star wars 9 spoilers and postmortem shit talk

Ben Solo's shrug <3

Adam Driver is so weird looking and yet so hot, he shoudn't be allowed in a Star War, it's distracting.

(jk, Kylo Ren would never have worked with a lesser actor)

was that Johnson's thesis, or Luke's thesis? Luke says that, and makes a good point (it's a great allegory for how Christianity has tried to usurp authority over secular society, with Luke trying to promote religious tolerance), but don't we get the idea Luke is relenting a little bit by movie's end? I figure he'd still believe that the force doesn't solely "belong" to the Jedi, and that other groups may also use it to do good things, but that he's at least relented on the idea that the Jedi can't be trusted with it and actually believes the Jedi can be restored and use its power in a positive way.

Not only does he rejoin the fight, and he says emphatically that he will not be the last Jedi, implying that Rey will continue her Jedi training. That to me would at least suggest that he's gone back a LITTLE bit on his disdain. even if he wasn't completely wrong about the failures of the Jedi, clearly he had at least a partial change of heart.

Some saw his "I was wrong" in this movie as a middle finger to RJ, but I didn't think so. Luke WAS wrong; the debate between haters and supporters of TLJ wasn't whether Luke was right or wrong to go into exile, but whether it was *plausible* that he would do it. I always felt it was completely plausible that he'd lose his religion and flee - Yoda did it too! But that didn't make it honorable or "right" to do so. that's why he redeemed himself at the end.

the only reason she needed the strength of all of the Jedi to beat Palpatine was because he was supposedly using the strength of all of the Sith. it was a classic Lucas homage of a good-evil battle, so on-the-nose and over the top, Georgie probably would have came if he saw it.

Yeah, I don’t think it necessarily contradicts the idea that the Force works through anyone (and that anyone can be a hero); but it does provide an explanation for why the Force is so strong in Rey (even though her entry into the storyline was kind of “coincidental”).

Luke may have mocked the Skywalker bloodline, but it really was powerful, wasn’t it?

Like I said, I do need to see it again, but I did like it! (But I still think Rey Palpatine just ain't it. She could've remained Rey Nobody and the story would have the same effect.)

I mean, don't get me wrong, TLJ was a far better movie and it is of course disappointing that we went back to Fan Service Abrams (not that Trevorrow would have done much better - he co-wrote this script and he is responsible for those Jurassic abortions).

I didn't need her to be a Palpatine, and the whole Emperor Redux wasn't necessary and probably the least interesting bit of the film.

I'm guessing Abrams and Trevorrow couldn't find a way in their widdle minds to explain how the Resistance could build its ranks back up and provide a significant challenge to the First Order, so they came up with the Emperor to distract both sides.

as much as I enjoyed this sequel trilogy (and it's pretty obvious I did), I was always let down about how it became Empire vs Rebels part deux.

I always felt there were plenty of other angles they could have explored. Like Kylo Ren didn't have to be a Solo/Skywalker - what if he was a young Jedi that became radicalized, was shunned from his community, and became a terrorist that caused unrest within the Galaxy?

Or if you're hellbent on wanting him to be a Solo/Skywalker, why couldn't his defection and Luke's exile have been the source of the first movie? Why couldn't TFA have been about THAT?

I guess I wanted to see more of the Republic on the back foot. The Rebels are used to being the underdogs, now they've vanquished their enemy, and the good guys are the people in power. How do they rule and quell any potential uprisings?

once TFA recycled the Empire, it kind of painted the story into a corner. the books and comics did a nice job of actually detailing the birth of the First Order, but if I had a do-over, I woulda liked different scopes.

I have to say I never thought at age 12 I'd be having these conversations as a near-40 year old, lol. really did look like the sequels were never getting made.

didn't Han's kid also defect to the dark side and become a Sith in the (now Legends) books? Jacen Solo?

Or if you're hellbent on wanting him to be a Solo/Skywalker, why couldn't his defection and Luke's exile have been the source of the first movie? Why couldn't TFA have been about THAT?

This probably would have felt like Anakin/Obi-Wan redux.

Yes, and is killed by his twin sister to boot.

xp

hmm, good point. maybe it could have been about Kylo Ren being a bookmaker and he gets in over his head and takes out a loan from Goombah the Hutt

not that Trevorrow would have done much better - he co-wrote this script

lol no

the credits say Abrams and Terrio. the Writers Guild gave Trevorrow and Connolly co-writer credit as well so despite what Abrams claimed about starting from scratch, I'm willing to bet he used elements of his original treatment.

I fought with your father in the Guild wars

I liked the rescue droid. BB-8 and that thing should get their own show with Babu Frik.

Story credit with an "and" does not mean "wrote the script," and p explicitly means did not write the script. Seems most likely that they were given the credit as compensation for being fired, next most likely that their script included enough things like "Rey and Finn fight stormtroopers with lasers" and "Chewbacca flies the Millennium Falcon" that they were able to arbitrate, with "wrote the script but enough dialogue was changed that they were downgraded to story credit" a very distant third.

I didn't feel like Rose was particularly sidelined in this movie... especially considering how the story jumped around, and didn't focus much on Resistance HQ. Rose's role, and her friendship w/Finn, remained a focus (and she seemed to have more lines than, say, Lando).

