Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

I personally disliked the character because I felt the character was too strong, too soon, and too fast, relative to what I've experienced with the history of the franchise. I seriously doubt that would change if she were a he. Or an asexual frog lizard.

OK cool. She has an inexplicable mega-grasp of the force without experience or training. Prequels told us it's Midichlorians anyway, and we're told through Snoke that because of Kylo Ren's growth in the dark side that he expected a stir from the light to bring balance. My issue there isn't that she is a she; it is that if Ren is so powerful (private training under Luke for some period of time and one-on-one mentorship by Supreme Leader, Snoke), then how is he bested by anyone really. Especially by one with no training? Granted, perhaps she is then super-saiyan blue powerful in the force (though she never seemed to demonstrate any force awareness before things started happening to her, but eh.. that's a minor thing). Even still, she had absolutely no experience with a light saber. Yes, Luke channeled the force to deflect the practice droid in ANH and to "reach out" when firing his proton torpedoes into the lone, thermal exhaust port. But again, he had Ben's guidance to help clear his mind and to direct him. Rey did not. Did she?

I just can't see the force providing her with sith apprentice level combat techniques to stand her own against Ren. Or worse (IMO), against multiple "elite" praetorian guards at once. I mean, I REALLY hate to be that guy, but that s***'s mechanical.

My problem isn't gender. I'm inclined to believe that's not the problem of others either, though it is convenient to point at. IMO.

ugh. This movie has really pushed me to the dark side =\

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It's worth noting that Kylo was mortally wounded by a blaster blast from a gun which took down like 4 people in one shot earlier in TFA, and that he was emotional compromised after killing his father, an action which, to quote Snoke, "split him to the bone" emotionally and morally. That was literally Kylo Ren on his absolute worst day against Rey, one of the most naturally gifted force users in the galaxy at that point in time (which to be fair, the main character of the franchise has pretty much always been 'one of the most powerful force users at the time' so this is no inconsistent with the rest of the series).

It's not so much that she has a great grasp on her powers, she doesn't, she does like 2 things with the force the entire time, which is a mind trick (something the movies never claim to be particularly difficult, especially since stormtroopers that don't break their indoctrination are generally easy to manipulate), and she grabs the lightsaber from Kylo, which is mildly impressive but again, Kylo is injured, and not expecting any resistance from her.

The reason she never exhibited force powers before (though this is debatable, she had recurring force visions she perceived as dreams of Luke's Island and the original jedi texts and stuff) is because, when thrust into this larger world, something *******awakened******* inside her, i.e. the reason the movie is the title that it is. It was always there, lying dormant, but it awakened when it was called upon in a time of crisis.

Also, it's very possible that Rey is stronger than Luke was at this point. That isn't a flaw, that's just like, a creative choice for the needs of the narrative and the themes. I'm more interested in films having meaningful things to say and executing on those ideas in their craft, narrative, etc. than I am in them being perfectly consistent logic puzzles, plot-wise. All films have inconsistencies in their logic and plot (though not nearly as much as people think, like TFA and especially TLJ are far more consistent both internally and to the rest of the series than people give them credit for and a lot of the confusion just comes from blatant misinterpretation sometimes), it's unavoidable, but as long as its in service to meaningful art, I don't really care that much.

Hey. I'm glad you enjoyed it then.

Ok Braeden – As to your points. First in terms of our aim for this discussion. You’ve seen the film multiple times and clearly love it. I’m the opposite. I assume we both won’t be changing our minds, which is ok. It’s a subjective experience. I’m just going to do my best answering your points as politely as possible, only expressing an opinion.
You did initially say star wars is a silly action adventure franchise. I didn’t agree but will agree that these are not mutually exclusive. But to what extent are you talking about in terms of silliness. On the extreme scale we have ‘scary movie 2000’ silliness, then maybe Deadpool and maybe fast and the furious edging towards that middle ground – 50 silliness 50 seriousness.

Personally I think the original trilogy is more serious then silly and more serious then those examples.
Of course you have to keep in mind science fiction (emphasis on the fiction) and how suspension of disbelief is managed. But the story and characters; the most important elements of a film (imo), are overly dramatic yes, but overly silly, no. But lets not bring Jar Jar into this or ewoks. Lol!

