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

You seriously must be in my head because that is exactly how I feel. Well said.

 

Two years ago I was excited, I talked with my friends and coworkers about the new SW movie, didn’t want to hear or read spoilers, and I was bummed because I had a night shift the day it opened and up until then I managed to go to the first showing (I remember midnight shows with people dressed as Darth Vader...magical).
Then TLJ happened and SW lost its magic for me. I remember going home and going online because I wanted to see the reviews, and it was all “expectation subverted and it’s a good thing”, “best one since empire”,
“disliked by a minority of misogynists”, “toxic fanbase”, and my personal favourite “you don’t like because you don’t understand it”.
And it made me angry, why should I give a movie, a single movie, the power to sour the story that came before?
I didn’t know this place existed but in my online search for reviews I found it, and wonder of wonders, I wasn’t alone in my thoughts...and have been lurking ever since.
So I wanted to thank all of you that posted in the sanctuary thread and keep posting in the other threads, you managed to put into words what I was feeling better than I would ever done.
And know that I am anxiously waiting for your reviews of the upcoming movie, because yours are the reviews I trust, and I will read them before buying a ticket (or not).
So, thank you and may the force be with us all!

 

Everything stopping me from embracing the hype:


The way Luke’s character was handled in the last film

The likely heroic portrayal of Ben Solo at the expense of the legacies of characters he destroyed

Palpatine being alive (unless Anakin also returns)

Knowing the way George Lucas was phased out of the ST

Rey probably not being a Skywalker but still claiming Luke’s legacy after what went down in TLJ

 

Disney shareholders are laughing stock options to the bank. I will address Star Wars under Disney as the laughing stock they have made it. I don't have time to treat this Disney thing as a legitimate intrusion upon Star Wars, so as to require gate keeping anger. This joke in broad daylight can't get me angry anymore. Whoever says Disney Star Wars is the successor to 1983 can have their own little universe.

 

I don’t want to be here, I really don’t. But I’m afraid I have no choice now.

With TLJ, and the buzz kill that was, and even though RJ pretty much ruined any lead up to TROS, I still felt like it was salvageable believe it or not.

I still felt like they could come together and write something original. I still feel like there was a sense they could bring Luke back, based on the backlash. That Anakin would appear as a Force Ghost. That Snoke, or Kylo would achieve so much power that the Skywalkers would have to come together to defeat them for good.

But then I read the leaks, which seem to be lining up perfectly with the trailers, and I’m like ok I don’t have hope anymore.

And maybe it starts with the marketing to. There really has been no hype, promotion for this movie outside of those trailers. There are very little promotional things like toys this time around to get you a little amped up. No Elite Series at Disney Store, skimpy black series toys, all they really got is the funko pops. But as a SW collector this is just kind of icing on the cake, and shouldn’t let it devalue my hatred for what’s to come, but based off the marketing, and what has been shown, they really didn’t care about the Skywalkers.

To make matters worse, they are saying “end of the Skywalker saga.” Yeah because you killed all of them on purpose. This saga was more about the Solos/Palpatines than it had to do with the Skywalkers. Anything they can say to try to get people hyped right?

it doesn’t help either that the Mandalorian is getting more hype than your end of the saga movie. That’s embarrassing. I still feel like If they had some originality to them, even if Palpatine was back, they could still make a convincing movie.

But if the leaks are true and Rey Beats Palpatine by herself and adapts the Skywalker name? They ruined everything. The character Rey is symbolism for me to Disney pretty much taking everything and making it their own with really no hard work involved.

At this point I would accept Rey going back in time and stopping Palpatine from existing post ROTJ just so it can retcon 7-9. I feel like that’s what they should have done at this point. The ST just feels like the alternate version of 1985 in Back to the Future Part 2. Where everything and everyone is miserable.

I really hope everyone who cried for the past 20 years about George Lucas ruining Star Wars with the PT is happy now, because in a sense this is their product to. The PT was a great story even if it wasn’t executed to the best effort. But in the same instance it never really dismantled the OT, but fans complained it did so here we are. In a sense this is why we can’t have nice things. Disney was afraid to take story risks for worrying about that backlash but they stayed too much on course to the OT, it wound up costing them worse.

