing it with you. 



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 22, 2020, 06:23:17 PM
The Mandalorian has no Skywalkers anywhere that I can see.

If you think Skywalkers = Jedi or whatever, you're the one who really needs a big rethink. Go play KOTOR or something.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 23, 2020, 05:34:47 AM
The Mandalorian has no Skywalkers anywhere that I can see.

If you think Skywalkers = Jedi or whatever, you're the one who really needs a big rethink. Go play KOTOR or something.

I was replying to Hoax.

However, I think Star Wars is more than just Skywalkers or Jedi.  You can tell a great fucking story that takes place in the Skywalker *era* without any focus on the Galactic struggle, or a single reference to any Skywalkers, Palpatines or Kenobis. 



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: DevilsAdvocate25 on September 23, 2020, 11:52:08 AM
They could learn from the MCU template. Do some one-offs that establish 3-4 compelling new characters in their own relatively isolated stories: maybe a Nightsister who has kept her Force abilities hidden while being part of the underworld on Coruscant but decides after the apparent demise of both Sith and Jedi that she can cut loose and settle scores; a former mercenary who has served both the Republic and the First Order and who is heartily sick of it all who has to come out of retirement to protect a monastery he has come to love from a menacing warlord; etc--pick some genre templates, add some Star Wars flavor, build a background narrative that will eventually force these separate characters to come together--maybe the old EU idea of an extra-galactic threat (only please not the actual awfulness of the Yuuzhan Vong), maybe just a very nasty bad guy in a completely different template than what SW has done to date.

These are some pretty cool ideas.

As far as villains, the Yuuzhan Vong weren't that bad. They swept into the galaxy using biological weapons and ships, had spies and warriors and scientists, and were a credible threat to the Jedi of the EU because they couldn't be seen by the Force. There was body horror with the way they took slaves and the way their terraforming took over planets and swept away existing structures is another kind of horror in itself. If you wanted to make a horror related Star Wars, these guys would be an interesting way to go. In order for it to work though, you have to establish a universe with characters people care about and places they are familiar with and then you unleash the horrors.

I agree with you on the lack of direction for future stories. The Empire and the Republic and the Rebellion are all done. The Mandalorian is doing what I would think would be the next step: establishing the universe outside of the overarching Wars and showing what people are doing when they aren't part of the military or the rebellion. The Solo movie played into this as well. Take some of the setup from Solo for the Underworld and the character archetype of Cassian Andor from Rogue One and his remorseless killing of the rebel operative and you could probable make a pretty good gangster movie based in Star Wars. No established characters required.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 23, 2020, 12:26:42 PM
I just wish the final movie had taken care of business in terms of establishing ongoing story engines.

I wish there had been some closure on:

The Jedi as they came to be in the final three or four centuries were a bad idea: rigid, too beholden to government, too hierarchical, too insensitive to the emotional realities of life, etc. It would have been great for that to be the final resolution of the prophecy of balance: a recognition that service to the Force required something besides a tightly-trained overly-disciplined order of warrior-monks. Think of the emotional arc of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: two fabulously disciplined warriors with tremendous training realizing that they've wasted their lives by not accepting their yearning for one another as a good and necessary thing while also trying to save an undisciplined, passionate young woman from her own boundless anger at a world of stultifying convention. The whole arc of the Skywalkers intersection with the Jedi could have been given emotional power by some moment of recognition of a similar thing. In fact, Rey as a non-Skywalker (whatever her background) could have been the one to deliver the lesson or have the epiphany. Do that and BOOM, the post-IX SW universe is alive with the question, "Well, then, what is someone with an affinity for the Force to *do*?"

