Be forewarned. This is a place to talk about the movie.
As you might be able to tell, I love Starwars. I’m the person the Wedge Antilles cameo was aimed directly at. And I felt nothing for this movie. Nothing. That’s it. That’s my review. I didn’t hate it and I didn’t enjoy it, I felt nothing.
But I do appreciate just how dedicated Disney is to not interfering with people’s shipping.
Now here’s a place to discuss that stuff. I’ll probably pick some nits in the morning.
“I logged onto the RoS IMDB page, to give you an idea what I’m talking about, and there’s a review that’s on there trying to make all sorts of spoiler-style assertions. None of them can possibly be realistic(Palpatine would have to have a child before he could have a grandchild, for instance), but that’s not the point. This is where things have gotten to now, apparently. People want to be spoilsports because reasons. It was displayed on the front page of the film, which makes it unavoidable…like destiny. If this knob had a real spoiler, he’d have fucked over a ton of people.” – Constantine in the Jambaroo.
Welp.
I spoiled it for myself just so I didn’t have a super emotional reaction when I see the movie.
I’m sure this is going to be perfectly okay…but Jesus fucking Christ, Rey being Palpatine’s granddaughter to justify a bunch of MRAs and incels stupidly wrong assertion that a person (or really, a woman) can’t be strong in the Force unless they’re from a certain family…
Oof, Disney. Fuckin’ oof. Y’all botched that one real hard.
So I spoiled the movie for myself, just so I can work through the emotional turmoil of the movie before I saw it so I could go in and judge the movie on it’s own merits (it worked with TLJ which is probably tied with Empire for my favorite movie), and I’m sure the movie will still be mostly fine in the same way TFA was mostly fine…
But holy shitballs, Batman, Rey being Palpatine’s granddaughter to satisfy a bunch of angry incels saying Rey was too strong in the Force when we’ve seen dozens of examples of characters being strong in the Force without Jedi bloodlines…what the fuck was Disney thinking there? Did they think those people would be happy? Because they won’t. At all.
Also read up on the end of the movie and…just…wow, man.
Again, I’m sure the movie is fine, but FFS.
I’m spoiler proof and don’t care if I know or not going in to it. I’m a week or so away from seeing it but I’ll be on all the boards and reading posts before I go.
My bet after the sceen in that hole on Luke’s water planet was she was a clone of Anakin. After the name of the movie dropped I was willing to bet my house on it. I guess I’m glad I found no takers. I also think mine was a better idea.
My favorite idea was one I had after Force Awakens that Rey, Like Anakin, was immaculate conception from the midichlorians. I like the idea of midichlorians and think it gives the Jesus storyline some ‘science’. It created a reason the force would be stronger in some and not others.
A clone storyline also allows JJ to have a certain time travel element that I always expect from writers like him.
The greatest thing to ever happen to this franchise was Irvin Kershner. Regardless if that was George’s call or someone else it is what made the 1st triology great. I love the prequels but I can admit the play stiff and lifeless. Since Force Awakens was nothing more than a reboot that pulled on feels from us 50 somethings I’m not execting much more than that from Rise.
Yep.
It seemed insane on the face of it. But yeah I feel like an ass since it turned out to be true.
I’ve seen it a few times, and I’m willing to take the heat to say this: TLJ had a lot of structural problems, and I can definitely see why certain people didn’t like it.
But I *adored* its big ideas and what it was trying to say, and it was thoughtful and interesting in a way that no other Star Wars movie has been probably ever. It’s deeply disappointing that Rise won’t even attempt to be any of those things.
I wasn’t a fan of TLJ, but if nothing else it took some swings and was visually amazing. Nothing in Rise is close to any of that.
The biggest swing was the idea that the Palpitines and Skywalkers are some fixed duo, and that only mattered for the length of the time it took them to say it. The other one is the idea that there’s a whole galaxy of people who just need a good rousing speech to attack the biggest military force ever seen, and that happened mostly off screen and only existed to get the ships there.
The most visually interesting scene was the flip over the TIE, and probably wouldn’t be in the top 5 in TLJ.
And now to pick a few nits:
Adam Driver looks like that guy in your dorm who’s dressing up to go to the movie premier. I can’t see him and not think of my friends dressing up as elves for Return of the King (no I was not one of them, I was a hobbit).