If they really want to redeem Luke, make 10-12 about his wife and kids, neglect the characters of the ST and do something that doesn’t end with the Skywalkers name in vein. Until then, I’m good on 1-6, and the tv shows.

 

They can't afford to send the base home unhappy. Years of more complaints while they prepare to launch Star Wars: Gotta Get That China Money as the WSJ article author and Iger allude to in that piece detached from the Star Wars Saga is gonna start from a low position on the ground. If the Solo movie could only open at $84M, what's the next movie based on nothing going to do in 3 years especially if TROS leaves a chunk of the audience disenchanted? They still gonna have to rip off the iconography with that one with even more Star Destroyers and Stormtroopers because nostalgia bait?

 

I'm never going to get over the fact that Anakin and Luke were supplanted for Rey and Finn wasnt developed into a Jedi. Rey is getting everything and them some - that is going to divide fans more than the Last Jedi.

 

One of the things that I liked about TFA was the idea that I thought they were telling the origin story of Rey Skywalker. Knowing that the heroes of the OT weren’t going to live forever I liked the the idea that we were seeing that another Skywalker would be around to protect the galaxy. That sounded hopeful to me.

Now it seems like they might be ending the Skywalker Saga by killing off the Skywalker’s and giving a Palpatine Luke’s family name. That does not fill me with a positive feeling. It leaves me wondering why they think that’s an interesting, satisfying way to end the saga.

 

Exactly, Personally - I'm writing off this trilogy completely. Praying that Favereau and Filoni are allowed to make the next films.

 

I feel like this movie is gonna get flayed open alive and I think Disney knows it too. Theres just something in the run up to this that doesnt feel right.

I really hope Abrams gets his feet held to the fire this time. I have no proof, but i absolutely feel that he was the catalyst for GL getting shown the door.

 

It's weird. You have the visuals (and a JJ interview) doubling down on Kylo being bad, all sorts of upper level representatives pushing the "Poor Benny Bunny" narrative, and AD saying Kylo doesn't need redemption because he thinks he's right. Maybe get your stories straight before the PR tour?

And I was really satisfied with JJ after TFA and am kmfc he pulls a miracle out for RoS, but I think I remember reading somewhere that the only way they could get him was to give him creative freedom and let him discard GL's treatments.

 

I've never understood this argument. Ben Solo is Anakin's grandson. "Skywalker Saga" is just a catch-all term for Anakin's legacy.

But we've known since ROTS that Palpatine created Anakin, so the Skywalkers and Palpatines are essentially one in the same.

 

I know Abrams has looked more tired and less exuberant for TROS than he was in the lead up to TFA.

Plans like the Lucas treatment get in the way of attracting the big egos who want their personal separate fiefdoms which is brought up in the WSJ piece by an anonymous TLJ producer (could be Ram Bergman, who knows) that they have to do that to attract 'talent'. It would have been like government regulation and the big businesses and businessmen want to have nothing to do with those and lobby/pay the government to get rid of them. Abrams did turn down SW in 2012 at first and then later said yes. Getting rid of Lucas oversight during that time seems like it could be the culprit. Iger claimed Abrams and Arndt went to the ranch to talk about their story and Lucas was appalled to find out his story wasn't followed.

Robert Iger: “Early on, Kathy [Kennedy] brought J.J. and Michael Arndt up to Northern California to meet with George at his ranch and talk about their ideas for the film. George immediately got upset as they began to describe the plot and it dawned on him that we weren’t using one of the stories he submitted during the negotiations. The truth was, Kathy, J.J., Alan, and I had discussed the direction in which the saga should go, and we all agreed that it wasn’t what George had outlined. George knew we weren’t contractually bound to anything, but he thought that our buying the story treatments was a tacit promise that we’d follow them, and he was disappointed that his story was being discarded. I’d been so careful since our first conversation not to mislead him in any way, and I didn’t think I had now, but I could have handled it better. I should have prepared him for the meeting with J.J. and Michael and told him about our conversations, that we felt it was better to go in another direction. I could have talked through this with him and possibly avoided angering him by not surprising him. Now, in the first meeting with him about the future of Star Wars, George felt betrayed, and while this whole process would never have been easy for him, we’d gotten off to an unnecessarily rocky start.” (The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company – September 23, 2019 ) (archive)