I didn’t think it was catered to JUST children as I did say. You’ve acknowledged that it can appeal to more than children. Sounds like we are more or less in agreement but maybe are battling which one is foremost. I’d maybe go the middle ground and say adolescent. It would be hard to really pinpoint. First you have the film makers intention then really how the end product turned out. The burning skeletons of Luke’s Uncle and Aunt and the close up of the burning skull and how the eye falls out of the skull and rolls towards Luke looking at him directly. That was sad, serious and even for the 70’s maybe a bit full on for young children (especially when the eye pops out). But if I’m going to be fair, that’s only one example. The rest of the film I’d say is suitable for children but of course as suitable for adolescents and adults.
Now I never said Star wars wasn’t designed to be kid friendly or fun or sometimes silly. Please don’t take my words out of context. I feel like this mix, that worked in the originals doesn’t work in new trilogy. Rather than me trying to explain why I don’t like the film I’ve found a youtube breakdown. I agree with what’s said. Up to you if you’d like to watch.

If it’s unfair that I’ve just posted a youtube video, that’s fair enough, don’t oblige me. I would be a little annoyed if I had to sit through a 20 min long video ***** canning a movie I love haha. But if you are interested its here.


End of the day though. We can scrap together arguments. Justifying plot holes, exposing plots holes and logic back and forth which is what some posters seem to be doing. I’m sure I’m guilty of it but really its just prolonging the argument. I won’t fight to change your mind on it – if that’s happens, great, you will be welcomed to the dark side.

Thanks for engaging with what I have to say in good faith at the very least. I've read through it and I do think that a lot of it comes down to a combination of 'taste' and 'what we want to get out of a new star wars film'. I may revisit that video another time this last bit of what you said interested me more, and my response is less so pointed at you, and more just, my thoughts on the general state of discourse around The Last Jedi. So here's that:

I guess this is at the very core of what bugs me so much about the conversation surrounding the film and those who dislike it so much. I honestly don't care, even a little bit, about logic-ing my way through the narrative of a film. I'm capable of it, and I think that TLJ is as internally consistent as any of the star wars films get, but it doesn't really matter to me all that much. Films are not logic puzzles, made to be figured out to understand a perfectly clear picture of the things that happen in the movie. Films are works of art designed to communicate ideas and evoke emotional responses.

Everyone gets so bogged down in plot minutiae and whether or not the jokes were to their liking and we never actually engage with the film on its own terms. Let's talk about the themes of the film, and how they use character arcs and filmmaking techniques to communicate them. I don't particularly care who Snoke is, or whether or not Rey's force powers are perfectly consistent with that of the rest of the series. These things are so superfluous in the context of talking about the quality of a film, at least to me. This sh*t, frankly, doesn't matter to me so long as it is consistent enough to not break my suspension of disbelief and is used in service of artistic ideas worth engaging with.

I'd much rather talk about what Star Wars: The Last Jedi is actually about, what it has to say, and how it says those things, than squabbling over what amounts to information to fill up a wookieepedia article. It's impossible to even have this conversation, so long as we keep going back and forth on whether or not Rey is a Mary Sue, or the humor was fun, or if Holdo not telling her plans to Poe made sense. I have answers to all of these questions (she's not, it was, and it does, to be clear), and justifications that are supported by the text of the film to back up those answers, but the fact that I do think they work isn't why I think the movie works. I think the movie works because I think it uses the craft of filmmaking to tell an engaging (and to my mind very entertaining) story with incredibly well-realized characters that have arcs that build to very well-communicated and interesting themes. The rest of that stuff is just like, a nice bonus.

To put it simply, I don't think Last Jedi has any more or less plot holes than any other Star Wars film. I just don't really care that much about plot holes, because every single movie that has ever been made ever that has a coherent plot, has plot holes and contrivances to allow the movie to work. As long as none of them completely break my immersion in the film, I'm fine. They don't matter to me, and I'll excuse them happily if its in service of an emotional experience that was fulfilling and thematically resonant.

Even putting aside some of the virulent bigotry put out by a small minority of the fans (though this is certainly an issue and hate-fueled harassment directed at minorities and women in fandom spaces is a problem that merits discussion for sure), the general state of Star Wars discourse is just so depressing to me, because we can't seem to actually engage with Star Wars as a series of films that have ideas worth discussing, but rather as like, sequences of portrayed events that either do or don't meet our standards for 'sufficiently star warsy, based on my position on what that means'

what in the f*ck kind of version of Star Wars has an eye popping out of a burnt human skull

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Lmao!!

Yes I was aware of complaints from a minority with TFA but clearly they were a minority then but are a majority now I guess we will have to disagree on that.

I wasn't aware of the term "Mary Sue" for TFA and didn't know what that meant, though obviously I heard plenty of complaints that Rey could do everything/beat Kylo Ren with no training. I always argued against those complaints.

