Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker (SPOILER THREAD!)

[JasonEvans]

Be warned, this thread will discuss plot points and stuff that is clearly spoilers from the new Star Wars film.

It is highly recommended that you see the film first before reading this thread.

You have been warned...

[JasonEvans]

Whew... where do I begin.

1) The Emperor - It is just offensive that JJ thought he could put Palps in the opening crawl and we would just accept it. Hey JJ, remember the main character from the first 6 films, Anakin/Darth Vader? He sacrificed his life to kill the Emperor. In the space of 2 sentences of yellow text you made his sacrifice meaningless. How can JJ just bring Palps back and not give us any explanation or backstory? What has Palps been doing for the past few decades? Who were the 1000+ Sith guys just watching the final battle (I'd say they were Sith ghosts, but when Palps dies the ghosts physically moved so they are actually there)? Where did all those Final Order ships come from? And don't even get me started on Palps' overall plan...

Actually, lets do talk about Palps plan. He hangs out on the hidden Sith planet for 30 years or so with his giant armada of planet killing ships. He invented Snoke to rule the galaxy in his place (why?!?!). He gets discovered by Kylo and then brings the First Order under his wing like the old Empire. He orders the First Order and Kylo to find and kill Rey... even though what he really wanted was for Rey to find her way to him so she could kill him and his spirit could inhabit her body. Do I have that right? Then, when Kylo shows up he realizes that Kylo and Rey are Force married, or something like that, and he sucks their energy to bring himself back to life (wasn't he already alive?). I can't even begin to imagine JJ pitched this to Kathleen Kennedy and she said, "yeah, that works!"

2) The Force - I'm not sure what JJ was thinking but every time he just needed something to happen, he would invent a new Force power for Rey and Kylo to use. Healing? No problem. Teleporting objects across space? Piece of cake. Amazon is going to set up a new delivery service where Rey is in the warehouse, Kylo comes to your home, and she just hands him whatever you ordered. I don't even begin to understand this Force Dyad thing that Palps suddenly started rambling about in the final 15 minutes of the film. What was that?!!? The heroes of Star Wars are people accomplishing great things by force of will, a little luck, and great faith in each other... they are not gods who can rely on magic to do whatever they want.

3) Fan Service - Look, let's give Chewie a medal. Look, let's have two no-name female characters kiss. Look, Lando is back (does he do anything meaningful?). Look, Rey has really important parents because the Force only belongs to a few families of people in the entire universe and no one else gets to play with it (hey Rian Johnson, <bleep> you). Ugh... was there a single brave choice made in this film?

4) The Sith Map thingie - Did we really spend close to an hour of this film trying to find a magical triangle? Are you kidding me? Supposedly Luke spent years looking for it (because he suspected Palps was still alive or something?) and Rey just stumbles across it in like 2 days. This probably drove me crazy the most of anything in the movie... every time our heroes needed something it would almost magically appear at their feet. It was offensive storytelling... an abomination. A high school English teacher would have sent this script back if a student turned it in.

5) Kylo/Ben - Why did he turn from the Dark Side? Was it just because Rey healed him? We spent 2 movies with his father and his uncle/mentor quite literally giving their lives because they believed in him and then he just turned on a dime for no discernible reason. JJ was not satisfied with making Darth's death meaningless, he had to do it to Han and Luke too.

6) The End - When Kylo died after reviving Rey I laughed out loud... really loudly. It was just sooooo awful.

Ok, that's enough for now... so frustrating.

[fuse]

Jason, I just finished the movie and could not have had a more different reaction.

I loved every minute of it, and was overwhelmed with joy, nostalgia, and appreciative of how this movie took all of the mess from the prior two and made it all work.

For all the trepidation, I could not be happier.

Had to fight back the tears at the twin suns.

Maybe more later or after subsequent viewings.

[JasonEvans]

Jason, I just finished the movie and could not have had a more different reaction.

I loved every minute of it, and was overwhelmed with joy, nostalgia, and appreciative of how this movie took all of the mess from the prior two and made it all work.

