ST What's your opinion on Sheev Palpatine coming back as the main villain of the Sequel Trilogy?

Rey Organa Solo might make sense. But if so, then it might as well be Chewbacco Solo from now on. Or Poe Solo. Or Rose Solo. Or any of the Rebels that constantly looked up to Leia, and considered her to be Rebel Mom. But Rey wasn't family with Luke, nor did she bond with him in a family sense, or even a friendly sense for that matter, or anyone else who still had the Skywalker name.

I would have loved for Rey to have been a Skywalker. Even an adopted Skywalker. It's too bad the movie didn't show that story, and wants to cheat by throwing it on at the end, and expecting fans to do the homework of making it work.

It didn't. Storytelling matters.

And it is nice talking to you. But you sound sarcastic when you say it. Oh well.

 

To be honest... I think Rey actually being an adopted Skywalker would have been infinitely better than what we got. It would have provided a better twist too IMO e.g. Rey believes she’s Luke’s daughter, but finds out Luke adopted her at birth, when finding he couldn’t bring himself to kill Palpatine’s unborn granddaughter etc.

 

Me too.

Here's how I would have done it.

During his many travels across the galaxy looking for force sensitives to train, in order to rebuild the Jedi Order, Luke came across Jakku, a dusty planet where the Empire had finally fallen a few years prior. He had never actually been there before but heard stories. While there he comes across a very young girl, named Rey, who has no parents, no last name, and seems to be working as a scavenger for the crime boss Unkar Plutt. He observes that she's quite skilled at taking things a part and rebuilding them in different ways. He immediately senses that she's strong with the force, and is reminded of stories of where his father came from originally. The Skywalkers started in similar place he remembered. In Luke's mind, maybe there was a way to right some wrongs here. Do for Rey what wasn't done for Anakin. He then tells her all about the Jedi, and the academy he's trying to set up for people just like Rey.

Rey spends the next few years training at the Jedi Academy. There's no worry about attachments, or fears, or anger, or suffering. Luke sees how powerful she could be one day, and sees her as the daughter he never had. Then one day, soon after she turns 10, Rey witnesses the destruction of the temple first hand. She sees Ben destroy it all, and knows that he's been having trouble for some time. She also sees how devastated it leaves Luke, the only person who's been like a dad to her all these years. Rey would have died that night, just like all the other Jedi students. But when approached by Ben, saber in hand, he hesitated, and instead walked away. While his grandfather, Anakin, had killed younglings on the night he fell, Ben couldn't cross that line. He spared young Rey's life, and tells her to never show her face again.

After the destruction of the temple and the disappearance of Luke, Rey goes with Leia, and spends time with her new family; the Resistance. She learns the basics. Learns how to pilot a ship. Keeps up with her training. And often wonders why Ben spared her life that night. Perhaps deep down he's conflicted. While everyone assumes that Luke is now dead, she and Leia are the only ones who keep hope that one day he'll come back.

And then during the ST, Rey understands more about why Ben fell, and is in a better position to save him - since she's the only person he saved and is actually now a part of that family. And then when she discovers who see really is, none of that matters. Because she's always been a part of this family. A cousin. An adopted daughter. A Skywalker who Rises.​

....

It amazes me how this trilogy handled our protagonist. When TFA came out, a lot of us wanted Rey Skywalker, and we were ridiculed for it. Told we were grasping at straws. That's she's really a Kenobi, or a Solo. Or anyone. But NOT a Skywalker. And then TLJ came out and suddenly she's a nobody. And OMG how brilliant is that!!!! She's no one. You silly people who were demanding she be a Skywalker, you so don't get it. You don't need to be part of this bloodline to matter. The force is democratic. OMG it's so brilliant.

And then TROS comes and wait, she's a Palpatine. Nope, wait she's a Skywalker now too.

Sorry. Not buying it. That's not how that works. That's not how an adopted, non-bloodline story works at all.

