The Rise of Skywalker Discussion Thread **UNTAGGED SPOILERS WITHIN**

DUPE OOPS!

 

Saw it twice last night, first on a pretty crappy screen and second in IMAX. I really loved it! It's probably my least favorite of this trilogy, but I was still very happy and it gave me all the feelings I wanted to feel for the end.

My favorite things:
Leia gets what I wanted for her: official Jedi training and becomes a Jedi Master, she saves her son in the end to make for a fitting death
Chewie gets a medal!
Wedge!
Han! I didn't see that coming at all. When we heard "Hey kid" my jaw dropped. They kept that so quiet.
D-O and Babu Frik - D-O reminds me of a rescue dog, mine in particular. He totally does the "no thank you" when a stranger goes to pet him.
Rey Skywalker - I love that she took the name. She might not have been by blood, but she is a Skywalker in every way that counts.
Ending with twin suns on Tatooine - that has always been my favorite shot from all of SW, so it was perfect that they ended with it

The thing I really liked but wished they'd done a bit differently:
The thousands of generations of Jedi live in you- I loved it with all the voices, but I really wanted to see Force ghost Luke, Anakin, Obiwan etc. there. But I did love it and I loved the pay off from early in the movie with "be with me"

The thing I really didn't like:
Reylo - and not because I spent so long being paranoid that they were going to be related that it squicked me (though, I'll admit there is a little bit of that). I know he was redeemed in the end and he saved her life, but he also was responsible for killing millions of beings and his own father. I would have been fine with a really tight hug, or even a peck, but the full on kiss made me pretty upset.

 

That part I actually caught. I was first in the same mode: "What happened to the rule of 2?" and then I realised "they're sort of Force Ghosts too, only from the dark side."

Wouldn't it have been wonderful if the force ghosts of Anakin and Obi-Wan had appeared in the Death Star? *sigh *

 

Ok, some more coherent thoughts now that I've slept and got load of laundry in.

The kiss. No. Ick. Please. God. Why. No. Soooo problematic. He just spent HOOOOWWWW LOOOOONG trying to kill her? No.

Also in the cringe category: Lando's last line to Jannah. I dearly hope to GOD they are setting up some sort of Disney+ spin off where Lando helps her find her origins. If not, it's just bad.

But in general I liked Lando's role! I thought it was very fitting to have him back and have him and Chewie be the survivors of the OT gang. I seriously gasped and almost started crying when we thought Chewie had died. I went into it thinking: I can handle anyone but Chewbacca dying.

I'm not sure how I feel about none of the big 3 (Han, Luke, Leia), nor any of their offspring (Ben) surviving the ST. I would have liked to have seen one of them survive but, of course, Harrison Ford wanted OUT and we had Carrie Fisher's death. But I think it might be a good thing none of them survived. This way there can (hopefully) be no more "episodes". If we get a Rey Skywalker spin off, I'll be as happy as a clam, but I don't know why the ST were "episodes" (more on that below). Disney should stick to the spin-offs.

I still don't mind the return of Palp (and I think the beings in the crowd were either Sith spirits or supporters but not actually Darths). I guess it made sense in terms of tying it in to the previous trilogies but maybe it did cheapen Anakin's sacrifice. Maybe I would have liked to have seen him more as a ghost trying to influence Ben, then Rey.

But I think the ST should have been more of a "Legacy" trilogy and not a continuation of the PT and OT. Because, as many issues as the PT has... it's still a cohesive storyline with the OT. It's the rise and fall of Anakin/Vader. And the ST had nothing to do with that. But I also take the ST and all of Disney's stuff as a version of canon (in my mind, Luke marries Mara Jade and has Ben Skywalker).

But I still got so excited to see WEDGE! And the ending with the twin suns was so appropriate! It was, I think, my favourite movie in my least favourite trilogy.

ANNNNYWAY. I have more thoughts but not the time to engage further right now.

 

I really, REALLY wanted Luke's ghost dogging Kylo Ren! Han showing up was a bit odd, but I don't think he was actually a Force ghost; I think it was The Force using Ben's memories and guilt to nudge him.

 

Quick thoughts before I crash into bed after a long and exhausting (but fun) day:

• I'm okay with Ben dying. Sometimes redeeming yourself requires you to sacrifice your life. Like his grandfather.
• But please, can we not have that kiss?
• I nearly cried when we thought Chewie had died, and again when C-3PO's memory got wiped.
• It was nice to see that Leia, like in Legends, did train as a Jedi.
  
• I love that Rey finally built her own lightsaber at the end, and that it isn't blue or green. It's yellow, which has long been my favorite lightsaber color.
• I love that JJ brought it full circle at the end with Rey staring off into the setting twin suns.
• I didn't see Wedge; where was he?
• I loved the number of Easter eggs in this movie, particularly lines of dialogue that parallel lines in previous movies.
  
