star wars 9 spoilers and postmortem shit talk

poopy palpy

So weird that they brought the Emperor back as a teenaged, incessantly-rapping version of himself called Palpy T. Even weirder how well it works!

Wellllll
My name is Palpy T and I'm here to say
I'll drop a Solo in your pit like my name was Weequay

I'm gettin' Palpy-tations

the dead speak!

Guys, lest we ever forget the magical moment when the world learned that Emperor Palpatine's long-hidden first name is

SHEEV

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/C5Wx5vT1npI/hqdefault.jpg

Sheev Mike

glad they finally worked an appearance from Darth Icky into the series given this was the last chance

You know Vader and Plagueis and Oppress
Sidious, Bane, Booger, Barf, Farts and Hopeless
But do you recall
A Darth even ickier than Maul?

Dammit, fucked up the meter of my stupid nerd joke song, shoot me now.

*blasts Sith lightning*

There were bits I liked in this but even with lowered expectations, it was a resounding meh. Better than TFA is a staggeringly low bar.

even the more positive takes I've seen generally allege that at least the first hour is a total mess (though a few say it recovers)

Also I saw this at the same cinema I watched TLJ, on the second opening night like I did for TLJ. Almost identical crowd - healthy proportion of dudes carrying lightsabers and wearing Vader helmets. The difference: loud applause for TLJ, dead silence this time around. Theatre full of SW nerds seemed genuinely confused.

I always thought the hate for TLJ among “fans” was overblown, this confirmed it for me.

Yeah, it's almost as if a certain kind of person cynically draped themselves in the finery of fandom as cover to express a certain kind of sentiment. No, I'm not a sewer-dwelling creep who helped drive Kelly Marie Tran off of twitter, I'm just an ardent faaaaaaan! It's just what we fans do.

this fuckin ruled

poe's "inspirational" half-time speech before the big assault the only serious misstep imo - stunk out the joint

for what it's worth I enjoyed this plenty, appreciated that TLJ hit a few unusually interesting notes but ultimately for Ep 9 of 9 I was happy enough to sit and have my star war feelings gently massaged for 2.5 hrs. watching it with kids definitely helps I think, they subject it to the level of critical scrutiny it deserves (ie not much). Daisy Ridley seemed to have remembered how to take this shit seriously (enough), wasn't really feeling her feeling it last time. new cast largely charming, old guys were fine. falcon return with "rag-tag fleet" pretty cool, "it's just... People" - very good! was pretty bored by the prospect of the emperor coming back but it worked fine I thought. Is this a baked-in problem with resurrected sf franchises, that they are unable to surpass the mythic potency of their original villains? Eg new doctor who still very reliant on daleks & other old monsters...

anyway I must write down my thoughts and ferlings now because I know I won't be able to remember a thing about it in one month's time.

even the more positive takes I've seen generally allege that at least the first hour is a total mess (though a few say it recovers)

I actually felt the opposite! The first half was great fun, second half was deflating.

Fuck it imma spoil away, there just didn’t feel like there was any stakes involved - I never felt for one moment like the heroes were ever going to be in real trouble or that Rey was going to go to the dark side or Kylo was going to die a villain. it was just so pleasantly safe.

Also, like Gwen Christie and Captain Phasma... I cant believe they cast an actress like Keri Russell and kept her under a helmet the entire time.

#justiceforgeneralhugs btw

yeah the first half of the final assault felt oddly underpowered and clunky

apart from that there were a zillion great moments

"friendship" theme firmly back in play

refreshing lack of suicides

extremely cool new ways for the force to work. lightsabre duel occurring in two different places simultaneously was amazing

CHEWIE GETS HIS MEDAL!! Right?? isn't that what that was??

girl on girl kissing after the victory! in your face fanbros!!

refreshing lack of suicides

One of the rebels (might even have been Poe, I can’t remember) making a snarky remark about Holdo’s heroic death in TLJ was unnecessarily petty though. I hated that too - the nagging feeling that this movie just wanted to shit on everything that was supposedly wrong with Ep 8.

girl on girl kissing after the victory! in your face fanbros!!

I keep hearing this is like 1.5 seconds and in the background

Loved the completely batshit quicksand > conveniently fall into cave they needed to be at >> giant hurt snake sequence. The movie is full of so much goofy "wait! what the ?" space opera shit I dig it even more as I think back.

^^^hi dere, I live in a conservative Muslim country and the gay scene was cut entirely and nothing was missed. Having actually well developed queer characters would just be way too much for this franchise.

xpost

Oscar Isaac has complained about their unwillingness to "go there" pretty openly.

Knights Of Ren... pop up for no conceivable reason and...do less than a few stormtroopers lol

“Loved the completely batshit quicksand > conveniently fall into cave they needed to be at >> giant hurt snake sequence. The movie is full of so much goofy "wait! what the ?" space opera shit I dig it even more as I think back.”

This scene was good though I agree. Loved that whole planet pretty much. And the water planet too.

Heard some folks groan loudly at the kiss. And I'm in Amsterdam!!

And I flashed back to seeing TLJ in Stamford, CT and some folks harrumphing at Finn and Rose's kiss then. People suck.

tbh it surprises me that fanboy nerd scum have difficulty appreciating images of girl-on-girl sexuality

Cloud City conveniently floating near giant battle scene

Little droid hacker modeled after Mako in "Blade Runner"?