For all the trepidation, I could not be happier.

Had to fight back the tears at the twin suns.

Maybe more later or after subsequent viewings.

That is great to hear! I am really happy for you. Believe me, I wish I had the same reaction you did.

[fuse]

That is great to hear! I am really happy for you. Believe me, I wish I had the same reaction you did.

Thanks. The one surprising thing I came away with is the past two movies we went to Thursday night premieres, had to get to the theatre early and get in line to get a good seat.

We went to the earliest show, there was no pre set up line to wait and the theatre may have been a third full.

We exited to packed lines to get in for the prior two, and there maybe were a dozen people waiting in a queue for the next movie.

[Acymetric]

2) The Force - I'm not sure what JJ was thinking but every time he just needed something to happen, he would invent a new Force power for Rey and Kylo to use. Healing? No problem.

I realize this wasn't a major part of your complaint, but force healing isn't new to Star Wars

We've seen it before in the Clone Wars TV show, several supporting stories (books, etc), and (theorized but I don't think confirmed) in A New Hope! It is also discussed in Revenge of the Sith (this is the main way Palps gets Anakin under his thumb). For something that ties together all living things in the universe I don't think that it is particularly

Also

Spoiler!

In The Mandalorian

[freshmanjs]

Rey giving Ben the light saber was a great payoff for all of the force bonding

[luburch]

Alright, overall thoughts - I enjoyed it for what it was. A safe, fun, Star Wars film. I was entertained. I expect the general movie goer will have a great time.

My biggest issues:

Palpatine being back out of nowhere and with no explanation. We saw him die in Episode VI. I need at least some information on how he came back and how he was 'responsible' for Snoke.

Rey being a Palpatine. I was fine with her being a nobody. I thought it made sense. I could get on board with her being a Palpatine, but not how it was done. I'm supposed to believe that Palpatine had a son and we never saw that before? Come on.

Finn just randomly has the force all of a sudden? How does that happen? And he never tells Rey about it after hinting at it the entire film?

The movie needed room to breathe. It's clear that JJ stuffed some stuff in this one that he wanted in Episode VIII. Either extend the run time another thirty minutes or cut some things out. You could feel that it was rushed.

We never really got a great saber battle. Maybe the throne room scene from TLJ just set my standards too high, but the water battle just didn't do a whole lot for me.

There were parts I certainly enjoyed. Seeing some new things done with the force, the bets movie for Rey yet, Poe had some great moments, and the payoff with the force connection (passing the light saber to Kylo. We saw his hand get wet in TLJ when Rey was on the island) was cool to see.

I'll see it again in theater a few times. I'll see if my opinion changes then.

[JasonEvans]

My biggest issues:

Palpatine being back out of nowhere and with no explanation. We saw him die in Episode VI. I need at least some information on how he came back and how he was 'responsible' for Snoke.

So, what you are saying is that the central focus of the film... the driver of the entire plot... was inexplicable and made no sense. Yup, that was my take as well. Grrrrrr.

Rey giving Ben the light saber was a great payoff for all of the force bonding

Yup... and Ben really needed that light saber because he had thrown his original one away for no reason while on the wreckage of the death star. So, he tosses a force-user's most valuable weapon into the ocean (by the way, how did he get off the death star wreckage?) and then immediately goes to face his most deadly foe. smart thinking!

Like almost everything in this movie, stuff happens not because it makes sense but because JJ wanted it to happen that way so he could give us fan service and create meaningless moments.

Sorry... I need to calm down. I really am glad others could watch this film and not see the stuff I saw.

[Acymetric]

So, what you are saying is that the central focus of the film... the driver of the entire plot... was inexplicable and made no sense. Yup, that was my take as well. Grrrrrr.

In fairness, that describes both of the other movies in the sequel trilogy so...pretty much in par with TFA and TLJ there. Not defending the practice, just pointing out it isn't new to this particular trilogy (that has been one of the central complaints of both previous films for a lot of fans).