• Finally, something that Palpatine said made me think. He talked about how he would transfer his life force, or his essence, into Rey. And he mentioned that "all the Sith live in me." I immediately thought of the old fan theory that Darth Bane transferred his essence into Darth Zannah and so on down the chain, possessing every Sith down the line all the way through Palpatine. I don't know if that line was an intentional acknowledgement of/homage to that theory, but kudos to them if it was.

 

Saw it last night. I have some mixed feelings, but there's way more that I liked about it than I disliked about it. As much as I enjoyed the experience, I get the feeling that some decisions were a little too reactionary to TLJ criticisms (for example, I can't agree with sidelining Rose, even if her role in that film was questionable) and let the internet play armchair film director.

I will say, however, I am ready to move on from the Skywalker family and onto new or barely-explored characters, and Star Wars is way bigger than a few movies about one big screwed up family. It's a big universe with LOTS of potential. That's what makes TV series like The Mandalorian and standalone movies like Rogue One a success. Maybe Rian Johnson's love of subverting classic storytelling tropes will be more widely accepted in his standalone films since he'd be working with mostly new characters.

 

I wonder if the "Chosen One" prophecy just has been explained to me. I've always struggled with that part, since I really couldn't see any "balance to the Force" by Anakin throwing the Emperor into the shaft in ROTJ. I really hate to admit it, but the combined forces (pun intended) of Rey and Ben in TLS makes more sense in that respect.

Ben was a real Skywalker through his bloodlines and in the moment he join forces with Rey to take down Palpatine the prophecy becomes true. "He's the Chosen one, the one who will bring balance to the Force."

Anakin didn't bring balance by something he did, he brought it simply by being Leia's father and Ben's grandfather, and in the moment the balance was obtained by the combination of the light side (Ben) and dark side (Rey) Palpatine has lost the game. It is also even more balanced by Rey having the dark side in her inheritage choosing the light side of the Force, while Ben who originally came from the light side also for a while was belonging to the dark side.

A very interesting "Force stew" indeed.

 

Right now I’m feeling like the ending left so much hanging and more bitter than sweet.

Though I must say that I wanted a happier ending for Rey and have mixed feelings about how the Emperor was included and his relation to Rey.

I admit that between some things going on (baby teething and being grumpy because of his teeth and growing pains and neither of us getting much sleep and struggling with personal care with no working shower and disappearing hairbrush and hair elastics) I was looking forward to a pick-me-up and now it feels like at least Ao3, Tumblr and to a degree Facebook have brought Yoda’s line ‘find only pain and suffering if go there you do’ to life.

I know that it’s a fictional story, with fictional characters but it still hurts and my sister Jean is probably right that my nature of being a kind person that wants people to be happy (I am willing to go on the warpath for people I only know over the Internet) and my desire for people to be happy or have a second chance seeps into fictional stories and fictional characters as well.



I just want everyone to know that I have talked to people about my emotional state and it has helped and my MIL is helping the Youngling settle at night so I can get sleep and not be awake passed midnight.

If you don’t see me for a bit it’s because I’m still emotionally processing everything and doing what I need to do so I’m not cooped up in the house (my room mostly because it’s the warmer than the rest of the house) nearly every day and only leaving for church, shopping and visits.

I also need to make an effort to make more friends but I have niche interests: Star Wars, space and random religious trivia I’ve picked up and a few more things. I don’t know many people locally that would be interested and I can talk your ear off if you let me and at some point I went from outgoing to being on the shy side.

But even as a child I didn’t have many friends and at some point the few I had weren’t my age

And maybe the little girl in me that was teased and picked on in school and by a bully on the street I lived on is afraid of rejection and being mocked for my interests or not know when to stop talking and listen.

Sorry it got a little off topic but I needed to express my feelings.


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Saw it tonight. Some of the things I liked:
1. Loved that we finally have proof that Leia trained as a Jedi!!! And that she had her own lightsaber, which means that she advanced far enough to actually make one.
2. I liked the idea that ultimately we choose our own destinies. What we did before or who our family was does not define us now.
3. I really thought that Chewie was gone and it got me. That was done really well.
4. I liked the subtle call-back to ROTJ where low-tech wins the day. Rey remembers what she read in a physical book. Finn and his crew ride space horses.
5. Loved the Wedge cameo! So glad he’s still with us.
What I didn’t like:
1. Why wasn’t Palpy’s son force sensitive? Did it, like, skip a generation?
2. Who was Pryde and what was his connection to Palpy? That was not clear to me.
3. I thought Hux was wildly OOC. He was the more practical half of the command. To throw away everything like a jealous brat seemed a big reach. And his death was so anticlimactic, after building up his character for 2 movies. Reminded me of Phasma’s meaningless death after building her up for so long.
He was a zealot in TFA. He was freakin’ scary. Then TLJ turned him into a buffoon, and I don’t even know who this guy is in ROS.
4. I wish we got to know what happened to Finn, Poe & Chewie.

