Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, December 20, 2019) Movie • Page 232

I’d place the Rey/Finn vs Kylo in the snow above the throne room tbh

 

In this gif, who is who? Haha

 

I’m bush. I’m ducking from the hate I’ll get for revealing my Empire take.

 

Agree with a lot of this and while it’s still one of my favorite movies Ive never really seen much character arc in Empire. Could you elaborate?

Speaking of which ForceCenters latest episode is all about the character arcs in the sequel trilogy and it’s fucking fantastic. So much depth. Highly recommend it to everyone

 

I love it

 

That's on my list to listen to today!

The character arcs aren't huge character changes or arcs as plainly stated like say Poe or Luke's in TLJ, but they're there. Here's what I see:

Han: Self-sacrifice - Similar to his arc in ANH, he has to give up his self-interested quest to square up his bounty and instead accept his fate to keep his friend safe. Sure, he doesn't have much of a choice when it comes to being frozen, but he has a calm realization right before it happens. It's evident when he calms down Chewy as he's going crazy trying to save Han. Han himself isn't fighting it because he knows this is what has to happen to save the ones he loves.

Leia: Learns to not be afraid of her feelings and accepting vulnerability. Throughout the film, she doesn't want to admit to loving Han, probably because she's lost so many loved ones in this war, but by then end she lets her self admit her love for Han right as she's about to lose him. As I said before, it seems like a dated arc to give a female character, but it's done more tastefully than the typical "working girl needs to relax and learn to love" arc you would find in a rom-com. Side note: Her expression when Boba Fett is taking off with Han is heart-breaking. Carrie was incredible.

Lando: Realizes he was wrong to give in so easily to the Empire to protect his own interests.

Luke: Needs to be calm, patient and passive. Right at the start he is able to call the lightsaber to him, but only when he is calm and patient, not struggling. He doesn't realize this is the key despite his lessons with Yoda and his failure in the cave. He rushes into a fight with Vader so eager to avenge Ben and his father and it gets him nowhere. When he's hanging off the antenna in cloud city, it mirrors him hanging from the cave on Hoth. He calms down (I suppose as much as one can, given he just lost an arm and got a whole new set of daddy issues) and reaches out with the force to Leia, who then comes to rescue him.

Vader: Also learning to be patient & control his frustration. This is one that I didn't really pick up on until this last viewing. He is so eager to get to Luke and this is ultimately a factor that prevents Luke's capture. He jumps at the first sign of the rebels and orders Ozzel to set a course for Hoth, kills Ozzel when he gets there too fast. I think Ozzel probably jumps so close to the planet because he's influenced by Vaders impatience. He kills Captain Needa for his slight failure. He is patient at first when trying to lure Luke into a trap, but as soon as that trap feels you can see him shift to frustrated impatient swings. This leads Luke to a cliffhanger (in more ways that one) where his only choice is basically to jump off. Later, when he loses Luke for good on the Falcon, you think the first thing he'd do is kill Piett for not properly disabling, but he accepts it's his own failure this time and walks away. I think it's interesting that Vader and Luke have similar arcs in the movie.

Piett: Shout out to my boy for rising the ranks to Admiral by not being a complete dumbass.

 

Awesome breakdown! Thank you for doing this as i really never thought there was much but I def agree with all this and never realized the parallels to Luke and Vader in this. Bravo. Def more subtle than TLJ.

 

You're welcome! Yea, the arcs are more subtle than most of these movies, not that more front and center arcs are a bad thing. ANH, TLJ, and ROTJ all have pretty out and open arcs but I love all of them.

 

So I've reached the prequels on my rewatch and I'm trying to go into them with an open mind. And oh boy. Just finished Phantom Menance. I didn't hate it? I mean, it's not good, but I don't hate it. There are parts I found genuinely enjoyable to the point where I feel like if it had better editing it could have been a decent to average movie. Unfortunately, it falls short of that bar.

The editing is seriously bad, especially at the beginning. All the action sequences feel like they're cut way too short and we're jumping from action to people talking in a room, then quickly back to action, then to random conference calls with Sidious. It just feels all over the place in an incoherent way. Rogue One feels a lot like that at the beginning too, but it's nowhere near this rough.

