Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

[Túrin Turambar]

I mean, this is just me and my thinking. As I've already talked about too much, I've always thought SW was kinda lame so it's not just me reacting to the new trilogy. Like I said earlier, I think the core SW series has the fundamental problem that the ideas of the Force and the Empire, as written originally by Lucas, were childrens-story level simple. Which is fine when he was writing a children's story, but it turned out his creation resonated with a lot of older fans who wanted a grander, deeper epic than the original children's story could really support. People want more mature stories about this universe and it's Force, but that Force was created to tell a fun kids adventure and IMO doesn't work well at all when trying to make it more than that.

IMO the only real way to fix that is to go back and rewrite the story of these rebels fighting an oppressive Empire from the get go so that it has a sturdier, stronger foundation to build upon. What would it have looked like if Tolkien had gotten the opportunity to rewrite The Hobbit with in the style of LOTR, with the full knowledge of the grandeur it would become connected to?

The Galaxy Far, Far Away is big enough to support a lot of stories, so rather than go to the trouble of re-writing the OT I think they'd be better off just leaving the time period alone and doing something completely different. This is what they seem to have done with great success in The Mandalorian. Even Rogue One is able to get away from the OT's problems somewhat. If they make something good, it could keep the old fanbase and win over new ones - like Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy did with Batman.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Please don't read this unless you have seen the film.

Hidden text.

One thing I was pleasantly surprised by was Han Solo's appearance, which I somehow managed to get spoiled about, and which I actually did feel was quite moving.

I also liked the line "That's not a navy, that's just people" (or something like that) even though the situation that led to it was silly.

[RoseMorninStar]

Please don't read this unless you have seen the film.

Hidden text.

One thing I was pleasantly surprised by was Han Solo's appearance, which I somehow managed to get spoiled about, and which I actually did feel was quite moving.

I also liked the line "That's not a navy, that's just people" (or something like that) even though the situation that led to it was silly.

Hidden text.

I had not been spoiled by the Han Solo appearance but I was pleasantly surprised. I did not think Harrison Ford would appear in another film.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Rose, I left a "not" out, so I was actually in the same boat as you, fortunately.

[yovargas]

Force ghosts is definitely one aspect of the SW universe that I would cut right out if I could reboot the series.

[RoseMorninStar]

V:

yov.. your words will come to haunt you! (jk)

[yovargas]

Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, assuming you have an extremely poor imagination.

[RoseMorninStar]

Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, assuming you have an extremely poor imagination.

Well, Obi-Wan, I have been told I have a fairly good imagination. But it doesn't run to the Dark Side.

[Túrin Turambar]

More "I will be able to provide exposition the audience needs in ways you cannot possibly imagine".

[kzer_za]

Obi-wan gained the power to fudge the canon and retcon Vader and Luke's backstory with a painfully awkward infodump two movies later. On top of that he even made Luke and Leia's relationship retroactively creepy ("somehow I always knew" she says, which is why she made out with him in the med room).

So you see, what he said to Vader was true. From a certain point of view.

[yovargas]

Truly there is no greater power than the power of the retcon.

[Túrin Turambar]

I suspect the need to retcon the earlier films is what compelled the Force ghosts to become steadily more interactive, and it snowballed from there to the absurd lengths we’ve seen in the Sequels.

Most people know this, but I’ll mention it for those who don’t – Darth Vader was never originally written to be Luke Skywalker’s father. That plot twist, perhaps the greatest in cinema history, was actually invented during the filming of The Empire Strikes Back. All through the writing, filming, and release of Star Wars (as it was then simply called) he was exactly as Obi-Wan described him – a Jedi student who turned to the dark side and killed the (then un-named) father Skywalker. His name was also literally Darth Vader, which is why Obi-Wan calls him ‘Darth’. It also wasn’t established at this point that the Emperor was a Force-user, or even a particularly serious villain in his own right (the novelisation of Episode IV describes him as a figurehead controlled by his advisors), so it wasn’t clear how Darth Vader was turned.

Once the character of Darth Vader proved a smash hit with audiences, he was given a much more prominent role in Episode V, with his own cool theme song and seeming-unlimited power in the Imperial military. Then they had the idea of making him a central character to the whole trilogy by combining him with father Skywalker, which forced poor old Obi-Wan to come back from the dead to explain his series of bald-face lies in Episode IV.

[yovargas]

Another confession from a Star Wars Scrooge: while I genuinely think that scene between Vader and Luke is, as it's own scene, one of the greatest scenes in film history, within the full context of the story, I think the twist reveal actually really sucks, and when I watched it last year my reaction to "Luke, I am your father" was....."so?"

I don't think anyone knows the answer to that question, but the scene became so massively iconic that it affected how the next 7 (!) main SW movies were told, but not at all for the better IMO. SW ever since has been stuck trying to live up to this Very Important Moment, but nobody could figure out why it was actually important to anything.


BAH HUMBUG.

[Alatar]

I think if you were someone who never grew up knowing Vader was Luke's dad (which, given your age I assume you did) it was an absolutely seismic twist. In fact, to this day I think only the Sixth Sense can compete. I know when it happened I refused to believe it was true and got hold of the novelisation by Zahn to confirm that it wasn't a trick by Vader.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Hidden text.

For the record, Han Solo's appearance the Rise of Skywalker was most definitely not as a "force ghost". It was simply a vision in Ben Solo's mind, and an example of the truism that those that we love are never truly lost to us. I thought it was a lovely scene; the best in the film.

[RoseMorninStar]

Hidden text.

For the record, Han Solo's appearance the Rise of Skywalker was most definitely not as a "force ghost". It was simply a vision in Ben Solo's mind, and an example of the truism that those that we love are never truly lost to us. I thought it was a lovely scene; the best in the film.

This makes so much sense to me.

[Frelga]

My son saw it today. He's not a huge Star Wars fan, but he's enjoyed the first two movies in the last trilogy. He said the new one was, quote, "So bad it was funny," "The good guys were all annoying," and "Honestly, that balloon movie* was better."

He's not a huge Marvel fan, either, so I don't necessarily put a lot of confidence in his movie criticism. Still, there it is, the voice of the new generation.

*The Aeronauts, which we saw on Christmas.

[Alatar]

BTW, The Mandalorian is so Star Wars they need to just put Jon Favreau in charge of everything Star Wars from now on.

[Dave_LF]

I understand that Star Wars is not sci-fi and am prepared to grant it a lot of leeway, but having people ride space horses on top of space ships, in space, without space suits or anything, was a couple bridges too far.

[Túrin Turambar]

I understand that Star Wars is not sci-fi and am prepared to grant it a lot of leeway, but having people ride space horses on top of space ships, in space, without space suits or anything, was a couple bridges too far.

Weren't they in the atmosphere?

(Not sure if this counts as a spoiler - but are we yet at the point where we can discuss the film openly on the basis that everyone who wants to see it will have seen it?)