Hyperspace skipping is a lot like the hyperspace ramming in TLJ, in that it looked cool but now you have to handwave away why you don’t just use it constantly.
When the kid at the festival put the necklace on Rey, I was 100% convinced she was going to demand money for it.
Nice of Rey to abandon all her friends to the satorm troopers so she can go jump a TIE.
Oh look, another character added for the sole purpose of making a new toy.
The scene where all the ships burst out of the clouds was done much better in Serenity.
It’s really dumb that they can just fly up to an active Star Destroyer and just wander to the security area. At least when they had the Jedi with them it made sense, not as much when she ditches them.
Pretty sure they killed Finn when he was standing on top of the Falcon and they did a spinning 90 degree vertical turn.
Force Ghosts can interact with the real world?
The sum total of Rey and Rens interactions before their kiss amounted to them trying to kill each other, her watching him kill billions of people, him stalking her and killing people she was around, him demanding she abandon all her friends and family for him, and her being ok with all that because he said he was sorry. Slap a fedora on him and he’s the MRA fantasy.
And largest, there were too many things introduced that never actually mattered or came back. Suddenly storm troopers can fly, surely that will matter at some point right? Nope. We can go to hyperspace wherever we want, that’s going to be useful right? Nope. The Palpetine and Skywalker families are mystically bonded through the force, surely that’s going to matter. Nope.
And conversely, “jam their speeders” was really dumb but not as dumb as setting up a new problem to solve in literally the very next line of the movie. But also why a cavalry charge? It looked cool, but at least set up the need for it a little. Maybe tell us that it’s too far to run and they’ll be jamming our speeders.
And finally, nothing in the movie was anywhere as visually interesting as the speeders on the salt flats in TLJ.
I can only hit on one of those nits; force ghosts have always been able to interact with the real world. Obi-Wan sat on a log in Jedi. Also last movie Yoda interacted with the real world pretty directly. So it has been established, just given a bit more authority lately.
…true enough – but that hand-from-the-flames moment was pretty cheap, if we’re honest – & rang a little hollow, at least to me
…it seems like with a lot of star wars (& arguably more so as they’ve gone along) these things come off like someone thought of the end of a scene (or just a particular shot) & then got lazy about writing their way to it.
…so even after the inter-directorial narrative spat that moment felt forced & (to me) out of character – which I’d be able to overlook fairly easily if it weren’t for the fact that if they could effect the physical world then obi wan could have literally ghosted his way to overloading the deathstar reactor in the first movie & luke’s arc in that first film becomes like indiana jones in raiders where the nazis-don’t-get-the-ark outcome would have been the same if he’d just stayed home & put his feet up for the whole thing…as a for instance
…like – it’s one thing for your ethereal ghostly force-spectre to help you out a little with the so-I’m-clearly-trippin’ thing by “appearing” to interact normally with the material plane by seeming to sit rather than hover
…but yeah, sure, we can do all the shit we could when we were alive & then some…seems a little too much somehow?
…additional nit (or idle observation?) did anyone else find it strange that suddenly there was an army of sith that did nothing but chime in on the chorus until a vast edifice collapsed upon them & the fat lady commenced with the singing?
because it sure seemed like if they’d been manning some PDC batteries or TIE squads aboard a few of those legions of capital ships then the reinforcements would have arrived some considerable time after they mopped up the rag tag little bunch of gutsy rebel types with substantially less damage to themselves & very possibly took their lunch money before conquering the known galaxy(galaxies?) again?
It really does seem like they had a checklist of shit that made “Star Wars fans” (i.e people who call themselves fans but hate every bit of material that’s come out after the Original Trilogy) angry in The Last Jedi and set about systemically answering all their complaints, without realizing they decided to hate this movie regardless of what Disney did, like, five seconds after the opening crawl of The Last Jedi started.
Nothing I’m seeing suggests an organic storytelling, just a series of plotpoints meant to appease people who’s idea of improving The Last Jedi wasn’t improving character motivation or improving the structure or maybe rethinking the Canto Bight scene but simply removing every woman from the movie. Though making Rey not be strong in the Force because she’s related to a strong man and completely erasing Rose and giving Finn a new girlfriend comes close.
I know I’m really late coming to this party – but reading your comment makes me wish they had hired Patty Jenkins to direct this one or any woman director, for that matter.