[luburch]

In fairness, that describes both of the other movies in the sequel trilogy so...pretty much in par with TFA and TLJ there. Not defending the practice, just pointing out it isn't new to this particular trilogy (that has been one of the central complaints of both previous films for a lot of fans).

Did TFA and TLJ not make sense? They aren't without their criticisms, but I think they were thought out and explained at least.

[Udaman]

JE - normally you and I are in full agreement. I actually can’t recall a movie that we strongly disagreed on. Until this one.

I thought it was outstanding. Easily the best since Empire.

Sure there were some problems (didn’t like the random forced same sex kiss) But overall the story and arch were perfect for me. Star Wars has always been about redemption. Ren returning to Ben was great. The theme was “more is important to than blood,” and this movie got that perfectly. And I loved the throw back to the original. I loved that Ray was a Palpatine. I loved that her friendship with Poe and Finn stayed that. Loved Han and Luke. Loved how the “mole” met his fate. The other thread with Star Wars has been that we chose our paths and that unlike what the sith say, there is always a path to redemption.

Just enjoyed it immensely. Will definitely see it again. Sorry you didn’t feel the same.

[Chicago 1995]

I thought it was good -- not great, but good. Upon reflection, I actually think the movie's better than I thought last night, but what's weighing it down are the expectations it can't avoid being the "End of the Saga" and all as much as anything. It's not a perfect movie by a long shot though, and the failure here, I think, was that TLJ did little to progress the actual plot of the trilogy, it seems.

Whew... where do I begin.

1) The Emperor - It is just offensive that JJ thought he could put Palps in the opening crawl and we would just accept it. Hey JJ, remember the main character from the first 6 films, Anakin/Darth Vader? He sacrificed his life to kill the Emperor. In the space of 2 sentences of yellow text you made his sacrifice meaningless. How can JJ just bring Palps back and not give us any explanation or backstory? What has Palps been doing for the past few decades? Who were the 1000+ Sith guys just watching the final battle (I'd say they were Sith ghosts, but when Palps dies the ghosts physically moved so they are actually there)? Where did all those Final Order ships come from? And don't even get me started on Palps' overall plan...

Actually, lets do talk about Palps plan. He hangs out on the hidden Sith planet for 30 years or so with his giant armada of planet killing ships. He invented Snoke to rule the galaxy in his place (why?!?!). He gets discovered by Kylo and then brings the First Order under his wing like the old Empire. He orders the First Order and Kylo to find and kill Rey... even though what he really wanted was for Rey to find her way to him so she could kill him and his spirit could inhabit her body. Do I have that right? Then, when Kylo shows up he realizes that Kylo and Rey are Force married, or something like that, and he sucks their energy to bring himself back to life (wasn't he already alive?). I can't even begin to imagine JJ pitched this to Kathleen Kennedy and she said, "yeah, that works!"

I get where you are coming from with this, and it's kind of the central criticism of the whole movie for me. It was too darned rushed. There was too much in the movie. So you either needed to edit some of the crap out -- but that would have required completely reworking this central plot -- or it should have been two 2 hour movies, not one 2.5 hour one. End Movie 1 with Rey winning the duel on the old Death Star. Operating in one, 2.5 hour movie, they got hemmed in because for all Last Jedi did, it didn't move THIS plot line (or any plot line really) toward the finale. Between contracts and negative reviews for TLJ and Solo there's no way they were getting two movies to finish this. So we were stuck with Palpatine back in two sentences in the opening crawl. It did need more development and seeds of this spread across the prior two movies would have been helpful. Note: Did they really not storyboard the big points, at least, of the movies from the start before Episode 7? If not, everyone involved is kind of a moron.

One positive of Palpatine being involved? Everyone in the full theater I was in last night made an audible reaction when Rey used Force Lightening.

