Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker

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m0zart
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Re: Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker

Postby m0zart » June 26th, 2020, 10:00 pm

I just... hated it. I mean... hated it. It was an absurd mess, IMO.

I felt that way about this entire trilogy, frankly. It seemed to have no direction after Ep. 7, and even that direction was mauled by the disappointment of a new Empire in a mere 30 trilogy minutes after its defeat in Ep. 6.

Ep. 8 was stuffed full of fanboy moments but otherwise an empty carcass. Ep. 9 was a mental illness.

I’m not trying to be offensive to anyone here. I’m just saying that as an SW fan, I’m left breathless at how mishandled this sure thing was. I’ve liked almost everything else Disney did with the franchise... I loved Rogue One... loved the Mandalorian.... really liked Solo. But this trilogy left me somewhat devastated. I’ve been a big SW fan since I was 5 or 6 and my dad took me to see the first movie on its original theatrical release. I guess all that emotional buildup left me feeling betrayed, tho I do feel odd saying that kind of thing about a movie series.

I’ll go ahead and list the order I rank the films in the series, in order from best to worst:

5, 3, 4, 6, Rogue One, 1, 2, Solo

Yeah... I can’t even count the new trilogy. But if I had to rank those, it would be in the order of their release... from best to worst: 7, 8, 9

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker

Postby VideoGameCritic » June 27th, 2020, 10:22 am

Mozart -
You're not going to offend anybody because we're pretty much all in agreement. Last Jedi director Rian Johnson thought he was smarter than everybody else, taking things in a different direction and setting the entire franchise off-kilter. Now even the most ardent fans I know have lost interest. It's a shame because I thought Force Awakens was a promising (re)start.

newmodelarmy
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Re: Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker

Postby newmodelarmy » June 27th, 2020, 10:39 am

Mozart-

No offense at all. I totally agree with you. I am old enough that I saw the original trilogies in the theater as a kid. I remember my brother Leo taking me to see Episode 4, I was almost 6. I was completely blown away. Keep in mind back those days, theaters kept successful movies running for a long time. I probably saw episode 4 like 5 or 6 additional times before Empire came out. After seeing Empire, I wasn't sure what to think. I was even more blown away! Empire to this day is my favorite movie of all time. The ultimate adventure. No filler whatsoever and it leaves you on the edge of your seat at the end. I wasn't that big on Jedi but compared to 7,8 and 9, it was a masterpiece. Anyway...completely babbling here. I can't even bring myself to watch Last Jedi or Rise of Skywalker (really, what a stupid title!) again even though I subscribe to Disney plus. Actually, the family and I watched Force Awakens again last week but turned it off about 3/4 of the way in...I don't think that movie holds up all that well.I really was turned off by the fact that Rey is just naturally awesome at...EVERYTHING! The last 1/4 of the movie seems very rushed. The last trilogy was a complete disaster. Disney had no plan whatsoever. I am not even sure why they introduced so many new characters in the last film, who the heck cared about them? Of course, this is my opinion. All this being said, if you have Disney plus definitely check out the Mandalorian, I found it very entertaining.

NMA

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ActRaiser
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Re: Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker

Postby ActRaiser » June 29th, 2020, 9:10 am

My wife finally tried watching episode 9 Saturday evening. She only made it about a quarter of the way through it before she said she was bored. I replied it's not that it's boring, it's that it's bad. There are so many plot holes and even when it could be worthwhile it retcons itself within the same movie.

The one thing I remember that could have been touching was when C-3PO stops to look at his friends one more time before his memory is wiped. Five minutes later he has a backup imported and all of his memories are returned. It's like they intentionally strove to make a terrible movie.

This past spring they released a novelization of the movie that in theory helps explain some of the bad away.

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-rise-s ... explained/

You shouldn't have to read a novel either before or after the movie to explain things.

At some point when Dark Horse comics had Star Wars they did a line about the Emperor coming back and ruling the empire as a clone or at least attempting to do so. They could have simply gone with something like that from the beginning versus in the movie it implied somehow Palpatine survived being thrown down the Death Star shute.

Unfortunately, Episode 9 fails on every conceivable front. I enjoyed the two Ewok made for TV movies more than this pile. I'm hoping the Holiday Special gets released on Disney Plus so I can enjoy it over this turd. Like many of you guys I grew up adoring and loving the Star Wars franchise. Heck, I even enjoyed the prequels. Three was great, One was fun, two was my least favorite until this one came along. Five remains one of the greatest films ever made. It's such a shame the legacy of Skywalker ended with a misfire.

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scotland
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Re: Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker

Postby scotland » June 29th, 2020, 6:54 pm

I find myself in general agreement as well. You shouldn't have to read the novelization or dig into some wiki to figure out the movie. It feels like there was no plan for the trilogy, and it hardly felt like it connected to the previous trilogies either. I get it that even the original trilogy retread old ground and was to some extent changing things as they went, but it still made a coherent story between the three movies.

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ActRaiser
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Re: Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker

Postby ActRaiser » June 29th, 2020, 8:47 pm

Someone posted a rumor or merely wishful thinking that a reset will occur.

https://cosmicbook.news/disney-resetting-star-wars-erasing-last-jedi

I don't buy it but I wouldn't mind seeing new, original stories that are self-contained. The Mandalorian was awesome. I'd love more of that.

Gleebergloben123
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Re: Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker

Postby Gleebergloben123 » June 29th, 2020, 9:15 pm

m0zart wrote:I just... hated it. I mean... hated it. It was an absurd mess, IMO.

