ST I Have A Bad Feeling About This - The "Haters" Sanctuary

i was in this camp too....im not even going to see ep9. Ever. The leaks sound horrible and JJ is still so anti PT and it makes me ill when his smug face gives his typical verbal diarrhea answers in interviews.

i have NO problem just ignoring these movies jusy like i did when i read an old EU book i didnt like.

In essence..."that never happened" is how i look at it.

 

I hate how this trilogy has been a back-and-forth between directors/writers at the expense of the audience and canon. The infighting between the 3 writers of Legacy of the Force led to some of the most horrendous, baffling books of the Legacy and I prayed to God that Disney scrapping everything and starting anew would lead to a tightly controlled canon that was determined not to repeat that mistake.

Oh how wrong I was.

TFA, while definitely not perfect, set up major plot beats that could've been easily followed (Rey likely as a Skywalker dont @ me you know it's true, Finnrey, Poe is a kindhearted if fiery pilot, Luke running off to maybe find Sith knowledge or something (it was still ambiguous), Kylo is evil, etc etc).

Then TLJ came and spit on all of those decisions all for the sake of subversion. Luke is a washed-up loser! Kylo is an uwu baby that needs love! Finn has a new love interest! Rey is nobody! Poe is an ass who needs lessons from powerful women!

Was that originally in the plan? Did JJ write story treatments that nobody followed? Was Rian tossing everything out just because he could? Was there really nothing to follow? I honestly dont know anymore. There has been so much back and forth over the past two years that it doesnt really matter. All I know is that Disney is letting whoever is at the helm just go for it and doesnt care about what happens next. And that's what I feared.

What do we get from Rise of Skywalker? A director desperately trying to correct the most maligned of TLJ's story beats while following them as much as possible. Rey is a nobody...kind of? Her GRANDDADDY is someone important, not her parents! See, it works! Poe got better now! Rey and Kylo hate each other again but maybe theres hope for him?? Or something? And Luke isnt that much of a loser, he just didnt want to teach Rey...or something? Well, at least he didnt die in vain because she takes his last name at the end...for reasons...so not everything that happened to the Skywalkers in their depressing, painful, hopeless Saga is in vain!

I hate it. I hate it I hate it I hate it. Dammit, this movie gets my rage because it's a culmination of five years of Disney not giving a **** and acting like this franchise is a little sandbox for whoever wants to come in and play without regard for who was setting up things before or after them.

I didnt want things to be this way. I wanted a well-run EU that respected all of the original trilogy while doing something new with the franchise. Instead we have directors squabbling while Disney cackles and counts their money and pats the back of whoever wrote a think piece painting the audience members who hate this direction as alt-right, racist, misogynistic manbabies. I am in their target audience, goddamit! I'm a young, college-educated, liberal woman that has been a lifelong fan that still buys Luke merchandise while still eating up that strong woman **** with Ahsoka Tano and Hera Syndulla and would spend $15 on a pair of socks if they were cute!! And I would buy a second pair for my cousins! I have money to burn! And I am displeased! And I am going to continue to be displeased with this goddamn movie if the leaks are in any way true!

/rant over

 

That's pretty much how I view them as well, just like the Prequels. In fact my 'personal canon' is the original versions of the original trilogy, plus Rogue One. And a few assorted Marvel comics here and there. Hoping JJ pulls off a blinder of a movie though and has us all re-evaluating the ST as much better than we thought, but I somehow doubt that is going to be the case...

 

Finn had the best potential of any ST character. But even in TFA they never really lived up to what they set up the character to be.

Stormtrooper who was kidnapped as a kid, and breaks his programing, helps the Resistance, and is trying to find himself, maybe even his family is pretty cool.

It not only mirrors Rey's journey, but it could have also foreshadowed Kylos' own eventual break from the FO. Finn could have even been a force sensitive (hell he certainly wasn't weak minded) And he could have shown a light on what the FO was really about. How the Rebels/NR/Resistance are fighting kidnapped children. While also maybe dealing with some PTSD, nightmares, militaristic training basically still hard-wired into him, that leaves him feeling like a fish out of water now that he's freed himself.

Finn could have been the heart of the ST. Instead he was written as comic-relief, a janitor, and treated as a coward. One who needed to chose a side and stop running away. One who needed to be shown the horrors of what the FO was doing to children so that he would join the Resistance and fight the FO. And then once he did, he was scolded for being a dummy, and told he should be saving what he loved instead.

And that was all after he literally saved the galaxy by telling everyone about the horrors of the FO, and ran into the heart of FO to save what he loved in the previous film.

It's an absolute travesty what they did to this character. They either did not care, or didn't plan him out at all. And I have no doubt that Finn will probably turn out better in TROS, but I don't think anything will save the character at this point.

