star wars 9 spoilers and postmortem shit talk

killer AO Scott close to his NYT review: not a great Star Wars film cuz there is no such thing; that's how we like it

(close paraphrase)

Context is informative! xp

a movie by cowards for cowards

The Trembling of the Fans

so this is how fan-ocracy dies

(the prequels were generally crap, but that is the only post-'83 line that has stuck with me)

xpost -- Not with a bang but with a separate T. S. Eliot adaptation.

max read formerly of this parish has gone in HARD saying it’s “unwatchable apart from its meta-textual IP stuff” which was p much exactly the opposite of what i got out of it

https://merchoidcdn-pveiw4zwh96ot9z.netdna-ssl.com/media/catalog/product/cache/e4d64343b1bc593f1c5348fe05efa4a6/s/t/star-wars-fully-armed-and-operational-death-star-pet-den.jpg

babu lick

AO Scott called Abrams "perhaps the most consistent B student in modern popular culture"

generous grader

Ah, The Gray Lady and her cadre of witty Crit- Jedi's.
Scott's idea of a fun sci fi romp is prob "Solaris" so, you know, life of the party and all that.

Scott had Fury Road as one his ten faves of the decade, so no, he's too pro-fun for me

can i just say since no one else has? the new droid? that looks like a lamp on a wheel?? the best!!! i’m not sure how he, or babu frick, or the hurt snake fit into everybody’s metatextual ip analysis or whatever - i don’t think they do? - but that little wheel guy got probably more screen time than R2D2 and i was extremely there for it

And voiced by JJ himself at that.

John Williams cameo was fun too even if it was a classic 'hi we're going to linger on this shot a beat too long so that way you get that even with the eyepiece etc. that is someone you should know there' cameo.

since this is the spoiler thread, the AV Club discusses the spoilery complaints here:

https://film.avclub.com/the-rise-of-skywalker-walks-back-the-last-jedi-s-best-d-1840513344

the butthurt, is strong with this one

when vader reveals he’s luke’s father in empire was that also a cowardly narrative cop-out? sheesh

i like how a the granddaughter of the baddest baddie is good, and the grandson of the goodest goodie is bad, they save each other’s lives, come together for a kiss, and then rey just up and chooses a new last name. family’s what you make it, family’s what makes sense, family’s malleable. pretty good message imo!

Gets two stars from me and easily the worst of the new trilogy.

Guess JJ was hurt when Rian got rid of Kylo's mask early on in TLJ.

I know it's SW but so much of this seemed to make no sense and there seemed a real disconnect between this and the previous two movies. Wonder if Abrams will do a Lucas and go back and drop some hints about Palpatine, or Luke searching for those Sith pyramid map things into TFA or TLJ

the way things have been going w/ Disney and fiddling with existing IP, I absolutely expect something like that to happen

are you saying the mask with the red lines in it wasn’t fuckin cool??

family’s what you make it, family’s what makes sense, family’s malleable

as long as it extends familiar dynasties

it is so boring that palpatine is in this movie

I still say I want Rian and JJ to have a reversion war battle where they make new sequels undoing the last

in the unlikely event Johnson actually does get to wage more star wars he should call his new villain KK Starman imo

Tbh even though I liked the movie a lot, inserting Palpatine back into things kinda shoved the First Order to the bench. At least they didn't overexplain how.

Hux is a complete afterthought. He acts pretty badly too so maybe Gleeson did that out of anger.

Rian's main heavy: JK BUTTRAMS

Then JJ introduces Darth Peeon and superimposes Rian's face onto his body deepfake style.

Then Rian drives to JJ's house and murders him and releases the snuff film ad Ep 12

I am sleep deprived

brad otm

if Palpatine aint dead, Vader reformation = FAIL

hence this film is not CANON

This was fine. It helps that I went in with low expectations.

My main complaint is that a lot of dumb stuff happens (like in most star wars). The whole thing with Chewie's "death" was particularly bad.

The Kylo and Rey characters are both good though and save this movie (and trilogy really).

Most eye-rolling part: Chewbacca getting a medal.

He didn't even get a nice ceremony with everybody applauding.

wookiees can have little a ceremony, as a treat

Assuming they must have shoehorned the Leia scenes in off the cutting room floor and wrote the plot around them as she didn't look CGI

only odd CG-ish Leia was during training w/ Luke scene

yeah, all the Leia scenes were scenes that were originally filmed for the Force Awakens. Which is why all her lines are so generic and knowing this ahead of time kind of ruined all those scenes for me.

Yea deaged Leia looked like a 1999 PlayStation character

yeah, all the Leia scenes were scenes that were originally filmed for the Force Awakens. Which is why all her lines are so generic and knowing this ahead of time kind of ruined all those scenes for me.

― silverfish, Friday, December 20, 2019 3:45 PM bookmarkflaglink

I thought it was weird when she kept talking to Han and everyone kept replying "No sweetie remember Han is dead!"

friends collectively releasing a sigh of relief at the end knowing we’re free of the Skywalkers

#justiceforgeneralhugs otm

My stifled guffaw moment was “I made Snoke” followed by a cut to a VAT OF SNOKES

Palpimandias!

vat of snokes was awesome.

undead zombie battalion of star destroyers - awesome.

hux feeling so petty and undermined that he'd help our gang - awesome. "i'm the spy!" - awesome.

the more i think about this movie the more things i love about it. i whooped about 5 or 6 times probably? more than the previous two instalments anyway. i know we all saw rey's backflip tie slice in the trailer but it was AWESOME.

was there ever any payoff to rey learning she could accidentally do force lightning? guess not.

i loved that rey, when facing palpatine, is once again faced with the paradox that confronts luke again and again in the OG series which is - how can you FIGHT somebody in a STAR WAR and WIN when they keep telling you that as soon as you hit them with your awesome lightsabre you will have turned to the dark side, so that you lose?? it would fill me with anxiety watching luke fight vader, like, fight good man, but not too good! fuck! so luke never 'wins', not like that, and here rey does, she smooshes palpatine into force particles by mirroring his destroyer-levelling lightning back onto him which i guess DOESN'T COUNT because it's his own energy, jujitsu'ed onto him, rather than originating with rey? haha which i like, so lame, but also exactly the right level of schoolyard rule that any 8 year old would have to nod sagely and be like, yep, that's right, it was your own electricity, sorry, GOT EM

which IS like i should have said

Isn't that a tip to Sidious' original demise? Vader's mechanized grasp + Force lightning turned back on him and Vader in ROTJ.

Ahhh you're right. This guy really never learns.

oh by the way anybody really wants a kid with no backstory who's got the force there's always.... broom boy. you know, the kid from your favourite movie that's so risky and interesting