You will get no argument from me that there are racists/sexists out there for sure but the disagreement is with the %, obv you and Rian/media think a large % of complaints are for those reasons when clearly it is an insignificant "tiny" vocal minority. There are media reports talking about it where they sight alt right pages that have.....40 followers. The vast vast majority of complaints are to do with the story, and the gut punch of what they did with Luke.



Damn I guess I became racist and sexist sometime in-between 2015-17 after loving Rey and Finn in TFA. Hate when that happens.




Why would Star Wars struggle when Marvel isn't though? They don't have that huge drop-off even when a film isn't as popular. Doing $2 billion for one then $1.3 is worrying when the first part was loved by most, because like I said 6 months ago people are so pissed off they've avoided the repeat viewings that TFA had, they aren't selling toys either, and the backlash has clearly continued into Solo, so much so that future spin offs appear to be on hold. For those that say the prequels followed this pattern, well they sucked hard so people didn't want to see them. The OT did aswell but back then sequels and trilogies weren't a thing back then.

They are building theme parks too that must be a worry for them because what fans are going to spend a lot of $$$ to go there when they wont even spend $10+ on Solo?

They are in a huge mess at the moment and that will continue for a couple of years till they sort their **** out.

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@Larry

Here is another good one.

Like I said before:

That Sargon video you went on to post is a good example of that point where the line between legitimate criticisms and general right-wing bitterness towards The Feminists or whoever becomes incredibly blurry. It does go a long way towards explaining why certain aspects of this film draw more criticism than any of the ones before it (as noted, you could comb every film in the series for similar examples of "plot holes" - they even made an entire film based around answering the question of why the original Death Star has such a surprisingly exploitable weakness, after all). Ultimately, it's about asking what makes people make the complaints that they do and, by extension, what makes other people defend it in turn. Taking the example of Luke, I can understand how it is disappointing to see the character go from stalwart hero to embittered failure, but I also understand that this sense of disappointment is deliberate (as reflected through Rey's own reaction) and ultimately makes sense within the narrative and thematic text of the film/series at large. Meanwhile, to want Luke to remain the exact same character as he was 30 years prior and be the unambiguous hero sounds like it could (and likely would) tip over into hollow wish fulfillment and result in a lesser film (and this is reflected in so many of the suggestions I've seen about how certain fans would "fix" TLJ, like having Admiral Ackbar say "it's a trap" while being the one to do the lightspeed ram instead of Holdo).

Recognising that there is a problem is the first step is to solving it.

Trying to boll this all down to box-office and user ratings can miss the bigger picture, though - TFA was the big event that also worked to broaden its appeal so as to win over as many people (old fans and newcomers alike) as possible, which explained why it was both a huge hit while also drawing criticism for being conventional and derivative. I do question how much the backlash really affected Solo, which never really seemed like it was going to be a huge hit in the first place due to how redundant it seemed (and ultimately ended up being) and the reaction should definitely make them re-evaluate how they'll approach spin-offs in future. I think you can explain away the drop-off over time in each instance as the result of the first installments in each trilogy being such unprecedentedly huge events (one was quite simply one of the archetypal blockbusters while the other two had time to build up huge levels of anticipation) that any follow-ups couldn't help but look less impressive as a result. It's not like Empire was universally loved when it came out either - it took time for it to be considered not just a contender for the best in the franchise, but a serious entry in the best films ever made despite having a scene where a goblin beats up a robot with a stick. Which brings me back to my earlier point - another year-and-a-half of this, huh?

Will check it out soon thank you.

Unseen footage of Carrie Fisher to be used in episode 9. Guess they are going the Paul Walker route.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainm...cid=spartanntp

gandalf, I'm wondering. How would you conduct Episode 9?

You don't even have to go in-detail. At the very least, you could just list bullet points on what you would to include in the film to make it better.

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I suspect the first thing he would do is create a new character: a wizard who leads the protagonists to their goal.

Not sure I would want to touch it, even if I was the greatest writer/director in the world. Tainted goods, trying to write a continuation of the mess that was 8 would be no fun at all.

I have a fair idea of what I would have done if you could start back at episode 7 again, or even a new era, the galaxy is old and used enough that you wouldn't need to say whether it was past or future.

I would deffo be doing Darth Jar Jar, what is there to lose at this point

Judging by your posts, certainly not your dignity.

Handbags....

Alternate realities? Or that it was all just a very detailed vision of Yoda's, while he was speaking with young Annie. Not our Yoda. I mean the CGI jumping jack.