 

Regarding Finn, I was watching an interview with JB and he said he's read a lot of the EU stuff for Finn. It just made me sad. I can't imagine how he felt reading the stupid broom joke and other stuff we have seen in the EU in regards to his character. He has seemed excited about where Finn was going in TROS, and his parts of the trailers have been my favorite bar none. I was pretty hopeful Unfortunately, he looked really deflated after his viewing of TROS. Maybe it really just was a lot to process, and I'm sure watching yourself and experiencing the end of an era must generate mixed feelings for him as an actor. But IDK, his energy after watching the movie took a lot of wind out of my sails in my anticipation for at least his arc to be well handled in TROS.

 

Honestly, JB has looked deflated ever since he heard the title was The Rise of Skywalker last spring. Didn't he say he thought it was going to be "Heirs of the Force". I wonder if something changed in the story, or with his character. Most of his recent interviews leave me feeling like he's tired, or not really into this anymore.

Just my perspective.

 

TFA was a con job. It was like buying a car that looks brand new on the outside and seems to drive wonderful at first, but once you get it home, it breaks down and you find out it was held together by tape and bubblegum. The movie undermines its own ideas:

If Rey was a Skywalker, that meant that Luke abandoned her with the callous Unkar Plutt.

Rey had clearly put Finn in the friend zone by the end of TFA.

JJ wanted Luke on an island floating rocks while the New Republic burned and his best friend was killed. (And JJ had Han tell Rey that Luke "walked away from it all" after the destruction of his Jedi temple.) This means that Luke would've been connected to the force and fully aware that all this was going on. I'm sorry, but the Luke from the OT is not Yoda; He's not going to sit back and let things happen in hopes of serving some long term goal. He's going to jump in his X wing and go kick some a$$.

As for Poe... he doesn't really change from TFA to TLJ. He and Holdo were working toward the same thing, it's just that no one communicated to him about their plan.

If you want to see Finn done right, check out Delilah Dawson's book Black Spire. Archex is who Finn should've been.

 

A gem of a thread. First post here, and last.

 

It’s a shame how much they dropped the ball with Finn. I hope he atleast novel or something post ROS so that somebody can make use of his potential.

 

Finn was the sole character who they didn`t pluck right from the OT: Rey = Luke, Crylo = Vader, Poe = kinda Han in terms of archetype. Finn was the one new element. But since they re-did the OT (just much worse and in the process trashing their own source material), it`s probably no wonder they had no plan or idea for Finn. I mean, since they couldn`t lift his story from the OT, they would have had to... come up with one. The horror.

 

reading that article from WSJ....Igers ridiculous quote inferring they were almost "forced" to make Ep. 7 a retread, because anything else would have gotten them "killed"

What a crock of crap.

All throughout that article is the underlying theme of....its the fans fault everything is so hard for poor us at Diz-Knee.

Its why i love what GL did....especially with the PT....his own thing, his own way and not giving a flying eff what anyone else wanted.

 

So, gotta be honest here the closer we get the more scared I become. Post TFA I was excited to see TLJ but now I'm worried that this movie won't be enough to make the ideas of the ST work and enough time to close out a 9 part series. I'm still holding out hope though... crossing my fingers.

 

I think the previous two movies have done irrepairable damage to the saga and because of that the final chapter of the saga can never be as great as it should've been.

TFA is an enjoyable film to watch but it's a soft reboot and being the 7th film in the saga it doesn't feel like the natural progression of things(the two biggest achievements of the OT, the New Republic and new Jedi are taken away straight away) and TLJ is TLJ you all know what's wrong with it by now.

I don't mind what we've seen in TROS leaks, My only two big problems are Ben potential dying and no sign of Anakin besides a vice. If Ben survives and Anakin appears I'll be really happy. I think it will be an enjoyable film but when I'm watching it in the back of the mind I'll be thinking that this had the potential to be so so much better.

 

JB should (and probably was) very disappointed with the entire thing even since filming TLJ, which made his entire character a comedy element. I can't really see him being any different in TROS, though JJ who introduced the character, actually did a good job with him in TFA.

 

I have to disagree about Finn only to the extent that I think he was also poorly written in TFA. I think the idea of his character on paper is very good but the execution did not match the concept at all. Even in TFA he is played as a bumbling joke not a hardened man trained from childhood as a soldier. His character arc should have hued closer to what Filoni/Lucas did with the clone troopers in Clone Wars.

I think he may be portrayed better in IX but believe it will be well short of what is needed to redeem his character. The sad reality is I could probably say that about every character in the ST.

 

Well he may not have been a hardened man in TFA, but it never felt he is a joke. It felt like he is a hero, in his own way.

And his lightsaber moment was glorious quite honestly. Then he ended up doing nothing of importance in TLJ. And now, no one is even talking about him in TROS. That by itself is infuriating to me. He has become the 7th most important character in TROS or something. And the trailers aren't very encouraging either, he is just there for the jokes.

 

Also, bringing Palpatine back just doesn't sit well with me. I guess we'll have to see how its executed, but I'm telling you if it completely undoes Anakin's sacrifice and redemption trust me there will be hell to pay.

