star wars 9 spoilers and postmortem shit talk

How tenuous must someone’s love be for the character Rey that they feel she’s ruined by not having the backstory they wanted; or for not ending up with a boyfriend (of all things)? She’s maybe the most inspirational and self-actualized character in the saga; her backstory doesn’t matter, she could be a nobody or a Palpatine, and she’s still just as awesome!

morrisp thoroughly otm but it's also why the reveal that she's a Palpatine rings so false. It would have been better if she actually was a nobody but chose to take on the Skywalker name later to really hammer home the "choose your own family" message.

As it is, it just makes the SW world smaller and suggests that you can't be a powerful Jedi without being part of a familiar family. Which is a shitty takeaway that not only undoes the previous film's conclusion, but also panders to the "Rey is a Mary Sue" crowd that just couldn't accept that a scavenger girl from Jakku might actually be good at wielding weapons and using the force instinctively, even after she was shown to have survived on her own for years.

As lazy and uninspired as it was, I really didn't mind Palpatine being back. But having Rey be his granddaughter utterly ruined her arc imo.

btw what Finn wanted to tell Rey was that he was force-sensitive too - which JJ revealed at an Academy screening over the weekend instead of in his own goddamn movie. What a fucking dumbass.

roz otm

What would you have preferred? “I’m Rey, from the Resistance” (roll credits)?

How about "Solo?" The name of the man she loved and lost? (And tbh the only person actually named Skywalker treated her pretty badly when he was alive, both Solos treated her pretty well.)

(And it's worth considering that if both Luke and Leia knew who she really was -- which the story in no way supports, but whatever -- then they both gaslit the ever-loving heck out of her. And doing it for allegedly noble reasons is still pretty cruel.)

And she certainly doesn't need a "companion" to be happy (good grief)!

It has nothing to do with "need" -- it's the clearly-expressed desire of the character to be with Ben Solo. Abrams fell into the common narrative trap that male heroes can have the badass hero life AND the girl, but female heroes can have one or the other, not both. They can't desire and have the men they love and still be the hero in the end. (Hi, Black Widow!)

Why should she NOT have had Ben survive? What did it do for her, *as a character*, to give her her heart's desire for a moment then cruelly snatch it away? It has nothing to do with "this character needs a boyfriend," for pete's sake. If there's one thing the movies make clear it's that what everyone wants is for Ben to come home. It isn't even remotely subtle. Not "to return to the light and then die," but to *come home*. And the narrative leads there up until the very last second, then says, "Nah, lol."

She hasn't really been searching for "family" in these movies, but to solve the mystery of her provenance

The latter was just a means to an end -- her search for belonging has always been her motivation. Maz telling her "The belonging you seek is ahead of you," Ben repeatedly telling her she isn't alone, her anger over his killing of Han (who was shaping up to be an actual surrogate father) were all very explicit about this.

(Also not for nothing but the switch from "This lightsaber *called* to you" to "I'll earn your brother's lightsaber, some day" was some garbage.)

Wait wait wait where the fuck is "Ben Solo is her heart's desire" coming from?

Every moment from the second she arrives on the Star Destroyer in TLJ? Her saying explicitly that she wanted to take his hand? The absolute joy in her face when she grabs his face and kisses him? That last one is the happiest her character is ever shown to be in three movies.

Seems reasonable given they kissed for a few seconds. For me though it felt like a lazy by-product of having the main hero and villain across the three films be differently gendered. She's a woman he's a man so whatever else happens they eventually have to kiss. I did like how this was played with in TLJ though, don't think it needed to be punctuated as it was but appreciate Eliza's take on this.

wait why wouldn't you feel absolute joy when you have the chance to grab and kiss Adam Driver's face.

The kiss is the one moment where I said "oh come on". Because i never felt her connection to Ben was romantic. She's an optimist, she wants to turn him....and then take him to the Resistance to answer for his crimes. Then she can visit him like Sister Prejean in space jail.

How would that even work? "Hi Poe, this is my boyfriend, the guy that killed most of your friends."

Fortunately he died before I could get too worked up about it.

nashwan otm

In any case the new Safdie brothers flick is out so breaking from SW for a few

(And it's worth considering that if both Luke and Leia knew who she really was -- which the story in no way supports, but whatever -- then they both gaslit the ever-loving heck out of her. And doing it for allegedly noble reasons is still pretty cruel.)

I never thought this was the case (has it been suggested)?

I agree with others above that Rey’s connection w/Kylo (/Ben) never seemed particularly romantic (the kiss notwithstanding); and that this was actually a cool aspect of their interactions in TLJ. Obviously that potential is there whenever you have a “Sam + Diane” setup, but I think it would have rung false if they ended up “together.” I certainly (and respectfully) disagree w/Eliza that “it's the clearly-expressed desire of the character to be with Ben Solo.” She may have wanted to “take his hand,” but she’s OK without him too!

Abrams fell into the common narrative trap that male heroes can have the badass hero life AND the girl

This doesn’t happen in Star Wars, though... no one ends up together, even Han & Leia break up. FWIW, domestic happiness is never really depicted in the saga, save maybe for Anakin & Padme’s romance (which of course ends tragically)!

How about "Solo?"

I actually thought about this! :) Han is another character who had “no family name” (and instead had one thrust upon him, without getting to choose like Rey.) But she’s not “Solo”; she has a deep connection to the Skywalker family, and wants to carry on their story.