2) The Force - I'm not sure what JJ was thinking but every time he just needed something to happen, he would invent a new Force power for Rey and Kylo to use. Healing? No problem. Teleporting objects across space? Piece of cake. Amazon is going to set up a new delivery service where Rey is in the warehouse, Kylo comes to your home, and she just hands him whatever you ordered. I don't even begin to understand this Force Dyad thing that Palps suddenly started rambling about in the final 15 minutes of the film. What was that?!!? The heroes of Star Wars are people accomplishing great things by force of will, a little luck, and great faith in each other... they are not gods who can rely on magic to do whatever they want.

I disagree, more or less, here. TLJ did a really good job setting up that the connection between Kylo and Rey was unique and was a stronger bond than we'd seen before, so that playing into Palpatine's full resurrection didn't bother me. The idea that they could pass objects between one and another and could effect each others realities when connected was set up and done in TLJ. Didn't some object pass between Rey and Kylo when they connected in Luke's hut in TLJ? That, as both became stronger, they'd better understand manipulation of the connection again made sense. Force healing might be new to the cinematic universe, but not to the universe as a whole. The only point where I wondered about the power of the force being used was the battle over the ship we thought Chewie was on -- uncool and unnecessary bait and switch there -- and the Force Lightening sort of explained that.

3) Fan Service - Look, let's give Chewie a medal. Look, let's have two no-name female characters kiss. Look, Lando is back (does he do anything meaningful?). Look, Rey has really important parents because the Force only belongs to a few families of people in the entire universe and no one else gets to play with it (hey Rian Johnson, <bleep> you). Ugh... was there a single brave choice made in this film?

Agreed, and the **** to Rian Johnson by building almost nothing off of TLJ made this movie too congested to work as one film.

4) The Sith Map thingie - Did we really spend close to an hour of this film trying to find a magical triangle? Are you kidding me? Supposedly Luke spent years looking for it (because he suspected Palps was still alive or something?) and Rey just stumbles across it in like 2 days. This probably drove me crazy the most of anything in the movie... every time our heroes needed something it would almost magically appear at their feet. It was offensive storytelling... an abomination. A high school English teacher would have sent this script back if a student turned it in.

5) Kylo/Ben - Why did he turn from the Dark Side? Was it just because Rey healed him? We spent 2 movies with his father and his uncle/mentor quite literally giving their lives because they believed in him and then he just turned on a dime for no discernible reason. JJ was not satisfied with making Darth's death meaningless, he had to do it to Han and Luke too.

I thought the Sith Map Thingie might be a Sith Holocron, something with some connection to the larger universe. Had they called it that, it might have helped make a little more sense I think.. That said, the speed with which she found the wayfinder was only necessitated by the silly plot construction that the Final Order was to begin in 8 hours. There was no need to compress the on the screen time in that way.

That Kylo was conflicted is nothing new. I thought he turned back to good because Leia reached out to him finally at the end, and he knew she'd passed. Add on to that Rey had struck a mortal blow, save him, and told him that she wanted to take Ben's hand -- I think that's when she told him that -- turned him. His connection to Rey was pretty clearly stronger than his connection to anything else. He'd killed Snoke to rule with her. He'd intended to do the same to Palpatine. Him knowing that Ben could be with Rey, along with everything else, caused him to turn. Again, that could have been made more clear and more powerful if the movie wasn't so compressed.

6) The End - When Kylo died after reviving Rey I laughed out loud... really loudly. It was just sooooo awful.

Ok, that's enough for now... so frustrating.

[crimsondevil]

I just saw it this morning. My take is pretty good although far from perfect. I would strenuously disagree that it is even near prequel level.

Among the good: it was emotionally satisfying. Sometimes the best moments are ones you know are coming, and then they happen: the rescue fleet arriving, and Rey giving her new name at the end.

I thought they dealt with Leia fairly well. Knowing they were using old footage made it a little hard to suspend my disbelief in her scenes, but I think if I could, I wouldn't have noticed any awkwardness. Her death was a bit rushed though. In fact, overall:

The movie needed room to breathe. It's clear that JJ stuffed some stuff in this one that he wanted in Episode VIII. Either extend the run time another thirty minutes or cut some things out. You could feel that it was rushed.