I mostly enjoy the entire time they're on Tattooine. The story is a lot more focused during that second act. The pod race is a hair too long, but it's pretty fun. I enjoyed how Jabba was sleeping through it, I guess he thought it was too long of a race too. Qui-Gon playing Watto is fun to watch. Liam Neeson does the best he can here. Padme dropping hints all the time to him that she’s the actual queen has a fun payoff down the line.

But then we get too Coruscant. Good lord, it's boring as sin. Ian McDiarmid is fun to watch as he manipulates his way to Supreme Chancellor, but it's not enough to save this section of the movie. It's probably only 10-20 minutes long, but it feels like a whole hour. It's just one long exposition dump about the current political climate. If we had just been given these details and moves needed to be made throughout the opening and Tattooine sequences, we could have been spared this bit.

Duel of the Fates is still great, there's some actual emotion in that fight. The shot near the beginning where they leave the hangar and enter the weird energy hall area is pretty captivating. Padme and Co fighting through the Palace is fun too. The other two battles just distract from the good stuff going on. Though, I'll admit, Jar Jar had one line that made me chuckle when the other Gungan is like, "what do we do?" and he just gives up immediately.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. None of it's really new, but it had been a while since I watched this in one go and I was surprised by how much I had forgotten. It's not the worst thing ever. High praise.

Other small observations:

- Did Benicio Del Toro steal his little speech tick from Bos Nas?
- There's a weird part where we see from C-3PO's perspective. Strange choice.
- Duel of the Fates is great, but the other saber fight between Qui-Gon & Maul on Tattooine is so terrible.
- "You're a Gungan, aren't you?" I forgot that me and my siblings used to laugh at this line all the time when we were little
- Jar Jar calls Padme, "pretty hot" at one point. It was weird.
- The shot where the droids are being activated on the battlefield is actually cool and would be more intimidating if we hadn't already seen 1000 of them get killed easily. Though I guess they're a better match for the Gungans.

 

Thought the same thing about Del Toro, especially when he says “let me learn you something big”. Pretty much how the gungans talk

 

TFA is so much fun. Rey and Kylo are just perfect characters to me, love everything about them. Can't wait to revisit TLJ next week!

 

I also just watched Phantom Menace for the first time in YEARS today. Maybe nostalgia speaking but I do think a lot of it holds up, the huge downsides are Jar Jar (who is bad but not movie-ruiningly bad) and the acting at certain points for me

Music and visuals still absolutely hold up

 

The music is probably the best thing about the prequels, and I think the one place the sequel trilogy is really lacking. Maybe it’s because I haven’t rewatched the movies to death yet, but I can’t think of any original theme or piece from 7 or 8 that is in the same level.

 

respectfully, i completely disagree haha

while yes the music in the prequels is probably one of the only redeemable things about them, there have been some great pieces in the new trilogy.

 

Like I said, it might just be because I haven’t endlessly rewatched them because I don’t have the same time I did as a youngling. But off the top of my head none come to mind.

 

I can think of a lot of music from the sequel trilogy

 

The sequel trilogy music is great, but nothing sounds quite as immediate or iconic as "Duel of the Fates" or "Across the Stars". Rey's theme comes close.

 

The Resistance theme is incredible, especially what Williams did with it in TLJ.

 

I remember prequel and OT tunes more than anything from the sequels. Ep IX is using music from the prequels and OT so that will help.

 

I mean, I like his character in TLJ, but I never going to unhear that now haha.

 

Across the Stars was amazing. Anakin's Betrayal as well from Episode III. I love playing both on piano.

 

So I’m not done with the book yet, but Resistance Reborn alludes to some important info some ppl might be interested in.

As somebody who hates spoilers/wants to know as little as possible going in and hasn’t watched any trailers except the teaser I didn’t mind knowing this so take that for what it’s worth. It’s just something regarding the romantic aspect going into 9

In the book Finn tells Poe him and Rose aren’t a thing and talked about the kiss already so that storyline won’t be addressed probably and he also says him and Rey aren’t a thing.
I’m so extremely relieved no runtime will be focused on this.

 

Hell yea, let's keep that Finn/Poe romance alive!

 

Oscar recently confirmed there will no romance between Poe and Finn