 

He's glimpsed briefly when the folks from all over the galaxy show up to fight the Sith armada. I'm pretty sure his hair is all gray, so he looks a bit different than we're used to.

 

I'll look for that next time I watch it.

Also, I noticed something interesting. I don't know what confirmation there is of this, or if they're just guessing, but Wookieepedia articles are claiming that Rey actually died on Exegol and that Ben resurrected her with the Force, essentially trading his life for hers.

 

That's what I thought - that she died and Ben resurrected her, thus giving her his life. But I will note that the Wook likes to note the "died, then resurrected" under character's basic info, which I'm not sure I agree with (but that's another tangent) - Ahsoka is listed as "died on Mortis, then resurrected" and another character 'died' then was resurrected in some minor story and they had it listed (I thought it was Leia in legends but it isn't there).

I don't think it was ever made clear if it was Rey's father or mother that was Palp's kid, nor did they ever say they weren't force sensitive. S/he just never chose to use their power if they had any.


Anyways. I keep going back and forth on whether I liked Rey as Palp's granddaughter. On one hand it does tie her in to the whole 'Skywalker saga' and makes more of a story arc that lasts from ep I - XI (Palpatine came from obscurity/unknown to rule the galaxy; Rey came from obscurity/unknown to be the last JedI). Plus it does enforce the moral that it doesn't matter who our family was - you can come from pure darkness and still chose the light. And, I hate to be that person, but it does explain her crazy force abilities without any sort of training. And I'd like to imagine her parents as very complex people having to have made some terrible decisions with no right answers (yeah... I'm getting plot bunnies). But having her come from no-where would have echoed Anakin coming from no-where and heroes don't have to be related to some family dynasty. IDK.

 

He's also in the background chatting with a Mons Cal during the big celebration when they're hugging everyone, in profile. Denis is still looking pretty good!

 

Incidentally, Lin-Manuel's cameo also happens to be during the final celebration. It's really easy to miss, though!

 

I didn't see him!

 

What about the John Williams cameo? Where he's got the eye thing?

 

Ok, I’m throwing this out here because I have no one to discuss this with at the moment: when Rey calls on the Jedi of the past, we hear Ahsoka’s voice, but not Ezra’s. Every other character whose voice we hear has died, so this means that Ahsoka must have died but Ezra is a.) still alive, b.) not a Jedi or c.) both. I lean towards a.) because Ahsoka is not technically a Jedi, having left the order, but is still included as one of the great Jedi of the past. The idea that Ezra is still out there somewhere, having somehow escaped the slaughter at Luke’s Academy (perhaps not there in the first place) makes me really happy and starts the fanfic juices flowing

 

He's totally still out there is our dear Ezra ... Never doubted it for a moment.

 

This. It's like he was a different character in every film. It's so OOC that it's cringe-worthy. "I'm a spy!" What? Since when? The whole playout of that scene is like some terribly written crack!fic which began in TLJ with his ridiculous usage as comic-relief. It goes against everything TFA, some non-absurd parts of TLJ, and the expanded material set up.

A lot of other characters aren't consistent either which is a shame.

You mean General Allegiant-Whoever? I dunno. But I guess he appeared out of nowhere and then blew up so we don't really have to care or something. His purpose in the film was really just unnecessary the way it was.

 

I saw it last night and enjoyed it quite a bit. I was so please by the three leads being on an adventure together. It makes me a little sad that this the last we will see of Finn, Poe, and Rey. Their dynamic as a trio over the three films as had Finn in the center, focusing on his relations with Poe, first, then Rey. TLJ aside, The Finn-Rey dynamic in TFA shined immediately as did the chemistry between Finn and Poe. Seeing them altogether on a wild ride was all kind of fun.

Given that this film is, for me, easily the best of the ST, I have no time or inclination to pick at it. Could I if pressed? Sure. But the nostalgia of seeing Luke pull his X-Wing out of the water as an excellent ESB call back was enough for me to overlook Rey flying it off Ach-To.

Did we learn how Palps survived? No, but...CLONES. All good.

Did we need a Sith Fleet so large that it could not possibly be defeated by any Dunkirk style rally? No, but cut off the head and the body dies. All good.

Hux a spy? The dog had certainly lost his bark and his bite in the shadow of Richard E. Grant. The reveal of Kallus in REBELS was many times better.

One important item that I am on the fence about is Rey as a Palpatine. It is a thin and convenient dodge for Disney, but I am also thankful that she was not just a nobody. If that were true, it would have been worse and made the final chapter in the Skywalker saga a bummer regardless of how good the movie was. It was perfect that she went to the Lars homestead and, ultimately, adopted the name of Skywalker.