This was my feeling. There were a number of things where another 30 sec to a couple of minutes spent explaining would have been nice. I don't think Palps being back is inexplicable, but I would like to know something about how. And Rey's parents, especially her father - what was his deal? Maybe that's a spinoff? And Ben turning back to the light felt a little like... Anakin in Ep III?

Frankly, even some of the dramatic moments seemed slightly rushed, and a few times I would have liked them to just hold the frame for another couple seconds to let whatever sink in a bit more.

But I still liked it. I had lowered expectations going in, thanks to reviews from people like Jason, and I think that helped.

Finn just randomly has the force all of a sudden? How does that happen? And he never tells Rey about it after hinting at it the entire film?

Well, he did wield a lightsaber in TFA (and here, briefly) - doesn't that require a Force-sensitive person to do with any skill?

and Ben really needed that light saber because he had thrown his original one away for no reason while on the wreckage of the death star. So, he tosses a force-user's most valuable weapon into the ocean (by the way, how did he get off the death star wreckage?) and then immediately goes to face his most deadly foe. smart thinking!

It made sense to me. Lightsabers are very symbolic in Star Wars, and Ben surely associated his with his initial turn to the Dark side (not to mention killing his father). I think there's even a bit about the construction of a red lightsaber that uses domination/pain or something.

[crimsondevil]

I get where you are coming from with this, and it's kind of the central criticism of the whole movie for me. It was too darned rushed. There was too much in the movie. So you either needed to edit some of the crap out -- but that would have required completely reworking this central plot -- or it should have been two 2 hour movies, not one 2.5 hour one.

I had the same thought - 2 movies. Although that would ruin the whole trilogy of trilogies thing.

One positive of Palpatine being involved? Everyone in the full theater I was in last night made an audible reaction when Rey used Force Lightening.

Yes! Same thing when I saw it (although 1/3 full theater).

[JasonEvans]

Screencrush has a list of 10 key questions from RoS that largely mimics a lot of what I was wondering about at the start of this thread:

https://screencrush.com/unanswered-q...-of-skywalker/

[cato]

I loved this movie. A pitch perfect end to the trilogy. We all suspected that Ben would be redeemed and that Rey was a Skywalker, but they just played it out so well.

I guess Anakin did bring balance to the force.

[LasVegas]

Ehh. Nothing new in this movie. 7/8/9 was basically a repeat of 4/5/6 at its core. Why stop here? Let’s reset this thing and do it all over again with 10/11/12!!! I enjoyed it but would never watch again. 5/10 for me.

[DUKIECB]

I’m tired and don’t have the energy to do a full write up but I’ll just say I’m glad Jason bummed me out before seeing this because it made it a lot more enjoyable. I didn’t think it was great but it was really good. Obviously to enjoy the film you absolutely have to completely accept the whole Palp being alive thing and just go with it. Otherwise you will be cynical about pretty much everything else that happens and I think that’s what happened to Jason. Look I don’t like it either but I went along with it and it made the movie a fun experience for me.

I thought the fan service was ok since it was the end of the saga and it’s what a Star Wars movie should be by this point, nostalgic and also popcorn movie going fun, which for me it was all if those things.

I enjoyed this trilogy and think overall it was done pretty well, not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but very good. I agree what others have said that because the plot wasn’t advanced much in TLJ it made this film feel too jam packed and a little rushed but for me that’s a small complaint.

I need to see it again but I’m going to say I’d put it at the top of the three in this trilogy for now which is saying a lot for me because I’m a fan of both the first two.

[-jk]

Saw it with my 16yo son last night. We both enjoyed it, but we went into it knowing it was a Star Wars movie, and not expecting cinematic greatness. He thought it was the best of the three. And, yeah, Palpatine on life support was weird. Of course, Kylo Ren walked away from his crashed-and-burned ship without a scratch, too, so perhaps Sithdom confers some sort of protection. The dyad thing was hinted at early in the trilogy, so that one didn't bug me so much.

Son has several classmates who went to see the early Friday AM showings; it seems it's a fairly big thing for them still.

-jk