I never thought this was the case (has it been suggested)?

GhostLuke says it explicitly, that they both knew.

"The kiss is the one moment where I said "oh come on". Because i never felt her connection to Ben was romantic"

are you this bad at reading signs in real life? because if so you may have missed a lot of opportunities.

fuck you

that escalated quickly

well, you're being a dick, so

without making it personal I'd agree that their sexual tension is pretty heavily foregrounded throughout TLJ

I don't really agree with that at all. it seems grounded in them having a personal connection based on prior traumas and they find solace in talking to each other about it. people can have a strong bond without wanting to fuck.

I feel most of the sexual tension came from fans who wanted to ship the two of them together

has nobody ever held the hand of someone from the opposite sex as a show of solidarity without ripping their clothes off five minutes later?

usually a pretty good sign I'm trapped in a PG-13 sci-fi tentpole

if anything Finn and Rey seemed the ones to have *that* chemistry, but that got abandoned after TFA

Finn's real chemistry is w/Poe.

Well, but I mean they also have their final climactic fight amidst a raging sea which is often kinda symbolic.

xpost hah, touche!

xpost maybe they both had to pee?

I'm not suggesting they're strangers, they clearly have some bond and I could see that turning into a romantic one (or some people reading it as such, though Neanderthal largely OTM there). But "her heart's desire" is a singular thing, I saw no sign at all that it's The Most Important Thing in her life.

she didn't exactly mourn him afterwards

so apologies for getting heated, I don't object THAT angrily to people who disagree w/ me on that, just put off by akm's snotty post.

GhostLuke says it explicitly, that they both knew.

Huh, I missed (or forgot) this!

Agree strongly w/Neanderthal & Andrew’s take here. FYI, some weirdo in the theatre yelled “Now go make Force babies!” when they kissed.

xp when she thinks he's dead on the Death Star she is definitely instantly grieving and regretful (in part because she's also felt Leia's death, surely, but still).

Another indication a different ending may have been planned: Leia hanging around instead of disappearing into the Force instantly makes no narrative sense if she did what she had to do during the Death Star battle.

How would that even work? "Hi Poe, this is my boyfriend, the guy that killed most of your friends."

Rey aside, this is a key point for me — narratively, I think Ben had to die to “redeem himself.” As I mentioned earlier, I almost thought he was going to commit suicide in the scene w/Han (and was like, “whoa!”)... but giving his life for Rey’s was a perfect way to make it happen.

(I haven't even brought up the fact that Ben arrives on Exogol on an Empire-era TIE Fighter -- that he somehow found intact on the Death Star, I guess? -- that isn't capable of lightspeed travel.)

I swear, I did *like* the movie, but I think Abrams was just a little too Abrams-y this time around.

I haven't even brought up the fact that Ben arrives on Exogol on an Empire-era TIE Fighter

I thought this was just the same ship he's had in all three films. I think the film opening on it ship emerging from lightspeed would've been the better start rather than this coming after the open over Mustafar and swift cut away from space just to show Kylo retrieving the wayfinder from under Vader's bed or whatever it was.

Rey destroys the one ship of his on the desert planet, then steals the other one when she leaves him behind on the Death Star and burns it on Ach-To. (Unless he managed to get that ship somehow completely rebuilt in, like, a couple of hours.) (Also the wayfinder should have been in the first ship, not the second, but w/e.) When he arrives on Exogol, it's in a plain old straight winged TIE Fighter from the OT era.

I took Exogol for a hangover once, with water.

it's weird to care about any of the fake-ass characters in this bloodless collection of "story beats"

this was good! enjoyed it a lot more than the last jedi. i did feel kind of bored and disoriented by a lot of of the shoot-em-up scenes, but this is probably more my issue than the movie's -- i can't play modern video games either.

there is something a little redundant about the new trilogy, so i do kind of wonder how much anyone will care about them in a decade or two. i think rey is great but i couldn't really make myself care about any of the other new characters. i don't think any of the films compares all that well to their equivalent in the original three -- ppl criticize the corny stuff in ROTJ and they're not wrong but the faceoff there between luke and vader and palpatine feels genuinely mythic and intense in a way that the more violent showdown at the end of this movie doesn't.

It is intriguing to think what Rian Johnson might be able to do with his own trilogy (if he really ends up doing it), when he’s freed from the constraints of the Resistance/First Order conflict — which led to the weakest parts of TLJ, IMO (which is not to “let him off the hook” for the weakness of those parts!).

Sad that they recycled a bunch of Emperor lines but failed to have him scream “UNLIMITED POWER!”

movie made half a billion dollars already so despite the tepid reviews (most of which I disagree with) I doubt that anyone on the business side is considering this a disappointment.

I expected Sidious to yell UNLIMITED POWER when blasting the ships tbh

for all the time and energy that ppl have dedicated to the star wars universe, watching this movie reminded me anew that so much of the shit that happens in these movies makes no sense. when palpatine picks up the unconscious kylo ren and throws him down a cliff i kinda went, "wow, that's a hell of a way to kill that character." and of course he comes crawling back in the next scene, none the worse for wear. probably just as well they didn't even try to explain how palpatine could come back after literally exploding.

xpost: he should've said "i am the emperor of these united galaxies, clothed with immense power!"

"so much of the shit that happens in these movies makes no sense" I kept wondering why they didn't just shoot and kill our heroes multiple times.