Tom Berges: (52:00 segment starts) (1:12:00 Skywalker Ranch talk) (quote begins at 1:25:00) "So there's these two conversations going on [at Skywalker Ranch when I was there]. There's the one that Lorne [Peterson] is talking about then there's the one that George [Lucas] is talking to - his private conversation with his guests and everybody is trying to listen to Lorne and everybody is trying to listen to George. So you're getting half of this stuff. And what we heard - I can tell you this with 100% accuracy because it came out of George Lucas's mouth, this is an exclusive to you - George was not a fan with what they did with the sequel. Yes [really]. Correct, yeah [the sequels]. I can only imagine these folks were maybe producers or...I don't know, but they were definitely talking Star Wars and George it turns out he wasn't too keen on what they did with the sequel up to this point. That's all I can tell you, 'cause that's all we heard. He said he didn't like what they did with the characters. That came straight from George Lucas's mouth. Right [exclusive for the podcast], I was there. I was in the same room [with him], so there you go." (October 26, 2018) (George Lucas quote archive)

 

Old Boomer Man told me to see Movie.
Old Boomer Man would never lie to me. We must consume Movie.
Old Boomer Man would never manipulate me - he Eccentric.

CONSUME

 

Ways in which Rey is set up to be a Skywalker: Grows up on desert world. Leads simple/poor/hard life. Good mechanic. Talks to droids. Great pilot. Adventurous. Dreams of better life. Missing family connection/story. Looks like Luke. Looks like Padme. Looks like Shmi. Has strong connection to the Force. Uses Anakin's saber. Has strong force connection to other Skywalkers. Can force communicate to other Skywalkers.

Ways in which Rey is set up to be a Palpatine: (crickets)

If they set up Rey Palpatine from the beginning then they used the story to essentially lie to us.

 

One of the things I don’t like about Rey Palpatine is that it kills my interest in seeing Rey in any future stories because it’ll be a reminder that they: 1) brought Palpatine back after he was thrown down a near bottomless pit and blown up, 2) that bringing Palpatine back undercut Vader’s sacrifice, 3) it’ll remind me of the stupid idea that Palpatine had a secret family, 4) it’ll remind me that Luke didn’t have a family but somehow Palpatine DID have somebody that loved him and started a family with him? Ugh. And 5) Rey is trying to pass herself off as a Skywalker when she’s a Palpatine which feels phony to me. I’d rather her accept her true family history and come to grips with that. Instead naming herself Skywalker feels like she’s trying to hide something about her past and she’s not accepting her true self. She’s pretending to be somebody else’s daughter. How am I supposed to consider her an honest character when she’s not being honest with herself and to the people around her?

 

It's just weird to be rooting for Rey Palpatine. I wanted to root for the Skywalkers. They are the main heroes - protagonists - of this saga. Their saga. And I cannot root for Ben, because he's neo-nazi crybaby. He's not the protagonist of the ST. That's not to say I wouldn't root for a Good Palpatine in the saga, so long as there was a Skywalker Hero/Protagonist to follow.

But there isn't. So to root for the Skywalkers for 8 movies, and then at the end root for the Palaptine's to save the Skywalkers and the galaxy. It's just...weird. Thematically. Narratively. I'm left feeling very empty about it.

 

All I know is this - if this movie saga ends without any combination of Mark Hamill, Ewan McGregor, or Hayden Christensen ever interacting with each other, then Disney has failed us.

We should have seen Luke Skywalker on Naboo or Leia having a political debate (a short one without a lot of political-speak) on Courscant as well, maybe in one of those flying chair things we saw in P.T.

They have done nothing so far to really bring everything together and make it feel like a cohesive story.

Said this in another thread, but we should just wait to see how the story plays out.

What if Rey is indeed a clone of Shmi or something like that? Would it then make sense that she take the Skywalker name? I truly doubt this movie is going to end with her just randomly saying "oh I am just going to start calling myself Rey Skywalker just because."

There will be some type of plot relevance to it; there has to be, right?