As for the things I loved:

Wedge! (But where has he been?)

Lando! He looked and sounded great. Loved seeing him. (But where has he been?)

Palps (McDermid) chewing scenery and glorious recycling his own dialogue.

Ben's redemption! I can't tell you how long I waited for Kylo to die. What an emotional basket case of a Sith apprentice. Oh the whining these Skywalker-Solo's do. The one trick pony that was Kylo Ren was on my last nerve. But to my utter astonishment, JJ Abrams and Adam Driver pulled off a miracle by making me turn the same 180 that Ben Solo pulls in the final act of the film. I cannot believe, I'm saying this, but I liked what I saw of Ben Solo and I was sad to see him go. Was it necessary? Absolutely. He was not Kyp Durron. But it was a roller coaster ride of who lived, who died, and who was apparition from Ben's memory. It was nice to see Han and for he and Leia to both help redeem their son. The replay of the catwalk scene reminded me of Jesus restoring Peter after he rose from the dead.

I know what I need to do, but I don't know if I have the strength.

You do.

Lovely.

There is more and I'm sure I'll be back, but it all boils down to this film capturing the adventurous spirit of the OT. The tone wasn't somber, as with TLJ, or as cliched as was some of TFA. I look forward to seeing it again this weekend.

 

After the cavalry shows up and starts flying forward to engage the Star Destroyers, Wedge is the one who says something like, "Nice flying, Lando." He's wearing what looks like a Resistance X-wing outfit. At first I thought he was in an X-wing, but the second time around made me think he was in a gunner seat in the Falcon. It's so short that I'll probably have to wait until I can pause it on a DVD to really look.

There's a very, very quick line in the movie about Rey's father being Palpatine's son.

 

Yes, in the hangar. Kylo says something about "my mother was Vader's daughter and your father was the son of Palpatine" and then he says something about them being a Force dyad

 

I am of two minds about Rey being related to Palpatine.

On one hand it’s one of those ‘you wanted your family to be important/known so your grandfather is the most reviled man in history’ and seeing that Leia knowing how the knowledge that Vader was her father colored certain things and how she, Luke and Han treated Ben and her chose to not tell Rey knowing it could devastate the young woman to hear such soul crushing news and affect her view of herself and if it got out that Rey was Palpatine’s granddaughter people would turn on her just for that reason alone and Leia knows all too well how fast friends and allies can turn on you if they know that you’re related to someone that’s universally hated.

But on the other hand her being a nobody and unattached to a legacy would leave her free to make her mark on the galaxy free of the burden of family and be determined to be more than someone that would just dump her child in an unforgiving situation or take advantage of the desperation of others for her own gain or gives into fear and leaves her family and loved ones.


Personally I wouldn’t have made her a Palpatine. I would have either left her as a nobody and left it at that and had Sidious tempt her with them being more than junk traders that didn’t want a daughter/child or I would have made them Imperials of some kind, looking to start a life far away from the searching eyes of the NR either to start afresh or maybe to help build the First Order, but ran into trouble and left her behind for her safety/to hide her and were killed by power hungry individuals in the First Order or killed/taken into custody by the New Republic.



Hux being a spy only made sense because he wanted to usurp Kylo but there had to be other ways to do it without actually making him a spy. Or he would be a spy, win the Resistance’s trust, and betray them once they did his dirty work for him (side note: I read an AU set between ESB and RotJ where Luke, Vader, Piett and Veers set up a plan to get rid of certain officers and officials loyal to Palpatine before killing Palpatine by using a mixture of getting the Rebels to take them out and Vader killing them for being sloppy/morons so they could more easily restore peace to the galaxy). And it could have been interesting.


Pryde did come out of nowhere and I wish that he either A: had a smaller part or B: was the villain.


Can we not have planet killing weapons in seemingly every other Star Wars movie? The two Death Stars and Starkiller Base were more than enough.


What happened to FinnRose?!?! Are they just friends??? *wails like a child at the thought that we got absolutely zero new romantic relationships that lasted to the end of the Trilogy*


I wouldn’t have brought Sidious back. I would have either had Sith Cultists pretending that they had or they were trying to bring him back but to do so they needed several powerful Force Sensitives and Leia and Ben as descendants of Anakin Skywalker, the alleged offspring of a mortal and the Force, fit the bill of powerful Force Sensitives and since Rey’s powerful too and it’s hard to track down Force Sensitives she’s perfect too.

They probably have others that they have found and might have used the First Order to help find them through the FO’s recruitment policy and just ship those powerful enough off for ‘special training’ or just put them at a posting where they are out of the way enough to be out of the conflict yet easy to find.


Just my thoughts.


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Running a casino somewhere. I swear it!

Totally on board with this. It's exactly what he'd (try to) do.

THANK YOU!!!!