The Republic: was it a great idea undone by a masterful conspirator? Is that even possible? Is there something just not workable about a democracy that big and diverse? Star Wars isn't an allegory or a commentary on the present the way Star Trek is, but it's always had some resonance. The fact that all of the sequels just say "aw, who cares what the political situation is"? That's a huge missed opportunity. We have no idea what the status quo is after IX but worse we don't even know what it *means* that it's all ended up this way. It's actually a pretty good moment in the real world to be making a statement about whether you think it's a tragedy or a triumph that a centuries-old republic seems to have sputtered out while an old empire has kind of died out as well.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Speedy Cerviche on September 23, 2020, 01:06:14 PM
Just need some decent writers and a producer with the vision and mandate to make it happen. It can be done if Disney chooses.  When they purchased the IP they put a bunch of institutional hollywood clowns in charge of the franchise after they purchased it, and they got hollywood crap. They need to get rid of these people and replace them with someone who can build a new team that's capable of this. Pick up the pieces of episode IX and start making a new universe that's not so centered on over-the-top trilogies.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on September 23, 2020, 03:53:04 PM
Khal, I think you're looking for a more thoughtful movie than Star Wars fans are willing to watch.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Khaldun on September 23, 2020, 04:10:20 PM
I don't think that stuff has to be handled thoughtfully--it can be implicit or it can be done in a few scenes. Think of The Mandalorian--we've had an incredibly minimalist but convincing sketch of a religious ethos in a few lines of dialogue from the Forger, the main character and some other Mandalorians. We've gotten his clear sense of a conflict between being a bounty hunter and being a human being.

Old Obi-Wan gave us a clear--if ultimately inaccurate or misleading--representation of the Jedi and of the circumstances of their fall in a few scenes in ANH. Yoda added to that pretty effectively in just a few ESB scenes. Even the prequels were pretty clear ultimately, if maybe somewhat accidentally, about the shortcomings of the Jedi.

The sequels just have absolutely nothing like this. We didn't learn anything about anybody in any meaningful way except maybe why Kylo Ren tipped over to the Dark Side and then some very interesting if bitter reflections by Luke Skywalker that the third film dropped like they were radioactive.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: TheWalrus on September 23, 2020, 04:53:07 PM
I hear you. I'm still betting a Michael Bay Star Wars would satisfy a lot of these assholes.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 23, 2020, 04:53:42 PM
Just need some decent writers and a producer with the vision and mandate to make it happen. It can be done if Disney chooses.  When they purchased the IP they put a bunch of institutional hollywood clowns in charge of the franchise after they purchased it, and they got hollywood crap. They need to get rid of these people and replace them with someone who can build a new team that's capable of this. Pick up the pieces of episode IX and start making a new universe that's not so centered on over-the-top trilogies.

Is that all they need? I'm sure they'll get right on it then.

Ultimately Disney didn't purchase Star Wars to make good movies, they bought it because they thought it would be an easy franchise to exploit on an annual basis. Maybe they thought it would be easy to replicate their success with the MCU when others have largely failed, but they also may have forgotten that the MCU launched before Disney had purchased Marvel. It's not like the had the foresight to create the MCU, put Feige in charge and started setting up plans to build up to the Avengers. They just had the sense not to disrupt things later.

There's no simple formula to churning out movie product for an IP on an annual basis. Even hiring good writers and producers doesn't quite cover it. They needed to find hooks to keep people coming back, the first of which probably should have been to buy an IP people under 40 give a shit about.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on September 24, 2020, 05:55:18 AM

The sequels just have absolutely nothing like this. We didn't learn anything about anybody in any meaningful way except maybe why Kylo Ren tipped over to the Dark Side and then some very interesting if bitter reflections by Luke Skywalker that the third film dropped like they were radioactive.


There is a such thing as fake nuisance.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 24, 2020, 06:18:48 AM
...
There's no simple formula to churning out movie product for an IP on an annual basis. Even hiring good writers and producers doesn't quite cover it. They needed to find hooks to keep people coming back, the first of which probably should have been to buy an IP people under 40 give a shit about.
Movies are not magic.  They do not have some feature that makes it harder to tell a good 12 to 15 hour story over several installments, whether that is within a year, over a few years, or over decades.  Movies started with serials.  Respect the IP enough to be consistent with it, hire good writers, hire good directors, and you have a decent formula. 

