Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, December 20, 2019) Movie • Page 414

I finished it recently. It doesn't fix the main issues of the film for me, but some of the restructuring and added details improve the story overall. Not starting directly with the Kylo/Palpatine scene is makes the reintroduction of Palpatine far less jarring.

Also, Rey being the daughter of a failed clone and not actually Palpatine's granddaughter gives me some head canon wiggle room.

 

Rise of Skywalker was fine. Not without its faults, but nowhere near as bad as people say.

 

It was very very bad

 

perhaps the most baffling movie I've seen in a theatre

 

Honestly, it might not even get enough criticism. For how bad it is, the reviews were kinda okay, and the general population usually think it was alright too. The amount of people I ask what they thought of it and they just say it was decent but they got confused about one or two things is crazy.

Every time I think about this film I remember some other stupid moment or decision it made.

 

Was it a bad movie imo? No.
Was it a satisfying ending to the saga? In no way, shape or form.

 

That’s where I am, too

 

Everyone I saw it with loved it.

I walked out trying to process what I just saw and how I felt about it, and then one of them started raving about the lack of Rose Tico in the film and that's when I knew I hated it.

 

It’s really terrible

 

if you truly just watch it for the spectacle, it’s fine.

if you want to be at all invested in the story and especially how it relates to the rest of the saga, it is not good.

 

The main reason I don’t hate it is because it finally gave us the Rey, Finn and Poe adventure I always wanted.

 

We need an alternate Nathan account that’s just a bot who posts after every non-Nathan post in this thread, saying one of three stock variations of “this movie is awful.”

 

I was excited for this for sure but it felt so bland and they all felt like completely new characters imo

 

I agree it wasn’t what I had exactly hoped but seeing all 3 characters interact was nice.

 

For me it was bad but still entertaining. Something I could easily have on in the background if I’m bored. Not a satisfying ending to the saga or even that trilogy.

 

Honestly it’s not even a great looking film. Certainly the worst of the trilogy. The amount of strobe lighting going on is just obnoxious

 

Oh I’m not gonna pretend it wasn’t entertaining as hell lmao. It was honestly fun for me in the way that like troll 2 is fun, in that I’m just constantly confused

 

I really think the idea that this movie needed to wrap up the saga led to a lot of these flaws. It should have prioritized ending this trilogy first.

 

I started re-watching the Star Wars series a couple days ago. Figured I'd post some thoughts as I watched, guessing this thread is the right place to do it?

Will be watching 1-3, Solo, Rogue1 ,4-6, Mandalorian S1, 7-9. Skipping the cartoons (too long). Thoughts so far...

The Phantom Menace - Slow start, but picks up really well when the Pod Races start. The race itself is one of my favorite moments in the series (LOVED the game) Then another slight lag until the famous "Duel Of The Fates," another probably top 5 moment of the series. (7.5/10)

Attack Of The Clones - Better paced film imo, starts out well with Anakin/Obi-Wan protecting Padme Amidala. Then a bunch of mediocre stuff (Clones, not great chemistry between Anakin/Padme) until the 3rd act with the big battle and finally Count Dooku vs. Anakin, Obi-Wan, & Yoda. I've always thought I liked Attack of The Clones better than the Phantom Menace, but now I see there isn't that many classic moments in this film. (Yoda Vs. Count Dooku is the closest, but not top 10 stuff) (7/10)

 

I get what you're saying, but disagree.

I'm not sure the flaws are really that based on the whole saga thing. Like, what did the random pointless, shallow, expendable new characters have to do w/ that? What did the fetch quest & multiple mcguffins have to do w/ it? Was the convoluted dyad stuff & the kiss & whatnot really based on that? Those were all very unforced errors.

Wrapping up "the Skywalker saga" wasn't necessary, but in a way, it wasn't necessarily that hard of an ask. All it had to be is a good, solid adventure film using the pieces that were available (which was plenty), while also bringing a satisfying conclusion to the central Rey vs Kylo conflict (which I guess is somewhat what you're saying). These films were so thoroughly indebted to the old films that doing so would pretty organically involve everything that came before. Just use a little bit of leftover Leia footage (like, maybe a third of what they used), have the Luke ghost play the big role that TLJ foreshadowed for both Rey & Kylo, bring back Lando & Wedge & maybe Mon Mothma (which works organically in what the end of TLJ implied about The Resistance). Maybe give Han a scene via flashback w/ Luke (instead of a "memory," which also gives us that interaction that never happened). Maybe Hayden Christensen & Ian McDiarmid in Force vision stuff surrounding Kylo. Give slightly expanded roles to C-3PO (maybe the only good decision this film made) & R2-D2 (who was weirdly sidelined & easily could've hung out w/ C-3PO), alongside Chewie.

In paragraph form, that sounds like a lot of requests, but you have any idea how effortless it would've been to weave all those bits in after settling on the main narrative for the new main characters? One criticism of Star Wars content is that a lot of it feels too small, w/ everyone connected to everyone else. So, it's not like you're trying to pull together the entire Marvel universe or whatever. They all know each other, or are at most two small degrees removed from each other.

Sorry for yet another long Tim post, especially when I think I've said these things multiple times in this thread, but oh my goodness, I hate the low bar we have for professional writers, lol. It's absurd that we treat a ninth space wizard soap opera adventure as this herculean task.

 

Rewatched the entire saga and have finally settled on my very own bad take.

The first two star wars movies were great. The last jedi was pretty good. Force awakens was just okay.

The rest were bad. Yes, even ROTJ.

 

jedi
empire
jedi
hope
phantom
skywalker
clones
sith

 

ROTJ is great minus 20 or so minutes. Love the beginning of that movie.

 

I don't think there's any individual piece of (theatrical) RotJ that I don't like. Even the Ewoks are dope. There's just something about the structure that doesn't quite work as it should. But, it's still a really fun watch w/ a strong ending for the original trilogy.


Anyways, I think this is my current sincere episode ranking, after having time to sit on it & focus on subjective experience vs what's "right" or whatever:

The Empire Strikes Back (special)
Star Wars (theatrical)
The Last Jedi
Return of the Jedi (theatrical)
The Phantom Menace
The Force Awakens
Attack of the Clones
Revenge of the Sith
The Rise of Skywalker

 

I guess for me, this movie was essentially never going to work as soon as they made the decision to bring Palpatine back as the big bad. And from the making of doc, it seems like that decision was made with the mindset of bring the saga full circle. Then they tried to fill in this trilogies characters around that.

I agree that it shouldn't have been that hard to fill in plot details that would help it feel like wrapping up the saga (doing more with Lando, the droids, etc as you mentioned). They could have worked from Trevorrow's script. It's not great, but there was enough good things in there to start from. I really wish those initial reports of Rian writing a story treatment for IX in addition to writing/directing VIII. I dunno, I've spent more time than I'd like to admit thinking about what could have been done differently.