 

Rey's parentage being the "hook" for the sequel trilogy was lame af even back in 2016. I couldn't care less. She was the main protagonist. Finding out she was a Skywalker, Solo, Kenobi, etc. wasn't gonna change her role in the story. Luke's parentage didn't matter either in the grand scheme of the OT. But the reason why it works is because it added to the story. It created personal tension/drama between the protagonist and antagonist and Vader appears in all 3 movies. Rey being Palpatine's grandkid could have worked if alluded in the previous films and if Palpatine's return was a calculated thought out decision. Also, retconning Rey's bloodline to Palpatine by stating she is actually a clone's child weeks after release doesn't help the drama at all.

 

Kinda like what if Rey knows all along she's a Palpatine heir...and just doesn't tell anyone. It's like the reverse of Luke, who thinks he knows who his father is, but not really, and needs someone to tell him the truth. Rey could have known all along, and his hiding it because she rejects that family or because of its bad rep. And then all of a sudden her identity is revealed to everyone, and ... dun dun dun ... drama unfolds.

That could have been weird and interesting.

 

If it was going to be Rey Skywalker then I think they should have just done it regularly where they live together and it’s no secret. I actually really like Rey Palpatine for mysterious abandoned child version but the execution needed to be much better(IE, an entirely different Episode 8).

 

JJ loves mystery boxes too much for that to have ever happened on his watch.

 

Probably true but no one made them give the keys to JJ in the first place.

 

I didn't know this until recently, but according to a tweet by Jett Lucas, George Lucas 'handpicked' JJ.

 

And Abrams couldn't even be bothered to write TROS in a way that adapted very well to the changes wrought by Johnson in TLJ.

Rian Johnson thought Snoke was boring enough to kill off ASAP. Which he was, by design. JJ Abrams never cared about that because he was always just a handy Palpatine 2.0. It was meant for further films to flesh him out in interesting ways - but that was sabotaged because Johnson doesn't play well with others, and he took a bulldozer to the shaky foundations of the previous film rather than adding structural supports.

Even then, though, a competent storyteller could have found some better way to tie the series together. Ideally Abrams would have proven Johnson wrong. Make Snoke not boring by bringing him back in some interesting way, or revealing some new and bigger threat tied to his origins - perhaps drawing on the morally gray Force idea Johnson was so keen on.

Instead we get a cynically perfunctory comic-book resurrection of Palpatine, which makes Snoke even more obviously an Emperor stand-in in hindsight.

Why was Luke Skywalker on that island? TFA said it might have been to look for the first Jedi temple. TLJ said it was because Luke came there to die. A good writer might have combined these ideas. after the Knights of Ren burn down the temple, Luke went to see if there was anything in the ancient Jedi texts about how to stop Jedi turning bad and burning everything down... but they said nothing at all about that. Hence his cynicism.

But TROS makes no attempt to address & synthesize that clash of narratives. Instead it's just unexplained tonal whiplash as the movies lurch from director to director.

And was Kylo there when the temple burned? That absolutely ought to have been addressed. Maybe we could have Kylo tell Rey that he reached out to Snoke with his mind when Luke thought about killing him, and the Knights of Ren showed up for a massacre and took him with them. But he didn't tell her about that part because he felt the bloodshed was all his fault and hadn't wanted it. (Providing some actual evidence of his inner conflict.)

But the story is really just an excuse for Abrams to get his pew-pew shooty space wizard movie, so it doesn't really matter. It'll still sell toys.

 

I think Abrams is a poor filmmaker period... he maybe, could of, made a great SW film if he'd just been brought in solely to direct, but he just doesn't have the creative intelligence to make a serious/original film in his own right (in my humble opinion of course). I like Johnson, I've enjoyed everything he's done apart from The Last Jedi. But ultimately, the ST suffered from not having a single creative 'showrunner', who had the singular vision, and who could call the shots across the 3 films. Ultimately it was Lucasfilms strategy that let the ST down, fuelled (I'm assuming with some modicum of confidence) by Disney's mandate to get new Star Wars films to market ASAP.