Cloud City conveniently floating near giant battle scene

― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), 19. december 2019 20:56 (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

please tell me this is a joke

surprises me that fanboy nerd scum have difficulty appreciating images of girl-on-girl sexuality

girls are sjws

favourite character: babu lek or whoever, the black market droid tech. an actual puppet rather than cgi i think?? irresistible

after rey's last line my 11-y-o goes "wait - why are you lying??"

o yeah and while not a big fan of esoteric fan service, loved seeing Wedge at the end (albeit I had forgotten his name and had to look it up)

thought Han's last line of dialogue was both clever and moving

lol

xpost to Tracer

Wonder if Ford agreed to come back for this cameo or if it was repurposed TFA takes

This was not as fun as TFA nor as interesting as TLJ. A lot of boxes got checked but nothing really stood out for me as a good story beat or in terms of brilliant visual shots as in TLJ.

I really hoped the last shot would not be what it was either but it sums up the imagination bypass and overcautious approach many have criticised.

(three stars)

hard disagree, thought this was v v fun

last shot pretty cornball but it’s the closing chapter of a retro sci fi family thrills epic. felt v suitable

Is this a baked-in problem with resurrected sf franchises, that they are unable to surpass the mythic potency of their original villains? Eg new doctor who still very reliant on daleks & other old monsters...

^ Star Trek apparently had a half-arsed bet each way by including Khan but repeatedly lying in publicity that it wasn't Khan? Battlestar Galactica did something more intersting with the series' central conflict than the monster whose name they reused, from what I saw of it.


absolutely not to Captain Save-a-who, just thread reference for non-watchers:

in the last ten years of nu-Who, stories that rely on old monsters (so cameos aside) breaks down across 97 episodes to

5 Dalek * stories, including a 2-parter with Davros in, plus a one-off fight scene in another one
4 Cybermen ** stories, inc 2x 2-parters
(one of the 1-parters is about returning-from-the-previous-year monster James Corden, with about 3 minutes of Cyber-appearances)

1 two-ep story with a new monster from the same time period as one monster from 1970 and another from 1972, who had both returned once in 1984. neither of the old monsters are in the 2011 story but it completely nicks the premise of the 1970 story.

and the 50th Anniversary year brought back 1 old monster for the first time in 39 years, and 1 that had only appeared once, 37 years before. Each of these has reappeared once since, the latter in a two-parter.

(Three of the Cybermen stories set out to dig into previously unexamined aspects or ideas of medical malpractice, or long-term illness, or the removal of free will & agency, or collective consciousness, or individuals' control over their right to die with dignity, rather than just relying on mythic potency of the scary robot soldier design from 2006's reboot of the previous cyborg concept. Not as effectively as Last Jedi's interrogation of tradition and ritual, though.)

* regulars from 1964-67, 4 appearances in the 1970s, 3 in the '80s
** regulars from 1966-68, 1 appearance in 1975, 3 in the '80s

I think every reboot eventually gets back to the original villain, but Star Wars was kinda supposed to be different. It was supposed to be a continuation of a grand saga, but yeah, Abrams apparently was more into rebooting stuff than people understood.

this review pretty much jives with my feelings

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/18/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-in-depth-fan-review-the-thrill-is-tangible

Guardian has a separate 3 star review which I guess is where I sit.

Weird bringing back both bits of Death Star AND Palps yet neither were connected like it seems we were duped to think they would be.

Always got strong Perry Farrell vibes from that guy on the right.

one of the funniest things about Star Wars lore is that costume and set designers would come up with all kinds of cool stuff, and at some point someone would want to make a trading card or short story about a background character

if George Lucas was around, they'd ask him. the answers would depend on how sleep-deprived he was

anything that's simple like "that's Bob, he drives a y-wing" would be when he was tired, but if he had a good night's rest, it'd be "yes that's Ookano Labooga, he carves flutes out of petrified Lotharian swampweasels"

I mean, I'd be petrified too!

https://lumiere-a.akamaihd.net/v1/images/tmb-sq_character-fozzie-bear_launch_2dc6bf1d.jpeg

There are so many stupid plot holes and decisions in this entire trilogy, but I still think (with a few def plodding twists in each of the three) they are 10x more fun than anything in Eps I-III. That's really all I ask, a few moments where my inner 8 year-old absolutely geeks out on something like the shot of all those Sith Star Destroyers amassed. Does it become absolutely stupid if I stop to consider where these are all coming from, how they are staffed and built? Absolutely. But they look menacing and awesome.

Not going to really defend these movies, because I am well aware of the many flaws and don't begrudge others a bit for disliking them. Having been able to watch these with, and through the eyes of, my son probably makes me a lot kinder than I might otherwise have been.

I need to see this again. It was fun the first time, but seeing how hated it is makes me doubt my own senses.

it's big and dumb and doesn't do much with characters that should have had more going on

but, there are a lot of beautifully constructed scenes where people do odd things!

I don't recall anything beautiful in ix besides oscar isaac

https://media1.giphy.com/media/LHrY3Xv2fKaKQ/giphy.gif

watched this for first time. the ghost of luke is semi transparent, you can see the background through him. he crosses in front of rey and you can *still* see the background through him...