 

I hear you. I do think he had a couple of decent moments in both movies. But I guess the difference for me is that I couldn’t get past him in TFA drinking from a horse trough, asking if Rey has a boyfriend, the janitor jokes, etc. To me these were all in poor taste or did not match the concept of his character for me.

 

They should've listened to Yoda. He warned them.

 

It really did ruin the whole thing. I cannot believe that was the direction Disney decided to go in. Like, I'm genuinely speechless that a company like Disney, who proved it can do the opposite with its excellent handling of Marvel, let its policy for the biggest film franchise in history be dictated by a few butthurt internet fanboys.

 

That was close to a Jaina Solo and Jacen Solo old EU book he referenced. If it was Ridley saying that I wouldn't have thought much considering how steeped in SW knowledge she is not compared to Boyega and Isaac.

John Boyega: “I’ve got questions, man. I got questions. I thought it was going to be ‘Star Wars: Heirs to the Force.’ For some reason I just had that title in my head, that it would be something along those lines.” “This is just very specific: ‘Rise of Skywalker.’ And I don’t know what it actually means. Bearing in mind that I’m a part of it, but there were certain changes to the script while we’re filming and I’m not in a lot of the scenes that Rey has with Kylo Ren. So my curiosity just hit the roof.” (April 12, 2019) (archive)

 

After my initial post in this thread, which gave a general point of view of why I am feeling weary about this last movie, this is my list of the things that have caused this..... and here we go:

1) Palpatine's return. I am sorry, but no level of fanboy defense can make this right. He died in ROTJ. End of story. Bringing him back makes all of Star Wars pointless. What is this cr%#? How did that decision even pass any kind of quality test? Seriously, I have stopped feeling angry about anything that has to do with TROS since about a year ago, only because this ST is non-canon in my head. It is as simple as that. The saga ends for me in ROTJ. I will watch TROS just for the laughs. But this is not even funny. Can someone look at me with a straight face and tell me that bringing Palpatine back is not the most ridiculous decision in the entire ST? It's like 1980s cult B-movie soap opera material, where one of the main characters would just not die and appear every 30 episodes or something. They would show him in the ER room, or falling from a cliff, getting into a car accident, crashing while in a plane, all kinds of ridiculous deaths, and then he would appear alive and well, or even worse, he would have a twin brother. Actually, if Palpatine has a twin brother, I will get up in the movie theater and cheer, because of how ridiculous it will be.

2) Luke not coming back ALIVE. This might seem like in completely contradicts the above complaint, and it totally does. Bringing back Luke alive would make absolutely zero sense. However, as ridiculous and soap-opery that would have been, it would have still been much much better than him dying for ABSOLUTELY no reason in that dumpster fire of a film which set up TROS with nowhere to go. Luke's character and his legacy, including the legacy of the Skywalkers is a huge part of Star Wars, and apparently, regardless of what the title suggests, I suspect that it will stay tainted, destroyed, ruined, ridiculed. No matter how much Disney wants to convince us that somehow the Skywalkers will Rise, there is no Rise from a black hole. A black hole doesn't even let light escape, or anything else for that matter, and after Luke's character was spaghettified into a black hole and torn apart on its accretion disk just so that the audience has their expectations subverted and all of space and time distorted, there is just no salvation. So yeah, in this situation, I would welcome an all-logic-defying plot twist in TROS, that would have Luke continuing the legacy, as it was supposed to be, and as IT WAS back in 1983.

3. If Rey is indeed a Palpatine descendant and/or Snoke is a Palpatine clone/vessel or whatsoever, this movie will turn into the best comedy I have ever watched. It's like having droids come up with 100 ideas, then throwing all of them into a bowl, and picking up randomly a few pieces of paper that will determine what will happen in TROS. Deliberately, with some bad ideas thrown into the mix, just so they can challenge themselves and turn bad ideas into a good film. I am afraid that the mystery box will in this case be a bad robot box (pun intended). Seriously, if the leaks are real and if we see all these things, who in their right minds gives the approval for these things? "We are ending the Skywalker Saga, where the most important showdown will be between Palpatines"? It would be funny, if it wasn't pathetic.

4. Production and PR. I have never ever been more disappointed about how executives treat something that I love. Everything that has transpired since TLJ, has been by far the darkest era in Star Wars filmmaking for me:

• The war between the fans that has escalated because people cannot accept opposite opinions.
• The toxicity on both sides where a certain number of fans will attack on a personal level,
• RJ who did nothing to de-escalate the situation, and instead has poured fuel into the fire with tweets and comments
• Bob Iger's book which basically proves that they did GL wrong. That is infuriating.
• Promoting this as the end of the Skywalker Saga. Uhmmmm is this 1983? Cause that's the end of the Skywalker Saga.
• Poe and Finn appear to have minimal roles, and will be, again, a joke.
• All of the recent KK interviews. Not even sure where to begin.