But I also understand how the character took on a particular significance after the ugly side of the TLJ backlash.

xpost cool, go post about dementia spasms

I mean Rose was very specifically positioned as a love interest for Finn, and in this movie he gives her nothing more than a friendly shoulder squeeze before once again deciding to stay behind and launch one less desperate attack. To me it's dropping a narrative thread in an especially lazy (and ugly) way given the way Kelly Marie Tran was treated by alt-right creeps for two years.

Film Crit Hulk has some words: https://www.patreon.com/posts/32504876

I can see that POV; though I’m also not sure how much further their love story could’ve been developed.

I was expecting a sex scene intercut with the rest of the resistance having a rave on Endor

just watched ANH. now that Rogue One exists, it's amusing to me that it's a brutal battle of attrition to get the physical Death Star plans from Scarif, which just about kills everyone, but the security on the actual Death Star is LOL

I'm appalled some of y'all are defending this attenuated, lifeless piece of shit.

Every moving set piece is a callback to a character or scene in or from an earlier movie, like the raised TIE-fighter.

I agree w Eliza re: Rey Palpatine

her being a nobody AND a jedi was part of the excitement of this new character. undermining the aristocracy etc etc

making her a Palpatine felt very tacked-on. and kinda dumb. and ultimately not really necessary

otm

lol I pretty much figured this would be your reaction Alfred.

her being a nobody was the best move in the series but I knew Abrams was going to undo it the moment he was announced, so I had time to "make peace" with that. SW gatekeepers want everything to have connective tissue because they don't read books that aren't about Star Wars or watch TV that's not about Star Wars or watch movies that aren't about Star Wars and think The Battle of Algiers was an old battle that the Galactic Republic won. they don't know a thing about how a good story works.

and Abrams is often one of those dudes. fortunately I don't expect high art with my SW (so when I got something approximating that with TLJ, I was pleasantly surprised).

I mean the dude wrote the terrible 90s Forever Young screenplay, that should tell you his skill set.

Finn at this point is an embarrassment, the guy who yells REY! DON'T! when it's obvious she's FIGHTING FOR HER LIFE.

xp It’s not even about “gatekeepers” or JJ. This is Star Wars we’re talking about — a movie where three of the main characters were later revealed to be blood relatives, and it turned out that the bad guy built the shiny gold robot when he was a precocious kid.

I understand wishing that Rey had an unexceptional background, but it doesn’t make sense to blame the “big revelation” on Abrams or Disney.

true, but Abrams was the one who teed off that there might be a reveal in Ep 7, and then when he came back, used a bit of a loophole to get his wish.

I'm someone who enjoyed it but I woulda enjoyed it more if she hadn't been a Poopatine.

Every moving set piece is a callback to a character or scene in or from an earlier movie, like the raised TIE-fighter.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, December 24, 2019 1:25 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

X-wing GET IT RIGHT GAWDAMMIT

THANK you

sad lol

The funniest thing LFL did was bump up the release of the Mandalorian, knowing full well that if they showed the green scaly infant doing Force heal stuff the fans would love and accept it but if they saw Rey do it first they would hate it and wail and gnash their teeth.

— Matt Barbounty hunting is a complicated profession (@BarbotRobot) December 23, 2019

and, yeah, it's fairly obvious Poe and Finn wanna star in some Brokeback movie of their own but Disney said COOL IT YOU TWO

btw is McDiarmid so old that he can't move? We wondered whether he's on that cherry picker because he's immobile.

he has a boil on his ass

wow, McDiarmid is two months younger than George Lucas.

A Jedi on the streets, a Sith between the sheets

wow, McDiarmid is two months younger than George Lucas.

― Pete Swine Cave (Eliza D.), Monday, December 23, 2019 10:53 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

what a wild decision in retrospect to cast a 39-year-old dude as the wrinkled, ancient embodiment of evil.

^I know, right? I thought the same thing... it really worked out well.

but it doesn’t make sense to blame the “big revelation” on Abrams

if Johnson had free will when writing his movie in which Rey was a brave regular person and a broom kid could have the force, Abrams can take the credit for writing one in which it turns out she was horny for her cousin and Lando tries to pick up his own daughter

Horny for her cousin?

just cos she calls herself Skywalker as an adopted name does not mean she's related to Ben

the general point holds tho. Abram can be blamed, he made all of the choices regarding her lineage.

I guess, but... this is Star Wars. It always seemed pretty certain to me that Rey would turn out to come from some important lineage, it was just a question of how they’d pull it off. (But I’m also not immersed in the minutiae of the creative tug-of-war btw. Johnson and Abrams, or whatever.)

also Billy Dee Williams finally stopped pronouncing Han with a short "a" sound.

xp I watched too much YouTube about this movie the other day. One of them was going on about a line in ep3 meaning that Palpatine mystically impregnated Vader's mom... which was backed up in some canonical comic.

Re "horny for her cousin"

That would make them first cousin once removed

(I was joking about The Ineffable Gravity Of Star Wars forcing poor JJ to get as close as he could manage to Leia almost fucking her brother, I don't know anything at all about Palpatine outside of seeing the original movies as a kid. I'm not even sure if Adam Driver is Darth Vader's kid or not)

in some galaxies it's not even an issue, even when there's sex involved