As for people under 40 not giving a shit about Star Wars - toy sales, animated series, and the popularity of the Disney Park areas with the kids say those kids give a toilet plugging giant shit about it.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 24, 2020, 07:23:35 AM
As for people under 40 not giving a shit about Star Wars - toy sales, animated series, and the popularity of the Disney Park areas with the kids say those kids give a toilet plugging giant shit about it.

Yeah, adult Star Wars fans totally aren't the ones buying the toys, watching the animated series, or dragging their families to that SW section of Disneyland that was totally in the news for how popular it was :roll:.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: jgsugden on September 24, 2020, 07:32:21 AM
So, your theory is that these 40+ parents are so into it that they *don't immerse* their kids in it? Riiiiiiiiight.



Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: MediumHigh on September 24, 2020, 07:33:54 AM
Being a millenial my demo does. We watched the Clone Wars, Played Knights of the Old Republic, make youtube videos about how technically the prequels weren't that bad and darth jar jar binks should have been a thing. But Star Wars isn't sacred which I guess is the difference between fans of star wars who are +40 and the fans of star wars who are 30 and below. We've always had cool star wars, but we also grew up with anime, summer blockbusters, hell DC and Marvel animated shows. The problem is the options available says the following "Star Wars has to be good to be relevant." And unfortunately if Disney has no interest in making good star wars movies than Disney just bought an old cow with spoiled milk.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Velorath on September 24, 2020, 07:47:06 AM
So, your theory is that these 40+ parents are so into it that they *don't immerse* their kids in it? Riiiiiiiiight.

Because if there's one thing kids love, it's being into the things their parents are. That's why I grew up watching Nick at Night instead of G.I. Joe and Transformers.


Title: Re: Star Wars 9 : The Rise of Skywalker
Post by: Speedy Cerviche on September 24, 2020, 09:29:48 AM
Just need some decent writers and a producer with the vision and mandate to make it happen. It can be done if Disney chooses.  When they purchased the IP they put a bunch of institutional hollywood clowns in charge of the franchise after they purchased it, and they got hollywood crap. They need to get rid of these people and replace them with someone who can build a new team that's capable of this. Pick up the pieces of episode IX and start making a new universe that's not so centered on over-the-top trilogies.

Is that all they need? I'm sure they'll get right on it then.

Ultimately Disney didn't purchase Star Wars to make good movies, they bought it because they thought it would be an easy franchise to exploit on an annual basis. Maybe they thought it would be easy to replicate their success with the MCU when others have largely failed, but they also may have forgotten that the MCU launched before Disney had purchased Marvel. It's not like the had the foresight to create the MCU, put Feige in charge and started setting up plans to build up to the Avengers. They just had the sense not to disrupt things later.

There's no simple formula to churning out movie product for an IP on an annual basis. Even hiring good writers and producers doesn't quite cover it. They needed to find hooks to keep people coming back, the first of which probably should have been to buy an IP people under 40 give a shit about.

Iron man was a surprise hit in 2008, but MCU success was not instant, only in 2011 with Thor and Captain America success leading into 2012 Avengers mega hit did things get cemented.

Meanwhile totally separate from all that Disney purchased Lucas in 2012 with negotiations starting in 2011. Part of the deal was assurances that the people running it then would remain (like at Pixar and Marvel). Lucas chose Kennedy in place to do this. Then when the deal started coming together they rushed to crank out episode VII quickly, but it was an ad hoc arrangement with Lucas sort of guiding it but not really in charge. The lack of any kind of decent story arc was pretty apparent with the way everything was constantly changing direction, and them not even settled on Rey's family story even while episode IX was shooting. It starts from the top with Kennedy apparently in over her head (bad choice by Lucas) and from there all the different writers and directors pulling it in different directions. If Kennedy is out and replaced by someone who can at the very least start putting together a 5-8 year plan it would be more way than was done the past 8 years.