 

"Darkness rises..."



"...and Light to meet it."

 

Since Palps was the villain of the PT and OT, it makes sense to me for him to be the villain of the ST in some way. However, actually reviving him in the flesh felt unbelievable to me and contrary to Anakin fulfilling the prophecy. That’s why Snoke-as-Plagueis made so much sense imo, or some other “Palps’ dark plan/influence,” such as whatever the Aftermath books seemed to be setting up.

 

Palpatine could have been a holo-recording and had about as much impact on the story as what they gave us. Like if the message being sent across the galaxy was just a recording, a ruse, a trap, and then when everyone gets there they're like "wtf". Then the Sith Cultists trap Kylo and Rey in the same room and suck their force dry to recreate Palpatine ... or whatever.

 

Yes I agree with both those points. Having Snoke be a secret Sith apprentice to Sidious, or indeed Plagueis himself, would have been so much better than what transpired in the ST. Conversely, having Palpatine (or the magic/spell/artefact to resurrect him) be the mcGuffin of TFA (instead of Luke) would have given the film, and the ST, more urgency and tangible sense of peril... which IMO is woefully lacking.

 

Yeah, wasn't there this old concept, back before TFA, where Luke was in hiding because he was so powerful, to the point where he couldn't control it himself. Luke is basically the Death Star at this point. He's the ultimate weapon that each side wants back or destroyed. TFA was basically a race to find Luke, so I think the end of TFA should have been all the main characters independently arrive on Ahch-to to discover Luke. We get a nice little OT3 reunion, and then Han dies, and then all hell breaks loose.

 

That wasn't a retcon.

 

To be fair, after everyone arrived, the Death Star kinda just ambled about, died and then disappeared.

 

I'm not bothered by the fact that they bought him back, but it really shows how there was no plan for this trilogy. The end result with the Sith Eternal and whatnot is fine, but it would have felt much better had there been hints and plot threads leading up to it.

This era is gonna have to become more than just those three films to fix, and admittedly I look forward to seeing the day all of this stuff is cleaned up and tied together better because I think the ST has a lot of neat ideas and untapped potential.

 

Honestly? I'm fine with it, and at least there was a reason, and that reason being... well, we all know what it is if we've seen the movie. I am glad he came back, and it added an interesting dynamic to Rey, that being nature vs nurture. In the universe of Star Wars, does our heritage control our destiny? If we are born of the dark side, are we fated to follow that path? Obviously, Luke dealt with this issue, but Rey seemed to have a lot more trouble coping with her dark side in The Rise of Skywalker.

I found that aspect of the movie very compelling and spell-binding. It was part of the reason I love Rey so much. People have been calling her a "Mary Sue", since TFA, and it's good to see that despite all her skills and all she is capable of, she does have flaws and weaknesses.

 

Rey didn’t seem to have any flaws...that was biggest issue in terms of her characterisation. She never had a hurdle or obstacle she couldn’t overcome, and with ease. She can speak any language, she can fly like a veteran and she can fight like a warrior etc. There is very little exploration of ‘nature versus nurture’, as Rey is not revealed as Palpatine’s granddaughter till midpoint of the last film... and obviously as a theme, this has already been done, and much better in the OT.

 

Rey dosen't seem to have any flaws, this is similar to the captain marvel complaint, and i say quite wrong. we see she has certain flaws. And no one questions Han knowing speakig different laguage and Rey can't speak every laguage like in TROS when 3-cpo translates for her. Her flying is worse then han solo if you watch TFA closely and her fighting is worse then any jedi warrior we have seen she could not take any jedi on. Sure the last movie might not explain well of her family and connection with Palpatine, but none of those complaints are really there if watch them closely. It's the same complaints Anakin and Luke got at the time.

 

It's not the same complaints as Anakin and Luke got like at all...