 

I get it... after TLJ, making Rey a Skywalker or Solo would be more difficult. There are some issues with TLJ (and TFA to an extent) that they would have to work around to make that story work. However, with Rey Palpatine we are still left with a convoluted and nonsensical explanation, so it's rather infuriating. It feels almost like stubbornness at this point to separate Rey from the Skywalkers. I truly don't understand why.

 

Speaking of which the who Kylo redemption train was derailed by the last movie when they did that story with a faux redemption. So now it has less impact in IX than it would have had had VIII not existed.

 

Not having the OT3 have at least 1 single scene together is just a crime. Who buys Star Wars for $4 BILLION, have the original 3 all signed up and ready to go, and then... not use them. At least once together.

I don't see this as being a risky move that they should feel proud of doing. I feel like they have viewed the OT as a competitor instead of an ally.

 

My guess is that with their obsession with this being the final film of the Skywalker Saga, they don't want to have a Skywalker left standing at the end, and there is no way they're going to kill off their new lead female protagonist at the end of the film to achieve it.

 

@DarthFixxxer , this is an excellent post!!! It deserved far more than a simple “ like”. As @Lord Skywalker said, you pretty much said everything that I wanted to say.

I truly can’t believe that these filmmakers could think that they have done a great job on this trilogy if indeed this all ends up with Rey palpatine as the victor; the one who ends up destroying the sith and fulfilling the prophecy while taking the Chosen one title from Anakin/Vader; AND most likely stealing what should have been Luke’s legacy to restore the jedi order. What was the point of this trilogy??? It destroyed the perfect ending of RotJ just to give us, (as@DarkGingerJedi said) the very same ending with , in my opinion, far inferior and less endearing characters. If the leaks are right, we have a villainous Skywalker dying after returning to the light; we have Rey killing Palpatine AGAIN; we have the protagonist learning that she’s the big bad’s descendant; and we have the new jedi poised to restore the jedi order more than 30 years after we thought that Luke was poised to restore the jedi order.

There has been NO forward movement ; none at all. They have just redone everything with characters that I now either downright hate (Kylo) ; resent ( Rey); or simply don’t care about at all now (Finn and Poe), while destroying the foundation films and characters.

Meanwhile, the Skywalkers all end up as villains, failures, or both. Luke is even written in TLJ as playing a big part in causing the creation of Kylo. The skywalker family’s story has absolutely NO satisfying or happy ending. They all had miserable lives and leave no accomplishments, personal or professional. Lando gets a kid and Palpatine gets a kid, but Luke gets no joy in his life; no wife or kid, and Han and Leia get only bratty, whiny, evil Kylo as their only child. It really isn’t right or fair. The skywalkers end up the losers in every way, and the palpatines end up the winners. We started out with a skywalker saga and ended up with a palpatine saga. And the filmmakers are patting themselves on the back for this? They pretty much retold the OT story, sometimes using exact scenes and words, in a far inferior way, and destroyed the Lucas films and characters in the process and this is supposed to be a “ good” thing; it’s supposed to make us all happy and satisfied and eager to fork over money?

It didn’t work for me....at all!!! It is SO sad, infuriating, disappointing, and heart-breaking!!! When I think of what could have been, it just makes me angry and profoundly sad. They promised to “ go forward while respecting the past”, but they did neither. They went backwards while ruining all the good films and characters that came before.

There is no creativity, no sense, no HEART, no point to this new trilogy. Losing the wonderful, satisfying ending of RotJ for this mess of a trilogy is annoying beyond words. They never should have made this sequel trilogy, or they should have moved forward 100 years so they wouldn’t have impacted the OT films, and so the OT characters wouldn’t have been damaged beyond repair before being killed off for no reason.

I knew when there was no jedi order in TFA, and when we had another Palpatine clone, a Vader wannabe, and another empire and rebel alliance with different names, that we were in BIG trouble...and that was only the beginning....

@dorsvenabili , I enjoyed reading your post. I hope you will continue to post on the boards.

 

I kinda disagree with your first sentence. After TLJ, it was the easiest thing ever to make Rey a Skywalker. She could have been Luke's offspring without Luke knowing, from a fling of the past. Introduce Mara Jade too and you are golden. Kylo Ren lied to her about her parents being nobodies, because he was jealous of her. It would have been truly very easy, and would have softened the blow we all received with Luke Skywatcher.

 

Exactly!