I felt that way about this entire trilogy, frankly. It seemed to have no direction after Ep. 7, and even that direction was mauled by the disappointment of a new Empire in a mere 30 trilogy minutes after its defeat in Ep. 6.

Ep. 8 was stuffed full of fanboy moments but otherwise an empty carcass. Ep. 9 was a mental illness.

I’m not trying to be offensive to anyone here. I’m just saying that as an SW fan, I’m left breathless at how mishandled this sure thing was. I’ve liked almost everything else Disney did with the franchise... I loved Rogue One... loved the Mandalorian.... really liked Solo. But this trilogy left me somewhat devastated. I’ve been a big SW fan since I was 5 or 6 and my dad took me to see the first movie on its original theatrical release. I guess all that emotional buildup left me feeling betrayed, tho I do feel odd saying that kind of thing about a movie series.

I’ll go ahead and list the order I rank the films in the series, in order from best to worst:

5, 3, 4, 6, Rogue One, 1, 2, Solo

Yeah... I can’t even count the new trilogy. But if I had to rank those, it would be in the order of their release... from best to worst: 7, 8, 9


m0zart! Great to hear from you buddy. And yeah, this sums up how I felt about the film. And huge fan of the Mandalorian.

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DrLitch
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Re: Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker

Postby DrLitch » June 29th, 2020, 9:55 pm

Ignoring EP7 and 8, my interest in EP9 reached a global minimum when I got wind Sidious was returning. Star Wars in my opinion was essentially a story about the rise of Anakin, the fall of Anakin, and his redemption in fulfilling an ancient prophecy. This story was neutralized when the bad guy that he was destined to bump off ended up being un-bumped off. I generally dislike resurrecting characters, particularly dead ones, but I dislike ripping up established cannon even more. If I could ignore EP7-9 I could still be moved by the concept that inconceivable evil could still find salvation and make a meaningful impact. Well he found his salvation but since EP9 no longer achieved the other outcome (ending the tyranny of the Sith). EP9 was a franchise killer for me.

ThePixelatedGenocide
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Re: Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker

Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » June 30th, 2020, 11:13 am

VideoGameCritic wrote:Mozart -
You're not going to offend anybody because we're pretty much all in agreement. Last Jedi director Rian Johnson thought he was smarter than everybody else, taking things in a different direction and setting the entire franchise off-kilter.


But respecting the Sith Rule of Two and calling back to Yoda's warning about how the dark side works, isn't taking the franchise in a different direction.

Lucas had always wanted Luke to become an old hermit, like Yoda. He was opposed to Mara Jade, and only allowed the expanded universe under the condition that it all be non-canon to his works.

“There are two worlds here; There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe—the licensing world of the books, games and comic books.”


– George Lucas, Cinescape, July 2001

“I don’t read that stuff. I haven’t read any of the novels. I don’t know anything about that world. That’s a different world than my world. But I do try to keep it consistent. The way I do it now is they have a Star Wars Encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it up and see if it has already been used. When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions.”


– George Lucas, Starlog, August 2005

But JJ went against everything he hoped for.

Once Vader dies, he doesn’t come back to life, **the Emperor doesn’t get cloned** and Luke doesn’t get married…”


–George Lucas, Total Film, May 2007

In Bob Iger’s book The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned From 15 Years as CEO of The Walt Disney Company, the Disney CEO claims George “didn’t hide his disappointment” and said “there’s nothing new,” and that in each of the films in the original trilogy, it was important to him to present new worlds, stories, characters, and technologies. Also, that when Disney first told Lucas about the film’s plot, “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 … George felt betrayed.”


-Entertainment Weekly.

Out of the entire sequel trilogy, only Last Jedi respected the source material and the original creator.

Look at how well it all flows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kjEnDj7K30

Yes, it's flawed. Finn and Phasma are wasted. Watching Poe and Holdo tear other apart makes me respect Leia's ability to hold the alliance together, but the story is so rushed that everyone just seems to behave like assholes for no reason, then forgive each other for no reason, and everybody gets killed because of it.

But it's also the same movie that had Luke Skywalker redeem the Jedi code, refusing to kill even a single stormtrooper, as he astral projected faster than light, and revealed how powerless military might is, against an enemy it can't touch.

In his death, he became the Space Jesus everyone wanted him to be, the new hope the galaxy needed.

And it wouldn't have meant a thing, if it were easy for him.

If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.


Think about how fast Anakin fell, once he summoned the darkside. How soon he was cutting up kids, and then strangling his wife. It it was as easy to escape the darkside as some people thought it was? If all Luke to do to get a complete exorcism was just stop hacking up the father he'd come to save?

Then Anakin wasn't worth saving. He was just an unusually stupid sociopath the entire time.

Voor
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Re: Star Wars Rise of the Skywalker

Postby Voor » June 30th, 2020, 12:56 pm

I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, but if I’m going to invest 2 hours into something, I try to find value in it. That said, my two hours felt wasted with this movie. I admit I was not super psyched to see it at all (I liked Force Awakens, but TLJ fell flat to me), and by the end, I was just thinking “just please end this so we can move on with our lives”). I just didn’t care what happened to any of the characters.

This franchise has been milked so much, I have to separate it mentally to still appreciate 4-6, which are still great. Besides those, I now actively avoid Star Wars stuff.

Waaaaaaaaaayyyy too much of a good thing.


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